Crutchie was leaning over the edge of the castle overlooking the ocean, maybe a little too far. He was looking at the calm water that surrounded the island and taking in the beautiful sunlight reflecting off of it. He saw a flash of shadow underneath the waves but it quickly disappeared and he wrote it off as a trick of the light.
Crutchie's mother had given birth the night before to a healthy baby boy. With all the excitement in the house he was happy to have a moment alone with his thoughts. He felt shade fall over him and turned around. Behind him stood Oscar and Morris Delancey, two of the castle guards.
"Heya fellas. What're you doin' here?" Crutchie asked nervously.
"Sorry about this crip. It's not quite honest work but I take care of the guy who takes care of me and your father's givin' Morris and I good money for this job." Oscar said vaguely.
"What're you sayin' Oscar?"
Morris snatched Crutchie's crutch and pushed him to the floor, answering the question in his own way. Crutchie put his hands over his exposed body to protect himself in case the Delanceys intended to hit him again. Oscar grabbed his thin wrists and shackled them together with a pair of manacles he was carrying.
"Help," Crutchie screamed. "Please help me."
Oscar kicked him in the head. "No one can hear you. No one's comin' to help you. Didn't you notice it was empty when you came up here?"
Tears sprung to Crutchie's eyes from the pain of the kick. He was angry at himself for not being more aware and not being able to fight back better. Morris grabbed his disabled leg and started dragging him away. Pain was blinding him.
"Katherine," Crutchie screamed for his sister's help. "Kath help! Where are you?" she didn't answer him. She was surely inside the castle and clearly was unable to hear him.
He grabbed at the cobblestones to impede Morris' dragging but a nail snapped off painfully on a rock and he stopped from the shock and pain of the missing nail. The skin of his back was being torn up by the stones. Morris and Oscar were dragging him towards the docks. As they passed over the wooden slats of the dock splinters of wood entered his flesh and worsened his distress. Oscar pulled Crutchie onto a fishing boat and he hit his head as he was dragged aboard.
Crutchie looked up and saw Snyder, the jailer of the castle dungeon, the Refuge. He was known for being quite the sadist, the more common workers in the castle referred to him as Snyder the Spider.
"Oh good you've arrived. Get us sailing boys, while I speak with Prince Charles." Snyder took the crutch from Oscar.
"Mr. Snyder what's goin' on?" Crutchie stammered fearfully.
"Oh you dumb crip," Snyder sneered leaning casually and Crutchie's crutch. "You're useless, your family doesn't want you anymore. You see your father doesn't want a crip to rule his kingdom when he's no longer able to, so he hired us to take care of you."
"My father wouldn't do that to me." Crutchie choked out.
"Sure he would, you're just a useless crip with a gimp leg. Now he has a good son, untainted by your defect." Snyder turned his back on Crutchie tossing his crutch to the ground. Snyder took the wheel from Oscar who went to assist Morris with the sails. There was a strong wind blowing and they were soon too far out from the island for even a strong swimmer to swim back, let alone a disabled teenger, still Crutchie couldn't allow for himself to be murdered by the men.
Crutchie reached out for his crutch and struggled to stand. He wobbled over to Oscar Delancey and knocked his legs out from under him with the crutch. Oscar fell but Morris punched Crutchie in the face so hard he lost his balance and fell immediately afterwards. Morris was helping his brother up when Snyder strode over and took the crutch from him.
"You shouldn't have done that little man." Snyder taunted him.
Crutchie cringed, he wasn't sure what Snyder would do to him but he knew it wouldn't be enjoyable. Snyder raised the crutch above his head, his face was a mask of cruelty and malice and he brought it back down onto the teen's ribs. Crutchie screamed.
"Please, please stop," Crutchie coughed.
Snyder didn't listen to Crutchie's pleas and hit him even harder once more. He lifted the crutch and Crutchie was terrified that he would strike him again but instead he snapped the crutch over his knee and tossed it into the water.
"Toss him into the drink boys." Snyder commanded.
