Girl at the Bottom of the Sea (22 page)

“H
ow strange,” Syrena said, her voice soft, almost mesmerized. “How strange to be here, now. At this point in our story.”

The travelers floated a mile or so away from what appeared to be a great golden glow emanating from the waters. It was as if the sea turned to honey, lit with the dancing of a hundred thousand bees. Such a glittering vision—the opposite, thought Sophie, of the Invisible. The light called to her, called to them all, dancing luminous inside their eyes. Even the Dola looked more soulful as it gazed in the direction of Laeso Island.

“Isn't it interesting,” the Dola spoke, “how long our stories are? That now, so many years later, it would still seem as if it were only just beginning.”

The mermaid looked at the Dola with tears in her eyes.

“I come here,” Syrena said to Sophie, and paused, collecting her
thoughts. Her tears were a delicate blue, lighter than the blue of the sea, like a bit of sky falling into the ocean. “I come here after I lose Griet.”

“Did you… did you see her when they brought her back?” Sophie asked, though she wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer.

Syrena shook her head. The glow of Laeso Island lit the tears like gems suspended in the water. Sophie wished she could reach out, take one, and slide it into her pocket, or weave it into her hair with Livia's feather.

“I did not want to see. The silver fish, they come to me. They wrap me in a cloud, spinning and spinning around me. They tell me what happen to my sister.” She shook her head, and her tears swirled like miniature Swilkies. “I could not see her like that. I—I frightened, to have such picture in my head. Perhaps coward. But I could not. I summon dolphin to visit the boy, to tell him I will not come for him. He try. He show respect to Griet.”

“But Griet,” Sophie said urgently. “She—she just, she sank, and…”

“She return to the ocean,” Syrena said simply. “She fall to the sand, she feed the creatures. Like every creature in the sea. We pass away, we fall to the bottom. We feed the creatures. The creatures, they pass on, feed more creatures. Always been such. Since beginning of earth, beginning of sea.”

Sophie nodded. It seemed sad to her that there wasn't anything to commemorate Griet's life. A stone at the bottom of the sea, a piece of coral, something she could visit. It was silly, she knew. Griet was gone, and Sophie had never known her. But still.

She could feel Syrena reading her feelings in her gentle, mermaid way. “You are beside her,” Syrena said. “She all around us. She the water, she the fish. Griet, the sand in our hair. Bless her.”

“Bless her,” Sophie echoed in a whisper.

“I so lost after she gone,” Syrena said. “I did not know where to be, where to go. When we were together, anywhere we travel good, because we together. Anyplace we travel the right place. Without her, was like I did not know direction anymore. I swim in circles. Sharks come close, they see I have a sickness about me. They wait for me to be weaker and weaker. But then, I see light.” Syrena pointed toward the golden mirage. “Ran and her daughters come for me. They hear my story, traveling before me on the fishes. They come for me and bring me back to their cave beneath the island. And I live with them for many years. Like family.”

“Are they mermaids too?” Sophie asked.

“They are Jottnar, magic people. Like Odmieńce. They live in sea and earth. Very, very old. Not giant like Ogresses, but bigger people. Very strong. Can do most anything. Big muscle, big hearts.”

And as if she had summoned them with her praise, two women were suddenly upon them in the water, one embracing Syrena, the other grabbing Sophie by her hips, surging her forward at a great, wild speed.

“Whoa!” Sophie hollered, her mouth filling with water. “Whoa, there!” Being hugged by a Jottnar was like being carried on a powerful current. The woman's hands, large as Sophie's head, gripped her
waist, but the woman did not seem to move. It was if they were flying. Beside her, Syrena and the other woman tumbled in circles, like puppies. They hugged and rolled and their laughter flew past Sophie's head in big bubbles.

