The Nereid and the Seachild - Day Three

This is the story of the Fey of the Waters, told in five parts.

The boy woke late in the morning, the sun shining through the glass paneling in the kitchen. He sat up and looked around, searching for a clock, but there was nothing to give him the time. Slowly, he stood, careful of his ankle and his ribcage. The pain wasn’t as bad today; the cold wasn’t down to his bones, amplifying every ache. A letter sat on a small table beside the bed, written with black ink on a reed-like sheet of paper. He inhaled deeply and read the archaic looking words.

 

“Good morning, Seachild,” it said. “Shower and help yourself to the cupboards. I’ll be back well after you leave for work, but I’ll be there tonight. Pack something for lunch. You’re still growing, and you need all the nutrients you can get.”

 

A light smile touched the boy’s lips, and he stood and limped his way to the bathroom, where he took an extended shower, enjoying the warmth of the heated water beating down on his body. The bruise around his ribcage looked worse than it had the day before, but when he examined himself with his fingers he couldn’t find anything broken. It was just sore, then; it would heal in time. His ankle, too, seemed merely sore. There was nothing swollen, and the heat seemed to help sooth it.

 

He put on his clothes from the day before and reached for his socks and shoes, but they had been taken away and replaced with brand new ones in his size. He chewed on his lower lip and looked around nervously. What was all of this for? Could this all be free? What was the catch? His heart fell deeply in his chest, but he obediently pulled on the fresh socks and new shoes. They fit comfortably, and when he stood and moved in them they didn’t pinch his feet. They were clearly designed for long-standing, and he decided it didn’t matter what the woman required of him in return. He would repay her kindness in any manner.

 

As he made his way up to the kitchen, he caught sight of a small, dark figure out in the water, swimming against the calm post-storm waves. Debris littered the sandy beach, but a single set of footprints was clearly visible leading from the back door down to the water’s edge. Is that where his mysterious benefactor had gone? Swimming?

 

It seemed to come natural to her, gliding through the water, deeper and deeper into the horizon, pushing the limits of surely the sea itself before allowing the waves to bring her back to shore, only to turn and swim out again.

 

He cut an oversized piece of custard pie from the glass platter left out on the counter and sat at the little table as he stuffed himself, eating with same ravenous intensity with which he downed every meal, never quite certain when his next might be. When he had finished, he made himself a sandwich with the flatbread from the night before, slathering it up with a cucumber yogurt dip and sliced meats. He wrapped this in plastic and foil and stuffed it into the pocket of his coat, estimating by the sun in the sky that he had a couple of hours before the owner would arrive at the bar. He would get there early, he decided, and sit in his usual place, enjoying the warmth of the sun on his skin. And besides, it would give him time to think about the woman.

 

~*~

 

When the boy arrived at work, however, the door was propped open with the broken chair, and a sign was posted on the wall saying, “Interviews inside.” Sighing, but curious, the boy made his way down the stairs and peeked into the main room, where the owner always made his interviews. His heart sank when he saw what was happening. A handful of men and women were standing behind the bar, showing the owner their skills and knowledge. They had not only lost an employee since last night, but they had lost the bartender. Suddenly, the boy felt very bad for being so frightened of him. The bartender had always been kind; he didn’t deserve to be treated with fear. And what had the boy really been afraid of? The bartender?

 

The vending machine?

 

The break room?

 

They’re just scapegoats and you know it. You’re afraid of life.

 

He ignored the words that flowed through his mind and changed quickly, slipping into the main room and beginning to set up. The owner told the interviewees to ignore “the boy” and focus on their actions. At least the boy could count on two things, he mused. It would be a blessedly slow day, it always was; and the prospect of a new hire meant that the break room would be abuzz with raunchy tales of ghostly mermaids. He smiled softly to himself and tucked his thoughts away in his work.

 

~*~

 

The boy was sent to his break that night with one of the bussers, a kind young woman with a dragon tattoo that snaked around her neck, who sometimes shared her food with the boy, and occasionally spoke to him - though he never spoke back. She sank immediately onto an old couch that had been left in the room some time ago, and she winked up at him.

