My first attempt at a grown-up fairy tale is inspired by one of my favourites: Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid. My story is called Conch. Here it is …
CONCH
Conch
By N. M. Sirett ©
One
At two years old, Danni still dithered on her spindly legs. It had only been four months since she had managed to walk without holding on to things. Now that she’d mastered not clinging to her parents or familiar objects for support, she was ready for adventure and exploration. And being taken to the Jurassic coast for a holiday was the perfect place to begin. She had never seen the sea or experienced sand. And excitement pierced her diddy heart on this hot and sunny day.
Her mother had gifted her a pale-blue bucket to collect seashells. She tottered down to the water’s edge to look for some pretty ones. Cautious parents in tow. They pointed to the pretty ornaments bedazzling the shore, collected a few in their hands. Mirroring them, she crouched. Digging little fingers into the wet sand and grasping a pearl-white cockle shell in her grainy palm.
A cold sea teased her ankles and washed another fascinating charm against her foot. A creamy little conch, sparkling like something magical in the afternoon sun. She snatched it up, her fingers like a tiny starfish clasping the funny-shaped object.
Danni giggled. Finding sea charms was so much fun. She glanced up at her parents. Trying to catch their expressions, but the sun’s diamond rays spilled across their features, towering above her from a great height. They were so tall. They were giants. And another giant joined them now, holding a Frisbee. Danni did not know the person but could sense her mother and father were now immersed in deep conversation. Something about joining another family for some summer games. Their voices were distant and full of adult words that she did not understand.
She huffed, but as soon as her eyes strayed back down to the gift in her hand, she shrieked with joy and did a little wobbly jig where she stood. She put the shells into her bucket and splashed around in the shallow pool of reiterating waves.
Frothy water caressed her small toes. Toes that sank into soft beige sand. Her large green eyes widened as the sea ebbed to draw water lines across her feet and streak the shore – darkening it to a muddy brown whenever it withdrew. She screamed with delight at the receding liquid tugging beneath her heels, and again whenever it sprang forth to bubble around her delicate shins, cooling her legs. Still the adults did not look her way, so she paddled off in search of more treasure for her plastic bucket.
An abundance of multifarious sea gems bejewelled the shoreline. Glimmering in the summer sun. Danni toddled along the coast, collecting up as many seashells as she could find.
She spoke to her parents quite regularly. Making comments like, ‘This one pretty,’ and, ‘Look, nuhver one!’ and, ‘Mummy, Dadda, see!’
Swept up in the sea’s spell, eyes skimming from one shell to another, Danni filled the entire bucket before the great distance she’d travelled dropped anchor in her ingenuous mind. For when she did look up, the seafront was a stranger, and her parents were nowhere to be seen.
Before her, the beach was studded with holidaymakers. Families and young children. Mothers and fathers busy staking out windbreakers, sunning themselves, placating over-excited children, building sandcastles, or playing fetch with yappy pet dogs. There were parents everywhere, none of whom were her own. Behind her was the great swell of the sea. Stretching out for miles to a horizon that mingled with a sky so blanched in sunshine that it looked to her like a great white nothingness.
All sound, from screeching gulls and flapping kites to children playing and parents flipping sand off large towels, crashed in her tiny ears. The distant merry-go-round and bouncy castle. The pap-pap of bat and ball. The heaving mass of human energy hitting her fragile heart at the speed of a killer whale.
And the seaweed scent, clashing with the ambrosia of sticky seaside rock and ice cream, curdled in her gut when she inhaled. She drew in another breath, this time a briny whiff of cockles and winkles, vinegar and pepper. In a futile attempt to soothe her dizziness, she choked down yet another fear-driven helping of sea breeze. This time catching traces of a nearby chippy leaking the stench of hot fat into the wind. Nausea bulked inside her like a seasick sailor.
She scoured the beach but could not see her parents anywhere. She had an ocean, all to herself, brimming in her eyes.
‘Mummy,’ Danni wept. A tidal wave of tears drowned her face.
She dropped the bucket, sprinkling the clicking shells across a golden patch of sand. The sea crept towards her, curious as to how this creature made her own water. Wishing to see the sea cascading from those great green orbs. It whispered to her through the conch.
Danni rumpled her brow. Cast her eyes over the spiral delight embedded in the sand a few feet from where she stood. A soft voice spoke to her in underwater tones. The secret hiss of the sea swishing over her like a watery dream.
In response, Danni dropped onto her knees, crawled forwards, then stopped, arching her back and leaning over the conch, as though only she could know its secrets. Her shadow cast a black silhouette on the shore, blotting out the sun. The shell adopted a crisp and fragile appearance without the glamour of the day’s sparkling light. Without the sheer, liquescent coat borrowed from the sea. Her shadow was a sobering towel, drying off the wet gleam.
The call of the conch silicified in the air, growing thirsty for the sea. Gasping at first. Making a sound like cracking fossils. Then came a muted rasping, no louder than a trawled, gaping fish. Danni bent her head to one side, pressing her left ear to the shell, and its resonance altered at once. A soft and mellifluous tune broke free. A magnetic lilt that pincered her ears, no less cruelly than a siren’s song.
As Danni yielded to its beguiling salt-cry, the approaching waves licked the dry wind off her legs. She flattened herself against the gentle slope. Lay like a baby seal, wetting her fine toddler hair in the slick sand. Listening to the ethereal echoes of the conch. Its furtive notes singing through the interstices of breaking waves, rising through the swash zone in a hush-hush: You belong to the sea.
Its words lulled the child into a muffled dream but was broken suddenly by a woman’s scream. And two long-limbed men came bolting across the sands. Wading frantically into the waves, shouting and diving. Grabbing at liquid nothing. To Danni, they were rippling figures growing darker and silent and distant as she sank in a funnel of bubbles. Glugging downwards and away from human arms.
Her bottom touched down on the seabed, forced there by an overwhelming gulp of wave. A crab swivelled its gaze, eyes like black stones. It was bright orange, suspended in a vortex of sand, unable to conceive her plight.
A large draft of water had flooded her throat. She was full of the sea. Had become the sea. There was water on the inside and water on the outside – it was everywhere – and there was nowhere it was not.
Danni and the sea were one.
5 Comments
Izzy August 1, 2025 Great use of the lexical field / I’m learning about it at school and this prose really pops! I really loved this 🫶🏻
Stu August 4, 2025 This grabbed me from the start and had me feeling sick with horror. Very well written story.
Tia August 4, 2025 Can’t wait to read part two after reading this! Interesting start to a Little Mermaid tribute. Beautiful writing & totally immersive. Thank you .R
Sarah Griffin September 8, 2025 Great writing, really felt like I was on the shoreline with her! Looking forward to reading the next one!
Two
The gritty sea bottom scraped against the skin on Danni’s twisting limbs. She blinked and her lids were heavy, soaked in brine. She gazed into the blue so deep, so immense – so formidable. A new world, filled with its own sounds. Muffled, distorted, turbulent.
