A Mother's Love

I’d been with Greg for twelve years and he still hadn’t given me back my skin. The fucker.

It wasn’t like he was displeased with my services. I kept the house clean, I cooked the meals every single day, I allowed him to fuck me at his pleasure. I bore his children, a boy first, then a girl. I raised them, despite lacking any natural maternal instinct, while he was out boating on the Atlantic. I wasn’t permitted to touch the sea, or even to leave the confines of his property. And he still wouldn’t release me.

“Just one more year,” he’d say on every midsummer’s eve when I approached him. It was always twilight when I asked. That was the way these things were done. And, as he was the one who had possession of my skin, my beautiful silver scales, I had to accept that. He was probably never going to give it back. I’d never see my sisters again.

It was my own fault, really. Every sea nymph knew that to take off the stretchy covering of our skin and to release our legs was a risk, that if anyone took our scales, we would be enslaved. But oh no, I had to show off for my sisters. Prove how brave I was.

I was an idiot. I deserved to be caught by an ignorant fisherman raised on superstition and legend that the rest of the modern world had conveniently forgotten about. But Greg was like that. He didn’t have a television, but he had his beliefs, and those had served him well. And I was stuck as his perpetual bitch.

A door slammed and I looked up from where I stood in the kitchen. The children were still in school. Len was in sixth grade, the smartest in his class, and Margaret was in second, bumbling along in a disturbingly mortal way. Eight and twelve years of age. They were nothing but constant reminders of how low I’d been brought.

Their father loved them, though. The other day, he had brought home a small dove he had captured by the cliffs for Margaret to play with, while Len had received a homemade wooden whistle so that he wouldn’t feel neglected. It was perfectly clear to anyone who cared to notice that Margaret was his favorite, the blond little grub. I, myself, didn’t care much for either of them.

Footsteps echoed heavily along the hallway as I heard Greg walk in, his thick shoes tracking salt-water mud across the floor I had just cleaned the day before. He didn’t care about the extra work I’d have to do, though. The sacred magicks that bound me to him though his ownership of the skin would not allow me to complain.

“Hello, Mer,” he greeted me and I nodded in response. Mer, short for mermaid. His oh-so-clever name for me, since the magicks that bound me to him did not make me compelled to always answer his questions. I could not lie, but I was allowed to maintain my silence, even with facts as simple as my name.

The ancient gods, long vanished, who had cast that damned spell upon us in the first place for reasons unknown, would probably have been amused by my plight. Throughout the ocean, prior to my capture, I had been known for my pride, my vanity. I had been the most beautiful of all my sisters. And, apparently, the most careless.

Greg kicked off his shoes in the kitchen, after leaving a dirty trail halfway through the house, and the stench that rose from his disgusting mortal feet made me nearly gag. The body odor, the dirt that covered his clothes, face, hands, the pimples on his face, the tangled and oily beard... Greg was everything that I hated compressed into a single person.

If the gods were still around, I hoped that they were choking on their laughter.

“The school called. The buses were delayed so the children will return from school by 4,” I said, my face turned away, my voice monotonous. “Dinner will be ready by 7.” Die, you fucker. You thief. You bastard. “We’re having liver and onions. Your favorite.”

I concentrated on the kitchen wall, hoping frantically that today would be different from every other day. That the pattern would change. That Greg would not be interested.

The sound of his fly unzipping was the loudest noise in the room.

“Come on, Mer. We have an hour before the kids get back. Let’s make the most of it, hmm?”

It was only the spell that made me to turn around, because no other force on earth would have convinced me to. How I hated every aspect of my existence.

When I had been in the sea, I had earned the reputation of being haughty and vain, a reputation that was greatly deserved. Of all my father’s daughters, I was truly the most lovely. I had seduced the greatest number of mortal sailors. A mere glimpse of my breasts, a mere look upon my face, and they would throw themselves into the ocean. For my pleasure, I would watch them be eaten by sharks, or land in schools of jellyfish, or drown slowly with their unspent erections for their only companions as they sank down to the bottom, staring at me with dead eyes.

That had been better than any sex that Greg could ever hope to share with me. The cold shivers that coursed through my body, the absolute thrill of watching the idiot men sacrifice their worthless lives for me... There was nothing on land that could compare to that sensation.

But I stupidly had decided to impress my sisters with my courage. To take off my scales and to dance on land with human feet, to foolishly leave my skin where any half-assed mortal could get his greedy hands on it.... Part of me knew that I deserved the trials I’ve had to go through with Greg. It was my own stupidity that had gotten me here in the first place.

