The Sirens Gift

Chapter 3.

Soon I heard my alarm sound on the beach. It would give me about 10 minutes to dry off and dress myself before I needed to start my mile walk back to the restaurant to get ready for work.

As I pulled myself from the water, I heard a strange slapping noise echo through the curved walls of rocks around me. I paused and listened but the wind picked up and the sound seemed to die down as I searched for it. I stared for a long while toward the lighthouse, waiting until the ringing of my alarm got too annoying and I turned back to it.

I dragged the towel over my body, then the slapping noise rose again from the other side of the lighthouse once more. It stopped as I looked up, searching again for it. I shrugged with a sigh and pulled on my sweater and pants before tugging on my shoes.

As I picked up my bag, the noise started again and I turned back to the lighthouse again. I looked back in the direction of the restaurant and then back to the lighthouse before sighing. My curiosity would always seem to get the best of me. I walked up and over the crest of the hill to avoid getting myself wet again in the shallows that lead to the other side. On the hill was the path which led up to the lighthouse, made of worn stones that were crusted over with dead weeds that made it through the late parts of fall before the historical society could send their volunteers to clean the path.

In the spring and summer they would keep the grounds around the lighthouse mowed and tend the beautiful flowers that sat in the small park area off the beach which had plaques and a statue dedicated to the last Wickie to ever tend the lighthouse. The park had a small playground with a slide whose hood mimicked the look of the lighthouse.

I paused as I reached the stone path to listen and could hear the slapping again, and a grunting like an animal struggling which seemed to come in bursts. It was coming from the opposite side of the lighthouse where I had been swimming. I could see the dock jutting out toward the ocean, and thought perhaps a fisher had docked and was gutting fish. But the dock was cleared and the rest of the beach was undisturbed.

I still heard the struggling noise as I neared and paused at the edge of the beach to listen again while it stopped. Then I heard a short grunt and pinpointed it’s direction. It sounded more human than anything. It was coming from just behind the rocky alcove beneath the lighthouse.

I tiptoed slowly through the sand, the struggling noise stopped for another moment before I came to it and I paused. It was silent now. I put my hands on the face of the rock and slowly peeked from behind it. On the other side of the wall I could see what looked to be dark coloured fins.

A seal? I asked myself as I looked at it. But I shook my head, “They shouldn’t be here alone this time of year…”

I watched the fin pull up into the air and slap down with tremendous force, the wet sand around it displacing. I was horrified to see a net tangled around it. Then there was another grunt and I watched human hands grab and try to tear at the net.

Someone must be trying to help it…

“Hey, do you need… help…?”

As I stepped from the edge of the wall I was stopped in my tracks.

I caught eyes with dark, solid orbs, doe-eyed and fearful as they stared up to me. A man sat there, his bare, rippled chest heaved when our eyes met, blood trickling from wounds on his shoulder and pectoral muscle.

“I…” I couldn’t move. I only scanned his body from his dark, tousled wet hair down to his chiseled face, then over his well-built tanned chest and as my eyes traveled further down, his torso turned into a dark, emerald green tail, his tail faded into thin looking material with a wide, blue fin which must have been 5 or more feet wide at its tips.

We stared at each other for a long time, neither of us knowing what to do. I reasoned it must just be a diver doing a photo op. But there was no camera, no equipment, no one to take pictures.

“Do… you need help?” I asked hesitantly. He looked at me with his head c****d to the side, his hands still in the net which wrapped around the tail. He then looked at his… tail… and then looked back at me and made a short, sharp vocalization with a timid nod.

I set my bag down slowly and rummaged through for the small Swiss Army knife I kept. But as I stood back up with it in my hand he let out a high pitched hiss. And I watched as a dark iridescent blue dorsal fin rose from his mid back, it attached down to his tail but he sat on the rest and seemed to strain to raise it fully with his tail being wrapped up.

I raised my hands up, opening my palms while pinching the knife in one hand.

“I’m just… going to cut the net…” I said softly. His fin lowered slowly, but his eyes still regarded me skeptically. I inched closer to him, our eyes locked as I neared, both of us clearly unsure of what was happening. As I neared, I saw the gashes which caused blood to trickle from his shoulders and chest. He looked like he had been in some sort of altercation with a knife. There were cuts and scratches running down his arms, as if he had been scratched by his adversaries.