Something stirred behind a furl of nomadic seaweed, itinerant on the currents. Whatever it was had caused a great nimbus of sand to lift from the seabed. Opaquing her vision with its bewildering cloud.
Danni blinked a second time. Closing her lids slowly, then opening them again to let in the sea and two wide-set eyes. Pebble black and ancient. Gleaming with kindness and wisdom.
The eyes blinked back at her from out of a splotchy face. Grinning a gummy smile and nodding a pink chin in welcome. The creature wore a permanently fixed expression of engraved satisfaction. As if it had just downed a bloom of jellyfish.
‘Hello, I’m Cori,’ it said.
Danni nodded feebly, said nothing. Just pointed to the surface, patched in sunlight.
‘What’s so great up there?’ Cori chuckled.
Danni tried her best to say ‘Mummy, Dadda,’ but bubbles rushed out of her throat and all she said was: ‘Glob-glob-glob.’
Cori rolled his large eyes and inhaled the sea through two large nostrils. And Danni goggled at this mysterious creature, immediately mirroring him by breathing in a generous glug of water. Its suddenness inducing a dizzy spell. Tiny bubbles popped all about her head. Causing Cori to guffaw cheerily. Emitting a squeak not unlike the noise of a boat’s rudder in need of a good grease.
Danni laughed too, but hers was a bubble fest. She patted his face. It was soft and rubbery, causing her to gurgle with amusement.
‘This won’t do,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry, child, but I cannot take you to the surface. That’s not my call, for you have been claimed by the sea.’ He gestured with his mottled head to her clenched fist.
Danni’s eyes swung to the conch she gripped fiercely in her palm. Instinct secured it inside her vice-like fingers, as though letting go would drown her fast.
‘Good girl,’ Cori clicked in his funny voice. ‘You hold on to that tight now. Don’t let go. The surface is out of bounds.’
Danni shook her head and pointed again at the sky and the sun and the land she was born to – where she belonged. Or belonged no more.
‘No.’ Cori shook his big old head.
Danni wanted to cry but water was everywhere – tears were unnecessary.
In response to the little girl’s distraught demeanour, Cori tried to explain: ‘You must not return to land. Up there, you’d be washed ashore and there would be no hope. You’d find it hard to breathe the air. Because … well, because you now breath the sea.’
Danni did not understand and pointed again to the surface.
‘No,’ Cori insisted. ‘No can do, kiddo. I guess I’ll have to take you along with me.’
Using his chin, he nudged the child across the seabed – but it was slow-going. His patience wore thin. After all, Cori was a leatherback turtle and not used to dealing with small children. So he picked her up in his mouth, grasping the scruff of her blue floral-print dress, and slung her over his back.
Bestraddling her new friend, she managed to balance well in a nook between the back of his head and the mosaic-boned shell. Using her free hand to grip the skin on his crown.
Cori journeyed on – swimming steadily through the deep blue sea. Bearing a child, no longer of the land but not quite a creature of the water. Not yet. Danni was bright and shiny new. A freshwater pearl. And Cori knew that if the child was to adapt then she’d need to be with her own kind. Well, folk close enough to her own kind, at any rate.
Both turtle and girl traversed the deep, meeting many a curious creature along the way. Champion schools of multi-coloured fish, darting at sharp angles, drawing in close, then dashing off again in a funnel of liquid orbs. A fluther of soft, misshapen things would drift on by – all squishy and gelatinous – amorphous and ethereal – that is until Cori opened his mouth and guzzled them down – and, to Danni’s surprise, even the ones with spiky tentacles. The hypnotic sway of a cuttle fish. The wriggly legs of an octopus. One made her sleepy, the other made her laugh. She pointed at the marine fauna, eyes for ever wide at the sheer diversity of life under the sea. And Cori, being the wise old boy that he was, did his utmost to educate her to the best of his knowledge on life in the deep.
After travelling for the best part of the afternoon, a weird and surreal-looking jellyfish approached. It was about the size of a small plate, transparent and lit with a milky glow.
‘Look!’ Danni cried, her voice now becoming accustomed to her liquiescent environment. ‘The moon has fallen into the sea!’ She reached out a hand to touch it, and before Cori could warn her, the creature stung her on the finger. ‘Ouch!’ she wailed.
‘It will hurt for a little while,’ nodded Cori. ‘Silly child. Don’t go touching the jellies.’
‘I thought it was the moon,’ sobbed the baby girl.
‘It’s an easy mistake to make. But these creatures sting. Luckily for you, this one gives off a mild venom, the smarting lasts not long. But beware all the same.’
‘You eat the jellies.’
‘Yes, but they don’t sting my mouth nor my throat.’
‘Why?’
‘I got spikes down there. It stops them from stinging me. I just enjoy them as they slide down – yummy yum-yum,’ clicked the turtle.
Danni fell silent as she processed. She wondered what the spikes looked like inside Cori’s throat. She got the urge to ask him to open wide so she could see but thought better of it. Something about it scared her a little bit. Instead, she gulped. Said, ‘Oh, my finger hurts.’
Cori swam over to a nearby reef, tugged on a sea anemone. It secreted an inky substance that plumed before their eyes. Dark and wraith-like. Danni squirmed in fright, but Cori encouraged her to wriggle her finger in the spillage. She did as she was told, cautiously, and the pain immediately subsided.
Instead of continuing into the vast blue ocean, the turtle lingered. He did not say why but glanced up warily at the rippling waves and the darkening sky that now dripped deep-purple hues across the waters. The moon had reared its silken head, revealing circling black triangular shapes. Rotating in an ever-increasing whirlpool of shadow. His big old face focused on those shadows especially.
Beneath it all, Danni played with the funny-looking flowers. Prodding them and flicking the little fishes that gathered there, making up a game of fishtail tiddlywinks. Totally unaware of the moving shadows above them. She did not know what a shark was yet.
When the danger had passed, Cori moved on with the child on his leathery back. Danni still clutched the conch in her hand. A shell that was apart from all the others in the world. A special shell. Magical and filled with ocean-deep secrets. Its echo revealed the soul of the sea. And it was the only thing keeping her alive.
2 Comments
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- Author Reply: September 9, 2025 Yes! Fluther! I love it too!
Three
‘You know,’ Cori muttered in a casual voice, ‘It normally takes me months to arrive somewhere like here. But we made it in the best part of an afternoon. I reckon that shell you got there, kiddo, is pretty special. Don’t you think?’
‘I agree,’ nodded the child.
‘Why, it’s as if it is guiding us somewhere. Don’t you think?’
‘I don’t know where,’ shrugged the child. ‘I don’t even know where here is.’
Cori chuckled. ‘That’s all right. You don’t need to know where it is – only that it’s a lot warmer.’
‘But it’s cooling down now.’
