To Catch a Mermaid (18 page)

Mertyle’s pink walls cast an eerie glow on Halvor as he spoke. “The healer told the villagers that Mertyle was covered with the curse of the merfolk, a curse that befalls anyone who takes and keeps a mermaid’s child. The only cure was for Mertyle to return the baby to its mother. A mother’s love, be she human or mermaid, lioness or cow, is one of the strongest forces on the planet.”

Not stronger than a twister,
Boom thought.

“Don’t mess with a mother’s love, for sure,” Halvor said.

“But Mertyle wasn’t messing with anyone. She didn’t take the baby. I did,” Boom pointed out.

“It was a fisherman who caught the baby in the first place,” Winger defended. “This is all his fault.”

“But I’m the one who wanted to keep it,” Mertyle confessed in a fuzzy voice. “I’m the one who wanted to make it my own.”

Halvor nodded. “Yah, so you are the one who is cursed, just like firstborn Mertyle.”

“What happened to firstborn Mertyle?” Boom asked. “How’d she get rid of the fuzz?”

“I don’t think you children should hear that part of the story. It’s a bit . . . unpleasant.” Unpleasant? This, coming from the man who told stories of Viking pillage and plunder, of beheadings and gorings that his ancestors had practiced on a daily basis.

“Tell us,” Mertyle insisted. “I must know.” She wanted to face the truth. It was almost unbelievable — but so was everything else lately.

“Very well.” Halvor cleared his throat and the three children leaned forward. “Erik the Red refused to listen to the healer. He hated the merfolk so deeply that he forbade anyone to return the merbaby to the sea. You must understand that he thought of the baby as vermin, as an inhuman beast. He ended its life with his own hands. I’m afraid to say that Mertyle succumbed to the fuzz and didn’t live to see another year.”

Each of the kids took in a slow, deep breath as the baby snored. Firstborn Mertyle had died from a mother’s curse. Boom was starting to understand. The baby had no part in giving Mertyle this disease, so it had no part in taking the disease away. It hadn’t granted Mertyle’s wish about getting better because it couldn’t, not because it didn’t want to. The curse could be lifted only by its mother.

“You have to give it up,” Boom told his sister.

“Give her up?” Mertyle’s shoulders drooped, and if Boom could have seen her expression through all that fuzz, he guessed he would have seen one of extreme sadness. “I have to give her back to her mother?”

“That’s impossible,” Winger stated. “We don’t know where to find her mother. No one knows where to find a mermaid.”

Boom felt a rush of shame. He reached under his bed and took out the conch shell. “I found it on the dock,” he explained. The baby opened her eyes as if she sensed the shell’s sudden appearance. She sat up in Mertyle’s lap and held out her green hands.

“The mark of the merfolk,” Halvor whispered as the baby took the shell. “When the merfolk drowned Erik the Red’s wife, they left a conch shell behind. It is their mark — their calling card, for sure.”

“I found it in the same place I found the baby,” Boom said. “I think its mother must have been looking for it.”

“You knew her mother was looking?” Mertyle asked. “Oh, Boom, why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you wanted to keep it so bad,” he answered. “Because you were always so sad, and you said you felt all alone. I wanted to sell tickets to see the merbaby so that we could get rid of the bill collector and so we could get a brain doctor to help you and Dad. And . . .” Here came the part that made him feel ashamed. “And I also wanted to sell tickets so I could buy those Galactic Kickers in the shoe store and so I could build a Kick the Ball Against the Wall arena.”

Boom felt certain that his own greed had led to all this. “I didn’t know you’d get sick, Mertyle. I’m sorry.” He sat back down on the bed, and Winger patted him on the back, the way a good friend should. The most amazing discovery of the twenty-first century had turned out to be a real dud, like a firecracker that promises shooting stars and swirling stripes but ends up fizzling out on the concrete.

“Wait! That shell is a sign of hope!” Halvor exclaimed, rising from the desk chair. “She’s out there somewhere and we’ve got to find her. The mother can lift the curse and save Mertyle’s life.”

