Beautiful to Me

by E. L. Tenenbaum

  “I’ll stay close,” I offered. “I’ll even take him now.”

  “Yes, please do.”

  I didn’t bother washing my hands before gently prying the frog away from the princess. I was sure its small body trembled in my cupped palms.

  “It’s okay, I won’t hurt you,” I whispered, lightly sliding a finger over its bumpy, slimy back. It really was an ugly creature, uglier than bottom feeders and much more than I ever thought myself to be. But it was still a creature of Heaven. “You needn’t worry, either,” I reassured it, lifting my hands to look it in the eye, “I’ll make sure you get your day at court.”

  The frog simply blinked at me again, but I was sure it was trying to say something. The beat of his heart was getting stronger, further leading me to believe it had some idea of what was going on. The princess stood hurriedly once the frog was off.

  The prince snickered. “Well, Cordelia, it seems you have a new foundling.”

  “Frogling,” I muttered to myself.

  The prince heard and laughed approvingly. “Frogling,” he repeated.

  As it turned out, the two foundlings had one very significant thing in common that none of us could even guess at then.

  “I must change,” the princess cut in.

  Prince Arlando had the good decency not to say any more. He offered his arm, but his sister refused to take it. Somehow, she dug up enough from the well of her depleted strength to turn on her heels and march purposefully back to the palace. Still holding the frog, I scurried to catch up, the prince matching stride beside me.

  “Well,” he observed when we were nearly upon the palace, “that was something I could never have anticipated.”

  I glanced over sheepishly. “Were we wrong to make the princess take it along, Highness?” I asked.

  The prince studied the frog in my hands, long enough for me to wonder if perhaps he wasn’t picking up on the little oddities I’d noticed, too. Or maybe he was thinking about something else entirely. It wasn’t always easy to tell with him.

  “It is only for a day,” he soothed me. “How bad could it be?”

  Pretty bad, as it turned out. None of the princess’s ladies would go anywhere near her while I followed after her with the frog, and if that wasn’t enough, the prince insisted I bring it along to dinner.

  “What kind of day in court would it be without a feast?” he argued.

  “We’ll feed him here,” the princess insisted. “Flies,” she shuddered, “or spiders or whatever things a creature like that eats.”

  The frog’s heart pulsed in my hands and I was sure it shuddered at the thought of eating those things, too. I don’t know why I tried so hard to convince myself it was trying to speak to me. Maybe I just missed my friends and was looking for another. Though I’m sure finding a land animal like the prince’s friendly Castellano would have been a wiser choice.

  The prince shook his head at his sister. “Cordelia, Sienna attends dinner with me, your frogling should attend with you,” he said.

  “Sienna stands behind your shoulder,” the princess snapped.

  “Ariel can hold the frog behind your shoulder, too,” the prince calmly replied.

  “This is ridiculous!” Princess Cordelia cried. She fixed me with a stern gaze. “Leave it here.”

  “Bring it along,” the prince said at the same time.

  I looked from one to the other, quite torn between the two, quite unsure to whom I should listen. My friend who was also the princess, or the crown prince who outranked her.

  “Leave it,” Cordelia repeated, in a voice too measured to brook any argument.

  The frogling, however, thought otherwise, and forcefully pushed against my hands, catching me by surprise and actually breaking free. It nearly made it to the hems of the princess’s skirts before I caught him up again.

  “Forgive me for saying so, Princess,” I stammered, “but I don’t think it appreciates being left behind. It may even be a little fond of you.”

  Princess Cordelia stared at me, quite unable to believe the words coming out of my mouth. I suppose if I was human, I would think them equally ridiculous, but I wasn’t. I was a mermaid. A mermaid who spoke to sea stars and crabs, corals and barnacles, dolphins and crustaceans. Talking to a frog didn’t seem an unreasonable thing to me at all. In fact, the longer I held him, the more certain I was that I would be able to fully communicate with him given enough time.