The Delanceys picked him up by his shoulders and legs and dropped him bodily into the ocean. For a brief yet insidious moment he was falling and then he slapped the water painfully. His head went under the water and he struggled to reach the surface. While Crutchie used to be a talented swimmer, he lost most of the mobility in his right leg after getting polio when he was twelve. Since then nobody had taught him how to swim with a disability so he never had regained the skill. The exhaustion and agony of the beating as well as his shackled hands made it impossible for Crutchie to reach the surface of the water. He sunk and sunk low in the water and was helpless to stop it.
His lungs burned from the lack of air and his eyes burned from the saltwater they were exposed to. He saw a motion from the corner of his eye. Suddenly strong arms were around him. He gasped for air but inhaled water. He turned to look up at the person grabbing him and was met with a pair of beautiful green eyes. He looked down and saw that in place of legs, the boy had a grey dolphin tail.
I'm drowned, Crutchie thought, I'm dead and this is heaven or I'm dying and this is my brain's oxygen deprived hallucination.
The merman did something Crutchie never would have expected, he kissed him. At first Crutchie tried to pull away put the boy but he grabbed his face and didn't let go. Crutchie found that he was able to breathe. A merman's kiss, that's how he was able to breathe. The breaths didn't feel big enough to be healthy. Crutchie noticed that the gills on the merman's neck were flaring and his chest was heaving.
It dawned on Crutchie that he wasn't able to breathe from the kiss, he was able to breathe because the merman was filtering oxygen from the water into Crutchie's lungs. Crutchie could no longer stand the saltwater stinging his eyes so he closed them. He felt the merman pulling him through the water with his lips still connected to Crutchie's. Crutchie opened his eyes and looked to see the face of the boy focused on moving forward, towards what, Crutchie couldn't see. He closed his eyes again.
For a time they simply moved away from the ship that Crutchie had just been thrown off of until finally, they surfaced. The boy pulled away from Crutchie's face, though Crutchie had almost grown accustomed to his lip's presence there, they were not entirely unwelcome. Fortunately the boy still had his arms wrapped around Crutchie and helped to keep him above the water.
The boy broke Crutchie's train of thoughts by saying, "I'm Jack."
"Crutchie," Crutchie replied breathlessly, still stunned by the presence of a merman and from his near death apparently orchestrated by his father.
"What were you doin' in the water?" Jack asked, annoyedly.
"Uh." Crutchie wasn't sure what to say, attempted murder wasn't a frequent part of his life and saying it out loud to Jack felt like making it real.
Jack softened his tone, "S'okay if you don't want to tell me. You can tell me later if you want, or not at all. I'm gonna to take you back to my island. Is that okay?"
"You have an island?" Crutchie asked.
Jack blushed, "It's not my island, I sleep there sometimes is all. My human friends live there."
"Oh. You have human friends?"
"What, did you think we didn't know about you?"
"We don't know about you so I didn't really know if you knew about us." He exhaled, then added, "Yes, you can take me to your island."
Without warning Jack grabbed the chain around Crutchie's wrists and dragged him quickly towards a small island that was rapidly growing larger as they advanced towards it. Jack managed to keep Crutchie's head above the water level for the entirety of the trip, which Crutchie was grateful for. Soon enough, Jack and Crutchie were on the island and Jack was pushing Crutchie onto a sandy beach.
Surprisingly, Crutchie really was not the only human on the island. Jack called out to one, "Les, where's Davey?"
The child, Les jogged over and called out to Jack, "He's at school. It's almost out, I was waitin' for him. He promised to buy me some candy after school."
"I'm sorry Les, it'll have to wait. I need his help."
"With him?" Les gestured at Crutchie.
Crutchie was bothered by his lack of input in a conversation about him so he answered for Jack, "Yes, please help me. I was attacked and thrown off a ship."
Les seemed excited by Crutchie's story. "I'll go get Davey," he promised as he ran off.
Jack propped himself up on his elbows and looked at Crutchie who said, "Thank you for saving me. I'm pretty sure I'd be dead if it weren't for you."
"No need to thank me, it was a pleasure to save someone as good looking as you." Jack touched Crutchie's shoulder. Crutchie blushed as red as a rose and grinned bashfully before being pulled into a dripping wet hug by Jack.
