Beautiful to Me

by E. L. Tenenbaum

  I became so conscious of my size, that was only just big enough to keep me from following after the others, that I wove a shirt like loose netting to wear over my shells, down my hips, past the top of my tail. I can say with full authority and without doubt that I was the only one in Merdom to ever wear a shirt. In many ways, it made me stand out even more, but at least it hid my size. Even today, I have no idea how that fluke of nature occurred, how a magical, a mermaid at that, could be so plain, fat, and unremarkable.

  I don’t know if it was size, station, or something else I probably had no control over that made the sisters want to avoid me. It’s easiest to think it was only because I was the youngest that they so often shook me off. If it was station, no one ranked higher in castle nobility than my parents, both of whom were beautiful creatures and perfectly shaped specimens of merfolk.

  My mother had dark hair the color of an unlit ocean and bright blue eyes that delightedly sparkled from her delicate, porcelain white skin. My father’s skin glistened the same golden brown as a sea lion’s in the sun, handsome and chiseled, a hero of sorts to younger mermen because even at his age he far surpassed them in all types of sports and contests of strength. Somehow, those two ended up with a daughter like me, an ordinary, pudgy girl with dull black hair and tinted blue eyes that didn’t shine quite as brightly as Mother’s.

  With no queen from King Trident’s wives, the ruling female voice in the sea was the king’s mother, the princesses’ bestaymor. And as, in a way, the king was a father to us all, we all called her “Bestaymor” out of respect. She was rather proud of her station and even age couldn’t stoop her ramrod posture or dip her upturned nose. She would’ve been completely insufferable had she not also been a rather wonderful storyteller, regaling us younglings for hours with tales about all kinds of creatures on land and sea.

  Looking back, I realize how rather odd many of her stories were, how single minded and inappropriate for girls in their formative years, especially princesses meant to be examples to the entire underwater kingdom. Having spent some time in another palace away from the court of the Sea King, I know that there are other ways to raise royalty. Often with better results.

  Imagine six lovely mermaids, shiny golden tails tinted metallic green, long flowing hair of every color, wide eyes that charm all they look upon, gathering around an aged, yet beautiful mermaid. There’s one redhead, slightly more petite and more beautiful than the rest, who sits in the center, waiting just as eagerly as the others for the story to begin. Just behind the little semicircle is a very small, select group of other palace mermaids, one of which has thick black hair, long black lashes—her only notable feature—and still-innocent, inquisitive blue eyes. Her tail is a rich, lovely blue, which helps her easily blend into, and get lost within, the deep waters of the sea.

  “Tell us a story, Bestaymor!” the mermaid princesses call as one. The other, less noble mermaids know better than to speak directly to the sea’s matriarch, so their lips move quietly instead.

  “If you will listen, if you will learn,” the grandmother melodically singsongs back.

  “We will, we will!” they promise.

  And so the grandmother begins her story and all lean closer in eager anticipation.

  “Once there was a pretty little orange sea star,” she begins, her old voice enriched by the good years she’s lived, “who couldn’t wait for the years to pass so she would grow to be big and beautiful like her siblings. After the mother’s arms separated from her, each grew to full size sea stars, each except for the one little orange one.”

  Take heed, I didn’t claim the actual stories were any good. Her voice was just enthralling.

  “It took this little sea star much longer than the others to grow. Some of her siblings were already cutting off bits of their arms and growing new sea stars of their own, but still she remained the smallest of them all. A year passed, yet she stayed little and petite as could be. It was very easy for her siblings to break open clamshells and eat as much as they wished, but by the time the little sea star cracked open a shell at mealtime, the others were already moving on to fun games she was never big enough to join.

  “This greatly frustrated the little orange star and she would often sigh, ‘If only I could be big and strong like my siblings. If only my feet—’”

  “Feet!” Sienna interrupts with a longing sigh.

  “Quiet, Sienna!” her sisters sharply chide.

