“Have you ever considered going blonde?” Trevain asked as he glanced over at her in the passenger seat.
“What? No.” Aazuria hastily grabbed a curl to make sure it had not somehow begun to blanch. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it was still dark. She wondered if he was thinking about their encounter in the water. “It would look too fake on me; my skin is too dark.”
“I think it would look nice,” Trevain said, as he turned off the street into the driveway of a building.
“This is the psychiatric hospital?” Aazuria said as she stared up at the rundown old building they were approaching. There were bars on the windows. “It looks so cold.”
“It’s not my favorite place in the world,” Trevain responded sadly. “They don’t offer much comfort to the clinically insane.”
While Trevain parked his Range Rover, Aazuria found herself looking up at the building curiously. He walked around the car to open the door for her, and she stepped out nervously.
“Do you really believe that your mother is insane?” Aazuria asked.
“She tried to do a few strange things when we were younger,” Trevain answered. “They think that she just lost touch with reality. I try not to think about it too much. It hurts so much to be apart from her, even after all this time.”
Aazuria slipped her arm around Trevain’s as they walked through the door. She unconsciously caressed the engagement ring on her finger. “What did she try to do?” she asked.
“She tried to drown my little brother in the bathtub,” Trevain explained. Aazuria paused for a moment, looking at Trevain with horror on her face. “I know,” he said, rubbing her arm. “It’s ghastly. She had tried to kill herself a while before that, but we weren’t sure it was a suicide attempt. Father thought it might have been an accident.”
Aazuria took a deep breath and swallowed. “How did she try to kill herself?”
“She had begged my father to bring her aboard one of his fishing trips—it was shortly after Callder was born and she said she was lonely and unhappy. She didn’t want to be left at home.” Trevain shrugged. “I was a kid back then… maybe six or seven. I don’t remember the details, just a sense of panic and fear. Mom had jumped off the deck of the boat into the freezing cold water. We nearly lost her.”
“Good Sedna,” Aazuria whispered softly as she entered the elevator with Trevain. She found herself moving closer to hug him gently. She buried her face against his chest, afraid of what she was about to learn. Part of her already knew what she would find, but she needed confirmation. It was too unbelievable.
The elevator doors opened, and Trevain guided Aazuria to a nurse’s desk. “I’m here to see my mother, Alice Murphy.”
“Go right ahead, sir.”
Aazuria did not realize how nervous she was until she noticed that her hands were shaking. Before she was conscious that she was moving, she found herself standing before a door with the number 201 on it. Trevain was opening the door for her. She mechanically entered the room, allowing her eyes to fall upon the small elderly creature staring through the barred window, surrounded by bright white walls and white linens. Aazuria exhaled a breath which she had not realized she had been holding since the elevator. She did not know this woman. It seemed that Alice Murphy was just a normal, mentally unstable old lady after all.
There was no way that that tiny, shrunken woman huddled on the bed had the blood of the Ramaris line in her. Aazuria knew that she had been silly for thinking it—it had been a hopeful whim. Visola and Sionna’s ancestors had lived amongst the Vikings, and the Nordic seas had been their playground. It was loosely possible that Trevain’s deceased sailor father had been a Ramaris descendant, and had given the ring to his wife. More likely, it had been purchased in the same way that most of Adlivun’s royal fortune was now up for sale in various Alaskan pawn shops.
“Mother, I’ve come to visit you. It’s me, Trevain…”
The woman’s head turned to face them, and Aazuria inhaled sharply. Heat spread through her neck, and the hairs on the back of her neck stood upright. She stared in shock for a moment at the aged woman’s sunken features. The glass-colored transparent tendrils which framed her oval-shaped face in tired wisps. The high cheekbones, the defiant green eyes.
Aazuria’s memory rapidly matched pieces of an ancient puzzle together.
“Alcyone!” she gasped, running forward and flinging herself down upon the woman’s breast. She clutched the frail old woman tightly, sobbing.
The old woman stared down at her visitor in wonder. “Aazuria,” she whispered. Her voice shook with age and emotion, but was weighted with dignity and eloquence. She picked up strands of Aazuria’s hair between her fingers and stared at them in confusion. “It cannot be you. I must be hallucinating; you’re just a divine mirage in this sterile desert.”
“I am real. I am here.” Aazuria could not stop weeping. She hugged the old woman tightly, as though she were embracing her own lost mother. It was several minutes before she could speak. “Alcyone! I never thought I would see you again—and to find you like this! Sweet Sedna, there is nothing wrong with you. How could you allow them to keep you in this place?”
