Chapter 1

Amana

Amana could get used to many things about human beings, but she could never quite get over how quickly they lived, and how quickly they died.

How their time on this earth could ever be enough for them, she’d never know.

In all her hundreds of years of living, she still felt that she had so much to do, so much to see. A couple decades could never be enough for her, not even ten, she felt. Her world —this ocean — had been her home for almost her entire life. Of course, she had managed to see and experience the land above briefly, but what about the skies? The mountains, and who knows what else? She often feared that she would never explore everything she dreamed of, and the idea of laying to rest for good before she could do everything she meant to was the scariest thought she felt she could have.

She thought to herself often at night, if it were to be the last time she closed her eyes, her life would have ended far too soon. But if mermaids, with all their years, could feel so reluctant and distasteful about dying, what did that mean for the people on the surface?

How could they stand it, the humans? Aren’t they jaded? Aren’t they bitter? How couldn’t they be? Their short life above water could be so dangerous and so full of hardship. It must be torture, to be constricted to a few decades of a difficult life and then meeting an untimely end.

No matter how old they were when they eventually went, Amana always felt it was untimely.

Despite this, however, the humans still made time to dance and sing and rejoice, and that was possibly the most confusing thing of all. What did they have to be happy about? Whatever it was, Amana at most times found it foolish.She often wondered if, and how they could stand to fight amongst themselves, even kill, over concepts like money, or pride, and not consider it the highest treason. Not only against others, against themselves.

You only have so long to live, Amana would think. How could you not hold each other for dear life?

And still, she was ridiculously jealous. Even after all these years of love, life, and loss, she still wanted to know what made them sing and dance as if they weren’t singing and dancing on hopelessly borrowed time.

Amana remembered a time she came across a family of five on the beach. She had hid carefully within the waves, only her eyes visible above the water as this was a time before the treaty was formed and humans had no idea of the existence of mermaids. Three little kids were running around, the sand weighing down their precious little feet as their giggles filled the air.

The parents were collecting stuff off the beach, she wasn’t exactly sure what but they had baskets strapped to their backs and would pick stuff off the sand and toss it inside. She wanted to go out there and ask them, maybe even join them in this activity they seemed so consumed by.

Amana heard a splash and suddenly, a scream pierced the air. Gone was the joyous feeling, instead replaced by gut wrenching fear.

The parents dropped their baskets and ran in the direction of the scream, a wild look within their eyes. Amanda desperately swam parallel to them and she noticed there were two children standing by the shore as they urgently pointed at the water.

The third child was laying face down in the water, the waves rocking him back and forth. Her powerful tail swam faster towards the boy as he was a bit far from the shore. She ducked down, blendin in with the water as she quickly dragged the boy towards his family. He made no objections as his little body was completely limp. She spotted the father jumped into the water without hesitation and swam to his son, grabbing him within his arms and swimming back to shore.

Amana did not make a move for she did not want to give away her presence. These humans were quite particular but she had to know if the boy would survive.

The mother desperately held her hands out and grabbed her son, placing him on the beach and started to repeatedly hit his chest. Amana didn’t understand why she was doing that and had almost jumped out of the water to make her stop but right then, the little kid that seemed lifeless mere seconds ago, coughed and wheezed.

She watched as the mother wept and the father gathered them within his arms, the other two children running to join their family. They quickly left, smiles on their faces despite the haunting events that took place.

That day, something changed within Amana. She wanted to know more, she wanted to converse with the humans and learn from them.

Humans were strange creatures. Even on the cusp of tragedy, they still found a way to survive and continue on. There was an unspoken magic within that, within them, and only those lucky enough to witness it would ever feel its warmth.

Perhaps she would never know, perhaps mermaids were never meant to know.

Amana hated that possibility.

If she couldn’t make peace with that now, maybe she would find it somehow, in the next hundred years. But for now, she still had to meet with some of her favourite humans alive to date. As she finally poked her head above water from a couple metres from the beach, she heard the excited chatter of children on the shore.

Her gills shuddered as they reacted to the dry air. The gaggle of humans shattered amongst themselves by the rocks, some standing in the thick, heavy sand of the shore, pacing into the water and back out as they spotted her coming. Amana could feel the exitement radiating off them and it filled her with happiness.

“Amana!” They shouted, inching closer to the water. “Amana!”

