Land-Daughter

a dark mermaid story for Mermay

May 11, 2025

This is the Shrouded Grouse, and here you’ll find free supernatural short stories and novellas, essays and musings, zines, and illustrations that explore the liminal spaces and moody places.

I wrote this story a couple years back for a Mermay contest prompt on Wattpad from Tales of the Deep, which it ended up winning. Not sure how many entries there were, so that may not be a big deal. I’m still rather fond of this story, and I hope you will be, too.

Land-Daughter

My 6-year-old daughter got sent home from school for saying mermaids have teeth like razors, soul-piercing screams, and the blood of murdered sailors caked under their fingernails.

“Jesus, Melanie,” I said when we got in the car. She was quiet. She knew when I used her full name she was really in trouble. “I told you to make it sound like you think mermaids aren’t real. Not go off the deep end.”

She folded her arms across her chest and glowered. “I did. I made stuff up.” I couldn’t argue with that. It was very creative.

And I was the one who’d told her to stop telling the truth. To stop saying that her mom was a mermaid. To stop telling kids at school how I put salt in the bathwater and grow a sparkling green fish-tail, how I can taste the air to tell if a storm is coming. How I eat a hell of a lot of tinned sardines. Sushi is too damned expensive.

“You upset some of the other girls,” I said. That was putting it mildly. Several of them, in an attempt to protect their beloved canon of traditional mermaid lore, had started arguing, standing up for ethereal singing voices and rescuing people from shipwrecks and Disney ideals of pre-pubescent beauty. The fight had escalated from there. So, technically, Mel wasn’t sent home for saying deeply disturbing things about mermaids, but for pulling Julia’s hair and gouging Chelsea’s leg with a paperclip.

Mel, with a familiar stormy look on her face, sunk further into her seat as I pulled away from the school. Honestly, there were enough regular human problems going on—the school had a lockdown last week because of some sketchy van circling the playground, and we were in the midst of a major substitute teacher shortage. They didn’t need my damn kid being a weirdo and causing a classroom riot.

I guess when you’re a rare sea-creature living on land, you can’t expect to have the same kind of life you see on sitcoms, or that your suburban neighbors have. I mean, you can drive an SUV and listen to NPR and remind your land-born husband to keep the lawn mowed to the same level as Trevor’s next door, but … then your half-breed, web-toed kid blabs her mouth at school and (even though no one would actually believe her), you’re known as the mom of that girl, which gets you pitying and / or disapproving looks when you attend the PTA fundraiser. For example.

But you can still strive for some sense of normalcy, right?

When we pulled into the driveway, I tried not to look at the yard and its too-tall grass. “Mommy?” Maybe I’d mow tomorrow while Mel watched Disney movies all day. The school had politely “asked” that she stay home the next day and then take the weekend to let things cool down. “When is Daddy coming home?”

I sighed. I’d already explained that Daddy was staying in an apartment. I’d gone so far as to tell her the truth—that Mommy and Daddy were very different and that Daddy had met another woman he liked better. “Oh,” she had said, gazing down at her lap and picking at her little fingernails, “you mean a normal woman.”

***

I miss gliding and dancing through the deep water, surrounded by the music of the sea. That night, I sat in bed and turned on my Soothing Ocean Sounds CD. It’s not like listening to the real ocean, the subtle music of the waves on the shore or the currents as you swim, or the murmurs and calls of all the other sea creatures. But it’s better than nothing. And it calms me down.

Then I called my probably-soon-to-be-ex-husband.

“I just can’t seem to get through to her,” I said. “I’m trying to protect her. I want her to—I dunno, blend in, be like the other girls.”

“She’s not.”

“She could be,” I said. “If she just tried a little harder.”

He didn’t reply. I knew he thought we should just be happy that Mel was alive and healthy. There aren’t a lot of mermaid-landman hybrid babies that develop full-term, let alone survive.

So when she was born with nothing worse than the webbed toes and the (so far defunct) gill-slits along her ribs, I was ecstatic. That feeling wore off a little when, after numerous attempts to soak the baby in salt-water, we realized that she wasn’t like me. She didn’t transform.

“Maybe I’ll take her out for a girl’s day tomorrow. Get ice cream. Go to the mall. Stuff that human-people do.”

