Between the Sea and Stars

Chapter 3

3Lena darted her newly crafted spear into the sandy ocean floor, startling a brightly colored crab, which scuttled from its hiding place beneath a layer of rock and sand.

She chucked the spear again, sending the creature scampering into a stony crevasse as quickly as its claws could muster.

She groaned. Her arm was sore and her pack was nearly empty. The morning was not turning out to be a plentiful one.

Exasperated, she tugged her spear free and settled upon the soft sea bed, tucking her aquamarine tail underneath her. She laid the spear at her side and lifted her fingertips to the conch hooked around her neck by a thin string of braided kelp. With curious violet eyes she examined the conch again, raising it from between her breasts and twirling it slowly between her forefinger and thumb. From end to end, it was perfectly intact, vibrantly pink, and glassy-smooth as the inner nest of an oyster.

There was something extraordinary about the little shell, something Lena couldn’t quite put her finger on. She tilted it to her ear, marveling at how it hollowed the sounds of the sea—kelp rustling, fins slicing through the gentle current, a lone whale calf singing in the distance, searching for its pod.

She smiled. Perhaps this was the queen’s shell. Was there really so much harm in pretending?

On a sigh, she imagined what Javelin would say: Doubtful. It’s just a story, Lena.

Lena rolled her eyes. For most, the whispered legend of the queen served as a warning against humans and their dry, waterless world. A story to smother the wonder and angst from a young merrow’s girlish imagination.

Lena had never quite fit in with the other merrow women. Had never slipped starfish into her hair and batted her eyes at the handsome mermen in town, or dreamed of a tidy, cavern home to call her own. She’d always wanted something. . . more.

Now, she tilted her gaze to the glittering surface. She clutched the shell in her palm as a painful yearning seized her heart. Had the queen felt this way, long ago? Was that why her eyes had wandered to the shore? Why her heart had been so easily romanced by a human lover?

On an exhale, Lena unfurled her fingers, letting the conch collapse against her chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a crab crawl out from beneath a large clamshell, its speckled back still blanketed by sand.

With her spear, she pierced its shell and skewered it. The crab’s blue legs writhed as she tore its largest claw from its body. This would serve as a meal, and the other crabs collected would be saved for her trip home.

As she sucked the white meat from the crab’s hard shell, Lena caught sight of a hazy figure moving toward her. She lowered her spear to her scaly lap and strained to see who it might be. It certainly wasn’t Javelin, who’d gone to the far side of Sogen Hav to scavenge. This figure seemed to be frail, perhaps elderly, slow-moving and hunchbacked. Her tail was silvery white, a faded, ashen shade.

“Don’t be alarmed!” the merrow woman called, her voice curdled by age. She raised a rigid arm in greeting and signaled for Lena to wait.

Lena tugged the crab from the end of her spear. Perhaps this older merrow simply required food. Javelin might scold her for giving away her sparse catch, but she’d caught enough yesterday to tide them over till morning. She could always rise early and hunt for breakfast before the dawn.

“May I come sit with you?” the merrow woman asked. Her sagging skin was adorned by worn and crumbling shells. Barnacles sprawled over her collarbone and clung to her breasts. Twisted strands of kelp were wrapped around each of her arms, from shoulder to wrist.

Lena nodded, her curious gaze drifting over the sickly yellow tint of the stranger’s complexion. With a small tilt of her chin, she gestured the woman to a large boulder nearby.

“A hunter, I see.” The merrow woman’s thin lips curled into a smirk. She brushed a wisp of dark gray hair from her face and raised a brow at Lena’s spear.

“Are you hungry?” Lena asked, and extended the half-eaten crab to her.

With fragile, bony fingers, the woman took the offered meat. She pressed the shell to her lips and began to suck on the textured meal, slipping it from its hard compartment.

“Thank you,” she said between mouthfuls. She cracked the shell against the boulder and pushed the remnants in between her teeth. “You’re a fair one, kaereste.” Dearest. “Fairer than most of the maidens here in Sogen Hav.” She lifted a finger to Lena’s cheek.

Instinctively, Lena jerked away. Other merrows might blush at the remark, but Lena had never spent much time in front of a mirror. Beauty had no bearing upon her ability to provide for her family. It didn’t matter if her skin was rich or fair, so long as she was swift with her spear, and strong.

“You remind me of a woman I used to know,” the old merrow continued, lapping the inner shell with her tongue. “She was powerful and beautiful. Brave, too. . . so unlike the women who flit about in our seas.”

“Who was she?” Lena slipped her fingers absently over her throat. She watched the woman with bridled caution, unable to resist a story.

The woman gave the crab one last slurp, then discarded its empty shell on the sandy floor. She adjusted herself on the boulder, sliding her fingers over the muted, gray scales of her tail.

“The former queen,” she said, her voice low. “Mette.”

