The mermaids tale, p.1
The Mermaid's Tale, page 1
Acclaim for
The Mermaid’s Tale
“Romantic, adventurous, and full of mystery! The Mermaid’s Tale has it all!”
—Jennifer A. Nielsen, New York Times best-selling author
“L.E. Richmond’s The Mermaid’s Tale rings with bright wonder and enchanting adventures. Locklyn yearns to be free of the sea witch’s curse (yes, that sea witch), but greater perils await in the undersea realms. Readers will join Locklyn and her colorful team on a journey seeking treasures of gold and of the heart. Sunken galleons, peculiar aquatic creatures, noble quests—The Mermaid’s Tale has it all and more!”
—Wayne Thomas Batson, bestselling author of The Door Within Trilogy
“The Mermaid’s Tale is an enchanting, modern mermaid story that will have readers excitedly swimming from page to page. Richmond creates a captivating world under the sea with vibrant descriptions and unique twists. Locklyn is a strong heroine who has not lost her compassion in spite of being a social outcast and having to fight to make a life for herself. I loved the splashes of romance and the air of mystery and adventure throughout the tale. I’m totally hooked and ready for the next book!”
—Ashley Bustamante, author of the Color Theory trilogy
“The Mermaid’s Tale is a fun spin on all your favorite underwater lore. L.E. Richmond has set up an intriguing first installment in her debut, and—excuse me!—I need the sequel immediately!”
—Lindsay A. Franklin, Carol Award–winning author of The Story Peddler
“There is an overall lack of novels about mermaids, and I’m pleased to see Enclave working to remedy this situation. If you long for such stories, L.E. Richmond has you covered. Swim into The Mermaid’s Tale where music can be magic. There you will discover a story packed with mystery and high-stakes adventure in a fascinating underwater world where danger lurks behind coral reefs and in dark caves. Richmond’s story adds a twist to the familiar and delivers an ending that promises more to come. Perfect for fans of The Little Mermaid and Catherine Jones Payne’s Broken Tides series.”
—Jill Williamson, Christy Award–winning author of By Darkness Hid and Thirst
“L.E. Richmond has crafted a fascinating underwater world in The Mermaid’s Tale. Not only full of mermaids, but of curses, fish tails, legs, and wild undersea adventure. And just the right dash of forbidden love. An excellent addition to mermaid lore!”
—AJ Skelly, best-selling author of The Wolves of Rock Falls
“A fresh, new take on The Little Mermaid! Richmond springboards from the beloved classic into a vivid undersea civilization where one smitten mermaid’s decisions have unleashed generations of consequences. Characters as timeless as they are complex leap from the page, drawing readers into their captivating journey of love, treasure, curses, and mystery. Whether you’re a fairytale devotee, hopeless romantic, or seafaring adventurer, The Mermaid’s Tale won’t disappoint. Book two can’t come soon enough!”
—Laurie Lucking, award-winning author of Common
The Mermaid’s Tale
Copyright © 2023 by L.E. Richmond
EPUB Edition
Published by Enclave Publishing, an imprint of Oasis Family Media, LLC
Carol Stream, Illinois, USA.
www.enclavepublishing.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, digitally stored, or transmitted in any form without written permission from Oasis Family Media, LLC.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, and/or events is purely coincidental.
ISBN: 979-8-88605-070-7 (printed hardcover)
ISBN: 979-8-88605-071-4 (printed softcover)
ISBN: 979-8-88605-073-8 (ebook)
Cover design by Kirk DouPonce, www.DogEaredDesign.com
Typesetting by Jamie Foley, www.JamieFoley.com
Map design by Matthew Harned
Printed in the United States of America.
This one is for the man who will still
jump through ocean waves with me if I ask him to, who has always been a rock of steadiness
and wisdom when life’s storms hit.
