Pirates, Princes, and Stars

chapter one

chapter one

The mermaid liked to watch shipwrecks.

A mermaid's ears are not like our own. In the depths, the water is thick and black, and sound moves slowly as if each note is wading through treacle. Every sound is slow, sluggish, softened around the edges like a saltwater pearl. Things are more abstract down there. Hazy. The water obscures most things, and sound is one of the first.

Up here was a cacophony.

When one breaks the surface of the ocean, sound is sharp. It's harsh, loud, rich. The hull of the ship cracked, and the ocean roared through the hole. The sail billowed like drums. Each rip of the wood was like a horsehair bow scratching across violin strings. The screaming sailors were, of course, the choir.

When at last the storm settled, and the men floated down to the seabed along with the cannons and the guns, the mermaid would swim back to her home.

She lived in an augite cave, black and smooth. She stitched the wounds of the injured, and she mixed medicines and read through her fingertips. Each night she would sleep amongst the dark, sharp-smelling plants that grew from the cave's floor.

Today's shipwreck was special.

It was a royal galleon – she knew from the ship's masthead. It was a lion; the animal of Cragen. A salty whip of a wave shattered the lion's head from its body the crash of a cymbal.

The air was cold on the mermaid's wet skin. She closed her eyes and listened.

"This is it, Your Highness!" roared one of the sailors, his voice straining against the storm's crescendo.

The wind howled, screaming through the ship's body, dragging huge angry waves over the deck.

"We have boats for the men!" another replied. It was clear he was in charge. "For God's sake, go!"

"You've –" Another wave crashed. The hull split. "You've got to get off this ship, it's a death wish! The men are on their boats! It's just a few of us, it's just –"

"I shall not leave this ship until every last one of my men is safe and –"

The ship swayed, and its vast creaking echoed over the waves. The mast splintered.

The mermaid closed her eyes and smiled. The final note. It rippled across the ocean, icy and dead. The song was over.

She turned away. Chunks of driftwood were floating on the ocean's surface now. Anything heavier would be dragged to the bottom of the sea where collectors and anthropologists would find it years later. Her head felt light with the rush of a good shipwreck. There was just something about a good piece of art that made her feel both strong and liberated, as though she could crush the nearby cliffs in the palm of her –

Something grabbed her hand.

The mermaid raced back, snatching her arm away. Something was thrashing in the water. A man. He was a strong swimmer, but no match for the storm; he was fighting to keep his head above the black water.

The mermaid watched him with curiosity. Rain fell on her face and arms like arrows as she waited.

"Please!" managed the man, clawing at the water's surface, at driftwood, at anything. Seawater poured from his mouth. He swallowed as much of it as he managed to spit out. "Please help me!"

She wrinkled her nose. She had never been spoken to by a human man before. She did not like it.

The sea snatched at him like a doll, but the human man seemed determined to live. "Please!" he choked. "I can – I can beg you! I can give you whatever you wish!"