Darkness enveloped the ship, and the world was utterly silent, but for the soft whisper of tiny waves reaching up to rub themselves against the sides of Captain Arthur's ship, The Bawdy Englishman. In the quietude of the night, a skeleton crew of sailors moved like apparitions, flashes of coarse white cloth and the occasional glint of moonlight against a gleaming belt buckle or earring, tending the sails and keeping watch over the endless expanse around them. Far in the stern of the ship, the captain himself lingered against the weather-beaten railing, the catch of rough wood against his sleeves reminding him he needed to sand it down again. The captain's eyes—a shade of green reminiscent of nothing so much as slightly dried-up moss—were fixated on the black water with singular intensity. He might've been waiting for the Kraken of Davy Jones to burst through the surface, or the tentacles of a behemoth to wrap around the ship and drag them all down to their grisly ends.

However, despite the pinched look of focus on the captain's face, he was, in fact, looking for something slightly less dangerous—a woman, to be precise. His ears strained for any anomalous sounds, and his eyes squinted as his mind turned to focus more on sound than sight—his vision was poor, especially in the dark, and he didn't trust his eyes to see quicker than his ears would hear.

Eventually his laboring audio cortex picked up on a splash that sounded dissonant against those of the waves against his ship—something else was in the water, near the surface. Taking a breath, he gathered himself to call down.

"Marianne?" His whole body tensed with the effort of keeping his voice soft, but making it carry down to the water. "Anne, are you there?" Was that patch of water a different shade of dark than the rest? He squinted more, and wiggled his shoulders to try to shift the binding around his chest into a more comfortable position. He could hear the almost imperceptible shift of water, and down in the ocean a face peered up at him with big blue eyes. Her pale face was luminescent in the light of the half-moon, and although Arthur could not see her face, he bet she was smirking—she often was. He raised a hand to her, and she raised herself up further, so he could see her whole face.

"Alice!" she chirped.

"Sh!" The curt, clipped noise from the captain was scolding; he had spoken to her about this before! "Arthur," he insisted. "Anne, you know that!" Marianne did not look impressed—Arthur knew Marianne disapproved of his lie, but not because it was a lie—because Marianne thought it was a waste for Alice to pretend to be a man. But how else was she to have her own ship? Marianne thrashed her tail and Arthur frowned at her. "Don't argue, it has to be this way."

Marianne slouched in the water, and then moved closer, putting a little white hand against the slimy, slippery wood of Arthur's ship.

"Come down," she said.

"I can't." This was another discussion they had frequently, and as much as Arthur wearied of it, it pained him more than it annoyed him, because he wanted to comply.

"I would save you," Marianne promised, flashing a sharp-toothed grin. Arthur could tell she was using glamor, because he could hear her voice too clearly. Marianne could speak English, but without the glamor, it was very clear her vocal chords were not shaped to speak any human tongue. Her voice was hoarse and rough, and she couldn't speak very long without her throat becoming sore. But Arthur didn't have a crab's chance in a French kitchen of mimicking the sounds of Marianne's birth tongue. "Again."

"I'd rather not." Arthur's tone was dry, but his expression didn't stay so long. He slumped down against the railing, watching Marianne's tail give little flutters to keep up with the slow-moving ship. She didn't speak either, but read his face as Arthur did the many books in his cabin. Her hands pressed uselessly against the wood of the ship, and he could see plainly the distress on her face. "Don't be upset, love," he whispered. "I'll take a vacation soon." He promised this with growing frequency, promising to return to the island that had been Marianne's territory before she left it behind to follow his ships around the western hemisphere.

"After you go home?" Arthur's ship was bound for England now, having delivered the cargo to Virginia as directed. Arthur shook his head.

"I only have two months," he said. "I'm staying in England." Marianne's hands dropped from the ship.

"I won't see you," she said. It wasn't a question, it was a reality. Arthur pressed his thumbnail into the pad of his index finger anxiously.

