The Servant Girl and The Sea Prince

Chapter Five: MELINDA

Melinda spent the whole night dreaming about Poseidon. Sadly, she very seldom had sweet dreams, as she usually had nightmares about the terrible abuse she had endured at the Southern Kallia Asylum for Orphaned Children. Her recollection of the details of her dreams was a bit hazy, but she remembered dreaming about growing her own beautiful, sparkly mermaid tail and blissfully swimming alongside the good-looking merman.

As she dressed, she pondered why there seemed to be so many fairy tales and legends about alluring mermaids, but so very few about handsome mermen. During the unexpected storm, her shoes, which she had left at the shoreline, had apparently been swept away by the raging sea, so she was forced to return to Huntington Manor barefoot. She technically did own another pair of shoes, but she had acquired them two years ago. Her feet had grown since then, so the old black leather flats with tarnished silver buckles on the toes were so snug she was worried that they were going to cut off her circulation. Working for long hours in the outgrown shoes would be downright torturous, but she had no other choice.

She dutifully went through the motions of doing her morning chores, the too-small shoes pinching her feet, but Poseidon remained on her mind. While starting a fire in the large stone fireplace in the grand hall, she mused about how merfolk like her enigmatic rescuer probably did not even know what a fire was, or why it burns.

When she emptied the chamber pots, she wondered what kind of bodily functions merfolk had. Did they excrete particles of white sand, like parrotfish? Or were mythical beings like mermen and mermaids so magically perfect they did not even need to do such a thing at all...?

Melinda continued her tasks as if on autopilot, Poseidon's musical voice still ringing in her ears. Even though he only said one word to her, which was evidently his name, she knew that she would never forget the enchanting merman's melodious voice, gorgeous face, hunky build, striking blue-green eyes, and long, flowing, flame red hair for as long as she lived.

Lost in her daydream, she reached for a feather duster, her light-skinned hand hovering inches away from its usual spot on the shelf.

"Good heavens, aren't you the epitome of concentration, today, Melinda Sanderson...?" remarked Ms. McGoldrick, rolling her steely gray eyes. The petite yet strangely intimidating head housekeeper's sarcastic comment cut through Melinda's reverie like a sword. "You better get that pretty little head of yours out of the clouds by Lord David's birthday ball and dinner tomorrow..."

Focus, Melinda...she silently scolded herself. You have a job to do. Make a mistake, and you could get fired...

Melinda dusted the library shelves with robotic movements, the encounter with Poseidon endlessly replaying in her brain, no matter how hard she tried to focus solely on her work. She surveyed the literally thousands of books lining the walls of the resplendent library. Perhaps there were even books here about merfolk. She recalled the leather-bound compendium on marine biology she had found stored on a high shelf months ago, but it had seemingly only touched upon numerous species of fish, marine mammals, and crustaceans, not mythological sea creatures such as mermaids and mermen.

Possibly the one and only thing Melinda had enjoyed at the Southern Kallia Asylum for Orphaned Children was the handful of old, dog-eared books on fairy tales and mythology in the orphanage's tiny library. While cleaning the much bigger library of Huntington Manor, she kept her green eyes peeled for anything along those lines.

On the lowest shelf of the tall oak bookcase closest to the window, Melinda eventually noticed a thin, well-worn tome, which was bound in navy blue leather. "Nautical Folklore", she whispered the book's title to herself. After briefly praying that no one would see her looking at it, she gingerly flipped through it.

There were pages about Sirens, who were wicked mermaids who lured hapless human sailors to their deaths with their enthralling singing voices. The book also mentioned Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea...

Had Melinda's beguiling savior been the god of the sea himself...? He had appeared to be considerably younger and friendlier than the white-bearded, trident-wielding merman that the book described. She suddenly heard Lord David's distinctively loud footsteps, so Melinda briskly put it away.

The weather that night turned out to be shockingly worse than the previous night. Citizens of Kallia often said that it rarely rained in their sunny kingdom, but "when it did rain, it REALLY rained!". When Melinda heard the booming sound of thunder and lightning outside of the Manor, she knew that as much as she wanted to attempt to see Poseidon again, it unfortunately would not be a smart idea for her to go out to the Western Ocean tonight.