The Mermaid Girl

by Xequina

  “Hi, Camile!”

  I realized I was looking right at Mermary, sitting between rocks, looking almost like one herself, with part of her long tail wrapped around them. She was so much bigger, and her color nearly matched the rocks so it was hard to see her.

  I scrambled the rest of the way to her and grabbed her and we hugged each other. That’s how large she had grown. Her hair had grown thicker and become more olive colored; it looked like kelp. Her tail half looked tougher, which she would probably need in the ocean. She was so beautiful. Not in a human way, or like the mermaids in paintings, but in a water creature way. I was crying and laughing at the same time. She still wore the knife I had given her, only on a chain belt now. She also had a bag on a strap over her shoulder, and she wore a couple of necklaces.

  “Reggie’s here too.”

  “I saw her,” she said. Her voice was deeper now. Reggie was still making her way over the slippery rocks. “You two have gotten so big!”

  “So have you.” I laughed. “How is it living in the ocean?”

  “Oh, Camile, I love it so much. It’s such a wonderful, beautiful, wild place. Thank you so much for bringing me.”

  “Is it too cold?”

  “I supposed, but it doesn’t bother me.”

  “Is it dangerous?” Reggie asked. “That’s what we were mostly worried about.”

  “Yes, I have to be on the lookout all the time. But most important, I found my people!” she said.

  “Other mermaids?” I asked.

  “Yes!”

  “Lots of them?” Reggie asked.

  “Lots of us! We call ourselves the Sea Kin. After I left you, I was alone for about a month, swimming around and getting familiar with the ocean. Any time I saw a big fish, I zipped down to the bottom of the ocean to hide.

  “Then one day I heard beautiful underwater calling that was different from the sounds dolphins and whales make. I swam toward the sound. I was so amazed, because all of a sudden I found myself in a gathering of other mer people, females and males! They were surprised to see me too, because they didn’t know me.

  “We sing to locate each other over distances underwater, like whales and dolphins do, but we also have our own language. I can speak it now, but there are still a lot of words I’m learning. A few of us know some English, but I’m the only one who can read. We also talk to dolphins and whales, and sometimes we help each other. Did you know that they’re just as intelligent as we are?”

  “Hey, Mermary,” Reggie interrupted. “Do you ever find sunken ships on the ocean floor?”

  “Yes, and not just sunken ships, but treasure! Oh—” Mermary opened her pouch. “I brought gifts for you.” She gave me a ring and an unusual shell that was very flat, with spines around the edge. She gave Reggie a large old button and an ancient coin.

  “Wow!” Reggie said. “A gold pieces of eight!”

  Both of our gifts had encrusted white crud on them and other discoloration, probably from being under water. I thanked her and put the ring in my pocket so I wouldn’t lose it. I was too excited to look at it.

  “I found the button and the coin among the bones in the bottom of a galleon. The Sea Kin told me the human it came from was the captain of a pirate ship. They even told me how that ship sank.”

  “Is that also where you got your necklaces?” I asked.

  Mermary had one necklace with large green gemstones that shone out between the corrosion that grew on metal in salt water. The other was a heavy golden chain with a locket on it that looked rusted shut. They looked beautiful on her, and exactly like something a mermaid would wear.

  “From other sunken ships,” she said. “But there are all kinds of things to find on the ocean floor. The Sea Kin think I’m funny because I like to look for things. They only want useful stuff like spears or rope. But I think of it like when you and your mother would find interesting things in thrift stores.”

  “We have a present for you too,” I said.

  “Do you need another knife?” Reggie asked, spoiling the surprise, but we were both too excited to mind.

  We opened Reggie’s knapsack and brought out a large diver’s knife in a leather sheaf we had found at a garage sale and put our money together to buy. She loved it. It fit perfectly in her hand although it looked a little large for her, but I knew it wouldn’t be as heavy in the water. Also, there were finger holes along the shaft.

  “Those are for your fingers, so you won’t drop the knife underwater,” Reggie said unnecessarily, because of course, Mermary’s fingers slid right into them, and the webbing between her fingers stretched and didn’t seem to bother her. “We also got you a sharpening stone.” Reggie fished it out of the knapsack and showed her how to use it. That had been Reggie’s idea, because she thought it would be better than sharpening tools on rocks.

  “What do the Sea Kin do?” I asked.

  “Well, we spend most of our time gathering and preparing food—there are so many amazing things to eat in the ocean. We also make a lot of things that we need, like hammocks, or bags like this one—” She patted the one she wore. “But our most important pastime is storytelling. Some of the stories are incredible. We have excellent memories. That’s how we pass down our history. We even have ancient stories about when we lived alongside humans.”

  “You do?”

  “Yes. Thousands of years ago we all lived peaceably, but then humans started catching Sea Kin and forcing them to do things for them, or killing us for no reason, or taking us out of the water to live in captivity. The Sea Kin went to war with humans. I’m sorry to say we killed people and sank ships. They’re sorry about it too, especially because they learned war isn’t a solution, there are just more people and Sea Kin dead. In the end the Sea Kin decided the answer was to stay far away from humans. They believed people would eventually forget there had ever been mermaids.

  “They were worried when I told them about all the mermaid paintings and stories people have. They didn’t know we’re still on human’s minds. But I told them in spite of that, most humans don’t believe in mermaids, that they think mermaids are legendary. Human children are the only ones who believe in them.

  “But that’s sad,” Mermary went on. “I have so many other fun things to talk about. I’ve been teaching them all the things I learned from you. Also, I’m their favorite storyteller. A lot of the stories I tell make them laugh. Guess which one they think is the funniest? The Little Mermaid story, where Ariel the mermaid wants to be human, and falls in love with a human man!”

