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    Scales: a mermaid tale, #0.5
    Scales: a mermaid tale, #0.5
    Scales: a mermaid tale, #0.5
    Ebook114 pages1 hour

    Scales: a mermaid tale, #0.5

    By Pauline Creeden

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    About this ebook

    Mermaids can be cruel creatures.

    Verona is a bottom feeder. She is the one mer in her clan who is considered the ugliest and least intelligent. Growing up with the constant bullying and abuse wasn’t the worst of what her kind had in store for her. At seventeen years old, she must now endure “The Reckoning.”

    The scales will measure her worth to her clan. Will she endure thirty days as a land-walker to gather information and knowledge to appease her clan and return a valued member? Will she wait three years, until she is twenty, and find a mer of her kind to accept her and marry her? Or will she suffer exile for the rest of her life?

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherAltWit Press
    Release dateMay 5, 2015
    ISBN9781533783240
    Scales: a mermaid tale, #0.5
    Author

    Pauline Creeden

    In simple language, Pauline Creeden breaks down Biblical stories and applies them to real life in new ways. Her methods of teaching have brought new light to old scriptures. In her fiction, she creates worlds that are both familiar and strange, often pulling the veil between dimensions. She becomes the main character in each of her stories, and because she has ADD, she will get bored if she pretends to be one person for too long.Pauline is a horse trainer from Virginia, but writing is her therapy.She is the Admin for Spirit Filled Kindle and an administrator for Readers’ Realm. Her articles, reviews, and devotionals have been featured in RUBY FOR WOMEN Magazine,Devotionals for Bloggers, Faith Filled Family Magazine, and Christian Fiction Book Reviews.One of Pauline’s short stories has won the CCW Short Story contest. Other short stories have been published in Fear & Trembling Magazine, Obsidian River and Avenir Eclectia. An urban fantasy short will appear in The Book of Sylvari: An Anthology of Elves from Port Yonder Press, and a vampire short will appear in Monsters! from Diminished Media Group. She is currently editing and drafting several novels at various stages.

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      Book preview

      Scales - Pauline Creeden

      SCALES

      A mermaid tale

      © 2015 Pauline Creeden

      Cover Design Copyright © 2015 by Quirky Bird

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the author.

      This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious and are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

      Interior formatting and design by Marcy Rachel.

      Synopsis:

      Verona is a bottom feeder. She is the one Mer in her clan who is considered the ugliest and least intelligent. Growing up with the constant bullying and abuse wasn’t the worst of what her kind had in store for her. At seventeen years old, she must now endure The Reckoning.

      The scales will measure her worth to her clan. Will she endure thirty days as a land-walker to gather information and knowledge to appease her clan and return a valued member? Will she wait three years, until she is twenty, and find a Mer of her kind to accept her and marry her? Or will she suffer exile for the rest of her life?

      CHAPTER ONE

      TO KEEP FROM SCREAMING , I bite hard on my lip. The copper mixture of blood and saltwater mingles on my tongue. Mer claws rake against my back. The barnacles on the post to which I’m tied stab me in the chest. Pain sets my body on fire. Everything burns. I squeeze my eyes shut tight and keep my silence.

      Ugly.

      Repugnant.

      Unsightly.

      Ignorant.

      Bottom Feeder.

      Each word cuts as deep in my flesh as the physical wounds my clan inflicts. It can’t last long. I can endure this. As soon as the sharks catch scent of my blood they will come, and the Mer will scatter.

      The world spins around me like a whirlpool. My breaths come quick and shallow, my heart pounds faster in my ears. Each second is an eternity, until I realize fresh wounds are not adding to the burning in my skin.

      The elder’s sharp tongue whispers in my ear. Now you will be measured.

      My wrists fall free of the post as he cuts the ties.

      Exile. My Reckoning has begun.

      I open my eyes and rub my wrists. The ropes slide over my hands and sink to the sandy floor. My gaze darts about the clearing, but not one Mer remains in the crystal green sea only a hundred miles northeast of Bermuda.

      What should I do? Swim for the shore and live as a human or go for deeper waters and try my hand against the sharks?

      I swallow.

      Don’t do it, Verona. I hear my father’s voice in my mind as fear engulfs me. Nothing is worse than starving and suffering abuse at the hands of Land Walkers. Stay in the sea where danger wears no mask.

