by B. J. Smash
She stood at the railing, looking out over the horizon. The sun rose in the midst of pinks this morning, but our ever-lingering dark cloud remained above us. I can’t believe that she had stayed up with me all night, dumping ocean water on my legs. This was uncharacteristic of Magella. She must know something that I don’t. Perhaps she had thought of a way she could use me in mermaid form.
“Isn’t there a salve you could make to put on my legs? It’s so itchy,” I said. When I looked down at my legs, I saw that she had covered them up with my afghan.
“You can just get in the water now. It’ll soothe your, ah…legs. Actually, why don’t you take a look at your legs.”
Pulling the blanket aside, I let out a loud gasp. Before me was a mermaid’s tail. It was dark blue with a few silver specks along the sides. I covered my mouth in shock, but then I laughed.
Magella glanced at me, and even her lips went up into a slight grin. “You do look ridiculous. Anyway, get in the water for a while.” She stepped back and watched me.
I had to crawl with my arms and ended up getting a few splinters. It felt weird to move my lower half. It felt like I still had legs but they were bound together and there was more muscle, and I could feel the tail fin, like I still had feet. I pulled myself up to the railing, which was hard work and took everything I had.
Just as I was about to topple over the edge, Magella said, “You better come back! Or you’ll be sorry. Don’t go traipsing off with those other merpeople. And watch out for Jonesby!”
I nodded my head and fell backward into the water. When my tail hit, I was in heaven. The water soothed the itchiness away and comforted me. For a while I just let myself sink lower and lower, enjoying the feeling of being a mermaid, but then I did spins and turns and zipped one way and then the other. Oh my gosh, this was too cool. This sense of freedom was intense! It had been worth it to go to Jonesby the Jinxer’s lair just for this tail.
Swimming at fast speeds, I met up with some dolphins. They poked at me with their bottle noses and yacked at me in their dolphin language. I still couldn’t understand them, but maybe in time I could learn a few words. I grabbed a fin and held on, and we plowed our way through the cool waters. They pulled me far out into the sun, well away from Magella’s dark boat. I slid my hand down one of the dolphin’s smooth backs. He then did circles around me and took off further out to sea. The rest followed suit.
“Hey! Where are you going?” I was about to swim out after them, when something tugged the end of my tail. My instinct was to thrash and swipe my lower body at them. I mean, it could be Jonesby the Jinxer. But when I swam down using the use of my new tail, I noticed it was Eadgar, and things appeared clearer and crisper. It was like we were above the water, and I could see every detail of his face perfectly.
He stared at me and smirked. “Where did you get that?” He pointed to my tail, and I could hear him better, too.
“It’s a long story—” I started to say.
“Jonesby gave you something. He gave you spell?” he asked.
“He did,” I said, and I explained what had happened.
“It look beautiful and nice on you,” he said. “But you seem different now.”
This caused me to pause. The only thing different was my tail. “How so?” I asked, a little offended.
“You are smiling,” was his reply.
I laughed and bubbles escaped my mouth. He spun and did a few loop-dee-loops, and I did the same. We swam out to the dolphins again, and he toyed with them like they were his little brothers and sisters. They were extra friendly to Eadgar. They apparently had been friends for a long time. He even spoke to one in his own language. It sounded like eeeek-eeeeeek, click, click, and I swear the dolphin laughed.
We spent a good hour or so playing with them and swimming alongside them. A few times they swam at top speed and jumped out of the water, only to return with a giant splash. Eadgar did this as well. And so I thought I’d give it a try. I swept down and came back around, and using my fish tail muscles, I soared right up through the water, leaving it entirely, and then dove back down with a hefty splash. I did it again, only this time I sailed up and did a back flip. I could feel the heat of the sun on my stomach right before I dove back into the water.
We ended up lying on the beach, our tails still in the sea. Water dripped from his brow now, with a few droplets from his lips. “You know, this tail will not last,” he informed me.
I hadn’t been a mermaid for long, but I certainly was enjoying it. “Why not?” I asked. “Magella said it was permanent.”
