The next morning Jill slipped out of her room with no more than a syllable to Jack, and all day she was unable to keep her mind on her work. She dropped two gla.s.ses to the floor and then cut her hand as she cleaned up the shards. The innkeeper spoke to her sternly about her carelessness. Jill just wanted night to come.
At last, the villagers had gone home. Jill went to her bedroom.
"Did you break two gla.s.ses today?" Jack asked as she walked in. "That"s what it sounded like from up here."
"I just want to go to sleep," Jill said sharply. Jack looked surprised, and then away. The frog stared at Jill.
Jill got into bed and turned her back to Jack. "How are you doing?" she asked without feeling.
"Fine," Jack said as he blew out the oil lamp by his bed. He didn"t sound fine. He sounded angry. Jill didn"t care.
She waited until she heard the first note of the mermaid"s song, checked that Jack was indeed breathing softly and evenly, and then hurried straight down to the little harbor. As she hurried, she sang along with the mermaid: Come, come, where heartache"s never been.
And where you"re seen as you want to be seen.
Come, come, the place of shadow and green, Where you"ll never cry no more, dear la.s.s, Where you"ll never cry no more.
When the mermaid rose out of the sea and onto the rock, Jill marveled at her moonlit body, her blacks, her greens, her eyes, her hair.
"There is my beautiful friend," said the mermaid. Jill shook her head in the strong wind, but smiled anyway.
"Mermaid," Jill said, "you told me last night that you came from a place where there was once no sadness. Is there sadness there now?"
"Yes," replied the mermaid.
"But why?"
"Do you remember," the mermaid asked, "that I told you there was one who would harm me if he could?"
"Yes."
"Once upon a time," she said, "there were seven sisters who lived beneath these waves. I was the youngest. Each of my sisters was more beautiful than the last, and each more kind and more good. We would rise up on this rock and sing to the people of this village, and they loved us. Indeed, there was a little girl who loved us more than anything, and she wanted to live with us, down in the dark and green sea, where there is no sadness. You see, her mother had died of a great sickness, and she was left alone with her cruel father. When she asked if she could come to live with us instead, we told her no. A little girl, we thought, should live with her kind above the waves. But then we learned that she too was sick, and if she stayed in the village she would surely die. So we relented, and one night she joined us, and then there were eight sisters.
"But her father was furious with us. He cast a net and caught my oldest sister and cut her throat, so her blood, dark and green, flowed over her beautiful smooth skin. Some weeks later, he caught my second eldest sister in his net, and again he cut her throat and spilled her dark green blood. Again and again he caught my sisters, until at last there were only me and his daughter left, living here under the sea.
"The little girl was so sorry for what her father had done that she became sick with grief. After seven days and seven nights of pining, she died from her sadness."
The mermaid"s wide-set eyes and moon-hued lips looked like they might burst with sorrow. But she said no more.
"That"s terrible," Jill cried. "Oh, it"s awful, it"s awful!" Suddenly, her sorrow for her own troubles seemed so small and stupid. "Let me help you!" Jill said, "Please! What can I do?"
The mermaid shook her head sadly. "What is there to be done?" she asked. "They are all dead. There is nothing to be done but weep." And Jill could see that rivers of tears had been steadily streaming down the mermaid"s face for many years, and had dug shallow canyons in her cheeks.
"Who is the man? Does he still live in the village?" Jill demanded fiercely.
The mermaid nodded sadly. "I don"t know who he is. I cannot see the faces of men. Just beautiful girls like you. But he still comes out some nights with his net and tries to catch me. I never know when. I believe he will not rest until I am dead. But what does it matter? My sisters, my sweet sisters, have all died already."
"He will not kill you," Jill swore, her teeth set, her hair blown back, her forehead shining high and wet with sea spray in the moonlight. "I will not let him do that."
When pink began to streak the east, Jill blew a kiss to the beautiful mermaid and went back to the tavern.
The next morning, Jack was awake before Jill. She got up, and he smiled at her.
"I"m sorry for last night," she said.
"You were tired from working all day."
"Yes," she said. "Very tired. Are you feeling better?"
"A little bit better each day," Jack replied. "But sitting here is boring."
Jill was humming a slow, sad tune when she slipped into the corridor.
As Jill scrubbed the tables in the tavern and the innkeeper shined the scotch gla.s.ses, Jill said, "Whose daughter was it that got lost in the sea?"
