by E. D. Baker
“I thought you might like to go for a walk,” he said.
“I’d love to,” Tamisin replied. When she landed beside him, he reached for her hand, but she didn’t take it. It wasn’t that she didn’t like holding hands, just that she was uncomfortable holding his.
“How was your visit with your father?” asked Dasras as they walked down the path.
“Fine,” she said with a shrug. “Although it was very short. He was more interested in something else than in me.”
“You can’t blame him for that,” said Dasras. “He’s a great king and he takes his rule seriously. It was good of him to make time to see you at all.”
Tamisin was surprised at the vehemence in his voice. “You really like him, don’t you?”
Dasras glanced at her, then looked away. “He’s the closest I’ve ever come to having a father. You should be happy that he’s yours.”
Tamisin was about to reply, but they had already reached the rock where Irinia and the nymphs were serving fruit and a fruit-flavored drink. Stepping away from Dasras, Tamisin included the nymphs in the friendly look she gave Irinia, then said to the two-faced woman, “Thank you for your suggestion. I’m glad I listened to you.”
“You’re welcome,” said Irinia.
The nymphs’ expressions softened, as if all it took were a few friendly words. Tamisin would have liked to stay and talk to them, but Dasras bumped her with his arm, gave her a pointed look, and handed her a peach. She was letting him herd her away when a voice behind them said in a loud whisper, “She’s nice! Are you sure she’s a fairy?”
“I’ve seen her wings,” someone replied.
Dasras scowled and glanced back over his shoulder. “It isn’t their place to talk about you like that.”
Tamisin laughed. “Why not? The fairies do. You heard Lily and Hawthorne the other day.”
“That’s different,” said Dasras.
“How is it different?”
Dasras stopped where he was and swung around to face her. “It just is! Fairies are better than everyone else, and everyone knows it! Do you think Lily would have ordered another fairy to deliver her flowers to an ogress? Not in a million years! But I’m not a fairy, and even though Oberon treats me better than most, everyone knows that he does it on a whim. When he changes his mind, I’ll be sent to live on the other side of the briars and made to work like them,” he said, jerking his head at the group behind them.
“If it’s so awful, why do you stay?”
“Because I have nowhere else to go,” he said, suddenly looking deflated. “I’ve lived in one fairy court or the other since the day I was born. It’s the only life I’ve ever known. Look, there’s one of Oberon’s messengers.” A tiny fairy was flying their way, zipping over and around branches and other fairies. “Oberon must want me again. Not that I contribute anything useful to our conversations, but he likes to use me as a sounding board when he has something to mull over. There’s no telling how long I’ll be gone. You might as well go for a walk without me.”
Tamisin opened her mouth to reply, but he was already walking away. Aside from the feeling that she was supposed to love him, shouldn’t she feel something more when he was around?
Feeling lost, Tamisin started down the path. As she walked, she saw flower fairies using their magic to freshen wilting flowers and straighten crooked stems. Others were directing plants to grow around obstacles to reach the little bit of sun filtering through the overhead leaves.
She was rounding a curve in the path when she came upon a group of human-sized fairies standing in a circle, watching something on the ground. Someone swore and someone else growled. A fairy moved to the side, and suddenly Tamisin could see two male ogres, rolling on the ground, wrestling. They looked much like very big men with broad, coarse features and thick, heavy builds. When one opened his mouth to snarl at the other, she saw that he had sharp, pointed teeth like a wolf’s. Blood trickled from a cut running across the blond ogre’s forehead. Raw-looking patches on the other’s head showed where his opponent had pulled out clumps of gray-streaked brown hair. They grunted as they fought, seemingly oblivious to the crowd of fairies surrounding them.
Something soft brushed Tamisin’s cheek and she turned her head. A messenger fairy was hovering beside her. The air sparkled, and a full-sized male fairy dressed all in lavender handed her a purse woven from an odd, dark green plant. “Here, Princess. This is for you,” he said. “The mermaids sent it.” Then the fairy shrank and flew away before Tamisin could ask any questions.
