She had returned home late from work, swum into her bedroom, and proceeded to do what she usually did at the end of a long day: massage the muscles in the back of her neck with her fingertips, in an attempt to loosen the knots formed over a day of bending over medications at The Irregular Remedy. She had then burrowed under her blanket and, closing her eyes, had thought of her most unusual patient of the day: ninety-one-year-old mermaid Mola, who suffered from dementia and whose memories of her husband kept falling as irreversibly out of her mind as her molars had fallen out of her mouth.
Coralline had been about to drift off into a nap when her mother rushed into her bedroom, flung off her blanket, and, surveying Coralline’s corset, pronounced, “You can’t dress so hideously for supper. Ecklon is coming, remember?” Her mother then handed her a new corset she had sewn for her, with emerald vines that met and separated over a glistening bronze fabric that precisely matched the bronze scales of Coralline’s tail. Coralline had slumped on a chair in front of the mirror as her mother had tugged her long black hair into a pillowy mound at the crown of her head and circled the bun with a string of little white spirula shells.
How embarrassing that Coralline had forgotten Ecklon’s birthday, especially given how he had spoiled her on her own birthday, a few months earlier. He had taken her to their favorite restaurant, Alaria, where he had presented her with The Universe Demystified, the latest book by the stargazer Venant Veritate. Like a telescope into the universe, The Universe Demystified had opened brilliant new galaxies in Coralline’s mind. Ecklon admired Venant just as much as Coralline, describing him as “the detective of the universe,” but she still couldn’t imagine how Ecklon had managed to get the book autographed, for the stargazer was known to be just as reclusive as he was illustrious.
It was true that Coralline’s wages as an apprentice apothecary at The Irregular Remedy were meager, but she could still have gotten Ecklon a pen as a gift, perhaps an engraved one, which he could use to take notes during his investigations. In the absence of any gift, the least she could do was sing. Clearing her throat, she began:
Happy birthday to you
May you have friends old and new
May life jolt success your way
As grand as a manta ray
Coralline smiled at her parents across the table, encouraging them to join along, but her father’s dark-brown eyes squinted at her, and her mother gaped. Undeterred, Coralline continued:
May your sight never fade
Nor your hair gray
Happy birthday to you
May this year all your dreams come true
Coralline clapped—alone.
“My birthday isn’t for another month, Cora,” Ecklon said, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips.
He had the gall to be enjoying her confusion. Well, she was confused no longer. If it wasn’t his birthday, there was just one other possibility that would make this supper a special occasion. But she didn’t want to be wrong again; hoping to obtain a hint, she asked, “How was work?”
“Fine.”
Coralline sighed. Ecklon had been like this since their very first date. He listened intently to her chatter about her patients but divulged little about his own work until Coralline prodded. The trouble was: He was too modest. His work was more than fine, Coralline knew. He had been promoted four times during his six years at Urchin Interrogations, the local Detective Department of the Under-Ministry of Crime and Murder. Just a few weeks ago, his boss, Sinistrum Scomber, a middle-aged merman with an enormous nose and perpetual grimace, had told Ecklon that he was the best detective Urchin Interrogations had ever hired. Sinistrum had sworn that as soon as Ecklon solved his next case, he would tenure him, making Ecklon the youngest detective to ever hold a lifetime position at Urchin Interrogations.
“You got tenured, didn’t you?” Coralline gushed.
“Not quite, no . . .”
If it wasn’t his birthday and he hadn’t been promoted, what else was there to celebrate? Coralline crossed her arms over her chest, in part because she was annoyed and in part to suppress the growls of her stomach. She eyed the scarlet fronds of dulse at the center of the table. Patients had swum through the door of The Irregular Remedy from morning well into the evening, and she hadn’t had a bite to eat since her rushed breakfast. Why did she have to work so hard for her supper?
“This day is a special occasion,” Ecklon said softly, “because it marks six months since the day we met. Remember the day?” He grinned at her, dimples forming triangular wedges in his cheeks.
She couldn’t believe he’d been counting the days, but she smiled back—even if she were to ever have dementia like her patient Mola, she would not forget the day they’d met.
He had swum into The Irregular Remedy with a purple-colored right elbow, the joint stiff and unmoving at his side. Discerning at a glance that it was fractured, Coralline had opened the medical textbook Splinters and Slings on her counter. Upon perusing a section titled “Elbow Ligaments,” she had directed Ecklon to extend his arm to her across the counter. Warning him that it would hurt, she had felt up and down his arm, pressing into its length with two fingers. Other patients would have whimpered, but he hadn’t even winced.
Upon concluding her examination, she had dabbed horned wrack salve onto his elbow, to reduce the swelling. Then, clasping his shoulder with one hand, she had leaned over her counter to crook his elbow at a ninety-degree angle against his chest. She had wrapped the joint with a gauzy bandage of pyropia, and she’d started slinging red strands of spiny straggle around the pyropia, to hold it all in place. But a lock of hair had fallen across her cheek.
Reluctant to recommence her sling, she had shrugged to encourage her hair back behind her ear, but her effort had only resulted in another strand tumbling across her cheek. Ecklon’s hand had crossed the counter between them to push her hair back in place. Coralline had drawn her breath; her counter formed a barrier between herself and her patients—he’d crossed the line. She had made the final knot of spiny straggle rather tight around his elbow, then, worried it might restrict blood flow, she had loosened it with her fingers.
“Thank you for your attention, Cora,” he’d said.
“Coralline,” she’d corrected emphatically, wondering how he’d known her name. But of course: He would have read it on the badge pinned to her corset.
“I’ll collect you here for supper tomorrow evening,” he’d continued.
Don’t bother, she’d been about to retort, offended by his assumption that she’d be free for supper (though it was true), but she’d found herself speechless when he’d dropped a scallop shell in the carapace crock on her counter. Patients paid what they could afford—no one had yet given her a ten-carapace scallop shell.
When Ecklon had swum through the door of The Irregular Remedy the next evening, Coralline had been tending a mermaid with pustular calluses across the pale blue scales of her tail. “Wait for me outside,” she’d told Ecklon coolly, in part because the clinic was small and in part because he’d arrived at his convenience, not hers. With a nod, Ecklon had slipped outside The Irregular Remedy.