“She is mistaken. Jonesby has to take pill every ninety days. He cannot stay in merman form without pills. This my grandmother has told me. My people have watched him from time to time. The only way to be mermaid permanently is to have mermaid grant you this wish. But to do so, you must bind yourself to them.”
The word “bind” turned my stomach. I knew all about binding. When I had bound myself to the Fae, that didn’t turn out so well. I would never bind myself to anything again. It was bad enough that I was forced to bind myself to Magella and her stinkin’ boat.
“Oh,” I said. I guess my mermaid-ness would only last for ninety days. I wouldn’t let it bother me. Maybe Magella could conjure up a pill of some sort. Then again, she was against this whole mermaid business, and so I highly doubted she would be of any help. I didn’t let it bother me. I was lying in the sun on a beach as a mermaid. I’d enjoy it to its fullest.
At one point, he looked like he was focusing on something. Soon after, his tail changed to legs. “I am going to get us snack. I have seaweed drying up here on rocks.” He automatically had on tight swim shorts again. It must be a fallback so that when mermaids shifted their tails, they weren’t naked. Although his swim shorts left little to the imagination. I turned my gaze out to sea.
He sauntered up to the rocks, grabbed something, and returned. The seaweed he handed me tasted pretty darn good, and I ate a good portion of it. “What else do you guys eat?” I asked.
“Guys? The guys eat the same things as girls,” he replied.
“Oh no. That’s a general way of including both genders. When I say ‘guys,’ I mean both the females and males.”
He sniffed. “Really? So strange. Anyway, we eat fish. We sometimes build fires and make breads and cakes just like humans. And in our homes, we use our own version of stove. But mostly we eat seaweed for snack.”
“Homes? What are your homes like?” He had piqued my interest. “Do you sleep on anemone beds? Or in the midst of seaweed?”
“Ha! No anemone beds. Sometimes we nap in seaweeds that grow up from the ocean floor. We nestle in with the giant strands so we stay stationary. But, no, we have homes inside rocks walls. You see islands—well, we live below islands. We have nice homes, with nice materials. We learn from humans to eat with forks. Long ago my people see shipwrecks and we learn from them. We learn what humans do, and we do that too. Not all things, but some,” he explained.
“This is so interesting.”
“Someday, I take you to my home. I will also show you our city, but it is far from here. The king, he lives in city. Huge, big, spread-out underwater city.” He held his arms out as far as they would go, to express to me just how big the city was. “Pearly gates, silver streets, white palace.”
“How come the humans—I mean, my people—have not found your homes or city?” I asked.
“Ah, but we cloak. We know many magic spells. Merpeople are full of magic. Do not you know? Haven’t you heard how we can grant you humans wish? I am not saying we are more advanced than humans…but in a way I am. Humans could know how to do this too, but they are not quite ready yet.” He smiled.
“I see.” Evidently he didn’t know my family too well. And apparently the merpeople learned how to use forks from us, but they have advanced knowledge of extreme magic.
“Oh, except for witches and wizards. They know how to control things and work things to do their bidding. You Seaforths—you kn
ow what I mean,” he said.
“Just what do you know about the Seaforths?” I asked.
To this, he shrugged his shoulders. “Let us go for a swim.” He pointed out to sea, and when I looked, the others were there waving at us.
We met up with Jina, Harleena, and Nicoli. After I explained a few things to them about how I received my tail, we all went for a long swim in the refreshing depths of the ocean.
***
Magella was not happy when I returned. I had been gone for three hours. The ladder was already in the water when I arrived. The ocean had taken a turn to the rough side and the waves leapt up at the boat, crashing into the sides.
“I’ve been calling for you. I thought Jonesby had gotten ahold of you,” she said. “You better come aboard now, we are to have a big storm.”
I did as she told me to, but I did not want to. If it wasn’t for the thin black rope around my wrist that bound me to her boat, I would have escaped by now. When I climbed above the water, my tail seemed to melt away and my legs were back. I could feel that the muscles in my stomach had been worked to the max. Pretty soon, I’d have abs of steel like the rest of the merpeople. I had always wondered what it would be like to have abs of steel.
