Azaria

Prologue

SHE AWAKENS TO THE SOUND OF A LONG, LOW WAIL THAT echoes through the cold corridors of the prison. It’s a horrible, mournful sound, full of loneliness and despair, like a winter wind blowing through a dark shoreline cave. She rubs her eyes and looks around her cell. It is the still hour before dawn, and the pale light of the moon is peering through her tiny window, casting blue shadows on the stone floor. She closes her eyes again and shivers.

It is the thirty-third day of her captivity. Thirty-three days since she last saw her home. After all this time she still doesn’t know why she was taken. She has no idea where she is, or who has imprisoned her, or what is wanted of her. She guesses that it must have something to do with her being a princess from a strong and ancient family, but beyond that she cannot say. All she knows for sure is that she is always cold, always hungry, always alone.

An endless chain of unanswerable questions fills her mind as she lies there in the dark: Why has she been brought to such a horrid place? How long must she remain here? Why has no one come for her? It is this last question that troubles her most. Surely it wouldn’t have taken long for her family, or any one of the many members of the royal court, to notice that she was missing. Even if they believed she was on a longer-than-usual stroll near her beloved Atlantean mountains, by nightfall all thoughts that she had simply lost track of time certainly would have faded. And as the hours after her disappearance turned into days, there can be no doubt that her family would have done everything it could to find her. So why then has she not yet been found? What dark magic has kept her hidden from the eyes of those who love her most?

The mournful sounds of the wailer rise up again from beyond the walls of her cell, rolling against her like a poisoned tide. Covering her ears, she tries for the hundredth time to make sense of the murky events that tore her from her home, but she can remember very little of her abduction, or of her long journey to the prison. Fragmented images are all that remain of that day....

She remembers swimming near a sprawling forest of ruby coral, taking in the quiet beauty of the sealife there. Bright sunlight was streaming through the water like fiery arrows. Glittering fish darted through the coral in great clouds of blue, yellow, and orange. This was her favorite place in the sea, the one place she could go and be entirely removed from the endless bustle of her royal life. Here there were no lessons, no rules, no nagging parents telling her what to do. Not even her personal guard, Adrien, would interrupt her solitude here. The ruby coral was her sanctuary, her place of escape, the only true haven she knew.

But then, in a flash, everything changed. She had been delighting in the play of two sprightly parrotfish, watching them chase one another around huge purple stalks of sea cabbage, when, in a startling spray of silver bubbles, two hulking figures grabbed her and held her fast. With frightening speed and dexterity they pulled a seal-hide sack over her head and tied her hands behind her back. They were none too gentle with her as they did these things either, and they cursed at her when she tried to resist, calling her a “bottom-feeder” and a “dirty prawn”.

She could not tell from their voices who her abductors might be, and they revealed no clues about where they were taking her, or why. But over the course of several days, the water began to grow colder and more salty, and she was soon able to guess their destination, if not their purpose: they were headed to the frigid seas of the north.

By remaining quiet and obedient (which took every ounce of restraint she had), she was soon able to provide her captors with a sense of freedom and ease that loosed their tongues more than was wise. The seal-hide sack that blocked her vision also muffled her hearing, so she never caught more than a few brief snatches of conversation. Still, she listened intently, and every so often heard things that had been spoken of in the royal court: names like “Aegaeus” and “Typhoeus,” and ominous-sounding references to “the apocalypse” and “the Prophecy of the Sirens.” The talk was dark and frightening, and it made her shudder even more than the icy waters into which they were moving….

That was over a month ago now, and since arriving at the prison, she has heard no such gossip. In fact, no one has spoken a single word to her at all, not
even the hideous brutes that guard her door day and night. At all times she feels walled in and contained, not just by the great blocks of black stone that make up the prison, but also by the deep silences that press against her nearly every waking hour. In a strange way, the wailing she sometimes hears in the bitter hours of the night, for all its heavy misery, provides her with some measure of comfort: it is, at least, a sign that there is life around her, crushed and broken though it may be.

And there are other signs of life, too, or at least she believes them to be so: small scrapings in the cracks of her cell, squeaks and flutterings above her, faint whispers in the shadows, tiny bursts of laughter. She can’t tell if these sounds are real or if her mind, starved of company, is conjuring them out of old memories, but they feel real enough.

