My Heart Belongs to the Sea

The summer sun glimmered on the emerald sea as the waves broke against the shore, swallowing up the tiny footprints in the sand. Isabelle was a tall red-haired girl now in her 23rd year. She strode along the beach with her dress fluttering in the warm breeze, vexed by matters of the heart - and feared that her longing would be unrequited.

Richard had grown up in the beach house next to hers. In their childhood they became friends. As the years progressed and the two grew into maturity, so had her feelings for him, and seeing Richard again became the highlight of her family's yearly holiday. Her anxiety would build for an entire year in anticipation of seeing him again. And eventually, Isabelle realized that what she felt for him was love.

The realization of this had troubled her for many years, but the matter had been brought to a head by Richard's College Graduation. Within days, the young man would move away from his seaside home, and Isabelle would never see him again if she did not act quickly.

Isabelle's troubled mind caused her brow to furrow as she wandered and searched for the courage to speak her heart to the man who'd won it. Her introspection was broken by a faint sound, that quickly grew in volume and clarity, until she could make out a sweet, almost mesmerizing tune - someone was singing. The song contained no words that Isabelle could make out, but the melody spoke to her heart and drew her onward into an unfamiliar cove. The singing continued its magnetic pull on Isabelle's heartstrings, and she ventured out onto the boards of a long wooden pier jutting a hundred feet from the shore. Her legs, now stepping with a life of their own, reached the wooden rail at its end and stopped, finding herself nailed to the spot with a smouldering warmth in her chest.

"Well hello there."

The voice snapped Isabelle out of her trance. She looked down over the side and there, to her astonishment, she saw a beautiful young woman with the tail of a fish -- a mermaid! The mermaid was pale, thin, with long dark hair and eyes as blue as the ocean. Naked from the waist up, and with green scaly fins curled up beneath her on the large flat rock on which she sat.

"My name is Aria, and I want to help you" She said warmly.

"H-help me?" The astonished Isabelle stammered, still reeling from her discovery. "What do you mean? Help me with what?"

"With Richard, darling." Said the mermaid, "The way you pace up and down the beach, aching for your man to love you? Mermaids can hear a lover's lament be it spoken or not, and I can make sure that he loves you as much as you love him"

Isabelle's heart leapt at the mermaid's offer, but she remained sceptical, trying not to let her desperation overcome her reason. "You...you can really do that?" she blurted.

"Of course I can," Aria giggled. "my song can ensnare his heart and lead it wherever I choose. Just as I led you here, I can lead him to you. Would such an offer interest you?"

"Oh thank you! Thank you!" Isabelle wept, "I'll do whatever you want! I love him so much, I couldn't stand to lose him!"

A smile split the mermaid's face, as she faced her human audience, propping herself up with both hands as she craned her neck up to look at Isabelle with piercing eyes.

"I've never seen your world, Isabelle. For hundreds of years I've watched and listened, but never really known it. Switch places with me for three days, and in that time I will enchant Richard's heart so that he will love you for all of his days. When three days are up, I return to the sea, and you return to Richard - and the two of you live happily ever after."

The offer took Isabelle aback, and she cautiously enquired "Switch places? H-how do we...?"

"I take your legs so that I may walk on dry land, and you take my fins so that you may swim in the sea. Once Richard is yours, we change back."

Isabelle was speechless. Live as a mermaid for three days? Such a thing seemed impossible. She had no idea how to live as a mermaid, but the thought of losing Richard forever tore at her. She could not let him go, and was willing to pay any price to keep him in her life.

"Yes" She said definitively, "I'll do it."

"Outstanding!" cried Aria. "Now climb down here to me, and we'll begin."

Isabelle stepped over the railing of the pier and grabbed hold of one of the large beams which supported it. She slid down into the water, and swam over to the rock on which Aria sat, and pulled herself up.

"Now" said Aria, reaching out to Isabelle "take my hand." Isabelle did so. "Now, are you sure this is what you want?"

