Parting Worlds - A Little Mermaid Retelling (Once Upon a Curse Book 4)

by Kaitlyn Davis

  "A story, dear boy? What kind of story?"

  "Any story."

  "One about pirates?"

  "Yes!"

  "And dragons?"

  "Yes!"

  "How about a fair maiden, too?"

  "Eww. No."

  "Why not?"

  "I want to go on an adventure."

  "Oh, Erick." The old man pauses to laugh, sending a new wave of billowing smoke across the room. His gaze drifts out the window to the dark night sky, then back toward me. "One day you'll learn that love is the greatest adventure there is. I only hope I'm still alive to see it."

  The memory dissolves.

  I return to this quiet room in this heavy castle, looking at the man who seems out of place within these stone walls now that I've seen pieces of his former home by the sea.

  I like him, I tell Erick, whispering across his thoughts.

  "He'd like you too."

  I shift closer and Erick wraps his arms around me, pulling us both down to the floor. We spend the rest of the night curled against the pillows, speaking through our memories.

  Some make us laugh, like when Erick first attached the wooden leg to Ru's tiny puppy body, and he got so excited he ran in circles for half an hour just because he could. Or the time Erick was out on a boat with his grandfather, trying to learn to fish, but the only thing he managed to hook from the bottom of the sea was the rusty anchor. Or when I first met Nymia. All the girls in my training group arrived to the sacred meadow within a few weeks of each other, only a few years old, with newly inherited magic brimming beneath our skin. We tested each other. We tested our power. There was a game I liked to play, where I grew a flower and dared the others to try to take it from me. No one could. I was faster. My magic was stronger. Maybe I was just the most iron-willed. I'm not sure, but I'd play it over and over, until one day, this little blonde girl, the quietest of the group who I'd hardly ever heard speak, walked over. She stopped a few feet before me and tilted her head to the side. I gathered my magic beneath my skin, not quite sure what she was going to do. When she opened her mouth, I thought she was planning to speak, but instead a tornado swooped through her lips to carry me away on the wind. I rolled, flipping head over heels. By the time I'd righted myself, she was standing with my flower in her hands and a wicked grin across her lips. Right then and there, I decided she was going to be my best friend, whether she wanted to be or not. But we became so much more—we became sisters.

  Most of my memories are happy and carefree.

  But the more Erick shows me of his past, the more I realize his happy moments were few and far between. When he first arrived at the castle, motherless and in a new home, his father didn't even come to greet him. He was ushered up the back stairs and into a room at the farthest end of the building, away from the royal quarters, a dirty secret. He didn’t see his father for days, and when the king finally came to his room, all he did was grip his chin, look into his eyes, and say, You look just like her. He left without another word and didn't come back for weeks. Erick had all the best tutors, like his half siblings, and all the finest things—more clothes, and weapons, and luxuries than he could've hoped for. But none of that mattered, because he was surrounded by people, yet somehow more alone than ever.

  I can't change his past, and wouldn't, because it made him the person he is today. But as the night passes, and light begins to creep across the horizon, I know one thing—I want to give him a better future. I want to be that better future. I'm just not sure how.

  Though that's never stopped me before.

  It's time, I finally tell him when the sky turns peach and we can't ignore dawn any longer.

  Erick gives me a cloak to cover my arms and face, then leads me through dark halls while the castle still sleeps, taking me to the private gardens in the back where a small fountain rests surrounded by a bed of ivy. It was the closest place he could think to find me a pool of water for the portal, but now that I'm here, I don't want to say goodbye.

  Tell me a story, I say instead, clutching his fingers, never wanting to let go. Just one more to carry with me while I'm gone.

  Erick sighs and lifts his hand to my cheek, holding me beneath my hood where the air is softly illuminated by my faerie glow. He drops his forehead against mine, so a thin piece of fabric is all that separates us, and runs his thumb along the edge of my jaw, then across my bottom lip.

