Mermaidia: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

  The poorer sections of the city were fashioned from rock and coral.

  Only the royals had riches that could burn.

  Black smoke rose like the head of a dragon.

  Gold and silver melted.

  That was when the magic started.

  When my father woke and he realized he was trapped; when his guards ran for water but it was too far away; when my mother fled with her children down a back corridor—a secret stairway that I had carved for her myself when I realized my father would let her perish during an invasion; when my brothers and sisters wrapped themselves in water-soaked blankets and lay upon the floor knowing they would survive because I had promised I would never harm them.

  Neither a merman nor a mermaid can break their vow.

  So, Isbeil’s promise to protect Riley would be true. And my promise to get my sister to safety was true as well.

  But my father made vows, too, as the flames surged and the smoke grew thicker. He was making them even now, cursing whoever had started this fire. He should have been dying. Instead, he was conjuring dark magic with the Cailleach, a Sea Witch he kept chained in his private quarters.

  She was screaming and singing until her fingers smoked like incense and her hair burst into flames and her skin cracked; she was casting the fire away from his door, barring it entry.

  Not one thing caught fire in his rooms.

  Except for her.

  She burned, a candle that could not be extinguished, her eyes like stars, her skin melting.

  Throughout the palace, everyone screamed and ran and hid. Outside the castle, the fire spread.

  King Poseidon didn’t care about anyone else. Let the rest of the city burn, as long as he and his guards were safe.

  So, the Cailleach’s breath came out like an invisible shower of rain and it moved throughout the King’s portion of the palace, wet, musty, clammy, cold. Rivulets of icy water ran between rocky cracks, dripping and falling. Then there came a hiss, like that of a great snake, and you could almost see the beast slithering from one corridor to the next, an enchanted serpent that ate the fires before they could harm the Great Poseidon.

  At last, the burning Sea Witch called my name and a shiver ran through me, halting me in place, every muscle frozen.

  I could not move.

  My father’s vow of vengeance came true in that moment, when he promised to destroy whoever had set this fire. He didn’t know it had been me, his chosen heir, or that he could never undo the consequence.

  This was how the worst curses came to be.

  When you conjured magic out of vengeance and anger and cared for no one but yourself.

  On that day, I was changed.

  The Cailleach wove an incantation as dangerous as the net that trapped Isbeil and Riley. I would never be able to free myself. The spell took root inside me until I was no longer a merman—I became a monster with long tentacles and a merman’s tail and a human head. I was a hideous thing, crafted for dark deeds, a creature with a hunger for Na Fir Ghorm flesh.

  I let out an unholy scream, one that shook the entire kingdom and made every soul tremble with fear.

  Then I slithered down the corridors, faster than any of the King’s guards and more dangerous than any of their weapons, until I found my way to the water’s edge.

  There, with a cry louder than a banshee, I dove into the ocean deep, where I began a lifelong hunt for the blue-skinned Na Fir Ghorm, those who had once been my dearest friends and kin.

  Riley:

  The ground trembled. Rocks fell from the highlands and rolled toward the sea. The water below us churned and frothed, and I thought I heard a voice calling my name from far away.

  A voice I recognized.

  Triton told me that wild things needed to be free.

  Something wild and dangerous was screaming and it terrified me, because I recognized it.

  It was like the Hinquememem, borne of dark witchcraft and vengeance. I could feel the magic sparking in the air, like the fisherman’s net, a tangled, killing power that could lure you closer...

  Please, no.

  Whatever it was, it shrieked like a siren and it called us to come, to leap into the ocean, to swim as hard and fast as we could, until we found it.

  Until it owned us.

  Bran pulled away from me, an expression on his face like he was possessed by the darkest, most horrible fear. It was as if he knew exactly what he was doing, but couldn’t stop himself. Before I could say a word, he ran toward the edge of the boat and plunged into the sea.

  No, no, no...

  Then Niall did the same thing.

  Finnegan tried to stop him. This human was immune to the call—I was never so thankful for the help of a human in my life—if it hadn’t been for him, none of us would have survived.

  Niall shoved Finnegan aside, then the merman jumped, feet first into the ocean deep.

  He was forever gone, headed toward death and doom, unable to turn back.

  Now, Isbeil fell under the spell and she began to bite at her restraints. And here was the brightest spark of hope we had—Triton had ordered that we be restrained in iron chains. If he had told them to use ropes, we would have chewed our way through them.

  As it was, both Isbeil and I begged Finnegan to free us. Instead, he put wax in his ears, fearing our own siren songs and the fact that we might have been able to convince him to set us free.

  Wild things need to be free.