She sits up and leans back against the wall of her cell, her long, white hair hanging over her shoulders in tangled knots. The wailing has subsided for the moment, and she is once again wrapped in oppressive quiet. She rubs her arms. They have become dry and rough. Her life in the sea seems very far away now. She recalls how, in the first few days after she was brought to the prison, her muscles would twitch involuntarily as she imagined herself streaking around reefs and through underwater caves, playing hide-and-seek with the dolphins. But now those memories have begun to fade, and her limbs have stopped twitching. She has almost forgotten what it feels like to glide through the water, and that breaks her heart more than anything.

Her thoughts are suddenly jarred by the sound of heavy footsteps clumping outside her cell. There’s a metallic scrape, and a small slit at the bottom of her door slides open and a filthy black paw pushes in a cup of water and a chipped stone bowl filled with green slop. She takes these without speaking, and as the slit scrapes shut again, she raises the bowl to her lips and gulps down the foul-smelling contents. She then swallows the briney water, swishing it around her mouth to wash away the bitter taste left by the slop. This will be her only meal of the day, and though it will make her feel sick for an hour or so, she knows it’s the only thing keeping her alive. When she finishes, she tosses the empty bowl and cup into the corner and lies back down on the cold floor, waiting for dawn to break.

These are the longest and bleakest moments of her day, when the minutes stretch out before her in an endlessly rolling wave of time. While she waits for the light to come, she thinks about the mournful wailer, her companion in solitude. She wonders who the wailer is and where she came from. Was she, too, taken from her family and her home? Has she been a prisoner here a long time? What wound in her soul is so deep that it could make her moan with such anguish?

As the first grey fingers of morning begin to grope their way through the high window in her cell, she hears a noise above her: a clink of metal on stone followed by the dry creaking of a taut rope. A moment later she hears wet feet slapping against the outer wall of her cell, and the heavy breath sounds of someone engaged in difficult labor. She looks up toward her window, and what she sees there nearly causes her heart to leap from her chest.

Silhouetted against the grey morning sky is a male face framed by long black hair. At first she can’t make out his features, and for a long moment she thinks he is a figment of her imagination. But then the face breaks into a grim smile, and she recognizes him.

“Adrien?” she whispers.

“Poseidon be praised,” Adrien says. “Are you okay Azaria? Have you been harmed?”

“I am unhurt,” Azaria says, her voice raspy, saltless tears welling up in her eyes.

As the rising sun begins to brighten her cell, Azaria sees Adrien’s face clearly for the first time. Exhaustion and worry have etched deep lines into his forehead, and his pale eyes, though they have lost nothing of their intensity, are heavy-lidded with weariness.

“It is a miracle that I found you,” Adrien says. “Without the voice of despair to guide me, I would not have discovered this place, though I know these waters well.”

It was the mournful wailer! Azaria thinks. Her sorrow has been a beacon all this time!

“Your father’s best fighters are with me, Azaria, hiding in the alcoves behind this tower. We have not rested since you disappeared. There is much to tell, but now…”

“Adrien, please…”

“Listen to me carefully, Azaria,” Adrien interrupts, glancing quickly over his shoulder. “It is very likely that I have been seen by now, so we do not have much time. There’s a hard thing I must ask you to do.”

“Anything, Adrien!” Azaria cries. She stands and reaches toward the window. “You must take me with you! I will do anything you ask.”

“Azaria…”

“I command you to free me!” Azaria shouts, forgetting her peril and regaining for a moment her familiar royal pride.

But before Adrien can respond, a clamor rises up outside Azaria’s cell door. Quick footsteps and loud shouts are coming from both ends of the corridor. There’s a jangling of keys and a frenzied sound of guards trying to fit the right key into the lock. Curses fall upon curses, and the cell door creaks as several large bodies press their weight against the beams.

Azaria, terrified and confused, looks from the door back up to where Adrien’s anguished face hovers above the rim of the window.

“The hard thing you must do is wait for me,” Adrien says. “I will come back for you, Princess. Do not despair!”

“No!” Azaria shrieks.

But in an instant, Adrien’s face disappears, and Azaria finds herself staring at a gently pinking sky as the door of her cell swings open and three angry guards rush in, their yellow eyes flashing and their dirty paws reaching out to drag her away.

 

CHAPTER 1

September 8, 1835

-Log Entry 12-

Very rough seas today. We are supposed to depart for the Gallupagus Galapagos Islands tomorrow morning, but if the coming storm is as bad as the last one, we might have to remain anchored in Callao. I really hope that doesn’t happen. I miss Father terribly and want to see him as soon as possible. He is to meet us on Hood Island, I believe.