“Did you hear me?” Magella asked.
“No. Sorry. What did you say?”
“Get breakfast ready. I’ll have salmon,” she said.
And so I went below deck to fix her breakfast. I wasn’t allowed to cook in her fancy kitchen; she had another one that was rather small nestled in the back. It had all the necessities for cooking, but the kitchen itself was dank and old. As I prepared food, the waves slammed into the side of the boat and I nearly fell down, grabbing the counter to hold myself up. I knew she could calm just about any storm—except for the one I had brewed in the past, over by the land of the elven. However, she liked storms, and I wouldn’t put it past her if she had created this one herself.
After much hopping around the kitchen and balancing acts, I finished cooking. The smell of fish wafted in the air. Shutting the stove off, I left with her salmon. I dropped it off in her fancy kitchen, and I left so that she could eat in peace. She didn’t say a word to me, and I knew that something was bothering her. I was soon to find out what.
She came above deck licking the remaining food from her fingers. (Oh yeah, Magella hardly ever used utensils.) She came to where I sat on the bench. The winds were howling and the boat swayed, but it wasn’t raining yet, and so I sat there watching the sea, trying to catch a glimpse of my friends.
“I’ve come to a decision. It is bad news for you to hang out with the merpeople. They will put fantasy in your head, and fill you with fanciful ideas. No…it is better if you don’t see them anymore,” she informed me. “They would like to put me out of these waters and into a lake. The less they know about me, the better it is for the both of us.”
My face burned hot, despite the cold winds. “But, Magella! It does no harm for me to see them from time to time!”
“You are not here to make friends. You are here to be punished! I said you will not see them anymore!” she yelled at me.
No good ever came out of arguing with Magella. I had learned that from the day I had set foot on this boat. She held no mercy when she got angry, and she out powered me greatly. Without knowing any magic, except for my two spells, she could crush me with her pinky. And it did surprise me that she let me hold on to the knowledge of those two spells she’d given me when I went to Jonesby’s lair. She never brought it up again. She probably didn’t care, as she was still that much more powerful than me.
“Fine,” I said. But I lied straight to her face. I would let her think that I wasn’t going to see the merpeople, but I would sneak. She wasn’t going to stop me.
Chapter Twelve
Many days passed and I hadn’t seen even a glimpse of the merpeople. On the night that Magella had informed me to stay away from them, she had set the boat to sail far away. And we sailed on and on until we were about one hundred miles from Merribay. The waters were rougher this far out to sea, and occasionally it would upset my stomach. I couldn’t be a full-fledged mermaid if the movements of water made me sick. But I did know one thing: I loved the ocean. I swam in it every chance I got. I would spend hours floating in the waters and swimming with the dolphins. I loved to catch a ride on their fins and pat their sleek gray bodies. Sometimes we’d play tag, and they were extremely adept at this game. Occasionally one would shoot out of the waters and then straight back down. They were constantly jabbering with each other in their strange language, probably gossiping, but no merpeople ever came for me.
She would have to return me to Merribay, though. My family would soon be waiting for me at the dock. If I didn’t show, I had a feeling Izadora would show up. Ivy would convince her to, and Magella wouldn’t like that.
It was a funny thing, though; once, as I was lounging out in the waters, I could have sworn that way up in the clouds, I’d seen a horse flying. I could have sworn that it had been Solstice. And yet the Fae and the elven must fly overhead sometimes, too. But I swear it had looked just like Solstice. Black and white and huge! He would be a hard horse to mistake. If it had been Ivy, she wouldn’t recognize me as her sister. She would have just thought that I was any ol’ mermaid, and kept going. Wouldn’t she be surprised when I finally told her that I was a mermaid—even if it was only temporary?
