Swamp Girl (Initial idea/ Part One)

I know that she was born under the water but in order for her to learn to live on land I had to cut off her tail, her fins and sew up her gills. It made sense. She squealed and fidgeted frenetically at first but she soon learnt to use the breathing system inside her and the external limbs that made her human. Her skin was very pale green and almost phosphorescent. Her hair was a mass of pondweed and mud. When I first found her, she smelt terrible.

Lying naked and unconscious, face down on the bank with dark, slimy weeds wrapped around her legs, a peculiar growth, outwards from the bottom of her long back, twitched haphazardly. It was a fish’s tail; skeletal but fluid, covering the width of her hips and tapering between her knees before fanning out like an iridescent silk that reached all the way to her ankles. Her arms were stretched at odd angles out in front of her, revealing narrow strips of the same silky texture just protruding slightly from her waist. She was covered in clusters of frogspawn that clung to her skin like jewels and tiny larvae nested in her hair. I wanted to touch her, to see what she felt like. Approaching her, I placed my hand tentatively on her small shoulder. She remained cold and motionless. Only a passing breeze that skimmed the water’s surface created the gentle ripples of movement in her translucent fish tail. I turned her over. She weighed nothing. The sludge sucked at her body until she rested in her new position on her back. I saw her face for the first time. Oval in shape, with narrow eyes and puffy purple lips. Her features were dark and striking.

I called her Valerie. For the first week, I kept her in my bathroom where she took long cold showers. She didn’t mind if I sat and watched her, and she would keep me enthralled for hours just standing under the water, clutching her own skin. Eventually she would sink to her knees, curl up and sleep, cold and naked and green. I turned the shower off, when she slept. In the mornings I would make muesli with raisins, almonds and dates. She ate this like a child, curiously pushing the mushy cereal through her dark mouth with a plastic spoon. I ate the same meals, with her in the bathroom, demonstrating the appropriate way to use domestic cutlery. I wanted to take Valerie out into town but she needed to be less dependent on water. The first time she slept in my bed she sobbed and sobbed, shivering uncontrollably despite being wrapped in a warm duck-down duvet. I felt a brief pang of guilt and remorse, but kept reminding myself that she needs to learn, how will she ever live with me if she can’t adapt to the dry, comforting warmth of my suburban bungalow? Watching her shake in a tearful hysteria, I found myself becoming angry with her.
“I could have just left you on the bank Valerie. It’s a hot summer and the swamp was drying up. It was reduced to a puddle when I found you. You would have died. I saved you, okay?”
She wasn’t listening. Shivering is the first sign of hypothermia. Valerie was born under the water.