A Magic Deep and Drowning

by Hester Fox

Genres: Historical Fantasy; Occult & Supernatural; Literary Fiction; Dragons & Mythical Creatures

Synopsis

Set in the waning days of the Dutch Golden Age, this enchanting, lush reimagining of The Little Mermaid is perfect for fans of Jesse Burton’s The Miniaturist and Leigh Bardugo’s The Familiar.

Holland, 1650. One fine spring day in Friesland, twenty-year-old Clara van Weiren is faced with an ill omen: a whale, beached and rotting in the noonday sun. But Clara doesn’t believe in magic and superstition, and this portent is quickly dismissed when a proposal from a wealthy merchant arrives, promising Clara the freedom she seeks from her mother’s overbearing rule.

When her attempts at overseeing the household at the family’s estate lead to her chance encounter with a young man with russet hair and sparkling eyes the color of the sea, she finds herself strangely drawn to him. As Clara grows closer to Maurits, she must choose between the steady, gentle life she has been raised for and the man who makes her blood sing.

But Maurits isn’t who he seems to be, and his secrets, once hidden beneath the waves, threaten to rise up and drown them both. And when an ancient bargain, forged in blood between the mythical people of the sea and the rulers of the land, begins to unravel, Clara finds herself at the heart of a deadly struggle for power.

Release date: June 24, 2025

Publisher: Graydon House Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

Introduction

Ever since she was a little girl, Clara has known that there is magic in the number seven.

Seven, the number of days it took God to create the universe and bless the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands with all her riches. Seven, the number of planets that traverse the sky, as observed by the astronomers through their large gold telescopes in Amsterdam. Seven, the number of seas on which the Dutch fleet has overlaid a filigree of trade routes. Seven, the number of deadly sins—lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, wrath, envy, pride—that are forever nipping at the heels of the good Dutch merchants and burghers. Seven, the number of red water lily leaves that adorn the Frisian flag, snapping and fluttering above her parents’ manor house.

But Clara van Wieren, a woman of wealth and privilege, youth and beauty, is not concerned with planets and oceans, sins and virtues. She is only concerned with her own gilded cage, and the secrets and cruelty which keep her in it.

Seven, the number of sounds that haunt Clara van Wieren’s dreams.

• One: The sigh of wind through the poplar trees that edged the canal; no birds. That should have been her first warning, for the trees were always filled with the heckling of magpies, feathered wings shifting and sorting themselves. Had they all flown to some fairer bough, unwilling to bear witness? Or had they collectively held their breath, watching the water and what it bore?
• Two: The drip drip drip of water, restless and awakening. Another warning. The canal that lazed through the estate was usually nothing but calm, disinterested in the traffic of skiffs bearing supplies to the great house. Little fish flashed, ribbons of silver that schooled through the shallows; fleeing or foretelling?
• Three: Laughter, and the scurry of two sets of feet in the fresh spring grass, one in rough wooden clogs, the other in silk slippers embroidered with blushing petals. Always running toward, when they should be running away.
• Four: Heavy skirts clinging to small legs, sloshing through the silt, no longer a game. Low clouds rolling in from the sea, obscuring the brick gables of the house. Too far to call for help.
• Five: Her own voice, foreign and shrill, cutting through the stillness, pleading. Fenna, no! Why did her friend not listen? Why did she move as if in a trance, into the water, deeper, deeper, a solemn funeral procession of one? And why were Clara’s own legs rooted into the ground? She had never been prone to meekness, never been one to accept the natural order of things (much to the despair of her parents), yet there she was, watching tragedy unfold, unable to so much as lift a finger.
• Six: The gurgle of bubbles drifting up from the depths of the canal, rings spreading, acknowledgment of an oblation gratefully received.
• And the seventh sound is silence. 

Part One
Land

Chapter One

The whale’s great eye stared back at Clara, black and glassy as the depths of the ocean. If she had cared to reach out and place her hand above it, she would have found that the eye was bigger than her palm, but she did not care to. Scars and unhealed wounds crisscrossed the slate-colored flesh, speaking to encounters with whalers, the last of which must have been fatal and driven it to the shore.

