Mermaidia: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

  And Isbeil claimed he was in love with her.

  “Is this about Ian?”

  My sister was the ruler of cold stares.

  “Finnegan, then.”

  “So you have been listening to me, after all.”

  “I have,” I said.

  That was when I realized that my favorite sister was on the verge of starving herself to death because she couldn’t be with the boy she wanted. Why would she do something like this?

  Isbeil seemed to read my mind.

  “You’ve never been in love,” she said. “That’s why you don’t understand. You always break off relationships before they get serious, running away from deep emotions, like they’re poisonous.”

  A surge of anger flowed through me, heat that made my blue-scaled skin turn violet. She didn’t know or understand anything about me. Not really. None of us got to choose our mates in Talla Na Cloinne.

  Our fates, our very lives were decided for us by Father.

  Love was the forbidden fruit here. Take one bite and you may as well be dead.

  Isbeil narrowed her eyes.

  “The truth hurts,” she said.

  I swallowed, my mouth dry. I couldn’t look at her, I finally understood.

  Because that was when it hit me, right in the center of my chest, like my sister had thrown a trident and pinned me in my chair.

  My breath came in shallow gasps, each one more painful than the last.

  Hadn’t I been thinking about the Selkie every waking minute, so much so that sometimes I couldn’t even eat until I’d seen her again? I’d convinced myself it was out of curiosity or fascination.

  But love?

  Surely not.

  Still, why had I been going to see her every single day for the past three months, making sure she had food and blankets and that she stayed alive? Why did I imply that I would help her escape?

  The last thing my father wanted was for the Selkie to escape.

  It was the last thing I wanted too.

  I leaned forward, my face in my hands.

  Isbeil and I were both going to end up with broken hearts. Our people would sing tragic songs about the blue merman and mermaid who died for love.

  We would be a cautionary tale for all the royal children born after us.

  Unless I did something to change our destiny.

  We would have to be clever and our lies would have to sparkle brighter than the truth. My sister and I would have to work together.

  We stayed up all night long, coming up with a plan, part of it based on information Isbeil told me about our father’s plans for the Selkie, plans that were more horrible than I could have imagined. If nothing else, I had to make sure they did not come to fruition.

  If they did, three kingdoms would be in danger.

  The Na Fir Ghorm, the Selkies, and the humans.

  All because a fifteen-year-old Selkie girl had come to us, asking for help.

  Riley:

  The night was long and cold and frightening. Howls and screams came from another prison cell, not far from mine. Even though I’d never seen it, I knew it held human slaves. From time to time, their words sifted down rocky corridors to my cavern.

  There must have been a shipwreck recently, carrying passengers from Europe. I couldn’t tell what the humans were saying, but their language sounded Russian.

  I didn’t need an interpreter to know what was happening to them.

  They were being tortured.

  While they cried and shouted, I whittled my spoons into shivs, one sharp enough to pierce a merman’s chest and stop his heart, another one with a point fine enough to pick the locks on my shackles.

  I should have done this long ago.

  But I had been seduced by Triton’s kindness, I had fallen prey to his soft words and playful smiles.

  I was a fool.

  There was a point in the Long Dark Night when the cries of my neighboring captives reached a spine-chilling crescendo. After that came silence, interspersed by whimpering and thick, gurgling attempts at speech, none of it intelligible.

  I knew what had happened.

  Their tongues had been cut out.

  At that point, I cringed, my fingers curling in, my knees pulled to my chest, and I desperately fought tears. I had to be strong. The guards could be coming for me next.

  And they did.

  But not to maim me.

  A tall blue merman wearing iron armor unlocked my door and then tossed a dead body into the cell with me. I could only glance at it, then I refused to look upon it again.

  It was a human girl, about my age, her body covered with bites, so many I could barely see the true color of her skin. It was purple and green and red and black...

  I couldn’t breathe, still, I held my head high.

  I had royal blood. I would not be murdered like this.

  I. Would. Not.

  The guard left the door open. It was just like Triton had warned me. If the door to my cell was ever left open, I shouldn’t run away, no matter what. It was a trap.

  So, I didn’t run, although I wanted to. Instead, I clutched my shivs in my fists and I curled in the farthest corner, trying my best to be invisible.

  I had to stay alive.

  The midnight torches were replaced, a ritual done every day that meant it was morning. You couldn’t see the sun down here, so far beneath the ocean’s surface, so the Na Fir Ghorm imitated the cycle of the moon and the sun with the color of their fire.

  Midnight torches burned blue.

  Morning torches burned red.

  So, it was when my cell was the color of fresh blood that a commotion rang out in the corridor, deep male voices that began to protest but were all silenced by the gentle voice of a highborn girl. Her accent was both Scottish and Gaelic, her speech littered with words so ancient I couldn’t understand them.

  I knew she was royal before I saw her.

  When she appeared in the door to my cavern, I thought she was the Queen for a moment, for she had similar features and striking beauty. Sapphire blue skin, delicate bone structure, long legs and arms, eyes the color of the sky that I had not seen for months, a smile that brightened the room.

