6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

Meria

“ W hy are you moping?” I opened my eyes to see Finn, hovering beside my bed, his silver tail swishing up and down. “Edmar is spreading it far and wide that he is betrothed to the youngest Princess of Marren.” Finn continued to tread water beside my bed as he looked at me with confusion. Even though Rina had helped me feel a little better about Edmar with her words, the worries I still had caused me to believe that Edmar was not who I thought he was.

“I think I made a mistake,” I said, pulling up my woven kelp blanket to cover my face.

He pulled it back down.

“What mistake?” Finn asked, his light hair moving around as he turned his head to the side.

“Edmar only wants one or two children.”

“Really?” he asked, surprised. Finn knew how much I adored my nieces and nephews, and children in general.

“Yes, and it has me wondering; how did I not know this before now? Maybe I do not truly know him.”

“Your father chose him for you. I told you that you don't really know him.”

“But my father knows me better than anyone, and he understands what’s right for Marren.”

“He doesn’t know your heart; only you know that.”

“My heart, my soul’s melody, is traitorous; you know that, Finn.”

“That is what you think. But what if your heart and your melody are right–and good? Why would your soul’s melody lead you astray?”

Mermaid magic was embedded within every mers’ soul, and within those souls, were melodies. And through those melodies, we communicated with each other beneath the sea. The melodies within our souls literally sang. Most mer trusted in their souls’ melodies. I did not, for my melody was as traitorous as my tail coloring.

With our songs, we could also persuade humans and magical creatures to follow the Creator’s ways of goodness and light. Active souls’ melodies were said to once exist with land creatures, too, but knowledge of how to access melodies originated with the mer race, given to us by the Creator who placed us in the Terran waters Himself. It was said that long ago, the Ancients discovered our melodious souls, through which we communicated under the sea without using our mouths, which was different from how the land-breathers did it. Souls’ melodies were simple to us; they were just how we communicated with each other. We kept it to ourselves, and we minded our own business under the sea. Once the Ancients discovered us, though, we shared our knowledge with them about the power within souls. Soon after that, other magical beings, as well as humans, were taught by the Ancients how to connect to their souls’ melodies. It took hundreds of years, but eventually, the gift was entrusted to all who followed the Creator. Melodies brought beautiful connections, not only to ourselves and to others, but to Terra itself. Once upon a time, there were melodies within all things that lived on land and under the sea. We were taught that the Creator was very pleased during that time. All Terrans had reached their full potential. It was something all living beings of Terra treasured, and it brought peace to the entire world. It was so far in the past, those early days when magical beings, including Ancients, walked among humans, and for a few, even the Ancient Lands had become within their reach.

But by the time the Ancients blessed us with the Marren Lights and asked us to keep ourselves hidden, that world of peace and universal melodies had been long gone—lost. Some believed that it was lost forever. I was taught that both humans and magical beings had forgotten about melodies. The Ancients went back to their lands, and magical beings dispersed to the furthest, most remote corners of Terra, where the Traitor King could not touch them. We, mermaids, waited for the Ancients to return and to tell us that we could swim the Terran waters freely again, but they had not yet come, which we believed meant the world was still corrupt.

During the Great War, when corruption covered most of Terra, and magical beings were hunted, mermaids were included. We were hunted specifically for our healing magic—our mermaid tears. The stories told to us as children, of humans torturing us for our tears, frightened us all so much that not only did we dislike humans, but we did not dare break through the surface of the sea, unless under the moon of the changing tide. It was the only safe time. We hoped that all stories of mermaids would fade into legend over time, and that no one would actively hunt us anymore, but we had no idea if it had, or would ever, happen. It had always seemed better to be safe, just in case, better to wait for an Ancient to come and tell us it was safe.

The lights over Marren continued to dim; still, no Ancient came to help us. There was a fear that the humans had done the unthinkable, that they had killed all the Ancients. I shivered at such a thought.

So, my feelings, which wanted to reach outside of Marren, and also my soul’s melody, singing of wanting to go upon Marren Island that day when I had seen it for the first time, were especially traitorous, because if I had done that, it could have exposed us. It was also impossible, because not only did we lack the ability to walk on land like humans, but the sea was where we belonged.

Do you only belong to the sea, though? another traitorous thought came to me . Those evil thoughts were coming more often, seeping into my melody.

I struggled because I felt as if my melody was not as it should be. It kept singing traitorous desires that went against my father and all of the laws and commands that the Ancients had taught our ancestors.

