Scurvy Stories: The Magical Mermaid's Madness
“Look out for mermaids. They be tricksters always up to no good! Have yer eyes peeled like hawks glued to their prey.”
“Women of all sorts full of empty love
Gather round and give us some grub
In the ol’ kitchen where nothin’ gets done
Ready for you in there, as hot as the sun!”
The Lady Kraken, swift as the wind, sailed among the blackening skies. Opening up, the skies poured down hail threateningly as the crew wasn’t far off the wicked shores of Foundersville, a tiny coastal sailor town.
But they weren’t heading to the quaint little village but instead to the far right of Foundersville, to the rocky caverns and cliffs into tiny nooks and crannies where the mermaids hid. Where their nest would hold a wish for Captain Black Beard if he could only catch one.
“Full speed ahead!” Black commanded as Scudder and his cousins, Cleda and Frank, stared at the mysterious and foggy Cliffs of Addenton.
Scudder asked quickly, “Captain uh… I have to tell you…” wanting to tell him of his findings of Shifty, his secret crew, and their evil deeds.
“No time now, lad, we better be on high alert, now! Go tell the others. Wallace, come here!”
H. Wallace III swaggered up to the Captain’s domain looking out to the other pirates on deck. Working, heaving, and pulling ropes down across the sails, they all worked tirelessly together, positioning themselves to prepare for the tricks of mermaids. Captain Black steered the wheel in the direction he needed to glide along smoothly and without much detection.
“Look out for mermaids. They be tricksters always up to no good! Have yer eyes peeled like hawks glued to their prey.”
They squeezed through, going into the misty cliffs across the darkened waters as it calmed down and they sailed through quietly.
The eerie silence injected the crew with dread.
Scudder, Cleda, and Frank hurried down underneath the dark and gloomy cabin cells and waited for anything to occur.
“So, what do you do here?” Frank asked. “How has it actually been?”
“It’s been pretty bad. Captain won’t let me go. He won’t let you go either, I reckon.” Scudder whispered with his head bowed, “But the Captain gave me a job.”
“What kind of a job,” Cleda asked innocently.
Shifty came out of the shadows. “Ah, here, be the kids, the stowaways, eh?” Gruff and One-Eyed Pat followed close behind. Pat gazed down at Scudder’s cousins with a curious, lazy eye.
“That’s right!” Frank said proudly with his chest puffed out.
“Well, you ever clean toilets before?”
“Uh… no,” A bucket and mop were tossed at him rudely as Frank was forced downstairs to clean the bathrooms.
“Then get down there and clean ‘em,” Shifty spat.
“How about you?” Pat and Gruff approached Cleda, but Scudder blocked their way, stepping in front of her.
“She’s with me. You set me off to do a job, right?”
Gruff nodded as Pat glared at the kids who ran away down and deeper into the other cells and cellars that held what they sought.
Cleda was fast on his heels following his every move and turn, anticipating his sudden stop and start.
Then he came to a little hatch with a keyhole on it.
“Look!” Scudder took out a silver key, turned it carefully, and opened the little cellar. Pounds of gold blocks and silver cups and utensils, jewels and blue sapphires, moonlight crystals, green emeralds, and red rubies dazzled in the darkness of the ship. Twenty treasure chests full of gold, copper coins, and silver goods shone in the dim light.
“Wow,” Cleda said mesmerized, reaching out entranced with the beauty of the jewels. “Can we-”
“No, you mad? Captain Black will kill me!”
“So, you found his stash?”
“I did, right after we got back on, I searched quickly, and here it was.”
“Where’d you get the key?”
“When I was beside Black on the Green Owl, I snatched it.”
“Tricks and treats are up your sleeves.”
“There sure are. He’ll never know. Come on,” He closed it then they ran back up only to find Shifty. He had found them.
“Did you find anythin’ down there?” he asked, his old golden tooth twinkling in the lamplight.
“Uh… still looking,” Scudder gulped. “But nothing again.”
