Legs

                    A little mermaid peered over the edge of a rock that jutted out of the sea. She grasped its slick surface with her curious hands and watched the waves crash against the shore. It looked hostile yet somehow inviting. She had to get closer.

         She saw a gray tabby cat fishing for its dinner. The cat was delighted to tell the mermaid all about life on land. She spoke of her home in the cottage of a fisherman and then led the mermaid to a port so she could see the strange human creatures. 

         So many people darting to and fro, back and forth! The mermaid could hardly contain her excitement. She’d seen the fish of the sea and the birds of the air. She’d even met the animals who came to the shore and seen the humans on their boats, but none of that could compare to seeing so many humans at once. Some of them hadn’t any legs. Instead of walking they glided. Columns in many different colors shifted and swayed beneath them and stole all the mermaid’s attention.

         “Who are they, the ones who float on land?” She asked the cat.

         “Female humans, women.”

         The idea of humans without legs seemed to contradict everything she had ever been taught. “But how can they be humans if they don’t have legs?”

         “They have legs; they just cover them.”

         The mermaid giggled. “Why? That’s silly.”

         The cat flicked her tail. “Because the women’s legs have magic. The make the human males their slaves.”

         The mermaid couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have magic, and she wondered if she should believe the cat or not, but when she was about to swim home for the night, she saw a woman coming towards her. She glided over the sand. Then she lifted her strange column and uncovered a pair of long, sleek legs. Faster and faster they moved. Her thighs tightened rhythmically. Her knees bent and rose. Her calf muscles swelled and lifted under her skin that seemed to glow. Her ankles bent and flexed and lengthened; her heels never touched the sand. After she had passed, the little mermaid crawled on to the beach to examine the marks that they had left behind. The Mermaid touched the  footprints until they smeared and studied the image of the woman in her mind.

         The next evening she returned to watch for the woman. As she waited, she remembered what the cat had told her: women’s legs were magic. Now she knew this to be true. Those legs haunted her; she saw them in her dreams and every time she closed her eyes. She wanted to feel them in her hands and explore them with her mouth. She wanted to lift the fabric of the column higher and examine where they met the rest of her body, but more than anything else, she wanted a pair for herself.

         On the fifth evening she finally saw the woman again. This time she got a closer look. The woman was young and yet not so. She moved with such controlled freedom, such elegant chaos that she seemed like a goddess- eternally young and eternally beautiful, full of the power of the universe. The mermaid felt her own few years to be inadequate. She felt small in such a presence.

         She wondered why the woman covered her body so. A lithe torso such as hers should not have been hidden behind cloth. The mermaid did not understand. The woman’s legs were magic, yes, but the rest of her was too beautiful to be contained, unless the cloth was engineered to let only a glimmer of magic show through. Then the glimmer would only be perceived as harmless beauty. If the clothing were removed the magic would overwhelm the whole world.

         The next morning the mermaid found the cat again. “You were right; the women have magical legs. I saw them a pair, and now I am under their spell. I want nothing in the world more than to touch her legs and have that magic for myself.”

         The cat smiled as cats often do. “There is someone who can help you, but her services are not cheap.”

         “Tell me where she is.”

         “Keep following the shore until it becomes a rocky cliff. She lives in a cave at the very bottom of this wall of stone. Go there at night. During the day you will not find her.”

         That night she found the cave exactly where the cat said it would be. She entered slowly, careful not to disturb the piles of bones that line the walls. She saw nothing living there. So she called into the darkness, but she received no reply. Instead she felt a cold hand on her shoulder. 

         Startled, she spun around, and a little scream became caught in her throat. Then she regained her wits and realized that the hand must belong to the creature she had come to find.

         “You have to help me,” she declared with feigned confidence.

         She felt a hand on her shoulder. “You should show more respect to someone so much older and wiser than yourself,” whispered a smooth voice in her ear.  She spun around to see a merwoman, smiling softly and sharply at the same time. “Greet me properly.” She smoothed her black hair, streaked with gray. The mermaid tried to hide her embarrassment and quickly lowered herself and kissed the old merwoman’s shark-like tailfins. “I already know what you want, but you can tell me anyway if you wish.”

         “I saw a land-woman with beautiful legs. I want a pair of my own so that our legs may run together.”

         “Is that all?” She cuckled. “I’m sure you feel like you’re the only one, but I can’t tell you how many pairs of legs I’ve given out. I don’t know what’s so special about the humans, but it seems like every mermaid falls in love with at least one. They think I became a witch just to serve them. They don’t even care about the cost until it has already been done, and then I’m the evil one.”

         “What is the cost??”

         “Your voice.”

         “My voice?”

