In a house by the sea, with seagulls squawking and waves breaking, they lived. With fishes splashing in the sea, they spent their days in a house all their own. She knitted; he wrote. Sometimes. The little ones happily distracted. The two grew old together by the sea.


She woke, eyelids fluttering like a butterfly's heartbeat.
"Are we not going to live on the Fountain's shore?" she asked aloud, marveling in a way at how the daylight changed the surface world too.
He nuzzled her neck. "I thought about that. But if we lived here, we'd be right at the edge of the wide, wide ocean, free to swim wherever whenever we pleased. I thought we could keep a cot in the Fountain. Just in case."
"Wonderful idea." She made to kiss him, but it was then they both heard Tamara's call. "I have to go."
He glanced wistfully into her eyes. "I know."
With a kiss on the nose, she rose and slipped into the water. "Goodbye my love."


"She grows closer every day. And fast. Syrena, is the silver-fin armed?"
"He is, Tamara."
"Good. How are the sailors?"
One of the other mermaids spoke. "They're sticking close together, but growing more confident each day. We've chosen our pursuits and begun."
"Excellent. Patrols, keep your watches alert. The newcomer sometimes disappears off radar. We must be careful. More than one silver-fin is at stake. Now, patrols, break off! And on sight or scent of the newcomer, detain her as politely as possible and bring her to me."


Philip sat on a quiet rock where he could see, hear, and feel the waves but not change. He longed to swim, and to swim with Syrena. He now understood the hatred the gold-fins felt for men that ripped them from the waters.
He watched the tide recede to where the water was low enough for him to enter and then he went ashore. There, he began to collect and mark wood for the walls of the house. "When I can finally swim again," he muttered to himself. "I will dive down to the ships' wrecks and collect nails."
When the tide started to come back in, he returned to the rock to think.
Sighing, he lifted his head to the sky to inquire of God.
But a new voice spoke, low and feminine. "Hello, handsome."