The Fate of the Muse - By Derrolyn Anderson Page 0,25
What did you call her? Nixie?”
“Yes,” said Nerissa, scooping her up and swimming her to me. The little mermaid squirmed in her arms and ducked down in the water so only her seaweed green eyes were visible.
“Why Nixie? What does that mean?”
“The council chooses in the naming ceremony,” Nerissa said, lifting the child out of the water. “It’s alright Nixie, Marina will come to swim with us someday.”
I chose to ignore Nerissa’s prediction, and smiled at Nixie, “Naming ceremony? What’s that?”
“It’s part of a council meeting, Adria was going to have one too… She came to show us that she was blessed like Nerissa... but she never came back from the big place.”
“You saw my mother when she was pregnant?” I was stunned, “Big place?”
“Mother?” Nerissa cocked her head like a dog.
“Pregnant?” Lorelei chimed in.
I groped for the words, trying to come to grips with the last bit of information at the same time, “Adria,” I told Nerissa, turning to Lorelei, “Blessed.”
Nixie wriggled out of Nerissa’s arms and swam closer to inspect my legs.
“Where was the place she never came back from?” I asked, pretty sure I knew what happened after that.
“You saw,” she laughed, “Where that big thing goes over the water.”
“You mean the Golden Gate Bridge?”
“The big thing is not golden,” Nerissa said seriously, “It’s more like starfish color.”
“It’s like Nixie’s hair!” Lorelei cried in delight, making Nerissa laugh. Nixie joined in and started laughing too, looking between the two of them as if to try and find out why.
“She swam with me…” I said slowly, “She transformed when she was pregnant... I mean, blessed.”
They all stared at me blankly.
I pantomimed a belly, “You know, like this…”
“Yes! Adria was so happy she came out to swim all the time!” Nerissa shook her head in disapproval, “But she kept going back to the man she saw.”
I was shocked to realize that I was more like my mother than I knew. Even after she met my father she’d been going back and forth between her two worlds– trying to have it both ways.
What if I’d been born underwater? If I took my first breath of water instead of air, would I have been fully mermaid, like Nixie? She would never know anything about the land, but she could have. She would never see the wonders of human creativity, and remain completely unaware of the divine spark that inspires art, music and all the wonders of the world– the spark contained within herself.
Nixie was born to be immortal; she would never grow old or weak, but she would remain ignorant. She would be young, strong and beautiful for all eternity. I wondered why my mother had made the suicidal choice to have me in a hospital. She must not have known what it would mean for her. My eyes filled with salty tears.
Nixie tentatively patted my knee, “Don’t be sad,” she said, “Swim with us.”
The tiny girl smiled brightly at me. Her hair was shining in the sunlight, a bright burnt-orange red– the exact color of the bridge, and her eyes… I was happy to see she looked nothing like Peter. She swam around my surfboard and lunged out of the water onto it, wiggling onto my lap. I steadied her, looking at her little body in amazement. She was as perfectly formed as all her sisters, just a childish version, with everything in miniature. Her tiny tail flapped, and she reached her arms around my neck. She was adorable.
“Marina,” she said in a reedy high pitched voice, clear as a flute, “You are the one that saved my Nerissa! Come and play with my friends.” She took my hand as she slipped back into the water, trying to pull me off the board.
“Wait! I have to stay on my surfboard…”
“Surfboard,” she repeated, cocking her head like her mother.
I could hear Lorelei explain things to her in my mind, mostly just random images of the times we’d surfed together. Then I saw another, more disturbing image of me from the time I’d been forced to transform; hovering underwater with glowing skin and a tail.
Nixie smiled and climbed onto my board as Lorelei took a hold of it and towed us both through turbulent, choppy waters closer to the rocky shoreline. Seabirds nesting by the thousands in the craggy rocks screeched and flapped as we approached, clearly seeing my human form as a threat. There were several types of gulls and cormorants, along with funny little puffins waddling in their midst. The