“Now I know you’re pulling my leg. This can’t be your mother.”
“But of course I can, young man. Why would you think otherwise?” She smiled with a grace and bearing that was far beyond her years.
All of Halder’s natural impudence and irreverent charm evaporated in front of this elegant porcelain figure. He could swear her flawless, translucent skin glowed from within as she seemed to float across the room toward him, every bit as beautiful as Miranda, but in a more ethereal way. Her eyes locked on to his, absorbing every detail of him … eyes that were as deep and ageless as her face seemed nubile and young. Helmi extended her hand to him, and to his wonder, he found himself instinctively kneeling like a knight out of Camelot paying homage to fair Queen Guinevere.
“Welcome to the Manor, young Halder. You are the first man ever invited here by my daughter.” Then she drew him up to his feet with a strength her dainty hands could not possibly possess.
Standing in front of her, he felt small, though he towered over her. She reached for his other hand and clasped them together in her own as she gazed up into his eyes, creating a well he fell into. The room disappeared. He seemed to be soaring in a vast whirlpool of water, sky, and stars, all swirling together as if all his memories, fears, and aspirations were surging through him.
He was elated, startled, and totally unbalanced when the feeling suddenly snapped off. He jerked backwards and he felt the grip of Helmi’s hands release as something crumpled to the floor at his feet.
“Mother!” the panic of Miranda’s voice snapped him back to reality as she rushed past Halder and dropped to the floor beside her mother’s unconscious body.
“Mother!” Miranda cried out again in panic as she placed her hand against her mother’s heart.
“What happened?” Halder stammered in shock as other people began to rush into the hall.
“Stand back!” Miranda ordered the servants who tried to rush forward.
“What happened?” Halder asked again as the doctor in him took over and he checked Helmi’s breathing and pulse.
“She was reading you, and she just collapsed!”
“Her breathing’s all right,” he assured Miranda. “Her pulse is also fine.” Then he looked at Miranda and asked, “What do you mean, reading me?”
“Mother has the sight,” she replied as she brushed the hair back tenderly from her mother’s cheek. Suddenly Helmi stirred.
“Mother! Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine in a moment, Miranda. Just help me up please.”
“Do you need to go back to the sea?” Miranda hovered as Halder gently lifted Helmi back to her feet.
“Miranda, I’m fine.” Helmi shooed her away. “I just need to sit for a moment.”
“She’s always a little fragile on land,” Miranda muttered distractedly to Halder who just looked confused.
Helmi turned to address the growing crowd of concerned servants.
“Everything is fine,” she told them with a voice that seemed full of strength and power far beyond her delicate stature. “I just need to get my land legs firmly beneath me.” This they seemed to accept readily enough. “Thank you all as usual for your kindness and concern, but Miranda and her fine young man will take good care of me.”
With that, and a few questioning glances in Halder’s direction, they all left to return to their duties, except one plump, elderly-looking woman.
Helmi nodded to the last remaining servant woman. “We will be ready to dine in a moment, Inga.” The woman rubbed her hands in frustrated concern, but left quietly.
“Halder,” she said, looking up at him with a smile that was so like Miranda’s, “would you kindly escort me to the dining room?” She rose and placed a firm grip on his forearm as she pointed to an archway straight down the hall.
“I’d be delighted to, Your Highness,” he said gently, as he felt himself stand tall and erect like a military officer escorting a queen.
“No titles, please.” She smiled up at him. “I shall call you Halder, and you must call me Helmi. I feel as if you are one of the family already.” Then she reached for his face and gently brushed his cheek with her fingertips. “On behalf of myself and my late husband, I welcome you to the House of Egeskov and Aegir.”
“I am touched and greatly honored by your kindness, Your Highness,” Halder replied with a deep sincerity and reverence he seldom felt for anyone or anything. He felt warmth flooding through him and a sense of belonging. “Aegir is the Nordic name for Poseidon. Your family must be seafarers like mine.”
