Old Mermaids Suggestions

Inspired by Church of the Old Mermaids, Junie Moon has created her own 13 Suggestions plus one. (Photograph by June Scroggin and all rights are reserved.)

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Beginning of the Crow Tale

“They had to get accustomed to solid ground. It was different than the Old Sea, you know. One day, Sister Laughs A Lot Mermaid found a crow outside the house. Actually, it wasn’t quite a house yet. The Old Mermaids were still building it, with the help of some neighbors.

"They used mud and straw and stone—all materials from the old dried sea. As they built the house, they let the mud and straw and stone tell them stories. They listened to what the cacti and coyotes and crows had to say too. The neighbors had more stories. The stories made the work easier, and the house seemed to like the stories. It shaped itself beautifully around them and this land. It was a piece of art.

"The Old Mermaids had tile in the kitchen and bathroom and in funny places in the walls all over the house, so you might look here and see a flower blooming from the tile or you might look there and see a cardinal flying. They painted scenes from the Old Sea on the walls. And scenes from the mountains. Valleys. The desert. These paintings on the walls were so realistic, Lily, that you would swear you could walk right into them and keep on going. Everyone liked to be invited to the Old Mermaid Sanctuary because it was so beautiful. Many people—even to this day—swear the house was alive. And it was a happy house. Care was taken with every bit of it. The Old Mermaids even asked the land before they built the house where would be the best place.”

—from Church of the Old Mermaids

(Photo from Selkiemoonlight whose wonderful artwork can be found here.)

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Treasure

Mourning doves fluttered away as they walked past the mesquite and palo verde that crowded the trail. The doves startled Lily at first. Then she started clapping each time the doves flew off their perches.

"Help us find treasure," Lily said after a while, looking back at Myla.

The children slowed until she caught up with them.

“Well, Lily my Lily, I suppose each treasure hunt is different for each person,” Myla said. “I ask the wash and the Old Mermaids to show me what is here for me on this day. Often I find things as I walk. At this time of year when it’s been dry for a long time, the pickings are slim. So sometimes I just stop. I don’t know where or when. I stop when it moves me, and I close my eyes and breathe. When I open my eyes and look around, I almost always see something I hadn’t seen before.”

. . . .

They all stopped. Lily closed her eyes. Myla did the same. She breathed deeply. When she opened her eyes, Lily looked at her feet. She leaned over and picked up what liked like a thin curved white stone. She held it up to Myla who crouched next to her.

“Lily my Lily,” she said. “Do you know what this is?”

The others gathered around them in a circle.

“A pretty rock,” Lily said.

“It’s part of a sea shell,” Myla said. “This is quite a treasure. You know what this means?”

Lily shook her head.

“If you find a sea shell—especially one in the desert—it means a mermaid just found her tail.”

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Morsels

Last night Sister Lyra Musica Mermaid walked out into the desert and found the Moon fishing. Coyote trotted by and warned, "Watch out. There's enough for everyone."

Sister Ursula Divine Mermaid walked deep into the desert to look for wild things. Road Runner ran by her. "Can you tell if I am coming or going?" Road Runner asked. "Does it matter?" she answered. Road Runner chuckled. "Good answer." Then he went away or came closer. Sister Ursula Divine Mermaid smiled. Always a good day when a Road Runner chuckles.

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Nourishment

All the wisdom of the ages can be distill into one suggestion: Be.
—Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid

Myla woke just after dawn. She got up and walked the wash alone. It was a damp and chilly morning. Dark clouds floated above the Rincons. A coyote walked across the wash. She stopped and looked at Myla. They stared at one another. Then the coyote continued on her way. Myla went back to the house and started breakfast. She sautéed onions and shitake mushrooms in olive oil.

As they sizzled she put on oatmeal. She sprinkled in a bit of cinnamon. Ernesto loved her oatmeal. She could not imagine why—probably had something to do with the almonds, cashews, bananas, and maple syrup he poured on it.

She cracked egg after egg into a bowl. Two eggs for each of them. She broke the yokes with a fork and whisked them. The metal tines hit the inside of the bowl as she stirred them faster and faster, turning gold into more gold. As she poured the eggs into the pan with the mushrooms and onions, she thought, “This is the last breakfast I’ll be making for the refugees at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary.” She liked to think that the migrants came to the sanctuary as refugees but left as pilgrims. It was such a difficult decision to leave one’s family and country—a desperate decision. How terrible then to be left in the desert to wander or die alone—or together with others as lost as you are.

Myla stared at the scrambled eggs as they began to set. She was glad she had dreamed of the Old Mermaids. It didn’t really matter if she had originally dreamed of the Old Mermaids because of the mermaid tile or because she had seen David painting the mermaid. It didn’t really matter if the Old Mermaids had been the voice of the Universe speaking to her. What mattered was that she had gone into the desert and helped people who needed it. In turn, they let her be a part of their families—their lives—for a time.

How could she ever have doubted the importance of that?

—from Church of the Old Mermaid

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Medicine

As dreams are the healing songs
from the wilderness
of our unconscious—
So wild animals, wild plants, wild landscapes
are the healing dreams
from the deep singing mind of the earth.
—Dale Pendell, Living with Barbarians

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Found in Translation

(I first posted this a year ago, but I felt I needed to hear this story again today. Maybe some of you did too.)

A young woman stumbled onto the Old Mermaid Sanctuary the other day. She was lost. She was more lost than any being I had ever seen, and remember, we walked out of the Old Sea and into the New Desert. We know about being lost.

She had thorns in her feet. They had gone right through her shoes. She had thorns in her arms. She had palo verde leaves in her hair. And her fingers were bleeding. She was wild-looking. Not good wild. Not natural wild. Lost human being wild.

We took out her thorns and helped her bathe her cuts and bruises. Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid made her soup. Sister Sheila Na Giggles Mermaid made her tea. Sissy Maggie Mermaid gave her clothes. She ate the soup, drank the tea, and put on the clothes. And she talked. She talked about all that had happened to her, she talked about all the misery she had seen, she talked about trying to get away from the roar that followed her everywhere.

"I can't stand it!" she finally said.

We listened and dried her tears.

Then Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid took the woman into the desert. They didn't walk far. Just far enough.

"Now be still," Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid said.

"But then all I will hear is the roar," she said.

"Then listen to it," Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid said. "Stand it. But first, first, listen for the birds. Listen to the cactus breathing. Listen to sound of the air on the wings of the crow as she flies over. Listen to the trees."

Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid left the young woman. We glanced out at her a few times. We could tell she wanted to bolt, to run, to keep going, going, going. Gone. But she was learning what we all must learn: We can't run away from the roaring inside.

When it became night in the desert, the young woman returned to us. "I am learning the language of my soul," she said. "The trees, birds, bees, wind, the coyotes and lynxes—they are all helping me with the translation."

We nodded. Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid said, "Yes, that is the way to be."

Later, we all went out into the desert night and held hands with the stars.

Ahhhhh.

—from Sister Lyra Musica Mermaid

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The Magnificent Old Mermaids Book Drop

Charles de Lint took a few copies of Church of the Old Mermaid to Tucson recently to participate in the Magnificent Old Mermaids Book Drop. He was kind enough to send along some photos. The first one is on 4th Avenue, where Myla set up Church of the Old Mermaids every Saturday "shine or shine." Just gives me chills! By the way, Charles' latest book, The Mystery of Grace, is now out. I've got mine on order and I can't wait.


Tucson, Fourth Avenue


Ah! Someone found the book!


Chicago. What lucky person found it?


Ottawa. Anyone?

Thanks, Charles & MaryAnn!

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Found Verse

These words washed up onto the shore of the Old Mermaid Sanctuary today.

FOUND VERSE

I can’t be sure, but I think
this is the poem that Kim got

on her birthday after the old sea
dried up. The old mermaids

were spending the day laughing
and telling jokes and they thought

it would be nice to invite Kim
to their party. They sent her

a salty request and received an
answer by seamail in about half

a wave’s curl and soon after that
Kim was there with the old mermaids

sipping from a cup at the tea shell.
It’s so nice to see you, said the

old mermaids. It’s nice to see you
too, said Kim. Then she told them

the best joke ever and they slapped
their tails with laughter, tears

running down their faces. Thanks
for making our Hilaria Day so fine

said the old mermaids. Thanks for
being who we all are, said Kim.




(Verse found by Mario Milosevic. "Spurred on By Flowers" is a drawing by Kim Antieau. Larger version of this drawing here.)

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Another Old Mermaid

Look what gifted artist Leigh Bunkin sent me! Isn't she wonderful? (Leigh and the mermaid.) The Old Mermaid looks marvey on the top of my bookshelf in the Goddess Room. I know she is helping me spin more Old Mermaid yarns.

Thanks so much, Leigh! (The photograph is by Leigh, too.)

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Another Magnificent Old Mermaids Book Drop

VG sent me this wonderful description of her Magnificent Old Mermaids Book Drop:

"Just wanted to let you know the book has began its journey. We were in Illwaco, WA the last weekend in February. We had lunch at a new restaurant called Raven and Finch with outdoor seating.

" I left the book on a chair at the table we had eaten at and sort of cleaned up the table as we departed so as not to invite a bus person. So we took another table off to the side so I could watch. There were a lot of couples and groups and the person who found the book was a young woman about 30 with a sweetheart. All I heard her say was 'Something told me this was going to be a day full of nice surprises!' This was something she said to her companion as she read the writing on the inside of the book. We then departed and I felt that I had put the Old Mermaid's on one of their journeys."

How wonderful, VG. I could picture it all. Thanks again!

I hope this gives the rest of you encouragement to write about your adventures with the book drop. I want to hear from you!

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Happy St. Pat's Day!

From the Old Mermaids and Sister Cate Mermaid who created this wonderful artpiece!

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Healing Works

Because everything the Old Mermaids are and everything they do is about healing: I've started the Old Mermaids Healing Works.

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Old Mermaids Tour

So the Old Mermaids Tour is on! Where do we begin? First, I have decided for now that I will be limiting my traveling for the tour to my general area. So I will go pretty much anywhere in Washington and Oregon and I might dash into California and BC. Later, I might go to AZ and back east. But really, the Old Mermaids Tour isn't about me. It's about the Church of the Old Mermaids and spreading the stories of the Old Mermaid, and it's about having great fun.


COTOM is definitely about creating community and walking, talking, swimming, and dancing in beauty! I am hoping that people around the country will participate in the Old Mermaids Tour. It's not about me personally "touring" but about the stories of the Old Gals. (I guess I just said that, didn't I?) I want to see what creative take you have on the Old Mermaids. I envision book clubs and Old Mermaid parties happening everywhere!

If you want to participate in the Old Mermaids Tour, let me know what you want to do. If you're in the area I can come and do a reading and talk about the Old Mermaids and/or we can have Gifted Ceremony. Or we can dress up as Old Mermaids and celebrate. I'm open! Otherwise I can help you figure out what you want to do from afar. I can help with discussion questions, celebration ideas, get you an outline for the Gifted Ceremony or more. I can be available to help you make it a wonderful event from here. We can keep in touch by email or phone and/or maybe we can skype.

If you want copies of Church of the Old Mermaids you can get those from Amazon.com. If you get two or more, there's free shipping. You can also get them from me. If you order 5 or more copies from me, we can discount them 20%. Just write to me about that option.

The official kick-off date will be in March. I'll get up discussion questions on the website soon. I am also working on a workbook/playbook for the Old Mermaid Sanctuary with suggestions of things to do, but that's definitely a few months off!

So email me if you want to participate. We will dance, read, eat, dress, and transform in Beauty!

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The Old Mermaid, an excerpt

(This is a scene from The Old Mermaid. It's still in draft, but I thought you might enjoy it.)

And so, after Ruby left the room, Sara spread out the pieces of the quilt. She braided two strands of her hair with a thread from the faery yarn. She ran them through the needle, and they became the thread that wove the patches together.

Sara sang softly as she sewed, “The spirits of here and the spirits of there I honor thee. With this thread, I unweave the spell over me. I unbind the ties that bind me to he. Oh, the spirits of here and the spirits of there. With this yarn, I weave a new spell with all my might. A spell of protection in the night. I say this charm to keep me from harm. I undo the magic that has been done to me so that I may have liberty and be forever free.”

They say that on that day travelers from near and far couldn’t find the White Inn. It stood near the white beach and the blue sea in plain sight, but it was lost in the fog of whatever enchantment Sara O’Broin and Ruby McGonagle were weaving. When Cormac McDougal walked from the other side of the island to see about his wife, he got lost once or twice or plenty of times to cause him to turn around and return to his work.

And Mr. Smith couldn’t find his way back either. Ruby McGonagle used this opportunity to look for the sealskin her husband had taken from her so many years ago on a faraway beach. At the time, she had thought he was a pretty boy and she saw no harm when he laughed and held the sealskin out of her reach. And his kisses were softer than any she had known before. But now on this tiny island in the middle of a sea that was not always very peaceful, she wanted her life back.

Some say Ruby found what she was looking for that day. She pressed it against her heart and laughed with joy. She thought about running upstairs and telling Sara, but that thought lasted for only a second. She forgot Sara, forgot her husband, forgot her children. She ran out of the White Inn and toward the sea. As soon as her webbed feet touched the water, Ruby McGonagle disappeared. It was then Sara thought she heard someone laughing and then the sound of splashing, as though two otters were having fun in a nearby river. She listened for a moment and didn’t hear anything else, so she went back to sewing.

Others say Ruby McGonagle just disappeared that day and was never heard from again, and her disappearance didn't have anything to do with some foolish selkie story. And still others say Ruby went to visit a friend on the other side of the island and returned a few days later.

Sara finished the quilt that day. She put it around her shoulders and pulled it around her body. She closed her eyes. She felt as though she was being embraced by her mother, her land and sea sisters, by the faeries, by the auld mother. She felt rocked by the sea itself. She looked down at the quilt. All the patches now appeared to be the same color so that the quilt looked as though it was made from the same cloth. And it glittered. Sara blinked and it was emerald glitter; she blinked again and it was ruby glitter. She smiled.

Then she felt something in the pit of her stomach and she heard the whisper of her name from a distance. She had heard it off and on all day. Now she knew Cormac was coming closer, and he sounded angry.

She quickly folded up the quilt. She stuffed it in her bag, along with the treasure box. She hurried out into the corridor and opened the door of one of the empty rooms. She flattened out the bag as much as she could and she put it under one of the mattresses.

Then she hurried back into their room. She quickly straightened up the sheets and blankets on the bed and then sat in the chair and waited for Cormac. She heard footsteps. She heard the anger in every footfall. Tomorrow night she had to meet May. Tomorrow night she was leaving this place and Cormac for good, and she had to make certain nothing happened to jeopardize that. She took a deep breath.

“Help me, sea sisters,” Sara whispered. “Help me sooth his heart so that I may depart.”

The door swung open. Cormac’s face was red, his eyes were watery.

He was angry and drunk.

Sara looked up at him. She was not going to let this happen again.

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Sister Bridget Mermaid & Others

This is excerpted from Church of the Old Mermaids. Myla and the others are sitting around the table at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary creating a deck of Old Mermaids cards...

“Of course,” Myla said. “And yours, Lily. Ahhh, I think that might be Sister Laughs A Lot Mermaid. She is a happy glittery kind of Old Mermaid. Now Stefan, that must be Sister Magdelene Mermaid. They call her Sissy Maggie. She’s very artistic. You’d like her. Maria, which Old Mermaid is that? I think it might be Sister Bridget Mermaid. She had long curly hair, a bit red. I know what you’re thinking. All Old Mermaids have long hair, but that isn’t actually so. Some do have long hair; some don’t. Sister Bridget Mermaid knows all about poetry, herbs, plants, songs, healing. She and Sister Faye Mermaid plan the parties and ceremonies for the Old Mermaids. They know when the moon is full or when it is dark. They know the best sea chanties.

"Ernesto, that has to be Sister Sheila Na Giggles Mermaid. She is practical, too, and very handy around the house. She tells it like it is. If she thinks someone is getting too fanciful, she’ll say, ‘Get the starfish out of your eyes, Sister Mermaid.’ And she knows the more colorful sea chanties.” She walked over to David. “Ahhh, this must be the Grand Mother Yemaya Mermaid. She knows more about the oceans and seas than anyone. She knows more about the mystery of ourselves—our watery bodies—than anyone. She is like your grandmother, Maria. She has moon beauty. When you feel as though you are drowning, she is the Old Mermaid who will save you.”

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The Magnificent Old Mermaids Book Drop!

Would you like to participate in something marvelous, something wonderful, something inspiring? As some of you know, I have started to leave copies of Church of the Old Mermaids here and there, as gifts to whomever happens to find these copies. I love the idea of COTOM being planted like little seeds all over the country—and the world! What will grow from it?

I've left one in Valencia and Santa Cruz, California. I also dropped one in Ashland and another one in Portland. My father has volunteered to drop them around Scottsdale and along his way from AZ to Michigan when he drives back home. Another friend has volunteered to drop a couple in Ottawa and Tucson. Now I'm asking if any of you would like to be emissaries for the Church of the Old Mermaids and "drop" a copy of the book in your area.

How would this work? One of two ways:

1. You can order the book. When you get it, write on the first page (where the title is) something like, "This book is not lost because you found it. Enjoy it and then pass it on. Let Kim know how it goes." Put the date and the city (and the place, if you like). Then take the book to someplace public and leave it surreptitiously. This can be a school, restaurant, grocery store, pool hall, bar, church, museum, nightclub, race track, the mall, movie theater, subway station, grocery store, etc. Wherever you like. Outdoors probably isn't a good idea unless it's someplace dry and warm. Remember you want a stranger to find it, not a member of your family or someone you know! And try to do it so no one sees you. Then you write to me (via email, Facebook, or Twitter), and tell me what you did and what the experience was like for you. I want photographs if you can do that.

2. You can ask me to send you the book. I will write in it and send it to you. And then follow the instructions above. (And remember, Old Mermaids, this isn't about scoring a free copy of Church of the Old Mermaids; it's about spreading the word and the stories of the Old Mermaids and leaving treasures for your fellow human beings—and fellow Old Mermaids.)

Of course, you can embellish these instructions any way you like and use your own creativity when you perform The Magnificent Old Mermaids Book Drop. I'd like to have these drops happen all over the United States—and Canada and Mexico would be fun, too. I want to do this during the First Hundred Days. I'll send out as many as I can afford. (I have to buy the books, too.)

After I get all your reports of your adventures with the Book Drop I'll write them up and post them or publish them. I'm hoping that some of the people who find the book and read it will write to me, too, but we'll see what happens. I'm viewing it all as a way I can gift my stories—and whatever else happens is gravy.

If you're interested in participating in The Magnificent Old Mermaids Book Drop, you can order the book yourself, of course, and then let me know how it goes. If you want me to send you a copy of the book for the Book Drop, then email me with your address.

Make this fun! I want people to create Old Mermaid Sanctuaries all over the world!

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The Old Mermaid: an Excerpt

One day Juan said to Sara, “This is a sanctuary, and I think a sanctuary needs a church. A church of the Old Mermaids.” He pointed up the path where the old mermaid wall was. “I think we should build it right there and make the wall part of it. And we’ll paint the inside and fill it with old mermaids and the old sea.”

Sara smiled at him. “You’re doing this because you think I’m unhappy,” she said. “I’m not. I’m just sometimes sad for the sea and my ma.”

He kissed her forehead. “Can I build it for you?”

She nodded. “You can.”

And he did. It was a tiny church. As round as can be, built mostly from stone. As far as Sara could tell, everyone from the sanctuary and everyone else they knew came and helped. Every one of them went into the chapel and painted something: mermaids, seashells, fish, trees, lions, bears, coyotes, little girls with fish tails and wings on their hearts. And the old mermaid wall was part of it all. Juan did put a roof on the chapel so that the building was exposed to all the elements they loved.

When Sara stepped into it for the first time after they finished it, she could hear the roar of the old sea.

“It’s as if I’m inside a seashell,” she whispered to Juan. “You did this? It’s beautiful. I may never leave.” She kissed him.

That night she slept in the tiny church of the old mermaids. In the morning, she heard the mermaids whispering to her. She got up and went outside. She followed the sound into the desert until she saw a spot of green. She went to it and discovered a tiny spring bubbling up from the earth. She smiled and bent over it.

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Once Upon A time

(The excerpt below is from The Old Mermaid, the novel I am writing down now. It takes place once upon a time that was now and a time that was then and a time that is to come in a place that is far away and near and dear to you and me.)

Before the sun came up again, Maire took aside her daughter and handed her a small wooden box.

“It looks tiny,” Maire said, “but it will do you well. Every one of the O’Brion women have had one just the same, only different. Before the time of land, they were made from seashells and seal bladders. Or so my ma told me. It’s carved from driftwood found in the auld sea.”

Sara ran her hand over the smooth gray lid and the deep red hinges. Were the hinges made from wood too? Her fingers touched the mother of pearl clasp. The clasp was in the shape of a mermaid; the “s” of her tail fit over a tiny piece of shell to hold the lid to the bottom of the box. Sara carefully moved the mermaid and opened the lid.

The small box was filled with treasures.

Sara put her fingers on a small ball of yarn.

“The good neighbors helped your great great grandmother as far back as forever weave this yarn,” Maire said. “It is woven from sunshine and ocean waves, spider webs and mermaid hair, hopes and dreams. It’s sprinkled with faery dust, too, it’s rumored, so you best be careful what magic you do with it.”

Sara nodded. She had seen her mother’s own ball of faery yarn since she was a baby. Maire used a little of it in every blanket she made, in every dress she sewed. Tonight it was the color of white sheep’s wool, but Sara knew it could take on any color, just like a rainbow.

Tears burned Sara’s eyes. She blinked them away. If the yarn had so much magic, why hadn’t her mother used it to save her from this fate?

Next to the yarn were several needles carefully tied with a ribbon. Underneath them was a tiny pair of scissors.

“Needles for sewing and knitting,” her mother said. “One is new and the others are from your grandmother’s sewing basket. She got them from her grandmother. They’ve stayed sharp all these years. The story goes they were made by a smithy who was trying to protect his children from one of the folk who kept trying to steal the children away. As long as they sewed or kept a needle in their clothes, they were safe from all kinds of thievery, including the faery kind.

“The scissors are new to the family,” Maire said. “My ma told me they were a gift to one of the sea sisters from one of the Fates herself. I give 'em to ya so that you can have some control of your own fate.”

Sara stared at the scissors. Could she take them out now and cut this strand of her life so she wouldn’t have to live it?

Sara moved her hand away from the yarn and touched a sea shell. She picked it up and put it to her ear. She could hear the sea. It sounded as though a storm was brewing.

“So you won’t ever forget the auld ma or the auld sea,” her mother said.

Sara gently returned the shell to the box and then she picked up three small vials wrapped in wool.

“Those are herbs from our land,” Maire said, “and salt from our sea. And this last contains the rich dark earth from the hollow hills where the Tuatha De Danaan went when they left us; it’s mixed with sand from our beaches.”

“Ma,” Sara whispered. “You can’t be giving me this.”

Maire shook her head. “Of course I can. The earth was given to me for you from back at the beginning of time. It’s not just ground I’m giving ya. The earth has everything in it that has lived and will live again. The flowers, the trees, the faeries, our ancestors. My ma gave it to me long ago and said it was a gift for she who would be needing it. She thought it was me, but I never used it. Not once. Maybe you’ll know what to do with it.”

(The photograph is of a paper-doll mermaid that was gifted to Kim by Sister Joanna Mermaid. And Kim is so tickled by it she is still giggling. The paper dolls are made by the gifted artist Elaine Jackson. Kim thinks Elaine is probably a sister mermaid, too. And now Kim will stop speaking in the third person.)

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Antigone & Church of the Old Mermaids

I don't usually just copy the same posts on both my websites but I wanted to make certain everyone knew about this latest development! So apologies for the double post.

Those of you who have read Church of the Old Mermaids (or even if you've read the first chapter on my blog), you know that Antigone Books is where Myla Alvarez sets up her Church of the Old Mermaids table; there in front of the store, she tells stories about items she's found in the wash at the Old Mermaids Sanctuary.