Lena’s eyes widened with surprise. “You knew the queen?” she gasped.

The woman smirked. “So, you know the tale then, hmm? It’s beautifully sad, isn’t it? A queen betrayed by the land she loved so much, and banished from the sea.”

“Banished?”

The woman tilted her chin back with a hearty laugh. Her spindly fingers lifted again, dashing after Lena’s long brunette strands. She curled Lena’s hair around her forefinger and pulled, drawing her near.

“The king knew his daughter’s heart lived not beneath the waves, but above, where the sun glistens high in the sky.”

Lena watched the merrow’s hand drift up, gesturing toward the tumbling, foam-crested waters overhead.

She swallowed. That same longing lurked in her own heart—a secret wish to swim ashore and see the world of sky and sun.

“Mette never belonged here,” the woman sneered. “Poseidon’s magic allowed her to live on land and swim freely beneath the sea. The moon was her only keeper. The whole world was hers for the taking. But in the end, she wasted her gift.”

“She fell in love,” Lena said quietly.

“Love,” the woman scoffed, finally releasing Lena’s hair. “The sea knew Mette could no longer belong to its people. Her heart had betrayed the water, and the sea changed the heart of the man she loved, causing him to l**t for more than the softness of her body. He wanted her strength. Her power. Love can never protect a merrow from a human’s greed.”

“He tried to steal her shell,” Lena interjected.

The old merrow’s smirk changed into a full smile. Her decaying teeth showed yellow between her shriveled lips. Her gaze shifted lower. Lena fluttered her fingertips nervously over the conch, tracing its shallow, spiraling grooves.

“He tried,” the woman murmured. “He spilled her blood on the sand. The blood of a merrow is power, kaereste. Mette’s lover may not have possessed her shell, but he stole from her nonetheless. He stole her power, her life. Her years became his.”

Lena furrowed her brow. She’d never heard this part of the story before. She stiffened as the woman’s fingers traveled to the conch and plucked it up for examination.

“How? How could he do that? How…”

“A taste of our blood, dearie,” the woman mocked. “There are rumors that, as the queen dissolved into the sea, her lover began to eat her alive.”

Lena’s lips curled in disgust. Could it be true? Was this the real reason the king had barred the merrow people from ever interacting with humans?

She shook her head. It couldn’t be. A man eating a merrow? The woman’s dark eyes burned bright with the thrill of her tale.

She’s only trying to get a rise out of me, Lena decided. Perhaps she has nothing better to do.

“I thank you for the meal, kaereste.” The merrow pushed herself up from the boulder. She opened her palm, displaying a glittering selection of long, obsidian shards.

“For your kindness,” she explained, and pressed the shards into Lena’s hand. Her pruned fingers drifted over Lena’s hair, then withdrew with a start, as if she’d been stung by a jellyfish.

“Be careful of your curiosity, kaereste,” she said, dropping her husky voice to a whisper. “Danger lurks beyond the sandy crusts of the shore. All merrows know that. But danger lurks here too, in the deepest parts of Sogen Hav. And here,” she tapped Lena’s conch—a brusque, urgent gesture, “. . . right around your pretty neck.”

Lena stared dumbly at the obsidian pieces glaring up from her flattened palms. It was a small fortune, surely more than anyone in Sogen Hav could afford to freely give.

She parted her lips to refuse the gift, but when she peered up again, the woman was gone. In her place, a school of dark-teal fish hurried by, and three brightly colored crabs gathered in the sand.

Lena whipped her gaze back and forth, confused, trying to determine where the woman had gone. But there was no trace of her. Not even the gouge of her tail against the soft, ocean floor.

Baffled, she shook her head and pushed her spear into the outer shells of the three lingering crabs. She slipped them into her bag. A small catch, but it would certainly make up for the time she’d spent with the odd woman. The thick shards of obsidian would do well at the market when Javelin next returned.

With a kick of her tail, she launched away from the boulder. The shards and crab shells rattled together in her pack as she began to swim home.

How strange, for such a brittle old woman to carry such riches, or to depart so quickly. Lena knit her brow. Why had she never heard the old merrow’s version of the legend before? Had she made it up?

Why would anyone fabricate such a gruesome end to the queen’s tragic tale?

Uneasiness sloshed at the pit of Lena’s stomach as images circled through her mind: Mette’s lover, knee-deep on the wet, scarlet shore, slurping the queen’s blood from her veins. Scooping out her innards with his hands. Gnawing on her bones.

Irritation prickled her skin. Her favorite story was ruined now, twisted into something unsavory, and for what? The sick amusement of an old woman? A few minutes of twisted glee?

But what if it was true?

She shoved the merrow’s curdled voice out of her head, determined to erase the whole, strange encounter from her memory.

But as she swam, she was almost sure she heard the soft murmuring of kaereste drifting through the current of sea.