Even as a human, I was still beautiful. And I was his to do with as he pleased.

Feeling numb, I let Greg lead me into the living room where he would make me lay on the ratty, patched-up couch where he had fucked me so many times before. I knew the shitty paint job of the ceiling by heart, for all the times I’d stared at it, waiting for the moment to end.

I closed my eyes and let him take off my dress. One day I’d make him suffer for this dishonor. Oh, the damage I would do to him.

I concentrated upon that thought as I felt his hand slide up my thigh and tug at my underwear. One day.

Just wait, you fucker. Just wait.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

A quarter of an hour after Greg had satisfied himself with me, the children returned from school. Greg greeted them with hugs and kind words, but I merely sat there on the couch and tried not to recall how terrible it had felt. How terrible it always felt. Ten thousand showers couldn’t make me feel clean again. And a hundred thousand deaths would not satisfy my craving to see Greg suffer.

Margaret tried to show me a drawing she had made during her class, but I merely nodded and then ignored her. Len had learned far quicker than his sister that I didn’t care in the slightest about them. The labor I had been forced to go through with having them had been enough. The children should’ve been grateful for that small effort on my part.

“I’m going to the tavern, Mer. I’ll be back by supper.”

I blinked and stared stonily ahead, but Greg just smiled and kissed the children goodbye.

Len went into his room to do his homework, but Margaret stayed in the living room, looking at me.

It was hard enough to live in his house without the constant surveillance.

“What?” I finally asked, trying not to think about how I still smelled like his cum. Like him. Like dirt and sweat and body odor.

Margaret rocked back and forth on her heels. “I’m bored.”

“So?”

“Can I go play in the attic? Daddy never lets me go up there.”

I sneered. Of course he doesn’t let them go up there. Based on Greg’s occasional complaints, the attic was a dangerous mess, filled with rusted nails and precariously stacked boxes heaped with rubbish that he’d collected. Half the floor hadn’t even been put in properly, so that it was easy to fall through into the ceiling of the room below if one walked up there without care.

However, although Greg had condemned me through his words to live only on the first floor of his worthless house, he had never told me specifically to keep the children away from any of the rooms in the house. These commands, he had told to them himself. I was free to make my own reply.

“Of course, daughter. Go and explore.” Smash your head in. Step on a nail. Slowly bleed to death and we’ll see how happy he’ll be.

Margaret smiled at me, obviously pleased at how she was suddenly allowed to do something that had originally been taboo, and raced towards the back of the house. I followed her and helped her pull down the ladder that emerged from a trap door in the ceiling.

“Explore everything,” I urged her as she climbed up, unable to keep a malicious grin entirely off my face. “Have no fear.”

‘Nothing can hurt you up there,’ I wanted to add, but that would be lying. And the damn spell refused to allow me to lie, even to my own children.

Margaret finished climbing up and I sat in an overstuffed chair that was placed near to where the ladder was located. That way, when Margaret hurt herself, I would have the best vantage point to hear her scream. As I sat down, I noticed that the floor was still dirty with Greg’s footprints. I’d have to mop later, hopefully after Margaret bled to death in the attic, or shattered her skull, or at least broke an arm. Greg would certainly regret ever having thought of forcing me to remain his wife. Oh, would he be sorry.

The only thing that astounded me was that I hadn’t thought of this a decade ago. I had tried to hurt the children before, of course, but Greg had caught on almost immediately and had given me so many commands that even I, for twelve years, hadn’t been able to find a loophole. But the attic...he had never mentioned the attic. Oh, had he not!

From overhead, I heard the sound of rustling as my daughter searched through the boxes. There was no sound of crashing, though, which disappointed me. From the way that Greg had spoken about the attic, obliviously painting colorful pictures of a deathtrap with his stunted words, I expected an almost immediate injury.

Suddenly, muted as though very far away, I heard Margaret laugh. “Oh, pretty!” she squealed and then I heard her tiny footsteps running towards the trapdoor.

“What is it?” I called out as she scurried along. “Run faster!”

Her head appeared and she smiled broadly at me. “Dress up clothes! All sorts of pretty fabrics!”

I suddenly couldn’t breath and had to mentally remind myself how to inhale. Could Greg really have been so foolish...? A picture flashed in my head of my precious, silver skin, followed by images of Greg bloody and mangled by my sharp nails and teeth. I pushed away the hope, careful lest I be disappointed once again.