  “Why do they think that’s funny?” I asked.

  “Because a mermaid would never be that silly. A Sea Kin female wouldn’t marry a human, or give up her tail to have legs and live on land.”

  “I get it,” Reggie said to me. “I read a story once about a man who married a woman, who turned out to be donkey. It was hilarious!”

  “We have stories about people trying to live with mermaids, but our stories are tragic,” Mermary said. “In the end, the human always drowns, or has to give up his relationship because it never works.

  “Since I went to live with them, we now have a story about a girl who saved a mermaid and protected her from other humans until she could set her free to find her family. That’s our story of course,” Mermary said, smiling at me.

  “Really?” I said bashfully. “Do they like that story?”

  “They love it! I’ve told them all about you and the different places I lived, and the long and dangerous trip over land to the ocean, when you and Reggie set me free, rather than allow wicked scientists to capture me and find out mermaids are real. They’re amazed that a human child knew better than to let other humans find out about me.

  “Living in the sea is such a wonder, and it’s so different everywhere we go, with so many different and amazing kinds of fish and other sea creatures. And we meet other Sea Kin too. There are many different kinds of mermaids. I mean, they don’t always look like us. Some have five fingers, like people.”


  So my theory had been right, there were different races of mermaids!

  “Later this year we’ll be migrating to the Indian Ocean. Each place we go there’s a large, underwater cavern, hidden lagoon, or uninhabited island where we stay, where humans have never been.

  “We always know when humans are around. We can hear and smell them from a long way away, or we hear dolphins and whales talking about people heading our way. If they come into our territory, we leave, no matter what we’re doing, and we make sure to take all our things with us so there’s no sign of mermaid life. We take no chances that a human will find us. They only allowed me to come today because you two are our heroines.”

  “What about your mother, did you find her?” Reggie asked.

  “No, but the way Sea Kin children are born and raised, it doesn’t matter who our mother is. We don’t have orphans, because everyone who is old enough is our mother, and all the males who are old enough are fathers. They can’t believe that humans reject orphans unless someone chooses one for their family. The Sea Kin believe humans are cruel and thoughtless. They didn’t know what to think when I told them how wonderful you are. Now tell me what you two have been doing!”

  I told her about our talent show and going into a new grade, and Reggie told her about going on vacation to Yosemite, but our stories didn’t seem nearly as interesting as Mermary’s. We talked for a long time, when all of a sudden Mermary turned her head toward the ocean. It seemed like she was listening, although I couldn’t hear anything. She turned back to us.

  “Camile, Reggie, the mer people are calling me. We’ve stayed in this locale a little longer than we wanted because I told them I had to come back and see you. But now I have to go.”

  Tears welled up and I couldn’t say anything. I hugged Mermary and we kissed goodbye. She hugged and kissed Reggie too. Then in a flash, she slithered over to the water and was gone.

  It was almost as hard saying good-bye a second time as it was the first, and of course I burst out crying. Suddenly I remembered something.

  “Oh no, Reggie, I didn’t ask her to meet me here again next year!” I looked out to sea, but of course, all I could see was waves. I called her and also used our two note code, but she didn’t come back. That made me cry even harder. I felt like I had lost her all over again.

  The sun was going down and Reggie’s parents were calling us to go home. We headed back, me watching the ocean in case Mermary showed up again, though I knew she wouldn’t. The Sea Kin were probably already far away by now.

  In the car on the way back to Reggie’s house, I remembered the ring she gave me. I took it out to look at it. It was a gold cameo ring, and the image was of a mermaid wrapped around a crescent moon!

  “Reggie, look at the ring Mermary gave me!”

  “Wow, that’s cool! Her tail even kind of looks like the Lady of the Lake’s tail. Her dress, I mean.”

  I hadn’t noticed, but it did. The ring sort of reminded me of my dream the night before we set Mermary free. Somehow it made me feel a little better. It was too big for me to wear, but I knew it would fit me some day.

  “Maybe she’ll show up next year anyway,” Reggie said. “We’ll come back.”

  We did go back on the same day the following year, but Mermary didn’t show up. After a few years, I didn’t cry on the anniversary anymore.

  As time went on I realized it was for the best. Mermary made that promise to me the first time not knowing what was ahead of her, before she learned the ways and needs of the Sea Kin. Mermary was with her people now, and that’s where she needed to be. They had been very kind to allow her to come the first year, especially since they were so distrustful of humans. I had to accept that she probably wouldn’t ever come back again.

  As I got older, I realized that even though it had seemed like I was the one always teaching Mermary, I had been learning from her too. Not just about mermaids, but about responsibility and friendship, imagination and wisdom, kindness, love, and even ethics; lessons I would remember for the rest of my life.

  And I did see her again, even if it was only in dreams. They were so real, I was sure Mermary must be sending them to me. I would be having a normal dream, when suddenly there would be water everywhere, and I knew Mermary was coming into my dream. I would run into the dream water and swim to her, and we would laugh and play the way I always wished I could do in real life. I thought of those dreams like the waves of two oceans that connected sometimes, which Mermary made happen so we could be together. It was magical.

  So in a way, I didn’t miss her at all. I knew she would always be with me.

  Xequina is a storyteller, writer, artist and children’s librarian. The inspiration for The Mermaid Girl came from the very first dream she had about a mermaid when she was five years old. Xequina is also a cartoonist, and draws and paints mermaids as well as many other magical and spiritual themes. She authored a column on Mexican spirituality, La Post Modern Curandera, for The New Mission News in San Francisco. She is currently working on another children’s book, The Witch Tree, set in northern California. Xequina has degrees in Literature, Art, and Women’s Spirituality. She lives in Oakland, California with her partner and their two bad cats.