Dance of the Mermaids

Chapter 5 - Unspoken Traumas

Alexander

"How was your little ball, Evan?" asked our father, King Ivan.

"It was as it should be, with beautiful women, spirits, and a broken nose, and a black eye from my own brother," Evan's voice was cheerful, belying what he was telling our father. He even gave me a wink and a toast. I scoffed and shook my head in annoyance.

"So, what's this all about, Alexander?" my father asked, his face stern but not outraged as I thought he would be.

"He was badgering a young lady who wanted to go home. Evan wanted her to stay at the ball and entertain him," I muttered, narrowing my eyes at my brother.

"Oh, Father. Did you hear what I just said? He did this," Evan said, pointing at his face with one finger.

"I can see that," Father said drily. "I'm glad that Alex now knows how to fight."

"Are you damn serious?" my brother's eyes bulged at what our father had just said.

"Watch your mouth when you are talking to me, boy. What were you doing with that young lady? If you compromise her, what will happen to our plans of having your marry Countess Elena!"

"Was that even our plan, Father? Or yours alone?"

"What else could you want? She is young, beautiful, wealthy, and titled. Where else can we get that nowadays? Who was that young woman, anyway?"

I sighed. Conversations such as these could go on and on. The two of them were too much alike. At least that was what I felt, although I was the one who looked like Father more.

"I met her by the sea," came the smug reply.

I could swear my father paled when he heard Evan mention the sea.

"B-by the sea?" he sounded like he was choking.

"Yes! She was dancing."

"Dancing, Evan? Really? You were already drunk when you went out for your little walk," I reminded him.

"She was!" he looked indignant. I knew him enough to believe him. Usually, there was a defiant look on his face when he was lying. I knew him well enough. But what did I know? We had been drifting apart.

"Evan, listen. It does not matter if she was dancing, swimming, or tumbling; leave any other woman alone. Focus your energies on courting the countess. Call on her."

"I don't want to see her."

"She is a beautiful young woman. What are you complaining about, boy?"

"Father, it's not as if he does not like how the countess looks. He does not like being told what to do," I said drily.

It was Evan's turn to narrow his eyes at me. We had never seen eye to eye, not since Mother died. It was as if her absence had drawn a wedge between us. He looked so much like her, but I could not make myself feel the same affection.

Something changed.

I was not sure if it was him – or if it was me.

It was also surprising that my father seemed to have taken my side this time. I could almost see the pleasure in his eyes when he heard about me hitting Evan. He had always wondered about my predilections and hated how I preferred hiding in my room.

Wine and other spirits.

They united the three of us. Evan drank to have fun, partying with his friends and taking their pleasure in questionable quarters with women of the night. I guessed Father was not too opposed to such women. He was more afraid of young maidens who might demand marriage when placed in a delicate situation.

I wanted to tell him that he needed not to worry. A mermaid would not want marriage from my brother.

But what did she want?

Why was she at the ball?

Mermaids could not be trusted. There must be something that she wanted from them – more than the ball, more than the drink, which she obviously could not handle.

"Father, Mother's death anniversary is almost here," I said, the words spilling out. With no control. I was not thinking about the repercussions.

"W-what?" he asked, startled that someone would dare say anything about his deceased wife.

"I – I just thought of her and how people say that mermaids were to blame for her death."

"Mermaids! What else do you think could have done it? Mermaids make our lives miserable, Alexander! I thought you had a better brain on your shoulders than your brother over here."

"Well, Father, what a lovely thing to say!" my brother protested, widening his eyes at me. It was almost like we were kids again, and we both could not understand what our father was griping about.

I could not focus on Evan, seeing that our father had turned a bright red and his hands pressed on his chest as if he could not breathe.

"Father? Are you alright?" I rose from my chair and went to his side. I was seated to his left, being the younger son.

"I'll be fine, Alex. My chest. It's just-," he groaned.

Evan and I helped him get back to his room. It was a slow and agonizing process, and he looked like it was more than what I said. Father had been mourning Mother for years, but there was something more. The pallor on his face and the constant chest pains showed up more than usual of late.

Evan and I helped him in his bed. We had the court physician rush to the room immediately. Ernest lived in the palace grounds with his family. When we were content that Father was stable, Evan and I left the room.

"Really, Alex? You know that remembering Mother would put him in such a state?"

"Do you think that's all that this is about? He has not been well physically. Memories of Mother should no longer leave him winded each time. It had been a long time."

"That's not for you to say. Some people do not get over the past," Evan grounded out. I was astonished at the emotions in his voice. He meant it. At that moment, I knew that even my brother was still not over Mother's death. Here I thought that only I who still wallowed in the loss. The drinking and the carelessness seemed to have been powered by more intense suffering. The knowledge of this did not take away the growing hostility between us.

"When is this family going to -" I stopped myself there.

I was about to ask when we would all get over this and move forward. None of us had. We had no answers, only several questions. Nobody wanted to consider the other possibilities that Mother might have -.

