Free Poor Unfortunate Soul: A Tale of the Sea Witch by Serena Valentino Page A

was thunderstruck. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What? What did you just say?”
    “You heard me! You were a vile little thing. I left you adrift because I foresaw the monster you would become!”
    “I wasn’t lost as you said? You left me?”
    “Yes, and clearly it was the right choice. Look at you. You’re disgusting. Shameful.”
    Ursula thought she had hardened her heart against her brother long before, when he banished her from his kingdom, but this betrayal was more than she could comprehend. Her mind whirled at the notion of a young Triton abandoning his little sister to the perilous waves, not knowing if she lived or died. Hoping she had met the latter fate.
    No wonder he had never sought her out all those years.
    She hadn’t the strength to ask what their parents had thought of her disappearance. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if they had been privy to her brother’s plan. Surely they hadn’t. They must have been told some lurid tale of mishap. She wondered if they had ever suspected their “perfect” son of such a terrible deed. Why else would the king dictate that Triton prove she was dead or unworthy before he could take the throne? It was all too awful. Too profane. How dare he cast judgment on her when he had left his little sister to die? And to think that her parents might have been privy to his acts, that they could have known the truth.
That
would be too heartbreaking, too terrible even to fathom. It couldn’t possibly be true.
    She was done.
    There was no love left for her brother. There was no doubt. And he had given her no choice. No choice at all. This foul, ugly, murdering creature was going to do what she did best. She was going to take her revenge.

U rsula didn’t dismiss the near miss between Ariel and Eric as casually as the sisters three had. If it hadn’t been for her poopsies’ tipping over the boat, the prince would have kissed that little brat and it would have ruined her plans!
    “Nice work, boys!” she said to Flotsam and Jetsam, looking into the magic divining sphere the sisters had given her when they saw each other last.
    “That was a close one. Too close!” She was furious with the odd sisters for letting Ariel get so close to the prince. “The little tramp! Gods, she’s better than I thought!” She was enraged.
    “At this rate he’ll be kissing her by sunset for sure.” She swam to her pantry, where she kept all manner of components for spell craft.
    What have those sisters been doing? I can’t believe they allowed this to happen!
    “Well! It’s time Ursula took matters into her own tentacles!”
    Smashing a glass ball containing a butterfly into her cauldron, she said, “Triton’s daughter will be mine! Then I will make him writhe, and I will see him wiggle like a worm on a hook!”
    All at once, everything turned gold, encompassing her, transforming her into…something else. Something she hated.
Vanessa,
she thought.
Revolting Vanessa, with its large violet eyes and long black hair.
She felt sickened in that human flesh, forced once again to use another’s beauty to hide herself, but this would be the last time; of that she was sure.
    A s Ursula stood on the shores of Prince Eric’s estate, wearing someone else’s body, and carrying someone else’s voice, she mused.
    Soon Triton would be dead, and she would take her rightful place on the throne. She would do so in her true design! How fortuitous that Triton’s youngest daughter should fall in love with a human! How poetic! If she hadn’t needed Ariel’s soul, she would have let her marry Mr. Fancy Prince! It would have broken her father’s heart seeing her become the thing he hated most. A human! It was divine intervention! But she had other plans for Ariel’s soul. She wouldn’t have bothered taking the little mermaid’s voice had she intended the mergirl and Eric to marry.
    The gods of fortune had been working in Ursula’s favor the day the waves ripped Prince Eric’s