“I am Bara!” Sophie heard the woman introduce herself, shouting into her ear. “Daughter of Ran and Aegir! That's Unnr, my sister! We couldn't wait, it's been taking you forever to get here!” Alongside them the dolphins leapt and dove through the wakes they generated. Even the Dola seemed to be having fun. Sophie burst out laughing.

“Aren't they fun!” Syrena called as she swirled by. “The Billow Maidens! Oh, Sophie—it is so good to be here. Unnr, that's Sophie!”

Unnr, who Sophie sometimes saw as a lovely, strong woman with tumbling hair and sometimes saw as the surge of the current that carried them, howled a
hello
at the girl.

“We know all about you,” Bara shouted from behind. “Famous Sophia!” Her voice was teasing, but not unkind. With a final surge the current shoved them through the mouth of the cave, where they came to a short stop in a kind of grotto, sputtering and splashing. Syrena, still tumbling, bumped her head against the cave's wall, coming to a stop.

“Oh!” she cried. “Pesky maiden! Lucky I have much hair to save my noggin!” Unnr rose from the water with the mermaid in her arms, twisting with happiness, spinning Syrena to and fro, her great tail flapping wildly. Bara was much gentler with Sophie, bringing her to a stop that sent up a spray of water onto a raised stone where an assembly of
very tall, very attractive people looked at them.

“Mother!” Unnr turned toward the gathering and held Syrena out as if she were a child. “Look what I found!”

“Be careful with dear Syrena!” cried a woman with long silver hair. She wore a crown of spiraling shells around her brow, and her dress seemed to be made of water itself, shifting and spilling over her like the most elegant Grecian toga. “And hello.” She addressed Sophie with a kind and crinkled face. “You are Sophia. We have great party planned for you. I hope you are ready.”

“Party,” Sophie repeated dumbly, the word making her realize how tired she was, like even her bones were exhausted. She would maybe like a
sleeping
party. Maybe even a party where she'd sleep so deep she'd wake up back in Chelsea with a normal family. Normal, non-evil grandmother. Normal, cranky mom. Normal boy-crazed bestie. Pigeons that didn't talk, creeks free of mermaids.

But even as she had this thought, this familiar wish, she realized it didn't quite sit with her anymore. The thought of giving up Syrena was impossible now. And to have not known Livia? To have not known Livia would be worse than having lost her. Sophie truly understood the sadness that Syrena kept so close to her heart, the loss that she cherished. Sophie had such a loss, too.

“Meet my daughters,” Ran said. “Bara and Unnr, my waves. So strong, are they not? Strong and happy. Hard workers.”

She turned to another girl, with wet sticky hair, crimson and heavy. She did not look happy like Bara and Unrr. “Blooughadda,” Ran said.
“My right-hand maiden. Mother's helper. Not very happy, no. But so strong. Say hello, Bloo.”

Bloo bared her teeth at Sophie and waved one hand idly. Her fingers were topped with sticky red nails.

“H-hi,” Sophie stuttered.

“Dufa,” Ran continued, motioning to a giggling girl who seemed, Sophie thought, a bit drunk. She swayed this way and that, so simple and happy that Sophie thought she was perhaps not all there, that she had a child's mind in the body of a great, gorgeous woman.

“Dufa!” Syrena cheered at the sight of her.

“Hel-hellooooo,” Dufa cried in a high-pitched voice, giggling at her own tipsy gait.

Sophie turned to Syrena and whispered, “Is she—is she drunk?”

“Drunk on the tossing of the great sea!” Dufa hiccupped cheerfully. “Drunk on the drinking of great whirlpools spinning down my gullet!”

“Sophie!” Syrena snapped. “Is—how you say?—rude to talk about people as if they are not there! Especially Jottnar!”

“I'm sorry,” Sophie said to the woman, who bowed at the waist as if in curtsy, then began to topple.

