19th Century

She began to hear the sound of unfolding paper, a pen tapping against an inkwell, and restless writing. She slowly opened her eyes; her eyelids felt heavy. As her vision came into focus, she found herself bathed in the candlelight from a three-armed candelabrum on the bedside table. Her head rested on white pillows, and her body was covered by soft fabric. She ached all over, but her wounds seemed to be easing.

She followed the sound and spotted the silhouette of a man. He was concentrated, writing at the desk, occasionally glancing at her with concern. The Mermaid realized she wasn't dreaming, and a quick sequence of images reminded her of her injuries. The sensation of danger and survival overcame her once again. She grabbed the candelabrum and sat up, clutching the sheet around herself. Christopher stood up reflexively, moving away instantly.

"Are you alright?" he asked, trying to reassure her. She didn't respond; her posture was somewhat wild. Christopher thought she hadn't understood him due to the language. "My name is Christopher, I won't harm you," he said again, showing his open palms. "If you need to return to the sea, I can show you the way," he explained, attempting some gestures.

The Mermaid approached the window at the foot of the bed, never taking her eyes off him. She glanced through the blinds and surveyed the street on both sides. It seemed like she was searching for someone or hiding from something. She turned back to him.

"What do you want from me?" she said directly with an almost coastal dialect. Christopher was slightly taken aback by her fluency in Spanish; that silence hadn't been because of the language. "Why have you brought me here?" she demanded to know.

"I simply pulled you out of the rocks; you were hitting them hard, you were unconscious, you slept for two days..."

"You saw my..."

"Your tail? Yes. Both of them," he joked. "But it was unintentional."

She ignored the comment and, from a distance, examined an unfinished text that was next to a stack of books on the desk.

"What are you doing?" she asked, nodding towards it.

"I'm a writer," he replied. The Mermaid heard him but remained alert. "Look, I have something for you," he said again when he noticed she wasn't calming down.

"Where are you going?" threatened the Mermaid and prepared to throw the candelabrum.

"Calm down, please," he signaled her to stop.

A second later, Christopher seized a moment to make a swift move. He quickly slipped towards the door, and the Mermaid threw the candelabrum at him, which hit the wall and fell to the ground with the extinguished candles.

The poet had left the room, but the Mermaid grabbed the first thing she found and went after him menacingly, holding a metal ornament in her hand. When she heard him returning, she was about to throw it at him but stopped when she noticed what he had in his hands.

"I've bought you this," the poet said, holding a plate of food. "I thought you might be hungry."

It was a chocolate tart with vanilla and cherry cream. Her eyes lit up with delight, and she no longer sought to harm him.

The Mermaid devoured the dessert almost without stopping, sitting on the bed with the dish on the nightstand and the sheet covering her chest.

"Juice?" Christopher asked, offering her a glass. She accepted without thinking while taking a bite of the cake.

Christopher resumed his seat in front of the desk, picked up his pen, and continued writing. As he did, she glanced at him from the corner of her eye. She noticed that his skin was a little whiter than hers and that he dressed like a countryman, with boots, black pants, a short-collared shirt, loose sleeves with tight cuffs, a white buttoned vest, and a black scarf around his neck. He was thin and moved with innate elegance. She loved his sad eyes, his attractive lips, and, above all, his thick, black hair with a side part, subtly wavy, forming a slight curl that fell over his forehead.

"Are you a journalist?" she asked after taking a sip of juice.

Although he had done that job before, when he lived in the capital, it was not his true vocation.

"Sometimes," Christopher replied, trying to build trust. "How do you know about journalism? Do you know how a city works?"

But she ignored his questions and continued with hers.

"Are you writing about me? Do you want to publish me in the newspapers?" she asked, fearing that he would reveal her true nature to the world.

"No, it's not about you," he replied, surprised that she knew so much about the profession.

"So, what are you writing?"

"It's a letter," he said in a serious tone. "I have to leave the country. They think I wrote something against the government and they want to shoot me. They're confusing me with a group of ignorant coup plotters who apparently conspire in meetings. What I actually wrote was not against anyone, but it's not easy to convince a sergeant to start reading. It was just a poem. I hope a friend can host me in the neighbouring country for a while."

He finished writing, folded the letter, put it in an envelope, and picked up his black tailcoat from the rack. He opened the closet and took out a hanger where a simple imperial style muslin dress hung.

"I hope you like it," he said, placing it at the foot of the bed, and added a pair of gray ballerina flats that matched the garment.

The Mermaid looked at the fabric and the adornments. Everything was new and beautiful.

Christopher settled a short-crowned, curved-brim black hat on his head, tilting it forward to hide his face in the dim light.

