John Lenahan - Prince of Hazel and Oak

Well, what a difference one little word and a necklace can make. Guards were called and I was taken to a royal guest suite where I was fed and bathed. I even had my back scrubbed and my face shaved by mermaids. It’s not often you can say that and yes, it’s as nice as it sounds. After a short nap I was escorted inside the King’s abode and sure enough, there was a blanket and a cup of tea waiting.

‘My apologies, Prince Conor, for my previous abrupt manner; I am unaccustomed to visitors and your arrival, it must be said, was troubling.’

I came real close to saying, ‘Just don’t do it again,’ but instead I apologised for my own behaviour.

‘So, Son of Duir, you have a cup of tea and a blanket, will you now tell me what your relationship with my brother is?’

‘Your brother?’

‘Yes, Moran is my brother.’

I squinted my eyes and tilted my head a bit, then in my mind’s eye I used an orange crayon to draw hair and eyebrows on the King. Sure enough he was Red’s hairless twin. ‘I see it now,’ I said. ‘Has your brother always been that strange?’

‘I believe I have waited long enough for my answers,’ he said but then a tiny smile crossed his lips, ‘but I shall answer one last question of yours. Yes.’

So I spewed out the whole tale again. It seemed that on this trip to The Land I was doomed to constantly meet people and tell them my entire life story. I was getting pretty good at it. The last bit was hard to tell but I got through it without choking up – just. I finished by saying, ‘So as you can see I must get back to the mainland as soon as possible. Can you help me?’

The King sat and stared for a while. I took that as a testament to my superior story-telling ability – he was stunned into silence. Finally he said, ‘I can and I will.’ For the first time in a long while my spirits rose only to have them dashed by his next sentence. ‘As soon as Moran arrives to verify your story.’

‘When is Red due?’

‘My brother comes and goes as he pleases but he will definitely be here for the blood fete.’

‘And when is that?’

‘In three years.’

When he finally let me out of his dungeon again, the King explained that he had to lock me up ’cause I insulted him in front of his guards. I was surprised that he knew what a ‘trumped-up spineless guppy’ meant but I guess the tone was pretty clear. He only made me sit in his sulphur pit for a day.

When I was released I was shown to a little beach shack and was told I had the freedom of the island. I went back to the King’s royal beach house but the guards there wouldn’t let me enter and finally told me that the King was elsewhere. I doggedly sat in front of the house for three days waiting for his return. I waited and thought. Thoughts filled with dead friends, a dying father and a disappointed family and clan. If I had owned a neurology textbook I would have performed a self-lobotomy. I had to get out of there.

There was always food outside my shack in the mornings and in the evenings but I never saw anyone put it there. No one came near me. After two stints in the King’s dungeon, not many of the Mertain had the courage to talk to me. There was obviously no ex-con chic culture going on in Mermaid Island.

My only contact was with two kids. They had obviously been told to stay away from the dangerous Faerie. So obviously they didn’t. They would hide in bushes until I passed and then dare each other to touch the back of my robe. I remembered being a kid myself and throwing snowballs at cars. The fun wasn’t in the throwing – the fun was when the driver got out and chased us. I usually saw the kids hiding but pretended not to until after they touched me, then I would roar and chase after them. I mean, what’s the point of being a monster if you can’t scare kids?

On this particular day, I just couldn’t stare at the King’s beach house any more. I went for a walk to clear my mind. It seemed all of my injuries from being swooped on by a dragon had healed. I tested my legs with a jog and it felt pretty good. In the distance I saw the two pint-sized Mertains hiding so I quickly changed direction, doubled back and came up behind them as they were craning their heads out of the bushes trying to see where I had gotten to. I rushed them screaming, ‘I want filet-o-fish!’ I think one of them wet himself, but you can’t really tell with those quick-drying robes of theirs. As I vaulted after them through a bush, I practically ran into Graysea.

‘What in the sea are you doing?’ she said, crossing her arms.

‘I’m scaring the crap out of little kids. What does it look like I’m doing?’ I then explained that tormenting these guys was pretty much the only contact I had with any of the Mertain since the King had thrown me into his dungeon – twice.

Graysea took me by the arm and we found the kids. She made us apologise to each other and shake hands. A shame really – m sure they were going to miss their dangerous game.

She told me that she had gone back to work at the Grotto of Health and this was the first time she could convince the matron to get some time off.

‘I think one of the guards told her that we were kissing.’

‘Oh,’ I said, ‘sorry about that.’

‘Are you?’ she replied with a shy smile. ‘I’m not.’

I spent a lovely day walking the beaches with Graysea. As much as I tried to convince myself that I was fine with my own company, just talking to her made me realise how lonely I had been. She gave me lessons in the care and feeding of my robe. I had mentioned that it had recently been ignoring me and she told me that that was ’cause it hadn’t been in the ocean for a long time. We took a swim that wasn’t so bad after Graysea taught me how to regulate my robe’s warmth and then she coached me in the subtler ways of making it lengthen and even change colour.

Once again I blurted out my life story (conspicuously leaving out any mention of Essa). Graysea was particularly interested in my father’s illness and thought the King was being unreasonable by not helping. The day ended with a campfire on the beach before she swam back to work the midnight shift, which matron insisted she be on time for. If I said there was no kissing involved, I’d probably be lying.

The next day the war between me and the mini-Mertains was back with a vengeance. The little twerps obviously realised that detente was dull and began tormenting me by throwing pebbles. I ignored them, even when the pebbles got bigger, until one of them hit me in the head with a rock. Now I was chasing them for real. If I caught them I was going to kill the little dirt-bags. Fortunately for all of us Graysea appeared right before I caught the littler one.

‘He started it,’ I said to Graysea when she had once again got the three of us around a peace table.

‘I did not,’ the bigger one said.

‘You did too – you threw a rock at my head.’

He put on the most angelic of smiles and turned to Graysea. ‘We were just quietly playing and he tried to attack us. We feared for our lives.’

‘You little-’ I said as Graysea stopped me from grabbing the smiling liar by his neck. ‘I hope you find a jellyfish in your trousers the next time you go swimming.’

Graysea patted the little future politician on the head, promising that ‘the mean old Faerie’ would never bother him again.

‘You really shouldn’t scare them so,’ she said after the boys skipped off cackling to themselves.

I started to protest but instead just said, ‘Sorry,’ vowing to myself that the next time I saw the brats they’d really be in fear of their lives.

‘Come with me,’ my dizzy mer-friend said, ‘I have a surprise for you – actually two surprises.’