Free Between the Sea and Sky by Jaclyn Dolamore Page B

skin moving through soft water. She would never get used to the short breaths and the hem of a skirt getting underfoot.
    “Do I need to wear the shoes in the house?” she asked Ginnia, whose look of amusement was answer enough.
    “No sense wearing out those stockings.” Ginnia led Esmerine from the dim bedroom. Dusk had crept up almost unnoticed until Esmerine came into a dining room lit by a candle and glowing hearth fire. Sometimes the mermen started a fire on the islands for some purpose or another, but only certain men knew how, and children couldn’t come near, so Esmerine had never been close enough to fire to feel the heat. An older woman with gray curls spilling sideways from a squarish black cap was sitting quite near it, smoking a pipe. Could this be Belawyn? Esmerine couldn’t believe a mermaid would smoke.
    Ginnia went to stir the pot while Swift waved Esmerine to an empty seat. Alan was pouring something red into a glass. “Esmerine, do you want wine or water?” he asked.
    “I’ve never tasted wine.”
    He poured a little in a cup and handed it to her. She took a sip. It was not at all sweet or salty, just nasty and like nothing else she had ever tasted.
    Swift laughed. “She doesn’t like it.”
    “It’s an acquired taste,” the older woman said, giving Esmerine a sly smile. Her lips were thin and painted, and her eyes had a combination of squint and slant as if she were looking very keenly at everything. “So, Alan tells me you’re Esmerine. I’m Belawyn. I own the shop.”
    “And you’re … a mermaid?”
    “That’s right, my pearl.”
    “A siren?”
    “Not a siren. Just one of the common folk.”
    “How did you end up here?”
    “Well, the shop belonged to a former husband. We were only married a year before I guess he’d had enough of me and departed this mortal coil, leaving me with the shop. I’ve never been much for books, but one must eat somehow.”
    “I mean … why did you leave the sea?”
    “Oh—” Belawyn sipped her wine. “There’s no written rule that you have to be a poor fool of a siren to see the world.”
    “None of our rules are written,” Esmerine said.
    “Good thing,” Belawyn said. “They make enough trouble without being on paper.”
    Esmerine had never seen an old person complain about rules so much. Most of the old women she knew were the ones who enforced the rules. “Do you live above the shop too?” she asked.
    “I live in a cottage not far from here,” Belawyn said. “Alan rents these rooms for a song, which suits me fine. I never was too fond of this place. It’s drafty all winter, the roof leaks, and there’s no room for a garden.”
    The heat from the hearth warmed Esmerine’s left side, and on the right, a breeze drifted through the windows. The air had cooled with the darkness. Esmerine wondered how her mother and father were doing without her. Night was a quiet time beneath the sea. Was her mother lying awake wondering if Esmerine was all right? She wished she had a way to tell them what she had learned.
    Alan gave Esmerine a cup of water and sat beside her.
    “So, Swift was saying your charming father paid us a visit today?” Belawyn said.
    “Oh, we don’t need to talk about that.” Alan sipped his wine. “Swift, could you not hoard the butter?”
    Alan’s servant girl circled the table, filling bowls with fish stew. The fish smelled fishier than Esmerine was used to, and steam rose from it. Esmerine had never eaten hot food before. “Just a little, please,” she whispered, unsure if she would like it.
    “We ought to talk about your father. I’m starting to regret ever accepting money from you. If I’d known it was really from him, and that he would hover around every week, I wouldn’t have taken it. It’s making me quite uncomfortable. I could sell the place, but I hate to become one of those old women who sits in the house all day, with a portrait of myself in my glory days staring down at me.”
    “Why not sell