Midnight Pearls Read online

  He refused to answer her, though she was right.

  She smiled coyly. “No need to answer, for I know the truth. Now tell me, Kale of the merkin, why do you want to be human?”

  “I have fallen in love with a human,” he blurted.

  “Yes, there seems to be a lot of that going around,” she said with amusement.

  Faye had been to see her, just as he’d feared. Faye, what have you done? The only way he could help her now, and speak with Adriana, was to follow. He took a deep breath.“Can you change me?”

  “Well, it isn’t that easy, my young one. Nothing comes without a price. You say you would do this for love?”

  He nodded, not trusting himself to speak.

  “And the young lady, does she love you?”

  “I do not know, I hope so,” he answered truthfully.

  “Loving is always a risk, you know,” she told him in a conversational tone. “You open up to someone and you risk rejection and ridicule. That’s the risk everyone who loves takes. You, though, you seem to be willing to risk a bit more. You are willing to risk leaving your home and your family to travel to a strange world where you might have to live out your days alone. Is that true?”

  He nodded, his anxiety increasing with every word she spoke.

  “My, my, that certainly is a lot to risk,” she said as she circled him slowly. “Well, if you are willing to risk that much, then surely you will be willing to risk just a little bit more.”

  “What?” he whispered.

  She was behind him now and she put her lips close to his ear. Her tongue flicked out, tickling him. “Your life.”

  “No!” he shouted, spinning around.

  She pressed her finger against his lips. “Ssshh. Wait until you hear the deal”

  “I will turn you into a human. You will then have seven days to convince the young lady to fall in love with you. By sunset on the seventh day, she must agree to marry you. If she does, you will then live out your life with her, happily ever after”

  “And if she doesn’t?”

  “Then you will die and your soul will die with you.”

  He reeled back, aghast. Merkin believed that the soul lived on even after the body had died and that it went to a better place. They also believed that the souls of the dead watched out for their living descendants. Could the Witch actually kill the soul as well as the body? Looking into her eyes, he had no choice but to believe it, for he could see no soul within her.

  “No, the price is too high” He shook his head, hoping the movement would shake him free of the hypnotic spell her voice was weaving around him.

  “Suit yourself,” the Witch said, and started to slither away. She glanced back over her shoulder.“You must not love her very much, though, if you’re not willing to take the risk. Maybe the women of your species have all the courage. A young mermaid was in here just this morning, and she did not think the price too high.”

  Faye! She would be dead within a week if she could not win the love of the man she had saved. Kale had to help her, to save her. He wouldn’t be able to help her down here, though. “I… accept the risk.”

  The Witch slithered back toward him, an evil smile dancing across her face.“Let us get started, then.”

  He allowed her to lead him into the darkest recesses of the cave. At her bidding, he sat in the center of a huge clamshell. She slithered around him and whispered words that he could not understand. She finally stopped before him, and he noticed the pearls around her neck were glowing. They grew brighter by the moment, and the Witch began rubbing the strand between her thumb and forefinger.

  “Will I look like them?” he asked, hating the tremor in his voice.

  “Yes.”

  “What about their garments?”

  “I can provide you with something, if you wish, if you’ll answer a question.”

  “Wh—what?”

  “Your lady—has she seen you, heard your voice?”

  “No.”

  “Have you heard hers?”

  “No,” he replied, panicking now. “Will I be able to understand her, and will she understand me?”

  “Yes,” the Witch said with a casual wave of her hand. “So, how will you know her?”

  “I have seen her.”

  “Ah. Is she beautiful?”

  “Very beautiful.”

  “Do you know where to find her or what name she is called by?”

  “No, I do not,” he said, realizing for the first time that she might not even go by the name Adriana.

  “So, the only way you can find her is by seeing her?”

  “Yes.”

  The Witch cackled with satisfaction. “Good luck in finding her, then … without your eyes!”

  Kale opened his mouth to ask what she meant, but blinding pain ripped through him and only a scream came out. His body felt as though it were being split in two. His vision began to fade, and the last things he saw before everything went black were the glowing pearls.

  “You didn’t think it would be that easy, did you?” Her voice pierced the haze of his pain. “You didn’t think I would extract some price for my services? You might be willing to gamble everything, but I am not.”

  “How am I to find her?” he shouted, raising his hands before him and groping for the wall.

  “That is your problem, not mine,” she said, the voice fading as though she were moving away from him.

  “What could you possibly gain from my death?”

  “Let’s just say that the suffering of your kind is the prize I am seeking. I’m sure the death of one of their princes would bring quite a lot of suffering. Speaking of which, you have about five minutes before the transformation is complete and you can no longer breathe water.

  “If I were you, I’d start swimming.”

  “Help me!” he shouted.

  There was no answer. The Sea Witch was gone.

  His lungs were starting to ache, and it was getting harder to breathe. He tried to push off from the clamshell, but his disintegrating tail failed him. Desperately he flailed out with his arms as he had seen Adriana do when she was swimming for the shore.

