The Mermaids Curse

The amethysts light of pre-dawn cut through the drapes of a merchant’s daughter's room. She was a beautiful maiden. Fair hair fell in waves around fairer skin. Eyes the color of the sky on a misty autumn morn gazed out at the sea from her balcony. Shadows from sleepless nights tarnished her usually perfect complexion. The cool, salty breeze sent chills across her bare shoulders.

The sun had yet to fully peak above the horizon. The dock workers had yet to wake and begin the bustle of the day.

Too soon her handmaid would enter her chambers to help her dress and fix her hair. “A young lady must be made presentable so that she may find a respectable suitor”.

Suitor.

Her mind hung on that word, casually wondering who the man was meant to suit. Her or her father’s wishes? The latter seemed the likeliest.

Her wish was to be with him and only him. A boy raised among the fisherman. But, a fisherman’s son would not do for a lady fair. She would have to give up on her dream of wedded bliss and love; for she knew in her heart of hearts that she could not love another. Neither now nor ever.

With the fading moon and tired sun as her only witness she allowed her night gown to slip from it's ties and fall to the hard wood boards. She bare herself to the sun and moon and pray they send image of her form to him in this night's last dreams.

** * **

Maid in tow she made her way to the docks. There her father worked. He had, yet again, become lost in his work forgetting the time. She had volunteered to fetch him for the midday meal, though she had ulterior motives in mind.

Prior to fetching her merchant father she paused at a certain slip. He saw her in her finery and gawked, not at her beauty but that despite her beauty and bounty she had fallen in love with him.

Today he would leave. One last time but for such a long time.

He, in an attempt to gain title and her father’s favor had joined the royal navy. He would dawn his red coat and set sail across the sea. He would, in hopes, return a hero of War and be rewarded her hand.

“We must be off miss, lest your mother become wary.”

She sighed at her maid but knowing she was correct left the lad.

She would return. She would see him off, she swore to her self.

** * **

She slipped passed the doorway reserved for the attendants and made her way carefully to the shore.

She was late.

He was aboard and the ship drifted father out to sea.

Barefoot she stepped into the waves. She cared not for the finery of the silks and cotton that adorned her tired body. She cared not for how the water weighted down the fabric. Surely her mother would be cross that she had allowed the salt of the sea to stain and taint the hand mixed colors that marked her societal position.

Sorrow filled her heart.

She prayed.

Not to the Christian God she had be raised to worship.

To the sea. To the waves. To the water.

She walked. Deeper still into the sea.

Give me a way to be with my love.

She prayed.

She walked.

Give me a way to love him eternally and loudly.

She prayed, she walked.

She walked until the weight of watered down gown was too much for her tired body to hold.

She prayed.

She walked.

She drown.

** * **

Her weighted gown slipped from her frail body as she opened her eyes beneath the waves.

No longer able to hold her breath she found herself able to breath. She starred about herself unbelieving.

A whisper tickled her ears.

I heard you pray.

I watched you walk.

I grant your wish.

She marveled at the tail that replaced her legs. The iridescent glow of the scales that flecked her skin.

She was the first of a new breed.

A maiden of the sea. A Mermaid.

** * **

That eve she found his ship. She climbed the ropes with her new found strength. As the last of the sea dripped from her skin her legs returned. She slipped through the quiet halls and found her way to his cabin.

To love him was easy.

She bore him six daughters and two sons. But, while he aged and withered as humans do she kept her youth. She would watch him die and would live knowing she had cursed her children with the same.

To love eternally means to live eternally.

A century had passed.

She had grown to love the sea more than she had loved him. It was her home.

Her kin.

She watched from rocks and waves at the callous cruelty of mankind. The way hunted and pillaged. She, herself grew callous and cruel.

She commanded the monsters of the deep. The dark and deadly creatures of the sea to crash the ships and kill the crew. The screams of sailors as they drown filled the air. The iron metallic ting of blood mingles with the salt of the sea as bodies were ripped apart by rocks, sharks and shreds of timber.

She would sing her sirens song from jagged rocks and laugh as they sailed to their deaths. Those that survived the crash were dragged to the inky depths of the seemingly bottomless abyss. The dark chasm like a wound in the ocean floor.

But she grew lonely.

Then she saw him.

Had she not known it to not be so she would have thought him to be her love from long ago.

She followed close but distant.

He was a pirate.

Pirates knew of her and her kin. Knew her danger and plotted her demise.

When off an inlet they anchored she climbed aboard a ship she did not know. She kept carefully, the feel of her legs a new. It had been so long now since she left the sea.

She marveled at her still young body. A body she had once bore to the sun and moon.

Silently she slipped passed drunken lads to a still quiet room.

There she found the captain. A young and handsome man. The one who held a striking resemblance to the love she had long since left behind.

His dark hair fell in ringlets over his sleeping face. His skin was kissed by the sun. muscles tight and strong told a tale of a life of physical stress and strain. He had not had the privilege of servants and work men.

As she admired him the ship swayed and tripped the still fair maid. She kicked an empty bottle that once was filled with rum making a clatter in the quiet room.

He sat up with a start.

She on the other hand did not hesitate.

It had been a century.

She leaped into the sailors arms and kissed his lips.

“I have heard tails of mermaids,” he whispered on ragged breath, caressing the shimmering scales that flecked her skin. Breasts pressed against his bare chest “I don’t believe this is what they meant by ferocious,” he sighed as she kissed him again.

After a century she found herself praying again.

As she made love to this pirate that resembled who she lost, she pray.

Let him love me eternally. Let him be my guardian of this sea.

She pray. She loved.

Again a whisper play in her ears.

I heard your prayer.

I will grant your wish.

“What is your name,” she asked this sailor bold.

His response…

David Jones

** * **

I hope that you enjoyed my take on the creation of the first mermaid and the oceanic grim reaper. If you enjoyed this lyrical style short story hit the heart and subscribe.