ON A BLACK MOON SEA ~A Halloween Anthology~

Troth-plighted

The bathwater had gone cold an hour ago, but here Coralie sat, trailing her fingers through it. Her eyes were closed. She was pretending.

The camisole flowing around her, soaked to the seams, was seaweed; and the cold salty bathwater poured in from the sea. She pretended the window was rattling until it rattled loose and the seawater surged in through the opening, sweeping away glass and hinge, through her beautiful quarters and devouring all in its path, washing her away into the silent deeps...

A frantic knock sounded on her chamber door.

Coralie did not answer.

"Miss Coralie! Are you out of the water yet? It's nearly time!"

The doorknob fumbled and shook for a moment, then Roone came bustling in, skirts sweeping against the floorboard.

"Oh, look at the sight of you...soaking in ice cold water with a storm outside? The guests will be here any minute!"

Coralie opened her eyes. Roone was trying her best to glare down at her, hands on her hips and white-blond curls spilling out from her cap.

"I'm sorry."

The words scraped up her throat and came out in a rasping whisper that Coralie herself could barely hear. She slid down into the cold water and sucked a mouthful of it in.

Roone snatched at a large towel draped over the sides of the tub and held it open with an encouraging smile. "Come along, Miss Cora. We don't have all night to get you prettied up, and didn't you hear? The prince is coming!"

Coralie slid all the way under. Roone flickered and wobbled across the glassy surface of the bathwater, and her voice was muted to nearly nothing. Silvery-blue glittered on the inside of Coralie's thighs. She reached out with a tentative finger, ran it along the smooth new scales with a shiver. They looked so out of place among all the scars.

Coralie closed her eyes and pretended she could sink past the bottom of the tub, down down down into the deeps, and that the scales were spreading from her legs up to her chest and over her mouth, over her eyes...

Roone was grabbing her arm, hauling her up out of the water. "I know you're a little nervous, Miss Cora, but that isn't an excuse to play around like this, when we've got less than an hour to dry you off and dazzle your prince. Lady Frost would be most displeased if she found you in this state."

Coralie swallowed her mouthful of salty bathwater and pressed her thighs together to hide the flash of silver. "I don't want to dazzle Johanne's prince."

Roone frowned and toweled her off with such haste it felt like she was losing a layer of her skin. "Get over to your wardrobe, little miss."

Coralie dutifully did so. She stood and let Roone dress her in a clean shift and petticoats, a dress, a pair of firm silk stockings and slippers. She sat at the vanity and watched her long wet hair transform into a tall, elegant sweep, her features vanish beneath paint and powder.

Her sister's name had burned on her tongue when she spoke it, like a magic word.

She did not speak again.

•

The ballroom was awash in soft golden light. Glass globes floated by thin fishing lines from the ceiling, and candles burned within them. Every mirror had been polished to a fearsome shine. But the finest facet of the room were all of the rich guests who danced within it.

Rich colors of every hue swirled past Coralie at her seat on the ballroom's edge– finely embroidered coats and scalloped skirts, shoes so black they looked like beetle wings, glitter on cheeks and eyelids, jewels glittering in everyone's hair.