I was at the graveyard where Astrid was buried the next morning as soon as dawn broke. I’d driven home without stopping in Sirendale. There was nothing I’d left at the hotel worth returning for. I would mail the tape of the mermaid’s death song back to Jim when things had settled. Nothing was as urgent as getting back and completing my wish. Elated and invigorated as I’d felt, it had been a long day and my eyes did start to get heavy once the adrenaline sapped out of me. I’d figured there’d be no sense trying to get into the graveyard at three in the morning either so I’d pulled into a rest area and went to sleep in the car for a few hours. As soon as I woke up, feeling refreshed, I got back on the road.

Mist clung to grass and gravestones. Buttery light filtered through the copse of trees to the east. Decayed flowers littered Astrid’s grave along with some water stained photos and other mementos suffering from exposure. I seemed to be the only person in the graveyard, which wasn’t surprising at that time of morning. Apart from the muted sound of traffic in the distance, I felt like I could be the only person around for miles.

“Okay, we’re doing this,” I said. “We’re really doing this.”

Pulling the jar containing the tear out of my pocket, I rolled it uneasily between my fingers. You would expect the tear to evaporate or to have smeared itself to pieces on the side of the jar, in which case I would have buried the whole specimen cup in the dirt, but it was still in one piece. There was no ritual I was aware of. The story about the fisherman who’d lost his son just involved him pouring the mermaid’s tear back into the ocean. I unscrewed the lid of the container.

“Astrid, I wish my Astrid would come back to me.”

Tipping the container upside down, I poured the tear out. Hitting the surface of Astrid’s grave, it soaked into the dirt and disappeared. I repeated the wish just in case it made a difference. There was no external sign of something magical happening. No swirling vortex of clouds gathering overhead. No whispering voices at the edge of hearing slowly gained strength on the verge of an orchestral swell.

I waited for a little while as the sun kept rising and the mist burned off throughout the graveyard. Nothing happened, but I was not discouraged. I could feel it inside myself, even if nothing seemed to change. But a watched kettle never boiled as the saying went. I screwed the lid back onto the specimen cup, stuck it back in my pocket, and retreated to my car.

“I’ll see you soon, Astrid.”

That night I sat in my living room and waited. I’d spent the rest of the day doing chores that had been ignored, making the house ready as if for guests. Far from becoming discouraged as hours passed I became more and more excited. The certainty I felt couldn’t really be explained logically but I guess after capturing a real live mermaid and being given one of her wish granting tears, very little seemed impossible.

Wind picked up as it got dark, like a storm coming. It howled against the windows and sides of the house. Loud enough that I almost didn’t hear the knocks. I sat up straighter in my armchair. I had switched the lamps on around the room but the TV was off and apart from the wind the room was silent. The knocking came again, light, slow and hesitant. I stood up and hurried to the front door.

“Oh, my God,” I said, throwing open the front door.

Astrid stood on the front stoop wearing the dress she’d been buried in, hair hanging over her face. Her shoulders slumped, arms at her sides. She was caked in dirt, gravedirt. Though it wasn’t raining yet she looked wet, turning the dirt to mud.

“Astrid!”

I leapt forward and hugged her without hesitation. I didn’t care that the filth covering her rubbed off on the nice shirt and jeans I’d put on in anticipation of our reunion. Or that her flesh felt icy cold. She didn’t really react, arms staying at her sides. All of this must have been quite a shock. I didn’t care, she was home.

“I’ve got you back, I brought you back, Astrid.”

I guided Astrid inside and looked around, seeing no one and nothing else outside before closing the door behind us. Astrid shuffled forward. She’d lost one of her shoes and left dirty footprints on the carpet behind her. Her face hung down, unreadable behind a curtain of dirty hair. Every movement was stiff and she felt so, so cold.

“Astrid? Astrid, I’m so glad you’re home! I know this must be strange, so strange, but I did this. I brought you back to me, back to us. I’ve got so much to tell you.”

Astrid went where I steered her. I saw her eyes moving when I spoke, her face almost flinching as if everything was too loud, too bright, too new. All the same, I felt like my grin was so wide it would split my face in two.

I had to get some of this grave filth off of her. And to warm her up, she was so cold and muddy. Steering her into the bathroom, I started to fill the bathtub. It was the same tub where she’d killed herself, of course, but that didn’t matter now that she was back. Steam rose from the water. Astrid stood by the bathroom door, head down, dirt dribbling off her, like a robot waiting for its next instruction. Or a zombie, of the old school Haitian type.

“Astrid, it’s going to be okay now,” I said. “Let’s get you clean and warm.”

Eventually, I had to get a pair of kitchen shears to hack Astrid out of her funeral dress. It had been beautiful, white and lacy, her graduation dress, but it was ruined now with ingrained dirt and what might have been stains from rot. She didn’t help but didn’t resist either. Under her dress she was all in one piece, not rotting but pale with root systems of black veins where she wasn’t covered in dirt.

