original fiction by Mary Catelli • “Slowly, a head rose above the water: a regal woman, her black hair streaming down like a wave. Though she was as naked as the other mermaids otherwise, a crown of gold and pearls rested on her head. She rose up to contemplate her subjects.”
THE DRUNKEN MERMAIDS
by Mary Catelli
copyright © 2007 / May not be reproced without permission
* * *
Morning came, despite the storm, but Colin knew it only from the light slowly increasing. He ached from clinging to the rock, his sodden clothing was growing stiff from salt, and he was so weary that the stone felt like a pillow. The squall had subsided, but the rock was still slippery, from rain and seaweed. He tried not to think of the men who had gone down with the ship.
Despite his weariness, his parched mouth kept him awake. He tried to swallow, and the pain of that stirred him. He pushed off the rock. Without the waves battering at him, he could stand.
The islet was made of the nondescript gray stone. A ring of dreary seaweed lay about the high tide mark, and more scattered where the squall had tossed it. All about, the sunrise painted the waters delicate shades of pink, yellow, and orange; only the faintest of breezes made it ripple. The skies above were filled with puffy clouds, like brilliantly colored angel feathers. Colin swallowed again and turned his head. The wreckage of the Golden Gull was still visible: wood piled up on the shore, and bodies among them. The cargo was visibly leaking. Wine, rum, and brandy all spilling, the wine coloring the sea red — the fishes were no doubt as drunk as lords — but he could drink some of that wine.
The wine-dark sea, thought Colin, as his limbs slowly came back to life. It was a pity that Uncle Archibald would never hear how his nephew had indeed listened.
He staggered to his feet. A moan sounded, barely audible over the faint breeze. Colin blinked and looked about. He had survived, after all; someone else might have.
Another rock shifted and proved to be a sailor in rags, his face weather-beaten and his hair salt-and-pepper. The man leaned on the nearest outcropping. It took Colin a minute to place him: Ned Edwards.
“Ned?”
The sailor looked up. He shielded his eyes with his hands. “Young Colin Fairington,” he announced. Colin glanced at the rocks and took a step toward him, but Ned managed to walk without his aid. “A midshipman, on his first sea voyage.”
Colin wondered if the sailor had been hit on the head during the wreck.
“Listen to an old salt, young Master Fairington: stick to me like glue, ’cause we’re each other’s proof that we aren’t pirates.”
Ned babbled on, about how the pirates so often marooned unpopular captains or sailors who violated their articles, that they were called marooners, but Colin took in little more than every third word. He scanned the horizon. The colors were still vivid and delicate, and uninterrupted by any sign of ships. He scowled.
“We should see if we can fetch some wine from the wreck,” he said. “Or maybe even water, which would be better.” Ned peered at him. “And then we could set some of the wreckage ablaze, as a signal.”
Ned cackled with laughter. “You don’t ’magine that any ship’s sailing near enough to see it — or you wouldn’t ’magine if you weren’t a young pup with no sense. They ain’t sailing near these rocks.” He gestured about.
“Well, then,” said Colin, “we aren’t going to be taken for pirates, are we?”
Ned gave him a sour look.
As if anyone would take us for pirates with a shipwreck beside us, though Colin, but quarreling would not wet his throat. He headed down to the wreck. The sea had tossed up a wine barrel. It lay in a sandy nook and leaked about the spigot. Colin held out his hands to catch the wine and drank it down. It seemed to not reach his stomach, but be drawn into his parched mouth. It also seemed to restore his wits: he turned on the spigot and drank from it, splashing the sand with red.
* * *
The wood lay piled up, higgledy-piggledy. Colin stood in the shade of it and looked at the barrels behind the beams. The waves had carried away the food and the water, but not all of the ship’s cargo.
Four hands might shift those beams, thought Colin, but he had more wine — the weakest vintage he could find — than he could readily move as it was. He should get the barrels higher on the islet before the tide came in.
Picking his way out through the stone, he came upon a smaller barrel: brandy. He looked at it a moment, remembering Christmas dinners with lighted brandy, and took up the barrel under his arm.
