***
I knew nothing. Only terror, darkness. Sea water filled my lungs, stinging my nostrils. The shadow of the clipper ship fell over me and her massive swell pushed me farther down. Death, life. What worth did anything have? Delirious as I was, drifting down, down...I still felt when arms wrapped around me, comforting, the warmth of someone who loved you, in the deep dark sea.
Interconnected dreams seemed to weave a path of light from the darkness surrounding me. Water parted soundlessly against my arms and legs, the tender brush of seaweed tangled itself in my hair. I felt all these things drifting in a faint dream of sunlight.
Then, I awoke fully, basking in the glow of a magnificent sunrise.
"W-Who...," my lips were cracked from salt. My nightdress caked with a fine layer of sand, torn from the savage passage into the water. I cried aloud struggling to sit up, my back ached fiercely from where I'd struck myself. For hours, the only thing I could do was shield my eyes from the piercing orange glow of the sun, shivering as the warmth dried my soaked hair and body.
Was it a dream? Had someone truly brought me here? It seemed paradise on earth. Golden sands stretching into a thin curve of coastline surrounded by rocky hills then sloping again into a fringe of palms and long grasses. The sea resembled the surface of an unending sapphire, a pure vibrant blue glistening in the dancing light of the sun.
But, there was nothing in sight. No ship in the distance, no sight of another landmass as far as the eye could see. Pushing myself up to my feet, I stumbled bent-backed to a stout piece of driftwood. Using it as a walking stick, I traversed the small beach from the tangled knots of seawood clogging tiny pools to the overhang of rock on the northeastern end. Despite my thirst, I hadn't dared touch the mercurial pools of salt water that gathered after the recession of the waves.
Someone watched me. From a distance, from the sea, moving closer, closer. Nothing made sense to me as I retreated into the depths of deep grasses struggling through their voluminous greenery away from the sun into the cool shade. I'll take a nap there, I thought, conserving my strength with my knotty driftwood stick close at hand. I'd nap and think of a way to survive. Filling my head with those thoughts, I soon drifted off into the depths of exhaustion.
It was nearly dark when I awakened, stiffened, sore. In the gloom, I patted around for my stick, wielding it as my fingers curled around it, across my chest. "W-Who's there?" I called bravely for something shifted low to the ground, slithering through the grasses.
I caught my breath.
Parting the lush ferns, sliding forward into a patch of dusky twilight, bare skin bronzed to a moonlit sheen, tangled curls of blondish red. My heart quickened as my eyes beheld the face of one dearest in my life. "Jessamyn!" I gasped and stumbled forward as one coming out of a waking dream. Jessamyn...Jess...!" Onto the soft sands I tumbled, my skirts tangled my legs, becoming coated in velveteen grit. Our arms extended to one another as I glimpsed her soft, sad smile. Then, I was embracing her all at once, grasping her cold, slippery flesh, burying my face in her wild, tangled hair that smelt of sea winds.
"Where were you?" I whispered, my palms wet and sliding. "I've searched and searched everywhere for you...," on land, on sea."Whence did you hide yourself from us?" I couldn't easily forget Robert as well. We both had loved and lost and now been blessed. I clung onto her helplessly while she sobbed and patted my back. If only he knew! If...he and the crew had survived...,
"I was here, darling. Here! I've always been here." Jessamyn murmured, the sound of her voice musical to my tired ears. "But, why have you come?" Her tone had a strange, deathly coldness to it that caused my head to rise, questioningly. "Why have you ventured here? This is the place for no man to walk."
I was at a loss, striving to find my powers of speech. "We're here to find you! To bring you back with us!" As I leaned back into the sands, something struck me as wrong. There she sat beside me, but her body was contorted, angling away from me. I started to fear paralyzation, an accident perhaps rendering her body immobile. "Robert...,"
Jessamyn's eyes flickered, a strange sort of third flicker of flesh. "All that is gone now...," her tones were hollow, so unlike the warmth I knew. Frightened, I held onto her, shaking none so gently. "What account can you give of yourself? Where have you been these past months!"
