The Little Sea Witch

~2~

"No! Give me more time! Please!" Dylan shreiked as he struggled against the tight grip of Flotsam and Jetsam. "He would have complimented it! He would have!"

Any other person would have thought that the young merman had gone mad as he screamed about sea witches, paintings and deals. The two eels holding him gritted their teeth in annoyance and shared a look with their yellow eyes as if to say, This isn't our first rodeo, and it won't be our last.

Speaking of rodeos, the underwater ones are quite peculiar, and are even more strange to watch. They had grown fairly popular over the past few decades after a young salmon had successfully remained on top of an agrivated sea mollusk for 4.31 seconds, beating the past record of 4.26, that was accomplished by a protesting seahorse.

Flotsam and Jetsam felt as though they were riding an angry mollusk as they wrestled Dylan into the lair of the sea witch. The merman was still yowling loudly.

"No! Let me go! Let... Me.... Go!" He continued to squirm like a fish out of water. "I said," Dylan panted, "Let m-"

A shock of electricity ran through his body, momentarily paralyzing him. "And that was just a warning." Jetsam growled. "Don't think I won't do it harder if you keep screaming like a banshee."

Dylan couldn't entirely contain his panic and sobbed in dispare as Ursula's henchmen pulled him into her cave. He had been so close.

Dylan began by talking to his father more often. He would compliment all of his father's skills and talents. He read more non-fiction books and school textbooks in an attempt to get smarter, and his dad's attention. And then he learned to write, in scribbled lines, with his right hand.

His father had been shocked when Dylan came home missing a hand, but had dismissed it and said, "Well, at least that'll stop you from drawing."

Dylan's heart broke a little when he heard that. His father didn't even care that he had lost a hand. However, that made him more determined than ever to accomplish his task.

"Look what I made you, dad."

Dylan's father glanced up from his pile of taxes. "Not another one of your paintings." He sighed, "Go throw that away. If you're lucky, the garbage shrimp will put it in their 'special junk pile.'"

Now Dylan was even more frightened. He had worked on illustrating a shiny, gold apple with his right hand for more than two days. That had been his last chance to get his father's appreciation.

He had until midnight to persuade his dad, and he wasn't about to screw it up.

That night was filled with anxiety and tossing and turning in bed. Dylan could not get his mind off Ursula's barbaric face. He refused to spend the rest of his life with her.

He sat up in bed and pulled his tail into his chest. A single tear trickled down his cheek and fell off his face, combining with the water around him.

Dylan pushed himself out of his bed and swam over to his desk drawer. He pulled out a long shard of glass that had broken off an old mirror. He had kept it because it was multicolored and hoped it would give him inspiration while he painted.

Gripping the glass shard in his one hand, Dylan gritted his teeth. His father would compliment his artwork, willingly or not.

"Tell me it looks good!" Dylan cried as he shoved his father against the wall, the glass mere centimeters from his throat. "Tell me now!"

"Dylan! What are you doing?!

"Tell me you care about me! Say it!" Dylan pushed the shard into his father's neck, just enough to draw blood. "Say my art is amazing!"

His father growled, "Your mother would never approve of this!"

"Don't you dare bring her up! She's gone, now. And soon you will be, too." Dylan choked on his words. "Just tell me. Please."

"Your artwork is-"

The clock on the wall struck twelve. A dolphin popped out of it and began chirping. Dylan's head was swimming and he could barely hear his own voice say, "I love you, dad," before dropping to the floor in a snivelling heap.

Dylan only remembered bits and pieces of what happened next. The eels came to get him, and his father disappeared from view. He was then dragged, thrashing and howling, away into the deepest parts of the sea.

Flotsam and Jetsam were relieved to finally lossen their hold on the young merman. They shoved him into a stalagmite and seaweed wrapped around his torso and arms, restricting him from getting away.

"Ahh, look who's back." A voice drawled from within an enormous seashell.

"I was so close!" Dylan yelled at the sea witch. "If I had only one more minute I could have-"

A black tentacle covered his mouth, muffling the rest of his sentence. "Yet you agreed to three days. What a shame you didn't think through this more." Ursula's glaring image emerged from the shell. Shadows lay across her face, adding to her sinister look.

She pulled what appeared to be a large leech out from her hair and stuck it over Dylans mouth, in place of her tentacle, to keep him from speaking.

"Remember when I said you reminded me of someone?" She didn't give Dylan a chance to answer. "Well, I would like to tell you about her."

Flotsam and Jetsam groaned but Ursula threw them a piercing stare and they shrunk back. "I'll start at the beginning. But I need you to pay attention." She grabbed Dylan's chin, forcing him to look at her. "And it's all right if you shed a few tears, after all, her story is similar to your own."

Two small fish floated over to Dylan and sank their teeth into his eyelids, his cry of pain was muffled by the leech. The fish held his eyes open and the merman watched as Ursula glided over to her shell and sat on top of it. "The story does not have a happy ending, just so you know. Not even a happy beginning. She had a talent, like yours, and no one appreciated her for it."

Ursula brushed her fingers over her necklace, which was shaped like a golden seashell. Her eyes glazed over with what appeared to be sadness.

"I'll tell you the miserable tale of a poor, unfortunate soul."