"I had an idea," he blurted out before he could lose nerve or talk himself out of it (It was a stupid idea, it wouldn't work, Marianne wouldn't want to, someone might catch them…) But the mermaid perked up at once, turning her face up to him again. "I could take you with me."

"England is cold," Marianne said, shuddering. She preferred the warm waters of southern France, where they had first met. "And there are many ships. Too many people." Her infatuation with Arthur had not remedied her natural wariness and dislike of humans.

"Not if I take you to my home," Arthur said.

"Home?" Marianne cocked her head to the side, bobbing in the water. "On land?" Arthur nodded.

"I've thought about it, and we could manage," he said. "Not without a bit of planning, but we could manage. I've a tub big enough for you. Just until I have to sail out again."

"Two months." Time meant little to Marianne; she had no concept of months, weeks or years. She couldn't even tell Arthur how old she was. She might've been four, or four hundred; it was impossible to say.

"Yes, two months. Sixty days," he said. "Sixty nights. If we move you at night, it'd be easier. But if you don't want to, just forget about it." He had explained it all so perfectly in his head, the past few days that he'd been thinking about it, but somehow he was jumbling it all up now. This was precisely why he preferred books and boats to people. But Marianne smiled wide, showing her wickedly sharp teeth.

"Yes! Let me see Alice home!"

"Sh!" Arthur turned back to see if anyone was near, and saw his first mate coming down the steps from the bow.

"Trouble, sir?" Fernando asked.

"Splinter," Arthur grunted. "Everything's quiet."

"Aye, it's a good night for sailing," Fernando agreed. "Y'ought to get some sleep, sir. I've got things up here." Arthur nodded.

"Aye, I'll go down for a bit," he allowed, raising his voice slightly for Marianne's benefit, if she was still surfaced. "Wake me at next watch."

When the ship docked in Alice's home bay, she was unsure whether or not Marianne had followed. With hope in her heart, she skulked down to the pier where her ship was moored that night. Docking was always a busy day, most of all for Alice because it involved shifting back to her female persona, a shift that could be jarring going either way. It also meant she had to keep her head covered constantly—with hats, scarves or bonnets—to be sure no one saw her close-cropped men's haircut. She could've worn it long to more easily switch from Arthur to Alice, but she wanted Arthur to be truly convincing.

With her, she carried a net and a long cloak for purposes of transportation. She stooped to grab a handful of stones from the road before walking out onto the pier. When she reached the end, she threw two stones in quick succession. A few more followed, and then Marianne surfaced.

"Ah, good, you came." Alice crouched down. "Can you get onto the pier?" She tapped the wet wood. Marianne scoffed, and the glamor faded. Without it, her breasts shrank to almost nothing, and the same sort of purple-blue scaling that characterized her tale broke out around her body, gathering at the boniest parts of her—elbows, shoulders, cheekbones, etc. Her ears were smaller, with webbing fanning out around the shell, holding them flat to the sides of her head. Her nose flattened as well, and when she lunged up for the dock, Alice could see the webbing on her fingers. She could also see the muscles flexing and bulging in Marianne's upper arms as she hauled herself out of the water, dragging her tail up with her, water glistening and pooling in the dips between her muscles. Alice reached out to help, but there was nothing she could grab onto, and she knew firsthand how strong mermaids were.

Once Marianne was on the pier, Alice began to wrap her up in the net. She felt Marianne tense.

"Just for a bit," she promised. "I've got to be able to carry you." Looking suspicious, but without protesting, Marianne allowed it. "Here." Alice passed Marianne the clasps of the cloak. "When I got you on my back, I need you to put this on me. Cover yourself up." Grasping the four corners of the net in her hands, Alice lifted Marianne up. It was like carrying a bag of stones, but Alice was strong from her work on the ship—lean, wiry muscle roped her frame, binding her scrawny figure together.