‘Well, it’s growing dark. We’ll have to find some place to sleep,’ Cori said. ‘Normally, I’d sleep on the surface and let the current take us, but we’ve covered a lot of water already, so travelling’s not an issue, and it’s not good for you up there anyhow. Not anymore. So I will leave you down here on the reef, take a quick gulp of air up there, and return to nestle down among the rocks with you, kiddo. If you don’t mind being on your own for a little while?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Good.’ Cori wrinkled his big old brow and kind of smiled. ‘You know that shell of yours has you growing fast and talking quicker. Your vocabulary is in competition with your bones to see who can grow the fastest!’
‘It’s magic!’ Danni chimed.
‘I’ll tell you what it is, kiddo, it’s the only thing keeping you alive and keeping me in gusto. Don’t you let go while I’m getting some air. Cos, unlike you, I still need to breathe.’
‘I’m fine.’
‘Righty-o, then.’ Cori swerved away from Danni and climbed the depths to refill his lungs.
She watched him surface. His shoulders rocking in the last of the sun’s rays. Then she glanced down to see tiny fish disappearing behind strange and brightly coloured vegetation. Tucking their tails in for the night.
She curled up among the rocks and weird little plants. Her head rested next to one that reminded her of broccoli. A stab of pain hit her heart as she recalled Mummy with a forkful of the stuff, coaxing her to eat a morsal that flew close to her mouth as Dadda chirped, ‘Aeroplanes!’
Danni had squeezed her lips together in disgust so that it fell into her upturned bib. Kicking defiantly in her highchair. It was the last memory she’d ever have of her parents. For in her hand the conch softly glowed like an algae bloom. And the brighter it got, the dimmer her memories of being human became.
It wasn’t long before Cori was at her side and snoozing. But Danni could not sleep. The underwater world was spooky at night. A thin line of satin, as white as marine snow, iced the edges of the rocks. A half-moon sparingly lit the dark waters, and the ocean chill cooled her flesh.
‘Tomorrow,’ whispered the conch, ‘you will be colder.’
Danni sat up and unknotted her fingers from the shell. As she did it sparked luminous blue, then gold, then cream – all buttery bright. The voice came again: ‘You must travel to the cold place, deep in Earth’s core.’
‘I don’t wanna,’ Danni said petulantly, shaking her head. ‘I just want my…’ she would have finished that sentence with ‘mummy’ but now she did not remember ever having a family. She was just Danni of the sea. And Cori and the conch were all she knew.
Her limbs now had stretched long and smooth. The dress had torn off her body like an old rag and she was as a naked as the day she was born. She noticed a tuft of hair growing near the place where she peed. And wondered why. She shook her head and suddenly her hair was thick and long. A gyre of soft, reddish-brown locks. Coiling like seaweed and rising up in pretty swirls. Highlights gifted naturally by the constant moon.
‘Speak better, you are no longer a child,’ said the voice in the conch. And Danni froze. Those words. They were like sparkling pearls of clarity, saturating her with fresh intelligence. Her porous mind surrendered to its transmission. The shell’s acumen resounding, dreamlike, in her head.
That evening, while Cori dozed, Danni listened to the voice in the shell. Captured by its oceanic song. Seized by its light, its knowledge, its magics. And by the time the turtle opened its wizened eyes, Danni was a fully grown woman.
One Comment
Sarah Griffin September 9, 2025
I need a conch reminding me I’m not a child anymore! Looking forward to the next installment!
Four
Cori didn’t seem surprised to see how fast Danni had grown overnight. Only Danni was in awe of her new adult form. And kept stroking her fingers along her curves and along all the voluptuous places, giggling as though her maturity had not caught up with her body.
While she was distracted by herself, Cori had an idea and searched the reef. Finding a strip of kelp and bringing it to Danni.
‘Here,’ he said, ‘I thought we could hang that shell of yours round your slender neck. That way you won’t lose it as we journey on, and you can use both hands to hold on to me.’
He passed the kelp to Danni who gratefully wrapped it around the conch and fastened it to her neck. It sat in the crook of her breastbone, gently glimmering.
‘Now climb on, woman,’ Cori instructed.
Danni gripped the creature, and they sped off at breakneck speed. Soaring through the ocean to colder climates. Descending from the blue to the deathly cold shadows that lurked in the deepest depths.
‘We are heading into the scars of Earth,’ Cori explained. ‘I’ve never been here before but heard plenty, mind you. I think it is the only solution, woman, otherwise I would not venture here. And only that shell of yours is allowing me this right. For my own shell would surely perish under the pressure without the protection of the conch. Do you understand, woman?’
‘Yes. I do. And my name’s Danni,’ she replied, marvelling at how her mind had somehow magically held on to her identity.
‘That’s what they called you, up there?’
‘Yes. You never asked me for it but told me yours.’
‘Well now, mine has volume. Yours is just a land name. Us turtles don’t concern ourselves with human titles. Only sea-bright names work in the water.’
‘Sea-bright names?’
‘That’s right. It’s another reason I’m taking you this far. You’ll need to be named if you want to survive.’
‘But… I’m Danni.’
‘The further down we go the less power that name holds. You will need a new name, woman. In the sunless world.’
As they plumbed the depths of the scars of Earth, they drew closer to a fake bottom – a brown substance. Danni run a finger through the wispy floss. It broke against her hand as easily as dust. As she did this, she felt her body soften like a Mariana Snailfish. Her bones dissolved and Danni changed again. Bioluminescent. Glowing as brightly as the conch about her neck. And the turtle’s leathery back softened too. His body becoming squidgy and fluid.
As they delved into the abyss of the trench, many bohemian creatures lit up unexpectedly, curiousity attracting them closer. Many appeared like monsters or transparent alien lifeforms. Strangely shaped beings living in unforgiving darkness.
Danni’s eyes adjusted to the gloom as they dropped further than any human had ever gone. She was astounded to find that human litter sporadically floated past. For even though her fellow humans could not venture here, their rubbish could.
‘You see,’ grumbled Cori, ‘here’s a good reason why us leatherbacks don’t concern ourselves much with land-folk. You’re better off losing your human name, woman.’
All Danni could do was nod. There was no argument. The evidence abounded. But before she could comment, the soft stuff beneath them gave way, parting like floor curtains. The turtle and the woman swam directly through it and into a world of soft lights and muted green turrets, adorned with gems, ocean flowers, shells, and otherworldly accoutrements.
A silver stream flowed like a moving track towards a gargantuan palace. Pearl-clad and iridescent in its own enigmatic light. No longer could she hear the sounds of the ocean. Her ears were drenched in the immaculate beauty of notes too exquisite for the land-folk. She heard octaves of musical notes no human ear had ever heard. Its vibration had her lit up in lilacs and periwinkle pastels. The shell around her neck pulsed and purpled the closer they drew to the palace.
‘This place sure does twinkle with its own charismatic magics,’ Cori laughed, for he too was lit up in an ombre of pastels.
‘It’s majestic,’ Danni replied. Lost for words.
Suddenly, the silver stream burst into a spray of fizzing bubbles to reveal shell-shaped gates. The conch pulsed faster with light. As though to knock and gain ingress. In response, the gates opened wide.
