eevy blew out bubbly water and lifted her head from Mother's breast to view the sea and sky.  She kept a firm grip on mother, her personal warm blooded island at the center of the mer clan.  Mother floated just at the surface of the divide.  Her body undulated as she swept long powerful finned legs to keep them moving along the route to summerhome.  Keeshia slithered up bumping in along side.  Finding no immediate response, she hopped over and clumsily landed across Mother's legs.  Keevy nuzzled back into her mother's breast.

           "I heard Belkelp calling, what were you doing up there Keeshia?"

          "Swim drops.  I can drop the deepest!"

          "Why was Belkelp growling?"

          "Oh, we swam too far out.  But the fore-guard was a long way ahead."

          "Not long enough if Belkelp must call you in."

          Keevy stopped feeding, "When will we get to Summerhome?"

          "Soon, maybe by lightagain."

"Can I swim?"  To answer, Mother lifted the three-year-old and tossed her easily ten feet away.  Keevy landed with a splash.  Quickly submerging, Keeshia shot below her sister.  Keevy was ready, she launched to the left and pumped as hard as she could.   Monuck appeared.  "You going to eat today?" she asked Mother.  Keeshia and Keevy swam tag circles around the adults.

"I hoped you would ask.  Here, Keevy, stay with Monuck while I hunt."  Mother caught up the child mid swim.
         "Nooo." Keevy's protest cut off when Mother rolled over.  Transferred underwater and against her will, the baby clung to her new ride with needle sharp claws.  Monuck stroked Keevy's defiant back until she became comfortable or at least resigned.

Keeshia launched after Mother but soon began struggling to swim at Mother's pace.  When they reached the edge of the merclan, Mother turned and signed for her to go back.  Keeshia stopped.   She glided around restlessly for a while before deciding she could stay at the edge and still obey.  On the outside edge of the clan, the coastal shelf dropped away to deep water.   Used to seeing land on one side and below, Keeshia started, her reference points missing.  She bobbed up trying to make herself tall in the water.  No land.  Spinning in panic, Keeshia lost herself completely.

Floating on the top of the water, she blinked large frightened tears and tried not to cry out loud.  A Big Mouth could hear mer cries.  Big Mouth, twice the size of grownup mer; fast, with deadly razor sharp teeth in endless rows, all but the first, laid backward on the last row so that when the Big Mouth bit you it would tear out a piece no matter how good a hold.  Keeshia shivered.  There were other predators, but none as mean as a Big Mouth. 

Her body convulsed in the struggle to hold back her frightened sobs.  Afraid to swim, for fear of going the wrong way, she floated, devoured by terror.  The images of the mer clan cruising by trilling happily, tormented her.  Mother would come back and not miss her.  Keevy would be hungry and they would forget to look for her. 

Finally exhaustion overcame fear. Lying back in the water she took a deep ragged breaths.  Her head dropped back so only her nose and eyes floated above the water.  Giving way, she relaxed.  Then, softly, ever so softly, she heard the mer calls trilling through the water.  She bobbed up to pay attention and lost them.  Dipping under, she held her inner turmoil to listen.  Yes, there they were.  Turning her head this way and that, she found the direction.  Doubt kept her from swimming frantically toward the sound.  She stopped to listen tentatively, keeping a lookout for Big Mouth.  Louder, they were definitely growing louder.  Swimming more confidently, her heart leapt when the first mer shape appeared through the grey green.

Summerhome

Finally, the rock ledge of the lower reef appeared.  Following the step stone contour to land, Keeshia thrilled as the water grew warmer closer to shore.  She pushed in beside her friends making their way through the wide fissures that cracked through the reef until dying out in the shallows.  Surging forward, the mer burst up, out of the water, to land standing on the rock shelf.  A long shallow expanse remained between them and Summerhome beach. 

