There are endless, drunken discussions on where the fish-woman has come from and why it is here. Did the storm wash it into the bay or had the full moon lured it to our shores? The pious denounce it as a devil, while the reprobates insist it is an angel sent from Paradise to save us.

Cornelius, the Prefect of our parish, pooh-poohs this as nonsense. “Everyone knows that mermaids are born without souls,” he says. “This creature is here to steal a soul from one of our women. Best you girls stay away from it and keep your thoughts clean.”

Hagar, the midwife, brazenly dismisses him as a fool. “Your ignorance is showing, Cornelius. Mermaids are the souls of murdered women, lost to the sea. Even a child knows that.”

Sligo makes sport with this, joking that if this was true, the harbor would be overrun with mermaids. The fishermen slap one another on the back and laugh like apes.

Their wives do not laugh.

***

I wake the next morning with a dry mouth and stale vapors in my skull. My routine of starting the morning fire is abandoned as I venture out to the square to check on the mermaid. There are still a few scoundrels stumbling about and refusing to go home. A number of men lay snoring on the cobblestones. I step over them and look down into the fountain. The creature is there, swimming round and round the circumference of the cistern. The sight of it is troubling.I toss pebbles into the water to get her attention, but the mermaid does not look up or cease her endless laps.

More souls have slipped away from their beds this morning to come see the wondrous thing in the stone tank. Girls mostly, tiptoeing to the lip of the fountain. I need to get back, as I’m sure the household will be up. Father will be wondering why I am shirking my chores. A few more minutes, I bargain. It is difficult to tear away from the sight of the circling fish-woman.

“She’s wonderful, don’t you think?”

The voice slips in beside me, catapulting my heart into my throat.

Agnet smiles and dips the tiniest of curtsies to me. Her eyes are droopy with sleep, her hair haphazardly tucked into a coil. All of it is mine for a little while.

“You look tired,” I answer. “Did you sleep poorly?”

“Hardly a wink. Gunther came home in a boisterous mood with a whole crew and insisted on regaling them with his tales.”

“How crass,” I say. She simply shrugs and gazes down at the water.

“They say you found her. Under the fishing hut?”

I tell her that this is true. “I’m such a fool. I never should have told Father about it.”

Agnet stiffens at this. “All the men were there, in the hut?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Did anyone see it?”