The tavern mistress stopped her shining and looked at Jill curiously. "Now what made ye think o" that, la.s.s?"
Jill shrugged and went back to scrubbing. "Dunno. Just thinking."
The tavern mistress shook her head. "The man what told the story," she said. "With the red beard."
Jill nodded. "That"s what I thought."
She watched him as he ate his dinner and then drank his scotch and ale. He laughed plenty and told stories and seemed to be liked by all. But there was something about him. Something sad. In the pauses between stories, or when his big-bellied laughter died away, she saw him sigh or look down at the table heavily. She didn"t know why she hadn"t seen it before. Once, he caught her looking at him. She smiled quickly. He broke into a broad grin. This time, when he looked away, he did not sigh.
Jill ran down to the edge of the rocks that night and told the mermaid that she knew who it was that was trying to hurt her. The mermaid nodded sullenly. "What good will that do, though?" she asked, and her lips and her face and her eyes were so sad and fine they made Jill want to weep. "He will not stop."
"I"ll make him stop," Jill said. "I swear it. I swear it."
This time, as the pink began to streak the eastern sky, the mermaid blew Jill a kiss. Jill felt it on her cheek, like soft sea foam.
The next afternoon, Jill made her way down to the little hut by the sea where the red-bearded man lived. She knocked on the door. There was no answer. So she went around to a small shed that stood behind the house to look for him there. The door stood ajar. Jill looked within.
Hanging from the walls of the shed were dozens of rusty fish axes and harpoons, each covered with fish guts and algae and filth. Covered, that is, save their edges. Those shone sharp and clean.
"h.e.l.lo there!"
Jill turned around to see the red-bearded man sitting on a stack of peat bricks against the wall of the house, mending a fishing net. "Why, look who it is!" he said, and his face lit up.
"h.e.l.lo," said Jill. "I hope I"m not disturbing you . . ."
"Why no! I love some comp"ny while I tend me net. Sit!" he said, and gestured with his foot at an upturned bucket, still wet with the innards of gutted fish. Jill looked at it and remained standing.
"Was it you that lost your daughter to the sea?" Jill asked, even though she knew the answer.
The man"s wide smile faded. He looked at Jill and his eyes were hollow. "Aye," he said. ""Twas."
Jill looked down. "I"m sorry," she said.
He nodded and sighed.
Jill looked back up, straight into the man"s eyes, with a gaze sharper than a fish knife. "Are you trying to catch the mermaid?" she asked. Her mouth was set and her face was hard.
The man looked at her funny. "La.s.s," he said at last, "no man can cast such a net as can catch a mermaid."
Jill did not let him out of her gaze. He looked back down at his work on the net. "This poor rope and twine can no more catch a mermaid than you can catch the light o" the moon," he said. He began mending again. After a moment, Jill again said she was sorry for his loss, and started back toward the village. But after a dozen steps she glanced over her shoulder. The man was watching her darkly, keenly, from under his heavy brows. She hurried up the hill.
That night, Jill waited impatiently for Jack to fall asleep, and then, as soon as the mermaid"s song began, she hurried down the steps and out the door of the tavern. As she slipped out into the night, she kept an eye on the little hut by the sea. Its door was tightly shut against the wind and the spray. As she made her way down to the rocks, though, following the sound of the mermaid"s song, she thought she saw the door open just a crack. She stopped. She looked closer. Yes. The door to the bearded man"s house was now standing ever so slightly ajar. Jill kept walking.
When she got to the little harbor, she walked on past it, farther out onto the rocks. The waves crashed around her feet as she climbed the slippery, craterous black crags out over the sea. At last she found a good footing.
"I didn"t want him to see where I meet you," Jill whispered to the wind. "He"s watching me right now."
As if in answer, the mermaid sang, Never cry no more again, and her song caught on the word never. The mermaid held it long and low and so sad, and then let it fall and gutter like waves in a rocky shoal. The song ended. She did not pick it up again. Carefully, Jill walked back over the slick rocks, and then up the path and into the tavern. She closed the door behind her. She waited. Ten minutes later, she opened the door just a crack and peeked out. The bearded man"s door was tightly shut.
Jack was sitting up when Jill awoke the next morning. "Hi!" he said. "I feel a lot better. I think I can help you with your work today."
Jill"s hands instantly became clammy. She sat up and stared at him.
