The Perilous Crossing Read online

  “She had the largest blue eyes I have ever seen,” Prince Virgil says. “While the others were fighting, she held on. She would not let them have me.”

  “It was a trick,” Queen Clarion says. “Nothing more.”

  Prince Virgil does not argue, for how does one argue with a mother and stories? Mermaids were never safe in any of the tales. How could it be that a safe one had found him?

  “Tell me a story, Mother,” Prince Virgil says. Perhaps she will tell him something of value in a story.

  “What kind of story, Virgil?” Queen Clarion says. It is clear that she is pleased with his asking, for Prince Virgil is growing up, and he does not often ask to hear his mother’s stories any longer. She has so many to tell, you see. So many that could keep him safe from other dangers besides mermaids. Dangers such as losing one’s bearings in the grip of power. Dangers such as believing one is better than another simply for one’s station in life. Dangers such as listening to the counsel of one’s father when one’s father is King Willis or worse.

  “A story of mermaids,” Prince Virgil says.

  Queen Clarion tilts her head, and her eyes narrow of their own accord. “I thought we might be done with mermaids,” she says.

  “I want to hear a true story,” he says. “Do you know one?”

  Yes. Queen Clarion does know one. But she does not know if her son is ready to hear this one yet.

  “Perhaps I should tell you another story,” Queen Clarion says. “One about your uncle.”

  “I want to hear a story of mermaids,” Prince Virgil says, and it is quite clear to Queen Clarion that he will not rest until she has satisfied his curiosity. And so, perhaps, it is precisely the right time for this story.

  “Once I knew a man who was taken by the mermaids,” Queen Clarion says.

  Prince Virgil’s eyes narrow. “Is this a true story?” he says.

  “Yes,” Queen Clarion says. “Did I not say it was?”

  “But you came here when you were just a little girl,” Prince Virgil says.

  “Yes. I did,” Queen Clarion says.

  “How was it you came to know a man besides my father and my grandfather?” he says.

  She does not remind him that she also knew his uncle, for his father has been telling him stories as well, not the kind Queen Clarion tells, but the darker sort, the ones that hold Prince Wendell up as a villain and nothing more.

  “It was quite a long time ago,” Queen Clarion says. “I was very young.”

  They are quiet for some minutes before Queen Clarion says, “Shall I go on?” Prince Virgil nods, and she shifts in her chair.

  “This man was sailing across the Violet Sea, on his way to another land to see about some velvet for a gown or two for his daughter. He was often gone from home on journeys such as this, and his daughter missed him so. Her mother, you see, worked long hours at the the village bakery, and so much of the time, she was left alone. She grew lonely without her father at home. This time she begged him to let her go with him, but the seas, he said, were far too dangerous. He could not let his beloved daughter even touch them.” Queen Clarion pauses for a time, trying not to let the story take hold of her. She had not told this one for some time.

  “He was right,” she says. “The seas were dangerous, for one day he did not come back.”

  “What happened to him?” Prince Virgil says.

  Though it was years ago, Queen Clarion still remembers the day as if just yesterday she were five years old. She had been sweeping their cottage when the captain of the ship her father had sailed away on knocked on her door, back early from what should have been a two-month journey. She had looked around for her father, but the man’s voice had stopped her cold.

  “He was a very brave man,” Queen Clarion says, a long crack climbing down her voice. “He tried to save one of the ship’s men from the hands of a mermaid.” She remembered thinking that if she had only been there, if he had only been slightly less honorable, perhaps he might have lived.

  “What was it about the mermaid?” Prince Virgil says. “Her beauty?”

  Queen Clarion looks at her son. Perhaps it is time to tell him. Perhaps it might save him where she could not save her father. “It is their song,” she says. “It is their song that drags a man to the depths of the ocean.”

  Prince Virgil’s eyes widen at the thought. Perhaps he is thinking of that safe, warm song that is not so very safe or warm at all. Perhaps he is measuring what might have been.

  “Who was this man?” Prince Virgil says.

  Queen Clarion hesitates. She has never told her son the story of his grandfather. She hesitates to do so now. “A man who lived in the town where I grew up,” she says.

  “And he never came back,” Prince Virgil says.

  “No,” she says. “He never came back.”

  “But you do not know if he lives or if he died?” Prince Virgil says.

  “Had he lived, he would have come back,” Queen Clarion says, forgetting herself for a moment.

  “How do you know?” Prince Virgil says. “Perhaps his life under water was better than the one above.”

  The words tremble in Queen Clarion, for it is something she has considered from time to time, but something no daughter ever wants to admit is true. “He did not go willingly,” she says, and this is where she always ends. “He tried to save one of the sailors and was pulled under himself.”

  They do not speak again for some minutes. The candles flicker across the walls, drawing long shadows into their light.

  “Now,” Queen Clarion says. “Would you like to hear a happier story?” For she has many of those.

  Prince Virgil lies back on his pillow. He scratches at the bandage on his head. “No,” he says. “I believe I would like to sleep.”