Shifty stomped his peg leg. “Well, keep the eyes peeled like a man on his new bride! Keep at it. You’ll find it sure enough. But lad,” Shifty said, pulling him close.
“When we stop for these mermaids, before we leave we’ll strike and take the gold. How ‘bout it? The others know. Even if you don’t find it, we’ll mutiny. Aye?” His yellow eyes pierced Scudder’s crystal blue ones.
“Aye.” Cleda hung close to his back as she sensed devilry from Shifty. He galloped away, limping as his dangling double-edged dagger waited to impale the Captain.
“Come on!” Scudder told Cleda, as she never left his side.
Sprouting nimbly up, the two cousins saw and heard Black grandly announce, “Here we be, boys!”
The ship came out of the embedded sharp rocks and revealed a little city of mermaids splashing, diving, and giggling as the terrible pirate ship glided along, but instead of fleeing instead of looking worried, the many mermaids waved and guffawed cat-calling the cruelly visaged pirates who were embarrassed but called back.
“Ah, ye silly lovely ladies!”
“Ye nicely mug mermaids!”
The many mermaids among the green pools of blue crystal water shined in the firelight, illuminating sticks placed strategically everywhere in the mystical palace. The mythical angelic water spirits all lined up everywhere, hanging and sitting beautifully clothed with angelic round faces beaming. Some were slender and some plump, but curvy and pretty, as Scudder gazed wonderfully at them.
One caught his attention and blew him a kiss and waved as he blushed, looking away quickly.
Seeing the giant columned towers and dirt paths twirling about floating in mid-air among the rocky cliffs leading to hidden pools and sweet spas, the mermaids swam from pool to pool. Finally, when they wanted, they could walk like human women and scamper about on the sandy shores and frolic among the stones and rocky jumps as their fishtails opened making a long skirt and closing at will.
As they came closer to the shores, the mermaids all waved and laughed happily diving into the water to guide and welcome the ship.
“We don’t have much visitors around here, sailors,” one golden-skinned mermaid said in a sweet voice.
Black looked out at the many mingling mermaids all singing and splashing like little guppies giggling uncontrollably.
“Well, we aren’t sailors, but pirates!”
The mermaids all whispered and smirked pointing at Captain Black.
“Why, ye be pointin’? Don’t you know who I am?” Black gruffly shouted.
The leader of the group, the Mermaid Queen came forth out onto the waters swiftly on her giant seahorse. A green sharp crown lay on her head made of a fish’s scales as she was clad royally with yellow and green scales all intricately designed. Runes and mermaid symbols decked her vestments and armor in crystal and brightly colored rocks. Pearls were in her earlobes, and a golden necklace of a water beetle hung around her slender neck. She held a red staff of wonder riding towards Black.
“I don’t think we want to gain your acquaintance, dear pirate. I will have you leave.” The Queen came close to her daughters all surrounding her mighty person.
“Go away swiftly, and I promise you won’t be harmed, Captain Black Beard.”
Black laughed with a crooked smirk around his dirty face, “Oh, Mermaid Queen it is so good to see you,” he said sweetly.
“That is not my name. I am Helen, daughter of Poseidon, Sister of the Seven Seas and I command you to stand down!” She held up her red staff, which glowed vibrantly, pointing it right at Black’s ugly face.
“Now, now, Queen,” Black urged her, showing his hands were empty. “I simply come for a wish.”
“Of course you did, you wicked pirate! They always come… ships come around wanting a wish. A wish, just one wish, but then when that doesn’t suffice, men desire more; it becomes a need for control, greedy for power! And I will not have it, especially the likes of you and your kind. Be gone! I command you!”
“Is that the right way, to treat your son-in-law, now Sea Queen?”
Helen, the daughter of Poseidon’s beautiful and bright expression, fell.
“I have no son-in-law. He died long ago, they all die eventually. And you were the worst of the lot.” She came closer and held up her trident more viciously. “Where is she? Did you finally come to your senses and have her come back?”
“Pearl. Pearl, the purest of them all, she was.”
“She still is.” She bared her fangs at him as her seahorse blew bubbles out of his long mouth. “Then where is she? Dead at the bottom of the ocean?”
