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Sea Witch
Sarah Henning
The fairy tale you thought you knew…The story of the Sea Witch, the villainess from Hans Christian Anderson’s classic tale The Little Mermaid, told from the viewpoint of the Sea Witch when she was a twelve-year-old girl…Evie has been wracked with guilt ever since her best friend, Anna, drowned. So when a girl appears on shore with an uncanny resemblance to Anna, Evie befriends her in an effort to make amends. And as the two girls catch the eyes – and hearts – of two charming princes, Evie believes that she might finally have a chance at happy ever after. But is Evie’s new friend really who she says she is? Or will Evie discover, too late, the truth of her bargain? A gripping story of friendship, betrayal and the power of hope…Because ‘though magic can shape life and death… love is the one thing it cannot control
(#ulink_ca61ac85-adb4-56af-aeb1-d3182dd598fa)First published in the USA by HarperCollins Publishers Inc. in 2018 First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Children’s Books in 2018 Published in this ebook edition in 2018 HarperCollins Children’s Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd, HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
The HarperCollins website address is
www.harpercollins.co.uk (http://www.harpercollins.co.uk)
Text copyright © HarperCollins Publishers 2018
Cover design copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 2018 Cover design by Heather Dougherty Cover art by Anna Dittmann All rights reserved.
Sarah Henning asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook onscreen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.
Source ISBN: 9780008300845
Ebook Edition © July 2018 ISBN: 9780008297220
Version: 2018-07-24
(#ulink_b0f1ab45-e4b3-574a-9809-2b5e65bbbf01)To Nate and Amalia—
the only ships in my sea.
And to Justin—
next time there will be
more car chases.
Epigraph (#ulink_0848c8db-972a-5762-848c-be77be8ae0a1)
I have sea foam in my veins, I understand the language of the waves.
—Jean Cocteau, Le Testament d’Orphée
Contents
Cover (#u8847ce00-44c2-5f56-b61f-82e86250cc4e)
Title Page (#ud0504cfe-29db-5a7c-849e-e3635b53ec9a)
Copyright (#ulink_bf4682b4-d166-5775-b6b9-d74dc596948b)
Dedication (#ulink_db18afed-dded-5b12-a92b-c3129ff5e030)
Epigraph (#ulink_038c16be-b91a-523d-a4ca-c9eb05851b80)
Contents (#u699ca211-234d-529d-a19d-09eec591f7df)
Prologue (#ulink_d02794ca-1fc8-5988-8bee-5608b17d4740)
Chapter 1 (#ulink_24d17062-9d59-5bf2-9d1e-712f2437b66b)
Chapter 2 (#ulink_b282792f-746e-505e-a539-ebf87ca802b6)
Chapter 3 (#ulink_2c9803a0-e226-5344-851c-e84c9ff7a548)
Chapter 4 (#ulink_0a9851c8-f75f-52b4-9dd1-013eed2d8326)
Chapter 5 (#ulink_598d16bd-61b1-53a2-8d09-3a993fa2d02f)
Chapter 6 (#ulink_c39e792b-ac84-5f0e-a01d-3a0e27084df1)
Chapter 7 (#ulink_a0f756bb-b646-5d90-a363-78b47dc54f9a)
Chapter 8 (#ulink_045bd18d-98d2-5111-a978-3ee47b1b8de5)
Chapter 9 (#ulink_b2556542-5a34-5c99-9c3f-d91cc6721759)
Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 23 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 24 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 25 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 26 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 27 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 28 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 29 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 30 (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter 31 (#litres_trial_promo)
Epilogue—Fifty Years Later (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)
Books by Sarah Henning (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
Prologue (#ulink_b4a55128-3f9c-5819-9e06-451c0f3f0d4d)
Two small pairs of boots echoed on the afternoon cobblestones—one pair in a sprint, the other in a stumble and slide. A blond girl, no older than five, dragged a raven-haired girl an inch taller and a year older down the sea lane toward a small cottage.
The dark-haired girl’s lungs were sputtering, each inhale a failure.
She was drowning on dry land.
