The Sea Witch
THE DREAMS CAME. So many that they overlapped and mixed with one another in a nightmare that had no ending. Faces of the ones she knew, some of those she didn’t, words that made no sense, and bits of memories all wrapped together in an endless swirl. Only one thing stayed the same as Nerida’s foam floated upon the tide—the pain that was a constant companion, reminding her of her last moments alive, reminding her of all she had lost and all that she had been.
So this was what it was to die—to become one with the sea.
She’d once believed it a romantic way to end, for one’s body to mix and forever be joined with what it loved most. Now, she thought this particular death overrated.
The humans die better. It would have been easier to lie on the ocean floor, buried forever beneath the sand, than to become part of the sea.
She felt rough, scratchy things brush against her as she floated on the surface, while whispers of water and creatures with soft fins that reminded her of stingrays pushed at her from below.
“Whatever she is, she be dead, make no mistake. See the way she floats, aye? No need in pulling her up. She be food for the fishes,” a hollow voice echoed, sounding frightened as she bumped against something hard and unmoving.
“Nay, that be the one who saved him, sure enough. I can see her face. Least we can do is pull her up from the sea,” a gruff voice answered the first. “Get to it, Murphy. There be things to do, and no time to wait for ye to dawdle about.”
“But she be a witch, Beckett. Can ye no see her back? Surely ye don’t mean to bring her aboard. ’Tis bad luck for a woman to be aboard. And with her a witch? The ship’ll be cursed for sure—”
“Ye have yer orders, Murphy. Disobey ’em and I’ll show ye how fast ye can join her in the water. Then ye’ll see who’s cursed. Ye’ll wish ye’d thrown the net out and done as ye were told.”
The voices were replaced immediately by the squeaking sounds of metal, and she felt a stabbing pain as something heavy pushed at her from above. A moment later, she felt a cool brush of air whisk past her.
BACK AND FORTH…back and forth…
She was still on the sea, this much she knew. The fact that she wasn’t completely dead was also something that became glaringly obvious. Every inch of her ached, as if she had been beaten against every rock in the Never Sea. Dead things shouldn’t hurt so, her mind told her. It also told her that while her body rocked back and forth in time with the tide, she was no longer in the water.
Maybe I washed up on shore. She tried to open her eyes. They felt swollen, but they opened and she made out a blurry, flickering light on a table nearby. Everything else was lost in darkness.
Wherever she was, it wasn’t where a mermaid belonged. She remembered the voices she had heard last. If the humans had captured her, she might well be as dead as she’d thought before. She struggled to sit up.
“You are safe,” a voice said quietly from a dark corner just beyond the space illuminated by candlelight. “You have my word, no harm will befall you on my ship.”
Regardless of that promise, Nerida pushed herself into an upright position, wrapping the thin cover around her as she brought her knees to her chin. Her eyes never left the corner. She squinted and managed to make out two booted feet, the rest of the man was shrouded in darkness.
“Who are you?” her voice was hoarse, sounding as if she’d swallowed half the sand off the ocean floor.
Silence met her for several long moments.
She was nearly ready to ask her question again when she heard a whisper so soft that she wasn’t sure she hadn’t imagined it.
“Why did you save me?”
“I—” she began, then stopped. She’d been ready to say that she didn’t know what he was talking about or even who he was, but as she had started to speak, the man leaned forward and settled his elbows on his knees. Where one hand should have been, a silver hook gleamed in its place.
A memory of a severed hand and dark blue blood raced through her mind.
He leaned forward just close enough that the candlelight danced across his face. His expression was neutral, but there was a hardness to the set of his mouth. “Why did you save me?” he repeated.
Yes, this was the one she had brought out of the cavern—the one who had fought with Peter. Part of Nerida was happy her efforts hadn’t been in vain. He’d survived. The other part of her wondered how much of him still lived. Even though the candle’s flame reflected in his eyes, they still looked cold and dead.
