Finally. Finally. Finally.

The word, the expression of jubilation, beat in her mind. It was all she could think. Everything faded and blurred as relief washed over her. It had always been there, the pull, the need, but now she ached with it. Nothing else mattered but the shimmering blue she had always been denied. She was trembling, every fiber of her being straining forward. Vaguely, she was aware of someone—an instructor, or friend, or presumptuous stranger—telling her to wait just a moment while they retrieved something.

Very well. She would wait. She could wait. She had waited years for this moment. A few minutes more or less would make no difference. They really wouldn’t. There was no point. . . .

She couldn’t wait. She jumped.

She didn’t even have time for an exultant shriek. There was a rush of cold, and a sensation of buoyancy, and silence. Complete and utter silence.

It was intriguing. She had not consciously noticed the sounds above the surface. There were few people in the vicinity, and they had seemed the quiet type. But remembering now, in the face of such total stillness, even the gentle sloshing of the self-same blue that now surrounded her was deafening.

Moving in exaggerated slow motion, she looked up, toward the surface. She could discern dim shapes beyond the edge, but those were not what interested her. No, what held her fascinated gaze were the scintillating patterns flashing across the surface. Light glittered in a way unfamiliar to her. Oddly gentle gold lightning, edged with the blue, grew and faded as she turned her head languidly from side to side. It was independent from her, and yet the slightest shift of her eyes made it sparkle and dance. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

But beauty is often accompanied by fragility, and it shattered as another form entered the blue. Before she could protest, a strong arm had wrapped itself around her waist, tugging her inexorably toward the surface. It ripped her violently from the cool, soft blue, tossing her up to land with a splat on pebbled tile. She shivered, feeling suddenly and inexplicably bereft. Someone—no doubt the possessor of the arm—knelt beside her, shaking her gently. She raised her dripping head.

“Are you all right? Did you inhale any? Someone call 911! Can you hear me?” Another presumptuous stranger, this one inordinately loud. Or perhaps it was her friend. Had she been with her friends? It didn’t matter.

She stood abruptly. “I’m fine,” she managed to murmur. Even her own voice rang stridently in her ears.

That seemed to satisfy the maybe-friend. “I’ll go get your teacher,” she said. Then she was gone.

The girl stood, mentally following the paths cool droplets traced down her neck and arms. They seemed almost to write intricate sentences across her skin, perhaps in a musical language that only they knew. Perhaps she could learn it.

Even the silently whispering beads of the blue could not hold her attention for long, however. There was a greater presence calling. She turned her head to gaze at it. Light flashed across its surface. Pretty, but not the same. It was not the slow lightning that it had been when she was there. Underneath.

Small tongues lapped at the tile beneath her feet. They, too, whispered, but it was not the silent language of the droplets. Rather, they sighed and giggled and called in a unity of many voices. They synchronized with her heartbeat. They had almost called her to them when the arm came again. This time, she swatted feebly at it, but it was no use. It grasped her shoulder and pulled her back, farther and farther from the beautiful blue.

“Ma’am?”

She looked up, but the speaker—the arm-person—was not addressing her. He directed his query to the woman in front of them. “Yes?” she asked in return.

The arm-person looked distinctly uncomfortable. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to continue her lesson today. I was getting a kickboard, and apparently she jumped in. She sank like a stone. It’s fortunate that someone saw her go under, or she could have drowned.” This, then was the instructor. Most likely.

The woman—her mother, or sister, or friend . . . had she been here with friends?—was obviously dismayed by this announcement. “Oh my God! Honey, are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

This must not have been convincing, for the woman turned to the most-likely-instructor. “Is she all right?”

“I think she might be in shock. I wouldn’t let her near the water for a while.”

--

Her grades were as good as they’d always been. Going through the motions of school was easy. It was caring that had become increasingly difficult. She found it harder and harder to concentrate without her mind immediately drifting to the pure beauty of the blue. The Water. It had a name now, and she referred to it as such in her thoughts. She supposed that she had known the name before, but not the connotations. She had not known that it could be anything more than water.