  I never felt so wild in all my life, when Triton called me to join him. I knew it was him and that we could have been together. Forever. He would eat my flesh, but he would also save my bones and keep them in a sacred place. He’d build a shrine out of my death and my ghost would visit him there—

  Except Finnegan, that horrid creature, wouldn’t release us. I hated him. I vowed to kill him as soon as I could, I would leap over the edge of this wretched vessel, and I would swim back to my beloved blue merman. I had already swum halfway around the world. Surely, I could make my way back to him. No matter how far away I was when we finally landed.

  Together, Isbeil and I pleaded and sang, we told stories and spat curses, we recited poetry and we chattered and we spoke in ancient languages, but none of it worked. My lips cracked and my tongue bled from the many times when I misspoke and accidentally cut myself on my own teeth. My throat ached from my screams, my cheeks stung from my tears.

  No bird could fly overhead without falling into the water, dead. No fish could swim past us without being stunned into silence and falling through the ocean depths.

  But Finnegan remained steadfast at his post, sailing us far away from Scotland.

  I could still feel Triton calling me, a shiver on the waves as we crossed the Atlantic. Sometimes, his cries were unintelligible, as thick as the speech of the human slaves whose tongues had been cut out. Other times, his cries were clear and plaintive and hauntingly lonely.

  I thought I would die, that the longing inside me would stop my heart.

  I did not die.

  Finnegan put buckets of freshwater and fish where we could reach them, though he never came close enough for either one of us to touch him. He lashed himself to the mast when he slept, far out of our reach. He watched us from the corner of his eye when sailing the ship, as if he worried that we could enchant him with a smile or a wink.

  It wasn’t until we rounded Cape Horn and sailed up the coast of Chile that Triton’s voice faded away. One moment it was there, achingly beautiful and poignant. The next, it was gone, never to return.

  My wails grew even louder then, for my senses began to return and I realized that he must be dead.

  One of his kin might have slain him.

  His father might have captured him.

  The Sea Witch who created him might have broken her spell, turning him into sea brine instead.

  Isbeil stared at me with tear-soaked eyes, her lips blistered from the sun. Her skin was as pale as Finnegan’s. I hadn’t paid much attention to her during our journey,
but somewhere along the way, she had learned how to turn her shape into that of a human.

  I looked away from her, remembering our goal, how we had wanted to escape, how she had hoped to walk upon the land, disguised. Now, she had everything she wanted—a boy who would leave everything behind for her, the ability to live with him for the rest of her life, the power to remain hidden from her people.

  But the boy I wanted—

  I never even told him I wanted him—

  He would never know how I really felt.

  He was gone or he was dead or he was merely catching his breath and would begin shrieking again soon. Maybe he was tracking us even now. Maybe he would be here in a week or two.

  Maybe he would never breathe again.

  Wherever he was and whatever he had become, he had bought our freedom.

  We could go on with our lives, because of what he had done.

  The irony of it all didn’t escape me.

  It was my personal trident through the heart.

  There were now two monsters who loved me and wanted nothing more than to see me dead. If anyone was cursed, it must have been me.

  In the end, I was the greatest monster of them all.

  I was the creature that everyone should wary of.

  When we finally came into a port and walked on shore, Selkie, mermaid, and human, I made a silent pledge. I was never going to trust my human heart again. I was never going to fall in love. Because I had finally learned the truth.

  Deep down inside, everyone was a monster.

  And I was tired of pretending otherwise.

  Riley:

  We’ve been living in a small cottage in Peru for several months now. Isbeil thinks we don’t know what she does every morning, but we know. She goes to the shore and weeps for her lost brother, her tears turning into pearls. When she comes home, she tells us that she found the pearls while swimming. Finnegan and I smile, pretending we believe her, and we sell them in the market for food and supplies.

  We have a simple life.

  We own a small house that looks out over the Pacific Ocean. If I sit on the deck, I can see humpback whales and dolphins, and I’m reminded of the journey I took to the Shiant Islands. When the saltwater sprays on my face, it feels like tears.

  One of the first things I did when we got here was to cut my hair. It was a tangled mess and couldn’t be saved. I never should have tried to swim around the world with long hair—that only works in myths.

  The second thing I did was purchase a small notebook and start a journal. Neither Isbeil nor Finnegan know about it and, if they did, they’d either rip it up or burn it.

  They want to forget everything that happened.

  I want to remember. I have to.

  At first, I thought I was trying to keep track of the Hinquememem. I had to know where it was. I knew I was only pretending to be safe here.

  But after a while, I realized what I was really doing.

  I was looking for proof that Triton was still alive.

  I have a list of every place he may have been.

  So far, there have been at least fifteen sightings of a new, unnamed sea creature since we left the Na Fir Ghorm kingdom. Most of the time, it stays in the Minch, a strait in northwest Scotland. But every now and then, it ventures out.

  It’s been seen as far south as Portugal and as far west as Iceland.

  One day, it might even come here.

  Part of me wants to stay here and let it find me.

  But another part of me wants to stay alive as long as I can.

