Commodore Josie stormed across the bridge of her flag ship.  Another damned sailor had gone deserting again.

Technically, to be fair, it was really a bridge.  Though if one were to be equally honest, calling it a ship was being generous.  It was the rusting hulk of an old tramp steamer.  Its former masters had called her Athena, and the children had found it a fit name.  The only reason it wasn’t completely underwater was because her keel was set firm in the muck at the bottom of Boundary Bay.  Athena, and many other old hulks, were now a part of a ship graveyard, permanently berthed off of the docks of the once vibrant little island town of Boundary.  For the adults, it was a sad reminder of the once prosperous commerce that had enriched the little New England Island.  For the children, at least the three who had made it this way, it was the world’s greatest playground.

As for Commodore Josie, well, technically, she wasn’t really a commodore.  Or even the skipper.  That was all play.  It was just that when they all agreed to make this bridge of the Athena their headquarters, their main base, they had all agreed to take turns as the captain.  Except on the third turn, Josie’s, she had turned out to be such a fantastic leader, that the other two had unanimously decided to make her position official.  She had a natural talent for the command.  She had all the best words and manners.  Sure as any of the femme fatale actresses they’d heard on the evening radio plays.  She was a regular Errol Flynn, if Errol had been a girl.  What was more, she was a head taller than the two boys, despite being the same age.  She was perfect officer material.

Play was serious business, now that school was back in session and there were only so many hours left in the day.  The Athena and her crew had little time to dawdle.  There were pirates out there, and the Imperial Japanese Navy.  And sea monsters, no doubt.  Sea monsters were Peter’s favorite.  It was his idea to include them in their play adventures, despite how silly the whole concept was.  And now here he was, Peter being AWOL, holding up their whole adventure, a no-show.

“Maybe he’s been shanghai’d,” Jimmy suggested.  “Bound up in the bilge space of some Siamese junk.”

Josie spat, perfectly timed. “Nah,” she swore, “more likely he’s dead drunk in some floozy’s boudoir.”  Josie had only a slight understanding of what those words meant, and was completely lost when it came to spelling them.  But the words sounded churlish, and a swell thing to say about a no-good bum kid who shows up late for play.

Jimmy was naturally the first to spot Peter approaching.  Jimmy had been manning the “Big Eyes.”  Really they were just his father’s nice pair of binoculars, but they made an excellent prop as the giant-sized deluxe models that the real Navy used in the War.  

“Scalliwag off the port bow,” Jimmy said. “Approaching fast, I give him three knots.”  Pete was running as fast as he could down the pier to where the Athena was “moored” in the mud.  Jimmy could tell a lot by the state of Peter’s appearance.  “Pete’s been swimming,” Jimmy added.

“Well, shit,” Josie spat again, “what a bum.”  They both remained silent until Peter presented himself on the bridge.  He had to cross via a jury-rigged gangplank to a little fishing boat beside the Athena, then clamber over a cargo net before making his way up to the bridge.  The kids had turned the whole ship graveyard into what was probably the world’s greatest playground.  

It’s not that Josie didn’t like swimming.  Hell, she liked it as much as the boys.  They’d gone swimming plenty of times this last summer break.  Not in Boundary Bay, that was a dingy slimy mess, but out on the east of the island there was a fine sandy swimming beach, and more stretching around to the north.  It’s just that it seemed wrong, this time of year.  It was like the start of school had triggered some sort of switch that made swimming seem inappropriate.  Sure, the island was still bathed in the warm current coming up from the Caribbean.  And yes, today was still a nice sunny summer day, on paper.  Yet only last week there had been a chilly blow coming down from the north that lingered a couple of days. And it had been just cold enough to put everybody’s mind on the thought of the coming Fall.  Josie’s mom would have said it was like wearing white after Labor Day.  Josie didn’t understand that much, but she guessed it was sort of like singing Christmas Carols in January.

Pete finally made it in, completely out of breath, made it in, and made an honest attempt at a terrible salute. It was perfectly clear he’d just been swimming.  If his rat’s nest of still-wet hair didn’t give it away, the fact that he’d put on his dry clothes over wet swimming trunks certainly did.  The upper half of his trousers and the lower half of his shirt were sopping wet.  He must have been terribly uncomfortable.  When he saw the amused look on his friends faces, he went to work trying to tuck his shirt back in.

Peter got out the big news.  “New kid!” he gasped, still out of breath.

