“Poor Goblin,” he sighs, looking into the pail.

Everyone in the village is up and about by this time, sweeping up the mess left behind by the storm. The sun is bright, and neighbors wish one another a good morning. They chatter about the ferocity of the winds and how no one slept a wink.

A sudden clamor hails out on the pier and we look up to see a fisherman running about, howling his fool head off. There is something in the water, he screams. He saw it with his own eyes, God help him.

Pip holds the dead starfish in his hand. It is already beginning to stink. “What is he screaming about?”

Bryndis shrugs. “He says there’s something in the bay.”

The crazed fisherman is repeating one word over and over, and I crane my ear to catch it. “He says he saw a luremaid in the harbor.”

Bryndis shields her eyes from the sun. “Is he drunk?”

Pip’s face pinches. “What’s a luremaid?”

My sister laughs. “A mermaid.”

5

5

THE SAILOR ISN’T DRUNK, and he isn’t delusional. Out there, far into the bay, is a woman bobbing on the sea.

The three of us run to the wharf. Everyone in the village has the same idea, and we all elbow one another for a closer look.

“Did someone fall in?” says a woman on my left.

“Who is it?” croaks an old man on my right. “Is it my Lilja? She can’t swim.”

“God help her, she won’t last another minute in that cold.”

Whoever uttered that is right. Even in high summer, the water is freezing. And yet the woman out there in the bay does not appear distressed or drowning. She hovers on the ripples for a moment and then we all gasp as she slips below the waves. Agrippa and Bjarni have already launched their boats, rowing like mad toward the damsel’s position.

A boy cries out, points. “Look, there!”

And there she is, two leagues from where she’d gone under. No one can swim that fast. The waves dapple the sunlight back at us in blinding flashes. It must have tricked our eyes.

The briny sailor who started all the fuss is still shrieking about a mermaid. Someone tries to calm him, but he shoves them away and leaps into his dory.

“I’ll catch her!” he sings, dipping his oars into the water. “She’ll make a pretty wife!”

Shielding my eyes from the sun, I scan the bay but cannot locate the drowning woman. I look to Bryndis. “Where did she go?”

“She went under again. Dear God, preserve the poor woman.”

Someone else shouts and points and we all turn to see a head bob to the surface. Much closer to the pier this time. A pale face with dark locks. Is her hair really green or is it another trick of the light?