“Meria? Your melody cannot lead you astray. I keep telling you this. Trust it.”

“No, I love him.”

“You are told you love him. Rina has no idea what she’s talking about, by the way.”

“She—”

“I heard her earlier, talking to Lyra. She is a bit out of touch with reality. And, you do not look like you are in love.”

“Finn—”

“I’ve told you this for a long time; it was a terrible choice to have your father select your husband.”

“I know.”

“You have to stop trusting other people, Meria. This is a good example of that. I would have thought that you would have discussed this topic with Edmar before the engagement. You are incredibly obsessed with having children. Those little merlings are woven everywhere into your song and your thoughts. You stop all the time, just to hold random merlings. It’s obnoxious–well, it would be if it wasn't so sweet,” he trailed off.

“Thanks, Finn,” I sang with a sigh. “I do not know why I did not bring it up before now. I should have, and I have no idea, Finn; I have no idea what to do about it. Maybe, I need to talk to my father. Am I not meant to have a lot of children? Perhaps, I should not be greedy.”

“That is ridiculous. Of course, you are meant to have as many as you wish! That is not greed, Meria! You are meant to have as many as you and your husband want, but it seems like he’s not on the same side of the reef as you, and if he isn’t on the same side about this topic, perhaps, there are more you two do not see eye-to-eye about, meaning, maybe, your father does not know everything.”

“But—”

“Meria, you have to think about this—and do it for yourself.”

“I believe I love him. But I am a bit confused. His kiss did not feel as I thought it would, either.”

“I do not need to hear all the kissing details, Meria,” Finn groaned.

“No–it’s just that my sisters told me that first kisses were so wonderful–yet, to me, it felt like nothing .”

“Nothing?”

“Yes! It is so strange, Finn. There is something wrong with me.”

“It is not ‘so strange.’ Also, nothing is wrong with you ,” Finn said, and I looked up at him with hope.

“It isn't? Aren't I?”

“ No to both. You do not love him, so you didn't feel anything because you should not marry him. It is not so complicated.”

“Isn’t it too late to break the match?”

“No. It’s never too late. Look, I understand your feelings, but, perhaps, you should talk with him instead of laying here in bed, worrying about it? That would be the first and best action, I think. I know you, and that mind of yours is in a whirlpool of terrible, worst-case scenario thoughts, telling yourself that you are traitorous and awful, which is just not true. You are the most loyal mer in all of Marren, which is also annoying ‘cause I see how it hurts you.” He paused and looked at me kindly; then continued, “How long have you been here on your bed?”

“It is an important thing to worry over.”

“How long have you been here?”

“What time is it?”

“Two hours till sunset.”

“Five hours? That's not–”

“Nope, that is horrible, Meria!”

“Finn–” I whined.

“You need to get out of your room. Let's go for a swim,” Finn sang, tugging at the bottom of my tail.

“I don't feel up to it,” I said, twisting my tail out to push him away.

“I know, but once we are swimming, you will feel much better.”

“I don't want all the mer to congratulate me over and over again when I am not sure I should really be with Edmar.”

“You need to get out of your head, and listen to your soul,” Finn said, poking me in the side and pulling my kelp blanket off of me, exposing my teal tail. “Come on, Meria.”

I groaned, but I listened to him and swam from my bed.

“Fine, but only if we go somewhere outside of the city. I do not feel like wearing a covering. I want to swim fast.”

My father expressed to me time and time again that I could only swim without a covering on my tail if I did not allow anyone to see me, other than my family, of course. He did not want anyone to remember our traitor Queen, my mother—and seeing my tail would cause that to happen, it seemed.

“Completely do-able,” he said with a smile. “Come on!”

We swam around a coral reef to the east of the city. It was the smaller, less visited reef, but it was my favorite because it had swimmable caves and many sandy bottoms between the coral, which is where I found most of my shells. I watched the fish for a few minutes before Finn pulled me away into depths and through a tunnel I hadn't explored before. There was a small cave which had an entrance covered by a few seaweed plants.

“What is this?” I asked Finn as he pulled me into the small cavern.

“Okay, so last week, when I was on patrol, I found this cave, and you will never guess what’s inside of it,” he said with a smile, tugging me through the cave’s entrance. Finn was a watcher. A watcher was a member of a group of elite mer that were given special permission to roam the nearby Seas. They patrolled the seas above, often watching ships and making sure any human debris did not hurt us or expose our kind to non-mer, especially during storms. It was a difficult position to get, but with Finn, being cousin to the Princesses of Marren, he got the job easily after coming of age. He knew much about humans from his observations of them. He was sure they were no longer as corrupt as they once were.

