False Mermaid

Nora counted down the stacks and stopped at the place she had invariably found her sister, sometimes flopped down on her belly with knees bent and bare feet swaying gently, sometimes with legs propped against the wall, and hair spread in a coppery nimbus about her head, so far immersed in whatever world she had entered that day that it sometimes took three or four hails and a hand waved in front of her face to drag her back to reality.

Nora felt a wave of despair. What on earth was she doing, standing here, dreaming? She was supposed to be cold, rational, relentless, connecting the facts of the case. But before turning around, she stooped down to check the lower shelves, and there it was—a single volume turned the wrong way. Pulling the battered green volume from the shelf, she opened it to a color plate, a rich illustration of a young man in doublet and hose, standing at the edge of a dark pool, holding a raised sword above his head. In the water, half submerged, writhed a naked female, a water sprite of some kind, with pale arms spread. The words at the bottom of the plate sounded like the text of a ballad:

Out then he drew his shining blade,
Thinking to stick her where she stood,
But she was vanishd to a fish,
And swam far off, a fair mermaid.

“O Mother, Mother, braid my hair;

My lusty lady, make my bed;
O brother, take my sword and spear,
For I have seen the false mermaid.”

She checked the spine. Married to Magic: Fairy Brides and Bridegrooms. The spidery call letters, handwritten in white ink, were like something from another time.

Five full years had passed since her sister could have been here. What were the odds that someone else had left a book turned backward here in Tríona’s favorite section? The rational part of her had to consider the number of people who had been in the library since then, picking through the hundreds of thousands of volumes on these shelves. Sliding the book back on the shelf, Nora felt a slight resistance. She pulled it out again and peered through the opening, then reached in and pulled out a crumpled sheet of paper, a printout of a Pioneer Press article dated July 13, just over five years ago.

MISSING ROWER CASE STILL A MYSTERY

Police have checked hundreds of leads in the weeks since Natalie Russo vanished, but admit they know little more about her disappearance now than they knew on the first day of the investigation. The probe has been hampered by a lack of information about the twenty-two-year-old Saint Paul woman, who remains listed as a missing person, police said. Russo’s crewmates from the Twin Cities Rowing Club said her disappearance was all the more puzzling, since she was taking part in rigorous training for upcoming Olympic trials. Russo is believed to have disappeared June 3 while out for her regular early-morning run.

The date of Natalie Russo’s disappearance was circled in red. A footer at the bottom of the sheet said the article had been printed five years ago yesterday. The day Tríona had been at the library. The day she’d died.

Nora dropped the crumpled sheet and began pulling books from the shelf, not thinking about the mess she was making, but riffling through the pages, checking endpapers and margins for any scribbled notes. Nothing. Nora suddenly realized that Tríona’s prints might still be on the paper that lay facedown on the carpet. She pulled a zipper bag from her backpack, gingerly lifting the crumpled printout by a corner and slipping it into the bag. She should take it directly to Frank Cordova, but knew she would not do it. Not just yet.

Why would Tríona be digging around in newspaper archives for information about Natalie Russo? Nora felt the fear that surrounded her down at the river begin to rise again. If Tríona knew about Natalie, and about Hidden Falls—I’ve done things, too. You don’t know—unspeakable things—