“No way,” Jimmy said.

“Serious,” Peter was still trying to recover.  “New kid.  New girl. Our age.”

“Come off it,” Josie skeptically sneered.  “You’re just joking.”  Peter only shook his head in response. Josie had plenty of reason to be skeptical.  It was not a big island.  There weren’t that many people, and even less children.  A new family would be big news.  And more often than not, these days, more families were leaving than arriving.

“Serious,” Peter was still panting.  “Baby Doll Cove.”  That was a swimming beach, sure enough.  It was pretty far out there though.  Josie and Jimmy had only been there once or twice.  Practically on the other side of the island.

“We’d have seen her in school,” Jimmy pointed out.

Peter shook his head.  “Nuh uh.  She says she’s home-schooled.” Actually she had told Peter that she didn’t go to school.  Peter just accepted that as home-schooled.  Every kid had to be schooled, it was the law.

“We’d have heard of a new family on the island,” Josie said.

Peter started an awkward nod, that was technically true, but it shifted diagonally and turned into a shake.  “Yeah, but nah.  She’s been here a long time,” she said.

“Which family?” Josie and Jimmy said together, confused scowls on their faces.  

“Winlocks!” Peter explained, finally an answer that carried some weight.

“Winlocks?” Josie asked, turning to Jimmy.

“They have kids?” Jimmy asked, returning the gaze.  The Winlocks were a known name on the island.  They lived on the other side of the island.  The only two members that any of the kids had seen were an old couple that showed up and church now and then.  They supposed there could have been other Winlocks they hadn’t met, it didn’t seem outside the realm of possibility.

“Is she nice?  What’s she looks like?” the other kids ask, now thinking maybe Peter wasn’t just kidding around.

“Yeah, she’s real nice,” Peter said, finally getting his wind back.  “She likes to swim.  Real good at it too, she’s even faster than me.  Pretty normal looking, I guess.  Dark hair, but it was wet, so maybe like a dirty dishwater blonde?  Honest, she’s really kind of pretty.”

That caught Jimmy and Josie a little off guard.  She must be something.  They’d never heard Peter describing any girl as “pretty” before.  It was out of character.  Josie silently resolved that if Peter ever called her pretty, she’d slug him in the mush.

“Well, OK,” Jimmy said.  “If she’s so neato, how come you didn’t invite her here to play?”  They might have been pirates, but they weren’t without manners.

“Oh, I did, she could come.  She said she couldn’t have permission to go that far from home,” Peter explained.  In fact, she said she couldn’t go that far from where she was, but Peter took that to mean the same thing.

“That’s too bad,” Jimmy said.  He didn’t quite know if he really meant that, or if he felt a twinge of sarcasm.  Jimmy enjoyed the way the three of them played together, but wouldn’t mind meeting another kid, especially if Peter vouched.

“Hey, you can come out and meet her tomorrow, though,” Peter said.  “I said I’d go back.”

“You did what?” Josie asked.  Unlike today, none of them had plans to play on the hulk of the Athena tomorrow.  Peter was free to plan his day how he liked.  It just seemed weird he’d ever think of playing somewhere else.  With somewhere else.

“I said I’d go back,” Peter bragged.  “If she can’t come here I’ll go out there.  She seemed kinda lonely, to be honest.”

The other two glanced at each other.  They could sympathize.  Even with close friends, Boundary Island could feel like a lonely place sometimes.  “Baby Doll Cove, huh?” Jimmy asked.  Peter nodded.

“Well…,” said Josie, trying to make it look as hard-considered as possible, “okay, maybe we’ll check it out.  After my Sunday chores though.”

“Thanks!  I’m sure you’ll like her,” Peter smiled.  “So what are you two up to?”

“Aww, not much,” Josie said, turning away, kicking up her foot a bit.

“Yeah, pretty boring,” Jimmy said, “not a lot going on.”

“Aw, nuts,” Peter said, falling for it.

“I mean, if you ignore that sloop of buccaneers,” Josie added, picking up where she and Jimmy had last left off.  Peter’s ears perked up.

“Yeah, and the Spanish Navy was after ‘em too.  So plum mad they were looking to blast just about any ol’ ship out of the water.”

The rest of their afternoon melted into play, adventure, and improvisation.  Then it was time to go home for supper.