Tamisin slipped into the sheltering trees to open the purse. She gasped when a necklace tumbled into her hand. Made of enormous pearls and large coral beads, it was the prettiest piece of jewelry she’d ever held.
“Oh!” she cried. “This is gorgeous! And Dasras said the mermaids weren’t nice!”
Tamisin wanted to thank the mermaids, but climbing to the top of the rocks was harder than she remembered. Finally she was standing on the beach looking out to sea and listening to the water hiss as it ran up the clean white sand. Taking off her shoes, she stepped into the advancing foam. The cool water felt good on her feet, so she began to walk along the curving beach while searching the waves for some sign of mermaids. When she nearly tripped over a large stack of seashells at the water’s edge, she knew that someone had been there. A little farther on she found a pool cut off from the rest of the water, and saw a crab scuttling across the bottom. Taking a seat beside the pool, she was bending over to see what else lived there when she heard splashing and a voice called, “Hello!”
Tamisin looked up. A young woman was bobbing in the water just past the point where the waves broke. She waved, and suddenly something angled and dripping rose out of the water behind her. Tamisin was about to shout a warning when she realized that the object was a tail and it belonged to the girl.
“I’ll be right there!” the mermaid called, and dove into the water with a flip of her tail.
Tamisin watched as a blue-green shape streaked just below the breaking waves. When the mermaid reached the shallows, a tongue of water rose up, carrying her above the grating pebbles at the water’s edge onto the beach itself, depositing her only feet from where Tamisin was standing. Her hair, which had looked black from a distance, now looked like the deepest green. Her eyes were green as well, but a lighter shade that spoke of seaweed and kelp.
The mermaid flipped her wet hair over her shoulder and smiled. Tamisin held up the necklace. “Are you the mermaid who sent me this?” she asked.
“I am if you’re the princess, Tamisin.”
“I am,” said Tamisin.
“And I’m Kryllus. My friends and I just wanted to welcome you to our part of the world.” The mermaid gestured toward the deep water where two more heads were bobbing.
“That’s very kind of you,” said Tamisin. “The necklace is lovely. Did you get the pearls around here?”
“About a hundred miles east of here, actually,” said Kryllus. “Would you like to see the spot? I can take you there if you’re interested. I’m a fast swimmer. It wouldn’t take too long.”
“I’m not sure . . . ,” Tamisin began. Even though she could swim, she wasn’t sure she should go into deep water with a mermaid she’d just met.
Kryllus sighed. “It would be a real shame if you didn’t go. I could show you some very pretty places that you’d never get to see from the land. However, if you’re afraid of the water . . .”
“I’m not afraid!” said Tamisin.
“Or would rather not socialize with mermaids like us, I’ll understand.”
“It isn’t that! It’s just . . . Never mind. I’d love to see where you found the pearls.”
Kryllus clapped her hands. “That’s wonderful! We’ll have so much fun! I can’t wait to introduce you to my friends.”
“Maybe I should tell someone before we . . . ,” Tamisin began.
The water rose up, lapping around her knees, rising until it was high enough to lift her off her feet. Kryllus chuc
kled at the expression on Tamisin’s face as the water carried them past the shallows to the drop-off where the other mermaids waited. Suddenly Tamisin was left treading water, face-to-face with three mermaids.
“These are my friends, Squall and Pacifica.”
The mermaid named Squall pushed her dripping silver hair off her forehead and gave Tamisin an intent look through startlingly silver eyes. When Tamisin said, “Hello,” the mermaid just nodded and looked away.
The other mermaid, Pacifica, had seashell combs holding her dark blue hair back from her face. Her blue eyes sparkled when she looked at Tamisin and said, “Hi!”
“Wrap your arms around my neck and I’ll carry you,” said Kryllus.
Tamisin shook her head. “Oh, I couldn’t. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“That’s funny!” Kryllus said, and giggled. “You won’t hurt me! Mermaids are as strong as porpoises and . . . Oh, sorry, Squall.”
