Becoming Mermaids

Becoming Mermaids

by Jamie Gann

Copyright 2017 Jamie Gann

Chapter 1: They Bore Her Up

Samantha curled her toes into the beach sand, under a pier, under a moonlit sky. Fine grains of silt ground into her skirt— the washing machine was gonna be full of them. She crushed another handful in her fist.

The bay was at the lowest point in its tide. The moon was full on the horizon, drawing all of the water toward it, like the train of a royal robe. The sun would be rising over the mountains in a few hours.

This was Sam’s favorite spot, her private place to sit and think, between the salt-crusted beams of wood, sprouting clams. But she was not happy. She was embarrassed and sore. Her lover, Andrew, thought she was not spicy enough. At least, that’s what he implied when he said he wanted to spice up their love life. He said he loved her, but wanted to try something more sensual as an experiment. Unbeknown to either Sam or Andrew, she was far more sensual than he was, easily.

Andrew’s experiment was entirely cerebral. He wanted to imagine growing fur and a tail, and other animal parts, while he and Samantha made love. He found some pictures on the Internet to aid his imagination. All of this was going on in Andrew’s head while the two of them coupled, rolling in the flannels that served as a bed in her tiny box apartment. Samantha was thinking of his skin, how smooth it was as it was, without fur, when she was jolted by an unexpected thrust that hurt her. She didn’t have time to react, to guide him, before it was over. When he rolled to her side, she didn’t feel any glow of warmth. She felt like an empty balloon. Andrew wanted to try it again someday.

That’s why she got up and dressed, drove to the beach and climbed down the embankment to the gully under the pier where she ground sand in her toes and watched the silver waves dissolve and solidify the sand, over and over until dawn. She wanted to think about what she’d say to Andrew, how to tell him that his experiment backfired, but what she thought about instead was the first time she came down here, ten years ago, shook off her clothes and waded out like doomed Andromeda among the curling waves. The water licking her skin. The light of the moon gilding her and everything around her in silver. The grunions worming in the mud between her ankles.

Samantha had a deep love of touch that she hardly understood and Andrew couldn’t begin to recognize. What he experienced through his eyes and turned over in his mind, she absorbed through the skin and churned in her belly. And despite all of this, he thought he was the more sexually adventurous of the two, and she thought she was more shy.

The moon swelled and tinted orange as it slipped over the edge of the Earth, and everything went dark. The hour between moonset and sunrise was lit only by stars, which crowded the sky and reflected on the water. Sam couldn’t see the waves anymore, only hear them.

And yet, she did see something in the water. Or if not seen, felt it, the way a fish knows it’s being watched. Hairs raised on the back of her neck. She thought she saw a log or something disturbing the flow of water. The pupils of her eyes dilated. The thing stared back.

Samantha was aware of the face in the water, watching her, long before she moved. In the dim light, she couldn’t see the eyes, only shadows in the skull cast by the shape of its brow— a skeletal face. It was too dim for any colors other than gray, blue, and blackness. And it wasn’t above the water but in it: each inflowing wave obscured it, each outflowing wave revealed it.

What eventually made Sam move was not fear but the overcoming of fear, the realization that it might be someone drowning out there— or someone who had drowned— and only she could help. It could take ten minutes just to get to her phone. Ten minutes could be too late.

So Sam ran into the water, chasing the outflowing wave to where the body lay. When the next wave came in, it shocked her with cold— even in southern California, the ocean was frigid in spring. It went right up to her waist; she gave up trying to hold her skirts above it. Running through waist-deep water was next to impossible. She didn’t get very far before the wave flowed out again, revealing the face.

By now, Sam was within groping length of the body. She was close enough to see that it was a woman, bare-chested, and deathly white. Before the next wave buried the corpse and pushed Sam off her feet, a crab crawled onto its cheek.

Sam freaked and tried to swim toward shore, but with the falling of the wave, forced herself to look again. The eyes were open and unseeing. The mouth was ajar. Sam couldn’t bring herself to bat that crab away, and she would have screamed if it had crawled into the lady’s mouth. She pressed her hand firmly to her own mouth.