“We should go back to the dock and look,” Winger suggested.

“I’ll do it right now,” Boom said. “But what if she’s not there?”

The merbaby grunted, then pointed at the shell’s pink lip. She held the shell out, grunting again. Boom cautiously leaned forward and peered inside the shell, not certain if she was trying to show him something or if she was going to hit him over the head with it. A series of markings were etched into the smooth surface. He had been in such a hurry to hide the shell, he hadn’t noticed the markings. He grabbed the magnifying glass from Mertyle’s desk and held it above the shell.

The markings looked familiar. “Where’s that piece of paper from the print shop?” Boom asked. Mertyle slowly raised her arm, as if it weighed a ton, and pointed to her desk drawer. Boom pulled out the paper and looked again at the strange drawing. Exactly like the etching on the conch shell. What could it be? The crescent moon hung in the night sky above something shaped like a witch’s hat. The hat also lay below like . . . like a reflection. A reflection in water. Boom’s eyes widened.

Think, think.
The witch’s hat was an island and the moon was casting the island’s reflection into the sea. An island drawn not from a bird’s-eye view but from a water-level view — the view of a mermaid.

“Mertyle, what’s wrong?” Halvor asked abruptly. Mertyle lay on the bed with the baby at her side. She was breathing kind of funny, as though she were underwater.

“I’m so tired,” she murmured.

“We must hurry!” Boom exclaimed, waving the map in the air.

Winger jumped to his feet. “Yes, we must hurry. Hurry where?”

“It’s a map,” Boom said. He pointed to the island. “If the mother isn’t at the dock, then this is where we need to go.”

Chapter Twenty-fi ve:

The Sons of the Vikings

B
oom and Winger sat on a bench in the entryway of the cedar lodge where the Sons of the Vikings held their meetings. So much nervous energy flowed from the boys that the bench actually grew warm. This was not one of their usual errands or chores. This was not about running to the market or scooping cucumber-sized poop. This was a mission of life or death.

Two hours earlier, Winger had called his mother to get permission to spend the night at Boom’s. He had assured her that he would get to bed early since the next day was a school day. Winger didn’t usually lie to his mother, but sometimes, in matters of life and death, stretching the truth is necessary. Leaving Mertyle at the house, Boom, Winger, and Halvor had headed to the dock with the baby tucked in a laundry basket. No mercreatures were found, no conch shells, either, so Halvor insisted that they follow him to the lodge.

Finally, Boom would find out what went on at a secret Viking meeting. Halvor had ordered them not to move from the entryway bench until someone called them into the hall. Non-members weren’t usually allowed in the great hall, except during holiday dances. Boom reached down and touched the edge of the laundry basket, where the baby lay hidden beneath a blanket. She had peered out when they’d first entered the lodge, but upon seeing the array of ancient weaponry hanging in the entryway, she had burrowed deep and had remained still ever since.

A large bronze plaque hung on the wall across from the bench. It read:

Oath of the Sons of the Vikings

If thy brother is hungry, fish for him.

If thy brother is cold, build shelter for him.

If thy brother is sick, tend to him.

If thy brother is lost, help him find his way.

Never steal from thy brother.

Cars were pulling up to the entryway, and men rushed in, mumbling about “an emergency meeting” and “unseasonably strong wind.” They wore overcoats and snow parkas, and a few came in bathrobes. One guy wore a pair of fuzzy bunny slippers. Some carried entire plates of food — others, just a drumstick or a roll from their interrupted Sunday night dinners. Mr. Jorgenson, the retired chief of police, stopped to glare at Boom. “There’s still more screws to sort,” he said. “You come by next week and finish.” Then he walked off.

Boom fought the urge to kick his legs forward and back. He didn’t want to trip up one of the passing men, but sitting still was the worst kind of torture. Forget about stretching someone on the rack, or shoving splinters under someone’s fingernails. Just sit two kids on a bench and tell them not to move.

Finally the cars stopped coming and the double doors to the hall shut, leaving Boom and Winger and the baby alone in the entryway. Drumming echoed from deep beyond the doors. Men’s voices rose in song.