"I'll leave the door open so you can leave," he said chivalrously.

No!" she interrupted, extending an arm toward him. Christopher stopped with the lock in his hand, waiting for a response to that sudden reaction.

"Please, lock it securely."

Christopher supposed it was all due to fear, perhaps of being discovered or that someone would try to take advantage of her; although deep down, he had a feeling that she was hiding from someone or even that she was running away. He ignored possible conjectures because it was a vague hunch. The truth was that he had managed to generate trust in her, and she saw the room as a safe place.

"Alright," he replied calmly and left.

The Mermaid heard the turn of the key and the bolt slide into the door frame. She moved towards the window and spied on him as he carefully walked away down the street. Then, she fell onto the pillow, closed her eyes, and thought about everything that had just happened.

She didn't know if the guardians of Neptune had started to pursue her, but at least for now, she was safe. She remembered the cases of mermaids like her who, for breaking the laws, had been imprisoned in dark basements and locked up in ice cages. From that moment on, she had to be more cautious; her life could be in danger, as well as the poet's, in whom she saw a hope of magic that she didn't know existed within her.

The Mermaid let the sheet fall softly to the ground, like a sigh in the room. Her feet, delicate and perfect, impossible in a woman, concealed the wear of the road they had traveled; her perfectly formed fingers masked the memory she had always wanted to forget.

Lost in a past that only she could see, she approached the desk and picked up a pen. As she gathered her hair into a bun atop her head, the candlelight reflected off her skin, caressing her desperately in search of a method to heal her. They slid down her delicate neck and shoulders, her elegant back that tapered into a slender waist and widened again around her hips, while her delirious buttocks and legs formed a refined silhouette of divine harmony.

She slipped into the cream-colored dress and it hugged her figure, contouring her breasts and shoulders, but unable to reverse her fragility. The Greek laurels embroidered with silver thread on her chest seemed to want to remind her that she was a fallen goddess, a sidereal creature without a kingdom or throne. The sleeves were short and tight with a ruffle, secure in reviving the lost passion in some corner of her depths. A metallic silk belt encircled her under the bust, from which a long, straight tube-shaped skirt fell to her heels.

She looked at herself in the mirror, but what she saw did not comfort her. She tried to find the image that used to make her smile as she played with her hair, but not even a fake smile could come out of her lips. However, something began to shine in her eyes, there was something different in her gaze.

She put on her ballerina flats and walked around the room, exploring Christopher's things. That was when she found the black leather-covered notebook. There was something familiar about it, it seemed to have seen it before. She opened its pages, it was full of poems. She read one of them and suddenly found herself surrounded by blue fantasies that she had forgotten, like a balm for her wounded soul. But then reality hit her again, reminding her of the city and the life she was trying to leave behind. She closed the notebook with seriousness and examined the desk again. It was full of the poet's things, things that she had not cared about before. She found a couple of tickets, and at that moment, Christopher entered the room.

The poet closed the door and watched her. The Mermaid turned to him with a giddy joviality. Seeing her in the dress and hairstyle, he thought she was losing touch with reality. He felt that the air was a precious symphony that crazed his heart. The vibrations kidnapped him out of time and space, and his eyes seemed to finally be relieved of the uncertain sadness that enveloped them.

An invisible force propelled him towards her from his chest, but it wasn't because of what he perceived as physical perfection. It was something that resided in the depths of his being, something that his eyes had always yearned for. But it wasn't her body, as beautiful as it appeared. It wasn't about that, but about what brought her to life. It was the soul of the Mermaid. It was what he had been refusing to listen to within himself. That was why he had saved her, that was why he had taken her to his home. Because she was imprinting herself on him as a sequence of tender blue flashes, and he couldn't do anything to halt it. He only wished that she felt the same.

Some may wonder how it was possible for him to fall in love with the Mermaid with just a few exchanged words. The truth was that Christopher didn't know what was happening to him. He gazed at her, unable to articulate a word, while she seemed to be holding back her nerves, as if she too was uneasy. It couldn't be pinpointed why it was always like this. The Mermaid had a kind of energy that gave the impression that, at times, she couldn't contain it within her body and it escaped, causing imprecise and careless movements.

"Do you like the theater?" she said with a nervous smile.

Christopher looked at the tickets and felt like he was coming back to reality.

"Oh, yes. I had forgotten that I bought one ticket and won the other. I was thinking of selling it outside since it's not convenient for me to go out."

"How much?" she asked with an impetuous interest.

"For you, it has no value... If you allow me to accompany you."

"But didn't you say it was not convenient for you to go out?"

"That's right. It was not. Besides, there's no guarantee that my pursuers won't come in through this door at any moment."