The Nereid and the Seachild - Day Four

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

When the boy woke the next morning, he was once more alone in the apartment. Another note beside his head had an address, a time, and a name. The boy’s stomach twisted as he sat up, looking around. At the bottom of the note, in the same scrawl from the morning before, Ione had written, “This woman can help you. I trust her deeply; you can trust her as well.”

 

He looked around, hoping to find his newest and only friend, but there was no indication of where she’d gone. She wasn’t in the water, and there were no footprints leading across the beach. Sighing deeply, he cut himself another serving of custard pie, showered, dressed, and lifted the paper. The back side contained a series of directions, and he steeled himself and left the apartment. The conversation on trust from the night before rang in his head, and it was his promise to try that ultimately pushed him out the door.

 

The address led him halfway across the city, to a small office building in a district he’d never been in before. A bell rang over the door, and he jumped at little. Don’t be stupid. Just keep going. He walked carefully up to the secretary, laying the paper on the counter and clenching his teeth. Every muscle in his body was tight.

 

A young man sat behind the desk, writing something neatly in a small, yellowed logbook, and when the boy placed his hands on the counter on either side of the paper the young man raised his head and smiled. “Good morning!” he said, his voice warm and open. “We’ve been expecting you - come right on back.” He stood closed the logbook over his pencil, ushering the boy through a long hallway to a door at the end with a gold nameplate that matched the name on the boy’s note. The young man knocked on the door three times, and then pushed the door in. “Your ten o’clock is here,” he said. A muffled voice responded within, and the boy was pushed inside.

 

The large room was decorated with hundreds of photographs of smiling, crying people, happy people, each holding a key in front of a new house. He examined the faces one by one, taking in the sheer elation, and suddenly feeling very out of place.

 

“I’ve helped all of those people get their first homes,” a voice said behind him, and he jumped again and turned around. A middle aged woman with dark skin and a bright pink suit stood behind him, her arms crossed over her chest. She greeted him with a wide, gentle smile, and motioned him toward a mahogany desk. “Come, sit,” she said. “Ione set up this appointment; did she tell you what I do?”

 

The boy shook his head and nervously followed her to the desk, slipping into the free chair as she walked around and sat on a large, inflated ball.

 

“I’m a caseworker. I used to work with families in the homeless community, but now I prefer to work mostly with homeless teens. I can help you get on your feet, and make sure you’ve got a place to live and can get back to school, if that’s what you want.” She cocked her head to the side. “What’s your name, honey?”

 

Again, the boy shook his head. The woman frowned lightly. “You don’t want to tell me? Nothing will hurt you here. We don’t care what you’re running from or how you ended up in this position; we’re just here to help you.”

 

The boy sank deeply into the armchair, trying to make himself as small as he could. Swallowing hard, he opened his mouth and took a breath, praying the sounds came this time.

 

“I don’t have a name.”

 

It wasn’t the best he’d done recently with speaking, but enough sound was there that the woman only looked at him in confusion for a second or two before getting it. The boy watched the recognition dawn on her face, and he felt his stomach twisting in knots.

 

“What do you remember of your past?” she asked, and the boy shrugged.

 

“The streets? The sea?” He didn’t elaborate, and the woman simply nodded and jotted a few notes down on a piece of paper.

 

“Alright. This might be a long shot, but…do you know how old you are?”

 

“Fifteen,” he whispered, his voice cracking. The woman’s eyebrows shot up, but she merely wrote it down on the paper.

 

“And you don’t know if you have any family?”

 

They boy shook his head once more. “I…” he started to say, and he stopped and cleared his throat, taking a deep breath. “I woke up one day, smashed against the cliffs, just in my clothes, spitting up saltwater. Couldn’t see well, my throat hurt when I talked, and all I remembered was my age, and my birthday. I don’t…know if I have family, or anybody else, or how I got there.” He looked down at his hands, and the woman was silent for a moment on the other end.

 

“How - how long ago was that?” she finally asked.

 

“A little over two years ago,” he muttered. It hadn’t been long after that morning that he’d curled himself up beside the bar and been woken in the middle of the night by the owner, who was just heading home. He’d taken the boy into the office and gotten him soda laced with something hard that burned his throat as it went down and made his head fuzzy. The owner had made the deal then, doing all the talking himself, barely waiting for the boy to even attempt an answer. It had saved the boy’s life, at the time. He had no doubt about that. But he kept this part of the story to himself as the caseworker nodded and wrote quickly in her notes. “Where have you been living?” she asked, finally.

