Part of Your World (Disney Twisted Tales) - Liz Braswell Page 0,30
and goldwork and more often than not the feathers—and sometimes the entire body—of some poor, exotic, and thoroughly dead bird.
She felt the silk of one long pale-rose sleeve. It was expert workmanship and utterly beautiful and thoroughly disgusting that such labor had been wasted on the evil woman. In a fairy tale, Ursula would be the wicked, lazy girl who wound up with dried seaweed and empty' shells. And maybe shrimp crawling out of her throat.
She noticed somethmg funny about a button on the sleeve just as she was about to let it drop: it was etched like scrimshaw, with lmes so fine and thin they must have been made by a master—or a creature of magic.
The design was of an octopus.
Not a friendly one, like many that Ariel knew; this was elongated and sinister, with strangely evil eyes.
Ariel's own eyes darted around the room like a barracuda distracted by sparkly thmgs. It was immediately clear, once she knew what to look for, that every piece of clothing and accessory had the octopus sigil somewhere on it: the diamond brooch on a collar, the buckle on a belt, a hidden embroidery on the more traditional Tirulian dresses.
Whatever her motivations were m staying among the humans she'd married mto, Ursula had not forgotten her origins or her true self.
But there was nothing in the closet that could have been her hidden father; not a bottle or ajar or even a repurposed shoe. Maybe there was a hidden panel somewhere, or maybe the sea witch kept him locked up m a real dungeon, downstairs.
And then, along with a current of moist, soapy air...
...came a voice...
Her voice.
In the trailing end of a song.
"...up on the land, where my lover walks. But I can only pine from the foamy waves..., " Her voice.
She hadn't heard her own voice in years.
The day when Ursula first took her payment, it had felt like Ariel's very soul had been sucked out of her body. The young, silly merthing she was then hadn't even realized it. Like a ghost she went on with her quest, her desires, mtent on her prize, not even realizing she was already dead to the world.
Okay, perhaps it wasn't quite that dramatic, Queen Ariel corrected herself gently.
But seemg Vanessa wed Eric, and her father killed, and realizing she would never get either man—or her voice—back., .a part of her had truly died that day. And now that witch was using her voice to sing m the bath.
Ariel wouldn't let the rage that was coursing through her veins control her. She wouldn't. She was a queen, and queens didn't lose control. Not for sweat, not for rage. It was no easy task; like sweat, this kind of anger was a new experience.
She had been sad. She had been melancholy. She had cursed her fate as a voiceless monarch, railing against her lot quietly. Once in a while she had a burst of temper when she wanted to be heard and no one would listen, when people were shouting over her and ignoring her hands, as if because she had no voice she had nothing to say.
This was like nothing she had experienced before. It was like lava, burning through her skin and threatening to consume her whole.
Without thinking she moved toward the direction of the sound.
"...heartless witch of the sea... ha ha [...heartless, heartless indeed, ensorcelling me..."
The air grew moister: but not with the accompanying clouds of steam one expected from a luxuriously royal bath.
"Oh, let him see me for who I am, for without a voice, my face alone must speak for me... "
This was a pretty, wistful aria, but Vanessa let the last note quaver just a little too long, seeing how long she could keep the vibrato gomg. Then she broke mto a peal of laughter that, despite bemg in Ariel's voice, sounded nothmg like the mermaid.
Ariel pushed the far door open a crack. Some previous kmg or queen had designed the royal bath to look as dramatic as possible, almost like a stage, perhaps so he or she could soak while members of state gathered around askmg for decisions. There was even a sort of viewing balcony or mezzanine that the hall led to, above the bath; this held a few cabinets to store bath-related bric-a-brac and a privacy screen for robing and disrobing—although despite the plentiful storage, Vanessa's morning clothes were thrown carelessly over a chair. Wide and ostentatious spiral stairs led down to the bathtub itself.