Brom raises his fist at the parson. “Day and night we pray, and still that beast is out there. God is deaf to our prayers!”

“He has turned his back on us,” says a weepy voice from the back of the nave.

Father aims a finger at the unseen dissenter. “Do not do that, brother! Do not abandon Him when we need Him most.”

Our father’s voice is drowned out by the naysayers. Their fear boils over and distills into anger with raised fists and stomping feet. A glimmer of panic runs quicksilver over father’s face, fearing the mob will rush the pulpit to tar and feather him. My siblings sense it, too. Bryndis claps a hand over her mouth. Pip bolts through the parishioners to cling to father’s legs like a barnacle. To protect him, to shield him.

The clamor falters and dies. The collective rage cools at the sight of a terrified child rushing to his father’s defense. The parishioners mumble and grumble. Pip turns to them, a thick membrane of mucous jiggling from his nose to father’s trouser leg.

Lothar Palson stands up from his pew. “Someone among us betrayed our parish. Everything was fine when the creature was confined to the fountain.” He pivots on his heel, rolling a suspicious eye over the throng. “Someone set the mermaid free.”

Boots stomp the floor and heads nod in agreement with Lothar’s deduction. Their voices rise and collide in the echoing vault of the church. Who has betrayed us? And why? Which among us was the bastard who freed the monster from the stone fountain? Neighbor glances uneasily at neighbor. No one is above suspicion and the tension blooms until it stifles every sound inside the church.

“Who?” they chant.

“Why?” they demand.

A clenched stillness suffocates every soul. Every ear cranes to hear a reply, to hear a shoe drop. Nothing.

It is Pip, of all people, to break the silence. Phlegm oozes down his pinched face as his hand lifts, the accusatory finger drawing aim on me.

“Kaspar did it,” he stammers. “It was Kaspar who set the mermaid free. He didn’t want her to die.”

The blood runs out of my limbs as every head turns on me. My hands are numb, my feet useless stumps in my broken shoes.

The roar erupts all the way to the vaulted ceiling. A hand snatches my collar at the same moment a fist smites my ear. I am thrown to the floor. I see a flash of terror on my sister’s face before the mob closes in to blot out the world.

***