  Bestaymor frowns in stern warning before continuing. “‘If only my feet could scurry as quickly as theirs across the ocean floor. If only I could join in their games and fun. If only I could do something important so they’ll notice me.’

  “Thus the little sea star fretted. Each day, she would gaze to the point of each arm, measuring its length, and each day she’d be disappointed that none had grown very much at all.

  “One day, a beautiful young mermaid floated up to the scurrying sea star. She had long—” here Bestaymor pauses and focuses on whomever is listening the most raptly, “—blonde hair which was always falling into her face and blocking her vision whenever she swam quickly.

  “‘Why do you hurry?’ she asked the sea star.

  “‘Because I am so small, I must run faster to catch up to my siblings,’ the sea star replied, her orange color glowing as she blushed to admit the truth before such a beautiful girl.

  “The mermaid sighed. ‘I too was following after my siblings, but my hair keeps floating into my face, so I lost sight of them beyond that coral reef.’

  “The sea star nodded along, understanding her sadness all too well. They stayed like that awhile, company for each other’s misery, before the spark of an idea began to form in the little sea star’s head.

  “‘Maybe,’ she suggested, quietly at first, afraid to speak so boldly in the presence of the wonderful mermaid.

  “The mermaid simply glanced at her, her lack of reaction enough to embolden the little sea star to speak further.

  “‘Maybe,’ she continued without stopping this time, ‘we can help each other!’

  “The mermaid looked at in her amusement, a small smile playing at the tip of her lips. She was the ruler of the sea, all creatures were subject to her, but this little sea star was suggesting they could be of help to each other! The very notion was laughable, but she bit her tongue and kept her mirth in check, as one who is superior to another must do. The sea star truly looked like an unfortunate creature, and the beautiful mermaid was no better off herself in the present moment. Besides, she thought, it seemed they both knew a little something about being left behind.

  “So the mermaid pulled out her nicest smile and kindly asked the sea star, ‘What is it you suggest, little one?’

  “‘Well,’ the sea star replied, ‘your hair gets in your eyes, which keeps you from catching up to your siblings. My feet—’”

  “Feet!” Sienna tries to exhale in a whisper, but everyone hears her anyway.

  “Sienna!” the others exclaim in unison.

  Bestaymor gives each a silencing look before catching the drifting thread of her tale. “‘My feet aren’t long enough or fast enough, which keeps me from catching up to my siblings.’

  “The sea star paused to see if the mermaid was still listening. She was running her delicate fingers through her enviable long, blonde hair, but she was.

  “‘Perhaps,’ the sea star finally blurted out, ‘perhaps, I can hold your hair back and then you’ll help me go faster!’

  “The mermaid smiled. ‘I don’t understand, little star.’

  “‘Attach me to your hair,’ the sea star explained, ‘I have five arms and many tiny feet. While I hold your hair away from your face, you’ll be able to swim much faster than I can ever run!’

  “The mermaid’s smile grew into something real this time. ‘A wonderful idea!’ she exclaimed.

  “The mermaid pulled some of her beautiful blonde hair back from her face and held it in place with one hand. Then she carefully picked up the little orange
sea star and clipped her in place, right above her right ear. The sea star grabbed onto the thick strands of hair as tightly as she could, not daring to let go as the sea rushed past her at a frighteningly quick pace once the mermaid started to swim.

  “So it was that the beautiful mermaid and little sea star sped about the ocean together, each happy as a clam at high tide. The mermaid no longer lost sight of her siblings, and the sea star felt important because she was helping the beautiful mermaid.”

  Even after their grandmother’s voice falls quiet, none of the princesses move. Her stories always raise her girls above all others, but not without giving them a few ideas to think on, too.

  Granted, I could think of one or two parts to question in the story, but such was the grandmother’s way, and such was the way she was raising her granddaughters. There wasn’t much anyone could do about it either, though it may have affected Sienna’s fate if anyone could have. However, there’s no use trying to rearrange pieces of the past from the surety of the future. No amount of mental reordering will undo Sienna’s decisions. No amount of reshuffling will set things to how we imagine they should have been.