The silver-haired mermaid looked distressed now; Tamisin thought she saw tears in her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” said Pacifica, patting Squall’s back. “Everything will be all right.”
“Just grab hold, will you?” Kryllus told Tamisin. “She’ll be fine once we start moving.”
Kryllus turned around and Tamisin swam up behind her, wrapping her arms around the mermaid’s neck. With one powerful thrust of her tail, the mermaid took off.
Tamisin’s hands slipped and she had to fight to stay on. “Slow down!” she yelled, clutching wildly at the mermaid.
Kryllus slowed long enough for Tamisin to tighten her grip, and then they were off again, racing to deeper water, cutting across the swells so that they hit them with a whump! whump! Feeling the mermaid’s tail undulating just below her own legs, Tamisin fought to keep her body and legs as high in the water as possible. Water smacked her in the face every time she looked up, so she kept her head down, making it difficult to see anything but Kryllus’s back and long, streaming hair.
The three mermaids turned to swim side by side, moving parallel to the shore. Kryllus angled along the tops of the swells now, and Tamisin was finally able to look around. On one side the blue water stretched all the way to the horizon, where it met the sky in a long, straight line. The shoreline lay on the other side, close enough that Tamisin could see the land change from beach to rocks to cliff.
Even as they shot through the waves, Kryllus tried to tell Tamisin what they were passing. “The griffins sun themselves on those rocks,” she shouted at one point. “That’s the River Spleen where ogre captains come down to the sea in their ships,” she shouted a short time later.
Tamisin opened her mouth to speak, and got a mouthful of salt water. She turned her head to spit it out before asking, “The ogres have ships?”
The mermaid nodded. “A long time ago, they used them for raiding expeditions, but ever since Titania and Oberon conquered all the fey, the ogres have taken up more honest pursuits. Now the captains act as middlemen between the farmers and miners and the ones who buy their goods.”
The river ran across level ground and emptied into the ocean in a wide, spreading delta. A sailing ship was returning upriver, its cargo piled on an enormous dock attached to a huge wooden building. Ogres clambered over the dock and the ships tied up alongside, carrying cargo from one to the other. Tamisin was glad the mermaids didn’t try to go any closer, especially after she saw curved fins heading toward the shallower water. She’d seen enough television specials on sharks to recognize them, and had no desire to learn how mermaids and sharks got along.
After a time, Kryllus passed a long stretch of white sand beach. Patches of fog drifted over the sand, obscuring some spots while leaving others clear. Kryllus had begun to angle toward the beach when another of the sharp, piercing sounds made the mermaid turn her head. Opening her mouth, she replied with an identical sound. The other mermaids drew closer as they began to argue in shrieks and whistles, gesturing wildly as their expressions ranged from fear to sorrow to vehemence. When it was over, Kryllus shrugged and turned away from the beach to swim along the shoreline again while Squall and Pacifica raced ahead.
“What was that all about?” Tamisin asked.
“Squall and her twin sister, Tempest, grew up with a pod of porpoises. One of the porpoises is trapped on a beach near here. Tempest is taking care of him, but she just contacted Squall. Apparently the porpoise isn’t doing well, so Squall wants to go straight there.”
“The poor thing!” exclaimed Tamisin. “We should all be there helping him!”
Kryllus turned her head and gave Tamisin a curious look. “You’re an odd one, aren’t you? Fairies don’t usually care about helping anyone.”
“I’ve been noticing that I’m not like most fairies,” Tamisin replied. “How far away did you say this beach was?”
“Not too far,” Kryllus told her, and began to pick up speed.
They were going fast now, and the water hitting Tamisin hurt her face. Closing her eyes, she tucked her head down so that it was behind Kryllus. When she looked up again, the mermaid had turned toward an ordinary-looking beach where Squall, Pacifica, and another mermaid were already sitting well back from the water’s edge.
“Hold on,” said Kryllus as the water carried them to shore. When they landed next to Squall, the little bit of their wave fell to the sand in a cascade of droplets. Squall turned toward them, her long face looking even more mournful than before. Just past the mermaids, a porpoise rested in a pool of water, watching them with dark, limpid eyes.
