xxxx.

a man and the sea, a tail and a tale and the golden age of tears and piracy

summer 1741

Emerson Swanson Pond is engaged to be married.

His fiancee is the very pretty and very typical Lydia Valmont, daughter of a cousin of the Duke of Kent. 

He knows he should feel very lucky have such a girl for his betrothed, one so charming and proper, so rosy and shy. 

He knows she will bear him strong children, perform her wifely duties with a strong chin and a light hand. 

Emerson Swanson Pond is engaged to be married to a lovely, very rich girl, but he cannot stop himself from pining after the girl he met at Cornwall last summer. 

Meraud is her name, and her hair is as black as fresh ink on a page,

Her voice rough and sweet all at once, like a swallow of honeyed whiskey. 

Her skin is the faint pink of the inner curve of a great shell. 

No matter how hard he tries, Emerson cannot wash away the feel of her cheek against his, the salty scent of her hair under his nose as they slept. He’d gone to Cornwall for some reason or other, he can’t remember now, but everything vanished around him when he’d seen her. 

It was as the poets say, a beam of light from Heaven itself descended upon her, illuminated her, adorned her like the finest jewels. 

In reality, the sky had been grey and filled with clouds heavy with rain, and the summer wind had  carried in it a secret, biting chill. 

Meraud had been gathering shells along the rocky beach, her ebon hair writhing and undulating like Medusa’s snakes in the wind. She’d had on a grey-blue cloak, and her feet were as bare and as pink as a newborn babe’s. 

Abandoning his sense of propriety and all things fundamentally British, Emerson had approached her immediately and struck up the most invigorating conversation of his short life. 

The entirety of his time in the fishing village of Polperro was then spent in a strange sort of courtship with the odd, beautiful daughter of a fisherman. 

Gulls screamed above them, waves crashed to shore. The air smelt heavily of salt and decaying fish. 

It was the happiest time Emerson Swanson Pond could recall in all of his twenty-three years. 

It is not Emerson who suggests that the newlyweds should honeymoon at Cornwall, but in fact, his bright and sunny new wife. 

She’s done some snooping, she says, and found out from a few of his friends and associates that he’d come back from Cornwall with a spring in his step and talked of nothing else for months after. 

This, of course, is not true. 

He’d been inconsolable upon his return, fearing in the brackish depths of his heart that he would never see Meraud again. 

So when Lydia Swanson Pond (nee Valmont) suggests they visit, that same-said cephalopod of a heart emerges with an inky cloud from its cave deep in his chest, beating in anticipation of what should never be. 

Poor Lydia imagines that the real, unbridled smile Emerson allows himself to smile, is for her. 

Lydia is bedridden.

They have only been married a week, and she is already feeling fatigued and nauseous. 

Emerson tells her (repeatedly) that it is probably just her delicate nerves, all in a tizzy after such a long journey. 

Lydia will hear nothing of it; to hear her tell it, she is pregnant with his firstborn son. 

Of course, Emerson fidgets at the thought, feels as though his shirt collar is too tight around his throat. The act of coupling with Lydia was in and of itself bad enough; imagining how she’ll be, fat and pregnant, swollen up like a Christmas goose, the thought makes him convulse. 

Instead of sitting with his young wife, Emerson visits the pub. 

He drinks ale with the sailors and fishermen and suspected smugglers. 

He listens to their rowdy songs and bawdy tales. 

He gets up the nerve, after his fourth pint, to ask a few of them of Meraud. 

“She lives up the hill in her father’s old cottage, ye’ll find her there.” 

And so up the hill Emerson goes. 

It’s summer, and the moon hangs low and rotund above the sea, the luminous egg-sac of some great spider. 

Bright enough, is the moon, that no lantern or torch is needed to easily navigate the somewhat treacherous path to Meraud’s place of residence. 

Emerson knocks thrice upon the door, feels himself starting to regret his decision, when suddenly the warped and rotting wood swings open and there stands his love. In her arms, she holds a bundled babe, looks to be a few months old. 

“I am sorry, I had not thought to ask the men at the Mermaid Inn if you had wed. I shall not bother you again,” he says, his heart aching as the words leave him. 

Meraud peers curiously up at him with those bright black eyes of hers, the faint curl of a smile ghosting over her rubicund lips. She says nothing, just holds the swaddled infant out for Emerson to see. 

In the light of the tumescent moon, Emerson can see that the child has fawn-colored curls and healthy, tawny skin. Not the fresh cream of his mother. 

Emerson knows that when the child is a bit older, he will have the slightly overlarge front teeth that have marked his family for generations. 

He feels that he might weep, or perhaps faint. 

All the things about his life suddenly seem very, very tragic. 

“I think perhaps you’d better come inside,” Meraud remarks. Emerson does as she suggests. 

