Ebreon

They always drowned the men. That’s what she was always told. They looked into their eyes and then they swept them down into the depths, they mated with them and set them free. The men drowned in the dark depths, kicking towards a surface bright with desperate promise, bright with air and sun, but unreachable. And those who did survive were terrible. You should never trust one, never touch one, their skin wet and scaley, and their man-parts barbed and vicious. Such things became monsters. Or so they said.

And never cross a mermaid. They said that as well. Stay away. Run for the high ground, for the land. Never look her in the eyes. Her anger will turn the seas to storms and drive rain clouds onto the coast, the rain will be ice daggers and acid, great waves will come.

Never anger a mermaid.

And she listened, as a child in her family’s cottage, with the fire burning in the hearth, the soup bubbling over it, her mother giving her the spoon so should could stir.

“Have you ever seen a mermaid?” Jassila asked her mother.

“No. But your father has.”

“Was she beautiful?”

“He only saw her at a distance. Out in the deep sea. The captain turned the ship around at once. But yes: she was beautiful. And terrifying. The smart men turned away, the fools looked.”

“Was Papa a fool?”

“Yes, my dear. He was a fool. Most of them were. But he was lucky. Else he never would have come home to me, and you, my dear, would never have been at all.”

#

Again, as a girl, in the tavern where she put ale and wine on the table. It was the talk of the sailors – kraken, serpents, sirens, selkie and mermaids. These things of the sea. And the sailors were young men, keen to talk and drink and boast. And so they told her every story they’d ever heard, every tale they hadn’t really, that they had to half invent, experiences they may or may not ever have had.

Jassila listened, fascinated.

“The mermaid has eyes like the ocean, but brighter and with greater depth. And her tail has more colours than the rainbow, it has every colour in the world, so does her hair. And her skin glitters. No man can resist her. She would blast him into ashes if he dared. She can roil the sea, turn it into teeth, swamp a boat, or call up the monsters of the deep into her service. But she can love a man like no human woman could ever hope to.”

“And you’ve seen one.”

“Only once. On a rock, along the Sharpwing Coast. She had hair floating in the sea like weed, there were flowers growing in it, and there were shells embedded in her skin. I’m quite sure she saw me, and she smiled at me as the ship sailed past.”

These men were all boasters and liars, they just wanted to get a woman into their bed. Jassila had been warned about that by her mother, by her sister, by the other girls who worked in the tavern at night. The men might offer gifts and promises, but they’d be gone the next day, and she would never see them again. Long at sea, and sex-crazed. They were not to be trusted.

But there was one who seemed different. He was quieter than most. He talked amongst the sailors, he laughed with them, and sang with them. But he said nothing about himself, made no boasts, accepted no dares. His name was Ebreon, and there were many evenings when she felt his eyes on her.

One day, as the tavern was closing up, she saw that he lingered at a table, and she approached him, smiling, “I’m sorry, but we have to close. You’ll have to head off into the night.”

“I know,” he said, “I was hoping you would come with me.”

“Oh?”

“I would be pleased to walk you home.”

“Such good manners, and from a sailor!”

“I was always taught proper, how to speak around a lady.”

A lady, huh! Was it cheek or flattery or a bit of the both?

“I would be glad to protect you from robbers.”

“Then I will protect you in turn from vampires.”

“Do you live far?”

“Just over the hill.”

“That’s a shame, I had hoped you might live a great long distance away.”

#

They were married just a year later, on the common, surrounded by beasts and villagers, with flowers in her hair, and the gift of two goats from her parents.

They could only afford to rent a small cottage along by the docks, with a sailors pay and what she might make at the tavern. When he was gone long, his sailor’s pay would run out, and she would have to work days filleting fish when the fishing boats came in, nights serving drinks to other women’s men, looking out at the horizon, waiting for the trade ships to come.

When they came, she would run to meet his – the Princess Ollivisha – and she would dive into his arms. He would have a pouch full of silver coins to give her. They’d make love well into the night, and for weeks they’d live on beef and drink brandy. Until the ship sailed again and she would have to make the money last. It was lonely at times. That had to be said. And it was hard in the winter, when the coin didn’t seem to stretch, when the bed was cold, and other women had a man in theirs, and a bevy of children sleeping by the hearth a wall away. But still, she thought, overall, she must be happy enough.

