The sky glows ember bright and warm in sharp contrast to the biting cold of the ocean air that rocks the glittering surface of the waters as a mother soothing her child. There is nothing more spectacular than watching the sun dip under the waves, marrying the mysteries of the boundless cosmos to the mysteries of the cerulean sea in an explosion of violet and bronze light.
When Nathaniel closes his eyes, the wind blows against his face, nestling into his hair, loving him as the waves love the cliff’s edge. They gently whisk away parts of him in inches until he is as a fragrant wisp caressing the waters below. He is as a trout leaping towards the sun, only to return safe and whole to the endless blue of the ocean below. And when his eyes open, he can feel the wood beneath his boots once more, the railing beneath his calloused fingers, and he can hear the buzz of his crew behind him.
The Faerie cuts through the Indian Ocean, unmatched in speed by any other merchant vessel. It is the pride of the Sewell family, who had raised the Sewell boys to be well-travelled and cultured young gentlemen, primed to take over Lord Sewell’s mercantile business. It would not be the first nor the last time Nathaniel has accompanied his father on his voyages to the East. It is the first time, however, that Nathaniel leads the voyage himself, as his father had fallen ill just days before they departed.
“Lord Nathaniel, we’re about a half-day away from port,” announces the captain of the vessel, Captain du Mortain, a capable yet stoic man who had been working for his father for near to a decade.
Nathaniel reluctantly tears his eyes from the horizon to give the captain his undivided attention. He smiles warmly. “Now, Adam, I have told you before that you may call me Nate as an old friend would." He then adds, with a wry grin. "And I should like to believe that we are old friends now.”
Adam’s face barely moves in response, but it is in the tilt of his lip that would be imperceptible to anyone else that Nate can see Adam smile in response.
Nathaniel turns to look ahead, and sure enough, he can just about see the end of their journey in the fading light of day. The beauty of China has never failed to steal his breath away. Anytime his father’s business would take them over to her shores, he can hardly settle the buzz that builds within him at the thought of the limitless wealth of knowledge, of medicine, of art, of astrology, awaiting him in her streets.
“You should know that we are expecting the weather to turn before we reach port tomorrow morning,” Adam continues. His posture relaxes as he steps forward to lean against the railing beside Nate.
This news is met with a sigh from Nate. It is not the first storm he has weathered with the crew, but storms have never been easy for him. It was on such a night that his brother Milton was lost at sea years ago. He tries to put this out of his mind as he turns back to Adam.
“Then let us pray the queen of the ocean shows us mercy this night,” he quips, a grin playing at his lips.
A true smile spreads wide across Adam’s face. “One can only hope.”
###
The warm current embraces Avery’s skin as she propels herself into the dark depths of an undersea canyon, where the splintered remains of a human ship have been laid to rest, covered in weeds, and rotted away by the water. The only source of light is an algae lantern dangling off her arm. The aquamarine light makes the scales of her tail glisten. Yet, even as the rays of light shoot across the canyon, they barely make a dent in the shadows nestled in the corners.
A shuddering chill travels down her spine as the dim light from the surface is eclipsed by something large, scattering the shadows even further across the stone. Holding onto her lantern for dear life, she floats as a lone star in the vastness of the darkness.
There is no telling how her mother will react to her going this far away from home. The ship graveyard has been a guilty pleasure for her, a veritable treasure trove of human artefacts to analyse and speculate on. There are implements and instruments, the purpose of which she could only dream. She could spend an eternity wondering what the humans must have discovered about the land and its bounties, and about the sky above them, and the stars glittering overhead. Picturing the abundance of knowledge that is just out of her reach makes her ache.
The storm brewing on the surface complicates things. She floats in place on her back, facing upwards, as though entranced by the menacing vessel travelling overhead. The simmering dull pain of worry begins to settle in her chest, mixed in with the thrill of adrenaline. She swims upwards experimentally, just to see if she could. She beats her tail back and forth to ease the numbness that begins to freeze her in place.
These humans are in danger.
She can hear her mother’s voice in her head telling her to mind her own business—that merfolk should not be meddling in the affairs of humans. She is to let them suffer the consequences of sailing waters where they do not belong. And then comes the reminder that the humans killed her father, Rook, before Avery was old enough to know him, a crime for which her mother could never forgive them.
Avery bites her lip, swimming faster as the ship begins to move away. It is heading towards the human town, waters she knows are forbidden to her. And still her heart throbs in her chest. If she could only follow from below, unseen, to see them safe to shore. Perhaps she could even catch a glimpse of the human town in all its mystique.
