The Water Nymphs

Curiosity Killed the Cat

When her eyes open, the first thing she sees is the night sky. The moon is a disc of white floating high above her, submerged in green mist.

It is as she begins to move about that she realises she is awake. Her limbs are heavy from slumber, her whole body prickling with both anticipation and fear.

She sits up. Then it is that she feels the sand between her toes, sees the sea shimmer silver under the cloak that is the sky. She finds it hard to tell where the sky stops and the sea begins, as off into the distance the moon cannot reach the pale, mirror-like surface, and they merge as one.

It all looks so lovely.

She tries to listen for the squeal of summer couples holding hands as they trip down to the shore, the sigh of the waves as they bounce giddily. But there is nothing. No one is here except her. For now, she is alone.

Carefully and cautiously, she begins to rise to her feet. For a minute she is unsteady, and stumbles about on numb stubs like a newborn lamb.

Feeling the salty sea air sting her pale skin, she notices that she is naked. She is not, however, cold. Well, no matter, she thinks to herself. There is no one else here but me.

Careless she is to think such a thing. For, of course, she isn't alone. But she gazes at the sea, finding herself full of longing and desperation, and begins to run, her long, dark hair swinging behind her.

The girl savours the softness of the grains beneath her bare soles, of the scent of the sea so close to her.

The sand is getting damp, and she is slowing her pace, becoming worried. What if she is to drown at sea? Who will save her?

Suddenly, a screech cuts through the warm silence. She freezes for a moment, sure her over-active imagination is playing again. She leaves it so long that she isn't even sure that a scream is what she heard, and lets the wet sand sink her feet.

She's allowing the air to tempt disturbing thoughts astray when she hears something again.

Singing.

It is the most beautiful thing she's ever heard, and pulls her farther down the shore as if in a trance.

At first it is a single voice, vibrating soprano in a strange tongue, but it is not long before the others join in, a harmony of foreign tunes strung together, playing out a song of elegance, curiosity, and longing.

She is guided down to the water's edge, naked as she is. She's not afraid of these voices. The song has driven these fears away.

She wades into the water, sharp on her tired skin. She doesn't stop until it is half-way up her torso, when her hair flows around her and clings to her body like a second skin simultaneously. This is when she comes back to consciousness, when the voices come to a stop.

It's when she sees them.

Heads poking above the surface of the water, at least 10 feet away from her. Wide-set eyes, dark and bulging, fixed on her. Unmoving. She's frightened. The water surrounding them sparkles and glimmers with an ethereal light.

Fearful, she takes a step back out of the water.

The faces rise out of the sea. Just the faces. They're green. There are eleven of them that she can see, but she knows there are much more. And that scares her, too.

The mouths on those faces open. The girl sees that they are not mouths after all. They are dark pits, gaping holes. A voice trembles in the darkness, at the highest note yet. She stops fighting. She stares.

Something grabs her foot.

A clawed hand, yanking her under. She's so afraid that she forgets to even scream.

Forgets to take a breath before she's stolen away.

* * *

Her ankle is still clutched by the creature. She sees them in front of her, beside her, behind her. They swim along, hair as pale as corn flour streaming out behind them, finned green tails shimmering with the different shades of them.

She cannot escape them, she knows enough. She already has been under the water too long. She can feel it in her lungs, pounding against her chest........

Her eyes flutter. The creatures have stopped, their tails flexing out behind them like another muscle. They have turned towards her, thin lips stretched in toothless grins, eyes blinking back at her; they’re delighted that she hasn’t left, and that they have yet to see her moment of passing.

She disappears just as one reaches out for her.

Just as the sea takes her last breath.