False Mermaid

We then passed to the more important subject of the taboo. The taboo, strictly speaking, only appears where the peltry is absent. Several of its forms correspond with rules of antique etiquette. Others recall special points connected with savage life, such as the dislike of iron and steel, and the prejudice against the mention of a personal name. Other prohibitions are against reproaching the wife with her origin, against reminding her of her former condition, or against questioning her conduct or crossing her will.

But whether the taboo be present or absent, the loss of the wife is equally inevitable, equally foreseen from the beginning. It is the doom of the connection between a simple man and a superhuman female. Even where the feather-robe is absent the taboo is not always found. Among savages the marriage-bond is often very loose: notably in the more backward races. And among these the superhuman wife’s excuse for flight is simpler; and sometimes it is only an arbitrary exercise of will.

—The Science of Fairy Tales: An Inquiry into Fairy Mythology

, by Edwin Sidney Hartland, 1916

1

Nora awakened to the click-click-click of a cassette stuck in the player beside her head. She batted at it, but the tape continued to tick away in the machine, unable to advance. Groggy, she struggled to raise herself and checked the time—7:26—then pressed the button on the radio, trying to turn the machine off.

She flopped back down on the mattress, and heard Tríona’s voice through the speaker, anxious and urgent: “I haven’t got much time—”

Nora sat up, suddenly awake, her whole body on high alert.

“If anything should happen to me—an accident, anything—I want to make sure you know—” Her voice dropped to a whisper, and Nora had to strain to hear. “My God, I can’t believe I’m saying this. It’s like some horrible dream. I thought I knew him. Then a part of me pulls back, says how can you even think such things? He’s the father of your child. But I don’t know who he is, Nora. I don’t know how this all happened. There are so many things I don’t remember. Hours—whole days sometimes. I feel like I’m losing my mind. And I’m afraid it won’t matter what I say, because no one will believe me. But I’m not making anything up—I swear I’m not. I want you to go to the hiding place. You know the one I mean. Take what you find there to the police. I want Elizabeth to know I didn’t just leave her, that I had to do this, I had to find the truth. If I turn up missing, I want you to go and look at Hidden Falls. I couldn’t say anything on the phone just now, because I knew you’d come after me, and I can’t let you do that. I’ve got to go now, it’s almost time—”

There was no more, only the crackling of a microphone, then silence.

Almost time for what? Nora picked up the tape recorder and shook it. The small wheels kept turning, but there was nothing more. How could she have missed this for so long? Tríona had obviously thought she’d listen to this tape before now.

This was what they needed—proof that Tríona had been at Hidden Falls. And that she’d known something about Peter, something she was afraid to tell anyone, afraid even to think. What else?

I want you to go to the hiding place. You know the one I mean.

Nora scrambled to her feet, nearly knocking the lamp over in her haste to extract the tape. Fifteen minutes later, she was at her parents’ house again, up in Tríona’s bedroom, dragging the heavy cast-iron bed away from the wall. Behind the bed was a small paneled door, complete with miniature antique knob. When she turned it, the door creaked open, inviting a dusty, hot breath from the attic. Like the entrance to a secret world, she remembered thinking as a child. The opening was just large enough to crawl through.