Captain FitzRoy says he hasn’t seen such fierce weather in his entire life on the sea. He doesn’t show it of course, but I think he’s a little perplexed by all these storms that just seem to pop out of nowhere. He’s a good captain and got us through the last two storms all right, but I could tell it took a lot out of him. He didn’t sleep for three whole days, until we were out of danger. I worry about his health.

When I was on deck this morning, the sky was already growing very dark, and the clouds scudding along above us looked like pillow cloth that had been rolled in coal dust. The sea was almost black. Everything seemed angry, just like it did that day back in Smeerenburg. I’m trying not to be afraid. As father says, “Fear cannot take what you do not give it.” Still, I can’t help being a little nervous right now.

-M.M.

I SNAP MY JOURNAL SHUT AND LIE BACK ON MY BED, feeling the ship bob and roll atop the churning seas. Deep down I know I should be grateful that Father was able to secure me a space on the Beagle for its journey from Peru to the Galapagos Islands—“This is a real honor, Meg,” my father had said back home in Yorkshire, “more than you know”—but it doesn’t feel like much of an honor just now. The sailors are loud and crude, and everything smells like sweat, fish, tobacco, tar, and chicken poop. If Hezekiah weren’t here looking after me, I think I would be quite miserable, though I must say, probably not as miserable as poor Mr. Darwin.

He’s a nice enough fellow, Mr. Darwin is, but he seems to be seasick all the time and is always muttering about how he can’t wait to reach the islands. I imagine these storm waves must be driving him to madness. I’ve seen him on deck only a handful of times (always when the weather is fine), and each time he’s had his nose buried in a worn copy of Paradise Lost. Sometimes he looks up from the dog-eared, weather-stained pages and smiles kindly when I pass by, and that’s how I know he must be nice. Disagreeable people don’t stop reading their books to smile at you. Anyway, the captain says Mr. Darwin is some kind of scientist. A “naturalist” I think he calls him. I do hope he is able to enjoy his time on the islands.

I toss my journal onto the small table next to my bed and sigh, watching the shadows cast by my oil lamp dance across the dark planks and resin-coated beams that criss-cross overhead. Earlier this morning, in anticipation of the coming tempest, Captain FitzRoy ordered all non-essential crew below. (What an insulting term “non-essential” is!) As he was issuing his order, I noticed that there was something odd about his manner. He wrung his hands constantly as he spoke, and his dark eyes, which are normally sharp and steady, darted back and forth between the passengers and the horizon. His voice was raspy and hesitant. He seemed quite uncaptain-like, almost crazed, as if some creeping horror that only he could feel was drawing near. Even so, when we were dismissed, we marched dutifully down to our cabins, good non-essential crewmembers all.

But that was hours ago now, and since then I’ve nearly died of boredom ten or twenty times at least. I’ve already read all the books Father packed for me, and daydreaming about Azaria, Adrien, and all the others only makes me miss them more. I just wish there was something to do.

I lie there listening to all the ship sounds creaking and thrumming around me, but after a few minutes of this I become so restless and bothered that I feel like I’ll go crazy if I don’t get out of my cabin. It’s in this moment that I make what I think is a rather daring decision: I’m going to disobey Captain FitzRoy’s orders. A slight tingle shoots up my spine as I contemplate my bold idea. With a devil-may-care attitude that I couldn’t have imagined even a few short months ago, I hop off my bed and begin climbing up the wooden stairs to the forecastle deck. Let them keelhaul me or throw me in the brig or make me walk the plank, I don’t care. I’m prepared to accept the consequences for my actions.

I poke my head through the gangway door and glance around. The fuzzy spot of grey light directly over the ship’s bow tells me that we’re heading due west, toward a sinking sun that isn’t quite strong enough to break through the heavy cloud cover. I climb out of the hatch and wander over to the railing. There are a few deckhands trotting to and fro, but they are so absorbed in what they’re doing that they take no notice of me. The sky and the sea have grown even darker since I was last on deck, and the waves have become steeper and less friendly. I can smell lightning on the wind. It’s going to be a noisy and unsteady night, that much is certain.

