Authors: Naomi Fraser
He shoots me a knowing grin,
totally sexy.
“The other side now.”
He reaches across
and sweeps the towel along my scales, smoothing the cloth down my tail.
A tail that is now too dry. If
anything, I’m stuck in a hard, thirsty web. He lingers over the task, rubbing
at the scales on my hips, his gaze on the light playing across the colours.
The nightie rides high, just
under my breasts, and I try to tug it down, but the hem is in tatters. At least
it covers what I need it to. Then he picks up the edge of the towel and wraps
it around my tail fin with a sigh.
“You are glorious,” he says. “I’d
take you back to your place, but you should probably come inside with me. You
can borrow my clothes and no one will care about the tail.”
“About a tail?
Are they blind?”
He grins mysteriously. “You’ll
see.”
THE HOSTEL REMINDS me of the crooked house from said nursery
rhyme.
As though a man with zero building skills and big
ideas constructed a house on the coastline.
The front door is around the
back and golden light peeks from the gaps in the wooden frame. A lean-to helps
hold up a wall, sheltering rows of tyres and waist-high grass. A few boats
scatter the yard, along with nets, fishing bins and buoys.
Lakyn switches off the headlights
and quickly exits. He wrenches open my door. The rusty metal creaks in protest.
Cold air blusters through the opening. Without a word, he adjusts the towels
over my tail and scoops me into his arms so my ear rests against his heart. I
slip my hand across the wetsuit material around his neck, and the damp fabric
tacks to my palm. The scent of salt, cool musk and lavender makes me want to
lean closer into him. He kicks the door shut and stalks toward the hostel.
As we near, loud voices echo from
the gaps in the sagging door.
“What’s going on?” I grip his
neck and try to straighten. “Are there people up?”
“Don’t be afraid. You’re
important to us, Ellie,” he says abruptly and stops. “It’s morning. Fishermen
are up early, but . . . it’s more than that.” He squeezes me, takes a deep
breath and his heartbeat picks up speed against my cheek. He rubs his warm hand
in a slow caress down my back. “What you’re about to learn might come as a bit
of a shock.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“As opposed to everything else tonight?
Outstanding.”
He laughs. “Yes, it’s just . . .
they’ve never fully transitioned. None of us have. It was against their will.
You’ll see.” He stalks toward to the door, easily navigating around dips and
objects, cradling me close.
At the threshold, he calls out to
someone called Ralph. No answer, which isn’t surprising considering the noise
inside. Then Lakyn kicks the door and the makeshift, heavy wood flies open at a
crooked angle. Golden light reveals a long, narrow table surrounded by men
whose heads turn to us in unison.
I pull back against Lakyn’s
chest. “What’s going on?” I whisper.
“They’re all here,” he murmurs
into my hair. “That’s good.
Safer for you.
I called
them from the car to let them know they didn’t have to stay out on the water.”
Then, “I’ve got her,” he announces, entering the room. “Lock the door behind
me, will you? Sirens are out there.”
A man rises and secures the door
with a heavy, metal bolt. The debate dies down and numerous chairs are vacated.
Lakyn sets me on the nearest empty chair and I cast a smile at the man who gave
up his seat for me.
“Thanks.”
“No problem,” he replies with a
grin.
“Anytime.
It’s good to meet you. I’m Owen.”
“Eloise,” I reply.
“I don’t think the sirens will
come here tonight, not yet anyway.” The man at the head of the table smiles,
but his bottom lip
is
slippery and too pink, his grey
moustache whiskers straight as spears. A cigarette nestles between two fingers
and a dark brown bottle sits beside his right hand. He wears waders, a black
and blue flannelette shirt and a cap with a fading beer logo. His smile turns
into a smirk. “Coming for me would be too much of a blessing.
Proud of you, boy.”
He waves his hand, and the smoke
follows. When it clears, his brown eyes shine at Lakyn.
Lakyn nods, his face serious.
“Watch over her while I get changed, will you? She needs some clothes, too.
I’ll hunt through the trunks.
Back in a moment, Ellie.”
“What?” I lean forward and the
towels slip off. The man next to me lifts them off the ground and hands them
back. “Thanks,” I say,
then
turn to Lakyn. “Hey, no
wait.”
“Oh, let him go,” the man at the
head of the table rasps. “Like he said, he’ll be back shortly. You need to hear
some home truths anyway.”
I crane my neck to see up the
stairs, but Lakyn’s gone. My smile briefly indents the corners of my mouth.
“Home truths?”