Antigone Books is a real (and wonderful) bookstore here in Tucson on 4th Avenue. As of today, Antigone Books is selling signed copies of Church of the Old Mermaids! So if you live in the area, go on down and get yourself one. And even if you don't live in the area, they do mail order. COTOM is not up on their website yet, but you can always call. (They've got all my other books on their website.) I love this bookstore and am very happy to do what I can do to support it.

There is something so delicious about setting part of my novel outside this bookstore and now this bookstore is selling my novel. There's a word for that, but I can't think of what it is, so I'm saying it's delicious! Scrumptious. Wonderful! The Old Mermaids would certainly approve of this development.

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Upon Reflection

Clouds spread across the sky like a huge old cottony comforter. You know the kind: It's old and the batting is scrunched up here and squeezed up there. And you're just about to throw it out or cut it up for scraps and then you remember when you made it or the time Sister Lyra Musica Mermaid threw it over Sister Laughs A Lot Mermaid when she couldn't even muster a smile. Or you put it up to your nose and you sense more than actually smell the sweet scent of Oliver the Old Cat who used to wander the Old Mermaid Sanctuary with Sister Ursula Divine Mermaid.

That's what is was like at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary last night as the Old Mermaids looked up at the gray clouds just as the sun dropped into the Old Sea and splashed scarlet and pink and rose up onto those clouds. At least that's what the Old Mermaids thought at first as they oohed and aahed over the spectacle before them. And then Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid looked down at the pool and saw the sunset reflected there and she said, "Aahh, look, Sister Mermaids. We're seeing these clouds through the rose-colored reflection of the sun."

The Old Mermaid clapped and laughed out loud. Old Neighbor Betty was watching the sunset with the Old Mermaids. She said, "I think the expression is 'looking at the world through rose-colored glasses.' And it's not a good thing."

"Why isn't it a good thing?" Sissy Maggie Mermaid asked. "The clouds were lovely all puffy and gray up there in the sky. And now they are even more spectacular through our rose-colored glasses."

Old Neighbor Betty made a noise. Sometimes she thought the Old Mermaid just did not get it. "It means that you're not seeing things as they truly are when you look at them through rose-colored glasses," she explained.

Grand Mother Yemaya Mermaid said, "That is an interesting observation, Old Neighbor. I imagine that both ways of looking at the clouds are truthful and real. They're just different."

"But the clouds are not really scarlet-colored," the Old Neighbor insisted.

"Really?" Grand Mother Yemaya Mermaid said. She looked up at the clouds again. "I'm sorry you can't see the scarlet. It is really quite magnificent."

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Gifts of the Old Mermaids: Part Two

On Sunday, we gathered again for the conclusion of the Gifts of the Old Mermaids playshop. We sat around our sprawling altar. We passed around a plate and left offerings for the faeries and ancestors. Then we said nice things about the directions and elements. Talked about our dreams. The women showed me the cigar boxes they were transforming into treasure chests.

And then they journeyed to Aphrodite and got gifts and brought them back for their sister mermaids while I drummed. We kept this knowledge to ourselves and we went to the kitchen and each made a cowrie shell necklace. When we were finished, we blessed the necklaces with the elements and then put all the necklaces into a giant shell.

After lunch, we dressed up and prepared for the Gifted Ceremony. We drummed and then the first sister mermaid sat in the heart tree made from hazel sapling. "Sister Mermaid!" I called. "Are you ready to accept your gifts?" "Yes!" And then one at a time we went up to the sister mermaid and gifted her. The last person lifted one of the cowrie necklaces from the shell and put it over the the now Gifted sister mermaid's head and around her neck.

And then we danced and cheered.

The ceremony was moving and beautiful. I felt very gifted by these women and the Old Mermaids.

When it was over, we realized that we had each been gifted with the necklaces we had made ourselves. I got the necklace I had made. Barbara got the necklace she had made, etc. Every one of us!

As Sister Faye Mermaid said, "The rest is mystery."

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Church of the Old Mermaids in Electronic Form

You can get COTOM in seconds in the Kindle form here.

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IT'S HERE!

IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE! IT'S HERE! You can now buy Church of the Old Mermaids on Amazon.com. Now you can read this lovely story. I hope you'll help me get this story out into the world!

So spread the word! And all of you who have offered to be part of the Old Mermaids Tour, thank you, thank you, thank you! I am so grateful. I will get back with you as soon as I have an idea about when it can all happen. Later on, I'll figure out some kind of deal for book groups, maybe buying multiple copies through me. But first I wanted to get the word out! Also, I'm building the Church of the Old Mermaids page on my website. Go there and wander about. Love, love, love!

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Gifts of the Old Mermaids: Part One

This is what we did today at the Gifts of the Old Mermaids playshop:

We talked about the relationship between mermaids and the ancient sea goddesses. About the true story of Aphrodite, how she is about true passionate love and life—love and understanding of ourselves. She looks into the mirror to remember the way to all truth: Know Thyself.

We journeyed to the Old Sea for a Spirit helper or power animal to take us to Aphrodite. Once with Aphrodite, we each asked her what quality about ourselves we had forgotten. Afterward, we made collages to remind us of our true selves—to remind us of those qualities we had forgotten.

As they made the collages, I read them the scene from Church of the Old Mermaids where the Old Mermaids "Gift" Tulip and Poppy. Next time, we will perform the Gifted ceremony ourselves.

I also told them about the cigar box Myla used to hold the donations from people who listened to her stories at the Church of the Old Mermaids. I showed them my own cigar box with the mermaid painted on it. Inside, I keep treasures. After I told them all this, I brought out empty cigar boxes I had gotten from a tobacco shop in Portland. Their homework was to take a box home and make them into treasure chests.

Next time, we will make cowrie shell necklaces for each other, we will dress up in our Old Mermaid finery, and we will Gift and be Gifted.

This is only an outline of what happened today, in case you would like to do your own Gifts of the Old Mermaids. It was a profound, beautiful, and fun day which I could never quite describe. In two weeks, we meet again for the ceremony.

Blessed sea!

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Old Mermaids Tour, the Beginning

Step by step, I am planning the Old Mermaids Tour. This will be the Old Mermaids coming out party! I want to wander around the country and have Old Mermaids parties and Gifted ceremonies everywhere! I want to be a guest at Old Mermaid Sanctuaries all over the country. I want to help create Old Mermaid Sanctuaries. And I want all of you to be able to participate. So I'd like you to think about how you would like to be a part of this inspiring, fun tour. You'll have lots of opportunities. Let me outline some ideas.

1. You could be on the actual Old Mermaids Tour by inviting me to your home or your town. I'll talk about Church of the Old Mermaids at your house, the public library, or a local bookstore. I'm a good speaker. I can even do a talk on the Old Mermaids Mystery School or some kind of program for you or the library. My only caveat is that I need to be able to sell some copies of COTOM, since my purpose is to get this story out there! (And hopefully someone will offer me a place to sleep.) If you're willing to arrange something like this where you live, let me know. I can easily travel around the West, although I need to know that you can get enough people together for it to be feasible for me to come. We can create an inspiring community for a day or an evening—and hopefully you'll be inspired by what we do to carry these ideas forward after our time together. I have some incentives for you, so let me know if you're interested.

2. You can put together your own Old Mermaids party without me! I'm going to make up a little booklet or pdf for bookclubs, libraries, and anyone who wants to celebrate the Old Mermaids. I can be a part of this from a distance. I can answer any questions. Help you with ideas to create your own Old Mermaid Sanctuary for your party. I'll do whatever I can to make your party a success. Again, I'll have incentives for you if you help sell copies of Church of the Old Mermaids.

3. You can create your own Old Mermaids Sanctuary after you read the book, take a photograph, and write to me and we'll put it up on this blog.

4. You can blog about Church of the Old Mermaids and you can recommend the book to your friends. Word of mouth is absolutely the best press for a novel.

5. Buy a book for yourself! Buy many for your friends. I'm trying to figure out how to do discounts for multiple purchases.

I want to prove that good and beautiful novels can thrive without corporate publishers. I like the idea of these stories starting out small and slowly multiplying all around the country—and maybe the world, who knows. But for now. I just want to get the novel out into the world.

This novel and the story of the Old Mermaids and Myla and her work to save refugees out in the desert is beautiful and meaningful—and joyful and fun. Please join me for this adventure! I want to be with people who worship the ground they walk upon, people who talk to the trees, crows, and wildflowers—people who reach out in compassion to others every day. I want to celebrate with you and the Old Mermaids! So email me or comment with your contact info and your ideas and we'll see what we can get started!

The novel should be on Amazon in the next few weeks. I'll let you know as soon as I do when you can order COTOM!

By the way, the plan is to go around the West (at least the warm part of the West) in February. Back East in April. And around the PNW all year.

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Gifts of the Old Mermaids

On Saturday, we will dive into the Old Sea and New Desert as we explore the Gifts of the Old Mermaids. This two-part playshop will culminate in a "gifting" ceremony right here at this Old Mermaid Sanctuary. I'll let you know what we do in case you want to be a part of it on your own in your own Old Mermaid Sanctuary.

First I'll paste in part of the letter I sent out to the participants:

Hello Sister Mermaids!

Please dress comfortably. If you have drums and rattles please bring them. Bring magazines, catalogs, etc. with pictures you like that you can use for a collage. Think about home, land, hearth, what brings you joy and makes you feel like yourself.

For the next few days until Saturday, be open to dreaming about the Old Mermaids. Be open to the experience of coming home to yourself and the world. Look around this website, read some of the stories, look at the photos, just experience it.

We'll be making small altars, too. So bring a small piece of cloth (not bigger than 12 x 12), something beautiful or something that speaks to you for our work here at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary. Also, look for something in your house or environment that reminds you of the four elements: air, earth, fire, and water. Don't buy anything. Just pick these things up in or around your home and bring them with your cloth. For instance, a stone might be earth. Or you might find a feather for air. A shell for water. A candle or key for fire. Use your intuition and we'll talk more about it on Saturday.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Blessed sea!

Sister Kim Mermaid

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We Remember Our Ancestors

Blessed sea!

(Water Witch by Kim Antieau, crayon.)

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Big Happenings at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary!

Sister Mermaids, I need your help. Our Ruby Rose's Fairy Tale Emporium is going to publish my novel Church of the Old Mermaids. Now we have to figure out when. Do you want it before the holidays so you can gift it or after the holidays in the spring? If you have an opinion, email me or comment. Big decisions to be made! We are all very excited. I am also contemplating an Old Mermaid Road Trip when the book comes out with Old Mermaid parties everywhere. Let me know if you're interested. This is a new world and we can build it!

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You're Invited!

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Letter to the Old Mermaids

Old Mermaid Sanctuaries are everywhere! They're found in the most amazing and unusual places. We received a letter from just such a place:

"I've told my 4-year-old daughter about the Old Mermaids. This year I decided to plant our first vegetable garden, so we spent the majority of every day in spring and early summer ripping up the grass in our backyard. During this excavation, we came across a stone with a shell imprint on it as well as an actual shell. It was a small, curved, conical shell like those you'd hear the ocean in but in miniature. My daughter and I begin talking about how that shell got into our yard (probably a snail shell), and she was incredibly intrigued by the thought that maybe the ocean had once covered Ohio.

"The shells interior was filled with dirt, but my daughter put it to her ear and insisted that she could hear the ocean in it. After she'd played with it for awhile, she said that she could hear a voice in the shell. I asked her what it was saying. She leaned in close to me and whispered, 'she sells seashells by the seashore.' Lots of laughter ensued."

All of us at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary enjoyed hearing from Brandi and her daughter very much! You made our day! Thank you, thank you!

Photograph by Brandi, too!

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COTOM: Chapter One

As of today, I have changed the first chapter back to what it was originally. It doesn't have that first "action scene" that some believe is essential for a book to succeed, but it is now back to its original vision, so the Old Mermaids and I are much happier. Enjoy!

Chapter One

Get the starfish outta your eyes, sister.

—Sister Sheila Na Giggles Mermaid

Myla walked the wash looking for trash in the dirt. She looked for treasure too. One man’s trash was another woman’s treasure. And vice versa, she always said. She carried two bags over her right shoulder. Into the plastic bag, she dropped garbage; into the ruby-colored cloth bag, she put those bits of refuse she believed she could sell on Fourth Avenue, at the Church of the Old Mermaids. It was not a real church. At least not how most people defined that word. It was the space where she put her table, chair, and wares on Saturdays, shine or shine. She called it the Church of Old Mermaids because her mother told her when she was a child that the desert had once been a vast sea. She liked imagining that the mermaids had not dried up when the sea did; they merely changed their attitudes. And maybe their skin and fin-ware.

Myla’s feet slip-slided over the sand as she went around a palo verde whose bare branches stretched out over the wash. Dry rust-colored bean pods dangled from the green twigs, like offerings from the skeletal fingers of a Catrina doll, enticing her to snatch up a couple. So she did. She dropped them into the ruby bag.

“Thank you,” she murmured. Wasn’t about to say she wouldn’t be able to get a nickel for them. Unless she came up with a particularly good story. Like how these pods came from the wash that used to be a river where the Old Mermaids were stranded when the Old Sea began to disappear; or these pods came from a tree hanging over the wash where the Old Mermaids were first stranded, where they finally came to shore, and the first thing they did, these Old Mermaids, was to plant themselves a palo verde, all green, just like Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid’s tail had been, you know, before she had to leave the sea, the river, the wash.

Normally Myla did not take anything organic from the wash to sell. She removed only that which humans made, except for an occasional feather. She knew she could sell the latticed skeletons left by cacti--especially the cholla bones that grayed into exotic desert art--but she did not feel she had the right, not yet. Perhaps after she had lived on the land a bit longer. After all, ten years was only a drop in the proverbial time bucket. Sometimes she asked permission to snag an animal bone or cholla joint which she then stored in a room next to her studio apartment in the modular barn near the Crow house. She was not certain what she was going to do with these bits and pieces of the desert, but she felt as though she was retrieving pieces of long ago dismembered desert creatures. Or sea creatures. One day she would reassemble them.

But now, today, she needed to finish her walk and check on the houses in the Old Mermaid Sanctuary. Gail would be at the Crow house soon to pick her up. Myla was caretaker for the houses and land of five families while the owners were away, which was most of the year. The Wentworths usually came for the week between Christmas & New Year; the Castillos visited most every spring for a couple of months; the Martins and Fords stayed most of the fall, and the Crows usually took up residence October and March. Now in late January none of them were home.

All of the families wanted the houses to look as though they were lived in while they were away, and Myla did what she could to accommodate their wishes. The Crows encouraged her to use any part of their house since she lived on their property. They told her to watch television, swim in the pool, sit in the spa, use the library, or cook in their deluxe kitchen, but she rarely went into the house. Once or twice she had used the kitchen when she needed an extra oven.

She did like sitting by the Crow pool. It was peanut-shaped and a deep dark indigo blue with patches of lighter blue, creating the impression that one had stumbled upon a curvature in the bedrock where a natural spring pooled. The palm tree growing next it, along with other desert flora, helped further this nature fiction. Or maybe it wasn’t a fiction. The house was surrounded by the Sonoran desert. At midday sometimes, Myla sat on one of the lounge chairs and listened to the quiet and watched the cactus wrens hurry along the chest-high earth-colored wall that enclosed the pool area. Or at dusk, she stood at the edge of the pool and listened to the great-horned owl in the palm tree awaken and try to solve its daily identity crisis, “Who? Who?”

She especially liked seeing the mermaid at the bottom of the pool. David Thomas Crow had painted it when his parents drained the pool soon after Myla arrived. The mermaid was beautiful, with black eyes, a peach-colored tail, and tiny multicolored starfish in her wild black hair. She was quite voluptuous and had an uncanny resemblance to Myla, a fact everyone was too polite to mention. Everyone in the Crow family. As soon as the family left that year, Myla showed the mermaid to Theresa, Gail, and George. Theresa and Gail asked her when she had posed for the boy nearly young enough to be her son. George said, “He got the chimmychangas wrong. Yours are more lifelike.” Myla couldn’t really argue with him. He was right. Hers were more lifelike.

Myla started working at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary ten years earlier when she left her husband--or he left her--after she answered an ad in the Tucson Weekly. The owners came to town and interviewed Myla collectively. After talking with her for fifteen minutes, give or take, they offered her the job--pending a reference check. She had to get bonded too. They promised her a monthly stipend, studio, apartment, and use of a car; she promised to care for their land and houses.

She moved in almost immediately. Soon she was walking the wash every day, many times a day. In the beginning she felt a bit like La Llorona, weeping and wailing for her lost children. Only she did not have children. So she wailed for her lost life. Not that she thought about her life. She did not think about much of anything then: She felt. She felt sad, angry, lost, lousy. She felt the sand beneath her shoes and tried to keep her balance so she would not fall left into a prickly pear stand or right into a cholla tree, or the other way around. Sometimes she let David Thomas Crow walk with her. When she cried, he did not tell her everything would soon be all right; he did not tell her to look on the bright side or say time heals all. He never seemed uncomfortable with her sorrow--or anything else about her. Every once in a while he would put his hand on her back, lightly; this gesture steadied and relieved her, either by drying up the tears or causing them to flow more profusely.

She drank too much then. She hadn’t been a drinker before, and she wasn’t one afterward. But for a month or more, she used alcohol as her medicine, like someone with a cough taking cough syrup. That was how she thought about it. Just to stop the hacking ache.

Then one night the Old Mermaids came to her in a dream. They swam the wash, which was filled with sea water, and motioned to her to join them. One of them reached down to the sandy bottom and pulled up an old glass bottle and held it out to her. When she awakened the next morning, she stumbled into the wash and found the same glass bottle--or one that looked like it. Her life changed in that instant. She felt as though she had heard the call of the wild--or the call of the Old Mermaids. The Church of the Old Mermaids was born that morning. She stopped drinking, and David painted the mermaid at the bottom of pool.

David left soon after she stopped drinking, and Myla hadn’t seen him since. His mother, Sarah, gave her updates on him now and then, but Myla did not ask a lot of questions about his life. She remembered that month only vaguely, and she was afraid she might find out she had done something embarrassing to drive him away. Besides, he was out of her life, and she did not like to dwell on the past. That was long gone.

Myla leaned over and picked up a piece of gray metal lying on top of the sand in the wash. It looked like the top half of a shepherd’s staff. She dropped it into the ruby bag and kept walking. She passed several pieces of concrete in the sand. She had not yet figured out how so many blocks of concrete ended up in the wash. Even when the arroyo became a river again--temporarily during the monsoons--concrete could not float. Could it? She supposed the force of water could move just about anything.

She stepped over a mesquite log with an orange plastic rope wrapped around it. She did not feel like unraveling it now. Maybe one day. She had been considering that orange rope for many days now--maybe even years. She shrugged. It must be that no one needed it yet.

The wash split, and she followed the left branch. She had not been here for a while. No horses and few other creatures had traveled this way either, judging from the lack of tracks. She stopped in the shade of an old mesquite. She always overdressed on these chilly mornings. Now the cool blackness of the mesquite felt good. Several prickly pear pads had draped themselves over the mesquite trunk that bent toward the ground a bit before curving up. The prickly pear pads looked wrung out, as though they had been traveling a long distance and had finally succumbed to exhaustion and thirst. The cactus had found a good companion in the mesquite. Very grounded. Rooted. Mesquite had the deepest root system of any tree, she knew. Someone had once found a live mesquite root 160 feet beneath the surface, in a copper mine. Myla put her hand on its trunk. Mesquite trees knew how to hold their ground. Old souls, she thought when she saw one like this, crouched toward the desert floor yet still reaching out to the world around it. Its yellow leaflets appeared almost fluorescent next to its dark branches and trunk.

In the sand near the base of the tree and the prickly pear was a piece of rusty metal; about a foot long and six inches across, it looked vaguely like a skeleton of the push part of a miniature lawn mover. Not that she had seen a mower in a long while. The Wentworths had a square of grassy lawn in the front of their house when Myla first moved into the Old Mermaid Sanctuary. They gave her detailed instructions on how to keep it living and thriving while they were away. She read the instructions and watched each day as the lawn shriveled and then died. She had George pull out the sod and let the desert floor be again. Eventually she talked George into helping her plant some prickly pears, chollas, and a young palo verde. By the time the Wentworths returned, the land looked like desert again. Mr. Wentworth asked her what had happened. She told him, “Putting sod like that on the desert is like putting a bad toupee on a bald man.” He frowned, not understanding. “It covers up his beautiful bald head which was what was attractive about him in the first place,” Myla said. Mr. Wentworth smoothed his hand over his shiny head and nodded. They never mentioned the lawn again.

Myla picked up the piece of metal and slipped it into the ruby bag. “Thank you, Mesquite,” she said.

She walked out of the shade and went to the main artery of the wash. A crow called out. She looked up as it flew over her, its wings whooshing-whooshing against the dry desert air.

“Good morning, crow,” she said. Sometimes she wished she was a crow. At least when she was walking the wash. Crows could spot treasure in the dirt even if they were looking down from the moon.

She looked away from the flying crow and at the ground and saw the metal loop to an earring sticking out of a dent in the sand made up by a horse’s hoof. She reached for it with her cotton gloved fingers and pulled it out of the dirt. Hanging from the bent metal was a tiny red dreamcatcher with a metal feather at its center. She could get a good price for this with the right story, but maybe she would keep it for a bit, to see if anyone had lost it. She slipped it into the left pocket of her pants.

Myla glanced up again. “Thanks, Crow. I owe you.”

The wash continued across the road, but Myla did not follow it. The road marked the end of the Old Mermaid Sanctuary. She turned around, walked a few yards, then started up a path to the Wentworth house. She had memorized the paths to each house, but she never traveled the desert thoughtlessly. It was too prickly for that. Besides, the desert moved. Like a glacier. She was convinced. Well, she shrugged, maybe not exactly like a glacier. Maybe like a slow dance troupe. When the moon came up, the mesquite, palo verde, saguaro, and prickly pear did the two-step. Or maybe yoga. She shook her head. She was getting a bit too fanciful; Gail would say she was spending too much time alone.

Not too much, really.

Myla walked around the outside of the Wentworth house to see if anything was out of place. Her feet crunched over the pebbly dirt. This house looked similar to other houses in the sanctuary, made from adobe or fake-adobe, this one with a tiled roof. A small covey of quails scurried across the dirt drive, whimpering and cooing, reminding Myla--as quail often did--of a group of nuns bustling from sight, worried they might become tainted if they did not hurry, hurry, hurry away.

Myla pulled a ring of keys out of her pocket, searched for the Wentworth key, put it in the lock and turned it. She stepped inside the dark, quiet house and closed the door behind her. She paused in the foyer for a moment and wiped her feet on the mat. She looked down to make certain she was not bringing in any dirt or cactus thorns. Then she walked to the living room and called, “Buenos días! Es Myla.”

A moment later, a five year old girl came running around the corner from the hallway, her arms outstretched, her long black ponytails bouncing on her back. Myla bent over and enveloped the girl in her arms.

“Oh, Lily my Lily,” Myla said in Spanish. “You are the most beautiful flower in this desert. I’ll have to take you home with me and never let you go.”

Lily kissed her daintily on the cheek.

“Ahhh, stingy with the water are we,” Myla said.

Lily turned her cheek to Myla, and Myla gave her a wet kiss. Lily laughed and wiped it away.

“Oh! You don’t want my kisses? Okay. The kiss is on your hand now, so if you want it back, you can touch your cheek any time.”

Lily put both hands up to her cheek and smiled. Her mother walked into the room.

“Hola, Maria,” Myla said. “Cómo estás?” She embraced the thin young woman.

“I am well,” Maria said, running her hands through her short black hair. “Lily had another nightmare.”

“I was in the water,” Lily said. “I couldn’t breathe.”

“We had to cross a river coming here,” Maria explained. “It was higher than we expected. Below her knees, but the current was too strong for her. She started screaming. It was nearly dark. Everyone started running, afraid they’d be caught. She fell and the water grabbed her.” Maria squinted, remembering. “But I got her right away. Didn’t I, Lily?” She looked down at her daughter. “I would never do anything to put her in danger.” She looked at Myla again. Both women knew she had risked her daughter’s life by crossing la frontera and bringing her into the desert. “I couldn’t leave her behind,” Maria whispered.

