Chapter Text
The lake that sat about half a mile to the west of the cabin looked gloriously misty in the early morning sunlight. Sana breathed in deeply as she took in the sight, loving how the frosty air stung at her cheeks and had her burrowing her hands deeper into her pockets. Snow hadn’t arrived yet but the leaves beneath her feet were crispy with ice and she revelled the sound of them crunching under her feet.
It was fun to go away with her friends and Chris’ cabin was cosy and comfy. However, Sana felt the need to get out and away from it for a couple of hours. It wasn't the same as when they’d come eighteen months or so ago, just the five girls. Now other halves were involved. Vilde had pleaded for Magnus to come, claiming that because Eva and Noora were dating then she should be allowed to bring her boyfriend. Magnus, always happy to go along with Vilde, had then asked if the boys could come too so he wasn't the only guy, which of course had lead to Even accompanying Isak because they were disgustingly joined at the hip like that.
So the cabin felt really crowded and it was hard to find space where no one was around. So Sana had sought refuge by the lake that was only a small distance away. Shaking out the rug she’d brought with her, she sat down and pulled out the roll with cheese and thermos of coffee as well as a book and prepared to enjoy a quiet and solitary breakfast to herself by the peaceful lake.
It was the splashing that grabbed her attention a little while later. It was nothing like the gentle rippling of water lapping at the rocks. It was more deliberate and playful. Lifting her head, she scanned the scene in front of her to see if an animal had come down to drink and splash in the water. However, there was nothing along the water’s edge. Frowning a little, Sana shifted her gaze to the body of water and her mouth dropped open at the sight that met her eyes.
Towards the middle of the water, there appeared the head and shoulders of a man, which was remarkable in itself considering it was the middle of November and the water would be freezing cold. But that wasn't what had Sana gawping. It was the large fishtail that creating the splashing noise as the...man? dived in and out of the water clearly relishing the motion.
Pinching herself to make sure she wasn't still asleep and dreaming, Sana scrambled to her feet and then winced as the action had leaves crunching loudly that rang out across the lake. It caused the...creature? in the lake to freeze before he slowly turned her way and stared at her with the same shock that she felt.
The stunned silence as they just stared at each other dragged out until Sana needed to stamp her feet to get some feeling back into them. The noise also galvanised the...merman? into moving too as he swam towards her with both fear and curiosity on his face.
“You are, aren't you?” She asked as he drew closer.
“Am what?”
“A merman!”
“I don’t know what you mean,” he said a little too rushed for it to be as casual as he clearly meant it to be. Plus his eyes shifted to the side, which was a dead giveaway.
“C’mon,” she said impatiently.
His cheeks reddened under her gaze, but then a smile lit up his features and her breath hitched in her throat at how glorious it was. He said triumphantly, “It’s a costume. You know, for Halloween. I’m testing it out.”
Sana couldn’t help the disbelieving snort that escaped her. “Seriously? That’s what you’re going for to convince me that you’re not a merman?”
“It’s true!”
“Yeah, well, Halloween was three weeks ago so, no offence, but that lie sucks. And if you were actually just testing it out then you would have died of hypothermia by now.”
“Hypothermia?” he asked, his brow furrowed. “What’s that?”
“When your body loses heat faster than it can replace it. It happens to humans if we go swimming in lakes in Norway in the middle of November for a length of time without a drysuit. Our bodies would lose heat too fast and start to shut down. But there you are, in freezing cold water, without any visible effects.”
“Oh.”
His shoulders had deflated somewhat and she couldn’t help but feel a little bad at dismantling his pretence of being human so firmly.
“So? Are you?” she asked.
“Am I what?”
Tutting, Sana said, “A merman?!”
Looking over his shoulder as if he was worried that there would be someone watching, he leaned forward a little and murmured quietly, “Yeah, I am.”
Her eyes widened at his words. Even though it was obviously he was, a shiver danced down her spine at his confirmation. Magical creatures like him weren’t meant to exist, but yet, here he was; a living and breathing merman right before her in the water.
“You can’t tell anyone,” he said in a rush clearly worried. “We follow a strict code of secrecy and if anyone ever knew of our existence we’d-”
“You’d be rounded up and experimented on,” Sana finished for him.
He gave her a small smile. “Well, yeah. That’s what the elders say anyway.”
Sadness washed through her at his words and she wished that human nature wasn’t so avaricious when it came nature. He was right. If the existence of merpeople was known then humans would capture them and aim to understand their creation. Sometimes, things were not for humans to know but solely for Allah to comprehend.
“Your elders are right,” she said sadly. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“Thanks,” he said, his smile getting brighter.
“So are there many of you?”
“Not really. Not anymore with how populated the world is. My pod-”
Sana couldn’t help but interrupt. “Pod?”
