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In the village of B— by the North Sea there lived a fisherman who did not age. He seldom caught anything on his journeys though he rose much earlier at dawn than any of the other fisherfolk, and returned late into the afternoon when the harbour was already crowded with bobbing boats. When he brought his catch to shore the nets revealed only paltry quantities of mackerel and sole, smaller and uglier than the ones caught by older experienced men and younger greener men, and much flotsam from the rough currents that often brought wreckage from far away.
Sometimes he disappeared on his boat for weeks, only reappearing decked with finery after a storm. People would whisper that he was a wrecker sort, or that he was cursed with visions of the waves, or that he was a sea-witch like one who lived in the house atop the hill before him. But no ships had sunk in their own waters for close to a hundred years, and the people had no reason to be fearful.
The fisherman was a young and comely sort, and village youths who wanted to see him smile often took pity and purchased his catch, driftwood in pails and all. When they fried up the fish they swore up and down that it was the best they had ever eaten, which was a lie, but they would line up every afternoon for more of the same. After the catch had been sold the fisherman would hang up his nets like all the others and jaunt down the pebbly road back to his shack a ways from the village proper, up a small hill.
None had ever been near the shack, and none had ever been invited, even if the fisherman would wink at swooning girls and wide-eyed boys alike and ask genially about their days. He would appear in the weathered pub, would make small-talk with children who came up and gave him polished stones they found on the beach, and taught them violin in their homes when they urged him to play. He would gift them with treasures he found on his sailings, and they loved him in turn. Yet he would vanish as soon as the dark came, though bright firelight and sombre, beautiful music from upon the hill would reveal his whereabouts.
At night, some nights, the oldest villager would gather his children and grand-children and tell tales around their myriad fires, old tales about wreckers who hung their lights atop cliffs, about ghost ships that appear with the first frost, about the iceberg that travelled the world, about the selkies that appear from time to time in their waters. About a young man who rose early every day to watch the sea, and how he had been waiting for a hundred years.
*
Eddy’s mother had been a sea-witch, as had her mother before her, stretching generations back into the dawn of time, or so she would tell him when he was young. He would watch her plant poppies and sea campions and other hardy plants in the lean coastline soil, draw water and crabs from tidal pools with her fingers, sing the songs of wind and rain. The village loved her, and she the village, and the family had prospered from the folk lining up on their doorstep to ask for something-or-another. Amulets for their vessels to return home safely, blessings for their children to grow into strong swimmers.
His sister learned the family craft quickly, maybe too quickly. Eddy had watched with awe and annoyance both when he returned home from the village school one day to find his room taken over by live anemones. But when he was thirteen she left their village to find work, to be a fixture in another coastal village, and he missed her terribly then.
He was a quiet child, studious, then inclined to his violin more than the grey-green sea and its sometimes-violent waves. By the time he was thirteen he had read every book in the house thrice over, and longed for the inland cities with their old libraries and wide streets and bustling cafes. But as well as their family lived off the goodness of the village he was expected to be a fisherman still, as was expected of most children there.
And so it was that Eddy studied knots and ropes and hooks and how to clean different fish, and how to spot gleaming scales, how to not throw up whilst on the ship while other lads of age with him giggled and made to push him into the water. They teased him with stories of gales that knocked children into the ocean and the evil mer-king who waited underneath the waves to snatch and roast him on a spit, nevermind that he pointed out it was impossible to set fire to the water. Silly stories all in all, and besides when he returned home and asked his mum she had only shaken her head and made him fetch herbs from the garden.
It was not what he had wanted, but for now it was what he had to contend with.
When Eddy was thirteen he had made his way home after his lessons when he spotted a seal pup in a tide pool, without its mother around. It was not pup season—the last of them had disappeared into the waves scarce three months past. The animal must be lost, Eddy realised as he approached cautiously, and stuck beneath two great rocks it had tried to wriggle through. He had never been good with animals, and felt as much scared of them as they surely were of he. But it looked at him with huge pleading eyes and he felt awful seeing the scrapes on its skin, and so carefully he pushed the creature back as he threw water on it with his other hand. Presently it was clear of the rocks, and Eddy’s knuckles bled and strung from the now-rising tide.
“Go now,” he said, shooing it off. His mother would be furious seeing the state of his hands. The seal pup bumped its head against his hand instead, and made a small sound.
“Thank you,” it said, and Eddy looked at it, startled. “Thank you, you’ve saved my life.”