“What’s she doing here?” asked the mermaid who looked very much like Squall but with black hair.
“This is Tempest,” Pacifica said to Tamisin. “Tempest, the princess is our guest and we must be polite.”
“Why?” the mermaid snapped. “We don’t need nosy-bodies coming around to see Swift die.”
“He’s not going to die!” wailed Squall, who threw herself into the pool so she could wrap her arms around the porpoise.
Tamisin knelt beside the pool. “How did he get trapped so far from the water?” She turned toward the mermaids in time to see Kryllus and Pacifica exchange a look.
“We don’t know,” said Tempest. “We found him like this a few hours ago.”
“We can get water to him, but we can’t get him out,” Pacifica said.
Tamisin glanced at Kryllus. “Have you tried carrying him out to sea the way you carried me? That trick you did with the water should do it.”
“That was the first thing we did,” said the mermaid.
“If you all tried it together . . .”
“We did!” declared Tempest. “But we weren’t strong enough. The water was just a drizzle by the time we got it this far.”
Tamisin nodded. “Then what you need is more water.”
“And how do you suggest we get it, Miss Know-It-All—haul it here in seashells?” said Tempest. “We need a lot of water to get him back in the ocean our way.” The mermaid was so upset that she was shaking and bright spots of pink had appeared on her pale cheeks.
“Actually, I was thinking about a storm,” Tamisin said, getting to her feet. Although she had called up storms involuntarily more than once, the only time she’d been able to do it when she wanted to had been when she was in real danger. It seemed worth a try.
Closing her eyes, Tamisin pictured a storm. She imagined roiling clouds and booming thunder and bolts of lightning heralding a deluge that would fill the little pool where the porpoise lay and wash him back out to sea. A shadow passed overhead and Tamisin looked up. The high, puffy clouds were lower now and getting thicker.
“What does she think she’s doing?” Tempest said in a surly voice.
“Give her a minute,” said Pacifica. “She’s said to be Titania’s daughter.”
“And that’s supposed to mean something?” said Tempest.
“Leave her alone, Tempest,” Kryllus told her. “At least the fairy’s trying.”
“Please do something!” pleaded Squall.
Tamisin closed her eyes again. She thought about black clouds and thunder shaking the air while rain lashed the ground below.
“Would you look at that!” said Pacifica.
Tamisin opened her eyes and held up her hand. A light breeze was actually stirring the sand. Dark clouds hung overhead, and a few fat drops plopped onto her palm. She shook her head. At this rate they would all die of old age before there was enough water to move the porpoise. The only time this had worked, the storm had come hard and fast. It had been during a battle between fairies and goblins, when her own life had been at risk. She thought about how she’d felt during the battle when she wanted the storm to come—how she’d been frightened and angry, the sense of urgency . . . Storms came when she was angry, there was no way around it. If she wanted a storm now, she’d have to get mad at someone or something.
The few clouds were dissipating when Tamisin opened her eyes and tilted her face toward the sky. She thought about the trapped porpoise and the frantic mermaids. She thought about how she’d feel if someone she loved was in danger. And then she remembered when someone she loved had been in danger. She had gone to rescue him from a cave and together they had flown out and . . .
It was right there at the edge of her mind. She did love someone, and it wasn’t Dasras. It was someone back home in the human world. Someone who loved her, too. He was the one whose name she couldn’t remember, whose face she couldn’t quite picture. Now Tamisin was mad at whoever had taken her memories from her.
Dark clouds scudded overhead as thunder rumbled and rain began to pelt her face and clothes. She had to get that life back! The air around her seemed to crackle, and she felt a tingling the length of her body, rippling along her arms and legs until her fingers and toes felt as if they were on fire. Squall squealed with delight when the rain became a deluge, just as Tamisin had pictured it. Tamisin willed the wind to grow stronger and it did, driving the rain before it so that the water engulfed the porpoise and lifted him from the pool, hurling him toward the ocean, where he plunged into the waves with a slap of his tail.