 

“Having a good night?” she asked, and the boy gave her a smile and nodded before tucking into his sandwich.

 

They sat in easy silence, the busser pulling out an art pad and beginning to sketch something the boy couldn’t see from his broken chair, and the boy focused his attention on the vending machine. For the first time, he noticed the changes that must have occurred over the last couple of days. The green mold that had grown in the corners was gone, and enough of the caked-on grime had disappeared that the boy could just make out the logos of the chocolate bars inside: each bar had that blue-green background with the word Nereus written in the shape of seafoam. He wondered if they’d all turn to dust when opened, or if he’d been lucky.

 

The puzzling part was that the vending machine didn’t look as though it had been cleaned. There were no water streaks, or rag marks. The grime wasn’t washed away. Rather, it looked as though it simply had never been as bad as he remembered it.

 

He had an uneasy feeling, like the machine was watching him, and could see him. He turned away quickly, but the next ten minutes passed slowly, and he couldn’t stop thinking about the chocolate wrapper in his pocket.

 

He jerked up when heavy footsteps came into the room, but he sighed in relief when he saw it was just the new bartender, a young man with black curls and thick boots. The bartender tossed his apron onto a chair and lifted a couple of coins from his pocket, his eyes darting over the offerings in the vending machine. He made a weird face when he got through the last row, and the boy smiled softly to himself, ducking his head.

 

“I wouldn’t touch that, if I were you,” the busser said, putting away her art book. She had a hint of laughter in her voice, and the new bartender turned on her with a raised eyebrow.

 

“Why not? Is it broke?”

 

“Worse. It’s cursed.”

 

A chill went down the boy’s spine, and he leaned in closer. The incredulous bartender reached back to move his apron and slipped into the chair. “Cursed?” he asked, his interest clearly piqued. “By what?”

 

“The soul of an evil sea witch.”

 

They were joined by another woman, then, the DJ. The boy had never really liked her; she had only worked there for a few weeks but he caught the way she stared at him, like she couldn’t fathom why the bar put up with him. She crossed the room in a few strides, looking at the busser, then the bartender, and then the boy. She reached for her water and took a deep swig before putting a fist on her waist and frowning at the busser. “An evil sea witch?” she said. “Really?”

 

The busser shrugged, looked up at the clock, and sighed heavily. “Back to the grind,” she muttered. She tucked her hat onto her head, pulling her hair up beneath it, and smiled at the boy. “See you out there in a few minutes, kid.”

 

She sidled out the door, and the DJ shook her head and collapsed into the busser’s vacated seat.

 

“Don’t listen to her. There’s no sea witch,” she assured the bartender, flashing him knowing grin.

 

“Nah, man. Of course not,” the bartender said. His voice was full of false bravado, but he eyed the machine carefully anyway.

 

“It’s actually the spirit of a lost sea nymph,” the DJ continued. She leaned forward, her hands out to help narrate her tale. “You see, about fifty years ago there was this big battle between the land and the sea, and all the sea nymphs were called upon to fight for their a*****e father, The Old Man. He threw them at the land like cannon fodder, bam! Their bodies bowling over the fisherman with their spears and the soldiers with their swords. Most of ‘em just crawled right back into the waters and swam back up to him, only be tossed back at the land. But one of ‘em, she was a real beauty…” the woman emphasized her breasts with her hands. “She wasn’t so lucky. Her first toss at the land had her impaled on a fisherman’s spear, and they dragged her back as their bounty, if you catch my drift. She died before she ever got back to the sea, but her spirit could never move on.” The DJ shrugged, leaning back and taking another deep drink from her water bottle.

 

“And now she haunts a vending machine?” the new bartender asked.

 

“Hell yeah. All lost souls end up here, eventually. Look at that kid over there. He’s practically a ghost already.”

 

Nobody had ever drawn attention to him like that before, and warning bells went off in his head as two pairs of eyes turned on him. He sat up, wrapping his coat further around him, his stomach knotting tightly. “He definitely looks like a ghost,” the bartender said, laughing, and a feeling of shame overcame the boy. He decided then that he didn’t like this man.