The wave crashed hard into Peter’s face and he was bowled over.  Forces far stonger than any of Peter’s muscle turned him this way and that, somersaulting him, ragdolling him.  His vision, obscured by salt water and bubbles, caught glimpses of the blue sky, gritty sand, and random bits of seaweed, drifting in the currents as helpless as he was.  A couple of seconds later he was dumped unceremoniously on his butt, further up the beach. 

Peter jumped up, laughed, caught a glimpse of Hortense’s surprised face just past the breakers, her mouth a big black semicircle, and tried again.  This time his timing was better.   A breaking wave caught him about waist level, and while it paralyzed his advance, it wasn’t high enough to push him over.  This one gone, he managed to make several yards further out to sea, and duck underneath the next wave as it crashed.  His labor complete, Peter just had to wade a little bit further, and he was out among the gentle swells, past the breakers, and with his pretty new friend, Hortense.

“Are you OK?” was the first thing she asked.  She had seen him knocked over, and he had taken quite the tumble.

“Sure!”  he said, “I’m tough.”  As violent as the wave had struck him, water was paradoxically soft, and he had suffered nothing, neither pain nor injury.

Hortense laughed at this, and Peter laughed too.  Things were great out in the swells.  Peter wondered for a bit if that’s why good things were called “swell.”  The water felt great.  Yesterday, when he first got in, it had been pretty cold.  Hortense had asked if he were cold, and he’d said no.  She probably noticed he’d been shaking and shivering and his lips were almost blue.  Yet shortly after she’d asked, the water started feeling fine.  It’s just a matter of getting used to it.  The hard part is getting in, and once you’re used to it, the cold isn’t a problem.  This afternoon’s problem had been getting past the breakers; Peter hadn’t even noticed the cold.

Peter took a deep breath, thinking now would be a good time to show Hortense what a great swimmer he was, and plunged underwater, heading in her direction.  The bottom was all sand, broken up here and there with the white fragment of a seashell, or a little green splash of seaweed.  It was very flat, yet gave just a hint of a slope, leading up to the beach.  He went as hard and fast as he could, finally surfacing for air.  That might just be the longest he’d ever swam on one breath.  Hortense would have to be impressed.

Yet when Peter looked around, he couldn’t see her.  He didn’t think he’d swam past her, he’d swam far but not that far.  Then he spotted her, her head and neck popping up from where he’d left.  They must have passed each other.  No, not quite where he’d left, she was a bit further back, in deeper water.  That must have been why he hadn’t seen her passing.

Peter took a minute to enjoy the motion of the ocean. With each swell, he leaped off of the sea bed with his toes, and the swell lifted him higher, before gently lowering him back down.  Over and over, it was a hypnotic sensation, though Peter did not think in terms of that word itself.  Last night, as he laid in bed, almost before he fell asleep, he remembered feeling that sensation again, like his body was still out at sea.  He had dreamed last night too, and it had been a good one, though what it was about he couldn’t at all remember.  Hortense had been in the dream, he remembered that much.  It must have been a dream about swimming, that’s all he and Hortense had been doing since they had met.

Peter, having recovered from his last long-distance swim, was ready and eager to prove his mettle again.  He took another depth and dove, aiming to swim just above the sandy bottom.  He noticed it wasn’t perfectly smooth.  The wave action, even several feet deep, formed infinite smaller ripples in the sandy bottom.  Oh, and out a little further from the shore, he saw fish.  Some kind he’d never seen before.  They were flat fish, they looked like flounders but not like the kind at the fish market.  Maybe they were juvenile flounder and they came close to the beach when they were young.  Peter would have to look that up at the library some day.  He loved books about sea life.  Maybe he could talk Hortense into coming with him some day.  The library was one of his favorite places in town.  Well, after the ship graveyard, and the park, and the Odeon, and the antique store, and the market.  He was sure Hortense would love it.

This time Peter saw Hortense before he popped up out of the water.  Her feet were mostly buried under the soft sand.  Her legs were pale white, tinged blue from looking through seawater, and her white dress-thing swayed in the current.  It wasn’t a proper girl’s swimming outfit.  Not like that one Josie wore.  It looked sort of like she was wearing a big white t-shirt that went down to her knees.  Or, now that he thought about it, one of those old-timey ladies’ bathing suits they used to wear in the olden days.  That could be it.  Pretty much everybody on the island wore hand-me-downs, even the middle class.  He never asked much about Hortense’s home life, but he didn’t want to pry.  That wouldn’t be polite.

