Green and Blue

Perhaps their world was just a little more… creative than ours. Perhaps there were less boundaries in their world. Perhaps there was a spiritual realm of a different kind there. But in any case, in their world – merpeople were real.

---- // ---

“I hear your call in the wave and the shell,

I think your thoughts when I hear,

But time has come and has broken our spell,

And you’re gone now, forever, I fear.”

This verse hung over Chelsea’s bed, lettered in an ombre of green and blue. Star read it as he opened the door, staying a little behind the short brunette he had come with. He looked around the room, noticing the ocean theme and several mythical mermaid figurines and raising an eyebrow.

“Hey-y! Thanks so much for letting us come to your place! Your room is beautiful!”

“Oh hi, Deanna! Hey, Star!” Chelsea smiled at them both and laid aside her laptop. “So glad you could come. I’m pretty excited about this project actually.”

“Really?” Deanna was surprised.

“Yeah, I love the sea and, well –“ she hesitated and looked at Star. Star tried to look as interested as he could to help her out. “I had an idea for our project.” She said hurriedly, looking embarrassed.

“Sounds good. We haven’t thought of anything yet. What is it?” Star asked. He figured getting focused on the homework project they had to do might stop the nervous fluttering his heart had decided to do ever since he stepped inside Chelsea’s front door.“

We’ll find a merperson.”

Deanna turned to look at Star, but he didn’t look back at her. He was looking at the nervous Chelsea. Her eyes were glowing with interest, but her excitement was held back by the fear of being judged or ridiculed.

“So, you really do look for merpeople?” Deanna questioned, her voice biting. “I didn’t entirely believe that.”

Chelsea looked wounded. “Of course I do. They’re real. And before you start arguing that they’re only myths I’ve got real information to back it up.”

Deanna sighed, her shoulders sinking a little and Chelsea tried to defend her idea.

“Think about it. If we find a merperson, or even just some undeniable proof that they live anywhere around here, we’ll get the best grades in the entire class. Even some serious scientists who believe in them haven’t been able to find that proof. It would be revolutionary. And I’ve already studies almost everything about them. We’ve got a headstart there.”

“Yeah, and what happens when we find nothing at all. Like you said, even real scientists can’t find them. We’ll be the laughingstock of the entire school. Your idea sucks. Sorry. Star? What do you think?”

Chelsea’s expression was still a little hopeful as she looked over to him to decide the vote. Deanna was glaring at him. Clearly she thought he might be crazy enough to go along with the idea. Her eyes said, ‘I will hurt you and all you hold dear if you agree to go along with this idiotic pile of nonsense.'

He didn’t know who to agree with. Either way was to put a foot wrong with one of the girls. “Um… How about ‘rock, paper, scissors’?”

Neither of them looked happy about the suggestion but they huffed and started playing the game without any argument.

Chelsea won three against none.

“Alright. Fine. You go ahead and look for your stupid mermen. But don’t expect me to participate!” She grabbed up her jacket and bag and stormed out of the room. A few seconds later the front door slammed behind her.

Star took a deep breath and looked at the floor. He thought about walking out right then, but even with the whole mermaid thing, Chelsea was worth doing almost anything for. When he looked up, Chelsea was staring at him and he felt himself getting flustered again. “Well, that didn’t go great,” he kidded.

“I don’t think we can do this project without her,” Chelsea lamented. “I guess she was right. It’s not a very practical idea. I should never have suggested it.” She sat down on the bed behind her and sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Hey…” Star sat down next to her. “Do you really think you could find a mermaid one day?”

Chelsea looked up at him and he smiled at her beautiful eyes. “I think I can. There’s a beach near my house and I go down there all the time. I found an old book one day at a second hand book store and in it there were accounts of mermaid sightings off the coast just up from that beach.”

Star pondered for a minute and the he said, “I don’t know if I really believe you'll find a mermaid, but if you want someone to go to the beach with you, I’m always free. And if you were to find a mermaid, can you imagine what Deanna’s response would be?" he laughed.

Chelsea laughed too, but then she asked, “Why would you want to go to the beach with me if you don’t believe in merpeople?”