The giant shadow on the surface sways and leaps treacherously. She knows she cannot get too close or be swept up herself, so she continues on below it, as a suckerfish to a whale.
A flash of light and a loud
CRACK
stun her to a halt. Charred wood—debris slices through the water around her. It is all she can do to gather her wits and swim out of the way. A splinter piece of wood slices into her tail. Her throat tightens around a yelp. It is not a deep cut, but it stings all the same. She swims faster.
It is not a conscious thought that sends her bolting to the surface, a slender ribbon of crimson following after her. Her hesitation pulses at the back of her head as she emerges from the water. The dry heat feels alien against her skin. The tug of the water below is hard to resist. She feels like she could simply burn alive.
The surface is now alight with flame so intense that the rain cannot quell it or slow its spread. She watches the fire curiously before her ears pick up on the sharp sounds of humans yelling over the storm. It is a harsh sound, unfiltered and cuts through her ears like jagged rocks. Their distress burns hotter than the flame engulfing their vessel.
She finds herself face to face with the wooden visage of a giant mermaid, each scale on her tail meticulously carved into the wood, with dark hair that cascades in waves down her shoulders and over her chest. The mermaid sinks into the water, her placid beautiful face reflecting the light of the flames before being swallowed completely by the ocean.
All around her, smaller vessels are moving away from the ship, men piled aboard. They row desperately away as the flames consuming the ship grow hotter and brighter. As the boats sail away, the cacophonous voices of the crew grow quieter.
Avery had never seen fire up close before this, but she knows enough to keep her distance. To the ire of her mind, her curiosity betrays her. She cannot help but feel the unseen pull of destiny draw her ever closer to the sinking wreckage, against her own better judgement.
Out of the fire, a voice calls out. This one is soft and strained, unlike the panicked humans from before. “Adam? Adam! I won’t lose you, my friend!”
It is not difficult to find the source of the voice. There is a human on the deck amidst the flames, climbing a set of stairs to…
Avery strains her eyes. There is a circular contraption with spokes evenly placed around the circumference. She’s seen things like them on the other ships in the ship graveyard. She believes it moves the ship forward as her fins would move her. The human is desperately trying to reach it.
She circles around to get a better view.
The man crouches down by another human, unconscious on the ground.
The water thrashes against the wreckage plummeting into it, crying out at the intrusion. Though Avery was born of the ocean and knows it as a child knows its mother, she has never seen it this angry before. She struggles to keep her head above water, even as the waves desperately, frantically push her back down into the depths. The ocean only means to protect her, but she cannot find it in her to remain a bystander.
There must be something she can do to help even if she cannot climb aboard. She looks around for more of the vessels the other crew members used to escape. If they could breathe underwater as she can, she would drag both men under to shield them from the flames, but as much as humans have discovered about the world, they have not discovered how to come into the domain of the merfolk and live under the water as they do. So she must find another way.
She spots a piece of debris shaped like one of the escape boats. She hurriedly pushes it into the sinking body of the ship, moving as fast as her fins would take her, careful not to steer it into the fire.
At this point, the storm has begun to win over the blaze. Avery lets out a shuddering sigh, letting the tension out of her body.
Without the cloud of smoke obscuring her vision, she can get a better look at the man on the ship. His figure is lean and powerful with broad shoulders. But his face is made of softer, gentler lines. His hair falls in damp locks over his forehead and eyes. And for less than a moment, as he leans down to lift the other man—this… “Adam”—over his shoulder, his deep-set dark eyes seem to meet hers.
She ducks her head back down under the water.
Heat rises to her cheeks as she leans against the body of the sinking ship, trying to still her thudding heart. He looked so normal—so unlike the brutish monsters her mother had painted humans to be. He was… beautiful. Looks can be—often are— deceptive. She cannot interact with him any further. She’s done all she can. She’s meddled enough, put her own life at risk enough as is.
And yet, she finds herself wishing he had seen her.
What must he think of merfolk? What would he think of her ? Would he be as curious, as entranced?
She is torn out of her thoughts when the makeshift boat she’d brought over bobs in the water beside her. Despite herself, she smiles inwardly, glad that what little help she could offer was accepted. Now her adventure is over, and she can leave.
She beats her tail and turns herself back down towards the canyon. She’d dropped her lantern sometime during the chaos and feels herself hesitate as her eyes land on the shadowed rocks and looming darkness. Sharks tend to prowl these waters. She can handle herself, however…
The boat above her hadn’t moved since she’d last checked. But why?