Trevain watched this exchange with amazement as the two women displayed recognition for each other. For a moment he had felt defensive, as if the young and vigorous Aazuria was going to attack his old feeble mother. When instead, they conversed like old friends, and his mother erupted in tears and struggled to put her shaking hands around his fiancée, he began to feel clueless and confused.
“My mother’s name is Alice,” was his feeble contribution—a half-hearted objection that changed into an admission of ignorance on its way out of his mouth. He could plainly see that Aazuria somehow knew his mother better than he did. He could see it, but he could not understand it. He had been extremely close to his mother for his entire life, and he had never heard mention of Aazuria.
“Princess Aazuria!” breathed Alcyone, crying and touching her long-lost friend to be certain she was real. “Please tell me you have come to rescue me. How have you found me?”
Aazuria smiled through her own tears, forgetting, or choosing not to care that Trevain was in the room. “Accidents and coincidences have led me to you. I recently had to leave Adlivun…”
“Oh, but look at you darling,” said Alcyone, raising her trembling arthritic hand to Aazuria’s face. “You are just as lovely as ever. You have aged hardly a year or two since I last saw you—and look at me. A haggard useless crone!”
“No! No, your eyes are as piercing as the day I bid you farewell,” Aazuria said, touching the woman’s wrinkled cheek. “Such bright emerald green… they are exactly like your mother’s eyes. Oh, Alcie! Your mother is going to have a coronary. I have to call her right away. Do you know how heartbroken Visola was when she lost you? You were her whole world.”
“Oh, heavens,” said Alcyone, bringing both of her hands to her cheeks as her eyes brimmed with fresh tears. “My mother is here? I’ve missed her every single day of this wasted lifetime. I need to see her as soon as possible! Oh, but what will she think of me? I look so ancient and decrepit…”
“She will thank the stars that she was reunited with you—and maybe she will stop being so grouchy all the time,” Aazuria said with a smile.
“I have a living grandmother?” Trevain asked in confusion.
Both women swiveled their heads to look at him then. Alcyone was the first to speak. “Forgive my manners! Trevain, my boy, it’s good to see you. Come give your mother a hug. How did you come to meet Aazuria? I’m sure it’s an interesting story.”
He had been moving forward to embrace her, but he paused, not wishing to tell his mother that he had been in a strip club, regardless of the fact that he was a grown man. He had contrived many possible stories, but now that it turned out Aazuria and his mother were old friends, the situation was further complicated.
Aazuria laughed, and held up her hand to show Alcyone the ring. “We are in love. We are engaged to be married.”
“What!” Alcyone shrieked. An enormous smile instantly transformed her features and she shook her head in disbelief. “Married? Married!” she exclaimed with an incredulous look. She began to giggle at the prospect. “My boy is engaged to the princess of Adlivun! Imagine that… but wait. Where will you live? Here on land, or underwater?”
Aazuria and Trevain looked at each other. It was a tense shared look of unease and unfamiliarity. She was concerned about her secrets being revealed. He was concerned about his mother embarrassing him with her crazy talk.
“Sorry, Zuri,” he began, “my mother thinks…”
“My goodness,” Alcyone suddenly said. “What of your father, Aazuria? How is it that…”
“Shhh, it is all okay,” said Aazuria, stroking the old woman’s hand. The skin covering Alcyone’s bones was paper thin. “We took care of it. He’s dead.”
“Dead?” she asked, blinking. Then she threw her head back and allowed a burst of laughter to surge forth from her throat. “Dead! Kyrosed Vellamo is dead! Those are the most beautiful words I have heard in decades.”
Trevain stiffened. He remembered the name spoken by the angry blonde woman in the water. The people who had killed Callder, Arnav, and probably Leander, had spoken the name of this man who was apparently Aazuria’s father. He began to try to assemble his own puzzle within his mind to figure out exactly what was going on. He knew that he must finally admit that one bizarre thing was indisputable; too many people had called Aazuria “princess” and in too formal a manner of address for it to be a childhood nickname.
Perhaps his mother had not lost touch with reality as much as he had been led to believe.
“So of course you will live in Adlivun!” Alcyone said, clasping her hands together and sighing happily. “We will have a traditional sea-dweller wedding, and there shall be thousands in attendance. There will be an aisle of icebergs! You two will reign as King and Queen over a new golden age and give me many adorable grandchildren!”
“Alcie… I do not believe we will be living in Adlivun,” Aazuria said softly, as she glanced nervously at Trevain. His arms were crossed, and there was an expression of bafflement and displeasure on his face.