I love you, Dad.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Cover
Acclaim for The Mermaid’s Tale
Half-Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Maps
Epigraph
1: Locklyn
2: Locklyn
3: Darin
4: Locklyn
5: Locklyn
6: Locklyn
7: Darin
8: Locklyn
9: Darin
10: Locklyn
11: Darin
12: Locklyn
13: Darin
14: Darin
15: Locklyn
16: Locklyn
17: Darin
18: Locklyn
19: Locklyn
20: Darin
21: Locklyn
22: Darin
23: Locklyn
24: Darin
25: Locklyn
26: Locklyn
27: Locklyn
28: Darin
29: Locklyn
30: Locklyn
31: Darin
32: Locklyn
33: Darin
34: Locklyn
35: Locklyn
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Other Fantasy Novels
“What kind of man is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
Matthew 8:27 (NCV)
“I love your tail, Locklyn.”
I look down and shock thrills through me. My legs are gone. In their place is a supple, blue-green tail like Amaya’s. I look up at Darin in confusion.
“I don’t understand.”
“The enchantress took away the curse.”
“What? But why?”
I look down again, and for some inexplicable reason, my heart sinks. I’ve wanted a tail all my life—ever since my parents abandoned me in the reef when I was born with legs. But now that I have it, it feels foreign, strange.
I glance up at Darin again, but he is gone. In his place, Amaya flutters excitedly up and down, a bundle cradled in her arms.
“Locklyn! You have a tail!”
I stare at the swaddle she holds, confusion and hurt rising inside. “You had the baby? But . . . I was supposed to be there.”
Amaya ignores my words, continuing to bounce up and down in the water. “Maybe now Darin will finally fall for you!”
Heat flares in my cheeks, and I open and close my mouth wordlessly, shame swelling inside. I’ve never told my sister how I feel about her brother-in-law, Darin Aalto. Not only is he eight years older than I, but he is the most famous Treasure Hunter in Aquaticus. He could have any Mermaid in the city for the asking.
“I . . . How did you . . .?”
“Beck will take you to see him!” trills Amaya. “He’s out harvesting a wreck.”
I look around and see I am in the front hall of Beck and Amaya’s house. Beck, Amaya’s pale, silent husband, drifts out of my nephews’ room and opens the front door, beckoning me to follow.
“I should really go check on my dugongs. They shouldn’t be alone so long,” I say helplessly, but Amaya waves me after Beck.
“This might be your only chance, Locklyn!”
But Darin has never minded my legs.
Slowly, I follow Beck, struggling to adjust to the feeling of having my legs tied together. We swim out through the city gates of Aquaticus and begin wending our way through the reef. The farther we venture from the city, the greater my feeling of unease grows. “Beck,” I say to his back. “We should wait for Darin to return. You know it’s dangerous to swim out into the open sea alone.”
Beck turns and I scream, throwing myself backward in the water. The face looking at me has haunted my nightmares for years. Gaunt and pale, framed with curtains of stringy black hair, with a huge, puckered pink scar slashing across the left cheek. The palace guard, Blackwell, is leering at me.
“But, love, I want to be alone with you.”
He moves toward me, and I lurch away, groping the back of my pants for my coral knife. But I’m not wearing pants. I have a tail now. And my knife is gone.
I turn and streak through the reef toward the city gates.
Just a little farther.
Almost there.
But just as I reach the end of the reef, Blackwell appears in the gap between the two coral spikes in front of me, blocking my path.
How did he get there?
I whip around and swim madly in the opposite direction. I can hear Blackwell’s tail churning through the water behind me, and I swim faster, bursting out of the reef and into the open ocean.
Where should I go?
Darin. Amaya said he was harvesting a wreck. I need to find him.
I am about to start swimming when I hear chittering and turn to see my herd dolphin, Darya, hovering in the water on the reef’s edge.
“Darya, what are you doing here? Where are the dugongs?”
Darya twitters happily, flicking her sleek gray tail back and forth.
Blackwell bursts out of the reef behind her, and my heart jumps into my mouth. I begin to sing, a soft, wordless melody, inviting Darya to return home.
