To Touch the Earth

By Beka Gremikova

I just wanted to touch the earth.

Zysteria had heard rumours that soil was much like sand, but she hadn’t quite believed it. Now she was so close—and yet so far.

What was I thinking? Chills swept through her limbs, burrowing into her scales. She thrashed against the sand, but this near to shore, the land’s magic outweighed that of the sea, pinning her down. If she remained here much longer, devoid of enough salt water to fill her lungs and nourish her body, she would die.

Calm down. Zysteria laid down her head, her cheek half submerged as it pressed against the soft sand. Water tickled her nose and mouth. At the gentle touch of sea and sand, her mind cleared, and she sat up.

A man strolled along with his hands tucked into his pockets. His gaze turned toward her, and he ran forward. “Oh seas, a mer.” He ran his hands through grey-streaked dark hair. “At least you’re not an orca.”

She studied his blue tunic with a seashell design embroidered into the front pocket. “Oceanic Patrol Society?” she asked hopefully. The OPS had saved numerous beached whales and dolphins—surely, they could help a mer in trouble.

“Yes, I’m Officer Vida,” he said. He bit his lip. “But I’m afraid I may not be much help today. I’m not on patrol.”

“Not on patrol? What are you here for then?” she snapped, lashing her tail.

He picked up a seashell. “These. The palace children like to paint them.” He rubbed his thumb over the shell, brow furrowed. “I’ve been helping a lot of beached sea-folk lately, so I’ve garnered sea magic build-up. If I stepped into the water—”

Seas preserve me. “You’d turn into a mer,” she finished. If sea-folk and humans had too much contact, the magics of land and sea got confused and turned humans into mer and vice versa.

He nodded. “The Patrol is all volunteers, so they don’t like to risk losing members.”

She frowned. The sea magic here wasn’t strong enough to draw her back to the open ocean, but if it turned any human who ventured too far into the water into a mer…  She lunged toward Vida.

He fell backward, just out of reach of her arm’s grasp.

“I need to turn human!” Her breaths came in gasps, but her heart thrummed with purpose. Her tail coiled in anticipation.

He sat up, shaking hair from his eyes. “You’re going to trick the sea into turning you back?”

“Yes. Hopefully.” It was risky, but better than dying.

She dragged herself forward, crossing the invisible barrier between worlds. The land’s magic charged to meet her, warm, dry sand grating over her skin. She froze as the last of her innate sea magic trickled away with the tide. The land magic’s grip on her intensified, her limbs aching under a crushing weight. Pain sliced through her tail, and she gasped, flailing in the surf.

The pressure vanished, and she sucked in deep breaths as the pain subsided. Then, shivering, she sat up and curled her arms around herself.

Vida lowered his hand from his heart, eyes wide. “That was… horrifying.” He unbuttoned his overtunic and handed it to her, averting his gaze. “It looked like you were dying.”

“It felt like it, too.” She pulled the tunic over her head.

“Why did you get so close to the land in the first place?”

Zysteria stumbled to her feet and picked her way across the sand. “I wanted to find someone who could bring me some soil.”

“Soil?”

“I wanted to know what it felt like.”

“Just for the fun of it?”

She sent him a wry look. “I have an underwater garden back home. So I’m curious about what humans grow their plants in.” She beckoned him forward. “Where can I find some earth?” Now that she was human and no longer in danger of dying, she wanted to find it for herself.

“Here.” He led her past the beach and knelt, digging his fingers into the ground. She joined him, unearthing tufts of thin, green plants that felt sharp against her palms. Under the plants, clumps of a thick brown sand-like substance came loose.

Earth.

She rubbed it across her palms. It was slightly damp, soft and rough at once, cool and warm—like water. Like air. She marvelled at it. Its magic thrummed through her, tickling her legs. Hastily, she let it crumble through her fingers before the magic could strengthen her human form. She did not wish to remain human.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Thank you for showing me.”

Vida sifted the soil through his fingers, a soft smile on his face. “You don’t want to bring some for your underwater garden?”

She thought of the land magic that had spread through her so quickly and shuddered. “I think the sea magic would go slightly crazy.”

“Probably more than slightly,” he said and shook his head with a grim smile.

“Time to test my plan.” She sat back on her heels and, a bit wobbly, stood on her human legs. “Before the land magic gets too strong in me.”

“I hope it works,” Vida said. He hung back, watching, while she sprinted across the beach into the water.

As she ventured farther out, waves sweeping past her shoulders, the ocean’s magic tingled against her scale-less skin. Currents tangled around her legs, the magic within them tugging at her skin, pushing her limbs together and fusing them.

She flexed her tail, rubbing her hands along the rough scales. She giggled and joined a school of mackerel. They glinted like silver coins as she cut through them with the speed and mischief of a hunting dolphin.

She’d touched the earth—and now she could truly embrace the sea.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Beka Gremikova lives, writes, and dreams from the Ottawa Valley, Ontario, Canada. She loves travelling, wolves, folklore and myth, and both reading and writing fiction that matches her eclectic tastes. Her story “Nothing More Than Death” was published in the A Kind of Death anthology from Uncommon Universes Press, and she has multiple stories published with Havok. Currently, she is working on an anthology of fairy tale retellings that includes both poetry and short stories.

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