  Like Triton’s smile.

  I felt a brief flutter of hope and my throat thickened with tears. I didn’t want to be weak or to look frail, but I had been so certain that my death would come soon—

  “Riley?” the blue mermaid said my name and it sounded like a balm to my soul. “You will come with me, please?”

  She didn’t command me, though she could.

  She was a princess, wearing a small coral crown woven through her long blue-green hair. I could see that she was frail, as if she struggled with a serious illness, but that didn’t mean she was weak.

  I dropped my shivs and left them on the ground when I stood.

  “Yes,” I said, not questioning her.

  I did my best to avert my gaze from the dead slave on the ground, but the mermaid princess was staring at her, tears in her eyes, so I could not help myself.

  When I looked at the dead girl’s twisted body, I recognized the bites.

  They were made by the Na Fir Ghorm.

  A shudder ran through me and I was afraid.

  The princess reached toward me, taking my hand. Then she led me out of the prison and up one twisting corridor after another until I was lost, like I was in a maze. Once we were far from the guards, I became bold enough to speak. There were things I had to know.

  “How did you get me out?” I asked. “And why?”

  “The King is my father. And Triton is my brother.”

  “But won’t the Queen be angry? She came to see me every day when I was locked up. She laughed and mocked me. Seeing me there brought her joy—”

  “I told all of that to my father,” the princess explained, her voice sweet and soft. “I told him that you are valuable, but you would die if we left you in prison. You would either catch a plague from the rats—and possibly spread it to the rest
of us—or you would die of starvation. He agreed that you would not be valuable if you were dead.”

  She gently pulled me toward her and put one arm around my waist. “You are safe now, little Selkie,” she whispered. “I promise you that no one will hurt you while I am alive.”

  I didn’t know that when a mermaid or a merman makes a promise, it’s a vow unto death.

  But I didn’t need to know that.

  Because I knew that I had finally found a true friend.

  Triton:

  I didn’t see Riley that day or the next, but I made my sister promise to give the Selkie all of her favorite foods. I began to recite a list that included seaweed soup and brown crabs and lobster claws. Then Isbeil had laughed at me, reminding me that those were all my favorite dishes, too.

  I had smiled back.

  My sister would never hurt this Selkie.

  I wanted to be there when Riley was welcomed into Isbeil’s lavish quarters, where they would both be treated like royalty, served and tended by our most trusted cousins, Bran and Niall.

  Family could kill you or family could heal you.

  You just had to know which ones to trust.

  Now, I was off on a journey to discover which humans I could trust.

  I left our kingdom through a back alley, careful to note all of my mother’s spies nestled amongst the rocks and crevices.

  “Tell the Queen I go on a secret mission on her behalf. Warn her that, if anyone but the Queen herself learns of this, all will fail,” I said. It looked like I was talking to myself, until several brown crabs peeked out at me, and then took a few sideways steps to make sure I saw them. “Remember what I said or you will be my dinner when I return.”

  They all quickly scampered away.

  My journey took me through the Cave of Teeth—there was no other way in or out, though I had discovered a shorter, more dangerous route when I was a child. Here, the passage was narrower, the rocks sharper, and the scavenging fish less obedient. I had many scars on my chest and my back from traveling this path, but I had never been followed.

  Not being followed was very important today.

  I swam through deep water until I reached the nearest seaport, where ships anchored, both large and small. It didn’t take long before I found a mid-sized boat, bobbing on the waves, its name written in bright pink script—this foolish human could lose his head for naming his boat this.

  The Isbeil.

  He must be in love. Only love could make you do something so stupid.

  Like risk Poseidon’s wrath by stealing his daughter.

  Or his Selkie.

  First, I swam beneath the boat, checking its seaworthiness. Then, I climbed aboard, testing the oars and the sails, searching through the supplies, checking the fishing nets. I examined every inch of the small craft and, once I was assured it was strong enough for the journey, then I hid in the cabin and waited.

  I returned two evenings later, on a moonless midnight, and like a shadow, I slipped through our kingdom of coral and granite and pearl. Blue torches greeted me when I found my way to the narrow hallways of Talla Na Cloinne.

  There, I knocked softly on my sister’s door. She let me into her quarters and I ran my gaze throughout the front room until I saw that Riley was there. My sister had risked her own safety to free the Selkie.

  “Did Finnegan say yes?” Isbeil asked, eagerness in her voice.

  “Not at first,” I answered, toying with her.

  “What do you mean?”

  “First, he said, where is she, have you seen her, is she all right, is she safe? He had a million questions about you, all of them proof that he truly is besotted. Are you sure you didn’t use magic on that fool?”

  Riley listened to our banter, saw the light in my sister’s eyes, and the Selkie smiled. But her gaze kept returning to me. She took in the fresh bloody scratches on my torso—the price of traveling a shorter route—and she winced.

  I paused what I was saying to look at her.

  Could she have been worried about me?

  I shook that thought off quickly.