“Why not?” Alcyone asked, her smile instantly disappearing and her disposition diminishing. “You mean—you intend to live here on land? Here, Aazuria, in this awful place?” The old woman raised her finger and pointed at both of them angrily. “No—I won’t allow that! You can’t marry my son. I forbid it.”
“Why?” Aazuria asked in surprise.
“Darling, look at me: I’m dying!” Alcyone shouted. A chill ran through Aazuria, for she could see Visola’s passion mirrored clearly in the woman when she was angry. “I’m practically a corpse! I am hundreds of years younger than you are, and look at me! It is too much to sacrifice. I will not have you forfeit your youth!”
“I am not immortal, Alcie. I will age and die eventually too. It happens to all of us, just at different rates.”
“Aazuria—you think you understand, but you do not. The incapacitating pain, the endless agony, the humiliating weakness of old age; it is not worth it! No man—forgive me for being callous, but not even my gallant eldest son is worth surrendering yourself for.”
“But I love him,” Aazuria said softly, staring into her friend’s viridian eyes. “I want to spend my life with Trevain, and this is his world.”
“Sedna preserve me! This world is not yours,” Alcyone said firmly. “It never will be. Take it from someone who has gone down that road: I loved a man, and I bore him children… and look where I ended up! Look what they did to me, and how they repaid me for my sacrifice! If only I could go back in time to that day when I ‘escaped’ Adlivun, I swear to you—I would just turn around and swim back home to you and my mother.”
There was a silence in the room after she said that. Aazuria closed her eyes, imagining the suffering that her friend had experienced. She could not even handle a few weeks cooped up in a comfortable room with her injury; she had no clue how Alcyone had lived through years of stark confinement. At least in Adlivun they had all been confined together—they had been able to move around the palace, and had experienced a sense of basic freedom. Sixty years ago, they had thought they were offering Alcyone a chance at a better life, and instead they had thrust her into an inferior dystopia.
“Aazuria, you are a princess—oops, my apologies—I’m a bit behind on the current affairs,” Alcyone said with a bit of a giggle. “You are the Queen of an extraordinary, noble race. You cannot forsake your people to live on the land with Trevain.”
“I will never forsake them altogether…”
“I love my children, Aazuria, but I never see them. All I see are these white walls, day after day. Most of the time I close my eyes and fantasize about what life was like when I was a child. I yearn for Adlivun more than I ever believed anyone could yearn for any place.” She was overwhelmed with nostalgia. “Oh, Aazuria! I miss my old life. I miss my mother. I miss my auntie Sio. I miss you and Elandria. I miss Coral—Coral was my best friend. How is she? Please don’t tell me she looks exactly the same as the last time I saw her. What will she want to do with an old woman like me?” Alcyone put her head in her hands.
Aazuria put her arms around the old woman, hugging her gently. “Coral loves you to death, Alcie. You two grew up together; you did everything together! A friendship like yours could never be destroyed by a few wrinkles, silly. Coral will be horribly jealous of the dangerous adventures you have had while she was cooped up in the castle with us.”
“Corallyn… is my mother’s childhood friend?” Trevain asked, swallowing. “The same little Corallyn that lives in my house?” It did not make any sense to him, and yet it made perfect sense. He thought of all the times he had looked into the young girl’s eyes and heard her speak, and had gotten the impression that it was not the soul of a nine-year-old in that tiny body.
Aazuria gave him a small sympathetic smile before turning back to Alcyone. She spoke in an authoritative tone. “We will take you back home at once. Once you are in Adlivun your health will be restored and your lifespan will be extended by dozens, perhaps hundreds of years. Your spirits will be lifted to be amongst those who love you and those whom you love. Visola will set everything right again.”
“I would wish nothing more than to go home to my family,” the old woman said mournfully, “but they won’t let me leave this place. Every step I make is monitored.”
“You are really trapped here?” Aazuria asked with a deep frown.
“I wasted forty years of my life rotting and rapidly aging in this hellhole. I’m a ‘danger to myself and others’ apparently, so I need to be kept under lockdown.” Alcyone made air quotes with her wrinkled fingers. “What an enviable existence!”
Aazuria rubbed her temples to soothe her growing anger. “No. No. We smuggled you out of one prison and directly into another!”
“Chin up, sweetie,” said Alcyone, reaching for Aazuria’s hand. “The few years in between my two incarcerations were quite lovely.”
“Were they worth it?”
