They said he had a viral infection that caused a heart attack, but I’m not so sure.”
He narrowed his eyes. What do you mean? You think there was more to it?
I wasn’t sure if I should tell him my suspicions. Everyone else I’d told thought I was crazy for even thinking it, but in my mind, it made total sense.
“I think the sea witch did it.
There, I’d said it. I waited for him to tell me I was stupid or wrong. Instead, he looked at me closely.
She’s dead. Make no mistake, my pet finished her off.
The pet he talked about was a huge shark he kept in his underwater palace.
I know that, but isn’t it possible that she cast some sort of spell before she was killed? She was certainly planning to kill my father, she told me.
She told you right before being eaten by a shark. I doubt she’d have time to finish any spells. I think that sometimes things are just as they seem. If your medics think your father died of natural causes, then maybe you should believe them.
Easy to say, but the problem was, I didn’t believe it. The spell on Ari had not been broken, and I’d heard that the same could be said for others in Havfrue. My father was so young and vibrant. Was it really possible that a viral infection had killed him?
How is your mother holding up? I must go and see her.
She’s doing as well as can be expected. Today she’s speaking to the media for the first time since he died.
My grandfather nodded his head thoughtfully. And how are you doing? This must have come as a huge shock to you. You’ll be queen now, right? That’s a big responsibility for someone as young as you. Do you need me to come up to the palace and help in any way?
My heart lifted as I mulled over his offer. He’d become quite a celebrity in Trifork when the media first found out about him, and being a private man, he didn’t like the intrusion. That’s why he only visited once in a while. Coming up to the palace to help was a generous offer and who better to help me be a queen than a man who was a king?
I kissed his cheek and smiled. My first smile in weeks. Thank you, I’d love that. Before we go home, I was wondering if you’d help me with one thing first.
Anything.
I looked out into the vast ocean. I knew Havfrue was there, but it was a long way for anyone to swim without a tail.
Would you take me to Havfrue? It will be so much quicker with your help.
My grandfather’s lips curled up at the edges. Would this be anything to do with that young man of yours by any chance?
Even in the cool water, I could feel the blush rise to my cheeks.
I’ haven’t seen him in six weeks. The pressures of becoming queen have taken all of my time.
I felt a jerk as my grandfather set off, pulling me at high speed behind him. Without him, the journey would take me, at least, half an hour, and I’d have to battle the waves. With him pulling me underwater, we made the journey in less than ten minutes. Of course, I could have called out for Ari to come to me, but this way I’d be able to surprise him. I pointed out the avenue that Ari lived on and let my grandfather swim me along it. Every merperson we met bowed as we passed.
Anticipation of finally seeing him again made me both nervous and excited. I could feel my heart lifting just by the fact I was closer to him. Being bonded to him and living so far apart was difficult and it was only now as we got close to his house that I realized just how heavy my heart had become. I’d thought it was grief and stress, and probably a lot of it was, but being away from Ari only compounded it all, making me feel I was walking around with weights on my shoulders.
Havfrue houses do not have windows and doors in the same way we do on land. They had the openings, but no glass and no doors. Water flowed freely through all the openings. It meant there was very little privacy, but at least, you got to see the brightly colored fish without having to leave your home.
My heart was positively bursting with joy as we came up to his house. The downside of being apart from Ari was the pain and heaviness of my heart but on the flipside, being so close to him was like I was walking on air. I didn’t even need to see him to feel it. The joy was already coursing through my veins as we stopped at his house.
A small creature swam through his window and wrapped itself around my arm.
“Ollie!” I cried out, using my mouth and sending bubbles of air up to the surface. Ollie was Ari’s pet octopus. I stroked his head and then peeked in the window opening. All at once, the happy feelings I’d been experiencing fell like a ton of bricks. I pulled my grandfather away from the window. I didn’t want him to see what I’d just seen.
Isn’t he home? asked my grandfather in confusion.
He’s home alright. Home with another girl!
A Hurried Wedding
I don’t know how I managed to get home. My entire world had come crashing down around me. If it wasn’t bad enough that I’d just lost my father, it seemed that I’d lost Ari too. I knew heartbreak was never easy, but the fact we were bonded made it a bitter pill to swallow.
“She might have just been a friend,” My grandfather offered as he pulled us both out of the water by the rocks. The photographers were still out in force, managing to get a photo of me looking absolutely dreadful in my underwear and tears streaking down my face.
I ignored everyone and headed straight to bed, hiding myself under my duvet and getting my pillow wet as I’d not bothered to dry my hair. Someone knocked on my door, but I was in no mood to speak to anyone. I felt numb and empty, and I was going to be no use to John or anyone else in the state I was in.