“Or you could just ask her what she’d like to do,” he said in that tone of his that I don’t particularly like.

After I got off the phone, I looked again at the note Mel’s teacher had given me. I’m sorry the incident got so out of hand. She was apologizing to me? Melanie is precocious and has a strong personality. She marches to the beat of a different drummer, that’s all. Sometimes the rest of us just have to strive to hear the same beat she hears.

I didn’t like that saying’s blatant land imagery of marching and the implication that banging on drums is akin to music, but I appreciated the teacher’s attempt at understanding all the same.

We had a similar saying in my culture. And those who were seen dancing were considered insane by those who couldn’t hear the music.

I just wished that my daughter and I heard the same music.

***

One of the worst things about living on land is the pound of the pavement under your feet, like when you’re walking across the parking lot, trying to roll your groceries to the car.

It’s not like walking on knives, like in the traditional mermaid tale hardly anyone knows the ending to, but it’s still jarring and uncomfortable. I don’t know how land-folk can stand stomping around all damn day. This is one reason I hate going to the mall, but I was willing to do it for my kid.

“Turn that crap off,” I said. “Let’s go out and do something fun. Like the mall.”

Mel paused the video, just as red-haired Ariel was opening her mouth to sing and give up her voice. So unrealistic. We can’t sing underwater. But we glide and dip and plunge and swirl. We dance.

“You’re like Ariel, Mom.” I am objectively not like Ariel, other than we’re both mermaids.

“How so?” I asked absently, reaching for the remote.

“Well,” she said, cocking her head to the side like she often does, “you’re pretty and you have long hair and you wanna be like the people.”

“We are people,” I said. Why did I ever start letting her watch this stuff? “Get your shoes on.”

I clicked off the video and she started putting on her pink sneakers, extra wide because of her toes. She was focusing on trying to tie them, like I’d attempted to teach her, and having a hell of a time of it. “I’m more like Ursula,” she said.

I frowned. “What makes you say that? You think you’re like the villain?”

She looked up at me for a moment. “What’s ‘villain’ mean?”

“Bad guy. Or bad lady, in this case.”

“Oh,” she said, fumbling again with the shoelaces. “No, Ursula’s not bad. She’s just a different sort of creature. And she does what she needs to do.”

I wondered where she was getting this from. Certainly not from the girls at school.

I crouched down to help her with her shoes.

“Did you have to give up anything, like Ariel, to come on land?” my daughter asked me.

I stood up. “No, honey. That’s just a silly movie. I didn’t have to give up a thing.”

But when she looked up at me with her big round eyes, I could tell that she didn’t believe me.

***

At the mall, we sat at a little table in the food court and I watched my daughter eat a cookie dough ice cream cone from that ridiculously expensive ice cream place. I can’t have ice cream. As a sea-creature, I’m lactose intolerant. Lucky for Mel, she inherited that particular enzyme from her father.

“Mom, can we go to the aquarium?”

“I thought you wanted to go get our nails done.” I dipped the end of a napkin in my water and tried to wipe the ice cream off her chin.

Mel wrinkled up her nose. “You wanted to get our nails done,” she said. I could hear my soon-to-be-ex’s voice in my head. Try doing something she wants to do.

“Okay,” I said. The mall aquarium is overpriced and, I think, a little bit depressing. “Let’s do the aquarium.”

***

“Look Mom, a sea turtle!”

Then a sleek silver ray glided past, standing out amongst all the smaller colorful fish.

It was bittersweet, seeing all the ocean life—more types than I would ever see at once back home—but being separated from them by foggy glass, marred with the handprints of numerous land-dwelling children.

And here they were, all crowded together, for humans to gawk at. I mean “learn about.” I hadn’t been back home to visit in a long time. It was hard to go off swimming the ocean for miles, with a young land-child at home.

It was a weekday, so there were fewer visitors and Mel had wandered up ahead. I found her with her hands on the glass, her nose almost touching.

Close up on the other side was a moray eel, watching her, its singular, powerful, tail-like body undulating smoothly, graceful like a ballet dancer.

“She’s so cool,” Mel whispered, wonder in her voice. “So pretty.” Mel was swaying a little, matching the eel’s movement. It opened and closed its mouth and she did the same.

I found the creature a little repulsive to be honest. I also knew how dangerous they could be.