“The sea has been the only concern of my family since the dawn of time,” Helmi agreed as they walked toward an elegantly carved archway.
The hall was large enough to accommodate one of those extraordinarily long dining tables of medieval times, but instead a large oval table that could hold six to eight people was set for an intimate supper. The rest of the room had been made cozy with extra chairs, couches, small tables, scattered stacks of books, and glorious paintings and statuary. It seemed more like a grand room where the family gathered, instead of the formal dining hall it had been designed to be.
All the classic architectural elements were still there. They entered through the center massive stone arch of a series of three that spanned the width of the room, and which were mirrored at the opposite end by three equally massive arches. These created a two-story bay window with a sprawling view of the Faeroe Islands.
The manor walls were three feet thick, so the base of each window had been adapted into a large window seat or couch, each upholstered with over-stuffed, deep, rich Chinese silk tapestry, and strewn with pillows of various sizes and shapes in contrasting velvets, satins, and fur.
The wall on the right was decorated with a mixture of mirrors, masks, and artwork from dozens of different centuries. An Egyptian mural, a Mayan gold mask, Greek tapestries, and a Viking shield vied for space with paintings by the Dutch masters and French impressionists. He recognized the work of Monet, Renoir, Degas, and several classic European artists from Goya to DaVinci. Their sizes ran the gamut from tiny to titanic. It seemed as if all the masters from Rafael to Picasso, from Chagall to Maxfield Parish, were blended together in a wave of art, and all of them were obviously originals.
On the opposite wall was a giant fireplace, large enough to parallel park a car in. Over the fireplace was the most exquisite marble mantle carved into the form of a school of dolphins rising up out of the waves and leaping en masse across the large expanse to finally descend back into the ocean on the other side.
The walls on either side of the fireplace were covered with artwork in the Greco-Roman style, all depicting scenes from classical mythology. There were several paintings of Poseidon from different legends, some of Zeus, even Hades, and several of the Nereid and Titan queens. Above the mantle was a massive picture of a mermaid holding her child. She was reclining on a bed of enormous pale orange sea anemones with giant kelp fronds swirling above, behind, and all around her.
“How beautiful!” commented Halder, obviously in awe. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like it in my life,” he whispered. Halder couldn’t resist the temptation to reach out and touch the surface of the painting and the frame. “If this painting didn’t look so old,” he said, “I would swear this was your face in the portrait, Your Highness.”
“Not so old,” she said with a sigh as she looked up lovingly at the painting. “It seems only yesterday that I posed for it with Miranda. A friend of my husband’s named Leonardo came all the way from Italy to our castle to paint us.”
“Really?” Halder beamed. “I love the mermaid theme. Your family seems to be as fascinated with mermaids as I am.”
“Much more so, I can assure you, young Halder.” Helmi smiled. Then she indicated the wall behind her, in which towered the archway they had walked through to enter the room.
Above the arch was a large and glorious heraldic family crest. At the top, center point, a field of blue was framed by two
male narwhals crossing their mighty ivory tusks as they reared up out of the waves. In the upper center of the crest, directly beneath the crossed horns, were a rocky island and a pink castle with two towers rising up. At the bottom center, beneath a row of waves that cut across the lower third of the shield, was a mermaid wearing a crown. In one hand she held the Trident, and in the other, an olive branch—the symbols of power and peace—as if one balanced the other. Her face seemed benevolent. She looked straight ahead, with an alluring smile, as her tail coiled and trailed below her where her fin pointed down directly above the bottom tip of the shield.
“The crest of Egeskov and Aegir,” Helmi said softly.
“I’m overwhelmed,” he whispered.
“That won’t last long,” Miranda stated, finally breaking
her silence. She had not taken her eyes off her mother since she’d collapsed on the floor, but Halder got the feeling there was more than just concern for her mother’s health involved in her intense gaze.