Cori and Danni drifted into the underwater palace and were met by a thousand pale-green eyes. Predacious glowers, ultra cold like an ice-white sea. The top half of their bodies were human-like. The bottom halves – not.
Cori had brought Danni here under the magics of the conch. A place he knew of but had never seen. A place where the merfolk lived. Away from the prying eyes of humans. In the abyss of the Earth. Beneath its scars. Where no human had ventured – until now.
One Comment
Five
All eyes fell upon the shell secured about Danni’s neck as she passed through the parting throng of fishtailed folk. Some hissed at her, revealing sharp teeth and pointed tongues. Others gaped in awe. Many retracted into shadow. Wriggling like black eels behind diamond-bright stalagmite pillars.
‘To survive here you must first be named,’ Cori said. ‘I’m taking you to the throne room to meet King Orca.’
‘Those creatures want to eat me,’ Danni replied, not taking her eyes off the unwelcoming denizens of the deep.
‘Ridiculous,’ Cori croaked. ‘It is me they will eat. You are like them, with the exception of your legs, of course. They do not eat their own kind. But they are partial to turtle flesh, nonetheless.’
‘So why would you bring me here, if it is so dangerous?’
‘The conch.’
‘The conch?’
‘Yes, it summoned me.’ Cori turned a corner and the two of them continued to swim down a long pearl-encrusted pathway lined with shell-adorned pillars. The water glistened virescently; crystal-clear jades illuminated the way. Tiny fish, brightly coloured, danced poetically in the undulating glamour. The sheer cold vanished, along with all the merfolk. The water warmed. All was still.
‘So you had no choice but to follow its call?’ Danni almost choked on her question. Was this turtle a friend at all? Or simply manipulated by some otherworldly force?
‘Indeed, I would not be able to converse with you without your magic shell. It chose a creature of the deep to guide you here. I am that creature. My role in your story serves a purpose. But soon I will not speak to you again. For how can a turtle talk to a woman? It is impossible, in reality.’
Danni’s heart was a wild vortex. Tears might have poured from her eyes – but there was no way of telling with all the wet that was everywhere and everything. Her eyes grew salt caked and crusty at his words. ‘I thought you and I…’
‘Were what? Ocean buddies? Foolish,’ Cori interjected. ‘Listen, woman, how do you suppose you matured in less time than it takes for the moon to pass over the ocean? And how fast did we travel across Earth’s waters? Is that a natural occurrence? No. It is the conch, woman, and if you had let go of it, you would have drowned. Instead, you are here. And here we are.’
They had arrived before a gigantic seashell, resembling an oyster – if an oyster was twenty feet high. The conch emitted a sea-foamy glow, limning her breastbone. It sparkled with turquoise and coral pink in the emerald wash of the deep.
In response, the oyster-door gleamed its nacreous welcome. Opening wide to an opulent, crystalline room. At its centre, upon a plump – yet slippery – cushion, sat King Orca. An iridescent glare in his eyes kindled at the sight of the conch.
Danni and Cori drifted into his lair as meek as sand grains in a rip current. The fathomless depths of the king’s silence stretched into infinity. And, like the merfolk of his realm, he did not divert his gaze from the glowing pink conch.
After a tide-turning age he said, ‘Neptune’s Soul …’
That was all he said. And Danni was not sure why he had said it or what it even meant. She looked at the turtle. Cori shrugged his large shoulders and blinked slowly in response. He knew but would not speak without royal permission.
The king rose from his throne in an almighty whoosh of bubbles and swam towards his visitors with a powerful swish of his immense tail. ‘Extraordinary!’ he exclaimed. He reached out a trembling fist as if to snatch the conch for himself, thought better of it, and retreated. His eyes aglow with wonder.
Danni bowed her head. ‘Your Eminence,’ she said – not knowing if this was the correct way to address the king, but the conch pulsed against her skin as though it had planted the title in her mind, so she went on: ‘if I may be as bold as to speak?’ The great king nodded haughtily, and Danni continued. ‘This conch has brought us to your kingdom. Without it, I might have drowned.’
‘Without it, you surely will!’ he affirmed.
‘I believe,’ Danni went on in a tremulous voice, ‘the conch led me to your realm.’
‘Then you are no land-creature,’ he replied. ‘I suspect you were born to the land by mistake. You have legs, true, but you are a child of the deep. If the sea had not claimed you, the land would have surely destroyed you.’
Danni’s eyes widened at this fresh news. Had she been born to the land by accident? As a mistake? Was this where she was supposed to be?
‘I am King Orca,’ said the king. ‘And you are?’
Danni looked at Cori. Then back at the king. The king nodded at the turtle, giving him permission to join the conversation.
‘Your Eminence,’ Cori said, ‘it is a great honour to be in your presence. If I may humbly explain … the young lady has lost her land-given name and needs a sea-bright title.’
‘Ah! Of course! For even with the rarest gift of Neptune’s Soul, you shall not last for ever down here without a name!’ the king remarked. ‘The conch, otherwise known as Neptune’s Soul, has been missing since the fading of the gods. And now you have returned it to its rightful kingdom. This makes you a princess of the deep. I am eager to learn about how you came by this oceanic treasure, my dear child. But first, we shall have a naming ceremony. Think of it as an initiation into your sovereignty – as a royal merchild.’
And with his words, the conch suddenly bulked, as if to grow bigger, and lit up in buttery yellows. All at once, the sound of a choir singing poured from its lip. A splash of mermaids spilled into the throne room, as if from nowhere. Some dangled stringed pearls, others held glistening starfish and bright sea flora in their webbed hands. They giggled and fluttered their pretty eyelashes at Danni. Swirling around her, sizing her up for an underwater make-over.
‘Daughters of the deep!’ commanded the king. ‘This is your new sister. You must dress her for the naming ceremony which shall commence in the Grand Cavern of Jewels. Dress the turtle for this occasion too. We shall have fun and frolics – in celebration of the return of Neptune’s Soul.’
Sarah Griffin September 10, 2025
Can’t wait to read the next episode
Six
The Grand Cavern of Jewels lived up to its name. It was an astounding sight. Danni gaped, wonder-struck, at the pretty gems bedazzling the walls. Their star-like shimmers reflecting in the great pools of her eyes. Numerous chairs, carved from shells and coral, had been arranged in rows. Each one ornately dressed in ribbons of eelgrass and thickly thronged oarweed. Rose bubble tips blushed the aisles. And the high-vaulted ceiling was festooned in little turquoise beads. All around, where stalactite kissed stalagmite in sweet surrender, little nibs of mineral deposits glittered. Giving the pillars an ethereal sheen. The place was splendorous, like nothing Danni had ever seen in her incredibly short life.
At one end there was a raised platform of flattened stone. Upon it was another throne, pearlescent and sleek. Awaiting its king.
