Between the Sea and Sky (10 page)

Chapter Sixteen

Dosia was the only other member of the family who really knew Alan. Tormy had occasionally swum to the island to fetch Esmerine and Dosia for supper, but she was still little when Alan stopped coming. Esmerine’s parents had only seen Alan once or twice and mostly ignored him. They weren’t so unkind as to forbid Esmerine from seeing him, but since other merfolk made disparaging comments about the friendship, it had been a source of embarrassment they didn’t want to encourage.

She wished she had some way of warning Alan, at least. She dutifully led her family to the island, but her movements felt mechanical, and her chest was tight with anxiety.

As they neared, Merry suddenly shot up to the surface to try to get a look at him. Tormy followed in her wake. Esmerine jerked an arm out to stop them, then stopped. What was the point? They would all meet him one way or another.

“Did he see us?” Tormy said, diving back down.

“I don’t think so. But maybe.”

“He looks awfully odd.”

“Esmerine, did you really fly on his
back
?”

Put like that, it sounded terribly naughty.

“It’s too bad we have to meet him on land,” her mother said. “How will we look to him, as he
looms
over us?”

“Maybe we should change into legs,” her father said, although he was barely capable of walking and Esmerine couldn’t recall her mother ever forming legs. It was something mermaids usually “grew out of.”

“No, no,” Esmerine said. “Alan is used to people wearing clothes.” If they all came limping out naked, she’d never get over the embarrassment. “I’ll—tell him not to loom.”

No one wanted to come out of the water anyway. They poked their heads up as a group, close enough that Alan had to notice them. He started to get up, but Esmerine cried, “No, it’s all right, stay seated! My family just wanted to meet you before we leave.”

She had never seen Alan look so nervous. Between his bare feet and rumpled hair and wide eyes, he suddenly seemed quite young. “Hello …,” he said.

“What do we say to him?” her mother hissed at her father.

“Well. So you are Alander,” her father said, lifting his voice over the wind, looking as authoritative as a merman could look with only his head poked out of the water. “Esmerine told us of your offer to help find our daughter Dosia. We appreciate that. But we are, naturally, concerned for her safety. And—”

Her mother cut in when he hesitated. “I can’t help but wonder why you would want to assist her in this way. We wouldn’t deny Esmerine a playmate as a child, but now—you’re nearly a grown man.” She glanced at Tormy and Merry, clearly regretting her decision to allow them to come along. Esmerine could hear them whispering about flying.

Poor Alan! Esmerine had often wondered if anything would ruffle him, and now she knew. He seemed at a loss for words.

She suddenly realized she was in the wrong place. She should be beside him, not her family. This was her decision, more so than his. She left the water and pulled herself next to him on the sand.

“I understand,” he told her parents. “Esmerine expressed the same concerns. So I’ll be honest with you as I was with her. It’s true, Esmerine and I were childhood friends. But I want to help your other daughter to ease my own soul because … my mother was a siren, and my father took her belt, and she died … when I was four.”

This silenced even Tormy and Merry.

“How could that be?” her mother said. “I’ve never heard of such a thing!”

“It’s true, though,” Esmerine said, cringing at her mother’s lack of tact.

Her mother’s face softened then. She looked as if she wanted to go to Alan and give him an embrace, but she couldn’t easily leave the water.

“Did you know about his mother all along?” she asked Esmerine.

“I’ve only just found out,” she replied.

“I saw no point in telling Esmerine … back then,” Alan said, frowning at the sand.

“Can you breathe underwater?” Tormy asked. “Could you see our house?”

“No. I’m afraid not.”

Esmerine’s mother looked at him with pity in her eyes, just like the pity Esmerine had noticed in Alan’s eyes when he had first seen her limp. She knew he must hate to see it just as she had. How funny, she thought, that they could each be the subject of pity.

“I see,” her mother said. “I see now why you always came here. You should have told us.”

“What would it matter if I had?” Alan said.

“Well—we might’ve—” Her mother looked a little helplessly at her father.

“We might’ve shut the neighbors up just a bit,” he said.