A little smile creases my lips when I realize how matter-of-fact I’m being about the coming storm. When I was younger, storms used to frighten me terribly, not just because the lightning and thunder always seemed brighter and louder than anything I could have imagined, but because my father couldn’t resist saying the most terrible things to me whenever an especially violent thunderclap sounded overhead. It was something different each time. Sometimes he’d say, “Did you hear that Meg? Someone must have really put it to old Thor to make him slam down his hammer like that. You didn’t irritate him today, did you?” Or he would sigh and say, “Ah, that’s too bad…” before launching into one of his favorite rhymes:

Thunder heavy, lightning bright
Naughty children in the night
Taken swiftly from their rooms
Swept away by hags on brooms

Sometimes he wouldn’t say anything at all, just look out the rain-spattered window and shake his head glumly.

But then he would look over at me, throw back his head, and laugh loudly and long at the ridiculous, terrified look on my face. And then he’d squat down and open his arms and catch me as I ran to him, saying, “I’m just pullin’ your chain, Nutmeg, you know I am!” And then we’d both be laughing, rocking back and forth in front of the fire, the storm raging on just beyond the walls, my heart pounding out drumbeats that would quickly soften to a steady patter.

I’m beginning to descend deeper into this daydream when I’m startled by a strange sound behind me, a low, choking moan, like a sheep with a bad chest cold. I turn around and see Mr. Darwin standing there, his copy of Paradise Lost tucked under his left arm. Even on his best days, when the sea is still and the sun is shining, Mr. Darwin’s face is striking: a large, round, bald head, a heavy brow that juts out over his eyes, and bushy, mutton-chop sideburns that creep all the way down to his jaw. But today he looks positively frightful. His eyes, which are tucked back in his head like caged animals, are misty and bloodshot, and his face is as sickly and pale as the belly of a fish. His mouth is hanging half-open and a thin glistening string of drool, of which he is entirely unaware, is dangling from his lower lip, swaying this way and that in the wind.

“Mr. Darwin,” I say, shocked by the naturalist’s grim appearance. “Are you…are you okay?”

He shuffles forward a few steps and then stops. “Alas,” he says, smiling weakly, “you’d think after all this time I would have gotten my sea legs, but…oh dear….” Suddenly, Mr. Darwin lurches forward and, gripping the ship’s rail tightly with his right hand, launches a heroic quantity of foamy green vomit into the ocean below.

When the wave of nausea passes, Mr. Darwin pulls a well-used handkerchief from his pocket and wipes his mouth with it. “You must forgive me, young lady,” he says weakly. “It is not my usual custom to be so indelicate in the company of others.” He straightens up, looking slightly—but not much—better than he did a moment before. “I suspect there must be a perfectly good reason for sea sickness, but for the life of me, I could not tell you what it is. At any rate, I’m most glad to see I’m not the only one who couldn’t abide by Captain FitzRoy’s orders.”

He puts his handkerchief back into his pocket and takes a few unsteady steps along the rail. Taking up a position next to me, Mr. Darwin looks out across the bay. The sun is dipping toward the horizon, casting its dull orange shadow only as far as the dark clouds will allow. A few sea birds are gliding bravely along on the wind, cocking their heads toward the water and looking for small fish near the surface of the looming grey swells. One of them cries out, and an instant later he and his comrades turn and fly over the ship and toward the safety of land.

A deckhand carrying a thick coil of rope glances at us as he rounds the fore mast. When he passes, Mr. Darwin whispers, “You don’t suppose the captain will cast us into the sea if he catches us here, do you?” His face is solemn, but I see good humor in his eyes.

“I should think not,” I reply, “but I wouldn’t care if he did. Anything would be better than sitting in my cabin counting away the hours. At least there would be something to do down there in the water.”

“You have some pluck,” Mr. Darwin says, the hint of a smile forming on his face. “A fine quality in a person, if you don’t mind me saying so.” He pauses and looks at me carefully, his watery eyes steady and thoughtful, like he’s examining a specimen on a glass dish. After a moment he says, “You bear a striking resemblance to a colleague of mine, Dr. Harlan MacAlistair. Do you know him?”

“Yes Sir,” I say, “he’s my father.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” Mr. Darwin says. “Really quite a remarkable similarity, particularly around the jaw line and the bridge of the nose. A fine man, your father, though I must admit that his theories about the natural world are, shall we say, unconventional, to say the least. At any rate, I’m pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss MacAlistair.”

“Likewise,” I say. Although I’m slightly embarrassed—no one has ever addressed me as ‘Miss MacAlistair’ before—I reach out my hand and say, “My name is Marigold, but everyone calls me Meg.”