He emerged. The sea gulls leapt up, screaming wildly, from the bodies they had been pecking at. Colin shuddered and turned to the barrels. He had little else to distract him. He picked one up and headed up. As he passed the sand, he saw footprints not his, next to the barrel he had drunk from, coming to it and leading away from it.
“Conscientious little fellow, aren’t you?” said Ned, as Colin lugged the first barrel onto the higher rock. “Doing your best for your masters.”
Colin shrugged. “Won’t make much difference to them.” He grinned. “Unless the insurance finds out and declares that being drunk by a ship-wrecked sailor is not covered.”
“They ain’t gonna find out, pup,” said Ned.
Colin shrugged again and went down to heave up more. He did not want to lose his evidence that he was not a pirate, he thought with a grin. The sea gulls screamed again, and the grin faded. Not to mention that he would go mad, alone with the corpses and the gulls, if Ned died of thirst.
At the last barrel of the six he would take — his arms ached as never before — he hefted it up and stopped, though it weighed in his arms. He thought he heard singing, and strange singing it was. After a moment, the wind shifted, the sound vanished, and not certain he had not imagined it, Colin plugged on, out of the wreck.
“Gotten all you’re getting?” said Ned.
“For now,” said Colin. “I even got cups.”
Ned snorted. “Not going to do any good, pup. You go around drinking wine, you’re going to end up thirsty.”
“Worse than going without? I got the weakest vintage I could.”
“Won’t last you long.”
“Well,” said Colin, “you don’t have to drink any. It will leave me more.” He sat. “It was strange. I heard singing —”
Ned snorted. Potent wine you have there, pup. You haven’t even drunk any of it yet.” He reached for the nearest spigot. Colin sat back against the stone. After a moment, Ned looked up from the wine cup. His expression was strange; baffled, Colin thought. “Very potent stuff — indeed. ’Cause I can hear ’em now.”
Colin held his breath, and the sound came clearly enough. He made out one phrase’s words: “Give me some time, to blow a man down.” He scowled. The old sea shanty, but the voices almost sounded feminine, and the sea still bore no ships.
The voices came again, more clearly.
“Come all ye young fellows that follows the sea,
“To me, way hey, blow the man down.
“Now please pay attention and listen to me.
“Give me some time to blow the man down.”
Slowly, Colin rose to his feet. Moments later, Ned got up. He shambled after as Colin headed down to the tiny beach.
* * *
Not only the fishes were drunk.
Colin stood, his hands on his hips. Not even Ned’s most cynical remarks about the potency of the wine could reach him, not when the wine-dark sea held mermaids frolicking, feminine forms and fish tails like an old salt’s yarn. He swallowed. Like a yarn told by an ancient salt in his cups. No one else would venture such a tale because no one would believe him, that he had actually seen the treacherous, seductive mermaids.
The mermaids sang a sea shanty in voices that belied the stories about their sweet singing. The false notes and coarseness might be the wine, he conceded. On the other hand, as a curious handful swam over, he noted that the old salts left out other things from their stories. The mermaids were not, in fact, all slim young maidens, or even buxom women, but all the way up to crones. One wrinkled old mermaid grinned toothlessly at him. He glanced away, and his gaze fell on one of the maiden ones. She smiled, tossing her blonde hair back from her naked body. Colin turned scarlet and looked away, out over the sea. Seductive — the old salts were not lying about that.
Seductive and treacherous, Colin reminded himself, for all that he could not steady his breathing. Fond of drowning men. For all that he could do nothing there but sit in the shade and drink wine, he ought to go back up the islet, to the rocks.
Ned hooted with mirth. “Should never have been a sailor, pup. The whores in any port will sport with you till you’re that color for life!” He faced the mermaids. “Lad’s on his maiden voyage!” he announced, and drew a roar of laughter.
“What’s the matter, pup?” repeated a mermaid. “Though I must say you are a fine figure of a young pup.” She swam out into his vision and smiled at him, flaunting her body. “All’s well that ends well, that’s what I always said,” she said, falling back and flourishing her greenish tail.
“You don’t always say that,” said one, snidely, drawing Colin’s attention back to the rest. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Ned watching them avidly. Even the old sailor, used to the whores in the ports, was allured by these creatures with fish tails.