Neptune’s Brides (for Danni had learned to call her new sisters by this title) ushered her into the cavern, accompanied by Cori. Who was not so enamoured and incredibly jumpy. Danni couldn’t help wondering if the turtle was afraid of becoming an inevitable feast. She shuddered and swore to herself she’d do everything in her power to never let that happen.
The mermaids worked fast, garbing her in all sorts of sea gems, shells, kelp, and marine flora. Plus two outrageous hoops of tropical fish circling her lower limbs like animated anklets. Her sisters did not speak much but laughed hard to make up for it. They seemed particularly curious of her feet and legs. Dressing them, not only in fish but strings of pearls and shiny clams. Her lower half gleamed with fishtail-shaped effect by the time they had finished. Not once did they pay any attention to the conch, nor did they touch it. Even by accident. They behaved as though it was Danni’s and Danni’s alone.
The conch glowed gold and peach now and sang a merry tune. Resonating throughout the cavern like a siren’s song. In swift response, the merfolk arrived en masse. Filling the rows and chattering excitedly. And poor Cori flipped out of sight. Vanishing in a sudden propulsion of popping bubbles. Paddling hurriedly away, behind a tall pillar. Staying firmly put for the duration.
Danni could not follow, attempt to coax him out – for as soon as Cori decamped, the conch began to change its colour. Lighting up in purple and gold. This time a slow, punchy song rang out from the magical shell around her neck. At its call, the king entered. Draping himself across the throne. Languidly swishing his teal-blue tail back and forth. The crowd fell silent.
Danni was pulled forwards to hover beside King Orca. The conch had manoeuvred her there by some unseen force. Its colour had changed again. This time, rainbow bright. Creating prisms of multicoloured light all over the cavern. The light bounced off the gems and glitter, creating a phantasmal space in that sunless world. The deep had its own light. It did not need the land-folk’s star.
‘Welcome, princess,’ King Orca said.
The crowd erupted into an appraising song. The king graciously waited until they had settled down before he spoke again. When he did, he told the legend of the conch. How it had once been the horn of Triton, bringing messages from Neptune to all the seas and oceans across the globe. And when the gods faded, Neptune had acted fast. Securing his soul inside the conch, thus preserving his immortality.
Sadly, as time passed, it was lost. A prophecy told of a day when it would return to the merfolk by way of a baby girl. One with legs, not a tail. A secret daughter of the sea who would choose to be born on land so that she might find the conch. Restore it to the heart of the ocean. And by doing so, she would shed her childhood years and walk among the merfolk, a grown woman.
All eyes fell upon Danni. She was bashful but thankful that most of the faces were now fairly amicable. A few individuals still appeared hostile but possibly afraid – that was all.
‘And now, in honour of our lost princess, we must give her a name befitting her sovereignty,’ announced the king. The crowd cheered and little sea horses soared upwards like streamers. Again, King Orca, patiently awaited the crowd’s silence. Then: ‘I hereby name her Princess …’
The name he spoke was utterly unpronounceable. Incomprehensible. Magical. An oceanic feat to recall. Danni pursed her lips, not knowing how to react. She did not wish to insult anybody by admitting that she could not grasp her own sea-bright name. But she worried for nothing because the king and his people knew this already. They were expecting it. And so, the king went on to say, ‘In a language you understand, my daughter, your name is Little Mermaid.’
Danni relaxed her shoulders and brightened like a sun-kissed ocean crest when the cavern erupted into a choir of celebrative song. The king smiled and said: ‘Daughter of the deep, the youngest princess, you are so special.’ In response to his words, the conch shone brightly. Sparkling with hues of clownfish orange, reds, golds, greens.
‘The conch sitting tidily around Little Mermaid’s neck,’ instructed the king, ‘must never be touched. Not by a single merperson – including myself. For to touch it would jeopardize its existence. It is an ancient magic that belongs only to the princess. Nobody must touch the conch. And when, as the prophecy foretells, the conch turns black and drops from her neck, she will grow a fishtail. And our god, Neptune, shall return to us, in the flesh, to watch over our seas and oceans until the end of time.’
Another great cheer went up, and Danni could not help but grin wildly. For she had found a home. And a family. She had found her way back to where she truly belonged.
Danni (or The Little Mermaid, as she was now known) had been robbed of a childhood, on land. Had become a beloved daughter of the sea instead. A Bride of Neptune. A royal princess.
Years passed. She spent many a day frolicking under the sea with her friend, Cori – who never got eaten by the way. He was her best friend after all.
And so, the Mermaid princess lived happily ever after.
Didn’t she?
Well, yes. She did…
Right up to the point where the conch turned black and dropped off. And the prophecy of Neptune’s return came true.
Sarah Griffin September 10, 2025
Love the descriptions of the Grand Cavern of Jewels, I felt as if I was there too. I will move swiftly to the next installment!
Seven
Twenty years passed under the sea. And in all that time Danni kept her legs. The brides of Neptune worked effortlessly to dress her every day. Decorating her bottom half in lavish sea gems and exotic fish. Customising her legs to appear fish-tailed. And Danni grew accustomed to swimming with both legs together – as if she really did have a tail.
Over the years she’d often wondered why King Orca had, at first, believed her to be an accident. For he had soon changed his mind, believing her presence in the underwater city to be aligned with the prophecy – but prophecies could be distorted. The merfolk believed that the return of their lost god would improve their lives. Although Danni could not see how. Their world was already perfect, as far as she was concerned.
How would some ancient god improve on a world such as hers? They had everything here. Music so sweet, her heart doubled in size when she listened. It tripled when she joined in with the Mariana Choir. Dahlia, a Bride of Neptune (Danni’s mind instinctively translated merfolk-names into land-names), had spent many an hour teaching her the allure of the siren’s song. The secret, magnetic draw was in the space between the notes. And with great diligence and patience, Danni gradually began to train her vocal cords to deftly manipulate the nothing hiding in the musical dynamics of her own voice. This brought her immeasurable bliss, was one of her favourite pastimes.
Quite often Cori would be lured by her call. Swimming about her and waving his flippers, doing his comical turtle dance. And Danni knew that while she sang, he was enchanted. Under her spell. And she wondered, only sometimes, if she surfaced and sang her songs in the dry air, what kind of land creatures might she attract? Thinking such thoughts was treason, of course; not only to the king but to the imminent god of the ocean, who would one day return to govern all of Earth’s waters.
‘Wear your hair this way,’ said Sargasso, another Bride of Neptune. She was holding up a fresh string of pearls, eager to weave it into Danni’s flighty tresses.
What a funny one, she is, Danni thought, she’s so obsessed with my hair.
Danni’s hair was not brightly coloured, like the other mermaids. Their hair was limned in stolen moonbeams. Nacreous. Shimmering. A weave of underwater silk. But Danni’s was dull. Earthy. Brown like wet sand, streaked with strands of muted red. The colour of common algae. It swirled about her head with a feathery, plumose effect.
‘It doesn’t matter what you do, Sargasso,’ remarked another bride, Mangrovia. ‘Her hair is like her legs – of the land.’
