"La Deuxième Siréne" by Ashley Jane Brodie

Within the silken caress of the waves, the Mer-people swim.

Lithe, smooth bodies propel through the cold liquid, forcing their streamlined frames through the stabbing, swirling currents. Gleaming torsos, dotted with shimmering iridescent scales, merge seamlessly with the fully scaled appendage which directs the creatures in their swimming. Syngnathidae bob through the streaming weeds, joining the larger fish as mock-chariot horses. They lead the way through the crystal waters, their flickering tails bending amongst the light plants and softly brushing the shells of the brightly coloured echinoderms.

With my hair floating behind me like a macabre halo in the cold tide, I swam amongst that throng. My tail, matching in its unearthly hue the shade found in the lush green kelp which protrudes from sand and rocks on the ocean floor, would swish impatiently. My cyan eyes flickered beneath their protective sheen.

Evolution granted the carcharodon carcharias with a thin layer over their eyes, through which they could both see, but also allow the soft orbs to be protected from the salted water. Evolution also granted this ocean hunter’s gift to the Mer-people. In very few other nameable ways do we match the instinctive shark.

Surrounded as I was by these creatures of grace and beauty, I felt unfulfilled.

I had heard the tales of men above the water.

In a palace of gorgonian coral and gleaming stone, the Mer-King, my father, sits on his throne of turtle shell and pearl. Under his instruction, none of those under his domain may rise to look above the water, or interact with the race of men. These instructions only fuelled my desire to swim towards the sun, as all instructions given by the parent convince the child to counter-act them.

My grandmother once told me that a Mer-maiden can live for three hundred years, and after that time, we become the white, buoyant foam on the sea, as we possess no immortal soul which can ascend to the heavenly kingdom of men’s souls, where eternal paradise is granted to the good.

Is there no way to attain an immortal soul? I asked this of her when her wizened, shrivelled, old lips told me the tale.

If a Mer-maiden can make a mortal man love her more than his mother or father, she will be granted with an immortal soul. But your father does not allow his peoples to rise towards the sun; therefore interacting with a mortal man is an impossible feat.

Alas! Man fears the Mer-folk. They see our glimmering scales, our shining, supple tails, and they fear them. What is beauty to us, they see as frightful abnormality! But wait, the tale is not done, for I saw a way.

There was a sea-witch, the stories of her powers legendary amongst the Mer-folk; for once she was one of us. Her stories are more often recounted than even the tales of man! She lived in a rushing whirlpool in the darkest pass of the ocean, where weeds do not bloom and there are no brightly coloured sands on which the traveller can softly rest, for all ground there is barren and dark, spiked rocks jutting out into the black abyss. She was said to possess the power of transformation.

For a price, she could turn any creature into anything they wished to be.

Only she could change my lissom tail into the two ridiculous sticks the mortals call legs, therefore giving me the acceptance I so sorely needed to attain the love of man, and therefore an immortal soul.

While my father was detained inside his monstrous hall of cockle shells, I stealthily slipped away. I swam the leagues to the sea-witch’s pass, and allowed my bright, shining body, so unused to the darkness she inhabited, to sink slowly down towards her cave of fish bone and poison anemone. Soon I was caught in the stabbing, current of the rushing whirlpool. It dragged me down into her abode, where I was promptly deposited before her very feet –or such webbed and scaled appendages that served her as such- and my ears swiftly filled with the sound of her laughter.

Ah! Little Mer-maid, pretty little Mer-maid. With bloody hair and watery eyes. And you want to be a woman, not a Mer-maid. I looked up at the sea-witch before me. She was so like me but yet not at all! Her skin, that I thought may have once been pale like all the Mer-maids, was now darkened; vicious patterns of black and purple lucid on their fleshy canvas, as if the weight of the water so deep down had bruised her, the pressure so intense it crushed her flesh beneath it. The tails of my kindred all shone brightly, as if the sun itself had dropped beneath the waves and settled under our scales, yet her tail was black, darker even than her dappled skin. Angler fish skin had been crudely conjoined to fashion a morbid frock, and from within the folds of this garment the sea-witch produced a vial. She held it up for me to see.

Good, gentle, honest little Mer-maid. Drink this and you shall sprout feet. I reached out for the vial greedily, childishly, impetuously, but she drew her arm back from me. There is a price. She reminded me.

Name it. I countered, feeling bold and knowing I was being rash.

Your sweet little voice my sweet little Mer-maid. She told me. That is all.

