Lure, p.5
Lure, page 5
I cannot puzzle it out. Did I not also see Agnet’s gap-toothed beauty reflected in the luremaid? Does this dispel my suspicion that Mother was murdered, or is it a portent of some tragedy yet to play out?
These terrible thoughts nibble at my brain the way the rat natters at a sack of winter grain. They distract me from my duties. I all but butcher the herring when I clean it and let a crockery plate slip from my clumsy hands to shatter on the floor. It had belonged to mother, an heirloom handed down through her family. Now it lies in pieces at my feet. Father scolds my clumsiness, asking if my brains have leaked out of my wide ears to render me a simpleton.
When the table is cleared, he asks me to brew the tea and orders Bryndis to prepare a plate of seedcakes. The village elders are meeting in the church at sundown. The matter of the mermaid is to be decided tonight.
My sister and I do as we’re told, bringing the tea to the church. The blacksmith arrives with Ulric, the elder fisherman. Clovis, Bjarni, and Sligo follow, all stinking of fish and brine as they tuck into the tea and cakes. Prefect Cornelius apologizes for being late and Gunther the Brave arrives last. Unapologetic, he sprawls into a pew like he owns the place. Father dismisses us and then takes quorum. Bryndis and I have barely made the door when the men fall into a clamor over their predicament. Bryndis hisses at me to hurry, but I hold back, slipping into a shadow in the transept. I want to hear the council’s decision.
My father is not one of the councilmen, but as parish minister, he is expected to mediate the discussion. Cornelius, as Prefect, holds authority in our little village, but the other men dislike him and openly flout his decrees. His gnarled cane acts as a gavel when he bangs it to restore dignity to the squabbling council.
The first order of business is the whereabouts of Hrolf, one of our more prosperous fishermen. He has apparently vanished from the village and his wife is beside herself with worry. According to Bjarni, no one has seen him since the night of revelry when they tossed the mermaid into the fountain.
“My memory of that night is a little foggy,” admits Ulric.
“You were barking at the stars, if I remember correctly,” Gunther laughs.
Ulric turns red. “Who saw Hrolf last?”
“I did,” Clovis replies. “Later that night, when everyone had gone home. He was at the fountain.”
“What was he doing?”
Clovis shrugs. “Pissing into it.”
The councilmen grow quiet. No one says aloud what they all must be thinking.
Prefect Cornelius grows impatient, tapping his cane to hurry things along. “Hrolf will return on his own or wash up on the beach. Next order of business, please.”
It is the mermaid in the cistern, and what to do with her. The councilmen break into arguments over her fate. Cornelius scolds them all for their chattering and says that if they cannot come to a decision, he will write to the palace court for direction in the matter. The men deride his ruling and resume their squabble.
“We shall wait for a response from the king,” he says, striking his cane against the floor one last time. “The decision will be his.”
He is jeered and scoffed at for his usual dithering. Gunther advocates for killing the creature, as it has become a nuisance. He offers to perform the duty himself. For a fee, of course. He will boil the bones down so they can be hung here in the church next to their relic of our sacred sea monster. Surely, the two are related, he says. The blacksmith is against this plan, advising that they keep the creature as a pet. Let people pay to see it, he says. The curious will fill our pockets with silver. Everyone wins.
Ulric, as the oldest fisherman in the village, and the most respected, declares that plan to be foolish. The mermaid is unnatural, an abhorrence to both God and man, and keeping it will only bring misfortune. He insists the creature be set free immediately. It is already wreaking havoc, he adds, noting how every maiden in the village is shirking her duty to come gaze at the mer-maiden. They practically worship it, he huffs.
The remaining councilmen, Bjarni, Clovis, and Sligo, are spineless reeds who sway with each argument, unable to make up their minds. The discussion grows animated, until my father steps in to put it to a vote. He lays out the choices and five of the seven hands rise in favor of allowing Gunther to gut the creature.