“Behave around your mother, dear,” Halder quipped in his old demeanor. “We don’t want her to abandon her attempts to make you civilized.”
Suddenly Helmi giggled the most childishly beguiling giggle Halder could imagine—a contrast to the rich silver laugh of her daughter. “I can see you won’t let Miranda bully you as she does the rest of us.”
“Mother!” Miranda huffed, and Helmi completely ignored her.
“Her father would have liked you as much as I do.” Helmi nodded to herself for a moment and then looked up and gestured for them to sit on either side of her at the table. “Let’s dine, or Inga will be fretting about the food being overcooked. Halder, you sit on my left please, and Miranda you sit on my right.”
“Thank you, Your Highness—”
“Helmi, please.”
“Thank you, Helmi,” Halder smiled ruefully. “I’d like to wash up before dinner. Your daughter didn’t exactly give me any advance notice about your invitation,” he added as he glared playfully over at Miranda.
“Certainly.” Helmi smiled. “Back through the arch, to your left. It is three doors down.”
“Great, I’ll be back in just a moment.” Halder nodded and stepped through the archway.
“Mother, what happened to you?” Miranda whispered, the moment Halder was out of sight. “What did you see?
Is something wrong with Halder? I was sure he’s the one.” Miranda’s voice began to slip higher and higher as a touch of despair bled through with each question.
“He is the one, Miranda. He loves you to a depth he has only begun to understand, and he will never fear us,” Helmi told her firmly. “To the contrary, we will fulfill all the dreams he has ever had.”
“Then what on earth is the matter?” Miranda asked in frustration.
“He is in grave danger,” Helmi answered.
“Why?”
“He is in danger because of you,” Helmi whispered.
“Because of me? From whom?”
“Vasili,” was all Helmi uttered. It was all she had to say.
From Soup to Nuts
Halder’s first meal at the Manor with Helmi and Miranda was simple but delicious—a rich, creamy fish stew made with some savory spices Halder had never tasted before. There was a kelp casserole that had been layered like spinach pie with chopped scallops, mussels, and shrimp, which seemed to be Helmi’s favorite. A local dish called fårikål—a lamb casserole with white cabbage, carrots, and turnips—was cooked to perfection.
The conversation was even more satisfying as the discussion turned to the care of sea mammals. To Halder’s surprise, it turned out to be Helmi’s passion and expertise. She told Halder about numerous salves and medications she made from ancient herbal recipes, and she shared with him the various ways she herself had treated local injured whales, seals, and dolphins. After she described the process for the topical application of one particular salve for a spout infection on a Beluga whale, which had apparently attempted to beach herself due to the infection, Halder just shook his head in amazement. “I can’t imagine you in the ocean with whales.” Halder shrugged.
“I can’t imagine her without them!” Miranda laughed.
“I have an aquatic nursery pool beneath the manor in a cave adjacent to the docks. That’s where we bring injured or nursing belugas and narwhals.”
“Narwhals?” Halder stammered. But that’s impossible. Narwhals can’t be captive. They would never let a
human near them. They’re so rare and hard to find, as it is, they—”
“Would you like to see a narwhal calf, Halder?” asked Helmi, cutting off his protestations. “I have three in the nursery.” She smiled at him.
“Oh, Mother, did Ivory and Nacer have their babies?” Miranda gushed.
“Yesterday.” Helmi sighed. “At first I thought we were going to lose Nacer’s twins. She’s a little scarred from her last delivery, but I was able to turn the calf and calm her down to ease the contractions, and it all went splendidly.”
“Wait, wait! You two are talking about whales like they are women. How could you possibly get close enough to a wild whale, let alone a narwhal, to help it give birth? I don’t mean any disrespect, but this is nuts!” Halder sputtered as a secretive smile passed between Helmi and Miranda.
“The nursery is the cavern lagoon, a natural subterranean grotto, Halder,” Helmi explained. “When whales and dolphins are injured or sick, they swim to the grotto for my help. Once they are healed and feel strong enough, they swim out.” She shrugged.