I was unsure.

As we reached a larger, open part of the cavern, I noticed that the walls of the cave extended high up and reached out above the water. Finn swam to the bottom as I continued to stare up above.

“Look at this,” he said, motioning for me to go to the sandy bottom. I swam and reached him. In his hand, he held pieces of gold, golden flattened disks, and there was a face etched on each of them. I’d seen similar things before—human things that sank long ago.

“Wow–what are they?” I asked, taking one and looking it over.

“No idea, but it is gold, similar to the other treasures that ships have inside of them when they sink,” he shrugged with a smile, taking the coin from my hand and tossing it behind us.

I nodded. Indeed, shipwrecks were so fun to explore, although they were dangerous. I had only explored one of them before, with Finn. He was fascinated by the world above.

He moved more sand away, and it made the water murky. Underneath the sand was a wooden box. “Buried treasure,” he said, pulling the chest up onto the sand. After the sand settled again, he looked around the cave floor for something to open it.

“If this is a human thing, doesn't it need air?” I asked.

“We can take it to the surface. You’ve been at your first changing tide—so, officially, you can go up there.”

“Technically, only under the changing moon.”

“You are with a watcher; you will be fine. I need your help to lift it. So if you want to see it, you’ll have to come to the surface with me.”

I was curious about the box within that unique cave. I had never seen a cave like it, one that was both in the water and on land. Something about that felt right: water and land . Excitement raced through me. Everything I have ever wanted is found under the sea, I told myself.

But is it? Maybe it isn't all under the sea. I pushed the thought away.

I swam beside Finn, holding one of the handles, opposite of him. We swam up quite a distance, and then, at last, we broke through the surface, swimming to the edge of the cave. The large space opened up, making the water we were in appear to be a small pool, compared to the large, expansive land area of the cave before us. It was beautiful. Sparkling rocks reflected the sunlight which shone down from the holes in the roof of the cave.

“Wow, this is pretty,” I sang.

“Above the sea, speak with your mouth. It’s fun,” Finn said with his mouth moving, the noise echoing around the cave. I heard it with my ears, instead of inside of me—just as I had heard the crashing waves on the rocks, and my father and the other mer chatter, at the changing tide.

“How?” I asked, still using my melody.

“Open your mouth. Your voice will know what to do.”

I opened my mouth. “It is beautiful here.” I placed a hand over my mouth. My voice sounded different than it did through my melody. It was high, and quiet. Although I had never done it before, it was easy, and just like swimming, it felt right–a part of me.

“You did it! It’s easy, right?”

“Yes, so different,” I said, moving my mouth and listening to my words echo around the cavern.

“Land things are beautiful, too, right?” Finn asked.

“Does this count as land? It’s a cave.”

He laughed, but instead of feeling his joy within my soul, I heard it all around me.

That would take getting used to, even if it was easy.

Finn often told me how pretty land was. He had risen above the waves far too early and far too often. However, it was his job at the moment to do so. I tried not to worry, but sometimes I could not help it. I always thought his curiosity would get him into trouble, someday.

“Now, let's see what's in here, now that it’s in the air ,” Finn said, moving the chest to a large rock. We both moved, keeping our tails in the water, but our upper bodies rested upon the rocks. After a few hits with a sharp rock, Finn got the lock to crack open, and it fell into the pool, sinking to the bottom. The noise echoed.

“Ready?” he asked, and I nodded.

“Yes, I’m impressed that you got it open,” I said.

Finn smiled wide. “What do you think is inside?” he asked.

“I have no idea–useless gold and shiny things? That seems to be all that humans care about,” I shrugged.

He opened the lid. I peered over him to see the continents of the chest. There was nothing in there that I’d expected. Finn removed something that appeared to be many bound pages of human writing–a book. I had seen books before after one fresh shipwreck, right over our kingdom. Books always fell apart in the sea. Mer books were stacks of flat slate rock. I had no idea what humans used to create their books, but they were quite fragile and did not do well in water. I was happy to see that one intact and that I had suggested opening the chest up on land. I reached out to touch the strange brown cover of the book. As I touched it, the wetness of my hand made the cover appear darker.

“A human book?” I asked Finn.

He opened it and flipped through it.