 

“Nobody even knows how long he’s been here. Don’t even know if he can speak English.” The DJ leaned forward and raised her voice. “Hey, you!” she called. The boy jumped, his chest tightening and his head growing fuzzy with panic. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

 

She laughed too, and the bartender leaned over to jab the boy hard in the arm. “Well, he’s still solid!”

 

The boy jumped from his seat and ran out of the room, their voices following him down the hall. “Don’t run away,” they called. “We were just having some fun! Come back!” But his heart was beating too fast in his chest, and the hallway seemed to be closing in on him as he struggled to catch his breath.

 

Get out of here. Get out, now! Get out!

 

The boy found the owner behind the bar, manning it while his new hireling was busy still mocking the boy in the back room, their raucous laughter and the teases they said in his absence  trailing down the hall after the boy and making him wince. His breath came in ragged gasps, his body trembling, and he tried to call out to the owner. “Please, please,” he mouthed, no sound coming out. “I need you…please, I need you…” He tapped hard on the wall with both of his hands, repeating the gesture with insistence. The owner remained oblivious laughing and joking with the patrons, and the boy heard a voice call to him from the hallway.

 

The new bartender was sauntering down the hallway with the DJ. “C’mon, kid, you’re being stupid. Don’t freak out like that,” the man said, and the boy did something he was never allowed to do: he ran behind the bar.

 

He tugged on the owner’s sleeve, his body shaking hard, and tried to get the words out, motioning down the hallway and using his hands to try to explain �" he was afraid; he couldn’t be alone with those two; he didn’t know what to do and he just wanted to go home, please, for once. His mouth worked frantically, small, high pitched sounds starting to come from somewhere in his throat, but no true words making it across.

 

“What the hell’s the matter with you?” the owner demanded. He tucked the bottle of gin he’d been pouring back into place and grabbed the boy’s arm tightly, his fingers digging into the boy’s tender skin, and dragged him off to the side.

 

The boy fought, terrified of going back down the hallway, but the owner yanked him forward and shoved him ahead, pressing him against the wall when they were far enough from everyone else.

 

“I ain’t got a clue what you’re tryna tell me, boy, and you’re drawing attention to yourself! Don’t you remember how dangerous I said this was? I don’t wanna have to fire you! Speak up! What in the world’s wrong with you?”

 

The boy shook his head and licked his lips, looking down the hallway. The new bartender and the DJ had stopped in their tracks, unseen yet by the owner, and the DJ was trying to drag the other man back in the direction of the break room. Her eyes were set in a threatening glare, and she shook her head at him.

 

He panicked, losing all control over his thoughts, and jumped away. He tried to book it into the main room, to find somewhere to escape to, somewhere to hide, but the owner grabbed his wrist before he could go run. He was jerked back, his shoulder almost dislocating with the force, and a wide palm slapped him across the face, knocking him head first against the wall.

 

The shock stopped him, and he slid to his knees, putting his arms up to cover his head.

 

“S**t,” the owner muttered over him. He leaned down, resting a hand on the boy’s back, but the boy remained crouched against the wall. He couldn’t look up; he was too busy trying to gather his thoughts, trying to stop the panic in his head. What are you doing? he demanded of himself. Why are you making a scene? Why couldn’t you just keep your head down and deal with it? You’ve been through worse. A few words and a good jab isn’t worth this kind of panic!

 

His breath came in ragged gasps, his body shaking, and he could barely get his head straight.

 

Finally, the owner stood, turning on the new bartender and the DJ. “What in the holy hell did you two do t’him?” he demanded, a low growl tinging his words.

 

The two stopped dead, and the boy peeked through his arms at them. “We were just having a little fun,” the DJ said, her voice small and defensive. “Alls we said is he looks like a ghost - and it’s true! I mean, look at him!”

