The Net That Holds Me

Prologue

I remember feeling the wind on my warm, wet skin and the way the moonlight reflected on the water that day as I broke the surface. It was a feeling I had felt many times during my trips to the surface.

Every night I swam closer and closer to the shore, despite my father’s warnings. A sea king of the ripe old age of seventy-eight, who simply couldn’t stand the thought of his baby girl so close to humans and their constant destructive nature.

I didn’t blame him. From the stories I had heard, they were quite something. While we had no historic accounts, the tales that were passed down from generation to generation told the truth of how truly terrible a human could be.

I couldn’t help it, though. Something called to me; something beckoned me here. Night after night, I made my trip to the surface, yet I hadn’t quite placed what it was.

So, as the familiar goosebumps hit of being in the cool air of night, I pondered once more what it could mean for me to experience something on the shore. To be the first mermaid to move among two-leggers. Tove, the sea witch, had said it could be done, but she would never do it.

“I could never send you to such a slaughter, love. If they knew what you were, that’s surely what would become of you.”

Her familiar words rang in my mind. She would be horrified to know where I came nearly every night. However, in my defense, I heeded her warnings for years until the curiosity took over.

I listened to the words of my father, my friend, and every ocean creature that had come before me. I never doubted; I never swayed.

Until one night, I decided to swim right up to the edge of the coast. That was the night that changed my life forever. A night when everything I thought I knew couldn’t exist alongside what I then learned.