Sea Maidens

“I was in love once,” Murphy said, “when I was too young to know better. I was working in the Sea of Cortez and our ship went aground. We went to land for a time. I wandered around just as you have been and I met one of the local girls. She was beautiful. But it was more than that. Something about her eyes and the way she was in the world. I can’t explain it. I loved her the moment I saw her. How does anyone explain these things? I didn’t see her often. She would come and be with me and then disappear for days at a time. So one day I followed her.”

“Without her knowing?”

“Without her knowing,” he said. “I lost sight of her for a moment and then I saw her swimming away from shore. I stayed there, waiting for her for a long time, but she didn’t come back. I fell to sleep. When I woke up, I saw her and her sisters on the beach up a ways from me. I got closer to them, without them seeing. They were naked, you understand, so it was only natural I’d want to see more of them.”

Sara laughed.

“In the sand I saw their clothes,” he said. “At least that’s what I thought they were. They were shiny and glittery. Like nothing I had seen up to then—and only once since. When the women had their backs to me, I grabbed the cloth that was nearest my lady love. This gave me away. The other women cried out and grabbed their dresses. Only they weren’t dresses. They wrapped them around their waists, and I can’t be certain, luv, but it seemed I saw a flash of tails as they each dove into the water. Every one of them except my love. I knew the stories of the red cap. I knew about the sealskin women. I knew that if I kept a hold of this beautiful thing I held in my hands, my love would be mine forever.”

Sara looked over at him. 

He nodded. “Yes, I knew what would happen. I wanted her so much, Sara. I thought my life depended upon her being a part of my life.”

“What did you do, O’Murphy?”

“She held out her hand to me,” Murphy said. “And I returned to her what was hers. She kissed me. Then she bent over and picked up the most beautiful shell I’ve ever seen—tiny and shaped in a spiral—and she said, ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ I shook my head. She pressed the seashell into my hand. ‘Whenever you find a seashell it means a mermaid has found her tail and is free again.’ And then she dove back to the sea and swam away. I never saw her again.”

—from The Fish Wife: an Old Mermaids Novel

Artwork: "Sea Maidens" by Evelyn de Morgan (1885)

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River Maiden

River maidens stared up at Sara from their watery homes. When Juan stood beside her and saw them, too, she knew he was a kindred spirit.

She said, “You can always tell a river maiden from a human woman. If some piece of a woman’s clothing is almost always wet, then she is most likely born of the sea or the river or the lake.”

Juan touched her sleeve. His fingers came away wet. “You mean like this?” he asked.

“Aye,” she answered. —The Fish Wife

Artwork: "A Mermaid" (1901) by John William Waterhouse.

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The Fish Wife: an Old Mermaids Novel

I am very pleased to announce the publication of my new novel, The Fish Wife: an Old Mermaids Novel. Like Church of the Old Mermaids and The Blue Tail, The Fish Wife takes place in the Old Mermaids universe where great magic and great heartbreak is possible. I hope you enjoy this book as much as I loved writing it. This is from the back cover:

The women got closer to the water or the water got closer to them. In the semi-darkness, a wave of light filtered through the storm, and the beach shuddered and shimmered. Suddenly Sara saw the women for what they truly were, saw their tails gleam and glimmer, and she looked down and saw her own true self. A gust of wind unsteadied her and snatched her cap from her head. She broke from the line of sea women and tried to run after her hat; only she couldn’t run at first, so she shook off the part of her that was of the sea, as though it was a skirt she no longer needed. She saw the red of the cap bouncing down the beach and she ran after it. She couldn’t lose the hat, especially not minutes after her mother entrusted it to her. Someone grabbed her arm and pulled her away from the roar of the ocean. “I have your red cap,” the man said. “I know what that means.”

An ancient Irish curse holds Sara in its grip: Cormac MacDougal steals her red cap which means she must become his fish wife or she and her unborn child will die. One night she can bear her life no longer, and she seeks out her true love, Ian McLaughlin. When she finds him in the arms of her sister, she calls on the forces of nature to destroy all that she loves. She flees the village with Cormac before anyone discovers the truth. She risks everything on a perilous ocean journey away from the only home she has ever known. She struggles to remember the old ways, to conjure up the magic of her ancient mer ancestors. She washes up on the shore of a new world where she encounters the goddess Yemaya, a Vodou priestess, a shapeshifting lord of the manor, and the Old Mermaids. In this strange and beautiful realm, Sara works to build a new life. But has she outrun the curse, or will it finally be her undoing? print . kindle . nook . smashwords

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The Fish Wife: 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 Fish Wife, 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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