“Are any of them shiny?” I asked, clutching at the wall for support, “Like sparkling silver?”

“Yeah! Some of em!”

I stood up quickly from my chair and looked up at my daughter from beneath the trapdoor.

“Go and get them for me! Drop them down!”

Margaret hesitated for a second, the greedy excitement in my voice alarming her.

I forced my voice to come out smoother to soothe her apprehension, “Please, daughter? I’ll give you some extra dessert tonight after supper.”

“Okay!” she cried, happy at the new prospect of being bribed, and ran back to what sounded like the far side of the attic. My heart raced. Had Greg been so stupid as to hide my skin, my precious scales, inside the actual house? Anyone with half a brain would’ve placed it in a safe or a far-off storage house, but then again, Greg had probably thought that forbidding me from entering the attic would’ve been enough.

“What are you doing?”

I spun around, my heart racing fast. Len stood there, solemn and guarded, keenly intelligent for all his twelve years. With black hair and thick brows, he took after his father in facial features, but he had my eyes. Deep blue ones, that took in everything but gave back nothing unless he wanted. Len knew very well that I didn’t love him, or even want him. He’d never even been compelled to ask.

He looked up at the attic, cringing when he heard Margaret running back. He turned towards me, his eyes narrowed and accusing from behind his thick glasses.

“You put her up there to hurt her.”

I answered honestly. I had no choice, since keeping my silence would have confirmed the truth, anyways. “Yes.”

“Why?” he spit. I could see the hate that filled him, the emotions that he’d never showed, the ones he had striven to keep hidden. He was the most like me, except for his facial features, which were far too like his father’s for close comfort.

From overhead, Margaret came stumbling into view from above us. “I got them,” she announced happily, a bundle of clothing in her hands.

“Throw them down!” I cried, temporarily forgetting Len, forgetting everything, as I spied something silver and glistening from within the tangled folds of the bundle.

Margaret complied and threw them down, causing Len to yell with anger and confusion as one of the old dress shirts detangled itself from the rest of the clothes and landed on him, covering his hateful face. The rest of the clothing hit the floor with rising cloud of dust. And there, lying on top as shiny and clean as it had been the day I’d left it unguarded on the beach, was my skin.

“Oh yes...” I breathed, more excited now than I’d ever been during the entire twelve years of my imprisonment. With almost trembling hands, I touched the scales with one of my fingers. The release came almost immediately.

It was like a sudden wind. I convulsively jerked forwards as I felt the magick move through me like fingers running through knotted hair and then, finally, I was my own again.

Smiling, I turned towards Len, who had gotten the tattered shirt off of his head in time to see my release. He must have realized that something had happened, because he didn’t continue to shout at me, but merely stared with his thin mouth hanging open.

After a moment of enjoying his reaction, I realized that it wasn’t at me, exactly, that he was looking at. Instead, he was staring at the scaled skin that I clutched in my hands. I followed his gaze and was startled to see that it was glowing, like the creatures that swim in the crevices at the bottom of the ocean, too deep down for the sunlight to reach. A light golden aura surrounded it and I hugged it close to myself, like I’d never hugged my children.

It was the first time that I’d ever seen my scales glow. It was not unknown amongst my kind for that to happen, so I wasn’t seriously alarmed. The occasional sea nymph emitted light when down in the blacker depths of the ocean, but it was a rare trait and one that was often envied as a sign of beauty.

“It changed, in all that time it was separated from me,” I realized and said so aloud, unaware of what I was doing.

“What?” Len demanded. I heard the sound of steps as Margaret laboriously climbed down the ladder, probably curious to see what all the arguing had been about. As I glanced at her, I recalled that Greg would be home soon, that he rarely had more than one or two drinks at the tavern before he returned. And I’d have a surprise for him.

“Come on, children. We’re going for a walk down to the beach.”

Margaret grinned widely. The idiot child had inherited too much of her father’s dimness for her to recognize the threat in my voice, but Len had taken after me in intelligence. He stepped back and shook his head.

“No. We’re not going anywhere.”

Power. Oh, the power to do as I pleased! How I had missed it! Smiling at Len, I reached over and grasped Margaret by her chubby upper arm, making sure to dig in my nails.

Predictably, she gasped and started crying, but I ignored her in favor of watching my son.