         “Let me explain. I can’t make you a human, but I can make you a mermaid with legs. Then again, a mermaid with legs isn’t really a mermaid now is she? You’d be something else entirely, something in between. Now humans have lost the ability to talk with any other creatures. When you receive your legs, you’ll lose that ability as well, but you will not be human enough to be able to talk with other humans. You will only be able to converse with me and others like us, those in the middle.”

         “In the middle?”

         “Stuck between species, evolution’s lost children if you will.”

         “What if I change my mind?”

         “You will never again be as you are now. If I gave you back your tail, you would become like me, and you would belong to me.”

         “I’m sorry to bother you. I need to think this over.” She turned to leave.

         “You had better think it over,” the merwoman agreed. “If you do this, you can‘t go back, ever.”

         The mermaid left, hoping that she could forget the land-maiden, but the magic of those legs called her back to the shore. Perhaps she went out of habit. Perhaps the land-woman’s legs really did draw her back with their spell. First she saw black hair blowing in the wind as the woman rounded a bend and ran towards her. The mermaid watched her lift her skirts as she bounded over the sand dunes. Then the woman stopped at the edge of water. She removed the covers for her feet and let the water wash over her bare skin as she stood facing the ocean. As she lifted her hand to brush back her hair, she dropped one side of her skirt into the surf.

         The mermaid could not believe that the woman was standing so close to her. She crouched behind a rock so only her eyes were showing. There she watched and waited, making hardly a sound. She felt as if she could stay there forever watching light glide over the smoothed angles of the woman’s face and the winds twist her dark hair. As the water swirled around her ankles, the mermaid wondered what the woman might be thinking. She seemed almost to be waiting for the tide to wash her away while the wind pushed her back.

         Both heard the voice of a human male, but the mermaid‘s attention would not be drawn away from the woman and her magic. As the woman turned to greet the voice, her eyes met with those of the mermaid until the voice called again and their gaze broke. Blue, they were blue, some color between sky and sea. While the woman kissed that mouth that had called to her, the mermaid could only think of her eyes. Was her entire body magic? Her eyes certainly were, like her legs so long and lithe. Surely her covered parts held just as much power, if not more. Why else would they be covered? Then there were the black curls that whipped around her face; magic, she was all magic.

         When the mermaid finally noticed how the man’s lips were on the woman’s mouth. She knew this was the only way to access the woman’s magic. His face twisted as if her were struggling to contain the magic she had given him. The mermaid contemplated the woman’s mouth as well, it’s soft, plump curves and red hue, and she wanted nothing more than to do what the young man was doing.

         So that night she returned to the cave of the witch. The witch mixed a potion for her while grumbling about girls in love, but the mermaid could think of nothing except the woman. She hardly noticed the bitter taste of the potion. She tried to be strong as her voice burned away until she tried to scream and an alien noise can out of her mouth instead.

         She kicked her tail, but it burned as the blood left it. She began to reach with her arms to propel herself forward as her tail fatigued until she could not move it at all. She found herself frightened of her watery home as it held her still. She gasped as a searing pain ripped the tips of her tail into toes.

         Spitting and sputtering, dragged herself onto the beach. Pebbles stuck in her skin. Then she collapsed, writhing, twisting, and arching her back as her tail ripped itself apart. She tried to clench her teeth and accept the pains, but her mouth contorted with every alien groan. Her fingers clawed at the ground and her own flesh until the world went black.

***

         One by one she moved her brand new toes. They looked so small and useless. She practiced flexing her muscles until she learned to bend her knee and bring her foot closer to her torso. She stroked the skin on the bottom of her foot and watched her silly toes curl. The lines made by the curves of her calves were beautiful but not as compelling as the woman’s. She searched for some view of her new legs to make her heart pound, some sign of the magic- nothing. She decided that they needed to be running to show their magic, but when she tried standing she collapsed into a heap on the sand. So she taught herself first to crawl and tried to call out to the birds, but they ignored her grotesque voice.

         After dragging herself for some time she came upon the gray tabby cat. She looked her straight in the eyes and waited to be recognized. She didn’t know what she thought the cat could do to help, but still she silently begged her. Perhaps she only hoped to be acknowledged.

         The cat scurried off, abandoning her, but she could see flickers of light not far away. They seemed to beckon and tease as she crawled towards them, never quite within reach. She thought about crying, but she decided that her monstrous voice would frighten away whatever help might wait with the light. She continued until she became weaker and collapsed again.

***

         She awoke feeling warm and comfortable. She looked around; she was inside a wooden structure, a cottage as the cat had called it. When she sat up she felt fur rub against her arm. She recognized the cat nuzzling against her and scooped her into her arms. The cat licked her face, and the former mermaid gladly accepted the affection.

