I coo at it, the way one approaches a wild animal or a violent drunk. I promise not to hurt it, I tell it everything will be all right. The mermaid keeps hissing until I cut away the first threads of the netting. It settles, still wary, but not thwarting my attempt to saw through the fishing net. The hemp has sliced deep into the scales and blood runs as I peel it away. I avoid looking directly into its dark eyes, afraid I might provoke it. When the cutting is done, I gently tug the last of the cruel netting away and she is free.

A degree of hardness melts from her features. She seems suddenly spent and exhausted now that the net is gone. The strange gills on her neck fan open and close with the regularity of a heartbeat. The eyes close.

Will it survive and swim away or will it die here in this cramped space under the fishing hut? Maybe my father could hang her bones inside the church, a companion to the original? Are the two, in fact, related?

Too many questions for too empty a head as mine to puzzle out. I will let the thing rest and return in the morning. No one else need know of its existence. I will leave her fate in God’s hands.

Before leaving, I check my trap lines. To my delight, I find a large crab snared in one of the cages. Enough to feed all of us, enough to spare me the loathsome task of tithing the fishermen. I glance back at the unconscious mermaid. She’ll need her strength if she is to heal. I crawl back under the shed with the day’s catch and submerge the cage within the fish-woman’s reach. Crab rots immediately upon dying, rendering it inedible. Submerged in the trap, it will survive long enough for the creature to feast on it for breakfast. Climbing back up into the shed, I wonder what mermaids eat in the wild. Fish, I suppose. What else would they consume?

***

The mermaid takes up all the conversation around the dinner table. Father listens dispassionately as my sister describes how swiftly it moved in the water and my pinheaded brother goes into an outlandish description of the mermaid’s gigantic fangs and horns and claws. It had tentacles, he insists. And a snout like a swordfish. And it was naked and without clothes!

Father raises a hand to halt his running mouth. “Stop talking, Pitr.”

“And wings!” Pip claims, snot running down his face. “It had angel wings!”

“Quiet!”