“Come with me, Len,” I grinned, pleased to discover that already my teeth were sharpening themselves, “Come with me or your sister will go with me alone. And then no one would be there to protect her.”

I shook her roughly and she screamed loudly, too loudly, so that my head felt like it would burst. My ears were changing as well, it seemed. She stopped when I slapped her and Len took a step forward, protectively.

I put my hand over her head, two of my fingers resting gently over her eyelids.

“Now’s time to go for a nice walk along the beach, isn’t that right, Len?”

He hugged himself and stared hollowly at Margaret as she stood there and cried. Finally, just when I thought I was going to have to put out her eyes to convince him that I was serious, he nodded.

“Okay. I’ll go. Just don’t hurt her.” His voice sounded like a choking seal. I smiled and relaxed my grip.

I gestured over to the door with the hand that was holding the skin. Len nodded and walked outside, Margaret and myself behind him, as I glanced at the clock and smiled.

Greg would have such a surprise.

*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

The ocean was darker than I remembered, but maybe it was just the light. The sun was setting and the sky was absolutely gorgeous. Streaks of red and purple intermingled over the waves of the water. Oh the water...

Occasionally, during those long twelve years, I had smelled traces of the sea salt when I was outside hanging up the laundry, or had the downstairs windows open, but I’d forgotten how powerful it was. How utterly dominating.

“Go down to the water. Now.”

I shoved Margaret forward as Len dragged his way down the beach, his head always turning back towards me. Towards his sister.

When we reached the waves, Len hesitated, but only for a second. I threw Margaret into the deeper water about 20 meters away, my old strength swiftly returning to me even though I wasn’t even wearing the skin.

“Margaret!” Len cried and dove into the water, for unlike his sister, who couldn’t swim at all, he had been taught by his school the basics of how to stay afloat. I smiled as I watched him struggle his way towards where Margaret had sunk beneath the waves.

He dived underneath the water and, for a moment, I lost sight of him. Then his head burst back towards the surface again and I began laughing when I saw that Margaret wasn’t with him. Len looked amazingly stupid, with his eyes bright red from the stinging salt of the ocean, seaweed clinging to his hair, lining his cheek.

He took another breath and dived again. This time, I waded in deeper, towards them, almost quivering in pleasure as the waves washed around me, pulled at my legs and welcomed me back from my long hiatus.

I could see Len’s kicking body as an outline from above the water. Surely there would be a better view from beneath the surface. I lowered my head into the water and immediately all the loud noises of the human world were emptied from my ears. There was only the roar of ocean, the pounding of the waves, and, like music to my ears, the high pitched whine of air escaping from my son’s throat as he struggled to pull Margaret’s motionless body towards the surface, kicking with all his might.

When Len broke from the water, he didn’t even bother to try and catch his breath first. He began to swim towards the shore, haphazardly because the body of his sister was holding him back and he hadn’t learned any of the basic lifeguarding skills.

I began to wade over to where Len was struggling, but then a sight stopped me cold, even as my bastard children were getting closer to the shore. It was Greg. He was here. I didn’t even notice it when a bullet blasted past my face and tore through my hair. That fucker was here, at last. Reeking of alcohol and standing at the edge of the beach with a shotgun in his hand, Greg was finally realizing the price of imprisoning a sea nymph.

“Let them go, Mer!”

I began to giggle and then, grinning at him with my glistening teeth (oh how sharp they felt! How natural!), I raised my arm and waved my skin at him like a banner.

The look on his face almost made the entire twelve years worth it.

“How do you like your wife now?” I called out, reaching over and snagging Margaret from her brother’s grasp as he struggled to swim passed me, his eyes clinched shut from the stinging salt. The girl wasn’t breathing and her lips were turning a pale blue, but that didn’t stop Len from trying to tackle me to rescue his dullard sister. I ignored him and he fell off of me and landed back in the water, his head going under with a satisfying splash.

Greg looked as though he was about to vomit, the coward, but he made no move to come closer to me. Instead, he raised his gun again and aimed it towards my head.

“Put Margaret down! Get away from my children!”

I shook my head and lifted my daughter so that her face was next to mine. I knew Greg too well. He had always been a 50/50 shot and he wouldn’t risk hitting his precious little girl.

“Greg, honey,” I called out, my voice saccharine sweet, “they’re our children, sweetheart. They’re of my flesh as well as yours.”

My smile grew wider and a pleasant shudder went through me as I felt my incisors grow even longer.

