Trisha Ashley - Footsteps in the Snow and other Teatime Treats

The crew conferred as she sat on the deck, watching them with aquamarine eyes while crunching the best of their hard-won catch between sharp, pointed white teeth. One of them, faster than the others and scenting a profit, caught her as she was about to slither back over the side.

She bit him, too, for his trouble. But she seemed happy enough in the hold; the men wary as they packed the fish with ice and sailed for port, fast.

A tall young man awaited them on the jetty, black curly hair blowing in the wind, eyes the turquoise of a Caribbean Sea. When they brought her up on deck, swathed in a mackintosh, he smiled, dazzlingly.

She remembered her grandmother’s stories. “Are you my prince?” she asked, the first words she’d spoken. “My destiny?”

“That’s right, darling,” he agreed, handing the skipper a bundle of coloured paper.

He drove her through the early morning light to the fairground by the beach and pulled up outside some wooden doors.

“You’ll be safe here,” he said, carrying her into a large room that smelt of stale seawater, algae and despair. When he switched on the light, great glass tanks cast watery shadows onto the walls and strange shapes moved within each one – except the last.

“There’s something fishy going on,” she said, puzzled.

“Not on, in ,” he replied, heaving her over the side with a splash.

“Don’t leave me here,” she mouthed, bubbling, but his smile now reminded her of a barracuda.

“Sink or swim – my aquarium needs you. You put on a good performance for the punters and you’ll get all the fish you can eat. Watch this.”

He drained one side of the tank opposite until a large grey seal sat in little more than a puddle … then with a sudden shimmer it changed shape to a slender young man with dark, sad eyes.

“I’ll leave you to get to know each other – at a distance,” he said, laughing cruelly, and left them in the aqueous half-light.

*

They sat on their fibreglass rocks, their eyes meeting through thick glass. “He’s the Owner,” explained the sealman. “He does that every hour when the aquarium is open and humans pay money to come and watch.”

“How did he catch you?”

“Greed – I took the bait.”

“I thought he was my prince until he put me in stale water,” she said bitterly. “I’m fed up to the gills.”

“He feeds us dead fish, too, and never cleans out the tanks. But you have to do what he says, or he will hurt you.” The sealman shuddered, his eyes going dark with remembered pain.

There was a hammering. “What’s he doing?” she asked.

“Changing the signs outside, at a guess. You’ll be the star attraction now.”

*

“I want a mirror and a comb,” she said sulkily when the Owner came back in.

“You’ve got them – they’re in that plastic clam shell over there. Now, you keep sitting on that rock and swish your tail occasionally …”

She slapped the water with it, drenching him from head to foot.

“You do that again, and there’ll be no fish for you today,” he said, giving her an evil look. “And after the aquarium’s shut, I’ll teach you some manners!”

When he’d gone to change she looked around her and sighed. “How far from the sea are we?”

“Not far – when the front door is open you can smell the tang on the breeze. If there wasn’t mesh over my tank I’d have been out of here in a flash and running down the beach – I’m sickening for the fresh, salty sea.”

“I couldn’t run,” she said sadly. “If I got out, how could I slither so far? My scales need oiling already.”

“I’d carry you, I wouldn’t leave you here. But it’s no use – the most we can hope for is that one day he will put us in a tank together.”

There was a sliding of bolts and a flood of light from the front of the aquarium. “Hush, here come the visitors,” he warned. “But if you put on a good show, perhaps he won’t be angry with you later.” His tank filled with water and, with a flick of his flippers, he began to circle.

She watched as the crowd gathered, his tank was emptied again, and the sealman reappeared.

“How does he do that?” a girl asked.

“It’s just a hologram projected in there, it’s not real,” her boyfriend told her.

“He looks real,” she said doubtfully. “And what about her ?”

He shrugged. “It’s a woman wearing a mermaid tail, that’s all. It’s not even well made – look, you can see the join.”

The mermaid bared her teeth at them in a sharp smile and they stepped back nervously. She took up the mirror and began to untangle her silvery hair, humming.

The unearthly hum grew louder … and louder … until it became a strangely beautiful song that held the visitors fixed, enthralled, to the spot.

Her voice rose higher: the glass walls of the aquarium began to tremble, the water rippled and the fish fled to their farther corners.

The sealman knew the power of that song.

“What’s that racket?” the Owner demanded. He clapped his hands to his head. “My eardrums! Stop it – stop singing now .”

But it was too late: everything rang and shimmered and swayed and trembled – and cracked. Great cascades of water poured out of every tank, swirling a flotsam of visitors, fish and the Owner towards the door.

The sealman, stepping gracefully over the shards, carried her out of the back door and towards the distant sea. The morning sun reflected off their nacreous skin and flashing scales. The crowds fell back, the beach-road traffic stopped, the donkeys ran away and the kites tangled.

From behind came a sudden shout of, “Stop them!”

This was beyond optimistic: for a seal, he ran fast. The waves were to his waist before anyone even reached the edge of the sea. Then there was a splash as they dove – cool, smooth bodies entwined, twisting and turning into the depths.

He gave her a passing, unwary fish, salt fresh.

“ You are my prince,” she said and, as a mark of her favour, bit the offering in half and gave him the head, to seal their union.