by Tod Davies
with illustrations by Mike Madrid
Chapter Twenty-Three
What can I tell about the Mermaids and the Mermaids’ Deep? Everyone knows the nursery tales. Or should. On the other hand, it occurs to me that so many true and useful things have been forgotten here in Arcadia, that it’s worth repeating the old, established facts about the Mermaids and their Deep. There are so many things that need to be known and remembered and so many things that are, instead, unknown and forgotten. We believe in preserving memory, Wilder and I. And of all the memories worth preserving, there are few worth more than those of Mermaids and the Mermaids’ Deep.
There are a lot of stories about Mermaids, in Arcadia and Megalopolis, and a lot of fakery, especially on the False Moon. A mermaid to most people these days is nothing more than a pretty device. And the reason for this is not because Mermaids themselves are frivolous or vain, but because they are not. They keep themselves to themselves and don’t much care about the outside world. They have enough work to do where they are, in the Mermaids’ Deep, tending the Mermaids’ Well. Too much to do without worrying about publicity, too.
Mermaids existed before just about everything that we know in our world. They lived under the sea even in the days before the world had risen out of it. From the beginning, they have been a happy people, and a conservative one, and—though you might not think it—highly mobile, travelling here and there, powered by their great curiosity. The pictures that show Mermaids with a mere fish’s tail are ill-informed, for each Mermaid has two strong legs, of varying colors depending on her age and her ancestry (some iron blue, some fish-scale green, some iridescent rose or violet, some turquoise and silver, some gold or bronze). A Mermaid is born knowing how to put those legs together to form a single propelling rudder that moves her through the water with incredible speed.
But she can walk on the bottom of the ocean when she has to. And on the surfaces of the world, too. Many has been the time in human history when a curious Mermaid has ventured out onto land. But in all those many times, she was never seen for what she was. She was never recognized. Most of the Mermaids who tried this hopeful experiment were driven by this lack of recognition, grieving, back into the Sea.
I’ve always thought this was a terrible shame. And all because no one could see the Mermaids for what they are.
The only way for a human to recognize a Mermaid is to meet her under the Sea. It’s easy, Lily told me, to see clearly there.
“But wait!” I can hear my dear subjects cry. “If we can recognize a Mermaid under the Sea, and there are as many of them there as you say, and if they have been there for so long, how is it that we have never heard of anyone who has seen them? How is it that they are unknown to Science? How is it that no scientist in Megalopolis has ever caught them on camera or in nets, and how is it that no people have ever ventured underwater to capture and enslave them, as you would think would be natural?”
In fact, I can hear Aspern Grayling say something like this. He is always saying things like this, whenever such topics arise.
Here are the facts. The Mermaids are a peaceful people—but they are warlike in their peacefulness, and in this, they are unlike any other species ever seen by Man. By this I mean that they aggressively pursue their right to be passive, to be ornamental, to be helpful and nurturing and kind. There is nothing a Mermaid likes more than to sit on a rock, gazing into a mirror and combing her long hair (again of a color depending on her age and ancestry—roan, or metallic green, or bronze, or pure and dazzling white). She likes to sit like this for hours, combing and contemplating herself and her thoughts. There must be something in it, too, because a Mermaid will, in a flash, turn into the fiercest of beings if disturbed at this occupation. She will never strike the first blow, but woe to the Man who does—for that Man will never return to his home above the Sea. A Mermaid will not allow herself to be interrupted at what she does. And the reason we have not heard much of Mermaids (and the little we have untrue) is because there are few men (women, it seems, are differently made in this respect) who can look at a Mermaid without an overwhelming urge to capture her, chain her up, and drag her to where she doesn’t want to go. A Mermaid will never allow this. And what’s more, she has the strength to back it up.
After many tries at capturing a Mermaid, Man has simply given up. Because of the many defeats he has suffered, to protect himself from the knowledge of his own violence and foolishness, he now pretends that Mermaids never existed at all.
It’s simpler that way, for some people—Aspern Grayling and all his followers are of this kind. But just because you say something to feel better about yourself doesn’t mean that the thing is so. Just because you say you are just and wise and good doesn’t mean you are. I recommend that even when you keep silent about this kind of foolishness out of loyalty (and loyalty is a good thing, never doubt that), you never allow yourself to be fooled. In the silence of your own heart, always remember that Mermaids exist, in huge congregations, and if no one else around believes this is so, well, too bad for them.
If you understand this truly, and hold onto it hard, it might even be that, one day, when a Mermaid comes out of the Sea, you will know her for what she is.