  “As you wish,” Queen Clarion says. “Would you like me to stay as I did before?” Her voice is tender and kind.

  “No,” Prince Virgil says. “I am much better.”

  “But the nightmares,” Queen Clarion says. She kneels now at the side of her son’s bed. His hand is warm in hers.

  “I will use my bell if another comes,” Prince Virgil says.

  He does not say, but he would like nothing more than to be left alone, for it is the talisman he desires to retrieve, but he does not want his mother to see. Not for the secret it might keep between them but simply because he does not want to answer her question. Truth be told, his head has begun throbbing, and that makes it difficult to think.

  “Very well, then,” Queen Clarion says. She kisses her son on his cheek and stands, her skirt swishing her out the door. “Sleep well.”

  Prince Virgil waits until his mother shuts his door and he is sure she has moved back down the hall to her own chambers. And only then does he steal out of bed, his vision blurry still, and rummage through the chest of fine clothes and blankets until his hand closes on the blackbird talisman. He ties it round his neck and tucks it beneath the collar of his shirt.

  And though it is quite some time before Prince Virgil finds sleep, it is a good, long, deep sleep without a single nightmare.

  ARTHUR and Maude and the children run through the forest as fast as they can, knowing that Mercy saved them from some danger they cannot yet see. They must outrun it before it returns. Tom and Lina ride in the pocket of Arthur’s shirt, but the other children do as well as they can, dodging trees and stumbling over stones and trying to remain as quiet as the forest around them.

  Why is the forest quiet? This is the question that moves Arthur’s feet faster than they have moved in nearly all of his life.

  It might surprise you that the children do not mind this running as much as they might under different circumstances. Though there is danger, of course, the children have spent so many days trapped beneath the ground, with nowhere to play or stretch or run, if they so desired, that this is precisely what they have been wanting for quite some time. They are, indeed, so very glad to feel the ache in their legs and the burn in their chest. They a
re so very glad they can scarcely stop themselves from smiling and giggling and playing. The wind tears across their cheeks. They will all be red-faced by the time this is all over, and they will have to find water, for everyone knows that running at the pace Arthur and Maude and the children run at this moment, right now, requires water. But no one is thinking of this just now. They are merely thinking of running.

  Oh, they have missed this so.

  Never mind that they are running for their lives.

  They run and run and run, past all the weeping trees, past the dangers the forest is said to hold, though it has grown silent in their stead, past the strange-looking flowers and the colorful grasses. They do not see the fairies, said to steal children if they dare venture into the forest, though Arthur keeps a diligent watch for them, prepared to swat them away should they appear. It looks as though no child will be taken to the Lost World today.

  They do not see the giant cats that are said to live in the trees, with spots and eyes that glow in the shadows and a smile that curves up like a fingernail moon. They do not see the goblins or the birds or the dryads or any of the forest’s creatures. They see only trees with bark and without faces and what is there before them: green grass, a spattering of flowers, and, now, an opening.

  As suddenly as their running begins, it ends. Arthur, in the lead, has only to hold up his hand. They all skid to a stop. There is only silence now.

  “The boundary line,” he says.

  The children do not know this boundary line. They have never been this far, you see. They have never, in fact, been inside the forest, for the stories kept them out. So they wait to step across, for the look on Arthur’s face says they must.

  There is a strange sensation in all of them, a shiver, a pulling back and away from this boundary line, as if something in the forest is not yet ready for them to leave it. Something pulls them back into the woods, back toward Fairendale, back toward danger.

  “Wait,” Arthur says.

  Hazel gazes across the barren land before them. The children have never seen a land so stark and empty and brown. Where are the trees? Where is the beauty? Where is the color? This land is filled with dust and rocks that are larger than they are and mountains in the distance the same color as the land, as if Morad could not think of a single color to brighten its landscape. This does not look like a land with water or food or anything that might guarantee life. It looks like a wasteland, in fact.

  “What is this land?” Hazel says.

  Arthur takes a breath. “Morad,” he says. “We have reached the land of Morad.” His voice is soft, as if he is gazing out on something spectacular rather than a colorless desert. “The land of dragons.”

  WERE Arthur and Maude and the children to look around, perhaps they might see a man, watching. Perhaps they might see his face only, for his body is dressed in bark and leaves and anything that might make him more invisible, more effectively hidden, more conspicuous. He has perfected this disguise, over many days, and now it looks as he always thought it would look—as if he is a walking tree.

  He is disguised, you see, as a dryad.

  Dryads, in the stories of old, are spirits that live in the trees, spirits with faces and, sometimes, hands. This man has become one, though not really. His becoming is quite contrived.

  The unknown man watches Arthur and Maude and the children. His breath comes in puffs, silent, but streaming a momentary fog before him. He has only just stopped running as well, but his footfalls were silent. The children’s were quite thunderous, you see, so they had no idea that he followed them. Not even Arthur, who prides himself on hearing what others cannot (though you will remember that he did not hear the king’s men coming for the children that fateful eve not so very long ago. He would say it was the wind and the rain that masked those hooves, but one can never be sure.).