“But I never agreed to have any children with you, Greg. You know that. So wouldn’t you agree,” I asked, as I gently stroked Margaret’s face with my thumb, “when I say that maybe it’s time for me to take some of my flesh back?”

I heard Len cry out as he realized what I was about to do, but I ignored him. Keeping my eyes constantly on Greg’s face, I opened my mouth and sank my teeth into Margaret’s neck and then tore .

She tasted sweet as honey. A delicacy fit for any daughter of the sea.

“Margaret!” Len cried and then propelled himself towards me as I let her body drop into the water. Greg looked beside himself with horror as he watched his little girl bob up and down in the waves. Her body would make a fine meal for the passing fish. It was all she was good for.

As Len reached the body, seconds later, I merely pushed him aside, still looking at my husband and focusing my will upon him.

Put the shotgun in your mouth , I smiled. You have nothing left to live for, Greg. Your daughter is dead. Your wife ate her. Kill yourself, Greg. It’s the only choice you have left.

He tore his gaze away from Margaret’s body and looked into my eyes. Making sure he was still watching, I slowly licked at the blood that gathered at my lips and left a trail down my chin, savoring the taste of my daughter.

We seduced, the sea nymphs, the sirens, the mermaids, the daughters of the sea. Our power lay in the art of seducing reason away from the mind in order to get the mortals to do as we would have them. Those twelve years of imprisonment had wasted away my power to almost nothing, but now it was returning, pulsing inside me as vibrant as it ever had been.

Death is easy, Greg. You don’t have it in you to live. You’re a man who had to kidnap his wife, raped her every single day, you pathetic piece of shit. You couldn’t even protect your own children. Look at what you have left, Greg. You have nothing.

He shook his head but the malignant thoughts, going from my brain to his, kept on pushing at him. The sensations that were radiating off of him were like mead, like honey and wine and spices pouring into every cell with delicious frenzy.

Put the gun in your mouth. That’s all you need to do for the misery to be over. That’s all you need.... A smirk graced my lips as I bent down and picked up Margaret’s body before it sunk entirely beneath the waves. With one hand holding her up, silver skin draped across my upper arm, I rammed my other hand, fingers first, into her stomach and tore out an internal organ. I wasn’t certain which one it was. It probably was the liver, or perhaps a kidney. Like the average McDonald’s consumer would care about the physiology of a cow, I’d never taken an interest in learning the anatomy of mortals. Even imprisoned, I had far better things to do with my time.

With Greg standing helpless on the beach, I opened my mouth and took a small bite. It was definitely the liver. The taste was enough to remind me of Greg’s favorite meal, liver and onions. Humans and cows tasted surprisingly similar.

That small gesture was enough to send him over the edge. Helplessly staring at me as I finished my meal, licking the blood off my fingers with the manner of a five star chef tasting a dish, Greg put the barrel of the shotgun between his lips. As I chewed the last piece of her tiny liver, delighting in the sweet flavor that my daughter must have inherited from my race’s blood, he pulled the trigger. I was the last thing he’d seen in his lifetime, a film of red congealing around my lips.

Almost giddy with happiness, I began to giggle as I watched the gray matter leak out of my husband’s skull. The utter pleasure that his suffering had given me made me hornier than I’d been in twelve years. I was avenged, finally and completely. I was finished.

But during that moment, I forgot about my son. The last remaining testimony of my humiliation, the proof of my capture. I turned towards where I had last seen him, coughing and choking on the seawater, but all I could find were the constant waves on the surface of the sea.

Had he drowned, I wondered, scanning the surface of the water for signs of life. Did he follow in the footsteps of his idiot father and just give up trying to fight the waves?

A slam from my right side immediately answered my questions. And the sensation of my precious scales being pulled from my hand was enough to shatter my mood.

“Let go, you little brat!” I cried as I tried to shake Len off my scales. His grip was nothing if not impressive though, and he dug his fingers in tighter.

With my free hand, I made a grab for his hair to try and pull him off, but he ducked at the last minute and lifted his foot onto my side to give him better leverage. My silver scales brushed lightly against his ankle as I struggled to pull my skin away from him.

A sudden, unexpected movement, and we both watched, incredulous, as my scales connected .

“No!” I screamed, my voice sounding unreal to my ears as the dead seriousness of this latest situation began to penetrate.

The silver of my scales glowed brightly as it wrapped itself around my son’s leg of its own accord. I pulled at it, fruitlessly, but there was nothing I could do to separate my precious skin from my son.

