Page 19 of Sea's Secret

I brought the book nearer.

“The transition from their mer form to their human form is fast and painless,” was all it said. But it was so shocking to hear that it took me a few moments to register what he had just read.

“What in the seas? Their transition?” I paused. “What does that mean? I have never–” I said, taking the book from Finn and flipping through the pages. Page after page, it showed humans and mermaids, existing together, the mer changing from having legs to having tails and from having tails to having legs.

“We used to live on land, Meria,” Finn said in a hushed voice. “I knew it.”

“There is no way,” I said, handing the book back to Finn.

Did my mother know about this?

“Well–what about this?” He pointed to another image, one of a war and with mermaids and mermen diving from off of the land and into the depths of the sea. “What if during the Great War, we hid in the ocean to get away from King Falcon, and then we eventually just forgot that we could have legs?” he asked, holding up the book.

I could not fathom the significance of what he was saying. My brain had left my body and was swimming somewhere else. I could not grasp it. But my melody, my traitorous melody, it liked it–it liked it very much.

It was rumored that my mother had often spoken about humans. Even so, I had never heard that she believed we could become human, even though she had been caught breaking the laws of the kingdom and had been banished for it. Even her husband, my father, could not save her from her crimes, and he had to banish his own wife.

“Meria?” Finn said, and I looked up from the book to address him.

“What if my mother knew about this? What if this is why she was banished?”

“I heard our fathers speaking once. They said something about her being obsessed with changing.”

“You never told me that?”

“You always tell me not to talk about her. And, at the time, I thought he was talking about changing her tail dressing or something,” he said with a shrug.

“That is because no one is supposed to even say her name–let alone speak about her!” I shouted and heard it echo around the cavern.

“Well, I know you never knew your mother, and I also never knew her, but if this is true, why would the kingdom keep it from us? We could blend in with humans—So many options.”

“I have no idea.”

The main gossip in certain mer circles was that the Queen had betrayed her people because she loved humans. Blending with the humans was completely different.

“Mother,” I whispered.

“It makes sense.”

“Is she still alive?” I asked.

“Do sharks have teeth? She was only banished,” Finn chuckled.

Every once in a while, she had sent messages to the castle, warning us that our lights would soon go out. I had believed that she was out of her mind.

“Where is she, do you think?”

“Maybe she’s on land—with the humans.”

I wanted to see her. I actually craved it at that moment. My melody swirled around and made it difficult to focus.

Is there more to us? Can we truly have legs? I wondered.

Still in shock, I watched as Finn kept reading with excitement, so intrigued with the land world.

“Here!” he said, turning the page so I could see. “After fully removing oneself from the ocean for a few minutes, the change begins, and the mer starts to naturally form human legs from what was once a tail.”

“So–” I said again, still not able to fully fathom what I was reading.

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