***
“What lovely children,” I hear a voice behind me.
I know the voice; it’s the Sea Witch. She crawls closer to me, her tentacles slithering through the sand like rivers of black oil.
I shudder.
“It looks like you have made good on the deal,” she says, “such lovely little ones, child.” She extends her hands like claws to cast a spell.
“Wait . . . ” I try to say. No voice rings out. Instead, the pearl flies right out of my throat and into her open hands.
She smiles and rolls the pearl between her fingers.
“Very good. Very good. You have earned yourself some legs, little mermaid.”
She chants out a spell in a loud and ringing voice and she holds the pearl up as an offering to the three moons:
“Here’s to the babies and here’s to the blood,
Give the water maiden the legs that she’ll love!”
I collapse in the sand. Pain shoots through my tail as it splits in two. It tears wide open as if being sliced with an invisible blade. The two parts glow a bright green that fades to a dull white glow. My black scales turn to skin the same color as my torso. I reach down and touch the space between them that never existed before. It is a moist opening, like a perpetual wound. I insert a finger. It doesn’t hurt. It feels just like the inside of a clam.
“It is done,” she says.
“Now I must have the rest of my payment,” she adds.
Her eyes turn to the children that I have yet to even hold. I watch the Sea Witch’s mouth open wide and stretch all the way down to the tentacles on the sand.
She opens her mouth with a gust of wind that makes my hair dance.
“No!” I scream as my babies are being sucked into the black hole of her gaping mouth. They vanish down the Sea Witch’s endless throat like a school of sardines into the mouth of a whale.
The green glow surrounds her. She lifts her arms to the heavens, laughing ecstatically. Her eyes fill with fire and her cheeks flush with youth. Lightning flashes through the sky out of the blue and a sudden torrent of hard and fast rain explodes down upon us.
“Thank you. Enjoy your new legs,” she says, turning her back on me as she slithers her way out to sea.
I watch her become a tiny black dot as her shadow of undulating hair sinks into the water like a pool of squid ink.
I dive in after her but I can only swim for a few seconds before I start choking on mouthfuls of saltwater. My gills are gone along with my tail.
I dig my nails into the sand and the rain pours down and drenches my hair into a soggy wet mess.
It’s all gone.
I call to the three moons that I can no longer see as the rain pelts down, and I beg them to take this pain away, but the only answer I get is the waves crashing upon the shore, telling me I can never leave.
Chapter 6: Space Oddity
I look up through the rain.
The gunmetal gray sand and sky blur together—a dirty watercolor of sand and fog.
I never thought I could feel this much misery. I look out to the sea as the icy waves crash and froth at my feet. The ocean is as foreign to me now as the surface was to my sisters. I am an alien to their world.
I turn my back on the sea and walk inland.
I stumble through the muddy puddles in the icy rain. Thunder and lightning flash through the sky. The dessert is illuminated in neon gashes. The sky looks like it is cracking open to reveal a midnight sun.
Shadow shapes dance upon the edges of the tall and dusty dunes. They remind me of the cave paintings in the halls of the Mermaid Temple.
I am muted in this blackness. Nothing I have experienced could have prepared me for this.
I don’t know who I am anymore.
The rain subsides and the clouds start to clear, revealing galaxies. A kaleidoscopic and brutish blackness devours everything here. The night is forever. I’m a dot on this dune.
Memories of my mother before she died spring fresh from my mind and the song that she sang. It is the song I sang when I landed upon the shore. The song hovers on the wings of my mind. It flutters. I remember the face of my mother. I remember the softness of her bosom and the milk that she gave me. I can taste the sweetness of her honeymilk.
I was a baby when she died and I was very weak when she did not return. My nana had to feed me clams to keep me from dying. At first I vomited them up but soon they became my favorite food. I never felt like my sisters. But now I wish they—or anyone—was here.
***
I look up ahead and I see a white crumpled lump. What is this? I get closer and see it is the spaceship that the spaceman came from.
I climb in through the blown off entrance and see a spot with a bunch of buttons and knobs. There are some lights still blinking and I press all the buttons. More lights light up but nothing else happens. My hands are shaking.
I lay my hands upon the broken parts and close my eyes. I run my fingers over the jagged edges. My heart is beating in my temples. I don’t know how this contraption works but I can feel the faint electric current that flows through the wires behind the control panel. I reach my hands through the cracks and feel for the source of the wires. I find a greasy hard object with many bumps and ridges. I follow the electric current to where it feels the strongest. It stings my fingertips. I reach my hands into the crevices until I find the soft heart that has lost its pulse.
This ship is like me, broken through the middle, and yet somehow still alive.
I might not know how this big white whale gets its life, but I do know the moons can grant it.
I squeeze my eyes tight and focus on the moons in my mind. I can feel their white light washing over me from above, filling me up with their pale fire. I’m vibrating with their energy.
I am still a mermaid in my heart.
The three moons spin in my mind. They spin around each other in a zigzag dance between each other, faster and faster, closer and closer but never touching. The faster they move in my mind’s eye, the stronger the current flowing from my head to my fingers.
My forehead is hot and my hands are burning and vibrating till they are moving so fast that they seem to buzz against the metal heart of the beast.
The moonlight rushes through me in spasms. The spasms spark the metal heart. It springs to life, tossing me back with the force of its fire.
I open my eyes and I see the whole ship is coming back together again. Rivers of light travelling all over it are returning it to its original form. Great big pieces of bent metal are flying. I get up and walk over to the buttons. They are all lit up. The biggest button is blue. Green ones surround it, and along the bottom there are yellow and pink ones with little shapes upon them. On top of the buttons there is a sort of mirror that shows all kinds of funny lines and circles that are moving around.
I press the big blue button and an image appears on the mirror. I press the button again and I hear the voice of the robot heart echo through the craft:
“Is Planet Earth your destination?” It asks.
“Does it have an ocean?” I ask.
“Planet Earth is 97% ocean.”
“Perfect! That is where I wish to go, then.”
“Destination Earth, launch in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . . ”
I am happy that Planet Earth is blue. I strap myself in and hold on tight as the air beast lifts off. I fly past the moons so close I could touch them. The spinning vortexes of lights that surround me are so much like the jellyfish in the sea.
I am flying into the biggest ocean of all.
I am not afraid.
I have faith in this planet called Earth.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To Garrett Cook for drawing the Sun card of the Tarot deck because that was how ‘Star Power’ was born.
To Gary Arthur Brown for posting ‘Star Power’ and ‘Dope’ on Bizarrocentral.com
To Jordan Krall for asking me to write a twisted fairy tale because that was ‘Planet Mermaid’
&nb
sp; To Maddie Holiday Von Stark for showing me I could Rock Horror Harder with ‘Green Lotus’ and ‘Siberian Honeymoon’
To Zeb Carter for inviting me to his Twistered Tales of Oz anthology. ‘Eva of Oz’ is the most fun I’ve had writing a story ever. Much love, Zeb.
To Rios de la Luz for inviting me to write a ‘Bruja’ themed piece for Ladyblog because that was ‘Cosmic Bruja’
To Juliet Escoria for giving me a safe space to write ‘Last Dance With Heroin’ and ‘Suicide Pigs’ in her ‘Taboo Topics’ Litreactor class.
I would like to thank my cats for their emotional support.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leza Cantoral was born in Mexico. She runs CLASH Books and is editor of Print Projects for Luna Luna Magazine. She lives in New Hampshire with the love of her life and their two cats.
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