The River Maid (21 page)

A child stared at her with wide eyes. She met the boy
’s gaze and smiled. He smiled back before he was pulled away by his mother. A man stood to the side. He had been standing there all day. Unlike the others, he didn’t pound on the glass, or try to get her attention. Finally, she looked over and froze. She knew him, although she didn’t know how. She tried to think, but she hadn't eaten in so long and her mind was hazy. She had known him before she became a mermaid. It was hard to think of that; that there had been a time that she wasn’t a mermaid. That she had once been a girl. She stared at him, trying to remember. Gaspard. His name was Gaspard.

It couldn
’t be him. Gaspard was in St Goarshausen. Her eyes met his. He had the same kindly blue eyes and portly stomach. When she had still been a girl, he had walked with her by the river and told her stories. Gaspard smiled at her and placed his hand against the glass. He mouthed something to her, but she didn’t know what he was saying. He turned and disappeared into the crowd. Frantically, she looked for him, coming up to the glass much to the excitement of the crowd, but she could no longer see him. She must have dreamed it. It was impossible that he could be here in the city. But if he was real, then he had seen her tail. He had seen what she was.

She spent the rest of the day searching the crowds that came, but she didn
’t see him again. Part of her was relieved that Gaspard hadn’t seen her like this.

After the crowds of people finally left each day, each night, there were balls or the Emperor
’s private dinner parties. She didn’t like to sleep underwater so she had to wait until the guests had left and the plates had been cleared away and the last of the servants had gone before she could come up to the surface to sleep. Soldiers came in to check on her throughout the night. They weren’t guarding her to make sure she didn’t escape, but to keep others away from her. The sound of their heavy footfalls brought back nightmares of Fournier’s cellar.

That evening, the Emperor had another dinner party. She watched them with accusing eyes as they ate, but the guests didn
’t seem to notice. When the last of the servants had finally left, she came to the surface. She rested her cheek on the side of the tank and closed her eyes and tried to sleep. It was awkward sleeping like this, but the exhaustion from the lack of food helped. She had just drifted off when she heard a door open and soft footsteps approaching. Fournier often came to visit her at night. She closed her eyes and pretended to sleep, hoping he might leave.

“
Adrianna,” came a voice.

She opened her eyes. No one called her that; not even Fournier. Adrianna. It was her name, although it had been so long since she had heard it spoken. A shadow climbed up the set of stairs that rested against the tank, grunting with the effort.

“Monsieur Gaspard.” His name came out as a sob. Her voice was faint and croaky. It was the first words she had spoken since she had been brought to the palace. She couldn’t stop tears streaming down her face and sobs welling in her throat.

He put his hand over hers where it rested on the metal frame.
“Please, don’t cry, mademoiselle,” he said. But Adrianna couldn’t seem to stop. He patted her hand until she had brought her tears under control.

“
What are you doing here?” she asked, when she could talk again. It felt strange to move her lips. She had to remember how to form each word. Her voice sounded foreign to her ears.

“
Looking for you of course.” He smiled as though it was perfectly natural that she should be here in Paris, and that her being a mermaid was nothing out of the ordinary.

“
You were looking for me?” she whispered.

“
Since you were taken.”

She began to cry again. All this time, she hadn
’t been alone. Someone had been looking for her.

“
Although,” he continued gently, “you look somewhat different since I last saw you.” 

She looked down, unable to meet his eyes
“It was Lorelei. She stole my legs.” Her voice was a strangled whisper. There was no way he would believe her story.

“Lorelei?
How is that possible?”

“
Lorelei was a mermaid. She lived in the river below the town. She took my legs and left me like this.”

It was a relief to finally tell someone the truth about what had happened.

Gaspard shook his head in disbelief. “It’s extraordinary. Almost unbelievable. But why would a mermaid want legs?”

“
She wanted to be with the prince.”

He sighed heavily.
“I should have guessed. Is there a way to undo the spell?”

“
Lorelei is the only one who can undo it and I think she’s dead.”

“We will find a way
.” A noise from outside made Gaspard turn. “I have to go. The guards are coming back.”

“
Please don’t leave me.”

“
I must, for a short time, but I will be back. Have courage, mademoiselle. We will a find a way to get you out of here.”

“
You can’t help me. The Emperor will never let me go.”

“
I won’t leave you here. We will find a way.”

Gaspard climbed down the steps and disappeared into the shadows. She waited with her breath held for the soldiers to start shouting, but there was only silence. She was afraid that Gaspard would get himself arrested or killed trying to help her escape. It would be even worse, to be trapped here and have his death on her hands. She should have told him to leave her and forget about her.