The mermaids did it.

***

In the afternoon, I walked to the shore barefooted. I wore a loose white point collar work shirt and trousers that I had rolled up almost to my knees. Walking on the sand soothed me. I enjoyed feeling my feet sink a little into it, digging in but not going through. The soles of my feet felt like they were being massaged.

Seagulls squawked from above, barely making a formation. There was an attempt at a V, but some birds had swooped down and taken their fill while others still seemed happy being in the air. Fish that darted up by the water surface seemed eager to die.

In my hand was another bottle of rum from the West Indies. Our father would sometimes bring us there for much-needed sunshine when I was younger. Since Mother's death, we had not visited, but some of Father's merchants still traded there. Spices, silk, sugar, and rum were some of the most common products we acquired. Unlike the surrounding kingdoms, we did not trade in slaves. My Father did not believe in owning any human being and harboring hate for different peoples. However, he hated mermaids. For him, they were deadly fish. There was a time he wanted to hunt them, kill or enslave them. However, an incident not long after my mother's death had resulted in the beheading of a merman. The fishermen returned with a few of the merman's body parts, gleeful at their find.

I could still remember their excitement even after all this time.

"Your Majesty," one of them called out while my father wandered about on the beach, seemingly lost and disoriented. Those days, he would spend a lot of them by the shore, still waiting for Mother. "Look! We had a bit of revenge for your sake."

Evan had recoiled then, but there was a flare of anger in his eyes. I had been frozen watching the fishermen lay some bloody pieces on the sand like an offering.

"Get that away from me!" my father had yelled. "Get those away from my sons!"

The memory of the flesh and blood that seemed more human than fish still stayed with me. There were nights when I still dreamed about how the fishermen dumped the parts like ordinary trash. I would wake up trashing, a scream half-formed in my throat. As the years went by, alcohol dampened some of the memories until they faded, and my chest hardened with time.

"Your Highness?" a little girl's voice broke into my reverie.

"Yes?"

I turned to see a little girl of about ten, looking at me with haunting eyes. She had long black hair that reached her hips. Strands of green hair framed her face. I wondered if her mother had somehow dyed the hair of someone so young. She had pale eyes, the color of the sea when several plants soared to meet its surface. Green, but with hints of blue.

"Have you heard about the recent attacks?"

"Attacks?"

"Mermaids have attacked men on the shore by the village," reported the girl, but her voice was calm and almost melodic.

She was referring to the village only 10 kilometers away from the palace. Judging from her tattered dress, she might be from there. But what was she doing near the palace on her own?

"What happened to the men?" I asked, amazed at how the girl kept her composure, with her impassive face and straight posture.

"Some of them died, and some are wounded."

"Then, I would like to talk to the survivors."

"Oh, they won't have much time left," she declared. Her voice sounded like it belonged to the sea wind, just like the seagulls' squawking and the waves crashing on the shore. I did not know how I ended up with that conclusion.

"I still want to see them. Maybe you can ask your father or whoever to bring them to the palace? Or I can send one of my father's men to talk to the survivors."

"Have you thought about what you can do to protect yourself and your father from the sea?" she asked, instead, ignoring my question. I noted how she never mentioned my brother, but I decided that the girl was just a troublesome child who wanted to play pranks. I could not be sure about whatever else she had said.

"Little girl, you need to tell me where those men are. I want to know what they saw."

"But you don't want to know what you should do to protect yourself from the evil that rises from the sea?"

"What do you know about mermaids, little girl? Aren't you too young to be thinking about fighting them? Killing them?"

"I didn't say anything about killing them. You did," she said, a smile playing on her lips. It chilled me more than the sight of Fiorentina transforming into her natural form did. Fiorentina. I remembered her name. Now, a little girl was giving me a way to protect myself from her.

"What then? How do I protect myself, my father, and my brother?" I queried, putting an emphasis on the last word, which the little girl neglected.

"You can kill it with a bronze dagger," the girl said, gesturing with her hand. Suddenly, a dagger manifested in her palm. She clenched her fist around it. The expression on her face was too adult. Too sinister. "You can behead her with a sword or puncture her lungs until she drowns in her own blood."

"Wait a minute. I want to kill all the merfolks I could, but where did you get the dagger? Why are you walking around with it?"

Just like that, she disappeared. The bronze dagger fell on the sand. It waited for me to pick it up. So, I strode towards it, bent one knee to pick it up and examine it. The dagger was sharp, and the bronze hilt had intricate images of merfolks and fire. Who was that little girl? Could she be an ordinary villager? She might not even be a child.

Holding the dagger in one hand, I gazed at the sea. It was beginning to get dark, to my surprise. I left the palace not too long after the midday meal. Surely, it could not be twilight yet.

Then, as I gazed into the horizon, I thought I saw a head break through the water's surface. It had long black hair and the face of an angel. I blinked, and it was gone.