A flash of pain went across her face and I knew it pained her greatly to relate her story. "When I boarded the Seneschal, I wasn't sure of its destination. Its ports were those where strange men walked and the minarets of distant spires dominated the landscape. I was seeing it all for the first time. My joy knew no bounds and for a time, I forgot the woes that plagued my heart."
She paused before continuing: "After leaving the port of Appledore, we were blown off course by several degrees. The sun shone queerly during the daylight hours and at night, a darkness cloaked the stars. All of the seamen's trusted navigation failed and our ship was left in becalmed waters without sight of land. We as the passengers were told, the large nets carried for trade in other lands, would be used to harvest fish for our consumption."
"Within a sennight, wild screams overtook the night watch. Everyone rushed topside, some still clad in their nightshirts. We were told a grievous tale by the ship’s mate. Not three days before we were blown to land by that fearsome storm, one of the crew members spied a strange fish swimming fast alongside our vessel. Upon taking up a harpoon, he speared it, piercing its side. A horrible wailing erupted from the creature and it surfaced, mortally wounded. Dearly afraid now for he had never seen the likes of it, he cast aside the net which he had thought to pull his haul aboard and went below decks.” Jessamyn hung her head in despair. “Not a single man laughed when the story was told and much whispering went around for those creatures were said to be the children of the sea god."
"It was days...before a storm came up, rocking our little ship to and fro. The crew tried valiantly to sail through it, but it was all for naught. We wrecked on the rocky shoals of Nuhl Ait on the eastern side of the island. If you go there now, you'll find the timbers of a fine ship crashed against the rocks."
Imagination failed me. I remembered the horror of the storm that had overtaken the Maida, the viciousness of the sea winds and storm-tossed waves that had buffeted my form. I remember being swept sideways into the surf and being plunged down into the chaos.
"How many survived?"
She grew evasive. "At first, almost all...but the inhospitableness of the weather drove many to seek the solace of death. We were marooned on an island that sailors feared," she smiled in the darkness. "The captain was a brave man, he was not so unlike...," then she stopped, shook her head slightly as if ridding it of a bad memory, and went on. "The men began fishing from a grotto with a deep inner pool. It was there...,"
"What? What was it?"
She bit her lip. I'd noticed before they were stained a dark hue, almost a crimson. Blood. But, no, that couldn't be. She was my sister, she couldn't have...,
"...one of the men discovered a fish with unusual flesh that was tender and sweet. Its scales were hard and shiny like diamonds in the sun, nearly impervious to the cuts made by our knives. God forgive us!" She sobbed suddenly. "We were ravenous, we'd been starving slowly for days...we tore the flesh with our teeth and cracked the bones with large stones. It wasn't until...,"
"You can tell me," I could forgive her that. Desperation bled desperate choices. I couldn't blame her desire to live.
"One night passed, then two...," Jessamyn's voice was a hollow whisper. "I was the one who discovered the terrible secret of Nuhl Ait, the forbidden Isle! It was an old seaman, a cabin steward who hadn't partaken of our feast. He sat away from us, staring into his tiny campfire. "You too, Missy?" His face was weathered, ancient when it lifted up to me. "You'll be cursed as well as they...," I shivered and drew my tattered shawl closer around my body. "Speak clearly, old man,
and not in riddles." He looked at me for a long time then up to the clouded moon above. "This place, Nuhl Ait, is known as the forbidden Isle...those who consume the flesh of the Naiad are doomed to become that which they devour."
The passing clouds unveiled the luminosity of the moon, washing the sleeping forms of my friends and fellow passengers into something hideous by the shadows cast upon the sands. I shrank from the sight, my scream throttling my throat."
The Naiad...dimly from the cradle, stories of the mysterious half-human, half-fish creatures that lived in the subterranean waters of the world, floated before my mind's eye. I was almost afraid to ask what happened next. The question hovered over us, buzzing with angry recriminations, horror and disbelief.