         The cat lived with a fisherman, who had been so taken by the former mermaid’s beauty that he brought her to his cottage. He brought her fish for dinner, and she ate it with her fingers. When he discovered that she could not speak, and thus he could not know her named, he decided to call her Marina.  He felt so drawn to this strange girl from the sea that he decided to marry her.

         He took her to town and introduced her to the villagers. She met the cobbler and the blacksmith. They told the fisherman how lucky he was to have found such a pretty maid. She met their wives too, chipper, chatty women who soon bored her with their false enthusiasm. As her attention drifted, she thought she saw her magic woman at a baker’s stall. The former mermaid walked towards her while pulling the fisherman’s sleeve.

         “Do you know her?” he asked. My friend found her as I found you. She’s beautiful, isn’t she? Let me introduce you. Erynn, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

         The woman approached, stands of her hair poking their way out of her long braid. She smiled and smoothed her skirt. She seemed so different now that her magic legs were covered, tamer somehow, but she looked Marina straight in the face. Her blue eyes filled Marina‘s mind with strange thoughts.

         “Erynn, This is Marina, rescued from a shipwreck like you were. Maybe you’re from the same place. I’m sure you would both like someone to talk to.”

         The little mermaid lowered her eyes and blushed. She saw Erynn begin to lift her skirt and show the tips of her feet beneath her skirt. Marina nervously tried to mimic the movement. She wondered what it meant. Did she mean to tempt her with a glimmer of her magic? Did she notice that Marina had no magic of her own?

         That night Marina tried to go to the return to the beach to look for Erynn, but the fisherman would not leave her alone. He was intent on sitting with her and watching her. He eventually reached to touch her, and when she made no attempt to brush his hand away, he let it linger first on her shoulder, then her chest while the other one found her belly.

         She looked up at him inquisitively. His hands seemed to be sure enough of their actions. She decided to trust him, but she hoped that he would finish whatever it was quickly so she could find Erynn. Instead, he started to remove her clothing. She had to admit that his hands felt good against her skin. He made little moans as he slipped one hand under her skirt. It glided up her leg, over her knee, and traced the curve of her thigh. As he lifted her skirt to let the lamplight shine on her flesh, his face appeared almost pained, almost, but not quite.

         She wondered if her face showed the same expression when she watched Erynn’s legs. Perhaps her legs really did have magic of their own. Of course her own magic would not affect her. Renewed hope stirred in her as she watched his expression change with her every tiny movement. She gradually learned which ways to move, which muscles to tense until he fell back in a gasping heap and asked her if she liked it. She loved it. She could feel the magic in her blood.

         She snuck out with magic still active as soon as she was sure he was asleep. She didn’t bother to change out of her nightgown or to disguise her absence, she was so eager to touch the moonlight and feel Erynn on her skin. As soon as the door closed behind her, she felt herself burst into the night. She hurried to the shore, where she waded in the surf and spun with her arms raised. She didn’t bother to lift the hem of her nightgown. Instead the water crept up it so the white fabric clung to her legs.

         There she was, first only a shadow, then a figure in the moonlight. Marina watched her approach the beach then pull off her shoes and break into a run. Marina frantically waded to the shore. She lifted her sopping wet gown and tried to run after her. She stumbled over the sand dunes but pulled herself up again, spitting sand. She cried out when she cut her foot on a sharp stone, but she keep running.

         She refused to let Erynn disappear into the darkness. She huffed and gasped as she pumped her knees until she found her rhythm. Even though the running became easier, and she found herself moving faster, she still could not catch Erynn. Instead, she matched her strides so she could let her feet land inside Erynn’s footprints before the tide washed them away. She could feel traces of the magic through the soles of her feet; it made her ache.

         When she lost sight of Erynn, she ran with renewed resolve and bounded over the dunes as though they were her native ocean currents. Sweat streamed down her face, blurring her vision. It seemed as though all the event of the last week were culminating in this one moment, as though this were her only chance. If she let Erynn disappear, she would be gone forever.

         And then she saw her, a vision of black hair and white moonlight. She stood facing the former mermaid, whose newfound grace had suddenly left her. Marina collapsed at her feet and looked up at her with wide eyes. Erynn reached for her hand and pulled her to her feet. The little mermaid silently worshipped that touch and the way the light hit the angles of her face. She wasn’t as tall as Marina first thought. With the slight upward angle to her gaze, Marina could look her squarely in the eye. She could be content to stay forever in that moment.