      My father almost died in his Reckoning. He had chosen his month on land and bore freckles—the mark of a Land Walker—for the rest of his life. Any Mer immersed by air in the light of the full moon remains human for a full lunar cycle. If I went on land, I’d have to await the night of the next full moon before I could return to the sea. If I survived.

      There’s no way I could do it.

      I dart toward the open sea.

      A Mer is faster than a shark, but what a shark lacks in speed he makes up in endurance. Although adrenaline pumps through my veins and my fear drives me faster, I force myself to slow. I need to conserve energy until I actually see one of the sharp-toothed beasts. If I continue to the open sea and sink deep enough, I can avoid the Great Whites and the breeds that do the most harm. The bottom-feeding sharks aren’t likely to bother me, even if I am bleeding. How many miles would it be until I reach the deep? Can I make it?

      My ear pulls back at a buzz in the current. The gentle hum of electro-magnetic pulses from the snout of a shark is approaching. No. Three sharks. A panicked chirp escapes my lips. I need help. But what Mer will help me now?

      A thought pops into my head so suddenly that I stop swimming. Maybe I could find a pod of dolphins. I follow my chirp with a long squeal and veer away from the electro-magnetic pulses in the current.

      I strain my ear. No answer.

      I repeat the chirp and long squeal.

      Nothing.

      In my panic, I swim away from the magnetic current with all the strength I have. Black spots crowd my vision. Have I lost so much blood? This can’t be happening. Fainting would not help. My muscles ache from lack of oxygen, so I slow down and try to catch my breath.

      Please heal faster, I tell my body. At least stop bleeding.

      I force my panicked heart to slow so that the sharks won’t see me as prey.

      I scan the area for anything to use as a weapon, but the sea floor produces nothing to use as a spear, nothing that would stab at a shark and keep it away from me. Even a sharp shell would work. I could cut one of the sharks and the other two would commence their frenzy on the victim of my attack. Sharks don’t care what they eat, as long as it is bleeding and panicking.

      A vicious cycle.

      Sunlight glints off a white body near the surface. It dives deeper and darts back and forth, scenting the current.

      Stay still. It’s too late to run.

      I close my eyes.

      Salt water in; salt water out. I breathe slowly and deeply.

      They will ignore me if I calm myself. If I don’t act like prey, there’s a chance they might leave me alone. A nudge bounces against my shoulder, and my breaths quicken. They are testing me. First a nudge, then a test bite. If I can resist the panic, they might still ignore me even after taking the bite. I’m not their first choice for a meal. I have a chance.

      Unspoken prayers burst from my heart and mind. There has to be some way to survive this. My heartbeat pounds in my ears and take over my every thought, my every sense. Every nerve ending on my body stands alert, waiting, wondering where they will bite me. Where will the pain come from? My arm? My fin?

      Please...

      Please...

      Please...

      I wait... and wait. But after a long time, nothing happens.

      Slowly, I open my eyes. No more than twenty arm-lengths away, the three sharks have begun a frenzy on the remnants of a marlin. I blink.

      How?

      Then a face appears in front of me. Bailey. Long blond curls surround his golden face and his blue eyes twinkle. He’s holding a spear. Hurry—before they finish.

      I’m shocked stiff and barely manage to nod.

      He grabs my arm and yanks me away.

      I can’t help but stare. The veins on his muscular forearm strain as he grips my wrist. The water envelops us as we swim. I hardly have time to think. Why is he helping me? None of the Mer are supposed to help. I’ve never been more than an outlier to him. He’s hardly ever spoken to me.

      Because I am the bottom feeder, it is my job to survive the Reckoning and prove that I am worthy to stay with the clan. If they find out that he helped me, they’ll send him out on the Reckoning, too.

      Suddenly I stop and yank my arm from his grasp. You can’t do this. You can’t help me.

      He sneers. A Mer with half a brain would say thank you.

      He snatches my wrist again and drags me along with him.

      I follow reluctantly. Where are we going?

      Shut up and swim faster. We need to get salve on your wounds so they will clot. I’ve got some hidden this way.

      We swim in silence toward the shallows until we find another reef, round and in hues of purple and orange in the bright sunlight. A buzz on the current signals that the sharks are finished with the marlin and are following again, or perhaps it’s another set of sharks...there are only two.

      Bailey finally releases my arm and ducks closer to the reef. He presses his cheek against

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