  Her feelings for me didn’t matter. We would not end up together. Destiny wasn’t that kind.

  But her freedom was another matter entirely.

  “Here.” I handed a bag to my sister. “There are garments inside for both of you. You won’t be able to wear them until later, but make sure they fit.”

  “Take whatever you want,” Isbeil said to Riley, pushing the bag toward her.

  The Selkie stared down at the assortment of human clothes—blue jeans, t-shirts, sweatshirts, socks, tennis shoes. She ran her fingers over the jeans, blinking fast as if fighting tears.

  She would cry over a pair of pants?

  I didn’t understand until she spoke.

  “I haven’t worn clothes like this since—” She paused, her voice broken. “Since the sea monster stole me from my home. It was the night I thought I would die.” She stared up at me and began to explain. “I won’t say its name because I know it would upset Isbeil, but that beast hunts Selkies. You might not know that. If we live on land for too long, it will find us, like a punishment for pretending to be human. It drags us far out to sea, as if saying, this is where you belong, and then it...it...”

  “Sweet Riley, you don’t have to say it,” Isbeil said.

  “I do.” She took a deep breath. “Then it eats us. But no one knows the other things it does. No one lives through it.” Tears began to flow down her cheeks and I wanted nothing more than to make her forget. I wanted to take her in my arms and tell her that the Hinquememem would never find her again.

  Except I couldn’t promise that.

  “I can’t. I can’t say what I’ve seen. It was too horrible.”

  The jeans she had been holding fell from her fingers.

  “Have you told her our plan?” I asked my sister.

  “Part of it.”

  I nodded. Of course, my dear sister couldn’t tell her everything. That was something I had to do.

  Riley could refuse to help us.

  And if she did, that meant Isbeil would never be able to escape either.

  Riley:

  I didn’t know where he had gone. I only knew that I thought I might never see him again.

  That blasted, beautiful, blue merman who had stolen my heart and now held it in his hands.

  He was bleeding, he was wounded, but he never said a word about it. Every breath came with pain and, even though his words sounded happy, the expression in his eyes said the opposite.

  And now, this boy who was responsible for rescuing me from prison was about to tell me a secret plan.

  I only wanted him to take me in his arms.

  I hated myself for it. I wasn’t that kind of girl. I didn’t swoon over pretty boys or handsome boys or any boys. Sometimes I thought that my human heart had turned to stone on that night when the Hinquememem tried to kill me. Every time I started to experience emotions again, that beast would return.

  I was afraid to love.

  So, this had to be friendship I was feeling; I’d been worried about Triton; he visited me every day to please his father.

  But now, he began to tell me a different story. One of rebellion and danger, one that proved none of this had been done to honor the King. Far from it.

  This boy who pretended that he didn’t care about me was risking everything so I could escape.

  “My father made you take a blood oath,” Triton began, staring at the floor. “I thought he meant to take you as a bride when you mature—and that was bad enough. His wives are little more than slaves. But Isbeil overheard him talking to our mother, telling her his plans.”

  King Poseidon was going to force me to marry him, but he was also going to force me to do one other thing. Selkies have a special ability that no other creatures of the sea have—we could make ourselves look human, fully human. The Na Fir Ghorm came close, except they always carried the color of their blue skin when they walked on two legs.
<
br />   If I refused to share my secret, Poseidon planned to use a Sea Witch to enchant me.

  “Why does your father want me to teach him how to do this?” I asked.

  “After your marriage, he plans to unite this kingdom with that of the Selkie King—Neptune,” Isbeil said.

  I shook my head. “King Neptune would never agree—”

  “He will. When he hears the second half of the deal,” Triton said. “The two Underwater Kingdoms will unite and both armies will disguise themselves as human. They’ll sneak into key positions in the human world, taking the coastal cities first, then moving inland. My father has a whole battle plan put together and it all hinges on you.”

  No.

  This couldn’t be true.

  And yet, when I looked at Isbeil and then Triton, I saw that they believed it.

  “What can I do?” I asked. “How can I stop this?”

  “Help my sister escape,” Triton said. “Teach her how to look human. Then she can go wherever she wants. And they will...I mean, we will take you wherever you want to go. You have to flee too. Poseidon can’t force you to honor your blood oath if he can’t find you.”

  His eyes glistened with tears when he spoke.

  “You’re coming with us?” I asked.

  “Of course.”

  But he glanced quickly away when he answered and I knew there was something he wasn’t telling me.

  Teaching Isbeil to disguise her blue skin was harder than any of us expected. In the beginning, all of my efforts only made her color darker. Once, her skin turned purple, then it flicked to rose, and I thought we were almost there. But she wasn’t able to hold that shade very long.

  Then there was another time when she got so frustrated that she burst into tears. She sank to the floor, her face hidden in her hands.

  I glanced at Triton.

  He raised his eyebrows and shrugged, as if confused about what to do. Then he simply sat beside her, not saying a word, just taking her into his arms, letting her weep as long as she needed. He never teased or reprimanded her. He never reminded her how important this was.