The reef looked level, but in fact, cracks broke the bedrock in strangely even shaped squares.   Rocks of various sizes littered the way.   Sharp lavender colored baby sea-needles cluttered the shallows, making the walk perilous.  Higher tide erased the inconvenience, but Keeshia would not wait.  The most irritating aspect became her feet.  Shaped with long flappy fur-covered skin hanging on the tops, making swimming such a joy, they became truly an encumbrance trying to cross the shallows on the reef.  She tried curling them upward, but found her toe muscles little help in hefting the long extensions.  At each step she lifted her foot up and out of the water high enough to flap the flipper part of her foot out to allow her to set her foot back down.   Without sharp rocks, baby sea-needles, or other rough nuisances, she proceeded along clumsily.  With the added problems, she fell often and began to see the wisdom in waiting the tide.  The earthy, mulchy smells brushed across the afternoon welter of sun heated land air and the cooler sea breeze soothing the struggle.  

Keeshia splashed through the last pool, one of the first to stride across the expanse of beach marked only with bird tracks.  Soon her clan, the Clyda, would cover the sand with mothers and children.  The joy of arriving early and seeing Summerhome quiet and uncrowded made Keeshia a unique mer, for the others coming later prayed to see the beach filled with large dark brown furred bodies soaking up the sun; sparkling with dried salt, burnished by the sand; babies running, climbing and dashing to the pools to swim; hundreds of mer, heads bobbing on the surf line waiting for the rhythmic undulations to provide an ecstatic rush to shore.

Keeshia sat under the meeting tree awaiting her assigned seeking-pod.  Her fur dried from the walk through the shallows and up the shore, the dry salt began to itch making her wish for one more dip.  But, in a little while, she reminded herself, they could swim in sweet water at the pool below the falls.

Monuck crashed through the brush carrying a large stack of reeds.  "Start to make your collecting bag," she ordered.  Keeshia knelt gathering up the reeds.  Hands designed more for paddling made doing land things awkward.  Weaving the reed bag rated as one of her talents in spite of dealing with the extra flaps of skin and her long sharp claws.  Her dexterous fingers, covered in fur with only the pad on the end of each webbed finger bare and vulnerable, handled land tools with ease.

Keeshia's pod made its way through the forest following a narrow overgrown trail.  By summer's end the path would be wide from the many treks to the waterfall.  Rockril, Keeshia's favorite of her year-friends, straggled behind, catching her feet on the roots and vines.   Her full collection bag dragged against the branches making the forest seem to try to hold her from going anywhere fast.

"Come on, Rockril, I want to swim.  My skin is so dry I think it will itch right off me." Keeshia complained.

"I am!" she answered, then trilled angrily at another obstacle.

"Come on you two.  Rockril, if you had left some of the plantpuffs for tomorrow's pod to find, you would suffer a lot less."  Skril admonished her younger sister.  At thirteen, Skril stood nearly as tall as an adult though had not yet filled in with the thick softness prized among the mer.  Sounds of splashing, trilling, and playing chatter prodded Rockril to pull out of the last clinging bush and stagger on up the trail.  Wearily, she dropped her bag down in the pile, well away from the splashing.

"Why did you pick so many?" asked Keeshia bumping against her companionably as they joined the others.

"I thought, well, that it would be good to get the most." Rockril answered doubtfully.

"You just have to carry it.  And where will they store it?  You have enough for all summer."

"Then nobody else has to collect it, do they?" Rockril asked with defiance.

"Huh!" Keeshia returned, then dove into the clear pool.  The water, while refreshing and different, did not let them float as easily as the salty ocean.  Soon Keeshia and Rockril settled on a rock in the middle to sun and watch the others play.  Skril, with the older and more adventurous, climbed the grotto rocks beside the waterfall and jumped from ever higher and higher perches.

With arms held high and wide, Skril announced her next leap.  Keeshia laughed, watching her wild posturing.  Rockril gasped and cried, "Oh Skril." Her tone silenced the pod.  Skril searched around cautiously wondering if Rockril's cry warned of a landmouth about to strike.    Seeing nothing, she looked down at her little sister, a frown gathering over her face. 

"What?" She asked.

"Oh, look, on your front!" Rockril shrilled.

Skril looked down examining her own chest and stomach.  All the pod focused closely on her.  Yes, Keeshia now saw too.  Small twin bulges, one on each side of Skril's pelvic.  Placing her hands flat, Skril stroked down, feeling out the contours of her stomach and pelvic area.  She looked up stricken.

"But, but it doesn't hurt." her voice small in the quiet. 

