Trapped with a Way Out

by Jeffery Martinez

"Why, Count Ramos, come to live with you? I don't know, this is all… so sudden."

  William giggled and spun around, happier than she had been in many months.

  When she noticed someone hovering near her entrance, she stopped and gasped.

  "Your Majesty?!"

  The Sea King was indeed hovering in the shadows. He was glaring menacingly, and the entire cave seemed instantly colder for it.

  "Gutten Tag, mein Sea King. What brings you to our humble grotto?" Schrödinger grinned.

  "Save it, Sea Devil," he growled.

  Before William could speak, she noticed the youngest sea princess behind him.

  "What did you do?!" she cried.

  The Sea King then spoke in a voice that was all daggers.

  "I consider myself a reasonable monarch." He then swam closer. "I set certain rules. And I expect those rules to be obeyed."

  "Your Majesty, I…"

  "Is it true you rescued a human from drowning?"

  She bit her lip. "Your Majesty, I had to…"

  "And is it true you set him down on a crowded beach?"

  "Your Majesty, I didn't realize…"

  "And is it true, you have returned to the land every day since that day?"

  "Your Majesty, if you would just let me explain…"

  "AND IS IT TRUE you swam up to the shore, up the river, into the brush by the river's edge, onto a human lord's balcony, while humans are in sight, every day for the last year?!"

  "Your daughters do it all the time!" William cried.

  She had heard so many countless stories from the royal daughters, telling of how close they had swum to ships and houses, how they saw children play and dogs bark, that she assumed this was just fine.

  "You foolish little urchin," the Sea King shouted in a voice like thunder, "Contact between the human world and the merworld is strictly forbidden. William Hanna, you know that! Everyone knows that!"

  "I've been careful not to be seen!" William cried.

  "And now as a result of your careless behavior, humans now talk of seeing a mermaid near the human lord's palace!"

  William felt the blood drain from her face. She searched her memory for any way that could be so and but couldn't—the one-eyed human. The one that almost always seemed to catch her.

  "Can you account for this oversight?" the Sea King demanded.

  William winced and felt her tail grow weak, and slowly sank.

  "I've been so careful," she said weakly.

  "And now, because of your foolishness," the Sea King continued, "Humans are beginning to know of our existence for the first time in centuries! My daughters now think it acceptable to swim up to human abodes..."

  "What?!" William cried indignantly. "They did that long before me!"

  "HOW DARE YOU lie to your royal majesty…"

  "Why don't you ask them!" William snapped.

  "ASK THEM? I don't need to ask them! I know my daughters perfectly well! They are good girls. Well-behaved, well-bred, well-mannered. Not violent, temperamental, uncivilized, uncouth little urchins, incapable of even the barest…"

  "Your Majesty, that's enough!" William screamed.

  The Sea King was stunned. "You dare speak to me that way…"

  "Your Majesty, I have done everything I was supposed to and more…"

  "You used your position as a royal chamber maid to impersonate royalty!"

  "Your Majesty, I had to…"

  "Daddy…"

  "You stay out of this!" he thundered.

  "I was just trying to save the show…" William said.

  "So help me, William Hanna, you have been nothing but trouble since day one. I should have thrown you out of the palace after your first outburst, and if this is the way you repay my kindness…"

  "What kindness?!" William finally shouted. "You worked me like a slave and then blamed me for all of your daughters' misconduct?! Every meal they didn't show up, every show they missed, you always blamed me and said I…"

  "THAT IS ENOUGH!" the Sea King thundered so loudly the entire grotto shook.

  William continued to glare defiantly, but also flicked her eyes around apprehensively.

  "William Hanna, you are banished from the Sea Capitol. I never want to see you within those waters again. And if I ever catch you trying to consort with my daughters or Harkonnen again…"

  "There's nothing you can do to stop me!" William screamed before she could stop herself.

  "William!" the youngest princess cried.

  The Sea King's eyes widened.

  "Did I hear you correctly?" the Sea King said in a voice like death.

  However, William set her face in the same determined scowl she wore in her childhood. "He's my friend," she said.

