Adrift: A Little Mermaid Retelling

2: Daniel

It was the largest house I'd ever seen.

I couldn't help but gawk like a fool. To the back of it, the fields stretched toward the horizon, empty of crops as the season yawned and stretched under the renewed warmth of the sun. The eastern field was dotted with men sowing seed. In the distance, I could see a series of squat cottages, their roofs freshly thatched. Beyond them were fenced sections of land where sheep and cattle grazed. On the other side were the cliffs, and past the cliffs was the sea.

Red chickens pecked along the road, content until we approached. Then, they scattered, clucking in alarm. Used to being chased for the pot, I reckoned.

The manor itself was grand, although the architecture belied its humble beginnings as a settler's cottage. Some parts were wood, others mortared stone. A long porch at the front was accessed by grand steps that swept down to meet the path, which turned to cobblestones halfway up from the road. There were panes of colored glass in the higher windows, something I had never seen before. I wondered if it came from across the sea.

Most important of all was the chimney. Not the chimney itself, but the smoke that was curling out of it. When I saw that humble haze in the sky, my stomach cramped painfully, connecting the thoughts of skittish chickens with the signs of a cooking fire.

I was hungry.

It was nothing new to us. My father and I had been wandering for weeks. It was easier now that the weather was warmer. Easier—not easy. Winter in those lands was damp and cold, if not particularly cruel. It was bearable, but for a boy of ten and his crippled father, it was impossible to make ends meet. Father had grown weaker, and after months of a tight belly, I was too thin to look my age.

All the farms and holdings we had come across were small, none of them in need of more than a couple hired hands. We were turned away again and again, sometimes with a bit of bread, sometimes with nothing. We'd begun to lose hope.

And then we came upon Master Allore's manor. Watching the tiny group of planters as they were swallowed up by the vastness of the land, we had some reason to expect that this lord would be more receptive to two bodies looking for work.

I followed Father up the walk to the front door. An old woman opened to us, dressed in plain clothes.

"Yes?" she asked, looking us up and down.

"Might I beg an audience with the master of this place?" asked my father, his hat in his hands.

The woman smiled. "Come into the parlor, and I shall see if he is free to receive you."

I followed Father into an entrance hall of polished wood. The narrow windows on either side of the door permitted enough light to illuminate the place. To the right was a staircase leading up.

Master Allore was in the parlor, to the left. The housekeeper went in for a moment alone, and when she came back out, she gestured to my father with a kindly look. "He will see you. Go in."

Father looked over his shoulder at me and smiled a crooked smile. "Stay here, son."

I did. I stood in the doorway and watched Father as he limped across the rich parlor to meet our prospective employer, swallowing a wash of shame that turned my cheeks hot. Seeing him in his filthy trousers and torn shirt, a bedraggled man with his face burned and wrinkled by an unforgiving life, I thought there was no way the master of the house would employ us.

What had we to offer, a tottering old man and a stick of a boy?

Allore sat in a cushioned armchair, dressed in a velvet jacket and pearl-white shirt. He offered Father some tea and a muffin balanced on a plate worth more than a year's wages. My mouth flooded with saliva and my stomach growled audibly.