"I'm sure of it" said Isabelle with determination. Aria's kind eyes smiled and she took a breath "Now repeat after me"

My heart once belonged to another,

My soul I had given to thee,

I long for the touch of my lover,

Whose heart shall be given to me.

I wait for the one to release me,

'Till then I shall never be free,

My love is a shackle,

My love is a chain,

My heart belongs to the sea.

Upon finishing the last of these words, Aria took Isabelle's head in her hands and laid a gentle kiss on the young woman's lips. Despite her shock at the sudden intimacy, something in Isabelle accepted the mermaid's sweet embrace, and felt the warm feeling inside her grow, and spread through her entire body- down her limbs, into her toes and fingertips, and up, up her clavicle, into her throat, into her mind, the sensation filled her every fibre until Isabelle felt as if it would shoot out of her mouth. The feeling blinded her as her vision turned to white and she ceased to feel or hear or taste. Just when she thought she could take no more of this ecstasy, she pulled out of Aria's grip, throwing her head back in an exasperated gasp for air. The sensation flowed gently out of her body, like cool water being poured over her head.

Panting, Isabelle laid back on the flat rock and brought her hand over her eyes, her breast heaving up and down with heavy breath. A splashing sound brought Isabelle back to awareness, and she turned her head to spy a thin brunette girl, scaling the wooden beam of the pier with lithe, pale legs, pulling herself up to the boardwalk. Noticing that the girl now wore her blue sundress, Isabelle looked down over herself to see her own naked breast, and the green, scaly fins she now had in place of legs. She wearily brought herself up to lean on one elbow and wiggled her fins to make sure of them before craning her neck up to Aria, now standing on the deck of the pier, still dripping wet from the sea.

"It...it worked!" Isabelle managed.

"Of course it worked!" Aria gleamed down from the pier "Just rest now, and once you've got your breath, explore, and enjoy yourself! The whole Ocean is your playground!"

"I will" Isabelle gasped though her fatigue "And I'll see you back here in three days"

"Three days," Aria promised, "I'll be here!" And with that, she turned away from the railing, and skipped along the dock, back to dry land. Exhausted from the ordeal of transformation, Isabelle curled up, tucked her arm under her head, and slept.

For three days, Isabelle explored the width and breadth of the Ocean from the Great Barrier Reef to the Marianas Trench. She swam with sharks and jellyfish, and saw more of the earth than most human beings will ever see in their entire lifetimes. However, for every miraculous sight she beheld, the more she longed that Richard could be there so share it with her. For every passing hour, every passing day, Isabelle missed him more and more dearly. As she neared the end of her three days, Isabelle was thankful for such an experience, but decided that she could never be without Richard for so long again.

His absence had crystallized her need for him, and in a moment, she determined that she would give up all of the fantastic things she had seen over the past few days just to lay by his side forever. With anxious heart, Isabelle returned to the cove where she had met Aria three days before, perched upon the large flat rock, and waited...

...and waited...

And waited. Minutes dragged into hours, and as the sun slowly sank into the sea, Isabelle's anxiety grew and her mind began to race. What could have happened? Could she have gotten lost? She wasn't familiar with the native customs, maybe she'd gotten into some kind of trouble? Did she manage to find her way to Richard? These and other questions swirled around in Isabelle's head all night and into the next day. As her worry deepened, she grew desperate. She slid off the flat rock and swam up and down the shoreline, looking feverishly for Aria, returning to the cove and the rock every few hours in frantic search of she who promised to secure her love for her. Finding no one, she renewed her search, returning again, and repeating this cycle many times.

The morning of the sixth day was grey, and overcast. The wind was blustering, and Isabelle's skin goosebumped at the chill. Finally, after three days of sleepless waiting, Isabelle caught a glimpse of a pale, thin brunette in a white dress briskly make her way up the beach, and along the long wooden pier. Isabelle sat fuming on the large flat rock.