"This is early summer, in a few weeks it will." The mer beside her said, then began to chant, "Skril's a Turn, Skril's a Turn." Skril slapped at her angrily.  They began to wrestle falling into the water.

"Is it bad?" Keeshia asked.

"She will never have babies." Rockril answered.

"Oh." Keeshia looked down at Skril floating on her back, the argument forgotten.  Her heart ached to know Skril would be one of the few who turned.  To live your life and never be a mother, to be the same as any mer, only not the same, always alone.  She looked at Rockril whose frightened tears resalted her fresh-water softened face.

Merplay

Keevy seemed always in the way.  When they went for their bath, Mother insisted they take Keevy, who screamed at the least amount of splashing in her direction.  Even when riding the shore break, you always ended up running over Keevy.  Mother at least kept Keevy back when Keeshia went hunting.  So she and Rockril hunted everyday they could.  At first the girls accompanied the older mer, watching them stalk and kill.  Cautioned to choose game that they could easily handle and carry back, they were soon completely engrossed in all aspects of stalking, killing, and returning.  Every evening the clan gathered around the communal fire pit and "talked story" about the great catches.  When they were tired of hunting stories, they told escape stories, close encounters with Big Mouth.

          "We always do what you want!" Keeshia protested.

Rockril looked exasperated, "The waves are coming in perfect today.  They go on and on, you can ride forever."

"Well, I want to hunt long-neck bigmouths!" Keeshia stated loudly, hoping volume could win the discussion.

"Go then, I want to ride the waves!" Rockril crossed her arms and shifted to one leg tapping the other foot flippers on the sand.

"I will!"

"Keeshia." Mother called across the beach.  Keeshia swung around to see Keevy running toward them.  She wanted to sprint to the water quick before Keevy could catch up, or Mother insist she take her along.  Mother was closer to the water, so trapped, she called back.

"What!"

"When you go around the rocks, take Keevy with you." Mother answered.  Without waiting for agreement, Mother dove into the surf.

"Huh!" Rockril grunted, raising the brow area around her right eye.

           Keeshia glided along the crevice at the end of a long crack in the bedrock wall.  She floated up, skimming the liveflowers, careful not to let her shadow fall across the opening.  Keevy moved to her right, minding her own shadow, but wriggling so much the water current moved Keeshia from her planned attack position.  She turned to the younger mer and signed to be still.  Keevy signed back that she was trying, her fluttery hands moving agitated currents across their prey hole again.  Keeshia gave her a disapproving scowl.  The little one suddenly pointed at the hole squealing excitedly.

Abruptly, her squeals sharpened to a frightened pitch.  Keeshia stared, appalled; the long-neck bigmouth clamped on the Keevy's skinny forearm.  Keeshia grabbed the thick muscle like body as it began retracting into the hole.  Keevy trilled with pain.  Both children used precious air fighting to keep from being dragged into the crevice.   Pressed hard against the rock, Keeshia held on to the creature between the hole and her sister.  The long-neck bigmouth thrashed about shaking Keevy like a rag.  Trails of lost bubbles followed her through the water.  A red cloud began billowing around them.  Panic widened Keevy's eyes to large bulbous circles.

Keeshia felt a lurch, then bounced heavily across the rock.  Stunned, she patted a bruised rump.  She looked around slowly, expecting to find her baby sister disappearing into the crevice.

The grownup shape of Monuck crouched over the hole, holding the long-neck bigmouth with both hands.  Another rescuer, Keeshia recognized Rocsld, came to grip the eel's head, seeking the soft spot just below the back of the skull.  Belkelp arrived, passing Rocsld a long sea-needle.  She gathered Keevy, who trembled with fear and pain, into her arms.  The eel paused its thrashing a fatal moment.  Rocsld shoved the spiny needle deep into the eel's small brain.

They all began to move at once; Belkelp pulled away holding Keevy's wounded arm.  She launched off the rock face and disappeared from sight.   Rocsld left the carcass to Monuck and pushed off toward Keeshia.  Yanking a surprised chirp out of her, Rocsld wrenched her from the rock.

Propelled along at adult speed, with angry adult force, Keeshia wanted to trill protest but found no air for the sound.  Suddenly, she realized Rocsld's rush.  Panic began to tingle around her face.  No longer fighting the race to the division of water and air, she pumped her feet as hard as she could.

