Juni suggested that we should use one of the palms. Even though the lighthouse is situated on the bald cliff covered with grass and dry bushes, “jumping” will lead to a significant reduction in time wasted on walking on foot. Marina’s makeweight immediately pished away this idea. He announced that he would rather die than get stuck somewhere in the bark. The dryad cursed him and jumped into the nearest palm with my all time favourite cracking sound, and, of course, forgetting about Marina and me. The young man was breathing loudly: his nostrils flared, the corners of his mouth were all pinched. Just like a pufferfish that is about to explode!
“What did you say to her to make her run away? You can’t have normal talk with women, can you?” Marian is on her feet and almost hanging from my hand. “Another one was added to the list of women who hates you.”
“As I can see you are feeling better now,” the makeweight narrows his eyes. “Better to teach me how to live my life. Please, continue your lovely date: be right back to where you started. Don't mind me, ladies. I was just leaving.”
And with these words, he angrily grabs the overcoats and dashes straight, following his nose. Soon he disappears behind the grey rocks that are scattered on the bleached shore as if Poseidon threw them from the depths of the ocean.
“They are a lovely couple,” says Marina with a smile when we are left alone.
I am slightly confused by her observation, for I was sure they have exchanged pithy remarks. My puzzlement doesn’t escape Marina’s attention:
“Don’t pay much attention to him: he could be such a diva sometimes,” she giggles. “I’m sure he is already planning a honeymoon with your friend.”
“I don’t think so: Juni has flint woven into her heart. Besides, she’s not a great fan of humans,” I shut up, having realized that I’m shooting my mouth off. “But she’s not against you! She likes you! Dryads, you see, they are quite secretive creatures and live in their Hidden Sanctuaries away from humans. They know almost nothing about the world outside our Society.” I must really stop now.
Marina shrugs her shoulders, “I don’t expect her to like me. And she should not: we have just met each other.”
She seems melancholic again. We are slowly walking along the white line of sand. At this pace we won't get to the lighthouse anytime soon. I must be happy having been left alone with her, but my anxiety is getting stronger. Though, it has nothing to do with my emotions about Marina. The song of the ocean is luring me; the Eternal Call I have been trying to stay away from since the very moment I found myself.
My human (I keep on thinking of her as my human) squats down to look closer and collect flat white and pinkish shells; without touching them I can feel the smoothness of their surface against her ginger fingers and soft palms. From time to time she casts concerned looks at the ocean; her eyes are exactly the same colour as the shoal water - Caribbean blue tint with turquoise flecks.
I can’t keep it inside anymore; the ocean power is stronger than my will. “Marina, I am going to shift,” I warn her. I don’t want to disturb the human with my unexpected transformation. “I need some water,” I say it as if feeling ashamed for being a mermaid, for my nature, or ‘unnature’ to be more precise.
“Oh,” she brushes her naughty brown lock behind a lovely round ear. “Sure!” the girl turns to me the way decent humans usually turn away when one of them is changing clothes or unexpectedly showing skin.
Thinking about their weird traditions, I'm stripping off my clothes as fast as I can, for they seem useless and heavy. With a deep sigh that could be interpreted as a moan of pleasure I throw myself against the water mass. I don’t like surfing the waves preferring to dive deeper: being underwater, I feel I’m in the deep of space flying in zero gravitation. But like a bird that should not fly too high, I should not dive into the abyss of the waters. I have a scary thought that it’s the way we mermaids die: the Ocean that gives us lives takes them back engulfing our shifting, unnaturally immoral bodies.
But my human keeps me afloat, and I am bouncing like a buoy: swift up and relaxed down, up and down. I can’t let her out of my sight: the girl is weak and can get into trouble any minute; she doesn’t even have clear sight.
Having rolled up her sweatpants, she is standing knee-deep in water. Marina has forgotten her glasses and, perhaps, can’t see my vexed face; maybe it's for the best.
How can I know that her kiss was not the delayed reaction to siblings’ potion? ...Little black fish are tickling her bare feet and calves; I love her giggles... No. I don’t want to know the answer.