 

“We weren’t tryna spook the kid or nothing. Just playing around with the little guy, that’s all…”

 

The owner flew into a rage. “You did WHAT?” he yell, punching the wall with his fist. Some of the plaster crumbled and fell, tickling the boy’s neck and making him shiver. The owner ignored the damage he’d done and advanced on the two suddenly remorseful figures, his finger up and in their faces. “I told you when I first hired you that I didn’t give a damn what you did on your own time, but you were t’leave the kid alone, didn’t I? That kid’s a better goddamned worker in one hour than either one a-you put together over your whole damned shift.”

 

He kept going, getting louder, peppering his language with obscenities as the patrons looked down the hallway at them, getting increasingly more nervous, and the boy shut his eyes and tried to drown out the noise, attempting desperately to hum as he rocked back and forth but managing only a small, high whine - more noise than he’d made in years.

 

Then, a hand touched down on his shoulder, and he jumped. The smell of the sea washed over him, and he looked up to see the woman’s eyes staring down at him with concern. She lifted him gently to his feet, and he tucked himself against her side. The strength of her arms around his back and the familiar scent of her skin gave him something to cling to, something concrete that he could use to center himself.

 

“You’re alright, seachild,” she whispered, and coming from her, he believed it. He evened his breath, and by the time the owner had returned - yelling over his shoulder about how easily they could be replaced, how he didn’t need them, yelling for them to pack their things and get out, that he’d manage just fine the rest of the night on his own and their positions would be filled before opening time tomorrow - the boy had calmed down enough to finally meet his employer’s eye.

 

The owner stopped in front of them, his eyes taking in the boy’s face, darting from the boy’s ruddy cheeks to the blood dripping from the boy’s right eyebrow where he’d struck the wall. “Please let me leave,” the boy mouthed, and the owner looked at him with a lost expression on his face.

 

“He asking for the rest of the night off,” the woman beside him said. “He needs rest, sleep. He needs to come home.”

 

“And who’re you?” the owner snapped, but even he winced at the harshness in his voice and he had the decency to look remorseful for it.

 

“I’m a friend,” the woman replied.

 

The owner licked his lips, looking around. The busser and her coworkers were gathered nearby, shocked at the events that were happening before them. The new bartender had a look of pure disbelief on his face that he’d lost the job so quickly - perhaps making a new record for the bar. The DJ herself had wide eyes, as she looked back and forth between the boy and her former employer.

 

“Are you gonna come back?” the owner asked. “Can I expect you tomorrow?”

 

The boy’s hand shot up to his smarting cheek, and he said nothing; he didn’t even attempt to move his lips. The owner nodded in understanding.

 

“Well, I can’t say as I blame you, but I’m sorry, and you gotta believe me on that.”

 

The boy nodded, and the woman leaned down to whisper in his ear. “Go, grab your things. Let’s leave this place, seachild.”

 

The boy’s heart beat faster as he realized he’d have to walk past the DJ and the new bartender to reach the manager’s office where he kept his bag of clothes, but the woman stepped forward, eyeing the two of them intently, and the boy could see the ocean in her eyes once more, the storm cresting over her pupils. “These two won’t bother you.” Her voice was cool and dangerous. “They won’t even dare to look at you.”

 

She nudged him forward, and he slipped down the hallway, staying close to the wall. He gathered his belongings quickly and ran back out to her. By the time he returned, the two who’d tormented him were long gone and the owner had gone back to work. He kept his eyes carefully on the bar, wiping down the same spot over and over again, as the boy followed the woman out into the night for the last time.

 

~*~

 

The boy hung his head on the way home, shame burning through his cheeks. Thinking back, he could barely believe he’d panicked the way he had. The new bartender and the DJ hadn’t meant any harm; they were being unkind, but he didn’t believe they would have hurt him. And now, they were both out of jobs, and so was he.

 

He inhaled sharply, the realization striking him, and he stopped in his tracks. He had no job. There would be no more money for food. He would starve on the streets. The panic started to rise up in him again, his breath coming in jerks, until the woman placed her hands on his shoulders and held him, gently, but firmly. “Calm, seachild. What’s the matter?”

 

He clenched his eyes shut and held his teeth together for a moment before finally shaking his head. “I have no home,” he mouthed. “And now I can’t even afford to feed myself. What am I going to do…?”