Blackwell’s eyes widen as he looks from me to Darya, who turns at my command and fli
Relief floods through me, but only for a moment. As I turn to swim in search of Darin, I catch sight of a black shape speeding in my direction out of the corner of my eye. Terror freezes my voice in my throat. The black, ghost-like form of a giant squid is flying through the water, tentacles pulsing. I turn to flee, swimming as quickly as I can, but strong, rubbery tentacles wrap around me from behind. I struggle frantically, terror echoing the beat of my heart.
I have to get away!
But the tentacles are squeezing more and more tightly.
Ahhhhhhhh . . .
My eyes fly open as my entangled legs churn desperately against my scratchy, posidonia-fiber blanket.
Legs.
I have legs.
I flop back on the stone shelf that serves as a bed and wait for the pounding of my heart to subside.
A dream.
It was just a dream.
Amaya doesn’t know about my feelings for Darin.
Blackwell hasn’t come back.
And the Sea Enchantress’s curse remains unbroken.
“Locklyn!” The voice behind me makes me give the elastika rope, with which I am trying to lasso a spur of rock, a jerk that causes me to miss the spur by a few feet. I glance over my shoulder just in time to see Darin, the older brother of Amaya’s husband, Beck, grab my biggest dugong calf and swing her effortlessly over his shoulder. With one flick of his muscular copper tail, he shoots away into the dark water.
After last night, I’m too tired for this.
But at least I am getting one more confirmation that this rope was a good investment.
It is impossible to use ordinary seaweed ropes as lassos. They are too light to be able to fly through currents without being knocked off course. But when I was twelve, a merchant caravan from Atlantis visited Aquaticus. As soon as I heard a salesman shouting the praises of elastika, a metal-infused fiber the Atlanteans had developed to be attracted to the magnetic fields of organisms, I knew I had to have one. This lasso cost every moonstone I had saved in two years—plus a little from Darin, which I insisted on repaying. But I have never regretted the purchase.
I twirl my elastika loop twice over my head and then launch it after him. The rope snags, and I jerk hard to tighten the noose. Puckering my lips, I whistle a simple command, and Darya comes dancing through the water toward me and begins to circle the herd of dugongs as they graze. Keeping a firm grip on the rope—which has begun to twist and jerk—with one hand, I reach down with the other and pull my coral knife out of the sheath on my belt. Then, kicking as hard as I can, I swim toward the spur of rock I was originally trying to lasso.
It is tough. Darin is fighting as hard as he can on the rope’s other end, and since he is a lot bigger and stronger than I am, swimming as hard as I am able is only just keeping me from being dragged backward toward him and away from the stone spur. But I have an advantage he doesn’t. I begin to hum and then sing—a merry, wordless tune. The seaweed rope goes slack for a moment, and I know the baby dugong in his arms has begun to struggle, trying desperately to obey my musical command to join me. It’s all Darin can do to hold her. Putting on a burst of speed, I strike out for the spike and manage to latch on. Bracing myself with my legs wrapped tightly around the jagged structure, I begin to reel in my line.
Darin is still fighting, but I continue to sing, and eventually he and the baby dugong are close enough. I knot my rope around the rock spur, leaving a long end dangling, and dart at him, wielding my knife. He is hampered by the calf under his right arm, but as I swim toward him, his tail whips up, whacking me hard in the shoulder. Tumbling through the water, I see from the corner of my eye he has drawn a knife and is trying to use the point to unravel my knot. I dart at him again, fingers latching onto the arm wielding his knife. Using a move he taught me, I twist his arm behind his back and use a chopping motion to bring the knife’s pommel down on his wrist. He gives a grunt and releases his weapon, which drops to the sand beneath us. Still holding his left arm pinned to his back, I wrap my other arm around his throat and allow the tip of my knife to prick his neck.
“Drop the calf,” I say in my deadliest voice.
His grip slackens and the little dugong wriggles through the water to hide behind me, its head butting against my shoulder. I loosen my grip on Darin and turn my head ever so slightly, chirruping to the baby. Taking advantage of my momentary distraction, he rips his left arm free and catches me around the waist. At the same time, he ducks free of my arm around his throat and chops me on the wrist with his unencumbered right arm, robbing me of my knife. I struggle fruitlessly, but his muscular arms are like manacles.