“I'm Hefrig.” Another maiden stomped toward Sophie and, crouching down upon a rock, bent to offer a crushing hand for shaking. Sophie hesitantly lifted her hand in return, and found it swallowed up to her elbow by Hefrig's mighty grasp. “I sent my sisters for you,” she said. “And I've been helping Papa with the feast, boiling the ale and the fish. It's not so often we get company, you know. We couldn't
be happier. Syrena is like one of us, and one of Syrena's is one of ours as well.”

“Thank you,” Sophie said.

“My turn!” shouted another maiden, who swam over to Sophie and wrapped her fully in a hug, twining her arms and legs around the girl. The sensation reminded Sophie of being at the beach with her mom, before she'd learned to swim. Revere Beach in summer, the smell of coconut tanning oil and the spray of the surf, her little-girl arms and legs wrapped tight around Andrea, who held her safe, bobbed her in the water. This was how the maiden had embraced Sophie. Except the maiden was three times larger than Sophie, who was close to smothered by her clutching.

“Hronn!” a voice Sophie could not see hollered. “
Goddess!
Get it together!”

“A girl!” Hronn squeaked, intensifying her hold on Sophie. “A real, human girl! Oh, I love you! I love you so!” And then the maiden Hronn was tugged away by a final maiden who looked upon both Hronn and Sophie with such disdain the waters turned chilly and Sophie's teeth began to chatter.

“This is Kolga,” Ran said proudly. “Like all my daughters, she serves her purpose.”

“To family!” hollered a man, mostly obscured by the passel of females. He nudged his way through, a crown of coral rocky upon his head, a beard as unruly as Syrena's hair tangling from his chin. A wide shell overflowing with ale sloshed in his palm, and with a wink at Sophie he dumped it into his mouth.

“To family!” Syrena cheered, and all the voices followed, a roar of sound that echoed in Sophie's ears.

“I'm Aegir,” he bellowed, “and this is my family.”

“We're
your
family, are we?” Ran said. The lift of her eyebrow created a ripple of water. “I'd say you're
our
family!” Everyone laughed, but Sophie felt a little left out, a little homesick for her own faraway family.

Syrena swam over and grabbed her hand. “Listen, was impossible to prepare you, they are so wild, ya? But you will grow used to them. They wonderful. Let us go with them. I stay close to you, ya?”

But Syrena did not stay close in the endless caverns. As they moved deeper into the cave that was the Jottnar palace, rooms led onto rooms, all decorated with gleaming golden artwork and sculpture, with long wooden tables set with china and crystal. Treasure chests spilled with gold and rubies, for nothing but show it seemed. Sophie's mouth nearly watered at the sight of it. Strands of pearls and hunks of emerald, diamonds that caught the light and stung her eyes. All of it pure decoration here under the sea.

In the largest room, all manner of creatures frolicked beneath a vaulted cathedral ceiling. Dolphins chittered and fish flopped and spun. The Billow Maidens danced, making waves that pulled and tugged Sophie this way and that. Anxiously, Sophie waited for Syrena to return, but the mermaid was glowing, deep in conversation first with Aegir and then Ran, then falling into the fawning clutches of Hronn, who covered her with kisses. Sophie spun in the currents and
gazed at them all. The Jottnar were uniformly beautiful, with thick hair and clothing made of water. Shells and coral decorated their hair, too, but not in the sloppy way they hung in Syrena's locks—the Jottnar wore fishbone tiaras and barrettes of barnacles studded with pearl. They draped themselves casually in the spoils of the treasure trunks, layering golden webs upon their bodies, then tossing them away. Even Aegir had a thin strand of diamonds bunching his long beard midway down his belly.

Sophie had never seen Syrena so joyful. The mermaid tilted her head back and laughed. The Billow Maidens played with her hair, braiding it and tying it into knots and bows, decorating it with lengths of pearls pulled from the treasure chests as if they were nothing more than a Tupperware craft box. Golden platters were piled high with food, crabs and lobsters and fish of all sorts. Even the dolphins were part of the party, chomping the seafood right from the platters.