Untold Tales

Chapter 2

2

Everything came back slowly. I could hear other mer around me even if I couldn't see them.

"Mari, what did I tell you about going to the surface?"

Pain zinged through me at my father's words. I hadn't meant to ignore his advice. And the resignation in his voice didn't make me feel any better. I almost wished he was angry. Then maybe I could work out a way to remind him I hadn't done what I did on purpose. I didn't want to destroy the secrecy surrounding mer.

I tried to force my eyes open but didn't get very far. A moan of pain slipping through my lips.

"You can't force it, Mari. You'll wake up soon," he promised, a comforting hand stroking my forehead. Dad had a way of making me feel safer than anyone. It was one of the most amazing things about him. He knew how to comfort.

I tried blinking again, this time managing to let a slither of light in. "I'm alive?" I croaked. Despite being aware of my surroundings, that fact still kind of surprised me. The pain I'd felt while falling through the sea had been unlike anything I'd ever imagined and death was the only thing I could think it went with.

"You are. But you're not the same," Dad said softly.

"What do you mean?" My voice sounded a little bit stronger and my eyes finally managing to open.

I frowned, I was in my room. Dad sat next to me, and Shelbie curled up at the end of the bed, right next to my tail. I worried about her, she'd need to go up for air soon and I knew she'd push it too far while I'd been unconscious.

Dad sighed and rubbed a hand over his face. "How to tell you this..."

A stone dropped in my stomach. What could be so bad that Dad didn't even have a way to explain it without thinking about it first.

"You don't have a soul anymore."

My mouth fell open. "What?" I demanded.

"You don't have a soul anymore, Mari. It was taken from you. The ripping, the pain, that's what it was."

"How is that even possible?" I tried to make sense of what he was saying but got nowhere.

"It's a curse that was put on the mer long ago. If we go to the surface on the day of our eighteenth birthdays, or even before, then a human can steal our soul."

"Why would they even want to do that?" I asked, trying not to overthink about the human man I'd saved from the sea. I'd been a fool. He hadn't seemed like the type to hurt someone.

"I'm not sure. Maybe it isn't purposeful? All they have to do is get us to admit we're mer and then they can take our souls. I'm not sure what they do with them. Or even if they do anything, but that's what happens."

I pressed my hand to my heart, trying to work out if I was any different for missing such an important part of myself. On the surface, I thought not, but if I looked deeper, then maybe. Not in an obvious way, more in a slightly uncomfortable-there's-definitely-something-missing way.

"How many..."

"Hundreds. At least half of the mer here have had their souls taken. A lot in the older generations too. We don’t know how to stop the curse." Dad looked away, heartbreak in his eyes.

"I'm sorry, Dad," I whispered. "Someone was dying. I had to save them."

His eyes filled with compassion. "You're the person I raised you to be if that's the case. Know I don't love you any less for lacking a soul."

"Thank you," I whispered, a tear threatening at the corner of my eye. I pushed it back. I was in this position because of myself. I was just lucky it wasn't going to affect too much in my life. "What do I do now?" I asked.

"Nothing," he replied. "You just go on living your life as normal and don't tell anyone."

"And that's all that happens when you don't have a soul?"

He shifted uncomfortably. "No," he whispered, barely forming the word. "You won't be able to pass on to a better place if you don't have a soul. You'll be stuck between the heavens and the sea for all eternity, unable to take your place in either. Unable to interact with anyone."

"Ah." I tried to make sense of that but knew it would take more time for it to truly sink in and for me to know what to do with it. In some respects, it almost made no sense for me to go about my life. Not when it wouldn't make any difference to the outcome at the end. But I knew there was more to being a good person than that.

"We'll do everything possible to make life normal for you," Dad promised.

"I know." I paused for a moment, almost too scared to voice the question that was spinning around in my head. "Will anyone else be able to tell I don't have a soul?"

"No. They won't know unless they witnessed what happened today, or you tell them. There's only one person who can divine whether or not a mer has their soul still and she lives away from the rest of us."

I frowned again and tried to sit up, only for Dad to push me back down again. I hadn't realised anyone lived away from the main city. Most mer never left, some never even going up as far as the surface, though I knew most made at least one trip before deciding it wasn't for them.

"Who?"

"She calls herself the sea witch, but she's nothing of the sort. She's just another mer who didn't want to live here anymore." There was something else there. Something he wasn't telling me, and from the sad note in his voice, he wasn't going to tell me.

But that was okay. Dad couldn't be the only mer in the city who knew about this sea witch. I'd discover more about her and then do everything I could to find her. If she could tell whether or not a mer still held their soul, then maybe she knew how I could get mine back.

I didn't want to go through life knowing I was cursed at the end of it, and if this was the only way I could avoid that, then it was the path I was going to take.