Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4-7 2019 | Page 102

And sometimes, the occasional mortal whispers back.
“They tell stories about you, you know,” a young girl remarks, leaning over the railing of the dock. It is the early
hours of the morning, and hardly anyone notices the girl looking over a seemingly featureless expanse of water.
The mermaid circles the dock. “Is that so?” she hums, smirking with a maw full of teeth sharper than any sword.
“You are bigger than they said you were,” the girl says hesitantly. The mermaid laughs. She does not surface, for
fear that the resulting waves will crash onto the docks, so her bell-like voice comes out muffled, and the girl cannot
help but laugh with her.
“But I wonder,” the girl asks suddenly, “Why were you not angry with them? You lost your mother to them.
You could have destroyed them all in a second, and no one could have blamed you.”
“I suppose I could have,” the mermaid shrugs, sending ripples fanning out across the water.
“Well, why didn’t you?”
The mermaid thinks of her family, her father, all of them young and terrified, but willing to try and amend for
their mistakes by taking in a little mermaid child, and smiles to herself.
“Don’t trust every story you hear,” she says, her golden eyes gleaming with mirth.