As she took the first few wobbly steps, she felt Marianne's cold arms reaching around her neck, fumbling with the closing of the cloak. Once she managed, she wriggled around trying to spread it out until it sufficiently hid her from view. Then it was the walk back to Alice's tiny home.

By the time she dropped Marianne somewhat unceremoniously on the floor, she was sure her back was going to ache the next day. The mermaid gurgled unhappily as she hit the ground, and rolled onto her back.

"Not nice!"

"You have no idea how heavy you are," Alice grumbled back. She dropped the net and tossed the cloak over the back of her dining chair. The room was just so—one room, into which Alice fit her bed, table, washtub and all the belongings she didn't store on The Bawdy Englishman.

Furthermore, her dress was soaked all down the back from having Marianne pressed against it. But she quickly forgot about that when she saw Marianne crawling over to her chest of clothes, reaching out with great interest to rub her fingers against the brass corners and leather straps.

"Alice's treasure?" Living at the bottom of the sea, Marianne was accustomed to dredging up things that had been lost in shipwrecks, and she knew valuables were often stored in such trunks.

"Hardly," Alice replied. "It's just clothes—hey!" Marianne apparently took the denial to mean she was free to open it up and start rummaging around. Alice quickly strode over, shooed the mermaid's hands out and shut the trunk, nearly catching Marianne's fingers. There wasn't anything particularly private in there, she just…didn't like people going through her things.

"I want to see," Marianne whined. Alice look at her for a moment, her face twisted up with indecision, then flung the trunk open again.

"As you will, have a look." Marianne pawed through Alice's dresses, stockings and brassieres, laughing and holding things up. She grabbed a scarf and wrapped it around her head, then grinned up at Alice, whose lips twitched despite herself.

"Do you wear these every day?" Marianne asked, pulling at a blue dress sleeve.

"On land, aye," Alice said. "I've got to."

"Why?"

"It's…it's proper," she said. "Folks would ask questions if I didn't."

"But Alice doesn't like being on land." It was more a statement than a question, something Marianne already knew, somehow without Alice telling her. Her seemingly preternatural ability to know what Alice was thinking often irritated the Englishwoman, but Marianne had promised her that mind-reading or telepathy were not powers mermaids had. Which meant Alice was just that easily readable, at the least for Marianne.

"No, I don't."

"So odd," Marianne said, pulling the scarf off and putting it away. "What if a mermaid didn't like the ocean?"

"I suppose she'd be bang out of luck, eh?" Alice smiled and reached a hand out. Marianne took it and pressed it against her cheek.

"It's so dry here," Marianne protested softly. Alice could tell from the warmth of Marianne's cheek that she was overheated, and her skin was drying out.

"Fuck, right, the tub. Hold on." Alice went over and pulled the blanket cover off the tub. She had filled it earlier that day, with a great deal of hauling water, in preparation for Marianne's arrival. With Alice's help, Marianne tumbled in, sloshing water all over the edges of the tub. She sank in, her head, shoulders and the fan of her tail still above water. If she arranged herself right, with the majority of her tail flopping over the side, she could submerge her head, which she did for several minutes, sucking oxygen in through her gills. She had lungs, and could breathe like a human, but she preferred this, and her gills were so delicate, it wouldn't do for them to dry out. Alice folded the blanket under her to stay dry, and sat down by the tub. "Better?" she asked when Marianne's head surfaced. She nodded.

"No room for Alice," Marianne said mournfully, reaching out to the blonde.

"Well it's not meant for two," Alice said. "But maybe…" Marianne gave her a devious smile, and blew bubbles in the water, fluttering her fingers against the surface. She had explained to Alice that mermaids reproduced by and large like fish—that is, the female laid eggs and the male came by later to fertilize. But Marianne had discovered the truth about land mammals, and took advantage of Alice's various weaknesses with those slender, webbed fingers of hers.

