Offerings

supernatural flash fiction (with mermaids / sirens)

Flash Fiction: The village girls call on an unusual source to help them with a problem.

My Mermay mood board, using all royalty-free images from Pexels, & free Canva template

Offerings

On the rocky coastline, near the sea grotto, village girls place flowers, smooth pebbles, bits of colored glass, sometimes even a coin or their simple jewelry—a silver ring or gold chain.

Some of these items, piled on the rocks, disappear as the tides ebb and flow. But the girls bring more, so that this place is marked. The place where Johnny’s body was found.

Drowned, and bloodied too. Bashed against the rocks, they say.

“Such a shame,” ladies said around the quilting circle. “So young.”

“And so handsome.”

“A catch for any of the girls.”

And it was true that young ladies, of a certain age, had at one time or another, briefly fantasized about marrying Johnny Carpenter.

The men who sat around the bar at old Henry’s pub, the day they carried Johnny’s sodden, battered body up the hillside to his mother’s house, had fewer words, but felt the loss just the same. A strong lad, a fine young man, what a pity.

The cruel sea had taken Johnny before his time, much too soon, the general consensus was. How could such a thing have happened?

That night, a vigil was kept over the boy’s body, and Johnny’s mother wailed so that most of the village heard her sorrow riding on the night air, lamenting the loss of her only son. The fishermen drank a toast to the lad and observed a moment of silence.

And Berthe stood on the slope leading down to the shore, a gentle breeze fluttering her blue dress. She’d stood there many times, small before the vastness of the water and the overhanging stars, and prayed to whatever was out there. The sea air drifted in off the ocean, carrying the faint rise and fall of siren song from somewhere beneath the low-hanging moon. An ebb and flow of sound that mingled with the keening moan’s of the grieving mother.

Berthe gazed out over the shimmering water and whispered a quiet, “Thank you.”

===

“The girls’re takin’ it mighty hard,” some fathers said.

“Well, they would, wouldn’t they?” said some mothers. “Johnny being so handsome and charming and all.”

This might have been heard in kitchens or on back porches the afternoon of Johnny’s funeral.

The mothers and fathers watched the girls trek down to the rocks, a silent procession, to the place where Johnny’s pale, torn body had washed ashore. They carried flowers, and candles, and simple trinkets.

The girls left their gifts outside the grotto—that secluded sea-cave where more than one village girl had succumbed to Johnny’s charms, whether of her own free will or not.

Seduced, used, left feeling gutted like just another fish off the line.

It would be safe now, the sheltered grotto, with the sometimes cerulean pools, where no one in the village can hear a girl crying, where calls for help only reverberate off the ocean-carved walls. Where only creatures of the sea might hear.

Parents clucked their tongues and shook their heads and felt sorry for their daughters, as the girls held their skirts and hiked back up the slope in twos and threes, Berthe in the lead. If the girls’ faces could be seen from such a distance, it might have been noted that there wasn’t a tear-filled eye among the lot of them.

===

It’s been weeks since Johnny died. The village boys’ eyes drop to the ground when they pass one of the girls in the narrow cobbled lanes. They understand their place now, without fully knowing. Johnny’s pals, the Chabert brothers, have taken it the hardest. They give the girls a wide berth and the sly grins have slipped from their faces.

At night, eerie melodic tones, like whalesong, rise off the water and drift into the village.

Some, like the Chabert brothers, hear it more clearly than others. Those boys leave the pub early these days and head for home, to the safety of their doting mothers.

You might find Berthe standing on the slope, once the moon has risen, gazing out over the vast ocean. Where she whispers her prayers. Where she feels less alone.

And on the rocky shore, outside the grotto where cerulean pools form when the tide is high, webbed fingers reach from shallow waters, pluck bits of colored glass, shiny coins, a silver chain, from the rocks.

Then, in the moonlight, tails splash out of the water and scales flash as our siren-saviors dive back into the depths with their treasures.

They accept our offerings—their payment—for a contract fulfilled, for a problem solved, for prayers efficiently answered.

---

quick sketchbook pages during Mermay

Other short stories featuring dark mer-creatures:

---

---

Question: Do you prefer short flash stories like this, or longer works? Or do you not care about length as much as some other aspect of a story? I’d love to know!

---

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

Thanks for taking the time to view my work. Every view and like and comment inspires me to keep going. If you decide to subscribe below, make sure you check your promotions tab or spam for my Welcome Email.

---