“It was the right thing to do,” her voice sounded as if it had been scrubbed with coral. Because someone once saved me too.
She’d expected some kind of outburst or retort, something to give release to his hidden fury, but he sat still and said nothing more.
They stayed this way for another moment, merely staring at one another, until a quick knock came at the door. Without waiting for a reply, a round-looking man swung the door open and entered, balancing a platter of food, which he settled on the table between them.
“Didn’t know ye was awake, else I’d brought more,” he apologized, giving Nerida a quick nod, before turning his attention to the other man. “Be needin’ anything else, Cap’n?”
“Yes, bring a bucket of water, Boggs.” The captain answered, his eyes finally leaving her.
The one named Boggs chewed on his bottom lip for a second, then asked. “That all?”
“Yes.”
Once the door closed behind Boggs, the captain turned his attention back to her. “My men fished you out of the water days ago,” he gestured to the plate. “You must be hungry. Help yourself.”
Nerida’s stomach gurgled in response. She slid her feet from beneath the blanket and placed them on the floor, fully expecting the stabbing pain that came when her tail was gone. But it didn’t arrive. Days ago. Shouldn’t I be dead by now? she wondered. Still pondering how she was still alive, she stood, clutched the blanket around her and walked to the table, then sat down in the chair directly opposite the captain.
The plate held things she’d never seen before. Though all smelled wonderful, she had questions that needed to be answered.
“Why did you save me?” she asked, repeating his own question back to him, once she’d swallowed.
“I didn’t save you.”
“Why did your men save me?”
“One of them recognized you.”
The door burst open again. Not bothering with knocking, Boggs reentered, carrying a pail of water that he sat down at Nerida’s feet. A look of pity crossed his face as his eyes met hers, but he turned and hurried out without a word. The door clicked shut.
“I suppose I must be getting back to the sea, then,” Nerida said. Something told her something horrible was going to happen. She needed to leave this place. Right now. “Thank you for saving me, but I must be going.”
The captain nodded, but held up his hook as she stood. “There is something you must see before you go.” His eyes grew colder as he looked down at the pail of water. “Though your face is the same, you aren’t the one who pulled me from the cavern. When my men found you, you were a bit…different.”
He stood and took the candle from the table and lit two lanterns on the wall on either side of a large mirror. The darkness in the room dissipated, leaving the room bathed in soft light.
Nerida wanted to tell him that she was definitely the same one who had struggled through that dark tunnel and had saved his life, but some small part of her stopped him. That same part told her he spoke the truth—that something wasn’t quite right. Something had changed.
“Place your feet in the water and you’ll see I speak the truth,” he said, reading her mind.
She placed first one foot into the cool water…then the other, and gripped the side of the table, waiting for her tail to return.
The magic that had once started in her feet and worked its way up her legs was gone. Though covered in dark scales, her feet still looked human. She turned loos
e of the table and bent forward, inspecting her legs.
“But, but…I can’t be human,” she said in a broken voice. Teardrops fell from her eyes and made tiny splashes in the bucket.
“You aren’t human.” She looked up at the captain to see him gesture toward the mirror.
Nerida stared in shock at her reflection. Black scales covered her chest, spreading outward to her arms and throat. Resting against the hollow of her neck, her broken necklace was once again whole and now sparkled as if it had been filled with magic. Large black wings flexed behind her back, pushing their way out of the blanket. They reminded her of pixie wings. But the similarity ended there, for where the sprites’ wings had brought them beauty, these brought her horror.
“You appear to be human when the water isn’t touching you. The water reveals what you truly are,” he said quietly.
The creature in the reflection stared back at her, eyes dark, cheeks hollow, and body nearly skeletal. The wings fluttered, thick shreds of black moving back and forth in time with the sea of which she was no longer part of. And all the while, her legs stayed the same—her tail forever gone.
