Three

“What could Merle do?” Laura said. “Her father, who knew just how beautiful his daughter was, and what trouble that might bring, had always kept her locked up like a prisoner when they were in the city, and the island was like another prison.”

*   *   *

She had no friends, and there was so little to do. The house they had was the grandest on the island, but Merle quickly grew bored of its rooms, and its views. She longed to go outside and when she could, she would take long walks around the island, up to its highest point, looking across the western side, or to the meadows, empty and cool now that autumn had arrived. She would walk through the grass, and the hem of her long skirts would become wet.

But her favorite thing was to walk by the sea, along the beaches, by the rock pools, through the woods that clung to the eastern shore. And the quayside.

She loved to watch the boats come in and out, but there was one boat that she always longed to see, the one that belonged to Erik.

Now it happened, that on a certain black day, though it was not yet raining on the island, Merle saw a violent storm raging far out to sea. She worried for the fishermen, and for Erik, and worried more when she could not see his boat among those that had already returned.

She spoke to herself.

“Erik?” she murmured, to the wind.

Then, as she stood on the quayside, she heard a voice behind her.

“Well, so it is,” said the voice. She turned to see Erik. He smiled, shyly. He did not know how to talk to this fine young lady, did not know what he should say, though he knew very well what he wanted to say.

Merle tilted her head.

“Say his name and his horns appear!” she said, laughing, relieved. “But where is your boat?”

“We put in at the south,” Erik explained. “It was becoming too dangerous to make it farther.”

Erik looked at Merle’s skirts.

“But you are wet already,” he said, a question on his face.

“I was walking in the meadow,” Merle said, “but it’s nothing. It will quickly dry by the fire when I come home.”

She stopped, looked at the stones of the quayside. “I was worried about you.”

Erik shrugged his shoulders.

“It is what we do,” he said. “But a storm is coming. You ought to go home before it swings this way.”

Erik hesitated, then plucked up his courage.

“I could see you safely home.”

“Thank you,” said Merle. “But I know the way, well.”

“I know you do,” Erik said, and then there was a silence between them.

Merle shook her head.

“But you may not walk me home,” she said. “Father…”

She stopped.

“Goodbye,” she said. “I am glad you are safe.”

She turned, and she walked back through the meadows, getting the hem of her skirt wetter still.

She was about halfway across the meadow, when, feeling a pricking on her neck, she turned. There, a fair way behind her, walked Erik, following her like a specter.

She turned and walked on, and then turned again. There was no doubt, he was following her, but at a distance.

She pressed on, her feet starting to chill thoroughly from the damp.

It grew dark with nightfall and thunderclouds as she approached the house, fingers of mist stroking her hair as she came out of the meadow. She hurried up the path to the front door, and was about to enter, when a low voice in the shadows spoke to her.

It was Erik.

She gasped.

“What are you doing here?” she asked, but Erik didn’t answer this.

“What did you mean? What you said at the quayside. ‘Say his name and his horns appear…’?”

Merle smiled. “It’s just what people say. When they have been speaking of someone, and then they are there.”

“But horns? Am I a beast? A goat, or a ram?”

Merle looked at Erik. She noticed that the bottoms of his rough trousers were wet from the meadow grass, too.

“But you’re wet,” she said. She took a step closer to him.

“What kind of beast am I?” Erik asked again.

Merle’s smile had gone.

She stepped closer to Erik, and then he gently placed his hands on her hips, and they kissed, for a long, long time.

When they broke away, Erik looked deep into Merle’s eyes once more.

“You still didn’t answer my question,” he said. “What kind of beast am I…?”

Merle laughed, too. She touched his forearm, very briefly.

She whispered, a grin on her face, laughter in her eyes.

“One that will be the death of me.”