Blood or Bliss

Charity watched the dark clouds on the horizon roll closer. She breathed in the salty air of the ocean and felt the wind running through her hair. She envied her younger sisters, Joy and Hope, safe at home while she was on a ship on the rolling and crashing waves.

She had been on the boat ever since her father had promised her hand in marriage to some rich duke in another country that neither of them had ever met. Her father had shipped her off like a package that he was thankful to get rid of. Just the thought of her father and future husband made her blood boil.

She took a deep breath and her mother’s voice echoed in her ears, “Patience, Charity. Remain calm, loving, and forgiving. Remember your name. Kindness. Love. Charity.”

Well, Charity didn’t feel very charitable. She pouted and put her hand on her chin. 

Behind her, the sailors argued about the oncoming storm. One sailor grabbed Charity and held a knife to her throat. Charity tensed but quickly calmed herself. This was one sailor who always threatened her. It didn’t mean anything. He wouldn’t physically hurt her. 

“We will not survive this storm with the woman on board!” The sailor growled, “We must get rid of her. If we cannot get her to shore, we must throw her overboard.

“No,” the captain calmly replied, just like he always did, “We are to be paid by the Duke to deliver his maiden. If she doesn’t reach her destination, we don’t get our money.”

“What, so your money is more important than my life?” 

The words that Charity had been holding back flooded out of her before she could stop them, “You are being paid to have me married to a man I have not met. It is not a marriage of love or courtship. It is a marriage out of greed, on the parts of my father and the Duke. You are just as greedy as they are. The Duke is not to be my husband; he is to be my captor.”

Her outburst took the captain by surprise. His eyes flashed with anger. “Is that what you think of us, little lady? You say we are greedy. Scoundrels. Dogs. Pirates. Is that what we are?”

Charity held her tongue.

“Answer me!” the captain barked.

Choosing her words carefully, Charity responded, “I apologize for my sharp words. It escaped my control. You are gentlemen, noblemen, who work hard for the money you earn. You do what you must to survive in this world. I cannot fault you for that.”

“But?”

“But I do not approve of the way I have been treated on your ship, Captain. I am a lady, not a package.”

The captain laughed, “The lady has pretty words, doesn’t she, men?”

The sailors laughed their agreement.

“And that’s not all. It would be a shame to deprive the Duke of such a pretty prize.” The captain smirked at her, “Still, I doubt he’ll miss her tongue. What do you say, men? Should we throw the lady off the ship, or cut out her tongue? I suggest the latter so that we can get our money and continue to admire the pretty thing without her talking back to us.”

The sailors mocked and jeered at Charity.

“Throw her overboard!”

“Drown the witch!”

“Cut out her tongue!”

The captain held up his hand, “All those in favor of throwing Miss Charity overboard, say Aye!”

“Aye!” Many of the sailors cried.

“No amount of money is worth the trouble of keeping her aboard,” the threatening sailor said, “Bad luck, havin’ a woman aboard. It’s her life or ours.”

The captain turned to Charity with a smug smile and shrugged as though there was nothing he could do. “I suppose he has a point, especially with this storm comin’ on. The people have spoken. Goodbye, Miss Charity. Who knows. Maybe we’ll be able to get our money anyways, if we have a good enough sob story and the Duke has a soft enough heart. Really, we’re doing him a favor by taking you off his hands.”

Charity took a step back towards the edge of the boat. The sailors rushed forward to grab her. She tried to push them away, but there were too many. They tied her legs and wrists together, leaving her legs only loose enough for her to take tiny steps. 

Once the sailors declared the knots to be tight enough, they forced Charity to hobble towards the large plank of wood jutting out over the ocean. It was humiliating, but she refused to let her dignity be crushed. She kept her head up high as they pushed her onto the plank.

The sailors started to chant, “Walk the plank! Walk the plank! Walk the plank!”

Under her breath, Charity muttered, “I can’t walk.”

Behind the sailors, the dark clouds grew closer and more threatening.

The sailor that had threatened her came up next to the plank as his fellow sailors cheered. “Let’s help you on your way!” He grinned wickedly and moved to shove Charity off the plank.

She crouched and jumped off, wanting her last act to be of her own free will. She fell towards the churning black waves below. She hit the surface of the water and the world went black.

She couldn’t tell which way was up or down as the waves pulled her in every direction. Her lungs burned, but she couldn’t fill them with oxygen without swallowing saltwater. She struggled to kick to the surface, but it was no use. Her legs were still tied together, and she barely knew how to swim. She wouldn’t have been able to swim in her heavy skirts anyway, seeing how quickly the fabric filled up with water.

She tried to open her eyes, but the water was too much, and she quickly shut them again. Thrashing in the darkness, she felt something cut her arm. She maneuvered so that the thing, which felt like a sharp rock, would cut through the bands on her arms.

With her arms once again in use, she tried to claw her way to the surface. But she couldn’t tell which way was up or whether she was sinking or floating. For all she knew, her efforts were only taking her farther away from any chance at life. Her arms grew weak and stars of light speckled her vision, even with her eyes closed. She lost consciousness and sunk back towards the ocean floor.

~~~

She could breathe. That was the first thing Charity noticed when she woke up. She didn’t know where she was, but she could breathe.

“Joy, Hope, my sisters! You’ve rescued me!” Charity cried out. Her voice sounded strange and echoey. When no one responded to her call, she opened her eyes and gasped.

She was still laying at the bottom of the ocean, but something had changed. She could breathe and she could see. The strings on the back of her corset floated around her in the water, undone. Her heavy skirt reached upwards, toward the surface. Her hair fanned out around her.

Charity sat up and noticed something glistening near her feet. No, not her feet. Her fins. Her legs had changed and merged to become one glistening tail, dark teal at the bottom and slowly changing to white the farther up her legs the scales went. The rope, still tied tightly around her legs—or her tail—had also merged with the scales, as though it had always been that way.

Charity pulled off her skirts and watched as the last part of her thighs merged into one tail. From the waist down, she was some kind of fish. From the waist up, she was human.

“Oh my goodness,” Charity breathed.

“I know,” a voice said. “It’s wonderful to get your tail, isn’t it? Like you’re free for the first time in your life.”

Charity jumped.

“Oh! I’m so sorry to scare you!” Another fish-woman swam in front of Charity. She was beautiful, with dark skin, black curls, and a golden tail. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am the one they call Ophelia. They tried to drown me the same way they tried to drown you. See the scales around my wrists and the bumps on my tail where my ankles would be? Those used to be the chains.”

“How did this happen? How did I become a… a…”

“A mermaid? You became a mermaid the same way we all did. Ocean Mother saved you. She changed your human legs into fins and gave you gills, so that you can survive and swim down here.”

“But I don’t know how to swim.”

“You don’t have to swim like a human. We can swim faster than they can anyways. You’ll pick up the skill quickly,” Ophelia assured her, “What’s your name?”

“Charity.”

“Nice to meet you, Charity. We are sisters in the ocean now. I will help you adjust to the lifestyle of this ocean.”

“How many… mermaids… are there?”

“Oh, there’s plenty of us down here. We have our own society, where we lift each other up and do not cause each other pain or fear, unlike those who tried to kill us. When you’re ready, I will take you to meet the others. You’ll love it here.”

And she did.

She and her oceanic sisters swam free, free, without anyone telling them what to do or who to be. And when the time came for her human sisters to be married, Charity and Ophelia sank the ship.

And when Hope and Joy awoke, Charity was there to teach them how to swim.