Write This Way

The Mermaid in the Fog

"Good evening, Madam," said the cold, lifeless voice from my past, or was it my present? Who knew what time could do in dreams, twisting moments and memories together into a senseless blur. I was holding a bottle of perfume and had just taken out the stopper when I turned to see the sharp figure in her black dress hovering at the top of the stair.

I waited in the hushed archway as the scent in the bottle overcame me. It smelled of roses in the hall, wood smoke from the library and something else I couldn't place, like a lost memory. Mrs. Danvers smiled, and I knew she had once again made certain I was the fool forever in Rebecca's shadow.

Why couldn't I shake the ghost that clung to every room and Rhododendron of this mullioned shell called Manderley? Mrs. Danver's white face carried an evil force I could not look away from. I had to escape, but where?

Then, like moonlight breaking through clouds, intuition brightened and I knew where my refuge would have to be as I leaped effortlessly out the open door and onto the drive. I didn't stop as I scrambled down the lawns into the safety of the Happy Valley. Down and down I went until the thickets of azaleas gave way to that sound increasing with every step, the forever wailing call of the sea.

The shingled cove was still and engulfed in its white wall of fog. Without reason or motive, for I was far away from Mrs. Danvers by now, I wanted to go further, deeper into this forgetful territory where dreams tend to lead.

My eyes adjusted to the thick mist and I captured the outline of a woman in the water, wading with a mirror in one hand and a comb in the other. She did not use the objects but held them out from the elbows as though they were weapons of some kind, ready for battle. Her long black hair snaked, covering voluptuous curves as she threw her head back with a laugh, the same laugh that haunted my dreams every night since Manderley had burned to ashes.

Rebecca was as beautiful as I had feared.

"You're coming with me," she commanded from her rocky perch. She was half-submerged, her lithe torso blending into the dark ink of the sea. I faced her from the shore, and as fog bends reality, the distance between us melted away in an instant.

"Never—I'll never go with you," I answered, not because of any concern for my safety, but because Maxim could not suffer any more than he already had. He was wrecked like the vessels that, no matter how much had been warned, still struck the notorious rocks of Cornwall.

"Now," she added, as if that would change my mind. "And if you say 'no' one more time, I'll sick Mrs. Danvers on you."

The tenacious fog began to suffocate. It wrapped its fingers around my neck as I tried to speak, but nothing would come from my throat even as I screamed as loud as possible. Time played games with me as I tried again to force the sound that welled up inside, and suddenly in some other dimension I could speak. "I am not afraid of Mrs. Danvers," I said.

"Mrs. de Winter's been waiting for you." The voice of Mrs. Danvers chilled me as if a western gale had suddenly blown in. There she was again, her figure in that black uniform superimposed in front of the raging sea. Her ghostly face held the harsh quality of a judge sentencing an execution to a poor, careless soul, all hope of empathy dissolved in the verdict. That she used my own title when referring to Maxim's first wife - Rebecca - made me violently ill. When would she understand I had proven my station, that I was Mrs. de Winter now?

"Mrs. Danvers," I gasped. "I have no interest in Rebecca and you mustn't speak of her anymore. She is dead, dead to me and especially to Maxim." This was only a dream after all. I needn't worry. I would wake any moment to the bright Italian sun where Maxim and I now spent our days, far from this crooked, haunted coast.

"Oh dear, I'm not dead," Rebecca said as she rose out of the water. Where her naked body ended the glistening scales formed a tail that quivered like a great sporting fish. "When Max killed me and left my body to rot in the sea, he unleashed the wrath of Zennor. I'm very much alive, as much as Danny here."

"He doesn't love you anymore. He loves me." I let my words prick with the sting of ice on the face.

She laughed again and looked at Mrs. Danvers who had waded to her waist in the long black dress. "Danny, we don't care about love do we? We collect men like horses, and break them as we must." She handed the comb to Mrs. Danvers and commanded, "Hair drill."

"That's right, Ma Lady," Mrs. Danvers stroked the comb through Rebecca's long locks, lovingly like a mother does for her child after a bath.

"We keep Max right here." She pointed to a break in the rocks were the water was still and deep. A light illuminated from her fingers and underneath the indigo surface bobbed the tormented face of Max, trapped there in a giant bubble.

"Maxim!" I cried. But he could not hear or see me, rather it was as if he were trapped in time staring out from his prison cell desperately trying to get someone's attention.

I ran to him on the wobbling beach and into the icy salt water that entered my shoes, my legs, making my skirt billow around me like a bubble of my own.

A bang stung me with a jolt of electricity and I was thrown back, submerged under a wave. The water rushed into my mouth, and I choked on the brine. The undertow was relentless and dragged me to the bottom again and again. I don't know how many times I was knocked down, but after each pummeling I surfaced and spat salt so that I could breathe, intent on my task of reaching Maxim. It was my duty as his wife to free him, to prove that I loved him. Only I could save him from Rebecca.

Finally, with an aching triumph I touched the bubble and it burst around Maxim. He was free at last. I reached to pull him from the spot but his eyes were vacant. A sound began and soon I realized it was coming from Rebecca who was singing to him, a song so unreal it cannot be described, only remembered by those who've heard it as the most beautiful tune ever sung by the most exquisite voice.

"Maxim!" I pulled on his waterlogged sleeve.

He did not move. Rebecca paused in her singing to speak. Her voice dropped to the tone of a lady used to ordering everyone about, just as she had done at Manderley. "You can't have Max. I simply won't allow it."

"Take me! You can have me but leave poor Maxim alone. Hasn't he been through enough?"

"I'm afraid it's too late for that. I don't give second chances." Rebecca continued to sing her eerie, undulating tune.

"Maxim!" I cried again. "Listen to me, not to her. She's evil, she hurt you and we can escape if you'll just come with me, my darling."

He turned his mesmerized gaze from Rebecca to me with curious, forlorn eyes. "What do you want?" he asked as though I was an insistent caller at the hotel door bothering him during his breakfast. It was painfully clear that he did not know me, he had never known me, not during the days when we first met in Monte Carlo or our sublime honey moon or the three months living in his wretched Manderley, nor the month after of our transient wanderings from hotel to hotel. I was once again a stranger to him.

At that moment I realized, I was no longer the second Mrs. de Winter. I would go back to being nobody. Years from now, people would see me sitting alone in a café and if they ever took pity on me and asked what I was sketching or reading, I would tell them my real name, the one the world had almost forgotten, Lethe.

A/N: Thanks for reading this lil bit o' fan fic for the great Daphne du Maurier.
Was Rebecca inspired from Westcountry Mermaid lore? This character's connection to the sea and the mystery that surrounds her makes me think so.

I've also wondered what the unnamed narrator of Rebecca might have been called. Our only hint is that it's a lovely and unusual name. The Meaning of Lethe (pronounced lee-the) is someone forgotten due to drinking from the river in Hades and so I find it a fitting possibility here.

Many thanks to OwainGlyn and    Jos1eDemuth for hosting the #westcountryfantasycontest !