Eamon

From where I stand I begin to sing once again. I am desperate but I try not to let the sound carry in my voice.

My soul longs for that island fair,

Where lemon trees perfume the air…

The minutes pass. I’m singing with all my might, swaying on my feet in the hot sun, about to collapse.

Please come back. Please.

“You’re not supposed to be out here…”

A voice to my left startles me, and I stumble, pitching forward onto my hands and knees in the barnacles. They cut into me, but I hardly feel the pain for my relief.

“Blossom,” my voice is hoarse. I’d like to rush to her, cling to her in my relief, but I won’t make that mistake again. “I shouldn’t have grabbed you earlier, please forgive me. I wasn’t sure you were even real.”

“Hmph,” she puts her little nose up in the air. “So long as you know you did something bad.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Never mind that. I don’t think you’re a bad guy,” she says, looking at my bloody hands and knees. “Anyway, you’re in real trouble, you know?”

I nod.

“Humans aren’t supposed to be stranded this far out. You’ll die out here.”

“Can you help me?”

She gives me a doubtful look. “It’s a long way to shore…”

“You don’t have to carry me. Just alert another fisherman, tell them where to find me.”

She shakes her head. “I’m not supposed to let anyone see me. I shouldn’t have even come to you, but…your singing was just so beautiful…”

“Please, Blossom. My mother is blind with a heart condition. I’m all she has, she won’t survive without me. Please, I can’t die here.”

I can’t begin to imagine what’s going through this creature’s head as she weighs the value of my human life. From my mother’s songs I’ve heard sirens are cruel, selfish creatures, wrecking sailor’s ships upon the rocks purely for their own amusement—and occasionally for a snack. Is Blossom like them? I wonder. Somehow, she seems a little different from the stories…

“Of course you should not die,” she determines. “I can’t get help for you, but I can bear you to safety, if it’s an unpopulated area. You’ll have to walk a bit when you get to land.”

“That’s fine,” I gasp. “Thank you, thank you.”

“Hang on a minute,” she says, and then she dives, disappearing for a bit before returning with a broken plank and a bit of rope.

“I noticed this flotsam from the wreckage earlier. Get on and I’ll pull you.”

I go willingly to the water, lying atop the board and gripping the rope in both bloody hands, ignoring the pain of the saltwater in my open cuts. Blossom takes the other end of the rope and gives me a look of determination.

“Just hang on. I’ll get you to safety, you can count on me!”

I do just that as she dips below the waves, her long pinkish body stretched in front of me as she pulls me with all her might. We’re going along at a fairly nice clip, and I wonder how long she’ll be able to keep it up. I hope she doesn’t get tired or bored halfway through, and leave me stranded…

I’m being pessimistic again. Would it kill me to have a little more faith in the goodwill of my fellow man? Or, I guess I should say—my fellow merman?

Though Blossom does most of her pulling under water, she surfaces from time to time to take big gulps of air.

“You’re more like a dolphin than a fish, breathing air the way you do,” I observe at one such interval when she’s stopped pulling me to catch her breath.

“Of course,” she says, looking a bit insulted. “Can you imagine if I had gills? Gross.”

“I guess I always thought of sirens being more like sharks, with the way they eat people and all… You don’t eat people, do you, Blossom?” I ask with a nervous laugh. 

She makes a face. “I’m not one of those kind of mermaids.”

“Are there different kinds?”

“It’s a big sea, the Meddio,” she gestures vaguely. “Anyway, I’ve only ever met one other siren, and she tried to drown me. After that I stayed out of the open ocean and stuck closer to shore. It’s scary out there,” she adds with a shiver. “There’s all kinds of sea monsters and whirlpools, and it gets so dark when you dive past a certain point…” she shudders again. “I prefer to be on land. It’s way less scary, so long as there’s no people around, and warmer too.”

A siren that’s afraid of the sea. Has there ever been such a thing? I wonder as she begins pulling me again. Blossom really is unusual. But I’m glad. If she weren’t so friendly, I’d still be stuck on that rock a few miles back.

I can see a strip of shoreline now about three miles in the distance, though we’re still too far for me to swim on my own. Blossom resurfaces again and takes another break. I can see she’s getting tired.

“I must be heavy,” I say apologetically.

“You are! I’m so tired. I don’t want to pull you anymore,” she decides, and drops the rope to lie on her back and float.

Ah! I knew this would happen! Now what do I do?

I’m panicking, trying to think of a way to convince her to pull me the rest of the distance when she laughs suddenly and slaps the water with her tail, spraying me playfully.

“Just kidding,” she says, and she grabs the rope again and starts pulling before I can think of a single thing to say.

Why, that—that cheeky mermaid!

The sun is beating down mercilessly as we continue along. I’m starting to feel sick with the heat. My throat aches from all that singing earlier, and I’m parched. Never in my life have I been so thirsty. To be surrounded by water on all sides and not be able to drink, I don’t know if there’s a torture worse than this.

Just hold on, I tell myself. Don’t give up.

It’s another hour before we reach the shore, the longest hour of my life. I feel sorry for Blossom who’s doing all the work, and I wonder how I’ll ever repay her for this.

When at last we reach the shore my arms are trembling. I drop the bloodstained rope and slosh through the waves to the cliff face. I see a thin stream of fresh water running down it and I push my face right up against the rock to lap it up. It takes a few minutes to get my fill.

I pull away from it at last, satisfied, relieved beyond words. I find Blossom lying in the sandy beach to the right of the cliffs and I slog my way towards her only to collapse beside her, staring up in disbelief at the sky, amazed to feel solid earth beneath me.

“Thank you,” I gasp, my voice almost gone. “I owe you my life.”

“I couldn’t just leave you to die,” she says. “You’re the first human to ever see me like this. Besides, you have just the prettiest voice,” she says, then she surprises me by sitting up suddenly and leaning over me, her arm beside my head as her long pinkish hair frames our faces, seeming to wall us in on all sides.

“You must come back and sing for me again, Eamon. I get so bored, so lonely out here. Promise me you’ll come back.”

I gulp, staring up at what I’m sure must be the most beautiful woman in the world. She’s so close I can taste the seaweed on her breath as she continues to stare down at me with a very serious expression.  

“I… I’ll come back. But how will I find you?”

“Just sing,” she says, her face split by the most dazzling smile. “I’ll always find you if you sing, and I’ll come no matter what. So don’t forget, alright?”

 “I won’t, but—is that really enough? You saved my life. You could ask me anything and I’d do my best to get it for you. Just a few songs, that hardly seems a fair payment.”

“There’s nothing I need…” she muses. “Oh, but there is one thing!” she exclaims suddenly, surprising me. “Cheese pastries!” She leans down even further, till our noses are nearly touching, and I feel like my heart will beat out of its chest.

“Ch-cheese pastries?”

“I get so tired of seaweed and raw fish, just once I’d like to have a warm cheese pastry. I watch people eat them on the shore sometimes and they look so delicious! Please say you’ll bring me one, Eamon. Please?”

I can feel her tail slapping the surf in excitement. She’s just like a puppy, I think, feeling something warm start deep in my breast as she wiggles in anticipation.

“Sure,” I say, and I feel the strangest, most ridiculous grin start across my features. “I’ll bring you cheese pastries.”