“Uh, well,” Star stuttered. “Um. I, uh, um, I like yo--”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” Chelsea exhaled hastily. “You’ll believe in merpeople soon enough if you get me talking.” She smiled and stood up. “I’m sorry I ruined our study session with Deanna and everything, but thanks for coming anyway.”

Start took the hint and stood up as well. "It’s fine. Deanna will get over it and we can come up with something else to do the project on. I’ll see you soon though. We’ve only got a week or so to work on it. ”

“Yeah sure,” Chelsea nodded.

Star walked to the door and opened it. “So, would you like to show me the beach some time? Like maybe tomorrow? We can do some brainstorming for a new idea?”

“Um… yeah. That sounds alright I guess.”

“Cool. What time?”

“After school, so like, four?”

“Awesome. Thanks again. See-ya.”

“Bye.”

Chelsea waved awkwardly and then shut the door firmly behind Star. She leant against it and let out a huge sigh before turning on her phone and drowning out her thoughts in Coco’s “Empty Beach” and John Denver’s “Calypso”.

---- // ---

“So you really think you’ll just find a mer...person on the beach here one day?” Star asked as he picked his way over sharp rocks covered in tiny mollusks.

“Let’s put it this way. You’ve seen those enormous shells that they make decorative bowls out of right? And the largest pearls in the world? And expensive forest truffles? Well, a lot of those finds come down to a fortunate circumstance. Luck and persistence. That’s why it’s not too unrealistic to think I’ll find a merperson one day."

“Okay, I guess that makes sense.”

“So have I convinced you that they’re real?” Chelsea asked with a mischievous smile. She had given him more information than she had ever told anyone before. No one wanted to listen to her usually, but Star listened without judgement and she couldn’t help spilling everything she knew to him.

Star smiled back at her. “I think you might have.” Chelsea looked very proud. “But if you ever tell anyone at all about this, I’ll never talk to you again.”

Chelsea laughed lightheartedly and scooped up a handful of wet sand. In ten minutes they were both covered in sand, soaking wet, and laughing heartily.

“We’re supposed to be –“ Chelsea huffed, out of breath. “We’re supposed to be thinking about what we’re going to do for our project.”

The two now disheveled young people looked at the sky, shocked to see that the sun was starting to sink below the horizon already. “I’ve been talking for hours,” Chelsea realised. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s alright. We can meet again another day. There’s still time.”

“Well, yeah but I’m not the coolest person, talking about my interest for that long. You must hate me.”

“Of course not.”

The sun was orange, the sea breezes were salty and there was no one around. It was the perfect time to confess how he felt. He bit his lip.

“You know how you really, really want to find a mermaid because they’re beautiful and magical and you love them?”

Chelsea nodded. “Well, um…” Star took a deep breath and cracked his knuckles. Which might have broken the spell, because a look of scared understanding suddenly appeared on Chelsea’s face. “Sorry, we should be getting home. I don’t want my parents to worry. I told them I would only be gone for an hour or so.” She turned around abruptly and started walking back in the direction of her house. Star watched her taking long strides like she was trying to run away from something and rolled his eyes.

“Are you coming?” She called back to him.

“Yeah,” he muttered.

---- // ---

It was a magical morning, almost a week after Chelsea had spent time with Star on the beach talking about her favourite things. They had started working on another topic for their project and Chelsea had just stolen a few minutes before school to go to the beach.

As she walked along the sand, she spun slowly around, arms stretched out, letting her eyes drink in the beauty of the azure sky and the bright ball of fire above her. She forgot all her problems as she ran to the black rocks and climbed onto them, looking out over the ocean at the horizon.

She stared out in wonder at the water but she was woken from her reverie by sea-spray hitting her face as a wave broke on one of the rocks nearby. She smiled and started walking along the sandy patches in between the shards of rock. As she walked, she scanned the ground - a habit she had developed over several years of looking for merpeople – but she failed to notice the seaweedy hand until it grabbed her ankle.

She looked down with a small gasp and then froze.

A toothy smile appeared in the middle of the creature’s face and Chelsea felt her stomach churn.

