All The Mermaids In The Sea

by Robert W Cabell

  “Thank you,” was all Holger could manage, as he was emotionally tossed back and forth on waves of sorrow.

  “Do you have any sailing orders for us, Your Grace?”

  “Yes!” answered Holger, shaking himself back to the present. “Set sail at once, with all speed, to the Panama Canal. And don’t call me your grace, please. My name is Holger.”

  “Yes, Holger, I will be honored to call you that in private, but I serve the Duke and Duchess of Egeskov, as have all of the crew and their families, for many years. Your title is a great comfort to us. We do not cling to our traditions, we celebrate them, since they are legends that live among us.”

  “I guess I can understand that. Thank you, Captain.”

  “You are welcome, Your Grace. Now, may I show you to your suite so you can settle in as we get underway? You will have plenty of time to catch some sleep if you need it.”

  “That would be wonderful. Sleep is the one thing I haven’t done much of in days.”

  Holger followed the captain down a corridor toward the bow of the ship and stopped at two large mahogany doors carved with a large family crest. The heraldic shield was made up of two male narwhals, one either side, rearing up out of the waves with a mountain-shaped island in the middle, and a mermaid curled up underneath, at the bottom tip of the shield. It was the crest of the Duchy of Egeskov.

  Puff the Magic Dragon

  Pearl loved tuna, either as sushi or in a salad the way her mom made it with mayo, pickle relish, and finely chopped red onions. But looking at a school of five or six hundred blue fin tuna coming straight at her was a frightening thing. They looked more like giant zombie piranha out of a bad Syfy network movie of the week. Worse was the fact that their minds were screaming in panic. It was safe to say, that it wasn’t pretty.

  “The nets! The nets! Men and their nets! Flee! Flee! Flee!” They tended to screech everything in threes, which was as annoying as it was unnerving. Their terrified minds projected high-pitch distress calls that sounded like munchkins fleeing the wicked witch, and Pearl could hear the slight hum of ship propellers churning the water over their screeching. Fishermen! she thought in alarm.

  Pearl suddenly went on the alert. She had grown up in the Pacific Northwest, fascinated with the sea. She knew more than your average thirteen-year-old girl did about tuna and fishing. The fishermen killed a lot of dolphins too with their nets. Tuna were one of the fastest fish in the ocean, so if they couldn’t outrun the nets, there was no hope for Sandy and her two kits. And Pearl wasn’t going to let anything happen to them.

  “Slammer! Jumper!” she called to her dolphin protectors. “Swim straight ahead as fast as you can and jump over the nets before you’re boxed in by the tuna!”

  “Slammer and Jumper will stay with you, Princess,” Slammer twittered.

  “I’ll be fine, Slammer. I need your help on the other side of the nets. Now go!” Slammer and Jumper spun around and followed her orders without another question as she radiated a command for any other dolphins in the area to do the same. She knew how to handle an emergency. That was something she’d learned from her father.

  Sandy and the kits would not be able to swim fast enough or jump high enough to clear the nets in time. Pearl could sense their closeness by the change in the currents and the pressure of the water.

  The nets were closed and drawing tighter every second. They were called purse seine nets. The nets were long and rectangular, and weighted along one of the long edges, so they hung perpendicular when they were stretched out in the water in a circular path by a sturdy fishing boat. Also along the bottom edge of the net was a series of rings through which ropes were threaded.

  When the net encircled a school of fish, the ropes in the rings were pulled tight—just like the top of a drawstring purse. Trapped fish swam down to escape, but found no exit. Dolphins died in the nets because they got trapped down at the bottom in the mass of struggling fish and couldn’t surface to breathe. They drowned in the ocean, and that was not acceptable.

  The front edge of the tuna school had just reached Pearl. The manta ray kits were darting around them, but a few of them bashed into Sandy.

  “Everybody, follow me!” Pearl shouted as she picked up speed to reach the nets before they were too clogged with tuna for her to get through.

  The tuna were darting around them now in panic. Suddenly another one slammed into Sandy and one whizzed over Pearl’s shoulder.

