"Forty pounds? Is that all? My husband paid eighty for her in Dunnley."
"Dunnley's over three hundred miles inland, ma'am. Around here, mermaids are as common as clams. You did say she's mute? A pity. I could get two thousand for a siren."
"Two thousand!" My master's widow fixed me with a malevolent stare, as if it were my fault that the slave traders destroyed my voice when they burned away my gills. "She could talk if she wanted to," she growled.
Tilden rolled his eyes. "Fifty and that's my final offer."
I might have pitied her, a poor widow forced to haggle for a few extra pounds, had I not known that on his deathbed, my master freed me. "Don't tire yourself, my dear," his bride of six weeks had said when he asked for paper and pen in order to write his last bequests. "Tell me. I can remember it all."
The minute his eyes closed, and his breathing stopped, she opened the cash box and began counting. "There's less than eighty guineas here!" she shrieked. "The bastard cheated me."
As I watched her tear up my master's bedroom, searching for hidden treasure, my heart sank. There would be no freedom for me. Not this time. Not any time. It was always the same. My owners talked of liberating me, but inevitably there was an unexpected medical bill or an oldest daughter in need of a dowry.
For once, I was not sad to leave my old home for a new one. Any owner was better than my master's widow, a scowling woman who imagined herself beautiful. As coins changed hands, I recalled the day after her wedding. She had strolled into the kitchen of my master's rented townhouse, wearing nothing but a wisp of lace and a leer. I pretended not to notice the invitation to sex. To ease her wounded pride , she had decided that I must be more female than male. Thank the Mother Moon for that. Had she taken a fancy to me and decided to keep me as her lover, I would have had no alternative but to throw myself off the rooftop.
Determined to recoup his losses, Tilden kept me for a month. At night, I shared a pen with a exotic beast from the southern hemisphere, a creature the size and shape of a pony but with a long neck and snowy white fur. The animal merchant had been unable to sell him, because he had a vicious temper. However, he and I understood each other. Despite his similarity to a horse, I did not try to ride him, and, despite my similarity to a female , he did not try to mate with me.
During the day, I made myself useful in hopes that Tilden would keep me. However, he had three daughters, none of them lazy, so he no need for another pair of hands. In the end, he sold me for thirty pounds and a promise of a free portrait of his wife.
The buyer was a painter, a skinny man who was almost painfully ugly, even for a land dweller. He had a long nose and a bulging brow. His eyes were pale blue like those of a fish long dead. His black hair was as coarse as a sea sponge and shot with gray. Though I judged him to be little more than 400 moons old-- about thirty years, as his kind reckoned time --he had the coarse, lined skin that was the curse of land men. "I'm sick of chattering models," he told Tilden. "I want something that will sit still and won't make too much noise."
"I have just the thing for you," the merchant replied. " A mermaid."
"A mermaid? I was thinking more along the lines of a dog or a bird."
"Who wants to buy a painting of a dog or bird? A mermaids' what you need. She's domesticated. She won't drive you mad with her tears or hang herself from the rafters. And she's mute."
The artist squinted at me. "She?" I was dressed in a pair of threadbare trousers and a dingy gray shirt. My hair was cut close to the scalp.
"She. He. There's no difference where the sea folk are concerned. She'll look pretty cleaned up and dressed proper."
The artist's lips twisted into a smile. "I paint nudes."
"All the better. You can save money on clothes."
He looked from me to the animals then back to me again. "Can she cook?"
Tilden looked at me. I nodded. The artist had patched clothes, and the heels of his boots were worn. That meant that he was a poor man. The poor expected more work from their animals, but they treated them better, too. Not out of kindness. When you have no money, you learn to take care of your possessions.
Once the deal was struck, Tilden wrote up the document of sale. Peering over his shoulder, I finally learned my new master's name, Beldon B. Beldon III. What did the middle B stand for? Tilden dusted my thumb with gold ink powder and pressed it to the bottom of the page. Then, he handed my new master the key to my collar. "Have you ever owned a mermaid before?"
Beldon B. Beldon III looked slightly embarrassed. "No."
