Page 13 of The Merman's Kiss
I wrapped myself in the towel and thanked Esme for the tea, but I refused the cucumber sandwiches when she offered them.
“You didn’t return for lunch today,” my mother said, eyeing me with what I guessed was suspicion as she sipped her tea before picking up her newspaper to scan the page.
I kicked myself for refusing the sandwiches. “I wasn’t hungry,” I said with an awkward shrug. I always felt awkward around my mother. She was the most beautiful person who ever lived as far as I was concerned. My whole childhood I’d wanted to grow up to be just like her.
We shared the same cool-toned dark skin and wide, clear blue eyes, the same silky white hair and pointed, elven ears. But she was composed of long, elegant lines and demure, reserved grace, and I was all gangly limbs and clumsy curiosity. Her mouth looked like a dainty rosebud, prim and often held slightly pursed as if she were thinking. Mine was too wide by comparison and too relaxed, too quick to smile. Her high-necked, lacy blouses and long, flowing skirts were always perfectly clean and pressed, and they billowed around her so prettily as she walked. Mine were… not. Or at least, they never stayed that clean or unwrinkled for very long. But I wanted to look like her and sound like her, wanted tobeher.
My relationship with her had always been at a distance. I knew she loved me, but even as a small child I could go days at a time only seeing brief glimpses of her as she passed the nursery or checked to see if I had been dressed appropriately for some party being held at our home that I was brought out for a brief appearance at before being sequestered back into my nursery. It was really only over the last few years that something had changed in how I saw myself in relation to her. I still loved her and wanted her approval, still admired her and hoped maybe someday she might want to spend time with me. Butbeinglike her was so very hard. Her shoes had begun to feel like ones I would never be able to fill.
“Don’t put that in your tea, dear,” she scolded quietly as I reached for the sugar spoon. “I don’t know why they even brought it out.” She reached for the tray and turned it so the spoon faced away from me. “Esme,” she called again, raising her voice enough to be heard by the staff. “Take this away please.” She nudged the tray farther away from us.
I took a sip of my tea and sighed. It was bitter, so I set it aside.
“You have to start watching your figure now that you’re becoming a young woman,” my mother said as Esme walkedaway with the tray. “And gallivanting around in your swimming clothes isn’t becoming for a young lady, either.”
I frowned down at my pretty yellow swimsuit—a perfectly normal, modestly cut one piece that seemed an appropriate thing to wear to the beach. “But… mother, I was swimming,” I explained.
“I see that.” She picked up her newspaper and began to read again.
I wasn’t going to drink the unsweetened tea and she clearly didn’t want to talk, so I took my cue and rose silently from the table, but then she spoke without looking up from her reading.
“I’m going to be leaving next week for a policy negotiation in Icehaven,” she informed me, referring to a port city-state to the north of our territory that she spent a lot of time in while working for our government. “I’d considered taking you with me,” she continued, shocking me, because she’d never once taken me with her on any of her diplomatic journeys, “because they’re hosting a networking event for the youth interested in diplomatic careers. But they’re allowing light-elves and evendwarvesto join,”—her mouth turned down with a hint of distaste, before she waved the notion away with her hand—“and those aren’t contacts you’d want to bother with anyway, so you’ll be returning to school two weeks early instead.”
It was a lot to process. I hadn’t realized summer was coming to an end this quickly, and the fraction of a second of pride that she had considered bringing me with her on a trip had been book-ended firmly by her comment aboutwhyI wouldn’t be allowed to come. My mother is a diplomat. She words things in what she considers the most palatable way for her audience while hiding oceans of meaning beneath what might be reasonable-sounding sentences if you aren’t paying attention.
Her opinion that the children of diplomats from these other races were such unworthy contacts that their presence madean entire event worthless… I realized my hands were trembling with anger and clasped them together.
She couldneverknow about my friendship with Lorn. It hurt too much to think what she might say about him.
“Where is Father going?” I asked in a small voice, trying to hide my broken heart. Would he actually be traveling with her this time?
She glanced up briefly as her annoyance at my question flickered across her features. “Enric is staying here,” she said, using my father’s name. “It’s still too hot for him to return home to the city.”
