Chapter Five: How Tom Met Ariel
He was nine when they met. It was during one of Wool's day trips to the beach which was the orphanage's way of placating the kids and to ensure they could avoid another gruel riot by buying them ice cream and letting them run in the sand for a full day.
Tom loathed beach days, almost as much as he despised the adults who ran Wool's with an iron-will but were mawkish and caring out in public. He hated it all. The sun, the sand, his housemates who ran around like chickens with their heads cut off and shrieked and played and ate sandy treats like they were regular children. But Tom knew better by then. They would never get to be normal children who grew up into normal adults with normal lives. They were all doomed, himself included, to lives of poverty, hardships, and unnoticed deaths. He saw their lives for what they were. They were the bastard offspring of cadavers who will grow up to be nothing more than pathetic adults with nothing to look forward to than a pauper's grave. If they ever grew up to be adults at all. And that knowledge scorched his soul and filled his little body with more rage than he knew what to do with.
Anger radiated within him daily, hourly, constantly, and with no one else to turn his anger on, he unleashed it onto his fellow orphans. Because if he was going to be miserable then so would they.
He made the plan the moment he saw the cave. He was going to lure Dennis and Amy into the cave and he was going to see what the insides of their skulls looked like. Convincing them to sneak away was easy. For some reason, the other kids always listened to him even if it was obvious, they were terrified of him. He couldn't explain it himself. He had such a small, childish voice, it grated against his own ears, but he knew what to say to get people to like him. To do what he wanted.
Even as he led them away from the comforts of the summer sun to the coolness of the cave, they believed his lies.
"I bet we could find buried treasure in here," Tom told them tantalizingly. Even back then, he knew the best form of persuasion involved riches.
"I don't think we should…" Dennis began fearfully, taking timid glances over his shoulder to the mouth of the cave.
His contemporary's fear pissed Tom off greatly so much that he lost his sangfroid and turned to lambast the child, for being so weak-willed and moronic, when he stopped. When he turned his head quickly, something shiny winked at him from the corner. Suddenly the promise of treasure was greater than his bloodlust and Tom ventured towards a ravine, despite his companions' protests.
He climbed over a set of rocks and leaned forward to discover, just beyond the rocks laid a cove were in the cove beheld an assortment of wonders: Books, paintings, tea kettles, jewels, gold chalices, pots, pans, utensils, great treasures mixed with everyday items like a ramshackle museum.
"Did you find anything?" Amy's voice cried out, nervously.
"No," he lied as he grabbed for a gold coin that dazzled at him from its dirt shelf. His hand was halfway into his shirt's pocket when a voice scolded him gently, "Put it back."
He looked up and found a red-headed woman in a purple bikini top swimming in the dark green waters. Tom froze, half-afraid and half-defiant, his hand still wrapped around the gold coin.
The woman held out a waiting hand which irked him greatly. He wanted to be defiant. To tell her to fuck off and run off with his newly acquired riches but he felt his free will leave his arm as it rose up, against his wishes, to give back what he stole. When the coin fell from his fingers, he felt the control return to his arm and it was at that moment he recognized the power in this creature before him.
"How did you do that?" He demanded, half-flabbergasted and half-beseeching.
She blinked at him but before she could answer Dennis's voice cried out, in confusion, from behind, "Do what? I didn't do anything."
Tom barely remembered the other two children and when they approached the rock he sat on and discovered Tom was talking to a strange lady with blood-red hair and a fishtail swimming in a dim watery cave, he didn't chase after them as they ran away screaming.
The woman didn't seem to care about them either for her focus was squarely set on him. He could tell from the expression on her face that his unwillingness to be afraid of her interested him.
"Did you make me give the coin back to you?" Tom asked, modulating his voice so that it was less of a demand and more of a question.
"I did," she replied.
Tom blinked at her with awe. "You can control people with your voice?"
"I can."
He almost gasped. So, there was more to this dull world than what the adults at Wool's led him to believe. Mermaids and magic did exist.
"Can you teach me?"
Her head turned sideways at him as she regarded him quietly. Her tail rippled the waters behind her and Tom followed the ever-expanding rings until they vanished into nothing. Finally, she told him, "I'm sorry. I can't. It's just something I can do as a siren."
His mouth clamped tight with disappointment. His insides broiled with envy. Why couldn't he be special? He knew he was special. He knew it in his bones. So why was every adult he ever came in contact with trying to squelch his potential?
"Shit," he hissed. He looked at her, expecting her to scold him for his potty mouth but she merely blinked at him with unconcealed amusement as she slowly swam towards the shoreline.
"Why do you want to control people so badly?" She asked after she took a seat on the water-logged sand, leaving her tail in the waters.
"Because…" He started then stopped. He almost told her the truth. He never told adults the truth if he could avoid it. Yet this adult—this mermaid, who despite being a different species than him was still older than him and thus considered to be another odious adult to him—was threatening to break his self-imposed rule of never telling anyone what happened at Wool's.
"Because?" She repeated, coaxingly.
But he didn't continue, instead choosing to look away from her as if suddenly shy.
"My name's Ariel by the way. What's yours?"
"Tom. Tom Riddle."
Ariel stuck out her wet hand and Tom eyed it like a venomous snake before he took it and gave it a shake.
"It's very nice to meet you, Tom Riddle." She said. "Were the two kids who ran off your brother and sister?"
"No," Tom said, quickly, almost disgusted by the idea of being related to those morons. "They're just kids that live with me at the orphanage."
He watched her eyes, waiting for them to change into loathsome pity but they never did. Ariel's eyes remained bright and welcoming as when he told her his name.
"Oh, well, they seem like real scaredy-cats," Ariel remarked. "Not like you. You're fearless."
Little Tom almost blushed, proud, and thrilled to receive some praise (praise was nonexistent back at Wool's. Any and all good acts were met with apathy while any and all mistakes were met with swift and severe punishment). "Nothing scares me," he replied confidently.
"That's great," Ariel said encouragingly. "That's the one thing you need most in life: courage. That and a good friend group. Do you have any friends back at the orphanage?"
Tom's smile disappeared usurped by a scowl. "No." He said firmly. "And I don't need any."
"Maybe you don't," Ariel remarked with a shrug. "But you know, I've lived a long life, and the one thing I've noticed is: things are a lot easier when you're not doing everything on your own."
He reconsidered her advice. She wasn't telling him he had to make friends like all the teachers and social workers told him to, but she did make a good point. Things were easier whenever he had someone else there to take the fall for his plans.
"How old are you?" Tom inquired.
"I'll be a hundred and forty years old soon," she replied.
"Wow," Tom blurted out, impressed but sick with jealousy. He read in a magazine recently that the average age for most people nowadays was a paltry 58. "I hope I live that long."
"Maybe you will," Ariel said sweetly. "Maybe you'll be the first human that lives forever."
Tom beamed at her but the smile was short-lived as he heard one of the workers from the orphanage scream his name. Tom looked over his shoulder to say goodbye but only caught the sight of Ariel's tail slapping against the water as she vanished with a swan dive.