Around the words of her diligent notes floated pictures. She had never drawn before. Now, the scribbles streamed from her pencil without end. Pictures of waves and seashells and fish. Letters entwined with gently waving kelp. And self-portraits. Of the self she had always been, but never truly known. With her webbed fingers and softly shining scales and the delicate gills running up her neck.

It was such a picture that her teacher—Pre-Calculus or English or Chemistry—found and gave to her parents. They asked her about it. If only they hadn’t.

“I didn’t know you were such an artist, dear.”

“Really, this is wonderful. You should take a drawing class next semester.”

“Honey, can you talk to us? Not all artists have to be surly hermits. Dear? We just wanted to let you know how much we appreciate your talent.”

“You haven’t been talking much lately.”

“Are you all right?”

“Well, darling, she must be all right, to produce such an incredible work of art. It really is amazing, hon. So wonderfully . . . fanciful.”

“It’s not fanciful.”

“What?”

“What?”

“But, dear, this girl has scales. Like a fish.”

“Yes. She’s a mermaid.”

“Oh. Well, that’s wonderful. Truly wonderful. I always knew you’d find an outlet for your creativity.”

“I always said you have a one-of-a-kind mind. Incredible imagination.”

“It’s not imagination.”

“Honey . . . no, please. Not . . . don’t do this to us again.”

“It was fine when you were younger, but . . . do you mean you based it off someone you know?”

“No.”

“So it is one of your old imaginary games.”

“No . . . it’s a self-portrait.”

“What school of art is that? Romanticism?”

“Darling, it’s obviously Surrealism—”

“It’s real. It’s a self-portrait.”

“I—I can’t take this again. Please, stop this foolishness.”

“She’s just joking, darling—”

“No. I told you, this is a self-portrait. This is me. Can’t you see?”

Silence.

--

She did not like the psychologist. Or was he a psychiatrist? It didn’t matter. With his immaculately combed hair and starched clothes (which she couldn’t believe. Who did that anymore?), she was certain that he would never understand the loose, flowing, changing freedom of the Water.

Neither did he understand the virtue of silence. Even without knowing the perfect stillness of a dark cerulean world, she would have found his chatter deafening. He talked constantly. She supposed it had a purpose, but never listened carefully enough to find out what that might be. Only occasionally did she grace him with the conversation he so obviously desired.

“So, do you want to be a mermaid?”

“I don’t have to want it.”

“Then . . . you imagine that you are a . . . a mermaid?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I don’t have to imagine.”

“Can you explain what you mean, exactly?”

“I am a mermaid.”

“Well. Don’t you think you’re a little old for such games? I mean, at 16—”

“It’s not a game.”

“I’ve seen your self-portrait. If it’s not a game, where are your scales?”

“All over. Here. And here. And here are my gills. And see the webbing between my fingers? That’s to help me swim faster.”

--

“I’m afraid it’s more serious than we’d anticipated.”

“Oh . . . how so?”

“She’s hallucinating.”

“Oh my God.”

“Now, I know this is a difficult thing to ask, but I’d like to transfer her to a facility where she can receive more intensive treatment. I am fully confident that she can make a full recovery there.”

--

She did not like the facility. It was white and cold and sterile and dry. It was not interesting. She was not allowed near shower, sink, or toilet without supervision. At least at home she had been able to run water over her gills. Now the constant deprivation made her dizzy and weak. Her scales itched and peeled without the moisture.

At least they had a school. She was still allowed to draw on her notes, though any self-portraits were immediately spirited away. They had an orchestra, and she was allowed to play her cello. She loved the deep thrumming of waves on a rocky shore. The violins were screeching seagulls. The flute sprinkled silvery raindrops across the room as the clarinet sung like a sea-breeze. She almost felt at home in the orchestra. Music washed over her and transported her back to the blue, if only for a few brief moments.