I touched his hand to stop him as I saw an image of a mermaid on one of the pages. “Finn, look at this,” I said, pointing at the image.

“That is odd–” Finn said, staring at the image of a mermaid.

Human words seemed very similar to our language, which also surprised me. The next page he turned to was another drawing of a mermaid–Then–

“Finn! What is that?” I asked, pointing to the rather disturbing image of a mermaid, appearing to have lost her tail.

“What–” he said, looking at it closer. “I can read this–” he chuckled.

I brought the book nearer.

“The transition from their mer form to their human form is fast and painless,” was all it said. But it was so shocking to hear that it took me a few moments to register what he had just read.

“What in the seas? Their transition ?” I paused. “What does that mean? I have never–” I said, taking the book from Finn and flipping through the pages. Page after page, it showed humans and mermaids, existing together, the mer changing from having legs to having tails and from having tails to having legs.

“We used to live on land, Meria,” Finn said in a hushed voice. “I knew it.”

“There is no way,” I said, handing the book back to Finn.

Did my mother know about this?

“Well–what about this?” He pointed to another image, one of a war and with mermaids and mermen diving from off of the land and into the depths of the sea. “What if during the Great War, we hid in the ocean to get away from King Falcon, and then we eventually just forgot that we could have legs?” he asked, holding up the book.

I could not fathom the significance of what he was saying. My brain had left my body and was swimming somewhere else. I could not grasp it. But my melody, my traitorous melody, it liked it–it liked it very much.

It was rumored that my mother had often spoken about humans. Even so, I had never heard that she believed we could become human, even though she had been caught breaking the laws of the kingdom and had been banished for it. Even her husband, my father, could not save her from her crimes, and he had to banish his own wife.

“Meria?” Finn said, and I looked up from the book to address him.

“What if my mother knew about this? What if this is why she was banished?”

“I heard our fathers speaking once. They said something about her being obsessed with changing. ”

“You never told me that?”

“You always tell me not to talk about her. And, at the time, I thought he was talking about changing her tail dressing or something,” he said with a shrug.

“That is because no one is supposed to even say her name–let alone speak about her!” I shouted and heard it echo around the cavern.

“Well, I know you never knew your mother, and I also never knew her, but if this is true, why would the kingdom keep it from us? We could blend in with humans—So many options.”

“I have no idea.”

The main gossip in certain mer circles was that the Queen had betrayed her people because she loved humans. Blending with the humans was completely different.

“Mother,” I whispered.

“It makes sense.”

“Is she still alive?” I asked.

“Do sharks have teeth? She was only banished,” Finn chuckled.

Every once in a while, she had sent messages to the castle, warning us that our lights would soon go out. I had believed that she was out of her mind.

“Where is she, do you think?”

“Maybe she’s on land—with the humans.”

I wanted to see her. I actually craved it at that moment. My melody swirled around and made it difficult to focus.

Is there more to us? Can we truly have legs? I wondered.

Still in shock, I watched as Finn kept reading with excitement, so intrigued with the land world.

“Here!” he said, turning the page so I could see. “ After fully removing oneself from the ocean for a few minutes, the change begins, and the mer starts to naturally form human legs from what was once a tail.”

“So–” I said again, still not able to fully fathom what I was reading.

“So, if we leave the ocean, we will gain legs,” Finn said with such a large grin that I frowned.

“No, Finn, tell me you will not leave the ocean.”

“We should see.”

“It is forbidden to leave the ocean. It is not safe for magical beings on land.”

“But why? I bet you that the Great War has been over for hundreds of years! I have patrolled the seas around Marren, and humans sail the seas regularly; there is no sign of war. It should be safe for us above. The Ancients said they would fix the world, and I am sure they have.”

“I don't know, Finn. We are waiting for the Ancients to tell us.”

Finn put the book down and looked at me with a teasing smile.

I glared at him.

“Well, my plan worked.”

“What plan?” I asked.

“I got you to forget your disappointments!” he smiled as he put the book back into the trunk.

“Yes, maybe, but this is even more worrisome.”

“Oh, it is a great mystery, and it will be awesome to discover its truth,” he said, and he closed the lid and scooted it over to a better spot, further away from the water. “This should keep it safe.”

“We should go; it's getting late.” I was not sure what to think. Sure he had distracted me from my worries about Edmar, but I was then worried about Finn and if he was going to do something foolish, like going up on the land. I also wanted to know more about my mother, and why, exactly, she had been banished. Would I ever know?

Would I ever not yearn for things I should not?