False Mermaid

They found the ruined village as deserted as the road. But the view from the headland was spectacular. A beach of round stones stretched in a crescent shape from the foot of the cliff around the mouth of the bay. The waves were wild today, rumbling like thunder on the way in, hissing and tumbling the pebbles as they withdrew. A silent white waterfall cut into the green cliff around the side of the small bay. A dozen mottled black-and-white sheep grazed in the pasture above the rocky strand, their shaggy flanks splotched with bright azure dye. From the height, Nora could also see several craggy islands, and the dark shapes of seabirds clinging to their precarious nesting places. The caves Cormac had mentioned must be over below the falls somewhere. The wind was relentless as ever, but the salt air it carried was warm and damp under heavy clouds. Nora plucked at her jersey front. They’d not even begun the climb down the beach, and she was already starting to sweat.

She had told no one of the tiny, unsettling detail she had observed yesterday on the cross-country journey. Elizabeth had left everything behind in her luggage at Dublin Airport, so they stopped at Dunnes Stores on the outskirts of Sligo to pick up toiletries and a few items of clothing. Passing by the curtained fitting room, Nora had caught a fleeting sideways glimpse of Elizabeth in her white cotton briefs—and something else as well. A piece of sheeting, or something like it, wrapped tight around her child’s slender torso, fixed in place with a safety pin. The image actually took a moment to register. Nora’s immediate thought was of the old ballads about girls who bound their chests and dressed in sailors’ clothes to go off to sea. What was Elizabeth’s reason for disguising her developing shape? All sorts of disturbing possibilities loomed, and now Nora teetered once more upon the point where she had remained suspended for nearly two days now: broach the subject, or keep silent and wait?

In the end, there was no guarantee that waiting would bring about a result. She said: “Lizzabet, I want you to know that I’m ready, whenever you want to talk.” No response. Nora felt as though she was treading on dangerous ground. She pushed on: “I remember being your age, not wanting to grow up, and wishing everything could just stay the same—”

Elizabeth stared at the ground below her feet, newly exposed ears glowing with mortification, and Nora knew she’d gone too far. “Never mind. We don’t have to talk about it right now.”

Nora’s probing words had left Elizabeth slightly unsettled, but standing here above the rocky beach, she turned toward the sea and felt her spirits lift. This place was the closest thing yet to her own Useless Bay. Following Nora down the embankment to the beach, she felt her attention drawn to tufts of wet grass that grew between the rocks, fascinated to find perfect spiderwebs sagging with tiny beads of dew, the curling fiddleheads of ferns, black-and-white-striped snails leaving shiny trails on the undersides of every prickly thistle leaf. As they reached the stony beach, she stopped to lift the drooping head of a delicate purple flower.

“A harebell,” Nora said from beside her. “I didn’t know you were interested in plants.”

Elizabeth shrugged. “I don’t know the names—I just like looking at them.” She bent to pick up a smooth oval stone, examining its tumbled, whitened surface. “I like collecting things.”

“What sorts of things?”

“Rocks and shells, mostly—I had to leave them in Seattle. My dad said there was no point in carting worthless crap halfway across the country.” She set the first stone back, and picked up another. “I kept the sea glass, though. It’s kind of hard to find.”

Nora turned away abruptly, and Elizabeth stood for a moment, wondering if she’d said something wrong. “Is it all right if I look around?”

Nora nodded without turning back. Elizabeth stepped away gingerly, following the line left by the high tide, eyes zeroing in on the ridgy cups of limpet shells, the blue glint of mussels with their bright pearly insides. She stooped to pick up a small scallop shell and glanced back at Nora—who was still standing, arms crossed, like she was stuck in that spot.

Elizabeth picked her way across the rounded stones that looked as if they had tumbled out of the sea. She was hunting treasure, but finding mostly trash instead—fishnets and nylon rope and yogurt cups, their bright colors standing out against the stones. She glanced up at Nora, who was hanging back and watching her. She thought about what Nora had said, about not wanting to grow up. It was hard to know what to tell, and what was better kept to herself.