  “The Princess,” a tuna suddenly shouted, taking notice of her at last. Then another tuna shouted, and another, until the mad dash focused specifically on Pearl, causing a massive marine pileup as the ocean around her turned into a sea of colliding bodies.

  The nets continued to draw closer.

  “Coral! Prickle! On my back now!” Pearl commanded. The kits were frightened enough to obey without thought or comment, and the moment she felt them touch her shoulders, she raised herself up on a column of water. They rose over the tuna, up into the air, and arched over the nets into the open sea.

  The frantic tuna surrounded Sandy, smashing and bashing into her twenty-five-foot span as they tried to get through to freedom. They were all being compressed and shoved together, thrashing and beating against one another. The beautiful manta ray was like a fallen calf under a herd of stampeding cattle. Echo burrowed deep into Pearl’s hair so she could cling to the back of her neck.

  Pearl whirled around frantically and grabbed the outside of the net as she dug into her sample bag. Thank goodness for Mama and Papa’s present, she thought as her fingers touched the knife inside. She snatched it out and slipped her hand into the loop to keep from dropping it, just as they had taught her in NOAA Summer Camp. Now was not the time for mistakes!

  The net began to drag Pearl with it as it continued to close. The kits were beside her, crying for Sandy. Jumper and Slammer darted back and forth protectively, clicking and squealing as poor little Coral and Prickle nipped at the net with their teeth, desperately trying to free their mother.

  “Stand back and stay calm everyone. I’ll get her out in a second,” Pearl commanded them.

  As fast as she could, she slashed through the net in a wide circular pattern. The net was in constant motion. The tuna shoved and bit at it and at Pearl’s fingers as she slashed and sawed, trying not to hurt them as their bodies smashed into her hands, Sandy, and the net.

  Tuna quickly began squeezing and thrashing through the gash she’d sawed and were forcing their way out, which relieved some of the pressure inside. Still the net kept tightening, making it constantly smaller and more cramped inside, even as more and more tuna escaped through the ever-widening hole. The blood of the battered and injured fish had attracted sharks that started savaging the worst of the injured fish, causing Slammer and Jumper to circle around Pearl in rage.

  Still Pearl kept slashing and sawing, sending out commands to the sharks to stay back even as the fishing ships, unaware of her presence, circled closer and closer. She was engulfed in a cloud of thrashing, gnashing madness of fear, terror, and blood-clogged water. Fear and danger radiated toward her from every direction, and the taste of blood was clogging her gills making her nauseous.

  Not knowing which direction was up or down any longer, Pearl used the trick her father had taught her when she was about to panic and lose control. With her last bit of sanity, she focused her concentration on the net and sang. She sang to drown out the frenzy, to hear herself over the roars of terror, and the hysterical squealing kits. Like a boom of drums and blaring trumpets, her voice welled up and out of her.

  “Puff, the magic dragon lived by the sea, and frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honahlee.” Pearl sang as loudly as she could as tears surged out of her eyes. “Little Jackie paper, loved that rascal Puff, and brought him strings and sealing wax,” she sang above the madness, “and other fancy stuff! Oh …”

  Pearl couldn’t remember the next verse, so she just kept singing the same words over and over again, concentrating on calming
herself and creating order in her mind. Then, Echo began pulsing and humming as loudly as she could, adding her voice to Pearl’s. “Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea, and frolicked in the autumn mist, in a land called Honahlee.”

  She noticed the waters growing calmer as she sang. The tuna were less terrified and no longer colliding together. She poured her mind into the notes of the song as her hands kept sawing at the net. “Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff, and brought him strings and sealing wax, and other fancy stuff!”

  Pearl could hear the minds of Slammer and Jumper joining in, and the kits were calming down and had backed away from the net. She slashed away the last strand of the wide circle, and the surge of tuna moved aside in a trance and allowed her to swim past them back into the net. She kept on singing at the top of her lungs to continue the calming effect. “Oh, Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea, and frolicked in the autumn mist in a laaaaaaand caaaaaaalled Honahleeeeeeeee!”