The hand that had grabbed her seemed to be made of brown seaweed. Grapelike kelp bulbs made up the fingers. Attached to it, the arm was slender and white-skinned but covered all over in sharp brown points, somewhat like the thorn of a rose missing the hooked end and much larger.

Chelsea didn’t want to see what she was looking at. The fearful white arm met an unclothed torso with the same pale thorny skin. All over the torso, tendrils of ugly brown sea grass and weedy foliage draped from stems spouting out of the body. The neck, however, had no thorns or leaflike pieces to draw the eye and Chelsea almost turned away when she saw that the pale skin over the neck was actually transparent.

To cap the horrifying form, a coconut-sized head perched weirdly on the neck and swayed back and forth slightly. Its eyes were like those of a fish - flat, irregularly shaped and unintelligent. They repulsed and terrified her.

The skin of the head was randomly splotched with patches of brown and Chelsea noticed that its teeth were arrayed in a circle in the mouth which was opened, allowing her to see into the slimy depths of its pale pink throat.

Chelsea wanted to run. She tried to move her foot but couldn’t. The creature’s grip was far stronger than she would have thought the straggly, organic, monster capable of. A sound rang in her ears and then a melody began humming in her mind. Terrified, she tried to make some distance between herself and her evil discovery but she was frozen to the spot. The humming became clearer and she recognised the melody of a song she had been listening to earlier. She went to shake her head, trying to clear the intrusive sound but found she couldn’t move even that. She was stuck, looking at the thing.

The song in her mind reached it’s end and a voice spoke. “Hello. I’m glad to meet you.”

She screamed.

“No one can hear you now. Only me. Isn't that nice. You’ve wanted to meet me for so very long, I thought I would oblige you. It stops me getting bored since it gets very lonely out here. You know, I usually have to dress up and sing a few nice lullabies before people will think about coming looking for me. But you’re the opposite. You’ve been searching for me for years.”

Chelsea could no longer pretend that she wasn’t talking to a merperson. Her eyes moved to the lower half of the terrifying thing’s body and she gasped. Where were the shimmery blue scales of a mermaid’s tail? Where were the beautiful sea green highlights the aquatic world’s rarest creature was famous for?

Memories of old illustrations of hideous, evil sea-people flooded Chelsea’s mind. Stories of creatures only intent on one thing – to drown unwary humans. She remembered that there was another side to the coin. A twisted, unattractive side. And she screamed as the thorny form moved. The merperson grabbed one of her hands and dragged her towards the water. She couldn’t resist.

As her head neared the water, Chelsea heard her mother’s loud voice shout her name. “Chelsea! Why aren’t you at school! I know you’re here somewhere!” Then in her head she heard a surprised grunting noise. For a moment the creature still held her, deciding, but then it let go and her power of movement instantly returned. She splashed against the water and grabbed hold of a rock, scrambling up onto it in seconds. She raced haphazardly back over the rocks and when she was far from the water’s edge, fell onto the sand.

Her mother found her, diagnosed her with shock, and didn’t make her go to school that day, but she never found out what had happened.

---- // ---

A week later, the project had been finished, submitted and graded and Chelsea and Deanna had nothing further to do with each other. But Star, on the contrary, was to be found hanging around Chelsea a lot more during the school day. They had just finished their last subject together for the day and were in a conversation about foreign foods. Star saw an opportunity to try once again to ask Chelsea out.

“So do you like pies?”

“Of course. They’re great.”

“I know a great bakery that sells them.”

“Most bakeries do.”

“Chelsea… I’ve been wanting to ask you something for an age.”

“And I usually but in with some unnecessary comment?”

Star’s eyes widened.

“Yeah, I know. I’m sorry. I’ve been totally obsessed with certain things and, well, I guess I was just afraid to give something else some of my attention. It’s so stupid.”

Star was stunned. He was sure this was a joke. Since he didn’t say anything, Chelsea asked, “Do you want to go to a bakery? For lunch? Like, on a date?”

“Uh, yes please!”

Chelsea laughed at that, finally letting herself see his adorableness and she couldn’t believe that she had ignored him for so long. All because of… well… she didn’t want to ever think about that again. Ever.