Then, as if deciding something, she got out of bed and came to his side. "Let me feel your head." The frog crawled out of the blankets and yawned sleepily. She put her hand on Jack"s forehead. Compared to her clammy, sweating hands, Jack"s forehead was smooth and dry and cool. "Take one more day," Jill said firmly. "One more day, and then you can come downstairs and help me."
"At least let me sit down there-" Jack began.
"No," said Jill, and her voice was sharp when she said it.
"I don"t think sitting downstairs would be bad for Jack," the frog replied, surprised by her abruptness.
Jill thought for a moment. Then she said, "Not for Jack, no. But I don"t think the innkeeper would like him sitting in tavern, staring at the customers, do you? With a bandage on his head?" And without waiting for a response she got up, left the room, and closed the door behind her. Once in the corridor, she took a deep breath and went downstairs.
The lunch service in the tavern was always quiet, because the fishermen did not return with their boats until midafternoon. As soon as the last patron had left, Jill slipped out the tavern door and hurried down to the hut by the sea. The door was closed and no light came from within. The bearded man would, like the rest of the fishermen, be out on the sea for a couple of hours yet.
Jill went around to the back of the house. There, she tried the door of the shed. It wasn"t locked. She slipped inside and closed the door behind her.
Within, she scanned the walls. Rusty instruments of death hung from every hook. She studied the hooked blade for opening a fish"s belly, the sideways-bending knife for separating meat from bone, the harpoon points with their barbs that caught and tore the flesh. She found a coil of rope and set to work.
Now, my dear reader, you are probably feeling a little tense right now. If I"ve told this story well at all, in fact, you should be feeling a tightness in your shoulders, and a lightness in your head, and your breath should be coming a little quicker.
And when I describe Jill hiding in the hut with all the "instruments of death," as I think I called them-well, you are probably expecting something horrible and b.l.o.o.d.y to transpire.
Good. At least you"re expecting it. That should help a little.
The bearded man came home exhausted and stinking of fish. He walked into his little house and peeled off his great oilskin coat and changed his heavy boots for some lighter shoes. Then, sighing from the day"s work, he went out back and trudged heavily to his toolshed.
He pulled the door open and stepped inside-and found himself tumbling to the floor. His great frame crashed into the back wall, sending knives and knots and awls clattering down upon him. He looked back at the door. There was a rope tied tightly across the frame. He looked up.
Jill stood above him. Her face was furious and black. Her eyes were wide. Her nostrils flared. Her lips were pulled back around her teeth. Above her head hovered the largest, sharpest fish ax the man possessed.
"Leave the mermaid alone!" Jill bellowed.
And she brought the blade down as hard and as fast as she could. The man raised his arm to protect himself. The rusty blade hit his flesh with a thwack and buried itself in his bone. The man howled. Jill tried to pull the ax out, but it seemed to have become lodged there. Jill turned and grabbed the long, curving knife from the wall. She raised it and brought it down-but before it could enter the man"s flesh, she was flung back by a kick to the chest. She tumbled over the rope and out into the daylight.
The man lay amid the fallen tools in the tiny shed, blood pouring from his arm onto the ground. He was staring at Jill.
"You leave her alone!" Jill snarled again, and then she ran.
Jill pa.s.sed the tavern so quickly she did not see Jack looking out the window, watching her run up the road. Not that seeing him would have stopped her now. She kept going, up, up into the steep and misty hills. The wet gra.s.s was like a sponge beneath her feet. She could smell the peat smoke rising from the fires in the houses of the village. It was a sweet, musty smell. She pa.s.sed a flock of sheep, lying on the green wet hillside. They bleated at her.
At the edge of the little valley behind the first hill, there stood a small sheepfold-just a wooden structure with three walls and a roof, where the sheep could gather if they wanted to get out of the rain. Jill made her way to that. She sat down in it. She looked at herself. Her clothing was splattered with the man"s blood.
She was sorry she hadn"t killed him, but she thought that maybe, lying there, he might just bleed to death on his own. She thought of the beautiful mermaid-how perfect she was. And how she loved Jill. She loved her, Jill knew it. And to think that there had been six more of them, and that the bearded man had killed them all. It made her sick. And then, to think of his little daughter, who had died from grief because of him. Oh, what he had done to his little daughter.
Perhaps, she thought, she would return to his hut that night and be sure the job was done.