She continued to mimic the eel and it kept watching her. “It’s like looking in the mirror,” she said. She was totally transfixed. I guess I should’ve been happy that she was appreciating the ocean world and our heritage, but why did she have to like the creepiest creature in the tank? Why couldn’t she like dolphins and clownfish like other girls?

“They can be dangerous, ya know,” I said, as the eel finally turned and swam elegantly away. “They’re strong and they can bite.”

She watched it swim away for a moment and when she finally looked at me, I could see tears glistening in her eyes.

I hadn’t mentioned the classroom fight all day, so I was surprised when she said, “I need to write my teacher an apology.”

***

I agreed to swing by her teacher’s house on the way home from the mall. Mel gathered the pad of drawing paper and box of crayons from the back seat and worked diligently on her apology note.

I was proud of her. Until we pulled up in front of Ms. Tremont’s duplex and I peered over to see what she had written in blue crayon.

“Wait,” I said. “You bit Francine?” I hadn’t been told about that.

She looked down at her hands and nodded. “Only on the arm,” she said. “But don’t worry. I didn’t bite hard. And she was too scared to tell.”

Unbelievable. “Dammit, Mel. You can’t just go around biting people when you’re angry.”

She started to cry a little. “I knew it was wrong! Biting’s only for when you really need to, but…”

I was about to say that biting people is off-limits period, when she continued, “...but… Francine said her dad said that mermaids are just lazy bimbos who need to find a man to take care of them and—” She broke down in tears.

Sounds like Francine’s dad has his own issues.

“Listen, you’re in first grade. Biting’s not normal, okay?” She didn’t say anything. “Just promise me you won’t bite people anymore?”

She sniffled. “Okay. I promise.”

I didn’t want to get all worked up about it when we had been getting along so well all day. “C’mon, let’s deliver this note.”

We knocked and waited. No answer. “We can leave it in the mailbox,” I said.

Mel looked disappointed. “I really wanted to see what she looks like at home.”

“She probably looks pretty much the same,” I said as we got back in the car.

The evening sky was growing murky, like deep ocean water, and the almost-full moon hung large over the houses. Mel peered out the window as we started to drive away. “There she is!” Mel said. I glanced over and she was right. I could see the teacher’s silhouette where she sat on the high deck at the back of the house, holding a glass in her hand and looking at the sky. She probably drank a lot of wine. I would if I was a first grade teacher.

“She probably didn’t hear us knock,” I said.

The streetlights were turning on but were dim in comparison to the moon. “I think Ms. Tremont’s a werewolf.”

I couldn’t take it. I pulled over and turned to look at her.

“Are we going back to watch her transform?” Mel asked hopefully.

“Melanie,” I said, maybe too harshly. “Not everyone transforms into something else. And there’s no such thing as werewolves.” Mel just looked at me skeptically. How many times had people told her there’s no such thing as mermaids either? “Even if there were werewolves, but there’s not, your teacher isn’t one.”

Mel crossed her arms over her chest. I really didn’t want to get in a fight with her. “I think she is,” she said. “She’s really strong, and she always talks about how she likes the stars and the moon. And night is her favorite time of day, she says. And she loves going hiking in the woods.”

“Okay,” I said coldly. “Whatever.” I started driving again, frustrated that we couldn’t get through one nice, normal day together.

She slunk down further in her seat and muttered under her breath, “I bet Ms. Tremont would bite someone if she had to.”

***

After I put Mel in bed, I went to my room next door and put on my ocean CD. Then I called him.

I kept my voice low. “I can’t take it sometimes. Do you think she… I dunno, has psychological problems?”

“She’s a kid,” her father said. “Kids are weird.” I could imagine him shrugging. “Plus, she’s hybrid, so I’m sure that comes with its own baggage.” Maybe he was right. “Listen, do you want me to come pick her up Wednesday night, to give you a break?”

Why was he treating me like I was overreacting? Like I couldn’t handle being a mother without his help?

Could I handle being a mother without his help? Why couldn’t I seem to connect with my own damn kid? Maybe he was right. Maybe I was trying too hard.

“I’m sure she’d like to see you,” I said.

“What are you doing tomorrow? Maybe we can meet up for dinner at Sushi Box. My treat.”