As the house came into view, the blond girl opened her mouth to scream for help but before any sound could come out, the other girl’s mother burst through the door. Like she knew what had happened—she always seemed to know what they’d done.
“Evie!” the mother cried, cradling her daughter in a heap at her chest and running toward the cottage. “Anna,” she said to the little blonde, who was panting from carrying her friend so far,“fetch the royal physician—”
“But—”
“Go!”
The girl didn’t protest again, fine boots clacking against thecobblestones as she regained speed.
When her mother shut the cottage door tightly behind them, the raven-headed girl knew the physician’s medicine wouldn’t heal her.
Only one thing would.
“Gianni!” The mother called, and the girl’s father poked his head out of the bedroom, his face slack with the sleep he wasn’t allowed on his latest whaling trip.
“Evie . . . what—”
“A broken rib. Maybe a punctured lung.” She laid the girl in her bed and ripped the girl’s bodice to her navel. Blood under the skin showed black across the expanse of the little girl’s ribs, fissures like spiderwebs crossed from spine to sternum. The mother tried to read her daughter’s dark eyes. “What happened?”
The girl licked her lips before inhaling just enough air to speak.
“I saved Nik.”
That was true. And the little girl was proud. Daring to smile despite the pain.
They’d spent the morning together—the blonde, the raven-haired girl, and their boy—running through the waves, climbing rocks, dancing in the sand. But then the afternoon came and it was time for them to part. The boy sent back to his castle, the little girls home—the younger one to her mansion, ten times the size of the other girl’s tiny cottage.
Mischievous and sunburnt, they ran in protest, the boy leading the way, holding the girls’ hands as they raced across the stepping-stone rocks that led into the cove. They giggled andshrieked as they hopped from rock to rock, the boy’s minder chiding them from the shore.
But one rock was slick with moss. The boy slipped—falling backward, the base of his skull aimed directly at a crook of solid stone.
In a blink, the little girl made her choice.
She threw her body between the boy and the jagged edge of the rock. Her back took the hit with a huge crack. Her head snapped back, her skull missing impact by a hair. Just as she hit, the boy’s head bounced onto the pilled cotton of her bodice rather than smashing into the rock.
It was a thing of magic that she’d made it in time.
They were caught then. The boy’s minder yanked them back onto the beach and told them in stern tones to never do that again. Then the old woman hauled the boy away without a good-bye, leaving the girls on the sand.
As they turned for home, the little raven-haired girl stumbled, the shock wearing off and the pain beginning. It radiated up her back, around her rib cage, to the front of her dress. She couldn’t catch her breath, each inhale stopping short. The little blonde said she’d walk her friend home but by the time they made it to the sea lane, the raven-headed girl couldn’t stand, all her weight on the blonde’s shoulders.
“Oh, Evie . . . ,” the girl’s mother said. As if she’d seen it all. Immediately, she sent her husband for her bottles. Her inks. Not that one. This one. She laid the girl in her bed and lit a fire with a snap of her fingers.
And tried every healing spell she knew.
It only took seconds to know none of them would work. The girl’s breath withered until it was almost nothing at all.
The mother wept, wishing for her sister—the strongest witch. Healer of Kings, reviving those in power who turn a blind eye to magic when their lives depend on it, but banish it when it doesn’t. She was the reason the physician might come at all—though he would be too late. As would Hansa, a day away, healing yet another noble.
The girl’s father pressed his hand into his wife’s shoulder and wiped away her tears. Then he squeezed his daughter’s hand, already growing cold, her circulation failing.
“I’ll go fetch the minister—”
“Not yet,” the mother said, determination ringing in her voice. The girl’s mother stood at the edge of the bed, her shoulders now pin straight, her voice calm and direct. “There is one more spell I can try.”
With gentle fingers, she painted octopus ink across the little girl’s cheeks, down her neck, and across her chest. Then her mother laid her hands gently over the girl’s chest.
“Don’t you worry, Evie.”
The words she said next were old and dark, and the little girl didn’t understand them. They made her blood crackle like the fire across the room. Stole the air from the cottage. Made her mother shake, violently, as she held her hands to her daughter’s skin.