“You can talk?” Eddy asked, and then thought about it. He had heard his mother talking to fish and her plants, but had never been able to discern their words, or if they’ve spoken back before. “I—I mean, it’s nothing. Just don’t come up at low tide, else you’d get stuck again.”
“I must let you know,” the seal said, bobbing up and down in the waves, “That you’ve done a great service. Tell me your name, child, and I will remember to do you a good turn.”
His mother had told him time and time again to never give out something willingly, and never his name, but after a spell Eddy could see in the seal’s demeanour that it could be trusted. “Eddy. I… my name is Eddy Chen.”
And when Eddy went home that afternoon he noticed the wind seemed to follow his steps and the beach grass seemed to beckon to him, and his heart sang with the tempo of the waves. The campions smelled sharper than before, and when he opened the door he could see things in the steam of the tea-kettle he could not before.
His mother took one look at him and shook her head in despair. “You’ve given someone your name.”
“Only a seal,” Eddy said. “I saved it from the rocks.”
But what was done was done. From that day on he did not go out to sea on fishing vessels any longer, and stayed home with his mother to learn her art.
When Eddy turned twenty he left the little village where he was born and travelled along the coastline until he found a village without a sea-witch, in a quiet cove half-surrounded by high hills. Close enough to a city so merchants would drive their carts out for the freshest catch before noontide, far enough that the citydwellers did not disturb the rhythm of the sea. It was far from where he had come.
Eddy made a home for himself atop a hill away from the village centre, remodelling an abandoned home from wood he bought at an inflated price and what little carpentry skills he had half-learned back home. The villagers were were not incurious sorts, but kept much to themselves even as they asked of him what his once-neighbours had asked of his mother. When Eddy had finally found the courage to ask why the people only shrugged and said it was not his fault, rather no sea-witch before him or any other could prevent what was to come.
“You see,” the village chief said, “You are still young, and have seen no true calamity.”
Every winter the waters here would become unnavigable, Eddy learned, and the storm would come to the village. The people of this country had angered the mer-king years ago, and ever since he would come and demand a sacrifice from each village during the hard winter. There had never been a sea-witch in residence for long, the chief told him, because—
“—Because you give them to the waves,” Eddy finished, in horror. He was free to leave, of course, but when he returned home and started packing his bags a terrible vision filled his sight, of the village drowning in huge waves.
And so he stayed.
When the storm came he went out to the beach and sat on the biggest boulder he could find, so he could see the waves come. The villagers strung their fishing vessels together at the docks and locked themselves in their homes, and all the while the wind howled and Eddy watched many things rise slowly from the sea. The waves dashed smaller vessels against the docks, and houses groaned with the hastening wind.
Eddy saw a man striding towards him, in dark blue sea-kelp and cloth-of-gold, walking on the waves. He saw things bubble in the water, and recognized fin and feather both. He saw the clouds gather and darken, and he knew all of these things were here for him.
So he said, “You are here for me.”
“I am,” said the mer-king, who was not as tall as Eddy, but handsome still. His black hair was crowned in driftwood and pearls, and a retinue of animals trailed behind him, in the water and in the sky, circling as if waiting for the taste of human flesh. “I am here to take my due.”
“What did the people do to you?” Eddy asked, indignant. He gazed into the mer-king’s unlined face, and saw that there was a spot in his left eye. “Tell me, mer-king. At least let me know why I should die.”
He sounded amused, the mer-king did, as Eddy saw the corner of his lip curl up like a cat’s. “Your predecessors had been dragged screaming, sobbing, cursing me. What good is it to know?”
“So I may face death with dignity,” Eddy said, and the wind whipped his hair so hard around his face it almost seemed to draw blood.
At this moment something broke through the waves, and a seal bobbed towards them, its face white-lined and barnacled. It peered up at Eddy and exclaimed, “You!”
“He?” Said the mer-king, confused. “Who is he to you?”
“He saved me from the rocks when I was young, Your Grace,” the seal said, bowing in respect. “And I owe him a good turn. Please, for the love you have for your subjects, I ask Your Grace to let him go free.”
The mer-king considered for a moment as the storm stilled around them, and the winds grew faint. Eddy looked towards the seal in wonder and gratitude, and then the mer-king said, “Very well then, I grant you this one boon. You amuse me, and your kindness has given you another chance at life. Use it well.”
