Salt Cured

By Morgan Adams

The setting sun splits the clouded horizon with a golden gash as Cordelia’s head breaches the surface tension skimming the glassy ocean. 

She does not fully rise from the sea but merely peers above the still water at the place where the surf laps at the concrete break wall looming overhead. In the dim dusk, surrounded by the swirling tendrils of her dark hair, Cordelia looks little more than a piece of driftwood or a clump of water weeds bobbing along the surface. Not even the tapered tips of her pale ears would be recognizable as anything more than bits of foam or perhaps the spiny fin of some creature, even with the calm sea. She lightly undulates her tail below the surface in broad, slow strokes to keep herself level. The motion distils the warmth of the protected cove’s waters and swirls up an icy current from the bottom. A little fish gets tangled in Cordelia’s feathered fins, then wiggles free. There is an itch to the muscles of her tail, achingly distant and familiar. Cordelia ignores it. 

All she has eyes for is the staircase splitting the break wall in twain. 

The staircase is a cragged thing; worn stone steps smoothed over with time and the rising tides, coated in slick plant life and dark with dampness. There is a sort of rail lining the stairs, bolted to the wall and nothing more than a beam of rusting iron rotting against the stone. A single lantern flickers at the top of the wall. The weak glow glances off the stairs at the apex with the wet shine of algae until it is cut through by a shadow crossing the lantern’s path.

Lady Pemma Greywish appears at the top of the stone stairway. She looks like a spirit—or an angel—alighting the split wall in her billowing white gown. The salted evening breeze that sweeps the top of the break wall catches the hem of her dress in a frothy cloud. Her crimson hair is a shock against dusk and the darkened backdrop the roiling magnitude of the Greywish ancestral home. That fiery red—specific to Lady Pemma—does not exist beneath the swell of the sea. Perhaps that reddened glow is what drew Cordelia to her, out of the depths of her watery world and into the arms of a lady. 

Cordelia swallows down the tightness in her throat at the sight of Pemma upon the wall, an unwieldy burst of affection she has yet to learn to control. 

Unbeknownst to the fluster in Cordelia’s mind, Pemma descends the stairs. 

Her gauzy, white gown catches against the mossy steps, dampening the hem grey with the remnants of the tides. Cordelia tracks her steps, counting each one in her mind. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, and so forth. There are thirty in total. At twenty-five, Cordelia dips below the surface. Her gills heave with the sudden influx of salt water. The switch from air to sea often strangles her lungs. Cordelia snaps her tail against the burn. 

The last three steps of the staircase dip into the sea. Cordelia grips the worn stone with clawed fingertips and hauls herself out onto the step. The swell of the sea sloshes upon Pemma’s dress. She pays it no mind as she sinks to Cordelia’s level, crouching upon the algae-slick stone. 

“Good evening,” Pemma says, positively glowing as she beams at Cordelia. 

Cordelia makes herself comfortable upon the stair. Her long, dark hair clings to her skin, settling up on the tacky swell of her bare breasts. She stretches her tail out in the water, flicking her silvery fins through the water as she adjusts to the pressure. 

“Hello, my lady.”

Pemma’s petite nose wrinkles at the honorific. Cordelia has to bite the inside of her cheek at the sight. It’s admirable, Pemma’s desire to slough off her title as a lady of the court, when she walks around looking like the rising sun itself. Cordelia basks in the sight of it. 

“How long until your change?” Pemma asks once she’s gotten over the indignity. She casts of the leather satchel hanging from her should, settling it a few stairs up and as safe from the lapping waves as their position can allow, before lifting the flap and rummaging around inside. Her hair tumbles to one side, exposing the long line of her pale throat. Cordelia doesn’t stop herself from staring. 

“Half an hour,” Cordelia says distractedly. “Maybe less.” 

“Perfect.” Pemma’s brilliant smile is even bright when she turns back to Cordelia. She holds out a simple shift dress. “I have a surprise for you today.” 