Nerida pulled the necklace off her neck and threw it to the ground, but nothing changed. She screamed in frustration and the mirror shattered. The sounds of breaking glass bounced off the walls for what seemed an eternity. Finally, she covered her face with her hands and sobbed.
He was right. She wasn’t human—and she wasn’t mermaid either. She was a monster. Cassius had done something more terrible than taking her life—he’d given her this one. “I’d rather be dead.” She looked into the broken mirror and saw a hundred images of the captain nod.
“I know well how it is, to breathe and still be dead. I am sorry, my dear,” he said quietly. “You are as cursed as I.”
9
Cursed
SHE FELT COMFORTED the instant she stepped on the sandy beach. It was as if the isle didn’t care she was different and welcomed her back anyway. Dread lifted off her as she walked on the shore and watched the billowing white sails of the Jolig Roger as it sailed toward the horizon.
The ship had brought her home; now it was leaving her in peace. As the wind had blown against the ship, they had ended up sailing around the island and what should have been an easy trip had taken several days.
Only the man Boggs had shown her any kindness during that trip and it was for him she stood, watching until the ship disappeared from sight. More than once she’d heard whispered threats while she’d been aboard, mumbled under the breath of the pirates.
One man had even made good on his threat, sneaking into her room in the dead of night. He’d made it as far as pressing his cold blade to her throat. She’d awakened, terrified at first, then grew angry as she realized what he intended to do. She struggled for a couple of seconds and her elbow knocked a glass from the bedside table. When the spilled water hit her skin, a swirl of silver light pulsed around her and an instant later, the shards of glass from the broken mirror flew across the room and sank themselves into her would-be assassin.
A gleam of moonlight played on his shocked face before he fell on top of her, dead. At that point, everything went still and the power in her quieted.
Never had she taken the life of another. Fear had surged through her and she shoved the pirate off and ran out of the room in search of the captain, leaving footprints of sticky blood in her wake.
She found Hook on the top deck at the ship’s wheel. While his face held no emotion when he saw her, the faces of the others did. As they saw her standing there, wings ripping out the back of her blood-covered nightshirt, their fear became so strong, it seemed a real thing that she could have reached out and touched. Immediately, she felt stronger. Apparently her power showed, because none of them dared harm her again.
My father was wiser than I knew, Nerida thought, still watching the place where the ship disappeared. Humans aren’t to be trusted.
She shook her head. No, that wasn’t right, she argued to herself. A few could be trusted, such as Boggs. Boggs was a strange one, even for being human, she decided. Still, he had been kind to her and had sat and talked with her in the evenings as the sun set. Those were the times when the captain’s mood grew darker and he disappeared below to a dimly lit room, his fingers to slide along the lines of maps.
She’d walked in on him only once, but that had been all it had taken. He sat at the table, fingers tracing the lines of maps laid before him with a graceful ease as if his hand knew each inch of the paper by heart. His study of the maps hadn’t been what frightened her—it had been the deep, burning darkness she’d seen in his eyes when he had looked up and saw her standing there. His eyes had been cold and calculating, like a shark circling to attack. Deadly.
“IT NO BE his fault,” Boggs said, giving her arm a comforting pat once he’d pulled her back from the map room and quietly shut the door. “He has a deep hatred in him, ye see? A bit o’ his soul died the day he lost Tiger Lily. Pan took the parts of him that mattered most and now the empty places in him be full of darkness as can be filled with only one thing.”
“Revenge,” Nerida whispered. Boggs’ words registered, the name of the woman triggering a quick memory of her lying beside the captain in the surf, her dark hair floating in the tide. “Did you say her name was Tiger Lily?”
“Aye. The cap’n gave her that name when we first came to this place. I don’t think he cared much for the one her people gave her.”
Nerida shook her head. “That’s strange. Peter gave a young girl on the shore the same name. I believe she was one of the ones who left this ship with her people. He called her Tiger Lily, too.”
Boggs stopped in mid-step and turned back to look at her. His brow lifted. “Is that so, then?” he chewed thoughtfully on his lip for a second, as he mulled over this new information. “Wonder why he’d do such a thing?”
