The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea
Page 28
And that is exactly what they did.
Genevieve lay on the piece of wood, letting the sun beat down on her face as she floated. For a while, she had tried to paddle, but had quickly learned that it was only a quick way to feel hungrier, thirstier, and more desperate. And so now she just lay down, letting the seawater lap against her stinging, sunburned skin like the piece of shipwrecked refuse that she was.
The Lady Ayer was certainly dead. The Imperial ships destroyed.
All her life, Genevieve believed there was no fight the Imperials could not win. They were the strongest, smartest, and best in the world. And the only reason they’d lost this battle, she knew, was her own incompetence.
She’d seen a man pulled underwater by what was, she assumed from the blood that surfaced, a shark. How she’d survived was not a miracle. A miracle would have been a quick death. Not this long, terrible drift into the unknown that she was currently undertaking.
Just more time to contend with her overwhelming, nauseating guilt.
The Lady Ayer was dead. The finest of the Emperor’s operatives. And it was all Genevieve’s fault. For thinking she could handle Rake on her own. For her arrogance. For her foolishness.
If she was honorable, like the Lady, she’d simply tip over into the water and let herself drown. And though she thought this with metronomic regularity, she still could not muster the courage to do it.
The Imperials had lost.
A wave pushed her, then another. The wind picked up. All around her she could see the whitecaps of churning seawater. She sat up to scan the horizon.
There. In the distance.
Land.
Genevieve squinted against the sun and could not believe she had not seen it earlier. There, and not so far, not so far that she might never make it, land! Land! And even better than that, it seemed that the current was pushing her toward it.
As she drifted closer, she peered harder and could even make out the shape of the land. Then the color, which was red. Genevieve gulped. The Red Shore.
The Red Shore was not safe for Imperials, that much she knew. It was a savage and cruel country, full of cutthroats who dealt in slaves and blood magic.
But she also knew she could not survive on this piece of wood. No one was coming to save her.
And so she paddled as best she could toward land. Toward survival.
This book was written for Clare Sabry. Without her and her expansive imagination, I never would have been inspired to write it. I’m sorry it took so long. I hope it was worth the wait.
The book was finished thanks to the persistent and often bossy support of Adam Wolf. I had all but given up on writing, and it was only his unwavering belief that gave me the confidence to try again. He was with me every day as the first and second drafts were completed and suffered having many sections read aloud to him, whether he wanted to hear them or not, sometimes multiple times with only minute edits. On a related note, I’m not allowed to do that to him anymore.
Joe Wadlington was the first person other than Adam to read a completed draft and even hopped on a several-hours-long video call from San Francisco to Ecuador to discuss it and hammer out its many, many issues. I eagerly await his impending meteoric rise to fame.
Jennifer Laughran, my agent, who could have easily been a full-time editor in another life — or a hit woman — provided invaluable feedback and support. She likes to pretend she’s cranky, but she’s an expert hand-holder. And frankly, I required a lot of hand-holding.
My editor, Karen Lotz, pushed me to make the questions more complicated and the plot simpler, which I think is always perfect advice. She’s an excellent editor, and I felt so much more assured under her guidance. I have been very lucky to have such kind people to work with at Candlewick, particularly Jamie Tan in publicity and editorial liaison Lydia Abel.
I am also incredibly grateful for all the great early readers of this project: Na’amen Tilahun, Meg Elison, Ryan Boyd, Martha White, Melissa Manlove, Rachel Chalmers, Clare Light, Charlie Jane Anders, Annalee Newitz, Mel Hilario, Liz Henry, Audrey T. Williams, Sasha Hom, John Talaga, Carolyn Hart, Debby Bloch, and Justine Larbestelier.
A special added thank-you to Charlie Jane Anders, who has really thrown the ladder back down for me. She is a role model of what success should look like. The San Francisco writing community owes her a great debt.
This manuscript was edited almost entirely within the walls of The Ruby coworking space in San Francisco, and the first draft was finally completed during National Novel Writing Month 2016.
The very early, very weird, and mostly scrapped versions of this story were written during my time with Books Inc., the West’s oldest independent bookseller and my forever store. Not all communities are lucky enough to have an indie bookseller, but if you do, please support them. Without them, the literary community would be much the poorer.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or, if real, are used fictitiously.
Copyright © 2020 by Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Map and wave illustration copyright © 2020 by Rita Csizmadia
Cover illustration copyright © 2020 by Victo Ngai
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in an information retrieval system in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, taping, and recording, without prior written permission from the publisher.
First electronic edition 2020
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number pending
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