The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea

by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

  “What does that mean?”

  “To believe.” Xenobia squeezed her hand reassuringly. “Can you do this? Can you open the gates of your mind and welcome these stories into your truth?”

  What she did not say was that as soon as Flora had made her choice, but even before she had spoken it aloud, the witch had taken her price from Flora. Flora could feel it, feel something loosen inside of her and disappear. But she could not say what it was, and could not remember it.

  And just as she felt it leave, she forgot that it had existed at all.

  All she could think of was the witch’s promise.

  To be powerful.

  Free.

  “Yes,” Flora said.

  “Good.” Xenobia’s eyes glittered in the candlelight. She leaned forward so that her long pearl necklace draped forward, dangling. “Then sit quietly, and I will tell you the first story every witch should know. Of the First Witch and her power, and the price she paid for us all.”

  A thousand years ago, the First Witch stole the moon.

  Without it, men lost their way in the night and were gone. The tide all but disappeared, angering the Sea. And everywhere, babies howled for mother’s milk that would not come.

  Everyone cried out against the chaos the First Witch had caused. They begged their queen to stand up to this wicked woman.

  “Get us back the moon!” the people howled, and the queen listened.

  She was a fair queen, and she was young. She had only recently bled for her first time, only just sat upon the throne in Barilacha. She was beautiful, with long black hair and skin like the Sea at twilight — smooth and perfect. And so her people loved her, for youth and beauty and fairness was all they had ever wanted in a queen.

  “I will get you the moon!” she promised. And her people believed her.

  The queen ordered all her best men out into her streets, to find the First Witch and to bring her before the court. And so the men turned over the country, lifted every rock, opened every door. They stormed every home, entered every stable, but to no avail. They could not find the witch.

  They told the queen, and she despaired.

  “I would give anything to retrieve the moon!” she cried. The queen sat alone at her chamber window, brushing her long black hair. Above her, the night sky listened, bleak, black, and lonesome without the moon.

  But that night, the sky was not the only one listening. So, too, was the First Witch.

  She appeared to the queen in her chambers. On seeing her, the queen was greatly angered.

  “How dare you steal the moon!” she shouted. “I command you to put it back where it belongs!”

  The First Witch was an old woman, much older than the queen. Her back was stooped with the weight of her many years, her eyes lined with the passage of her many days.

  “For a price,” the First Witch said, for this was her way and is the way of all witches.

  “I would give you whatever you like,” the queen said. “Gold. Goats. A ship. Name your price.”

  The First Witch thought long into the night. As she waited, the queen brushed her hair until it shone, as smooth and perfect as her skin.

  Finally, the First Witch decided. “I shall take your hair,” she said. The queen agreed, and the First Witch cut the queen’s hair, which was lovely and long.

  She cut it until there was nothing left. Then the First Witch ate the queen’s hair.

  As she did, the moon rose into the sky. And as she did, the First Witch became beautiful. The wrinkles fell from her skin. Her back straightened.

  When she was done, it was morning, and the First Witch was young again, and beautiful.

  More beautiful than the queen, who was bald.

  The queen greeted her people, to tell them the good news. She had gotten them the moon!

  But her people recoiled at her bald head.

  “But you are ugly now!” they cried. They saw the wrinkles she had formed in her worry, saw the way she hunched under the pressure of her rule, and they recoiled from her. She looked as the First Witch had looked, bent with age and burden.

  “But I have gotten you the moon!” she cried.

  The people ignored her.

  Instead, they bowed at the First Witch’s feet. They crowed of her beauty and her fairness. For she had given them back the moon. She was as kind and fair as she was beautiful, they said.

  “But she stole the moon!” the queen cried.

  No one listened.

  “They have forgotten,” the First Witch told her. “They prefer a story of beauty. And we have traded stories, my queen. This was my price.”

  In her rage, the queen ordered the First Witch to be burned. And though the people wept and they protested, the queen still saw this punishment done.

