Dance of the Mermaids

Prologue

Fiorentina

It was a race. Everything between Carla and me was a race. However, I was not only bent on becoming the winner but also on going beyond. For me, it had become a treasure hunt and a quest to wipe the smirk out of my rival mermaid’s face.

“Tante Mercelle told me it could reveal your future husband’s face,” Carla said, again regaling us with stories about her grand-aunt, a fourth cousin twice removed of a sea god.

“A mirror of clairvoyance?” I had scoffed at her. “All for showing you some merman’s face?”

I knew what would come next. She would soon claim she found the mirror and had seen the face of Radu, Triton’s grandson, who was looking for a bride.

There was no such mirror.

Yet, I was swimming deeper past the agreed point marked by corals and a friendly dolphin we named Sera. I had to find it, destroy it perhaps – destroy that perpetual smug look on Carla’s face.

Still, I was aware of the pettiness of my quest, the stark difference between my vocal disbelief and my inner excitement. There was a strange desire to find this mirror. My mother often gave me jeweled mirrors, discarded by humans like the rest of their garbage. My pride did not want me to take anything from the two-legged monsters above, but my vanity prompted me to keep the best ones in my little cove.

It made the mirror of clairvoyance even more important. It was crafted by a sea witch, not a mortal human, with jewels and clear glass. According to Carla, encrusted rubies and diamonds filled the golden edges.

It sounded like the usual nonsense we were told repeatedly as children. But we were no longer children. Eighteen summers under the sea, we were granted the ability to shift into humans. Yet, I had felt no desire to do so.

Not at that time.

We were mermaids, hiding our bosoms with our thick, long hair. Our scales looked like jewels themselves, shimmering when the sun’s rays fell on them.

“I will find the mirror of clairvoyance, Fiorentina,” Clara had promised, eyes blazing with resentment. She was used to people hanging on her every word.

Being descended from the gods did not make her much better than the rest of us. Even the gold her father accumulated and the powers her relatives had should not make her feel high and almighty.

“You will not find it because it’s not real,” was my confident response.

And yet.

Darkness started to engulf me as I went deeper into forbidden territory. The elders had made sure there were markings. Warnings. The sunken pirate ship with the skulls and frothy chests should have been enough, but I swam some more.

So, perhaps, there was no such mirror. I went past the line Carla described. She said that it would be found circled with corals and skulls. There would be an emblem on a wooden plank in what would look like blood. It would be made up of a large eye and a teardrop.

I remembered rolling my eyes when she had described the blood and the symbol. Everyone else was rapt, bubbling up as their mouths were gaping wide. I could forgive 10-year-old Brianna, but the rest were old enough to know that Carla was a little liar. I was gurgling with excitement. With triumph.

Then, I saw it.

The large eye, traced in something darkish-red like blood. It was made up of mere lines, but it somehow looked like it knew things. It stared at me. A teardrop was drawn below it in the same rough scrawl and blood-like color. My heart hammered in my chest as I drew closer and saw something shiny right below it. The emblem served almost like an arrow pointing to the mirror. Yes, the mirror of clairvoyance was right there waiting for me.

I almost teared up in frustration, knowing that taking the mirror to the rest of the mermaids would result in an even self-satisfied look on Carla’s face. I took a rock the size of my fist and posed to hit the glass with it.

Something stopped me, though.

The glass flickered.

Oh yeah, gods. It was going to show me who I would be married to. That in itself was frightening. I did not want to marry anyone. It would mean bearing little mermaids and being submissive.

I squeezed my eyes closed, but one eye was tempted to open.

The mirror revealed an image, but it was not the face of a handsome merman – not of a hideous one, either.

Instead, it showed women floating on the surface of the ocean. Their legs peeked out to reveal that they were mortal humans.

They were dead. The pale skin and open, bulging eyes of some made it clear. One of them, in particular, caught my eye.

Her eyes were closed, but her face was vivid. Familiar. It was a face I looked at every morning in one of those human-made mirrors.

It was my face.