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There are stories on the beach. Tall tales, some beach goers thing. Stories warped by retellings, some beach goers think. Words they tell themselves to cope with loss, some beach goers think.
The truth, the locals know. The truth, whispered to the visiting beach goers. A story shared, to keep a memory close.
"There was young woman," the story goes. "She set out for the ocean, and she never returned. She still explores the ocean, hand in hand in hand with her beasts."
"There was a young girl," the story goes. "She left for the ocean, desperate for adventure," it goes. "She found it in the arms of the creatures of the ocean. She is happy now, herself."
The stories seem fanciful. A coping method for a young girl lost to the ocean. It happens, the beach goers know, small towns loose someone to the sea as is so common, but they cannot face the truth.
It happens, the locals know. Beach goers so stuck in their ways they cannot accept the realities. Beach goers lost in what they know that they will not learn more. They do not want to face the truth, because the truth is impossible in their eyes.
"There was a young woman," the story goes. "So kind and brave, she wanted to explore the world. She was an adventurous one, our Marlene," the story goes. "She set on for something more, and oh did she find it. You know she befriended a siren? And a mermaid!"
"There was a young girl," the tale goes. "So desperate for something more she chased the stories of beasts in the ocean. She found her answers, she's happy now."
The stories all vary, the beach goers realise. Each local with a different myth to comfort themselves at the young woman's loss. Yet no one there wants to admit to the truth, they all tell the tales.
The story had grown beyond, the locals know. They each tell it their own, they each have different understanding of just how and why Marlene set off on the ship. They do not all fully understand the life she had taken up once leaving, a life so different to their own, but they try to share the story. It is, after all, a love story. What better story is there to float on the ocean breeze, calling out to the beach goers?
"There was young girl," the story goes. "She was brilliant, but easily bored. She wanted adventure, and something so utterly new. She found it you know?" the story goes. "She's on the adventure we all dream off, falling in love. Though maybe it's just her that imagined falling in love with two fish people."
"There was a young woman," the story goes. "She went out looking for adventure, and found it when she fell overboard. She was rescued by a mermaid, or maybe it was the siren. They've been together ever since, you know."
The story is ridiculous. To imagine that a young woman, no matter how athletic, how brave and adventurous, would survive falling overboard in the dead of night with no one to rescue her. To imagine a siren and a mermaid were two utterly different things, that were real and not fiction, how ridiculous.
But the story is one of hope. One of love. No matter how strange it seems. Really? A human, all athletic and brave. A siren? A Mermaid? All three in love? Living life together in the ocean somewhere? Did that even work?
"There was a young woman from around here," the story goes. "She was bright, and adventurous. Oh she thrived on the stories of what lurked in the ocean," the story goes. "She lives now, with her siren and mermaid, out there in the ocean."
There was once a young woman from a small beach-side town. She had craved adventure. She'd been brave, and kind, and athletic. She'd gone of on the ship, to explore. She'd never come back. No instead young Marlene McKinnon had found some other adventure to go on.
The young woman had found a siren, with a voice so ethereal yet empty of enchantments, illusions, and compulsions. The siren with her pale hair, and pale blue skin. Twin tales of blue-purple scales that reflected the sunlight so beautifully.
The young woman, and the young siren, they had found a mermaid. So scared, so alone, so ready for adventure. So much like the young human girl, but so unique too. Oh the mermaid had dark hair, and dark blue almost deep purple skin, and the one tail that reflected moonlight from the deep scales.
There had once been a young human woman, a young siren woman, and a young mer woman. They'd all wanted an adventure of their own, a life of their own. They'd found the adventure in themselves, in the three of them.
There was now a middle aged woman, her pale skin tanned from living on a small beach island and spending her days in the sun. There was now a middle aged siren woman, her voice still as beautiful still empty of the power she held within to lure sailors to their doom. There was now a middle aged mermaid, her scales lighter from living closer to the surface.
They lived together on an island with plenty of streams and easy access to the ocean. They were Marlene, and Pandora, and Dorcas, and they were a story told across the ocean. A tale whispered on ships. A story told in each of their old homes.
And Marlene, and Pandora, and Dorcas, well they may not have shared a species but they shared a love. And they got to live happily ever after.
So the story goes.