Magical Mechanications (15 page)

The Sea Witch finished stuffing the legs inside a long, clear seaweed pod. She sealed the end of the pocket with a little burning implement, and pushed the whole bundle into the water close to me. Then, she pressed the bottle into my hand.

For a moment we looked at each other, and then she sighed. “Like your mother I see, for all the good and bad it will bring you.”

Then, without further explanation, the Sea Witch ejected me from her house, leaving me clutching the pod with the legs in one hand.

I hovered there for a long moment, outside the iron door, clutching the thing she had made.

My brain was spinning, but I knew one thing—I could not dare go back to the castle. If my father found these legs he would know immediately that they came from her, and would dispose of them accordingly. Also, lingering in the back of my mind was the understanding, that if I went back, saw the faces of my other grandmother and my sisters, I might never do anything at all.

So I turned my own face upwards, already grasping the pod, but then I stopped—just for a moment hovering between the Above and the below. The Sea Witch was watching me with nary a sign of what she was thinking. On impulse, I leaned forward and planted a kiss on her freezing cold cheek. “Thank you, grandmother,” I whispered into her ear. “Thank you for everything.”

Then before she could say anything and spoil the moment, I flicked my tail hard and began to swim to the Above. I let the tides and currents of Mother Ocean lead me back to where I had seen my prince. When I surfaced, gasping and wide-eyed, it was luckily night. The stars seemed to me to be sparkling extremely brightly, and the moon a gleamed like a pearl in the black. With a smile on my face, I swam to the shore and beached myself as far as the waves could get me.

I lay there, looking up at the night sky, enjoying for one last moment my gills, and my tail. Then, I began to sing. It was the only memory I had of my mother. She had died shortly after my birth, so perhaps my recollection of the song as hers was not possible…but it was all I had of her. The song filled me and gave me strength. However, it couldn’t last forever.

As the last notes died in my throat, I pulled open the vial of oily liquid that my syrienne grandmother had given me and downed the whole thing before I could give into fear.

The effect was immediate and terrifying. I felt as though I had swallowed a bag of knives. I would have screamed, but my throat was suddenly swollen and unable to let even a squeak past. As I rolled in agony on the smooth sand, some small, sane part of me knew I didn’t have much time. With numb and fumbling fingers, I managed to tear open the seaweed pod. The legs were so very heavy, but I jerked them out with my shaking hands, and without thought jammed my beautiful, iridescent tail into the opening.

There was no more Lorelei, there was only the exquisite dance of pain in my nerves. The specks of stars darkened and fell in my consciousness, as the combined weight of the potion and my grandmother’s device tore my tail apart. It tore me apart and scattered me on the ocean and the shore.

However, eventually and miraculously, I came back to myself. I lay on the sand for a while and felt the pain subside. As my grandmother had warned, it did not go away entirely, but after the utter agony that I had suffered it actually felt good. As the dawn began to make itself known on the horizon, I finally levered myself upright and looked down.

I had legs—legs of gleaming brass. I flexed them experimentally, and they moved to my command. Through the pain a slow smile flickered on my lips. I couldn’t wait, I pulled myself upright. My head swam at the sudden elevation, but the Sea Witch’s device seemed to know what it was doing. I did not fall down, instead I staggered a few cautious steps.

However, there was something that the Sea Witch had not warned me about, something that made my heart ache; the legs made music when they moved. It was the faint clicking music that I had last heard when my sister had brought home a music box she had found floating after a shipwreck. It sounded so much better and prettier in the world of the Above.

I pulled my dark hair down over my shoulders, glad at least that it was still so long that it would provide some coverage. Humans, I knew were very strange about obscuring their naked bodies.

I turned myself towards the palace on the hill, and soon I found I was running towards it. It was not the speed that my tail had once been able to give me, but it was nonetheless exhilarating. The music of the legs surrounded me, and announced my arrival long before I got there.

My father had spent a great deal of time telling me about the cruelty of humans, but none of it had really sunk in…or perhaps it had been washed away in the eyes of my prince.

Women were running towards me now, perhaps thinking I was in distress, being naked and wearing brass legs and all. They couldn’t possibly know that I was crying tears of joy not ones of fear. After the pain of the transformation I was incredibly brave.

I was an object of surprise to them naturally, but they did not hurt me. Instead, I was wrapped hastily in blankets and brought inside. All I took in straight away was the smells, but it wasn’t as if I could name any of them. The huddle of women were asking me a barrage of questions that I couldn’t have answered quickly enough even if I had my voice. They had a particular smell that I had nothing to base on, so I couldn’t decide if it was good or not. I decided to think of it as pleasant.

They hustled me upstairs to the palace, and in the way of humans quickly had me wrapped in their clothing. It was the first time I had worn anything so covering, but I tried my best not to let it show.

Finally, the woman stood around me and slowed down with their questions. One in particular, with long, red hair like my sister Nerissa peered down at me, head tilted, examining my legs, or what of them could be seen under my skirts. Nervously, I slid my hand against my knee, and wound the key so that I would not be caught short if I needed to run.

“What is your name?” the girl said, slowly and loudly as if I was deaf.

I mimed the fact that I had no voice, even as my grandmother’s device played on merrily.

The women exchanged surprised glances, but before they could ask anything else a loud voice called out. “Make way! Make way for the King!”

A barrel-chested man with grey hair soon had the women scattering before him. It was indeed the King of the Above. Even without the herald it would have been apparent from his bearing and the narrow band of gold he wore on his head. Surprisingly, he did not look that different than my own father.

The tiny, nervous fish fluttered in my stomach as he approached.

He examined me with a hard eye and then my legs even closer. When I mimed my lack of voice again, he had me open my mouth and looked down my throat. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking he would find.

