Davy went down, down, down further than any human and most merpeople ever ventured. He passed strange fish and other creatures with huge teeth and jagged scales, barely paying attention. He had to get legs and go to the surface, and there was only one way he could do that. It was dangerous. He’d heard many merpeople, especially men, disappeared after entering the Sea Witch’s domain, but she was the only one who had enough power to give him what he wanted.
He swam into a large, dark, cold grotto. He shuddered. The grotto was lined with seaweed and slime and muck. The walls glowed with an eerie, iridescent light. Grotesque, seaweed-covered forms moaned from the heavy ropes of tough sea plant fibres that bound them to walls and each other. Davy gulped. Those ugly creatures vaguely looked like they might have been merpeople at one time...
“Come in, Prince David,” an odd, vaguely Eastern European-accented voice purred.
“How did you know my name?” The main chamber was a large room filled with bottles and cauldrons made of stone and glass. The chairs and stands were white and slender. Davy touched one and felt sick when he realized it was a bone. The chairs and the huge throne in the center of the room were all bones. He didn’t want to know WHOSE bones. They were too large to be fish bones.
“I know many things about you,” the voice cooed. “I know, for instance, why you’ve come to me.” Davy was surprised when a gorgeous woman with long, red hair and almond-shaped eyes entered. She wore a tiara that looked as if it were made of the fin of a spiny fish and bone bracelets that rattled when she moved.
She laughed. “You expected me to be old and ugly. That’s jealous little mermaids talking. They don’t know how someone so much more powerful than them can be so attractive.”
Davy gathered every last bit of courage he had. “You say you know why I’m here.”
“Yes.” She leaned back in her throne. “You went to the surface and lost your heart to a human girl you can’t have.”
“But I love her,” Davy pleaded. “She’s brave and funny and beautiful and smart. She’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a mate, and I don’t care what I have to do to be able to be with her!”
Madame went to a stone shelf filled with odd-colored liquids in glass jars. “We’ll make a deal. I’ll give you the potion that will turn your fins into legs, but for a price.” She gently ran her fingers over Davy’s throat. “You have a very pretty voice. I often hear you and your brothers singing, even at this depth. I’ve wondered what it would be like to have the four of you sing for me, and me alone.”
Davy frowned. “Thank you, but what...”
“We’ll trade. This potion for...your voice.”
He nearly fell into the rock wall of the grotto. “What? How will I tell her how I feel?”
“There are other ways of expressing love.” She turned from him, not letting him see her nasty, satisfied smirk. “You have three days to get your dream human to acknowledge you, kiss you, and agree to become your mate. It won’t be easy. Every step you take will feel as if you’re walking on sharp knives. Contact with sea water will return you to your merman form. You cannot come back here or go to your brothers for help.”
“What happens at the end of the three days?”
She took a small, pinkish glass jar off the shelf. “If you get her to kiss you and agree to be your mate, your voice will be returned and you and your beloved will be together for all eternity.” She pulled out the stopper, sniffing it. “If you are unable to get her to acknowledge your love, at the end of the third day, your legs will change back into a tail, and you will become one of my slaves, bound to me.”
Davy considered his options. He wanted to be with Winifred so much...but at the cost of his voice and his freedom. He’d never see his brothers or father again, either.
“I can’t blame you for wanting to be with her,” Madame went on, adding this and that to the jar. “She’s quite lovely, for a human. Such strength in her, too! Even in the depths, we heard how she rescued you from the other humans, who would have exploited you. Eyes like clear blue water, lips the color of polished coral, a figure like a slender drift of seaweed...”
That was enough for Davy. “I’ll do it.”
Her nasty grin nearly split her face, but Davy didn’t notice. “Very good.” She put a long roll of pressed seaweed paper and a pen under his fingers. “Just sign here, and the woman of your dreams will be yours.”
“What am I doing?” Davy held back for a few minutes. He heard his brothers in the distance, calling his name. Their voices were drowned out by a splendid fantasy of him and Winifred dancing in the boat, just the two of them, as he sang “I Wanna Be Free.” He was on two legs, as strong and handsome as the blond man who carried Winifred off the beach, and she was kissing him...was loving him. He was so involved in his fantasy sequence, he barely noticed he’d signed the paper.
“DAVY! NO!” Mike charged into the room and grabbed the sea fern pen from his hand.
Madame only laughed. “It’s too late, Prince Michael. Your brother has signed the contract. He is now bound to me.” She handed Davy the potion. “Three days, boy, from the moment you drink the potion to midnight of the third day.” She smiled...but Mike shivered at how nasty it was.
“One more thing.” Her fingers carressed Davy’s throat. Davy winced as he felt a tearing in his neck, like his throat was on fire. A wispy aquamarine mist followed Madame’s long fingers from Davy’s throat to a small blue bottle, which she capped with coral once it was full.
“What did you do to him?” Micky shouted in horror.
“Just fufilled one part of the bargain,” she smirked. “Now how do you feel, Prince David?”
Davy opened his mouth to tell her his throat felt as if a thousand lobsters were clawing it, but not a sound emerged. He tried to sing the first few notes of “Daydream Beliver,” but was silent.
“Now, go win your lady fair,” Madame encouraged him. “She’s waiting for you on the surface.”
Davy nodded. Peter and Micky followed him, concerned. Mike turned to Madame, his deep brown eyes blazing with fury. “What do you think you’re DOING? What did you do to his voice? He NEEDS his voice! WE need his voice! WE need HIM!”
“I only did what he asked me to do, Prince Michael,” she explained. She put the blue bottle on a top shelf, then turned to Mike. “He wanted to be human. I gave him a potion to make him human. If he was so satisfied with his life under the sea and with all of you, he wouldn’t have come to me. We just made a harmless bargain.”
“Harmless? My youngest brother is a mute and is about to become a monster! God only knows what you’re gonna do to the other two! I’m gonna go find the others and get them down here, and then...”
“You will NOT tell your father about this.” A rope of blue energy wrapped itself around Mike’s neck and arms, pulling him back to Madame. She dragged the angry merman against her body. “You won’t tell anyone. You and your brothers will be mine forever.”
Mike struggled. “That’s what you think, witch! We’ll never be your slaves!”
“Perhaps.” Madame ran her fingers through his thick, flowing chestnut waves. “Why don’t we make a little bargain of our own?”
Chapter 3
Chapter 5
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