The Merchild
The Merchild
A desolate coastline—crashing waves and unforgiving winds. The air above the sea cut the merchild’s throat like shark teeth; it was always colder above the waves. She sang, laying on the jagged rocks protruding from the Øresund waters, as close to the beach as she could go but still far out to sea. Each note she sang clawing down her throat, but to human ears her voice sounded like the most delicate of sopranos.
Every day, the merchild would sing to the prince passing by the shore on his morning ride. She admired his strong figure upon horseback—his toned arms and muscular legs; how she wished for legs like his. She sang to lure him to her, to make him see her beauty and love her, but he never spared a glance.
“That song,” the prince said. “What a beautiful voice.” He continued on his way, blind to the merchild’s gasping efforts.
She dove back under the waves, salt water rushing past her gills, filling her lungs; she could breathe once more. The same routine: surface, sing, swim—then weep for a love that had never seen her porcelain face. And the days continued: surface, sing, swim; surface, sing, swim. Her pattern as constant as the tide, until his pattern changed.
“I love that voice,” said the prince one day. “I would marry a girl with a voice like that and have her sing to me every day and night.”
The merchild sang louder, through the slicing pains down her throat, until her breathe was spent and she had to fall in the ocean or suffocate. She dived beneath the waves, deep, deep into the ocean until she could swim no further, exhausted. And in her despair, she found herself at the mouth of the deepest caves, the home of the witch: Lilith of the Deep.
None of the merfolk knew where Lilith of the Deep had come from, but whispers travelled through the current: whispers that she was once a witch who drowned long ago but never died; whispers of a human past, a human lover who cast her into the sea for another woman, cursed to forever mourn her love; whispers that she could still walk among the humans by night, waking dead babes in their graves. With the whispers a truth was always clear: she could grant wishes if you had something to give her in return.
“So you want me to make you a human?” Lilith cackled.
“Yes,” the merchild pleaded. “Oh please!”
Lilith of the Deep laughed. “You don’t know how lucky you are to be born under the sea. The world above is harsh and cruel. Trust me, I had legs once.”
“You had legs?” the merchild said. “How wonderful! Please, please, give me the legs you used to have.”
The witch curled her serpentine tail around the merchild. “How naïve you are my pure wee merchild. I cannot deny a wish. But what can I take from you in return for the legs you so desire?”
The merchild sank. “I have nothing to give you,” she wept.
Lilith slinked around her cave, inspecting the merchild and listening to her little sing-song cries. “You sound so lovely, even as you cry,” the witch said. “How about I take your voice?”
“My voice!” the merchild gasped, holding her throat. “But if you take my voice, how will he know I was the one singing to him?”
Lilith of the Deep laughed. “Oh, you have everything a hot-blooded man wants,” she said. “Your long hair and your pouty lips. Your breasts; your legs. Your body. Tell me merchild, why do you want these legs so badly?”
The merchild trembled, but found the courage in her purpose; her goal. “I’m doing it for love,” she said, strong.
“For love?” The question echoed in a maniacal cackled in the cave. “Well,” she said. “Let me show you what love feels like.”
She held up a dagger; sharp, bloody as the sky before a storm. She recited incantations the merchild could not understand before plunging the knife into the merchild’s gut where her abdomen ended and her tail began. The witch pushed it in deep before tearing through the merchild’s flesh; tearing until the blade split her tail in two. The red water started to bubble and her scales peeled off red flesh. The merchild fainted from the pain, listening to her own voice laughing in the witch’s throat.
She awoke on the shore; naked, the open wound from her crotch to her new toes still bleeding, her blood running with the foam of the rising tide. She saw the prince approach on his morning ride; she stood, despite the pain and the blood running down her legs. She tried to call him, but no sound escaped her lips.
He saw her naked figure on the beach and approached, leaping off his horse to greet her on the sand.
“Oh my,” the prince said. “What have we here?”
She tried to tell him that she was the beautiful voice he heard every morning; that she was the love of his life. She tried to speak again, but no sound left her lips.
The prince looked her up and down. From her wet hair to her soundless lips, to her bare breasts and her trembling legs. He approached her and she toppled onto the sand. He was on her in an instant, his trousers between his ankles and his hands holding her wrists above her head. She tried to scream, but any sound from her tongue-less mouth was silenced by bloodied kisses. His stab hurt more than the knife. He stood once he was spent. He pulled up his trousers and returned to his grazing horse to continue his morning ride.
She lay on the sand, her legs still bleeding. She shivered; even with legs she still felt cold out of the sea and each breath still tore her throat like shark teeth. She felt something wet and salty roll down her cheek into her mouth, like a piece of ocean. And then the tide rolled over her body, until she disappeared into the foam.
Word Count: 1,044
Illustration drawn by the author.