"A few words of advise. She's mute, not deaf. People tend to forget. They say things in front of them that they ought not to say. The mute ones use a kind of hand language with each other. Some of them can even write."
"Can you?" my new master asked as we left Tilden's store.
I raised my brows.
"Write, I mean?"
A pause , then I nodded.
He chuckled at my expression. "Don't worry. I don't know any state secrets, and my family has no skeletons in the closet. I wish we did. I'd love to get my hands on a full human skeleton. To sketch, you understand. They sell them at the medical college. Two hundred guineas. "
More than anyone had ever paid for me. If I died, would my bones be worth more than I was alive? The thought made me shiver.
Immediately, my new owner stripped off his worn, patched coat and draped it over my shoulders. The fabric was soft, and his odor was not unpleasant, for a land dweller. I smiled to show my thanks.
As we turned into an older, run down neighborhood, he stopped in his tracks. "I never asked your name." His expression of alarm was almost comical.
Smothering a grin, I traced the letters in the dirt.
He put on a pair of wire rimmed spectacles and read aloud "New Moon of Autumn. That's your name? What a mouthful."
I scratched out the first three words.
"Autumn? I like that. It goes with your hair." He picked up one of the longer strands and examined it in the sunlight. "Red mixed with green. Is it true that the longer the sea folk live away from the water, the redder their hair becomes?"
The question was an innocent one. He could not have known that it would cause me grief to remember that once, long ago, my hair was the same color as the algae which bloomed each summer in the sea where I was born.
For a near sighted man, he saw a lot. "What a tactless question. I've never known anyone from the sea before. If I act like an ass, kick me."
I had known masters who enjoyed being hurt, just as I had encountered those who liked to administer pain. The artist meant something very different. He wanted me to teach him how to behave. How strange. In my experience, land dwellers wanted our bodies and our songs--especially our songs, with their magic power to heal and soothe. No one had ever asked my advise on anything.
With my hand, I pantomimed a mouth speaking . My expression became sorrowful. I covered my ears.
"You'll cover your ears if I say something I ought not to say?"
I nodded affirmative.
"And if I do something I shouldn't do?"
Smiling, I slapped the back of his wrist. Though it was a light tap, few of my previous owners would have tolerated such forwardness. Beldon grinned.
"My mother used to do that when I tried to stick my finger in the jam. Do you know how to make jam?"
I nodded my head in the direction of a peach vender.
He pulled out his empty pockets. "Sorry. I gave Tilden my last farthing. You'll have to wait until I sell something to make jam.." He studied my face. "Tilden called you 'she'. Do you prefer being treated as a man or a woman?"
I preferred being treated as what I was, a child of the sea. We had no ridiculous distinctions between fathers and mothers, since a person might be both at once. However, he meant well by the question. I stuffed my hands in the pockets of my trousers and adopted a masculine swagger. It was always safest to assume the gender of my owner. They treated me with a tad more respect, plus most land dwellers liked to mate with the opposite sex.
"You don't mind if I paint your feminine side, do you?" As if I had any say in the matter. "When I look at you, I see a woman." He smiled wryly. "I won't ask what you see when you look at me. We're an ugly lot compared to the mermaids."
Ugly he might have been, but when he smiled, he was more appealing than my former master's widow, despite her golden curls and rose petal cheeks.
Beldon lived on the second floor of a large, ramshackle building, above a grocers. His apartment consisted of a single room, but it seemed spacious, in part because the windows were open and uncurtained, and the furnishings were sparse. Canvases were stacked against the walls. The air smelled of turpentine and paint.
"There's the kitchen, such as it is." He indicated an alcove with a coal stove, a wooden ice box and a pantry. "The woman who owns the building, Phillipa gives me produce that's too spoiled to sell and day old bread. In exchange, I keep the books for her. She has no head for figures. Neither do I, to tell the truth. Can you do sums?"
He might as well have asked if a bird could fly. My people are renowned for their singing, and what is music but an elaborate patterns of sums?
