Once Upon A Kiss: Seventeen Romantic Faerie Tales

by Alethea Kontis

  “Do you hear that?” She lifted her head. “Oh, Ceilp, might we go a bit closer?”

  The older mer set her hands on the two forked daggers belted about her waist, as if to reassure herself of their presence. She glanced up at the sky.

  “Music means humans,” she said. “It is too dangerous.”

  “Please?” Muireen tried to keep her yearning from showing in her voice. “We’ll be careful. Just—can’t we see where it’s coming from?”

  This was her chance to see a human! She could not turn away from the opportunity.

  “No.” From Ceilp’s tone, there would be no changing her mind.

  Muireen shot a regretful glance at the receding porpoises. They would not provide cover any long, which meant she must seize her opportunity now.

  Before her guard could guess what she was about, Muireen dipped beneath the waves and sped in the direction the music had come from, using every trick of speed she knew. Behind her, Ceilp called for her to stop, but Muireen ignored the words.

  Closer, closer, until she could hear the notes even beneath the waves, wavering and distorted, falling down like tarnished coins. She shivered with delight. Such a sound, made of breath and mystery, was never heard in the sea kingdom. Just ahead, she saw the curved bottom of a small boat, a promise of adventure riding the waves. Barely slowing, she shot up to the surface.

  She rose above the waves long enough to glimpse a slender, dark-haired man leaning against the thin mast of his boat, a length of metal held to his lips.

  Then Ceilp grabbed her tail and tugged her down with a splash.

  “Foolish girl!” The guard glowered at her from the safety beneath the waves. “It’s time I took you back to the palace.”

  “But—”

  “No argument.”

  Under Ceilp’s watchful eye, Muireen reluctantly turned her back on the bright glimmer of the world above. Her trick would not work a second time.

  As they descended through the waters, the greeny-blue quality of the light seemed darker than before, the liquid murmur of the sea a poor echo of the dancing wind and calling gulls who owned the sky.

  She closed her eyes, recalling the face and form of the human she’d seen. His cheeks were burnished bronze by the sun and wind, his dark hair worn short. He had seemed not much older than herself, and she wondered why he was all alone in a boat so far from shore.

  “The storm’s coming in,” Ceilp said. “Feel it in the current? It’s best we left the surface when we did,”

  Muireen did feel it, the first tremor of turmoil and churn, and her heart squeezed in fear for the fisherman playing his music far above. He was some distance from land, and his craft was so small. But there was no use in begging to return to the surface.

  Too late, anyhow—the pearly turrets of the palace rose ahead, glowing with luminescence as the water darkened.

  At the entrance to her tower, Muireen pulled a long strand of pearls from her hair and turned to Ceilp.

  “Thank you for your escort,” she said, handing the guard the pearls. “I will always remember my first journey to the surface.”

  “It was an honor.” Ceilp said. “I am glad no trouble came of it.”

  “Of course not, with such a capable guard as yourself.” Muireen smiled. “I truly am grateful for your service today.” Most of all, she was glad of seeing the mortal man. But small fishes had big mouths, and she dared not speak of that encounter. Nothing but trouble would follow if the king knew of it.

  “Muireen!” her sister Aila called from the near tower. “You’ve returned safely! Come and tell us about your first breath of air.”

  Ceilp made Muireen a formal bow. “I will inform your father that your birthday journey is complete and you’ve returned safely. Good evening, princess.”

  “Fine swimming to you,” Muireen replied.

  As her her guard departed, she glanced up and up. Barely at the edge of her vision, a faint turbulence roiled. The storm.

  Her heart clenched at the thought of the fisherman—but her sisters were expecting her. No matter how much she wanted to surge back to the surface, she could not.

  At least, not yet.

  * * *

  Eiric ducked his head as another wave crashed against the side of the boat, the harsh spray coating his face and hands. The wind pummeled him, and he reefed the small sail close, trying to control his craft in the face of the raging elements.