In the moment when the water was lowest, the corpse’s eyes flickered to life and zeroed in on Sam. It said, Can you keep a secret?

Sam bit her hand and tried to run, slipping in the soft silt just as the next wave picked her up and played with her. She got tangled in her own skirts trying to run or kick or swim. She splashed, no idea where the beach was. Two hands gripped her ankles and Sam fought like captured prey. Something was winding around her, slithering, and the deathly face rose once more from the water. Its wet hair clung to its shoulders, smooth as a seal.

I said, can you keep a secret?

Sam’s eyes bulged. She coughed and spat seawater— couldn’t keep it out of her mouth. Her body was a live nerve, ready to strike and kill, but she nodded. Or shivered. Or both.

The lady hesitated long enough for the water to recede and they both sank back to the ground, into a puddle that bubbled underneath from clams. Their bodies were twisted together. Sam struggled to crawl out of the woman’s grip. Her now-limp, naked body rolled over on the sand. Sam stood, tripped on her own skirt and stood again, more than an arm’s length away. The lady was a mermaid.

A mermaid! Its skin was twisted below the hips into a scaly column that curled around the shallow puddle, ending in the collapsed fan of a fishtail. Sam had only starlight to guide her, but she couldn’t make herself not see it. Her eyes darted from torso to tail, not comprehending. When the next wave came, she swam as hard and as fast as she could toward shore.

She could tell that the mermaid was following her, lazily peaking its fin as Sam swam with all her might. She reached shallow water and ran, all the way up to where the sand is dry, under the beams of the pier. The mermaid bobbed on the next wave and got stranded when it slipped away. She dragged herself onto the sand.

Sam’s legs itched to run all the way up the embankment and back to her car, but on dry land, she felt it was safe enough to face the creature, who was struggling to pull herself up onto the dry part, where it was softer and less tangible than the wet. Her dragging body carved a rut behind her, a snail’s trail in the sand.

Sam gasped, What are you?

The mermaid stopped for a moment and almost shrugged. A jewel dangled in the darkness between her breasts.

Sam’s whole body shivered— she hugged her sweater and rocked to calm herself, but that only made it worse. The mermaid resumed her labors, pulling herself up to the first pillar of the pier. You didn’t answer my question, she said.

W— what question?

The mermaid cocked her head, incredulously. Can you keep a secret?

Sure— sure— She nodded violently. What secret?

The mermaid guffawed. That I’m a mermaid, of course! Her voice was full and brassy.

Oh. Yeah. Sure.

Pull it together, will ya?

Sam struggled inwardly, then stomped, spattering sand. How is this even possible?

I’ll tell y’everything you wanna know. But first, I need your pinky swear that you won’t be handing me over to the authorities or anything. Last thing I want is to end up on exhibit.

Of course. I would never. Sam pulled the sleeves of her sweater over her hands, which huddled by her mouth.

"Reason I wanna know is— look, I’m taking a real risk even talking to you. If it wasn’t for— I don’t know— boredom, I guess— I’d stay a hundred miles clear of any humans anywhere. She panned with her hand while drawing out the an-ny-where. You keep your promise and take me home with you, and I’ll make it worth your while."

Home? You want—? Sam’s voice dropped. You want to come home with me?

She nodded. Yeah. An east coast accent. Maybe Brooklyn? Sam couldn’t be sure. I got something I need to do, and I just need to shack up someplace a couple days to get it done.

Uh, okay. Yeah, I guess that’ll be fine. Sam couldn’t think of any way this could go wrong.

A smile flashed across the mermaid’s lips. It’ll be fun! Listen, I’ll tell you all about it on the way. But first... She indicated with a glance at the long, hard struggle it had been to get as far ashore as she had.

Oh, it’s like a ten foot scramble to get up that embankment, Sam pointed, and then my car’s way across the parking lot. I don’t suppose I could— how heavy are you?