  "Once upon a time," he says slowly, using an opening I've heard him speak before. It's how all my favorite stories of his, how all the joyful ones, begin. "There was a boy who lived in a castle, but always yearned for the sea. People taught him skills. People gave him gifts. But no matter who he encountered, he always felt alone, for they never quite met his eyes when they spoke, as though he were more a shadow than a man. He tried to ease his lonely heart by fixing other broken things, by building a leg for a hound deemed as less than for only being born with three, by surrounding himself with trinkets to make the walls feel less barren. He always thought that was as good as his life would get, until he was saved by a beautiful faerie who looked at him the way no one ever had before, right in the eyes, as though he were worthy of being seen."

  I lift my hand, hold his palm to my cheek, and press my lips against his skin. How does it end?

  "The boy and the faerie girl run away together. They return to his home by the sea. During the day, she tends to a garden in the backyard that makes the whole house smell sweet. At night, he takes her out on the water so they can lie beneath the stars. They don't have much, but they have each other, which is the only thing they need."

  And they have their loyal hound.

  "Oh, yes, of course him. He digs up her flowers and tracks sand all over the floor, but they love him just the same."

  And they all live happily ever after, I finish for him.

  "Yes, they do."

  That's a beautiful story.

  "It doesn’t need to be a story."

  I lean back to meet his eyes. The hood slips from my head, but I hardly notice. I'm too shocked to speak.

  "Run away with me," he pleads. "We'll take to the sea. We'll go somewhere no one will ever find us. We'll be together."

  Erick—

  "Please, Aeri, think about it. The full moon is in a week. I'll wait for you, the same place I did before. I'll wait all night. I'll wait forever if I have to. I can't keep saying goodbye."

  I can’t either.

  But I don't know how to tell him there's no place we could go where the priestesses couldn't follow. One look in the scrying water, one simple portal spell, and we'd be found out. I'm not sure what would become of us then—if I could convince the priestesses to spare his life a second time, to spare my own.

  So I just say, Okay.

  Because I can't bear to crush his hope, not yet, not with his eyes shining as bright as the sun before me. And if I'm being honest, there's a burning ember inside my heart I'm not prepared to snuff out.

  I step back and hold my palms above the water, thinking of Nymia, using her as the base for my portal spell. My sister is right where I left her. I'm not sure if she's been there all night, or if she came back as soon as dawn began to break, wondering where in the world I've been. But she's looking into a little pond of water, staring back at me, just as I suspected she would be. Together, we whisper the words for the portal spell and the door opens, crossing time and space, linking our waters like a tunnel between us.

  Erick tugs on my hand and I spin around, melting into his arms one last time. In his kiss, I see all the dreams he holds for us. As his lips move against mine, pictures flash across my mind, but one comes through the sharpest—the two of us standing with our toes in the surf, holding hands beneath the sun, staring out at a horizon full of bright possibility.

  I want it so badly.

  Even as I let him go, I hold onto that image and carefully lock it away in the safest corner of my heart. Then I dip my hand into the portal and sail through.

  When I land back in the for
est, I'm prepared to face Nymia's wrath. I'm ready for anger. I'm expecting fury. Instead, my sister throws her arms around my shoulders, buries her face against my neck, and pulls me in close.

  "Oh, thank the Mother," she murmurs with an unsteady voice. "I thought you were dead."

  "Dead?" I pull away to stare at her. "Why?"

  She shakes her head, raising her fingers to her lips, then grips my shoulders. "Don't you scare me like that again."

  "I'm sorry, Nymia. I'm so sorry. I just had to see him."

  "I thought he killed you."

  I recoil. "He would never."

  "I thought you spoke to him and broke the oath."

  "But I promised I wouldn't."

  "I thought maybe the blessing was a punishment."

  "A punishment?" I furrow my brows. "Nymia, what are you talking about?"

  "You vanished," she says, as though it's an explanation.

  "I know. I went through the portal, and I know you're mad, but I just—"

  "Not the portal," she interrupts. "I saw you go through. I saw you land on his bed. I saw you pet his dog. I saw all that, and then you gave him the blessing, and you both disappeared."

  "Disappeared?" The word sounds strange on my lips. "What do you mean?"