She took to locking herself in her room and immersing herself in the music. Somehow, it actually improved the quality of the air until it reached a state not unlike Water. She could breathe air saturated in music with a minimum of discomfort.

Her nurses—or psychologists or psychiatrists or unidentified doctors—did not seem to mind her new habit. They most likely saw it as a good replacement for hydrophilia, as she knew they had come to call it.

Still, music was no permanent substitute. Even with its influence, she grew progressively weaker. Shapes blurred, most colors dimmed and faded. Blue became steadily brighter and more intense, until it shone with a light of its own. Several times, she almost mistook it for Water. Only when her fingers met the hard surface of the wall—or poster or counter or window or floor or chair or box or any of a hundred other things—did she realize her mistake.

She became too weak to argue. She stopped insisting on her identity as a mermaid. And suddenly, she was being welcomed back into her family or friends’ arms, like someone back from the brink of death.

The institute released her from its cold, dry grasp.

--

Even after months had passed—three or four or five?—she was still not allowed near large quantities of Water unsupervised. Even after she had realized the key to her freedom and stopped speaking of what she knew so instinctually, no one trusted her. She knew, though, that if she appeared “normal,” the distrust would eventually dissolve. It was a matter of time.

Her grades were still high. Except for biology—or was it natural history? Either way, her marks in that particular class had taken a steep dive the minute they entered the unit on ocean ecosystems. She left each class with tears in her eyes, gills flapping feebly in a desperate attempt to drink in the images in her textbook.

She had been elevated to first chair cellist in the school orchestra. She practiced incessantly, silently praying for those moments when everything fit together and the blessed music crashed over her in a tsunami of sound and sensation.

But they were not enough. She could take long showers, or run the Water in the sink, but even that could not give her the immersion she craved. Her house didn’t have a bathtub. They’d gotten rid of it after that incident when she was six. So every day, she was more tired, more feeble. She was dying. If she did not get to Water—real Water—soon, she would be lost.

--

“I need to get a job.”

“That’s an excellent idea, darling!”

“What a wonderful way to prepare for your future.”

“The YMCA needs a new pool attendant.”

“Hon . . . are you sure that’s such a good idea? I mean . . . considering?”

“I’m over it.”

“Well, then. I suppose it’s all right.”

--

It was just as she had remembered it. All around her, people laughed and played and splashed. She stood and stared at the cool, inviting blue. She was an eddy in a swift-moving stream, hoping desperately that no one noticed that the hand gripping the stack of towels was all but bloodless, knuckles and webbing almost white.

The Water, the blue, splashed against the tile, calling frantically. It had missed her, too. She could feel her heartbeat once again fall effortlessly into its rhythm.

Splash. Da-dum. Splash.

It was so much better than her drawings or music could ever be. It was real and whispering and she understood its language now. She could almost taste it, feel it. Its tsunamis would not be of insubstantial sound, but of the real thing. The blue.

Da-dum, da-dum, splash.

Her scales itched and her gills flapped excitedly.

Splash da-dum splash splash.

She looked around her surreptitiously. There was no one who would care here. Her parents—friends? Psychologists? Presumptuous strangers?—had trusted her alone.

Da-dum-splash-da-dum-splash-da-DUM-SPLASH-DA-DUM-SPLASH!

She dove.

The familiar blue was everywhere. It caressed her skin and scales gently. It murmured and laughed and cradled her like a lover. It was her lover. It was her everything. Her strength came rushing back.

Pulling herself as deep as she possibly could, she floated aimlessly, face down, near the bottom. She did not need to see the gentle lightning to know that here, it existed.

No arm came.

A grin of pure joy spread across her face. She was free. No one would ever tell her what to do again. She had complete power. Complete control.

She took a breath.

A/N: Thank you for reading! I really enjoy this story. Do you? Let me know in a review. Constructive criticism will be accepted joyfully. Flames won't be scoffed at unless they have nothing substantial to say. Thanks again!