  And forevermore, the queen was remembered as she was the day the witch was burned: cruel and ugly. Unjust and covetous of the beautiful young witch whose power the queen could not match, even in ordering her dead.

  And forevermore, the First Witch’s sacrifice and cleverness, her trickery and her wisdom, was both the price and the gift of all witches.

  The more they gave, the higher the price. That was their power, but it was their burden as well.

  It was not hard to spot him. With a retinue of servants surrounding him, Commander Callum had the bearing to match his title. He was handsome in the way that Evelyn could appreciate in an objective sense — a hard-cut jaw and a strong chin, his black hair generously streaked with gray at the temples and tied neatly at the nape of his neck. He was older than Evelyn, with well-carved lines in the corners of his eyes, but he wasn’t old. He sat at a great wooden table in the center of a great round room. It was just like the 900th Emperor’s great hall. If she turned left and followed the long corridor to its conclusion, she’d likely find the calligrapher’s library.

  Through the skylight, the moonlight shone down on him, and he looked the way Imperial Guardsmen were supposed to look: cold, impassive, and imposing.

  He looked up as Evelyn walked in. Though she could tell he looked at her, their eyes did not connect. He looked instead to the young lieutenant, who saluted him.

  “Commander Callum, sir. We have brought the Lady Hasegawa.” His voice was different now, less sure than when he had been the commanding officer. He was scared of Callum; that much Evelyn could see.

  “That remains to be seen.” Callum’s voice was deep, reverberant. Though he spoke quietly, the sound of him cut across the room, and the various soldiers and servants — all before attending to this task or that — fell silent.

  “Mr. Callum,” Evelyn said. She swallowed her despair. She could not return to Florian if she were dead. “Commander. It is a pleasure to meet you.” She bowed, the low and proper bow of a lady meeting her fiancé. And even without her shoes, without a good night’s rest, she knew she had done it gracefully, correctly. Her mother may have hated her, but she had taught her etiquette well.

  But Callum only grunted. “Where’d you find her, Inouye?”

  The young lieutenant stood straighter. “On the cliffs, Commander. We received a tip from a citizen there that the Lady Hasegawa was in her care.”

  “Leave.”

  It was unclear to Evelyn who the command was meant for, but every servant and soldier in the room cleared as though there had been a fire. But when Inouye made to leave, Callum raised his hand, bidding him stay. The young man did, and soon only he, Callum, and Evelyn were left in the enormous room, under the soft silver light of the moon.

  Callum stood. He was tall, taller than he had seemed sitting down, his posture stiff as that of a soldier. He stepped purposefully toward Evelyn, looking her up and down. She looked a mess, and she knew it. Her cold, bare feet ached under her. A good man might have offered her tea. Or a warm bed. But Callum only walked a slow circle around her, judging her.

  “The citizen,” Inouye said, “had a bracelet she’d received in payment for lodging from the Lady. It bears the crest of the Hasegawa family o
n its clasp.” He was talking too fast, talking as a boy talks to a man. Who was this Finn Callum her parents had sent her to?

  “Did you steal that bracelet?” Callum hissed in Evelyn’s ear. She had not realized he’d gotten so close to her. Much to her embarrassment, she felt herself flinch at his breath against her skin.

  “No!” Anger flared inside her, the flames of it licking her cheeks, burning red circles into them. “That was my bracelet, and my mother’s bracelet before me. I am Evelyn Hasegawa, sir.” She let her voice carry loud and clear in the cavernous room, let it echo off the walls. Let her fury penetrate the stones. “And I have never been thus treated in my whole life. You and your men should be ashamed.”

  Inouye visibly cowered at her speech. Good, Evelyn thought.

  But Callum only stepped around so that he faced Evelyn head-on, too close. She had to crane her neck to meet his eyes, which burned down on her with indifference.

