To Enchant a Mermaid
S.L. Williams
I would not have you descend into your own dream. I would have you be a conscious citizen of this terrible and beautiful world.
-Ta-Nehisi Coates
Copyright © 2021 by S.L. Williams All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or used in
any manner without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations
in a book review. If you have obtained this book via piracy or suspect it has been duplicated illegally,
please advise the author and purchase your own copy. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters,
businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a
fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely
coincidental.
Dedication
To my heart. My soul. My father.
The Meeting
My humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together.
-Desmond Tutu
My heart hammered against my ribcage. Each beat mirrored the loud, erratic, thunder that shook the sky and sea. A lone ship rocked back and forth on the tumultuous waves-the cries of the men aboard swallowed by the oceans roar.
“Sarai!” Even through the storm and the men’s fearful screams my sisters call managed to reach my ears. “Sarai, I will tell grandmother!”
The men’s cries grew desperate. I could taste their fear along with the oceans salt, the rains sweetness, and something else. Something I couldn’t describe, yet it felt so familiar.
The closer I got to the great creaking beast, the more it pulled me in. I forgot about the raging storm, the men’s pleas, and my sisters nagging.
All of that was wiped from my mind by whatever it was.
I was filled with curiosity, but I wasn’t stupid. I swam around the side of the boat, careful to remain out of the men’s view, and stopped beneath the ship’s figure head of a beautiful woman with wings. Warm fingers wrapped around my elbow.
“Sarai,” my sister Akello hissed in my ear, “We have to go. If a walker sees you-"
I yanked my arm out of her grasp. “They will catch us because you aren’t being discreet.”
Thank the goddess that the storm swallowed our words like a great shark devoured a minnow.
“Go back to the others.” I hissed through clenched teeth.
Worry hardened her deep brown eyes. “I won’t leave you here with all these walkers.”
Akello was a year younger than I and very cautious. She was loyal and would follow me to the bottom of the ocean if I asked, but today I wouldn’t make her choose between a beloved sibling and the rules she knew to follow.
One of my elder sisters would have dragged me- splashing and screaming-back down to the ocean floor.
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine.” I playfully pulled on her braid. “I swear it.”
I threw my arms around her neck and felt some of the tension leave her small body.
“Father will not be happy when he finds out about this.” She warned one last time before plunging into the white capped waves.
“Snitch.” I growled. “I can’t do anyt-”
The call grew louder. It pulled on my heart like a fish attached to a hunter’s spear and filled me with fierce desperation. For a brief moment my mind went blank and I forgot about the savage storm.
A wave slammed me against the side of the boat and knocked men and supplies into the sea. The world around me was in discord but the only thing that mattered was that enticing sound. It filled my ears and my heart. It made me feel light, as if I had shed my tail and grown wings.
“I’m here.” I sang back. “I’m waiting.”
A lone man clung to the taffrail. His eyes were closed but he was singing as if it were the last thing he would ever do.
His voice put me in a trance, it lifted me high and brought me low, it promised warm passionate nights and love filled days. All of it for me and only me.
I clung to the ships side and allowed my voice to join the melancholy melody. I added my wonder, awe, and curiosity to his and together our voices rose above the storm.
Our eyes met and the thunder ceased, the waves froze, and the wind abruptly stopped blowing. There was nothing and no one but him and I.
A wave-bigger than any I had ever seen in my fifteen moons-barreled into the ship with a loud boom. The golden tongued man fell from his perch and hit the water like a stone. The long thick cords of his hair vanished beneath the churning green water in seconds.
“Not him.” I pled. “Please, Goddess not him.”
I dove after him before he was lost to the sea. Bubbles streamed from his mouth and his lips were turning blue. He was dying and if I didn't think fast I would never hear that glorious voice again.
I knew of only one place where he could go. It was a sacred cove, full of magic, where only members of the royal household were allowed.
A long, long time ago- back when the sea and sky were one and the same-the goddess Sclena used the cove as her home. She disappeared, but her magic remained in the water and air. The cove wasn’t ideal for a walker, but at least he would be safe from the storm and the land hating Merfolk. They wouldn’t dare shed blood in sacred waters.
The journey to the cove was easy but getting him onto land was difficult. It was a slow process due to his dead weight and my long tail, but I made sure that every inch of his body was out of the water.
I wanted to hear him sing before I left him to his destiny. I wanted to savor the way his voice seemed to pull me from my world and into another.
I pushed the heavy locks off his face and admired his features. His cheeks were high and chiseled, the bridge of his nose crooked, as if it had been broken more than once. His eyelashes were long, his eyebrows thick and nicely arched. His lips looked nice and soft, the pink a lovely contrast to his ebony skin. He was beautiful.