  Most of the afternoon he’d spent frustratingly becalmed. When he’d tired of playing his whistle he’d turned to mending the nets, though most of his supplies for such were back at his cottage. Still, it passed the time.

  Finally, when the sun dipped low, racing its own reflection in the water, the breeze had sprung up. Brisk at first, then brisker still, until Eiric’s boat ran before a fierce storm. No matter how nimbly he sailed, his heart clenched within him as the shadow of the clouds overtook the last pewter light shimmering on the sea.

  All too soon, he’d been engulfed. Dark gray clouds matched the waves, and he lost all sight of the setting sun. Navigating by instinct, he prayed he was still headed east, and not out over the open waters, where death awaited with outstretched arms.

  It took all his skill to keep his boat running upon the backs of the waves, and not directly into their hungry mouths. He did not always succeed. Fingers numb with cold, he fought the storm for what felt like hours. His ears were deafened by the rasp of the wind, his eyes stung nearly blind with salt.

  Then he heard it—the crack and smash of waves breaking against stone.

  He was near land, but not the sweet cove of the bay beside the village. No, he must have come in to the south where mighty cliffs rose, uncaring that a mortal life would be dashed to nothing against the rocks.

  Aye, he’d wanted land. But not like this.

  Forcing his hands steady, Eiric wove his boat through the water and wind, fighting to turn aside from the implacable cliffs. Hope strained his lungs as the sound of wave on stone began to fade.

  Then he was pitched forward as the boat struck something in the water. Crying out, he grabbed for the side. Missed. A glimpse of black rock, splintered wood, and then the sea closed over his head, cold and relentless.

  * * *

  CHAPTER/scene

  * * *

  Muireen waited until indigo darkness filled the sea before slipping out of her tower room. The night guards were posted to keep watch for things coming into the palace, not sneaking out. Keeping to the shadows, she swam carefully until she was some distance from the pearly towers.

  Then, with powerful sweeps of her tail, she drove herself up to the surface, angling for the place she’d seen the fisherman. The closer she rose to the ceiling of the sea, the more turbulent the water. The bottoms of the waves pulled at her hair and tried to unbalance her, the swirl of storm spinning her about.

  Just before breaking into the air, she recalled her training, and prepared her lungs for the transition.

  Harsh wind battered her face and shoulders, so much spray in the air that for a dizzying moment her body did not respond. She choked on salt, on the horrible emptiness above the waves. Shuddering, she thrashed her tail, lifting her high enough that her lungs finally responded.

  Gasping, Muireen swept her sticky hair from her face and searched desperately for the fisherman’s boat. How could he survive such a rage of smacking water and tearing wind?

  There was no sign of him.

  Surely he’d made for land at the first sign of storm, and was even now safely at home, far from the grasp of the sea. But even as the sensible part of herself argued that she ought to dive down to safety, something else pulled her on, toward the memory of where the island of Eire lay.

  At length a strange sound came to her ears, a rhythmic crash and crack. Before she understood it, the storm threw her forward, and she smacked against the side of a rock jutting from the water.

  Pain flashed through her, and she ducked down, away from the greedy hands of the weather ab
ove. The power of the storm was blunted beneath the water, and she drew in a steadying gulp, searching for calm. She should not be here, where the rocks waited to tear her body.

  A bit of wood brushed her arm, borne by the sucking current. Then another.

  It took a moment to realize what it meant.

  The debris was new and sharp-edged. Some craft had hit the rocks and wrecked. Panic flashing through her, she turned in a circle, every sense alert.

  There! Overhead, she saw the remains of a boat smashing up against the stone. And there…

  Time slowed.

  Muireen’s blood beat stronger than the surge of the waves in her ears. She dove, hands outstretched, for the form of the man sinking to his death. It was the fisherman, and for an instant she saw a silver thread stretching from her heart to his, a path of starlight, of fate.

  Then she reached him and wrapped her arms about him, pulling them both up, up, driving through the rough water until she reached the harsh air again. He was heavy against her, and cold, his head lolling. The waves beat at them like fists.

