Jonathan Strahan - The Best Science Fiction & Fantasy of the Year Volume 5 An anthology of stories

Rosita nodded wisely. “The priest said something in school, about how the mer treat women better.”

I laughed. The priest doubled as a schoolteacher and he was something of a Christian revolutionary.

Rosita covered her mouth, noticing her slip. I calmed her down and told her she could be a dictator for all I cared. She assured me all she wanted was to dress up in colorful clothes from time to time. And for the old women to stop talking. I left the jar in front of her house and walked away.

Our courtship lasted a reasonable time, neither more nor less. We were married in spring and we danced to torch-light until dawn.

“When are we visiting your parents?” Rosita asked.

I tumbled her back onto the bed. Those days, everything was for fun.

“My mother would rip my heart out if she ever saw me again.” I answered, truthfully, but with a twinkle in my eye. With Rosita, I could laugh at the saddest things.

After we’d finished making love, Rosita nestled against me and whispered in my ear:

“Won’t she forgive you? After all, you’re married now.”

I laughed. I knew the answer well, but I found her assumption revealing. In the culture she’d been raised, the most anyone could aspire to was marriage. Rosita believed my mother would forgive whatever offence I’d committed once I brought home a wife. How could she not want to meet her daughter-in-law? Not to speak of the children we’d surely have. I was married now, and hence a man. Nothing I’d done before was more than a childhood prank.

I was foolish. I laughed and didn’t explain to her how different my people are. Maybe her culture had finally gotten to me and it didn’t cross my mind to open my heart to my wife. You can’t spend your life in a misogynist society and not have it catch a little.

Or maybe, I simply didn’t want to dwell on what I’d lost, but I thought about you, Mother, and wondered what you would have thought of Rosita.

Our marriage would not go down in history as the longest, but I doubt there was ever a happier couple of newlyweds. Rosita got pregnant almost immediately and it looked as though the harvest would be good.

Then, just like that, hail came.

You, people from the deep, do not understand weather. For you, bad weather is a slight annoyance, a disruptor of parties, a disperser of plankton. You swim deep, where the currents are constant and change is slow. Weather doesn’t threaten your survival. It doesn’t threaten the issue of your womb.

Mother, these humans live hand-to-mouth. This is how you make them live. Losing one crop means hunger. Having a baby at the same time is a disaster. Her parents had four other unmarried daughters to feed: they could not help us out.

Oddly enough, Rosita didn’t seem too worried. It went beyond the silly happiness of pregnancy. When we finally realized we had nothing, a busy hope overtook her. She put her marriage chest together and repacked her doilies. I asked her what was going on.

“Your mother will have to take us in now. We’re family and we need help. I’m looking forward to living in the sea.”

I’m not sure what she expected the sea to be like. I bet all she aspired to was a world in which she could go and buy wine without being stared at. When she saw my face, she laughed. The beauty had been sucked out of her, but the pretty still shone in her dainty bones, clearly visible after the famine.

“Oh, come on! She won’t let her grandson starve, will she?”

What was I to do? Tell her that there was no hope? Tell her that my own mother wouldn’t help me, would kill me if I dared wade into the sea?

I completed my act of treason and told Rosita our secrets. I told her she could be changed to swim free in the sea. I told her she’d feel no more discomfort than I did above land. Our mouths were green from eating grass and the dust had crept into the house while Rosita was weak from hunger and pregnancy. It wasn’t a difficult decision to make. I didn’t, however, tell her all the truth.

This is the story I want you to tell my child.

I know you won’t like talking to him about dry land. I know you’ll hate me with each breath that delivers my story, but I also know you’ll say the words with feeling and conviction. You’ll follow my wishes to the letter, Mother, because this is the mer way. Even a traitor has rights and even a traitor’s story deserves to be heard. The condemned man has a right to a last meal; the merman has a right to his last words. I, being both and neither, go to my death on an empty stomach.

Believe me, Mother, when I say that I don’t do this to punish you. You did what you had to do, just as I did what I was forced to do. You exiled me long ago. The reason has largely become a question of semantics. I’ll make this easier for you and reaffirm my heresy:

You deny merfolk evolved from humans. I have proved you wrong. Merfolk were artificially geneered from humans to survive the climate cataclysm. The merfolk then devised a way to enhance the climate change, causing the water to rise, not six meters, as had been predicted, but over twenty, hence turning over control of the planet to the new species and killing thousands in the process. It’s not my fault the younger generation of merfolk agrees with me and is willing to make amends with Humanity.

There . This confession should make things easier for you. The father for the son; that’s the deal. Please forgive me this last cruelty from the grave.

“What do we do now?” Rosita asks when we reach the beach.

“We wade into the water,” I tell her. “They’ll come out to meet us.”

She has no fear of drowning. Truck with merfolk is men’s domain and women don’t go near the sea. I teach her to float and paddle. If you take poorly to her, I want to give her a shot at swimming back to shore.

She’s so trusting, she learns fast.

“You go ahead; I want you to be the first one my mother sees. If something happens just swim back. I might disappear suddenly, but don’t worry about me. There are guards at the border and they might take me down for questioning,” I lie.

I realize I’ve frightened her. “Don’t worry, it’ll only be a few minutes. If anything happens, just paddle back and wait for me on the shore.”

She nods. For a second, I resent her for trusting me, even though I am the one who is lying to her.

There she goes. I chirp at her as she swims, engraving our story into her bones. The mer will tear me apart as soon as my scent spreads into the water. My body isn’t a good vehicle for this message, so I’m placing it in Rosita.

The story of how we met goes into Rosa’s left foot. The story of how I’m leaving her, into her right. I’ve tried to do the tale justice, nipping the bone at a microscopic level. The bones in her toes, in particular, I find endearing, and I pay them special attention, weaving the story into filigrees which I’m certain you’ll appreciate. Think of me when you chirp at my bride and her bones sing back to you.

So, this is my wife, Mother. Truth be told, I don’t know what I’m doing, sending her to you like this. Is this song in her bones like the sealed letters from the stories, telling you to kill the bearer? I think not. The merfolk have always been exacting, but never cruel. My bride is not what is wrong with her species and you know that genes do not determine behavior. Look at you; look at me. Who would think we were related?

Come now, Mother, find it in you to like this girl. She bears my child and I have kept my chirps away from her abdomen. You are threatening two innocents, for the crimes of your son, and that is not the mer way.

Do not make the child pay for the sins of the father.