The Mermaid House: Part Twelve

THE WHITE-SKINNED GIRL, wearing a dress of ivory cotton, looked as though she'd been standing in the rain. Her hair was black and sleek. She was beautiful, but it was an unhealthy beauty, with the pallor, overripe lips, and dark eyes of someone in the last days of their life...a vampire's victim. The tattoo on her brow, a tentacled sea star etched in black ink, seemed to move.
    "Leander." Her head tilted to one side. "Why have you come to my door?"
    She knew his name. His breath whistled in his throat.
    She stepped closer and it was as if a shark had appeared as he swam. He backed away and hit the door, which opened behind him. He twisted around to see the cozy parlor and lamplight caressing sea fossils. Old-fashioned music scratched at the air, an unnerving melody that sounded as though it was being played on a phonograph. The beautiful girl slipped past him. "Come in."
    He was compelled to step into the parlor. The door shut behind him. The girl prowled around the false parlor, her gaze fixed upon him. "You came here for a reason. Why not tell it to me?"
    His dad was dead. "I want to see Violet."
    "Violet." The girl stood before him now. Water seemed to cling to her skin and hair. "Violet is mine."
    He whispered, "Let her go."
    She stepped closer. He could smell dark things, old stone and the sea. He felt as if he were submerged. When she glanced away, he breathed easier.
    "Let her go?" The thing that looked like a girl began to circle him again, her bare feet leaving wet prints. "I don't hold her. She made her choice."
    His voice grated, "Did you trick her?"
    She stood close to him again and her eyes were black -- he thought his heart would stop as she whispered, "Boy. What do you want? To free her? Be very careful what you ask for."
    He wanted to run out the door, away from this creature whose proximity leeched the warmth from his blood and bones. But he had lost his father. He couldn't abandon Violet. He wouldn't. And the worst that could happen to him...well, that would happen anyway, wouldn't it? Whether it was a heart attack, a car accident, or something else. Death was inevitable.
    He reached out, grasped the cold hands of the girl who was not a girl. He said, "I don't want to die."
    Her mouth curled. She placed her hands on his shoulders. Then she glided with him around the room. The crackling music grew louder. He steeled himself as she wound her arms around his neck and her lips glistened like some delicious, poisoned treat.
    Her kiss thieved away his warmth, but his arms slid around her. His fingers tangled in her heavy hair. He closed his eyes. His skin began to ice. His fingertips went numb. He couldn't breathe...

(Illustration: John William Waterhouse)

The Mermaid House: Part Eleven

THE HOUR BETWEEN DUSK and evening now held secrets, a world where the dead walked and abandoned houses came alive.
    Leander returned home and found a message from his mom on the phone. He walked to his room, shut the door, and sat on the floor with his head on his knees.
    He woke in the dark, curled on the floor, and thought of the last time he'd spoken to his dad.
    The doctors hadn't helped. His mom, while dealing with it, had no time for him. He hadn't been able to say good-bye...he should go to the hospital. But he couldn't get up to do it. The world had become an ugly place.

He parked his car in the empty lot of the old neighborhood which hid the mermaid house. This time, he found the house without a problem. Its windows glowed with light, but its air of ordinariness was an illusion. He paused to gaze at the enormous stone head, now in its beautiful phase and spouting morning glories from its mouth.
    He trudged up the steps, until the light from beyond the mermaid door touched his skin. He raised one hand, to knock.
    Before his fist hit the glass, sanity struck. He went ice-cold to his bones and remembered Owen Thyme, the winter that radiated from his skin, the silvering of his eyes. A dead boy had spoken to him and he'd been about to knock on the door of a sometimes-house he'd been warned held monsters.  
    He whirled, to run--
    --and found the dark-eyed girl with the tattoo of something black and tentacled on her brow standing before him.
                                                                                ***

The Mermaid House: Part Ten

LEANDER RETURNED TO the mermaid house in the day and once again found it an abandoned, boarded-up mess. He walked to the door, pushed at the bell. When no one answered, he stepped back and raised his video recorder.
    He filmed the house while walking around it. When he came to the back door, he discovered a broken window. He unlocked it, shoved it open, climbed over the sill. The house smelled like mold and the trash glittering over the floor. He approached the graffitied wall, read the words splashed in red: Beware the dark daughters of La Mer.
    His stomach convulsed. He began walking through the dreary rooms, saw no clues as to anyone having lived there.
    When something hit the floor upstairs, he almost bolted out the door.
    He trudged up the stairs, keeping to the wall in an effort to reduce the wood creaking. When he reached the landing, he found a tunnel of ivy with doors in it. He raised his video recorder as he moved forward. He opened the first door.
    Shadows flocked over a window scrawled with graffiti. Leaves rustled across the floor, past a graceful angel statue missing its head. He backed out of the room.
    He pushed open the next door with his foot. This room was empty of anything but a few dirty wine glasses flung about -- glasses, not bottles.
    One of the glasses rolled across the floor, popped upright --
    He stumbled back -- and realized he had gone deaf. He couldn't hear anything -- not his own steps, his panicked breathing, or his heartbeat. He felt as if he'd been submerged in water. He shouted, heard only a muffled sound.
    In a corner piled with dead leaves, something moved...a person-shaped shadow, spiky and whispering. An eye glinted.
    A tiny, bone-white crab fell from the shadow, hit the floor, scuttled away.
    Leander ran, tearing through the ivy, toward the stairs.
    He pitched forward, saw the stairs gaping before him. Terror slammed him against the banister and he clutched at the rotting wood as his camera clattered down the stairs.
    Something grabbed the collar of his shirt and prevented him from tumbling forward. He fell back onto the landing, his hearing returning with a roar as a female voice whispered his name.
    Sitting on the top stair, shaking until his bones rattled, he tasted blood. He raised a hand to his bleeding nose.
    He rose. He moved carefully down the treachorous stairs. He grabbed his camera and limped to the front door. Before he stepped out, he said, "I'll get you out of here, Violet."
                                                                              ***
(Illustration: Gustav Moreau)

Lily's Note:

You see where this is going, don't you?
    They prey on the vulnerable and the lost. The water tribes are the worst because they do more than seduce and ruin. They are savage, the outlaws of the sea. They're the voice that whispers Come into the water so that you drown. They're the light on the ocean that leads you away. They're what hide in the dark pools, waiting to drag you down.
    They come ashore, sometimes, when they are hungry, or when they are exiled by their own people.
    In 1986, Leander Cyrus met the Gorgon and her family of Jacks and Jills.
    How do you think this will end?


Missing Boy Feared Dead

Owen Thyme, a young athlete from the Noe Valley neighborhood, missing since yesterday, is now believed dead. Police authorities have found evidence of his drowning in an abandoned well behind his house, although a body has not yet been found. Rescue teams have discovered that the well was built above an underground water source that may, oddly enough, lead to the ocean and, unfortunately, hamper their ability to locate Owen Thyme. Bloody footprints were discovered leading to the well and a jacket belonging to the victim was found nearby.

                                            San Francisco Chronicle 1971
                                                                           ***

(Illustration: Warwick Goble)