“Yesh she does,” said another. She waved one pale hand in air. “Ash least — fig-ur-a-tive-ly.” She beamed for pride at remembering the word. The complaining mermaid snarled, and the air rang with drunken and angry complaints rather than song.
“You’re a fine one, pup,” said Ned. “Can’t be two men on the Earth who’d turn such fine ladies to quarreling, not when they could be paying heed to him.” He punched Colin lightly in the shoulder. “Live big!”
“Don’t you mean, die big?” said Colin. He wondered if the other sailors had drowned in the wreck, if mermaids had — assisted some of the others along. “Didn’t you get close enough to drowning last night?”
Ned, for a moment, looked serious. He took another swig from the barrel and glanced at how the sunlight glittered on the sea. “We should get some shade,” he muttered, and the two sailors went up the rocks again.
Their quarrel dying down, the mermaids’ voices came after them: “What shall we do with a drunken sailor? What shall we do with a drunken sailor?”
And the worst of it, thought Colin, was that they were not mocking him and Ned; they were just amusing themselves. He closed his eyes from a moment. He suspected that he knew why the sailors claimed that men would throw themselves into the waves after a singing mermaid.
Ned took a deep swig of wine as soon as they reached the barrels. “I suppose you’ll be talking about a raft next.”
Colin gave the wreck a wary glance. It might be possible at that, to get enough wood and fix it together.
Ned cackled with laughter. “No currents, pup, not that would drag you somewhere. And you’re not going to rig some sails — the cloth is gone.”
Oars, thought Colin, but Ned went on. “And that’s without reckoning on them. They don’t want you to leave, and a raft’s going to be easy for them.” He took another cup full of wine. “Nah, nothing for us but this island or them.” He scowled as he lifted his cup.
Colin fetched himself a cup without meeting Ned’s gaze.
* * *
The rocks offered little shade, and Ned drank steadily as the tide rose and fell again. Colin sat a rock over, drinking less, but his mouth would not permit him to abstain. He wished he could have found water. The mermaids sang on and on, with none of the charm that the old salts’ tale spoke of. More wine seeped out of the wreck as the waves bore the first of it away.
The sunset turned the ocean and sky into a fiery tapestry. Colin sighed. After all the work, he was bone-weary, and the rock felt comfortable, once again. He closed his eyes.
Ned slammed down the cup. Colin opened his eyes with a start, but the old salt did not glance at him. His gaze was on the waters of the wreck, where the mermaids were singing.
“My clothes are all in pawn,
“Go down you blood red roses, go down.”
“I’ve had it, pup,” Ned announced. “I’m going to die big.”
Colin tried to blink his sleep away, but his befuddled mind had barely managed to take in Ned’s declaration before the sailor was heading down to the sands.
“Go down you blood red roses, go down
“Oh you pinks and posies
“Go down you blood red roses, go down.”
Colin sat up, to see Ned silhouetted against the sunset, and calling to the mermaids. “All you fine ladies, I have — resist-ed your charms too long.” He spread his arms. “I ha’ come to — uncondish-onally surrender.”
Giggles spread from the waters. He’s drunk, thought Colin. He ran as Ned waded into the water, but when Colin reached the shore, two smiling mermaids had Ned, one by each arm. One pressed her naked body against him, eliciting a broad grin from the sailor, while the other eased off his shirt and reached for his belt. The other mermaids swarmed around, smiling. Several glanced at Colin, with beguiling sweetness in their faces; and as Ned, naked, was steered to deeper water, the youngest and most innocent looking — the one who had thrown back her hair for him that morning — extended her arms.
Drowning would be quicker than hunger, came his first thought, and the second thought said, Ned looks pleased with his reception. Colin bolted up the islet. A mermaid’s voice came melodiously after him, “Farewell and adieu to you, Spanish ladies,” and Colin shuddered. The mermaids, and Ned, laughed, and the songs continued to chase him: “From Ushant to Scilly is thirty-five leagues!”
Colin closed his eyes, but the writhing bodies formed just as clearly in his memory as before his eyes. He groaned.
* * *
After a long night on a rocky bed, with dreams to make him blush, Colin sat on the shore. A new body floated, deep in the waters.
“So much for proof that I am not a pirate,” he said, but even that piece of wit did not manage to raise his gloom.
