There was a little man dressed in purple with the same cross around his neck. He read from a large book and said a great many things the mermaid did not understand. Suddenly, the choir began to sing and the congregation rose. The little mermaid listened intently and closed her eyes, and she was awash with pain and pleasure. Every hair on her body uncurled and stood flat and rigid. Her eyes stung beneath her eyelids like they had been doused in acid. Her heart was heavy yet light at the same time. A reassuring hand squeezed her knee through her dress and her eyes flew open. Through her blurred vision, she saw the face of the Uncle, who had not risen either, but had stayed seated beside her.
“We must go now,” he whispered, “it is almost dark.”
And obediently, the mermaid got to her feet. They exited the church as quietly as they could and mounted their horses. The little mermaid could not help but recall the man’s face in the stained glass as he ascended to heaven. If he were no longer sad, why were there thorns around his heart?
Although she had enjoyed the outing, she missed the Prince terribly and so the next day, she waited eagerly for him. Finally, there came the anticipated knock at the door, but when the mermaid opened it, she saw it was the Uncle again. She could not hide her disappointment.
“He’s left, I’m afraid,” said the Uncle by way of greeting. The Personal Maid immediately diverted her eyes and busied herself tidying the closet. But the little mermaid had noticed and she glanced at her maid with suspicion.
When? she mouthed, wondering why the Prince had not told her the night he had so rapturously kissed her.
“Yesterday. He’s gone on a journey. I can’t say any more than that, I’m afraid, because even I do not know the details.”
Despite her surprise, her busy mind began to calculate how long a journey was likely to take.
“But if you would care to meet me at the stables at noon, there is something I particularly wish to show you.”
The little mermaid nodded absently and before the Uncle had time to excuse himself, had sunk into bed and drawn the covers over her head.
“I’m awfully sorry, miss,” said the Personal Maid gently when the Uncle had left the room.
In response, the little mermaid flung off the blankets and stared at the maid fiercely.
“I wanted to tell you, really I did,” the maid stammered, “but you were so happy yesterday and I didn’t want nothing to ruin that.”
The little mermaid sighed in exasperation and motioned with her hands wildly.
“Well, I did hear on the servants’ grapevine that it was a very urgent and secret sort of journey. No one knows where to, or for how long. The Prince took three of his best men, from the army that is, and no supplies. And he left without telling a soul – he left his uncle a note.”
The news did little to appease the mermaid, and to make her sentiments quite clear, she flung a pillow at her maid and returned the covers over her head.
Precious little did the journey to the ruins do to raise the girl’s spirits. The Uncle kept a keen eye on her in the carriage, but she did not care to notice. She stared glumly out the window and looked at the scenery, scenery that anyone in their right mind would be enchanted by, without seeing it. He had tried, unsuccessfully, to distract her by regaling the history of the area several times. Sometimes her brow would furrow when a particularly dark thought crossed her mind, and her nostrils would exhume furious bursts of air. Other than that, the carriage was silent.
Finally, they had reached their destination and the mermaid was diverted from her musings by the sight of a long-corroded pier and what appeared to be a mountain of rubble at the end of it. She followed the Uncle out of the carriage and shut her door with more force than necessary.
The planks of the pier were rotted for the most part, so the Uncle took her elbow to guide her along. From the slits between the boards, the mermaid could make out thick slabs of concrete embedded in the ocean floor. She gasped when they came to the end of the pier, for the ruins were enormous, piles and piles of wreckage lay on top of the other, more than what seemed possible.
“Hundred of years ago,” said the Uncle in his uncomfortably alluring voice, “before our kingdom was a great city, it was nothing but a small village of fisherman. These ruins are from the lighthouse, which served as a beacon for all ships, from Africa to the wild Nordic lands. It was said to be the greatest lighthouse ever built, but why it was built here, in a shanty village of no consequence, no one ever knew. But one day, despite its quality foundations and years of reliability, it just collapsed.”
The Uncle squatted down and took a piece of the ancient rubble in his hand and examined it. “There are plenty of myths surrounding this place,” he continued. “Some say they hear the cries of the very building coming up from within these stones. They say that the ruins are mourning. Still others say they sometimes see the ghost of a woman, a beautiful woman who once may have lived here, searching desperately through the rubble. The ghost searches until her fingers are bleeding grey, phantom blood. But she never finds what she is looking for.” With one steady motion, he pitched the debris he held right out to sea.
“I brought you here to tell you this: sometimes what we are searching for does not exist. We may sacrifice for it, even bleed for it, but it was never meant to be ours.” He drew closer to the little mermaid and she shivered, although it was not cold. “Even the strongest things, things we rely on the most, things we believe will remain constant, may suddenly crumble around us. And what do we have left? Do we just stop living?”
He gave her a sad, twisted smile. “Something to ponder,” he threw over his shoulder as he walked away.
Despite her initial reluctance, the little mermaid found that she enjoyed the Uncle’s company more than she expected. There was a certain easy confidence about him, she decided, that the Prince did not possess. She did not feel like she had to perform, nor was she obliged to remove the scowl from his face, because he rarely scowled. In fact, all the little behaviours the Prince indulged in – moodiness, surliness, occasional mild tantrums, things that caused the mermaid to panic and rack her brain for ways to distract him – did not exist. However, this did not make up for the fact that the Prince was missed, and sorely. She thought his temper dangerously exciting, and his moods a welcome part of his mystique.
During the Prince’s absence, she had at least learned a great deal. She had examined every corner of the city, even entering dress shops where the Uncle had indulged her by buying the small copper bracelets she admired so much. She wore them at all times and they jangled together when she moved. They had returned to the church and afterwards, the Uncle had explained to her all about the sad man, but the mermaid still did not understand what that had to do with anything. She desperately wanted to know about the Immortal Soul, but no amount of miming could persuade the King’s brother into understanding.
The other positive thing, the mermaid decided, about the Prince’s horrid journey was that it gave her the opportunity to return to the steps that led to the sea to soothe her bleeding feet. She had longed to spend time in the magic smatterings of dusk, but ached for her sisters and for news. She sat there for a long time every night, searching the horizon, but they never came. Questions started to form in her mind, and a horrible anxiety oozed into her heart. She prayed with all her might that her family was safe. She scooped up the sea-foam in her hands and kissed it, for it may be her sisters or their beloved nanny she held onto.