The surface finally came.  Gasping hard, Keeshia took only three breaths before Rocsld pulled her under again.  They stayed just under the division swimming faster than Keeshia thought possible.  Gradually, the reason dawned on the mer.  The bloody wound called hungry big mouths.  Eyes opened wide, she craned her head side to side trying to see all around for dangerous jaws.  A sharp pinch made her heart jump.  Rocsld's warning growl brought her back to swimming properly.

Reaching the sea break, Rocsld cupped her in her arms to ride in on a swell and carried Keeshia to the beach.  Rocsld gently pulled her piercing claws off.

"What were you trying to do? You know that hole was too big for you.  Even both of you!"  Rocsld scolded.

"I thought it would just... Well, it came out so fast." Keeshia whined.

"You know better.  You were lucky the two of you were not eaten right there.  The noises you made.  We all thought dinner was served.  And the blood, we should let Big Mouth come for you."

"Nooo," Keeshia wailed.  She clutched at Rocsld and sobbed convincingly.

Keevy lay on the sand the focus of several adults.  They clucked and hummed over her torn arm.  She wept quietly while they stroked her other arm and legs trying to sooth her.

"Keeshia, my arm." Keevy sobbed when she saw her sister join the crowd.  Keeshia began to wail with exaggerated vigor.  Her sharp cries made Keevy thrash and sob.  A painful snatch at her nape brought Keeshia a genuine yelp.

"You stop that!" Mother hissed in her ear.  Keeshia tried to hold her sobs in.  Mother's claws pinching the skin behind her neck made it difficult not to cry harder.   Keevy rolled her eyes and whimpered seeing Mother.

The healing master examined the jagged cut.  "Not too deep." She murmured.  "We can wrap this up for awhile and it will heal up nicely." She daubed the wound with a clean plantpuff.  "Give me the yellow powder." Her apprentice selected the requested vial and uncapped it.   A graceful wave of the master's hand swept the long soft extensions of her flippers out of the way so she had a firm grip; receiving the vial with the bony part of her fingers.  Her claw-like nails curved around the narrow glass.

"I will put this on to keep out infection.  You must keep this arm dry for a moon cycle."  The master looked at Mother, "Thank The Power this happened here and not during a move."

Mother nodded agreement.  Keevy blinked huge miserable tears while regarding the wrappings going on her forearm.

"We will change these every day.  Putting yellow powder on each time."  The master instructed the apprentice.  With a final reassuring pat, she released Keevy to Mother.  Keevy seemed tinier than her three-year-old size.  Shiny tears matted the fur around her eyes, wet tracks down her face.

Keevy found her injury a greater and greater nuisance in the following days.  As the other clan members arrived from the long journey from winterhome the shore became crowded with screaming, laughing merchildren.  While allowed to take her four baths each day, Keevy expressed little satisfaction being restricted to shallow tepid pools.  Keeshia romped into the surf at the first sighting of newcomers.   The children swam-danced circles with each other and bothered plants and animals alike.

 Mer Treasure

Keeshia found a crowd forming on the beach.  Excited trills carried up as she approached.

"New, I tell you, new since last summer." Rocsld said so excitedly that her voice chirped.

"And we only found it now? How big is it?"

"Big, really big, and full of things!"  Another assured the crowd.

"What kinds of things?"

"Clay containers, trunks, metals, gold coin, cloth." Rocsld listed breathlessly.

"It must have been a trader."

"This north? In winter?"

"Who knows? But we need to move what we want before the current moves it for us."

The expedition began immediately.  Rocsld and the others who found the wreck led the way.  Lost in deep, silt clouded water the shadowy form loomed out suddenly as they came upon it.   Feeling their way around, the mer found cannons as well as treasures suggesting a raiding ship with stolen booty.  Little of what they took would see the land again.  A sea cave, long ago discovered and settled by the Clyda, served as the mer treasure trove.  The struggle to carry away her finds reminded Keeshia why carrying anything while swimming proved dangerous.  With her hands full she made a perfect target for a Big Mouth.  When two or more needed to carry some large or heavy find, others acted as watch to warn them to drop and swim.

