Out on the water, the mermaid watches. Her webbed hand lifts from the ripples and beckons to the girls, urging them to join her.

First to last, the daughters of Torgrimsvær jump into the sea.

Terror and panic strike every heart. Girls flail and splash as their elders scramble to pull them out before they are slaughtered by the sea monster. I snatch my sister by the collar and heave up. When I look back to track the mermaid’s position, she has gone under. The screaming and the horror doubles. I rush to save Agnet, but her husband beats me to it, plucking his bride from the churning waters with one hand. Dripping and choking, the girls are hauled onto the pier. Shoes are lost and hats blown off as all run for dry land. I push Bryndis along, terrified that the sea creature is nipping at our heels.

No one looks back until all collapse on the turf. Our panic was for naught as the mermaid hasn’t rushed the pier at all. She bobs on the waves, watching us. Then she dips, her great tail breaking the surface, and she is gone.

Everyone trudges home. I watch Agnet being led away by her impatient husband, but her presence on the pier is something of a mystery. Why was she among the throng of unwed daughters and bereft widows? How unhappy is she? Are my suspicions correct in that Agnet does not return the love of her harpooner husband? Do I dare hope this to be true?

Hope. Such an ugly word, like a sore that will not heal.

13

13

LOCK UP YOUR DAUGHTERS, someone cries. Keep them safe from the sea hag, bellows another. Every girl is marched home and kept inside. Unmarried women are warned to stay indoors, widows are chased from the streets. Fuming over the incident on the pier, the fishermen storm the church, demanding my father do something. The pews fill up and people jostle for elbow room inside the church like it is the feast day of Saint Barquentine the Disconsolate. The pleasant aroma of polished wood and candle wax is overwhelmed by the reek of sour sweat and stale garments.

Taken aback by the siege of his own parishioners, Father urges the villagers to remain calm and explain what has happened. Bryndis, Pip, and I sneak to the door of the vestry to see what will unfold. The good Reverend Uriah turns pale when he learns how the mermaid bewitched their own daughters to jump into the sea. No one is safe, yammers Ulric. The sea creature is determined to murder us all, rails Magda from next door.

Father beseeches the raging parishioners to remain calm. “We must be resolute and faithful in this hour of trial,” he says in an unsteady voice. “The All-Powerful will protect us.”

“How?” demands Preben Drachmar, the boil lancer. “How will he protect us when the witch turns our own children against us?”