  "I mean I couldn't see you in the scrying water, either of you. I searched and searched and searched, but it stayed a blurred wash of colors, as though the magic couldn't find you, as though you were dead. I've been searching for hours. I really thought—" She breaks off and swallows the lump in her throat. "I was about to give up when I felt the tug of your magic on the other end of the water. I latched on, linking our power together, and then you reappeared in a garden with your human by your side as though nothing had happened."

  "I gave him the blessing and we disappeared…?" I trail off, letting the question sort of hang there as I digest her words.

  I gave Erick the blessing. I gave Erick magic. I gave a human magic. And after I did, Nymia couldn't find us in the scrying water.

  "We disappeared," I repeat, unable to stifle the awe in my tone as Erick's words whisper through my thoughts, sending my mind whirling. Run away with me. We'll take to the sea. We'll go somewhere no one will ever find us.

  I thought he was being naïve, but what if we can run away? What if we can leave these lands and take to the sea and go somewhere no one will find us? Somewhere isolated and remote? I can grow us food. He can build us a shelter. As long as we stay close to each other, no one will find us. Maybe this was Mother's true blessing all along—a way to be together.

  When I look up and see the terror still clinging to Nymia's eyes, guilt coils in my stomach. How can I be excited when she's afraid? How can I be planning to leave her when she's spent all night praying for me to come back?

  I don't know, but I am.

  The decision happens so fast, I almost gasp from the shock. The truth slams into me like a dragon at full speed, sending me reeling even as I'm rooted in place.

  I love her.

  I love Erick.

  I don't want to leave either of them, but if I must choose, I choose him. He only has one life and I won't miss it. I can't. My sister will be alive long after he's gone. Hopefully, one day she'll forgive me.

  "What happened?" Nymia asks softly, studying my gaze. For the first time, she doesn’t seem to understand what to read in my expression. My thoughts are a mystery to her, and though it pains me to even think it, I must keep them that way.

  "I don't know," I mutter, breathless and light-headed from so much happening so fast. I blink a few times, realizing she's asking about before with the blessing, not the realization currently making my mind spin. I shake my head, trying to focus on her, on right now. "I gave Erick the blessing like I told you I would, and that was it. I'm not sure why we disappeared. I didn't speak to him, but I didn’t have to. I think he knew why I came, and we spent the rest of the night saying goodbye."

  "Goodbye." Nymia frowns and her eyes harden. I think the relief of seeing me alive is beginning to subside. "Goodbye for real?"

  I nod as my throat tightens around the lie. Tears spring to my eyes, brought about at the mere thought of the goodbye I'll be saying to her in a few days. The very idea rips me in two. I don't know how to live without my sister. I don't know who I am without her. But deep down, I know it's something I need to figure out. Maybe, in the end, we'll both be better for it.

  As it is, I'm not sure how to breathe.

  "Oh, Aerewyn." She sighs and pulls me into her chest in time to catch my sob. Her kindness makes my tears flow even faster. As she holds me, running her fingers through my hair, I cling to her. We stay like that for a while, while the shadows fade and the sun rises and the new day dawns. When we finally pull apart, she wipes the water from my cheeks. "It'll be okay," Nymia whispers. "I promise."

  I put her hand to my heart and hold it there. "I know."

  "Come on." She pulls me to my feet. "We're supposed to be celebrating."

  Hand in hand, we return to the sacred meadow and slip into the throng of faeries still dancing around the eternal fire, celebrating the Mother, celebrating her magic, and most of all, celebrating each other. I hold Nymia's hand as we spin and laugh and relish in this moment, loving who we are, and what we are, and where we are, together with our kin, united in our power, connected always and forever.

  The rest of the week passes in a blur.

  I savor every moment with my sister, trying to memorize it, trying to bottle this feeling, so when I'm gone and I'm missing her, I'll have some little bit of Nymia to cling to. If she suspects anything, she doesn’t say. When she's not looking, I draw up the scrying water, searching for Erick, heart skipping a beat every time my magic fails to find him. He's still vanished. He's still gone. But at night, the moon grows fuller and fuller, reminding me that I know exactly how to find him.