 

The woman leaned down and kissed his forehead. “You worry about things you’re too young to worry about. Why don’t you leave your future to me? I’m not going to let you fall.”

 

He shook his head, pulling away. He wrapped his arms around his chest, holding his bruised side and looking up at the thin strip of blue and gold in the distance, the last remnants of the sun that had already dipped well below the sea line. Soon, even that light would be gone, and the sky was clear enough for the stars to shine down. The boy heaved a sigh and looked at the woman. “I’ve never been able to trust anyone,” he said. The more he spoke, the more his throat was beginning to crack, and the more his words gained some semblance of audibility. Just around the edges, at the hard sounds, but enough that he didn’t feel like so much of a fool.

 

The woman ran her hand through his hair and nodded softly. “Trust is a fickle fiend. We’re all born with trust, but once it’s broken, we can’t simply put it back together. If we’re lucky in life, it’s only broken by one or two people, and we can still rely on others. But when we lose trust in the world, everything suddenly becomes sinister, tainted. It takes a great deal for us to ever trust anyone again. You’re very young, to have lost your faith in the world, but I know that it happens. You don’t have to believe me, but I’m going to make sure you’re alright, seachild. I can help you, if you can trust me long enough to work with me.”

 

Slowly, the boy nodded. “I…I’ll try.”

 

He followed her the rest of the way home, silent, deep in thought. As he waited for her to unlock the door, he finally gathered the courage to tug on the edge of her shirt. She pushed the door in and turned to him, smiling gently. “Yes?”

 

“D…do you have a name?” he squeaked out.

 

Her eyebrows rose in amusement and she pushed him lightly into the apartment. “My name is Ione,” she replied. “What about you?”

 

The boy swallowed hard and shrugged, but he didn’t answer. The woman, Ione, didn’t push him.

 

“Come with me,” she said, instead. “I want to tell you a tale.” She nudged him to follow her up to the kitchen, out the glass door in the back of the apartment, and down the stairs. He took off his socks and shoes and remained close behind her, still a little uneasy. He enjoyed the squish between his toes as he dug them into the wet sand, and let the woman lead him down the beach. The wind was biting, but the sky overhead was still clear, and now that the last of the light had disappeared, he could see every star in the night over their heads.

 

“Have you heard of the tale of the lost mermaid who wanders these shores, slipping into businesses and seeking other lost souls such as herself?” Ione asked.

 

The boy startled, looking up at her with shocked eyes, but said nothing.

 

“I think you have heard that myth,” she said with a knowing smile, tapping his nose with her finger. “Tell me, seachild, what have you heard?”

 

Slowly, with halting words and the barest whisper of a voice, he told her some of the stories passed around in the break room, delving deeper into detail on his favorite versions and skimming over those he didn’t like quite as much. He told her that the mermaid was a lost soul, a lover, a fighter, mere cannon fodder, and that she had died, killed herself, been murdered, or simply gotten lost. He told her how the mermaid haunted the bar, or perhaps haunted the vending machine in the back, always drawing people in to satiate her loneliness.

 

“I think she lives in the vending machine,” he said when he was done. His throat hurt now from overextending itself, but he didn’t stop. “I don’t know if she’s good, or bad, but…” He pulled the wrapper for the Nereus bar from his coat and offered it lamely up to her. “I think I woke her up, and I think she’s been watching me from it.” He told her quickly about how, since he spent the last of his money, the vending machine seemed alive, and it seemed to call to him. He told her how unnerved he had felt in the break room before the DJ and the new bartender had joined him. How that nervous feeling might have helped him overreact. 

 

In the end, the woman took the wrapper and looked at it, nodding softly. The boy looked away in shame, shrugging. “I don’t know…” he muttered.