“Nay, lass. Kidnapped by the Sea Serpent Denneson.”
“Impossible, he eats all of his treats. He would never savor one. He is too greedy and impulsive. No controlling that beast. You lie.”
Black pulled up a black-and-white photo and held it up as he flung it to the Queen’s green claws. “If that don’t convince ya, I don’t know what will.”
She fondled the picture in her hands delicately.
It showed Black as a young man with a little scruff of black before he was a raging seaman pirate. In those days, he was a water merchant with an arm wrapped around a young, beautiful mermaid smiling joyfully close to him. They were behind the merchant ship he used to sail.
“Oh, Edward, what happened?” Helen asked quietly. Suddenly she became friendly, like a mother to him.
“Ah… I… I don’t know, Helen,” Black Beard said, ashamed. “I just want to see her again.”
“I remember. It was so long ago.” Helen chuckled and smirked.
“That is why I need to catch me a mermaid. To save her.”
“Why would you want to do that, Black?” Helen sneered suspiciously still. “To take another one of my daughters because you’re lonely?”
“Nay, because I was banished from Denneson’s island. I need to get through to pay his debt. I need a wish.”
“What debt?”
“Does it matter? Helen, please…” Black pleaded with his snake-green eyes. “She is the love of me life.” Black almost choked genuinely.
“I’m lost without her, without her soft, soothing voice. Her touch on my shoulder, her sincere look that she gives, and her serving hands that heal. I miss how she asked you how yer day was. I miss her dearly, Helen.
“Please, if I can catch just one, then I let her go. I won’t take her and I’ll leave this utopia for good. Ya hear me?”
Helen sensed the sincerity in his old pirate accent and relented, “Aye, but you know the rules: I won’t simply hand you one of my daughters, you’ll have to catch one. Hurry, they are nimble and quick!”
All of a sudden, she broke away from the boat, soaring along as the whole horde of mermaids dashed for the beaches wonderfully laughing. They splashed and sprayed each other, diving and swimming frantically with their fishtails pushing them. They glided fast to the mermaid’s fantastical abode.
“After them, mateys!” Black cackled smiling in the mood for a competitive game of Catch Me a Mermaid.
“We just need to get one! One! Wallace? Get the men to grab the nets.”
Wallace, with his golden beard flowing about, ordered the men to grab nets. They did so and gathered as much manpower as possible.
Scudder, Cleda, and Frank looked around at the jumping and swimming butterfly mermaids. Their tails glistened in the sunset.
“You three! Never mind the nets,” Black urged them, shouting. “Get the boats and get after ‘em!”
Black went aboard as he gestured to the kids, “Come on! There’s room for more!”
Scudder, Cleda, and Frank bounded on as it swiftly dropped into the water, splashing. They sped off as Black and Scudder paddled like mad dogs digging for their bones.
Hundreds of mermaids swarming in a sea of dazzling pinks, purples, emeralds, and golden tails glistened beautifully.
“They’re gettin’ away. Grab one, lad!” Scudder tried grabbing one but was too slow as the mermaid winked at him and dove into the green sea. “Come on, come on, all three of yas, try to grab ‘em!”
Journeying across the little lake area toward the mermaid towers paddling furiously like witches stirring their terrible brew, they sailed across and reached the beaches. The mermaids opened their tails as they ran into their green and rocky homes, walking up pathways, giggling and whispering to each other about how to evade them and to not get caught.
As they washed up on shore, Black jumped off, leading the charge to catch a singular mermaid. But they were too quick for him and his crew.
The water spirits ran and disappeared into their rocky fortress, the sweet aromas of plums and apricots, strawberries and blueberries filled the air as mango and pineapple came trailing along in the summer breeze.
“Alright, ye three,” Black began. “Scudder and you, lass, you go up the right, me and you, uh…”
“Frank!”
“Franky, laddy! Come on, we go to the wee left. First one to get a magical mermaid you shout and I’ll be there waiting to grant me a wish. Quickly now, quickly!”