  Of course, after hearing a story like that, it was only a matter of hours before each of the mermaid sisters boasted a sea star just above their right ears, their tiny feet clutching the princess’s own enviable hair.

  “I found a tiny orange one, just like Bestaymor’s story!” the blonde sister happily showed the others.

  One sister shifted to show off hers. “I’ve a green one to match my eyes.”

  “See how dear mine is,” a third sister chimed in, holding up her little yellow sea star for the others to admire before fastening it to her auburn hair.

  I never either had the courage to ask any of the sea stars if they felt honored or important to have been chosen to decorate a mermaid princess’ hair, but like Bestaymor’s lessons, that was beside the point. I never had the courage to ask any of the princesses if they realized there was more to the story than an idea for subjugating sea creatures as hair accessories. As for myself, I was only the daughter of a duchess, I didn’t wear sea stars.

  “Look how many feet mine has!” Sienna exclaimed. “Bestaymor, please tell us a story about humans and their feet.”

  The others groaned. “Not again.”

  Bestaymor would do anything for her granddaughters, a subtle, unwitting lesson in being assured of getting all they ever desired, so she only ever said no if majority of them said no, too.

  “Maybe another time, Sienna, dear,” she said kindly.

  When the others didn’t override her, Bestaymor would willingly speak for hours about the faeries and mages and pixies and dragons she met at Conclave over her long years, about the things she’d seen of life on land, and the simpler, lesser, non-magical humans that walked it. Whenever she spoke about those humans, however, it was always with the stern warning to stay out of sight because, “We bring death to each other.”

  “If you are ever, ever mistakenly seen,” Bestaymor firmly instructed, “there are songs you must sing to make certain no human can tell others of you.”

  “Are they forgetting songs?” Sienna whispered in wide-eyed fascination.

  “Of a sort,” Bestaymor replied vaguely. “Though if you’re careful, you won’t have to use them at all. I myself never had to sing them more than twice,” she added haughtily.

  Even so, Sienna more than the rest of us, drank up every detail of every story that took place above the sea, never tiring to hear about the notion that flowers had smells and creatures called birds flew in a sky, a place home to none but sun, moon, and stars. She loved to hear about the seasons, about the way the land and weather changed, about the way time felt above the surface. Most of all, she never tired of hearing about humans, of hearing about the way they moved across land with their feet, how they danced and ran and climbed and jumped.

  I, and even the others, would have enjoyed those stories much more if Sienna hadn’t ruined them with her overzealous infatuation. However much she interrupted during an underwater story, she was even worse when it came to stories above water, especially as she had more questions than Bestaymor had answers. This helped increase our distaste for life outside the sea, but Sienna remained stubbornly insatiable. Her grandmother, her father, possibly even her mother, all thought it a stage she would soon outgrow, but she never did. Not even at the very end when it was too late to save herself.

  With her mind always on land, most merfolk mistook Sienna for a thoughtful, shy girl, whom all assumed wise because she could go from the center of attention to relatively unnoticed at will. Most merfolk were mistaken. Sienna was only quiet the hours she spent dreaming about land, about two feet and running and walking and jumping. She wasn’t shy but had been taught to be proud by her grandmother. She stayed away from most of her fellow merfolk because she thought herself better than them, even those with stronger magic or rarer abilities than hers.

  All of the above added up to why, despite living many years in the castle and growing up with the princesses, my best friends under the sea were two pink-bellied, gray bottlenose dolphin siblings, Callan and Cigny.

  It’s not unusual for merfolk to befriend other sea animals. Sienna had a handful of crystal jellyfish whose sole purpose was to float along the length of the ceilings in her chambers. Although their natural choice was to glow green and blue, Sienna played around with their colors whenever the mood fit her, ordering them into bright pinks and purples, yellows and oranges and, a later personal favorite of hers, green and gold. Though I will admit they often added a rather lovely glow to her rooms.