“No. If I’d been able to see my two sons grow up into strong young men, it all would have been worth it, but…”
“About Callder…” Trevain interrupted carefully.
“Not now,” Aazuria said sharply, raising a hand to silence him. She did not feel it was necessary to tell Alcyone of Callder’s injury unless he completely succumbed to his wound.
“Aazuria, my children were taken from me! They were turned against me. I think I was fated to understand the pain my mother went through when she lost me.”
“She was out of her mind,” Aazuria said tenderly. “She never fully recovered.”
“It is the Ramaris family curse,” Alcyone said sorrowfully, “to lose our children and miss most of their lives.” She looked across the room at Trevain. “At least my mother knows I had no other choice but to run.”
“Mom…” Trevain began, hurt by her truthful accusation. “I didn’t know…”
“You didn’t know that I was a fugitive sea-dweller displaced to land?” Alcyone asked sharply. “You didn’t know that I could breathe underwater just as Aazuria can? I told you everything, Trevain. My good, smart boy! I told you my memoirs when you were a baby and you thought they were magical fairytales. I read you countless volumes I had collected for my personal library. I told the stories again when you were older, and you believed I was schizophrenic.”
He stood in dazed silence as everything came together in his mind. The accent. Aazuria’s accent which he had detected when he first met her was the same accent in his mother’s voice. She looks like she’s eighteen but talks like she’s eighty. The familiar kiss of the white-haired woman in the water who looked nothing like Aazuria and yet everything like her. I am a fucking mermaid. His legs and the swimming pool. I am one of the fastest swimmers in the world. Her mysterious disappearance for weeks to an unknown destination, leaving no address and taking no luggage. I have been on many boats; so many kinds of boats that I cannot remember all of their names.
He gazed at her as though seeing her for the first time. It is rooted deep in your bones; the water calls out to you until it causes you physical pain unless you come to it.
“He did not know, Alcie,” Aazuria said softly as she watched the realization dance across Trevain’s face.
“Oh, God. You mean he didn’t know that you were…” Alcyone was frantic. “I thought that since you were marrying him… Aazuria, my dear! How could you not tell him?”
Aazuria had been looking at Trevain with fear in her eyes. “I thought that he would find me to be crazy. I think I was right,” she whispered.
“Mrs. Murphy!” called out a fat nurse who entered the room. “Time for your medication, dearie. Oh, I see you have visitors! Well, they’re going to have to leave before you get too excited! We wouldn’t want you to get overexcited now, would we?”
“God forbid,” Alcyone said sarcastically. “The grotesquely bland white walls of this room are already too much excitement for me to handle. They don’t glisten quite like your ice castle, do they Aazuria?”
“She’s always been the funny one. I think a double dosage is in order today since she’s on about that ice kingdom again. Out, out you two!” said the nurse, ushering Trevain and Aazuria out of the room.
Before Aazuria allowed the heavyset nurse to bowl her over, she exchanged rapid hand signals with Alcyone. A brilliant smile illuminated every crease of the old woman’s face, and she responded in sign language, while nodding vigorously.
Aazuria smiled too, and continued signing until the nurse had pushed them out of the room and shut the door between them. Aazuria leaned on the door, thinking about what a strange thing fate was. She thought about all the coincidences that had led to her being here, and she thought of the smile on Visola’s face when she would first see her daughter again. It was all she could do to keep from getting teary-eyed again.
“What did you say to her?” Trevain demanded. What he imagined he saw her sign was something along the lines of, “if she knew… burn this place down… rip it apart.” But he was sure that he had misread their hand signals. He did not think that his kind Aazuria would ever—but then he did not know her very well after all.
The angry sound of his voice snapped her out of her dreamlike state. She straightened, and erased the smile from her face. She thought about the fact that Alcyone was being given medication at that very moment because she missed her home. She thought of how cruel the land had been to her friend.
“I do not wish to speak about it,” she answered.
“That’s my mother in there—my sick, elderly mother. I have a bad feeling that you’re going to…”
“Sick?” Aazuria snapped, in the most vicious tone she had ever used with him. Then, realizing how she sounded, she brought a hand to her head and exhaled. “I am sorry. Trevain, let us not talk about this right now. I am upset and I fear I might lose my temper.”
“Whatever,” he responded indignantly, turning his back on her and heading for the elevator. “You’re the princess.”
Hearing the hatred in his tone turned her stomach over. She feared that she had lost him with all of her lies. But that was hardly her greatest concern at the moment; she had found Alcyone Ramaris.