“Ah, Caltha palustris,” Mr. Darwin says, taking my hand and giving it a surprisingly firm shake.

“I beg your pardon Sir?”

“Caltha palustris. That’s your name, or a Latin version of it, anyway. It means “Marsh Marigold.” Do you know that it is probably the most ancient native plant in all Britain?”

“I can’t say that I do, Sir.”

“Indeed. Not only is it a very beautiful flower, but it’s a hardy one, too. You see, many years ago, when the glaciers began to melt away, the Marsh Marigold sprouted up and flourished in the icy wetlands of what is now northern England. Snow, hail, fierce wind, even the heavy feet of large beasts couldn’t kill it. A most adaptable plant, the Marigold.”

“Adaptable Sir?”

A twinkle appears in Mr. Darwin’s eye. “Aye. You see, Meg, it is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change, like the Marsh Marigold. Let me explain….”

In the span of a few minutes, right before my eyes, Mr. Darwin becomes a man transformed. As he speaks, explaining his ideas on adaptation and survival and many other things, he grows more and more animated. His eyes begin to shine and the color returns to his cheeks. He starts gesturing with his hands, first making small jabbing motions with his fingers, then sweeping his arms outward to emphasize more important points.

At length, Mr. Darwin stops speaking and gesturing and looks down at me with an expression that resembles pity. “You must forgive me, Meg,” he says a bit sheepishly. “I fear that I quite lose myself when I talk about the natural world. It is a cursed evil to any man to become as absorbed in any subject as I am in mine.”

“Not at all, Mr. Darwin. I found it all very interesting, that is, the parts I understood. Anyway, I am very glad to see you looking better.”

“You’re very kind,” Mr. Darwin says. “Perhaps we’ll chat again when we reach the Galapagos Islands. For now, though, I think I shall return to my cabin, assuming, of course, that I can do so without making a complete fool of myself. Good day!”

Tottering away from the railing and winding his way through the scurrying groups of cabin boys, boatswains, and deck hands, Mr. Darwin disappears down the gangway that leads to the forecastle chambers. I lean back against the railing, my head spinning from Mr. Darwin’s strange ideas and my hair whipping behind me in the strengthening wind. Soon, fat raindrops begin to fall from the sky, plunking onto the deck and causing the ship’s crew to start bustling about like so many ants whose hill has been upset.

I take one last look out to sea and am about to return below deck when something catches my eye, some tiny flicker against the dark, low-lying clouds. The rain is falling harder now, stinging my cheeks and blurring my vision, but still I gaze out across the water at the small object coming toward me. “Surely not a bird,” I think. Shielding my eyes with my hands and squinting hard, the tiny object suddenly comes into focus. I stare at it dumbfounded. “It can’t be…”

It’s my pixie, Nyx.

It doesn’t make any sense. She’s supposed to be thousands of miles away, watching over the new leaf buds that are now sprouting on the apple trees back home, not here in the Pacific Ocean. I watch her anxiously as she struggles against the whipping wind, her tiny pink wings flitting furiously in her effort to reach the ship.

There’s a moment when I think she’s going to be driven into the sea, so fierce and relentless is the wind. But each time a gust hits her, she recovers and flies on, determined to reach me. At last, after what seems like an eternity, my dear pixie flops onto the deck, coughing and sputtering. She’s soaking wet and shivering, and judging by the look on her face, she’s exhausted almost to death.

“Nyx!” I cry. Rushing over to where she lies, I pick her up and dry her off with the tail of my shirt. “What are you doing here?”

“I…I don’t rightly…know, ma’am,” Nyx replies, breathing very fast. “But I’m fine now, ma’am…just fine. And by the way…thank you…thanks so much for…for…askin’ about my troubles.”

“Oh Nyx,” I say, kissing her lightly on the forehead. “You know I love you.” She can be such a sarcastic pixie when she wants to. “But honestly, what are you doing here? The orchard must be starting to green by now. What if you’re needed?”

“Well ma’am,” Nyx says after catching her breath, “the whole thing was all so sudden and strange. It took me by complete surprise, it did.” She sniffs and tosses her head to one side. “I wouldn’t have left if I thought I had a choice, ma’am.”

Regret washes over me immediately. I really should have known better than to ask such a silly question. Nyx isn’t the kind of pixie who takes her responsibilities lightly.