 

“I live in an alley between a Greek restaurant and a butchery three blocks from my…from a bar. I don’t have a job. I get money sometimes cleaning up for…a shop. But not anymore. I don’t know how I’m going to eat now…”

 

The woman took a deep breath and finished writing before putting down her pencil. A remorseful look on her face, she reached forward with one hand to pat his wrist. “Don’t you worry about it, alright? I’m going to take care of everything for you.” She closed her folder and came around the small desk, leaning over and enfolding the boy in her arms. “I’m going to take care of everything for you,” she promised. Her warm hand stroked his hair gently and he let himself melt into the embrace, nodding softly.

 

~*~

 

A few hours later, the boy was in his first car, racing down the road toward his new life. “I think you’ll really like the place,” she said. “It’s just one of the many residences we own, and the other tenants are wonderful people. You’ll have you own kitchen and bathroom, and a rather spacious main room that will double as a bedroom. There’s a wonderful view of the sea from the back, and your own staircase going down to the beach.”

 

The boy’s stomach was knotted tighter with each word she spoke. He felt sick, and he didn’t know how to explain it.

 

He watched as the houses went by, familiar places that he’d walked past just this morning on the way to the caseworker’s office.

 

Please be there, he prayed silently. Please, don’t let your apartment be empty. His last hope was that the caseworker was merely taking him to another studio in the complex, but when she pulled in front of the building, smiled at him, and led him up to the second floor, he knew that wasn’t the case. She pulled a key from her pocket. “This is just a temporary place for you,” she promised. “It’s unfurnished; I have a handful of sources who can help you get a few key items, like a bed, a table, some kitchenware and appliances; everything you need. You’ll be allowed to take that all with you when you finally get your own place, but first, we want to get you into school. You’re too young yet to be out. I’ll work on that on my end while you settle in.”

 

She pushed open the door, leading the boy through to the empty room. His heart sank. The entire apartment was empty. The driftwood, sea glass, and polished stones were all gone. The gauze hangings and the large bed, the table where he’d shared several meals with the mysterious woman, utterly nonexistent. He walked past the caseworker, who was already beginning to dial her phone to find the resources she was after. He took the step up to the kitchen and looked out the glass back panels. He could see out to the sea, the calm waves lazily rolling toward the shore, and a single set of footprints, heading from the bottom patio all the way out to the water’s edge.

 

Something in his breath caught, and he sucked his lower lip in and chewed absently on it. “You’re real,” he whispered, his voice making no sound.

 

Slowly, he pulled away from the back windows, determined to make the most of this. He checked each of the empty cabinets, all of the drawers, and found nothing. The fridge, however, held the remains of that sumptuous custard pie, and silently, he thanked the ethers that he’d been given that much.

 

He closed the door up quickly, before the caseworker might notice and question, and he made his way back to the main room, checking the barren bathroom, and then the closet.

 

There, on the bottom, tucked away in the back, was his bag of clothes. Wrapped around it was a ribbon, tied with a note. He looked back, ensuring that the caseworker was busy with her phone call, before he unattached the note.

 

On the front, written in that same exotic scrawl, was a number. 1,000

 

The boy opened the card, his heart jumping in his chest.

 

My Dearest Seachild,

 

Many years ago, I loved a woman whose voice captivated me, and whose heart completed mine, and my father Nereus - the Old Man of the Sea - released me from my home so I could live with her. But then one day that love was lost. The only way to return to my home was to lend my aid to those in need. But, understanding who was in need, and who was simply motivated by greed…that was the hardest lesson I had to learn. Opening myself, and listening not to words, but to the soul, was the key to unlocking my freedom.

 

Some men speak loudly, my sweet seachild. But their souls are very quiet, and hard to hear over all the raucous coming from their mouths. But you were not that way. You spoke barely a word, and when you did, it came without sound. But your soul was the loudest I have ever heard, and I didn’t need to hear your words to know what you were saying. Someday, I hope that you will come and find me, deep in the water.

 

But even if that never comes to pass, remember that somewhere, out there, in the sea, swimming with dolphins, is your friend, the “mermaid”. Home at last. And you, my 1,000^th soul, will always be welcome in my home.

 

Swim free,

 

Ione

 

The boy tucked the card away in his pocket, his hand running into the old candy wrapper that he didn’t remember her giving back to him. He closed his eyes, held that wrapper between his fingers, and mouthed a simple prayer:

 

Please thank her for me.

 

Somehow, he knew the message would get where it needed to be, and, taking a deep breath, he turned back to the caseworker, steadier now than he’d been in a long time, determined, and ready to move forward. After all, he had to learn to float on land before he could venture out into the sea, and someday, he very much wanted to visit his mermaid and all of her sisters in her home.