The Song
by Michelle Pichette and Holly
Cushing
She leaned against the barren rocks and watched the man
standing on the conning tower of the vessel nearby. He was handsome, she mused,
his dark hair shining in the setting sun, his dark eyes visible to her own
sharp ones. He was looking out over the water at something, but she couldn’t
tell what. Perhaps the faraway expression on his face was because he was not so
much looking at something on or in the water as the water itself. The ocean was
a wonderful hypnotist and many men fell to her mesmerizing movements,
especially sailors. Perhaps he was thinking about some woman back at his home
port, she mused, or perhaps he was thinking about something to do with his
boat. Perhaps he was thinking of nothing more than the ripples as they moved
across the ocean’s surface. All she knew was that he was relaxed and that made
his handsome features even more appealing.
“Tasty,” she whispered to herself, casually licking
her own lips, thinking she was, indeed, hungry. If it had been a surface
vessel, she wouldn’t have considered what she now was about to do, for in these
strange modern times, women sailed more frequently and she couldn’t affect them
as she could men. However, she thought as a predatory smile snaked across her
lips, underwater vessels, like the one the man stood on, almost never carried
women. If other men came out, she’d take them too. She had a lovely cave to
store any she didn’t care to eat now. Yes, storing them made men nice and
tender.
Now she was ravenous, the hunger making her mind up for her
and she opened her mouth and sang. Her song was primal, almost as old as the
sea itself. It was the embodiment of the ocean’s beauty and power. It told of
the how the ocean gives life to the world, but could also bring swift death. It
told the tale of the cycles of seasons and weather and tides and even the misty
air she sang into. It was a lure, an irresistible charm to any man, for it
promised fulfillment of all their hopes and dreams and desires. Her song had
brought down everything from simple fishermen to whole armadas. She watched the
handsome, dark-haired man and waited for him to come to her, already
fantasizing about how good he would taste.
Then, to her
unimaginable surprise, the man shook his head as if shaking off sleep, then he disappeared into his vessel. Stunned to silence, she
watched as moments later, the boat disappeared gracefully beneath the waves.
“I could have told you it wouldn’t work,” a sickeningly
sweet voice said from the water’s edge and she grimaced at the sound of it. She
hated mermaids. They were too fast to catch and knew the ocean’s songs too well
to be ensnared by them.
“Really,” she snarled as she moved across the rocks a little
closer to the voice. Maybe this mermaid was slow, she mused, for she was quite
hungry now. “And why would that be?”
“Because you sing to men’s
unrealized dreams. He has his,” the mermaid told her. “He has the Seaview.”
There was a splash and the mermaid was gone, leaving the
Siren hungry and frustrated. As if a mere construct of metal could ever compete
with her song, she sneered. She would watch this vessel, this Seaview,
and someday she would feast on its crew and make its sunken hull her new home. Someday,
she thought as she slipped back into her dark cave.
The
End