  He could feel himself moving forward through the water, but at an agonizingly slow rate. He bumped into the wall and, disoriented, he felt for the passage through which he had come. At last he found it and made his way back out of the cave.

  He swam as fast as he could, heading for the surface, and eventually the water grew warmer around him, the cold of the Witch’s lair fading behind him. His body was still changing, he could feel it, and the pain was unbearable. He was having a harder time with each breath he tried to draw, and desperation lent him strength. He kicked and splashed, swimming as fast as he could.

  He began to choke and at the same time he could feel his tail split completely. He gave a mighty kick first with one half and then the other—no, my legs! he corrected himself—and his head broke the surface of the water.

  He gasped, sucking in the air, drinking it as he had once breathed the water. He treaded the water for a moment, taking deep breaths and coughing up water. His new legs suddenly seemed heavier. He reached down to touch them with his hand. There seemed to be some covering over them. The Witch had at least given him some clothing.

  At last his breathing evened out. He needed to make it to the shore, though he wasn’t sure how much longer he could swim. Without his eyes he would have to find another way to locate the land. If he set off in the wrong direction he wouldn’t discover the mistake in time to save himself.

  He heard the sound of the waves crashing on the beach. On his body he still felt the play of the water. The gentle waves moved in one direction while the undertow pulled in the opposite direction. He turned and began to swim with the tide.

  She walked down the aisle, staring at her groom as he stood beside Father Gregory. He smiled at her, and the gesture sent shivers up her spine. She prayed that God would have mercy and strike her dead before she reached them.

  “J
ames!” she shouted as loud as she could.

  When there was no reply, Pearl turned and tried to run down the beach. Her wet skirt slowed her, and she fell to her knees several times. She kept struggling back up, though. She reached the end of the beach and turned around, running back the other way. Nothing.

  She headed back up the beach more slowly, inspecting the sand for footprints as well. Maybe, just maybe, he had reached the beach first and went to get help. She clung to the slender thread of hope, though in her heart she didn’t believe it. He would not have left with her still in the water.

  The only sets of footprints she found farther up the beach were hers and the ones they had left earlier when they’d arrived. She turned back and scanned the length of the beach once more.

  There! There was something dark on the sand. She picked up her skirt and ran, stumbling toward it. When she got closer she saw that it was James, lying in a crumpled heap on the sand.

  She fell on her knees beside him, sobbing. Slowly, he straightened up and looked at her wide-eyed.

  “You saved me.”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head.

  “You did, I saw you,” he insisted.

  Confusion filled her. “James, I—I thought I’d lost you.”

  “My foot got tangled in the rope, and I hit my head on the bow of the boat. I woke up here with you leaning over me. You saved me.”

  “I didn’t. I just found you, here on the beach. Maybe the tide carried you in.”

  He shook his head groggily “No, it was you. You bent down and kissed me and then … you went away.”

  “James, I didn’t save you and I didn’t kiss you.”

  “Well, somebody did and she had your hair and your beautiful skin. So, if it wasn’t you, who was it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, rocking back on her heels and preparing to stand.

  He grabbed her hand, and his voice dropped low. It was commanding, insistent. “I shall marry the girl who saved me.”

  She stared into his eyes for a long moment with her heart in her throat. He thought it was she. And what of it? He had been dreaming; no one else had been on the beach but her. The tide must have washed him up.

  But what if it didn’t? her mind demanded. Then James would be marrying the wrong woman. And who has more right to marry him than me? She flushed at her own arrogance.

  Tears fell from her eyes and landed on his cheek. “Then you shall not be marrying me.”

  Pearl sat on her bed with her knees tucked under her chin. For all the years they had known each other, she and James had never parted on uneasy terms. He refused to believe that she hadn’t saved him from drowning. It would have been so easy to lie to him, but she had never lied to him about anything before and she wasn’t about to start. She owed him the truth even if he wouldn’t accept it.

  When she had come home her parents had taken one look at her bedraggled form and wisely refrained from asking questions. Despite her anxiety over James, she was also more than a little amazed that she had survived her swim in the ocean.

  “The voice was wrong,” she whispered. And if the voice was wrong about that, it could be wrong about other things. Maybe she was somebody, somebody special.

  Long after the cottage had grown dark and quiet, she finally lay down and closed her eyes. She fell asleep, and the dreams came.

  The boat was behind her, and she was swimming for the shore. She was afraid she wouldn’t make it. If you go in the water, you will die, the voice in her head whispered. But the rush of water against her skin felt good. She glanced back but did not see James. Behind her, though just beneath the surface of the water, there was a shadow. The shadow’s eyes stared at her. They always stare.

  The eyes beckoned her down into the depths, below the surface, into the darkness. She followed, swimming, laughing. She felt so alive.

  The shadow disappeared, and the world grew dark as night. The water was cold. It hurt her skin, it was so cold. It wasn’t as cold as the laughter, though—that seemed to come from everywhere. The darkness threatened to overwhelm her, and she whimpered.