"Where have you been?" she cried. "We said three days- that was almost a week ago! What happened?"

Aria, her dark curls tumbling down over her shoulders, looked down from the deck of the pier, and smiled with ruby lips. "Oh, hello!" she chirped, "What's your name?"

"This isn't funny, Aria!" Isabelle spat. "We had an agreement! We switch places, and you make sure Richard loves me!"

Aria, listening only faintly, played absent-mindedly with a ring around her finger. "Oh yes, I spoke with him..." The corners of her mouth crept up her face, and she giggled to herself, in a soft purr. Isabelle, noting where Aria's attention lay, recognized the ring around her finger- a diamond ring that belonged to Richard's late Grandmother.

A tightness grew in Isabelle's chest, and she gasped "W-where did you get that? That belongs to-"

"Yes...Richard gave it to me" Aria mused almost in afterthought, her attention still focused on the ring, and a smile plastered on her face, "We're getting married."

Isabelle's heart froze inside her breast, and her mouth struggled to form the words to convey her shock. "WHAT?" she cried, "What are you talking about? We had a deal!"

Aria, turning her head to fully address Isabelle for the first time, looked down on her with a steely expression and a piercing glare from her deep blue eyes. "I did say that, didn't I? But I so enjoy your world, Isabelle. Such a wonderful place with such people in it. And I see what it is you saw in Richard. Passionate, handsome, smart- and oh how he loved to listen to me sing. He really couldn't help himself. My word, he was almost as easy to ensnare as you were."

A shiver of rage shot through Isabelle as epiphanies exploded in her mind. "You planned this from the day we met!" she shrieked.

A smirk spread over Aria's face as she slowly shook her head, her eyes still fixed on Isabelle. "Oh, long before that. For all the years I've lived off of this coast, I knew - I knew you'd be the one. Ever since you were a little girl, I knew. I could see it even then; such a pretty thing, but so secret, so fragile. I knew you'd be the one to set me free. How much you wanted him to love you - silly girl...you can't get something for nothing."

"How can you say that?" Isabelle wailed. "I would've given anything for Richard! I was willing to make this bargain! Ready to do this to myself..." Tears clouded her eyes as they passed over the scaly fins that were not her own. "I would've done anything..."

"Anything but put your heart on the line" Aria hissed, "anything but get hurt. You simple creature- did you really think that love would come without heartbreak? Without pain? You were so selfish that you thought that you could love someone and still remain safe? Stupid girl- love is never safe. And now you must suffer before you can find love again, through loneliness and regret. Goodbye Isabelle. Your heart belongs to the sea now" Running fingers through her dark hair, she turned her head towards land, and stood to leave.

"NO!" cried Isabelle, diving into the water "No! You can't do this to me! This isn't right! Come back!" Furiously, she swam up to the massive wooden beam of the pier and grabbed hold of it with both arms. "You can't steal him from me! You can't steal my life!" she wailed through the tears which now streamed down her cheeks. She tried desperately to climb the wooden beam, but without her legs to support her, her naked body slithered down the slick and slimy column as she thrashed and clawed at the wood with her nails, her weeping growing more intense with her desperation. "Don't leave me here like this!" she pleaded "don't leave me alone!" Her fingertips bloody, and her eyes clouded with tears, she surrendered to her futility, slowly swam back, and collapsed onto the edge of the large flat rock, burying her head in her arms as her sobs shook her body. In spite of her lamenting, the pretty young mermaid with short red hair and sad eyes managed enough breath to eke out one last plea; "How can I live like this?" she begged, "What am I supposed to do...?"

Aria, still standing on the pier, her brunette locks blowing in the wind, looked down on her swindled successor and offered the only thing she could; "Do what I did, darling...learn to sing." And with that, the pale young girl turned her back on Isabelle's anguish, and strode along the boardwalk to dry land. She never looked back.

THE END