The man nods, and then takes a
swig of his beer.
“Name’s Ralph.”
“Joey,” another man says next to
him, then Paul. I say hello to Owen again, then Walter, Patrick and Steven.
I pinch a towel and rub the
coarse fabric along my palms. “I’m Eloise.”
“We know, but a name doesn’t explain
why we’re not fussing at the sight of your tail, does it?” Ralph squints and
bursts into rich laughter. The cigarette burns right down to the filter. “I
admit it’s been a while, but we were like you at once,
m’dear
.
You’re amongst compatriots. Never been a safer spot for you right now.”
I look from one man to the other.
“You’re all from . . . down there?
As what?”
My heart kicks to the resounding
cries of, “We still can’t be sure, she’s not finfolk”, “We need proof”, “To
just blindly believe”, and “I want to see her change back.”
“What more evidence do you need?”
Ralph turns to the side and stares at me over his shoulder. He sucks back on
his cigarette, but his hand shakes. It must taste awful—all filter. A cylinder
of ash drops to the table. Perfect.
Unspoilt.
“No, I
can tell all right. The boy isn’t lying. She’s both.”
“Just because she has a tail,”
Owen says. “Doesn’t mean—”
“It’s a miracle,” Paul says.
“Look at her ribcage. Look at
it.” Ralph thumps his fist to the table, and a glass rolls off the uneven surface
to shatter on the floor. No one moves to clean it up. They’re all staring at
me.
“The colour of her arms.
In her
tail.
Deny it all you want, but finfolk are tanner than she is.
Mermaid’s ribcages are flatter and wider when they’re out of the water. She has
differences I’ve never seen before, but you can see the human in her. I
might’ve been on land for twenty years but I spent forty in the sea, and I’ve
never
seen a tail with those colours.”
“Her teeth,” Patrick says. “Get
her to show you her teeth.”
“Open up,”
Ralph orders.
I hesitate and then smile widely,
without pleasure, showcasing my pearly whites.
“No sharp incisors, well not like
a pure mermaid.” Ralph sits back and laughs. “He really did it.”
“What are you?” I ask.
“You know what we’re saying.
We’re not from here.”
“But on—”
“We were finfolk.
Mermen.”
Joey reaches for his beer and takes a huge gulp.
“Now we’re here, without our families. No choice in the matter. All of us
stuck.”
“What? Why?”
“Oh.” Ralph kicks back his head,
a reminiscent smile on his face. “I met a woman, a human woman. Hair that put a
mermaid’s to shame, ripples all the way to her backside.
Humour.”
He shook his head. “It’s like she invented the word.” His jaw clenches hard,
and his eyes burn with the kind of pain that can cripple a heart. As if the
world drilled a hole through his eyes, into his heart and cracked the muscle
wide open. Mum’s eyes over Dad—her pain—I remember it well. “Council didn’t
like it.
Against the rules.”
The hostel is
bare
with
brown wooden floors and thin, grey fibro walls. No pictures, no
photos. A string of small bulbs line the ceiling on a black cord and the uneven
table looks on its last legs. I rub my trembling hands together, but say
nothing. There’s an ambience in the room for all the lack of furnishings, a
lack of pretence. No mask or need to be on your guard. Sit upright, press knees
together, or don’t clang your mug on the table.
None of that.
No need for quiet voices and to stop fidgeting. In the simplicity, you can let
down your guard. Your veneer washes away for something honest.
Like the time my mum broke down
after holding it in for so long. When the pretext slips away, realness fills
your soul and heals every wound you ever had. Goodness and friendships reside
in truth and honesty. Nothing underhand is going to happen to me here. I trust
in that and sink a little into my chair.
“She’s not with us anymore.”
Ralph’s gaze catches mine and he swallows. “Tried to change her, didn’t I? But
they warn against that type of thing, normally it doesn’t go well. I didn’t
listen, because we wanted to be together.”
A stark silence falls, but the
ocean outside whispers in a soft hush against the rocks.
“My daughter lifted objects from
the human world and brought them back to sell. I’d been injured and couldn’t
work,” Joey breaks in and looks down at the table. “They were starving. Human
possessions go for a high price. I took her punishment, rather than have her
leave home. What use am I in the sea anyway?” His hands slip from the table to
grip the handles of his wheelchair. “At least she’s with family.”
“And you’re here. He did it,”
Ralph says with a huge grin. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
By this time, my tail is tight
and dry, and pain sharpens my irritation. “You mean how Lakyn saved me?”