  "Have you lost your senses completely? I am your king! You are my subject!"

  "I'm aware." William glared.

  "So help me William Hanna," the Sea King said in his most terrifying voice; so much that even William' resolve melted and she hid behind her statue, "I am going to get through to you! You will stay away from the royal palace, and you will stay away from Harkonnen. You will stay away from the surface, and you will stay away from humans. You will no longer corrupt my daughters with your insolence. And if you disobey…" His trident glowed a deep red. "So be it."

  So saying, he took his trident and aimed it at her treasures. What happened next was a nightmare William had not experienced since the night her parents were destroyed.

  "Your Majesty…!" she cried, as the first blast destroyed treasures on her wall.

  "Daddy, no!"

  Water, dark and red. The deep red of the trident mixed with the shadows of the cave.

  "Your Majesty, please!"

  Pointed fangs, destroying everything she loved.

  "Your Majesty, stop!"

  The power of the trident blasting her treasures just as teeth tore apart her mother's flesh.

  "YOUR MAJESTY, STOP IT!"

  Her home, her love, her treasures. Everything she loved destroyed before her very eyes. The ocean taking everything she loved, torn apart in water dark and red.

  She saw the Sea King aiming his trident at the statue of the man she loved.

  "Your Majesty, NO!"

  The statue filled with glowing cracks, and then exploded into dust.

  William was overcome with rage and grief that she had long thought behind her. She covered her face with her hands and broke down in violent sobs.

  After a respectful pause, the Sea King murmured "I expect you out of here before nightfall," and swam away.

  After a long bout of sobbing, William realized the youngest princess was still there. Rage bubbled over her sadness. "You-! Get out of here!" She screamed with rage and thrashed the princess with a rock.

  She didn't notice or care how the princess reacted. She just knew her home was destroyed. Her treasures destroyed. Everything she loved was gone—and for what? What did she do? Why did the ocean do this to her? Why did it tear apart what she loved? Her dad, her mum, her home, her stuff, her…

  "I HATE THE OCEAN!" William screeched, and started tearing into a rage. "I HATE IT! Why does it—why does it do this to me…?"

  She broke down sobbing again.

  In the midst of her sorrow, she heard the vague hissing of eels. William looked up to find the same kind of eels that found her after her parents died. The same kind that comforted her and led her to her new home after it seemed like everything was lost. Suddenly, she felt like a child again, crying alone and feeling soft eels brushing their slippery flesh against her arms to comfort her. She slowly ceased her sobbing, just like when she was a little girl, and settled into a weak bout of whimpering.

  "Poor child…" they hissed.

  "Poor sweet child…"

  "She has a very serious problem…"

  "As long as she lives under the Sea King's rule…"

  "She will always be under his unfair rules…"

  "If only there was something we could do."

  "But there is
something…"

  "…W-what?" she whispered.

  "Linda Mills has great power…"

  "The Sea Witch?!"

  William had heard of her. A horrible sea monster that lived in a palace of bones from ship wrecks and—

  "No! Get out of here! Leave me alone!" William cried.

  "Suit yourself," they said, "We only thought you might want to see your love again."

  However, on their way out, they flicked the face of the statue over to her. It looked nothing like the Count… but it was all she had. She lost everything in the sea. She had nothing to look forward to but darkness and loneliness and a long miserable life followed by a lonely death. Up there in the surface, above darkness and suffering and tyranny, above the Sea King's unjust laws, above her friends that she loved but could never see again, above...

  As she looked on it, she vaguely remembered the lyrics from Harkonnen's concert.

  Far away I hear the call of the heart that sings a song like mine...

  I know it beckons to me from the land above the sea

  Yet I know I must follow wherever it leads me...

  She looked up at the surface, and hesitated for a moment.

  The road to love is paved with broken hearts

  If I am to reach my goal, I must stake everything

  No matter what the price…

  "Wait!"

  "Yesssssss?"