Cordelia takes the dress. The fabric is soft in her hands. The salty brine on Cordelia’s fingertips immediately soaks the points where her fingertips grip it. She holds it awkwardly aloft so as not to fully soak it through, despite knowing it likely won’t matter anyway. To Pemma, she raises an eyebrow. 

“A surprise?” 

Pemma’s tongue pokes between her blunt, pearly teeth with the force of her glee. A deep seated and primal urge washes over Cordelia. The desire to snatch Pemma up and drag her beneath the waves is one that might very well be written in Cordelia’s bones. Although she was not born into this body, the curse has been with her for longer than she was anything else, leaving her with rotten desires to be swallowed down. 

Instead of dragging the Lady Pemma Greywish to her watery grave, Cordelia gently cups a clawed hand against her cheek and kisses her softly, savoring the slight rasp of her dry lips and the scent of lavender and clean linen. 

“I can’t wait to see what you’ve brought me,” she whispers against Pemma’s lips. Pemma wraps a warm hand around Cordelia’s wrist and laughs into her mouth. 

It’s been just shy of a year since Cordelia first met Pemma—a thing of happenstance one night when the young mistress of the Greywish manor stumbled upon a doe-legged Cordelia stumbling from the bushes under cover of night. At first, there was the fear that gorgeous, beautiful, human Pemma would catch sight of Cordelia’s monstrous other self, but that fear never showed; only mild curiosity and quick pleading for Cordelia to stay right where she was as Pemma dashed back to her grand manor to fetch some dry clothes for Cordelia. 

She had brought the same shift that Cordelia pulls over her head now. The soft cotton sticks to her skin and it’s a battle to pull her hair free of the dress. Some nights, Pemma will spend the whole of their time together working a comb through the tangled mess and braiding it back into something tamer, but nearly everyone comes undone in the waves come next nightfall. It doesn’t seem to discourage Pemma; the brushing and braiding is an act of love between them. Or so Pemma explained one night when Cordelia shamefully came back to her with newly knotted mess and the bedraggled remnants of Pemma’s work. 

The kissing is something newer, something fragile. Cordelia keeps the memory of that tucked between her ribs and safe from the torrent waves. 

When the sun has finally sunk below the horizon, Pemma holds Cordelia in her arms and works her through the transformation. She’s lost track of the years since she was first cursed, but since meeting Pemma, Cordelia has surmised that at least a century has passed. 

The transformation doesn’t hurt quite as much as it did the first time—or even the fortieth—but there is still a discomfort and an ugliness to it. She still twists and contorts as the scales of her tail sink below her dermal layer, contorting and twining with her human parts. Her bones and veins and muscles split in two, leaving behind long, smooth legs that stick out in a gangly manner from her borrowed shift as her teeth grow and her face changes. All in all, the transformation is just a trade: the fish’s tail for her own legs, the scales creeping up her cheeks instead, replacing her teeth with a mouthful of fangs and slitting her pupils into something more monstrous than human. The first time she saw herself as the ghastly horror she had become, she had wretched. 

The only one to not recoil at the sight of Cordelia’s nightly form was the Lady Pemma Greywish.

The recovery after the transformation is just as short. Cordelia finds her balance mere moments after her legs are returned to her. Pemma keeps a hand settled at the small of her back as they ascend the stairs together anyway. 

At the top of the staircase, the wide lawn of the Greywish estate stretches out in a dark swatch beneath the shadow of the sprawling manor house. Muffled waves crash against the break wall to their backs; the distance of the sound delights Cordelia. Torrents of lighted windows speckle splashes of orange across the lawn. Looming spires pierce the storm-laden clouds blanketing the night sky. The tallest tower is visible from the seafloor. Cordelia has found herself wistfully gazing up at the murky structure, thinking of Pemma and how ill-suited her light is for something as gloomy as the Greywish manor. Though Cordelia’s simple white shift oddly clinging to her body is hardly the proper dress for a lady—or anyone—that should be standing by Pemma’s side, the easy way Pemma links their arms together warms Cordelia and makes her think herself something more suitable than the manor.  