“Anyway, Ma’am,” Nyx continues, “he just came out of nowhere, like those morning mists that rise up from the hollows. There I was, sittin’ on the lower branches of the old Orange Pippin tree, coaxin’ out the first wee leaves of spring, when I feel this awful chill on my wings. Icy cold it was, like deep winter itself. And then I hear this voice…I don’t know how to describe it, ma’am. It was both high and low at the same time, if you understand me. And it was smooth, and very clear to listen to, almost like…I don’t know…like…”

“Like the waves of a frozen ocean crashing on a crystal beach,” I murmer.

“Yes, ma’am!” Nyx says excitedly, “That’s it exactly! That’s just what it sounded like!” But almost instantly, the bright look on Nyx’s face clouds over. “Beggin’ your pardon ma’am, but how could you know such a thing?”

Before I can control it, my lips curl into the beginnings of a smile. I try to hide it by coughing, but Nyx sees right through me (like all pixies, Nyx is very good at reading facial expressions). “Bless me, but you know who that voice belongs to, don’t you ma’am?”

“It’s a long story, Nyx” I say, steadying myself against the side rail as another huge wave crashes against the ship.

“I sure could use a long story, ma’am,” Nyx says, wiping seawater from her nose, “after all I’ve been through these last few days. But if you’re agreeable, we might do well to get to warmer and drier quarters first. Leastways, I know it would do me a bit of good. And I wouldn’t turn my nose up to a small bite of something to eat, neither.”

I look down at Nyx, who is now sitting up in my palm and shaking water from her wings. Sarcastic or not, she sure looks pitiful. Although I’m desperately curious to find out why Nyx has come, I bottle up my questions and attend to my drenched pixie.

“Oh Nyx, I’m sorry,” I say. “What a time of it you must have had, coming so far in such foul weather. We’ll go below right away.”

Forgetting for the moment that I’m on deck against the captain’s orders, I stop a cabin boy and ask him to send for Hezekiah. “Please tell him to bring supper down just as soon as he can,” I say.

As the cabin boy scurries away along the rain-slicked deck, I cradle Nyx in my hand and climb down the hatch and into the forecabin. Opening the heavy oak door to my room, I take Nyx over to the washbowl, where I dry her properly with a small cloth.

“There,” I say, fluffing Nyx’s wings with the tips of my fingers, “snug as a bug in a rug.” I carry Nyx to my bed and set her on the pillow.

Much sooner than I expect, I hear a heavy knock on the door. “Good evenin’, Miss MacAlistair!” the porter says when I let him into the cabin. Tall and broad-shouldered, Hezekiah has to stoop down and twist sideways to get through the door. He has a large round face and a deep voice, and a single gold tooth that shines when he smiles. He’s accompanied me on many voyages, Hezekiah has, and he’s always looked out for me, keeping me out of harm’s way. Needless to say, I’m very fond of him.

“That didn’t take long,” I say, giving Hezekiah a big hug.

“I got some real good vittles for you tonight,” Hezekiah says. He’s holding a large pewter platter, which he proceeds to set on the pine sea chest at the foot of my bed. He lifts off the cover and smiles in a self-satisfied kind of way.

“Now you just takes a good look at that, Miss MacAlistair” the porter says. “A right fine catch that is. They hooked it fresh not one hour ago, even in dis storm. I saw the quartermaster haul it on board hisself.”

Lying there in the middle of the platter is a mackeral, just as fat as you could want, drenched in butter and sprinkled with parsley and pepper. Surrounding it are some fresh sliced lemons and oranges, a few biscuits, and some strips of salted pork. Off to the side, carefully separated from everything else, there’s a thick slab of butter, a thimbleful of spring water, and, to my complete surprise, a few pink clover blossoms.

“Nyx, look!” I say, “Your favorite!” Nyx’s eyes widen at the sight of the butter and blossoms. I turn to Hezekiah and say, “But how could you have possibly known….”

“Now Miss MacAlistair,” Hezekiah interrupts, “it don’t really matter how I knowd or how it gots here. It’s here, and your pixie will be the better for it or I’m the biggest fool that ever lived. Now you two eat up. I’ll be back to clean up later.”

In all my life I’ve never seen a pixie go after a meal the way Nyx does at this moment. Hezekiah barely has time to close the door behind him before Nyx flies to the platter, grabs a clover blossom in each hand, and shoves them both into her tiny mouth. While she’s still chewing on the blossoms, she leans over the slab of butter and, using her antennae as scoops, gathers up two big blobs of it, which she also crams into her mouth. She gulps down the buttery, blossomy mixture, takes a long drink from the thimble, and starts again with new blossoms and more butter.

