Lorali Read online

  The palace is secure; it has to be for the royalty inside. Marcia, Keppel’s oversized sea snake, guards it loyally. Her head, which fills the entire hallway of the house, greets you (or not) upon entry and if you are allowed inside you follow Marcia’s ridged spine of a banister upwards. Her body coils to create an inviting staircase and as the house is tall and Marcia long, she manages to bend through the entirety of Keppel’s palace, wrapping effortlessly round Her Majesty’s many levels and corridors.

  Marcia does not suffer fools or nosiness, and if you attempt to climb a level that you are not invited to, you will know about it. The walls are studded with feelers: canary yellow and turquoise oddities with feather-like wispy claws that don’t look much more than decoration, but each tendril is punctuated with a tiny beady eye that is sensitive to any behaviour or movement which does not belong to the royal family. If the feelers sense any unusual conduct, they bleed a vile thick sludgy tar that blankets the intruder entirely, stringing round them much like your chewing gum. Disgusting. But effective.

  The sun gives some light to the kingdom beneath the Whirl but not much, as we are very deep here. However, the inside of Keppel’s home manages to remain bright and light and brilliant. I believe that is partly due to the wonder of Keppel’s daughter, Lorali, radiating its passages. The windows allow light to leap in. Each wall in the palace is dotted with the fluorescent sweet warmth of glow-worms, illuminatoroids and lampktons. At all times they shine a powerful multi-coloured light. They provide their resources in exchange for protection from becoming food for larger beasts and for being safe inside palace walls. That is, of course, when Marcia isn’t grazing (she pinches them off the wall and gobbles them down as easily as a human would eat a crisp). But this is rare, and it’s still safer than being with the monsters in the depths, who like to play with their food.

  Keppel loves jewellery and she and Lorali have large clusters of gold and silver, precious stones and gems, shells and pearls and noodling beads and bolts and chains and towers of things that they collect. Oddities that they find and keep. They pour out of every open drawer and trunk, oozing out like candle wax. They love art too, and both their bedrooms are swamped with what they believe to be valuable collectables. They have a unique taste. Their home has a life of its own and with Marcia and the gills it feels as if this palace has a heartbeat.

  A heartbeat silenced, now that Lorali has gone.

  In the courtyard of Keppel’s palace, water thistles, water leeks and curly sea blossom creep over the restored garden furniture and the odd chairs made from neglected driftwood. Barrels from sunken ships clatter playfully over the patio. Every charming slant of every leaf, every swirl of twirling ivy and heart of artichoke has been deliberately placed. It is here that a meeting is taking place and every member of the council is present.

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ Keppel begins. She is impatient and although grateful for the council’s attendance has one rattling eye on her sea-monkey, Bingo, who is building her pipe. She hasn’t slept properly and has no appetite; she is surviving purely on three things: anger, hope and seaweed, which she inhales out of a glass pipe to take the pain away. Her three pet seal dogs are figure-of-eighting around Keppel’s tapestry.

  ‘Here, boys! Fetch!’ Zar throws them a fish head each and they dart off after them, barking.

  Keppel’s fix isn’t quite ready, so perhaps I should briefly take you round some of the chief council of the Whirl so you feel better acquainted with everybody? These Mer make up the committee that work with Queen Keppel’s guidance and support. Shall we say hello? All right then.

  Let’s start with Myrtle. I do like Myrtle. Few have such a brave and touching story. Her tapestry is a deep emerald and glitters when she moves. She looks so glowing, shimmering about in my bodies.

  Myrtle’s story reads clear from her tapestry as to how and why she landed here, and how she became Mer. Her patterns say that when she was a human, at just thirty-two, she was diagnosed with one of those wretched terminal illnesses that seem to devour your kind in one mouthful. Given a short time to live, and so fragile is the human, Myrtle refused the treatment and the hospital; she wanted to be remembered alive. Strong. Happy. Fierce.

  Myrtle was single and childless, with no legacy of her own but being very loved, and she asked, as her final wish, that her sister and best friends make her a raft – a ‘sea-bed’ as she called it – and sail her out to sea. She wanted to go that way. Myrtle was sure that whatever I had to offer would be less dull than wilting away in a clinical hospital bed. She was right there.

  Her friends, I can still see their faces, did as she asked, covered her bed in letters and photographs, dressed Myrtle in her favourite dress and accessorised her in kisses and tears. Playing her favourite songs from the beach, leaving just Myrtle, her books, some wine and the stars. And I was there too, of course.

