Come in, oh do come in. She is waiting, just there. We knew you would find us; someone always does. Oh, I see you’ve brought a bottle. Uncork it, why don’t you? Do not pour a glass yet. Let it breathe. Now, let us guess—you want a story? Most do. Sit with her, here at the table. Every line in the aged weave of her skin holds a tale. Pick any one thread, pull it, and her mouth will open to let it off her tongue. Go on—pluck this one here, at the edge of her puckered lips and she warns: this was once a fairytale. 

It was warm and wet in the belly of the castle. The mermaid felt it against her skin, constricting her body. Hot butter, garlic, and wild onion. Roasted meat. A sweetness on the edge of burning. Hot breath and sweat and brine. Though she looked like a maiden now, she still felt the rush and pull of the sea in her pulse; waves roiling within her cage of skin and bone. The mermaid saw the prince looking at her and knew she was meant to look pretty, even as he and his castle made to swallow her whole. She thought of them both, swallowed in turn by the sea; cracked and sunken, bloated body picked over by guppies, face covered by thick-limbed starfish, jewels algae-covered— It was this that brought a flush back to her cheeks, a light into her eyes. It made her look so fresh and lovely. The prince licked his lips, as if readying to gobble up his bride. 

His people also feasted. They made merry. Thick tables that groaned beneath platters and plates were laden with more. Two swans had been plucked, cooked, and had their gold-tipped feathers delicately placed back in their skin. Chunks of squash, cloves of garlic, and roasted beet bled purple across white plates. A crisped pig held a candy-dipped apple in its mouth. Oysters sat closed and waiting to be cracked open, slurped into wet mouths. Slabs of fish spiced and sweet, glistened in beds of pepper and onion. Goblets of wine dotted the tables like jewels; rubies and diamonds catching the torchlight. 

To wed the prince, the mermaid had been scraped with a blunt blade until her scales were shucked. The sea-witch had split her in two, fresh legs left raw. Her wedding gown was a second skin, stiff with sweat. She kept her lips soft and pink for the prince to kiss. Heavy pearls had been stabbed through her ears. Her body anchored with jewels and chained with gold. The mermaid’s feet were bloody in heeled shoes. She looked at them, looking at her, and knew the prince and his court did not see a mermaid. Even the body of a woman was only a casing; she was simply another morsel, meant to satiate their many hungers. Tough meat and thick wine turned in her stomach, her entire body a knot, twisting tighter at the pop of bones, tearing meat, knives and forks against teeth and tongues. The prince did not notice as his mouth claimed hers in another kiss. 

The mermaid’s sisters had always said men were made of earth and blood. She could taste it in the prince. Like dirt on the tongue, thick with stones and old bones. It stuck in the cracks between her teeth and the folds of her cheeks. One mouthful at a time, the prince would fill her belly, make it a damp and dark place for larvae and fish eggs. She had seen it before. Her eldest sister had wed a fisherman, her youngest a prince of her own. The mermaid and her sisters had scaled these two with gentle hands. The eldest had a tail of sun-soaked algae, the youngest, one that might have been cut from the sky. Wrapped in silk and sealed in wooden chests, these scales were kept by their kin. They had walked out of the waves and were wed, bodies of water claimed by men, filled to swell and split and spit out bloody, wriggling grubs. Maybe that is when our mermaids’ tale truly began—when she saw her eldest sister, gnawed to the bone by husband and babe; when she saw the youngest, split, hollowed out, and never sealed, all for the sake of an heir. 

Every sister taken was a wound, her entire body festering by the time she went to the sea-witch. Her scales were not wrapped in silk, no kin left to keep them for her. The mermaid was a split shell, sour meat exposed and primed for their taking. As the prince, her lord husband, kissed her, the men and women of court raised their cups, to toast and drink. The mermaid drank with them, letting each sip bloody her mouth, if only to wash his taste off her tongue. 

As the sun sank on her wedding day, the mermaid kept vigil, her sisters’ faces in her mind’s eye, their names on her lips. Platters and trays, picked clean as beached corpses, were carried out. The court had gorged, purged, only to gorge themselves more. Lords and their ladies were soon slumped in their chairs, curled up in corners. Once the prince came to snore on his throne, the mermaid stood. She limped away from him, stepping out of her heeled shoes to quiet each step, the stones cool against the raw meat of her feet. The mermaid ached for the sea. It called to her as she hurried from the banquet hall, towards the tower that led down to the kitchens, the wine cellars, and deeper still, the dungeons. They were here, she knew it, and she would find them, even if she had to comb through this castle, heavy with its court. Hallways were filled, the bodies of lords and ladies and servants like overstuffed carrion crows, necks bent, and heads slumped on their puffed chests. Resting until the next kill was made, the next feast at their lips, keeping their hands and minds clean. They did not stir as the mermaid moved through their midst, the torches her only light. 

There was no moon, the sky dark as a widow’s veil, the castle murky. As she neared the kitchens, the air thick with heat and a mix of iron and the tangy, acrid spice of fear. Blood on her tongue. The mermaid was changed—a feeding frenzy had begun within her chest, her heart a mess of salted gore. She knew, as she rounded the corner into the kitchens—and there they were. Her sisters. 

Two hung from the rafters, fishhooks through the base of their fins. Another lay in a wooden tub, filled with salted water, sliced lemon, and whole cloves of garlic. Another was bound to a butchers’ block, her tail coated in syrup, sticks of cinnamon and cloves beside the thick knives at her side. 

Her sisters were alive, kept fresh for the feast to come. The mermaid unbound their bodies, wiped their tears, brought them down to the stone. One fishhook clattered free, lifted off its mount in the thick beam, splattering dark blood across the mermaid’s face. She gagged as she hauled each sister to the wooden tub, draping an arm, or a fin, one head into the cooking brine. Do it, her sisters said, you must. Gripping one of the butchering knives, the mermaid cut the skirt of her wedding gown into swathes. Perhaps, if she had not had to do this—scale her sisters, split them in two—the rest would not have come to pass. And yet, she had to, and it did. Her sisters’ scales were wrapped in her bridal silk, blood spotting through the white. She was slick with their saltwater blood when the prince came into the kitchens. Hungry, as always, for something more to sink his teeth into. He slipped, scales and saltwater wet underfoot, his skull cracking against hard stone, his throat yielding beneath the mermaid’s ready blade. The cut gaped, like a second mouth, red and wet. 

Skinning was easier than scaling. Flesh gives so easily, under steel, nails, and teeth. The mermaid split him in two. Her sisters split him into thirds, and fifths. Parts of him were brined. Others slathered in that sweet syrup, stuffed with herbs and garlic. Most was left to roast. The kitchens pulsed on, pumping the castle with the heady scent of cooked meat. Rich and fatty. The prince’s court would wake hungry, and the mermaid knew it would feast and feast, hardly noticing as their prince turned in their stomachs. 

The mermaids did not linger. Some went into the sea, back to scales and salt. Others stayed on land, our mermaid among them. She could not go back and would not. There were still so many hungry ones to feed. 

You want another already—a hungry one, aren’t you? Something easier to swallow? No, no, let this one sit for just a moment. How does it feel, deep in your gut? You still want more, don’t you? By all means, please, stay a while longer. It will really be our pleasure. Drink up—pour another glass. We’ll get supper going soon.