A Mermaid's Treasure

art by DollDivine.com

A Mermaid's Treasure
by Rebecca Fyfe

Sandy loved exploring those old, sunken ships. She swished her tail, giving herself a burst of speed that pushed her through the water to the stern of the ship. She couldn't help wondering what it would have been like to have been a sailor and sailed over the water on a ship that cut through the waves, to feel the wind on her face. As a mermaid, she had no choice but to live in the sea. She could breathe out of water, but her fins and the scales of her tail would dry out if she didn't keep them immersed in sea water. She might be okay for a little while out of water, but not for long.

Sandy had done enough imagining; it always made her sad to think of what she couldn't do. She loved adventures and to spend time on land, to her, sounded like the greatest adventure of all. She swam below the deck on the ship to do some more exploring. After looking through some of the rooms in the lower decks, she became a little depressed. Many had died on this ship, their bones the only testament to the fact that not many had escaped a watery death when this ship had gone down.

The signs of death did not keep her from her explorations, and she soon found herself up on the first class level of the ship. She knew about these things because she had seen the difference between the two, from bare rooms with thin mattresses to lavish furnishing in abundantly sized rooms, it was obvious that some people were treated better than others on these ships than others.

In one of the first class rooms, Sandy found a funny metal box. It was medium sized and had a lock on the outside holding it closed, but the lock was rusted through. Sandy pulled the lock off the metal box. A combination of the rust and her mermaid strength made it an easy task.

Inside, she found a beautiful purple and blue bracelet. The beads were slightly transparent and sparked in the water. She slipped it on her wrist and immediately felt the magic it contained spread through her body. As soon as the magic spread through her, like a warm blanket being spread over her, she felt an urgent need to rise to the surface and swim towards the nearest shore.

Once at the shore, she kept swimming until she was laying on the beach with only the gentle waves lapping against her fluke. She still felt the magic and as a new surge of it spread through her, it was as if it washed away her scales and tail and turned them into legs. She had a human body. She knew instinctively that it was not a permanent change; once she took the magic bracelet off, she'd be a mermaid again.

Sandy looked back at the ocean. It called to her; it was where she belonged.

But adventures awaited her. She stood on shaky legs and walked away from the sea and towards the adventures she had always dreamed of having.

The Mermaid Fountain

photo found at mermaidcastle.com

The Mermaid Fountain

by Rebecca Fyfe

I carried my favorite tuna sub sandwich out of the café, deciding that sitting outdoors appealed more than spending my lunch break in a crowded cafeteria. The day was a little overcast, but it was warm enough and hopefully the rain would hold off long enough for me to enjoy my lunch.

I made my way to my favorite water fountain. It was in the middle of a public enclosure with entrances on either side. The stone walls surrounded an enchantingly lovely garden, full of a variety of flowers and plant life. The flowers drew butterflies, and the water fountain sat in the middle of the enclosure, a mermaid figuring pouring water from a large vase into the small surrounding pool of water. The sound of the water trickling was soothing, and between the butterflies flitting about the flowers and the koi fish in the fountain’s pond, there was plenty to look at while I sat and ate my sandwich.

I’d only eaten half my sandwich, savoring every bite, when I heard someone enter the garden. He had heavy steps, so it was hard to miss him. I looked up at the entrance to my right and the man had stopped. He was staring at me, a scowl on his face.

Something about his appearance frightened me, but I couldn’t pinpoint what it was. Was it his massive size, all solid muscle and about 6 ½ feet tall? Or was it the scar across his face, running from just under his left eye and down past his lip? Whatever it was, I couldn’t help picking up on an aura of menace that seemed to surround him.

He started moving purposely toward me, continuing to stare me right in the face, and I panicked. Before he was close enough to touch me, I stood and stepped over the edge of the fountain, entering the water.

“What do you want?” I asked, remaining tense.

“You must die.” He drew a long serrated knife from a sheath on his belt that I hadn’t noticed until now.

“What?” I didn’t have to fake my surprise. I had never seen this man before, and never had my life threatened before. I stepped back a few more steps, grabbing onto the mermaid statue in the middle of the fountain. Should I shout for help? Would anyone hear me?

The man lunged forward again, his knife about to strike at me, when something odd happened. I wavy sort of haze fell over everything. The fountain grew warm under my hand and the man seemed to be moving as if in slow motion. My hands began to tingle.