Glancing around the room, I spotted a slate and chalk which were lying on top of a stack of drawings. I scribbled a column of numbers on the blackboard then added them together. He attempted to follow my work but soon gave up.
"You're too fast for me. Would you be willing to start doing Phillipa's accounts?"
Again with the questions, as if I were a servant and not an animal. Yes, I wrote.
"I'm beginning to think I made a good investment with my last thirty pounds. Are you hungry? Sit down. I'll fix something to eat."
This was going too far. Sternly, I pointed to a chair.
"Yes, ma'am," he murmured contritely. "Sorry. Yes, sir." As I acquainted myself with the kitchen, he picked up the slate and began drawing. "Hold still for a moment. Tilt your head to the left. Not so much. Perfect. You have good bone structure. " He frowned at his sketch. "Come here for a moment."
I set down the butter knife and approached cautiously.
"Closer. I'm not going to bite you." He examined my throat above the narrow steel collar. "You've no scars. Didn't you once have gills?"
I covered my ears with my hands. The day they used a red hot coal to burn away my gills was the worst day of my life. When they shoved me into a trough of water to test their work, I found that I could no longer breathe. I was like a beached fish. The horror of that moment has never faded.
Beldon pulled my hands away. "Forgive me. Not all scars are on the outside. I remember now. The sea folk heal without scarring. That's why you look so young." He fingered the steel band. "How long have you worn this? No, don't answer that. Any time at all is too long. Especially for one who can't build scar tissue." He fished inside his pocket until he found the key Tilden had given him. He unlocked my collar and tossed in onto the table. With his forefinger, he traced the broken line of red, abraded skin that encircled my throat. For the first time, I saw him angry. "I don't want you to wear that collar again."
My eyes must have bulged.
In a gentler tone, "If you run away, it will be because I didn't take care of you, not because I took off your collar. I don't know what possessed me to buy a mermaid. It's slavery, and I never---" He shook his head. Smiling ruefully, he said. "Listen to me. I complain about chattering models and what do I do when I finally find one who's quiet? I chatter. Go back to what you were doing." He picked up his sketch pad and began drawing again.
I fixed a hash of dried fish, onions and potatoes. When supper was ready, he set aside his slate. "Join me."
He concentrated on his food, giving me time to look around my new home. I was particularly interested in his drawings and paintings.Still lifes, for the most part, along with a few portraits. He used a lot of blue and green. Without bothering to copy every little detail, he managed to make the scenes look real. Roses glistened with dew. A young woman blushed and lowered her eyes, as if she had just been offered a compliment.
Three of the finest portraits were of the same woman, a land dweller who was pretty despite her big nose and coarse features. It was the eyes. He had captured humor and intelligence in her hazel eyes. Her full, soft mouth spoke of gentleness. The way she leaned forward suggested that she was sharing a confidence, maybe a joke.
I pointed at one of the paintings and mouthed the word Who?
He held his hands over his ears. "Just kidding." He smiled sheepishly. "That, my dear Autumn, is the love of my life, Miss Penelope Pauncetter. I know every artist is required to suffer the pains of unrequited love, but I wish mine didn't have to be so completely one sided. The worst part is I suspect she would like me, a little, if she would allow herself to like me. But her father has debts, and she must marry a rich man, if she is to save her family's home."
I was curious to meet Miss Pauncetter. Beldon said she did not care for him, but if the portrait told the truth, she liked him a great deal.
How much? I wrote on the blackboard.
"Money to clear her father's debts, you mean? Five thousand, give or take a few hundred. Two thousand and the promise of a steady income would probably keep the creditors happy." He sighed. "What a fool I am. The minute I get thirty pounds together I spend it. How on earth am I going to save two thousand pounds?"
He was having second thoughts about buying me. Probably worrying about how he was going to feed two mouths. I pictured myself being dragged back to Tilden's. The animal merchant had sold me at a loss. It would not take much persuasion for Beldon to get his thirty pounds back, once he told Tilden that I could cook, write and do sums.
Paint? Without waiting for an answer, I stood up and stripped off my clothes.