‘Now, now, Mangrovia, don’t speak such words. Our sister is beautiful because she was born to the land. She is the bringer of Neptune’s Soul. That makes her far more beautiful than any of us.’
‘Oh, please. Look at her,’ Mangrovia sniggered, rolling her eyes and folding her arms across her breasts.
‘Mangrovia, help me drape these pearls into her crown. I need to weave them into place so they do not slip.’
‘Ouch, your fingers are sharp,’ Danni groaned. Her sister was tugging on her scalp.
‘Mangrovia! Not so hard, please,’ instructed Sargasso.
‘You wanted my help. I’m helping,’ snapped the other sister.
‘Little Mermaid, hold still. There. Done.’ Sargasso swam back a little way to admire her creation. At the same time, Mangrovia darted away, swifter than a shark hunting an octopus. ‘Ignore her. She’s a funny one. Why, yesterday, I caught her gossiping about how much time you spend with Cori. I scolded her, of course.’
‘What’s wrong with Cori?’
‘Well, it’s nothing really.’
‘Sargasso …’
‘OK. Fine. Well, we merfolk have a congenital appetite for turtles. Or did. Until you showed up with a talking leatherback and claimed he was a friend of yours. Ever since that day, King Orca has been stubbornly adamant that turtles are no longer a dish for the table. They used to be part of a staple diet here, you know. A favourite meal. But not now. Not since -’
‘Me.’
‘Oh, it’s fine. I never even tried the dish, personally. That culinary delight existed before I did. But yesterday, I caught Mangrovia snarking to the others about how you “play with your food”, and that it is not becoming for a bride to entertain such a creature.’
‘I had no idea. Do the others feel this way?’ Danni’s eyes grew large with alarm. Had she disappointed her beautiful sisters, whom she adored? Did they all yearn to eat poor Cori?’
‘No. It’s all nonsense,’ said Sargasso, shrugging the matter off with an elegant toss of her perfect curls. ‘Mangrovia needs to grow up. She’s such a funny thing.’ A mischievous expression sparked in Sargasso’s blue-topaz eyes, and the corners of her mouth twisted into a sneaky grin. ‘Hey, I’ve got an idea!’ she trilled. While it’s just you and me, this morning, how about we go for a swim?’
‘OK. Where would you like to go? Dolphin Splash Gardens? The Reef Dome? Ooh, lets go to Choir Cavern and learn that new song our dear sister Lilythrift has created. We have time. We have the whole morning. Can I bring Cori?’
‘Slow down,’ laughed Sargasso. ‘Cori’s still asleep. Let’s just go for a quiet swim. You know, you are almost twenty-two land-year’s old. We are the closest in age. Although I am slightly older. And there is much you have not explored yet. I want to show you.’
‘I know every part of the kingdom,’ Danni replied with a frown.
‘But you’ve never ventured outside, into the wide ocean.’
‘Oh.’
‘Would you like to see it?’
‘We’re not supposed to -’
‘Come on!’
Before Danni could protest, Sargasso grabbed her by the arm and was swimming away with her – the propulsion of her fishtail effortlessly zooming through the deep at speeds Danni could not possibly match with her land-legs.
It wasn’t long before they reached the great shell gates. The same ones she’d arrived at all those years ago, travelling upon Cori’s back. Only this time, the conch did not need to glow to open them. For Sargasso knew how to pick the lock with her long nails. And soon they were free of the palace.
Set loose, into the wilderness of the deep blue ocean. Ready for adventure.
Sarah Griffin September 10, 2025
Looking forward to tagging along with their adventures 😁
Eight
Through the veil of the trench’s false bottom went the two brides. As they emerged into the wild ocean, the pair got caked in sticky brown gunk which they brushed off one another with haste, cursing the curtains between their world and the deep, deep blue.
A shark tailed them for some time until Sargasso whacked it hard in the snout with her powerful fishtail. Then it decided to leave them both alone and, catching the scent from a single drop of blood some distance away, swivelled into the blue until it was nothing more than a watery smudge.
The two friends were free. Danni was awash with a sudden surge of exhilaration. She felt dangerous. Rebellious. A new world stretched out before her – an indigo expanse of wild, unexplored waters that she had passed through only once before, with Cori.
The memory of it was faint now. More of a feeling than anything vivid and substantial. She’d sacrificed her childhood to the sea. For a merfolk world. A place where all sea-people emerged whole and complete. Perfectly adult and already accustomed to the watery depths. It was their nature to be born this way. They were the true masters of marine life. Nature governed their survival and anonymity by robbing them of an underdeveloped physical body, and gifting them with super vitality, extreme fitness, and uncannily sharp wits instead. To be part of them (to join such a splendorous underwater family), Danni had shed her babyhood like a moulting crustacean. Only (because of her legs) she was more woman than mermaid.
In her mind, in her heart, Danni was a mermaid. She knew no other way to be. She had no recollection of the land. She had never seen the surface through her adult eyes. Until this day.
Danni watched Sargasso pierce the skin of the water first. Her head and shoulders powerfully slicing through the navy crests reiterating above them. Danni gasped and instinctively held her breath as she smashed into the dry space, dragged by the arm; her upper body forced out of the water by her dear friend.
Danni noticed that Sargasso was eyeing her with amusement. Was it because she was holding her breath?
‘You can breathe, you know,’ said Sargasso.
Danni shook her head. Then dipped beneath the waves and took in a deep breath. She resurfaced with puffy cheeks, holding in air.
Sargasso laughed. ‘Silly! You can breathe!’ She grabbed Danni and tickled her under the arms, slapping her fleshy pink breasts and bony ribs.
Danni shrieked and giggled. Then relaxed. Sargasso was right, of course. She could breathe. As easily as she could under the water. Only now the breathing wasn’t wet. It was not part of the sea even though it was, even though it was perfectly natural. As though sea and air were in a stable marriage where the contract honoured both partners for their extreme differences. She could wet-dry breathe. It was easy.
‘Come on, there’s much to learn. Let me show you,’ smiled Sargasso.
Danni nodded and followed her sister. The pair skimmed the surface like a couple of pebbles, covering almost seven thousand miles in hardly any time at all. They reached a rocky cliff face, and stopped to rest.
Suddenly a seagull shredded the air with a high-pitched screech. Causing them both to jerk and bob about in the bustling waves. The jewels, scalloping Danni’s crown, twinkled with salt spray. The creature eyed them beadily. Then took a dive and pecked viciously at Danni’s wet tresses. Snaffling a string of pearls into its sharp bright beak. Then it turned on its broad wing and climbed into the grey dome of cloud above their heads.
‘Scavenger!’ Sargasso shrieked.
‘That dry fish stole my hair accessories!’ Danni protested.
‘It’s a bird. It’s warm, like a dolphin, like us. Only it has wings. Land-people say “gull”.’
Danni raised an eyebrow at the creature making off with her treasure. Contemplating its nerve. ‘Huh … gull,’ she said.