“Careful Nyx,” I giggle, “you don’t want to get pixirhea again.”

“Now Ma’am, you shouldn’t make fun,” Nyx mumbles through her stuffed mouth. “You know as well as I do that it warn’t clover blossoms that gave me such trouble last time, it was those green apples. It couldn’t be helped, really.”

“You bet it couldn’t,” I say, starting to laugh. “Why, I’ve never seen a pixie poop with such force in my entire life. Do you remember when you tried to fly back to the barn?”

“I’m trying to forget,” Nyx mutters.

“You looked just like a pinwheel,” I guffaw, “spinning around in circles, rising higher and higher into the sky, pixie poop flying everywhere.” By now I’m laughing so hard that tears are streaming down my cheeks. “I thought for sure you were going to spin yourself all the way to the moon!”

Nyx’s mouth, greasy with butter and flecked with bits of clover blossom, starts to curl into an embarrassed smile. “Yes ma’am,” she says. “For a moment there, I thought so, too.”

Before long, we’re both rolling on the bed, holding our stomachs and laughing. That’s the great thing about pixies: no matter what, they can always find the humor in almost any situation.

Eventually, after much talking and a great deal of giggling, we manage to finish our meals. After I stack our plates on the pewter tray, we throw ourselves down on the bed, thoroughly stuffed.

With a gentle knock, Hezekiah enters the cabin and smiles his big, golden-toothed smile. “I told you they was good vittles,” he says.

“The absolute best, Hezekiah,” I say. “I still don’t know where you got those clover blossoms, or even why you thought to have them brought on board, but however you did it, you certainly made one pixie very happy today. Isn’t that right Nyx?”

We both look over at Nyx, who has propped herself up against a pillow and is burping quietly.

“Now, don’t you think on it for one minute, Miss MacAlistair,” Hezekiah says as he gathers up our plates. “Sometimes things just happen because they’re meant to. Now, if you two need anything else, anything at all, you just give ol’ Hezekiah a call.”

With a small click, Hezekiah closes the door behind him, and Nyx and I are left to digest our meals sourrounded by a strange symphony of ship noises: the creaking of the ship’s hull, the shouting and thumping feet of the sailors as they trim the sails and batten down the hatches, the heavy dull sound of storm waves as they crash against the sides of the ship.

I’m beginning to feel very drowsy when suddenly I hear Nyx say, “If it’s all right with you, ma’am, I think I’m quite ready to hear that long story now.”

I smile. “Are you sure you can stay awake for it? I mean, after such a long trip and everything, you must be very tired.”

“Oh, no ma’am!” Nyx says. “I want to know everything about the voice I heard in the orchard. The whole time I was flying across the ocean to find you, I could hear him in my head. I tried to imagine what he looks like, but it was almost impossible, ma’am, what with that peculiar voice and all.”

“You mean you didn’t see him?” I say, leaning up on my elbow.

“Well, that’s the strange thing,” Nyx says, her brow furrowed in puzzlement, “or one of the strange things, anyway. He didn’t want me to look at him for some reason. He kept quite out of sight, he did. Spoke to me from behind the hedgerow. In fact, he was about as mysterious as a person could be.”

“Well, then,” I say, flopping back down onto my pillow, an impish grin on my face. “This is going to be quite a tale for you.”

I close my eyes and think back to the very beginning of things, that first day, the first moment I ever saw Adrien, there in the cold north. Even now, after these many long months, I can almost hear the sea birds and feel the icy wind on my face. After a few moments, I open my eyes and look back at Nyx. She’s sitting on the pillow, her chin on her hand, waiting for me to begin.

“So tell me, Nyx,” I say after a long pause, “what do you know about Mermen?”

CHAPTER 2

BEGGIN’ YOUR PARDON MA’AM, BUT THAT JUST ISN’T possible,” Nyx says in breathless disbelief. “How could a Merman be talkin’ to me on land, a sea creature like that? It isn’t natural.”

The storm outside has developed into a true ripper, and the ship is now rocking and lurching so much that it’s all Nyx can do to avoid being knocked to the floor. Still, she keeps her eyes fixed on mine, taking in everything I’m saying.

“Why of course it’s natural,” I reply. “When Merfolk reach a certain age they develop land legs, complete with feet and everything. Even you must know that.”