“Can’t guess?” A slick note
enters Ralph’s voice. “How did he swim back?”
Lakyn’s gorgeous face filters in
my mind.
The wavy motion of his hand, him dictating to me.
The speed of his stroke.
He’s so elegant and natural
in the water. The sound of my heartbeat echoes loudly in my ears. “He held my
hand.”
“Uh-huh,” Ralph says. “Lakyn
wasn’t here two months ago.”
My hands shake, then my arms, but
I still my jaw long enough to ask.
“At this hostel?”
“No, not just
at this hostel.”
Ralph’s direct look makes acid churn in my gut. “It’s
more than that. How did he swim?”
I glance at my hands.
Perfectly.
“He showed me how . . . he knew . . . I was going
sideways because of the cord, and he knew.” I lift my gaze to Ralph’s face, understanding.
“He’s a—he’s a—”
“Merman,” Ralph finishes, his
knuckles white on the table, lights shining in his brown eyes. “That’s it.”
“But he has legs,” I whisper.
“So do you. He couldn’t let you
die that night you heard the sirens’ song and went over the cliff. Not after
sirens killed his family. The way he tells it, he was there for a minute or
two, collecting jewels. Then he heard their song. It’s illegal for sirens to be
here, you know, just as much as it is for finfolk to change humans.”
Tears sting my eyes. The incoming
tide tastes of grief. “What happened?”
“Listen, they kicked him out for
what he did. Worst mistake they ever made in my opinion. He’s one of the king’s
guard
, youngest to be admitted. Not surprising, since
he’s the king’s nephew and the fastest swimmer on the squad. They needed him on
all the patrol runs, but the king has to show he’s following protocol or the council
will cause more trouble. The boy’s the first one to ever escape the sirens.
They didn’t like that.”
“Sirens took his family—”
“That’s the crux of it, isn’t
it?” Ralph’s brief smile is grim. “He stopped them from stealing souls so they
went after him, but underestimated his speed. He’s immune to their call.” Ralph
clicks his fingers. “The boy has royal blood. He escaped but they went after
his sister, mother and father.” Silence falls once again. “We’ve all lost
somebody here. He’s got no family left, ‘
cept
the king.
Though a fat lot of good that’s done him.”
The light scuff of Lakyn coming
down the stairs snaps my head up. He wears blue jeans and a clean, white, polo
shirt that contrasts with his deep tan. His damp hair looks as though he’s
raked his fingers through the strands. He stops, barefoot, with a pile of folded
clothes in his hands and stares at my face, his brows lowering. “Are you OK?
Are you starting to change back—you’re in pain?”
I lift my shaking hands to mouth,
trying to contain the distress in my voice. “You were there at the cliff the
night I leapt off, weren’t you? And you’ve known all along . . .” I hiccup.
“What I would turn into. You’re a merman.”
He shoots a frown at Ralph and
then stalks toward me. My heart almost leaps at Lakyn’s closeness.
“Not anymore. I’ve lost my tail.”
His jaw works and a tic beats above his right eyebrow. “I couldn’t let them
take you, Ellie.” Steely resolve echoes in his tone. He grabs my hand,
caressing each finger as though trying to rub the warmth back into my skin.
“They’re not supposed to be here. I don’t know how they did it without anyone
else knowing, but I will find out. I promise you.”
Ralph lights up another cigarette.
“Without proof, the council condemns you.”
Lakyn shrugs. “I don’t care about
the council. I couldn’t let you die because of the sirens. They lured you out
into the water. I know you’re frightened, but everything’s going to be OK.”
“I’m not afraid.” I sniffle.
“Well, not exactly.”
“You’d be crazy if you weren’t.
Yours is the first successful transformation in a long time,” Ralph says, rubbing
his chin as he turns to Lakyn. “When will she get her legs back? What do the
books say about that?”
“
Dr.
Farrow says documentation doesn’t exist about this type of thing. More tactics
by the council, I guess. We’ll have to wait and see. Legends speak of
transformation, but the information is suppressed. There is one—”
“
Dr.
Farrow?
As in the psych I see at the hospital? She’s a mermaid, too?” How
deep do these lies go? “
How
did that happen?”
“She agreed to temporarily lose
her fins to watch you. You haven’t noticed anything different about her?”
Lakyn’s brow creases. “She’s been listing all your changes for the records. But
don’t worry; she’s not dangerous to you. If anything, she could be an ally,” he
murmurs. “However, I wouldn’t mention the tail to her yet.”