Tomorrow, the harpoonist will perform his duty and the nuisance will be over. Prefect Cornelius is still prattling on about seeking counsel from the palace, but no one is listening.
The wise men of Torgrimsvær shake hands and leave.
***
I am sick to my stomach. The mermaid is sentenced to death and her blood will be on my hands. Why did I tell Father? Had I expected him to be merciful? I should have kept the secret to myself. I should have told only Agnet like I had planned. At least I know she can keep a secret. Now, it is too late.
The candle flickers from a draft in the wall. Both siblings are in bed when I return, and father withdraws into his room. I shake my sister awake and tell her of the council’s decision. She sits up in alarm.
“We can’t just let them kill it,” I say.
“What are we to do about it? The men have made up their minds.”
The tallow flutters again. Pip purrs loudly in his cot.
“We are going to set it free.”
My sister won’t hear of it. “You want to go against Father? And the council? They’d put us in irons.”
“We have to, Bryndis. I am going to set it free, and you are going to help me.”
“Don’t be an idiot, Kaspar. Go to sleep.”
She turns to the wall, and I hate my sister in this moment. I will need help if I am to get the creature out of the fountain and back to the sea. I look over at Pip. Our brother is simple-minded, but he is stronger than he looks. Loyal as a puppy, Pip will do anything I ask him to. I reach for his shoulder to wake him.
Bryndis shoots up, her face angry in the tallow light.
“Do not involve Pip in this,” she hisses. “I will murder you if you get him in trouble.”
She will, too. As the oldest, Bryndis feels responsible for us all, but she is overly protective of our little brother.
Chastened, I blow out the candle and wait until my father’s snores deepen and everyone is asleep. Then I rise, carrying my shoes in hand until I am safely outside.
The moon is waning, but it offers enough light to see my way. I take the wheelbarrow from the yard and push it over the cobbles to the village square. I worry the racket will wake every household, but the eternal roar of the surf masks the clattering noise. This is my plan; get the mermaid in the barrow, wheel her down to the water, and tip her in. Exactly how I will get the creature out of the pool is another matter altogether. Leaning over the stone rim, I look for the mermaid, but the water is too dark to see anything. Has she escaped? That seems doubtful, considering how sickly she looked the last time I saw her. Perhaps someone else has rescued her? In my mind, I picture a scenario where all the village girls assemble to pull the creature from this filthy pool and wade her out into the waves. It seems almost holy, that image.
I am wrong in both assumptions. A form grows within the murky depths, floating to the scummy surface. Face down, back to the air, the way the dead float. Praying I am not too late, I grip the woman by the arm and haul and tug and strain until the great tail flops over the lip to dry land. Her eyes are open but milky. If the gills move, I cannot see it. I haul her into the wheelbarrow and fold the enormous tail around her. Scales flake away under my hands, slicing into my palms.
The route to the stony beach will be easier than the pier. All downhill, but the wooden wheel grinds against the pebbles and will go no further. Hooking my arms around her, I drag the mermaid into the foamy brine and let her go.
The waves rock her gently, her eyes up at the sliver of moon, and then she rolls over, face down in the water. The sailfin on her dorsal lies limp. She is dead. My foolish rescue has come too late. I wade back onto the shore and sit on the pebbles. I don’t know why I want to cry. It is just a fish.
My thoughts turn to Agnet. They always do, but there is a clarity here that startles me. I think back to the gap I had seen in the mermaid’s teeth. How, in that brief moment, the mermaid had so eerily resembled Agnet that it had left me shaken. I remember now all the countless rescue plans I had made in the past. All daydreams and empty wishes.
My father had been the one to break the news of Agnet’s nuptials to Gunther the Brave. Father knew I was fond of Agnet, although he did not know the extent of our secret liaisons. To his credit, he tried to be as gentle as he could with the bad news. I did not cry in front of him. I waited until I got to the fishing hut before letting it all blubber out.
