Part 10 (2/2)

Come, come, the place of shadow and green, Where you'll never cry no more, dear la.s.s, Where you'll never cry no more.

Slowly, Jill got up from the bed and walked to the window. She looked out onto the empty, ghostly town. The dirt road led down to the rocks, where the water splashed black and white in spouting spumes. The sea was as dark as anything she had ever seen, but the obsidian waves shone white as they crested and caught the light of the moon now rising. Jill s.h.i.+vered. Again she listened to the word-like sounds.

Come, come, where heartache's never been.

And where you're seen as you want to be seen.

Come, come, the place of shadow and green, Where you'll never cry no more, dear la.s.s, Where you'll never cry no more.

It was no weather vane. It was a song-sung by a voice unlike any Jill had ever heard. Like a gull rising on the wind, or the moon sinking into the sea.

She turned to see if the song had woken Jack. But he slept on, heavy and senseless to the music amid the black, still night.

Suddenly, she shook her head and laughed at herself. It's the villagers, she realized. Playing a joke on me. Tomorrow they'll ask me if I heard something strange in the night, she thought. Just wait and see.

She got back in bed. It was a haunting voice, whomever it belonged to. The voice of a girl, Jill thought. She listened to the words: where heartache's never been; where you're seen as you want to be seen; where you'll never cry no more. As Jill slept that night, she dreamed of such a place, a place of shadow and green.

In the morning, the innkeeper rapped loudly on the bedroom door. ”Up! Work!” she shouted.

Jill sat straight up in bed. She looked over at Jack. He smiled wanly at her.

”Hi,” he said weakly.

She leaped up and threw her arms around him.

”Sorry,” he said. ”for being so stupid, up there in the clouds.”

”It's all right,” Jill laughed.

”No it isn't!” said the frog.

”Wish I could help with your work,” Jack said. His voice was thin and tired.

”You rest,” Jill smiled. And then she said, ”Did you hear music last night? Singing?” Jack shook his head. Jill shrugged. ”You slept heavily.”

”I didn't hear anything either,” said the frog.

”You were snoring your head off,” Jill replied. She went downstairs.

All day, no villager said a word about any song in the night. As the townspeople gathered for dinner and drinking that evening, Jill tried to detect hidden smiles, or signs of a communal jest. But there were none.

That night, as she lay in bed, she heard the song again. She looked over at Jack. He was sound asleep. The frog was buried under the covers, but she could make out his even breathing as well, in tiny syncopation with Jack's.

The song reverberated through the timbers of the old inn. Jill covered her head with a straw pillow and tried to ignore it.

A minute later, Jill was out of bed. She slipped silently down the creaky wooden steps of the inn, out the door, and guided her bare feet down the dirt path to the rocky sh.o.r.e. In front of her, the waves heaved against the crags of rock, shooting their white foam high into the black air. But off to the right, down a little ways from the village, there was a calmer spot, where the water rolled into and spiraled away from a ten-foot-wide rock harbor. Jill walked out there. Above her, the night was clear and very cold, and the stars twinkled sharply. Jill came to the little harbor. She felt faint spray on her face and smelled the heavy salt of the sea. And she heard the song.

Come, come, where heartache's never been.

And where you're seen as you want to be seen.

Come, come, the place of shadow and green, Where you'll never cry no more, dear la.s.s, Where you'll never cry no more.

She sat down on the black rocks of the little harbor-it would have looked like a wide crescent bay to a toy s.h.i.+p-and she watched the rolling foam swirl in and away. And then, rising out of the sea, sending s.h.i.+vers up and down her back, green as the ocean by day and black as the ocean by night and capped by white foam and moonlight, came a mermaid.

That's right, folks. A real live mermaid.

Don't ask me. I'm just telling it like it was.

The mermaid placed her body on a flat stone just a little way into the tiny harbor. Her body-at least, all of her body that Jill could see-was beautiful and naked. Halfway down her moonlight-hued back, green fish scales, lined with shadow, began. Her eyes were black and green with no whites at all. Her hair was the color of the night water reflecting the moon. The singing had stopped. Jill stared.

”A beautiful, beautiful girl,” the mermaid said, her eyes so wide set and luminous she looked like a creature from a dream, ”You are a beautiful, beautiful girl.” Jill was unable to answer her.

”Yet you are sad,” the mermaid said, and then she gasped, and her shoulders contracted as if in pain. ”So sad! Beautiful girl, what could cause you such pain?”

The wind off the sea blew the spray into Jill's eyes and face, and her hair whipped around her like a rope on a sail. ”How can you tell that I'm sad?” Jill asked, and she felt that she was s.h.i.+vering.

The mermaid looked at her with those wide, black and green eyes. ”I come from a place where there was once no sadness. Now that I know sadness, I feel it too strongly to be borne. Tell me, beautiful girl, tell me: why are you so sad?”

Jill looked down. The mermaid said, ”Something to do with your mother,” and it was not a question. There was a pause in which only the cras.h.i.+ng waves spoke. ”Let us talk about other things,” said the mermaid.

So they did. They talked about the mountains, and the stars, and the sea. And after a while, Jill began to feel better.

Jill looked up and saw the first streaks of pink in the sky out over the ocean. The mermaid felt them without seeing them. ”I must go,” the mermaid said. ”But come tomorrow if you like. We will talk some more.”

”Yes,” Jill said, ”I would love to come. Thank you.”

The mermaid smiled. She was about to slide down the rock and back into the sea when she said, ”Jill, do not tell the villagers that you spoke to me. There is one who would harm me if he could.”

Jill stared at the beautiful creature. Who could ever want to harm her? She nodded. ”I will not tell. I promise.”

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