The Real Mermaid

~~~Four~~~

Whatever Grandma liked about Doctor Stein, Nya could not see it.

The tall, old man offering his hand to her looked businesslike and calculating, and there was a shrewd look in his green, disturbingly intelligent eyes.

"Just call me Frank, Nya," he enthused, beckoning her inside.

It had taken Nya an hour to walk to his white Victorian mansion perched on the chalk cliffs far beyond the town, removed from all noise and disturbance of humans, from the passage of time.

Nya simply nodded as she preceded him into the dark house, then stopped at the end of a narrow corridor lined with several stained-glass doors set in the walls on both sides, to wait for him to show her where she was supposed to go.

"Grandma said that you would help me," she forced herself to speak finally as he opened one of the doors, and she followed him down an iron spiral staircase, the bannister resembling the railing on the Palace Pier.

"Only if you want me to, Nya," he replied, his voice barely audibly above the clapping of their shoes on the iron steps.

"I do," she blurted out, despite her instinct telling her not to trust this man, warning her that he was not offering help out of the goodness of his heart. His help would not be free of charge. But even though she did not like him, it was obvious that he knew more than she did and that he had the means to help...

"We need to talk first. If I help you, I want something in return," he confirmed her suspicions as the staircase suddenly ended, leading them into a vast laboratory situated in a partly submerged cave whose air was filled with brine and the scent of the sea, meters under the house. "Welcome to my lair," the man said, spreading his arms theatrically, turning around.

Nya, trying to avoid his cold smile, followed his hands as they pointed around to tables laden with what looked like medical and scientific instruments, glass cases full of books, and shelves holding glass jars with some disturbing samples of sea life hovering in bluish liquid... And there was an empty, oversized fishbowl, big enough to contain a human, close to the water's edge.

She shuddered and swallowed uneasily before she said the first thing that popped into her mind. "This cave must get flooded with each high tide."

Doctor Stein laughed. "You don't think highly of me, Little Mermaid, do you? Of course, I can prevent the water from rising any higher than I want it."

"What... what did you call me?" Nya stammered, not interested anymore in how he kept the water out of this place.

The man sat on a chair, pointing at another for Nya to sit down, too. She dropped into it, burying her feet into the shingle covering the cave's floor. The familiarity of the tiny stones made her feel... safer from this... Sea Witch. The nickname was definitely fitting.

"That's what you are, Nya. Not pure, of course, even your mother was only one third..."

"Did you know Mum?" Nya interrupted him.

"She came to me for help, too. But, in the end, she did not have the courage to accept it. I haven't met many of your kind, so imagine how impatiently I have been waiting for you to make up your mind, girl."

"Why did you choose me?" she asked directly, impatient to have this interview over.

"Your mother was the only one of your kind whom I managed to persuade that she wasn't just a regular human. My decades' long research proves that you are not rare-- most of the ancient fishermen or sailors' families have members like you, the descendants of mermen... But the majority simply refuse to believe it. Those who refuse don't care. A rare few seem to want to act on this... infatuation with the sea..."

Nya's mind was reeling, struggling to process what he was telling her. But she already believed the Seaside Simian theory, and this man's words were simply taking that several steps further. Deciding to trust him on this blindly, she asked, "What do I need to do... to become one of them?"

"Clever girl," the Sea Witch purred. "I can give you a potion that will complete your evolution overnight. You'll be one of them in the morning."

Nya took a deep breath. "What will happen to me?"

"Not much, and it won't be painful at all. You won't grow a tail," the man chuckled as he saw the bewilderment in her eyes, "but you'll grow webbing between your fingers and toes. Your eyes will change, adapt to seeing perfectly in the water. You'll swim better. You'll be able to stay under, without coming to the surface to breathe, for up to twenty-four hours. Your lifespan will remain the same even though the mermen can live up to three hundred years; at least according to legends. You won't live that long. And... oh, you'll lose your voice, of course."

It seemed so... easy and tempting... and hypothetical, unbelievable, and unsafe. Nya observed the scientist as he walked across the laboratory towards one of the glass cases, the soft sound his feet made on the shingle intermingling with the whisper of waves lapping at the shore. Even as he came back, a tiny bottle filled with a shimmering blue liquid attached to a black leather thong in his hand, she asked, "What if... I'll decide to return?"

"Then you'll simply come back here," he said without hesitation, pointing to the water. "You'll find this place easily. Then I'll give you another potion, an antiserum if you prefer, and you'll change back."

"But...?" She pushed, her eyes boring into his, not trusting him. He was still to name his price.

"For the antiserum, I want you to bring one of the merpeople for me. It's been years since I've tried to catch them. I know they are down there-- I found strangely shaped spear tips in fish, scraps of otherworldly fabric they must use for clothes, unusual bones and objects made by them, I've seen drawings in submerged caves... But I have never seen one of them. Here..." he reached into his shirt pocket, passing Nya a small syringe filled with some golden fluid, protected by an oval glass case. "You'll need to stab one of them in the heart with this. The drug will paralyze them for hours, making it easy for you to drag them here. The moment you hand me the merman, I'll give you another potion, and you'll be able to return to your life."

Nya looked at him incredulously, then let her eyes stroll around the laboratory again, pausing for a while on the fishbowl. A merman in this man's hands would not live long... She shuddered but put the glass case in her bag even as he said, "It would finally give us the direct evidence we need... I'm sure you want to prove the theory as much as I do, Nya."

"Give me the potion, please," she said, resolved to deal with her confused thoughts and warring emotions later.