 

“There are many tales around the docks,” Ione said, flattening the wrapper and running her fingers over the seafoam letters. “The fishermen speak of a siren who mourns for her lost lover and calls men overboard. In the canneries and the textile factories nearby, you hear tell of a selkie - it’s more exotic, gets the blood flowing better, but their story is just as rubbish. They say she yearns to return home, and is calling out for her family to come and find her, but her family has all been hunted to nothing by now and there is no family to return to. Still, it’s best to leave an offering out for her, so she thinks it might be one of her sisters, and never catches on to the ruse. Then there are the drunks, and the bars. They all lay claim to her, the mermaid of the land. There are as many stories as there are mouths to tell them, but not one of them has ever heard the true tale. It’s been ages since anyone spoke that, or bothered to look it up, and in time the tale has been twisted for the pleasure of the audience, each new author adding his or her own spin.”

 

The boy cocked his head to the side, intrigued, and he slipped a little closer. “What’s the real tale?”

 

Ione raised her head and looked out across the sea, the water beginning to lap at their feet as the tide came in. “It’s a much more complicated story, and the creature involved is neither a mermaid, nor a siren, nor a selkie, no matter what the other tales will say.” She breathed in deeply, and wrapped one free arm around the boy’s shoulders. “She was a Nereid, one of the fifty daughters of the Old Man of the Sea, and one day, she fell in love…”

 

~*~

 

The Nereids were a beautiful and kindly group of sea nymphs, the daughters of an old aquatic deity and an oceanid. They were worshipped by sailors and long known for offering aid when some unfortunate soul fell into the waters and risked drowning, bringing the helpless men back to their ships or to land. They spent their free time riding the dolphins and the hippocampi through the crystal waters of their home deep in the sea.

 

One day, one of these Nereids came too close to the shore. She was not paying attention to her surroundings as she made her rounds on her hippocampus steed, and an enchanting voice came out of the distance and fell upon her ears. She looked up and saw, there, on the land, a beautiful maiden. At once, the young Nereid fell in love. She returned to that spot daily to listen to the siren song from her hiding place behind an outcropping of rocks, her heart aching to join the young woman on land.

 

Finally, after almost a month of intense obsession, the Nereid went to her father, the Old Man of the Sea. She asked him for his blessing, to allow her to walk on land and woo this woman.

 

Unable to deny his daughters, the Old Man of the Sea agreed. But there was a price. She had to give up her life in the water. This was a terrible, distressing decision for the young Nereid, but in the end, her love won out. She pulled herself from the water, leaving her mother and her father, her sisters, her steed, all behind.

 

This is where you’d think the tale might take a sad turn. The Nereid learned that love is fleeting, or that just because you want someone doesn’t mean they want you as well, but this isn’t that kind of story. You see, the young woman the Nereid had fallen for, had long ago fallen for her, having seen the Nereid a hundred times from her window as the young sea nymph had made her rounds on her hippocampus, swimming with an adeptness you only gain from life in the water. The young woman’s song had always been for the Nereid.

 

They lived together for sixty peaceful, beautiful years. The young human woman grew old, and withered, and the Nereid stayed youthful, but the difference in their bodies never mattered to her, for she loved her human even more on that last day of her life than she had all those years ago, when she’s stumbled upon the young woman’s soothing voice. Even life outside of the sea was worth it, and she could always go for a swim if she needed to feel the water over her skin.

 

But there was a dark cloud of some sort hanging over her head, waiting to steal her happiness. As the human woman grew closer and closer to death’s door, and the Nereid stayed forever youthful, a deep depression came over the old woman. Every morning, afternoon, and evening, the Nereid would go to every extreme to prove her love to this woman, but that dark stain of doubt had settled into the old woman’s soul. After all, she was no longer young, and beautiful. Her voice was rattled constantly with cough. She could not keep up with the youthful Nereid on land or in the waters. And hadn’t she stolen the Nereid from her true family? Isolated the Nereid on land? How could anyone love her still?

 

The Nereid watched as her lover grew more and more distant, until one night, she woke - alone - in their shared bed. She followed her lover’s footsteps out the old door in the back of their cottage, up the cliff side, to where her lover stood with outstretched arms at the very edge of the very farthest cliff.

 

The Nereid could not walk or run fast enough to catch the woman she loved. She could not scream loud enough to be heard over the rush of the wind, the waves, and the oncoming storm. She could do nothing to stop what happened in front of her very eyes.