“What is this?” Len yelled as I lost my grip entirely and the silver skin wove itself around both of his legs, stopping right before it reached his genitals, tearing through his shorts. Disbelieving, I watched his feet flattening into a large fin, the tattered sneakers falling off into the sea.

My scales had found a new owner, it seemed, and I began to laugh, helplessly, as I watched my son flounder about the water like a newborn.

Well, I guess technically he is , a small, detached voice in my brain muttered. A son of the sea. It’s been a while since one of them was born .

Len stared at his new tail for a moment, the shock in his eyes disappearing only thanks to his habit of hiding his emotions. It was obvious that he was still utterly terrified. His entire body, fins and all, was shivering.

“Give it back,” I ordered him, trying to ignore the constant butting against my leg as Margaret’s body was continually knocked against me by the waves. “That’s my skin, not yours. Take it off and give it to me!”

Len turned towards the beach and looked at his father, and then at the floating body of his sister, caught in the tide. His face broke, momentarily, crumpling in on itself as a few salty tears leaked down his already wet face. A low moaning escaped his lips and he looked as though he was about to sob earnestly, but then he stopped. Despite all the petty human emotion that must have been surging through him, his iron control over his own will visibly snapped back into place and his face melted into a bland expression, as though he hadn’t felt a thing. It must have been his years of practice with me, every day of his life.

“What…what happened to me?” He asked, his voice almost not shaking.

I shook my head, almost too pissed to give him an explanation, but then I noticed how his fingernails were growing longer. Sharper. And so I acquiesced.

“Your father stole me away from the sea, from my sisters, less than a year before you were born. He hid my skin away.”

His voice disbelieving and hateful, he ordered, “Continue.”

And so I did.

I told him about how I had danced, how I had left my skin to be taken. I told him of how his father had raped me and made me his slave, how the ancient spell on my people had bound me to do his will. And I told him of how I dreamed of revenge, how the spell was broken when my scales were returned to me by way of the dimwitted Margaret.

But I told him nothing of the powers he was already developing, of how there were already gills ready to break though his skin like wisdom teeth. That would have been foolish, like handing him a loading gun and asking him not to shoot. So I told him everything else except that. He’d discover the changes soon enough, anyways, if he didn’t return what was mine within the next few minutes.

“So give me back my skin,” I finished, “You can take it off. It’s easy. I’ll show you how. Just give me back what is mine and you’ll never see me again.”

I flashed a venomous glare towards the beach, where Greg’s body lay, “I’ll swear, if that’s what you want. I’ll never return. Just give me back my scales so I can be in the ocean with my sisters again.”

Len turned towards me and gave me a small, joyless smile, unconsciously flashing just enough of his front teeth to show me that his incisors were already sharpening themselves, and then he shook his head. His eyes looked almost crueler than mine were reputed to be.

“You killed my family, Mother. I don’t see why you should be allowed to live with yours.”

Throwing one last sorry glance at his sister, Len spat at me and dived into the ocean, disappearing beneath the glassy surface. I could still see the glow of my scales as he departed, shining brighter than any I’d ever seen before amongst my people. And then he was gone.

Feeling hollow, I kicked away Margaret’s body and trudged towards the beach. The strange gravity of the surface world felt far too familiar.

My skin. My scales. My last hope of ever getting back to where I belonged. It was gone.

I sat down besides the corpse of my husband and looked out towards the ocean, my son’s glow long departed. I would never get my skin back, excepting the unlikely event that he had a change of heart.

Or unless you hunted him , that distant voice in my head whispered, comforting me with its optimism. The scales will forever glow as bright as the sun. You know this in your heart and you know how this could help you find him. You could peel it off that ungrateful brat’s body. Skin him like an animal .

As I felt my teeth slowly shrinking back to their mortal size, I looked down upon the corpse of my kidnapper, my tormentor, my husband. I was free now, though I was trapped in this human body. I could go anywhere, do as I pleased...

Hunt what you will, the distant voice whispered.

I reached towards the shotgun and removed it from Greg’s mouth, grimacing in disgust at the string of bloody saliva that clung to it. One day, I would find my son. No matter how cleverly he hid, I would find him. I would have my scales back.

“And with this,” I said to myself, stroking the barrel of the gun like I would a pet, “I’ll show Len just how much I love him.”

The waves roared and I smiled. The sea had never seemed so beautiful.