Jessamyn released me and crawled forward into the moonlight. Where her knees should've been, scales gleamed from the width of her hips down to her slim legs and feet that ended in a twin tail like the fin of an angelfish. Flecks of sand dusted the scales, barnacles grew in a rough patch of green calcium. Hesitantly, I reached out, touching her hip. It was cold and slimy to the touch. My eyes filled at her sad state. "But, why, Jessamyn, did you set sail aboard the Seneschal?"
"I...I was running away. You must understand! When I was at sea, regrets overwhelmed me," she touched my cheek gently. "How could I leave you behind at his...mercy?"
I shuddered at the word. Who could she mean? Not Robert with his many kindnesses toward us. He desired her return as much as I did. Didn't he? My fears rose and wouldn't leave me be. Jessamyn spoke none for a time, seeming wrapped in her own thoughts. At last, she ventured cautiously. "Aren't you afraid?"
"What of?"
She continued quite somberly. "When the passengers glimpsed their true appearance in moon water, they couldn't abide themselves. Most sought ways of destruction, their blood polluting the deep grotto pool. Am I not a monster to you?"
The warm wind dried the tears on my face, warming my cold body wrapped in the tatters of my nightdress. "I could no more be afraid of a shade of our dear, departed mother." I shook my head slightly. "Silly creature! How could I fear you? As long as you're you, then why should I be frightened?"
Jessamyn's scaly body coiled back into shadow. She was far closer to a serpent of the sea than a siren from my old picture books. I had the sense that my answer surprised her. Back home, people always talked about me. How strange I was, how child-like...how burdensome to the man my sister would one day marry, when two came for the price of one. I'd tried to ignore them, truthfully, formulating some kind of plan for my future.
A simpleton..., that's what they said behind my back. All those hurtful, ugly feelings I'd carried in my heart rose up to the surface. I bit my lip and looked at Jessamyn silhouetted in the moonlight. "I've missed you so, sister."
She reached behind her ear where her flowing mane curled in mysterious ends. From there, she procured a rough comb of shell, motioning for me to turn. I did so carefully, sliding deeper into the soft warmth of the grasses. It was almost like the old days, before Robert. Before we'd left our home on Land's End. Tears threatened to well up again in my tired eyes. Even though fate had dealt her a severe blow, my eyelids fluttered shut.
Gently with practiced care, Jessamyn drew the tiny shell comb through my tangled and snarled hair, drawing knots of seaweed and gritty sand from the long strands. She began to hum too, a familiar tune, that of a gray goose.
I slept that night on the sands, in the shelter of a large, swaying palm tree. Massive fallen leaves were my blanket, shielding me from the wind that blew off the surf. Jessamyn returned to the ocean, bidding me not to watch her descent. I closed my eyes, listening to the faint splashing sounds her powerful tail made as it slapped the water.
Somehow, I had to believe that everything would be alright...it would be, with time.
There was fish left on a palm leaf in the morning, and a gourd of sweet water nearby. In the sand were strange tracks made from something dragged across the sand. Running my fingers through the powdery grains, I smiled and shouted my thanks. The remainder of the day, I spent, building a small shelter within sight of the ocean.
On another day, I began exploring the island, always careful to bring a pocketful of multicolored pebbles worn smooth by the water's erosion, these I'd scatter on my path to always find my way back to the small sheltered stretch of coastline.
Sometimes, Jessamyn accompanied me on walks. If I was near the coastline, she would swim alongside, pointing out various fauna and flora to which her former interest as a naturalist, allowed her to identify. She would disappear for long periods of time. When I asked her about it, she'd become evasive, the sharpness of her teeth occasionally glimpsed, reminded me of her inhumanity.
"You know I love you dearly, Pippa." She said suddenly one night.
Surprised, I let the fish bone needle I'd fashioned from the spines of an Acanthocybium, slip from my fingers. "I know and I, you. What's brought this on all of a sudden?"
Jessamyn had pillowed her head on her supple arms, her expression dismal. "It's...nothing. Nothing at all. Only sometimes it helps for me to remember that, little one."
My ears pricked up. She'd rarely called me little one since my childhood days. Something was up. "What's wrong? You're not going away, are you?" The note of alarm present in my voice rose to a shrill accusation. I wouldn't be abandoned again! It wasn't fair...weren't we happy?