They shot around to the sides of the cliffs of Addenton, the sharp and rigged edges of rock jetted out of the beautiful and brightly colored fortress of the sea sisters.
Scudder and Cleda came around to a corner and saw two mermaids shout out of an exhilarating fear to not get caught and giggled, running up stony steps to the higher parts.
Scudder and Cleda raced up after them and then cornered one.
“We gotcha!” Scudder said, satisfied, but then the little pink-haired mermaid winked and flung herself out the window and jumped into a little pool a long ways down.
“If you wanna catch me, jump in then!” She chortled loudly as other mermaids jumped off the edges and into the same pool.
“That’s a long jump,” Scudder said, shaking his head.
“Hey, look, Scudder,” Cleda yelled, pointing.
Four more sisters were running along so they chased after them as the four split into two groups. Scudder and Cleda then split in two following their group running fast and free.
Scudder followed closely behind until the two sisters ejected themselves down a slippery slide, laughing gleefully relieved they avoided his grasp as he stopped to catch his breath.
Cleda swung through rocky crevices, down desolate stairs, and eventually cornered the two. But one climbed up the stone wall and tried to grab her friend’s hand but it was too late. Cleda lunged and grabbed the youthful mermaid’s foot as she abruptly looked down and rolled her eyes.
“Not me again,” the pretty mermaid said, with her green hair flowing in the sea wind. And she came off the wall and pouted, folding her arms.
“I got one!” Cleda yelled happily, skipping along. She brought the mermaid and presented her to Captain Black down by the shores with all the boats.
“Alright, you scalawags! That’s enough, we got one! Ya’ll can’t be good enough like the fast, Cleda!” Black guffawed proudly. “Good one, lass. You gonna be a fine pirate someday, I say.”
Queen Helen came out walking among her daughters in her brilliant scale-green armor and her scarlet staff congratulating Cleda, “Good catch, daughter. May you be filled with wisdom and understanding and have a long life in good health all the days of your life.” She smiled pleasantly and Cleda curtsied and bowed her head.
The violet-tanned mermaid, Cleda caught, rolled her eyes, folded her arms curtly, and asked, “What’s gonna be your wish?”
“Ah, well,” Black began, “I wish to enter the domain of Denneson, the Sea Serpent!”
“As you wish,” the mermaid said and snapped her fingers, but nothing strange occurred except the wind howling. It roared and rushed upon all who stood there blowing violently in their face then finally after a moment ceased.
“Ah, thank ye, mermaid, and ye Helen, Sister of the Seven Seas! I wish thee farewell and long life.”
“Rescue her, please. Not for me, but for yourself,” Helen told him firmly.
Black looked away and nodded suddenly and forced a smile, “Well, come on crew, we be going now.”
The entire crew that had been assembling as Captain Black Beard was making his wish, came out and down from the mermaid’s abode. Some were kicked out and slapped by the mermaids. Being given the boot, Shifty and Gruff unwillingly trudged out.
The crew got on their tiny boats and the mermaids waved and blew kisses while some spit at them and caused a ruckus by cursing and calling them names.
The boats left the white sandy beaches and floated back.
Everyone got on and in the craziness that followed Wallace found Black who was about to hug his old pirate pal, Patch Pat, when suddenly Pat grabbed his Captain maliciously.
One Eyed Pat smirked savagely and pulled a dagger to his throat, “Now, now, Captain, things are about to change hands!”
Shifty got Black from behind as he flailed his arms but was struck by Gruff who hit him in the ribs, breaking him as he wailed in agony and cursed them.
“You be makin’ a big mistake…” Black began heaving, trying to catch his breath as the wind was knocked out of him.
The twin brothers, Bruce and Forger, pulled their revolvers and shot them off in the air causing the men to fall in line and follow orders.
“What do you plan on doing?” Black asked, furious.
Shifty called out and cut Black’s cheek and kicked his behind as he fell to the deck on his face.
“This be a mutiny, Captain! I’m takin’ over. You been demoted, Black. Time to mop the deck!”
To Be Continued…