         Erynn’s hands felt as soft as eel skin except for a few calluses. Her gaze was unyielding but warm, and her eyes a moonlit blue. Embarrassed, Marina forced herself to loosen her grip, but Erynn still held her hand tightly. Then Erynn released her hand, and he two stood motionless until the silence became so uncomfortable the Marina began to walk away. She lifted her skirt to reveal the bottoms of her legs and willed the magic to work.

         “Wait!”

         Marina stopped immediately.

         “Do you understand me?”

          Marina was afraid to speak

         “If you do, please say so.”

         “I understand you.” The words glided out of her mouth.

         “Do you know where I came from? Is that why you followed me?”

         “No, I never imagined, but now…” she did not quite know how to express the wonder she felt.

         “Then why did you follow me?”

         “To see if I could. If you knew I was following, why did you run away?”

         “To see if I could,” she answered with a smile, “and to see if you could. I taught myself to run the same way, sheer determination.”

         A smile slowly formed on Marina’s face as she began to realize the truth. “So do you mean that you’re like me? You’re a…” her voice trailed off. She didn’t know what to call herself. She didn’t know what she was, but it didn’t seem to matter. 

         “I thought you might be.” She started to walk, and Marina followed.

         “It never occurred to me that I might find someone like myself. I thought I would be trapped in silence forever.”

         “Then why did you come here?”

         Marina couldn’t possibly tell her the truth. “I’m not sure.” That much was certainly true. Did she want to touch her or be her? Was there any difference? Maybe if she got close enough she could become her. All that mattered was the magic. The woman pulsated with it. If she could place her mouth on her lips, then maybe she could suck some out of her. She also wondered if Erynn noticed how her eyes roamed over her body.

         “Ready for another run?” Erynn asked.

         “Alright.” Marina knew she wasn’t ready; she still felt weak from the last run, but she could never let Erynn know. Then, Erynn shot off with no further warning, and Marina allowed herself to be hypnotized by the way Erynn’s dark curls swayed against her back. She decided that she could ignore her dry throat and the pain in her side just to be able to watch that hair move and those legs reach ahead, pushing the ground away. They propelled themselves over anything in their way. Marina half expected them to never touch the ground again.

         The two former mermaids would sneak out to run together every night. They would hold hands and kiss each other’s cheeks. Marina had never been happier. They would tell each other stories. Marina told her how she would spend hours watching the people scurry around the dock.  Erynn told her how she rescued a young man from drowning and fell in love with him. She told her how the young man wanted her to be his wife, and she accepted, but little by little, she grew bored. She had been delaying the wedding, but she didn’t know how to tell him that she wanted to leave. She had sacrificed her voice and her tail for him, but now she wanted nothing more than to find someone else to love forever. 

         Marina didn’t understand even after Erynn explained it to her. How could she leave someone who loved her just because she was bored? How could she want only one person? She couldn’t imagine agreeing to only love and touch one person for her entire life. She enjoyed the time she spent with the fisherman. She loved the way it made her feel, and she wanted everyone, especially Erynn to experience her magic. It was wild. It was passionate. It was bigger than herself.

         One night Erynn told Marian how her fiancé had just met and fallen in love with another woman. Erynn became so jealous and angry as she told the story that she threw rocks, shells, driftwood, or anything she could find in the sea. When nothing was left, she sank to her knees. Marina stood beside her and told her that she understood, and she almost did, but not quite.

         When the two ran together, however, there was nothing about Erynn that Marina did not understand. She knew the curves of her legs and the textures of her feet. She knew the rhythm of her gate and the shape of the prints she left behind. The whole universe fell into place, into the magical, erotic rhythm of four feet in the sand.  She knew Erynn in those moments; she knew the woman she was underneath the name the humans had given her. Erynn was the tide that was always coming and going that could not be owned or kept.

         One night they kissed each other’s mouths. Marina could feel the magic flowing between them so deep inside of her that it caused her knees to buckle and her heart to rise into her throat. Then they ran together, first along the shore and then into town. Everywhere they went they left a trail of magic behind them; everyone they passed could feel it.

         For some time the two former mermaids’ evenings continued in this manner. Some nights they did not run or even meet, but they were always close together. They were so close that when Erynn met and fell in love with a new man, she told Marina first. She smiled at Erynn’s excitement and was truly happy that she had found a man who understood her when she spoke.

          He was not really a man, although he appeared to her as one. Instead, he was a sky spirit who had been hiding his wings under a cape, and this was why he and Erynn could speak to each other. However, he did not tell Erynn this until she had taken him to meet Marina. He saw how the women held each other, kissed each other’s cheeks and whispered into each other’s ears. He saw how they ran together, and he felt the magic around them. After seeing all this, he thought it best that Erynn know the truth.