  For his part, the prince nodded in solemn agreement with my words and the princess strode away from us again, putting as much space between herself and her unhinged gardener and enabling brother. The prince winked and mouthed, “Bring it,” before following after her. Afraid the frog would try to flee again, and equally afraid I’d hold it too tight and kill it, I brought it to the dining hall.

  Princess Cordelia nearly fell out of her chair when she saw me, knowing full well what was cupped in my hands. She said nothing however, refusing to give her brother the satisfaction of causing a ruckus in front of her parents and the assembled servants and guests. I obediently stood behind her shoulder but pressed into the shadows as well as I could. Standing there, I didn’t get a chance to eat, so in addition to the slimy frog, I also had a growling stomach to contend with. I distracted myself by whispering to the frogling about all the goings on around us.

  When the meal was over and most of the guests had retired from the room, the prince beckoned me over. He motioned to the chair beside him, which I gratefully took even as Sienna’s glare bored into me. It seemed he’d never invited her to sit beside him.

  That was of little worry to me then, because, to my eternal gratitude, the prince plucked a napkin from the table to reveal a plate carefully arranged with bits of all the food served that evening. I smiled appreciatively.

  “What shall I do with the frogling, Highness?”

  The prince shrugged. “Put it on the table,” he said easily. “Let’s see what it’s about.”

  I spared a brief, doubtful look, before setting the frogling down and leaving the prince to attend to it. The prince slid his chair back and leaned forward so he was eye level with the table, and the frog.

  “We must find a book about frogs from the library,” he commented.

  “We, Highness?” I questioned, fork partway to my mouth.

  The prince smiled widely. “You don’t think I’d give you a book I hadn’t read myself?” he asked. “I cannot thank you enough for all the knowledge you have unintentionally given me.”

  “You’re welcome?”

  I turned back to the food. Scarcely had I taken a bite, then a long red tongue shot toward my plate and zapped a dumpling away. I followed the trail to the frog making fine work of the food from his spot in front of the prince. The prince and I shared a glance and surprised laugh.

  “Well,” I said slowly, “that was something I didn’t anticipate.”

  The prince laughed again. “I’m growing rather fond of this frogling,” he said. “I may keep it a little while, for further study, of course.”

  “Please don’t do anything horrible with it, Your Highness,” I begged him. “Don’t leave him on the princess’s pillow or hide him in one of her favorite slippers.”

  The prince weighed my plea with an amused expression. “All right,” he finally agreed, “I’ll keep it to my chambers then. But I may require your assistance with it from time to time.”

  “Don’t you have enough people following you around?”

  The question slipped out before I could bite it back. I hurriedly looked away and resumed eating, hoping my cheeks would stop flushing with shame, hoping the prince hadn’t taken offense at my thoughtlessness.

  The prince didn’t take offense, perhaps because the oddity of the situation made it one big enjoyable lark to him. Perhaps because his inquisitive mind really was wrapped up in figuring out this odd and ugly frog.

  “So walk beside me,” he said simply.

  And that was how the frogling came to stay at the palace until we d
iscovered the truth about it just a few weeks later.

  “You kept the frog!”

  Those were the first words I heard the next morning while threading through the palace on my way to the garden. The princess and her brother, both of whom were up rather earlier than usual, were arguing in a side room I had to pass on my way out. Truth is, I didn’t really need to be there to have heard her. The prince, however, responded much more quietly and calmly. Wishing to remain unnoticed, I tried darting past the room, but the princess was too quick for me.

  “Ariel, please come here,” she commanded in a very controlled voice. Too controlled to be anything good.

  I braced myself and stepped inside.

  A drawing room much like any of the myriad of rooms splayed throughout the palace. Plush chairs and a couch surrounded a card table and tall windows opened out to the sea. For a brief moment, I wondered how much time it took for the servants to open and close all the windows each day just so each room could catch its daily dose of salty ocean air.