I guided her into the tub. Despite the heat, Astrid didn’t react. Dirt immediately started to slough off her and turn the water a murky brown. Picking up a bar of soap, I ran it over her legs, her arms and shoulders. I hadn’t made much of an impact before the water was soupy and black. I drained the tub and refilled it. Astrid’s hair was practically one big lump of mud.

“There was a mermaid, Astrid. A real mermaid, I tracked her down and trapped her, and let her go in exchange for a tear.”

I talked and talked as I cleaned her, explaining everything I’d been through since she died. It was all a shock, but I would clean her up and soon she would be back to normal. Under the dirt she was paler than she’d been before and veins stood out under her skin as if the blood had frozen into black ice. Sutures lined both of her forearms. The wounds she’d killed herself with hadn’t healed but were bloodless flaps of skin held closed with surgical staples. I was careful as I cleaned around them. They reminded me of the mermaid’s gills.

I shampooed Astrid’s hair repeatedly. She almost resembled the mermaid, I thought, once the dirt was cleaned off of her and her hair draped back from her face. The pale skin brought out her resemblance. They both had dark hair and the same slender frame, small, high breasts, although Astrid wasn’t broadened and muscular from swimming. Nor did she have webbed hands. Their faces were different shapes, and Astrid was nowhere near as angular as the mermaid. Actually, I wasn’t sure why I’d thought they were so similar for a moment. There was something new about Astrid, something stern and alien the same as the mermaid. I washed the dirt off her upper arm where the tattoo of the mermaid she’d never gotten coloured in was inked. Well, there was time to do that now. Time for so many more things.

Stroking the last strands of hair back from Astrid’s face, I beamed. Naked, she was sitting upright, knees tucked up against her chest. Her nudity and vulnerability stirred me but I could tell that would be too much, too soon. Besides, the water had failed to warm her up.

“You wouldn’t let me go,” Astrid said.

I almost didn’t hear her, but I saw her lips move and just barely caught what she said. I almost jumped. Soon as I’d run it through my head though I grinned broadly. She was starting to come around and understand.

“No, no, I wouldn’t let you go, I would never let you go,” I said.

Astrid hesitated, not meeting my eyes for almost a minute. “You wouldn’t let me go.”

“No, I’ll never let you go, I love you so much. I’d go to the ends of the earth to bring you back if I had to.”

“You-, love me?”

“That’s right, that’s right, I love you.”

“You said you-, loved me, every day, you loved me,” Astrid’s words were stiff and stumbling, like her movements. “That no one would ever love me like you do. You said you would kill yourself if I left you.”

I laughed, reached across the tub and hugged her. My shirt was still dirty and she left a wet patch down the front as well. Nodules of spine stuck out against the pale flesh down her back.

“I just said that to stop you from leaving, I didn’t mean it,” I said. “Come on, baby, I don’t know why you did what you did but it doesn’t matter now, we’re together again.”

“I didn’t know what else to do.”

“It doesn’t matter, I’ve got you now, and I’m never letting go. I told you I would never, ever, ever let you go, no matter what you said, what your parents said, your friends. You’re always going to be mine.”

Astrid’s body shook but she made no real reply. Clearly her mind was mixed up but her talking was a good sign. I got her out of the tub and dried her off. She stood there and let me, again not resisting and not cooperating either. Even if she didn’t come back, I could get used to her in this unthinking and obedient way. I couldn’t dry away the chill and somehow she stayed damp. It was almost like she kept sweating ice cold water, and she smelled vaguely like a hospital corridor no matter what I did.

“Let’s get to bed, okay? It will all look better in the morning.”

Dressing Astrid seemed too difficult in her current state so I put her to bed naked and piled on some blankets. She lay unmoving, facing the hall. I dressed warmly and climbed in behind her, pressing myself to her naked form. Astrid was cold and unmoving, I don’t think she even breathed. I hoped my body heat would warm her up but it didn’t seem to work. Eventually, I started shivering and felt the damp of her body soaking through my pyjamas.

“God, baby, you’re like a slab of ice,” I said. “Don’t worry, our love can conquer anything. My love for you can conquer anything.”