  Maude, who has a better nose than any animal of these woods, does not even smell this stranger, for he has packed dirt and earth and leaves so efficiently that he does not hold a scent of humanity.

  And so he stands, undiscovered.

  He watches. He waits.

  He hunts.

  THERE is another who hunts as well.

  Of course all those waiting at the border of the dragon lands cannot see him, but Death is here. Death waits. His black robes, by their very nature, keep him hidden. He does not speak. He does not move. He merely waits behind the trees with a grin that would frighten even the bravest of men, for it is a grin that belongs to a skeleton, with a hole for a mouth and little else, except for those white teeth gleaming from the shadows like garish lights. Perhaps it is better that he is invisible.

  Death waits for what is to come.

  Rounds

  SO it was that Greyson, that good, brave, kind boy, became Sir Greyson. He stood before King Willis and pledged his honor and life and duty to the king’s wishes and the kingdom’s safety, and he led his men into peaceful lands and protected the kingdom from the invisible dangers that the king liked to fabricate so that he could assure the people of Fairendale that he was caring for their best interests, always.

  Cora married a merchant man, a sailor who treated her kindly, and they bore a daughter together, a beautiful daughter with flaming hair and grassy eyes, every bit as talented as her mother before her.

  And every now and again, when Sir Greyson made the rounds of the town at night, for there was not much for his men to do in those days, he would watch Cora through her window, sleeping soundly, alone. And he would wonder.

  It is wonder, dear reader, that kept him alive, until the time of our present story.

  Step

  THE children are still wondering about this boundary line. They are still wondering what it might possibly hold for them. Life? Or certain death?

  “Why here?” Hazel says. “Why must we go here?”

  “It is the only way across,” Arthur says. “Into the land of Rosehaven.”

  The only way across.

  Desperation will make a man do things he might never do without it.

  It is more than a little frightening to consider the problem with this plan. Arthur and Maude and the children stand at the very boundary of lands that have not been crossed since King Sebastien stole the throne from The Good King Brendon and drove all the dragons from their place beside humans. King Sebastien could not trust the dragons, you see, for they fought on the side of The Good King Brendon. And from that day forward, the dragons were forbidden to step into the lands of Fairendale, just as the people of Fairendale were forbidden to step into the land of Morad.

  The dragons and humans lived in harmony once upon a time. But, alas, that is a long time past.

  So it is with trepidation that any foot might cross this boundary, for no one knows whether the dragons live or whether they disappeared when they could no longer find purpose in the lives of humans. But if they have not disappeared, well then, Arthur, Maude and all these children are defying an agreement made long ago.

  Arthur stares at the line, the green giving way to brown sand. He grabs the hand of his wife, who grabs her daughter’s, who grabs Chester’s and on and on and on down the line.

  Once they move, there is no turning back. Arthur knows this. They could all die in these lands, and no one would know. The dragons, right now, could be waiting. They could be hiding behind the peaks of mountains or in the oversized caves, waiting to destroy them with great puffs of fire, and how might he, Arthur, feel, watching all the children, who have come so very far, who have lived in spite of all the odds against them, disappear in a cloud of smoke?

  And yet it is true. They have come so far. They have escaped the king’s men. They cannot turn back now. To turn back now would be to certainly die, and while it is probably certainly death to continue forward, they cannot risk anything but this.

  Fate, it seems, has been on their side. Perhaps it will be still.

  Arthur stares. He thinks. He takes a deep breath. He looks at his wife.

  “Ready?�
�� he says.

  Maude’s eyes are large, but she nods. “Ready,” she says.

  The children around them shift.

  “We all understand that we could die,” Arthur says.

  The children nod.

  “I do not know what will happen once we cross the line,” Arthur says.

  The children nod again.

  He looks from one of them to another, staring at their faces, meeting their eyes. They must make it. They must.

  “I love you all,” Arthur says. “I truly do. Every single one of you.”

  They nod again, waiting for him to tell them it is time.

  He closes his eyes, so, of course, they all do, too.

  And then, as if they are one single body, one person held together by muscle and bone and sinew, they step across the boundary line.

  The End

  How to Survive an Encounter with Mermaids

  BY JARED

  A Wanderer on the Violet Sea

  I suppose you have heard of the dangers that exist on the surface and down below the Violet Sea. Every child is told all manner of tales about this deathly body of water.

  You may also have heard that no one has been able to survive a sailing trip across the Violet Sea. I tell you that is only folklore, however. Not the part about the dangers, but the part about the sailing. I tell you this because I and many others have been sailing on the Violet Sea for...well, we are not quite sure how long we have been here. We only know that the land of Fairendale, from which we were banished for reasons that are unimportant for this writing, always eludes us. But I am confident that we will find it soon.

  Who are we? Well, we are pirates, and our story will be told in another annal that is not included in these you are currently reading. I will be the scribe who records our tale, but I must first learn how to write legibly on a rocking sea.

  In any case, because you have been reading about mermaids with perhaps a bit of trepidation, allow me, someone who has actually encountered mermaids, to tell you a bit about them.