The boy’s name is Henry, after Emerson’s deceased father. This fact does cause a few tears to escape and take the voyage down his cheeks and into the collar of his shirt. 

Henry is three months old, a very healthy child, and growing quickly. There is no question in either of their minds (Meraud’s and Emerson’s) to whom the boy belongs. 

“Would that I could marry you, Meraud. I am a vile, wretched man for not doing so from the start.” moans Emerson into his hands. He wishes with all of his heart that he had not married Lydia. 

Meraud just sits quietly in that way of hers, calmly sipping from her cup of tea. She knows that he is married, she has known all along that he would never marry her. 

Meraud is unconcerned with such trivialities as marriage by the Church of England. 

She does not adhere to the laws of men, she thinks. 

She does not say any of this aloud, because she has always been wise, and because she has always been clever. 

Truthfully, she has always known that the wind would blow Emerson Swanson Pond back to her, that the call of her embrace and of the sea would prove too strong for him to ignore. She did not know it would be so soon, though. She thought perhaps it would come when Henry was older, a boy of nine or ten. 

“You should not be so kind to me, Meraud. I deserve your ire, your rage! Tell me that I am worthless, that I am no more a man than a drunkard is a clergyman.” Emerson rails. The tears are flowing freely now, his voice rising in volume and octave. 

Meraud holds up a lily-white hand, quiets him. He must not wake the baby. 

“You have done what is expected of a man of your age, your position. No one will be surprised or scandalized to learn of your supposed infidelity. Men are expected to keep mistresses, and mistresses are expected to bear b******s. It is the way things are,” Meraud soothes, her voice like a balm to his soul. 

Somehow, when she says it, it doesn’t all sound so terrible. Still, he wants to stay with her, raise the boy. 

“No, my love. We both know that cannot be. If you truly love me still, which I believe you do, here is what you must do: you will return to your home with your wife, make her happy. Do everything she wishes. Work hard at your profession, and if it pleases you, send a small sum at your discretion to Henry and I. When the time is right, I will send for you, and you may come and visit us for a spell. But I must be clear; you must not attempt to come or to write without my first saying so. Otherwise things will not bode well for any of us.” 

Emerson mulls over all Meraud has just said. He wants to protest, but knows she has her reasons, and that in her eerie way, she is most often wise in her decisions. 

He agrees to her terms, and she allows him to embrace her and kiss her and breathe in the salt of obsidian hair, and it is Heaven on earth. 

When he leaves, the moon is still hanging there above the sea, and Emerson thinks that the full moon must be Meraud’s soul, bathing him in her luminous silvery glow. 

Emerson’s first (but really second) born son James is almost four years old when Emerson gets a message from a stranger in a tavern. The stranger has a cloak with the hood drawn over his eyes, and he slides an envelope across the table to Emerson before leaving without looking back. 

My dearest E., 

The time has come. Tell your wife and son that you must away on business for several weeks. 

Pack your humblest clothes. Do not hire a coach. Ride your gelding alone. Leave tomorrow eve. 

Tell no one the truth about your destination. 

Love always, M. and H. 

P.s. H. has asked after you incessantly since learning to speak. 

Emerson’s journey to Polperro takes him less than two days, his horse foaming at the mouth and frothing with sweat the entire time. 

When at last he is at Meraud’s door, the sight of his son when it opens nearly brings him to his knees. 

The boy is sturdy and strong, big for his age. The same cannot be said about James; that child has been weedy and pale and sickly from birth. It is a miracle he has not died yet from some illness or other. 

“Mamm, Mamm, he’s come, he’s here!” the boy has the same soothing note in his voice as Meraud, Emerson notes. 

Emerson stoops down on one knee to get a closer look at his son. His firstborn son. 

“How old are you now, Henry, pray tell? You’re getting to be so big, I wonder if I could lift you at all!” he teases, feeling warm when the boy giggles and puts his pudgy child’s arms around Emerson’s neck. 

Emerson scoops him up, kisses the top of the boy’s tawny curls, holds him close. He only puts the boy down when Meraud appears. 

When he holds her, he wishes to never let go. 

For a month, Emerson fishes and helps Meraud with her chores. They live as husband and wife, taking care of Henry and keeping the cottage in working order. He doesn’t want to leave. The fantasy is too real, woven with too rich and vivid a thread. 

He shares Meraud’s bed and her table. 

He teaches his son how to ride, how to shoot a bow and arrow, how to tie perfect knots in a fishing net. 

When the time comes for him to go back home, Emerson thinks of begging Meraud to let him stay. He knows what her answer will be, though, and so says nothing. 

He kisses her long and slow, hugs his son tightly, and rides back the way he came with a steel set to his jaw and a hardness over his heart like a crab’s shell. 

