The next day there was a headline in the Herald that read, GRIEVING BARNUM CLOSES MUSEUM IN HONOR OF MERMAID FRIEND.
Barnum had snorted at this but reflected that at least it put him in a good light. Everyone else seemed determined to paint him as some kind of purveyor of sin.
Levi reached for Amelia’s hand. It lay limp in his own, no spark to be found. Her breathing was so quiet that he had to check several times that she was still alive, leaning close to her face and listening for the faint whistle of air.
She was so thin and small and still. This wasn’t his mermaid. This wasn’t his Amelia.
And it might never be again, for the doctor would not help her as he should. Levi should have studied medicine instead of law; he might have been able to do something useful for Amelia now if he had.
The door opened, and Levi hastily wiped his face with his sleeve, expecting it to be Charity. Instead, Caroline stood in the doorway, her small face so serious it broke his heart.
“Mama is crying again,” Caroline said. “She won’t stop. Is it because Amelia is going to die?”
Levi never lied to Caroline. Something about the little girl demanded the truth. Amelia said she’d felt it, too, the first time the mermaid met Barnum’s eldest child. Caroline had demanded to know if she was a mermaid, and Amelia had to tell her yes.
“The doctor doesn’t think Amelia will live,” Levi said.
Caroline approached the bed, taking Amelia’s other hand. “Why?”
“He can’t fix what’s wrong with her. He doesn’t know how.”
“If Amelia was with her own people I bet they would know how,” Caroline said. “Mermaids have to have doctors, don’t they? Maybe we should just put her back in the ocean and they will come and find her.”
Levi smiled a little at this, the thought of a whole parade of mermaids appearing out of the depths of the ocean, perhaps with a stretcher to carry their lost daughter back home. Then he stilled.
Put her back in the ocean.
Put her back in the ocean.
Put her back in the ocean.
Of course! He was a goddamned fool. He’d seen for himself that when Amelia changed from woman to mermaid, her skin seemed to fold itself inside-out, like there was a completely different creature inside her body. And Amelia had told him that she thought the change from her mermaid form to her human form kept her from aging.
If they returned her to the ocean, she would change back into a mermaid. And if she changed back into a mermaid, her sickness might heal. It might be as if the shooting had never happened at all.
Caroline was watching him, and he realized she’d solved this problem before he had. It was the reason she’d gotten out of her bed in the first place—to explain to the foolish adult that to mend a sea creature you needed to return her to the sea.
“We can’t tell Papa,” Caroline said. “He’ll make objections.”
Yes, he likely would make objections. Levi was too tired to think of what those objections might be, but Barnum was sure to invent something. Barnum always objected if the idea wasn’t his in the first place.
“We can trust your mother, though,” Levi said.
“Of course. We can’t do it without her in any case. She’ll need to hide the fact that we’re gone,” Caroline said.
She appeared very grown-up to Levi all of a sudden, not at all the little girl who’d thrown a tantrum when Amelia first arrived.
“Someone will have to pay for a carriage,” Caroline said.
“Don’t worry,” Levi said. “Your father is not the only one who makes money around here.”
When the time came it was the easiest thing in the world to get Amelia out of the apartment right under Barnum’s nose. Barnum had taken to spending most of his days at his desk inside the museum, and that particular day he did not return for supper. They did not have to worry about hiding their plans from him if he wasn’t present.
Charity arranged with their cook to go out and hire a carriage that would meet them after midnight three blocks away. Though they would be leaving the museum very late at night, there was always the chance some reporter might be lurking about. The good Christians all went home to pray after dark; Levi had yet to see one who lingered much past the dinner hour.
Charity and Caroline dressed in their darkest clothing and covered their hair. Levi wrapped Amelia in a blanket and pulled it up over her face so that her pale skin would not gleam in the moonlight and give them away. The wound in her stomach stank, and once they were inside the closed coach, the smell was unbearable.
Levi kept Amelia in his lap, holding her tight so she didn’t roll away from him as they clattered over the cobblestones. She had not stirred at all or made a single sound when he moved her. He was afraid their cure would come too late, and when he saw Charity’s worried expression, he knew she had the same fear.
The coachman stopped a short distance from the dock. It was the same one where Levi had found Amelia after the first performance at the Concert Hall. He had a strange and superstitious idea that the place held more magic because of this, that it was their place and that Amelia would know and wake up from her deathly sleep.
Levi paid the man and then asked him to stay.
“Whatcha got there? Dead body?” the man asked, indicating the too-still Amelia inside the blanket.
“No, a sick woman,” Levi said.
The driver raised his eyebrow, as if to say he didn’t believe Levi but it wasn’t any of his business. Then he shrugged and pulled a bottle out of his jacket. Levi hoped this meant that he would stay. He didn’t fancy walking through the streets of New York this late with Charity and Caroline in tow. He didn’t know how he would explain such a thing to Barnum, especially if their attempt to cure Amelia did not work.
He carried her to the edge of the dock, Charity and Caroline trailing silently behind him. When he reached the end, he unwrapped Amelia. They had removed her nightgown before taking her out of the apartment, for Caroline had been insistent that any clothing would only be in Amelia’s way when she changed back into a mermaid.
Levi looked at Caroline, who nodded. He lifted Amelia up, kissed her damp forehead, and threw her into the sea.
He took two steps back then, and Charity and Caroline each grasped one of his hands.
“How will we know?” Charity said. “How long might it take?”
Levi shook his head. “I don’t know. The change . . . you saw it. It happens as soon as she’s in the water.”
“And if she’s in the water and she’s turned into a mermaid then she’ll get better,” Caroline said. “She won’t leave us here to worry about her, so she will come back up right away.”
“How can you know, Caroline?” Charity asked. She sounded desperate.
“Because I know, Mama,” Caroline said.
They all three stared at the dark water, shifting in the half moon’s light, and waited.
Then something broke the surface a few feet from them, something long-haired and sinuous and beautiful, something gleaming silver as it splashed out of the water and arced up in the air.
For a moment her whole body was visible from tail to head, and Levi saw that her eyes were closed, her whole expression one of absolute bliss.
It had been a long time since she’d swum in the ocean, he remembered. A very long time.
Amelia splashed down into the water and disappeared again.
Charity ran to the edge and called out her name. “Amelia! Amelia!”