They make their way across the lawn. Their tangled fingers swing in a loose knot between them. The dewy grass is soft beneath Cordelia’s bare feet and the cool night air prickles at her skin. She listens to Pemma chatter about her day, about the ridiculous machinations of her household staff and the courtly visitors that arrived recently, as they make their way to their destination. 

Each night, Pemma leads the way to the sculpture garden, though Cordelia would be able to find it with her eyes closed by now. The path they walk does not follow that laid by whatever gardener crafted the magnificent space for the Greywish family. The cobbled stones of the pathways through the shrubbery are too rough on Cordelia’s seldom-tread feet; they continue around the outskirts of the gardens instead, tucked just beneath the shadows of the manicured tree line. 

Pemma sweeps Cordelia into her arms when they near the center of the garden, carrying her like a bride across the honeymoon threshold to cross the stone path from the grass to the pavilion. It’s situated over a small pond, connected to the land by an arched bridge. The stone floor is gritty beneath Cordelia’s feet when Pemma sets her down. She curls her toes against the grain. Pemma presses a quick kiss to Cordelia’s lips like she just can’t help herself. 

“Are you ready for your surprise?” she asks, practically bouncing with her eagerness.

Smiling, Cordelia nods. 

Pemma once again digs around in her bag. When she gets hands on what she’s looking for, she tells Cordelia to close her eyes. Cordelia does. She lets Pemma press something cool and smooth and round, roughly the size of a dessert plate, into her hands. Cordelia thumbs over the surface, learning the curves of whatever she has been gifted. 

“Okay, open.”

Cordelia looks down to find the object is a mask sculpted in the image of an ordinary human face. It is delicate porcelain, white and painted with cerulean blue waves flecked with golden filigree. Tiny fish swim along the waves, leaping along the brushstrokes. The blank eyeholes are rimmed in the same gold paint, as is the mouth, done up in the imitation of makeup. It’s looks fragile cupped between her long, scaled fingers. 

“What is it?” Cordelia asks softly, turning the mask over in her hands. 

“There’s to be a ball. Tomorrow night,” Pemma says, rocking on her heels. “It’s a masked ball.” 

There is hesitancy in her voice. A careful hopefulness too. 

Cordelia’s stomach sinks. 

“I thought…well, I was hoping you might accompany me,” Pemma says when Cordelia doesn’t respond straight away. “I had the mask specially designed for you. And I know it’s short notice, but I was waiting until the mask was completed, so you could be sure you would be covered.” 

Cordelia continues to stare at the mask in her hands. Dread seeps into her bones, an unraveling. 

“E-everyone at court already thinks that I sneak out to see my lover every night anyway.” Pemma trips over her words as the continues to bleed. “Won’t they be beside themselves to see they’ve been right all along.” 

She trails off with a little laugh that shatters Cordelia’s resolve. The mask swings from her grip, hooked only by a pinky speared through one eye, and with her free hand, Cordelia cups Pemma’s cheek. 

“Yes,” Cordelia says because she cannot stomach listening to Pemma’s nerves. “Yes, alright, I’ll come.”

“You will?” 

Cordelia smiles, lips pulling up over her lips. “Yes, yes of course, my lady. Anything you wish.” 

Pemma rolls her eyes but her shoulders sag with relief. As Cordelia leans forward to seal the acceptance with a kiss, savoring the taste of her as she slips her tongue over Pemma’s teeth, Cordelia almost believes the words herself. 

There was once a time when Cordelia was the eager-eyed lady of a grand manor upon a cliffside castle begging her moonlight lover to let just a glimmer of sunlight into their relationship. There was once a time when that far-away lover had agreed and in that the presence of Cordelia’s friends, the curse of the sea had been pushed into her bones, damning her. 

The thought occurred to Cordelia when she first met Pemma that she might be able to cast off her own curse. 

Bathed in the sunny waters of the shallows and curled beneath an outcropping of coral, Cordelia stares up at the tallest spire of the Greywish manor. She holds the mask in her hand, turning it over and over between her palms. It gleams beneath the dappled waves. 

Cordelia can only hope that one day, Pemma might forgive the theft and the empty ocean she’ll leave in her wake.