The Magical Mermaid and the Moon

by Angiah Harris

  The young creature grabbed the queen’s hand in fear.

  * * *

  At the same time, many miles away, the princess finished her song.

  “I love you,” sang the princess.

  “I love you,” the gray-eyed general suddenly sang back to her.

  The princess couldn’t believe her ears. Tears burst from her eyes.

  The shark dropped the stone, now vibrating crazily between them, and he pulled her close, staring at her with the fire of a thousand suns. For the first time in his life, he wanted to sing, so he continued.

  “My love, my life,” he sang. “I’m forever yours—will you be my wife?”

  As the tune left his lips, an energy field burst upward from his body and toward the sky, where there was still no sign of the ball of light.

  * * *

  At that instant, in the castle, the queen held the trembling creature, waiting to see what would happen next.

  Another energy shift was occurring in the universe.

  Chapter 18

  The Truth

  The shark king couldn’t believe what he was seeing.

  His general was singing, and some type of energy was expanding off his body.

  The stone dropped from his general’s hand, and the gray-eyed shark pulled the princess close and sang again, asking for her hand. That was it—the shark king had seen enough. Chaotic energy surged through his body. He lunged toward the general and the princess, revealing himself.

  * * *

  The gray-eyed shark and the princess spun around and froze—the person they’d desperately feared stood directly in front of them.

  The gray-eyed general sprang into a defense position, aware of how strong his ruler was, and the princess retreated behind him. The air was electrified as the two sharks stood face to face. The wind howled all around them, and the princess searched for her friend in the sky, but there was still no sign of it anywhere. The shark king stared at his prodigy, and his eyes showed a hatred and fire that the gray-eyed shark had never seen.

  “This is how you repay me—after everything I have done for you!” yelled the shark king. “You betray me for this ‘song wizard.’ I never thought you would be fooled by the magic—but I was wrong. I own you. I would have left you to die if I’d known one day you would repay me this way.”

  The gray-eyed shark watched the king’s movements as he spoke. He felt slight shame—he was very loyal to the king and had not planned for any of this to happen.

  “Sir,” he said, “nothing I could say to you would change what you saw today. I did not plan this—you have to believe me. I tried to remain focused on our goal, but my heart is bound to the princess’s. My king, you of all people should understand that!”

  The gray-eyed general knew of the love the shark king had for the mermaid queen—when the gray-eyed shark had been young, the older shark had told him about his love, about the series of events that prevented him from asking the young mermaid on the date he’d already planned. When the gray-eyed shark alluded to these memories, an agonized expression crossed the shark king’s face. The king released a frustrated roar.

  “I do not care! You were sworn into your position as general, and you have breached your contract. You must now die. And, Princess—you have become even more of a problem than your father, so you will now die too.”

  “She has done nothing!” shouted the gray-eyed general. “Your problem is with me. She was perfectly herself and did nothing to sway me into this.”

  The princess fought to keep her breathing calm as she listened to the two sharks speak. She could somehow feel the shark king’s pain as she cautiously watched him.

  The light was still not in the sky, but something was causing the calm waters of the sea to light up more than before. What was causing the light?

  She reached for the general’s hand and squeezed it as he defended her. The shark king suddenly abandoned the conversation and ambushed the gray-eyed general, ripping his hand from the princess’s and tossing him many feet away. The gray-eyed shark crashed through the prison wall.

  The force of the shark king’s attack threw the princess backward. She hit her head, and her vision blurred.

  Outside the enclosure, the gray-eyed general lay on the glowing plant life, his ears ringing from the crash through the wall. Where had the glowing plants come from? Were they real, or was he seeing things because he’d hit his head so hard? He quickly shook off the attack, turned, and stormed toward the shark king.

  Still inside the prison, the princess fought to regain her balance and composure. Her beau charged back through the hole in the wall and crashed into the shark king, lifting him through the water and against another wall.

  Through the hole in the prison wall, the princess saw something glowing. She blinked, then looked again. Glowing plant life covered the ground outside the prison. She couldn’t believe her eyes—she’d never seen anything like it in her life. This must be why the shark king had said she was an even bigger problem than her father.

  Light had found a way, just as her father and the light in sky had said.

  The typhoon-like wind crashed around the still waters as the princess helplessly watched the two sharks battle.

  * * *

  The mermaid queen and young dolphin continued to sit in silence, feeling the high winds and intense energy of the night. A gust of air swept in, swinging the patio door open and startling them both. They turned—the third-in-command stood in the doorway, staring at them.

  The young creature jumped up and quickly left with her head down, making no eye contact with the soldier as she scurried away.

  The queen’s hair flowed freely in the wind, and the soldier stared at her in silence. She sat silently, not moving as he approached her. He finally stopped and sat where the young creature had been sitting before.

  “My lady,” he said calmly as he looked her in the eyes.

