The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea

by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Mermaid caught Returned to Sea By witch taught To be free Two souls bound By love, by knife True love found Restored to life Two souls fight For love, to be True love’s might To save the Sea

“Know your truth, not your story,”

It’s not hard, I promise, and there are too many good stories in the world to miss out on.

She was not a creature of courage, but she was one of spite. This one little rebellion would sate that, at least.

There’s freedom in stories, you know. We read them and we become something else. We imagine different lives, and while we turn the pages, we get to live them. To escape the lot we’ve been given.”

“We don’t just read to imagine better lives. We read to be introduced to all kinds of lives. Any kind. Not just for ourselves, but for everyone around us. To understand others better. It’s escape, and it’s also a way to become more connected to everyone around you. There’s power in that, you know. In understanding. It’s like magic.”

“Rum?” Alfie raised the bottle he kept in his hammock — he always had a bottle — but Flora shook him off. She fought back the anger that burned in her throat. She had seen what the drink did to him, and it was a road she didn’t care to follow him down. She’d tried to love him out of it, nagging and begging and pleading with him. But there was nothing she could do, and she’d long since lost the energy to fight the currents so bent on drowning him. It didn’t make it stop hurting to watch, though. It never stopped hurting.

“You think the world of men is so complicated? It isn’t. You’re all the same. Weak, and small, and eager to push your own failure off on others while pretending I couldn’t possibly understand the great forces at work that forced your hand. Half of a woman’s life is spent pretending she doesn’t notice just how stupid and prone to failure you all are!”

“Love does not work in terms of convenience. Or any kind of sense.”

“I don’t care who you are,” the witch interrupted. “There are a thousand girls just like you in this world, and I haven’t the patience, fortitude, or, frankly, the time left in my life to know you each.”

“She did not love me back.” And “We grew distant, even as we lay side by side in our bed.”

“Your tears,” she said, “were the price of my spell. Pain begets life, Your Majesty, and life begets pain.”

Perhaps the pirates and the witches were right to worship the sea. The sea did not die. The sea was no man.

“On your own, you can accomplish great things, unencumbered by the many webs and nets love weaves.”

Names are funny things, because they can feel like lies but tell our truths.”