  “I believe you are an interloper.” He enunciated each word carefully, slowly. And in turn, each word felt like a punch to Evelyn’s gut. “The Lady Hasegawa was not meant to arrive for another month. And yet, here you are, a dirty little girl who is both too early and too crass.” He reached down, lifted Evelyn’s chin with his thumb. His skin was cold and dry, and his touch sent shivers of fear through her whole body. “Do you know what the punishment is for pretending to be Imperial nobility, child?”

  “Sir, if I may —” Inouye interjected, but Callum shot him a disapproving glare, silencing the young man immediately.

  Evelyn did know the punishment.

  Death.

  “Please. We are meant to be wed. An arrangement made by my father, the Lord Kazuo Hasegawa, just after my sixteenth birthday. Your consent to his offered dowry came in the spring. He offered you two thousand gold pieces, along with the right of inheritance of his name and his rank in his passing.”

  Callum narrowed his eyes at Evelyn.

  “Clever. But that does not prove anything. You could just be a lady’s maid with a fine ear for detail.”

  “My father,” she said hurriedly. “He does not seal his letters with the balloon-flower crest of his father. He uses, instead, the Imperial lion, befitting his former rank in the Guard.”

  At this, Callum blinked just once. It was, she realized, the most she’d seen his face move without speech.

  “How did you get here.” It was less a question, more a command, which Evelyn fractionally obeyed. She told him of the Dove, and of its true purpose. Told him that, among others, the Lady Ayer was still aboard the Dove, still at risk. Told him that she had escaped, but did not tell him with whom. Told him she had washed upon the shore of Barilacha and been taken to the witch for care.

  “Witch?” Callum interjected.

  “There are no more witches,” Inouye said, the anger in his voice unmasked.

  But Evelyn could not tell the men of her evidence, not without compromising Florian. “It was only what she said, sir, and I think she only said it to frighten me.” Evelyn bowed her head, doing her best to look like a chastised child. “It worked, sir.”

  “You mean to tell me,” Callum said after a long, terrifying pause, “that you lowered a rowboat from a galleon into the sea, then rowed and swam your way to the Floating Islands. On. Your. Own.” His voice was venom.

  “A sailor aboard the Dove helped me lower the boat. Otherwise, yes.” She knew how improbable her story sounded, how silly. But if this was how she was treated — a lady of Imperial nobility — then what would Callum do to Florian? Florian was, at best, an urchin. At worst, a pirate. And the Imperial Guard did not take kindly to either, even if they had proven helpful to nobility.

  She would not lead Callum — cold, cruel Callum — to Florian.

  Not now, not ever.

  So she held herself straight and looked into Callum’s eyes. She would not let him see her fear. She would not give him Florian.

  “Take her to the east wing,” Callum told Inouye. “Her tale is impossible; no one could survive the voyage from the middle of the sea to Barilacha in a rowboat. Her evidence is interesting but is not enough. See her barred in her chambers, and guard the door yourself.”

  He looked then to Evelyn. In one smooth movement, he wrapped his hand about her neck so that his thumb pressed against her windpipe with just enough pressure to send chills of panic through her.

  “You will stay in those chambers, miss. Until I say otherwise.”

  Then he released her, turned on his heel, and was gone, his footsteps echoing down a stone corridor.

  Inouye led Evelyn through the serpentine halls. They seemed unending, echoing infinitely, the sound of their footfalls lonely in the otherwise silent night. There had been so many servants and soldiers, but they had all but disappeared.

  The keep was most certainly built in the style of the 900th Emperor. Evelyn could see the traces of it everywhere, from the tidy way the sconces were bound to the walls to the gray tiled floors. Each of the innumerable tiles was painted with intricate gray vines, to represent the 900th Emperor’s vast network of spies. She wondered if, like the Emperor’s temple, Commander Callum’s keep also boasted the secret passages the Emperor had used for spying.

  If she was any judge of character, she imagined it did.

  “You’ll be comfortable here,” Inouye said.

  His voice was quiet, a low, secretive whisper. Evelyn looked into the young man’s face and was a little surprised by the earnestness she found. He quirked one side of his lips, a hint of a smile, and then was the good soldier once more.