  Six days turns to five, turns to four, turns to three, until the sun sets in the west and a perfectly round moon rises in the east, casting the world in silver. Suddenly, my time is up.

  "The rain always makes me think of you," I say into the silence, rolling over on my bed of moss to watch Nymia through the blades of grass swaying in the evening breeze. We're in our usual sleeping spot near the edge of the meadow, close to the forest, far from everyone else.

  At the sound of my voice, she blinks, forcing her eyes open, though I can see her dreams pulling on her thoughts, luring her away. "Huh?"

  "Oh, nothing. It’s just, when it storms, I always think of you, and I thought, well, maybe you should know that," I murmur, growing quieter with each consecutive word. If I say goodbye, she'll never go to bed. She'll never let me leave. She'll try to come too, even though that life would never make her happy. I couldn't do that to her.

  I can't say goodbye—but I can't say nothing either.

  "Of course you always think of me," she grumbles. "Who else would dance with you in the rain, if not me?"

  "No one." I smile. It’s true, and I suppose it'll be a while before I dance that particular dance again. Though it'll be comforting to know that when it storms, I can walk outside, lift my face to the sky while water pellets my cheeks, and imagine Nymia is out there somewhere doing exactly the same thing. It'll feel as if in that moment, maybe we aren’t so far apart.

  "What's this about?"

  "I was just thinking"—I cough to cover the hitch in my throat—"thinking out loud, I guess."

  "Well, don't."

  "Why not?"

  "It's weird."

  I bark out a laugh as the tension in my skin releases. I'm going to miss her so much. I already do and she's right next to me. "Isn't there something that makes you think of me?"

  "I don't know, Aerewyn. I'm too tired."

  "That's okay." I sigh softly. "Go to sleep."

  "Is everything an answer?" She pauses to yawn and rolls over on her side to face me, folding her hands beneath her cheek like a pillow. "We do everything together, so I don't know if I can pick just one. I guess if
I had to, maybe it'd be the stars? Because you're always dragging me through the forests at midnight on some grand adventure or another, and when I roll my eyes, they're always there overhead, mocking me with their mischievous twinkle, as though in cahoots with you."

  I turn and shift my gaze, looking to the full moon, then to the stars barely visible at the edges of the horizon where the shadows still cling. They used to remind me of Erick, but now that I'll be with him, maybe the constellations can bring memories of my sister. I'll draw new ones that'll write our story across the sky, filling it with happy faerie tales instead of sad human ones. "That's good. I like that."

  Silence stretches, but I know she hasn't gone to sleep. Her gaze burns my cheek. If I listen closely, I could probably hear the winds in her mind shift, spinning in a new direction, down a dark vortex she doesn't want to even consider. Just when I think she's going to forget it, she whispers my name.

  "Aerewyn?"

  I roll back over and meet her eyes, not surprised by the shift in her tone to something cautious. I feign ignorance. "Yeah, Nymia?"

  "Please don't do anything stupid."

  "Me?" I laugh, trying to calm her nerves, or my nerves, or maybe both. I should've let her go to sleep. I've never been very good at hiding the truth from my sister. From everyone else? Sure. But never from her. "Do something stupid?"

  She frowns as suspicion darkens her gaze.

  A bolt of heat shoots painfully down my chest, and I try to swallow it away. I don't want to fight. I don't want that to be her last memory of me for however long it is until we meet again.

  "Promise me, Aerewyn," she demands, voice firm.

  "I promise," I say just as clearly, telling myself it's not a lie. Because running away with Erick isn't stupid. It isn't some impulsive whim, there one second and gone the next. I'm listening to my heart, to Mother. It's the most rash, thought-out, sensible thing I've ever done.

  Still, I wait for a counter.

  It never comes.

  A few minutes pass and Nymia falls peacefully asleep. I wonder if she thinks the protection spell will keep me trapped in faerie lands. I wonder if she thinks it's safe to leave me alone with my plans because without her help, I can't make a portal.