  As the eels led her out of the little grotto, William took one last look at the Sea Palace. The royal ball was now underway, with the many shells shining their many colored light and the many-colored fish filling the glass halls. Across the floor of the hall ran a wide stream of water, in which the mermaids and mermen danced to their own entrancing songs. Such beautiful voices could never be heard among the people on land. The youngest princess sang more sweetly than anyone else, and everyone applauded her.

  For a moment her heart was light as a bubble, for she knew Harkonnen created the most beautiful music in all the sea, and would feel quite proud of it. But her thoughts soon strayed to her little grotto and she felt deep sorrow. Dark waters filled with shattered possessions… was that to be the only kind of life she would ever lead down here? William looked at the bright lights and the dancing, smiling, singing merfolk, filled with friends she loved but would never be allowed to see again. Such happiness would be forever denied as long as she stayed below the sea, and she had a new joy to pursue in the world above… come what may.

  The little mermaid set out from the royal gardens toward the whirlpools that raged in front of the witch's dwelling. She had never gone that way before. No flowers grew there, nor any seaweed. Bare and gray, the sands extended to the whirlpools, where like roaring mill wheels the waters whirled and snatched everything within their reach down to the bottom of the sea. Between these tumultuous whirlpools the eels threaded their way to reach the witch's waters. William followed hesitantly behind, and it was all she could do to keep up as then for a long stretch the only trail laid through hot seething mire, which the eels called the witch's peat marsh.

  Beyond it the Sea Witch's hut lay in the middle of a wretched forest, where all the trees and shrubs were polyps, half animal and half plant. They looked like hundred-headed snakes growing out of the soil. All their branches were long, slimy arms, with fingers like wriggling worms. They squirmed, joint by joint, from their roots to their outermost tentacles, and whatever they could lay hold of they twined around and never let go.

  The little mermaid was terrified, and halted at the edge of the forest. Her heart pounded with fear and she nearly turned back.

  "This way," the eels hissed.

  William gulped and summoned her courage. She bound her long locks around her neck so the polyps could not catch hold of them, folded her arms across her large breasts, and darted through the water like a fish. The eels slid easily among the slimy polyps that stretched their writhing fingers to seize them. William moved much more slowly, and soon her eyes widened with horror at what she saw. Every one of the polyps held something it had caught with its hundreds of little tentacles, and to which they clung like starfish to hapless mussels. The white bones of men that had perished at sea and sunk to these dark depths were now snared in the polyps' arms. Ships' rudders, seamen's chests, and the skeletons of sea animals had also fallen into their clutches, but the most ghastly sight of all was a little mermaid they had caught and strangled.

  In her fear, William did not notice her hair come loose until one of the polyps latched onto it. William gasped, but then another polyp latched onto another handful. William screamed and twisted, but no matter how much she wriggled or writhed, the polyps would not let go.

  Just when she felt sure she would join the little mermaid they had killed, a sharp blade cut off her hair. William curled into a protective ball, and then looked up to see a scythe spinning through the water like a boomerang. It arched through the water and came back for her. William ducked, and then felt it cut off the last of her hair as it spun back into the witch's lair. The polyps then wrapped their tentacles around her golden locks, and then retracted so they could devour their prize. William ran her hands hurriedly over her head, feeling her hair as short as it was before she started growing it, and free of grabbing fingers.

  When she was sure she was free of the polyps, William sighed with relief.

  "Come in," a deep, grating, gravelly voice called from inside. "Come in, my child."

  William reached a large muddy clearing in the forest, where big fat water snakes slithered about, showing their foul yellowish teeth. In the middle of this clearing stood a house built of the bones of shipwrecked men, and there sat the sea witch, letting the eels eat out of her hands just as we might feed birds.

  "We mustn't lurk in doorways," she continued with a sneer. "It's r-r-r-r-rude."

  The sea witch then reached out a large hand and easily caught the spinning scythe. "One might question your upbringing."