  She fell softly into my waves. She was drowsy from the wine and dreamily let me take her in. She hadn’t even made it a few metres before a cluster of sent-for turtles saved her life. She was carried to her new home on a turtle’s back. With a new name, Myrtle: for love of the turtle. She sits here now, thick red hair crowding over her chest and hips, shoulders speckled in turtle-egg-like freckles, her eyes as brilliant as the ripples of a river.

  They don’t all have stories like Myrtle. But I wanted to demonstrate the types of beings that get salvaged. The fighters. That one there, Sienna, with the maroon hair, was once a talented poet. As a human she drowned on an unfortunate boat trip. The Mer warmed to her intelligence and pitied her bad luck. Still, Sienna is an odd beast. Salvaged at just twenty-one, she remains angry at the human world and the Walkers. And for that, her tapestry is silver, smoky and ashy. It’s lizard-like in texture but moves softly like chain mail, which matches her personality – always on the defence, always ready for battle. Her eyebrows are white, as are her eyelashes, and she has filed her teeth and nails to spiky fangs. She somehow pulls it off; they suit her very much. Don’t let them put you off. She is a remarkable work of art to look at and to be in company with. That’s if you can get close to her from the swarm of protective sea serpents that follow her every move. But once you do, her loyalty and love has no boundaries.

  Then we have Carmine, the sea-punk, with ratty pink hair. Carmine is fun and giggly and light-hearted but dipsy and incapable of making any decisions herself. She has a warm, gold, bright heart, but her history is dark. She was salvaged because of the brutal and premature end to her human life, which the Mer don’t speak of, but of which Carmine’s tapestry cries. It is covered in the raiding fingerprints of men; no matter how positive she tries to be, these textures and patterns still persist. Violence, terror, screams and dark cracks tear through her skin. Her resolution was a painful day for the Whirl. However, over time, new, beautiful colours and shapes are beginning to emerge. It’s a slow grind but it is getting there.

  To Keppel’s left, the one with the long dark straight hair, is her mate, Zar. In Mer culture it is not necessarily rare for a mermaid to practise monogamy, but Mer have a different culture than you humans; their needs are more basic and their instinct more harnessed, their desires more focused. It is normal for Mer to engage in same-sex tessellation and have more than one partner, as, unlike humans, physical contact doesn’t lead to reproduction. The only way Mer exist is because of the act of salvaging. The act of tessellation – to tessellate, sex – is for pleasure, relief or to demonstrate love. (However I have seen it done out of boredom, so don’t let them tell you otherwise.)

  Down here, beneath, in the world of Mer, the mermaids are boss. The females make the rules. It is clear from Queen Keppel’s tapestry that as a human she was never loved, never touched, never understood. But that is the way of salvation. It is a time to be reborn, to shed, to thrive. And her situation, so desperate, was swim or drown. Once Keppel had resolved and blossomed into her tapestry, she took to Zar, and solely Zar, like a fish to water. Her mate. He is her spine, her heart and father to L
orali. She has only ever wanted to know a love like his.

  Just in time, before things get mushy and hideous, Bingo places Keppel’s pipe in front of her and she impatiently inhales deeply. Keppel is terrifically beautiful even now when she is tired, worn out and deprived. Circles under eyes. Beautiful in a youthful, striking way that makes her seem quite unrealistic. Her skin is an even, creamy dream, and her hair can rival the length of any sea snake as it winds round her head and washes the floor like a golden spill of syrup. I’m sure you’ve seen hair in water, but you cannot imagine the way this hair carries me; it wears liquid like feathered wings.

  Keppel is tall and lean but with womanly curves through her breasts and tapestry. Keppel wears a coral tiara, and cuffs and bangles hug her wrists. She is loved and respected. She is a family woman with verve for life and fun. She is a spirit-lifter so it is unusual to see her spirits now so shallow and dried up.

  The council of the Whirl make some eye contact, as Keppel furiously tokes from her bong. Once a little lighter, Keppel elegantly clasps her hands. She is trying to hide her tapestry. She is insecure of it. Her main feature now makes her shudder. The frosty, snaky bleakness crawling up and down it like a rash of sadness. Zar rubs her in comfort and she closes her eyes almost as if to remove herself from the moment.

