Hong Kong Young Writers Anthologies Fiction 4-7 2019 | Page 100

That night, the captain joins her by the railing and watches her tail swish lazily back and forth in the water. The
moonlight is dimmed by wispy clouds drifting across the sky.
“I was taken away from my family too,” he ventures softly.
The mermaid nods and continues looking out to sea. He knows that if he doesn’t wish to talk further about it, she
will not pry.
But she deserves to know. The captain takes a deep breath and quietly, he tells her about being ten years old,
young and foolish, thinking that he was being clever, lying to a general about the location of a Mongol prince, about
being taken prisoner and made a eunuch as punishment.
He doesn’t tell her about screaming for his older brother to save him as he is pressed down on an operating table.
He doesn’t tell her he didn’t understand what was happening, why it hurts so much, until someone tells him that he
would never be able to have children. He doesn’t tell her about countless nights waking up, begging for his mother and
sisters. For all her strength, she is still young to the world, and she does not need to learn of such pain
“I took you in because it reminded me a little of myself,” he admits, “you were so young, and you had no
one. It was only right.” After he finishes, there is a heavy pause.
“What was she like?” the mermaid asks, her voice tinged with longing. “My mother.”
The captain stares pointedly out to sea as he tells the mermaid about the mother she never knew. He doesn’t
describe the monster he sees in his nightmares, but tries to tell her what he remembers of that day with sugar coated
words, pointedly avoids her mother’s fangs, her desperate fury. He refuses to meet his daughter’s eyes, even when his
voice trembles a little.
“It took us almost a full day to defeat her.” He finally looks at her, his gaze filled with remorse. “I heard her cry,
when she fell. She must have loved you very much to protect you so fiercely.” His voice hitches. “I had to protect my
crew. I’d only heard the rumours and I never knew she was protecting you - I never thought of trying to reason with
her -”
His voices breaks and he braces himself for his daughter to hate him.
“I’m sorry.”
Dawn breaks over the horizon, and the sun breaks over the horizon in streaks of liquid metal, pooling in the
troughs of the waves and glittering on the seafoam, and the mermaid silently places a hand on her father’s knee as guilty
sobs wrack through his body.
“It’s okay,” she murmurs. “It’s okay.”
---------
On their fifth voyage, the mermaid stops aging, her young face smooth and unlined, but she grows bigger and
bigger, until she has to be hauled onboard the ship. The crew starts calling her their guardian, and then their patron
goddess, then one day they start calling her Tian Fei in place of the wooden idol they once prayed to.
She follows them from port to port, and the captain orders her to stay out of sight. “Better you stay hidden and
safe,” he says wryly, and while she is a bit put out at having to stay away from her family for so long, the crew throw
down exotic treats from every place they visit. Although the flaky pastries never taste quite as delicious when soggy with
seawater, she appreciates the thought.
But for all the crew’s efforts, word spreads, as it often does among sailors, and soon every port whispers.