Гарднер Дозуа - Mermaids!

She leaned forward. "Now you listen to me, boy. You've a good heart but you're green as a cabbage. What you believe doesn't change what is. This cap is from the Tir-Faoi-Thonn ... the Country Under The Waves."

She placed the cap on the table, keeping her hand on it. "When a child is conceived in that country, the mother weaves such a cap for it. When it is born, it is placed on the child's head. That is what allows the merrow to live under the water. It is made for that one person alone, and no other. If it is lost or stolen, the merrow must leave Tir-Faoi-Thonn forever... or die."

"Are you suggesting that the cap belongs to the woman I saw, that she's a mermaid... a merrow?" I tried to keep the scepticism from my voice.

"I'm not suggesting, boy... I'm telling you now."

"Look. That was an ordinary woman I saw. No tail, no scales. I saw her walk."

She sighed and leaned back. "You're like the rest, you are. You don't believe the sidhe exist. Still, you think leprechauns sit on toadstools, cobbling boots, and mermaids have tails like fish. They don't. They are folk like you ... and me."

I thought if I humored her I could cut this short. "Oh. I believe you. What's this got to do with me?"

"You've the cap, haven't you? Give it back." I felt her touch again on my arm. "Think of that poor girl—condemned to walk in the world like us—never to see home or family again. Think of her loss..."

"What do you want me to do? Throw it back in the river?"

"That you musn't. It might be lost forever. Take it back where you got it. Wait...just wait. The girl won't have gone far. Without the cohuleen driuth her life will be a hell. She'll come for it, I know."

The moon was up and the west wind blew fresh off the lake, bringing with it a drift of turf smoke from some distant cottage. I sat in a deck chair, watching the hypnotic shimmer of silver light on the water. I touched the red cap which I'd folded in my windbreaker pocket. It felt warm.

Even by Irish standards the O'Meara woman was an eccentric. Still, her intensity got to me. Suppose it were true and the girl was condemned to a life of misery because of me?

"Oh, bullshit!" I muttered. I went below and climbed into my bunk.

That night I dreamed I was making a night jump at Fort Bragg. I stood alone in the door and then I was out. Below I could see the markers of the drop zone. I counted for the opening shock but it didn't come. In panic I looked up to see the tightly rolled canopy streaming behind me. I had no reserve 'chute.

The black ground rushed up. I closed my eyes. Then I was in water, plunging down through a warm opalescent sea, the shroud lines wrapped tightly around my legs. There was a burst of yellow light. A woman came swimming toward me, her body gold-white in the light. A cloud of platinum hair framed her face. The red mouth opened and a soundless scream filled the sea.

I woke late, with a mouth like Cromwell's boot. When I checked the quay, the other boats were gone. I debated about making the run by myself but decided against it. I had lunch at the hotel, then stopped off at Devlin's for a resupply of the booze locker.

It was midafternoon when I got back to the boat. I lay in my bunk trying to read, but I was too restless. I pulled on my jacket and went on deck. The wind was rising but the sky was clear. I stuck my hand in the pocket of my windbreaker and felt the warm cloth of the cap.

" Cohuleen driuth " ... Nonsense. But the Irish are susceptible to nonsense, and none are more Irish than Irish-Americans. I pulled the cap from my pocket. Bean O'Meara... a superstitious old witch, whatever the professors from Dublin might think. I looked again at the cap. Red. Red as a rose. Red as blood. Red as the lips of the woman in my dream.

"What's to lose?" I went below and got a fresh bottle of Paddy. I ran up the engine, then cast off and headed upstream. Laughing, I jammed the cap on my hed. What's to lose indeed? No denying the blood. Mental cases, one and all of us.

Upriver I found a rotting old fishing pier close to where I'd seen the woman. I tied off to a piling. What now? I didn't really believe anything was going to happen. The day was clear and the river still as glass. I listened to the water lap against the hull. I broke out Uncle Frank's fishing gear, and with breadballs for bait, tried my luck.

The time passed quickly. I caught three small browns, which I kept, and a large fat bream, which I released. It was almost dark. In the rhythmic ritual of fishing I'd forgotten about merrows and magic caps. I cleaned and cooked the browns for dinner. Tired, but with that sense of well-being which comes from a good day on the water, I smoked a last cigarette and watched the sun slide behind the mountains. Then I went below to sleep.

The boat rocked and I woke up. The full moon flooded the cabin with soft light. I glanced at my watch. Two A.M. I sat up abruptly. Someone was coming aboard. I threw back the blankets and swung my bare feet to the deck.

The cabin door opened. A naked woman stood before me. The moon made pearls of the water glistening on her white skin. She was small and perfectly formed. No tail or scale. A beautiful young woman with long blonde hair, standing bare before me in the dead of the Shannon night.

I stood, flat-footed, staring. What do you say to a merrow?

"Come in...."

"Thank you, sir." She moved forward.

"You're a merrow."

She looked at me, her eyes sad. "That I was... and with God's grace, will be again. You've something of mine..."

"The cohuleen driuth , you mean? I've got it. . ."

"Ah, that's a gift of grace then." She laughed and the tenseness went from her body. "Where did you learn such a strange name?"

"I was told by bean O'Meara."

"The O'Meara, was it? A misfortunate woman but a good friend of many."

I realized that I too was standing there naked. Looking at her, I knew I would soon be calling attention to myself. I sat on the bunk and pulled a blanket over my lap.

She smiled. "I've seen a man before, you know. In my country we've no need to clothe ourselves."

"Uh ... yes...." What do you say to a naked merrow? "Uh ... won't you sit down?"

"I'll not refuse." She sat on the opposite bunk, our bare knees almost touching in the narrow cabin.

"Do you have the cap for me then?"

The windbreaker was hanging on a peg over the bunk. I reached awkwardly behind me and pulled out the cap. She took it and held it to her breast. There were tears in her eyes.

"You've saved my life, you know."

"Not me. It was the old woman. I didn't believe her."

"But you came." Her soft, warm hand touched my knee. She brushed her hair back and put the cap on. "There. A bit comical isn't it?"

I laughed. A gold and white vision from the sea with a Christmas stocking on her head. She stood up and pulled the cap off. "I've no need of this here." She dropped it on the bunk.

Her fingers touched the scars on my arm. For once I didn't pull away. "You've been badly done there..."

"I can live with it."

"Can you now?" She sighed, "It's wondrous things men do to each other. God knows this island has seen enough of it."

Her breasts were disconcertingly close to my face. "It's different then in your country ... Tir Faoi-Thonn?"

"That it's not. We are all God's creatures. There's no perfection for any of us ... not even the angels." I could smell the faint perfume of her skin, salt wind on a warm sea.

"You came to me... and I came to you." Her voice was soft, "There's little enough one can do for another in this life."

She pulled my head forward. Her breasts were firm and sweet as apples.

I woke once in the night to feel her silver-shot hair spread over my chest. I moved in the narrow bunk, easing a cramped leg.