  Desperately, she swam, steering away from the terrifying crash of sea on stone. Surely the land held more than the hungry rocks. Breath heaving, she scanned the shoreline. There! A bare crescent of sand beckoned, barely wide enough for a single body, framed by jagged black stone. She forced herself forward, her timing and agility slowed by the body in her arms. The tide threw her up against the side of a rock. She twisted, and the stone left a long, painful scrape down her tail.

  Then she was through the worst of the surf, and felt the land rise up, pulling away from the sea. Teeth bared, she thrashed forward, for the first time cursing her tail. Ungainly against the rough grains of sand, she pushed the fisherman before her until he was out of reach of the waves.

  He was not breathing.

  Awkwardly, she turned him on his side and thumped his back.

  “Come now, human,” she cried. “Spit out the sea and live. Please.”

  As if hearing her, his body convulsed. A gush of water emitted from his mouth and he shuddered. Muireen laid her hand between his shoulders and willed him to breathe.

  Another shiver wracked him. He coughed again, and then she felt the blessed pull of air into his body.

  “Yes,” she sighed.

  His dark hair hid his face and she carefully pushed the sodden strands aside so that she might see his features. His cheeks were pale, but regaining color even as she watched. His lips were too soft for the rest of his face—the sharp nose and stern forehead, the black slashes of his brows.

  As she hovered over him, his eyes opened. They were a wild, stormy blue. Muireen stared into those depths, and felt the hook set deep inside her heart.

  “You.” His voice was a whispered croak. “Saved me.”

  “Shh,” she said. “Rest.”

  He closed his eyes and lay his head back down on the sand, but still he breathed. Beneath her hand, Muireen could feel his heart beating. Her fisherman would live.

  But she refused to leave him alone through the night.

  As the water pulled and pushed in and out of the little cove, she held him close and sang him the songs of the sea people in her low, husky voice. The storm quieted, and as the sky cleared she was amazed to see a shimmer of tiny lights overhead—the luminescence of the night that mortals called stars.

  After a time, she realized the blackness was fading, nibbled away at one side of the sky by the approaching dawn. She could not stay, could not risk discovery, though it tore her in two to leave her fisherman.

  “Farewell,” she whispered, bending to lay her lips against his.

  Their breaths mingled, and a salty drop fell from her eye to splash against his cheek. He stirred, and in a sudden panic, Muireen thrashed herself back into the shelter of the sea. The water took her in, cool and welcoming, concealing the secret of her tail.

  She hid behind one of the rocks that had battered her. Her body rocked up and down with the now-quiet waves as she peeked out and watched her fisherman lying upon the beach. Watched as he sat up and rubbed at his face, then looked about him like a man who had misplaced something important. Watched as he rose, and winced, and cast a regretful glance at the splintered boards that had washed ashore in the night.

  Watched as he turned his back on the sea and trudged away from her into the light of dawn.

  * * *

  Currents of cold water wrapped about Muireen as she swam into the dusky waters of the Sea Witch’s domain.

  She should not be there, venturing into the clammy kelp beds in pursuit of a vain hope, but for the past week she had been unable to think of anything except her fisherman. The sight of him walking away from her haunted her dreams, and her waking hours, until she could barely eat or carry on a conversation.

  It will pass, Muireen told herself, but every day was worse than the one before. She could not help remembering the silver thread she’d glimpsed, tying them together. Was this the reason she could scarcely sleep?

  A low moaning sound reached her ears, like the call of a whale, but full of menace, not melancholy. She shivered and swam on, toward a blot of darkness visible ahead.

  The blackness resolved to a cave mouth. Muireen halted, her hair drifting about her. It was not too late to turn back.

  Oh, but it was. The moment she’d glimpsed the fisherman, it had been too late.

  With a steadying gulp, she dove forward, into the cave. It was even colder inside the black stone walls, and a faint greenish light emanated from the depths, a tunnel, leading her on. The sound grew louder, vibrating through Muireen’s scales, until she could hardly think, let alone swim.