“What we call a group of us.”
“Like dolphins?”
“No,” he said with a scowl. “ Not like dolphins.”
Seeing that she had managed to offend him, she said a little shamefaced, “Sorry. Your existence is all very new. Not that it’s an excuse.”
He shrugged his shoulders a little, smiled at her and said, “It’s okay. I get that. We’ve always known that humans exist. Anyway, as I was saying, my pod used to live in the Bosphorus but it got so populated that staying a secret became impossible so my family migrated to colder, less inhabited waters and here I am!”
A feeling of kinship settled in her chest at his information. They might be different species but they both had a shared experience of migration and she was interested to find out if he felt like a fish out of water at times, too. She giggled briefly at her words and just how apt they were for the merman in front of her. If he was a fish that was. Not that she was going to ask. Not after the whole pod debacle.
“Were there already merpeople here?” she asked.
“Yeah - we had pods all over the world at one point, but these days very few of us survive.”
“Was it hard for your family to settle into new waters?”
He huffed out a laugh at her words. “My grandmother always says that she thought she would die of cold when they first arrived.”
“What about the local pods? Were they friendly?”
As always, her mind went to her experiences in middle school, where the threats against her had been daily and had left her distrusting of society and people on a whole.
“My grandparents say it was hard at first, but merpeople have to stick together these days so despite our differences, we have been accepted. What about your family?”
“What about my family?”
“They moved here, too, right?”
She couldn’t help the scowl that descended then. She even stood out as different to other Norwegians to a merman!
“How did you know?”
“You wear hijab.”
Now Sana was just confused. “You know about hijab?!”
The merman laughed then, the noise sounding like a bubbling brook, happy and carefree. The sound filled her with a sense of joy.
“Does Allah not say all the creatures worship him? We worship him, too.”
“ Subhanallah! ” she exclaimed. “You’re Muslim!”
“Of course.”
She moved closer to him then, perching on the edge of a rock that stuck out over the edge of the water and leaning over. “Tell me about how you worship Allah.”
“Careful,” he warned and his hand came out to rest against the stone surface close to her. “I wouldn’t want you to fall over into the water and catch hypertension.”
Sana grinned. “You mean hypothermia. Hypertension is something completely different.”
“Wow,” he said with a shake of his head. “Here I am trying to save your life and you’re correcting me!”
“It’s better to correct mistakes early on,” she said primly. However, the effect of her words was ruined by how wide she was grinning.
He observed her in silence for a moment, a strangely tender expression on his face, but before she could query what was wrong, he had started to talk.
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The sun was starting to sink back down in the sky by the time Sana heard the frantic shouts of her name. She had completely lost track of time talking to the merman. They had talked about so much including how he even knew about Halloween. Everything he had said was so interesting and she had never felt such a bond so quickly with someone. She couldn’t help but feel irritated that her friends were intruding on this time.
Looking over her shoulder, she could see the glimpse of bright ski jackets getting closer. Turning back to the merman, she smiled regretfully and said, “My friends are coming. You better go.”
“Sana? That’s your name?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m Yousef.”
“Yousef,” she said, savouring the way his name felt perfect on her tongue.The shouts of her name were getting closer and she continued hurriedly, “Will you be here tomorrow?”
“I can be if you want to be.”
“I do,” she said, her heart pounding at her forwardness. She had never wanted to spend time with another person before as much as she did with Yousef. Let alone a boy.
With a quick look over her shoulder, he said, “See you tomorrow. The same time as we met today?”
She nodded and then in the blink of an eye, he was gone.
“Sana! Here you are!” Chris said behind her, her voice relieved. “Did you not hear us calling you?”
Standing up and spinning around to face her best friend, Sana said a little distractedly finding it difficult to turn her attention completely to her friend, “Huh?!”
There was concern on Chris’ face. It was clear that she had been worried and Sana felt a pang of remorse for causing her friend any anxiety.
“Didn’t you hear us calling? You’ve been gone for so long that we started to worry something had happened to you.”
“Sorry,” Sana said apologetically. “I lost track of time.”
“What were you doing?”
“Reading,” she said, holding up the book that she was fortunately clutching.
“For all this time?” Chris asked with a bemused expression.
“Yeah. It’s so peaceful here.”
“And cold!”
“My coat is warm,” Sana said with a shrug.
“Anyway, are you ready to come back? Noora and Even have cooked a feast.”
“Sound’s great,” she said, forcing some enthusiasm into her voice. On any other day, she would be looking forward to sharing a good meal with her friends, but now all she wanted to do was continue talking to Yousef.
As she began to follow Chris back up to the cabin, Sana turned around to stare out at the lake. She thought she caught a glimpse of scales and a tail disappearing down into the water, but she couldn’t be sure if it was a trick of her eyes or not.