Then why… “Can’t I stay here with him, since it’s not time to start school yet?” I asked. The staff would all remain here at the cottage with him if he wasn’t leaving yet, so nothing would really change for me just because my mom was leaving.
“No,” she said dismissively, taking another sip of tea. “He doesn’t want to be bothered.” I saw my father even less than I saw my mother. He stayed in his office reviewing loan applications or speaking with his bank administrators or whatever it was he did every day when he wasn’t working at the bank he owned. I think I’d seen him four times this entire summer. “And for what?” my mother continued. “So you can continue to wander around in the woods like some wild creature for an extra two weeks? No.” She waved me away. “You can go back to school, and we’ll arrange you a daily tutor so that you can get a head start on the school year. You’ll go back next week.”
It would have been less hurtful if she’d slapped me. I gritted my teeth to choke back my anger and sadness, lest I speak my mind and face her censure. Nothing I said to argue would matter at this point, so I blinked back my tears, clenched my teeth, and left without another word. It was only two weeks early, but my time at the cottage was so precious to me that it crushed me to leave before I was supposed to.
We spent the last of the summer playing in the cove together or lounging at our hidden beach every day, and I brought him some trinkets from inside before I left—an antique hand-mirror I found and a bracelet of baubles buried deep in one of my drawers.
On the last day before I left, he brought me his little figurine of the elven queen he’d shown me last year and pressed it into my fingers. I turned it over in my hands, feeling the polished stone and tracing the curls of her hair and the pointed tip of her elven ears, positive now that it was a stone carving used in the strategy game called Kings and Queens.
Lorn had been crestfallen when I’d told him last week that it was coming time for me to leave again, and now as we said goodbye he looked like he was grief-stricken. He shook his head when I tried to pass his queen piece back to him, watching my face as if he was trying to memorize everything about me before I left. “Take,” he said, his voice cracking on the word, so I gave him some of my magic to soothe his hurts as he spoke. He placed his hand on top of mine to hold it to his throat, saying, “To remember me,” and then released my hand.
As if I could possibly forget.
His forlorn gaze followed me as I walked up the beach and turned to glance back one last time when I made it to the trees. The butler drove me to the train station for my parents, hastily setting my bags on the sidewalk when we arrived and leaving with no more than a quick lift of his hat.
I took some small comfort in the fact that I was able to say goodbye to Lorn, but the stricken look on his face as I walked home for the last time this year haunted me almost as much as when I hadn’t been able to say goodbye at all. But itwasa comfort, even if it felt too soon.Rushed. I still cried on the train when I left, but whether it was the little figurine I kept clutched in my fingers for the duration of the ride, or the ability to bid himfarewell for the season and know he was okay—at least this time it didn’t feel like my heart was shattering when I left.
The school year was so long, but I felt more secure knowing that Lorn would be there for me when I returned, and I carried his figurine in my pocket everywhere I went. I pulled it out often throughout the day at first, and then less as the months went on, but still felt comforted knowing it was with me.
So, each summer we returned to the beach house, and Lorn was always waiting for me. Some years he would already be waiting for me in the rolling surf, and some years I would call for him beneath the waves, but every time I came back to him, he would scoop me up with his contagious, joyful grin. Every time, I was hit with a pang of affection for him so strong it felt painful. His good cheer at seeing me was a balm to my soul.
Aleda kept me company during the lengthy months while I was at school, and over the years I became incredibly fond of her as well. I was deeply grateful for her support and her constant friendship as we continued to request each other as roommates year after year. She was bold and amusing, and she always asked after Lorn’s well-being when I returned to school every autumn.
But my heart truly belonged on that beach with Lorn. He grew stronger each year, and by our fourth summer together, after I turned fifteen, I could scarcely recognize him. The baby fat I hadn’t even noticed he carried in the softness of his face was gone entirely—his jawline was now sharp, and his cheeks looked as if they’d been chiseled from stone, with high cheekbones that gave him a distinctly regal appearance. Rolling muscles in his back and arms seemed to suddenly appear one spring, replacing the gangly lines that I’d come to know. I wasn’t sure what to make of the changes in him. He confused me without even meaning to. We still had the same ease to our friendship, but I was suddenly veryawareof him in a way I hadn’t been before.