Rockril found a golden ring.  Shining in the sun, it dazzled the mer and her friends.  How to keep it?  Try as she might, her fingers were too small.  Finally, she slipped it on her thumb.  The ring slid down to the first knuckle and stopped at the web.  Keeshia sighed many times over the glittering prize.  "Rings are dangerous, Rockril will find out.  It is not worth your life to have some useless encumbrance to lug around."  Mother lectured.

"We took the spears and knives."

"Those are for the land, you need to have tools on the land.  Rockril does not even need that ring on land.  Now she has to worry about losing it or someone stealing it.  It encumbers her whether she wears it or not."

"Everything is dangerous," Keeshia whined.

"Yes, especially if you have to carry it." Mother finished

          More used to knives and sword blades, the mer found the battle lances clumsy at first.  Once Monuck discovered that she could sit quietly on the rocks, and when unsuspecting prey swam by thrust the spear down impaling dinner, spearing fish became very popular.  Finding fish required a journey up or down the coast to get away from the influence of the merclan.   By the time the full clan assembled at Summerhome, smart fish escaped out of range, the others became dinner.  In late summer, stream fish became scarce in the pools deep enough to swim so the spears proved useful to catch fish in shallower sections.

The stronger mer took the spears underwater.  When they dragged a speared Big Mouth to shore, carrying the heavy lances underwater became the recommended way to hunt.  Not everyone agreed.

"One stick with a metal point will not kill a larger Big Mouth,"  Mother commented gravely.  Keeshia and Rockril ached to heft up a spear. Few of them were set aside long enough for the smaller mer to have a chance.

At the height of summer the Turns began to milk.  Four mer, including Skril, made up the contingent of Turns for the Clyda Merclan.  Glands full and painful, the Turns rested in warm shallow tide pools during low tide.  Stroking soothed their aching glands and dispersed life fluid into the pool.  Mer came to soak, keep them company, and become mothers.  While the adults were preoccupied, Keeshia found two neglected lances.

She trilled to Rockril, who rushed up and claimed the extra. Keeshia struggled with different hold positions till she found the balance point.  They attacked a sand dune experimentally, lifting the spears over their heads and throwing them.  Designed for large land warriors, the weapons proved exceedingly difficult to wield.

"This must be easier to use in the water."  Keeshia decided.  She guided the shaft around to head out to the sea.  Rockril noticed too late to keep from being bashed off her feet.

"Keeshia!" she trilled angrily.

"Oh, come on!" Keeshia exclaimed, absorbed in keeping one end or the other out of the sand.

Once in the water, the shaft wanted to float but the tip sank.  Guiding the length about with the water pushing against it turned out to be harder than on land.

Beyond the breaking surf, the sea floor, covered in lanky grass, undulated with the currents.   Keeshia began worrying about getting the spears back.  If she had to leave the spear out here, no one would find it again.  Each air-taking found it harder to push the burden up.  Rockril came up beside her looking as pained as Keeshia felt.

"Go back," Keeshia said before dropping half voluntarily, half pulled by her load.   Rockril understood and started back.  They swam under the division, struggling back up, more and more desperately to catch some air.

Rockril swam a little ahead of Keeshia.  When she paused to adjust her grip, Keeshia pushed forward to try to gain a lead.  At least this would be a game, no matter how troublesome.

As she came abreast of her, Keeshia saw a bright metal glint drop away.  Instantly, she realized the glint must be Rockril's ring dropping down toward the sea grass.  Rockril moved as if having the same realization.  She dropped the lance and dived after the fluttering gold sparkle falling through the grey green.   Then suddenly a whoosh knocked Keeshia end over end.  The coveted spear disappeared.  Rockril's terrified death shrilling reverberated all around.  Keeshia stopped spinning and looked around. The water tasted of blood.  Whirling this way and that, she caught a glimpse of a huge black tailfin.  A dim vision formed of a Big Mouth thrashing Rockril in its mouth and vanishing through the silty green and red stained sea.

Keeshia stared only a moment, instinct spun her toward shore.  Weeping and trilling uncontrollably, she found herself on her feet splashing across the tidal flat.  She reached the Turn soaking pools bleeding from the reef.

"Big Mouth!" She trilled, sobbing and wheezing for breath.  "Big Mouth took Rockril!"

"Rockril!" the mer chorused.