Beldon studied me with open curiosity, taking in the little details which distinguished my race from his. Besides our green skin and hair, the most striking difference was in the reproductive organs. For the sea folk, that was all they were. When the time came for us to sire or mother offspring, we did so, but otherwise we paid little attention to the small bulb shaped appendage between our legs.
The other differences were more subtle. We had no breasts to speak of, unless we were nursing a cub. Our eyes were all one color, a uniform blue-black with a greenish iridescence. We had an extra eyelid which was transparent for use under water. Our noses were almost flat. Our skin and hair did not change with age. A mermaid of six hundred moons looked no different than one of two hundred. Our hairless bodies contributed to the illusion of youth.
Beldon was full of questions. "Do you shave? What's this for? How long does your hair grow if you don't cut it?"
When his curiosity was satisfied, he picked up a sketch book and had me recline on the sofa. I spent the next two hours posing. There was no more talk of money that night. The next morning, he began mixing pigments for a new painting.
One of the myths about the sea folk is that we do not sleep. This is not true. Like the dolphins, the sea folk have to stay alert in the water, otherwise we might drift away or become a shark snack. However, all thinking creatures must rest their minds. The sea folk do this by halves. For a few hours each day, we shut down the part of us which we called the Singer. During the Dance Sleep, no words are spoken, no melodies are sung, but we swim, eat, fish and perform all the other little chores of daily life.
The part we call the Dancer also requires daily rest. This is a time of inactivity. In the sea, we float aimlessly, our minds filled with stories and songs. The most splendid music is created in the Sing Sleep. It is also a time when hidden fears make themselves known. I have often been asked if mermaids dream. If we do, it is in the Sing Sleep.
It was natural to drift into Sing Sleep while posing. I was alert enough to maintain one position but too relaxed to move. Since Beldon rarely talked while painting, I was free to pass the time singing silently to myself, creating lyrics and melodies which no one besides me would ever hear.
Later, while Beldon slept like the dead, I entered my Dance Sleep. It was a good time to clean the apartment, wash clothes, and prepare meals for the next day. Since there was not enough work to fill seven or eight hours a night, sometimes, I would sit beside the window and watch the moon. However, when one is in the middle of the Dance Sleep, the urge to move is almost irresistible.
One night I discovered a bucket of wet clay by accident. I was looking for something to replace the leaky pail I used for mopping. The clay was the same kind the sea folk used to create offerings for the Moon Mother. The best time to sculpt was during Dance Sleep, when the words and music inside our heads were stilled, and we saw the world as pure form.
Having nothing better to do, I picked up the wet mass of black clay and began to knead it, until it became soft and pliable. Looking around for inspiration, I saw my master, fast asleep on his bed. He was snoring softly. A lock of hair rose and fell in time with his breathing. His mouth was slack. I had never seen anything so beautiful.
Startled, I looked again. He was as ugly as ever, yet I felt an overwhelming urge to capture his likeness in clay.
Why not? The Dance Sleep tended to make me restless, which disturbed our landlady who slept downstairs. Working clay was a silent endeavor, one which could not annoy anyone, except, possibly, my subject. However, if I put the clay back into the covered bucket each morning before he woke, he would never find out.
Two weeks later, Beldon finished his first painting of me. It was a lovely piece of work, though most of it was inspired by imagination rather than reality. My breasts would never be so large, even when I was nursing, and my waist did not narrow like that, nor did my hips flare. My reproductive bulb had become a generous pudendum. My long, flowing hair bore a curious resemblance to a wave.
"I'm holding an open house to show the painting to the critics and a few buyers. You are welcome to attend."
And have strange men paw me in an attempt to see if flesh mirrored art? No, thank you. I wrote. I pointed to the floor, indicating that I would use the time to catch up on our landlady's accounts. Beldon was correct when he said he had no head for sums. I had almost succeeded in bringing order to the chaos he had wrought. After few more hours work, Phillipa would be able to tell where every penny went.
"You don't like people very much? I don't blame you. Oh, one more thing. If you don't mind, I'd like to show the piece you've been working on, too."