I hadn’t slept much last night nor napped during the day in anticipation, and maneuvering Astrid around to wash and dry her had been surprisingly physical. In spite of everything, I quickly fell asleep. A hole deep and black and dreamless but filled with satisfaction.

~~~

I awoke again feeling hot and sweaty. It was impossible to say how long I’d been asleep without looking at my phone but it was pitch black, sometime in the middle of the night. The blankets had been carelessly tossed over me and I had gotten so overheated I’d eventually woken up. Groping, I found the other side of the bed empty but soaked with cold water. It was almost as if Astrid had melted into a puddle, like an ice sculpture left in the sun

A sliver of light came from the hallway. I rolled upright and stumbled to the door. From down the hall, I could hear water, a soft, dull roar as if of the distant ocean. It reminded me so suddenly of the mermaid’s cave I wondered if I was really dreaming. If when I pulled the bedroom door open I’d find myself back there, the sliver of light coming from the camping lanterns and the sound from the waves gushing in and out of the cave mouth, the smell of salt in the air.

When I pulled the door open, however, it was only my hallway. The light came from the bathroom door, ajar. So did the sound of running water. Blinking myself awake, I stumbled toward it. Not the mermaid but Astrid.

“Oh, what the heck?”

Water trickled onto the hallway’s wooden flooring and completely covered the bathroom floor. The two bath mats looked like grey sponges. Astrid stood over the tub, staring at it. Her buttocks were pursed, her shoulders and spine tense as guitar strings. In the fluorescents of the bathroom she looked as pale as ever, with branch systems of black veins under the skin. She had clearly turned the bathtub on and was now watching it overflow, water pouring down the side and onto the floor.

“What are you doing?” I said. “No, no! Not time for a bath now, bedtime, you’re meant to be in bed.”

I guess I’d quickly adjusted to talking to Astrid like a child. Astrid had always needed me to make decisions for her anyway. The water was warm between my toes as I crossed the bathroom. Astrid didn’t react as I reached over the tub and turned off both taps. The last of the overflow waterfalled over the lip of the tub and splattered the tiles at my feet. I straightened and tried to look her in the eyes, although her face was hanging down again.

“What are you thinking? You’ve made a mess, we’re going to have to clean this up in the morning. Come back to bed.”

Astrid didn’t react for several long moments, hair in her face, shoulders tensed. “You wouldn’t let me go.”

“No, I wouldn’t let you go.” I felt a hard stab of annoyance in spite of myself. “Do you know everything I’ve been through with you gone? I brought you back because you belong with me.”

Astrid surprised me by shoving me, hard. Harder than I would have thought her capable of. Her hands shot out like pistons and caught me in the chest. I tripped over the overful tub, bounced off the wall and fell so I was sitting up in the water with a splash. I jarred my elbow and my head in the fall, leaving me dizzy and not sure what hurt the most.

“Ow! Astrid, that hurt!” I said. “What do you think-,”

I was soaking wet. Bathwater had splattered the walls and ran over the sides again. Astrid seized me by the shoulders and yanked me around so my legs were pulled into the tub and my head was now facing one end of the bath. She had strength I’d never known her to have. Strength she couldn’t have possibly had when she was alive. Before I could control what was happening, she slammed my face under the water.

“You made me feel worthless!” Astrid hissed like some kind of wild animal. “You made me feel unlovable! You made me feel that I could have no one but you!”

I struggled my way to the surface for a moment. “Astrid, stop!”

Astrid shoved me back down. Bubbles streamed from my mouth. I grabbed her arms and tried to push her away. Slender and lovely as they still were, there were muscles like corded steel under her pale skin. It was my Astrid though, I was sure, somewhere in there, it was my Astrid.

“Worthless, you made me feel, picking, picking, picking in a thousand ways when I trusted you!” Astrid snarled. “You separated me from everyone! You said you would hurt yourself if I ever left you! You made me feel so guilty, so alone!”

Astrid let up for just long enough that I struggled to the surface again, knowing that if I didn’t get her to stop she would drown me. “Astrid, I love you!”

“You don’t know what love is!” Astrid screamed.

Back down, she slammed me into the water. Air exploded from my mouth as she gripped me by the collar and drove her fists into my chest. I couldn’t understand why she was doing this, or the things she was saying. Everything I’d done, I’d done for us. Yes, sometimes I’d focused on her negatives to make her stay. I’d lured her from her friends and family so we’d only have each other, and told her things like I’d hurt myself if she left, but it was all for her own good! It was for the good of us. I would always be enough for her, hadn’t I proven that by now?

Through the film of water filling my eyes, Astrid’s features were contorted in animal hate. Dark hair hung in tangles around her face. In desperation, I dug my fingers into the gashes down the insides of her forearms, sutured closed with surgical staples. My fingernails sunk inside the flaps of skin. A couple of staples popped loose, and I could feel cold flesh, bloodless veins and tendons, but it made no difference. Astrid seemed to feel no pain.

“You wouldn’t let me go!” Astrid said with another snarl. “I didn’t see another way out, I couldn’t see another way! But now I do.”

My lungs burned for another breath, turning molten in my chest. My body struggled and thrashed of its own accord. Drowning took longer than you might expect. Pleading, I opened my mouth and sucked water in my lungs. Astrid pinned me to the bottom of the tub until it was over. Through the water, my eyes slid from her contorted face to the tattoo on her upper arm. The half-completed portrait of the mermaid. The last thing I saw as the pain anchored in my chest dragged me down into deep, dark blackness.

~~~~~~~~~

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