Every night after that, I would dream up plans to rescue Agnet from her brutish husband. I would steal her away in the night and we would sail off in his boat. Or I would murder him in his sleep and take Agnet away. I would get him drunk and push him overboard. Poison his soup. Cast a spell so that a whale would swallow him whole. None of these fantasies involved besting Gunther in a fight. The man was a giant. He would have snapped me like a clamshell.
Of course, all these scenarios remained fantasies. I am no hero from a saga, rescuing a princess. I can do nothing, and Agnet is doomed to live out her days as a fisherman’s wife.
So.
Maybe this is why I have foolishly attempted to save the mermaid. Agnet is lost, but maybe I could rescue this princess with the seaweed locks? Yet even this I cannot do as the creature is dead and I have failed. Her body sways in the shallows as the waves roll in and drain out again.
The tears come fast and easy now, me blubbering until my nose runs as bad as Pip’s. When I finally dry my eyes, the carcass on the beach is gone.
10
PIP IS AGITATED the next morning, clattering his bowl of gruel without tasting a drop and prattling on about a bad dream he’d had. I stoke the morning fire back to life and tell him to pipe down. I am in no mood for his nonsense. I can’t stop seeing the image of the mermaid rolling lifelessly in the surf. Bryndis indulges Pip, as she often does, by asking about his dream.
“Black clouds rolled in over the village,” he says through the slime running down his face. “They blocked out the sun and did not go away. Every garden died. Then every hen, every goat. All the fish washed up dead on shore. The village died.”
“It was just a dream,” I tell him. “It doesn’t mean anything.”
Bryndis pats our brother’s head and tells him not to think about it. “Eat your gruel.”
The boy won’t listen. “Something bad is going to happen. You’ll see.”
The discussion ends when father enters. Father hates talk of dreams. Not on any religious grounds, he just finds them excruciatingly boring. Even Pip knows enough to shut his flapping trap.
Father has barely tasted his breakfast when a hammering on the rectory door makes us all jump. Jon’s son, Jasper, stands panting in our doorway, saying the Reverend is needed in the square. Something has happened. Father snatches his coat from the hook, orders us to stay put, and follows Jasper. Without a thought, Pip races out the door after him, and Bryndis follows. I know what the fuss is about, but I go after them, anyway.
The councilmen are present, along with half the village. The mermaid is gone, and everyone is upset. The men are angry, eager to know what has happened, especially Gunther, who has spent the morning sharpening his blade in anticipation of the slaughter. All the young daughters and sisters are sad, some openly sobbing as they look down into the now-empty fountain. The water smells worse than ever, emitting a noxious miasma that has everyone covering their nose.
Disagreements fling back and forth about what happened to their prize. Did the mermaid escape on its own, slithering over the wet cobbles to reach the sea? Did someone help it escape? Or has some greedy villain stolen it for his own twisted pleasure? Clovis, who is drunk, yammers on about how he had witnessed the mermaid burst into righteous flame and fly up to the heavens where it became a holy comet in the night sky. An act of divine retribution by the One True God. He is clouted about the head and driven from the square. Some are glad to see the end of it, declaring the whole thing a nuisance. Midwife Hagar says it is all for the best, as mistreating a mermaid will only bring bad luck.
I pull father aside. “Ask if they’ve checked the shoreline. Maybe its carcass washed up there.”
Boys are dispatched to the beach and the jetty of craggy rocks that acts as a breakwater to the sea. They return breathless, with nothing to report. The hubbub grows stale, and villagers drift off to get on with their day. Wives shepherd their children home while the fishermen ready their boats for the day’s haul. Our little saga is over, and everything can go back to normal now.
Walking back to the church, Bryndis lags beside me and keeps her voice down.
“Was it you?” she wants to know. “Did you set it free?”
“What does it matter? It’s gone.”
Her fingernails dig into my elbow so hard it hurts. My sister is unnaturally strong. “Did you do it? Tell me.”