  “Sir.” She nodded, then returned her gaze to the sky.

  “No light in the sky tonight, huh?” the soldier said, almost mockingly. “Must mean the shark king finished the job.”

  Confused by the comment, the queen turned her head and said, “What job, if I may ask?”

  The soldier stared at her in silence, with a large, crooked smile on his face. “No, you may not ask,” he said, “but since you did and I am feeling good about tonight, I will be generous and answer.”

  His arrogance disgusted the queen. She knew this soldier well, as he’d been around when her husband ruled. She’d never spoken to him much, but because he’d risen through the ranks with the then shark general, she’d assumed he was an ideal soldier.

  “Let me start by saying your daughter is alive,” the soldier continued. “Well, she was the last time I saw her.”

  The queen’s heart rejoiced, but she didn’t change her composure.

  “She is being held far from here, in a prison,” said the soldier. “She was placed there after she watched us kill your husband, her father, with our precious stones.”

  The queen cringed, thinking of her baby girl witnessing such a thing.

  The soldier pulled his stone out from beneath his shirt. It was vibrating and flickering, but the soldier didn’t appear to be affected by it.

  “Well, my queen, everything was fine until this light appeared in the night sky. Of course, naturally, we assumed it could be your daughter’s sorcery, so we sent our newly ranked general to make sure she was not the cause.”

  The queen listened attentively, trying to keep her nerves under control. She was happy to finally be receiving some information, but it was hard to hear now that she knew her daughter had watched her husband’s death.

  “Well, he went to the prison, my lady, and has not returned. And that light in the sky just kept growing bigger! The king selected me to go find out what the delay was, and oh, was I surprised by what I found!” He paused as the loudly blowing wind crashed into the palace walls near them. “I was surprised to find our top-ranked
general there, engaging with your daughter, clearly in love. Now, it surprised the king, but it did not surprise me that he had fallen for her. She’s a song wizard’s daughter, and the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.”

  He reached to touch the queen’s hair, but she pulled away.

  He laughed. “But I think what surprised me most was that she appeared to be in love with him too.”

  The queen couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Her daughter was alive—and in love?

  “This upset the king, as you can imagine, after I immediately reported back what I’d found, and he left here in a blaze, ready to kill them both! And because the night has been upon us for some time now but the ball of light still hasn’t appeared, I would say he probably succeeded.”

  The thought of losing her daughter again after having just found out she was alive was too much for the queen to handle. Tears filled her eyes.

  The soldier laughed and rose from the table. “If I were you, I would change my mind about not ruling next to the king. When he returns, there will be no stopping us!”

  He left the patio.

  The wind kissed the queen’s cheeks as she sat, processing all she’d heard. She knew, deep down, she could still feel the special connection to her daughter, so she shook off her fears.

  She returned her attention to the night sky, hoping for the ball of light to return or for whatever other magic was still waiting to appear that evening.

  Chapter 19

  The Moon’s Awakening

  The mystery in the night sky awoke not knowing who, what, or where it was. It was suspended in the deepest, darkest depths of a gigantic black sky. Its physical size was enormous to itself, but from land or in the water, it was barely visible to the naked eye; it appeared to be hundreds of thousands of miles away from the surface below.

  The view of the dark sky was breathtaking. The space surrounding the mystery buzzed with energy. Then, without warning, the mystery was flooded with knowledge, and in a flash it understood that it was made up of a hard rock material, that it was a sphere, that the dazzlingly sparkling rocks surrounding it in the sky were called stars, and that it hung above a place called Earth. It could see Earth’s land and water stretched out beneath it.

  It traveled slowly across the dim sky, feeling pulled into the natural flow of the surrounding universe. It observed and absorbed the information and energies it detected from below, listening to the wonderful wisdom and stories coming from the enchanting stars themselves. They had existed since creation and had seen so many things. They told epic tales of love and war and so many other gifts of life.

  The sphere felt all the different energies swirling together to create the stars, those physical representations that expressed themselves. It felt the whole universe and how everything in it was connected. It knew instantly that there were lessons to be learned and wisdom in all experience. Though the stars, land creatures, and sea creatures all experienced the same moment of time, they each possessed a separate conscious perspective. The sphere knew it now had its own perspective and its own lessons to be learned and goals to achieve.

  As the large rock in the sky moved and took in everything, it started to notice an imbalance in the energy of the place now directly beneath it. It continued moving, and over the next couple of days, as the sphere traveled, it noticed the same imbalance of energy over the same area.

  One evening, as it moved, hidden, in the night sky, it came across the imbalance again, but this time it saw the mermaid princess. The sphere had seen many creatures, but there was something different about this one. A unique kind of energy pulsed from the creature, luring the sphere closer. It halted directly above the princess’s enclosure, in darkness, hidden from sight, and watched and listened.