  The prince and princess faced off against each other on either side of the card table, a now-familiar purple creature on the surface between them. I was sure it was turning its head as the conversation went back and forth. Sienna flitted about the edges of the room. She stumbled briefly and I winced imagining the extra pain that caused. Sienna, however, simply righted herself and continued her solitary dance about the peripheral.

  I curtsied in greeting to each sibling but didn’t dare speak.

  The princess turned to me with a stern expression. “What are you two about?” she asked.

  “About what, Your Highness?”

  “Don’t feign ignorance,” the princess warned, waving angrily at the purple frogling.

  “His Highness wanted to keep it,” I replied simply, forcing my face to remain expressionless, “for further study.”

  “For further study,” the prince echoed in agreement.

  “For further study?” the princess asked, harshly skeptical.

  “His Highness intended to find a book in the library—”

  “—in the library,” the prince echoed again.

  “To learn more about it,” I finished.

  “To learn everything there is to know!” the prince agreed.

  “You two are impossible!” the princess cut in before we could say anymore.

  “What bother is it to you?” the prince questioned.

  “The bother,” the princess enunciated each word, “is that I found that thing outside my chambers this morning. It near frightened one of my ladies to death.”

  “I apologized about that!” the prince cried in defense. “It was supposed to stay in my chambers. It will not happen again.”

  “How do you know?” the princess demanded. “Do you plan to put it on your pillow every night? How can you take care of it when we’re up in the mountains?”

  The mountains? What was this talk about mountains?

  “I will take care of it,” the prince insisted.

  “Until I find it outside my door again,” the princess shot back.

  “It is rather fond of her, Your Highness,” I added unhelpfully.

  The prince and princess simultaneously shot me a look, for vastly different reasons, but the meaning in both was very clear. I clamped my lips tight to keep myself in check. However, the prince’s expression quickly softened.

  “Of course,” he said in realization, “Ariel will look after the frogling.”

  “Until His Highness returns?” I asked in confirmation.

  “Until I—No, you must come with us!” the prince exclaimed.

  “To the mountains?” I asked dumbly.

  I glanced at Sienna for some clue about this intended trip, but her expression was rather unhelpful. I wasn’t yet sure of all the details of their plan, but I wasn’t overly excited about spending any time away from the sea. Able to only see the distant outline of the mountains from the shore, I very much doubted they were close enough for me to see the shore from them.

  “To the mountains,” the prince repeated, and the way he spoke made it sound like a most exotic place. “Surely you’ve seen them from here?”

  I nodded, but I know my face still showed confusion.

  Thankfully, the princess stepped in. “Every winter our family goes to the northern mountains for a few weeks. We build snowmen, go sledding, and drink loads of hot chocolate. It’s actually quite enjoyable.”

  I heard all that she said, but my mind stuck on the word snow. I knew what it was but hadn’t ever seen it. The closest I’d come was ice because I’d once seen very large floating chunks of it when I’d accompanied my parents on court business to some colder regions of the sea. However, I hadn’t been old enough to break the surface then and see what was causing the water to freeze from above. Snow. The very thought of something so new, something so unlike anything most other merfolk had ever touched was almost appealing enough to make me want to go. As if the choice was mine.

  “Look at her face, Cordelia.” The melody of the prince’s accent, the nimble way he danced from word to word, interrupted the path of my thoughts. “She hasn’t seen snow before.”

  The princess turned her gaze upon me. “Have you?” she asked.

  I shook my head.

  “That settles it,” the prince decided. “Ariel must come.”

  And so the frogling, Sienna, and I joined the royal family on their annual trip to the mountains. A trip that would prove a turning point for all of us.

  Spots and Wits

  Princess Cordelia did her best to leave her dissatisfaction behind when we packed up the carriages and set out for the mountains, especially as Prince Arlando made it a point to goad her by loudly ordering the palace steward, “When my good friend arrives, immediately direct him to us!” right before we left.