Their moment was interrupted by Les' return with who Crutchie assumed was Davey. "Does someone wanna tell me why Les is dragging me here? This is not the way to get home." He noticed Crutchie's sorry state and muttered, "Oh."
"Davey I'm glad you're here, my friend Crutchie here needs help."
"Of course, he looks like he needs it. My father's back at work but Crutchie can come home for dinner and Sarah and I'll clean him up. Do you wanna join us, Jack?"
"Thanks for the invite, I'll meet you there." Jack pushed himself back into the water and swam away.
Davey chuckled and approached Crutchie. "May I help you up?" he asked Crutchie.
"Please," Crutchie answered.
Davey grabbed Crutchie from around the waist and lifted him up. Crutchie grimaced from the pain but did his best to hide it from Davey. Once on his feet Crutchie wobbled but Davey helped to support him and adjusted his head so that Crutchie could wrap his arms around his shoulders with his hands still chained. As they slowly walked, Davey and Crutchie were able to hold a conversation.
"Thank you for helpin' me. Crutchie apologized, "Sorry for getting your clothes wet."
"It's not a problem. Any friend of Jack's is a friend of mine."
"That's very kind of you. I'se got a question."
"Shoot"
"How's Jack gonna meet us at your place? This is an island, after all. It's not like he can walk on land, right?"
Davey guffawed, "That'd be quite a sight, Jack trying to walk on land. No, Jack can't walk he keeps his tail even when he's out of water, if that's what you'se wondering. The way that Jack can visit us is that this island is very special. It was built so that mermaids and humans could coexist. Our house is on a large dike to keep it out of the water but there are holes in the bottom so that mermaids can pop up in certain spots. Our house has a few holes and Jack stays the night so often that he has a bed in our house." Davey turned to Les, "Hey Les, why don't you go run ahead and tell mom to prepare spots at the table for two more tonight."
"I don't wanna, I wanna stay and get to know the new guy," Les complained.
"You can get to know him at dinner, but only if you go tell Mom he's coming."
"Fine," Les whined.
Once Les had run off, Davey said to Crutchie, "See, Jack kinda had a fling with my sister, Sarah a while back. It was a little thing and didn't last long. Their breakup was mutual and on good terms, though. They're still friends and Jack is basically family now but that's how we know each other."
Crutchie listened as Davey continued, "A few months ago my father was caring for the horse of a family that was out of town. He had the right boots for the job but he'd taken them off to go into the house to get a glass of water and eat his lunch, and he'd left the boots outside. While he ate his lunch his boots were stolen. He'd tried to use one of the owner's boots but the were much too small. He eventually gave up and finished cleaning the horse barefoot. It didn't go well. The horse shifted his weight and stepped on Dad's middle toe, crushing it. When my father tried to pull his foot out the flesh of his toe was pulled off and part of the bone was gone too."
Crutchie gasped, horrified by Davey's story.
They entered a neighborhood and Davey pointed at a house, saying," This one's ours. I'll finish the story later."
Les ran out to greet them and gave Davey a hug. He pulled away and said, "Mom's cooking dinner right now. It's not done and Dad's not coming home until late."
"Thanks Little Brother," Davey smiled, ruffling Les' hair. "Alright I'm gonna go put Crutchie in Jack's bed."
"Thank you," Crutchie said. Davey and Crutchie made their way to the bedroom. They passed through the kitchen and Crutchie's mouth watered at the smell of the delicious meal Davey's mother was preparing. Davey tugged him into a hallway. "Later," He said as Crutchie's head swiveled to look at the food.
"Sorry," Crutchie said as he stepped over a board of wood.
"You don't have to apologize," Davey assured him, "you didn't do anything wrong."
Crutchie looked down at his soggy shoes, still feeling shameful.
Davey opened a door at the end of the hallway that opened up into a room with a bunk bed, a small bed opposing it, and a chest of drawers. Davey freed his head from Crutchie's grasp. Davey took Crutchie's hands and helped him to sit down on Jack's bed.
"Thanks," Crutchie breathed, in pain from the movement but grateful to be sitting down.
Before Davey could respond they heard a scream coming from the hallway and Davey raced out of the room.