Sargasso swam to a jutting rock and hoisted her tail upwards, using her muscular arms to heave herself out of the water. Danni mimicked her actions. After several failed attempts she figured out that her legs were a great help. Allowing her to clamber up and sit down on her rump, rather than slap down hard like Sargasso had to with her scaly tail. It was cold and slippery on the rock, and the water swelled in rebellion to their flight, willing the brides to return immediately.
The world was a cacophony of squalls, bird chatter, and the eternal pounding of sea against land. Noise invaded her ears as fresh sound. A harsh crescendo, so alien to Danni after a lifetime of merfolk harmonics in the peaceful and secret depths of the Mariana Palace. It was a minute or so before her ears adjusted to the heavy resonance of land vibration. But she had evolved beyond the limits of a human. She was merfolk strong and advanced enough to adapt fast to her new surroundings.
Sargasso waited patiently for Danni to adjust to the open air and the land. Breathing in the briny air and smiling at the glittering sun; so bold in the sky, burning through the charcoal clusters of evaporated water.
Just as Danni was settling on the rock, a new sound travelled on the winds. Human voices. Many human voices. Shouting and screeching excitedly.
‘People?’ Danni quizzed. ‘Land-folk?’
‘Yes. They all have legs, just like you,’ Sargasso replied. ‘I thought you’d like to spy some.’
‘Did you plan this?’
Sargasso could not contain herself and blurted: ‘I spoke to Cori. He told me this was roughly where he’d found you, when you were a tiny thing, drowning among the crabs and jellies.’
‘You mean, this is my land-home?’
‘It’s not your home, Little Mermaid.’
‘But you said -’
‘I said it’s where Cori found you. The land is not your home. Home is with me. With your family at the palace. King Orca says it is forbidden for you to venture above the waves. We have been instructed to keep you from ever returning. Your sisters and I …’
Danni had never seen Sargasso look so awkward; she was trying to be honest; to tell her a truth that had been hidden from her, but it had clearly weighed heavy on her friend for a long time. Her shoulders drooped as much as the corners of her sea-glossed lips did. Her demeanour was careful and kind and she spoke softly.
An ordinary human would not have heard her words through the barrage of land-racket and all the turbulent human yelling.
‘We all surface – quite often. It’s only you who doesn’t,’ Sargasso finished. She let out a heavy sigh and did not meet Danni’s wide-eyed gaze.
‘Why does the king forbid it? Why did you bring me if it is forbidden?’
Sargasso suddenly seemed extremely interested in the distant shouts of the humans. They were audible but out of sight. Blocked from view by the intrusive cliffs.
‘Sargasso!’ Danni pleaded. ‘Tell me!’
‘You are the prophecy. You and the conch … you’re not supposed to surface in case the conch is lost to us. King Orca, he would not permit us to show you the World of Land. But I think it is wrong to keep you like a possession of the deep. You should be free.’
‘Sargasso, are you going to get in trouble for -’
‘He won’t find out – you won’t tell. Cori won’t tell. Nobody needs to know; I just wanted to share this with you because you deserve to see where you were born. You deserve to see the land. But it can only be this once. Otherwise we might be caught – I’m not taking the risk twice.’
The human commotion was growing manic and was difficult to ignore now. Sargasso gestured with a hand for the pair to slip back into the water and they swam around the cliff, into a wide bay, drawn by their own curiosity.
In the distance, jumping up and down on the shore, was a group of humans. Standing upright on their legs. They were waving their arms and screaming at the sea. A young man was swimming further and further away from the beach. The people shouted their warnings at him. He had gone too far. And they desperately implored him to return. But the young man ignored them, kept on swimming, until he disappeared behind some rocks.
That was when Danni noticed he was in trouble. Arms flailing. Scrabbling for purchase. His hands slipping down the jagged edges of the unforgiving boulders. His head dipped in and out of the water and he gasped for air whenever he resurfaced. He shouted ‘help’ and ‘cramp’ and Danni felt the terror in his voice. Then he was gone.
‘The sea has taken him,’ Sargasso said. ‘Come on, we must return now. You’ve seen what the land looks like. This might be the beach where Cori found you. It’s close enough. You’ve seen it. So let’s go before those land-folk see us.’
‘But the man …’
‘Is lost.’
‘He’ll drown.’
‘Yes, he will. He is. Now come, Little Mermaid. We must go.’
‘No!’ Danni slipped out of Sargasso’s reaching arms. Dived towards the spot where the man had sunk.
‘Sister! Come back!’ Sargasso cried. But her voice was watery-weak in the distance as Danni tore through the currents towards the unconscious man.
Her arms cinched his waist and she kicked out with her strong legs until she surfaced again. The man floppy in her embrace. Her eyes darted to the nearest stretch of land. A tiny inlet between two sheer cliffs offered a shingled sanctuary, albeit metres wide. Navigating the rocks and the choppy cross-currents, Danni raced him to the land.
Lying naked beside him, she studied his face. His hair. His chest. He was beautiful. But he had no breath in him. His body bulked with ocean swell.
Danni’s mind raced. What should she do? She could not let him die. What had saved her from drowning all those years ago?
The conch.
She touched the shell about her neck. Clutching it in her fist and bringing it to her lips. She whispered to it, willing it to work its magic on the man. It remained silent. The secrets of the sea hidden in its spiral. But Danni, determined to coax even a single drop of magic from the shell, began to sing the siren’s song. Focusing on the space between the notes. Drawing a spring of miracles from the conch’s flaring lip.
Her voice siphoned enough magic out of it to save the land-man, and his eyes flickered with life. Then he coughed up a gallon of water, rolled onto his side, and drew in breath. Gulping it down, cleaving to life.
Several minutes passed before he was able to sit up straight. When he did, his eyes fell upon the naked girl, singing beside him. Lulling his mind with her voice.
Danni could see the wonder in his face. She kept on singing (for once a mermaid begins a siren melody, it is difficult to stop). And the man kept on listening. He rocked a little, swaying in response to the notes. And when Danni finally did finish, the man snapped out of his hypnotic bubble. He shook his head. Blinked slowly. Then froze as his eyes met hers, as if she’d turned him to stone.
At first his expression was one of confusion. Then curiousity, as if he was wondering whether they’d met before; and finally his eyes locked into her as though she’d reached into him and stolen his heart.
The spark between them thrilled her. For Danni knew she had made a connection. Something pure and deeper than the Mariana Trench. More exhilarating than any friendships she’d formed with the men of the sea. This man had two legs – just like her. Only not like her.
As they gazed at one another, no words were spoken. Waves crashed against rocks. The wind whipped around the cliffs. Nature roared. And above it all – the pounding of her heart.
One Comment
Nine
The pounding of her heart: thud-thud, thud-thud, thud-thud.
No. Not her heart. Yes. Her heart. No. It was only the sea hurling itself irascibly at the rocks … No; it was the man.
