The Real Mermaid

~~~Three~~~

She was surprised to find Grandma, armed with a box of matches, waiting for her in the kitchen when she descended the creaky staircase, yawning, to make herself a cup of coffee at sunrise. A birthday cake with turquoise icing sculpted into waves, decorated with too many candles in all the shades of blue, already sat on the dining table.

Nya raised her eyebrows at her grandmother in a silent question, suppressing another yawn.

"Well yes, a birthday cake for breakfast might look a little too early, but I know you'll be busy today, Nya." she said mysteriously, lighting one candle after another.

Nya looked at her suspiciously-- just how much she knows?!-- but decided not to ask anything. She picked up a gift-wrapped object she found on her chair instead.

"For me?" She asked, pulling at the blue ribbon holding the silver wrapping paper in place as she sat down.

It was the first edition of The Little Mermaid, the fairy tale she had made Grandma read to her hundreds of times when she was a child.

"Thank you," she said, leaning over the table and the cake the moment she blew out the candles, to kiss the old woman on the cheek. "Really, I don't want to think how much it must have cost."

"Do you remember the story, Nya?" Grandma asked, changing the subject.

"Of course." Nya smiled wistfully. It was such a beautifully sad tale. "A mermaid falls in love with a human prince, gives up everything for him, and yet he can't reciprocate her love and falls for another. It breaks her heart and... Hmm, should I take this as a hidden message of sorts?" She asked, noticing Grandma looking at her phone, which had just delivered Liam's first text of the day, 'Happy birthday, Nya. I miss you.'

Grandma chuckled, "There is a message for you in that story, but it's not what you think."

Nya sighed, "Why are you always speaking in riddles, Grandma? Whenever I try to ask you something... I don't understand."

The old woman echoed her sigh. "I'm sorry, Nya. I was just... hoping... Trying to keep you... However, I can't hide the truth from you any longer, or you'll end up like your mum... an unhappy soul hovering between two worlds, truly belonging to neither... I think you must choose."

"What are you talking about?" Nya whispered, stunned. Why were they suddenly talking about Mum?

"Nya..." Grandma placed one cool, wrinkled palm on her granddaughter's cheek. "I know that if I tell you... I'll most probably lose you... but you deserve to know, and make your own choice... This is your life, and we only live once. So, just tell me, do you want to know?"

Nya, not trusting her voice, eyes wide with hunger for the mysteries hiding in Grandma's words, simply nodded, clutching the book to her chest. Then she let the old woman's voice wash over her like a dream.

"When your father, my only son, brought your mum home, I could see immediately how very different she was from him. I couldn't see how the two could ever be happy together but somehow they managed, at least in the first years after the wedding. She told us that she was born in an ancient fisherman family of one of the isles far north, and all her relatives had died in the sea. But she was very vague about her roots, her past. If she ever told more to your father, I don't know. I never asked, especially not after you were born and her... otherness made her spend hours alone at the beach while your father was at work, leaving you in my care. But they seemed to be happy enough and I noticed too late how that happiness had vanished by the time you were ten... Do you remember your parents well, Nya?" Grandma asked, her direct question startling her.

Nya only shook her head. She only remembered... Grandma always being around as she grew up. What she recalled of her parents were unclear snapshots-- a smile and a pair of bright blue eyes half hidden under a copper fringe belonging to her mother, her dad's deep voice reading a bedtime story...

"Since you turned ten, your mum hardly ever came home. She looked... different, changed, as if all those hours she spent in the water somehow altered her... And whenever I asked her what she was doing out there on the beach, day after day, she said she was looking for someone." Grandma sighed, "And then, one night she did not return. Your father went to look for her... but he did not return either.  I took you out to the beach that night, remember? We walked up and down for hours as the police refused to do anything immediately... They were found the following morning, drowned, washed out on the beach..."

Silent tears were trickling down Nya's cheeks, falling on the book's cover with the soft sound of raindrops on a shingle beach. She knew that her parents had drowned, but only now their death started to make sense... Her mother...

Grandma turned to the window, watching the heaving sea beyond the yet traffic-free road, the orange sun rising from the waves on the eastern horizon, giving Nya time to deal with her feelings, gather her thoughts.

She turned back when her granddaughter spoke, voice breaking, "I'm like Mum."

"Yes." Grandma said, her smile unable to fight the sadness filling her eyes.

"What shall I do now?" Nya asked, suddenly afraid that Grandma wouldn't tell her after all, that she... wouldn't find the courage to give up the only member of the family she had left in this world. But her Grandma was strong, and selfless.

"You'll have to speak to the Sea Witch."

Nya laughed, she did not expect to hear this.

"The old gypsy woman foretelling the future to the tourists on the Palace Pier?" She asked, unbelieving. She had never told Grandma, but it was that woman's fault that she had nearly drowned on her fifteenth birthday. It was that old gypsy woman who had told Nya that she was different, that she belonged to the sea...

Grandma laughed, too. "I know, he's very convincing, isn't he?"

"He?"

"Doctor Stein is a marine biologist, a scientist, and a clever inventor. And a gypsy fortune teller in his free time." Grandma smiled, making Nya wonder just how much she liked this mysterious doctor Stein. "I met him a few months ago and he helped me to understand so much about your mum, and you. He said that you would be looking for answers sooner or later, and told me to send you to him when you do... Nya, I'm sorry I started all this conversation, I... don't want to lose you, but I'm scared that you'll end up like your mum if you marry this Liam."

"Grandma..." Nya sighed, at a loss for anything more appropriate to say. "Thank you."

"I just want you to be happy, girl. Here with me, or wherever you choose."