After that, her family seemed to accept—although still grudgingly—that Alan’s intention to help find Dosia was serious. Esmerine put her arms around all her family, a lump building in her throat that she refused to release, even when her mother and Merry cried, even after she had put her human clothes back on and wrapped her arms around Alan’s neck once more and watched her family turn small and distant when they took off. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard. It was not the easiest thing to talk about emotions while buffeted by the wind, braced for the next drop or wobble. Thankfully, Alan didn’t talk either.

Perhaps a quarter of an hour later, the stone lighthouse on the point came into view, and the Floating City grew visible on the rocky cliffs of the island beyond, with the tiny forms of Fandarsee flying around it. When Esmerine looked down, she thought she could see the house where Dosia had been kidnapped, with the separate tiers of roof and the green garden enclosed in a square of walls.

She had seen the Floating City as a speck in the distance, but only knew the details from books. As they drew near, white shining towers rose up among individual houses and buildings; their delicate architecture seemed reminiscent of the Fandarsee themselves, their bodies more slender and graceful than that of humans.

“My house is up ahead,” Alan said with a nod of his head.

He couldn’t point out a specific one while flying. Hundreds of houses were built along the steep, wide paths, with the finest buildings rising highest. Most of the city seemed concentrated on one hill, but Fandarsee farmland was terraced in the cluster of hills around it. Windmills spun along the tops of cliffs. As they came into the city, winged traffic flew around them, keeping a safe distance, but seeing other bodies in flight made Esmerine dizzy.

As they swept over a broad square, she could see the colorful canopies of market stalls and the dark hats of Fandarsee gentlemen—the vision quickly replaced by the flat roofs of buildings.

She tightened her grip. Landings were her least favorite part, when the world came on too fast.

And then Alan’s feet hit the surface of a broad, flat roof. She let out her breath.

He laughed. “You know, I think you’ve been remarkably brave for someone who’s never flown before and isn’t in control herself.”

“I’m glad you think so. It
is
scarier than I imagined.” She didn’t want to think then about flying all the way to the Diels, but it would have to be done.

Alan turned toward a covered staircase on the roof. “We’d better go down. I’d rather go to them than have my father come to us, and someone may have heard or seen us land.”

They slipped down the stairs and into a corridor. A door opened ahead, and a girl, her hair put up into two little buns, peered out. “Alan? It’s you! Are you back?”

“Not to stay, I’m afraid.”

“Who’s with you?” she asked, coming closer. She wore breeches and spats just like male Fandarsee, with the ruffles at her collar providing a girlish touch.

“Alan, is this your sister?” Esmerine asked. She had forgotten until now, but he had mentioned a baby sister when he used to visit her at the islands.

“Yes. That’s Karinda. She’s ten. Karinda, this is Esmerine. She’s … a friend.”

“A
lady
friend!” Karinda exclaimed.

“Shh!” Alan hissed. “I’m trying not to make a fuss about it. I just need to talk to Father.”

“I’ll come with you.” She spoke very neatly for a little girl, just like Alan had at her age, with the same clipped accent. “He said you’d come home to stay soon.”

“Maybe …”

“I hope so. Sort of. I want you to come back, but then you wouldn’t have exciting stories to tell me about Sormesen.”

“Oh, before long you’ll be old enough to go to Sormesen yourself,” Alan said.

Karinda was staring at Esmerine with open fascination even as she talked to her brother. “Did you bring me any smoked fish?”

“Not this time, but next time, I promise.” Alan stepped past her, obviously eager to get the meeting with his father over with. Esmerine wasn’t so sure she was especially eager, though.

“Alan, I can’t keep up with you!” Esmerine said. Her feet were starting to burn from walking too fast.

“Sorry.” He slowed his steps. “She’s a mermaid,” he told Karinda.

“Really? What is it like under the sea? How did you get here?”

“Alan flew me.”

“That’s the best way,” Karinda said. “So you have a mertail? I wish I could see it! Do you keep fish as pets? What do you eat for lunchtime?”

Esmerine had always thought Alan was unusually mature for his age when they were children, but Karinda bore the same air of curious intelligence. Esmerine wondered if it might be the way of Fandarsee children. “I don’t have time to talk about it now, but later I’ll tell you.”