“Did you eat?” Myla asked.

Lily slipped her hand into Myla’s as they walked into the darkened kitchen.

“We made the oatmeal like you showed us,” Maria said.

Microwaved. Less chance of them catching anything on fire. Myla wasn’t sure how well-versed Maria was with modern kitchen equipment.

“Then I washed the dishes and put everything away,” Maria said. “It is very kind of these people to let me use their house.”

“Yes, well,” Myla said, “tonight we will have dinner at my place, when I get back from the Church of the Old Mermaids. Will you be all right until then? If anything happens, remember you can walk out onto the road and the second house on the right is where I live. There’s a phone in my apartment in the barn. I will leave my door unlocked.”

“I remember,” Maria said. “You showed us.”

“By the way, you can leave these kitchen curtains open if you like,” Myla said. “No one could see you from here.”

“Any news on my husband?”

Myla shook her head. She had discovered Lily and Maria in the desert a few miles from the border several days earlier, after their guia had deserted them. Myla had been searching for items for the Church of the Old Mermaids in a wash that ran through a stand of cottonwoods--huge old silvery-gray trees rising above the dry riverbed like ancient druids--when she heard a child crying. She followed the sound until she found Lily, alone. A few moments later, Maria seemed to appear out of nowhere. She took Lily into her arms and explained to Myla that she was looking for her husband Juan who had come to the United States three months earlier. She had not heard from him since. Could Myla help her, Maria wanted to know. Finding Maria’s husband would be like finding a particular thorn in the desert, Myla thought at the time--and she still thought so--but she did not say that to Maria then or now. Besides, maybe Theresa would find him.

Myla looked from the mother to the child now.

“I need to get going,” Myla said. “I’ll see you both later.”

“Thank you, Myla,” Maria said.

“Don’t go,” Lily said.

Myla crouched down. “I’ll be back. I’ll tell you another story tonight.”

Lily turned her cheek to her. Myla bent over to give her another wet kiss. Lily laughed as though tickled.

Myla left the house. She stood outside for a moment until she heard the door lock behind her. Then she walked down the dirt street to the Martin house. She went around the outside of the building, then inside. All appeared to be as it should, although she needed to take down the Christmas lights sometime before the next holiday. She locked the house up again and walked back across the wash to the Castillo place. It looked as though the javelinas had been trying to dig up something near the palo verde by the master bedroom. No harm done though. Javelinas did what javelinas did. She went inside the house, stood in the semidarkness, then called out,” “Hola! It’s Myla, Ernesto.” No answer.

She walked across the living room and looked out the sliding glass doors at the enclosed patio. Ernesto was lying on one of the chaise lounges in the shade of a tall conifer. He was covered from head to foot. Myla nodded. This was good. He needed the rest. He had gotten sick picking cotton, probably pesticide poisoning. His friends had taken him to the hospital emergency initially, but he wouldn’t go back after the first visit. He was afraid someone would report him to la migra. He had not been able to work for two months, he had no money for rent or food, and hadn’t been getting any better. Theresa heard about him from a friend of a friend and told Myla about his situation. Two weeks at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary and he was almost back to his old self.

Myla opened the sliding glass door and went outside.

Ernesto looked up, took off his sunglasses, and started to stand.

“No need to get up,” Myla said. “You’ve been eating the soup?”

Ernesto stood despite her protestations. He looked far older than his thirty-five years, fragile, his body slightly bent.

“I have been eating your soup, señora,” he said. “It is a miracle soup! You are a miracle worker!”

“Just thank the Old Mermaids,” Myla said.

Ernesto smiled.

“I will be gone until dark,” Myla said. “But we will have dinner at my place tonight. Shall I have Stefan come get you?”

“I can come on my own,” he said.

“Still, wouldn’t his company be nice?”

“That is true,” Ernesto said.

“Until then,” Myla said. “I’m late so I have to go.”

“I will see you out,” he said.

“It’s all right,” she said. But he followed her anyway. They slowly walked to the door together. She said good-bye again, stepped outside, and listened for the door to lock behind her. She hurried down the path to the wash, then headed toward the Crow house.

Cathy and her teenaged son Stefan were at the Ford house, but Myla would not have time to stop there this morning; they would do well on their own. At least she hoped so. She did not normally have this many people at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary--and never anyone except migrants. Until now. Theresa had vouched for Cathy, an old acquaintance of hers who was fleeing an abusive husband. She could not stay with her, Theresa had pleaded, because Theresa was still a newlywed. It would only be a few days, she had promised. It had been ten days so far. Myla was not sure why she had agreed; maybe it was because Theresa never begged and she was so desperate for this second marriage to work. In any case, she had let Cathy and Stefan come to the Old Mermaid Sanctuary.

Myla hurried by the Crow house and empty horse corrals to her apartment on the north side of the barn. She went inside and dropped the plastic bag full of trash in the garbage. She added the contents of the ruby bag to a cardboard box. Then she put that box onto another cardboard box and carried them outside as Gail drove up. Myla waited for the dust to settle, then went to the back of the car. The hatchback opened as Gail got out of the car.

“Good morning,” Myla said.

Gail looked irritated, but she often looked irritated. Myla was convinced she would be a beautiful old woman: her face a network of wrinkles--like arroyos on a mountain--from a lifetime of frowns.

Gail pushed her curly brown-hair out of her eyes and asked, “The table inside?”

“Yep,” Myla said. She put the boxes in the back of the car, then followed Gail into the apartment and picked up two more boxes and carried them to the car. Gail got the table. They packed the car, closed the hatchback, and both got in.

Gail started up the car. “You been rushing around this morning?”

“Of course,” Myla said. Gail turned the car around and drove down the dirt drive. “Saturdays are busy.”

Gail glanced at her. “Someday you’re going to have to take me on one of your walks in the wash, so I can see exactly what you do.”

“Nothing exact about it,” Myla said. “And you know the Old Mermaids like me to walk the wash alone.”

“Yeah, right.” Gail turned out onto the road, and they headed for the main road that would, eventually, lead them into town. “I’d think you’d have all the alone time you’d need out here.”

“You’d think,” Myla said.

Read the whole tale here...

Ginger & Beans & the Old Sea

Gather to you:
2 cups luscious black beans
1 strip kombu from the Old Sea
1 to 1 1/2 tsp finely grated fresh ginger
tamari and/or salt
5-6 cups of water

Soak beans for 48 hours. Leave them out, covered. Drain and rinse. Have you ever seen anything as beautiful as these purple/blue/black beans? Put the beans on the stove to boil with about 5 cups of water and the kombu. Pray to the Old Sea as you stir, stir, stir! Turn down to a simmer after boil. Skim off any foam when it first boils. You'll probably have to add water as it cooks. You want it to have a kind of velvety sauce. This isn't storytelling soup, darlin's! It takes about two hours to get tender beans. When they're about 30 minutes before done, add the ginger and tamari to taste. Any salt stuff in the early part of cooking beans makes them tough. Tamari makes the flavor richer. If you'd like to avoid soy, use salt. It'll still be soooo delicious. Remove seaweed if it's left in tact, thank it, and toss it away. Serve with a grain and veggies.

—Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid who was inspired by Kristina Turner

Read the whole tale here...

Siren Song

Everyone has a siren song....It's whatever you do that you love completely. Something fluid, beautiful, all yours. —Myla Alvarez, Church of the Old Mermaids

Read the whole tale here...

COTOM: Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Things change. Get over it.

—Sister Bea Wilder Mermaid

David and Maria did the dishes. Myla started to remind David that the house had a dishwasher, but she watched the two of them trying to talk to one another, and she decided to leave them alone. Theresa and Cathy sat in the living room and discussed job possibilities. Luisa and Stefan played cards at the kitchen table. Lily watched.

“What are you playing?” Myla asked.

“Old Maid,” Luisa said. She smiled as though she had said something very clever. “You wanna play?”

“Yeah, it’s kind of boring with just two players,” Stefan said.

Myla sat at the table with them. “How do you play this game?”

“First you take away one of the queens,” Luisa said. “Then you pass out all the cards to the players. Every player puts down all the pairs they have. Then you go around the circle and each player takes a card from the player on the right. If you get a pair with that card you put it down. You do this until one person is left with the single queen. The Old Maid. That person loses because she’s the Old Maid—she’s a loser because she’s all alone.”

Myla made a face. “The person who ends up with the Queen is the loser? She should be the winner!”

“It’s not the queen then,” Luisa said. “It’s the Old Maid. Get it. Everyone is in pairs except the queen. I mean, except the Old Maid.”

“Maybe she is like the queen bee,” Myla said. “The queen bee is not part of a pair. Or maybe she’s an old maid goddess, or an Old Mermaid goddess. Atargatis was a mermaid goddess, you know. Yemaya too. There are many others. Sometimes they were alone, sometimes they were part of a pair. That makes me think of something. Where’s the box the cards came in?”

Stefan handed it to her. She opened it and pulled out the joker.

“Let’s play Old Mermaids instead,” Myla said.

“Oh here we go!” Theresa said from the couch. She and Cathy got up and came over to the table.

“We need thirteen mermaids,” Myla said.

“Why?” Stefan asked.

“It’s a nice round number,” Myla answered.

Luisa frowned. Theresa laughed.

Myla began pulling the face cards out of the deck. When she had them all, she spread them out on the table and added the joker. “Here are the Old Mermaids! It’s played like Old Maid except whoever ends up with the most Old Mermaids wins. And the thirteenth Old Mermaid, if you get her, you get an additional thirteen points.”

“Is she making this up?” Luisa asked.

“I’m remembering it as I talk about it,” Myla said.

“She does that a lot,” Theresa said.

“Shall we play?” Myla asked.

“These look like mermen, not mermaids,” Luisa said.

“Where do you think little mermaids come from?” Stefan asked.

Myla laughed. “Well, that is a story for another night too.” She picked up one of the cards. “We could decorate these and make them all into Old Mermaids.”

“You mean draw on them?” Stefan asked.

“Why not?” Myla looked up at David who had come over to watch. “They’re your cards, I presume?”

“Do whatever you like with them,” David said.

“I’ve got crayons, pencils, and markers at my place,” Myla said. “David, you’re an artist. What about your room here? Do you still have anything here?”

“There might be something in the closet,” he said. “I’ll go look.”

“I’ll come with,” Luisa said.

“Me, too,” Stefan said. Luisa gave him a dirty look. Lily slipped her hand into Luisa’s.

“We’ll have an expedition then,” David said. They disappeared down the hall.

“Wow,” Theresa said. “I should have brought Luisa here earlier. She’s actually playing well with others, sort of.”

“My son was angry,” Ernesto said in English. “He left home when he was fourteen.”

“What happened to him?”

“No say. No say.”

“Uplifting story, Ernesto,” Theresa said.

He shrugged.

A few minutes later, David returned with the children. Luisa carried a cardboard box. She set it on the table and took off the lid.

“Mom must have saved this stuff,” David said. “I haven’t done art in years.”

“I thought you got a degree in art education,” Myla said.

“Didn’t pan out,” he said.

“Look,” Luisa said. “We’ve got colored pencils and pens. And glitter glue. Sequins. Beads. We can make these mermaids into babes.”

“Some of these babes are going to have mustaches,” Stefan said, holding up a Jack.

“Some of the best women I know have mustaches,” Myla said.

Cathy and Theresa made coffee while everyone else sat around the table with the face cards. Luisa began coloring on a queen. Stefan took a jack. Lily a king.

Lily asked her mother what she was supposed to do.

“We’re making them into Old Mermaids,” Maria said in Spanish.

“You too, Maria,” Myla said. “David. You haven’t done art in years? Now is the time. Your life is your art statement. Everything is about art!”

Soon, the table sparkled with glitter. Sticky glitter. Luisa used sequins to approximate the scales on the Old Mermaid’s somewhat truncated tail. Lily glued sequins everywhere and then added glitter. Maria shredded ribbon David found in his mother’s sewing basket and made it into hair for her mermaid. Ernesto drew in a hammer and nails. “Someone has to do the work around the sanctuary,” he said. David’s mermaid seemed to get darker and darker the longer he worked on the card. Stefan colored in the mermaid and then added more figures so it looked like a tiny mural.

“I wish these cards were bigger!” Luisa said.

Myla walked around the table and looked at the artwork.

“That one with the green tail, Luisa,” Myla said. “She reminds me of Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid. She was very wise. You have a wisdom about you, too. That must be why you thought of her. She listened and thought about things a great deal.”

“She was wise and beautiful,” Luisa said.

“Of course,” Myla said. “And yours, Lily. Ahhh, I think that might be Sister Laughs A Lot Mermaid. She is a happy glittery kind of Old Mermaid. Now Stefan, that must be Sister Magdelene Mermaid. They call her Sissy Maggie. She’s very artistic. You’d like her. Maria, which Old Mermaid is that? I think it might be Sister Bridget Mermaid. She had long curly hair, a bit red. I know what you’re thinking. All Old Mermaids have long hair, but that isn’t actually so. Some do have long hair; some don’t. Sister Bridget Mermaid knows all about poetry, herbs, plants, songs, healing. She and Sister Faye Mermaid plan the parties and ceremonies for the Old Mermaids. They know when the moon is full or when it is dark. They know the best sea chanties. Ernesto, that has to be Sister Sheila Na Giggles Mermaid. She is practical, too, and very handy around the house. She tells it like it is. If she thinks someone is getting too fanciful, she’ll say, ‘Get the starfish out of your eyes, Sister Mermaid.’ And she knows the more colorful sea chanties.” She walked over to David. “Ahhh, this must be the Grand Mother Yemaya Mermaid. She knows more about the oceans and seas than anyone. She knows more about the mystery of ourselves—our watery bodies—than anyone. She is like your grandmother, Maria. She has moon beauty. When you feel as though you are drowning, she is the Old Mermaid who will save you.”

“That’s only six,” Luisa said. “We’ve got seven more to do.”

“Next week,” Theresa said. “It’s getting late. Some of us have had a long day.”

Luisa looked disappointed. “We still haven’t played Old Mermaids.”

“David, can we leave this stuff somewhere here?” Myla asked. “Then they could finish it next Saturday.”

“I don’t know if I’ll be here, but I’m sure my parents wouldn’t mind.”

“I’ll take everyone home,” Theresa said.

Myla glanced at Luisa who was putting the supplies back into the box.

“Oh, wait,” Theresa said, understanding Myla’s hint. “Um, I forgot. I’m not going that way.”

“What way?” Luisa asked. “We can take them. Come on, Mom.”

She was sharp as a tack, this one.

“I need the exercise,” Ernesto said, “so I’ll walk.”

“Yeah, us too,” Stefan said.

Luisa shrugged. “Whatever. See you later, gators.” Her mother handed her the empty bowls.

“Sorry to leave you with this mess,” Theresa said to David. “My husband and I are newlyweds, sort of. He misses me, so I better get home.”

Luisa rolled her eyes. “Yeah, good old Del Rey. We should have had him here tonight. Hearing you all talk about communes would have given him a heart attack. He’d probably think you were communists or something.”

“He’s not like that,” Theresa said. “Don’t pay any attention to her. He’ll come sometime, I promise. Night!”

Theresa and Luisa left.

“Can I say good night to the mermaid in the pool?” Lily asked.

“I’ll take you out,” Myla said. “We don’t want you to go out to see the Old Mermaid in the pool without one of us going with you.”

“Why?”

“Because the water is deep,” Maria said.

“The Old Mermaids said they would teach me to swim,” Lily said.

“Oh really?” Maria asked.

“The Old Mermaids come to me in my dreams. And they’re teaching me.”

“Well, we’d feel better if you only went out to the pool to see the mermaid with one of us,” Myla said. “And don’t ever try to swim without one of us there, even if the Old Mermaids have taught you to swim.”

Lily nodded. “Okay.”

The girl took Myla’s hand, and they walked through the living room out to the patio. The pool light was the only illumination. The two of them walked to the edge of the pool and looked down at the mermaid. After a few moments, Lily began nodding, as if she were listening to someone speak.

Myla sat near the edge of the pool. Lily sat next to her.

“What are you listening to?” Myla asked.

“The Old Mermaids,” she said.

“Oh? What are they saying?” Myla asked.

“Not to be afraid,” Lily said. “They sing to me while I sleep.”

“What kind of song?”

“A not-be-afraid song,” Lily said.

“That’s good,” Myla said. “Then you probably don’t need what they left in the wash for you.”

“What is it?” Lily asked.

Myla carefully took the dreamcatcher earring from her pocket. She handed it to Lily.

“This is called a dreamcatcher, Lily my Lily,” Myla said. “If you put it in your room, it’ll take away all the bad dreams. A Native American healer gave one like it to the Old Mermaids when they first came to the sanctuary. It was all new to them, and some of them were afraid. Sister Laughs A Lot Mermaid, who was the youngest, had bad dreams. When the medicine man gave her this dreamcatcher, the bad dreams went away.”

Lily nodded solemnly.

“Sometimes when I open my eyes in the dark, I see it all moving,” Lily whispered.

“What’s moving?” Myla asked.

Lily whispered, “Everything. Like when we crossed the river. The water pulled on me. And there were flashes of light in it. I couldn’t keep a hold of Momma’s hand.”

“That must have been very scary,” Myla said. “Have I told you much about Grand Mother Yemaya Mermaid?”

“A little.”

“Well, she is the wisest of wise,” Myla said. “She is one of the ones who is a moon beauty, like your great grandmother. And her skin is as dark as night. Darker. She is so grand that she had two tails before the Old Sea dried up.”

“The Old Mermaids don’t have tails any more?” Lily asked.

“Well, that’s a good question,” Myla said. “They do and they don’t. If you were to see them most days, you would not see a tail. You would see only their legs. But other times, if the light is just right or if you are a bit sleepy, you might be able to see the glitter of their tales—as though they are wearing beautiful gowns—with flashes of color and light. In a good way, not like your scary flashes. And if you wake up and the darkness frightens you, remember Grand Mother Yemaya Mermaid is there with you. She is the darkness that protects you. Those flashes of color and light are just her mermaid tails.”

Maria came to the patio door. “It is time for bed, Lily.”

Lily waved to the mermaid in the pool. “Buenos noches!” Then she threw her arms around Myla’s neck and hugged her. “Good night, Myla Mermaid.”

“Good night, sweetheart.”

The girl let go and ran to her mother.

“Good bye, Myla!” she heard the others call. Myla waved, then looked down at the mermaid in the pool. She was suddenly very tired. She wasn’t sure she was up for her yearly sojourn with George tomorrow.

The patio door opened and closed. Myla looked up at David. He sat next to her. She put her hand on his back.

“I’m sorry I sprung all this on you,” she said. “You wanted to rest and I gave you us.”

He smile and took her hand in his.

“Oh!” Myla said. “I felt a spark.”

“Sorry about that,” David said.

“It’s very dry in the desert,” Myla said. They were silent for a moment. She laughed. “I suppose that’s like saying the ocean is wet!”

David laughed. “You always knew how to draw me back into things,” he said, “especially when I didn’t want to be drawn in.”

“That’s an interesting choice of words, David. ‘Drawn’ into things. You gave up your art? Your mother didn’t tell me.”

“So many school districts have cut out all the art programs,” he said. “And I didn’t want to teach anything else. So I got my MBA, and I’ve been brokering deals between small struggling companies and larger corporations so that the small companies can keep doing what they’ve been doing using the backing and capital of a big company.”

“Sounds like it could be interesting,” Myla said.

“Except most of the time it didn’t work,” David said. “At least not the way I envisioned it. If it was a small company doing business sustainably, the corporation would always put pressure on them to be more profitable. Even if they were profitable, the corporation wanted more profits. I kept wondering when is more enough?”

“So you’ve taken a break from all that?” Myla said.

“I quit,” he said. He rubbed his face. “I’m done with it.”

“You look tired,” Myla said. “I’ll clean up. You go to bed.”

“You’re just about perfect, aren’t you, Myla?”

“Don’t you say that,” Myla said. “You knew me way back when. You know I’m not perfect—whatever that means.”

“You were always kind,” David said. “And beautiful.”

Myla laughed. “I was ragged from a bad divorce. I can’t imagine I was nice.”

“I didn’t say you were nice,” David said. “You always told me nice is overrated, but kindness is a gift. Kindness is acknowledging that we are all kin. Nice is a fake smile, trying to cover up the truth, which is often dark and painful.”

“I said all that?” Myla said. “I don’t remember. I don’t remember a lot about that time.”

“Do you remember all the time we spent together?”

Myla said. “I remember you painted this mermaid and everyone thought it was me. I remember we walked the wash together.”

“Do you remember we talked about starting a school together?”

“Together?” Myla said. “Did we? Yes, now that you say that. What else? Have I forgotten anything important?”

“No, no,” David said. “That was it. I think I’ll go in now. You don’t need to clean up. I’ll do it in the morning. It’ll give me something to do.” He stood and reached a hand down to Myla. She took it and let him pull her up.

“If you say so,” Myla said. “I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Good night, Myla Mermaid.”



George knocked on Myla’s door too early the next morning. When she didn’t answer it, he opened it and came in to the apartment. Myla covered her head with a pillow. George whistled.

“Come on, girl,” George said. “The day is wasting. I brought bagels, croissants, coffee, and orange juice.”

Myla sat up and pushed her hair out of her eyes.

“You really have got to stop this boozing, Myla,” George said. “The hangovers are awful.”

“Very funny,” Myla said. “Any protein in that bag?”

George sat on the bed and opened the white sack. He reached in and pulled out two boiled eggs. He tossed one to her. She tapped it against the wall until it cracked and then began pulling the broken shell off of it.

“George,” Myla said just before she bit into the egg.

“Yes, dear?”

“Do you ever think perhaps we’re getting a bit too old for this? It has been ten years.”

“Maybe,” he said. “But I’m here. We might as well go.”

Myla got out of bed and took off her red cotton pajamas. She didn’t care that George watched while he ate a bagel and gulped coffee. He watched her like she imagined he watched a football game or an animal crossing the road in front of him: with interest but without enthusiasm.

“I like your curves, woman,” he said.

Well, maybe she was wrong about the enthusiasm.

“Thank you, George.”

She pulled on a pair of slacks and tucked her camisole inside them. Then she took a purple shirt from her small closet and put it on.

“He got that right,” George said.

“Who got what right?”

“The guy who painted the mermaid in the pool got your curves right.”

“What made you think of David Crow?” Myla asked.

“I saw him as I was driving up.”

“You recognized him?”

“He looks the same to me. I remember him because he tagged along with you a lot then. You even let him walk the wash with you. You never let me do that.”

“That’s because you talk too much.”

“He had quite a crush on you,” George said. “Made me a little jealous.”

“David? I think you’re mistaken. I’m almost as old as his mother. Well, not quite.”

George shrugged. “I’m telling you. Men know about this kind of stuff.”

“Oh really?”

“About other men. Sure.”

Myla snatched the paper bag from him. “George, you’re talking nonsense. Let’s go.”

They drove to their old neighborhood. Brick houses predominated, making it look like a suburb in the Midwest. Or someplace like that. Myla had never actually been to the Midwest. She only knew these houses did not look like desert houses. She wondered why she had ever agreed to live here. Had she actually liked it? George slowed the car as he turned the corner onto their old street. He parked two houses away from his old house, three from her old house. Her ex-husband’s car was in the drive. At least that was the car he had last year. Several plastic children’s toys were strewn around the yard. They had finally taken out the grassy lawn and replaced it with rock. About time.

George relaxed against his seat and lifted a cup of coffee from the paper sack.

“I heard the shop isn’t doing well,” George said. “I bet you’re glad you took a lump sum.”

Myla didn’t say anything. She stared at the house. Would her ex look different this year?

The front door opened and George’s ex-wife, Nadine, stepped outside. A nine-year-old girl came out next. Or was she ten now? She had been born a few months after Myla and her husband broke up—a few months after Myla found her husband on top of Nadine, in Myla’s bed. Nadine had been naked, her breasts heavy—when normally they were small—and her belly round. Myla knew then why this thin young woman had been wearing baggy clothes for months. Still, it had taken her a moment to grasp what she and George had walked into, so she said, “Congratulations. You look just like those pictures of the pregnant Madonna.”