The walker coughed and rolled onto his stomach. His shoulders shook as he rid himself of the salt water he had swallowed. I quickly inched myself back into the sea- making sure that my tail was completely submerged and out of sight.
His coughs began to ease, and he stopped gasping for air. It shocked me when he stood, looked up at the darkening sky, and thanked the stars for sparing his life.
I had heard of walkers who worshipped the Sea Goddess Sclena. They went as far as sending her chests full of gilded coins, jewels, combs, and mirrors, but I had never seen anyone pray to the stars.
“Sing for me.” My voice rode the wind. It was the soft break of the waves against the shore. “Let me hear that pretty voice one last time.” I coaxed.
He took a breath that made his magnificent back expand, and released a deep resonating note that made my heart ache. He followed it with a symphony of sound that brought tears to my eyes.
The song was teeth achingly sweet and laced with yearning. It took everything in me to leave him there, but I had been gone long enough, but I knew that I
would never forget the way he made me feel.
“Maybe I will see you again,” I whispered. “If the gods will it.
After one long last look, I dove deep down into the cold, familiar arms of the sea.
Chapter One
Sarai
One year. It had been an entire year since I saved the walker, and I couldn’t bring myself to forget about his haunting voice. Did he manage to find a way out of the cove? Was he out there thinking of me?
I sat in front of my vanity and watched as my grandmother fussed and dug through my things. She pulled a gold chain from my jewelry box and frowned. I counted the many wrinkles that lined her mouth.
Her age was beginning to show. Her golden scales were dull and peeling. Her hair was thin and wispy, and no matter how much black squid ink she used to dye it, you could see strands of gray. She was over two hundred years old, and time had not been kind.
“Grandmother, do walkers live as long as we do?” I asked as one of the servants took down the hundreds of plaits on my head.
“Walkers?” She huffed and swam to my side. Her ageless green eyes bored into mine. “You haven’t stopped talking about them since your moonday. What has spiked your curiosity?”
“I’ve never seen one up close.”
“For good reason. Your father works hard to keep it this way.”
“But why? What makes them so different from us?” I slammed my ivory brush against my vanity and winced as chunks of coral broke off and drifted to the floor.
“Sarai, what is wrong with you?” Grandmother tapped the back of my head with a knuckle. “Show some respect!”
“My apologies.” I sniffed.
“Now.” She gave me a curt nod and joined the servant. Her hands pulled on my tender scalp. The rhythmic click of her golden nails had me grinding my teeth. “Walkers are weak. They do not live as long as we do. The sun shrivels them up and dries them out. They toil beneath the heat all day just to survive. While we may live up to four or five hundred moons, they rarely make it to one hundred.”
My stomach tightened. Poor land boy. I had saved him, just to have him punished by the brutal sun and time.
“They are cursed,” she whispered in my ear.
“With a soul.” I rolled my eyes and sighed. “I know, I know.”
I had heard it before. When the Sun birthed the walkers, he breathed a piece of himself into each one. When their bodies returned to the earth, their souls joined the sky. Us of the sea were made from the water, and back to the water we returned. We had no souls in trade for the extra moons the goddess allowed us to see.
“Yes, their souls. And that very thing is what makes them wicked. It is the reason your father keeps you here, safe from those who find our tails grotesque.”
“How can one get a soul?”
“You can’t.” She placed her fingertips against her pearls. “Mermaidens have done many things, horrible things, to acquire a soul. None have accomplished such a thing.”
“Did they go to the Sea Witch?”
The servant gasped, her slim fingers yanked on a knot.
“Do not mention such things,” Grandmother said sharply. “Do not utter her name. Do not even think of it, for they say she can hear you, no matter how far or deep you may be.”
The room grew somber. The colorful fish that normally swam in and out of my windows were nowhere to be found.
The servant quickly unraveled my hair and tied it back into a thick ponytail that allowed my kinky curls the freedom to breathe. I frowned down at my awkward reflection. My almond-shaped eyes were a brown so deep, they bordered on black. My cheeks were round, my lips plump, my mahogany skin clear of barnacles and algae.
I wasn’t ugly, but I wasn’t a great beauty, either.
I doubted the prince would have looked upon the iridescent scales on my cheeks and shoulders in awe. He wouldn’t have smiled once he caught sight of my waist and the multicolored scales that began inches below my belly button, but he would love my voice.
That I was certain of. I could entrance any male with a few notes. Siren’s song, many called it. A power that was rare and treasured among the water folk. I could make him forget all about his mundane life on the surface.
“Grandmother,” I asked sweetly, “can a walker become merfolk?”