Alice would like to have said that she was far above the temptations of wicked sirens, and that she would never be so weak as to fall for a sea creature's machinations, but that was not only untrue now, it had been since her first meeting with Marianne. She stripped down to her skivvies and stepped into the tub. They found she could squeeze in beside Marianne with her knees against her less-than-mountainous chest, or kneels over Marianne's lap. Marianne encouraged her to settle for the latter.

"Mm, Alice is warm," Marianne sighed, sitting up and laying her head against Alice's breast. In point of fact, Alice was rather chilly after the walk, but her usual body temperature was too warm for Marianne to find cozy. She ran her fingers through the tangle of Marianne's dark hair, silky soft under her fingertips.

Marianne pressed a kiss to Alice's skin, nuzzling her. She reached up and slipped the strap-like sleeves of Alice's undershirt off her shoulders, and pulled the neckline down to expose Alice's chest. Her lips brushed between Alice's breasts and Alice felt her sharp teeth graze her skin, making her shiver. Instinctively, she pressed her weight down heavier on Marianne's lap.

"I missed you," Marianne told her, reaching up to drag her fingers over Alice's left breast. It had been a long time since they had been able to touch—not since Alice had been rescued by a passing Moroccan trade ship after two months marooned on Marianne's island.

"I missed you too," she confessed lowly, tracing her nails down Marianne's back. She leaned in and Marianne met her with a kiss, and did Alice the courtesy of taking advantage of some more of her weaknesses, her fingers slipping and creeping lower across Alice's flat stomach, exploring down into the nest of blonde curls between her legs. Marianne was very good with her fingers.

When they were done, Alice tucked herself up into a space beside Marianne, and leaned against her in peaceable silence. Alice was not a talkative person (outside the bottle), so her mermaid of few words was perfect for her. Eventually Alice felt that her innards had dipped to far too low a temperature, and reluctantly parted the tub.

"Bedtime," she said. Since she had soaked her clothes in the tub with Marianne, she slept with nothing, and woke freezing in the night. The absence of splashes from the tub suggested Marianne was sleeping though, which was good. Anxiety was still kneading its claws in her gut, but it was good that the mermaid could at least get some rest.

When she woke in the morning, Marianne was draped over the edge of the tub, submerging her tail.

"Eat? Alice, time to eat?" Alice groaned and ran a hand through her thin blonde hair.

"Yeah, yeah…give me a minute to get up." She couldn't have breakfast ready for Marianne, because she was carnivorous—it had to be meat, and it had to be seafood. She'd never eaten anything like chicken or mutton before, and Alice didn't want to find out what happened when she tried it the first time.

So she dressed and went out to the market. She found a nice big fish, and a loaf of bread for herself, and returned to find Marianne curled into a most unnatural position following the curve of the tub, so her tail was in her face. She tossed the fish into the water and her room was again doused in water as Marianne jerked upright to catch it.

Alice spent the day with Marianne and went shopping again in the evening for dinner. They began to establish a routine this way, but by the end of the first week, Alice could already see Marianne was restless. She could hear the mermaid splashing at night, and she began to respond less to Alice's talk during the day.

"Feeling alright, love?" she asked when she went over to the tub to give Marianne her fish. Marianne took it and began peeling strips of flesh off. There was a small pile of bones beside the tub that Alice still needed to clean up.

"Yes, fine." She nodded and flicked a scale at Alice, but the gesture lacked something. Alice wanted to let it go, move on, say nothing if Marianne was going to say nothing, but guilt prickled her gut. She had brought Marianne here, and it was irresponsible of her not to press when Marianne was clearly not settling in well.

"Sleeping alright?" Marianne shrugged a scaly shoulder and nibbled at the fish, burying her face in it to avoid having to answer. "Is the…is the tub big enough?"

"No." Alice found herself half-irritated, wishing Marianne would just lie because obviously there was nothing Alice could do. Any decent person would lie instead of honestly sharing their unhappiness!

"Well it's for a few weeks more, hm?" She stroked Marianne's hair, but Marianne, who disliked being touched while she was eating, shrugged away.