“I do not think this girl is much of a spy,” he muttered. “More like some strange experiment escaped from a mad tinker. Not the first we have seen either.” He dismissed me by simply turning and walking off.

Apparently that was all that was needed to make my arrival all right. The ladies descended on me once more, like I was some exotic pet, and swept me into their world.

For the first few days I did not see my prince, but I did see a lot of his sister. I found out, the girl with the red hair was Princess Iria, and she made me her project of the moment. I knew all about bored princesses and the things they did to amuse themselves.

Perhaps it was my silence, perhaps it was the marvel of my legs, but either way she kept me company. She also kept up a constant stream of conversation, most of which washed over my like warm waves and departed imparting nothing. However, sometimes there were pearls in the rocks.

I actually learned a lot in those first days, probably more than I would have had I had my voice. Listening bought me a lot of information—so much that if I had been a spy I would have discovered much from the stream of conversation Iria sent my way. It made a welcome distraction from the constant grind of pain that my grandmother’s device provided. Once I had largely forgotten the agony of the potion, it remained ever present.

However, it was all made worth it when Prince Roan came on the third day. He burst into Iria’s parlour without being announced and stood in the square of late afternoon sun like a jewelled fish of the reef. His eyes were as I remembered them, but he seemed even more desirable now in his own element.

The music of my legs grew louder when I saw him, but he took no notice of me. I might as well have been part of the furniture. “I found her,” he proclaimed loudly and my heart leapt. Maybe he had noticed me!

Being wrong had never stung so badly. He was not looking at me.

“Roan, you’re so rude!” Iria snapped, her hand dropping protectively down over mine. She must have thought the sudden tears in my eyes were due to his rudeness, when in fact they were due to the fact he didn’t recognize me immediately. I thought I had made an impression when I saved him.

It got worse. “I found the girl who rescued me.” I stared at him in horror, unable to move, as he told his sister excitedly how he had found the one girl that had fished him from Mother Ocean. Prince Roan went on at great length about her beauty, her kindness, and her strength. However, I knew one thing, he was a fool and she was a liar.

Apparently he had found one of the girls who had come down from the temple, one that had rolled him over and dragged him out after I had returned to Mother Ocean. It was she that was taking advantage of my rescue efforts. If I had not caught him and dragged him Above he would be dead.

I should have been angry perhaps, but I felt as carved out as an empty whelk shell. Finally, when he was done, he turned to Iria. “And who is this, sister?”

The princess gestured to me. “Some poor simple child, a reject of one of those mad tinkers, father thinks. She has no voice at all, but her legs are quite remarkable.”

With a surge of energy I got to my brass feet. My mouth opened and I struggled to squeeze out words; the words that would tell him he’d been mistaken, it had been me there. I wanted to yell about how his head had rested on my shoulder, and how I had seen him standing on the deck of the ship before the attack. However, my throat choked up, burning with effort, but producing nothing.

Instead, it was my legs that spoke. The chiming rattle of the music box filled the room, and on its wings I began to dance. While Iria and Roan stood there, with wide eyes, I twirled and danced in the princess’ parlor. I was desperate to communicate in whatever way I could.

It felt strange after dancing in my father’s kingdom with my tail, but it pushed back the pain to the edges of my mind. After a while it began to feel very good. I hoped my dance would tell the prince it was me. I wished it contained my longing and hopes that he could understand as easily as words.

However after a few minutes, when the music and the dance faded, Roan looked bemused rather than informed. “It is a lovely dance,” he said, with a slight frown. He shrugged at his sister. “Your charge has quite the talent, sister. The gods have obviously seen fit to give her talent to make up for her deficiencies.”

I thought the black potion had been painful, but the prince’s blindness cut even deeper.

However, I did not give up. I couldn’t. For Prince Roan was what I had given up Mother Ocean, my father, and all of my sisters for.

I became the prince’s shadow. I trailed around behind him, and tried my best to reach him in the only way I could. At first he was kind, smiling when I began my little dances in every corner of the palace. I could not speak, and I could not write their language either—so the dancing was all I had.

However, after a week, he did not stop to watch. I danced desperately, even as I heard that this girl he had mistaken for me was coming to the palace. Roan’s delight, turned to amusement, then boredom, and finally anger. Now he stalked angrily past me as I began to spin, and I realized I had gone too far. It was done. By trying to tell him so often, I had made myself abhorrent to the prince, and now even if the truth came out he wouldn’t look at me with love.

However, I had one last thing to say.

The morning that the girl was to arrive, I waited outside his bedroom, and when he appeared, launched into a spinning, melancholy dance. I swept my arms and legs in long arcs, mimicking the broadness of Mother Ocean, and with smaller appealing gestures I tried to show him that I was sorry. I just wanted to be back in that moment where I had held him on the shore. I was no longer Triton’s martial daughter. Somewhere along the way I had lost that.

He glared at me, and then turned away with a growl. “Idiot girl, Iria shouldn’t just let you run around loose.” And then he walked away.

Roan didn’t see me. I watched, the syrienne’s devices sending jolts of pain up my spine, as he went down the steps to meet the thin girl who only had dark hair in common with me. I had come here with such hope for something new, and all I had found was pain and loneliness.

I ran. I couldn’t bear to see him welcome her, love her when he should have loved me. My father had been right after all; humans were cruel. Blindly, I made my way to the beach, my legs playing a sad tune that seemed to tell me nothing was worth this agony. The physical pain meant little.

I stood at the edge of Mother Ocean, and looked out over it, tears burning down my cheeks, and broken screams in my chest. The Sea Witch had said I couldn’t return, and yet I wanted to. Death might await me in the sea, but I would be free of the pain, and I would get to see my family for a brief moment.