in fact. Which is exactly what it started to do to us.”
“To you, too?” Penebrygg asked.
“Luckily, I was below deck when it began, so I could barely hear it,” Nat said. “It was only when someone in the cabin next to me shouted something about mermaids that I looked out through the porthole. When I saw them, I remembered the story of Ulysses and the sirens, the one in that dog-eared book you used to teach me Latin.”
“Did you indeed?” Penebrygg seemed pleased.
Nat nodded. “And it’s just as well I did. I didn’t have any wax to hand, as Ulysses’s men did, but the wool stuffing in my bolster served almost as well, once I tore it up. I shouted to the others below deck that they should plug their ears too, and then I ran up to the deck and plugged the ears of our captain here, and as many of the men as I could reach. Most of them recovered their senses quite quickly—and while they turned the ship, I went after the mermaids, with the help of Dr. Verney and a few others.”
“One of the creatures was by the shore, but the other two were just off the bow,” Dr. Verney said. “We threw some fishing spears and hit one of them. The other we caught with a net.”
“Once we got her on board, we gagged her,” Captain Ellis said. “And then we had to figure out where to keep her.”
“We wanted you to see her,” Nat said to the King, “but I was afraid she would die if we kept her out of the water much longer. So we filled a barrel with seawater.”
“A good thought,” said Penebrygg.
“But she knocked it over the first time with her thrashing, so we had to tie her in—”
“And very slippery work it was too,” Dr. Verney added. “Like an eel, she was . . .”
While they were talking, the mermaid came up for air. Her eyes were downcast, and the lids were red and puffy, as if she had been crying.
A trick or an illusion, perhaps. But the other thing I saw was most definitely not an illusion: the gray, wadded gag in her mouth, and the tiny spots of bright red blood where the water-soaked rope chafed against her cheeks.
So mermaids bled as we did.
“Three minutes and forty-eight seconds.” Deeps clicked his timepiece closed.
“Fascinating,” Sir Barnaby said. The ship’s doctor made a note in his memorandum book.
No one else seemed to notice the bleeding.
Across from me, Nat said, “Some of the crew were all for killing her, but of course we didn’t let them.”
“Quite right,” said Sir Barnaby. “Much better to study her while we can. Think of all we can learn. No one’s ever had a chance to experiment with a live mermaid before.”
My hands clenched. She tried to drown the ship, I reminded myself. She tried to kill them all. But killer or not, I felt ill. What kind of experiments did Sir Barnaby have in mind?
“That wasn’t what I meant, Sir Barnaby,” Nat said.
I was relieved to hear it, but my relief diminished as Nat continued speaking.
“I wanted to try to communicate with her.” He looked at me over the top of the mermaid’s head, his manner carefully impersonal. “Perhaps you can find out what her motives were, and if she and her kind have more attacks planned.”
“An excellent idea,” the King said.
I stared at the mermaid’s bleeding face. “You mean you want me to interrogate her?”
“Yes,” said Nat.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SISTERS UNDER THE SKIN
The mermaid raised her head and fastened her pale sea eyes on me. Could she understand what we were saying?
“I wouldn’t know how to begin,” I told Nat and the King. “Even without the gag—”
“The gag stays on.” Captain Ellis crossed his bulky arms. “She’s done enough damage already. Two of my crew still haven’t recovered their senses. I’m not taking any chances with the rest.”
“It seems the wool stuffing worked better for some than others,” Dr. Verney explained. “Or perhaps they were just more vulnerable to begin with. Either way, we can’t afford to let the mermaid sing again.”
“Not on the ship, no,” Nat said. “I propose we move her barrel to the Greenwich cellars. She shouldn’t be able to do much damage there, even when the gag comes off.”
The wind was picking up. I felt the Dorset rocking beneath me. The mermaid felt it too, I think. She turned her wan head in the direction of the breeze, and her tail