![]() ![]() And when they steal the hearts we keep, it isn’t for power. Sometimes they save the lives of sailors and take nothing but charms in return. They steal trinkets and follow ships in hopes that treasure will fall from the decks. They have the capacity to be deadly, like all monsters, but where sirens seduce and kill, mermaids remain fascinated by humans. Fish and human both, with the beauty of neither. Their deep-blue flesh is dotted with fins that spread up their arms and spines. ![]() Unlike sirens, mermaids have stretched blue husks and limbs in place of hair, with a jawlessness that lets their mouths stretch to the size of small boats and swallow sharks whole. Mermaids more fish than flesh, with an upper body to match the decadent scales of their fins. These are the women who take the human bounty of their kin. Left to suffer until their blood becomes salt and they dissolve to sea foam. I’ve heard things: tales of lost hearts and harpooned women stapled to the ocean bed as punishment for their treachery. Hearts are power, and if there’s one thing my kind craves more than the ocean, it’s power. ![]() I count each of them, so I can be sure none were stolen in the night. ![]() Every so often, I claw through the shingle, just to check they’re still there. There are seventeen hidden in the sand of my bedroom. I HAVE A HEART for every year I’ve been alive. ![]()
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