Her name was Adrianna. He had given her back who she was. She remembered everything; about her mother and her life in the town. It was worse to remember and to know who she was. Now, she knew that she wasn’t meant to be a mermaid.

Chapter Twenty Four

Christian stood at the window of the parlour in Elise
’s house, his back to Gaspard as he tried to absorb what the Frenchman had just told him. That Lorelei had been a mermaid and she had stolen Adrianna’s legs, all so that she could be with him. The idea sounded absurd, like something out of a story. Christian closed his eyes. He knew it was true. It explained everything. No wonder Lorelei had always behaved so strangely. He could imagine her as a mermaid with her vivid violet eyes and long golden hair.

“
It’s all my fault,” he said quietly.

“
It’s not your fault, Christian,” Gaspard replied. “You didn’t ask Lorelei to love you.”

“
Do you think Lorelei is dead?”

“
I don’t know. But if she changed back into a mermaid, that may be why we didn’t find a body.”

Lorelei was a mermaid. For some reason that seemed easier to believe than Adrianna being one. It was all his fault. Adrianna must hate him.

“How am I meant to live knowing that I’m to blame for everything that has happened to her?” he asked.

“
You cannot change what has already happened,” Gaspard said. “But you can help Adrianna now.”

They couldn’t leave her to be stared at and paraded about. If he could save her, he could make it right somehow.

“We have to get her out of there,” Christian said.

“It won’t be easy. The Emperor has her
well-guarded. Even if we managed to get her out of the palace, we would still have to find a way to get her out of the city.”

Christian turned to face Gaspard, his forehead creased in thought. “The river Seine runs alongside the Tuileries. If we can get her to the river, she would be free.” He sighed. “But she would still be as she is now. If Lorelei is dead then there might be no way to get her legs back.”

“We will find a way,” Gaspard vowed. “Perhaps there are others like Lorelei still somewhere in the world. We will rescue Adrianna and then we will find a way to undo what Lorelei did. But there will be consequences.”

“
What do you mean?” Christian asked.

“Napoleon
will send men after her to bring her back. He will never stop looking for her. If you’re seen helping her to escape, your titles and lands could be forfeit.”

“
I understand.” He hesitated. “Elise told me about what happened to your family.”

“I thought she might.”

“You’re not angry?”

“When have you ever known me to be angry?”

Christian could name a few instances from his childhood when he had pushed his tutor to the limits of his patience, but he had never known him to be truly angry.

“I learned a long time ago you cannot undo the past,” Gaspard said softly. “You can only try to live with it. The things that happen shape us. Sometimes, terrible things happen. We must all face ourselves in the mirror. Some people look with no hesitation, no matter what they have done. Those are the ones I worry about the most. I have never worried about you.”

“Never?” Christian said.

“Well, perhaps occasionally,” Gaspard conceded. “But I have never worried about the man that you have become. I am proud to have been a small part of that.”  

They went back every night to the palace, waiting for a chance to get in to see Adrianna. The security had been tightened since their last attempt to speak with her. Christian always stayed back, afraid to approach her. He watched Adrianna from the shadows. He and Gaspard had agreed that whichever one of them had the chance to speak with her, to take it, but there was none.

A week passed and they had still been unable to get in to speak with Adrianna again. They met at Elise
’s to discuss their next move. Gaspard had told her about Lorelei and what had happened to Adrianna. She had accepted their story with only a raised brow and a shake of her head.

“
We need to do something,” Christian said from where he stood by the fireplace, trying to keep his frustration in check. They were still no closer to rescuing Adrianna and the situation was beginning to seem hopeless.

“
Eventually, one of the guards will make a mistake. I am more concerned with how we are going to get Adrianna out of the tank and to the river,” Gaspard said. He sat on the sofa next to Elise who was listening quietly to their conversation.

They might be able to get in to see her, but getting her out of the palace and past the guards would be more difficult.

“We need a distraction,” Christian said. “We could start a fire in another part of the palace.”

“
The soldiers would never leave her,” Gaspard replied. “They would stay with her. We need them to move her from the tank.”

They had gone over it again and again, discarding every solution they came up with.

“Break the glass,” Elise said, speaking up. “Then they would have to move her.”

Christian sat down and shook his head. “
We would never get close enough to do it.”

“
Unless she did it,” Gaspard suggested. “If Adrianna could break the glass, they would have to move her and quickly. There would be no time for them to alert anyone else.”

“It might be the o
nly way,” Christian agreed. “But we would only get one chance to do it.”