The hall ended in more stairs, and the stairs brought them to a sparsely furnished room, all light and space and angles. What little furniture there was had a clear function: a desk arranged for writing, tall chairs gathered around a table. Aside from the ornately patterned floor rug, of the sort ships sometimes carried in bulk for export, the room had no decoration, but Alan could have spread his wings and still not touched the sky-blue walls, and such airy size gave it a sense of wealth. The wide windows had no glass, just wooden shutters formed of thin slats that opened to let in the light.

“Father’s in the library?” Alan asked Karinda, who nodded.

“Karinda!” a female voice called. “Who’s with you? It’s lunchtime.”

“Alan’s home!”

A woman hurried out with a look of surprise that grew when she noticed Esmerine. Esmerine remembered her as the woman who had accompanied Alan’s father in the bookshop. She guessed she must be Alan’s stepmother.

The reason for their visit was given again, only now it was Esmerine and Dosia who needed to be explained, rather than Alan. At first Esmerine was shy, unsure if Alan’s stepmother would be disdainful of mermaids, but the Fandarsee woman looked at her kindly as Alan talked and offered them lunch when he had finished.

“Let me talk to Father first,” Alan said. “Alone. The rest of you can start eating, if you wish.”

“Your father might be grumpy if you keep him from his meal,” his stepmother cautioned.

“He forgets to eat half the time anyway,” Alan said. “Besides, I don’t care, this needs to be discussed.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I’ll be in the library.”

Alan’s stepmother smiled at Esmerine. She bore a strong resemblance to Karinda, although her brown hair was loose, the front pieces caught in a clip at the back of her hair. She wore a scarf around her neck that was fastened by a silver pin, but was otherwise dressed plainly, like her daughter. “We might as well eat. They’ll be a while.”

They adjourned to the dining room, another large space with simple wooden furniture, and painted maps hanging on the walls. Compared to the food Esmerine had eaten at the bookshop, the spread was lavish—sausage, corn mush and greens, sugared berries, bread still warm from the oven. Esmerine took a seat and reached for the berries. She hadn’t eaten breakfast, but had no appetite for heavy food. Alan had never questioned her table manners, but now she kept an eye on Karinda to be sure she didn’t misstep.

“So you’ve known Alan since you were children? What a surprise!”

Esmerine nodded. She hadn’t expected Alan’s stepmother to be so friendly and wondered how much she should say.

“That really explains a lot about Alan as a child. He didn’t have many friends. I worried about him; in fact, he probably tired of me asking him about it and urging him to spend more time with other children. Imagine being friends with a mermaid! I never suspected he was keeping such a secret.”

“I never
realized
I was such a secret.”

“I’m just glad he wasn’t as antisocial as he appeared, especially when his father doesn’t always realize the value of fun.” Alan’s stepmother made a wry face, and Esmerine felt welcomed—one didn’t make such expressions at unwanted strangers.

Alan’s stepmother and Karinda asked her a number of questions about what she and Alan used to do and what life under the sea was like. It helped keep Esmerine’s mind off of the raised voices she’d begun to notice from the next room.

Esmerine had just agreed to try a little sausage when the doors to the other room flung open and Alan’s father entered. Alan came behind him, looking quite chastised.

“So,” Alan’s father said, scrutinizing Esmerine, no doubt comparing her to Alan’s mother, Esmerine thought. “
This
is the girl.”

“Yes, Father,” Alan said.

“I’d like to talk to you both.” He nodded and turned. His tone gave no hint of his opinion of her. She exchanged a nervous glance with Alan and followed his father into a dim interior hall and through wooden doors that groaned heavily, ominously even, on their hinges.

As Esmerine passed the threshold, her head tipped back to take in a room that made the library Alan had brought her to seem small. Two stories of shelves filled these walls; a map of constellations spread across the ceiling. An inviting chair, shaped like a small plush bed, was placed before the fireplace, where, in the warmth of summer, charred logs lay unlit and patient. No matter where her eyes traveled, books and fascinating objects dazzled them.

Alan’s father was looking at her oddly. “Has she never seen a library before?”

He knew perfectly well that she had; he’d seen her in the bookshop her first day in Sormensen!