         So after Marina went home for the night, he stayed with Erynn. He kissed her  and touched her in every way a woman loves to be kissed and touched. Then when Erynn was soft in his hands he told her that he loved her like he’d loved no one else before. She said the same.

         “Then you’ll understand why I want you to be mine and only mine.” He showed her his wings. “I want to take you home to my palace in the sky. It is all one room as we will have no secrets between us. Around my palace is a garden like you have never dreamed. It is surrounded by a wall of waterfalls, and every sort of beautiful plant grows inside. I will give it all to you so you can run through my gardens and rest higher than any storm or cloud to block the blueness of the day or the blackness of the night.”

         “It sounds wonderful.”

         “But if you come you can never leave. I fly down to earth with my wings, but you have none. If you try to step outside my gardens you will fall to earth and die. No one may come to visit you. Only those I allow inside can pass through my walls of waterfalls. Anyone else will drown.”

         “Is that the only way we can be together?”

         “Yes, but if you accept, you will live out all your days in peace and happiness. I promise that I will love you more than anyone has or ever will.”

         Erynn was silent with thoughts of running on the beach with Marine. 

         “I can not stay here in your world. The day after tomorrow I must leave. You will have to chose whether to come with me or not.”

         When Marina saw Erynn approaching the next evening, she tried to prepare herself for what she knew Erynn would say: she was in love this new man and that she wanted no one else. Marina, however, wasn’t ready for the full truth or how much it hurt her to hear it. That a man would ask so much of a  woman was strange to her, but that a woman would agree to such terms was incomprehensible.

         “I  can’t see you just sitting in some palace or garden You need to move, to be free, to run.”

         “I don’t need those things. I’m different now. I’m changing. I’m not the same person I was when you met me,” Erynn insisted, but Marina could count the months on one hand.

         Marine knew better, but how could she make Erynn understand? She became so frustrated that she began to throw whatever she could find in the water. “He is making you his prisoner. How can you not understand that? I would never do that to you, not to anyone, but especially not to you.”

         “I’ll be fine. I’ll be better than fine. I’ll have him, and he will make me happy.”

         “How do you know? You don’t know him. He just dropped out of the sky one day.”

         “Sometimes, love is just that way.”

         “And who are you to tell me about love? Do you think I don’t know? I’ve loved you since the moment I first saw you…” Her voice faded as she realized that she had done exactly what she was telling Erynn not to do, but she pressed onward, determined to make Erynn understand. “I would give you everything, and you would be free, not kept caged like a pet.”

         “I’m sorry.”

         The silence that followed grew to fill the space that separated them. Marina contemplated Erynn with sad eyes as she came to understand that all her words were useless.

         So the two hugged and went their separate ways, Erynn to her bed, and Marina to the place where the old merwoman lived . She swam to the bottom and demanded that her voice be returned to her so she could convince Erynn to stay. The merwoman just laughed at her.

         “She’s not human. She’s like you, and you never lost your ability to communicate with her.”

         “Then why can’t I make her understand?”

         “Because sometimes speaking the same language doesn’t mean anything. She’s in love, and women in love never listen. Human, Mermaid, or Sky Spirit, they are all the same.”

         “But she won’t be happy with him; I know it. Maybe for a little, but not for the rest of her life. Make her happy.”

         “I can’t do that.”

         “Then what good are you?”

          “But I can help you.”

         So the merwoman cut off Marina’s hair and the tips of her fingers, and from them she made a pair of wings. Then she sent Marina back to shore to give them to Erynn. Marina wandered until she found Erynn asleep in her bed. Just as the merwoman had instructed her, she ran her bloody fingers down Erynn’s back. Just that touch was worth everything. She pressed the wings into the bloody streaks and then dragged herself away, all the while wishing she could be those wings, holding tightly to Erynn forever.

         When the fisherman saw how ugly Marina had become he threw her out of his house. She tried to weep, but no tears would come. Instead, the weight of all that she had lost, her tail, her voice, her hair, her fingertips, her beauty, her Erynn, her magic, pressed upon her.

         She had to wrestle out from under it. Her sorrow would suffocate her if she let it. She had to run. Her thighs tightened rhythmically. Her knees bent and rose. Her calf muscles swelled and lifted under her skin. Her face slid though the darkness. The night air felt good on the back of her bare neck, so good that she didn’t notice a pair of curious eyes.

         A little mermaid peered over the edge of a rock that jutted out of the sea.  She held herself so low that no one could see her unless someone were out looking for mermaids. She saw a woman with sharp, strong features. She saw a woman who ran with power, grace, and magic, a woman whose heels never touched the sand.