Every time I closed my eyes, I could see him with her. She had long flowing yellow hair. Not blond but an acidic looking bright yellow. My grandfather had asked if I’d got the wrong idea, and they were just friends, but I’d seen him lean forward and kiss her. Friends didn’t kiss each other in their own homes when they thought no one was watching.
I spent the night revolving between blaming myself for not finding time to go see him and wanting to rip his head off for cheating on me.
Ok, it could be argued that we were not officially a couple. We’d both known that it couldn’t last forever, but I’d not thought it would end so soon, and with betrayal. In my heart, I’d hoped there would be a happy ending for us, a way to get past the problems we faced, but in my head, I knew our relationship had to come to an end at some point.
In the morning, I was a complete wreck. I’d barely slept at all, and the bags under my eyes had taken on such epic proportions, that I was sure they were going to overbalance me. There was another knock on the door, and this time, I answered it. I opened the door to my mother staring at me, her mouth hanging open in shock.
“Erica! You look dreadful! What’s this in your hair?” She pulled something green and stringy from my hair that turned out to be seaweed.
“Go in the shower and get yourself dressed,” she demanded. She didn’t like me to look anything other than the princess I was...correction, the queen I was.
I looked down at my underwear. It had dried overnight but had salt stains all over it from the sea water. I turned and padded into my bathroom, turning the bath on instead of the shower. If I had a shower, she’d expect me out in minutes. This way I’d at least get half an hour or so to myself. At least, I thought I would. I wasn’t prepared for her following me in and sitting by the side of the bath.
“Can’t a girl get some privacy around here?” I muttered. I wanted to wallow in my own despair, and I could hardly do that with my mother watching. She passed me a shampoo bottle.
“Father told me what happened,” she began, pouring shampoo liberally over my head when I didn’t take the bottle from her. “I’m so sorry Erica. I thought he was such a nice boy once I got to know him.”
I didn’t answer. What was there to say? Instead, I elected to lose myself in the feeling of her massaging the shampoo into my scalp the way she did when I was a little girl. I could hear her talking, but the scalp massa
ge was making me sleepy.
“Erica!”
I nodded awake abruptly. I’d completely fallen asleep in the tub. Water cascaded down over my ears as my mother rinsed out the shampoo.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t sleep very well.”
She sighed loudly behind me. “My father is here. He says he’ll stay for a few days to help. Why don’t you take a few days off work?”
I shook my head. “I can’t. I’m the queen. I’m not allowed to be tired or sad or overwhelmed. I have to be regal and pretty and commanding and a million other things I fear I’ll never be.”
“You are so much more than you think you are. Take a week off. There will be plenty of time for you to be regal and commanding.”
The thought of slouching around in my bed, not having to talk to anyone was appealing. In the end, I let my mother have her way. She got a maid to change the sheets on my bed, and I went into hibernation, not leaving my room until I could hide no more.
On the fifth day, when I’d cried more tears than I thought it possible, I got up, put on a dress and makeup and stepped out of my room. When I’d been with Ari, I was a princess, a girl. Now I was the queen, and I had a kingdom to run. Heartbreak didn’t fit into it at all. With purposeful strides, I marched to John’s office. Anthony and my grandfather were there, deep in conversation. They all paused as I walked through the door.
“John, how are my coronation plans coming? I want to become the queen officially as soon as possible.”
John gave a cough to clear his throat. “I’m sorry Your Highness, but after your father’s funeral, the road outside the Minster began to crumble from the sheer number of people turning out to give their condolences. There is a team working on it right now, but it seems that the minster also needs some restorative work and they are doing it all at the same time to minimize the impact on people.”
I sighed in frustration. I needed something to take my mind away from everything that had happened in the last few weeks, and I figured a coronation would do that, not to mention ruling a kingdom.
“How long until we can get in?” I sensed by the look on his face that I was not going to like his answer.
“We are going to have to put it back at least a couple of months, Your Highness.”
A couple of months! That felt like an eternity away. “It will be getting cold by then. Winter will be creeping in.”
“That’s true, but a little snow won’t stop us.”
No, just a construction crew it seemed.
The weeks following were a mess of me trying to keep everything together on the outside while I was falling apart on the inside. I was lucky to have such a great support system behind me. John and Anthony helped with running the kingdom the best they could. My mother took over the planning of the coronation, and I spent umpteen hours giving interviews for the media, trying not to look like I had a stone in my chest where my heart once was.
A month after I’d seen Ari with the other girl, I finally canceled any more interviews. The reporters had gone from wanting to know about the kingdom and my place in it as queen to throwing in question after question about Ari’s and my relationship.
After the last one where the reporter had refused point blank to leave until I answered his question about where Ari was, I’d had him thrown out and canceled everything else. It was ridiculous that everyone but me was actually doing the running of the kingdom and I spent my days fending off questions about my love life.