If it didn
’t work, they wouldn’t get another.

~~~~~

Adrianna was bored in the tank. Every day, faces pressed against the glass as the people of Paris came to look at her. The Emperor had opened the palace to the lower segments of society and was allowing the poor to come and see her. Dirty and unwashed, they shuffled into the room, sending fearful glances at the soldiers, until they saw her and rushed to the tank, their eyes lighting up in wonder and the hopelessness going briefly from their faces. 

Adrianna looked for Gaspard in the crowds. Sometimes, she caught a brief glimpse of him. He hadn
’t come again to speak to her since that first night. Had he forgotten about her? Or perhaps it was too dangerous for him to try and speak to her. She didn’t want to believe that he had given up. He would come back. He would find a way to see her. Each night she lay awake in the darkness, listening out for him. Fournier came to see her one night and she almost said Gaspard’s name, thinking it was him.

“
You look better,” he said, after he had climbed the stairs up to her tank. “I’m glad you’re eating again. I don’t like having to force you. The Emperor wants to move you somewhere more secure. He’s had a tank built for you in the centre of Paris. You will be safer there. He has many enemies and he’s afraid that someone might want to steal you from him.” 

They were moving her and soon. Gaspard wouldn’t be able to help her now. Despair threatened to overwhelm her. She felt the same way as when she had first woken up and seen that her legs were truly gone. She went under the water to the bottom of the tank and wrapped her arms around herself and pressed her cheek against her tail. Please, she thought. Please let Gaspard come before they moved her.

The next day, she scanned the crowds, desperately looking for Gaspard. She swam around the tank. She needed to find him and tell him they were going to move her. The people who had come to see her pointed and cheered, but she ignored them. She couldn’t see him. He had abandoned her or perhaps he had never been there, perhaps she had imagined it. She stopped eating again and withdrew back into herself. She wished she had never seen him and remembered who she was.

Days passed. The Emperor would come and stare at her in the evening. He never spoke to her. He watched her possessively, admiring his latest trophy. At night, balls were held or banquets. She was always the centrepiece. People came to see her from across Europe. She heard languages she didn
’t have names for and saw strange costumes. They thought her scandalous to be so exposed in just a thin chemise.

That night, she lay with her cheek resting against the frame of the tank. She hadn
’t eaten in three days, but they hadn’t forced her yet. Hearing a noise, she held her breath and froze. She was sure that someone was there, but she didn’t want to call out in case it was Fournier. Remembering what Fournier had said about someone wanting to steal her away, she was afraid. The shadow moved forward. As it came closer, she recognised it. A shaft of moonlight illuminated the prince’s face. He approached her slowly, as if unsure. Gaspard hadn’t mentioned that the prince was with him.

The prince came closer until he stood at the bottom of her tank.
“Gaspard has been trying to get in to speak to you, but there were too many soldiers. One finally left his post so I managed to slip in.” He cleared his throat. “You might not remember me.”

“
I remember,” she said.

“
You saved my life that night in the river. You pulled me to the surface.”

She said nothing. How was she supposed to speak to a prince? She had never spoken to him when she was just a girl and she didn
’t know how to speak to him now. She didn’t want him to see her like this, when she was so repulsive with her tail. He didn’t come up the stairs. He stayed at the bottom of the tank as if he was afraid to come any closer.

“
We have a plan to get you out,” he said, speaking softly. “There’s a river that runs alongside the palace and out of the city. If we can get you to it, you will be free.”

“
It’s too late,” she said, speaking just as softly. “They’re going to move me. The Emperor is afraid someone will try to take me.”

“
Then it will have to be tomorrow night during the ball. The Emperor has left to rejoin the army so he won’t be there. I need you to break the glass when I give you the signal.”

She looked at the thick panes of glass that made up the tank doubtfully.
“What if I can’t?”

“You must. It’s the only way.”

“What if it doesn’t work?”

“It will work.
Trust me.” He met her eyes. His gaze didn’t waver. Most people never looked at her. They looked at her tail, but no one looked at her directly. 

They both turned at the sound of voices approaching. The soldiers were coming to check on her.

“I have to go,” he said, his voice urgent. “Remember what I said.”

He melted back into the shadows. A soldier came in, a lantern in his hand. He held it up to check the room, but he only had a cursory look before he left.

She was too tense to sleep. Tomorrow night was too soon. What if she couldn’t break the glass? What if something went wrong? And even if they did get her to the river, she would still be a mermaid. She would still be trapped and confined to the river, but at least she would be free. She wouldn’t waste it again, she decided. She would make a life for herself. Tomorrow, when the prince signalled her, she would be ready.