The mermaids again sang of what to do with a drunken sailor and cast sidelong, admiring glances at him. Colin looked at the wood from the Golden Gull, up on the rocks, and wondered if it were possible to make a raft of it, whatever Ned said. He might be able to paddle to where a ship might find him. He walked off the beach. If the mermaids drowned him then, at least it would be while trying to escape and not in a drunken surrender.
Another quarrel broke out behind him, of who had driven him off, and who had let him escape the evening before. In spite of everything, Colin smiled.
* * *
The raft progressed steadily enough that, by noon, Colin wondered whether the currents would lead him anywhere useful, or if he could just die of thirst on the raft as well as on the islet. The mermaids had abandoned their quarrels and sang once again of blowing a man down.
The waters began to heave, as if the ocean itself were boiling. Drunk though they were, the mermaids stopped singing. Some even looked frightened and pulled back toward the shore.
Slowly, a head rose above the water: a regal woman, her black hair streaming down like a wave. Though she was as naked as the other mermaids otherwise, a crown of gold and pearls rested on her head. She rose up to contemplate her subjects. One mermaid dipped her head and murmured, “Your Most Oceanic Majesty,” and the others hurried to imitate her.
“Do you think you can thus set aside the report I have had of you?” She lunged forward, and the wave that followed was much larger than it should have been for a motion like that. Colin stepped back, quickly. The water lapped where he had stood; with this many mermaids about, he did not want to get in the ocean at all.
The Queen of the Mermaids did not seem to notice. Her gaze was only on her subjects. “Quarrels! Should I expect civil war to break out in my realm next? The entire ocean has rung with your squabbles! And as for your singing . . .” She sniffed. “I could declaim your allegiance, for no true mermaid sings so dreadfully, and you are making us the laughingstock of all beneath the waves.”
The Queen of the Mermaids, thought Colin, must control much of the sea. Even if only the mermaids obey her, she would be powerful.
“Shorry,” said one mermaid. The others looked away from the queen.
“As for your manners — I have seen every one of you in court. You have no excuse for your ignorance!”
“They’re drunk,” said Colin.
The queen looked at him, her eyes narrowing. Colin explained about the cargo. She looked at the wreck, drawing slightly farther away from it. “It is of limited size,” she murmured, scarcely louder than the lapping waves. “It will stop spilling in time.”
“I have more,” said Colin. “I can make it go on spilling wine for a long, long time.”
The queen’s face contorted. “What have we done to you?”
Murdered my proof I was not a pirate, Colin thought, with dark humor — but Ned’s being a fool did not make the mermaids less murderous. “You murdered the man with me; saving my life strikes me as only just return.”
The queen glanced at the other mermaids. One said, “There was another sailor on the rock. He joined us last night.”
Cascades of giggles came all around. “He was amusing,” said another mermaid.
“You’re amusing when you’re drunk,” said Colin.
The queen looked on the verge of rage. Colin met her gaze. This was no time to display any weakness. “On the other hand, I have a raft. If this evening your mermaids can draw me, on it, to Queensport, I would refrain from amusing myself.”
The Queen of the Mermaids smiled. It was not a pleasant smile. Colin managed to twitch his lips in response. Whatever her plans were, the risk could not be greater than staying here.
* * *
Colin warily floated the raft from the beach. He had brought down the barrels, and the setting sun was just beginning to tint the sky with yellow, but the mermaids could declare it evening at any time. He hurried to load the barrels aboard. Two of wine, to drink, and then four of brandy, and five of whisky. The raft bore them without riding too low in the water, and Colin added another one of wine.
The sun was turning all the west to the flame, and the moon hung in the east, in the rich blue of the sky.
“We shall tow this raft to Queensport!” said one mermaid, rising up about of the waves. Colin scrambled aboard, before they disclaimed any need to bring him, and the mermaids burst into cascades of giggles even as they surrounded the raft to tug it to sea. All young, lissome maidens, if you could ignore the tails; perhaps the older ones would not be strong enough.
One thing about the barrels, Colin thought. They shielded him enough from the mermaids’ seductive forms that he could remember their habits of drowning their lovers. He wriggled to the midst of the barrels.
He could almost hear the shrug in one mermaid’s voice. “To Queensport.”
