Adrift: A Little Mermaid Retelling

7: Agnes

I still did not have the friend I had hoped for in Daniel. Not at first. He avoided me, thinking perhaps that my mother disliked him ... which was probably true. And I, feeling guilty about the scars on his cheek, thought he held me responsible for his punishment.

Nevertheless, an uneasy acquaintance had knitted us together, ever since our first meeting, and I think both of us felt it. We were always friendly, always a bit awkward. Over time, the anxieties between us softened, and we came to be something like friends.

I expect it was because there were no others in whom Daniel could confide, and likewise I had no one. As I perched on the brink of womanhood at thirteen, trying not to fall in, I realized how alone I was on that plantation, far removed from other people my age. Wylliam's wife, Yolenn, was kind, but many years my senior. She did not have much interest in me.

It was late morning. Outside, it was a wintry day, damp and chill; my brothers, nevertheless, had gone riding and were not due back until later for my recital.

It would be my first recital. Well, it was the first to which Father was inviting folk from outside our household.

Daniel was clearing away the ashes so he could lay the hearth again for a fire. We had not been heating the parlor, since we had few visitors at that time of year, but we would want it to be warm for the guests that night.

I was sitting nearby, my harp at my knee, plucking idly at the strings. I felt no need to practice, although Master Leisher had insisted I should.

"Play that bit again," Daniel said, turning his head to look at me. He smiled as I sounded out the notes again, my fingertips tripping lightly over the strings, barely touching.

Then he laughed. "No, no."

"What do you mean, no?" I frowned at him.

He turned back to the hearth, shaking a sandy lock from his eyes as he bent to his work. His face was sooty. "You never play the same thing twice, Ness. You try, but it never falls quite the same way on the ear. Perhaps it's the one talent with music you do not possess—to duplicate a sound."

"I can so match a sound," I scoffed. Pride is not a trait of a good woman, but I took pride in my music, shamelessly. My grasp of other feminine pursuits were almost famously bad, to the endless regret of my father, but my music was flawless and I knew it. I seldom played precisely the same thing twice simply because I preferred not to.

"Sing me a song and I'll play it back for you—and easily. Go on."

He shook his head, snuffling in the cloud of dust from the hearth. Snuffling was rude, but I did not care, and Dannie had long ago learned not to stand on propriety in my company. At least not when my family was absent.

"Go on!" I insisted.

There was silence for a moment, and then Dannie sang. It was a light melody with a sad verse:

"My love, she lies far from me over the sea,

Fa la la roo, fa la la ray,

She said when I left her she'd not stray from me,

Fa la la la la loo ray.

"I gave her a ring made of diamond and gold,

Fa la la roo, fa la la ray,

She no longer wears it, or so I am told,

Fa la la la la loo ray.

"I'll never go home, lads, ne'er stray from the sea,

Fa la la roo, fa la la ray,

For now and forever, a sailor I'll be,

Fa la la la la loo ray."