Guiltily, I glanced at the corner where the bucket of clay was stored. How? I mouthed.
"I can smell clay on your hands every morning. A week ago, I got curious, so I took a peek. You've got a real gift. Do I have your permission to exhibit the bust?"
I shrugged. If he did not mind having people see him sleep with his mouth half open, I did not care if they saw my work. It was more important that they not see me.
The open house was a rousing success. Beldon sold his painting for two hundred pounds, enough money to allow us to live like kings for a month or like peasants for a year. By this time I had taken over the household accounts, so I knew that I was safe for another year. In the meantime, he would paint more pictures and make more money.
"Someone tried to buy your bust," Beldon told me as we sat down to a meal of salmon, cucumber sandwiches and other delicacies left over from the party. "I told him it wasn't for sale."
Why? We need money.
"Not that badly. Anyway, Penelope told me she would never speak to me again if I sold it. She'd like to meet you. I think she may be a little bit jealous after seeing the painting. She spent more time talking to me this afternoon than she has in the whole of this last year."
If jealousy of my charms had caused his lady love to soften, the last thing Beldon wanted to do was to let her see the real me. I pretended to be too shy, though in fact I was curious to meet her. One day, she might be my mistress. Was she a kind woman? Would she let me eat at the table with her and Beldon? Would she trust me to take care of their money? Or would she make my life a living hell?
There was another good reason not to hold an open house. Plague had struck our town. People stayed indoors as much as possible, especially at night when the ill humors carried the contagion. If they had to go outside, they carried lavender scented handkerchiefs and smelling salts. Once or twice a day, the undertaker's black carriage rumbled down our street on its way to the cemetery. The lumber yard was suddenly strapped for wood.
I paid little attention to the outbreak The sea folk seldom contracted such illnesses. Our Sing Sleep had a healing and restorative effect on us, just as listening to a mermaids song could cure an ordinary human.
However, when Beldon broke out in chills, I could not ignore the plague any longer. Overriding his objections, I forced him into bed. Willow bark tea brought down his fever, and soup kept him from sweating himself dry. However, there was no medicine in the cupboard that would ease the awful cough which racked his lungs. Though I set a pot of water to simmer on the stove, at night he sounded as if he was drowning in his own phlegm.
On a moonless night on the first cool day of fall, he fell into a stupor. He was dying. Soon, he would lose consciousness, and then he would be beyond even a mermaid's power to heal.
I locked the door and bolted the windows. Pulling a chair close to the bed, I sat down beside him and took his hand in mine. Haltingly, I began to sing.
It had been moons since I used my voice. When I was captured, I swore that I would never sing for a land dweller. However, that was before I met Beldon.
Gradually, my voice gained strength.. HIs eyelids fluttered then opened. "Is that you, Autumn? I'm dead, right? This is heaven. That's why you're singing ."
"You aren't dead." I wove the words into the song. "I wish this where heaven, then nothing need ever change, and we could remain like this forever."
I sang through the night. By morning, his fever had broken, and his cough began to clear. A week later, he was able to walk to the door and back unassisted.
Beldon was full of questions which I did not feel like answering. "Why did you refuse to speak for so long? How could you bear it? Does anyone else know? Are there others like you?"
Eventually, he got the message, and he stopped quizzing me. He went back to painting. He also started paying frequent visits to his beloved Penelope, while I sat at home and recalled Tilden's words about the price a siren would fetch at market.
I said nothing of my fears, afraid that I might plant the notion in his head. I considered running away, but what would that accomplish? Eventually, I would be captured and enslaved by a new master, and in the meantime, Beldon would lose his one chance at happiness.
The full moon came and went. I uttered many prayers to the Moon Mother, though I doubted that she heard my words. When the moon wanted to touch the earth, she did so through the tides. Water was her element. A creature like me, mutilated, exiled was not worthy of her notice.
On the dawn of the day of the next new moon, Beldon told me to put on my best clothes. "We are going to see a solicitor." He could hardly contain his excitement. "Penelope said she'll marry me!"
