The Mermaids' Pearl: Semi-Sequel to Emmett's Jeanie

Chapter 7

Maddy's POV:

We walked into the apartment overlooking Bourbon Street after Jeanie had removed the protections against the door. She snapped her fingers and they were soon back in place as we took a look around the apartment. I felt my nose scrunch up at the mess of the place, as it looked like a human trash dump. There were empty bottles scattered across the floor along with hundreds of beaded necklaces and wrappers of some sort.

"Over 2500 years old and married now and he still hasn't cleaned up his apartments. I swear on Uncle Gene's goatee I'm going to have Leah knock some sense into him after we get back." (J)

"Well he was a bachelor for a long time babe." (Em)

"Ha, no excuse. So you were you and you were never this messy." (J)

I felt a small smile form on my face and heard Emmett chuckle some, before Jeanie snapped her fingers a few times to clean the room. I crossed the now clean floor and took a seat on window bench that overlooked the busy human street. I had always enjoyed watching humans on my trips to their world, but now it was with mixed emotions that I watched them.

I watched as humans walked past below laughing with one another, some in each other's arms and I longed only to have that as well. My heart ached for my pearl as I knew that he was alive but not with me. Jeanie and Emmett soon took a seat on the sofa a few feet away from me before she took my attention away from the window for a moment.

"I know of a white witch we can try to contact for help, I don't know her very well but my friend Ginger does. The older I get the more it seems that Ginger knows everyone. She might be able to locate your pearl without you having to cut a deal with that witch." (J)

I saw Jeanie put her head in her hands as Emmett started rubbing soothing circles on her back. I knew that she was remembering my great aunt Milania, the original 'little mermaid' who failed in successfully completing her own deal with the dark witch Welustia.

I knew that me accepting Witanica's deal was the last thing that Jeanie wanted. But I also know that a white witch would never help us for fear of upsetting the balance of things. I know this for certain because I already asked one last year when I had finished searching the last of the seas for my pearl.

"White witches will not help us for fear of upsetting the balance. No one else can due to the rules set in place." (Mad)

"Then we'll find someone else Maddy. Like I said Ginger is friends with everyone, she'll probably know someone that can help no problem." (J)

"I.......Jeanie, I am going to accept her deal." (Mad)

"What?" (J)

"I will accept her deal and I'm hoping you will too." (Mad)

I saw a look of disbelief on Jeanie's face as she looked at me before she stood up from the couch she had been on next to Emmett. She looked at me for a moment before she shook her head and started to pace from one wall to the other all while she shot an occasional stare at me before shaking her head again.

I knew she would not like my decision, as she knew how painful changing into a human was for a mermaid to begin with. Doing so against one's own power, by having a witch or a genie do it was the most excruciating thing a mermaid or merman could endure.

Not to mention I was risking losing my voice forever. Something that I had spent most of my childhood training to perfection, something a mermaid prided herself on just as genie prided themselves on how strong their wishes could be without tiring them. I knew all of this but it was a chance at finding my pearl, and I would do anything for that chance. I only hoped Jeanie could understand my point and would agree to helping me still.

Jeanie's POV:

As soon as the words left Maddy's mouth I was pushed back into the memories I often tried to lock away concerning the first deal I had ever done with a witch. I was a little over 1800 years old, and had just finished serving a master that was neither horrible nor wonderful, when I met her at the Peace Conference.

She had bright blue hair, teal colored eyes and a tail that were nearly identical to Maddy's. Her name was Milania and she was as kind as she naïve even at 200 years old. She wanted nothing more than to find her pearl and like a fool I agreed to help her, except her deal was with the dark witch named Welustia.

The merpeople hadn't yet developed their own way to gain legs so the deal she made with Welustia granted her legs and even the face and name of her pearl as it had yet to be made illegal to do so. I had no part in the deal except to serve as a witness when she signed the contract.

She lost her voice in the deal but gained legs, legs that with each step she took felt as if glass was cutting into her feet. It was an unwanted addition to the 'gift' of legs that Welustia had tacked onto Milania's deal, but there was nothing that either of us could do about it.

Milania had made the wrong choice though and she paid for it in the long run with her life. Her life became fairytale in the human world, but a warning and a tale of sorrow in supernatural world. I still remember the day that I visited her home and met her young niece of 7, Melody, asking when her aunt would be coming home.

Melody was Maddy's mother, and I was beginning to wonder if there was an enchantment around this family to make the stormy eyed women lose their senses and go chasing deals with witches. I will not go through that again. I will not go to the castle only to have Melody ask me where Maddy is.

I will not utter those words that I had to tell Melody so many years ago concerning her aunt about her daughter. I will not let Maddy do the same thing, I will not lose another friend to a dark witch when I could still talk her out of it. I can't go through that again, I won't go through it again.