A proper education, a predictable curse, a classic trait of girlhood: to be forever confusing your desires with that of an older man’s. And the folklore book had shown me even most mermaids were not free of this—I would never forget those Chinese mermaids, stranded on sand or stolen for marriage, dependent on the goodwill whims of men. I swore to myself, as I ripped Jim’s card into shreds, that I would break the curse and write my own legend.