  I met Callan and Cigny one day after they had been separated from their pod. Separated may not be the right word, because they weren’t specifically lost, just causing trouble. Bottlenose dolphins look like they’re always smiling, but Callan and Cigny actually were, especially as there was usually some mischief or other afloat between them. They didn’t seem to mind that I was different from other merfolk, that I wore a shirt, that it would take more than two hands to encircle my waist. A crueler person would say it was because my body looked more like theirs, but it wasn’t something any of us ever considered.

  I’d been hunting through the remains of an old sunken ship, a favorite pastime of many merfolk, when I heard the distinct cry of a hurting dolphin. I swam about until I found sweet Callan with his nose stuck inside the barnacled remains of a rusty metal hoop. Cigny was trying her best to help him out, but it was rather difficult for her, especially since she was miserably failing to fight back her laughter. It also wasn’t easy for her to push or pull him out without a reliable way to grip him, so it was very clear that what the situation most needed was a pair of hands.

  I swam over. “Need some help?”

  “No,” Cigny giggled.

  Callan nodded his body yes at the same time, the metal hoop keeping his mouth clamped shut. I raised an eyebrow at one then the other.

  Cigny looked at her brother. “I almost got it.”

  He adamantly shook his body no.

  “We’re fine,” she insisted.

  Callan rolled his eyes before returning them to me with a pleading look.

  I looked at Cigny. “I’ll just try one thing. If it doesn’t work, I won’t bother you further.”

  Cigny shrugged, obviously annoyed that her brother no longer trusted her to get him out. Besides, succeeding meant an end to her fun.

  I turned back to Callan and lightly touched my hand to his rubbery nose. “I’m going to push, and you must wiggle backward when I do,” I instructed. “It may hurt, but it won’t be for long.”

  Callan nodded, but I wasn’t really waiting for his approval. “One, two, three,” I counted, before he had time to overthink things.

  One hand pushed Callan the other grabbed the metal ring and yanked it forward. Callan swam backward with a fury. Cigny just watched.

  It took a few minutes, but he finally made it out, which immediately set him to swimming i
n happy loops.

  “I can heal it,” I offered, gesturing to the small red lines scratching his nose.

  “How’s it look?” he asked Cigny.

  Cigny frowned at him. “Doesn’t make you look any smarter.”

  Callan smiled. “The ladies will lo-o-ove it,” he sing-songed, narrowing his eyes at the cuts he probably couldn’t really see. “They make me look tough.”

  Cigny nickered at him in exasperation. “They’ll be gone in a few hours.”

  “Better find those ladies quick,” was my brilliant response.

  Callan’s smile stretched even further.

  Even now I can’t say why, but there was something about those dolphins that simply drew me to them. Maybe it was their carefree nature or willing acceptance of me. Maybe it was the difference in their lives, in their ability to cut away from their pod for a while without feeling lost and frighteningly adrift. Maybe it was just because they had each other.

  I wouldn’t say I was outright jealous of them, especially because they took me under their fins, and we became fast friends after that. So it wasn’t them specifically, but the concept of them that latched onto my mind. Like most merfolk, I didn’t grow up with siblings, and the same would apply to any child of mine if I made my home in the capital. Who would look after my child if no one else would? Who would include him in their fun, especially if he was different? Who else, but family, would give him unconditional love and friendship?

  No one.

  I need only look at my own life to answer that.

  Swimming in Circles

  Each of the nobles’ daughters living in the castle had a little section within the royal gardens which she was expected to maintain howsoever she pleased, princesses included. While it may seem beneath the dignity of a royal mermaid to tend a small garden plot, there were various, irrelevant academic reasons contrived to necessitate that it be so. Among them, caring for a small garden allowed certain “personal stylistic expressions to shine in addition to creating a sense of responsibility and commitment” for the life of that particular spot.