  The mermaid creature was wrapped in a cloud of despair despite her lovely, beaming aura. She began to sing, and all of a sudden, something sparked inside the hard sphere. A fire began deep down in its core, and as the melody continued, the fire grew hotter and hotter. Energy from the singing creature below burst through the atmosphere and into the rock and pulsed through its entire body. It began to vibrate because of the fire growing inside itself, and suddenly the fire created a white glow within the sphere. The sphere felt a warmth it hadn’t experienced before, and it knew that it had found the reason for the warmth’s absence—no one but the mermaid was singing.

  This had to change.

  The sphere realized that the mermaid creature had noticed it and was now speaking directly to it. It had never spoken to anyone other than the ancient stars; no one had ever noticed it before this moment. The sphere understood that the creature was female in energy as it listened to the terrible things she had to say. She poured her heart out to it, and as she did, an overwhelming amount of energy burst through the atmosphere again. The vibration inside the sphere grew. It had to speak back to this creature, to whom it was obviously connected.

  Knowing it was far too big to speak directly to any creature on the land, including the mermaid, the sphere asked the wind for help, hoping the mermaid would hear its message on the wind waves. If she was meant to hear the words, she would—and she did.

  Speaking to the mermaid princess was a joy for the ball in the night sky each night, and it noticed that its warmth and white light grew with each encounter. It also noticed a shift in the energy coming from Earth since it had first appeared in the sky. The ball of light sensed that hope was a strong vibrating energy and could feel it more and more with each passing day. More creatures looked to it, and it could hear others trying to sing.

  The sphere chose to share wisdom with the princess every time they spoke, intending to empower her. It could feel its light inside spreading.

  When the gray-eyed creature arrived, the sphere of light instantly knew the creature’s muddied energy was important. The sphere saw the shark creature watching the mermaid and knew the creature couldn’t hear its messages on the wind. It chose not to inform the princess of the new development when they spoke; things would have to unfold naturally between the shark’s and mermaid’s energies without the sphere’s interference. The shark’s energy was male, and there was a low, magnetic vibe between him and the princess, of which the sphere could tell they were unaware. It tried to help them by sending lullabies on the wind to help the energy flow.

  The moment the two of them finally locked eyes for the first time, the energy between them caused some kind of chain reaction within the rock up in the sky. The vibrating energy force crashed around inside the solid sphere. The light was spreading at a quicker rate through its whole body, and it sensed a new type of energy emerging. It knew that the two creatures were important and watched as they spent time together. The energy between them pulsed into the atmosphere, and the ball of light knew they were falling in love. It watched as the densely energized third-in-command spied and knew there would soon be a battle with darkness. As it continued to watch everything on Earth, it sent whispers of hope on the wind, kissing the cheeks of all those who hoped for better days.

  A power was expanding inside the sphere. Then, something out of the ordinary happened for the first time as it traveled the night sky one evening, headed toward the creatures. The gigantic rock was vibrating faster than ever, and it was now a full ball of white light. The sphere had planned to inform the princess of the spying third-in-command creature and warn her that there was a dense energy headed their way, but instead, it found itself in a new place it had never been before.

  This place was mesmerizing and dynamic, a place of all creation, the source of the universe. Words were not spoken there; knowledge simply flowed in and out of the area, painting a picture for the sphere. In this place, the sphere saw how all things were intertwined and connected and how everything came from the same source—from this source. Immersed in what it was seeing, the large lit-up sphere was unsure of what would happen next. It would have to wait and see.

  Chapter 20

  Love Lost

  The gray-e
yed general continued to battle for his life. He and the shark king exchanged blows, slamming each other into the ground and back into the walls of the enclosure, causing the structure to shake. Blow after blow, they fought with every ounce of energy they had.

  The princess attempted to attack the shark king but was thrown a far distance. She landed on her back and hit her head again. Trying to shake off the blow, she lay there, staring at the sky. Only then did she notice that the night sky above was changing—green and blue colors swirled around in it. What was happening? She searched for her friend, who had still not appeared. She reminded herself that even if she didn’t see the light in the night sky, it did still exist and always would.

  She returned her attention to the two sharks battling ferociously back and forth across the prison. She had to help.She knew they would have to kill the king.

  The two sharks flew through the water, exchanging punch after punch and kick after kick. Every time they exchanged a blow, a burst of light flashed like lightning and was followed by loud thunder. She knew she was fully in love with the gray-eyed general as she watched him fight for her. He was a noble warrior, and the way he fought reminded her of her father. As she watched, he punched the face of the shark king, and the king lost his balance and crashed to the ground. His flickering stone flew from his body and landed on the ground in front of her.

  The sharks battled hard as the wind whirled around them. The gray-eyed general grew tired and knew he couldn’t fight much longer. He had to try to end the fight—and he knew that meant killing the shark king.

  “Why does it have to be this way?” the gray-eyed general shouted as they wrestled. “I did not plan for things to happen this way—you have to believe me!”