“Well Ma’am,” Nyx huffs, “I know a fine bit about what happens on land and in the air, and I’m not too humble to say that I know more than just about anyone what makes apple trees blossom in April, but what goes on beneath the ocean is a little out of my experience. And when things that are supposed to be beneath the ocean suddenly show up next to my apple trees, well, that’s just a special kind of odd.”

I couldn’t fault her there. Merfolk are a bit odd. Still, I couldn’t help taking this moment to educate my dear pixie. Clearly she had a lot to learn about the Royalty of the Sea.

“Before they reach the age of separation—about 16 human years—Merfolk are sea-bound. Those long flukes they have are their only form of locomotion. But once they reach the age of separation, their bodies go through a massive change, and they develop the ability to walk on land.”

“And just how do they do that?” Nyx says. I can tell she thinks I’ve lost my mind.

“Well, it just…happens. I don’t know how, but it does, okay? Maybe it’s one of those things that Mr. Darwin calls an ‘adaptation,’ you know, a special quality that helps Merfolk survive. Anyhow, these land legs are just like yours and mine, except that it takes a while for a Merperson’s flukes to actually become legs when they swim onto land. They have to, you know, transform. That’s why it’s so important for them to find the right place to come ashore. It needs to bee someplace hidden, protected. They wouldn’t want to be caught unawares like, well, a fish out of water…”

“Now ma’am,” Nyx says, sitting straight up despite the rolling of the ship, “are you expectin’ me to believe that these Merfolk just decide to swim onto a beach somewhere, turn their flippers or ‘flukes,’ or whatever you call ‘em, into legs and start walkin’ around like the rest of us?”

“Well, they don’t just decide,” I say. “If you see Merfolk on land, they have a very good reason for being there. But yes, that’s how it happens.”

Nyx is still looking at me in a funny way, as if she’s trying to decide whether I’m playing a joke on her or if I really am off my rocker. But after a moment, she flops back down on the pillow, resigned, I suppose, to accept my story.

Just then there’s a loud crash overhead, followed by a string of muffled curses and the wild thumping of deckhands’ feet. “I bet a sail has come undone in this wind,” I say disapprovingly. “Someone didn’t attend to his knots.” I look down at Nyx and see that she is blinking and glancing up at the roof of my cabin.

“Say it isn’t so,” I say mischievously. “The pixie who braved the open sea is afraid of a little noise?”

“Ma’am,” Nyx replies, “I mean no disrespect, I really don’t, but how’d you like to fly thousands of miles over stormy water only to land on a ship that breaks apart and sinks into the sea right after you arrive? That’s a long flight back, that is.”


“I see your point,” I say, chastened. “Don’t worry, we’ve got a good crew.”
A moment later, as if on cue, Hezekiah’s booming voice comes rumbling through the forecastle planks. I can’t make out his words but I can tell he is giving orders and laughing, his gold tooth, no doubt, shining in the gloom. I can imagine him slapping the deckhands on the backs as he helps them retie the sails. “See?” I say, “Hezekiah has everything under control.”

“Not…not bad for a porter,” Nyx says, smiling uneasily.

Before long, the frantic activity above deck dies down as the loose sail is tied up securely and the voices and footsteps of the deckhands begin to retreat into the drier reaches of the ship. Only the wind and the waves and the ringing of the portside harbour bell can be heard. Nyx closes her eyes and sighs.

Several minutes pass by, and I’m beginning to think that Nyx has fallen asleep when, with a little stretch, she half opens her eyes and says, “So this Merman swims up to the shores of Scarborough or Bridlington, gets his land legs, and then walks all the way to York to see you, is that right ma’am?”

“That’s right, Nyx.”

“And he’s done this before, this Merman? Come to visit you like that?”

“Every so often. I can usually count on him sneaking up on me every few weeks. He’s been doing it ever since we met. At first I think he was just curious. I guess he hasn’t had much contact with humans. But after awhile we started to take a liking to one another. He’d tell me about his home in the Barentsz Sea and I’d tell him about Yorkshire. Now we’re friends. His name’s Adrien, by the way.”

“Adrien,” Nyx repeats. She’s silent for a few moments, and then she says, “Ma’am, if you don’t mind my askin’, how come you’ve never mentioned this Adrien to me before? I didn’t think you’d keep a secret like this from me.”

<TEXT ENDS HERE>