With a sigh, Alice got to her feet. Her fantasies about life with Marianne were evaporating like steam from her tea kettle, and it rent her heart. It had been a long time since she had felt so conflicted—not since she'd made the decision to create Arthur and live at least a part of her life on her own terms. But unlike her love of the sea, her love for Marianne was not so easily bent into a shape to fit into her life. She couldn't create a persona for Marianne that would allow her to live on land.

Perhaps a tank of some sort? she thought. It was conceivable…returning to the stove, she stirred her morning oats and considered the engineering and capital required to attempt such a thing.

But then…could she condemn Marianne to life in a cage? A gilded cage was still a cage—something Alice had said to her mother, before she'd left home. And that's what any sort of tank would be—a cage, to keep Marianne in Alice's life. How selfish.

By the end of another week, Marianne was showing signs of physical deterioration from her captivity. She slumped in the tub, and picked at her food. Her skin looked sallower, Alice thought, and she had grown quieter. Marianne was not talkative, because of how difficult human speech was for her, but she was always alert, and she responded to Alice, if without words. But that was happening less and less. It was as though she were withdrawing in on herself—as if she were genuinely ill.

"This isn't working, is it?" Alice said quietly late one night, sitting with her back against Marianne's tub. The mermaid gave her a pained smile and touched the top of her head, caressing Alice's short hair.

"No," she replied.

"I have to take you back, don't I?" It was something Alice had known for days, but she didn't want to admit it. It wasn't just the end of their time together here, now—it was the end of a dream.

"Yes." Marianne's fingers moved down to Alice's cheek. Her own rested uncomfortably against the edge of the tub. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Alice said brusquely, getting up and shaking Marianne's hand off. "It is what it is."

"Alice!" The Englishwoman was ready to move away, but Marianne lurched forward, grabbing for her again. "Don't be angry," she pleaded, the shimmer of glamor wavering over her, turning her eyes to those big blue orbs that would suck in any land-dwelling man.

"Stop that, you don't have the strength," Alice scolded. Marianne's face returned to normal. She jerked, making to continue her flight, but the flash of Marianne's "human" eyes haunted the backs of her eyelids and she couldn't go. "I'm not angry," she said, unconvincingly, though she truly wasn't. "I'll take you tomorrow night, okay?"

"I will miss you," Marianne rasped, grabbing at Alice's skirt. Alice grunted some sort of assent, and looked down at the sad fish in the tub.

Christ, she thought. I did this to you. I took a perfectly healthy thing and ruined it, for myself.

Marianne pressed the back of Alice's hand against her scaly cheek. Her temperature was too warm.

"Alice will still be with me," Marianne told her, moving Alice's hand to her chest. Her heart wasn't in the same place, but she had been delighted when she found she could listen to Alice's heartbeat, so she used the gesture with humans in mind.

"Not near enough," Alice muttered under her breath. She took her hand back and patted Marianne's head. "Right. Of course, pet. I'll see you when I sail." And on land, I'll grow into an old maid, until my hands are too weak to climb the rigging, my back to stiff to sleep in a berth, until I am too old to sail, and I never see you again, and the only thing I have left to comfort myself is some vague notion of sentimentality.

But she knew she had to do the right thing—she had to return Marianne to her home, before the poor thing wasted away in Alice's bathtub.

She could feel how much weight Marianne had lost as she hoisted the mermaid in the net onto her back once more. They arranged the cloak before she stepped out, and then began the long walk back to the docks. On the pier, she lowered Marianne down as gently as she could, remembering how she'd dropped her on the floor the first time. She still hit the wood heavily, whining quietly.

"Can Alice take me out more?" she croaked. "Water here is so shallow…"

It's the least I can do…Alice thought. "Let me get a dingy from The Englishman." She went to her own ship nearby, and lowered the dinghy down herself, paddling it over to the pier where she'd left her wayward mermaid. It was a trick getting her into the boat, but Alice was fortunately supported by years of maintaining her balance on rocking ships.