“They swim in when they feel sick?” He looked at her incredulously, which made Miranda giggle like her mother.
“Mother has been doing this for centuries, believe me,” Miranda said with a smirk.
“You do love to exaggerate, my dear,” Halder growled in annoyance.
“Not about this, snoogums!” She wrinkled her nose and taunted him from across the table.
“Well, why don’t I just show you?” Helmi beamed as she pushed her chair back from the table. “We can have tea and dessert later in the solarium. I was waiting to name the babies until Miranda came home, so you can help with that,” she explained as she walked over to a colossal sized portrait of Neptune racing across the waves in his chariot. “Oh, and you can meet Iron Horn, too! He’s Nacer’s mate, and he’s a very impressive male. The two of you will like each other.” Helmi winked childishly and grabbed the frame, then swung it outward to reveal a hidden descending stairwell.
“It will do us all good to walk off dinner, and you can take a swim if you like.” Helmi flashed one last smile and then stepped inside the passageway and disappeared down the stairs as Halder just sat and stared. He must have been staring for a few moments because the next thing he remembered was Miranda standing behind him tapping his shoulder gently.
“What? Oh!”
“Let’s not keep Mother waiting. You have no idea what an honor this is. I’ve never known her to invite anyone into the nursery besides the family.” Miranda was literally humming as she practically waltzed across the room with a gleeful little smile and then stopped at the top of the stairs and looked back at him.
“Are you coming or not?” she asked, hands placed on her hips in challenge.
“Is this one of your secrets in the closet?” Halder muttered as he stood up, dropped his napkin on his chair, and crossed to her.
“You betcha!” She sighed as she kissed him on the cheek.
Halder looked around for a second, then down at the flagstone steps and mumbled, “Somehow, I thought it would be a yellow brick road.”
“There’s just no pleasing some people,” Miranda growled. Then she pushed him slightly ahead of her and poked him in the small of his back saying, “Down, Toto, down.”
The stairway wound all the way down through the heart of the island in a series of several hundred steps. Finally it opened out into a colossal natural cavern that sheltered a large lagoon. On either side of the lagoon were several smaller pools that seemed to h
ave been carved and created by hand.
The walls of the grotto itself had been carved and sculpted in Greco-Roman style. It looked like a secret temple to the Olympian gods from some movie set about Atlantis. There were even a few fountains and gardens with tables and chairs for dining, and more than one marble structure that seemed to be comprised of multiple rooms.
The cavern was also quite comfortably warm, and it appeared that at least one or two of the pools were heated. The water was illuminated by the strong phosphorescent properties of large orange anemones grouped in large clusters.
“Am … am I having a hot flash or is it warm in here?” Halder stammered as he kept turning and staring in every direction.
“No, it’s always very comfortable in the nursery.” Miranda nodded as she casually slipper her arm through his. “There’s a natural hot spring vent that rises up beneath the lagoon and helps heal the animals quickly during the winter months,” she explained, as his head started spinning with all the visual input.
“Halder!” He heard Helmi call to him over to his right, so he steadied himself and looked for her in that direction. “Would you like to see the narwhal calf?”
Then Halder noticed that Helmi was in the water, with her hair streaming across her shoulders. She was petting a small whale calf. Two mature narwhals, one of them obviously a male with a magnificent twisted horn, were in the lagoon a few feet
away, staring blissfully at Helmi as she stroked their newborn calf.
Halder didn’t really answer her. He just stumbled numbly over in her direction and then felt Miranda’s steadying hand on his shoulder, guiding him to a marble bench to the side of the steps that led down into the pool.
“Sit here, darling. You seem a little disoriented.”
“Is it just me,” he mumbled as he sat down with a thump and stared once more at the mythical Disney world he was surrounded by, “or am I the only one who feels like Apollo through the looking glass?”
All The Mermaids In The Sea Page 25