Time went on slowly, but it did pass. I started to miss my mer-friends, especially Eadgar, and I didn’t know why. But I missed them all. Even if they were only using me to find out information about Magella, I still longed for their company. If they were being fake, it somehow didn’t matter.
Spending time with only Magella for company was the worst punishment in the world. Sure, I had the dolphins to hang out with, but they didn’t talk. Or at least I didn’t speak their language. But could they understand mine? Then one day, it dawned on me: why not ask the dolphins to take the merpeople a message? I spoke to one of the super nice ones that liked to do circles around me and swim backward. He or she sometimes nosed my hair and laughed at me.
I leaned into this dolphin’s face and I said, “If you can understand me, nod your head.” To my amazement, it did nod its head.
“Okay then, will you bring a message to the merpeople back in Merribay, that I am one hundred miles or so out to the east?”
Once again, the dolphin nodded and swam away.
Maybe I was stir-crazy and maybe I was losing touch with reality a little bit, but surely it could work?
One day a pigeon flew onto Magella’s boat. It sailed in from the bright sunny skies on the outskirts, into our dark domain on board. I knew it contained a message, as that’s how wizards and witches sometimes communicated. It was that night that Magella informed me that she’d be leaving for two days for a card game on someone else’s boat. This relieved me. It was about time she left me alone! I was getting tired of her constantly harassing me. Every evening it was, “Zinnia, do this,” and “Zinnia, do that.” I felt like I would go insane!
The following afternoon she left. A boat pulled up about a half a mile away; it didn’t come any closer. It was a sketchy boat, with red sails at the masts, and the boat itself was painted black. Magella hurried around, picked up her gray robes, and walked to starboard and up to the edge. She turned to me and said, “Watch my boat with your life! If anything happens to it, you’ll pay through your nose.” To this, she turned and jumped into the waters. I could tell where she was at any given moment, as most of the gray clouds followed her. A good half hour later I saw her surface and climb the ladder onto the strange boat. A short time after, they took off at a heck of a pace and disappeared into the horizon.
I had no clue where they were headed, but apparently this card game was important. “Big stakes,” she had told me.
I spent my first night lying on deck, watching the stars. With Magella gone, the clouds had thinned enough for me to view them. It was a pleasant experience to be able to
see the stars again. I lay there thinking about my family back in Merribay, and how they might actually be looking forward to seeing me again. I hoped so.
Then I thought of the lost souls that Jonesby the Jinxer still held below the sea in his dark lair. I wished there was something I could do for them. If I could only steal them away when he’s gone or something. But when did he leave? Was he out playing cards right now? I couldn’t possibly swim one hundred miles and be back here by the time Magella returned, and what if someone stole the boat while I was gone? That was part of the problem, though; I couldn’t command the boat to do anything. It was under Magella’s command only.
Then my mind turned to Eadgar. What was he doing right now? By chance, was he thinking about me? Oh, what did it matter? I couldn’t have a romance with someone that I’d never be allowed to see. Romance. I laughed aloud. What did I even know about romance?
I fell asleep gazing up at the stars, my Gran’s blanket pulled up to my chin, and I was in a deep sleep, dreaming pleasant dreams for once. Calm and relaxed. I was abruptly awoken when I heard an extra loud splash about a hundred yards out in the ocean. I mean, it could have been a meteor for all I knew. It had made quite a crashing noise, and when I jumped up to look overboard, I saw the waves it had caused rippling toward the boat.
“Wow!” I said aloud. Magella had talked once about a sea monster, a ginormous octopus with a huge, bulbous head and eight legs longer than this boat. According to her, he was one helluva scary invertebrate, and when he felt threatened he would release a cloud of black ink that could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Being that size, he probably never felt threatened.
I had to wonder if that was him that I’d just heard. I rubbed my arms quickly to get rid of my goose bumps, and picked up my afghan to wrap around my shoulders. If it was and he came too close, he could tip the boat right over. Oh, what had she called him? He had a name: Barnabee the Big Brute. Something like that. While I contemplated this, the loud splash sounded again, not too far away, and sent wild waves crashing toward me.