A collision of his world into hers, hers into his … an intense impact, smack!, eye-to-eye. Presence. Heat. Her flesh quivered. Not from cold. From a frisson of electric sparks. From everything he was and everything he wasn’t. A man – yes. A fish-man – no. Not a fish at all. He was like her but male. A real and beautiful creature of the terrain. A dry man. With eyes so bewitching she thought she might drift into them and lose herself for ever.
It was not like being lost at sea, adrift on a vast ocean – not even close. It was bigger, wider, deeper than anything she’d ever …
‘Where did you come from?’ he spoke. His voice, although grazed by the sea, had a rich and velvet undertone that had her cascading into the realms of rapture. His tone caressing the walls of her enchanted reverie, and prompting her to answer him.
Danni moved her lips to speak. Answering in a tsunami of perfumed words: fresh salt combined with the woody notes of kelp on a sea breeze. Shaping her lips to form explanations. How she’d saved him from drowning, revived him on the shingle. But all that came out of her mouth in the cool dry space was an erratic jumble of sound. A dynamic tangle of high-pitched screeching and dark gravelly snarls. It was not human. It was not of the sea. It was beastly. She sounded like a monster from some unfathomable abyss. Some wicked place beneath the ocean bed.
She tried again, this time trying to explain in mellifluous song instead of speaking. But all that seemed to do was put her listener into a deep trance and she couldn’t be sure whether he’d understood her at all. Switching back to a talking voice did not work a second time round. She sounded even more ghastly than the first time she’d spoken. Poor Danni just could not get to grips with human communication. And, unless she sang like a siren, she sounded hideous.
So alarmed was she, at the sound of her own voice, she did not hesitate in twisting away from his striking face. Without pause, she decamped to the familiar comfort of the sea. ‘Wait!’ he shouted after her. ‘Come back! How am I supposed to …’ but she was gone. His words did not carry into the deep. Sargasso had witnessed the encounter and was waiting to drag her away, back to the safety of their own world. Far from the place of the land-walkers and the harsh, dry life above the surface of the sea.
Sargasso scolded her later. Why did she feel the urge to interact with the man? Why save him? His death need not have been her concern. She should not have intervened. The human world was a dark and deceptive place. Merfolk did not get involved. Merfolk did not reveal their existence. She, on the other hand, had touched a man. Given him a second chance at life. What had she been thinking?
Danni reminded Sargasso that she was not Merfolk. She still had legs. She was all heart. For anyone with a heart would surely save another from losing their life – if they could. And she had the physical strength enough to do it. So she had done it. So what?
‘You might not be Merfolk yet, but you soon will be,’ came Sargasso’s words. ‘And when that final change occurs you will see … you will see for yourself why we keep away from the land-walkers.’
‘I’m more of a land-walker than a fish. I will not change.’ Her reply was naïve. She knew it but said it anyway. If for no other reason than to bite back at her sister.
‘You are a fish born out of water. You are the daughter of prophecy. A deliberate misplacement. Not an accident. Not a drowned victim. You are Merfolk. And when Neptune is reborn to our kingdom, you will change.’ Sargasso’s words tore like shark prey. It was true. Danni had a destiny. So powerful was her path, so unavoidable, like the tide on a full moon. She stared at Sargasso, who did not waver in her affirmation and simply kept her iced orbs steady on her sister’s wilting face. ‘What do you have to say for yourself, Little Mermaid?’ she quizzed with a subtle glare of regret.
She wishes she never took me up there now, thought Danni, looking away and gazing into the sparkling luminescence of the palace lights, the uncanny glow of the turtle’s leathery back. For her dear friend, Cori, was swimming towards her now. Bringing with him a warm greeting that felt like family. Security. Home. But it was false. He’d simply brought her here by the will of Neptune. Their friendship was nothing more than the conch’s doing. It was the tether between animal and girl. That was all. Deep down she knew it.
The same went for all the Merfolk. They wanted to revive a god whose soul had diminished from the underwater world aeons ago. Why? To understand their own roots? The reason for existence? Did it matter? She was the catalyst for Neptune’s return. It’s why King Orca honoured her as a bride. It’s why they loved her. But that love was transactional. She had something they needed – she had their god on a string around her throat. And, until the day he emerged from the conch, she would have a home beneath the sea.
But what then? she wondered. Had often wondered. But now, having (albeit briefly) made a connection with a human being, someone with legs just like her, she looked at her situation with fresh eyes.
For the first time, as if waking from a drug-induced torpor, Danni did not see the Mariana Palace as the place where she belonged. She knew what to do, she must return to the surface. But first she must learn to speak the words of the land. She’d known some of those words once: Mummy, Dadda, pretty. Did she remember their meaning? Yes. Yes she did.
She smiled brightly at Cori and sped off to say hello. Leaving Sargasso to her scolding and her guilt. Cori knew the language of the shore, didn’t he? Or had he simply been using a unique line of communication specifically designed so that he could guide her to the Mariana Trench; via the conch? Well, yes, it was just Neptune’s deified intelligence working its arcane skills on his clumsy old turtle brain. It was ancient-god manipulation. And could she ask that same intelligence for help? Disclose the fact that she wanted to learn how to speak the human language? It was doubtful. It was probably not a good idea.
Danni’s thoughts quietly lapsed into soapy heart-shaped bubbles all bearing the face of the man she’d rescued. His dreamy eyes lulling her into a cocoon of bliss. Some heavenly space where land met sea in perfect harmony.
‘What’s with you?’ Cori asked.
Danni threw the turtle a bright smile. Her heart slowly pulsed to the rhythm of love. Beat only for the man above the surface. His features embedded in her mind, all lit up like sea sparkles. ‘Cori, tell me, is there anyone dwelling in the Mariana Trench with the ability to use ocean magic?’
‘You mean like god-magic? Like Neptune’s power?’ Cori shook his wrinkled head. ‘No. Only the conch has the power to do -’
‘I, er, think I heard one of my sisters talking about a -’
‘Sea witch?’
‘Yes.’
‘Huh, that’s probably something you should not think about,’ Cori replied in a hurry. He paddled furiously away, twisting in panic, as though he was afraid to even be caught discussing a sea witch with a Bride of Neptune.
‘Cori, look at me,’ instructed Danni.
Cori slowed, his bulk rocking in heavy liquid, and reluctantly paddled back round to face her. A resigned expression growing on his tired old turtle face. ‘Yes?’
‘Take me to her,’ Danni said.
‘No.’
‘Cori!’
‘Do I want to know why?’
‘No, Cori,’ she said, fiddling with the coral beads of her bracelet. ‘I don’t believe you do.’
Sarah Griffin October 5, 2025
Enjoyed reading it, looking forward to part 10!
Izzy October 19, 2025
I want more… when’s the next installment? I like the turtle. I like your imagery. I can really picture it. It’s so vivid and immersive- it feels like I’m underwater & it’s very flowy when you read it so it feels like it’s underwater- like I’m there. Thank you 🤩