  As the tuna now calmly swam around her instead of crashing into her through the wide hole in the net, she could see that Sandy was barely moving. Praying she wasn’t too late, Pearl reached out and created a current of water around Sandy with her mind. Then, as if she held a string in her hand that was connected to Sandy, she pulled the manta ray out into the ocean just as the net began to close completely. Sandy was finally free.

  The hulls of the circling ships where almost directly above them, and Pearl was certain the fishermen on one of them were, by now, aware that something was not right with their net.

  Pearl had been so focused on freeing Sandy so they could all swim away to freedom, that she hadn’t noticed the manta ray’s injuries. She was taken by surprise when she discovered that Sandy’s mind was a mass of pain and exhaustion. She suddenly realized the effect of hundreds of impact bruises all over the manta ray’s body.

  Sandy’s degree of pain horrified Pearl as she held herself back in sorrow from trying to hug her friend and protector. Sandy’s eyes were twisted shut in anguish. Her mind was incapable of communicating anything but agony.

  Something came over Pearl—some deep instinctive reaction. She found herself spreading a firm layer of water around Sandy that protected her like a power field. She commanded all of her companions to dive, taking Sandy down with her in the cocoon of water.

  Pearl took Sandy deep. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for until she found it. It was a warm thermal current rich with plankton, rising up in their daily vertical migration. Sandy needed warmth and life. Pearl understood that now. So far she had found that her mermaid powers were limited only by her imagination. Well, she had a big one, and she was going to imagine whatever she had to in order to make Sandy well.

  “Here, Sandy, just rest and float,” Pearl murmured softly as she gently caressed the edge of the ray’s wing.” She sensed they had reached the right place for triage in the warm current, buoyed up by the dense cloud of plankton.

  “I am sorry, mistress,” Sandy gasped in the voice of a creature in pain. “I don’t think I can go on much longer.” A spasm of agony ripped through her body, radiating across her wingspan.

  “Don’t leave us, don’t go!” Coral and Prickle chittered in dread.

  “No one is going anywhere!” Pearl declared in the firm voice her mother always used when she took charge of a difficult situation.

  “Everyone stay calm.” Pearl turned to look at the hovering kits. “If you want your mother to get well, you must be very good and very quiet.”

  “We will, we will!” They chittered back at her.

  “Good. Just drift in the current next to her. Don’t talk or move. Just stay with us while I help her get better.”

  “Slammer and Jumper will help!” Slammer nuzzled Pearl’s back gently.

  “Not this time, pal. Just keep guard and stay back,” she told him. “Nobody talk or move until I’m finished.”

  “There is nothing you can do, Princess,” Sandy sighed. Pearl could sense she was near death and the pain was now numbing her senses. “I’m afraid I am too badly injured.”

  “It makes me very cross when people tell me I can’t do something before I’ve even tried, Sandy. As your Royal Princess, I command you to obey me and relax. If I can make waves with my mind, become invisible, make tuna hum, and turtles drool, I should be able to heal you too. Now just relax and believe.”

  Sandy shivered resignedly as Pearl gently stretched herself out, above and across Sandy’s body, barely touching the manta’s bruised back to keep from causing her any more pain. The kits and the dolphins floated gently along with the current.

  Okay, Pearl thought, as her arms stretched out as wide as she could make them reach. I know they always seem to glow when they heal people on “Star Trek” or “Stargate.” That means energy, and energy usually creates some kind of heat, but not too much heat. She thought back to how she’d over energized when she’d hurled herself up into the air the first time she’d practiced wave making. I also think the injured one needs to eat a lot when they’re being healed to give them energy, Pearl remembered as she sensed the rich plankton laden water surrounding them. “Now, let’s pray this works,” she muttered and closed her eyes.

  All around her she felt the warmth of the thermal current. She could see the pink haze of the lush plankton rising in a layer of water. Plankton was the food source for manta rays. Sandy had taught her to eat it, and she’d found it was just like eating a milkshake. Only Sandy didn’t have enough strength to eat and process the nourishment now.