I have a distinct feeling that I’m in a self-dug hole. I submerge for a second to suppress the inner desire to sweep her up and lure away from the surface into the recess of the darkest sea caves where her voice is muted and her body spasming and love this beautiful body till the Ocean takes it as a sacrifice. That’s what mermaids and merknaves used to do long ago with some appealing humans; especially young rusalkas who doesn’t understand the weak human physiology and can’t draw the line between everlasting passion and death ...Love somebody to the death... Similar to dolphins we can rescue poor things that are striking about in the water like a stranded fish and with a great deal of interest watch what’s gonna be next or play with them enticing away from the land till they are too exhausted to swim back to the shallow.
That’s why I don’t like seas and oceans; they awake these indifferent, predator feelings in me. Lakes, ponds, and merry rivulets with soft, sweet water are lulling me. I usually chose small water bodies that are closer to human settlements and away from the Call. Not to lose my human side and fall for instincts, I try to behold the world of mortals. As if I can accumulate their warmth, feel through their feelings. No matter how hard I try to persuade myself that I can feel the same way as dryads, humans or even silly fairies can, gradually, I am coming to the conclusion that Vera is right about rusalkas (though, she never mentioned her opinion in my presence): we don’t know how to love - just imitate. We can’t even find permanent partners without a coin... But why did Marina find my coin? I can’t stop asking this question again and again. Maybe it’s not me who might become the reason of her demise, for the girl is luring me relentlessly as the Eternal Call of the Ocean...
But not all mermaids and merknaves are the slaves of their unnatural instincts: like most humans they possess down to earth desires (or the imitation of these desires). Being sterile, some of us crave for having kids of our own. Sometimes, they would steal infants or newborns from cradles and parents though having no idea how to deal with them later, and they would treat human babies as they would, more likely, treat their own kids spending most of the time in water playing. I would see mermaids drowse floating placidly with kidnapped infants on their chests like sea otters with their little pups.
In contrast to true marine creatures, most babies wouldn’t survive. Spending too much time in water with their new mothers, most of them would die of an easily treated infection or simple cold caused by the lukewarm water environment, dampness or wrong nourishment. Mermaids would grieve, of course, but somehow awkwardly as if having no idea how to mourn. “They don’t live long!” they would sadly shrug their trembling shoulders.
I have heard about mermaids and merknaves who tried to make a human marriage parody and live mostly ashore. They even adopted kids. But when their human dearies started getting older while their parents didn’t: the questions (and not only from their elderly kids!) were becoming acute. That’s where the real problems started to appear, and the mercouple was obliged to use an old calibrated plan of the menfolk: burn all bridges and disappear in the thick mist of any piece of water leaving everything behind.
“Don’t you want to go swimming? The water is miraculous,” I smile, coming out of the ocean.
She tosses her head, “I don’t know how to swim. Everybody hold it their holy duty to teach me, but these lessons are just the thieves of time: I am too afraid of the possibility of drowning. I can’t stop imagining my lungs full of painful water,” she looks at the waves in the distance. “It’s actually the first time I see the ocean not in the picture.”
She is a perfect match for a mermaid: she can’t swim, she’s afraid of water, and her name is Marina! It sounds like a very bad mermaids’ anecdote.
I sit on the wet sand with my face to the ocean. Marina decides to get her feet out of the water and rest on a hot, flat boulder next to me.
“I think you remember the talp, the dark creature from the forest?” I continue from the moment we were distracted by Juni.
Marina tucks her hair behind the ear, looking back at me, “I wish I could forget! Who are they?”
“‘What’ are they to be more correct. They are undead creatures. They don’t mate as humans or dryads. Talps don’t have cubs or anything of this kind: they are the side product of old magic, elements, chaos. The echoes of prehistoric times like the light of the stars that don’t exist anymore, but we still can see them. I’m...” it’s hard for me to say it, and I hesitate touching one of the fish that is not afraid of me and keeps on swimming between my fingers. “I’m undead like talps or any other low creatures. We find ourselves on the shore of Crystal Waters with a magic coin in the hand looking exactly the same as you can see me now. Other merfolk usually hear when someone appears and comes to help a new merknave or a mermaid to fill them in and wave them off as soon as possible.”
After another pause I look at her again. She doesn’t seem to be shocked. Surprised, but no more than before.
“Born off the coast from the sea foam,” she whispers.
“There was no foam on the shore of Crystal Waters. Oh... you mean your human goddess,” it’s the first time I want to cover myself, feeling absolutely naked.
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