Merfolk and humans and fish and all those who spoke seemed to be the same: they wasted language, throwing out words like chum, hoping some of them would land accurately and truthfully convey what they were thinking or feeling. Ariel paused, carefully weighing and measuring the other woman’s words while she figured out how to answer.
Eric married Vanessa. This was an objective fact; Ariel had seen that happen.
Vanessa is ruining the kingdom. Interesting! So the changes in the castle were probably due to her.
Eric is not the boy he was. Also interesting, and terrifying. He was still under the spell Ursula cast to put him under her power. That would certainly explain the haunted, hunted look on Eric’s face when she had seen him earlier. He probably knew something was wrong, but not precisely what.
Ariel pursed her lips. Then she mimed a formal walk, hands together.
She drew her hand gracefully down her hair, indicating a veil.
She put her hands together again: flowers.
Vanessa marrying Eric.
“The wedding, yes, yes, the wedding. They got married,” Carlotta said, impatiently.
Ariel tapped her head, pointed at the maid.
“I remember it! What do you mean? Think about it? It was just the wedding on the yacht. Beautiful. Hideous. At the same time. There was nothing…”
Ariel shook her head. She tapped her head harder. She rotated her other hand: Come on, there’s more.
“What are you trying to say…？ They were married, and Max ruined the lovely cake, and oh…” Carlotta’s vision went cloudy; she stopped focusing on the girl before her. “He ruined the cake because…he was scared. There was a storm. No, the sky was clear. No—but there was lightning. Lightning…from…a man in the water. A man with a beard, and a crown, naked…like Neptune himself…”
Carlotta frowned, rubbing her head.
“What is this nonsense? Why is it coming to me now, clear as day? Clear as a picture: the man in the sea wasn’t drowning. He was throwing lightning. And Vanessa…he and she were…fighting? They were fighting like…titans, from the old stories. There was magic. All around. Dangerous and violent. And then you—and then he…And then you and the naked man were gone. Both gone. But Vanessa stayed…”
She sat down heavily on a stool. Her skirts puffed up around her, almost as if in sympathy. “I…haven’t thought about that in years. I know I’ve thought it before, or dreamed it before. I haven’t wanted to. It’s like it hurts to remember. I couldn’t remember.”
She looked up at Ariel.
“Some funny business about Vanessa, isn’t there?” she ventured. “That man—he was your father, wasn’t he? He really was Neptune—or someone out of the Old Testament. A patriarch. He wasn’t evil—I never felt that for a moment. And then you disappearing…into the sea. Eric acting strange and moony around Vanessa. She isn’t…she isn’t a good…person, is she?”
Ariel shook her head very slowly. No.
“She isn’t like…us, is she?”
No.
“And what does that make you, then?”
Ariel hesitated. Would knowing the truth put Carlotta in danger? She already knew half of the truth. The main truth. That Vanessa was not a good person. That there had been a battle. And all the strange and terrible things that had happened on her prince’s wedding day. So how would knowing this little extra bit make a difference, really?
Ariel looked around the room, searching for the answer. She didn’t have a sign for it.
Finally she put her hands together and moved them sinuously forward, cutting the air like water.
Carlotta stared at her, mouth open like a gaping fish’s.
Then she shook her head.
“You know what? Forget I asked. I don’t think my tired old brain could deal with it right now anyway. The important thing is that Vanessa is bad, really bad, which is fairly obvious if you just see what she’s doing…”
While pleased that Carlotta had come to the same conclusion she had, Ariel was intrigued by this news. She reached out and tapped the maid’s shoulder and shrugged obviously. What is she doing?
“Well, she has us at war with our neighbors. Look at Garhaggio,” Carlotta said with a snort, throwing her arm out at the window as if the village were right there, visible. “Never had a problem with them before—never had much to do with them at all aside from occasionally getting their nice cheese in. It is a nice cheese, though. I love it, the fancy white rind. They say it’s the mountain spring water.”