  Floating above Sandy, Pearl thought of herself as a crystal, a crystal that pulled in light, warmth, and energy from the sea. She pulled in energy from the plankton, from the warmth of the current, and drew it all in to her, as much as she could possibly contain in her mermaid form.

  When Pearl felt she was about to burst, she took a deep mental breath, as if she was preparing to sing a long note. And that is just what she did. She let that warm, rich, glowing note become the most beautiful note, from the most beautiful song she had ever sung. She made it rise out of her and into Sandy.

  Pearl held that note. She held that power, that glow, that beauty, that warmth, for as long, and as steadily, and as purely as she possibly could. She held it until she collapsed in exhaustion on Sandy’s back.

  Sandy didn’t tremble. She didn’t wince. The manta sighed with pleasure.

  Pearl opened her eyes and was surprised to see that she and Sandy were glowing! A river of shimmering plankton stretched out in front and behind them. It swirled all around them, radiating with a rainbow of sparkling light, stretching out for as far as Pearl could see.

  And Sandy had changed. She looked like an angel. Her bruised and traumatized body, which had been almost black a few moments ago, was now pearl-white with the iridescent shimmer of palest pink and sky blue that defies description as a single color. Every bruise and mar on her skin, every gash and slash, was gone.

  That was not the only change. Sandy had grown larger! She was now at least thirty-five feet across, and her kits, now floating beside her, had nearly doubled in size and turned the same mother-of-pearl white. Even Slammer and Jumper had grown. A wave of health and wellness had radiated out for leagues in every direction, restoring vigor to the waters surrounding the new mermaid princess.

  Deep within the core of the planet, Gaia, the mother of all, awoke at the touch of energy. And far away, as she drifted in the kelp of the North Sea, Queen Helmi felt the touch of her granddaughter’s power and sighed with relief and hope.

  Going South

  “Admiral,” the lieutenant burst into the admiral’s office. “We’ve got another satellite photo.”

  “Another sphere?” the admiral asked. He had been mentally packing up his office after the last fiasco. Maybe his prayer for another chance had just been answered.

  “No,” the lieutenant said.

  “Then what is it?” he snapped, his disappointment almost palpable.

  “We don’t know what it is, but it mu
st be her. Look!” And he shoved the photo under the admiral’s face.

  It was a starburst deep in the ocean, spiraling outward for miles like a glowing, giant asterisk of light deep in the sea, calling, “Here I am!”

  “Where? Where is this?” he gasped.

  “About two hundred miles off the coast of Ecuador.”

  “She’s still heading south, then.” Admiral Greystone shook his fist in triumph. “I want everything we’ve got on both sides of the continent headed toward the tip of South America. When she swings around Cape Horn, I don’t care if we have to put ten thousand divers in the water, I want that mermaid!”

  “Yes, sir, Admiral.” The lieutenant saluted and went to deliver the orders.

  Unfortunately for the admiral, Pearl was no longer heading south, but north toward the Panama Canal. The only thing that was “going south,” was the admiral’s career.

  The Transformation

  Back in the sanctuary of the Manor grotto, Miranda had Halder remove the Ring of Atlantis from his finger and place it on a golden chain around his neck so it could not interfere with his transformation. Halder had no idea what was going to happen when he ate the Lichen of Poseidon and transformed for the first time into a merman.

  Of all the many thoughts and images that had passed through his mind as he paused before eating the mystical lichen, doubt had not been one of them. In fact, his last thought as a true human being was a prayer of thanks to the Creator for making his most impossible dream come true.

  Everything about Miranda and the life they had already shared had been full of wonder and splendor. Even the Lichen of Poseidon was mythic in its tiny grandeur. Gold in color, with tiny, lavender, bell-shaped blossoms, it had a fragrance of cardamom, vanilla, and spearmint. It reminded him of the Mandel Krager cookies Miranda was so found of, but the taste was strong and briny, like fresh kelp stewed in a rosemary sauce.