The wind picked up and blew tiny whitecaps across tide pools like minnows jumping. Ariel put her hand up, feeling the breeze in her fingers. Things changed much faster up here than they did under the sea.
And yet change came nonetheless; it had been several days now since the height of the spring tide, when the full moon worked with the sun to grant the sea her greatest reach over the land. Now tides were lower and weaker, and would become lower still in the coming week. So too the power of the trident dipped.
Soon she would have to return to the sea.
A movement at the edge of the marsh caught her eye. Eric emerged from behind the stand of trees that blocked the view of the castle—and the view of anyone watching from the castle. His stride was sure and he looked around boldly, but it was with just a frisson of confusion; he had not been told whom he was meeting, only that it was important. He wore his old boots and beige pants, and one of the thick-woven tunics sailors in Tirulia wore on wet and chilly days. A faded blue cap was pulled firmly down on his hair. His ponytail escaped out the back, curling around his left shoulder.
Ariel grasped the bleached wood of the boat at the sight of him. He seemed…so much realer. All those times she had dozed off with visions of the young, handsome prince in her head…and here he was actually coming to meet her. Life was far more detailed than dreams. His neck bent into his collar, his hands were shoved deep into his pockets like he was cold. Something unimaginable in a fantasy.
Ariel looked down at the outfit she wore, just a dress and apron. How cold was it? For humans? Was she dressed inappropriately?
Eric continued to look around for whomever he was supposed to meet. He put a hand to the back of his head and scratched there, pushing up the edge of his cap.
It was this gesture, this boyish, unprincely, unrehearsed gesture, that made Ariel step out from behind the boat.
“Eric?” she called.
The reaction that overcame him was not the one that she expected: his face fell into a snarl of impatience, exhaustion, and disgust.
“Vanessa, how many times have I told you that I need these walks—”
But when he turned and saw her, really saw her, he fell silent.
Ariel smiled. Then she carefully took off her headscarf so he could better see her hair.
“You…It’s you…” he whispered.
“It’s me.”
He started to open his mouth, but she interrupted.
“Before you say anything else, this is my voice. Vanessa stole it. Which you should know…I hear you wrote an opera about it…”
Eric’s hands fell to his sides, useless. His fingers fluttered as if there were something he wanted to do with them, some sign, some gesture, but he couldn’t think of what.
That’s oddly familiar, Ariel thought.
“It’s all true…the opera…” He didn’t blink as he stared at her. She could almost feel his gaze on her hair, the braids, her eyes, her dress, her feet, her arms.
He rushed forward—then stopped. His eyes were as clear and blue as the hot summer sky. His skin was not as peachy-dewy as when they first met; it was tauter, drawn more over his cheekbones, his brow, his nose. It was darker and drier, too, but no less handsome. Just different. She lifted a finger, overcome with the urge to feel it.
Eric caught her hand in his before she could finish the motion, and took her other hand in it as well.
“You’re a…mermaid?”
“Yes.”
“And you can talk now?”
“Yes.”
“And you came back for me?”
His eyes shone with open emotion: hope and wonder after a long period of darkness, the beautiful look of a child who, having passed through the gloom of puberty, is suddenly shown that unicorns and fairies are real after all.
Ariel was taken aback. She hadn’t expected this, not exactly. She hoped for his joy, she expected his confusion. But this was…too much. She wanted to disappoint him about as much as she wanted to put a spike into her own heart.
“I came back for my father,” she made herself say. The Queen of the Sea had little difficulty stating the truth out loud; a younger Ariel would have stuttered. “I received word he might still be alive, as a prisoner of Ursula.”
“Oh,” Eric blinked. “Your father. Of course.”
“That’s the main reason I have returned. We had thought he was dead all these years. I’m here to rescue him.”
“I just thought…I mean…I had hoped…you came back to take me away from all of this. To go live happily ever after somewhere. Under the sea, maybe.”