 

For a decade, nearly two, she wandered the shore, cursing the name of every god she’d ever known. She cursed her father, and each of her sisters, and she cursed her lover for not trusting her.

 

And then, one day, she came to her senses. She walked out in to the water, and called to her father as she had not done in nearly eighty years.

 

Her father came to her at once, embracing her with his warm arms. “My daughter,” he said to her. “Your heart aches, for you know the love of a mortal, and you know the pain it always brings.”

 

She begged him to explain why he’d allowed her to leave, but what right was it of his to deny her? If he had, would she not simply have gone away without his permission? She begged him to allow her to return home, but he reminded her of the stipulation of their agreement.

 

“Is there no way around this, then?” she asked, not daring to truly hope, but for a long while her father thought on these words, truly contemplating what could be done.

 

“There is one way you can return home,” he said. “When you lived in the waters, it was a part of your life to save those drowning from the imminent death that faced them. In your time on land, your sisters have all carried on without you. A thousand souls you could have saved instead fell upon your sisters’ overworked arms. If you can rescue as many drowning souls on land as you would have in the water, then you may return home to the seas and live the rest of your days with your family.”

 

“But how do I find a thousand drowning souls on land?” she asked. “People don’t drown on land…”

 

But her wise father replied, “They do not drown with water in their lungs, but with the difficulties of life filling them.”

 

Immediately, the young Nereid began to set about helping every man, woman, in child she came across. Some of them needed her, some did not, and some merely took advantage of the help she was willing to offer, using her as a crutch to avoid truly living their own life. When she figured that she must surely have saved a thousand souls, she swam out again into the waters and called for her father. But he did not come.

 

She returned to the land again, more discriminating in her actions this time, attempting to put her efforts where they were needed most, but even still, she had trouble discerning those in true need from those who simply did not want to help themselves.

 

Finally, one night, she swam out to the sea and called on her father one last time. “I’m no good at this,” she told him when he arrived. “I must have aided a hundred thousand by now, but none of them fulfil my requirements. It’s easy to tell a drowning man in the water, but how do you know a drowning man on land?”

 

Once again, her wise father smile gently and replied with calm words: “You listen,” he said. “They will tell you surely enough.”

 

“But all of them say they are needy.”

 

“With their words,” he reminded her. “Don’t listen to their words. Listen to their hearts, for the heart does not tell a lie.” He kissed her forehead and sent her back to the land one last time.

 

Now, the Nereid wanders, searching for true lost souls, drowning in a world that wants to bury them. When their hearts cry out to her, she comes, seeking for her 1000 drowning souls, still aching to return home at last. And every once in a while, when she feels like she’s drowning herself, her father will come to the land and send one lost soul, deeply in need, in her direction, so that she’s always moving forward, slowly, slowly, achieving her goal.

 

~*~

 

The boy’s mind raced with confused thoughts as Ione led him up the stairs and into the apartment. He washed his feet off in the bathtub, and they ate roasted lamb and potatoes. He kept a careful eye trained on her at all times, on the half-horse-half-fish tattoo on her arm, and on the way she moved like she was swimming through the air itself. He thought about her smell, how her skin was like the sea, and how her eyes could become stormy.

 

When she helped him into bed later that night, he asked the question that had been gnawing on his mind. “Are you the Nereid from the story?” His vocal chords, exhausted from his attempts at speaking today, had altogether given out, but she didn’t seem to need to hear him to understand what he was saying. Perhaps she was listening not to his words, but to his heart.

 

She laughed softly. “Do I look like a sea nymph to you?” she asked, and he frowned.

 

“I don’t know what a sea nymph looks like,” he said, getting very tired and slowly slipping toward the blackness of his dreams. “But I wished on a candy bar that looked like the ocean and then you came into my life and got the water out of my lungs, so…”

 

“Shh,” he heard, the last thing before he went under. His dreams that night were soft dreams of swimming in a wide open sea, the spray of the water in his face, the sun beating down on him, and everything was free and safe at last.