Murielle The Mermaid.
Murielle was a mermaid not like the rest. Though most oddly featured her teeth were the best. Tiny and sharp, aligned in neat rows, Layer after layer like the way sharks’ grow. She had huge luminous eyes and pale sallow skin. Sharp spinney bones and a wide gaping grin.
Most other mermaids can carry a tune, singing all the days from August till June. When Murielle sang she sputtered and choked. On her very best attempt she managed a croak. She despised sandy castles and frolicking in the waves. She preferred bogs and marshes, hiding amongst the tall reedy staves.
Amongst other mermaids she was thought a disgrace, when they she wanted to talk they could hardly keep a straight face.
Unlike most mermaids Murielle preferred the taste of human flesh, trapping her pray in a net of silvery mesh. She tried her hardest not to make them her lunch; sooner or later she’d crave their bones on to munch.
As time passed she believed that her habits were no fault of her own, perhaps she been cursed by some old evil crone.
She thought perhaps her spell might be broken by the kiss of a prince. So to catch one became her quest ever since. Despite her nasty habit of killing her catch, her secret heart’s desire was to find true loves match.
One day she succeeded and caught a prince in her net, perhaps at long last her true love she had met. She coiled around him. She whispered in his ear her deepest desires as she shed slimy tears. “I am enchanted or placed under a curse. Kiss me my love perhaps the spell will reverse.”
She leaned in and placed his cool lips on her own. A shiver reached down her spine it tickled her bones.
POP broke the seal of that horrible kiss. Low and behold Murielle had transformed into a lamp fish.
For the rest of her days she hunted in the dark, lighting her way with her own little spark. Until one day she got snagged on a fisherman’s wire, only to be cooked on the mans dinner fire.