The space between her eyebrows furrowed. “Didn't you promise to take little Gia to the anemone garden?” She adjusted her golden diadem and placed my circlet on my head. “You are royalty. Act like it.” She snapped.
It wasn’t like Grandmother to ignore a question. She was as wise as she was old. There wasn’t much she hadn’t seen in her long two hundred and thirty-eight years.
Was she withholding information, or was it something she didn’t know? If grandmother didn’t know, who would?
∞∞∞
The garden was the last place I wanted to be that day, but Grandmother refused to leave my room until I announced I was leaving. She tried to send a servant with me, but I quickly dismissed the idea. I didn’t want company if said company was only there to spy.
“Sarai, you haven’t said a word since we got here.” Gia pinched my elbow. “If you didn’t want to come, you could have stayed home.” She crossed her thin arms.
Gia was the youngest and feistiest of us all. Her bright orange hair and matching scales reminded me of the lava flows deep beneath the islands. Her brassy skin and red-tinged eyes glowed as if a fire lived within her. She never held her tongue, and I was sure she didn’t always think about what she said before speaking.
“I am enjoying the gardens,” I said distractedly. “This group wasn’t here last time. Look.” I pointed down at a cluster of squishy pink bodies that were softly swaying on a rock. “Or those.” I swam over to a family of wriggling green anemones.
“You haven’t been the same since your moonday. Akello won’t tell me why.”
My dear, soft-spoken Akello. Of course, she wouldn’t say a word. Out of the five of us, she was the one we all trusted with our secrets. Anything told in confidence was tightly sealed away in that little treasure chest of a mind.
“I am growing older.” I swam down and poked at the living greenery.
Gia was making me uncomfortable with her questions. She wasn’t the first to say I had changed, and it was beginning to irritate me. They wouldn’t understand how I felt. They wouldn’t see things the way I did.
All our lives, we had been told the walkers were grotesque creatures that destroyed everything they touched. The day I saved the walker showed me how wrong we were. He wasn’t disfigured by the sun, and I couldn’t believe a man with a voice like that could ever hurt anyone.
“It isn’t that. Your eyes don’t shine anymore, and when you sing—"
“What is wrong with my singing?”
“It is lacking.”
Her words hit me like a strike of lightning. Lacking? Never. My voice was above all others. I hadn’t met a soul alive who could sing the way I could. Many tried to imitate, but I was the one who created the magic. I was the source. None could ever sing like me.
“I'm going for a swim.” I bristled. “Have fun.”
“Sarai—"
I turned my back, darted into the kelp forest, and swam to the one place I had forced myself to avoid for the past moon. The serene cove.
A small temple made of white stone had been erected in my absence, and a soft light glowed from the windows. A sweet scent filled the air. Being there, staring at the beach, filled me with deep longing. One so fierce it made my stomach ache.
Was the man inside? Did he spend his days singing to the skies? Did he remember me?
I had to admit that Gia was right. I wasn’t the same. A small part of me was left here with the golden-tongued man. Was this my punishment for saving him?
Would I long for his voice for the rest of my life?
Chapter two
Sarai
I pushed aside the diamonds and rubies and pulled out my favorite necklace that was ma
de of obsidian mined from a now-dormant volcano. I strung some pearls through my freshly braided her and stared into my mirror.
“Lacking.” I mimicked Gia’s high-pitched voice. “No, sister. You are jealous.” I pointed the brush at the mirror. “You wish you could sing like me. You all do.” I twirled the brush. “But you can’t, dear sister, because you, my dear, are the one lacking.”
I brushed my edges down and placed the brush back in its case. “I’ll show you lacking at the feast.”
Father was throwing a dinner for my sisters and had invited the kings and queens of the nine sea kingdoms to the event. I knew Father. He would use this opportunity to show us off. It was the perfect time to show my sisters that my voice was better than ever.
I knew they would don their finery, but I didn’t need all that to shine. My hair was braided back, simple but elegant, with my circlet sitting prettily on my brow. My black bandeau was clean, and my voice was clear.
“Your grandmother waits.” A timid servant called from the entryway.
I gave my reflection one last glance before dashing out of my rooms. Grandmother was prone to fuss on a normal day. The stress from planning the dinner had her jumpy, so making her wait would tip her over the edge.
I met her and my sisters in the hall beneath a portrait of Mother and Father. Mother’s golden eyes were filled with love. Father’s were dark like mine and glowing with pride. The day Mother passed was the last time he’d smiled like that.
After her transition he became distant and implemented new laws across the kingdom. None were allowed to venture to the surface without his approval. I had to bribe servants and lie to my sisters just so I could sneak off to the cove without Father knowing.
I would never be able to tell him or Grandmother about the man. I had to keep the memory of his voice tucked away within my heart. If not, who knew what they would do.
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