The water rose from around my feet and surrounded the man, burying him in a wall of water. Then the air cleared and everything sped back up to normal speed. The water fell from around them man, but he only stood still for a moment, making soft gurgling, choking noises and then he collapsed at me feet, face down in the pond. I tentatively reached out to touch him. When he didn’t move, I rolled him over, so his face was no longer in the water. It didn’t matter though, because he was dead.

I looked at the fountain. I hadn’t imagined what had happened. Had the fountain performed some sort of magic to save me or I had I somehow done that myself? Did it matter? I was alive.

The Teacup Mermaid

This story was written on April 20th,2014 but back-dated to the April 11th post, as no story/post was written on that day.

The Teacup Mermaid
by Rebecca Fyfe

I browsed through the jewelry stand in the market. Some of the handcrafted pieces were even lovelier than anything I could find in one of the pricier jewelry shops. My gaze found an enchanting piece. It looked like a tiny mermaid captured inside a clear quartz. I couldn't imagine how much work it must have taken to create the piece, but I knew that I wanted it. I didn't even haggle with the woman who owned the stand; I paid full price.

I'd been collecting mermaid figurines, mermaid jewelry and mermaid art ever since I was child. I'd always found the concept of mermaids fascinating, and I'd even researched many of the legends and folklore surrounding mermaids and sirens, including sea nymphs and sea gods.

At home, I set the jewelry on my kitchen counter while I made cup of tea. I must have forgotten it there, because I went to bed without putting the necklace away in my jewelry box. In the morning, the piece was still on my kitchen counter, but something very important had changed. There was no mermaid within the rock's crystalline surface. I puzzled about this for a while, and even looked around to see if maybe part of the stone had been broken, but I found no evidence to suggest it had.

It wasn't until I grabbed the tea cup I had left on the counter by the sink the night before that I found out what had happened to the mermaid inside my jewelry. She was sitting inside the cup, splashing what was left of the tea over her tail to try and keep it moist.

I gasped. How could this be? Mermaids were just stories and legend. How could one be real? And here in my home? And so tiny?

She heard my gasp and as i stood there with question after question tumbling through my mind, she sighed and said, "The least you could do is help me! I need water."

I couldn't seem to find my voice in order to say anything to her, so I took the cup to the sink and filled it with water. I then took the salt shaker out of the cupboard and sprinkled some into the water in the cup. Mermaids needed salt water, right?

This situation was insane, and I had many questions for my teacup mermaid, but before I could answer them, she smiled at me, thanked me and she began to grow. As she grew her tail turned into legs. She was about halfway through her transformation before I realized that I was changing too. I was growing smaller.

Within a very short amount of time, I found myself trapped inside a quartz stone, the very same one she had been trapped in. Of course, now she was the human and I was the mermaid. How long was I going to be trapped? From the smug look on her face, I suspected I was going to be trapped in this necklace for a very long time.

Mermaid Magic

I am only sharing an excerpt of this story. It was written on December 31st, 2013, but it was written for an anthology that will be published later this year. I retain the rights to this story, so I will come back and post it in full at a later date, several months after it first comes out in the "Keepsakes" anthology. The "Keepsakes" anthology will be published in May 2014 through  Prince Charming Books (edited by Sally Ogden.) Here's an excerpt of the story. If you don't want to wait until later in the year to read the story in full, purchase the "Keepsakes" anthology when it comes out!

Mermaid Magic (excerpt)
by Rebecca Fyfe

Sienna found herself at the cove again, only it was dark out. Moonlight filtered through wispy clouds above her. She couldn’t remember leaving the house or swimming out here. I must be dreaming, she thought.

A splash drew her eyes to the water. In the dark, she couldn’t see the bottom of the pool, but something near the surface slid past her, gliding smoothly beneath the water. She knelt down to look more closely and noticed a large fin, like the tail of a very large fish. A dolphin maybe? Or a small whale? Maybe even a shark? But how did it get here, in this tide pool that iss so far from the ocean’s waves?

Sienna couldn’t resist reaching her hand out toward the water. It was as if it was calling to her. Just as her fingertips felt the wetness of the pool’s water, a jolt shot through her, like a bolt of electricity, singing through her flesh.

She spasmed with the pain and felt herself falling into the water.  Her muscles weren’t working right, and the water closed over her head. Instinctively, she called out for help and water filled her mouth, pouring into her lungs. Unable to breathe, her chest hurt and her vision grew dark.