“How many times have I told you,” he asks, “not to get close to an opponent who is bigger than you?”
I sigh and drop my head, going limp in his arms. The moment I feel a relaxation in his hold, I kick out at his stomach and wriggle desperately, managing to squirm free. I dart jubilantly away from him, but the next second, I feel something wrap around my ankle and jerk me to a halt. Darin had used the long end of my own rope to lasso me. Now we are both tied to the spur by different ends of the rope.
As he swims toward me, I raise my hands in surrender. “Well done.”
“You weren’t focused,” he accuses, stopping a few feet away.
I sigh and reach down to stroke the baby dugong, who is nuzzling at my leg. “Off day, I guess.”
“You don’t have off days, Locklyn. What’s wrong?” He swims closer, and as I look up into his tawny golden eyes, they soften. Darin has known me all my life. He and Beck were Amaya’s best friends growing up, and they helped her care for me after I was abandoned in the reef. If Amaya taught me basic survival skills, Darin was the one who taught me how to protect myself and those around me. He showed me how to weave nets and ropes out of seaweed and kelp. He gave me my first coral knife and taught me to slash the gills of the sharks who came to attack my herd of dugongs. He trained me in hand-to-hand combat so I would be able to fight off the Nebulae women who frequently raided the outskirts of Undula looking for food.
When Beck and Amaya married, I was even more thrilled to have Darin join the family than Beck. The effortless comradeship he and I possess is a rare gift. And he is one of three people in the world whom I trust implicitly.
“The castle kitchens told me they would only be interested in buying two of my bulls this year.”
His eyes widen. “Don’t they normally get six?” I nod miserably. “Did they tell you why?”
I shake my head. “No, just that they will only be ‘requiring’ two this year. Maybe they’ve finally decided they’d rather not do business with a Crura.”
Darin’s eyes harden. “Their loss,” he says after a moment, his voice measured. “You raise the biggest dugongs in Undula.” His lips twitch upward into a smile. “I think your calves like being sung to.”
I grin back at him. “That’s what Amaya says. I think she’s a little irked she gave me the initial cow to start my herd, which is now bigger than hers. But,” I sigh and gesture moodily toward my legs, “it seems only fair I should get some compensation for being the one in our family to draw the short straw. Being Vocalese and a Crura is better than just being a Crura. People think you’re gifted if you can sing. If you have legs, they think you’re a dangerous mutant.”
Darin raises his eyebrows, and I raise a hand quickly to forestall him. “Don’t, Darin. Don’t tell me again I shouldn’t care what ignorant, prejudiced people think.”
Darin looks as though he is going to argue for a moment, but then he closes his mouth and shrugs, looking away. Silence stretches between us, guilt eating at me for my sharpness. But he doesn’t understand. How could he?
I’m not the only Merperson I know who has legs. But I could count the number on one hand (or foot). Most Crura can trace their legs to a genetic abnormality resulting from having a Land Dweller somewhere in their ancestry. My legs are a result of my great-great-grandmother Llyra double-crossing the Sea Enchantress.
Their deal was that after Circe gave Llyra the potion which would make her human, Llyra would swim to The Surface, drink it, transform into a human, use her beautiful voice to make Marcus fall in love with her, and then seal her voice in a magic locket and sail to a spot in the sea directly above Circe’s lair. There she would throw the locket overboard, thus paying the enchantress. This deal meant Llyra would live her entire life on land as a mute, but she was so desperately in love with Prince Marcus, she agreed to Circe’s demands. However, after becoming human and joining her prince on land, Llyra began to have second thoughts. After all, what could the Sea Enchantress do to her now? So the deadline for her payment came and went. When Circe discovered Llyra had reneged on their bargain, she went into an irate rage. In her fury, she declared that, until the end of time, one of Llyra’s descendants in every generation would be cursed, at home neither on land nor in the water. Nine months later, Llyra gave birth to a baby boy with webbed hands and feet. The child could not speak. Devastated, Llyra and Marcus struggled to raise their son until one day, when he was fifteen years old, he dove off a cliff and swam away, never to return.
