Morforwyn
BY ANDREA DEANGELIS
I remember when we were giantesses, 160 feet long, our wet hair the length of three men and its strands could choke and drown sailors like enticing tentacles. With a flick of our 7-foot fingers we could break their backs and our tails could smash ships. I remember when we were feared. When we were more than just a pretty face, half-naked and ready for your taking. When we were the hunters not the hunted.
Or at least I think I do. Those were the tales the mothers told us. They’d repeat the tales so often their words became a part of my memory while our reality shrank and withered. I am small for my race; I measure only five feet two inches from tail to head. Most mermaids are five feet nine, our males over six feet but every year we grow smaller in size and kind.
I remember when we had souls, when sailors were afraid to tell us their given names because we could call, and they would be compelled to come. Our voices were musical to them. It didn’t matter if the words were misunderstood. We’d wrap their pink flesh in our hair and seaweed for later debauchery. I remember when we were more than just a salty story, more than just a dream for a man to prove.
The town of Conwy hasn’t seen one of us in a generation or two. I surveyed the fishermen and spotted one I wanted to keep. I hadn’t had a man in a long while. Our own males have grown gradually disinterested in us as the sea erodes the shoreline. Their scales have proliferated from their waists to the middle of their abdomens. So covered they will no longer reveal their lower selves to us and we will die out. Soon our male folk will be nothing more than winter cod. I had picked out my dark bearded fisherman for devouring and later drowning and was about to swim to him when I was ensnared in their nets instead. I struggled but every time I moved, I just became more trapped, the rope burning me. Finally, they wrenched me from the sea. They spoke a language I didn’t understand, a scattering of hoarse wind and waves battering rocks.
They were not like the fishermen I had known. They did not know me. They did not want me except as a myth made alive and squirming.
I have been their entertainment for weeks. I know now they’ll never release me and I will continue to desiccate. My lustrous tail’s scales will flake off and deteriorate into sand even the ones the men pry off when I fall in and out of consciousness. I do not dare rake my webbed fingers through my hair as it falls out in clumps. Villagers have come from the surrounding area to gawk at me slowly suffocating. I can only hope they will declare me a fake and throw me back into the sea. Can I resuscitate? It is most likely too late. I may die here but I will make sure you will die too.
I have not laid a curse for a long time; the clawed words take three days to incubate. I wonder if I will have enough time to make my death intertwine with a scourge.