“I don’t know. But he seemed to think a great deal of her. He was trying to get her to leave with him, but she wouldn’t go.”
Boggs stayed silent for a moment, then shook his head. “Good thing she was smart enough not to go wi’ him. Pan’s a strange one, to be sure, and not to be trusted. While he no looks dangerous, he has a darkness to him, too. Methinks that be the reason he took so much from the cap’n. He wanted to share that darkness, so someone else could feel the same as he does. He and the cap’n are more alike than either of ’em knows. Neither of ’em be truly alone, so long as there is that darkness between ’em. It be a strong thing that won’t die until they do.”
Nerida must have looked at him strangely, because he gave her a knowing nod and added, “I know ye think was done is unforgiveable. I understand, aye? But ye must trust me when I tell ye it can be worse. Ye might be changed, but ye haven’t got darkness in ye—no like the flying boy or the cap’n. Ye still have goodness in ye. Hold tight to it and ne’er let anyone take it away.”
NERIDA SHOOK HER head to clear her thoughts. While she might not have a deep-seated hatred or a need for revenge, she wasn’t the same. Now she needed to find out how that difference was going to affect everything. She took off the clothes the pirates had given her and stepped toward the water. She would have been at her isle days ago if she’d been brave enough to jump into the sea and swim here herself, but she’d been afraid. Ever since she’d stood in that bucket of water and watched herself change, she’d been terrified of what she became.
The fact that she hadn’t so much as touched a drop of water proved she wasn’t a mermaid any longer. Her people needed the sea to survive. She didn’t.
She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. It was time to see exactly what the ocean would do to her. Her feet tingled as the tide splashed over them. Without opening her eyes, she walked into the sea. Once she was completely submerged, she opened them, and let out the breath she’d been holding, expecting water to surge through her nose and drown her, but just as the mermaid she’d once been, she breathed it as easily as air.
A tingle of m
agic zipped along her skin and she felt the wings come to life on her back. She waited, expecting to sink to the bottom of the sea. Instead, instinct kicked in and she fluttered her wings and stayed in place.
Whatever I am, I am still part of the sea. That thought left her feeling happier than she had in all the days she had spent out of the water.
Two dark forms came up from the ocean bottom and bumped against her legs. Tears of joy filled her eyes at the arrival of her stingrays, who didn’t seem to mind at all she was something different.
They still recognized who she was and didn’t care that she’d changed. Maybe her people would accept her in the same way. Feeling even better, she hurried toward the castle, black wings fluttering as fast as they could possibly go.
SOMETHING WAS WRONG. That much was evident. The first thing she saw when she reached the gardens, was the sight of dozens of her people rushing toward the surface. The expressions on their faces were grim, as if they knew something horrible was about to happen or had already happened.
She spotted Callie swimming up from between the columns at the front of the castle, following the others. Nerida nearly called out to her to wait, but remembered the change in her appearance since the last time her sister had seen her. This wasn’t the way she wanted to reveal herself—not when it seemed something else had everyone worried.
She circled around them and headed up toward the surface herself, keeping a good distance away so no one would see her. Her wings brought her to the shore long much quicker than she ever would have been able to swim. She walked up on the sand slowly at first, still not accustomed to not feeling the pain that used to accompany having human legs. A sharp scream made her hurry.
She was shocked to spot the familiar red head of Annalise—and felt even more surprise at the sight of a familiar human, Black Caesar, his arm firmly around the mermaid’s neck.
It seemed like a lifetime ago that she’d gone to the cavern and found he’d escaped. While she lay trapped, she’d wondered more than once what he had done once he climbed free. Had he been hiding on the island this whole time? She knew he hadn’t gone back to his own people and from the scowling expressions of the men on the ship when she’d asked, they didn’t want him back.
The Untold Stories of Neverland: The Complete Box Set Page 34