  ‘Honestly …’ Zar begins, ‘we are so grateful fo—’

  Keppel interrupts him with a glance. Although Keppel loves Zar, she cannot look weak in front of her council. Her devotion to Zar is already a talking point and she can’t have the council thinking that he carries the trident.

  Keppel focuses and speaks. ‘I do not believe my daughter has died down here. I have not smelt her blood. However, I do know she has left the waters. I can feel it.’ Keppel inhales deeply once again, and tries not to cry. ‘The Walkers, we’ve never had to worry about them before but things are different now; you’ve seen the equipment they charge down here with.’

  ‘Yes, but they’ve never reached the Whirl,’ Carmine adds. ‘It’s too far; their organs won’t allow it.’

  ‘I don’t trust them.’

  Opal plucks up the confidence to speak. ‘I’ve spoken to the Ablegares.’ She sits like she wants legs purely so that she can have the pleasure of crossing them.

  ‘Speaking of mistrust …’ Sienna lisps through her fangs.

  Opal ignores Sienna’s jab. ‘I’ve got them scouring the waters and they’ve headed f—’

  ‘What was their prediction?’ Keppel interrupts, leaning back in her chair. ‘Because I will just rain on them forever if they do not deliver. I’m sick and tired of relying on a bunch of mindless schoolboy rascals to get a job done.’

  ‘They … they … Otto …’ Opal is nervous. She doesn’t want to put any sour ideas into the council’s heads. Lorali could be fine; Keppel is right: they haven’t smelt her blood. No news is good news. But she can’t not pass on information. That is her job. ‘He thinks … Otto has said … He wasn’t sure … He thinks that she may be being held captive … in a tank.’

  ‘Captive!’ Zar roars. ‘In a tank?’

  ‘No.’ Keppel reaches for her weed. ‘Not my girl.’

  ‘They don’t care who they patch from, Zar. The whole of the Whirl stinks of blood thanks to them. They’ve already kidnapped so many Mer. Not just Netta! They are greedy. They are cold. They are murderers. They don’t respect us. Don’t trust a Walker.’

  Opal glances at her nails, which are decorated with flamingo wings. She has never seen a real flamingo. She continues once Sienna’s bold statement receives no response. ‘Otto did say that patching can’t have happened or he would know about it, and that whoever was dealing in the skin would come to him first. He knows the black market; they are as locked down as the mafia!’

  ‘What is the mafia?’ a voice murmurs and Opal bats the comment away and tries to continue. ‘The handbag dealers, the leather shoemakers, the pursemakers …’ Opal stops there. She knows that her knowledge of the Walkers sometimes irritates the Mer. Has perhaps pegged her as a traitor to her species. Which she can’t be or she would have been mauled. Often her contract to both breeds takes its toll. Makes her seem two-faced. ‘And he’s heard nothing,’ she continues. This makes Keppel loosen. Opal takes another breath. ‘I wonder … I mean … I know it’s far-fetched but do you think perhaps that she might have surfaced?’

  The council is immediately silenced. Heads lower. This is the reaction to the truth. It isn’t likely but it isn’t impossible.

  ‘Why would she surface?’ Sienna rages. ‘She has no memory of human life so why would she go? She has no calling there. She knows no different. She is happy.’

  Opal looks at her whales. She is already ready to leave.

  Zar drops his head into his hands. Keppel grasps the back of his neck tightly and clings on to stop herself from crying. Then, pulling the gang of tears crowding in her eyes back, she says, ‘She was happy. Before her resolution.’

  LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS

  I know his face. Or his face knows mine. A familiarity of this Walker. His eyes remind me of my tapestry. The colours folding and swishing. Painting all the time. CHANGING. CHANGING. CHANGING.

  ‘Your mother’s worried sick,’ he says. His words make me forget how to breathe. Kill my ears.

  ‘My … How do you … I don’t understand.’ I forget how to stand next. Down. Floor. Smash. Heat. That boy. Rory’s friend. A Walker. Flynn. He gets me a chair. Picks me up. Sits me down. Thank you. Bruise already on my leg. Purple. Green. Shine. Ouch. Sting. Throb.

  ‘It’s OK.’ Rory puts a hand on my shoulder. Everything burns.

  ‘It’s true,’ the old man says. He begins to scratch his head. Almost irritated. ‘Your resolution.’ His words pour into my ears like new ice. Cracking. Squeezing into my eardrums. Bang. Bang. Bang.