  The Sea Witch then placed her scythe by her door of human skeleton hands. She truly was a fearsome sight to behold. She was a very tall, muscular, and masculine woman with grey leathery skin and short, spiky orange hair. One could mistake her for a male from behind. She had narrow green eyes, but one was a lazy eye that drooped slightly. Perhaps her most remarkable features were the tattoos that covered the entire right side of her body, from her face to her fingers, with a pentagram on her forehead, a purple spiral on her right shoulder, and innumerable letters and symbols all over the right side of her face, neck, and arm. She was not one of the merfolk though, but a cecaeli; a creature with the upper body of a woman and the lower body of an octopus. Her ink-black octopus skin began under her arms instead of her waist though, so she was a tall, imposing monster with a grey woman's upper body, black, squishy octopus' skin covering her breasts and torso like an evening dress, with eight long, black tentacles that fanned out like instead of a fish's tail.

  She called the ugly water snakes her little chickabiddies, and let them crawl and sprawl about on her bulky, conical bosom.

  When she noticed William gaping, she chuckled.

  "Staring is rude too," she cackled.

  The little mermaid gasped and averted her eyes.

  "What? No apology? One would never guess you were raised in the Sea King's Palace, by the way you behave." At this, the witch gave such a loud cackling laugh that the toad and the snakes were shaken to the ground, where they lay writhing.

  "Now," the sea which said, and slung her scythe back over her shoulder, "I understand you are here because you wish to escape the Sea King's palace and rise above to the surface so you can live in the castle of some... human lord." She shifted the scythe to her other shoulder. "Of course, the only way to get what you want ist to become a human yourself."

  William gasped. "Can you do that?"

  Linda Mills smirked maliciously.

  "My dear, sweet child," she said in a voice as thick and sugary sweet as syrup, "That's what I do. It's what I live for: to help unfortunate merfolk
like yourself." She trailed a tentacle across William' face, who flinched away, "Poor souls with no one else to turn to..."

  Her thick, syrupy voice was dripping with sarcasm that even the little mermaid could catch.

  "I admit that in the past I've been a nasty," she continued conversationally, letting her eels swim around her arms. "They weren't kidding when they called me... well, a witch." She smirked wickedly, and the eels chuckled. "But you'll find that nowadays, I've mended all my ways. Repented, seen the light, and made a switch…

  "True? Yes!" she sneered right in William' face.

  William winced and ducked her head back.

  "Und I fortunately know a little magic," she said as she swam toward her giant cauldron. "It's a talent that I always haf possessed. Und, dear young lady, please don't laugh. I use it on behalf of the miserable, the lonely, and depressed!"

  To the eels, she sneered, "Pathetic!"

  They chuckled wickedly.

  "Poor unfortunate souls! In pain, in need!" Linda continued sarcastically. With a wave of her hand, she summoned two misty images of merfolk: a droopy looking male and an overweight female. "This one longing to be thinner, that one wants to get the girl, und do I help them?" She snapped her fingers, and they instantly became slim and attractive. "Yes, indeed. Those poor unfortunate souls! So sad, so true. They come flocking to my cauldron, crying, 'Spells, Linda, please!' Und do I help them?! Yes I do. Now it's happened once or twice, someone couldn't pay the price, und I'm afraid I had to rake 'em 'cross the gills."

  So saying, she took her mighty scythe and slashed the misty little merpeople, and when the mist settled they became little polyps like the ones outside her door, but before they had grown into hundred-headed trees with hundreds of writhing tentacles.

  "Yes, I've had the odd complaint, but on the whole I've been a saint... to those poor unfortunate souls!" she bellowed, shimmying toward the polyp garden. They all trembled and shrank back from her shadow.

  William stared back in horror. The creatures that had tried to kill her, were they simply crying for help?

  "Now, I know exactly what you want," Linda murmured huskily in William' ear, while at the same time draping a tentacle around her shoulder. William flinched and squirmed within her grasp, appropriately like a fish caught in an octopus's tentacle, but Linda ignored her and kept talking. "You want to escape the Sea King's rule und rise up out of the water so that you may live with your… your count fellow. In order to do that, you must get rid of your fish's tail und haf two props instead, so you can walk the land as a human creature, und that count may fall in love with you."