She grinned to herself as she dove back into the water, swimming over to them. It was like this every time. They didn’t have to risk getting wet, and getting a scolding from their parents, she was on their way. And yet, their excitement was as overwhelming and surrounding as the sea she lived in.

No matter how cold she grew, her heart thawed instantaneously when she was with the great-grandchildren of her lost friends.

Even if she couldn’t watch the world turn like she wanted, she could watch them grow. And that could be enough.

“Amana,” Layla cried as she emerged from the water, the bravest out of the children.

She was only eight but reminded Amana so much of Mandeeq that it hurt sometimes.

“We missed you.”

The entire process of becoming biped was enough to dissuade most mermaids from doing it, leading them to emerge from the warmth and darkness of the ocean only for emergencies. Amana wasn’t most mermaids. In fact, she couldn’t get enough of it. Not because it was something she necessarily enjoyed doing- because she never did.

The entire process was comparable to raw flesh being covered in spearmint, insurmountably hot and incomparably cold at the same time. It burned as her scales retreated into her body, and she often felt like she was housing blocks of ice in her chest as her lungs expanded to adjust to an entirely new respiratory system. Her body was flooded with chills from head to toe, and she was confronted with an intense urge to throw up.

No, Amana hated the process, just like anyone else. But the trip would always be worth it.

Even if it would only last her a few hours before she’d begin to wither, it was always worth it.

“I’ve been gone for less than a week,” Amana replied. She paused, then broke out into a smile that ricocheted off the entire group instantly.

Four bright, shiny faces.

“I’ve missed you, too, my friends.”

It wasn’t long before she was ushered to her place by the rocks, guided by a child gripping each of her fingers with their impossibly small hands. Sometimes, she tried to remember how small those hands could be because if she didn’t at least try, they would grow, and wither in front of her eyes.

Another thing that never got easier, was watching her people die.

Even one hundred years after her encounter with Mandeeq and Shermake, she still felt a pang in her heart when she sat on the memory for long enough. Grief wasn’t foreign to her, or the mermaid race, and she knew it wasn’t something that could be washed away by sea foam. It would always be a part of her, like her distinct tribal marks, and her rapaciously adventurous spirit. But this was the kind of grief she couldn’t find herself growing around, or adapting to. But at least it was soothed in moments like now, huddled with her friend’s children, remembering them through their souls.

Layla was tiny, gap-toothed, and impossibly quick-witted.

She was also sensitive, impatient and probably the sneakiest little girl Amana had ever met. She still remembered how Layla fooled the group into looking for her younger brother’s flip-flops when he misplaced them. The meeting turned into a search party until Layla gave into her giggles and revealed where she’d hid the flip-flops underneath a mound of rocks that Amana could’ve sworn she investigated. Twice.

Ali was probably the closest to Shermake in character than any of their great grandchildren that Amana had ever met. He was quiet, bumbling, and gentle. He was also impossibly kind, almost stupidly. Amana still remembered the laughter they shared, albeit at his expense, when the young boy had tried to climb up a thin evergreen tree, only to fall and scrape his elbows and knees in an attempt to rescue a family of baby birds.

“Ali,” she remembered one of his cousins, giggling.

“Birds are meant to fly.” Ali sniffled, and rubbed at his eyes, tears running down his cheeks. “But they were too little,” he said. “I didn’t know if they were ready.”

“Will you tell it to us, again?” Fatima asked, one half of the twin duo.

“Tell us again, Amana!” Her twin sister Amina shouted.

Amana had barely sat down before she was bombarded with requests. She loved telling the children stories of her adventures, especially this particular one. It was as if every time she repeated it, her friends weren’t so far away. Like she was just saving them from the sea monster last week, and not over two hundred years ago.

It was her favourite thing to do, recounting tales and pulling in an audience with her. Especially an audience that resembled the subjects of the story so closely.

“Of course I will,” she said, because that’s what she always said.

She wondered if they would ever know how much she loved being asked about Mandeeq and Shermake. They thought she was doing a favour for them, but they were doing a favour for her. It felt like as long as she spoke about them, they were never truly gone.

She began telling her story again, from the top as always, like she’d just buried them both. It hurt a little, but she knew it was supposed to at first.

But even though her heart was beating through her mouth, it just reminded her that this is the least she could do to keep their memory just as alive as she was. And that would have to be enough.

“It all began very long ago…”