Lydia bears Emerson two more children, a daughter and then another son, and Emerson sees Meraud and Henry once after the birthing of each. He wonders, when he is back with his “family” in Kent, if perhaps Meraud might carry another child of his. 

James is still a slip of a boy, riddled with ailments and a snobbish attitude to boot. 

Emerson’s daughter Colette is sweet, but he fears that his wife will ruin her and turn her into just another gossipy, polished, trite society girl. She looks exactly like Lydia at that age. 

The youngest son, Edmund, is (and Emerson knows he is awful for thinking it) his favorite child among the three “legitimate” ones (for Henry is, of course, his true favorite) due to his quiet yet eager demeanor, and his propensity for helping the servants with their chores. Lydia has yelled and scolded and disciplined, but nothing seems to work. The youngest boy, now seven years of age, adores working in the stables, helping to fix suppers, doing tasks which are most definitely beneath a boy of his societal standing. 

Emerson is secretly delighted. He dotes on the boy, to his wife’s horror and irritation. 

The years have not been kind to Lydia, nor has the bearing of three children; she no longer resembles a pretty picture so much as a painting that has warped and the colors run together. 

Emerson finds faint lines near the corners of his eyes that weren’t there before, and he lets the stubble grow over his square jaw when he used to shave himself neat as a pin. 

He finds that Meraud likes him better with a beard, and so he keeps it. 

Most of his time is spending daydreaming and wondering about his other family, his other life in Polperro with his boy and his nymph. 

He waits and waits, but Meraud does not send for him. 

A year goes by, and then another. Several more. 

Henry would be a lad of sixteen now, and Meraud would most certainly have her hands full with him, Emerson reasons. 

He thinks he should not wait, the more he ponders it, and so he decides not to wait any longer. 

He packs his things and readies his horse, kisses his children and his wife with promises of as swift a return as he can manage. 

He rides nearly nonstop the whole way, through the driving rain. 

When Emerson Swanson Pond knocks on the door of the cottage the first time, there is no answer. He wonders briefly if they are out fishing. A flash of panic surges through him; what if they’ve moved away? What if they’ve died? 

Just as fear has begun to paralyze the edges of his heart, the door opens to reveal a young man who could only be Henry. 

He’s grown so much since the last visit, now he’s almost a head taller than Emerson (who is by no means short in stature) and his body is made of lean cords of muscle. His face is almost a man’s face. 

When Henry processes and recognizes, though, that it is his father standing there before him, soaked to the bone and bedraggled, he grins widely the grin of a young boy. There are the overlarge, white teeth Emerson had predicted so long ago. 

The two men embrace roughly, clapping one another on their backs and squeezing the air from each other’s lungs. 

“My boy, when I left you were David, and now I return to find you are Goliath! Is your mother here, I wonder?” 

Henry’s grin falters for half a second, but Emerson doesn’t notice. He is too overcome with the feelings of joy and peace that seem to envelope him the moment he knocks on the cottage door. 

Henry knows where his mother is, and that his father is not supposed to be here now. 

If his father sees his mother in her current state, everything will be broken, nothing will be able to return to how it was. 

He knows this, but Henry has often wondered if his mother might not being trying to control things in her own way. Perhaps she exaggerates the gravity of the situation, he reasons. 

“Mamm has gone off to the Caves for a short while. She does from time to time, I find it best not to disturb her.” 

Emerson wonders if the boy’s Cornish brogue could sound any less like his own clipped, neat British speech. 

“Ah. Have you any notion as to when she might return, son?” 

Henry fidgets and pulls at a loose thread in the seam of his pants. 

“Aye. . .she usually comes home in a month or so.” he offers finally. 

Emerson Swanson Pond sees black and sees red all at once. He envisions Meraud trysting with men from the village and the port for money. He envisions her silky, wild hair tumbling down her back and down her shoulders as she straddles some fat merchant or some greasy vicar. He has made up his mind in this instant that he is going down to the Caves, his righteous anger blinding him. 

“Your mother will be back tonight. Make sure there’s a fire going and food on the table, boy.” 

Before Henry can stop him, Emerson has mounted his horse and headed off down the rocky gorge path to the beach. To the Caves. 

Henry knows he could have used physical strength to stop his father, but a part of him also wishes to know why his mother disappears for so long, and so he does not. 

Meraud is dead to the world. 

Her body is submerged in the brackish, gently rocking water that gathers in the tide pools in the main Cave. 

She wears no clothing, and her face is a porcelain oval floating in the pitch-black tendrils of her spirited hair. 

Her eyes are closed, and her breathing shallow. 

Where her legs would be, should be, is a large and strong-looking tail, covered in iridescent scales all green-silver-blue and ending in a huge yet delicate fin. 

