The Midnight Circus, стр. 39

Atlast she came to a palace that was carved out of coral. The doors andwindows were arched and open, and through them passed the creatures ofthe sea.

Mairwalked into a single great hall. Ahead of her, on a small dais, was adivan made of coral, pink and gleaming. On this coral couch lay thesea-queen. Her tail and hair moved to the sway of the currents, but shewas otherwise quite still. In the shadowed, filtered light of the hall,she seemed ageless and very beautiful.

Mairmoved closer, little bubbles breaking from her mouth like fragments ofunspoken words. Her movement set up countercurrents in the hall. Andsuddenly, around the edges of her sight, she saw another movement.Turning, she saw ranged around her an army of bones, the husbands ofthe sea. Not a shred or tatter of skin clothed them, yet every skeletonwas an armature from which the bones hung, as surely connected as theyhad been on land. The skeletons bowed to her, one after another, butMair could see that they moved not on their own reckoning, but dancedto the tunes piped through them by the tides. And though on land theywould have each looked different, without hair, without eyes, withoutthe subtle coverings of flesh, they were all the same.

Maircovered her eyes with her hands for a moment, thenshe looked up. On the couch, the mermaid was smiling down at her withher tongueless mouth. She waved a supple arm at one whole wall of bonemen and they moved again in the aftermath of her greeting.

“Please,”said Mair, “please give me back my man.” She spoke with her hands, theonly pleadings she knew. And the sea-queen seemed to understand, seemedto sense a sisterhood between them and gave her back greetings withfingers that swam as swiftly as any little fish.

ThenMair knew that the mermaid was telling her to choose, choose one of theskeletons that had been men. Only they all looked alike, with theirsea-filled eye sockets and their bony grins.

“Iwill try,” she signed, and turned toward them.

Slowlyshe walked the line of bitter bones. The first had yellow minnowsfleeting though its hollow eyes. The second had a twining of greenvines round its ribs. The third laughed a school of red fish out itsmouth. The fourth had a pulsing anemone heart. And so on down the lineshe went, thinking with quiet irony on the identity of flesh.

Butas long as she looked, she could not tell John Merton from the rest.If he was there, he was only a hanging of bones indistinguishable fromthe others.

Sheturned back to the divan to admit defeat, when a flash of green andgold caught her eye. It was a colder color than the rest—yet warmer,too. It was alien under the sea, as alien as she, and she turned towardits moving light.

Andthen, on the third finger of one skeleton’s hand, she saw it—thetourmaline ring which her John had so prized. Pushing through the watertoward him, sending darkeddies to the walls that set the skeletons writhing in response, shetook up his skeletal hand. The fingers were brittle and stiff underhers.

Quicklyshe untied the rope at her waist and looped it around the bones. Shepulled them across her back and the white remnants of his fingerstightened around her waist.

She tried to pull the ring from his hand,to leave something there for the sea. But the white knucklebonesresisted. And though she feared it, Mair went hand over hand, handover hand along the rope, and pulled them both out ofthe sea.

Shenever looked back. And yet if she had looked, would she have seen thesea replace her man layer by layer? First it stuck the tatters of fleshand blue-green rivulets of veins along the bones. Then it clothedmuscle and sinew with a fine covering of skin. Then hair and nails andthe decorations of line. By the time they had risen through the sevenstrata of sea, he looked like John Merton once again.

Butshe, who had worked so hard to save him, could not swim, and so it wasJohn Merton himself who untied the rope and got them back to the boat.And it was John Merton himself who pulled them aboard and rowed themboth to shore.

Anda time later, when Mair Merton sat up in bed, ready at last to taste abit of the broth he had cooked for her, she asked him in her own waywhat it was that had occurred.

“JohnMerton,” she signed, touching his fine strong arms with their coveringof tanned skin and fine golden hair. “Tell me . . .”

Buthe covered her hands with his, the hand that was still wearing the goldand tourmaline ring. He shook his head and the look in his eyes wasenough. For she could suddenly see past the sea-green eyes to thesockets beneath, and she understood that although she had broughthim, a part of him would be left in the sea forever, for the sea takesits due.

Heopened his mouth to her then, and she saw it was hollow, as dark blackas the deeps, and filled with the sound of waves.

“Nevermind, John Merton,” she signed on his hand, on his arms around her,into his hair. “The heart can speak, though the mouth be still. I willbe loving you all the same.”

And,of course, she did.