  ‘Granddad, explain yourself,’ Flynn instructs, managing to remain calm.

  Rory is interested. He comforts me but I know he is interested. I can feel his curiosity. His senses are wrapping round the old man the way a monster does a whale.

  The old man is upset. Flustered. He does not feel safe even though this is his home. I can tell. Do Walkers ever feel truly safe? ‘Your mother has left messages all over the forest. On the trunks. I don’t know. I don’t want to say. I should never have said … Loose lips sink ships. I shouldn’t …’ He begins to get angry with himself. He is restless. He keeps his eyes to the ground and charges about. He is stressed. He paces away from me. I hear his feet on the ground.

  I feel so big. Like I take up every corner of the room. My eyes search for space like an animal. If I was back in the Whirl I could swim. They couldn’t box me in like this. There aren’t corners there like in this vast new world. In the oceans there is space for me to be. I want to leave. I only surfaced so that I could find him. Begin again. But now I –

  And that’s when I see the drawings. All over the wall. Hundreds and hundreds of circles. I recognise them. Every one. But I can’t place them. I can hear Rory and Flynn trying to calm Iris down but it is too late. He is already upset. But I have seen the circles on the wall.

  Rory’s voice sobers me. ‘Iris, stop that. Iris?’

  Iris. That is his name. Of course. Iris. The rainbow. The seer. The vision. Iris.

  ‘I know who you are,’ I suddenly say. My own voice sounds loud enough to bring the lighthouse down.

  ‘You do?’ Iris relaxes a little. His shoulders sink. He is surprised. It is him. I am certain. I keep thinking of Carmine. A Mer. From the council. From the Whirl … She is the one who let me colour in his circles. She said they were her circles. But I could colour them. He left us things. From the Walker world. Newspapers, toys, ornaments. Presents. Mostly for Carmine. He would write things. And draw his circles.

  ‘Lorali … it’s OK, we don’t have …’ Rory’s words peter out.

  Flynn watches and says nothing.

  ‘You drew circles on the trees. I used to see your circles. I remember them now. Hundreds
and hundreds. Engraved into every trunk.’ The old man’s face lets go of itself and changes into a shy smile. He is excited. But he stays calm.

  ‘And you used to colour them in,’ he replies.

  I did. With Carmine or by myself with the sea pens and the feathered sea quills in the petrified forest. I was a youngling then. I miss Carmine.

  ‘Petrified what?’ Rory says. He is protective. I can smell his intentions, protection, but it comes across as intrusive. Bossy.

  ‘Forest,’ I bark back. I had never heard my own tone like that out of water. It is loud.

  ‘Have you never been?’ Flynn asks Rory. ‘You know, when the tide goes down it appears. The little bay island type thing? It’s like a burnt forest or something and you can walk through it. We used to go all the time, didn’t we, Granddad?’ Flynn picks at the walls, brick, paper. ‘Granddad?’

  But his granddad is gazing through the window, out to sea, miles away.

  THE PETRIFIED FOREST

  Queen Keppel has been visiting the petrified forest. A state of in-between. A purgatory, if you like. As all Mer have crossed from human life at some point, the petrified forest acts as a gateway to their past, as little of it as they can remember, to wonder and reflect, to gather thoughts and emotions. It works in this spectacularly magical way because it is shared by both Walkers and Mer. When the tide is low the forest rises to the surface, like an island studded with hundreds of blackened trees, reached by Walkers by the rug of the sand I leave when I go away. I watch from a distance. Dogs and children play hide-and-seek around the stark claws, clamber the wrists and fingers of these skeletal trunks, and engrave their names into the dead skin of the wood. But when the water is balanced, I return and the forest’s usual state is low and deep and here it flourishes: every naked spike of every tree flowers and blossoms in the wildest shades of green. It blooms immediately, like the change from winter to summer in an English garden in one swift move. The floor, rich with seagrass and nettles and various exotic plants – sea quills, mammoth water lilies, sea snails and worms. It is a tranquil private paradise that I am very proud of. This was Lorali’s favourite place; she would relax in the green shrubbery for hours on end, playing with the fishes and seahorses. Her only escape from her mother’s kingdom. Carmine would show her the circles that Iris had drawn and together they would colour them with the rainbow oils they found in the scum of my roof. Lorali didn’t know those oils were pollution. Dregs of spoilt poison from the petrol and fuel used to drive engines across my skin. At least they found a use for it.