I kick a pebble. “I was too late. It was dead.”
“Dead? What did you do with it?”
“Gave it back to the sea.”
We walk on. “Probably for the best,” she remarks. “I will miss it, though.”
I agree. “We can all go back to our daily drudgery now.”
Bryndis says nothing in reply, but her face sours at the thought.
***
My prediction proves true as the day rolls out without incident or deviation from routine. People avoid the village square because of the smell. A green scum has formed on the surface of the stagnant pool, trapping insects and a few small birds. Prefect Cornelius complains that it needs to be bailed and scrubbed, but when he asks for volunteers, everyone becomes busy with their chores.
It isn’t until the fishermen return at the end of the day that any hint of trouble bubbles up to disturb the quiet of a dull afternoon.
Ulric complains that his nets have been torn up. He holds them up for us to see the gaping hole in the webbing. Sligo, tying his boat off, says the same has happened to him. His skiff is empty of catch. Bjarni, drenched to the bone, returns home in Brom’s boat. Something had rammed his dory, causing it to capsize. He knows not if it was a whale or one of the blind sharks that prowl these waters. Brom, bobbing nearby, had witnessed the whole event and had rowed hard to pull his friend from the sea.
Even Gunther has suffered the same misfortune with a slashed net. Wall-eyed Wilfred shows us the splintered remains of his traps, all seven destroyed by something spiteful in the depths. The crowd on the wharf titters and speculates over what could have happened. Has the luremaid incited the fish to turn on the fishermen? It seems absurd.
I spot Agnet among the faces, rushing along the pier to see if her husband is injured. Her concern for him angers me. I am petty.
Adja Blundsquill is running to and fro along the stone dock, unable to find her husband’s skiff among the others. He had gone out with the rest this morning but has not returned. A chill of concern ripples through the townsfolk. The sun is going down and a lone fisherman out on a dark sea is unlikely to return. Gunther untethers his boat and rows out to find him. Adja is circled by the other women who assure her that her husband will return.
Down on the beach, I see young Tito calling for his dog, and asking if anyone has seen him. No one has. Why this troubles me, I cannot say.
The day becomes peculiarly still. The sea settles into glass when the breeze drops. Fishermen look up as their vessels cease bobbing, and the cries of the gulls echo clear across the bay. With no wind, the smell of dead jellyfish on the beach rises to my nose, unpleasant but familiar. The village tucked behind the wharf, with its drab huts and clay-tiled roofs, is a picture waiting to be painted.
And still, Tito calls for his missing pet.
Someone on the far end of the wharf is hollering his fool head off, pointing to something out in the bay. A lone figure cuts silently over the surface of the water. The sail of the dorsal fin arcs high above the surf. The mermaid observes us for a moment before slipping beneath the waves.
She has survived! A sense of relief washes over me like an ablution. The sea creature is alive and free to return to whatever magical kingdom it came from. Away from this awful place that sought to slaughter it. Some grouse at this, but a surprising number of the villagers share my sentiment. A few even clap their hands as if to congratulate the maiden in the water. Ulric shakes a bony fist at it, while Mesud raises his harpoon, hoping it will swim within range.
She is spotted again, on the east side of the quay this time. But much closer. Again, she slices the surface at a brisk clip, her strange eyes on us. As before, the same questions come as we stare back at it. What does it want? Why doesn’t it just swim away?
Standing close to Hagar, I hear the midwife mutter to the other women. “She came with the full moon,” she whispers. “She can’t leave until the next one.”
How Hagar comes by this knowledge, I cannot say, but I suspect there is more to the woman than just midwifing babes into the world.
Gunther rows back in and tells Adja that he is sorry, but he could not spy her husband’s skiff anywhere. His face darkens when the others tell him of the mermaid’s return. There is a splash on his starboard side. When the creature breaks the surface a third time, Gunther watches her glide past with a calculating gaze. Tugging at his trousers, he draws out his pizzle and pisses into the sea.
