Chapter 9

I'd already blown out all the lantern flames and was retreating to the warmth of my bed when one rainy night a knock pounded against the inn's door. When I opened it, a man stumbled inside, grabbing onto my nightgown. My white gown smeared with blood as he coughed and clutched his chest. My instinct was to run away or shove him off from shock. But he was pouring blood and begging in incoherent sentences. "The story keepers," he coughed. "They be coming."

"What?" I asked, falling to my knees under the weight of him before crying out for Rummy or an inn guest to come help. As he died, laying on the floor as a storm raged outside, he cupped my face.

"An angel," he said, his eyes glazing over. It was the last thing he uttered before he died of sword wounds. I thought of him often. Of how he came to be so injured, of why he fell and died at our inn, and what he must have saw as his body gave out. He thought he saw an angel, or that maybe I was an angel, come to guide him to death.

It occurred to me as I pulled the ropes tight, watching wind fill them and pull me toward the horizon, that maybe my mermaid monster was my angel. Maybe I'd hallucinated her in my dying moments aboard my watery casket. She was a figment of my imagination, come to guide me to death. And truly, she was breathtaking. The most stunning woman–er–half woman– I'd ever seen.

My ocean angel.

When she left, I'd thrown the fish back overboard. I never had the heart to kill them. The crabs I left, letting them roam and clatter along the deck. They were better than being alone. Doing what my ocean angel instructed, the boat began a slow sail in the direction of… I had no idea. This went on for three days. I'd hear fish flapping against the wood, and my heart would beat in tune, eager to look over the ship's edge and see her. What color would she be? What strange and horrifying thing would she say? Why did I have an overwhelming desire to jump into the water with her? She'd outright admitted, or at least not denied, to killing the crew of men–yet somehow my fear of her waned the moment she gazed at me with those terrifying and beautiful eyes.

She looked like a human from the waist up, perfect breasts that competed with her eyes for my attention. Slits on the side of her neck that rippled like the waves with her color changing skin. The only shade that remained fixed was her long, inky black hair. My ocean angel was stunning, and I couldn't look at her long enough, even in the hours we would talk as the waves rocked and she fretted about how to keep me alive. I was sure now I would likely not stay alive, though, if she were the one guiding me to death, death wouldn't be so bad.

The ocean was my watery grave, and my siren's arms were my casket.

It was then I realized I hadn't thought of Rummy in a week. Not since the appearance of this sea siren. And though I was sailing on a ship doomed for destruction, for the first time since my feet left the sand, I was happy. How tragic and wonderful all the same.