  I was both excited and apprehensive of the trip ahead, and I would learn soon enough that I had good reason to be.

  To start, I wasn’t keen on being away from the ocean, and for so long either. What would happen to me if I was? Would it affect my magic? Would it make it even harder to convince Sienna to return home?

  Next, I had never traveled so far by carriage and it wasn’t long before I was praying I wouldn’t be sick all over myself. The sway of a carriage, it seems, is vastly different from the swaying of waves. My stomach finally settled when I adamantly told myself again and again, until I believed it as truth, that the rocking was no worse than a choppy sea.

  Plus, I was made to travel with the two foundlings, which wouldn’t have been so terrible because the other servants would rather cram together than sit with the ugly purple, possibly poisonous, frog. However, as to be expected, neither foundling was even remotely stimulating company. Sienna couldn’t talk even if she wanted to, and I had yet to decipher whatever language the frog spoke. There were many long hours of singing I hoped would at least elicit some feelings of nostalgia in Sienna. She did occasionally join in for some wordless humming, except her voice wasn’t the same without her tongue. The singing didn’t seem to have the desired effect either for her general demeanor never changed. When she first stepped into the carriage, I seriously thought of commandeering it and ordering the coachmen to drive straight into the sea, but I stopped myself. From the way Sienna made a point of looking at everything but me, I knew that any talk about the altered bargain would fall on deaf ears.

  In short, despite myself and resigned to the present course, I was rather curious of what it was like in the snow and thought about doing all the things the princess had spoken of. Was snow like sand, soft and slippery between my fingers? Or was it more like the water it was frozen from, ungraspable and unable to be contained? Would it be as rejuvenating to me as rain or was some part of my connection to it lost when it froze?

  The first and most important thing I learned when we reached the mountains was that snow is too cold to stand in without shoes. Second was that it could be molded and imprinted, more like wet sand than water. I was surprised
to learn there was some form of water that wouldn’t be comfortable for a mermaid, but then I supposed it was only because I was in a human form as the ice hadn’t bothered me in the sea. Sienna, however, took to it quite eagerly, and I can only guess at how marvelous the cold snow felt to her burning feet.

  I also quickly learned that there were very many things I’d never done and could never have imagined doing without a human form. Sure, there was enough merfolk did that humans could never hope to do either, but at the same time I knew about most of the things we could do. We gardened, we sang, we explored shipwrecks, we ate, we heard stories, and we swam wherever our tails could carry us. We weren’t ever bored and were content with our lives as they were, but I had to admit that there was so much more that humans could do with their versatility. And now I was lucky to get the chance to do it all, too.

  The royal family stayed in a rather large wooden lodge framed by the still rising mountains behind it and thick forests on either side of the clearing it was built in. The princess explained that the men would often go there during the spring for the early hunting season, but the whole family only visited in the winter. The lodge was large, but still cozy, with much fewer windows than the palace to help keep heat inside, and many more candles and fireplaces constantly lit to create a steady glow and constant warmth.

  The climate on the seacoast was rather temperate year round, the sun kept a reliable course in the sky and was only occasionally blocked out by rain clouds. Up in the mountains, the days were bright enough, but even the sun could not burn away the cold that dried out the air. Such behaviors led to fuller days outside and much more time looking for what to do inside, which united the family, and even servants, in the loveliest of ways.

  In its own way, the mountains were a type of oasis, a calm and peaceful place that relaxed everyone despite the weather. Long nights before the fire drinking loads of hot chocolate as promised brought everyone together, and there were many nights I went to bed with my cheeks stinging from laughter. Jokes, stories, arguments, games, books, and music, all had their turn in the many hours following dinner each night. I even gave into the prince’s pleading a few times and softly sang a few short songs while he tried to keep up on the piano. In retrospect, I can confidently say that trip was a definitive turning point of sorts for me.