“Bad omen for a whale to beach,” her maid, Helma, said coming up behind her, stirring Clara from her thoughts. “’Tisn’t a good augur for the future.” The older woman crossed herself.

Clara tore her gaze away from the dead whale. “You say that when there are more than three magpies on a branch,” she countered lightly. “You say that when the wind is in the east. Not everything is a bad omen.” All the same, her heart twisted at the sight of the once great sea creature rendered prostrate on the land.

With a grunt, Helma turned away, muttering to herself. “Three magpies on a branch means a funeral, everyone knows that.”

Clara shrugged and breathed in a great breath of fresh, salty air. How good it felt to be out of the confines of the estate and on something of an adventure. Endless blue skies stretched above her, the steady lap of the sea making her feel small, yet whole. The beach teemed with people, all drawn by the spectacle of so great a beast washed ashore. Some of the bolder among them clambered up on its back, as if it were a conquered dragon from the days of yore, or a mountain to be claimed in the name of the Dutch Republic. They were as sharp-eyed and curious as the gulls wheeling above, all keen for some pickings from the creature, whether it was a piece of rubbery flesh to take home, or simply the story of having seen it. A little distance away from the activity, near the dunes, a painter had set up an easel and was taking his brush to canvas. Of course, Clara was no better than any of them, coming for her own selfish reasons.

A man in a broad-brimmed hat and rumpled coat saw her raising her handkerchief to her mouth and grinned. “Aye, ripe as a fishmonger’s wife, isn’t it? Was alive when it washed ashore, my brother came down to see it and said that it was weak, gasping for breath. The next day it was dead.” He took off his cap and scratched at his greasy hair. “Just think of it,” he said. “The air being like water is for us. Drowning in air.”

Clara wasn’t certain how whales breathed exactly, but it sounded true enough. “That’s awful!” The whale’s upside-down mouth gaped back at her like a slashed canvas. She shuddered. “The poor creature.”

The man shrugged. “Don’t be sorry on its account. Be sorry for the whalers who lost all their capital chasing it about, only to lose it. Had they finished the job on the water they would have been the ones enjoying the spoils.” He grinned. “As it is now, us folks on land can make a pretty piece of coin from the oil.” He waved his bucket at her, and she recoiled as its purpose became clear.

Wandering away, he whistled and swung the bucket. It had seemed like such a lark when Clara had heard that a whale had beached, but now seeing how wretched it was she wished she had not begged to make the journey by carriage with Helma. Men were cutting strips of its blubber with their knives, one even boasting that he’d have the eye. Another said that it was not the eye that was valuable, but its sex organ. “Grind it up into a powder, that’s what the Chinese do. Say it has the powers to make a man as virile as a bull, and gets a woman with child in the blink of an eye.” There was a ripple of derisive laughter at this, but more than a few of the men casually made their way to the other end, knives in hand with nervous excitement. 

watched the men with distaste, her neck prickled as if someone were scrutinizing her with the same level of interest with which she was watching the whale and its carrion pickers. Had her mother and father learned that she had absconded for the afternoon? Had they come to bring her back home? She looked about, but aside from the painter on the dune, there was no one that could be watching her from afar. She shivered.

“Come, Helma. I want to go home,” Clara said, turning abruptly. She had lied to her parents, telling them that Helma was taking her to church, and ever loyal, Helma had played along. Now as the hairs on the back of her neck lifted, she wished she hadn’t.

Helma’s shoulders sagged in relief. “Finally, a bit of sense from you,” she said. “It looks like rain and I promised your father we wouldn’t be but a couple of hours.”

“In that case, the whale surely was an omen,” she told her maid, “because we’ve already been three hours from home and Papa will not be pleased.”

Helma crossed herself again, muttering a prayer, or perhaps it was something a little more vulgar—Clara was never certain which. The cross was only one such superstition in the old woman’s arsenal; Clara often caught her tossing salt over her shoulder, touching a piece of wood with her right hand, or fumbling in her pocket for any number of questionable amulets.

