Barnum was still, as still as death, and when Levi glanced at him, Barnum’s eyes were straining out of his skull. Levi had never seen someone’s jaw actually drop open in surprise, but Barnum’s practically touched his collarbone.
“Levi?” he asked. He didn’t sound like himself. His voice sounded like it came from far away, like it had to climb out of his chest.
“Yes, Taylor?”
“Did we just see that girl turn into a mermaid?”
Levi grinned. “Yes, Taylor, we did.”
Barnum paused. “Did you see the scales?”
“Yes, Taylor.”
There was another short silence. “You don’t think that was some sort of humbug, do you?”
“I don’t see how it could be,” said Levi.
“I don’t see how it could be, either,” Barnum said. Then, with just a touch of anxiety, “Where do you think she’s got off to?”
Levi had watched the water intently since she disappeared. “I imagine she’s gone swimming. She hasn’t been able to since she arrived at the museum.”
Barnum grunted. “Soon she’ll be able to swim all she wants. Once I have that tank built.”
“I don’t think it’s quite the same, Taylor,” Levi said. “A tank isn’t the size of the ocean.”
“I hope she hasn’t decided to swim away on us,” Barnum said.
He sounded more like himself again—businesslike, his eyes on the main chance.
“It would be a lot of trouble to track her down when I’ve finally managed to catch a real mermaid.”
“You didn’t catch her, Barnum,” Levi said, and his voice was sharper than he intended. “She came to you willingly, and if she wants to leave, she will. She doesn’t owe you anything.”
Barnum made a placating gesture with his hand. “All right, all right, no need to get worked up. The girl is as free as the proverbial bird. Although I did spend a load of money on those clothes.”
“She didn’t ask you for them,” Levi said.
“Fair enough, fair enough,” Barnum said.
Levi didn’t think Barnum would let it go that easily. He was sure to tot up every expense against what Amelia earned. It was up to Levi to ensure he didn’t get away with it.
Just then there was a splash, and Amelia’s head broke through the water perhaps fifteen or twenty feet from shore. She floated there, her head and shoulders just above the gentle waves, staring at them.
Levi crossed the beach, wanting to see her better, wanting to know everything there was to know about her. He stopped when his boots touched the damp sand. He wasn’t afraid of getting wet, but he didn’t want to startle her. She was suddenly more animal than human, like a deer he’d stumbled upon while walking in a forest. She would be still until he moved and then she would dart away, leaving nothing more than a flash of her tail to remember her by.
He couldn’t discern every detail, but it was apparent even from this distance that there wasn’t much of the human left about her. Those shiny fish scales covered her everywhere, not just her legs. Her jaw was longer, the shape of her face a little different, the nose flatter, the nostrils wider. She was altogether a different mermaid than the ones painted by dreamy-eyed artists.
This wasn’t half woman, half fish. This was an alien creature, and she didn’t belong to Barnum or anyone else.
Then she shifted and swam slowly toward the place where he stood. Her head stayed above the water, her eyes fixed on his. Those eyes—they were Amelia’s eyes, grey and straightforward and demanding, demanding that he accept what he saw and not some fantasy.
He kept his gaze on hers and nodded. He understood what she wanted. He saw what she was and not what he wanted to see.
As she reached the shallows, all the details of her body came into sharper relief—the webbing of her hands, the pointed claws, and (just for an instant) her sharp, sharp teeth.
He thought sailors must drink a great deal of rum at sea to believe mermaids were beguiling sea nymphs. This creature looked as though she’d rather slash your throat than seduce you.
Amelia swam toward him—or slithered really, pulling herself along the shallows. She reached for the sand that was just past the licking of the waves, just near where he stood so still and waited for her.
Levi saw the scales disappear, the smooth, pale human skin reappear from the point where her fingers touched the sand and then all along her body. It was almost as if her body turned itself inside out; underneath the mermaid the human mask waited.
She stood, shivering, and he ran to fetch her dress. He averted his eyes as he handed it to her, which seemed to amuse her. Amelia gave a little snort of laughter as she pulled the dress over her head.
Wonderful, he thought gloomily. All those days I tried to make her laugh and the only time I succeed is when I try to respect her sense of modesty.
He took his coat off and put it around her shoulders, for she was still shaking with cold.
“Thank you,” she said, and then glanced past his shoulder. “Well, Mr. Barnum?”
Levi had forgotten Barnum completely. He followed Amelia’s gaze and found the other man giving him a speculative look. Levi wondered what it meant.
“Well, Mrs. Douglas,” Barnum said. “That was spectacular. Indeed, one of the most spectacular events I’ve ever witnessed.”
Amelia nodded her head. “I won’t change without seawater. Do you understand now? Whatever tank you have must have seawater in it, not fresh. And I will need sand or soil to touch when I get out, or I won’t change back.”
“Why?” Levi asked.
Amelia shrugged. “It is the nature of the magic.”
Later, when Amelia was in her room and Levi was in his bed staring at a small brown spider moving slowly across the ceiling, Barnum said, “If that girl is magical . . . what does that mean? Does it mean there are really such things as fairies and witches and ghosts? And if there are, does that mean God made them, or the devil?”
Levi had never heard Barnum talk like this. Taylor didn’t usually worry about problems of a philosophical nature.
“If she’s here on earth, then surely God made her,” Levi said.
He was convinced of no such thing, but he didn’t want Barnum to contemplate the possibility that Amelia was an evil creature. No good could come of traveling down that road.
“The Bible says God created all the animals and people, too.”
“Very true,” Barnum said. “But which one is she? Does she have a human soul, or is she a dumb animal?”
“She’s no animal,” Levi snapped.
“No need to get angry,” Barnum said mildly.
“You can tell just by speaking to her that she has a soul,” Levi said. If Barnum had heard her weeping for her dead husband he’d never think otherwise.
“Doesn’t mean she hasn’t been sent by the devil to tempt man,” Barnum said.
Levi took a deep breath. He had to get Barnum’s head away from this line of inquiry. If Barnum decided Amelia was an animal, he might also decide their contract was null and void, or that he would be within his rights to chain or cage her. Levi couldn’t let that happen.
“The only thing she’s going to tempt is money out of purses,” Levi said. “A real mermaid, onstage in Barnum’s American Museum. You’ll be turning people away.”
“Too right we will!” Barnum said.
He sounded cheered by the thought. Levi knew then that Barnum would fall asleep counting coins in his head, imagining the clink-clink-clink as everyone in New York paid to see the mermaid.