I asked her why, I do not know why I did, and I could never tell you, but the fact remains that I did and that is irrefutable.

I lost mine, long ago, when I ceased being one of your kind and swam into the abyss.

The exchange of voice for legs was made, and she took a sharp knife and cut a hole in my throat. A drop of pearlescent blood floated out into the water around us, shining in the dark, and she scooped it up into a cowry shell. The hole in my neck closed as soon as the droplet was within the golden cowry, pale skin lacing over and over and over itself, until not a blemish was left on my slender throat. I swam to the coast as quickly as my excited frame would allow, and once in the shallows of a bay, I tipped the searing hot contents of the vial between my lips. The change was instantaneous, and the pain nearly overwhelmed me, but I could not scream, for I had no voice. I looked down in the water and saw dark, viscous blood swirling around me as my tail transformed, splitting down the middle. It was as if some spirit had taken a burning hot tool and stuck it through my tail, dragging it down until there were no two stray tendrils of flesh conjoining the perfect halves. The water around me bubbled and boiled, hissing angrily as steam rose from the surface.

Finally the process was complete. I took a stumbling, clumsy step forward, overwhelmed as I discovered my new ability to move two limbs instead of one, gradually finding the natural grace which all women possess, and managed to drag myself to the waters edge.

I was washed up onto a sandy beach. The sediment was not like that found beneath the water, for it stuck to me as an uncomfortable second skin. While I sat there, marvelling at my new legs, wiggling my toes and basking in the warm sun, beating down upon me, a Lord stumbled across my naked frame. Glacial eyes skimmed my figure before pink lips began to move in speech. He asked me who I was, but of course I was unable to reply. He lifted me in his arms and took me to his home. When there he laid me upon a bed of fine sheets.

What precious skin. He murmured. I was so engrossingly happy that he was pleased with my frame, and not repulsed as I was scared he would be, that I caught eye contact with him and smiled. He held my gaze.

Though you do not speak, your eyes speak for you. He murmured once again, and climbed onto the bed beside me. I knew that this was the man I was destined to make love me more than his mother or father. He was a lord: rich as Midas, splendidly dressed and most wonderfully handsome. Thick dark locks sat above chiselled cheek-bones.

I remained within my lord’s luxurious quarters for many months, watching with excited eyes as maids dressed in cotton fitted me with taffeta and silk, satin and velvet, and I tried in all ways I could to encapture the Lord.

It was hard to tell if the lack of a voice helped or hindered my developing relationship with the black-haired lord, for whenever I saw another female speaking with him, he would silence or ignore her, arrogant petulance seeping into his attractive features. However he spent every night beside me on his gilt framed bed, and every mealtime in my company. Within him was obviously a narcissism so great that the sound of another besides himself speaking irritated him. However this fact did not disturb me, or steer me from my course to acquire a soul by making him love me.

One misty night, just moments after the sun had sunk pink behind the clouds, and moist condensation lay in a fine sheen over cold glass windows, I entered my lord’s bedchamber. Upon the sumptuous covers of my Lord’s mammoth bed the sea-witch lay. She was very similar to how she had been the last time I saw her, but for one difference. She now had long, bruised legs where once a blackened tail had been. She smiled to me, and beckoned me to her side.

No luck my pretty one? She asked, stroking my dark red hair with concern that was almost contemptuous. I shook my head in answer, tendrils of soft locks stroking my cheeks, though I knew the reply was unnecessary. Darling Mer-maid. She whispered to me now, her breathing quiet as it raced across my cheeks. With my powers, you could make him love you. You wouldn’t need to strive for it. Come little Mer-maid, I shall only ever tell you this, for never before have I developed an affection for any as I have you.

A Mer-maid lives for three hundred years, a sea-witch lives until the day she chooses to pass on her power to a new, young maid. I felt my eyes widen, as the implications of her words came crashing down upon me like the heavy water she had lived beneath.

With power comes knowledge my maid, and with knowledge comes ability. Take my powers and knowledge and ability, use it yourself. All I ask for in return, is the soul you will attain. Using that I shall ascend to feel the unearthly rapture of heaven, and you shall remain until you choose to pass on this gift upon which you can join me. Come my little Mer-maid, you can accomplish anything you dream of, and live for as long as you wish, where you wish in whatever form you wish. Stay here with your beloved Lord if it so pleases you.

We sat in uneasy silence, her mottled hand stroking slowly, perpetually over my hair, and finally, my head stirred in my reply.

THE END