By Madison Gagner
The camp was a speck in the distance of Mina’s vision as she followed the shoreline. It was spring, and the lake’s water ran high and cold from mountain runoff. Wildflowers and lush willow trees populated the fields to the right of her, and iridescent clam shells populated the waves that hugged her ankles. Dry reeds brushed against her, fluting their soft airy song. It wasn’t her first time exploring this part of the rural sprawling wetlands, but it was further than she’d gone before. She hummed to herself, some jaunty tune from a TV show she’d been watching. As she navigated around jagged rocks and shells, she heard a faint splash from around the bend of a peninsula. A gust of warm, humid wind hit her face unexpectedly and sent her stumbling, wetting the hems of her rolled jeans. The sudden breeze smelled of summer, like nectar and palm.
As quietly as she could, Mina crept around the peninsula’s bend, crouching low in the reeds. She could already hear the scolding she would get later from her grandmother for her soiled pants, but curiosity had its hooks in her now. She spotted a gleaming figure in the distance thirty or forty feet away. She couldn’t help but to gasp aloud. Perched atop a boulder half-submerged in the water was a mermaid—a real life one, Mina was sure. Her scales were a warm-toned silver, like that of a bass, and her skin was as pale as moonlight. Her hair, not silky and flowing like Mina had imagined but gathered in pale tangled locks, was the same shade as her complexion and seemed to shimmer in the sun. It fell to her waist and didn’t entirely cover her bare chest. Mina thought to look away, but her ethereal beauty and elegant frame were hypnotizing.
Mesmerized, Mina waddled closer, fearing any sudden movements would scare her away. She migrated to a denser patch of plant and continued on, stopping only when she could make out her individual scales. Each one had its own metallic sheen, and they grew darker as they stretched down to her tailfin. Now she could see the slight differences in the mermaid’s face and upper body: her oddly high cheekbones and slanted gills, her dark eyes that were rimmed in blue rather than white. As unsettling as she appeared, she was still beautiful, and still sent bolts of excitement into Mina’s chest. It felt as though every childhood fantasy was coming true.
The mermaid closed her lake water eyes and tilted her head up to take in the sun, the light seemingly reflecting off her milky skin.
Now’s my chance, Mina thought. I’m gonna talk to a mermaid.
She stood, as silent as the musical plants around her would allow, and froze in place. The mermaid’s eyes were open and locked on Mina, half-hidden by the reeds and drenched from the knees down.
Much to Mina’s surprise, she didn’t seem startled by the child, nor her wide eyes and jaw agape. She smiled and cocked her head to the side, looking remarkably human and yet remarkably inhuman. Maybe she’s as curious as I am. Mina took a slow step toward her. Maybe she’s never even seen a human before. I hope I make a good impression if I’m the first human she’s met. But as Mina grew closer, the creature tensed, the muscles in her tail tightening. Mina held up her hands to display her innocence.
“It’s okay,” she said, using the same voice she used when trying to coax her cat out from under the bed, “I’m not—I won’t hurt you.” Much to her disappointment, the mermaid didn’t seem to comprehend her words, and continued to stare at her blankly.
“Do you speak English?” No response. Maybe she was a French Canadian mermaid. “Tu parles français?” Not French either. “My name is Mina,” she said, patting her chest to indicate her identity. “Mina.”
The mermaid opened her mouth as if to speak, but no sounds escaped her. She leaned closer, her murky scent catching in Mina’s nose. She reached out a web-fingered hand, placing it upon Mina’s cheek, and the girl nearly recoiled at its icy temperature. But the touch was gentle, and Mina knew she meant her no harm. She mirrored the motion and placed her hand on the creature’s face. It was moist, and a bit slimy, but Mina didn’t care. She smiled, hoping her excitement would transfer through her palm.
But long before Mina was ready to say goodbye, the mermaid withdrew her hand, leaping back into the lake. She tried to follow the shadow of her body under the water, but within seconds she was gone, and Mina couldn’t tell whether or not she’d dreamed the entire encounter.
