The Trewhella Curse

Chapter One

"There is a church in Zennor set upon a cliff that over looks the ocean. If you were to step into that church, you would find at the very back, hidden in shadow, a bench. Upon the bench is an old carving of a Mer woman. Folk say she fell in love with a human by the name of Matthew Trewhella, and he fell deeply in love in return. They loved each other so that they could not bear to be parted. Matthew Trewhella went to his love in the waves, surrendering his human life for one upon the sea. However, in doing so, he left behind a child.

It is said that every Trewhella that has lived since feels the call of the waves within their blood and an unquenchable thirst for saltwater. It is a curse this family must bear.

Except for you."

***

The sea today is crystal bright, shining twisting blues that weave a dizzying pattern. Golden rays dapple the seabed, shifting as the waves tousle above. The water is warm, rolling over my skin smoothly as I tumble forward. Sea salt washes over my palette, briny sweet. My ears fill with the fizz of surging currents far out to sea.

Thick stems of oarweed waver in the shifting water. My mother dallies amongst them as she scours the reef below for her precious healing herbs. Methodically, she plucks bunches in her slender hands, stashing them into the kelp-woven purse slung over her shoulders. She is consumed by the task, the world around her quite forgotten.

While she is distracted, I silently slip away from my mother's side, surging up to the surface with a lazy stroke of my tail.

I hover, just a whisper away from the water's skin, where Air meets Ingo.

The sun shimmers silver, like molten metal. As the wind sweeps over the waves' surface, it carries with it scents foreign to the ocean. The wind has travelled far, all across the dry spanse of land. My nostrils prickle at the smell of earth. It is not like the familiar salt of the sea, which is sweet and sharp. The earth is musky, deep and rich. Elusive. It is the softest, faintest of scents, woven of intertwining layers that I do not recognise and could not name.

Land is not far away.

Easily, I could join a slow-moving current and reach land within moments.

I wonder what that land would look like.

From what the wind has captured, I can piece together a vague picture in my mind: a land that is dark, verdant, flourishing and filled with movement. I have difficulty adding humans to the picture forming in my head. They are ungraceful and unnatural to me, with their two cleft legs. Would they use their legs as Mer do our tails, to power them through the air? I have seen a stone carving of a human before. I cannot grapple with the idea of those two individual limbs moving in synchronicity.

The sky in the Air above is blue, that is what I do know about their unfamiliar world. A dazzling deep blue, like a reflection of the waves. If I breeched the waves' surface, would I plummet straight through, and fall across the sky?

A herring gull sails overhead, moving with the wind as the Mer move with the ebb of the tide. I observe how the gull instinctively twists with each surge of the wind, how it expertly angles its wings to slice through the air. The gull manoeuvres through the air just as I would the water, anticipating any turn of the current. Perhaps humans do so too.

How would the Air feel upon my skin, I wonder? In Ingo I am cocooned by the warmth of the water. It would not be so above. It would be dry. I cannot fathom the absence of water. Would the air feel harsh upon my skin, or would it coil itself around my limbs in a protective barrier, just as the water cradles me now?

I tentatively reach my hand out to where the water stops, and the sky begins.

My heart quickens in my chest, and the force of my blood thunders in my veins. I unfurl my fingertips, extending them to the surface. I edge closer, so that my fingertips are almost piercing the protective membrane of the waves.