And then he walked back into the sea, without waiting for Eddy to respond, and soon enough the skies were a clear blue calm, as if the storm had never come in the first place.
The villagers hailed Eddy as a hero then, though he found it confusing and maddening all the same. He had been spared certain death, that was true, but there was no guarantee the mer-king would not be back again by the year’s end. No amount of gifts showered upon his doorstep would stop him from thinking about the stormy sea and the howling winds, or the strange gaze of the mer-king with the spot in his eye.
Eddy took to the beach in frustration, walking up and down the shore, the sea-grass wilting in his temper. He did not know why this thought troubled him so, and the dark cloud above him seemed poised for a downpour when he looked up and saw something white and moving in a dune.
An injured seagull. He walked up to it, and something swooped down in front of him, squawking, feathers flying and all.
“Hey!”
Eddy yelled and chased the dark thing away, waving his hands uselessly as it heckled him and its talons dug at his skin. He threw sand at it, and when that did not work emptied his pockets of the amulets he was supposed to be delivering. Only when it had given up and went back into the blue sky did Eddy lower his arms and see the deep gashes there, and he winced in pain.
“Go now,” Eddy told the seagull, and received nothing but a squawk in return. It clambered out of his reach and took off, awkwardly, circling above his head three times before heading off in the direction of the village. Sighing to himself, he trudged back up the hill, but the cloud had gone when he looked up searching for it.
He spent his days tending to his garden and hoping the vegetables would grow as well his mother’s did (they did not) and playing music for the village children, who occasionally came by to beg for lessons. He made amulets and blessed ships and started looking towards the sea and less towards the city, but life was mundane and quiet and it made him itch for more.
And so he stayed on for the next year, waiting for the mer-king to return.
“You again,” said the mer-king, surprised, as he came ashore. “I thought—”
“Me again,” Eddy said. He sat on the same rock, shivering in the same cold wind, his cloak doing very little to protect against this force of nature. It did not make for a very strong showing, that much he could see in the mer-king’s expression. “You haven’t answered my question from last year. Tell me again, mer-king. Why are you here?”
“I spared your life once,” the mer-king said, looking him up and down. “Do you want so badly to go to the waves?”
“You’re not answering my question,” Eddy said. Thunder boomed above them, and the waves nipped at his feet. The mer-king looked at him contemplatively, as if deciding whether it was worth it to bring him under. Perhaps none of the others had proved so annoying as he was.
Then a seagull that had been circling above alighted on his shoulder, and it squawked, “Your Grace, I must tell you something.”
“Oh,” said the mer-king, as the seagull regaled to him its story. “He saved you from an eagle.”
“That he did,” agreed the seagull. “So if I may ask—”
“Fine,” the mer-king said, irritated. “I’ll let you go again.”
But his eyes seemed to linger on Eddy this time as he watched the waves swallow the man whole, and the waves seemed to swirl by his feet as if alive, before the clouds reluctantly parted to let the sun through. Eddy stared at the sea for a long time after, waiting for an errant wave, as if he would see something, anything, once they did.
The third year went by in a blur. Eddy learned to look for brown spots on his flowers, and to time his potion-making so the cauldrons did not explode when he got distracted. More children came to his door, and sometimes he thought he could hear the waves tapping to the rhythm of his playing outside his window.
But when Eddy went to stand by the curtains he saw nothing but calm waters, and there he stood and wondered so long sometimes he thought he could see things in the clouds or mirages dancing across the low-hanging sun. He wanted to go there, he decided, beyond the horizon. He wanted to take a ship and see all of the world there was to see, but he could not yet do that, not before he had gotten an answer.
“Who did you save this time?” The mer-king demanded as soon as he came ashore, making a beeline for Eddy’s rock. He stood beneath the boulder and crossed his arms, and Eddy felt panic at the thought, if he would be struck by lightning in the next few seconds. “Was it a dolphin? A barnacle? Answer me truly, human.”
“It was me,” Eddy said, in his boldest voice. He extended an arm, so the mer-king could see the burn marks there. “I slipped and fell on some coals, and would have died if I left it untreated—but I bandaged myself all up, see?”
“You?”
“If sea-witches are bound to the sea, then I am one of your subjects,” Eddy replied. He looked right into the mer-king’s eyes, into the gaze that seemed to look through him and also not at all. “Am I not?”
“You are very brave,” the mer-king said finally. “And very foolish. I suppose those are two sides of a single coin.”