The carriage which had borne them the nearly ten miles from her home in the fens was waiting obligingly just past the dunes, where the road was still hard-packed dirt. Helma climbed heavily in, Clara behind her. With a lingering sense of unease, Clara glanced one last time over her shoulder at the whale, the people gathered around it like carnivorous ants, and the stormy horizon beyond.

 

The carriage jostled and bumped over the pitted dirt roads the entire way back home, throwing Clara’s stomach into turmoil. If she were a little silver fish, she could have slid as quick as you please through the smooth water of the canal. Even with her head between her knees, the landscape that they passed was imprinted on her mind: fields, flat and mellow green, stretched out to an endless horizon, broken only by the occasional poplar tree. This was the sky’s domain, and it sat expansive and benevolent atop a world as flat as parchment.

Though Clara might make light of her father’s displeasure, she did not relish the prospect of explaining herself to him when they got back, nor learning of what he wanted to speak to her about that night. It wasn’t that Clara was frightened of him, not exactly. Clara’s mother, Katrina, might oversee the running of the household with a backbone made of iron, but even she deferred to her husband. Theodor van Wieren bent nature to his will, imparting the same rigid hierarchy to which those within his household adhered, to the plants and animals of the estate. The breeze was made to kindly beg permission before rustling through the carefully pruned branches of his beloved apple trees. Frogs dared not jump from the lily pads in the canal, lest they disrupt the glassy surface with their vulgar ripples. But a beached whale was hardly something which her father could control, and so Clara had all but leapt at the chance to go and see a thing simply for the sake of seeing it where it ought not to have been.

By the time they arrived back at the sprawling stone house, Helma was complaining of a stiff back and the sun was casting mellow shadows in the poplar trees. Not quite ready to resign herself to an evening of needlepoint and stern lectures from her father, Clara begged off going inside. “Tell Papa that we are back and that I’m going for a turnabout in the garden.”

Helma gave her a long look, but she was rubbing at her stiff back and Clara knew she would not deny her. “Oh, alright, only don’t get your new slippers any dirtier than they already got at the beach. And make sure you’re back in before dark or your mother will have my head.”

First Clara’s wet nurse, then her nursemaid, and now her companion, Helma had been a constant presence in Clara’s life, almost like a second mother. And one overbearing mother was quite enough for her. The woman never seemed to age either, and Clara guessed that she could have been anywhere from fifty to seventy years old.

“You worry too much, Helma.” But seeing Helma’s tight lips and tired eyes, Clara softened and promised that she would be back in soon. Clara was careful to keep to the manicured paths that traversed the grounds, only daring to stray when she was well out of sight of the small castle.

gravel paths that cut the great lawn into precise concentric circles and intersecting triangles. Her father had hired a mathematician to plot it out, and the man had claimed that it was the most mathematically pleasing design to both the eye and the mind. She would walk with hands clasped demurely at her waist so long as she was in view of the house, but as soon as she rounded the first rose bushes, she would let out a sigh of relief and run ahead of Helma. Behind her, Clara would hear Helma giving up with a great sigh, then yelling out her evergreen warning of “Mind your shoes, and stay away from the water!” Then Helma would sit down heavily on one of the stone benches that lined the walkway where she would catch her breath and wait until Clara had expended her energy.

But there were only so many times one could take the same walk with one’s maid for company. There were only so many gravel paths and concentric circles that one could trod before one became inured to the charm of a garden, no matter how well plotted out it was. When she had exhausted the paths, Clara would dart a glance quickly over her shoulder, and then skirt over to the canal.

The placid canal shimmered, a tight little copse of trees forming a shady grove around it. A school of silver fish darted by, sending a shiver of remembrance down Clara’s spine.

Placing a polished shell she had found on the beach at the edge of the canal, Clara bowed her head. “Fenna,” she murmured to the water. It was a superstition, taught to her by Helma as a way to remember and honor the dead. Clara didn’t need shells or tokens to remember her long-lost friend though; she had the nightmares, and the sounds.