Scolding herself for worrying, she makes a point to adjust her gaze to the watery deep. No doubt her absence has been felt by her mother.
The human town isn’t very far. She can still watch over them until they reach the shore.
She shuts her eyes tightly and bites her lip, thinking of her mother.
Rebecca will just have to cope.
Steeling her resolve, she pushes back up to the surface, fingers tentatively pawing at the wood of the boat. Her arms tremble as she does; she’d never been so close to a human before. She stills herself, listening for sounds of life from within.
Cautiously, she allows herself to rise out of the water even more, the boat gently rocking as she pulls herself up. Her auburn hair sticks to her face and her shoulders. She feels the weight of it on her body, a cold and unsettling sensation. Her whole body feels heavier.
Anxiety grips Avery’s heart when she lays eyes upon the human man once more. He and his companion are both laying unmoving on the damp wood. The fire has completely gone out, and there is nothing but the moon and the stars to illuminate them. In the dim light, she can see that the men are breathing.
She grips the boat and pushes against it with all her might, propelling it away from the still sinking remains of the ship. It is far more difficult than she’d expected. Blessedly, the downpour from earlier had calmed to a drizzle. The ocean’s hungry wrath has been satiated for the time being.
###
Nate’s body jolts back to consciousness as an impact shakes him. He no longer feels the idle sway of the ocean, rather the reliable steadiness of land. His muscles feel stiff enough that the act of moving his arms and pushing himself up feels impossible. And upon opening his eyes, the light of dawn is blinding.
Adam.
He turns his head to the side, only to find his friend still resting. He lets out a laboured sigh of relief upon noting the slow rise and fall of the sea captain’s chest.
When he turns back to the sky, his eyes have grown more accustomed to the light. Through bleary vision, he sees above him, eclipsing the light, something—or perhaps, someone —unexpected. A girl.
She is leaning over the side of the shabby wooden boat, with eyes of deep, rich amber, gazing at him with unmistakable anticipation. Had she been his saviour? The one to see him and Adam to safety? Is she an angel? She certainly looks the part, illuminated by the rising sun, and bathed in a halo of light that filters through her long brown tresses and makes her skin glow like magic. She’d have taken his breath away if the fire and smoke hadn’t already thoroughly done so.
He wants to say something —to thank her, but his throat is on fire, and all he manages is a soft groan.
This seems to wake the girl from whatever trance she’d been under and her face twists in worry. She pushes away from the boat and in an instant, she’s gone.
“N… No. Wait!” Nate manages to say, finding the strength to push himself up to a sitting position. He scans the beach, looking for any trace of her—for footsteps or anything. But she’s gone, as though spirited away. There is nobody and nothing but Adam beside him, the calm ocean ahead of him, and the empty beach behind him.
He knows he must count his blessings—that he’d almost shared his brother’s fate and that he and Adam are still alive and well. Nevertheless, there is something about that girl. Had she truly been there before him, close enough to touch? Or had she been a figment of his imagination, conjured up by the pain and the exhaustion? Either way, her loss tugs at his heart in a way so utterly unexpected, that he can do nothing but laugh into the crisp morning air.
###
Every nerve in Avery’s body is screaming in fatigue, in anxiety—in excitement at the thought of how close she’d gotten to him. The way he’d held her gaze sent her heart into a flurry. The thrill overtaking her body is all-encompassing, warm, and addictive. She wants more.
…No. He’d just been tired. He had no idea what he’d been looking at. And even if he had known, she must never see him again.
She’s barely made it a few metres from shore when she slips behind a stone and pokes her head above water to grant herself one last look at him. He is now sitting upright, head turning as though searching. For her?
Her voice bubbles in her throat. She wants to call out to him. But that impulse is thoroughly quashed not a moment later.
Other humans arrive at the beach. By the sound of them, they are bewildered that the man, “Lord Nathaniel” they’re calling him, managed to survive the wreckage. And she knows that with this many humans around, it is more critical than ever that she not be discovered.
She allows herself only one more moment for his face to etch itself permanently onto her mind before she swims once more into the deep. What must it be like to see him smile, to hear him laugh, to hear him speak to her of his life on land. She may never meet him again and she cannot even afford to believe, but she knows that the memory of him will haunt her for as long as her heart can bear to yearn.
Lord Nathaniel… What a charming name.
And perhaps they would meet again. After all, what is there to lose in hope?