Eamon

Feeling a little foolish, I go to the bakery first and buy four pastries, eating one for myself and saving the other three for the mermaid. Making my way to the house, I’m glad to find Mother not at home. I take my hat and her old lyre out of the chest upstairs and start back to the place where we parted before, the beach a few miles up the coast.

It’s noon when I reach the sandy beach interspersed with a few large rocks. I take a minute to drink the water that runs off of the cliff, then situate myself with the lyre on my thigh. With hands on either side of it I pluck the strings, a haunting sound carried on the breeze. My voice when I begin to sing is low, but slowly picks up volume and intensity. I find the exercise therapeutic as my song swells to join with the crashing surf, and I unleash all my frustrations from the morning into it.

As I sing I watch the waves. I wonder how far my song carries. That mermaid, there’s no way she’ll actually hear me, right?

Long, lonely minutes pass. Discouraging.

Am I a fool? Surely I’m a fool, coming all this way, singing my heart out to the empty surf, hoping a fantasy creature will appear before my eyes.

But what else can I do? When I want so badly to see her again…

I pour my longing into my song and watch the water with a growing sense of desperation. I don’t care if she’s an illusion, if all the events following that storm were just a sick man’s crazy hallucination.

Only come back to me, Blossom.

A flash of pink on the horizon. My imagination?

I raise my song, chest resonating, heart thrumming within me.

Not my imagination!

I can see her clearly now; she’s stopped just a little ways from shore.

“Eamon!” She waves at me excitedly. I set down the lyre and grab the paper bag of pastries, giddy as a child as I run out to meet her.

She came! She actually came!

She’s real.

“Watch me!” she cries from her place off shore. Then she surprises me by leaping nearly ten feet out of the water.

“Woah!” I exclaim with surprise, and she comes up laughing.

“You liked that? Watch this! Back flip!”

She does another jump, and I laugh and whoop for her, delighted with her tricks.

“Front flip!” she calls, and does another. “Back flip! Front flip! Back flip!”

How long does she mean to do this for? I wonder as I stand knee deep in the surf, watching her play.

“Oh, oh! This is my favorite one!” she declares, and she screws up to do a vertical spiral leap, her long hair whipping all around her.

“Did you like that, Eamon?” she calls to me.

“I like it, but what if someone sees you?”

“It’s alright, no one ever comes here. Too many rocks!” she declares, then begins swimming excitedly in circles.

“If there are rocks, should you be jumping like that?”

“Don’t worry about it! Oh, Eamon! I’ve just thought of one I’ve never tried before—watch this! Are you watching?”

“I’m watching,” I say, shaking my head with a weary sort of acceptance. We’re going to be here all day, aren’t we?

What a childish exhibitionist this little mermaid is, I think as I watch her laugh and splash and jump. But I don’t hate this side of Blossom. I find her carefree play a pleasant distraction from the storm that usually occupies my thoughts. Especially on a day like today.

Sometime later when Blossom’s finally worn herself out, she swims to shore and beaches herself in the sand. She sits up and I bring her some water to wash the sand grains from her palms before giving her the bag of cheese pastries.

Her gorgeous teal eyes light up with delight at the first bite, and the translucent end of her tail flips up and down excitedly.

“Oh, it’s so good!” she says with veritable stars in her eyes. “Even better than I dreamed!”

“I’m glad you like them,” I say, feeling oddly full just watching her eat.

“Mh!” she squeals with the next bite. Then she takes another bite and squeals again. It’s all I can do to stop her from rolling over in her happiness and covering the pastry with sand.

I’m glad I bought plenty. I’d wondered if mermaids’ appetites were bigger than the average human girls’, and it seems they are. In no time at all Blossom’s wolfed down all three pastries, and she seems disappointed there are no more to enjoy. 

Full enough for the time being and worn out with her playing, Blossom seems contented to move even higher onto the beach, out of the water’s reach, and lay back luxuriously, her strawberry blond hair spread all around her and drying in the sun while I hum and pluck soothing melodies beside her.

“Ah, it’s the perfect day,” she declares, stretching herself languidly. I catch myself eying her midriff, very slim and pretty and tanned. The bodice she wears strikes me particularly human and well designed, a neutral colored fabric secured in the front by hooks. Around her hips where her peachy pink scales begin is a loose rope belt bearing what look to be a few odd tools, including the dagger she flashed at me before.

“What are your tools for?” I ask, curious.

“Peeling mussels off rocks, collecting all kinds of things to eat, really. But I think now I shall throw them away!” she declares suddenly, sitting up to begin taking off her belt.

“Hold on!” I say, alarmed. “Why are you throwing them away?”

“After eating cheese pastries, you think I’m going to go back to that awful cold seafood? I’m only eating human food from now on.”

“But how will you get it? I can’t keep coming out here forever,” I say with a sudden pang. “In fact, this is probably the last time.”

“What?!” She shoots me a furious look. “Don’t be ridiculous, of course you’re coming back. I saved you, remember? You owe me cheese pastries for the rest of your life.”

I shake my head, unable to stop my chuckle in spite of the circumstance. She’s really spoiled, this little mermaid. 

“It’s not that simple, Blossom. My boat was wrecked, remember? I have no way of providing for my mother. We’ll have to sell our house, move inland to find work in the fields—”

“No!” she cuts me off angrily, and I have to dodge the clam shell she suddenly hurls at my head. “You can’t ever leave the sea! You’re mine, now!”

A little startled and perhaps even a bit flattered by this pretty girl’s sudden ownership of me, I nevertheless have to make her see reality.

“I’m sorry, Blossom. You’re a mermaid, so you don’t understand, but humans live for gold. They spend their whole lives working to earn it. Without it, we can’t buy houses or food, we can’t live.” 

“I know that!” she snaps at me. “Don’t treat me like an idiot!”

“Sorry, I—”

“Shut up! Stop talking! One more word and I’ll be really angry,” she declares, and she begins pulling her body awkwardly back to the waves. The sight of her leaving pricks my heart even more than I thought it could.

“Blossom, where are you going? Don’t be angry—we still have today. I could probably even come one more time with cheese pastries, so—”

“Shut up!” she yells at me again as she pulls herself into the waves. “Just shut up and stay right where you are. If you move even an inch I’ll—I’ll!” she shakes her fist at me menacingly and I take my seat right where I am.

“How long do you expect me to wait?” I ask her, but she’s already gone.

I sit perplexed for a long time, watching the waves, wondering what got into her. To think she’d be so upset when she heard I was leaving. It’s kind of flattering in a way, though I know very well how ridiculous it all is.

“You’d be an idiot to let your heart be stolen by a mermaid,” I remind myself unnecessarily. What kind of future could a human ever have together with a fish?

Even so I know I’ll never forget her, no matter where I go from here. Like I’ll never forget the feelings she stirred in me today, when I watched her play in the waves without a care in the world.

Perhaps half an hour passes before I notice a pink head a ways out in the surf. She’s headed this way, I think, perking up. And making good time. I guess when she’s not pulling a hapless fisherman behind her, she can move quite fast indeed.

“Why are you just sitting there?” she yells as she draws closer to shore.

“You told me to wait here and not move!” I shout back.

“Get over here and help me!”

Bewildered, I rise and trot into the ocean. She swims right up to me and sits up in the water clutching a small chest. Without a word she throws off the lid to reveal a fortune in glittering gold coins. My eyes widen and the next wave knocks me on my ass. I flounder for a few seconds before I find my feet again, rising out of the water choking and sputtering in disbelief.

Blossom is not amused.

“You just need money, right?” she says to me huffily, flipping a wet strand of hair out of her face.

“Will this do?”