I made up my mind to spend more time with John and Anthony and actually make plans for the future of Trifork. I’d set off towards John’s office when Astrid and Hayden collared me. Like everyone else that wasn’t essential to running a kingdom, I’d barely seen them in months.
I took them into the small dining room where I instructed a maid to bring us some tea. Just being around them again brought some sense into my cluttered mind. I’d forgotten what it was like to just hang with my best friends and how easy it was to talk about things other than Trifork.
“How have you both been?” I asked uncertainly. I felt that I’d missed out on so much and, once again, had guilt that I’d pushed them to one side to figure out how to run the kingdom.
I saw a look pass between them, and for the first time since they’d got together, I felt like an outsider. Of course, I was always the third wheel in the relationship, but I’d never really felt that way...not until now.
“What is it?”
“It’s the wedding,” Astrid blurted out. “We want to ask your permission for it to go ahead.”
She looked at me so expectantly that I almost cried. It broke my heart that they felt the need to ask my permission. I might be the queen, but I wasn’t in charge of their lives any more than I was in charge of any of my other subjects’ lives.
I took her hands in mine, then let one drop so I could reach out for Hayden’s hand too.
“I’m so sorry. I haven’t been a good friend to either of you recently.”
“It’s alright,” Astrid replied earnestly. “We know you’ve been through a lot. We didn’t want to ask you, but you are still chief bridesmaid, and we know the coronation is coming up.”
I sighed. I’d never be coronated the way things were going. I was the queen, but I felt like I was still in limbo until it was made official.
“As long as you don’t plan to marry at the Trifork Minster, you certainly can get married.”
Astrid tightened the grip on my hand and grinned, and beside her, Hayden let out a sigh of relief.
“We don’t actually have a venue planned yet. It wouldn’t have been the Minster though. It’s reserved for royalty, remember?”
Of course, it was. “I was joking. Of course, you guys should marry.” I looked around the dining room. It was the smaller of the two the palace had, this one being reserved for family meals, but it was beautiful as was the rest of the palace.
“Why don’t you get married here in the palace? You kinda almost did once already, and we have the space for as many guests as you like.”
Astrid gazed around the room. I could see that she was weighing the possibility.
Hayden didn’t need to look around.
He’d spent much of his childhood in this palace playing silly games like hide and seek with me. He knew what the place looked like already. “Actually I had an idea I’d like to run past you.”
“Shoot.”
“I was thinking we could borrow one of your da...your ships. I want to marry at sea.”
This was obviously news to Astrid as much as it was to me. Her eyes widened, and she let out a squeal. I felt the corners of my mouth lift at her obvious excitement. It was the first time I’d smiled in so long, I was sure I’d forgotten how to do it.
“Of course. I’ll secure one of the nicer ships for you. I’ll need to know how many guests you want.”
Hayden smiled as Astrid jumped up out of her seat and hugged me.
“Thank you. Thank you so much!” She turned to Hayden. “We can get married whenever we like. Let’s do it next week. We already have the dresses.”
Hayden shook his head. “What about the catering and the cake? It could take weeks to organize everything.”
I began to panic. If they accidentally set their wedding on the same day, or even the same week as the coronation, I wouldn’t be able to attend, and if I was going to be very honest with myself, I knew which I’d prefer to go to. Suddenly, a thought occurred to me. I could manage to sort out their wedding within a week, which would still give me at least three weeks to go before the coronation.
“My kitchen staff can cater your wedding. I have the finest chefs in the whole of Trifork working down there. I think they’ll enjoy doing something more interesting than bringing me the occasional sandwich.”
Hayden squeezed my hand and thanked me as Astrid stood up quickly.
“If the wedding is next week, I need to plan everything. Thank you, Erica.” She kissed me on the cheek, and after another brief kiss, this time direct
ed at Hayden, she dashed out the door.
I grinned at Hayden. Astrid’s excitement was catching, pulling a load from my aching heart. “You might want to tell her she can also use the beauticians and hairdressers my mother hires. She’ll never find anyone else at this late notice.”
“Thank you, I will.” Hayden moved forward and took both my hands in his. “How are you doing, Erica?”
“I’m fine,” I lied.
As usual, Hayden saw right through it.
“No you aren’t, and I don’t expect you to be. I’m sorry about this whole wedding thing. It’s just that with everything going on, it felt as though it might never happen at all.”
“Don’t be sorry. I’m excited for you both.” I looked right at him. I could see right into his very soul and knew exactly what he was thinking. He felt sorry for me. He knew I’d turn up without a plus one, and he knew that all eyes would be on me rather than Astrid. Perhaps that’s why he chose to have the ceremony so far away from prying eyes. If we were on a boat so far out to sea, the media would find it hard to follow us. I guess they could hire boats themselves, but we’d be inside, not on deck and therefore any photos they took would be pointless.
Blue Water (A Little Mermaid Reverse Fairytale Book 2) Page 5