“Only the Madonna isn’t naked,” George had said. Something about George’s voice had woken her up then. She had blinked and realized her naked husband was getting dressed, and Nadine was crying.

“It can’t be mine,” George had said. “She hasn’t let me come near her for a year or more.”

Now Myla felt a tickle in her stomach.

“George, I think we should go home.”

“Wait,” he said. “Just a bit longer.”

Then Richard—Myla’s ex—stepped outside onto the steps and shut the door behind him. Nadine looked back at him and smiled. Myla could see his lips moving. He looked old enough to be Nadine’s father. She was what now? Thirty-five? And he was fifty-five. Myla had been twenty-three when she and Richard married; he had been over thirty. Both old enough to know what they were doing.

The family got into the car. The girl laughed. Or whined. Myla couldn’t be sure.

“The girl looks just like her,” George said. “That could have been my kid.”

“I thought you didn’t want children,” Myla said.

“That’s beside the point.”

The car backed out of the driveway. Then they drove by Myla and George. George stared right at Richard, but he was talking and looking ahead.

“God I hate him,” George said.

Myla said, “I don’t hate him. Or her. That can’t be good for you to hate them.” She sighed. “George, I’m going into the house.”

“No, you’re not,” he said.

She put her hand on the door handle. “I am. I want to see it. It was my house. The only house I ever owned. I feel as though I was evicted and never got a chance to say goodbye.” She didn’t know if any of what she said was true. Maybe she had said goodbye. She could not remember any quiet contemplative moments from that time, but that did not mean she hadn’t had any. What she did remember was that it had been her home and then suddenly it wasn’t. After she saw Richard and Nadine in bed together, the house had felt contaminated, and she had to leave it.

“If you go in,” George said, “I’m driving away.”

“Oh you are not,” she said. “I’ll be right back.”

Myla got out of the car. She crossed the street, went up the driveway, and through the paved path between the carport and the house around to the back door. She stopped for a moment and breathed deeply. Then she went up the steps and opened the screen door. Then she put her hand on the back door knob, turned it, and pushed the door open. She stepped into cool semidarkness and quietly closed the door. The house pulsed with silence. On her tiptoes, Myla walked across the kitchen to the living room. Different furniture and arrangement. Same coffee table. The house looked familiar but different. Smaller. Stuffier.

She walked down the hallway. Four doors. Two closed. Two open. The first closed door was the bathroom. She carefully opened the door and looked inside. She didn’t recognize anything. It had been redone in red and white. She shuddered and closed the door again. The second closed door was what she and Richard had used as a guest bedroom. She opened it. Now it was a little girl’s room. Pale blue and white. A small canopy bed. A little dressing table. Someone had painted pastel-colored stars on one wall. It was a beautiful room—cluttered and messy—just like a young girl’s room should be. She closed the door again.

Now she was at the end of the hallway. The master bedroom. The door was wide open. There was the bed. It looked like the same bed. Same headboard. Was that possible? Richard was extremely frugal. Cheap, actually. He never replaced anything until it broke. Nadine had probably wanted to get rid of the bed he had shared with Myla for fifteen years, but he wouldn’t do it, Myla guessed. She stepped into the room. Their old dresser was still here. She had found it at a garage sale. Beautiful old oak dresser. Richard hadn’t wanted it. She insisted—one of the few times in her marriage that she had insisted. Ordinarily when they disagreed about something, she usually gave up—worn down by their “discussions” which usually consisted of him haranguing her until she came around to his viewpoint, or at least she pretended she did so she get him to shut up. When she married him, she had thought he was a great debater, a man with an intellect. She shook her head. Had she really ever been that naive? She ran her hand over the top of the dresser. She should have taken this with her. She had not taken much—only her clothes, gardening tools, books, and a few pots, pans, dishes.

She walked to the bed, put her hand on it, then sat on it. She bounced on it, slightly. Then she lay back and looked at the ceiling. It was comfortable. They must have gotten a new mattress. She closed her eyes.

A toilet flushed.

She sat up.

Someone was in the master bathroom. Right behind her.

She jumped up and ran out of the room.

“Is someone there?” A woman’s voice.

Myla ran through the living room and into the kitchen. Then she stopped. She couldn’t help it. She stared at the tiled kitchen wall. Her tiled kitchen wall. When she and Richard had first moved into the house, they had decided to put in a tile backsplash. She had wanted to tile the whole wall beneath the cupboards and above the sink, but she hadn’t been able to convince Richard. He thought it would be too expensive.

One day he took her into the back room of the shop.

“I have a surprise for you,” he said. He opened up a box of tiles. Myla began pulling them out. Some were indigo blue, others were light green, and others had seashore scenes painted on them: sea shells in the sand, clams, starfish in the ocean, sea gulls against a blue sky.

“These will be big sellers,” Myla told him.

“No, they’re for our kitchen.”

“But these are ocean scenes,” she said. “They’re better suited to the bathroom. Or somewhere near an ocean. I want desert scenes. We live in a desert.”

“This whole desert was once an ocean,” he said. “And you can do the entire wall beneath the cabinets if you use these. I got a good deal on them.”

Myla had finally agreed. She and Richard had tiled the wall themselves.

Now Myla walked closer to the wall, her hand outstretched. She walked until her fingers touched one tile over the sink, at the center, right above the faucet: a tile of a mermaid.

How could she have forgotten this? She had looked at this mermaid every day for years. This mermaid had made the ocean tiles work for her. She had loved seeing the mermaid every time she came into the kitchen, every time she did the dishes. Until—

Until she forgot to look?

“Who are you?”

Myla turned around. An older woman stood in the kitchen behind her, holding a phone.

“I’m going to call the police,” she said.

Myla said in Spanish, “No habla English. I’m the housekeeper.”

“On a Sunday?”

“Est Sunday? Oh! I’ve missed mass then! Lo siento, lo siento!” Myla hurried out the back door. She ran around the house and across the street to George’s car.

“Hurry!” she said as she got inside. “We’ve got to get away.”

“Why? Did you steal something?” He started the car.

“No. Someone was there!”

George quickly drove them out of the neighborhood and onto a main street.

“Who was it?” George asked.

“I don’t know!” Myla said. “Some older woman. Maybe Nadine’s mother.”

George laughed. “I hope so.”

“Why?”

“Because her mother hated him,” George said. “Believe it or not, she liked me. And she was very upset when we got divorced. She could be really mean. I hope she’s living with them!” He laughed loudly. “Out into the desert for our celebration?”

“No,” Myla said. “I don’t feel like it.”

“Home then for some midday delight?”

“George, take a hint.”

“Sorry,” he said. “What was the house like?”

“It wasn’t much different,” Myla said. “He’s still a cheap s.o.b. They’re using some of our old furniture. Even our old bed.”

“That’s kind of creepy,” George said.

“And us going over there once a year and me sneaking into their house is normal?”

“Did it still feel like your house?”

“I’m not sure,” she said. “But I started remembering some things.”

“Like seeing them naked together, his—”

“George.”

“Okay. Like what?”

“Like the kitchen tile. There was a mermaid.”

“Huh,” George said. “I don’t remember that.”

“Why would you?” she said. “It wasn’t your house.”

“So what if there was a mermaid?” he said.

“Take me home, George.”

She closed her eyes and leaned her head against the window. She had had a mermaid in her previous life. How could she have forgotten that? For the last decade she had been certain that the Old Mermaids were only part of her new life—conjured to save her, to help her reclaim her life and find purpose. The Old Mermaids had absolutely nothing to do with her old life.

When she first started the Church of the Old Mermaids—after the dream—she saved the money she earned. It wasn’t much, but she knew she would figure out what to do with it eventually. One day during a trip out into the desert searching for treasure, she saw a group of people in the sandy bottom of an old wash. She went over to say hello. Three men, a boy, and a woman sat on the dirt, too exhausted to move. Myla immediately offered them water. They gave it to the barely-conscious woman first. Myla wanted to take them to the hospital, but they refused.

Once they drank the water and ate the food she gave them, they revived. They had crossed the border illegally, as she guessed, and had been deserted by their smuggler—the guia—soon after they crossed. Myla took them to her apartment in the Crow barn, fed them, and let them use her phone. The woman—Grace—was too ill to leave with the others, so Myla let her and her son, Roberto, stay. She didn’t even think about it. She got her keys and drove them over to the Ford place and let them sleep there. The Old Mermaid Sanctuary—in its present form—was born.

Two days later, using some of the money she had earned from the Church of the Old Mermaids, Myla bought Grace and Roberto bus tickets to Texas where Grace’s husband worked in the fields. After taking them to the bus station, Myla came home and went to the Ford house to clean it, but the house was spotless, the garden tidy, the dirt raked. Myla believed the house felt better too. Which was how it should be, she decided. A house was created to be lived in. That was its purpose. When the Fords returned, they even remarked that the place had never looked better.

Myla kept making excursions to the desert, near la frontera. Sometimes she found people, sometimes she did not. She was careful about who she brought home with her and even more careful about who she let stay in the houses. When she told Theresa what she was doing, Theresa offered to help. Myla was glad to have her as a partner, especially since Theresa was a private investigator and many of the migrants came looking for family, friends—and a job. After a while, Theresa and Myla began going to the desert together, mostly in the summer when it was so dangerous for those crossing. In recent years, they sometimes encountered people from Humane Border, who left water in the desert for the migrants, or the No More Deaths volunteers who sometimes transported migrants to the hospital, all activities which had been deemed legal until recently. A few months earlier a couple was arrested as they drove several people to an area hospital. They were charged with aiding and abetting illegal aliens. Or something like that. Myla knew if she got caught, she wouldn’t be able to help anyone, so she and Theresa kept quiet about what actually went on at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary, and they avoided the other rescuers as much as possible.

In the winter, the Sanctuary was usually quiet, except for visits from the homeowners. Summer was busier. Myla made certain each house was not occupied often or for very long, and visitors always did work around the property in exchange for their room and board. One year a family retiled the Castillo roof. Another time, a man helped fix the greywater irrigation system at the Ford house. Myla told the migrants that if anyone happened to see them and ask what they were doing there, they were to say that Myla had hired them. After all, the homeowners had instructed her to keep up the yards, facilitate repairs, and make the houses looked lived in. Myla made certain all that happened—only the workers stayed in the houses while they did the work.

Myla kept an Old Mermaid Sanctuary binder. In it, she put photos of the visitors with their names, ages, which house they stayed in and what work they did. Almost always, the migrants sent Myla a postcard once they were settled, and she’d add those to the binder.

Myla understood that these niceties would not placate the owners should they ever learn of her venture. She knew they would view what she was doing as a betrayal. Criminal even. She knew she could not adequately explain what she was doing and why; she could not tell them that the Old Mermaids had come to her in a dream and that she was doing their work here on dry land. That would sound crazy. Or—at the very least—possessed. She had tried to figure out other ways to explain what she had done—what she was doing. It wasn’t like she thought God had spoken to her, or that she was channeling Ramtha or that she’d seen a vision of the Virgin Mary. It was more like the Invisibles of the land—and the sea—had spoken to her. But that wasn’t right either. The land and its occupants were always speaking—and she just happened to be able to understand them one morning a decade ago, and now she always heard them, in the form of the stories that poured from her mouth like a wonderful kind of babel—or babble—which most people, fortunately, understood. (She had encountered the occasional visitor to the Church of the Old Mermaids who said something like, “I see your lips moving, but all I hear is nonsense.”)

Now after seeing the mermaid tile in her old house, Myla wondered about her raisin d’etre. Maybe the Old Mermaid dream had only been a bit of undigested memory making itself a character in her vision. Maybe she had concocted the Old Mermaids as a way of hanging onto some shred of her former life.

George stopped the car. Myla looked up. They were home.

“You sure I can’t come in?” George said. “It’s tradition.”

“Maybe sometime we can go on a real date,” Myla said.

“A date? Now that’s crazy talk.”

Myla leaned over, and they kissed.

“See you later,” Myla said.

“I could come in, and we could just talk,” George said. “You seem a little lost.”

“Thanks,” Myla said. “You’re welcome to come to Saturday dinner though. You always are.”

Myla got out of the car and then shut the door. As George drove away, she stood in the drive listening to the silence for a few minutes. Then she went to the edge of the wash, stepped down onto the sand, and walked unsteadily until she came to a wide stretch. She looked north, and she looked south. The wash disappeared into desert trees. She looked east, and she looked west.

What if it had all been a dream? No call to action. No cosmic message. Only a dream.

She heard crunching in the wash and turned in the direction of the house. A moment later Gail came around the palo verde bend; Theresa followed.

“I figured you’d be here,” Gail said.

“David said he’d seen you go this way,” Theresa said.

“You two together?” Myla asked.

“No!” they said at the same time.

“Thought you might need company,” Gail said. “How about that movie?”

Myla turned around again and kept walking.

“I don’t feel like a movie,” she said.

“I’m glad to see you decided not to go to your old house,” Gail said, following her. “Don’t you get a lot of sand in your shoes when you do this?”

“Decided not to go where?” Theresa asked. “You need to wear walking shoes, Gail. Or something to protect your feet. You’re in the desert, for chrissakes. A scorpion or rattlesnake would bite right through those tiny little things.”

“I did go to the house,” Myla said.

“What house?” Theresa asked.

“Her old house,” Gail said. “It’s the anniversary of her catching her husband doing the nasty with her next door neighbor.”

“Why on Earth would you go back there?” Theresa asked.

“Well, it used to be her house, too,” Gail said. “I remember when she moved in there. Kind of a strange little house. Looked like it didn’t really belong here—you know—in the desert.”

“Do you remember we redid the kitchen soon after we moved in?” Myla asked. She stopped and turned to her friends.

“Vaguely,” Gail said. “You used some strange tiles. Bathroom tiles or something.”

“You remember that?” Myla asked.

“Probably just because I thought it looked stupid,” Gail said.

“I was never at your house,” Theresa said. “I met you right after you came here.”

“Do you remember there was a mermaid tile?” Myla asked.

“A mermaid tile?” Gail said. “In the kitchen? No, why?”

Myla shook her head. “I had a dream, remember? The Old Mermaids came to me in a dream. I thought it was a message from the Universe. I thought they were telling me what I should do with my life.”

“Why would you want anyone to tell you what to do with your life?” Theresa asked.

Myla made a noise and continued walking. “I don’t mean like that. It was like a sign that I could go on, that I could make a difference. I mattered. I can’t explain it!”

“I think I know what you mean,” Gail said.

Theresa frowned. “A message from God? I don’t believe in God.”

“Theresa, we’re talking about me,” Myla said. “I didn’t say anything about God. I said Universe. The Old Mermaids were about my new life. They had absolutely nothing to do with my old life.”

“And because there was a mermaid tile at your old house, you’re doubting your mission, or whatever it is?” Theresa asked. “Come on. There are mermaids everywhere. They’re a ubiquitous symbol. You didn’t make up mermaids.”

“She did make up the Old Mermaids,” Gail said. “They’re pretty cool.” Myla looked at Gail. Gail shrugged. “You don’t think I pay attention, but I do. The Old Mermaids are interesting.”

“I didn’t make them up,” Myla said. She did not like talking about the Old Mermaids like this. It seemed rather sacrilegious—gossipy. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You always want to talk about everything,” Gail said.

“No, not the Old Mermaids,” Theresa said.

“What are you talking about? She is always talking about the Old Mermaids. She spends every Saturday talking about them nonstop.”

“That’s not talking about them,” Theresa said. “That’s more like being with them. It’s like remembering interesting stories about your family and then sharing them.”

“Exactly,” Myla said. Although not quite. She stopped abruptly and looked down. “This is why I don’t let anyone walk the wash with me. If you’re talking all the time, you don’t see what’s right in front of you.”

Gail and Theresa came up beside her. Directly in front of them was a shoe in the sand.

“Looks like a dog gnawed it all to bits,” Gail said.

“More likely a coyote,” Theresa said. “Hardly anything left but the sole. Wow, Myla. You really do find things here. That’s perfect. What a story you could make out of that. Someone must need a soul.”

“No, I think it means someone should bare their soul,” Gail said. “See, because it’s been eaten down to the sole.”

“It’s more like someone lost their soul,” Theresa said.

“Someone lost their shoe,” Myla said. “And now it’s a coyote plaything.”

“You mean you aren’t going to take it?” Theresa said.

“No,” Myla said. She stepped over it and kept walking.

“I think it’s a message for you,” Gail said. “The Old Mermaids want you to bare your soul. To us. You can talk to us, Myla. We’ll listen.”

Myla groaned and turned around. Ordinarily, she was a patient and good-natured woman. Beyond her friends she could see the log wrapped in orange rope. Maybe it was time she unraveled that rope because she suddenly felt at the end of hers. Just then, David came into view. He stepped over the log. Luisa scrambled behind him.

“Hello,” David said.

“I know you,” Gail said. “You’re David Crow.”

“You remember him after all these years?” Myla asked.

“You were just talking about him yesterday,” Gail said.

“She was talking about me?” David asked.

“You’re the one who painted the mermaid in the pool,” Gail said.

“You painted that mermaid?” Luisa asked.

“Myla said that last night,” Theresa said.

“Well, I didn’t hear her,” Luisa said. “That mermaid is naked and everything. And she looks like Myla. Not that I’ve ever seen her naked.”

“The mermaid is not naked,” Myla said. “She has a tail. David is an artist. He extrapolated.”

“Technically, she is naked,” Theresa said. “A tail doesn’t constitute clothing.”

“In any case,” Myla said.

“What does extrapolate mean?” Luisa asked.

“I’m not sure,” Gail said. “Could you use it in a sentence?”

“I just used it in a sentence!” Myla said.

“Could you use it in another one?” Gail smiled. Myla started to laugh. Soon the three women were giggling. Luisa and David watched.

“What?” Luisa asked.

“Nothing,” Theresa said. “You had to be there.”

“I was there,” Luisa said. “Here. Whatever. Are we going to a movie? Or would you like to paint another mermaid, David? I could be your model this time.”

“I was not his model,” Myla said. “Would you all please go away? I don’t want to go to a movie. You go. Theresa and Gail, you need to get to know each other better. Learn to like one another. Get along together. Show Luisa how it’s done. Luisa, you are not going to pose naked for this man or any other man. Or woman. Not today. Away!”

“All right,” Gail said. She embraced Myla.

“Okay, okay, let her go,” Theresa said. She hugged Myla. “I love you.”

“I love you too,” Gail said.

“Go away,” Myla said. “Well, except David. You live here. You can stay.”

The two women and girl walked away together. Myla stood still until she no longer heard their voices.

David looked down at the shoe.

“A sole,” David said. “I wondered where I had lost that. Just what I needed.” He picked it up. “See you later, Myla Mermaid.” Then he turned and left Myla alone.

That was just what she needed.

Read the whole tale here...

COTOM: Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Step lightly. Dance hard. Eat your vegetables. —Sister DeeDee Lightful Mermaid

“Did you have a good day?” Gail asked Myla as they drove down Speedway.

“Yes, it was wonderful. You?”

“I got a lot done,” Gail said. “By the way, Sarah Crow left a message on my voice mail that she’s been trying to reach you.”

“My phone must not be working again,” Myla said. “Did she say what she wanted? Anything wrong?”

“She asked me to ask you to call her,” she said.

Myla said, “Okay. You coming to dinner tonight?”

Gail never came to the Saturday dinners even though Myla invited her every week. It was just as well. If Gail ever found out what she was doing, Myla wasn’t sure how she would react. Gail had come to the Church of the Old Mermaids only a couple of times, and Myla didn’t think she was impressed.

“Don’t you ever feel guilty selling people that junk?” Gail asked. “You can’t need the money that much.”

“I don’t feel a bit of guilt,” Myla said. “People know exactly what they’re buying.”

“Fairy tales,” she said. “They’re trying to buy fairy tales. And life isn’t about stories.”

“What is it about then?” Myla asked.

Her friend looked at her and said, “I don’t know what it’s ‘about.’ I do know it’s hard.”

“Life is shit and then you die?”

“Exactly.”

Myla laughed. “I wish you had stayed today. I had just what you need.”

“I doubt that,” Gail said. Myla glanced out the window. Gail was driving too fast. She always drove too fast.

“I had lemonade from Maya Quetzal,” Myla said. “It was so good. No sugar.”

“It must have been sour,” Gail said.

“No, they put honey in it. Not too much. It was still tart but not sour.”

“Why are you talking about lemonade?” Gail asked. “You know, since your divorce, you’ve gotten a little strange.”

“That was ten years ago,” Myla said. “But you’re right. I have gotten a little strange. I’m going with the flow of the rest of the world. And you, sugar, you could use some flow—and sweetening. You’re getting a little sour.”

“I don’t understand half the things you say,” Gail said.

“That means you understand half? That’s progress.”

Gail laughed.

“Are you coming tonight or not?” Myla asked again.

“No, I can’t,” she said. “Too much to do. Although I’d love to meet your friends. Is Theresa going to be there?”

“I hope so.”

Gail made a noise.

“What?”

“She’s so...she just seems so full of herself.”

Myla laughed.

“What are you laughing about?”

She shook her head. “I’m not sure you’d understand. Do you ever wonder why we’re still friends?”

“Because my husband is a sonofabitch and I need an excuse to get out of the house every Saturday.”

Myla nodded. “And I’m just what you need.”

Gail laughed. “Yes, you’re just what I need. I’ll show up to your strange Saturday night dinners one of these times. You wait.”

“I’m waiting.” Myla sighed.

“What’s that sigh about?” Gail asked.

“Tomorrow is the anniversary,” Myla said. “George is coming over.”

“You and George still perform that stupid ritual?” Gail deftly wove them in and out of traffic as they traveled down Speedway. “Don’t you think it’s a little strange?”

“Of course it’s strange,” Myla said. “But George and I went through this together. He’s the only one who understands. Remember my husband was having an affair with his wife.”

“Of course I remember,” Gail said. “But they’ve moved on. You should too. It’s been ten years. He was not such a great man, you know.”

Myla nodded. Gail glanced over at her.

“He wasn’t. You had an inflated view of him.”

“I’m over it,” Myla said. “Him.”

She could not explain how she felt to Gail. Or to anyone. She allowed herself to mourn her lost life once a year: on the anniversary of the day she walked into her bedroom and found her husband on top of her next door neighbor, George’s wife Nadine. She didn’t love her ex-husband any more, but she still missed something about their life together. It was as though he had been imprinted on her being when they got married and she couldn’t change that now. Just like she couldn’t change the color of her eyes or the DNA in her cells.

After they had recited their wedding vows, Myla had felt relaxed, as though she had completed a long meditation—or been given a really good drug. He had promised to love her for life, and she had promised to love him for life. It was a pact they made together, and she never doubted it. It was not as if she had not been loved during her life. Her mother loved her. Her father probably loved her, at least before he deserted them, but she could not swear to that. Even so, they were family, and that did not feel like real love—being loved for herself, not because she happened to share chromosomes with someone. Wasn’t that what everyone wanted? Someone to listen to them, to see them, to curl up next to them at night, someone who would want them always? Her ex-husband had told Myla she was the best person he had ever known. She had had no hint that he no longer loved her. Even after she found him on top of George’s wife—his much younger wife—she thought he still loved her.

But then he told her, “You are still the best person I know, but I don’t love you any more. Not in that way.”

For a long time afterward whenever she closed her eyes, she would see her husband’s mouth moving and hear his words, “I don’t love you any more. Not in that way.”

Richard. That was his name, but she tried to avoid saying it out loud if she could.

Tomorrow was the anniversary of that day, the same day she and George walked in on their spouses, the same day she learned her husband did not love her any more.

“Maybe this year we won’t go to the house,” Myla said.

“What?” Gail said. “You mean you go back to your old house?”

Myla didn’t say anything.

“Woman, you need to get laid,” Gail said.

“That’ll happen too,” Myla said. “I don’t know why George’s wife left him. He’s a much better lover than he was.”

Gail laughed. “Myla Alvarez!

“I’m speaking truth,” Myla said. “But saying George is a better lover isn’t saying much.”