  “My feet are cold,” Evelyn replied. Which was true. They ached from the long walk, not helped now by the chilly route to her room. It seemed colder inside the keep than outside.

  “Of course, my lady. We’ll see that you’re well outfitted posthaste.”

  “And they ache.” It was not in her nature to complain so, but she wanted to make Inouye feel bad, wanted to see the sting of guilt on his face. It would not make her feel better, not really, but it’d at least spread her discontent so that she did not bear the burden of it alone.

  He looked at Evelyn, and she could practically hear the creaking gears of his mind churning. It was cruel to complain to him, she knew. He only followed orders. He was only a cog in a much larger machine. But she had not the patience for empathy after her long night. After Callum’s interrogation.

  Still, the spot where Callum had touched her neck echoed with the fear he’d caused her.

  “It’s been a terrible night,” she added. And she was shocked to hear the tinge of tears in her voice. She tried her best to push them down entirely, but it seemed the harder she tried to keep the feeling at bay, the more insistently she felt it.

  “For what it’s worth,” Inouye said, “I believe you.”

  “It’s not worth anything, clearly. He did not ask you.”

  And Inouye had not tried to defend her. Not while Callum berated her. Not when he grabbed her neck. Callum could have killed Evelyn right in front of Inouye, and he would have let it happen.

  Inouye looked stung. Good.

  “Here,” he said. And suddenly, without asking, he scooped Evelyn into his arms so that he carried her, like a child, like a thing, like some lopsided sack of grain. It was so inappropriate, so uncomfortable, so intrusive that for several paces she was simply too shocked to react. Inouye clearly took her silence for appreciation and smiled his stupid, earnest smile at her. “There. That better?”

  The ice in Evelyn’s voice was painful even to her. “I prefer to walk.”

  Inouye slowed but did not put her down.

  “Please. Put. Me. Down.”

  She did not relish confrontation. But he had not even given her a chance to say no. And his presumption was the last stone on the pile that broke her. She could not take it, not anymore.

  Inouye put her down, but he did not dare meet her eyes again.

  “I thought — your feet?”

  Evelyn did not reply. She did not
trust herself. It would not do to berate the man who was to guard her. If she was to prove herself a fine Imperial lady, she needed to start acting the part.

  But one did not simply lift an Imperial lady. Not without permission. Inouye should have known better.

  They walked on in silence.

  When they got to Evelyn’s chambers, Inouye gave a polite bow and then wordlessly locked her inside.

  With the passengers all stowed tightly in the brig, Rake had a cabin to himself. Usually, he rejected this luxury, choosing instead to remain among the men. It didn’t do to lead from afar. But this time, he surprised everyone by accepting the offer.

  He did enjoy silence. And anyway, these were not his men, not truly. Though there were more than a couple of competent sailors aboard the ship, their impending doom didn’t sadden him, exactly, so much as irritate him. They were useful men. Men of use were hard to find.

  But then. So it goes. So it went. So it always was, that good men should pay the price for the bad.

  He’d claimed the Lady Ayer’s cabin as his own. Not because it was stuffed to the gills with pillows. He’d thrown most of them to the men to use in their hammocks.

  No one in the world required more than one pillow, as far as Rake was concerned. Let alone a bookcase.

  No, he’d chosen the Lady’s cabin in the hope that she might return.

  She’d evaded capture for nearly a week now. She was no normal noblewoman. He’d heard, long ago, that noble Imperial ladies were trained in swordplay. He had doubted the verity of it. He’d met an awful lot of Imperial ladies who died at the end of a sword, begging for their knees to be bound. That hideous Imperial tradition. As though the humiliation of spread legs was worse than death.

  If he could turn her in to the captain, though. He could remind him of his purported loyalty. He could be of use, and as such above suspicion. The captain did not seem terribly bothered by the Lady’s absence, but then he never took women seriously. This one was trained; Rake would bet his life on it.