Roaming about the palace after hours was strictly prohibited, but the little mermaid’s curiosity caused her to defy this rule, and would often skirt the empty halls, ducking from shadow to shadow, in wondrous exploration. Floor by floor, her bare feet would pad across the halls and by moonlight would discover pieces of humanity usually concealed in daylight.
Once, she observed a well-dressed couple scurrying within a darkened atrium, whispering. There was a sense of rushed anticipation in the air. They stopped outside of a door and suddenly, the woman launched herself at the man. Her arms were locked around his neck, and in a bout of pure strength, wrenched his body down to hers. His arms immediately circled her waist, and all bodily proximity was eliminated. Suddenly, the man lowered his head and placed his mouth on the woman’s own. The little mermaid was filled with revulsion. Was he ingesting her? Were humans indeed the cannibalistic predators that her sisters had warned her about? But the woman did not appear eaten, indeed, she did not even seem disgusted by the man’s act. In fact, she looked as if she were rather enjoying it. She made little mews of pleasure that turned the mermaid’s stomach. Someone, in their tangle of human flesh, had managed to open the door and inside the room they tumbled. The little mermaid crouched in the shadows opposite their door for an hour, waiting to see more. But they did not reappear that night.
A few nights later, the self-same couple were strolling the very same corridor when the woman launched herself at the man again. The little mermaid tensed, straining to see more. But it was not the drunken, pleasure-mad lurch of before. The woman was saying something, forceful, muffled, all the while striking the man with her closed fist. On and on she went, lights glinting on her face like water. The man tried to restrain her, but he was no match for her fury. The little mermaid could see the sheen of the woman’s wedding ring as her hands flayed the man. A golden blur.
On another occasion, the little mermaid was prowling when she detected the strangest smell wafting throughout the air. It was a sickening, disturbing and beautiful scent, so intoxicating that she had no choice but to follow it. She padded silently down the corridors of the upper floor until she reached the doorway of a large, squat terrace, usually used as a waiting area for the advisors before admission into the prominent conference rooms of royalty. Waiting for her eyes to adjust to the dimness, she focussed on the tiny gusts of red wind that swayed atop discreet candlesticks that were scattered upon the floor. The smell was heavily concentrated here, swirling around the room like a vengeful ghost. She began to feel light-headed.
After a moment, she collected herself and noticed with a start that the room was full of people. Instantly, she darted from the doorway and concealed herself in the shadows outside it. She berated herself for her stupidity, for now she could clearly hear the murmur of men’s voices. Or so she thought. Everything was getting very muddled. She wondered if anyone had seen her but she needn’t have concerned herself, for if any of the men had noticed, it would not have mattered a bit. Curiosity got the better of her, and she leaned over to peek though the doorway. A strange sight awaited.
The men were strewn upon mats all over the floor. They seemed to have lost all control over their bodies, which lolled about in an unsightly manner. Were these the proud, straight-backed men that battled each other with so much pride and dignity? the mermaid wondered. Surely not. They each nursed a long wooden pipe, sucking from it from time to time. From their mouths exhumed smoke dragons with long, thorny tails, which lolloped about the room chasing each other. After a time, the dragons grew tired of this game, and dissolved into thin air, letting the younger dragons run ragged in the room. The little mermaid watched all of this blankly, for she was beginning to feel sleepy, and though she had tried to rouse herself from the spot, her body felt it were made of bricks.
She did not know how she managed to drag herself to bed, but when she woke she was in her chamber, fully dressed with her shoes still on. She could have sworn that the gentleman had been present on the terrace, a man with a live parasite feeding off his face.
After this uncanny experience, the little mermaid refrained from exploring the palace at night. She had a vague sense that she had witnessed something she ought not to, and a little darkness had crept into her that she did not know how to expel. The Lower Housekeeper had been seen frequently monitoring the halls, and the mermaid did not wish another encounter with her.
From then on, her evenings were blissfully spent down at sea-level. As the God disappeared into the ocean, bathing everything in a glorious hue, she would slowly descend the old stone steps that led to the sea, barefoot. Little rivulets of blood seeped from her soles and between each toe, and she would ease herself into a sitting position, lift her skirts, and place each foot gingerly into the warm seawater. She would lean back and remember her family and sometimes, she would hear the crooning of the melancholy music overhead.
During this time, the little mermaid lived off the hope and love that was by now so infused with her being. She had not seen the elusive Prince, although once she thought she heard his voice as a group of men passed by, all in long black robes and in such a rush that the mermaid could not tell one from the other. She knew which suite belonged to him, the magnificent rooms in the highest steeples of the palace, yet found she had not the time to frequent the entrance in hope of a chance encounter. She had not yet been allocated the privilege of serving food or beverages, so her fraternisation with human beings apart from other servants was limited.
She was a patient girl, and would have perhaps lost hope if it weren’t for the bunch of land-corals, flowers as the humans called them, that appeared in her mouth-wash glass every Tuesday. Each week they were different, mismatched and ill-arrayed, plucked with the undistinguishing eye of a person who knew little about floral arrangements. But the mermaid had never received a gift in her life, and she kept them long after they lost their colour and began to smell like sink-mould.
The other evidence that the little mermaid was neither alone nor friendless was the movement she often detected outside of her doorway. The servant’s hall remained dimly lit all night long, and through the sliver between the door and the floor, she would see a shadow moving, disturbing the light. Once, she fancied she heard breathing. Another time, the pacing of a nervous person, contemplating knocking. It was either the Prince, the mermaid decided, or one of the witch’s Sirens, spying with milky eyes, its remaining limbs dangling sickeningly as it attempted to crouch outside her door. Either way, she was not afraid.
Therefore, time that could have been spent moping or devising strategies to stumble across her beloved’s path was spent in the pure relish of humanity. Despite the gnawing pain in her feet, which she was rapidly growing accustomed to and would occasionally forget, her body was something that she enjoyed exploring and testing. Her legs could move faster than a mere walking pace, she discovered, and along the barren halls at midday, she would test this practice. As she ran, the pain was excruciating yet it was exhilarating to create her own wind. It was difficult at first to master the simple art of sitting, as she was prone to becoming unbalanced, and feared she would simply topple over. She would sit on the edge of her bed in the early morning for an hour, practicing. She enjoyed breathing, as deeply as she could. She loved stretching herself horizontally on her bed and not feel gravity lift her up.