Clara was breathing deeply, savoring the green canopy and lazy water of the canal when she caught a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye. She froze, her neck prickling again as it had on the beach. “Is someone there?” she called. The only response was the burgeoning sigh of the breeze through the branches above. Then: drip drip drip. She did not wait for the third sound. Picking up her skirts, Clara hurried back inside, mindless of the mud. 

 

Chapter Two

Despite Helma’s pleas to keep her shoes clean, mud had wicked up the silk and her slippers left faint imprints as Clara tiptoed through the tiled hall, careful to only step on the white tiles. It had been a game from her childhood, the white tiles land, safe, the dark tiles, water, dangerous.

Between the tiles and up to the vaulted ceilings, paintings covered every inch of the walls, their subjects ranging from cathedral interiors, quiet domestic scenes, storms at sea, and even the stray bawdy tavern scene. As a child, Clara had liked these best, with their colorful casts of characters like dwarfs, house wives ruddy-cheeked and drunk on ale, dogs scavenging amongst the littered floors. But as she grew older, she gravitated more and more toward those scenes of ships on the sea, tempest-tossed and wild. Even the landscape paintings were too tame for her, with their precise fields, rows of poplar trees, and clean-swept dirt roads. The ships might have once been perfect, but their canvas sails and carved mastheads were no match for the raw power of the cresting waves and dark, billowing clouds. Unlike the land, there was nothing man could do that far out at sea to tame it.

Her father was no great appreciator of art; Clara was certain of that much. If the vogue had been to collect silver, then their walls would have been covered in plates and medallions. If it had been possible to affix exotic spices and fine wines to the walls, her father would have done so. In the absence of these, painted renditions had to suffice. More than once, Clara had wondered what it would be like to take brush to canvas, to be the one to create an entire world unto itself. The idea was thrilling, but young ladies did not paint in oils.

As if overhearing Clara’s thoughts, her father’s voice rang out just as she reached the stairs and was on the verge of safety. “Clara? Is that you? Come in here, girl.”

With a sigh, she abandoned her pretensions of quiet, and followed her father’s voice to the dining hall. A healthy fire flickered in the tiled hearth, where her mother, back straight as a plank, sat embroidering an elaborate altar cloth. She gave her daughter a small nod of acknowledgment as she pulled the thread through the hoop on the stand.

Her father gestured to one of the tapestried chairs, and she obediently sat, careful to tuck her soiled shoes under the chair legs.

Taller than her mother, dark-haired and lean, Theodor van Wieren had no defining physical features other than a pleasantly bland countenance. He was not a man of flowery words or long speeches; business deals could be made and brokered in the time it might take to finish with all the usual pleasantries about the weather. But, just like all the other merchants, Protestantism could not vanquish his love of gold and sumptuous things. If his home was not a bastion of wealth and plenty, how would society know that he was successful, and thus trust him with their investments? And if he was not successful, how could he pay tithes to the church? Glory be to God, but also to the shrewd businessman. Worldly wealth was a spiritual necessity, her father liked to remind her.

So when he sat his only daughter down, Theodor did not mince words or ease her into the matter at hand.

“As you know, it is near time you were married, and your mother and I have found a suitable match for you.”

Clara, used to her father’s direct manner and even more familiar with the paths of thought his mind took, simply said, “Oh,” and tucked her chin in a little to give the words more room to circulate as she digested them. She suspected that this conversation had been coming for some time. 

ying them out. “Hendrik Edema of Franeker. He comes with three of his own ships and a good deal of esteem amongst his fellow burghers.” Theodor paused, rubbed at his neat black beard, and added in way of an afterthought, “I believe he is in his thirties, and is considered to not be ill-looking.”

Clara barely registered these considerations. She didn’t care if he was the most handsome man in Friesland, or if he were richer than the Pope. He could have three legs and a cabbage for a head, for all she cared. The only thing that mattered was that she was being handed a golden key. A key which would allow her to unlock a future that belonged to her and her alone. She would be mistress of her own household. There would be different grounds to walk, dinners to plan for the city merchants, and, most importantly, she could finally escape the estate and the ghosts that haunted it. It was a grand adventure, and it was being laid right at her feet.