* * *
Moonlight gleamed over the gentle swells, making a pattern of black and silver. Colin braced himself on the raft. He had labored all day to build that raft, but he could not sleep, not yet, not when the Queen of the Mermaids had smiled as she had, when he had offered his bargain. He had to sit up; if he lay down, he would sleep at once.
Then the ocean calmed about him, all the swells sinking to stillness. Colin was not surprised, even when all the mermaids let go. Their giggles were softer than whispers, but the sea was calm enough for him to hear. He reached out to take a barrel of brandy and put his hand about the spigot.
The Queen of the Mermaids smiled at him, not an arm’s reach from the raft. “I think this will suffice. You should be wary of making offers to queens, young pup.”
“Do you know what this is?” said Colin. He held out the barrel, and her smile faded away. “This is brandy. It is to wine as wine is to water. If I spill it now, you will be more drunk than any of your subjects. You will be the laughingstock of the ocean.”
Her eyebrows drew together. All about the mermaids swam closer, looking avidly at the barrel. The queen glanced at them. Her mouth thinned as she realized they would not just swim away if he spilled it.
She looked furious. Then, her subjects had sounded furious when they quarreled in the waters about the wreck. It did not mean that they persisted in their quarrels long. He inched the barrel farther out and moderated his voice. “Come along. Ensure that your subjects do not disgrace you.”
After a moment, she shrugged, as if the game was up, and gestured for her subjects to continue drawing the raft. Colin sat back. Fickle as water, you shall not excel, thought Colin, wryly.
* * *
The sky showed the faintest traces of gray in the black. The air took on the scents of flotsam and jetsam decaying on the beach, and plants. Colin felt, vaguely, the raft grinding ashore and heard, even less distinctly, the retreating whispers of the mermaids, but he did nothing more than lay his head down. Barrel of brandy’s an odd pillow, he thought but could manage nothing more before he slept.
* * *
Seagulls screamed. Colin woke with a jolt, to limbs stiffer than the day after the squall, sunlight beating down on a white sand beach, a bone-dry mouth, and shouts: “You! What are you doing there?”
Colin looked over. The uniforms had him put his hands in the air even before the soldiers pointed their guns at him. Behind the soldiers, a crowd gawked, from babies in their mother’s arms and little children peering beneath people’s arms, to old men hobbling from their shaded seats, from ragged beggars with signs advertising their ailments to merchants in brocade, too surprised by the sight to realize the company they were in.
Not as deserted as the islet, Colin thought.
* * *
Colin knew how little likely it was for a midshipman to stand in the governor’s residence; but then, the story he had to tell was strange; and the governor had received him in an office by the entrance, and not the grander rooms within. And the governor, like the rest of the island, had hoped that the shipment would arrive soon.
“Mermaids,” said the governor. “It couldn’t have been mermaids.” He gave Colin a baneful look that did not auger well for him if he insisted on his story.
They had not only given him all the water — sweet, sweet water — that he could drink, they had given him a bath to wash him clean of the salt, and Colin did not much care whether the governor believed him. “I suppose I was not the best of witnesses, Your Honor. There was only wine to drink, and I suppose I was tipsy most or all of the time.”
The governor looked relieved — and then he scowled.
“I would not, however, advise any man wrecked on that rock to put to sea on a raft and hope that the currents will bear him to Queensport.”
The governor’s scowl deepened.
No, there are not many explanations for how I escaped that islet, and none of them are plausible, thought Colin, amused. He looked innocently back at the governor. “I believe the owners’ recovery ship retrieved much of the brandy and wine from the wreck. I know that many of the barrels were intact when I — left. I told the owners so.”
The governor looked as if wondering whether, after all Colin had said, he should believe such a statement.
Colin thought of the barrels on his raft, which the governor had to have heard of. He said, “The ship sailed in to harbor this morning. The captain looked pleased.”
At that comment, the governor looked relieved. Colin tried to keep his face steady. The mermaids were not the only ones to lose their judgment over wine.
Mary Catelli’s story “The Drunken Mermaids” appears in the forthcoming Weird Tales #346, with original illustrations by Molly Crabapple.
May 11th, 2008 at 7:32 pm
Aside from an error or two, I really enjoyed this story. –Rayne