“Just as life and death are one,” Eddy said. The corners of the mer-king’s lips turned up, catlike, and it was endearing even as Eddy clung on to the rock for dear life, the wind lashing at his very soul.
“Very well,” said the mer-king. “I will not take your life, nor grant you death. However you are my subject, as you said. I will request a different tribute.”
“What is it?” Eddy asked. And then the mer-king took his hand, and then he knew.
The next day there were no children at Eddy’s door when he opened it far too early, before the break of dawn; in their stead a young man stood there with a violin in hand. His eyes were dark and familiar and when Eddy stood aside to let him in he could smell fresh salt in his hair. “Teach me how to play.”
And so Eddy did, and found that he had an aptitude for the instrument greater than he suspected, though he could only stay in the wee hours before the first rays of sun crept across the sky. He learned everything Eddy had to teach him and then songs Eddy had never heard before, songs that sounded joyous and mournful and romantic.
Every day before he returned to the sea Eddy would give him something, a glowing rock from his garden, a flowering campion grown out-of-season, a string of misshapen pearls he had harvested from the shallow waters; he would thank Eddy with a smile or a touch or a lingering gaze, and tell him a story about his travels. He had been to seas far and wide, and Eddy with little money for books devoured his tales voraciously; tales of glowing corals and whale-devouring clams and shark princes, tales that scratched at the itch deep inside him.
Presently the mer-king allowed Eddy to hear his own tale, one gloomy morning when the sun had gone behind the clouds.
“A hundred years ago a ship had sunk in these waters,” he said, pointing out the window. “A grand ship. When I drew close I could see the lights, and there was music—so much music! I wanted to hear it. But it had been carrying—”
A thousand gallons of tallow, oil, incense. A shallow reef, a misplaced lantern. The sea had lit up for a hundred miles, and when Eddy followed his direction out the window he could almost smell it, even though he could not believe it at first. Many creatures of the sea died that night, surely and the storm—
“The storm did in the rest,” Eddy finished. “And you punished the people.”
“It was a lie,” said the mer-king. He warmed his hands by the small charcoal grill, and they looked almost translucent in the firelight. He looked small then, and unhappy, and Eddy reached out instinctively before pulling back. “The story is a lie. The people did nothing to anger me, or if they did it was only through— I—
“I was selfish. I’ve walked all across the sea, but not the land. I can never stay long, you know this. I wanted someone to help me understand, so I took… I wanted to know what it was like.”
“What do you mean?” Eddy asked, though the answer dawned on him as soon as the words left his lips.
“To be human,” said the wind, and the sea, and everything around him. Eddy leaned forward and saw the music in his eyes, the reflection of distant sunlight, and he saw the vast depths, and something else. It was not a lie, he thought, not entirely.
“I can help you,” Eddy said. He took the mer-king’s translucent hand and kissed it, tasting sea-salt. He touched the mer-king’s cheek, feeling the waves beneath his skin. He closed his eyes and heard the waves sing to him as he leaned in.
*
In the village of B— by the North Sea there lived a fisherman who ought not to have been one at all. He was not a fisherman, the village chief’s grandson used to claim, but a god who walked the earth. He had blessed his beloved to walk the seas in his place and see the world, and stayed waiting for his eventual return. But no-one believed the ravings of an old man who talked about icebergs made of tears and the dead rising en masse from the sea, and soon enough he did not say those things in public any longer.
For a hundred years the village had been quiet, until one day when the greatest storm they had ever experienced came howling to their shores. Waves crashed against the docks, rolled over the tide-markers, claimed gardens and carts and anything left outside. The villagers ran indoors and locked themselves there, and the old stories came back to haunt them then.
But when morning came and the people opened their doors to survey their surroundings they realised none had been hurt. Little damage had been done to their ships, and so it was much cause for celebration as the fishermen went about their business, one by one leaving until one small boat was left. This surprised the children who played at the docks before running to school every morning, because they had been taught to recognize every boat, and this one most of all, which belonged to the comely young man living up the hill.
The oldest man in the village, upon hearing this, sent his great grandson running to the foot of the hill and back.
"Tell me what you heard, child," he said. The boy obliged, his eyes shining as he relayed the news.
"The winds are calm now," he said, "And I heard music. It was very pretty, like I've never heard before."
"There's always music," his older brother interjected. "That's nothing new. Yang plays the violin, the whole village knows that."
"Yes," the boy said, turning to his brother. "But today I heard two."