Gail laughed. After a moment of silence, she said, “I know it was a bad time for you, Myla. But you got through it. You proved you don’t need him. I went by the shop the other day, on my way to something else, and it doesn't look like it’s doing well. Shabby imports from Mexico. Not like the stuff you used to bring in.”

“I wish them all the best,” Myla said.

“No, you don’t.”

“Sometimes I do. Today has been a good day. What do I care about them?”

“So ignore that stupid anniversary,” Gail said. “We could go to a movie or something. Call me.”

“That reminds me,” Myla said. “I need to make sure my phone is on.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Gail said.

“Hey, I thought I saw David Crow today,” Myla said. “Isn’t that strange? I was thinking about him this morning.”

“Whatever happened to him?” Gail said. “When you first moved there, you two were together all the time.”

“We weren’t together all the time,” Myla said. “He was a nice boy. We kept each other company.”

Gail laughed. “You keep telling yourself that, Myla. That’s what you used to say back then—and I didn’t believe you then either. You were attracted to him.”

“Maybe a little,” Myla said. “But I didn’t act on it. I knew I was just lonely.”

“Didn’t keep you from acting on George.”

“George wasn’t fifteen years my junior,” Myla said. “I’m not my husband.”

“If I had had a choice between George and David Crow,” Gail said. “I would have eaten crow.”

“Gail!”

Gail laughed. Myla smiled.

“I did not have a choice,” Myla said. “And George isn’t that bad. He’s easy. I don’t ever have to worry about him leaving me.”

“Because he’s already gone,” Gail said.

“That’s right,” Myla said. “He doesn’t care whether he ever sees me again. I don’t care either. That’s fine with me. Better than living a lie, I can tell you that much.”

Myla hurried into her apartment after Gail dropped her off. It would be dark soon, and she needed to make dinner. She diced two onions and several handfuls of shitake mushrooms, then sautéed them in olive oil. She added dried oregano, basil, and four large cans of crushed tomatoes. She minced a few garlic cloves and dropped the pieces in, too.

“There,” she said. “Instant spaghetti sauce. Thank you, everything in this pot. We appreciate your nourishment.”

She looked in her cupboards for the big pot to cook the pasta in but couldn’t find it. “Must have left it in the big house.” She stirred the bubbling sauce. “Cumin.” She had almost forgotten her secret ingredient: cumin. She shook some into the bubbling sauce.

“Are you decent?” Theresa said as she knocked on the screen door.

“Hardly,” Myla answered. “Come on in.”

Theresa opened the door and came through, carrying a grocery sack. She pulled a covered bowl of salad and two loaves of bread from the bag.

“I left apple juice and water on your table outside,” Theresa said. “Guess who came with?”

“Who? I’ve got to get a bigger pot,” she said.

“Luisa,” Theresa said.

Theresa’s teenaged daughter had been living with her father in Los Angeles for the past year.

“Since she was with me, I didn’t stop and get Maria and Lily,” Theresa said. “I didn’t want Luisa asking all kinds of questions.”

Myla looked at her. “I thought she was still in California.”

“She showed up on my doorstep two days ago,” Theresa said. Myla handed her a serrated knife from the silverware drawer. Theresa began cutting the bread. “And she’s dyed her hair blond.”

“You haven’t told her anything?” Myla asked.

“No!” Theresa said. “I never told her before. Why should I now? Nothing has changed. She and Del Rey still fight all the time, so I brought her along tonight.”

“Have you found out anything about Maria’s husband?”

“Do you know how many Juan Martinez’s there are?”

“I can guess,” Myla said.

“She said he came with his cousin, so I’m searching both names,” Theresa said.

“I need to go make the noodles over at the Crow house. I’ll be back in a few.” Myla grabbed three boxes of spaghetti pasta and went out the door. She stopped and looked at the Catalinas and Rincons. The fading sunlight created sharp distinct shadows on the mountains. She loved this instant of the day—before night fell. Everything seemed more alive than at any other time. A moment later, the sharp, black shadows disappeared. Myla stepped off her porch—which was just several planks of wood raised off the dirt—and went across the drive and down a bit, toward the house. She passed by Theresa’s car and waved to Luisa who sat in the passenger seat talking on the phone.

Maria, Cathy, and Lily walked up the drive toward her.

“Myla, Myla!” Lily said.

Myla crouched and opened her arms to the girl. They embraced.

“How are the Old Mermaids today?” Lily asked in accented English.

Myla laughed. “They are great!”

Myla hugged Cathy and then Maria. The young woman looked tired.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t come to the house this morning, Cathy,” Myla said. “You and Stefan do all right?”

“We’re good,” Cathy said. “I worked on my resume today. Stefan cleaned the house.”

“He doesn’t have to clean every day!” Myla said.

“We’re trying to do our part,” Cathy said.

Ernesto and Stefan walked up the drive toward them. Stefan was tall and gangly, his fifteen year old body trying to grow into a man overnight it seemed. Ernesto walked a bit more sprightly than he had earlier in the day.

“Good evening, Ernesto and Stefan,” Myla said in Spanish when they reached them. “How are you?”

“I am well,” Ernesto said.

Stefan nodded. “I had to hurry to keep up with him.”

“Good, good,” Myla said. “Theresa’s daughter Luisa is joining us tonight.”

“That means we should all keep our mouths shut about where we’re staying,” Cathy said. “Right?”

“Yes,” Myla said. “That would be best. Now I’m going to make the noodles in the house. Theresa is at my place. I’ll meet you there.”

Myla left the group and went up the steps to the long porch in front of the Crow house. This was a good spot to watch the sun come up over the mountains in the morning. She had done so once or twice, wrapped in a blanket and curled up in one of the chairs. It had been a while since she had watched a sunrise. When she first moved here, she had felt so tired and battle-scarred that she had needed the comfort of watching the sun come up and go down every day. She needed to feel the rhythms of this place. Any place perhaps. But this place, this land, was what had rocked her back to sanity.

She took out her keys and unlocked the door to the Crow house and went inside. She wiped her shoes carefully on the mat, then looked at the soles to see if they were clean. She walked down the short hall, through the living room, and into the large kitchen. She hummed as she opened the cupboards and took down a large stainless steel pot. She filled it with water from the sink, put a bit of olive oil in it—”I owe you, Sarah Crow,” she said—then she put the pot on the stove to boil.

“I wonder if it’s true,” she said, “that a watched pot doesn’t boil.”

“Why don’t you ask the Old Mermaids?”

Myla started and turned around. A man stood several yards from her. She must have looked frightened because he immediately put up his hands.

“Myla, it’s me, David Crow,” he said. “Don’t you recognize me?”

“Of course!” she said. “I thought I saw you today, but I decided it was only wishful thinking.”

She went to him, and they embraced.

“I’m sorry, David,” she said. “It’s been a few years. You’re all grown-up.”

He laughed. “I think I was grown-up last time you saw me.”

“Weren’t you just out of college then?”

“Still a grown-up,” David said. “And I finished college late.”

“Well, you’ve grown into an even more handsome man,” Myla said. She walked back to the stove.

“Thank you, Myla,” David said. “You, too.”

Myla laughed. She had forgotten how shy David was. “I am a handsome young man?” She looked over at him. In the kitchen light, she saw him blush.

“Now I feel like I’m twenty-five again,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” Myla said. “I shouldn’t tease you. By the way, I would have knocked if I’d known you were here. Ahhh, is this why your mother called me? To tell me you were coming? I just got the message that she wanted me to call her. I think my phone isn’t working.”

“You used to leave it off the hook because you didn’t want anyone to be able to get a hold of you,” he said. He sat at one of the stools at the counter. His curly black hair was short, his face neatly unshaven. And he looked tired.

“I did that?” She shrugged. The water began to boil. She opened the pasta boxes and tipped the spaghetti noodles into her hand. She broke them by the handful and dropped them into the water. “After my divorce I was a little crazy. I was reminded of that today. You only knew me as that crazy woman. I’m different now. I’m much crazier.” She laughed. “So you’re just visiting?”

“I’m visiting,” he said. “For a while.”

“You and your wife, kids?” No, it was too quiet in the house. He must be alone.

“No wife, no kids. Just me.”

“I thought you got married.” Myla took a wooden spoon from a container near the stove and stirred the pasta.

“That was my sister Susan. She’s the well-adjusted one.”

Myla set the spoon on the stove and looked at David.

“You’ve come to the Old Mermaid Sanctuary for some sanctuary then?” she said. “That’s good. You are welcome.”

David laughed. “Thank you, Myla. It’s good to see you. I’ve missed the Old Mermaids.”

“I understand,” she said. “Where’s your car?”

“I don’t have one,” he said. “I’ve been in Chicago for the past few years.”

“Have you been living la vida loca?” She leaned against the counter and looked at him.

“Interesting question, Myla,” he said. “As always. I have been having a life. Better than most people, I suppose.”

“A bunch of us are having dinner at my apartment. You’ll join us?”

“I’m not really up for a party,” he said.

“You don’t have to entertain anyone,” Myla said. “Just sit, eat, breathe.”

“All right. When?”

“As soon as the pasta is finished,” she said. “You’ll bring it when it’s done, and then we’ll eat. You do know how to cook? I know your mother. She would not have let her children go out into the world without showing them how to cook.”

David nodded. “You throw the noodles at the wall, right? And if they stick, they’re ready?”

“See, you’re feeling better already! Wait, I have an idea, David. Why don’t you invite us here? We can all sit at the table on the patio. It’s bigger than mine and everyone will get to see the mermaid in the pool.”

“Uh, okay.”

“I’ll go tell the others. What a perfect way to end the day! I’m so glad you’re here, David.” She smiled at him. “And not just because you have a bigger house!”

“I’m glad, too,” he said.

Myla went out the door nearest the kitchen and hurried across the drive to her porch where the others had gathered. Luisa stood a bit a part from the others.

“Change of plans!” Myla said in Spanish. “David Thomas Crow is visiting and he’s invited us to eat at his house. Everyone grab a dish, and we’ll go over there. Theresa, did you hear that?”

“Yep,” came her voice from inside the apartment. “I’ll bring the sauce. Luisa! Come help.”

Luisa’s face seemed to close down, or harden, as soon as she heard her mother’s voice.

“Hello, Luisa,” Myla said. “It is nice to see you. How have you been?”

“Hi, Myla,” she said. “I better go see what my mother wants.”

Lily gently took Myla’s hand, and they led the others across the drive and into the kitchen of the Crow house where David stood over the boiling pot of pasta.

“David Crow, I would like you to meet Cathy, Ernesto, Maria, Lily, and Stefan.”

“Buenos noches,” David said.

“Buenos noches,” the others said, awkwardly, suddenly shy.

“Hello, hello, hello,” Lily said, letting go of Myla’s hand and clapping.

“Hello, hello, hello,” David said. He smiled.

Myla crossed the kitchen and living room and turned on the light to the patio. “We’ll eat at that table next to the pool,” she said. “David, can you wet a towel and give it to Stefan? The table and chairs might have some dust on them. It is the desert, you know, and no butts have sat in those chairs for a long while.”

David pulled a tea towel from the drawer and dampened it with water. He held it out to Stefan who shyly took it. Neither looked the other in the eye.

Myla opened the door to the patio and the others filed out, except for Lily and David. Lily stood a few feet from David watching him, her face a portrait of intense fascination. Myla crossed her arms and watched them.

“The noodles are just about done,” David said. “Would you like to try one and tell me if they are ready?”

Lily glanced at Myla; Myla translated what David had said. Lily looked at David again and nodded. David dipped a fork into the pot and pulled out several strands of pasta. He bent over so the fork was at Lily’s level.

“Picante,” David said.

“Caliente,” Myla corrected.

Lily pursed her lips and blew on the spaghetti strands. Then she lifted two of them off the fork and put them in her mouth. She chewed and breathed through her mouth at the same time, trying to pretend it wasn’t hot.

“Okay,” Lily said.

“Okay. I’ll take your word for it,” David said. He handed Lily the fork, and she ate the few remaining strands as she watched him. Myla came into the kitchen and opened an upper cabinet door and pulled out a colander. She held it over the sink. David turned off the burner, then carried the pot over to the sink.

“Got it?” he asked.

Myla nodded.

He carefully poured the water into the colander as Myla held it until the pot was almost empty; then he let the pasta fall into the colander. He reached over Myla—“Excuse me,” he said—and turned on the cold water. She shook the colander to let the cold water go all through the noodles and drain out.

“Make room,” Theresa said, coming through the kitchen door. “I think the sauce is ready. Where’s the meat, Myla? This sauce has no meat. Ernesto needs some meat on his bones.”

“There are mushrooms,” Myla said. “Besides I have him on the Old Mermaid diet.”

Theresa made a noise as she set the pot on the stove. “What kind of diet is that? Seaweed and vegetables?”

“It’s a bit more than that,” Myla said.

“We’ll have the spaghetti family style?” Theresa asked.

“Sure,” Myla said.

“Hello, I’m Theresa,” she said to David. She turned around as Luisa came into the kitchen carrying a bowl of salad. “This is my daughter Luisa. You’re David Crow.”

“I like your name,” Luisa said. “It’s so dark and mysterious.”

“David?” He shrugged. “Never seemed that mysterious to me.”

Myla laughed quietly. Theresa rolled her eyes.

“I meant crow,” Luisa said. “Do you have any tattoos?”

“Not any that you can see,” Theresa said. “Luisa, take the salad out to the table. Did they get the bread and drinks?”

“Take Lily with you, please,” Myla said. “Lily, will you go with Luisa?”

Luisa sighed loudly. She smiled at David, then went out onto the patio, with Lily bouncing next to her. Myla heard Lily exclaim, “There’s the mermaid in the pool!”

Myla nudged Theresa, and the two women laughed.

“I hope I wasn’t that obvious when I was Luisa’s age,” Theresa said.

“Her age? You’re still that obvious.”

“Please,” Theresa said. “I’m a married lady.”

“David, you watch out for that girl tonight,” Myla said. “She’s looking for trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

The women looked at him. He stared back. Theresa and Myla glanced at each other and shrugged.

“She was flirting with you,” Theresa said.

Myla put the pasta into a large glass bowl. Theresa ladled sauce over it.

“Flirting with me?” David made a face. “She could be my daughter.”

“Oh?” Myla said.

“I mean age-wise. If I’d procreated when I was young. Which I didn’t do.”

Myla and Theresa stared at him.

“I think maybe I’ll go to bed,” he said. “I’m kind of tired.”

“Oh, honey,” Myla said. “I’m sorry. We’re just two old women giving a handsome young man a hard time. No one has flirted with either of us for a long time. Please, I’ll be good.” She put her hand on his arm and smiled. “I promise.”

David frowned. “It’s not you. I am tired.”

“Please,” Myla said. “We’ve invaded your house. Have a meal with us. Then we will let you sleep. Go sit with the others. We’ll serve you. Be with all that young energy. It’ll do you good.”

David started to say something, stopped, started to leave, hesitated, then went through the living room and out onto the patio.

“You have some history, you two?” Theresa said as she tossed the spaghetti between two forks to cover it with sauce. “You seem very familiar with each other. Won’t it be a problem that he’s here? We’ve got so many people at the sanctuary right now.”

“I’ve known him since he was a boy,” Myla said. “He’s all right. His mother is a good woman.”

“You knew him before you moved here?”

“No, why?”

“You’ve been here for about ten years? That man is in his mid-thirties. He’s not a boy! If he finds out all these people are living here—illegally, might I add—he might not be too happy about it.”

Myla shrugged. “Don’t worry so much. It will all work out.”

“So you say,” Theresa said. “Maria and Lily were too much. I knew that.”

“No, Cathy and Stefan were too much,” Myla said. “But where would they be without us? And I had to help Lily and Maria. They have been deserted too many times. You’ll find Cathy a job in California, and they’ll be moving on.”

“It’s getting to be too much,” Theresa said. “With the business, Del Rey, now Luisa. Del Rey thinks I’m cheating on him.”

“Where is Del Rey?” Myla asked. “He’s welcome to our Saturday dinners. I told you we could change it to a different night if that was better now that you’re a married lady again.”

Luisa came into the kitchen. “Mom, we’re getting hungry.”

“We’re coming.”

The two women went outside and set the spaghetti on the table. Someone—must have been David—had turned on the pool light. The mermaid undulated on the bottom of the pool.

Myla sat next to Lily and David. Theresa sat between Luisa and Stefan. They began passing around bowls of salad, a plate of lightly steamed pea pods, a basket of bread, and the spaghetti.

Before they began to eat, Myla looked around the table and said, “I am so glad we are all here together. This is a beautiful place made all the more beautiful by the company. I would like to thank the spirits and beings of this place, especially the Old Mermaids who have made all this possible.”

“A-men,” Theresa said. “Now let’s eat.”

They ate in companionable silence for a while.

“Ernesto, did you want to phone your wife tonight?” Myla asked in Spanish, then in English. “That reminds me, I need to call your mother, David.”

“It is so dark now,” Ernesto said. “I should call earlier.”

“The phone is at the little market in her village,” Myla explained to David. “When someone gets a phone call, the boy at the store tells the person calling to call right back—or to hang on—and then he gets on his bike and goes to the house of the person wanted on the telephone. Then that person either rides the boy’s bike or walks to the store.”

“Why not just get a cell phone?” Luisa asked.

“Why not indeed,” Theresa said. “Child, these things cost money.”

“I had a cell phone in Los Angeles,” Luisa said.

“Until you ran up an enormous bill,” Theresa said, “just like I told your father you would.”

“I’d have figured out a way to pay it,” Luisa said.

Maria whispered something to Lily. Lily nodded.

“If we speak English we leave out half of the table,” Myla said. “If we speak Spanish, we leave out the other half.”

“Yeah, I don’t understand much Spanish,” Luisa said.

“It’s your father’s language,” Theresa said. “You should learn it better.”

“I can understand some of it,” David said. “Besides, I don’t mind. Hearing a language that isn’t your own, that you don’t quite understand, is like listening to music. I imagine that’s what the sailors used to hear when they passed the mermaids at sea. The mermaids were talking in a different language.”

“You believe in mermaids?” Luisa asked.

“Mermaids, mermaids, mermaids,” Lily said.

“This is the Old Mermaid Sanctuary,” Stefan said.

“The what?” Luisa said.

Stefan glanced at Myla.

“Remember, Luisa,” Myla said. “I sell things on 4th Avenue on Saturdays. I call it the Church of the Old Mermaids.”

“Church of the Old Maids?” Luisa asked.

“Luisa!” Theresa said sharply.

“This spaghetti is very good,” Stefan said.

“Kiss ass,” Luisa murmured.

“Luisa Ann, I brought you into this world, and I can take you out. Don’t doubt that.”

Ernesto said, in Spanish, “The one with the straw hair should not throw insults.”

The women laughed. Ernesto shrugged. “That is a saying in my village, at least.”

Luisa blushed. Myla nodded. So the girl understood more Spanish than she let on.

Lily tapped Myla on the arm. Myla leaned over so her ear was close to Lily’s mouth. She whispered in Spanish, “Did the Old Mermaids eat spaghetti like this?”

Myla smiled and said in Spanish, “That is a very wise question, Lily.” To the rest of the group, she said, “She wondered if the Old Mermaids ate spaghetti.”

“Yes, do tell us about the Old Mermaid diet,” Theresa said. “How did the ol’ mermaids stay slim and fit.”

“Oh no,” Myla said. “It wasn’t about staying slim. Fit, okay, yes. But Old Mermaids came in different shapes, sizes, colors, personalities. They understood that image wasn’t everything, but it was a great deal and their image of themselves was very clear: they loved their Old Mermaid bodies, even after that Old Sea dried up and they had to lose their tails and walk on land. Yes, those Old Mermaids loved, Lily my Lily. They loved themselves, they loved each other, they loved the sea and they loved the dried up wash. They loved the cacti and the quail and the coyotes and the mesquite and the Old Man and Old Woman of the Mountains. They loved their neighbors. And guess what else they loved?”

Lily said, “Butterflies?”

“Yes, Lily. They loved butterflies! They loved so many things. And they loved food. They loved to eat. They were glad they had enjoyed the bounty of the Old Sea and now they enjoyed the bounty of the New Desert. But I’m rattling on and you wanted to know if they ate spaghetti. And I’m sure they did. They spent a lot of their time growing food, preparing food, eating food. They talked to the plants they grew, and they talked to everything they ate.”

“Did they get tired of talking?” Lily asked.

“Or tired of listening to the talking,” Luisa said.

“I don’t know,” Myla said. “It was just the way they were. It was like breathing to them. They held conversations with the trees and animals and clouds and wind.”

“Like crazy people,” Luisa said.

“Maybe,” Myla said. “Maybe some crazy people have a bit of Old Mermaid in them and no one understands. The Old Mermaids were very thankful for what they had. So when they prepared the spaghetti, they would thank the tomatoes and the herbs and the water and the onions. Thank you, thank you, thank you.”

“So what was the Old Mermaid diet?” Luisa asked.

Myla glanced at Theresa. She wondered if she realized that Luisa was listening; she was listening carefully to everything everyone said.

“Part of it was that they honored every ingredient,” Myla said. “And they ate plants that had been treated well before they were harvested. And the land they grew up from was treated well.”

“How do you treat a plant well?” Luisa asked. “Give it a hug every day?”

Stefan smiled. “Or kiss it maybe.”

“That would work,” Myla said.

“Unless of course they eat prickly pear pads,” Luisa said. “When I was a kid Mom took me on some outing where the Indians showed us how they got things from the desert.”

“The Tohono O’odham,” Theresa said.

“Maybe the plants would like to hear stories,” Lily said in Spanish, “the way you tell us stories.”

Myla nodded. “Ahhh, that is a good idea. I will have to remember that.”

“I tried to teach Luisa to eat right,” Theresa said, “but the experts keep changing their minds about what’s good for you and what isn’t. And it’s hard cooking meals for two or three people. Eating in community is much nicer and more efficient.”

“I think it is more natural for us to live and work in community,” Myla said.

Cathy shook her head. “The communes in the sixties sure didn’t work.”

“I don’t think you can make a blanket statement like that,” Theresa asked. “Do you know that all the communes didn’t work? And I hate that word. Commune.”

“Mom’s just an old hippy,” Luisa said.

“I’ve been hearing about these squatter communities sprouting up all over the world,” David said. “They’re creating community from necessity I suppose. Worldwide one person in six lives in a squat now.”

“What’s a squatter community?” Stefan asked. “Is that where people move into empty houses that aren’t being used?”

His mother glanced at him.

“I mean, I’ve heard of that happening,” Stefan said.

“Most often they’re people from the country who come into the city because they need work,” David said. “They’ll find work but there isn’t housing. Or they can’t afford housing. They build these places on empty lots or on land that isn’t being used. They build houses, figure out sanitation, have their own government.”

“Doesn’t sound easy,” Cathy said.

“Why should things be easy?” Myla asked.

“Don’t you have it easy here?” Luisa said. “You live in a beautiful place and all you do is look for junk in the wash.”

“And you have such a rough life?” Theresa asked.

“I was just saying,” Luisa said.

“We shouldn’t judge people until we walk a mile in their shoes,” Cathy said. “That’s what my mother taught me. She also said that teenagers should be seen and not heard. Truthfully, she said they shouldn’t be seen either.”

“That seems pretty judgmental,” Luisa said, her face red, her voice angry.

“All of us have a right to be seen and heard,” Myla said. “That’s what most of us want. To be seen, truly. To be heard. All of us. Whether we are younger or older.”

“Yes, it’s nice to think so,” Theresa said. “But it goes both ways, Stefan and Luisa. When you see someone older, if you see someone with gray hair, for instance, do you just assume they’re stupid or have nothing worthwhile to say to you?”

Stefan and Luisa glanced at one another.

Luisa said, “It depends upon whether it’s a man or a woman. If it’s a man, I might listen. If it’s a woman, you’re probably right. I just ignore her.”

For a moment, no one said anything. Theresa put down her fork.

“That is a stunning statement,” Theresa said.

“It’s the truth,” Luisa said. “I bet everyone here feels the same way.” She looked at Stefan. “Don’t you?”

“I don’t think I notice whether people are young or old,” Stefan said.