A waning half-moon was in the sky as Alice stroked them across the inky waters. She supposed she took Marianne out further than necessary, but it was the last time, she suspected, they'd be so close. In the end, was their relationship anything more than a figment of imagination? She could've rowed all night, she had the strength for it, but she stopped before the shore got too small, and pulled up the oars.

"How's this, love?" Marianne, trailing her fingers happily in the water, nodded and smiled.

"Perfect!" Another of her favorite words. Alice had hoped to find her a bit more morose at the idea of their parting, but Marianne seemed utterly unaffected. Perhaps that's the best, Alice thought wearily. Fooling myself into this…what a twat I've made of myself.

She reached out to help Marianne over the side, but with a might thrash, Marianne flipped over, sending Alice's boat dancing wildly in the water. She leaned over for a last close look at Marianne's blue and purple tail disappearing, and that was when the hands seized her collar. There was barely time to gasp before she was toppling into the frigid water, feeling it rush into her mouth and up her nose.

Marianne!

The damnable mermaid!

As Alice choked, she remembered Marianne's priceless stash of stolen goods, piled up and falling over each other, glinting and sparkling in the dim light of her cavern—she remembered the boots and silk shirts, the necklaces and rings, the finger bones picked clean in the shallows, the skull that had once washed up on the island after a storm. Mermaids were greedy creatures, possessive, violent and primitive—she had known this! Alice was no fool—she had known! And she knew Marianne—she knew how she hated to lose, how she jealously guarded what was hers, how strong she was! What in the world had made her believe that if Marianne couldn't have her, she would let her go?

Underwater, Marianne's wiry fingers dug more securely into Alice's dress, hands creeping up her back. Alice's precious seconds of strength had been wasted on her surprise, and now she was losing air and power fast. Marianne's muscular tail rippled, sending them sailing yards into the darkness with each smooth flick.

Alice opened her mouth to scream at the traitor, but she knew she couldn't waste her air. She punched and kicked, but Marianne's arms were steel around her, and she didn't seem to be bothered by Alice's fighting at all.

Above them, the moon grew smaller, its light weaker, and Alice's aching throat told her this would be the last sight she would see. Marianne's arms wrapped around her in a deadly embrace, and the mermaid leaned in, sinking her teeth into Alice's neck. The Englishwoman wasn't sure whether to be angry that she was being treated so poorly, or relieved that Marianne intended to give her a quick death, not just drown her.

Heat—initially a relief from the freezing water—swept up her until it burned. Her eyes were dimming, white gauze stretching over her vision. She heard nothing, and her brain could no longer form a coherent thought.

Marianne, she thought with varying emotions. Marianne, Marianne…cursed siren!

Marianne held her tightly, close against her, and nuzzled her face into the crook of Alice's neck, not taking them deeper, nor returning the body to the surface.

And Alice took a breath.

Oxygen rushed back into her with such force that a sob caught in her throat. Her eyes were on fire, and her whole body throbbed and shrieked with pains. She shoved Marianne off, and looked about. A hand flew up to her neck—she could feel rips in the flesh, probably from where she'd been bitten…but they felt so smooth?

Down—sticking out from her dress, rather than her pallid, skinny legs, was a tail. Green and gold scales, dark in the depths of the ocean, made a gradient across it. She gasped, and rather than choking on the water, she felt more precious oxygen restoring life to her brain and heart. Her gaze snapped to Marianne, watching her expectantly, excitedly.

What did you do?

I fixed you! The mermaid chirped. Since I cannot live on land, now Alice can live with me!

You can do that?

Marianne just smiled and took Alice's hand.

Come. Let me show you how lovely the island is from under the water. Abandoning the dinghy and leaving Arthur's crew to wonder what foolishness he'd been up to the night he disappeared, the two mermaids headed south—swimming for warmer waters.