"Where is she?" one asked.

"It took her!" Keeshia screamed then wailed, "It ate her!"  "It will come back,"  Monuck said as she jumped from the pool to send out the alert.

          Keeshia stumbled along at the front of the hunting pod.  All the adults that could leave their young surged into the water, spears at hand.  In her heart Keeshia wanted to roll up in a tiny invisible ball in the sleeping hole of their hut.  Instead, the horror of the Big Mouth carrying away Rockril replayed endlessly as she led her family to the death site.  The shapes beside her, shadowed by the silt, gave her fits of trembling even though she recognized them as mer.  Twice she panicked. Mother pulled her to the surface until she calmed enough to swim again.  A sense of blood in the water signaled that they found the area.  Keeshia looked around feeling certain and yet not. The swaying sea grass gave little for a landmark.  As she decided to confess that she might not find the right place, a lance shaft, lost during the attack, lifted up from the grass and waved slowly back and forth in the current.  Monuck snatched it up and signaled the hunt to begin.  The mer spread out in threes and fours, searching and watching.  Low menacing growls and rumbles signaled the pod positions.

Left with only Mother and two other hunters, Keeshia felt stripped from safety.  She tried to stay in the center of the swimmers, keeping close watch on each of her companions.  The hunters moved purposefully following the blood scent much like smoke on the wind.   The many stories told to the young mer gave Keeshia a clear understanding of what they sought.  While the Big Mouth could swim faster than any mer, it would not leave the area once it fed.  Born from an abandoned egg, the Big Mouth remembers only food and danger.  An old Big Mouth knows the dangers of swimming with the mer.  Rockril's murderer would get hungry and turn back, ignoring the mer rumbling their hunting signals reverberating through the sea.  The call sounded.  Keeshia's pod turned toward the source.  As they grew closer the water became a thick nightmarish force pushing her back as she stroked with all her might.  The sunlight streaked gold flecked sparkles that metamorphosed to shiny rings before her eyes.  Suddenly Keeshia found herself pushed through the division.  She gasped convulsively, the terror spread, threatening to trap her between air and sea.  Mother appeared, her face close; Keeshia realized Mother held her tight, swimming for both of them.

"You have to see,"  Mother said.   Her eyes probed Keeshia's face.  Holding her tighter against uncontrollable trembling Mother dove.

The mer circled about the Big Mouth.  It moved as if it knew they had found their prey.  More mer came to join the circle.  Keeshia and Mother hovered above and back.  Keeshia shook so badly that she lost her air, forcing Mother to surface frequently.

Circling on all sides, the mer formed a spherical cage surrounding the Big Mouth.  The kill began.  Spear tips sharpened to fine, deadly blades pointed in.  Every time the Big Mouth moved against the sphere, a slice or jab of the lances forced it back.  They stayed with the monster. Moving in a deadly ball, the Big Mouth suffered with each frenzied brush against the spears.  The mer drew closer tightening the sphere.  The prey shredded itself against the blades.  Slowing to a death float brought the attackers down in mass.  Reduced to a carcass the Big Mouth dropped to the bottom.

Mother brought Keeshia to the surface.  Holding Keeshia's face between her hands, she stared until her child seemed to gain composure.  "You have to finish the gills," she said.  Keeshia convulsed and began to weep hysterically.  Other mer bobbed up, their large dark eyes on her.  "You have to," Mother said, while stroking her head, then held her tight.

Pulling her down with her, Mother swam toward the monster wallowing on the bottom.  Keeshia shook violently, the vision of her friend trilling hopelessly while carried off, vivid in her mind.  Then Rockril's face came into her thoughts -- the laughing Rockril, her friend no more.   Anger sparked, filling her consciousness, Keeshia took on the mission.  "True death came to a fish without gills."  She gathered herself and sprang from Mother's arms.  Streaking down head first toward the destroyer, she opened her mouth wide and tore into the Big Mouth's gills.  Digging her claws deeply into the shredded skin, she held on while tearing out mouthfuls.  Denied a quiet creeping death, the monster began to thrash convulsively sweeping the jaws of fierce teeth.  Determined to have her revenge, Keeshia held on, ignoring the danger, and ripped deeper.

Copyright 2002 Suzanne Driggs