Perhaps expecting that their daughter would fight them on this as Clara had done with so many other things, her mother was already sitting forward in her chair, a frown knit into her brows. “It’s a very good match. He has a large estate and is looking for a wife that can manage it with ease and grace for him. I know you would have liked to meet some young man, but this is not the city, and you are a young woman of great means and standing. Care must be taken with such a match.”

She couldn’t remember, but it sounded like the sort of threat that her younger self might have made in a moment of irritation. “No,” she hurried to assure her mother. “If you and Papa think it a good match then I should be glad to meet him.”

Clara didn’t miss the silent look that passed between her parents, one of wary surprise and cautious optimism. “Good,” her father said. “Because I have invited him to come early next week.”

She squirmed under her father’s direct gaze. “Will that be all, Papa?”

He held her gaze a moment longer—there was no opportunity for control too small that he would not seize. But he finally nodded and released her, and she wasted no time escaping back to her bedchamber.

 

“See, Helma?” Clara said that night as Helma helped undress her and plait her hair for bed. “You said that a beached whale was a bad omen, but here is the best of news. I’m to be married and have a household of my own.”

No more slaps and blows from her mother, or arms twisted painfully when her words got away from her. No more stifling estate with its watching waters. Freedom was so close she could taste it on her tongue, like the sweet juice of an orange.

Helma didn’t say anything as she brushed out her young mistress’s hair, but her strokes were long and severe.

“Well, aren’t you glad for me? Don’t be in a pout. If you’re worried that you won’t come with me, you are sillier than I thought. Of course you shall come with me, and you will help me in the running of the household, for I’m afraid that as it stands I would make a hopeless mess of it.”

Already Clara’s mind was racing in a thousand different directions. There would be a trousseau, which would require trips into town for measurements and fittings. Would she be allowed to take the spinet to her household? Perhaps her new husband would buy her one of her own. She would need to improve her embroidery skills; he would expect that much of her, as well as her knowledge of cookery and managing kitchen staff.

Helma was silent as she brushed, and Clara wondered if she hadn’t heard her. But then Helma put down the brush and looked at her in the mirror. “I’m sure your parents have made a very thoughtful match for you,” she said, but she did not look convinced of her own words as she worried at her lips.

With a huff, Clara turned in her seat to face her. “You clearly disapprove, so why don’t you tell me why?”

“It’s not that I disapprove,” Helma said. “It’s just . . .” She looked lost for words, even a little anxious. “Only, promise me that you’ll be careful, little sparrow.”

Clara frowned. Helma never called her the endearment from her girlhood anymore. “Be careful? I’m not a child,” she said. “I’m nearly one-and-twenty and quite ready to be married.”

“If you say so,” Helma murmured, resuming her brushing. But when Clara tried to meet her eye in the mirror, Helma avoided it. 

Helma. “Stay a moment,” she instructed her. “I am too excited to sleep. Tell me a story about the old days, when there was still magic in Friesland.”

Helma looked weary, but she sat with a grunt on the edge of the counterpane. “I thought you were too old for pet names and stories of magic. Besides,” she added with raised brows, “there was never magic in my lifetime. I’m not that old.”

Nevertheless, Helma obliged as she always did, and Clara allowed her eyes to grow heavy as she slipped away into the tales of little folk that lived in tulips, the tricky willow men who were forever striking sly bargains, mermaids, basilisks, and handsome young heroes.

 

Interstitial

The widde juvven are the souls of women who were wronged by their men in life, and now seek their revenge upon the guileless living. They make their wretched homes in the wet, forgotten places, such as peat bogs, swamps, and even grave mounds. It is said that because of their broken hearts and searching for their absent lovers, that they have become skilled in finding lost things.

Beware the columns of mist that arise from these places and move in groups of three, for certainly it is the widde juvven, and woe to the soul who finds themselves alone on a dark road with mist hovering behind them. But if you are clever and brave, you might strike a bargain, and the widde juvven will use their skills of detection to help you find that which you have lost.