“Liar,” Luisa said. “If a pretty girl and an ugly old woman came up to you, you wouldn’t pay more attention to the pretty girl?”

“Why does the older woman have to be ugly?” David asked.

“I’d probably pay attention to the pretty girl,” Stefan said, “because I couldn’t help it. Hormones you know.”

Several of the adults laughed.

“But that’s not because I’d think she was smarter than the older woman or that she had more to say.”

Myla had been translating to Ernesto and Maria. She now said to them, “Ernesto and Maria, what do you think of all this?”

Ernesto shrugged. “When I was a boy, we listened to our elders. They knew more than we knew. That was just the way it was. I felt honored that an elder would take time for me. Now I am becoming an elder. I am not certain I know much yet. But I would be glad to share not much with anyone who wants to listen.”

“Maria?” Myla asked.

Maria smiled painfully, shyly. Myla regretted putting her on the spot.

“I don’t understand much of what you are talking about,” Maria said. “I was thinking that I miss my mother. She has very black hair, but she has shown me a few gray hairs. She told me she was glad to have lived long enough to have gray hair. My grandmother has gray hair. You could say she is an old woman. She knows more than anyone else. It’s a fact. And if she doesn’t know, her best friend knows. They are both beautiful women. Once I asked my mother if I would be beautiful like my grandmother when I was old. She said I was beautiful now. She told me I was sun beauty because I was young. Bright and shiny, she said. My grandmother was moon beauty. Old people, especially old women, were beautiful like the moon. Both sun and moon beauty were good, but those with moon beauty knew more secrets because they knew about things and places where the sun did not shine.” Maria smiled.

Myla nodded. “Your mother is a wise woman.”

“I like that,” Theresa said. “Maybe I’ll stop dying my hair and become naturally moon beautiful.”

“It’s getting a bit chilly out here,” Myla said. “Time to go inside?”

“Sure,” David said.

Everyone stood and began clearing the table.

“We never did find out what the Old Mermaid diet was,” Luisa said.

“Myla, whatever happened to the Old Mermaids?” Stefan asked.

“Ah, well, that’s a story for a different night,” Myla said.

“I sure like these Saturday night dinners,” Stefan said. They began clearing the table.

David said, “You do this every Saturday?”

“Not in this house, but yes, we have dinner at my place,” Myla said.

“Last Saturday, we talked about art,” Ernesto said.

“Arte publico, especially,” Myla said. “Very interesting.”

“Yeah, made me want to do a mural,” Stefan said.

“David painted the mermaid in the pool,” Myla said. “He might have some tips for a mural.”

“Wow!” Stefan said. “You painted her? She’s great.”

David said, “It was a long time ago.”

“She’s held up well,” Theresa said.

David glanced at Myla. She smiled.

“Oh Ernesto,” David said. “I can turn on the spa, if you like.” He pointed to the tiny pool next to the pool. “That water gets hot.”

Ernesto shook his head. “Oh, too much trouble, Señor!”

“No, really it isn’t,” David said. “Takes just a few seconds.”

“Maybe another time,” Myla said. “Some hydrotherapy might be good for you, Ernesto.”

“Very kind,” he said. “Maybe the mermaid in the pool will come over and join me.”

“You never know,” Myla said.

Read the whole tale here...

Tea Shell Offerings

Tea Shell Offerings
* Faery Dust Tea With A Hint of Agave Laughter
* Lentil Storytelling Soup Soaked in Mountain Wisdom
* In Love Apples & Blueberries Spilling With Secrets

Read the whole tale here...

No Coyotes Harmed

I like this journal Annie gave you. She said she got the thread from Betty, the Woman Who Weaves, who got it out in the desert from Grandmother Spider. One day I hope Betty will let me tag along with her when she goes out to gather thread. I have heard it is an experience I will never forget. Or else I will forget it immediately. Grandmother Spider is like that. Who knows, maybe I've already gone out and harvested thread and forgotten. Whoa! Hadn't thought of that before.

Anyway, I wanted to thank you for the lovely day spent at the Old Mermaids Sanctuary. I know you've all said that thank yous are not needed because we all live on this desert together. But I remember Sister Faye Mermaid telling Tulip once that it was just polite to thank the wind, the sun, the water, the earth, the birds, the cacti—to thank all the elements of life, thank them for their gifts, to express our love for them. So that is what I am doing: thanking the elemental Old Mermaids for all your gifts.

Tulip has not had another nightmare since she met you. She is convinced now that every night she falls to sleep and grows two tails and swims in the Old Sea with all of you. Two tails like Grandmother Yemaya Mermaid used to have, she says, glittery, like the tiny pebbles in the wash. Blue-green like Sissy Maggie's eyes. Or Sister Sheila Na-Giggles Mermaid's. Oops! I've forgotten. Ah well. Tulip remembers. (I'm talking a lot about forgetting and remembering, aren't I?)

Tulip remembers everything.

She remembers how the dirt in the wash feels on the soles of her feet.

She remember the sound Old Crow makes when he laughs.

She remembers the kiss of the wind on her cheek.

She remembers to open her mouth when she gets butterflies in her tummy so they can fly out.

She remembers what the trail looks like after desert faeries have been there, so she can track them through the wash as well as the Old Man of the Mountains can track the mountain goats up the east ridge.

And she remembers to breathe, breathe, breathe it all in.

You taught her that. I am only her mother who was lost for so long. Finding my way now and so grateful Tulip has had you all.

Did you hear her today at the Tea Shell? Billy Bad came in. You know how he kids around.

"Hello, darlin'," he says to Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid. "I think I'll try that Coyote Whispers tea with the soup. I love your soup, Sister Ruby. And I've always wondered what those coyotes were whispering about. After I drink this tea, will I know? You didn't hurt any of them yippin' canines none to get at their whispers now, did you?"

Before Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid could say anything, beefore Sister Sheila Na-Giggles Mermaid could slap Billy Bad on the back and ask him how he was doing and he could say, "How do you think? Ain't I the picture of grandeur?" Before all that, Tulip said, "No coyotes were harmed in the making of this tea."

Billy Bad put his head back and laughed. Sounded more like a howl, actually. A coyote howl. I think Billy Bad has finally revealed himself to be what we always suspected he was. Our beloved trickster.

Tulip danced around the Tea Shell. Around Billy Bad, actually. He stood still in the middle of the floor holding Tulip's hand as she danced. Kind of seemed like he was dancing with her. Like the desert was suddenly incarnate in him. And Tulip was...Tulip was Tulip.

She's calling to me now. I better go. Be back soon.

See you in Tulip's dreams.

And maybe my own.

In love and gratitude,

Poppy

Read the whole tale here...

Tea Shell Offerings

Old Mermaids Tea Shell Offerings
*Coyote Whispers Tea w/ Loco Honey
*Mermaid Queens Bean Soup
*Mountain Cinnamon Love BonBons

(Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid thought it would be fun to start recording our Tea Shell specials here. All sounds delicious, doesn't it? Myself, I'm looking forward to bonbons. Won't that be goodgoods?

from Sister Sophia Mermaid, at the Old Mermaids Tea Shell

Read the whole tale here...

Rattleday

It is so quiet. I hear the wind lifting the dry palm leaves and shaking them. It sounds a bit like the rattle Sissy Maggie Mermaid made out of a dried gourd one year. Only bigger. It was a storm rattle. Sissy Maggie stood outside with that rattle and danced for a long while, until a Storm did come to see what all the noise was about. The desert breathed moist that night.

I know the Old Owl is hidden up in the green leaves of the palm, but I cannot see him from where I sit.

I wonder where the others are. For a moment. Then I continue to relish the silence. A tiny whirring bird dips her long beak into one of the pink flowers near the palm tree. Annie, the Woman Who Loves Birds, calls them hummingbirds. I have never heard them hum, only whir.

They are fierce birds. Flecks of the moon, sun, and stars make their feathers iridescent. One of the whirring birds is the color of the mountains. I believe he must know the Old Man and Old Woman of the Mountain, but I have been unable to confirm that.

Annie is the one who gave us this journal to record our daily lives at the Old Mermaids Sanctuary. This does not come natural to most of the Old Mermaids. We don't need a record of the ongoing conversations we have with ourselves and the world. We've kneaded these conversations into our home, our friendships, the land, our community.

Oh look. This whirring bird one has a throat the color of the night sky in summer. I wonder how he convinced the Old Sky to part with those pieces of night. Probably with the same determination that the others used to get pieces of the sun, moon, and stars. Ah, but who would not want to be a decoration at the throat of such a being?

The cover of the journal is made of red-cloth with white and pink stitching. I am not much for words, although the others often seek my advice. I believe the world is always whispering an enchantment to us—to all that exists. Too many useless words might interfere with this magic and then who knows what might unravel?

We must choose our words, our songs, our enchantments carefully so that we are not generating a cacophony but instead toning with the universe, singing a kind of creation lullaby.

Now the mourning birds have come for their daily drink and bath. I had not realized it was so late in this day. I will sit here and watch them. Perhaps I will tell this journal about it another day.

Ahhh, listen to the palm rattle. Someone is dancing up a storm somewhere.

from Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid at the Old Mermaids Sanctuary.

Read the whole tale here...

The Blue Tail

Chapter One

Call me Blue. Everyone else does. My birth certificate says my name is Serena Blue Rivers, but no one calls me Serena. My grandma Merry named me Blue. Not because I was born blue or because my eyes were blue, not even because my grandma Merry had the blues for as long as anyone could remember. She said she named me Blue because the color blue made her feel free. I didn’t know what that meant for a long time. As far as I could tell, my grandmother had always been free. My grandmother gave me the name Serena too. She gave me both names, she said, because those were her wishes for me: freedom and serenity.

When I was about five years old, my mother Cara told me that the name Serena also meant “mermaid,” as in la sirena, as in siren. She told me this when we were alone because she knew Grandma Merry did not want to hear anything that had to do with mermaids. My grandmother did not like mermaids. She had an aversion to them like some people have an aversion to snakes. She refused to go into any of my many bedrooms over the years because of the old mermaid painting my mother hung in my bedroom wherever we lived. The mermaid had black hair, brown skin, and a shiny blue tail that somehow glowed night sky blue in the dark. The mermaid held a sign in front of her breasts that read, “Welcome home, Serena Blue.” My mother had painted the mermaid when she was pregnant with me. The sign said, “Welcome home” until my grandma named me, and then my mother filled in the words, “Serena Blue.”

The mermaid on my wall was not a young mermaid. Or a little one. Her shoulder length hair flipped up at the end, and her green eyes were wild looking. Her entire expression was wild--as if any moment she was going to leap, swim, or dive off that canvas into my room and take me on some kind of adventure.

My mother told me that when she was a girl, her mother--Grandma Merry--used to whisper stories about the ocean to her late at night. Mom would wake up to find her mother leaning over her, spilling stories into her ear, stories about mermaids, stories about mysterious places called Old Mermaid Sanctuaries that were hidden in plain sight all over the world.

“These are places where people like you and me could live, baby girl,” Grandma Merry told her. “Where we could thrive, where other people like us live--people who are still wild, who are still connected to the great Old Sea and all the wild things. We could go to an Old Mermaid Sanctuary, baby girl, and be welcomed and never have to change our ways to be like everyone else, to fit in like a book on a shelf where all the books are the same shape, size, and color and when you open any of them they all tell the same story. Old Mermaid Sanctuaries are places where beauty, love, and magic still held sway, where old is beautiful and young is becoming.”

My mother would smile and kiss her mother and whisper, “old is beautiful and young is becoming,” as she fell back to sleep.

My mother loved those stories. She told them to me as I was growing up. My grandma stopped telling them to my mother when Mom was about five, and Grandma Merry doesn’t remember ever telling any such stories to my mother or anyone else. When Grandma Merry stopped telling the stories, my mom went to her father--my grandpa Warren--and asked him about the Old Mermaid Sanctuaries.

“I don’t know about any such places,” he said. “But sometimes when mermaids come ashore for a long while, they go a little crazy, and your mother has been ashore a long time.” Grandpa Warren grinned at my mother and didn’t say anything else for a bit.

Finally my mother pulled on her father’s chin and demanded more details. After a while he agreed to tell her what he remembered. “I’ve been living with an old mermaid for a long time so I’m a little crazy, too,” he said. “I’ll tell you this much: I lived near the ocean when I was a boy and beyond, you know that, before I became a desert rat. Where we lived, the mermaids sometimes came ashore, usually during the full or dark moons, and they’d dance and sing on the beach. They’d step out of their tails--most of them had two--like you and I would step out of our clothes, only different. It was a sight to see, I tell you. It seemed like all the colors in the world came alive on that sand. And the air had a kind of strange electricity in it. You just knew that anything was possible. Now don’t tell your mom I told you this part, but after they took off their tails, they’d lay them on the sand, as though to dry them out, or display them for all the world to see. Oh, baby girl, they were so beautiful.

“I liked your mom’s tail best, so one day I snuck down to the beach and picked her tail up off the beach and I stole it! I wouldn’t give it back. No matter how much she pleaded, no matter what she promised me. I hid it. She wasn’t able to go back to the ocean with her sisters, so she came home with me. It was something, baby girl. Your mom was the finest mermaid in all the world and I caught her.”

Grandpa Warren told my mother that story many times, even after Grandma Merry found out and told him not to. One day when mom was a teenager, he told the story to her and a group of her friends who had come over after school. When Mom’s friends left, Grandma Merry walked over to Grandpa Warren and slapped him across the face.

“If you ever tell that obscene story to anyone again,” she said, “I will leave you.“ And she walked out of the room.

Mom said the kitchen felt full of electricity for a few moments after that, and she was afraid to move, afraid she’d get shocked if she touched anything. Grandpa Warren looked over at her and made a face like “oops,” and he never did tell the story again, at least not within earshot of Mom or Grandma Merry.

After a while I started to understand why Grandma Merry didn’t want to hear anything more about mermaids or Old Mermaid Sanctuaries. My mom spent most of her life and all of mine looking for these mysterious sanctuaries. We went all over the continent during and after the time my dad was living with us looking for an Old Mermaid Sanctuary where we could make our home--where Mom felt at home. Every once in a while she would find a place she thought was promising and then something would happen and she’d say, “This isn’t it,” and we’d move on.

By junior high, I had had enough. I wanted to stay in one place for longer than a year. Before I started high school, I told Mom I wanted to go live with my dad in Boston so that I could start and finish high school in the same place. Mom cried some, but then she asked if I would like to go to school in Santa Fe where she had grown up and where Grandma Merry still lived. She promised she would stay there for as long as I wanted.

I agreed to that, and we moved to Santa Fe. We tried living with Grandma Merry at first. There was room for us, especially since Grandpa Warren had died a few years earlier. But Grandma Merry and my mother got on each other’s nerves very quickly. Mom said it was like they were water and sand.

“Don’t you mean oil and water?” I asked when she told me this.

She shook her head. “No, water and sand. When we’re together everything gets muddy. I know it’s hard for you to understand because you and I get along so well.”

I laughed.

“What?” she said. “Don’t you think we get along? I listen to you. You can tell me things. Right?”

“Okay, Mom,” I said. It was too much trouble to burst any of her many fantasy-life balloons.

“You know you can tell me anything, right?” she asked again. She kept trying to look into my eyes. I looked away from her and kept laughing. A nervous habit of mine--laughing at strange times.

“Sure, Mom,” I said. “I can tell you anything.”

You won’t listen, but I guess I could tell you anything. Like I told you for years and years and years that I wanted to stop moving all over the country.

“Well, at least your life has been an adventure,” Mom said. “Not many kids can say that. Never a dull moment.”

“You’re right about that, Mom.”

An adventure. That was how Mom viewed our life. I saw it as a non-ending quest for me to find a place where I could fit in, be comfortable, get used to a house, a home, my own skin. I never fit in, always thought I stuck out in a crowd--and not in a good way.

We didn’t stay with Grandma Merry long, even though I liked living in her house. My mom found a place to rent down the block. When we moved into the new place, I told my mom that I didn’t want to hear anything more about Old Mermaid Sanctuaries or mermaids or anything that was not completely normal.

“I want to go to school and live a regular life,” I said.

“Define normal,” she said. “What is regular?”

“You know what normal means and what regular is,” I said. “I want to have friends. Maybe even a boyfriend. I don’t want to be the new kid all the time, trying to figure out how to dress and how to act.”

“Don’t act,” she said. “Just be yourself. And dress how you want to dress.”

Be myself. Easy for her to say. She was always so sure of herself. I didn’t know who myself was. I hadn’t stayed in one spot long enough to figure that out.

“I don’t understand why you don’t want to hear about the Old Mermaids,” Mom said. “You were born old.”

She had been telling me I was an old soul for as long as I could remember. Compared to her, a three year old seemed like an old soul.

“Why are they old mermaids, anyway?” I asked. “Why aren’t they just mermaids?”

“That’s just what your grandma always called them,” Mom said, “even though she denies ever telling me a single story about them. The Ocean is old; the mermaids are old. A sign of respect, I suppose.”

Mom always had some kind of flimsy explanation about anything that had to do with the Old Mermaids.

“Does this mean you don’t want the painting of the old mermaid your new room?” she asked.

“Yes, I want her,” I said, “but I get to hang her up myself.”

I loved that painting. For many reasons. I was used to seeing her every day, for one thing. Wherever she was felt like home, I guess. And when I showed the painting to potential new friends, they were always impressed.

“Wow,” they’d say, or something like that. “Your mom let’s you have a giant half-naked woman on your wall?”

“Sure,” I’d say. “She painted it. Besides, she’s a mermaid, not a woman. Technically.”

For two and a half years we stayed in Santa Fe in a house just down the road from my grandma. I visited my dad on holidays. My mom’s art started taking off. Or at least she was making a living. She painted portraits of people as mermaids--or mermen. One tail or two. Your choice. And I liked school. Yes, I was one of those freaks who actually liked school. I wasn’t the belle of the ball or anything, but I had friends: Kaitlin and Jordan. I even had a boyfriend: Stephen.

I could write pages about Stephen. Maybe even a book. He was gorgeous. Tall, dark, and handsome, just like in the fairy tale books. Only, really, he was tall, pale, and handsome. I met him on the Plaza one afternoon. I was there with my art class, but I was alone, sketching, by the Palace of the Governors, when he came and stood in front of me.

“Care to sketch me?” he asked.

I didn’t say anything. Mostly because I couldn’t think of what to say. He smiled and kind of ducked his head. Then he said, “I’ve been looking for you, you know.”

“Me?”

He nodded. “I’m new in town and I wanted you to show me around. I knew as soon as I saw you that you were the one.”

I said, “Well, the library is over there.” I pointed. “And the mountains are over there.” I pointed again. “The acequia madre--the mother ditch--is a couple blocks that way. And the famous Santa Fe sky is above us.”

I had meant to be clever, but as soon as I said it all I felt like an idiot. I was so embarrassed I started to laugh. He laughed, too.

“Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer,” he said.

I continued to laugh.

“I must be getting old,” he said. “That line always used to work.”

I smiled. Now I really felt stupid.

“You mean you aren’t new in town?”

“Well, that depends,” he said. “I’ve lived here for ten years, but I’m new to you.” He held out his hand. “Let’s start over. My name is Stephen Johnson, and I’ll try not to be such an idiot next time we meet.”

Next time?

I shook his hand. As soon as my skin touched his, I felt at home with him--like he was what I had been waiting for. I had felt so uncomfortable, so off-balance most of my life. Sure, I liked my new school. I liked our new house. But I still didn’t feel as though I belonged. Do you know what I mean? When Stephen and I first touched, I knew where I belonged. I belonged with him.

”I’m Serena Blue Rivers,” I said. I hesitated and then I said what I always said, “Everyone calls me Blue.”

He nodded. “Would you like to go out with me, Serena Blue Rivers?”

“Uh, sure,” I said.

I said yes before I asked my mother. Later when I told her he was a senior at another school, she wasn’t too thrilled. That meant he was older than I was, plus she didn’t know any of the parents at the other school. She said she had to meet him first, so he came over to the house. After that, she agreed that I could go out with him. I could tell she didn’t like him. She didn’t say anything, but I knew.

He took me to dinner and a movie that first time. I had never had a date like that before. Usually it was just me and my friends, girls and boys. Stephen picked me up in his car, came to the door and got me, and then drove us to a restaurant. A Mexican restaurant.

Once we started eating he said, “I should have asked you where you wanted to eat. You probably get sick of Mexican food.”

“This is good,” I said.

“I mean because you probably get Mexican food all the time,” he said. “I’m new at this. I’ve never gone out with a Mexican before.”

“I’m not Mexican,” I said.

“Really?” he said. “I thought you were.”

“My father’s ancestors were from this area,” I said, “back when it was Mexico.”

“Oh, sorry,” he said. “I thought you were. You’re so dark. And beautiful, of course. Does that mean you’re Mexican-American? All legal and everything?”

“I guess,” I said. “Although my grandmother was a mermaid captured by my grandfather, so I guess technically she’s not legal.”

“Really?”

“That’s the family story,” I said.

He shrugged. “It’s a good thing I didn’t take you to a fish place then,” he said. “We might have accidentally eaten one of your relatives.”

I laughed.

That’s how we started. Everything was good. I loved going places with him. People always watched us. Especially the girls. I guessed they wished they were with someone like Stephen, but he had chosen me. Me, me, me. I loved it. And I loved him. Sometimes he didn’t realize his own strength. We would be kidding around--roughhousing he called it--and he would accidentally hurt me. “You’re such a girl,“ he’d say and laugh. “That’s right,“ I’d say. “Remember that.“ A couple of times he pushed me, just joking around, and I fell down. He felt really bad about that. He slugged me in the shoulder once, and I told him he had to remember I wasn’t his brother or any of his guys: He couldn’t hit me, even if he was just goofing around.

“I’ll try to remember,“ he said. “But when I’m having so much fun with you, I forget. I promise I’ll do better.” Then he wrestled me to the ground and kissed me.

Everything seemed like a fairy tale, for months. And then after school one day, this girl came up to me and pushed me.

“You know who I am, chiquita?” she asked. Two other girls--two big girls--stood behind her. “What’d they call you? Blue? You so much nothing that you only got a color for a name, is that it?”

I shook my head.

“I am Eva Rodriquez,” the girl said. “Hear me? I am Stevie’s girl. You got that? And if I ever see you near him again I will beat down your fresa ass to nothing. You understand me?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said.

“You heard me,” she said. “This is the first and last time I’ll tell you this.” She pushed me again, and then she and her girls walked away.

My heart was beating so loud I thought someone was playing the drums nearby. I laughed, nervously, and hurried away. I kept looking around as I walked home, anticipating someone jumping out and attacking me. After a few minutes when nothing else happened, I calmed down. She didn’t actually want to kill me. Probably wouldn’t even beat me. Wow. She was a beautiful girl. Stephen had chosen me over her?

My grandma and Mom were at home when I got there. When I told them what had happened, Mom wanted to call the police.

“Mom, no,“ I said. “It’ll be all right. She was jealous.“

“She had her hands on you,“ Mom said. “That’s not good. She’s probably in a gang.“

“Maybe she was trying to get you to join her gang,“ Grandma Merry said. “Isn’t that what they do? Beat up new gang members. That wouldn’t be good, Serena Blue. You can’t join a gang.“

“Mom,“ my mother said, “she’s not joining a gang. Blue, I’m either calling the police or I’m calling Stephen to find out what’s going on.“

“Please don’t do either,“ I said.

She picked up the phone.

“Mom, Mom,“ I pleaded. “Don’t do this. Let me call him. Mom!“

She wasn’t listening. As usual.

”Stephen,” she said, “some girl just came up to Blue and threatened to kill her. She said she was a girlfriend of yours.”

Silence.

“I don’t who she was, Stephen,” my mom said. “Eva somebody. Is your mother there? I want to speak to her. No, you don’t need to come here. All right. For a few minutes.”

“Mom, Stephen didn’t do anything,” I said. She put the phone down. “You shouldn’t be mad at him.”

“Well, obviously he’s been dating both of you at the same time,” she said, “and this other girl found out.”

“He never said he wasn’t dating other girls,” I said. I didn’t usually lie to my mother, but I wanted to calm her down.