The kelp and seaweed has looped and tied around her arms and body, and little schools of fish swim in and out of her hair. 

Meraud can hear everything all at once, everything in the sea. 

She can hear her sisters singing, way out, miles from the shore. 

She can hear her father bringing thunder and lightning, stormy skies and rough waters ahead for any sailor braving the brine. 

She can hear her mother weeping for the life Meraud has chosen. 

What she does not hear, however, is the sound of her lover’s horse’s hooves on the sand, beating their furious rhythm and bearing him nearer and nearer. 

She does not hear Emerson dismount, tie his horse, and run into the smaller Cave. 

She does not hear him calling her name, crying out like a gull cries, echoing against the damp walls of the Cave. 

She does not hear him following the tunnel down, down, all the way to the main chamber where she slumbers. 

The moon is full and opulent above, looming heavy in a purple-black sky so littered with stars. 

The moon sings to her, visible through a large hole in the ceiling of the main Cave chamber, her faithful friend and companion. 

Meraud stirs, though, when she hears Emerson’s boots splashing as he stumbles clumsily into the water, treading and trying to get to her. 

Her eyes open, and she tries to free herself from her kelp bed to swim away, but she fails. 

No. 

No, no, no. 

This cannot happen, he cannot see her this way. Everything will be broken beyond repair. 

It is too late, though. 

“Meraud! My darling, Meraud! What madness in Heaven or Hell has brought you here? Why have you no clothes on?”

She blinks back tears; he has not yet seen her tail. 

“Sweet, I would beg you to turn away and go back to the cottage. Wait for me there if you would, or return to your wife if you wish that instead. If you stay here, I am afraid for myself and for you.” 

Emerson does not understand. How can he? 

“I will do nothing of the sort! I cannot leave you here at the mercy of whatever men or beasts might come this way! Do not ask me to!” 

Ah, love. 

Men who truly love, love with pride and honor, they love with stout hearts and an iron will. 

Unfortunately, they also love with blind eyes and soft minds. 

Emerson makes his way over to her, tries to pull her into his arms. 

“My love, Meraud, why would you send me away? Help me understand what I clearly do not. And how is it, dear one, that you look no older than the day we first met?” 

He searches her face for an answer which needs not be spoken, for her tail has curled around his waist and wrapped around his legs, keeping the both of them afloat. 

She puts her palm to his cheek, and though it is as cold as ice, he does not recoil but leans into the touch. 

“Emerson, my heart, I told you time and again not to come unless I send for you, and this is the reason. If you were to ever see me in my truest form, I must return to from whence I came, so many years ago.” 

His eyes hold the liquid metal of sorrow as he finally understands. 

Where she must go, because of his brashness, he cannot follow. 

He wants to weep bitterly, to let the sea take him and perhaps drag him down to the depths where she might find him, but something stops him. 

“What--what of the boy, then?” Henry would be motherless, and Emerson was at best an absent father. Surely she could not leave him. 

“He is my son as much as he is yours, and he will have to choose someday where he wishes to live out his days. Until that day, though, let him live in the blissful ignorance of youth for a little while longer.” 

Emerson feels a fierce desire take root in his heart, the desire to stay and father Henry properly. He will not return to Kent without hope of seeing his son again. He cannot. 

“Goodbye, sweet Emerson, promise me you will not try to find me again.” whispers Meraud, her voice like babbling brooks and rolling waves and silent chambers. 

Emerson of course cannot promise this, but nods anyway, and watches as she swims out of the Cave and further and further away from him. 

He takes his horse after awhile, goes back to the cottage where he finds Henry sitting by the fire. 

He says nothing, just weeps in his son’s arms until he falls asleep. 

coda:

Henry and his father spend years upon a Galleon, smuggling and plundering, making allies and enemies of some very dangerous men. 

They rarely choose to leave their vessel when they make port. 

Henry understands that he owes it to his father, and to his mother to let his father chase lunatic whims. 

He’s heard the story so many times now, its ingrained in his memory. The story of what happened to his mother, what she truly was. 

He isn’t sure he believes it, though he has always wanted to. 

They search and scour the oceans far and wide, his father half- or all-mad with grief and a mission he will never complete. 

Henry is a man now, a young and strong man, fair of face and of mind. Able-bodied. 

Lately, though, he feels the sea calling to him. 

Not just the way it calls to sailors, to those who wish to make their life upon its treacherous waters, but singing to him. Whispering to him its secrets and stories. 

He finds himself fantasizing about a hidden world below the waves, of removing his shirt and diving off the port-side bow and plunging into its depths. 

His father is growing weaker and crazier, and Henry aches to see what has become of him. 

Perhaps when he does make his dive, he will take his father along too. 

Perhaps he’ll be reunited with his mother, finally. 

Finally.