#

Until that one year, when he didn’t come home.

She stood at the docks, waiting as his ship slid in. Waiting for him to come down so she could run to him as she always did. But instead, she noticed that the other sailors looked away from her, that the captain hesitated before he approached.

“What happened to him?” she whispered.

“He was taken by a mermaid.”

“No.”

“I’m sorry, Jassila. She came up against the side of the ship, and once she’d chosen him, locked eyes with him, there was nothing that could be done. He dived off the deck and straight into the water. She took him like a whirlpool. There was no help for it. I’m sorry.”

“He’d never be such a fool!” she protested.

“All men are such fools.”

“He wasn’t like other men,” and she knew it sounded foolish even as the words came out – are all women such fools as this too? – but she also believed it. Ebreon was calm, considered, sensible, he would never look a mermaid in the eyes, he would never let her take him away from the woman he truly loved.

“I’m very sorry.” The captain gave her his widow’s pay, and there was nothing more to say after that.

#

Jassila grieved.

What else was there to do?

She went to the tavern at night, served ales and meals, hoping to hear something, some sign, some hope. She filleted the fish by day; and when the tavern closed, she walked out along the beach, collecting seaweed to sell to the farms, always looking out into the ocean, into the horizon, to where he must be, somewhere, deep down there in the dark, cocooned in cold water. Still hers.

Sleep seemed foreign. Unnecessary. She might take a few hours here and there. It didn’t matter. What was there left to care about?

#

Then one night, walking barefoot in the sand, she saw a figure emerging from the sea. He had the shape of a man, but not quite. And the walk of a man, but not quite. The moonlight slid across his wet skin, a bright sheen, broad shoulders. And the familiarity could not be gainsaid. Even as the impossibility seemed writ large upon the universe, still, she knew what she was seeing. And she ran to him, without fear, without hesitancy, without doubt. And she didn’t care about the strange feel of him, or the coldness, or the way his breath sang, and his flesh vibrated against hers. It only mattered that he was here with her again. She threw herself into his arms, buried her face in his chest; she was sobbing and laughing all at once. She cried, “I knew it. I knew you would come. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. I swear it. I waited for you, over and over and over. I never gave up.”

“But things are different,” he warned her.

“I don’t care.”

“I am different.”

“I still don’t care.”

“You don’t know how different.”

“And I don’t care one bit.”

“You should.”

“But I don’t.”

“I should not have come back.”

“Well, you have. And you’re cold. Come in before the fire.”

“I don’t think it will help.”

“Come in, all the same. You don’t know how much I missed you.”

#

In the firelight, she could see the changes in him. And they were profound. His skin had a hue of green and blues, and there were fine scales covering it all over. His hair was different too, wild and ropey, with unexpected colours. His facial features had been blunted, his mouth smoothed into a nearly lipless gash, his eyes like pearls. But still. He looked like her Ebreon. Even the slits in his neck she could learn to love. The strange new curve of his nose.

She handed him bread and a bowl of soup. “Do you still eat such things?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well try, try.”

He dipped the bread into the soup, tasting it slowly, cautiously. Then with a little more enthusiasm. “It’s good.”

“There. I told you. It’s all going to be all right.”

“I don’t know if it is…”

“It is. You’ve come back to me. What more should I care about?”

And he told her the story. Of the great beauty swimming in the ocean. He should have known at once she was a mermaid – what else could she be? – but his mind had been already clouded. And when he looked into her eyes, he could see the colours, so many of them, and so jewelled and brightly-lit and layered, going down and down and down. He couldn’t look away. And he sensed that she wanted him to follow her. It was no decision, there was nothing inside him except that wish to go with her, to be with her. He dived in after her and let her embrace him, let her drag him down into the darkness where she was the only light, the only living, perfect beacon. And the love they made was beyond description, she enveloped him, re-wrote him, satisfied and uplifted him in a way he had not known was possible. When she let him go and swam away there was nothing left in the world that mattered, no point, no reason, no hope.

“Do you hate me?” he asked.

“Why should I?”

“Because I loved her more than I ever loved you.”

The words hurt, but she wouldn’t hear them. “You don’t. You were only infatuated. You were the victim of a spell. And you came back to me. You did have a reason, or why would you be here now?”