“Mom, she didn’t hurt me,” I said. “I shouldn’t have told you.”

“I’m glad you told me,” she said. “My job is to protect you.”

“I’m not a baby,” I said. “I should have punched her.”

“Yes, that would have made everything all right,” she said.

“This boy is trouble,” Grandma Merry said. “He is no good.”

“Grandma,” I said, “you don’t know him.”

“I know he has a girlfriend who is threatening to kill my grand baby,” she said. “He is not a good judge of character.”

“He’s dating me,” I said. “And I’m a good character.”

I don’t know if that was exactly what I said. I would have said anything. I shouldn’t have told my mother. I’d been bragging about it more than anything. I liked that a boy--a man, really--had chosen me over another girl.

When Stephen came to the door, he looked confused--and angry. Was he angry with me? I started to say something to him, but he stepped into the house and went right by me and into the kitchen. My mother stood near the sink with her hands on her hips. My grandmother sat at the table.

Stephen said, “Eva’s an ex-girlfriend of mine. I’m so sorry. I’ll make certain she never bothers Blue again.”

My mother didn’t say anything.

“I’m really sorry,” Stephen said again.

“Mom,” I said.

“You’ll make it right?” she asked.

“Yes, Cara,” he said.

My mom bristled. I could tell she didn’t like him using her first name.

Stephen must have noticed, too, because he said, “I’ll make it right, ma’am.”

My mother said, “We’ll see.”

My grandmother shook her head.

“Go home, Stephen,” my mom said. “It’s a school night.” She crossed her arms across her chest.

Stephen nodded and left the kitchen. I followed him outside to his car. He leaned up against it, took my hands in his, and pulled me to him. He wrapped his arms around me and I closed my eyes and listened to his heartbeat.

“Why’d you tell your mom?” he whispered.

I shrugged.

“Eva wouldn’t hurt you,” he said.

“I think she would,” I said. “I’d hurt her to have you.”

He laughed softly.

Then he said, “I didn’t mean to lie to you. I don’t know why I did.”

I looked up at him. “Lie to me?”

“I said I’d never dated a Mexican,” he said. “Eva was my first. But I thought she was Filipino.”

Sometimes he said the strangest things.

“When did you break up with her?” I asked.

“A few months ago,” he said. Stephen and I had been going out for six months. I tried to pull away from him. He held me tighter. I looked up at him.

“I know, I know,” he said. “But it’s only you now, baby Blue. Just you.” He leaned down and kissed me. “Let’s go for a ride. I really need you now.”

“I can’t,” I said. “You heard my mother.”

He moaned, kissed me, and let me go.

“See you when I see you then,” he said.

He got in his car and drove away. I wondered if he was going to find Eva.

I went back into the house. Grandma Merry and Mom were both sitting at the table.

“What do you see in him?” Mom asked.

“Why don’t you like him?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I don’t want to push you into his arms by telling you what I don’t like.”

“He cheated on you, for one,” Grandma Merry said.

“He didn’t!”

“He’s been dating this psychopath Eva while he was dating you,” Mom said. “That’s cheating. Have you had sex with him? He’s obviously having sex with her.”

I felt my face turn red. I had to bite my lip to keep from crying.

“That’s my private business,” I said. I turned to leave. Mom grabbed my hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “Sit down. Talk with us.”

I pulled out a chair and sat at the table with them.

“He doesn’t seem very respectful of you,” Mom said.

Grandma looked out the window. She was “gone.“ She had lost interest in the conversation. She did that. She’d be in the room with us or I’d be on the phone with her and suddenly she’d go away.

“Stephen is respectful,” I said. “And I haven’t had sex with him.“

I almost asked, “what is your definition of sex?” But I knew that would open up a whole can of worms that none of us wanted to look at.

Stephen wanted to have sex with me. Lately, most of our conversations seemed to revolve around him wanting me to do something sexual to him. I wasn’t sure why I kept saying no, but I did. I mean, I loved him, so why didn’t I just do what he wanted.

My grandma looked away from the window and back at us. “Blue likes this boy because he’s pretty,” Grandma said. “You’ve been running around the country with her all her life making her feel rootless and homeless and now she has found herself a pretty boy. Everyone admires her. The other girls want to be her. She’s never experienced that before.”

I stared at Grandma Merry. Sometimes she was long gone and other times she could see right to the truth. Even if it wasn’t a truth I wanted anyone else to know.

“It’s more than that,” I said. “I feel safe with him.”

“Safe?” Mom said. She frowned. “What do you mean?”

“When I’m with him, I feel like there’s no one else in the world but us,” I said, “like I’m pretty and interesting.”

“But you are pretty and interesting,” Mom said.

I laughed and wiped my eyes before any tears fell down my cheeks. “You’re my mother,” I said. “You see me through momma eyes.” I looked at my grandmother. “And grandma eyes. Most of the time I feel like nothing and nobody. Like I don’t have control over anything.” I shook my head. “You wouldn’t understand.”

Mom squeezed my hand.

And then out of the blue, apropos of nothing, Grandma Merry said, “Warren’s sister Geraldine died last month.”

Mom and I looked at her. She didn’t say anything else.

Finally Mom said, “I’m sorry she died, Mom.”

“She’s your aunt,” Grandma Merry said. “Your great aunt.”

Mom looked at me and rolled her eyes. “Thanks for the genealogy lesson, Mom. I don’t think I ever met her. And we were talking about Blue and how she’s feeling.”

“That’s all right,” I said. “Let’s forget about it.”

“She’s left her house on the Oregon coast to us,” Grandma Merry said. “It was Warren’s house. I mean the one he grew up in. There’s some land, too.”

“She left it to us?” Mom said. “Don’t you mean she left it to you?”

Grandma Merry shook her head. “No. She left it to Merry Rivers, Cara Rivers, and Serena Blue Rivers. The will stipulates that we have to go to Bandon--that’s the name of the town--and claim the property, even if we want to sell it. If we don’t go within three months, the land and house will then be donated to the state government to do with it what they will.”

“Do all three of us have to go?” Mom asked.

Grandma shrugged. “I’m not sure.” She looked at us. “But why don’t we go anyway, all three of us? School will be over in a week. Let’s go claim our inheritance.”

“But, Mom, you hate the ocean,” Mom said.

Grandma Merry looked at her daughter. “What makes you think that?”

“Because you told me you do!” She looked at me. “If I go, will you go?” she asked.

“You mean I actually have a choice?” I asked.

“That’s a good question,“ she said. “I’ll have to think about it.”

“I already bought the tickets,“ Grandma Merry said. “And I’ll lose a lot of money if we cancel.“ She pushed away from the table. “So really,“ she said, “neither one of you has a choice. I’m the eldest and the wisest, and I’ve decreed we’re going.“

“Mom!“ my mother said. “You can’t do that.“

“I just did,“ she said. “I don’t ask either of you for much, and this is important.“

”It’s probably some dumpy cottage that’s falling into the sea,” Mom said. “Probably not worth anything.”

“Maybe not,” Grandma Merry said, “but I want to go and I want my daughter and granddaughter to come with me. You don’t have to stay long, either of you.”

“Don’t you mean ‘we’ don’t have to stay long?” Mom asked. “You’re not staying there, are you?”

“Of course not,” Grandma Merry said. She shook her head. “Remember, I hate the ocean.”

Read the whole tale here...

COTOM: Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Go with the flow—and watch out for waterfalls. —Sister Sophia Mermaid

Gail helped Myla unload her table and boxes in front of Antigone Books. Then she left. Myla set up the table on the sidewalk near the far end of the bookstore picture window. She smoothed a blue oilcloth with red and yellow flowers on it over the table. Pietra rolled out a comfy chair from the bookstore for Myla.

“Good morning, Myla,” Pietra said.

“Thank you for this wonderful chair, Pietra!” Myla said, as if it were the first time Pietra had ever brought her a chair. “It makes the day much more pleasant.”

Pietra smiled. “What goodies do you have this morning?”

“We shall soon see,” Myla said.

She put one of the boxes on the chair, took off the top, and began pulling out items and arranging them on the table. Near one corner of the table, she placed a broken kitchen tile with a peach at its center. Next to it, she put a red piece of cloth, then a small white feather, a half blue marble, a Mariners baseball ticket, June 5, 2001 (Section: 113, Row: H), an empty orange plastic lighter, a red brick, a yellow t-shirt with the word “Who?” on it, several glass bottles without the labels, a smashed beer can, and a few other odds and ends. Closer to her, she laid out the items she had found today.

When the first box was empty, she opened the second box and took out the old pieces she had not sold yet but was not quite ready to throw away. In the middle of it all, she placed a small wooden sign with the words Church of the Old Mermaids and Myla Alvarez, Novice painted on it in yellow. On the far side of the table, she set an old cigar box with an orange-tailed mermaid painted on the lid. The mermaid held a sign over her breasts that read: donations. Myla put the empty boxes under the table, then sat on the chair.

“It all looks fine,” Pietra said. “And I could use one of those bottles actually. My sweetie Ellie brought me in a yellow rose this morning, and I don’t have a good vase for it.”

Myla picked up a slender empty clear bottle.

“Well, you might try this one,” Myla said. “I found it near where the old kitchen used to be in the Old Mermaid Sanctuary. I can’t be certain, but I believe this was the one that used to have a place on the window sill in the kitchen. It had a teardrop-shaped stopper. Oh, it was beautiful, that top, but it was off as often as it was on because you’ll never believe what precious liquid was contained in this bottle.”

Pietra said, “I would if you tell me it was so.”

“Ahhh, well, no one can know for sure, but they say it was filled with water from the Old Sea where the Old Mermaids made their home before it dried up. And before it all went away, Sister Bridget Mermaid had the presence of mind to fill a couple of empty bottles they found along the shore with sea water. This one they put in the kitchen. Sometimes when the Old Mermaids were aching for the Old Sea, they came into the kitchen to gaze at the bottle, sometimes hold it. When the longing became too much, they took the stopper off and smelled the sea and remembered their lost friends and the life they had had to leave behind. They would even dab a drop behind their ears and on their wrists, as though it were perfume, and of course, it was, to them. Sometimes their grief overwhelmed them and they wept as they held the open bottle. That was why the bottle remained full for a long time, no matter how often they used it or how much time went by.”

“Why?” Pietra asked. By now, two women and a man had walked up to the table and were listening.

“Because the tears of the Old Mermaids fell into the bottle and kept it full,” Myla said. “And no one ever knew the difference because Old Mermaid tears are really sea water. Gradually the Old Mermaids realized they carried the Old Sea within them, always, just as you and I do. Did you ever notice when you cry, the grief begins to subside once you taste your own tears? That’s because the sea water in your tears reminds the deepest truest part of you that you are always home, you are always with yourself, and that truth is comforting, even in the darkest times, even when you feel as though you are far from home, the way the Old Mermaids felt.”

Myla held the bottle out to Pietra, and she took it.

“A gift,” Myla said. “For the chair.”

“No,” Pietra said. “I want to help out the church.” She pulled a five dollar bill from her pocket. “This feels so inadequate for a bottle that once held the tears of the Old Mermaids!”

“I’ll give you ten dollars for the bottle,” the man said. The other woman elbowed him and smiled at Myla.

“It’s his first time,” she said.

Pietra lifted the top of the cigar box and dropped in the money.

“I gotta go to work,” Pietra said. “Thanks! It’s just what I needed.”

Myla nodded.

“What did I do?” the man whispered. “I thought you wanted the bottle.”

The woman shook her head. “This is my husband, Bob. He’s not been before.”

“It’s all right,” Myla said. “I love having novices. As you can see”--she pointed to the sign--“I am a novice as well. We generally don’t barter at the Church of the Old Mermaids. Each gift of the wash--and therefore a gift from the Old Mermaids--is exactly what a particular person needs.”

“Are you a nonprofit?” Bob asked.

Myla glanced at the woman with Bob. Then she smiled and said, “Do you mean have I registered with the government as a nonprofit and filled out the paperwork? No, I have not. No paperwork on anything here. Except maybe that baseball ticket.”

Bob looked down at the ticket. He stared at it for a moment and then looked away. The woman picked up an amber glass bottle.

“You said Sister Bridget Mermaid filled a couple of bottles with sea water?”

“You have a good eye, Dolores,” Myla said, remembering the woman’s name as it came out of her mouth. “The bottle you hold is one of those bottles. Of course, it was lost for a long while. Sister Bridget Mermaid put the one bottle on the kitchen window sill, and she hid this one in the pantry, way in the back so that no one would find it. She figured it would be there should they need it one day. Well, as it happened, Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid decided to make a pot of chili. She got anasazi and pinto beans from the Old Man who lived with the Old Woman in the mountains. Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid talked to the beans all the while she cooked. She always talked to the food. ‘Beans, beans, we’re Mermaid Queens. Make this stew a healing brew.’ She stirred in various chiles from the garden, along with fresh tomatoes, and onions and garlic. She added a pinch of this and a pinch of that. Then she tasted it. It didn’t quite taste the way she wanted it to. Didn’t quite have the spark she wanted. So you can guess what happened. She went into the pantry and looked around for something special to put in the stew. She found that bottle you’re holding. She thought it was filled with beer. Who can blame her? It looks like a beer bottle. She smelled it, and it didn’t smell bad. It didn’t exactly smell like beer, but she shrugged and dumped the sea water into the pot of chili.

“There are plenty of stories about what happened next. Some say the chili began boiling and bubbling like a great witch’s brew. Others said it began thundering and lightning outside. That seems a bit silly to me, doesn’t it to you? Why would it suddenly start thundering and lightning because Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid poured a little Old Sea water into the chili? Then again, why wouldn’t it? One person even claims the earth trembled. Someone else said that the birds on the kitchen tiles flew out of the tiles to get nearer to the pot of chili because everyone agrees that the chili gave off an aroma that woman or beast could detect for miles. And a funny thing happened. All sorts of animals and people began showing up at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary. And they were all hungry! The Old Mermaids began feeding everyone chili. Not the animals, of course, since the Old Mermaids knew it wasn’t good for wild animals to eat people food. The wild animals didn’t seem to mind. They wandered around for a while, watching what was going on, then they left and began eating each other, as is Nature’s way.

“The interesting thing is, the chili did not run out. Not until every last person had a bowl, including the Old Mermaids. After everyone had gone on their way, the Old Mermaids sat in the kitchen eating the chili and looking out at their garden. All of them wanted to know what Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid had done to make the chili taste so good.

“’It was that old bottle of beer in the pantry,’ Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid said. ‘That really made it perfecto.’ She put her fingers together and kissed them. Sister Bridget Mermaid got up and went to the pantry and looked for the bottle of sea water. As we know, it was not there. She asked Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid to show her the bottle of beer. ‘But it’s empty,’ Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid told her. Sister Bridget Mermaid insisted. So Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid went to her bedroom and got the bottle. You see, she had dropped several dried sprigs of lavender into it and then set it on the table next to her bed.

“’That was not beer,’ Sister Bridget Mermaid said quietly. ‘It was the last of the water from our Old Sea. Now it is empty.’

“The Old Mermaids got very quiet. Especially Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid. Then she apologized profusely. Sister Sophia Mermaid gently took the bottle from Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid. She put the bottle up to her ear. Who knows why? You know how Old Mermaids are.”

The small group of people listening laughed.

“Then Sister Sophia Mermaid said, ‘It is not in my nature to be contrary,’ she said, although they all knew it was in her nature to be contrary. ‘But this bottle is not empty. I can hear the sea.’ And she passed it around to all the other Old Mermaids. They were astonished and so happy. Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid nodded, as if she had known it all along, and she said, ‘Of course. It is good you emptied the bottle, Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid. Because of the emptiness, we are now able to find again what we lost.’ All the Old Mermaids nodded in agreement, even though not all of them understood what she meant. The Old Mermaids were not hierarchal, but they were respectful. And Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid was older than many of them. Sister Sophia Mermaid liked a good discussion, however, so she said, ‘Was it because of the emptiness that we heard the Old Sea or because of the bottle? One could argue that in order to hear what we long for in the emptiness, we need a container. Like this bottle. Or our ears.’”

“She has a point,” Dolores said. “Without the bottle, they wouldn’t have heard the Old Sea.”

“Unless they went to the ocean,” the other woman said.

“So what did Mother Stupendous Mermaid say?” Dolores asked.

“For the longest time she didn’t say anything,” Myla said. She went down to the wash--the wash where I found all of these treasures--and she listened. She heard the wind through the bushes and trees. She heard the woodpeckers tapping away on the saguaros. She heard the beating of her heart. She heard the rivers of blood within her pulsing, washing through her body. As the sun went down, she thought she could hear it sizzling in the west, as though this giant ball of heat was dropping into a vast ocean. She heard the quail and the owls and the coyotes at night. She listened for many days.

“Then one morning she took the bottle with her out to the wash. This time she put the bottle--the one you are holding--up to her ear and listened. She heard the Old Sea, or something which sounded like it. She went back to the Old Mermaids and said that Sister Sophia Mermaid was correct: a container helped. Just as the chili pot contained the chili. ‘Just as our bodies are containers of the sea we lost,’ Mother Star Stupendous Mermaid said. ‘In our grief over the loss of the sea, we sometimes forget that our bodies are containers of that sea. Our bodies are home.’ The Old Mermaids agreed that this was a good thing to remember. By the way, everyone had pretty much forgotten about Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid dumping out the last of the sea water into a pot of chili. The Old Mermaids ate dinner, then jumped in the pool, and life went on as usual. That was the way they settled their differences.

“They kept that bottle because they liked listening to the sea sometimes. And also, and this is just a rumor, some say that Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid continued to cook using the bottle. She’d fill it up with water and leave it sit until she needed it. If she wanted to feed a lot of people--or if the dish was not tasting the way she wanted it no matter how she tinkered with it--she would get out the bottle. It worked every time: the dish was magnificent. And every time, people came from miles around to eat with the Old Mermaids.”

Dolores and the others clapped. Then she put money in the cigar box. “I do need to remember that I have everything I need right here,” she said, tapping her chest with the fingers of her right hand. “Don’t need to be pining for the good old days. And I could really use a little help with my cooking. This bottle is just what I need.”

Dolores and Bob moved away. Others came up to the table. Most of them greeted Myla by name.

“Every item is from the Old Mermaid Sanctuary wash today,” Myla said. “It is a very special day!”

Red, one of her regulars who had long bushy red hair, picked up the broken sheep staff.

“Now this is different,” Red said.

Myla nodded. “Yes. When the Old Mermaids first came onto land, they were not used to walking, and in the desert, as you know, one has to have shoes! Well, they eventually figured out shoes, but they still kept bringing in cactus thorns on the bottoms and sides of their shoes. You know how that is. Well, one of the Old Mermaids--I think it was Sister Laughs A Lot Mermaid--found this piece out in the wash, just like I did. She liked hunting around for lost things, too, so before she’d go back into the house at the Old Mermaid Sanctuary she’d hold it like this--Myla stood and took the staff from Red. She grasped it by the curved edge and then held up her foot. With the straight end of it, she picked off a stone on the bottom of her shoe. “And she was able to get the cactus thorns off her shoes.”

“That’s exactly what I need!” Red said. “I’m always poking myself with things I’ve brought in from the desert.” She dropped some dollar bills into the cigar box. Then she opened up a captain’s chair she had brought with her and moved out of the flow of people traffic.

Dolores brought Myla a limonada from Maya Quetzal, the Guatemalan restaurant a couple of doors down. They made it especially for Myla, no sugar, touch of honey. Fresh lemons. Her lips puckered when she drank it.

“Thank you, Dolores!” Myla said after she took a sip, as though it was the first time anyone had brought her lemonade. “I think this is the best limonada I have ever had.”

James walked up to the table with his son Trevor. They had been coming to the Church of the Old Mermaids since Trevor was a small boy. Today they each carried a folded captain’s chair. As usual, Trevor held a lined record book in one hand. Across the cover in bold lettering were the words: TREVOR’S JOURNAL. PRIVATE.

“Trevor and James!” Myla said. She leaned over and kissed each one on the cheek. “Anything you need today from the Old Mermaid Sanctuary?”

“Just one of your smiles,” Trevor said.

“Such a charmer,” Myla said, smiling. “With a sincere heart, of course.”

“How is everything at the sanctuary?” James asked.

“Everything is as it should be,” Myla said. “And yourselves?”

“We’re doing great,” James said.

“What do you need today?” Myla asked.

“I’d like a present for my girlfriend,” Trevor said. His face reddened when his father glanced at him.

“What’s she like?” Myla asked.

“What would she like or what is she like?” Trevor asked.

Myla shrugged. “Whichever.”

“She’s funny,” Trevor said. “I mean she has a good sense of humor. She’s pretty. She’ll do practical jokes and then pretend she didn’t have anything to do with it. Nothing harmful. Just funny. Kind of artistic.”

“Sounds like a peach of a girl,” James said.

Trevor looked over at him. James nodded toward the broken tile with the peach at the center of it.

“This is a very special tile,” Myla said. “It comes directly from the kitchen of the house in the Old Mermaid Sanctuary. You’ve heard me talk about this kitchen. It was a very special place. This is where they did all their cooking, naturally, and oh could the Old Mermaids cook. The kitchen was open to the outside, at least during the day time, so they could walk straight out to the walled garden.

“When they were building the house, they wanted tile in their kitchen,” Myla said, “that goes without saying. The Old Mermaids were very creative, but none of them knew how to make tile. That’s a very solid, earthy art, and the Old Mermaids were still a bit watery then, so they hired a young man from town to come out to the sanctuary. Sister Magdelene Mermaid--they called her Sissy Maggie Mermaid--volunteered to work with the man once he got to the house. She thought artistic men were quite attractive, you see. Sissy Maggie Mermaid and the young man, Carlos, worked together for many days. Soon they were painting the tiles to go around the kitchen. They painted seashells and saguaros. Even a couple of mermaids. Carlos liked to paint birds. He told Sissy Maggie Mermaid that he liked painting birds because he felt as though he were flying when he painted. When he worked with the earth to actually create the tiles, he felt like a lizard. Lazy and warm and comfortable. It was a nice feeling. But when he painted, he flew! And he loved that feeling. So he painted birds.

“Sissy Maggie Mermaid loved to listen to Carlos talk. And to be truthful, he worked without his shirt a great deal of the time; he was a young man, and he was nice to look at. Brown, sweaty. You know. Sissy Maggie Mermaid began painting peaches on the tiles. No other fruit. Just peaches. The sweaty man said, ‘You must really like peaches.’ ‘Indeed I do,’ she said. She had not known about peaches until the Old Sea dried up. One day someone brought a basket of peaches to the Old Mermaid Sanctuary. At first, Sissy Maggie Mermaid did not like the fuzz. She was supposed to eat this? They didn’t have fuzz in the sea. But then she put the peach up to her face and rubbed it across her skin. ‘Oh my,’ she whispered that first time. As she ran the peach along her cheek and over her mouth, she couldn’t resist taking a bite. All the other Old Mermaids did the same. They gasped as the juice went down their chins. And they laughed. It was the finest fruit they ever had. Since then they hardly ever ate any other fruit. If it was out of season, they waited. Old Mermaids are very patient, even when they are impatient. Sissy Maggie Mermaid explained all this to Carlos. As she talked she noticed he had a little peach fuzz on his cheeks. She wanted to rub her cheek against his, but she felt a bit awkward. After all, she was an Old Mermaid and he was a young tile maker. She wasn’t quite certain how that would work.

“On Carlos’s last day, Sissy Maggie Mermaid decided to let him know how she felt. Well, Sissy Maggie Mermaid was artistic, as you know, but she was not always good at expressing herself verbally. She made a peach tile--this peach tile--and then she tried to break it in two so that she could give Carlos one half and she’d keep the other.”

“Like two halves of a single heart,” Trevor said.

“Exactly,” Myla said. “As you can see, it didn’t quite break in two. When Carlos was leaving, Sissy Maggie Mermaid ran out to give him the broken tile. She kept the little piece for herself. She held it out to him, and said, ‘This is how I feel about you.’