There were gold and silver bangles wrapped around his wrists, one wrapped with jute cord on one side, on the other one of the bangles had a shell charm dangling by, what appeared to be, a fish hook bent and twisted into a chain link. A silver collar-like necklace sat on his thick neck. He had long, ribbon-like, pelvic fins coming from either side of his hips, almost like an angel fish, emerald fading into the deep blue that his other fins seemed to hold. He had a well worked chest and tanned skin, his eyes seemed more black than brown, but his dark brown hair was messily tossed back and it appeared to be unevenly cut a few inches above his shoulders. But the waving curls seemed to be trying to hide that fact. He was, by many standards, stunningly beautiful. His upper half looked like a model, and his lower half was distractingly dark and shimmering green with fins that almost resembled that of a male royal blue butterfly betta fish.

I knelt slowly, his body was guarded, seemingly ready to attack if I tried anything. I held his gaze, trying to seem as non-threatening as possible. But his hooded eyes were now those of a wounded predator, he was ready to strike at any moment had I attempted to harm him further.

As I reached his tail, I noticed that the net was tightly wound around the base of his tail where it split into the beautiful sapphire blue fin. I studied his lower half, thinking I’d see knees or the outlines of feet, but I didn’t. I didn’t even see a seam where his upper half and lower half met, only thinning scales attached to his body as it moved up to skin. Then a slit where the scales seemed to split at his pelvis only slightly.

I blushed, realizing… that was likely where his reproductive organs were…

My body flushed hot as I realized and finally comprehended that I was not looking at a human man dressed in a sequined mermaid tail. But I was maybe, just maybe, looking at a live merman, trapped by a fisherman's net. Beneath the alcoves of the Sirens Lighthouse.

The net had been so tightly wrapped around his fin that a piece of rope seemed to have cut into his tail. I started just beside the cut where fresh blood trickled from the laceration. I slipped the knife sharp side out beneath the rope and yanked it, the net snapped in one place and he let out a relieved sigh as I carefully pulled the piece that was dug into the broken flesh of his tail.

Then I went to the piece wound around the fin, bending it over itself. There was one long gash in the silky looking tail fin where it looked like something had hooked into the delicate material and tore down to the end, splitting 5-6 inches of his fin. I snapped three pieces of the net there, and as it loosened I pulled the net from his fins.

I looked up at him and his eyes seemed to have softened, looking at me with curiosity as he watched me snap each piece that was tied tightly around his seemingly delicate tail and fins. His body language was still reserved and cautious, and I couldn’t blame him,. If whoever had done this was a human, I’d understand his apprehension to trust me.

“You have to be careful…” I said softly, “The fishermen aren’t always nice…” I looked into his eyes and he c****d his head to the opposite side as he looked at me. “I would know…” I added, trying to keep the silence at bay, he made a chirping vocalization as if he was asking me what I meant. “I mean, I work in a diner… my dad owns it I mean…” I shrugged, still working carefully and slicing through the net strands so as to not hurt him. “Since it’s right on the beach off the harbor the fishermen and lobstermen come in all day long… some are really mean…” I swallowed hard, my nerves getting the better of me as his gaze was plastered onto my face. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking, his curious child-like face only showing amazement.

I sliced through the final strands with a hard tug and was able to pull the entirety of the net from his tail. He smiled up at me, his eyes lighting up in sparkling joy as he grinned.

I smiled back at him as I sat back on my haunches and he leaned over on one of his arms before his other swung over to me, I flinched but he caught my cheek gently in a hand that seemed far softer than anything I could imagine. The palm of his hand cupped my cheek and he leaned toward me. But paused as a loud chiming noise rang through the alcove.

“f**k! I’m late for work!” I said, pulling away and standing. “I… I’m sorry, I have to go! Please be careful from now on!”

As I ran I scooped my bag up by its handles and skidded through the sand around the corner of the rock walls. I climbed up the sand dune and over the pathway to the lighthouse before bolting to the roadway, foregoing the sand that would slow me down.