She made her way home in a trance, still picturing the gleaming scales and long slender fingers of the creature—whom she had decided was ultimately more woman than creature after all. She barely even winced when her grandmother pinched her arm and pulled her inside, lecturing her about the cost of denim and self-awareness. She didn’t dare bring up what she had seen, fearing a worse punishment for lying than the one she’d already received. But she pondered all the while, shuffling through her various theories about her aquatic friend’s origins. Could she be an alien? Some sort of angelic being sent from heaven? Or maybe she was some botched science experiment, escaping from her laboratory and roaming the seas freely. The mystery of it tormented her with such a fierce curiosity that she couldn’t let it rest.
That night as Mina laid in bed, eyes wide open and fixed on the chipping paint on her ceiling, she plotted. She couldn’t bring herself to sleep, afraid to wake the next day and realize the day before really had occurred within her dreams. Patiently, she waited. She listened for the sound of her grandmother’s sleeping pills bouncing around in their bottle and the faint buzz of her electric toothbrush from the bathroom. And when her heavy footsteps approached, Mina shut her eyes tight and feigned a deep sleep. She waited another twenty minutes still to ensure that the old woman was sufficiently passed out before she slithered out from under the covers and tiptoed to the kitchen to retrieve her supplies. She knew the risk she was taking, despite the thrill it gave her. If she was caught, she knew she wouldn’t see an ounce of dessert or television for a good long while. But something within her drew her to the water, as if she’d dropped her anchor there, and every step away from it was a strain.
She slipped a flashlight into her coat pocket and stepped into the night’s chill. The path to the shore seemed much more menacing shrouded in darkness, and Mina nearly jumped at every branch that brushed against her. But the moon was full and bright, reflecting off the lake and onto the shore. She found that when she emerged from the trees, she didn’t even need her flashlight.
Much to her disappointment though, no mermaid perched atop the boulder, basking in the moonlight as Mina had imagined. Save for the gentle lapping of the lake’s waves and the wind, all was quiet. There was no sweet sudden breeze or flash of sparkling scales, and she couldn’t help the frustrated tears that welled in her eyes.
“Can’t believe I risked my dessert privileges for nothing,” Mina said to herself, kicking up stones under her feet. The mermaid had left no evidence of her presence, no trail to follow her by. Mina suddenly felt very alone under the night sky.
She pondered the ways she could call out to her fish-tailed friend. She thought of movies and books she’d encountered and how their characters had managed to summon them. Mermaids sing, right? She thought, Maybe if I sing, she’ll hear me!
She cleared her throat and started to sing some slow and off-key version of a lullaby her father had once sung to her. The French words were slightly marred on her tongue, but it was the only song she could think to sing. When she finished, no mermaid appeared, and Mina’s agitation grew. She picked at her fingernails, having exhausted the one solution her developing brain could conjure, when the tugging sensation within her intensified. The water seemed to whisper seductively, calling her toward the waves like a siren’s wail.
In a similar trance from the day before, Mina took off her shoes and shed her coat, paying no heed to the icy water and the pins it sent up her legs as she submerged them. She walked until the lake hugged her knees and focused her gaze on the horizon, the moon reflecting brightly off it. Something in the distance caught her eye: a head of white hair peeking up from the surface. Mina gasped, delighted at the appearance of her friend, and impulsively dove into the water. Her swim strokes were desperate thrashes as she swam out, the beginnings of numbness slicing her freezing limbs. She stopped when the head bobbed back down, disappearing from sight.
“Where did you go?” she said, swiveling around. “I’m here!”
The mermaid appeared before her, slick from the water and eyes that seemed to glow with some kind of bioluminescence. Mina would have been frightened if not for her sheer joy. She smiled, bearing her incomplete set of teeth. The mermaid mirrored her, though her teeth were sharp and serrated, tinted gray.
Before Mina could take another breath, the mermaid disappeared under the water once more, pulling the girl down with her. Any delight she had previously vanished along with the air in her lungs and the light in her eyes. She was blinded, suffocating in the darkness as the creature pulled her deeper into the depths, an iron grip around her legs. She turned and contorted her body like some grotesque dancer, scratching and biting with all the force her small frame could muster. Through some miracle, her leg broke free and she used her heel to bash the monster’s head. A shriek rippled through the water, reverberating in Mina’s skull as she clawed her way upward. Metallic clicks ruptured below, but she could just barely see the glint of the moon through the murk. Her chest burned from the lack of oxygen, but she was so close, inches away from grasping the air. Her fingertips broke through the surface, tasting the night just as she was pulled back down, her screams lost to the lake.