“As you may have guessed, Carlos was an artisan. To him, a broken tile was a broken tile. It was shoddy work. He held up the tile and said, ‘This is how you feel about my work?’ ‘No, no, not about your work,” Sissy Maggie Mermaid. Carlos dropped the tile into the wash and walked away. And that’s where I found it, right where Carlos had dropped it. Or near enough. The bottom of a wash is like the bottom of the sea. Things shift. Anyway, Sissy Maggie Mermaid was stunned and a bit peeved. She pulled the smaller piece of tile out of her pocket and threw it into the wash. A legend grew up around this broken tile. Can you imagine what they believed would happen if someone found both pieces?”

Trevor said, “That they’d find true love?”

“Okay, that’s good, but no, the legend was that if someone found both pieces a good tile maker was in their future.”

James and Trevor laughed.

“What about Sister Maggie Mermaid?” Trevor asked. “Was she brokenhearted for long?”

“Oh no,” Myla said. “You know what Old Mermaids say about love, don’t you?”

She paused. Trevor shook his head.

“There are always more fish in the Old Sea,” she said. When the laughter subsided, she added, “And the other Old Mermaid endeavored to teach Sister Magdelene Mermaid how to communicate more directly. In the sea, the Old Mermaids didn’t talk much. A little wiggle of the tail here, a little wink and a nod there. But on land, they had to learn to be more direct. In a charming way, of course.”

Trevor reached into his pocket and pulled out some money. He slipped it into the cigar box.

“It’s just what I needed,” he said. “I’ll be direct with her, in a charming way.”

Myla laughed. James winked at her, and the father and son moved away to set up their chairs.

And so the day went. At one point, Myla looked up and thought she saw David Thomas Crow for a split second. Then he was gone. She chuckled. Had she conjured up his lookalike because she had been thinking of him earlier?

For lunch, Trevor brought Myla vegetal tacquitos from Maya Quetzal.

“These are the best tacquitos I have ever tasted,” Myla said. “I think you must have asked Sandra to do something special to them to make them so tasty, Trevor.”

“I told her one of your stories,” Trevor said. “That spiced up the food.”

Near the end of the day when most everyone had wandered away, Dolores’s husband Bob came up to the table. He put his index finger on the Mariners ticket.

“Do you have a story about the ticket?” he asked.

“I can’t quite remember it yet,” Myla said. “But it will come back to me. What about you?”

“My college roommate’s name was Robert too,” he said. “When we first met, he decided I would be Bob and he would be Robert. He didn’t really like Robbie. Or Bobby. So he became Robert. Which made him sound a little stuffy. But he wasn’t stuffy. I was. I told him it should be the other way around, but he insisted. He told me I’d grow into it.” He laughed, quietly. “I don’t think I ever did. Maybe when I was around him. He saw things differently than most other people. We went to a baseball game together not long ago. Someone had hit a line drive and Ichiro--yes, it was a Mariners game--Ichiro caught it. It was the third out, so Ichiro tossed the ball to an outfielder, the way they do as they all run off the field toward the dugout. That slow run. And as Robert watched Ichiro, he said, ‘He’s so beautiful.’ I laughed at him. But he said, ‘Look at him. He’s relaxed. He’s completely in his body. It’s beautiful to watch him. He’s always right there, in the game.’ I watched until Ichiro disappeared into the dugout. And Robert was right. It was beautiful. Robert was like that, like Ichiro, at least most of the time. He was present in his life.” Bob picked up the ticket. “I don’t mean he was perfect. He wasn’t. He drank too much. He cheated on his wife. But he wasn’t cruel.”

Bob was silent. Trevor cleared his throat and then said, “That date. Does it mean something to you? Was that the game you went to see with him?”

Bob looked over at him, kind of dazed. “What? No.” He shook his head. “No, it’s the day he died.”

Dolores came and stood next to him.

Myla nodded. “The Old Mermaids sometimes played baseball. They did. I know it’s difficult to believe. As you can imagine it was a bit tricky with all the prickly things growing around them in the desert. You have to really pay attention when you’re playing ball in the desert.”

Bob smiled but kept looking at the baseball ticket.

“They played in the wash, mostly,” she said. “They liked games. They’re a playful lot, the Old Mermaids. They liked baseball because it’s not a fast paced game. They couldn’t hurry anyway, especially when chasing the ball through the cactus, mesquite, and palo verde. The best player was Sister Faye Mermaid. You remember her. She knew more about plants, animals, and the ways to talk to the wind and the earth and the clouds and the sun than you could shake a stick at. I’ve never been sure what that expression means, but you get the idea. She knew a great deal. She was organized. She understood methodology. She was very focused. And that was exactly what made her a good baseball player. It wasn’t because her head was in the game, as they say. But her entire being was in the game. Whatever she was doing, she was there: mind, body, and soul. Or however you want to split it up. She was there. Once, a neighbor of the Old Mermaids stopped by to borrow a cup of sugar. This particular neighbor could get irritated if the sun was shining one day and the next day be irritated because it was finally raining. Sister Faye Mermaid irritated her most of all. Sister Faye Mermaid was the only one around on this particular day, so the Old Neighbor had to ask her for the sugar.

“‘We only have honey,’ Sister Faye Mermaid said. ‘I’ll get you a cup of that.’ And she went into the pantry to get her some honey. This annoyed the neighbor. Who knows why? Just then, Sister Sheila Na Giggles Mermaid walked through the kitchen. ‘Well, hello,’ Sister Sheila Na Giggles said to the neighbor. ‘How are you this fine day?’ ‘Oh, I wish you had been here when I arrived,” the old neighbor said. “Sister Faye Mermaid won’t get me any sugar!’ Sister Sheila Na Giggles Mermaid said, ‘We don’t have any sugar.’ ‘Exactly,’ Old Neighbor said, ‘but oh, she’s just so full of herself! I can’t stand it.’ Sister Sheila Na Giggles Mermaid frowned. ‘I’m confused, Old Neighbor. Who should she be full of if not herself?’ Sister Faye Mermaid returned with a cup of honey for the neighbor. ‘Enjoy,’ she said. ‘This honey was made by the finest desert bees. The finest! They made this honey just for you. You and their babies, but you will do. It’s great medicine. And it’ll taste good in your cookies. Have a grand day.’ The neighbor took the honey and stalked away, madder than a hornet.”

Bob nodded. “Yep, Robert was full of himself.”

“I don’t know anything about your friend Robert except what you’ve told me,” Myla said, “but maybe he took the name Robert because he wanted to be more like you, not because he thought you should be more like him.”

Dolores said, “Bob is full of himself, too.” She smiled and patted his arm. “That’s a good thing.”

Bob looked up from the ticket. He reached into his pocket, pulled out some money, and put it in the cigar box. “He used to tell me he wanted to be more like me, but I couldn’t imagine that was true.” He dropped the ticket into his shirt pocket. “Thanks. This is just what I needed.”

Myla held out her hand to him, and he shook it. “Nice to meet you, Bob. I’m Myla. I hope to see you again.”

“I’m looking forward to it,” he said. He and Dolores linked arms and walked away.

Late in the afternoon when Myla decided it was time to leave, Trevor returned the chair to the bookstore while she began putting the few remaining items back into the boxes. She folded the oil cloth and slipped it into the side of one of the boxes.

“I don’t know how you do this week after week, Myla,” James said as he turned over the table and began unlocking the legs and pushing them down. “It’s just wonderful.”

“I’ve been telling you for years that I’m not doing anything,” she said. “It’s the beauty of the Old Mermaids flowing through me.”

“I’m starting to believe you,” James said. “I remember you told me once you studied to be a teacher. Why didn’t you ever teach?”

“I don’t know. My ex and I started the business. Then after the divorce, the Church of the Old Mermaids was born, and the rest is...mystery!”

James laughed. Myla smiled.

“Do you remember when I first started coming?” James asked. “I was so angry about my divorce.”

“You listened to me for one afternoon, and then you came up and told me I was making these stories up.”

He smiled.

“I thought you were some kind of charlatan,” he said. “A trickster.”

“And now?”

“You’re a trickster all right,” he said.

“I don’t remember what you needed that first day,” she said.

James laughed. “Yes, you do!”

She grinned.

“After practically accusing you of stealing from people,” James said, “I looked around and saw there was nothing on the table I needed.”

Myla nodded. Trevor came out of the store and stood with them. Myla put her arm around his waist as he stood next to her.

“I agreed with you,” Myla said. “Then I reached over and took a hair from your shirt.”

“And you said, ‘You don’t need anything from the church because you already have everything you need. See, you’re even wearing a reminder of that on your shirt.’ And you handed me this long black hair. Your hair was very long when you were seven years old, Trevor.”

“I remember,” he said.

“I took the hair from you and looked at it,” James said. “And I knew it was Trevor’s hair, and I knew you were right. I had everything I needed. I think I started to cry.”

“Just a few tears,” Myla said. “The next week, you brought Trevor to the Church of the Old Mermaids.”

“And I put the hair in this,” he said, pulling on a string around his neck until it came out of his shirt. At the bottom of it was a tiny glass vial, like a pendant on a necklace. “To remind me of what was important when he wasn’t around.”

“He put one of my baby teeth in there, too,” Trevor said.

Myla nodded. They had shared this story before, and it was good to hear it again.

“That scared away women for a long time,” Trevor said. “Thank goodness he’s got a girlfriend now. Maybe he’ll put her hair in the vial now.”

James laughed. “Now that seems a little weird, son.”

Gail’s car pulled up to the curb. The back popped open. James carried the table to the car, and Trevor lifted the boxes into the back. Gail waved to them from inside the car. Myla thanked them. Trevor leaned over and kissed her check.

“I needed a little sugar today. Thanks, Trevor. See you boys next week.”

Myla got into the car, she waved, and Gail pulled the car out into traffic.

Read the whole tale here...

Mermaid in the Pool

“Can I say good night to the mermaid in the pool?” Lily asked.

“I’ll take you out,” Myla said. “We don’t want you to go out to see the Old Mermaid in the pool without one of us going with you.”

“Why?”

“Because the water is deep,” Maria said.

“The Old Mermaids said they would teach me to swim,” Lily said.

“Oh really?” Maria asked.

“The Old Mermaids come to me in my dreams. And they’re teaching me.”

“Well, we’d feel better if you only went out to the pool to see the mermaid with one of us,” Myla said. “And don’t ever try to swim without one of us there, even if the Old Mermaids have taught you to swim.”

Lily nodded. “Okay.”

The girl took Myla’s hand, and they walked through the living room out to the patio. The pool light was the only illumination. The two of them walked to the edge of the pool and looked down at the mermaid. After a few moments, Lily began nodding, as if she were listening to someone speak.

Myla sat near the edge of the pool. Lily sat next to her.

“What are you listening to?” Myla asked.

“The Old Mermaids,” she said.

“Oh? What are they saying?” Myla asked.

“Not to be afraid,” Lily said. “They sing to me while I sleep.”

“What kind of song?”

“A not-be-afraid song,” Lily said.

“That’s good,” Myla said. “Then you probably don’t need what they left in the wash for you.”

“What is it?” Lily asked.

Myla carefully took the dreamcatcher earring from her pocket. She handed it to Lily.

“This is called a dreamcatcher, Lily my Lily,” Myla said. “If you put it in your room, it’ll take away all the bad dreams. A Native American healer gave one like it to the Old Mermaids when they first came to the sanctuary. It was all new to them, and some of them were afraid. Sister Laughs A Lot Mermaid, who was the youngest, had bad dreams. When the medicine man gave her this dreamcatcher, the bad dreams went away.”

Lily nodded solemnly.

“Sometimes when I open my eyes in the dark, I see it all moving,” Lily whispered.

“What’s moving?” Myla asked.

Lily whispered, “Everything. Like when we crossed the river. The water pulled on me. And there were flashes of light in it. I couldn’t keep a hold of Momma’s hand.”

“That must have been very scary,” Myla said. “Have I told you much about Grand Mother Yemaya Mermaid?”

“A little.”

“Well, she is the wisest of wise,” Myla said. “She is one of the ones who is a moon beauty, like your great grandmother. And her skin is as dark as night. Darker. She is so grand that she had two tails before the Old Sea dried up.”

“The Old Mermaids don’t have tails any more?” Lily asked.

“Well, that’s a good question,” Myla said. “They do and they don’t. If you were to see them most days, you would not see a tail. You would see only their legs. But other times, if the light is just right or if you are a bit sleepy, you might be able to see the glitter of their tales--as though they are wearing beautiful gowns--with flashes of color and light. In a good way, not like your scary flashes. And if you wake up and the darkness frightens you, remember Grand Mother Yemaya Mermaid is there with you. She is the darkness that protects you. Those flashes of color and light are just her mermaid tails.”

from Church of the Old Mermaids

African Mermaid from the American Museum Natural History's Mythic Creature Exhibit showing through January 2008.

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Thirteenth Mermaid

Myla hurried toward the double green doors, the ones she had come through last night. To the right of the path in a place that would have been in darkness last night was a fountain. No fish leaped from the water and spouted water. Instead an earth-colored mermaid seemed to float above the water, at the center of the fountain. She held her hands open at her sides—almost as though she was bestowing a blessing—and water poured from the palms of her hand.

Myla turned to the three women.

“Tell me about this place,” Myla said.

“Grandma Susannah came out here to work," Sister Beatrice said. "But she and Grandpa Juan fell in love. He was part Native and part Spanish. His father owned the land all around here. He bequeathed part of it to Juan, who was his illegitimate son, and he and your grandmother got married.”

“It was all very romantic,” Sissy Maggie said.

“And probably a little dangerous,” Sister Beatrice said. “He built this hacienda for Susannah. She sometimes missed Ireland and the sea, so they mixed the sea and the desert together here. You’ll see little sea creatures and mermaids all over the house.”

“The villagers used to tell stories about Susannah,” Sister Rose said. “They said she was a mermaid from Ireland. She was the thirteenth mermaid in her sisterhood of mermaids. A bad man captured her and took her away from her home to the United States. The story goes that she wreaked havoc on him and his family, and then she ran away and came here, where she fell in love with your grandfather.”

from Old Mermaid Sanctuary

The painting is Forbidden Universe by Magritte

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Beans, Beans, We're Mermaid Queens...

"A good bean is hard to find. Everything else is easy."
—Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid

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Home?

Before Myla could say anything, Felipe rang the bell just above the doors. A moment later a light came on. Myla heard someone singing or humming or mumbling. Then both doors opened and a woman with bushy white hair stood with a hand on each door. She was dressed in a dark blue or purple nightdress. She looked at Myla.

“Well, hello, Sister Myla,” the woman said in Spanish. “We’ve been expecting you. Welcome home.”

The woman came toward Myla and put her hand on her back as a way of leading her forward.

“Thank you, Felipe,” the woman said.

Myla and the woman walked over the threshold. The woman turned back to close the doors, and then continued up the dark path. Myla heard the car drive away.

“I’m Sister Beatrice,” she said. “The others are asleep. I’ll show you to your room, and we can talk in the morning after you have a good night’s sleep.”

Myla had so many questions. She didn’t know where to begin.

“Do you have a telephone I can use?” Myla asked. “My--” She didn’t know what to call David, George, Lily, Juan, Maria, etc. “My friends might be worried about me.”

“Of course,” Sister Beatrice said.

They walked up onto a long porch. Myla had a sense that a courtyard was on her left, the house on her right. Sister Beatrice opened a door, and they walked into a large open room, with adobe walls with a viaga beamed ceiling. A low overhead light lit the couches and chairs that faced each other in a square. A half finished game of solitaire covered part of a large wooden coffee table in the middle of the square. To their left a ways was a huge rectangular wooden table with many wooden chairs around it. A runner with a colorful zig-zag pattern lay across it, looking like an artistic lightning strike. Behind it was a book case with a telephone on the top shelf. Beyond the table was darkness, and, Myla presumed, the kitchen.

“There’s the telephone,” Sister Beatrice said. “Let me show you your room. Then you can phone. It is long past my bedtime. I have to get my staying alive sleep.”

Myla followed the woman down a long corridor. They passed several doors, each a different color: red, blue, maroon, green. Sister Beatrice stopped at a New Mexican blue sky door. On it was a ceramic heartshaped tile. A mermaid held in her hands the letters “MA.” Her tail made the V of the heart.

“That’s your room, dear,” Sister Beatrice said. “I wasn’t sure if you’d remember. I’ll see you in the morning.”

The woman kissed her cheek. Then, humming, she went to the end of the hallway, her long nightdress flowing behind her, as though a wind was blowing it. She turned the corner and disappeared.

from Old Mermaid Sanctuary

Read the whole tale here...

Taking A Walk

I was longing for a walk in the wash with Myla and Lily, and I thought you might enjoy it too. This section comes from Church of the Old Mermaids. Myla found Lily and her mother Maria in the desert after they had crossed the border and gotten lost. She brought them back to the Old Mermaid Sanctuary. In this scene, Myla walks the wash and picks up trash in the desert. With each piece she finds comes a story about the Old Mermaids.

Lily reached up for Myla’s hand as her mother and Theresa drove away.

“Do you want to look for treasure in the wash with me?” Myla asked.

Lily nodded, although Myla guessed she did not know what Myla meant. Myla picked up the plastic bag and the ruby-colored bag from the picnic table on her porch and put them over her shoulder.

“First, the desert is very prickly,” Myla said, “so you need to watch where you are going. You need to pay careful attention. Can you do that?”

“Yes,” Lily said. “We have prickles where we live too.”

“Of course,” Maria said. “Let me see your shoes. Those are good. All right. Let’s go.”

They walked across the drive and stepped into the wash. As they went by the house, Myla glanced inside. She had not seen David since Sunday. She hoped he was doing well. Maybe he was avoiding her. Maybe all that talk about her being a naked mermaid had embarrassed him. She smiled and turned back to the wash. She was beginning to sound like Theresa. The world did not revolve around her. She probably hadn’t seen David because he was not around—not because of anything to do with her.

“Is this where the Old Mermaids live?” Lily asked.

“Well, Lily,” Myla said. “They did live all around here. This used to be an ocean. Do you know what an ocean is? The sea?”

Lily nodded.

“Long ago this was the sea,” Myla said, “and all kinds of creatures swam in the sea.”

“Mermaids too?”

“That’s what some people believe,” Myla said.

“Look at the red bird!”

“That’s a cardinal. Isn’t he beautiful? His mate is around here somewhere. She isn’t quite as colorful.”

“Do the Old Mermaids have fathers and husbands?”

They came to a wide stretch of the wash. Up ahead was the log and the orange rope.

“You know, Lily,” Myla said, “I’ve been asked that question before. I wish I had an answer, but I don’t really know yet.”

“When will you know?” Lily looked up at her.

“Maybe I’ll just remember one day,” Myla said.

Lily let go of her hand and ran ahead to the orange rope.

“Look,” Lily said. “A treasure!”

Lily started pulling on the rope, but it wouldn’t come loose. She stopped and looked at it, her face smooth with concentration. A few moments later she began unwinding the rope from the log. Soon it was free. Lily wrapped it around her waist.

“Will you tie it?” Lily asked. Myla squatted and tied the rope loosely but firmly to the girl.

Lily danced around Myla and swung the end of the rope back and forth.

“Now you,” Lily said.

“What do you mean?”

“Tie it to you.”

“Darlin’, there’s not enough to go around my waist.”

Lily grabbed her left hand. “Here! I’ll tie it here.”

Myla let Lily tie the rope to her wrist; Lily had not quite figured out the art of the knot, so Myla held it with her closed fingers when it started to slip off.

“There! Now we can’t get separated,” Lily said.

“Like your momma and you did in the river?” Myla asked.

Lily nodded. “And in the desert.”

Myla frowned. “When did you get separated from your mother in the desert?”

“You know,” Lily said. “You were there. Can I have this rope or do the Old Mermaids need it?”

“You may have it,” Myla said. “The Old Mermaids left all these things as gifts for us. They don’t need them any longer.”

“Was this their rope?” Lily asked.

“I can’t be certain,” Myla said. “But I think this is the rope Sister Laughs A Lot used to tie the crow so it wouldn’t try to fly away.”

“Why?”

“Well, it happened when they first got here,” Myla said, “when the Old Sea first dried up, and they didn’t quite have their land legs.”

“What are land legs?”

“They weren’t swimming in the Old Sea any more,” Myla said. “They had to get accustomed to solid ground. It was different than the Old Sea, you know. One day, Sister Laughs A Lot Mermaid found a crow outside the house. Actually, it wasn’t quite a house yet. The Old Mermaids were still building it, with the help of some neighbors. They used mud and straw and stone—all materials from the old dried sea. As they built the house, they let the mud and straw and stone tell them stories. They listened to what the cacti and coyotes and crows had to say too. The neighbors had more stories. The stories made the work easier, and the house seemed to like the stories. It shaped itself beautifully around them and this land. It was a piece of art. The Old Mermaids had tile in the kitchen and bathroom and in funny places in the walls all over the house, so you might look here and see a flower blooming from the tile or you might look there and see a cardinal flying. They painted scenes from the Old Sea on the walls. And scenes from the mountains. Valleys. The desert. These paintings on the walls were so realistic, Lily, that you would swear you could walk right into them and keep on going. Everyone liked to be invited to the Old Mermaid Sanctuary because it was so beautiful. Many people—even to this day—swear the house was alive. And it was a happy house. Care was taken with every bit of it. The Old Mermaids even asked the land before they built the house where would be the best place.”

“And the land answered?”

“It did,” Myla said. “The place answered. The Old Mermaids could feel where the house should be, where the house wanted to be. And they talked to the plants and animals all around and asked to be welcomed to this place. They intended no harm. So Sister Laughs A Lot Mermaid found the crow outside as they were finishing up the house. Sister Bridget Mermaid was working on getting water with Sister Sheila Na Giggles Mermaid while Sister Ruby Rosarita Mermaid and Sister Sheila Mermaid finished up work on the bathroom and Sister Maggie Mermaid painted the front room with Sister DeeDee Lightful. Sister Faye Mermaid helped plant the garden with Sister Bea Wilder Mermaid. And the others were around, too, doing their share. You’re being very patient, Lily, since I have wandered all around this crow who didn’t fly away when Sister Laughs A Lot Mermaid walked toward him. And it was a him. He strutted a bit more than the female crows Sister Laughs A Lot Mermaid had seen. Plus he had a deep voice.”

Lily laughed. “That’s silly!”

“Yes, but it’s true.”

Read the whole tale here...

Myla Arrives...

Myla got into the backseat with Catalina. Gilberto drove the car around the Grupo Beta bus and soon they were in near darkness, heading down some unfamiliar road.

Myla had never driven at night in Mexico. It just wasn’t something most people across the border did. It was so dark, and the ride was bumpy. She didn’t care. For a while she listened to Felipe, Gilberto, and Catalina talk about the border crossing, getting caught by la migra, and their families. Then Myla felt a little queasy, and she closed her eyes and fell to sleep.

She woke up when the car stopped. Felipe opened the door for her, and she stepped out into the fresh air that smelled vaguely of mesquite smoke.

“Here it is,” Felipe said. “The Alvarez Sanctuario.”

It was pitch dark, except for the dim beam from the headlights of the car that fell across two wooden doors like a shaft of moonlight. A sign hung crockedly above the doors. Myla walked up to the sign, so she could read it:

“Welcome to the Old Mermaid Sanctuary.”

—from the first draft of The Old Mermaid Sanctuary, about 2/3rds through the book

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Morning Walk

The Old Mermaids are soul sisters with the Faeries, I'm sure, so I thought you might enjoy this poem written by Mario Milosevic.

Morning Walk

Her bent paperclip cane,
forgotten by the doll house.

I sprint outside, tiny staff
held between thumb and forefinger.

Call her name. Listen for
a reply. None comes. But a

wren fills the air with her
song. An eagle, circling above,

bows its head in devotion.
I forget how sometimes this fairy

needs only the sound
of the world for support.

—Mario Milosevic

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A New Old Mermaid Sanctuary

Angela Roberts at Nine Ravens has created her own Old Mermaid Sanctuary, and she talks about it (and has more pics) in her post Connections and Inspirations. It's just so lovely. I hope you'll go visit her and be inspired to create your own—and let us know about it. Thanks, Angela! (And thanks to Joanna and Angela for letting me know about it.)

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