  Then she emerged into a cavern, and the noise ceased. The green light illuminated pale fishes with bulbous eyes and a few sickly strands of waterweed growing from the cavern’s sides.

  But most of all, it showed the Sea Witch floating in the center of the space, her white eyes turned on Muireen. Hideous white eyes, white skin the color of dead things, suckered tentacles waving from her head, instead of hair. Where her tail should have been was only a swirl of blackness, as though a squid had ejected its ink and fled.

  I should not have come. Muireen’s chest tightened, and she turned to flee. Rough stone greeted her, slimed with the secretions of moon snails. The tunnel she’d traveled down was gone. Panic racing through her, she pivoted to face the witch.

  “Sea King’s daughter,” the witch said, her voice carrying the memory of a thousand shipwrecks, “I am so very pleased to see you. Tell me, why have you come?”

  For a fleeting moment, Muireen was tempted to say it was all a mistake. Tempted to plead that the Sea Witch release her, unharmed, that it had been nothing more than a foolish dare.

  But her heart ached where fate bound her to her mortal man. There could be no simple escape from that snare.

  “There is a fisherman,” she said.

  The witch opened her mouth and let out a keening cry of laughter. “Oh yes, yes. One of those. Delicious. Shall I tell you the terms of the bargain?”

  “But you don’t know what I want,” Muireen protested.

  The Sea Witch’s blank eyes stared at her. “Of course I do. You want to take on the semblance of a mortal girl, so that you might seek out the fisherman you are so foolishly in love with.”

  “I’m not in love.” Even as she spoke the words, though, a part of Muireen hummed in agreement. “How could I be in love with some ungainly human? I am a princess of the sea.”

  The witch held up a hand, black webs spread between her clawed fingers.

  “I can see the strands of fate wrapped about your heart,” she said. “You were wise to come to me, for I can give you what you desire. For a price.”

  “What is the price?” Muireen’s lips felt numb, as though she’d swum through the poisoned strands of a jellyfish.

  “You must give me your voice,” the witch says. “In return, I will be able to transform you into human form—but only for a year and a day. At the end of
that time, you will turn back into a mer and re-enter the sea forever.”

  A year and a day. It was not long enough—yet it was far better than nothing at all.

  “I agr—”

  “Wait.” The Sea Witch smiled, showing rows of serrated teeth. “When you return to your form, you will come to me to reclaim your voice. And you will give me one more thing—the bitter tears of your desolation. For in such heart-wrenching sorrow lies great power.”

  Muireen glanced away from the witch’s horrifying countenance and thought desperately, but she could see no alternative. Distasteful as the bargain might be, she must take it.

  “It seems I have little choice,” she said.

  “That is truer than all the pearls in the sea,” the witch said. “Now, open your mouth and sing your favorite lullaby.”

  From somewhere, she conjured a glass bottle and held it over her head.

  “Sing,” she commanded.

  Muireen began, and she could almost see her voice disappearing into the bottle. Slowly, the glass turned a translucent silver-blue: the exact hue of her scales. When the song ended, she glanced down to see that her tail was leached to a sickly gray.

  Her gasp of dismay was only a breath. When she tried to form words, nothing came out but little bursts of warm water.

  “It is done.” The witch tucked the bottle away. “Go now, daughter of the Sea King. Rise to the land, and when you exit the sea, your tail will disappear and you will walk upon two legs. Or attempt to.” She let out a harsh cackle. “I will look forward to your visit a year and a day hence.”

  The Sea Witch raised her hands and pushed, and a sudden dark current swept Muireen up. It bore her quickly through the tunnel and past the wavering kelp, through indigo waters to turquoise, and then pale blue.

  With one final surge, it pushed her upon the shore—the same small beach where she’d taken her fisherman.

  Muireen gasped and coughed, her lungs unprepared for the transition. Then fierce pain gripped her from the waist down. She opened her mouth, but had no voice to scream. She could only watch in mute horror as her tail disappeared, leaving two spindly stalks in its place.