Free The Water Mirror by Kai Meyer

of humans!
    â€œWhile the men were beating and kicking her, the mermaid kept
     whispering the name of her beloved, and so they soon sent for him. He hurried there, in
     the company of his father, of course, who suspected a conspiracy against him and his
     house. The mermaid and the young man were brought face-to-face, and both looked into
     each other’s eyes long and deeply. The young man wept, and the mermaid also shed
     tears, which mixed with the blood on her cheeks. But then her lover turned away, for he
     wasweak and feared his father’s anger. ‘I don’t
     know her,’ he said. ‘I have nothing to do with this freak.’
    â€œThe mermaid grew very still and said nothing more. She remained
     silent when they beat her harder, even when the merchant and his son kicked her with
     their boots in her face and in the ribs. Later they threw her back in the water like a
     dead fish. They all took her for that too: for dead.”
    Eft fell silent and for a long moment gripped the oar tightly in her hand,
     without dipping it in the water. The torchlight shone on her cheeks, and a single tear
     ran down her face. She wasn’t telling the story of some mermaid or other, she was
     telling her own.
    â€œA child found her, an apprentice in a mirror workshop, whose master
     had taken him from an orphanage. He took her in, hid her, gave her food and drink, and
     then kept giving her new spirit when she wanted to put an end to her life. The name of
     that boy was Arcimboldo, and the mermaid swore in gratitude to follow him her life long.
     Mermaids live much longer than you humans, and so the boy is an old man today and the
     mermaid is still young. She will still be young when he dies, and then she will be
     entirely alone again, a lonely person between two worlds, no longer a mermaid and also
     not a human.”
    When Merle looked up at her, the tears on Eft’s cheeks had dried.
     Now it seemed again as if she had told someone else’s story, someone whose fate
     was distant and unmeaning.Merle would have liked to stand up and
     throw her arms around her, but she knew that Eft didn’t expect it and also
     wouldn’t have wanted it.
    â€œOnly a story,” whispered the mermaid. “As true and as
     untrue as all the others that we would rather never have heard.”
    â€œI’m glad you told me.”
    Eft nodded slightly, then looked up and pointed forward beyond Merle.
     “Look,” she said, “we’re there.”
    The torchlight around them paled, although the flame still burned. It took
     a moment for Merle to realize that the walls of the tunnel were behind them. The gondola
     had glided soundlessly into an underground hall or cave.
    Ahead of them an incline rose out of the darkness. It ascended as a steep
     slope out of the water and was covered with something that Merle couldn’t make out
     from a distance. Plants perhaps. A pale, intertwined branching. But what plant of that
     size could thrive here underground?
    Once, while they were crossing the dark sea that was the floor of the
     hall, she thought she saw movement in the water. She told herself that they were fish.
     Very large fish.
    â€œThere’s no mountain around here,” she said, voicing her
     thoughts. “So how can there be a cave in the middle of Venice?” She knew
     enough about the behavior of reflections to be sure that they could not be under the sea. Whatever this hall was, it was located in the
     city, amongsplendid palazzi and elegant building facades—and
     it had been artificially constructed.
    â€œWho built this?” she asked.
    â€œA friend of the mermaids.” Eft’s tone indicated that
     she didn’t intend to speak about it.
    Such a place in the middle of the city! If it actually was located above
     ground it must have an outside. What was it camouflaged as? A decaying palazzo of a
     long-forgotten noble family? A huge warehouse? There were