“I betrayed you all the same.”

“I forgive you.”

“You’re being hasty. Not thinking…”

“You came back to me.  That’s the true test. That is where love is.”

“Things won’t be the same.”

“They’ll be better.”

He looked down, “I have changed in other ways…”

She remembered the stories from her childhood. Perhaps she should be afraid. But she wasn’t, she reached down, smiling, “We had better find out.”

And it was true that his manhood had changed, it was barbed, but not vicious. She did fear it might tear her up, but instead it made magic. In his bed, in his arms, she was certain that everything would be all right.”

#

The other villagers were not so certain.

There was a meeting in the town hall. Jassila was called to account for herself.

She stood there in her best dress, with her arms at her side, half-fists made of her fingers, nails digging into her palms. But she would not be intimidated. “I have been reunited with my husband. We were married before the whole town. There is nothing wrong with what I have done.”

“Your husband is an animated corpse,” they accused her. “He belongs to the depths. He is not a man any more but a monster.” And they denounced her marriage as an abomination, wailed with horror at the thoughts of what children might result from it. And what might her husband do to them all? He was no longer human, he was a beast of the deep now, aligned with the things that brought ships down at sea. How could he be trusted? How could he be allowed to live amongst their children.

Jassila protested, “He’s done none of you one whit of harm!”

“Not yet he hasn’t.”

“He’s still my Ebreon. You all know him. He’s a good man.”

“No longer a man. And think of this: he is a mermaid’s husband. What might she do to get him back?”

“She doesn’t want him back!”

“How should you know?”

“She abandoned him, she swum away.”

But the villagers wanted none of that. They didn’t want a monster in their midst, they didn’t want to risk the wrath of a mermaid: great waves crashing over their homes, terrifying monsters coming out of the deep to assail them, monster-weather bearing down on them for decades. They argued amongst themselves about whether Ebreon should be cast out, thrown back to the sea, or burned in the centre of the village.

Jassila ran back to the cottage and let Ebreon know that they should flee.

#

But to where? And for how long?

The next village wouldn’t have them. Nor the one after that. They were chased away, sworn at, the people threw stones.

For a while they found refuge in a city. Ebreon went about hooded in the day. Jassila found work at a weaving house by day, and tavern by night. Ebreon swam in the ocean after dark and brought back fish for their table. It was hard to say that they were happy, since they had little, and they lived in fear, and she could never let the people she knew meet her mysterious man. Deep inside, she knew, it could be only a matter of time. City folk would be just as superstitious, just as fearful. But the nights in his arms soothed away the fear. His kisses. His reformed, reworked body. It brought her joy. Even though their circumstances might often bring her sadness and fear.

Eventually, it came, the banging on the door, the torches. The men with knives drawn and answers demanded. They were forced to climb through a window out the back, and to run through the back streets, shielded in darkness. But run to where? Ebreon seemed to know, and since she had no idea what to do, she followed him.

The city gates would be locked, but they seemed to fall open for her husband, as they ran into the woods. Pursued. The local neighbourhood had a blood-scent now. They were not going to stop.

Had he meant to bring them to this, to the top of a cliff, with rocks and raging ocean beneath them? They were silhouetted against the sky. There was nowhere left to run.

“But you trust me?” he asked her.

“Of course, I do.”

When she looked into his eyes, she saw colours, more colours than she knew could exist, so rich, so full, all bleeding in and out of each other, forming pools and stars, streaks and lightning bursts. She had never seen anything that compared to this. This was the world, condensed, beautified, all right here in front of her. She had no hesitation in diving after him, and she felt no fear as his arms wrapped around her hand dragged her beneath the water. It was deeper than she thought should be possible – here, right off the coast – the water went down and down, darker and darker, and she could feel the weight of it above her head. She should have felt terrified, but all she felt was his arms, and all she saw were his eyes.

They became one down there, bodies crushed together, his kisses shimmying through her like bolts of lightning, his body rewriting hers, satisfying and uplifting her in a way she could not have imagined. She was re-taught the whole world in those moments. And when he swam away, she felt bereft, that the whole world had gone. And yet she remembered, she had loved him, she had trusted him. She could see it above her, a surface bright with desperate promise, bright with air and sun. She closed her eyes and began kicking towards it.

 

Picture credit/discredit: author's own work.