Sons of the Vikings

Are we, are we.

Ancestors mighty

They be, they be.

Though they’re dead and gone

Their blood will still flow on.

Sons of the Vikings are we.

ARE WE!

Added to the drumming and singing came a great deal of stomping. Boom squirmed with curiosity. What had Halvor meant
exactly
when he’d told them not to move? Obviously Boom had to move in order to breathe. He had to move his eyelids or his eyeballs would dry out. Halvor couldn’t have literally meant “don’t move.” People should be precise when giving instructions. If lungs and eyelids could move, then feet should be able to move as well, taking the entire body with them. Boom tiptoed forward, followed by Winger.

The boys knelt outside the great oak doors, taking turns at the keyhole. Boom could get only a narrow view of men’s legs. The guy in the fuzzy slippers marched by. Boom found himself humming along to the song, recognizing it as the same tune that Halvor often hummed while cooking. A horn blew and Winger nearly jumped out of his socks. The baby whimpered. The drumming and marching ceased.

“Vikings, be seated!” someone yelled. “Attend to roll call.” Each man answered as his name was called. “Where’s Maurice the Menace?”

“Maurice’s wife wouldn’t let him come tonight. His mother-in-law is visiting.”

“Very well. Who has called the emergency meeting?”

“I did.” Though Boom could not see the speaker, he immediately knew the voice.

“Then take the sacred staff and speak, Halvor the -Humble.”

Halvor the Humble?
Strange choice,
Boom thought. He should have chosen Halvor the Hacker of Fish, or Halvor the Huge.

Boom’s legs started to ache from crouching, but he continued to press his eye to the keyhole. He couldn’t get a glimpse of the front of the hall, and now that the men were seated, all he could see was the backs of their heads.

“My turn,” Winger whispered, impatiently elbowing Boom.

“I ask each and every one of you to swear an oath of secrecy, for sure,” Halvor told the men. “What I’m about to tell you must never leave this room.”

“By the blood of Thor, we swear an oath of secrecy,” the men chanted.

“Then I shall just come right out and say it.” Boom’s pulse beat rapidly at the side of his neck. “Boom, the boy I care for, has found a merbaby.”

Boom expected a round of gasps to fill the hall. Instead, what echoed off the walls was laughter, quickly turning to mumbles of irritation.

“You called me from Edith’s meat loaf for this?”

“What kind of game are you playing?”

“You’ve always been a crazy one, Halvor. Haven’t I always said that Halvor was a crazy one?”

“You are beholden to hear me out, for I hold the sacred staff,” Halvor bellowed. That seemed to get their attention, and the voices quieted. Halvor cleared his throat. “Boom brought the creature home, ignorant of its horrible powers, ignorant of the curse that sickens anyone who takes a mermaid’s child. The curse has fallen on Mertyle, the girl I care for. Just like Erik the Red’s firstborn daughter, Mertyle’s life is in jeopardy. Only the baby’s mother can lift the curse.” More mumbling. “I speak the truth. May the wrath of Thor be upon me if I don’t. Mertyle needs our help and she needs it now!”

“How can we believe you, Halvor?” a man asked. “We’ve heard the stories of Erik the Red’s firstborn daughter, but no one here has ever seen a mermaid.”

“Once again I ask you to swear the oath.”

“By the blood of Thor, we swear the oath of secrecy.”

“Open the doors,” Halvor called. The double doors opened, sending Boom and Winger scrambling to their feet. “Bring in the baby.”

This could be a huge mistake,
Boom thought as he and Winger each took a handle and carried the laundry basket into the hall. The stuffed heads of bison, elk, and moose stared from the cedar wall with their glass eyes. An aisle stretched down the center of the room, flanked on either side by men in Viking helmets and animal pelts who sat on wooden benches. At the front stood a long table made from a tree that had been split lengthwise. A fire burned in a massive river-stone hearth, its flame dancing madly as wind furled down the chimney. The hall smelled like a damp forest.