Brida almost burst into relieved tears at the sight of two of the village elders watching from the top of one of the dunes. She used the distraction to dart around Ospodine and run for the safety of their company.
He didn’t follow, taking the opposite path to retrieve his horse and vault into the saddle before galloping back toward the castle. Brida watched him go, her heartbeat still banging inside her skull like a war drum. She and the elders watched as his figure soon diminished, becoming nothing more than a fast moving speck that disappeared behind a hillock of sand before reappearing at the bottom of the castle road.
“Trouble, that one,” one of the two elders said as he squinted into the distance. “He’s been roaming about the village, asking odd questions.” His aging gaze drifted to Brida. “A few of those questions about you, Brida.”
“What were you two arguing about?” the second elder asked. “We could hear you playing and then you both shouting afterwards.”
Brida shuddered. “He’s obsessed with a few notes I played at the castle during her ladyship’s name day celebration. They mean nothing to me.” That wasn’t quite true. “But they’re important to him for reasons he’s chosen not to share.”
“He didn’t hurt you, did he?” The second elder’s face bunched into a thunderous frown. “Laylam will want his head on a plate, nobleman or not, if he did.”
She groaned inwardly. The last thing she needed was her brother’s already overprotective instincts to flare into a bonfire. He’d try to nail her feet to the floor of her own house in a misguided attempt to keep her safe. “He didn’t touch me. Just grew angry when I played what he requested, but it seems I played poorly.”
Thank the gods she hadn’t brought her bone flute. After discovering Ospodine had wandered uninvited through her house, Brida had taken the flute to Laylam’s where Norinn had stashed it and Brida’s earnings in a locked box stored beneath the kitchen floor.
The thought reminded her of her forgotten second-best flute, still in the sand where Ospodine had thrown it. She asked the elders to wait for her while she retrieved the instrument. She bent to pick up the flute and froze at the faintest sound purling toward her from the incoming tide.
A deeper whistle, drawn out in the middle, dropping off at the end, and clear as the twilight sky above her. Brida turned her head slowly, half afraid she’d see nothing except the disappointment of unacknowledged hope. A sliver of silvery tail ending in a fluke gently splashed water in her direction, and she caught a glint of twin blue-green fireflies that floated among the waves. Eye-shine in a handsome, unhuman face framed in garlands of floating seaweed hair.
Still half bent toward the flute, Brida breathed out a soft exclamation. “You.”
As if he heard her, the merman edged a hand above the wave peaks in greeting. His glowing eyes shifted to the two men waiting at the dunes, their attention turned toward the castle road. Brida placed a finger to her lips in what she hoped was a universal signal for silence. He nodded and half submerged until only the crown of his head remained visible, nothing more than a ubiquitous knot of floating kelp to anyone else who might be watching the water.
Brida snatched up the flute and made her way to the elders. She wanted so badly to return to the merman, but to insist on staying alone on the beach after her confrontation with Ospodine would invite the elders’ unwelcome scrutiny and a litany of questions.
“We planned to walk toward the bluff, Brida,” the younger of the two men said. “You’re welcome to join us. We’ll see you home afterwards.”
Astran was a jovial man, one of the more reasonable men on the village council, and Brida had always liked him. He’d been the one to call out when she’d faced off with Ospodine.
She smiled at him, hatching an idea. The two men planned to walk in the opposite direction to where the merman waited. They’d be more focused on the castle in the distance and watching for any sign of Ospodine’s reappearance. “I thank you for the generous offers. I gladly accept the offer of the second, but would you mind if I stayed?” She held up her flute. “I like to come here in the evenings and play. It was my and Talmai’s favorite place.”
Their expressions softened, and both men nodded. Astran gestured to the bluff. “We’ll come back for you when we’re done, or if you find we’re taking too long, meet us halfway.”
She waved to them as they set off toward the bluff, following the fading hoofprints Ospodine’s horse left in the sand. Once they’d gone a short distance, she sped back to the spot where she’d seen the merman. “Please still be there,” she murmured to herself. The urge to move faster prickled across her lower back, but she kept her pace to a brisk walk instead of a sprint in case the elders turned to watch her.
Her visitor still floated in the waves, sleek tail and muscular arms flexing in the water to stay afloat. A delighted smile spread across his shadowed face, and Brida caught a glimpse of teeth shaped much like hers in the fading light. He whistled to her, an unfamiliar tune, and motioned toward the ledge Ospodine had claimed earlier.
She paced him on the shore as he swam to their meeting spot. He was much quicker than she and lolled in the shallow surf to wait, protected by the silhouette of the ledge where it jutted beyond the sand and into the water.
Brida climbed the natural ladder carved out by the sea to the flat expanse of stone and perched on the edge, tucking her legs under her. The merman swam closer, the shine of his eyes not so bright with the moon behind him. Brida set the flute to her lips and played the note he’d whistled earlier. His name. This flute lacked the other’s accuracy in mimicking mer speech, but the merman didn’t seem to mind..
He nodded, his smile widening even more. He tapped the water with the flat of his hand. “Brida who sings,” he said in a voice soft and deep, the words a little hesitant as if his tongue still sought to work around their unfamiliarity.
She almost dropped the flute. “You speak!” She shook her head. Of course he spoke, although the whistle language was not one she understood. “You speakmylanguage.”
“Some,” he said. “Your words are hard. This…” he whistled and followed it with a series of clicks in the back of his throat. “Is easier for us.”
Delighted, Brida scooted closer to the edge. He, in turn, swam a little more into the shallows, bracing his elbows in the sand so that he could stretch toward her. His body curved in a faint arc, his fluke lifting high to help him balance. Moonlight plated the dual tones of his skin, highlighting the darker gray of his back and the short dorsal fin that ran the length of his spine. His face, chest, belly and underside of his tail gleamed white in the water. The wounds and lacerations he’d suffered had healed or were healing, silvery flesh knitting itself together into jagged scars.
Brida patted her own hip and pointed to the spot on his tail where he’d been most grievously injured. “That looks good. No blood. No pain?” She chose her words carefully and spoke slowly, trying not to overwhelm him with rapid-fire speech. If he suddenly started whistling and chirping at her in an unending succession of sound, she’d be completely lost.
He nodded. “You saved me. Saved…” Again, a whistle, only different, higher, and she recognized the name he’d given the merchild.
It was her turn to grin. She had prayed both man and child would survive, even when her doubts about his chances made the praying seem futile at times. “I’m happy,” she said. “Your daughter?” she asked.
He frowned, then shook his head. “Daughter?” He parsed out the word’s two syllables carefully, as if saying them aloud might help him better comprehend its meaning.
Flummoxed by how to explain the meaning, Brida decided to put it aside. If she was fortunate enough to see the merman again, she’d figure out a way to translate words for him and have him do the same for her with whistles and clicks.