I sighed. “It’s supposed to rain, but we’re going down to the beach in the afternoon.” I added quickly, “It was her idea.” We hadn’t been there in a while. As I tucked her in, she had told me she wanted us to do something that would make me happy.

“Okay, after that then,” he said. “And listen, I—”

“Mommy?” Mel poked her head in and saw me on the phone. “Are you talking to Daddy?” She hurried over and scrambled onto the bed. “Can I talk to him?”

I handed her the phone without saying anything. She cheerfully began rambling on, while I sat back and listened. The odd one out. “And we went to the aquarium and I made a friend.” He said something and she giggled. “Yeah, cookie dough, but Mommy didn’t have any.”

I just stared out the window, at the huge bright moon hanging over the trees. Somewhere, maybe, a teacher was howling.

“Mommy?” She had put her little hand over the phone for a moment. “Your CD’s too loud. Can you turn your music down please?”

***

This wasn’t the part of the beach where people gathered on weekends to go swimming. It was an area with a narrow shoreline, next to a small parking lot and a low-quality playground with cracked benches. And today was overcast, threatening rain. We were the only people around.

I sat on the least splintered bench and gazed at the ocean, polishing off another donut from the half-dozen box we’d picked up on the way, while Mel explored the playground with its too-short slide and single working swing.

I was listening to the music of the waves on the shore. I didn’t think twice about the white van in the parking lot, and I didn’t notice the man approach the playground.

The scream was shrill and piercing. “Mommy!”

When your child screams for you like that, you run, no matter how much you hate the pounding in your feet and the shock in your knees.

By the time I got there, the white van was screeching away.

Thank god, Mel was still there, crouched on the pavement. I ran forward to hug her, but I stopped in shock when I saw the blood pooling and spattered on the ground.

She looked up at me with those wide dark eyes, glassy with tears. “Mommy! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” I pretended not to see the glint of her new glass-like razor-sharp teeth. There was blood on her chin. And settling around and under her little fingernails.

Just breathe, I told myself. She seems okay. She’s safe. Just breathe.

“He was a villain,” she said through tears. “He tried to pull me away, into that van.”

Jesus, what was that on the ground? Two adult human fingers—a pinky and ring finger—still oozing blood onto the parking lot pavement.

When she spoke again, I thought her teeth looked back to normal, but I couldn’t be sure. “You’re upset,” she sobbed. “I promised I wouldn’t bite, but …”

Now I crouched down. I put my hand on her shoulder. “It’s okay,” I said. “You had to.”

I tried to stay calm, but the music of the ocean sounded far away.

There was no way the man would report that he tried to abduct a kid, and that she bit him. Plus, who would believe a child could bite someone’s fingers off?

“C’mon,” I said. “Let’s get rid of this.” I grabbed a handful of napkins and winced as I picked up the bloody fingers. We didn’t need someone out walking their dog, finding severed fingers and calling the police. I’d discard them in the ocean.

I led Mel to the bench. “You wait here for Mommy,” I said. I grabbed another handful of napkins and tried to wipe the blood off her face. “I’m going to swim out and throw this in the water where no one will find it.”

“No!” she cried. “I want to go with you.” She grabbed at my arm.

“Honey, you can’t swim the way Mommy can.” I said it as gently as I could.

“I can try,” she pleaded, hanging onto me. I let her come with me to the water’s edge. Her face was stained with blood and tears.

I shed my clothes and walked into the water, turning back to look at her as I lowered myself into the waves. It was just starting to drizzle and the sky was growing dark. “Wait right here,” I said. “You’re not like me. But that’s okay.” I could feel the transformation taking hold, feel the comfort of my scaly tail and the water caressing my gills.

Mel rushed into the water, throwing her arms around my neck. “No sweetie, I—”

Then I saw it, as the water engulfed her body. She thrashed. She changed.

Her tail wasn’t like mine. It was something different altogether—a sinuous, snake-like, scaleless tail, like the eel’s at the aquarium. She smiled a smile full of thin pointed teeth. “I’m like you, Mommy!”

“I—” She looked so happy. “I guess you are,” I said.

In the rain, the two of us swam out as far as we could, further than I ever expected we’d be able to go together, splashing and twirling—dancing as the music of the ocean surrounded us.

Land-Daughter

a dark mermaid story for Mermay

Land-Daughter

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