The Maidening Ceremony

Chapter Fourteen - Scene 2

I noticed Samuel's bright, cobalt blue tail almost immediately, as you may recall, and when I reached down to my own, discovering it was red was not a huge concern. I was more concerned that I had a tail instead of legs! When I joined the herd to move to our new home, it did not quite register that my tail alone was red, but once we reached the clearing and stood in a circle surrounding Samuel and William, I was able to observe my fellow merpeople more carefully. Everyone's hair had changed color. Brunettes became redheads, blondes became silvers, etc. I have no explanation for this change except maybe the difference in our source of light. For all I knew, my own violet hair under the sea looks like the raven it did on land. The tails were another story. Nearly everyone in the original group had a tail in a shade of blue. There were a few violets, a few greens, but even in those tails, the blue was dominant. I could feel the eyes of everyone in the circle doing a cursory glance around and landing, with heavy judgment, on me and my bright red tail.

We were all scared, far away from home and thrown without preparation into a brand new environment and brand new bodies. Some adjusted quickly and easily, like William and Samuel, but others did not. I became an easy target to dump their frustration on because my transformation had marked me as one-of-a-kind, while theirs had not.

While I pined for Samuel, the teasing and abuse did not phase me as it once would have. I cared for no one but Samuel and he had no interest in me or anyone else. He did not judge my red tail because he simply did not care about anything. He did not see me as a threat like the ones who ridiculed me did.

When I witnessed Samuel and Viola in the mating show, something strange happened: my bright red tail became dull. It no longer shone as it once had. When they married, it began to darken. What started as lobster red became magenta, then fuchsia, then violet. My heart hardened. I did not care about many things any more and my love for Samuel had broken my spirit so much that I trained myself to forget it. To forget love altogether. I became like the rest of the Community: cold, callous, unfeeling.

I did not analyze the correlation between my tail color and my personality change. I just accepted both as matters of fact. My tormentors eased up, their scapegoat gone. I am not sure how long I remained this way, but when Samuel died, it was a jolt to my senses. I realized even though I had lost him for good, I did not want to lose myself. I did not want to lose the person Samuel once loved.

Samuel and Elizabeth had a daughter, many years before Samuel died. She was a quiet mermaid, probably intimidated by her domineering mother and successful-hunter father. She was one of the first in the Community to have a yellow tail. She was picked on, harassed by her peers and some of the adults, just as I had been. It broke her a lot easier than it broke me. By the time of her Maidening Ceremony, her tail had turned a blue-green and it remained that way for the rest of her short life.

Her husband was a horrible merman. His tail was a dark, ocean blue. If it had not been luminous, it would have blended into the sea and we would never have known he had a tail at all. He hit the maid; punched her in the face and slammed her into the walls of their cave, eventually cracking her skull open against a rock.

I mourned for her, as I had mourned for Samuel. She had no choice in her life, no free will. Fate had given her horrible parents who had not cared for her and a horrible husband who used her to let out his frustration. To the rest of the Community, it was no big deal. Just another death. Not noteworthy in the least.

Her horrible husband died not long after she did, hunting. A shark tore his arm off, then his head. At least that was the report from the hunters who made it back. I did not mourn for him.

The couple had a son. A merphan named Wyatt. Usually when a merphan loses his parents he is left to fend for himself. With no love in our hearts, the Community feels no need or desire to protect and care for the orphans. But when I looked in Wyatt's face, I saw Samuel. I could not leave him to himself. Most orphans die shortly after losing their parents – they do not know how to feed themselves, they wander out of the Community and past the border, their classmates beat them just because they can. How could I let that happen to Samuel's grandson, even if Samuel would have?

I brought the boy to live with me in my cave. I made sure he had a private chamber, plenty of food, and that he went to school. I tried not to get attached, I knew better by then, but I could not help myself. He was a kind merphan, polite, sweet almost. The longer he stayed with me, the softer I became. My tail began to change again – back to fuschia, magenta, bright red. I loved him like a son. I tucked him in bed, told him stories, hugged him, kissed his scraped elbows. His blue fin and tails turned green, then yellow, then orange. But he never loved me in return. He appreciated my kindness, but nothing beyond. When he was married, he left me forever, never looking back. That heartbreak hurt almost worse than losing Samuel to Elizabeth and death.