  So, I’m thinking about finding a pod of Selkies and heading north for the Burning. It sounds like fun. It’d be like Coachella or Burning Man for sea creatures. We’d party, break a few things, scare the humans, get drunk, and dance on the beach.

  Maybe we’d even sit around a fire at night and tell stories about the monsters that almost caught us.

  If so, I’ve got a few whoppers to share.

  Triton:

  Once I was a boy with blue skin and kingdoms that were waiting to be conquered. My days were filled swimming and joking, and I flirted with every pretty girl who caught my fancy. Once I was handsome and strong and could walk upright on two legs—that part is really hard to believe. Still, it’s true. Somewhere, deep inside me, I remember. The wind on my face when I walked on the land, the grit of the sand when I walked on the beach.

  I could forget all of it. If I lived long enough.

  But there’s one thing I’ll never forget.

  Once, there was a girl, so wild that you couldn’t hold her no matter how many iron chains she wore. If you pressed your ear to her chest, you’d hear the truth.

  She was alive.

  She was real.

  And right now, she’s free, because she’s so far away from me that I can never find her.

  But then, my thoughts wander, as they always do when my father heralds me with a cry from a conch shell. It’s the call to war. I’ll swim behind the rest of his troops, the surprise weapon no one knows about.

  I know where we’re going, not because he told me.

  I can smell it on the current.

  We head toward the Land of Humans.

  Soon we’ll begin the war my father has wanted for centuries, the Selkies and the Na Fir Ghorm uniting against the humans.

  It will be a good fight.

  Because we will win.

  Other Books in This Series:

  If you enjoyed this story, please leave a review! Also, you can continue reading about the adventures of Riley and Triton in upcoming stories.

  Books in this series:

  FATHOM:

  Sixteen-year-old Kira discovers that the group of wild teenagers who have come to visit Crescent Moon Bay are not as innocent as they seem. In fact, nothing is as it seems—not the mysterious death of her mother, not her heritage, not even her best friend. And everything seems to hinge on the ancient Celtic legends her mother used to tell her as a child.

  FURY:

  To survive, she made a secret deal in the Underworld...At fifteen, Riley—half-human/half-Selkie—runs away to the Shiant Islands, where she pleads for sanctuary among the blue-skinned Na Fir Ghorm, a dangerous race of mermaid-like sea creatures. Their King—Poseidon—agrees to let her in if she’ll make a pledge to him. She has no choice but to accept his terms, not knowing that Poseidon plans to use her for a dark, secret plan.

  Coming soon, two more stories in this series:

  FAMILIAR

  FOREVER

  About the Author

  Award-winning author, Merrie Destefano left a 9-to-5 desk job as a magazine editor to become a full-time novelist and freelance editor. Her books have been published by HarperCollins, Entangled Teen, and Walter Foster, as well as self-published by her own imprint, Ruby Slippers Press. With twenty years’ experience in publishing, her background includes editor of Victorian Homes magazine, Zombies magazine, and Haunted: Mysteries and Legends magazine. Her award-winning novels include Shade and Valiant, as well as Afterlife, Feast, Fathom, and Lost Girls. She lives in Southern California with her husband, their two German shepherds, a Siamese cat, and the occasional wandering possum.

  Learn more about her books, new releases, and events, and sign up for her newsletter by visiting her website at: www.merriedestefano.com

  Of Moon and Sea

  Sara Elizabeth

  Of Moon and Sea © 2020 Sara Elizabeth

  All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Warn
ing: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.

  The Church of Moon and Sea

  As a full moon approaches during the birth month of a siren, she will have one week to walk among humans. One week to decide upon her commitment to the Moon and Sea.

  If she chooses to return, a baptism is required and she will never again be able to walk upon land.

  If she forsakes the Moon and Sea, she will be cursed to never return to the ocean as she will be branded with a mark of her betrayal. Should she dare to return, a fate worse than death shall await.

  Chapter 1

  Today was the day I’d been both dreading and anticipating since I was old enough to understand the doctrine of the Moon and Sea and what was to occur on my eighteenth birthday. I slipped away from the warmth of the sand, allowing each particle to disappear from my skin and drift away among the crashing waves. I did so love the purity of the Sea, and I my stomach clenched and the thought of how the Land may corrupt me. No, I cannot think like that. I had spent my entire life preparing to be faithful in this journey. I would not betray my family.

  Stretching my arms out and letting out a little yawn, I nearly choked as I felt a hand graze my shoulder. Spinning around, I discovered my dear best friend Poppy eyeing me with a smirk. Her real name is Pearl, a common name among our clan, but Pearl wasn’t your typical siren. She was anything but. When she read about flowers on land, she fell in love with the name Poppy and demanded we all call her that. We were only five years old at the time, but she’d always be Poppy to me, even if our leaders still referred to her as Pearl.