Prologue: The Boy
She watched him from just above the waves; her pale face barely visible just above the white froth… A pretty face with sparkling green eyes, and a wide smile whenever she caught sight of him. She watched him, and all the while, she loved him… Secretly… secretly… She watched him grow from the tender age of eight into the age of manhood. And when she was not watching the boy, she was dreaming sweet dreams of him far beneath the waves within the palace of coral that she called home. He never saw her, for it simply was not permitted in the world in which she lived. The immortal mer-people were simply forbidden to love or even come into close contact with what they grudgingly called man, and they had their reasons to be fearful. This had been so from the time that the waves first washed ashore onto the beaches where man constantly played, and called their hunting ground. Man could hurt them. It was as simple as that.
She wished that it would all change, and that she could be with him forever. She despised the world in which she lived, although she never made these feelings vocal. It was cold and dreary there, for she lived at the very bottom of the sea, where no ray of the sun could be found in a lifetime. Here, it was dark, and sometimes it became quite difficult for her to see. How she longed for the gentle warmth of the sun… How she longed for him.
But it simply was not meant to be, and she knew this deep down in her heart, and this notion haunted her, for how she longed to play on the beach with him, and feel the warmth of the sun upon her warm face indefinitely; to never be forced to see the bitter sea waters that tortured her again. But how could she make this so? She, like all of the other fish in the sea simply could not live for more than a few minutes without being submerged in the water. It kept them alive and thriving; without it, her skin would dry, and she would most likely perish if she attempted to be on the surface with him forever.
She soon became a woman as the years went by, and each and every day, she cried for him. The boy she loved. The boy who could never love here. She hated her tail most of all, and wished sometimes that if she were brave enough to take a chance, and swim up to the surface, and stay for a lifetime with him; loving him, and being loved in return. How she longed for his love… How she longed to even spend a second with him acknowledging the fact that she was alive; that she had needs-- a soul-- a heart…
Each day, she yearned for him a little bit more, and each day, as I watched her from my crystal ball, I shed a tear, and wished that I had the power within me to reach out and help her. But how could I? For a bird may love a fish, but how could they live? Eventually, she would come to me for help, and I would give it to her… How foolish my daughter was.