  There was a light shining in the darkness, and she was drawn to it. In the light there were pearls, beautiful and large. She reached out and took one of them and hid it away.

  Then came the voice—the hard one, not the soft one. It floated on the water. “Never return…. If you go into the ocean you will die along with everyone you love…. You are nothing, nobody…. No one will miss you….” There were other words, but she couldn’t hear them.

  “I won’t die,” she yelled. “I won’t die.”

  She woke up whispering, “I won’t die.”

  The nightmares faded back into the darkness, and she was left alone in the cold light of morning. She had something, though, the barest shred of a memory, but it was more than she had ever had and she clung to it as a child clings to her mother’s skirt.

  The night that Finneas had pulled her out of the ocean, the water had been cold.

  The day passed in a blur of misery. She spent most of the afternoon cleaning and preserving fish that her father had caught that morning. At dinner everyone ate in a silence that she was grateful for. Afterward she excused herself and headed for the beach.

  She both desired and dreaded to see James and wasn’t at all sure which emotion was stronger. It was not his day to be at the beach, but a part of her hoped he would be there, waiting for her.

  As she crested the hill she had to shield her eyes against the rays of the sun as it approached the horizon. Someone was sitting on the beach facing the ocean. Sitting in our spot. With the sun in her eyes she couldn’t tell who it was, but was sure it must be James.

  She was within ten feet of the man before she realized that he was a stranger. Startled, she stopped. The man was naked from the waist up and was cradling his head in his hands. His shoulders were broad and well-muscled. His large hands looked powerful, whereas the long, slender fingers added an air of grace to them. His legs, clad in simple pants, seemed impossibly long and were stretched out on the sand. He had pale hair, nearly silver like hers. His skin was also deathly white with patches of red where the sun of the day had burned him.

  Suddenly the man lifted his head, and she took a step back. He cocked his head as though listening, and sniffed the air as an animal would. “Adriana?” he asked softly.

  “I’m sorry, sir, you are mistaken,” she informed him.

  A smile burst over his face, and she jumped back as he scrambled to his feet like a newborn colt. “Adriana! It is you!”

  “I’m sorry, sir, I do not know this Adriana of whom you speak. I am Pearl.”

  “Pearl…,” he said slowly, as though he were tasting the word in his mouth.

  His presence here on her beach and in such a state of undress unnerved her and she backed up, ready to flee. It was then that he finally looked at her.

  She gasped and stopped in her tracks. His eyes! They were the dark eyes from her dreams. The eyes of the shadow that always stood behind James. “You, who are you?” she asked, feeling dazed.

  “I am Kale, and I have been searching for you for a very long time.”

  “Searching for Adriana, you mean.”

  “Searching for you, no matter what name you are called by here.”

  She felt dizzy, as though she were standing on the edge of a precipice. It was then that she noticed the eerie fixation of his eyes, their unblinking stare. “Your eyes?” she asked.

  He raised his hand to them. “A recent development seems to have rendered me blind.”

  “Then how did you know it was me?”

  “Your scent, the sound of your voice, your spirit—all these things made you known to me.”

  She backed up a bit, “You are frightening me, sir.”

  “I guess I must be, at that. I am sorry, I’m a bit frightened myself.”

  “Are you ill?”

  “Not exactly, though it would be safe to say that I am not myself today.”

 
; His comments were so cryptic that for a moment, she believed he might be insane. His state of undress did nothing to convince her otherwise. Still, she could not turn from him, from the owner of the eyes that she saw every night in her dreams.

  “Why do you believe that I am this woman you are seeking?”

  He sighed heavily, “I saw you yesterday and recognized you.”

  “But your eyes…”

  “I told you, the blindness is a recent complication, very recent.”

  “Why did you not make yourself known to me yesterday?” she asked suspiciously.

  “Believe me, I wanted to, but circumstances prevented it. Also, it seemed that you and the young man wished to be alone.”

  She felt her blood run cold. He had seen her with James! She took a step back. Was he some enemy of James’s, or someone who wanted to hurt his reputation, or hers?

  “You saw us?”

  He nodded. “Is he all right?”

  “Yes.” He had seen the accident, then. She looked again at his eyes. They were such a deep color. She had thought that they were black, but as she looked closer she saw that they were a dark shade of blue, the most intense eyes she had ever seen. Except for the shadow. Something from her dream suddenly came back to her. She was swimming away from the boat and she saw the shadow in the water beneath her, the eyes fixed upon her.

  “You! You were in the water with me yesterday,” she accused.

  He suddenly looked very agitated. “Yes, I was,” he admitted. “Did you see me?”

  “Only your eyes,” she admitted.

  He seemed to relax at that. “I followed you to make sure you made it safely to the land.”

  She stared at his silver hair, and a sickening feeling twisted her stomach. “Was there someone else with you?” she asked in hushed tones.

  He nodded. “My sister, Faye.”

  “She saved James,” Pearl said more to herself than to him.

  “That is true,” he affirmed.

  She felt as though her world were crashing down around her. “Where is she now?”

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I think she went off in search of him this morning.”