That explained the new coat with the carnation in the buttonhole. I picked up a comb and attempted to smooth out his tangled hair. "Why do you need me there to get married?" After a month, it still felt strange to speak to him.
"Because you're the one who made it possible."
My heart sank. However, I cared for him too much to deprive him of his happiness. In all the moons I had lived on land, he was the closest thing I had had to a friend. After I made him presentable, I put on clean clothes and tidied my own hair.
Penelope was waiting for us in Reginald.Roundwright's office. I was startled by her appearance. She was much plumper than she appeared in her pictures. While her face and neck were slender, she had an enormous bosom and exaggeratedly rounded hips. She was also taller than Beldon.
"I am so glad to meet you," she gushed as she took my hands and pulled me forward for a sisterly kiss. "If not for you, I would probably be married to that nasty toad, Percival Poppysworth, now."
The solicitor, an extremely short, extremely obese young man cleared his throat. "I have the documents you requested. If Miss Autumn would give me her hand, I can complete them."
Was I not even to be allowed the mercy of meeting my new owner before the transaction was complete? I ducked my head so that they would not see my tears. The lawyer dusted my thumb with gold and applied the print to the bottom of the page. After proof reading the document one more time, he handed it to Beldon. Who handed it to me.
"Hold onto that. It's your emancipation paper." He noticed my tears. "What's wrong?"
A good question. "I don't want to leave you!" I wailed.
A siren's cry can have a profound effect on land dwellers. Penelope's eyes filled with tears, too. She punched her fiancee in the arm. "You told me she doesn't love you! How could you ask me to marry you, when you knew it would break her heart? You beast!"
"I don't love him," I protested. "Not the way you mean. Sea folk never feel that way about land dwellers. We can't . It would be like--like a land dweller falling in love with a dog."
Beldon choked.
"But people swear that mermaids are passionate creatures!" Penelope countered.
"They lie. Or else, their pets lied in order to please them." I sniffed. "Beldon, I don't want to leave you. I like being your model and making sure that the milkman doesn't over charge you. I feel useful. I feel like---like I have a family."
Dear, kind, sweet hearted Beldon. After being misjudged by both Penelope and me, he was quick to forgive. "You're welcome to stay," he told me. "In fact, we were hoping you would stay. Penelope's no good with money either. And it was you who brought us together."
"Me? How?"
"That lovely sculpture you did of Beldon sleeping," Penelope explained. "I never saw a man look so dear. The minute I saw it, I knew that was the head I wanted to see sleeping on the pillow next to mine."
"What about your father's debts?"
Her expression clouded but quickly cleared. "Those are his debts, not mine. He can live in a smaller house. Beldon and I will send him money when we can." She clutched my hand and pressed it to her breast. "Say you'll stay with us. I won't marry Beldon, if it means he'll lose his muse."
What could I say? Penelope and Beldon were married. As soon as I saved enough money, we moved out of the one room apartment and into a cottage by the sea. There, we lived together in reasonable happiness, except when bill paying time came around each month, and I had to scold the newlyweds for being foolhardy spendthrifts who would squander their last pence on frivolity even if starvation was knocking at the door.
Oh, I almost forget. The middle B stands for Belvedere. I call him that when I want to annoy him. And he tells me that he can't wait until I reach my six hundredth moon, the age when mermaids change from children to adults, and the urge to procreate becomes centermost in our minds. Already, the free sea folk of the ocean side community are starting to take an interest in me. Soon it will be time for me to choose a mate from among them. Then, Beldon says, I will understand what it is like to be in love.
"It's like riding a boat tossed about on the roughest wave of a stormy sea. You don't know which way is up or which way is down. One moment, you worry that you will be washed overboard to drown. The next, you wish that you could drown so that you can stop being sick."
He makes it sound worse than the plague. I wish I could make the moon stand still, but such magic is beyond even the power of a siren.
Bio: McCamy is a long time contributor to Aphelion as well as Assistant Short Story Editor. You can find out all about her and her work by following the link below to her website.
E-mail: taylorjh@nationwide.net>
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