Between the lines

As my vision clears beneath the water, I realize that all three mermaids are swimming nearby. Among the most unsettling parts of the fairy tale, when I first read it, were these women, with their tangled seaweed hair and emaciated bodies, the spiny fins on their forearms, the bloodred ridges of their gills flaring with each breath. Little girls dream of being mermaids, but not ones like these. They are, I realize, even more terrifying up close and personal than in an illustration. I have to keep reminding myself of what Oliver has told me: the characters in the story are nothing like the people they are when the book is closed. Maybe this means that the mermaids don’t intend to kill me.

“Where did you come from?” asks Kyrie, the mermaid who saved me from the shark.

“That’s a very long story,” I say.

“Oh, tell it,” cries Ondine, clapping her hands. “We haven’t had a new story in the longest time.”

“Sisters,” Marina murmurs, swimming closer to me. “Don’t pressure the boy. Can’t you see he’s scared?”

A boy? They think I’m a boy? That is enough to panic me into speaking out loud, because I know too well what these mermaids do to boys who fall into the waters near their home. “I’m not a boy,” I say.

Ondine twirls around me in a circle. “You’re dressed like one.”

“This is how all the kids dress, where I live.”

“Which is where, exactly?” Marina asks.

“In New Hampshire.” I hesitate. “It’s a kingdom pretty far away.”

“What brings you here?” Kyrie asks.

There is no way to explain to three characters inside a book that a world might exist beyond their imaginations. It’s why people don’t believe in aliens, and why no one else believes in Oliver. “It wasn’t exactly my idea to come,” I mutter. “This guy sort of summoned me.”

The mermaids look at each other. “Of course he did,” Ondine says.

“Leave it to a man to mess things up,” Marina agrees.

Kyrie shakes her head. “Men. You can’t live with them… you can’t legally drown them.”

Marina slips her arm through mine. “Honey, you’ve come to the right place. Whoever this guy is, you don’t need him.”

My jaw drops open. These mermaids, who are man-crazy in the fairy tale, are… hard-core feminists?

“What did he do to you?” Kyrie asks. “Flirt with another girl?”

“Call you fat?” Marina suggests.

“Talk about his ex?” Ondine says, and the others groan.

“We’ve been there, sister,” Marina says.

“No, none of those things,” I tell them. “He dragged me here against my will. He didn’t even ask me first.”

“That’s positively barbaric,” Ondine agrees.

Marina nods. “Good thing you managed to get away from him.”

Hearing those words, I feel an ache in my chest. After all this time I’ve spent trying to be near Oliver, it hurts to have swung to the other extreme. “The thing is,” I say very quietly, “I sort of wish I hadn’t.”

Marina sighs. “Love’s a tidal wave,” she says.

“Because it sweeps you off your feet?” I ask.

“No. Because it sucks you under and you drown.”

“But sometimes,” I point out, “it’s the only thing that keeps you afloat.” I realize that as angry as I am at Oliver for doing this to me-ripping me out of my home and my life and away from my mother-I’ve hurt him just as much by saying to his face that I don’t want to be here. After all, on the outside, I have Jules and my mother. Oliver has nobody but me.

“I think this one’s a lost cause,” Kyrie says to her sisters.

Marina sniffs. “If you’re not going to turn your back on that jerk, as least don’t be a doormat.”

“I don’t understand…”

“Make him sweat a little,” Ondine says. “Make him realize what he’s got to lose.”

This reminds me of the end of my first conversation with Oliver, when he bossed me around because he’s a prince and simply expected me to be his subject and didn’t realize I could close the book on him at any time. But now I don’t have that upper hand… not that I’ve needed it. These days, we’re equals.

“Oh, Lord,” Marina says. “She’s gone all moony-eyed.”

I thought I understood Oliver, but I really didn’t-not until I found myself here against my will. Stuck in this world that he so badly wants to escape, I completely, viscerally see what’s at stake for him.

Maybe in his shoes, I would have been as desperate. Maybe I would have drawn him into the book too.

“I’ve got to find him,” I announce.

“Are you sure?” Kyrie asks. “There’s plenty of other fish in the sea.”

“But not like him,” I say. I look at the mermaids. “Thank you. For the hospitality, and the oxygen. But I have to get to the surface.”

Marina smirks. “Not like that,” she says. “You’re practically wearing undergarments.”

Why does everyone here keep saying that?

Before I can protest, Kyrie and Ondine link their arms through mine and swim me deeper into the sea, toward the mouth of an underwater cave. I recognize the small rounded driftwood door in the rear, behind which is a collection of skeletons.

They pull me through a crevice I remember seeing in an illustration-except there’s no picture of what waits on the other side. The small cubby is filled with golden doubloons, jeweled goblets, and heaps of shining gems. “This… this is worth a fortune!” I gasp.

Marina nods. “When ships don’t make it around the Cape of Passing Tides, we collect what’s left behind.” She picks up a diamond tiara. “You just never know when the stuff is going to come in handy.”

Kyrie dives into a pile of gleaming coins, sending them spinning in slow motion in the water. She emerges a moment later, holding a swath of indigo velvet. “I think this one will bring out her eyes,” she says, shaking out a gown with lace at the neckline and sleeves. Golden embroidery crisscrosses the bodice. It’s prettier than anything I’ve ever seen.

Ondine unlaces the back of the gown as Kyrie helps me out of my clothes. I step into the puddle of billowing fabric. The mermaids pull it up around me and tie me in tight. They swim back, examining me.

“What?” I say. “Is it awful?”

“There’s something missing…” Marina muses. She reaches into a wooden chest beside her and pulls out a rope of pearls, fastening it around my neck. “There. Perfect.”

“You think?” I ask shyly, and in response, they reach for my arms again and swim me out of the watery cave, up to the surface. I find myself balanced on the same rock where I’d been sitting earlier, crying.

I look at my reflection in the water. I’m stunning. If a little damp.

The mermaids bob in the waves, the sleek caps of their hair glistening in the sunlight. “This time,” Marina says, “that guy will never let you out of his sight.”

That’s what I’m hoping. I want to go home, but I want Oliver to come with me. Which means we both owe each other an apology.

I look at each of the mermaids in turn. “I can’t thank you enough,” I say.

They all sigh, or maybe that’s just the sound of the ocean crashing against the rocks, because when I look back they’ve disappeared, and if not for the fact that I’m wearing a very pretty, very soggy gown, I would think I’ve imagined the whole thing.

* * *

I am halfway back to the castle when the ground beneath my feet starts rumbling. I look overhead, expecting a thunderstorm, but all I can see are the dangling bits and pieces of words. Suddenly, there is a cloud of rising dust and a distant whinny, and I can make out the figure of Oliver riding his horse at a breakneck pace in my direction.

When he sees me, he pulls back on the reins, and Socks rears, his front legs pawing at the air in front of him.