 

Chapter Three

The day after learning of her impending marriage, Clara flung herself out of bed at the first light of dawn. She had hardly slept, shapeless nightmares haunting the little sleep she’d had, the sounds of Fenna’s running footsteps and the quietly sinister dripping of water. Would the nightmares stop once she was married and living in her husband’s house? There were a hundred reasons the wedding couldn’t come soon enough.

“If I’m going to run my own household, I’ll need to understand how the kitchen works and what goes into managing it,” she announced to her parents as they broke their fast. “I need to know if ingredients are going to waste, and what the cook is preparing.”

Her mother frowned at her from across the table. “There is no agreement yet, and you haven’t even met the man,” she said. “Baking bread is the last thing you ought to be thinking about. Dedicate yourself to your spinet lessons, and that tangle of thread you call embroidery. A man wants a wife who has mastered such feminine skills, not a scullery maid covered in flour.”

Her father tilted his head in consideration. “Nay, Katrina. Our daughter is right. We have coddled her in that she has not had to worry about such household minutiae. Any city woman of means would share equally in the running of a household. Clara ought to learn how to bake bread, as well as how to oversee a kitchen and plan meals.”

“So you would have her toiling with sleeves rolled up like a fishmonger’s wife? Besides, do you think that Mr. Edema does not have his own cook already?”

“Naturally the man does not pluck his own fowl nor bake his own bread,” her father retorted coolly.

Pressing her lips into a tight line, her mother resumed spearing the herring on her plate with a silver fork. Despite the small victory, Clara felt a pang of sympathy for her mother; she knew all too well what it was like to be corrected by her father.

Clara picked at her own food. She had lived here her whole life, and never once had she considered what went into running the kitchen, other than to occasionally badger their cook, Inka, for a piece of fresh-baked ginger cake. A day spent in the kitchen was a far cry from a carriage ride to the shore to see a beached whale, but it might be diverting in its own way.

In the end Clara was granted her request, much to Helma’s dismay. “But you’ll have a cook in your new household!” her maid protested, echoing her mother’s sentiments. Perhaps she was still unsure about her role in Clara’s future, and was worried that allowing her young mistress to bake bread was the beginning of a slippery slope that would lead to the redundancy of Helma’s own position. “Any man as respectable as Mr. Edema would never ask his wife to bake him a loaf of bread with her own hands.”

Clara was busy changing into one of her old dresses. She had always been tall for a girl—or so her mother was always lamenting—but over the last year she had grown as fast as a spring onion, leaving most of her hems hovering awkwardly about her ankles. Now she had a surplus of dresses fit only for chores and housework.

“That’s not the point,” Clara explained with thin patience. “I have to know how it’s made so that I can supervise.” She envisioned herself as perpetually busy in her role as wife and housekeeper, involved with every aspect of the household. She would oversee every domestic task from bread making to upholstery choices for the furniture to commissioning family portraits. She would be busy. She would be fulfilled. She would be in control.

 

and pillowy, rising cheerfully like the sun and peeking over the rim of the bowl. Lumps bubbled up from her soupy mess, and when Clara tried to punch down the air, her hand came away trailing sticky globs. She wiped her hands on her apron, leaving smears of watery flour. Her mother had been right; Clara did not make a picture of domestic bliss in the kitchen, but rather one of a sticky failure. Hendrik Edema would not be impressed. What if, on seeing Clara’s lack of household skills, he sent her back to her parents? What if there were a string of men after him, each deeming her to be unworthy? She could not fail in this.

Inka shook her head, biting back her criticism of her young mistress. “It’s not as firm as we’d like,” she said tactfully, “but hopefully the next loaf will be a success and rise.” It was an expensive endeavor to use so much flour in wasted experiments, and Clara knew that eventually she would have to produce an edible loaf, or even patient Inka would turn her out of the kitchen.

Clara fetched a new bowl. It was hard to be upset. Even if her bread wasn’t a success, ...