Adrift: A Little Mermaid Retelling

9: Agnes

I woke in the early hours of the morning.

I came awake suddenly, and I know not why. When I opened my eyes, I heard no sound out of the ordinary. I turned my head and saw the paling horizon through the window of my second-story room. The sun was coming up, tinging the clouded sky with the bright pink stains of its rising.

I had a dark feeling.

I rose from my bed, shook my nightgown so it settled around my legs, and went to look out. It was misty. The grass would be cold and wet this morning, although it did not look like frost.

I thought about Dannie, how he had kissed me the previous afternoon. I felt strange ... confused. In story books, a kiss is a wonderful thing, full of magic and warm feelings. To me, it had simply felt rather moist and ... well ...

Dannie was dear to me, but that day was the first time I saw him as a suitor. I turned the thought over in my mind with a detached curiosity, wondering what it might be like to hold his hand. To kiss him again. I felt no urgent attraction in the notion and easily put it from my mind.

Combing my long hair with my fingers, I crept to the hall, thinking I would go down to the kitchens and pilfer a drink. Sorla normally rose early, but would likely still be down in her cabin with Dervin until the sun was at least a little higher.

As I moved toward the stairs, I heard a thudding sound, as of someone falling out of bed. I paused, looking in the direction of the noise: it had come from my father's room.

I thought he had fallen. He was a sturdy man, not prone to accidents. Frightened for him, I rushed to his door and reached for the handle, not pausing for breath or to cry out for help in my haste to see what had happened.

I swung the door open.

Father's stricken eyes met mine. His face was a grimace of pain. He made a gurgling sound. He was on his knees by the bed, his hands curled into bloody fists in front of his stomach.

All movement, all thought swept out of my mind. All I could feel was the thudding of my horrified heart, pounding in my chest as if it would beat its way free of my flesh. I stared at the rivulet of blood running down from a wound in Father's neck. It blossomed across his white linen nightshirt, an unfurling red rose of horror. His grip on his stomach weakened and his hands fell away, and as they did, his entrails spilled forth from a gaping wound.

I smelled the revolting odor of his lifeblood and his torn flesh. Helpless and motionless, I watched as he fell forward onto the gore-stained rug and breathed his last.

Behind him stood my mother in her gown of amber silk, a gleaming knife in her hand. Blood stained her knuckles and spattered the heaving bodice of her gown. She was looking at my father with naked loathing and violent triumph.

After she had drunk her fill of the horrible sight of him, she slowly raised her gaze to meet mine, as if she had known I was standing there.

I was a small creature in a snare, unable to move for fear. Mother walked toward me, still breathing hard. She dropped the knife on the way and it fell with a soft thud onto the rug. In the dawn light, I saw the gleam of pearls on the comb; it was tucked into her disheveled hair on one side, ornamenting her beauty.

There was a red mark on her cheek. Father had never struck her, not to my knowledge. But the shoulder of her gown was torn, too. There had been a struggle between them.

Mother drew close to me, her eyes glittering, and looked me in the face. "My name ... is Lygeia," she whispered in her lilting accent. Her hand came up. Touched my face. Left a mark, a smear of Father's blood. I would not see, would not wash it away for hours.

"Lygeia," I echoed, feeling nothing yet, nothing but that distant horror.

She took her hand away and reached into her bodice. I shrank away a step, frightened, as she drew out something that had been tucked into her corset. She held out her hand to me. On her sticky red palm was a silver locket. There was no chain, just the pendant, closed.

With trembling fingers, I took it, for it seemed to be the only thing to do.

Mother smiled at me. "Daughter. You are never Agnes. You are Halimeda."

Too dazed to try to understand, I nodded slowly. The locket in my hand was warm. "Yes, Mother."

"Say."

"Halimeda."

"Do not let any take it," she said. "Do not let any take you, my Halimeda."

She kissed my brow, and then she was gone.

My mother murdered my father. She who had never looked upon me with affection had taken the parent who loved me. Not only from me did she steal him; he had sons, a plantation, men who looked up to him. He was respected in the colonies. She stole him from all of us, and cruelly.

How I hated her.