Elli, as Ma's family came to call her, simply because they couldn't pronounce her real name, didn't have a tail and she wasn't wet. However, the signs were unmistakable. Her silver-and-gold hair, cropped short in frizzy curls, had a greenish tint, her eyes were enormous, and anyone who watched her blink saw she had two sets of eyelids. Most telling, she had several long, thin gill lines down both sides of her neck. She stood in the street in front of the steps of the Bookish Mermaid, in clothes two sizes too large. She swayed in time with the lapping of the waves against the pier, staring at the wooden mermaid, and weeping green-tinted tears.
Besides, if she hadn't been able to guess from all those clues, Bib told Merrigan the odd-looking girl was a mermaid.
"How did she get up there?" the girl asked, when Merrigan stopped to get a closer look, since she had always wanted to see a real mermaid. Her voice had a creaky-squeaky quality to it, but made bearable because she spoke in near-whispers.
"Well, when Great-granddaddy Pug finished sculpting her, I imagine it took a team of men with pulleys."
"Sculpting?" She blinked several times, looking between Merrigan and the wooden mermaid. "What kind of magic is that?"
"She thinks the emblem of the inn is a real mermaid, enchanted and imprisoned," Bib explained.
"Oh, hello, book," the girl said, addressing the bag that always hung at Merrigan's hip.
While she trusted everyone who worked at the Bookish Mermaid, Merrigan had an innate distrust for anyone who loved books as much as she did—because if she would steal a magical book, wouldn't everyone else? She trusted Ma and Tiny to know that Bib was a magic book, but they agreed with her that no one else should know. This mermaid-on-dry-land had some magic of her own if she knew the voice that came from inside the leather bag was a magical book. Then again, how smart could this girl be, if she couldn't tell the difference between a relatively decent wooden sculpture and an enchanted maiden?
"I'm sorry I didn't sense you there," she continued. "I'm afraid my magic is very slow in regenerating. Just about as slow as the growth of my hair." She sighed, and several more green-tinted tears trickled down her cheek.
Merrigan glanced around, wondering why no one noticed. Several regular customers of the Mermaid strode past her, heading up the stairs for an early lunch. They tipped their hats to her or greeted her by name, and barely gave the mermaid a second glance. Or maybe, she should wonder why she did notice.
"It's because you're in close contact with me, and a little of my magic is rubbing off on you," Bib explained, as soon as the thought solidified in her head. "And no, it would take more than your dreaded hundred years before enough magic rubbed off to break the curse—err—spell."
Merrigan could almost have laughed at how Bib slipped up. He insisted they call Clara's curse a spell or enchantment.
"The you-don't-really-see-me spell is the first thing that grew back. Why did you cut your hair?" he added. "I'm sorry, we haven't been properly introduced. The enchanted lady who has agreed to take me as her traveling companion is Princess Merrigan of Avylyn, and I am Bib. What is your name and why are you on dry land with short hair?"
Later, Merrigan decided the most unsettling part of the entire encounter was that she didn't have a screaming fit when Bib called her a princess rather than a queen. Maybe she had finally grown used to the ugly truth.
"I am—" The girl let out a series of squeaks and clicks, with a few Human vowels and consonants thrown in, which was where Ma grabbed onto the name "Elli," a short time later. "I am from the Great Ocean, so far removed from this port that I can barely smell the water of my home." She gestured out at the high tide water, the stone breakwalls that protected the harbor, and the ocean beyond.
"Mi'Lady," Bib said. "Perhaps we should take this conversation indoors? Eventually, people will wonder why you are standing here, since they know you. Once they concentrate hard enough, ask enough questions, eventually the spell protecting our new friend will wear thin. We don't want to have a crowd of sailors overwhelming us. They go slightly crazy when there's a chance of a real mermaid within their grasp."
"Why?"
"Even poor relations such as I am can dive deep enough to retrieve sunken treasure," the girl said, a short time later, as they settled into the living area. The clatter from lunch reaching full speed was enough to make their conversation relatively private. "All they have to do is cut off a strand of my hair as long as their arm and hold onto it to make me obey their will."
"That's horrendous!" Merrigan cried. She clapped her hand over her mouth and glanced over her shoulder. None of the many workers on the kitchen side of the room even glanced up. "Is there no way to set you free? Is that how you lost all your hair? How quickly does your hair grow back?"
To be perfectly honest, right after the revulsion that shot through her at the thought of filthy, salty, tar-smeared sailors cutting off a woman's hair to control her, a flash of excitement pushed it away. All those riches lying on the bottom of the ocean, just waiting to be brought up to the surface—why couldn't or shouldn't she have some of that? She imagined gathering enough gold to travel the world and pay the strongest enchanter she could find to break Clara's curse. The problem was that the mermaid sitting in front of her didn't have hair as long as Merrigan's fingers, let alone her arm.
Then another thought struck her.
"Poor relation? You aren't a princess? I thought all mermaids who came up to the surface were daughters of the Sea King."
"Ah, so that's what