Peter popped up a few feet shy of where Hortense stood.  He gave her a big toothy grin, and she returned it.  Then Peter got a mouthful of water from being hit by a wave.  He had misjudged how deep it was out here.  He could still touch his toes at the bottom of the troughs and still have his face above water, but he’d need to leap higher on the swells.  Hortense, he noticed, wasn’t having the same issue.  Well, she was taller than him.  Probably.  Not as tall as Josie, he guessed.  He hadn’t actually seen Hortense out of the water.  He’d noticed, though, that girls his age were going through some kind of growth spurt for some odd reason.

“Hey, Peter?” Hortense asked.  Her smile faded.

“Yeah?” he replied, happy to interact.

“Who’s that?” And then Hortense turned her head towards shore, and Peter followed her gaze. It took a bit for him to see what she was talking about.  He only had a view at the crest of the swells.  Even then he had all the other waves to look over. Finally he saw what she was talking about. A couple people were approaching the beach, walking through the crabgrass growing on dunes.  One boy with a buzzcut, indistinguishable from himself at this distance, and a girl probably a head taller.  Yup, that had to be them.

“That’s my friends!  Jimmy and Josie!  Hey, come on!  They’ve come swimming too!”

Peter plunged back into the water and swam back to the shore.  It was easier going with the surf than it had been fighting it on the way out.  Some waves hit the back of his legs once he stood up, and it made him stumble a bit, but not so bad that he felt embarrassed.  He waited in calf deep water as his friends reached the end of the crab grass, descended the sandy bluff, and approached the shore.  They’d come ready to swim, it was clear.  Both were carrying a terry cloth towel. Peter could also tell they were wearing their swim clothes underneath their regular clothes.  He felt a wave of pride now that his old friends were coming to play with his new one.  Jimmy and Josie crossed the line of dried seaweed that had washed up at high tide the night before, but stopped short of where the sand was still wet.

“C’mon in!” Peter shouted to his friends.  “The water’s fine!”  It was only then that he noticed the strange scowls on their faces.  Sure it was September, but it wasn’t that weird, the afternoons were still sunny and warm.  Their gaze, he noticed, wasn’t quite fixed on him, and when Peter turned he saw Hortense standing right next to him.  Peter jumped, startled.  He hadn’t heard her approaching, not even a splash.  Well, she was a fantastic swimmer.

“Hey guys,” he shouted, putting a hand on her shoulder. “This is my new friend Hortense!  Hortense, that’s Jimmy and that’s Josie.  They’re a lot of fun.”

Peter took his hand off his shoulder.  That was the first time he had touched her, and she hadn’t asked.  He wasn’t sure how she felt about personal contact.  He hadn’t consciously noticed, either, how cold she was.

Jimmy and Josie didn’t take their shoes off.  That was Peter’s first hint that something wasn’t quite right.  Instead they turned and looked at each other with those strange concerned grimaces, and started talking to each other.  Softly, and he could barely hear.  He thought he caught a couple of things, “what is this” and “doesn’t he see,” but he couldn’t make out enough to make any sense.  Finally they both turned back to him, looking even more concerned, and Jimmy shouted out, “Hey Peter, come here a second!”

“How come?”

“We just want to talk,” Jimmy said, why he had to shout from a distance, Peter couldn’t figure out.

“In private!” Josie added.  “Athena crew business!”

Well, that was where they played together, though they’d never acted like it was some secret club.  Regardless, Peter started to walk up onto short, but then stopped.  “Wait, how come?  How about you come here?”

“I don’t think they want to swim, Peter,” he heard Hortense say.  That didn’t make sense.  They’d come to swim.

“Hey, what’s the deal, guys?  Hortense is swell, she can keep a secret good as anybody.”

“Hey, come on in,” Jimmy called.

“It’s too cold to swim!” Josie called.  “Let’s go back to town.”  Too cold?  Peter was fine, not even a hint of cold.  

“I don’t want to go,” Hortense told him, almost a whisper in his ear.

“Yeah, no, Hortense can’t go!” he shouted to his two dry friends.  “C’mon, just for a swim, then we’ll head back after!  Swear!”

The two looked more concerned than ever.  “Hey, you guys are being rude!” Peter shouted.  He had no idea why they were acting this way.  He started feeling embarrassed.  He hoped Hortense’s feelings weren’t being hurt.

“We think you should come in,” Jimmy shouted.  “Serious.”  Peter was sure Jimmy was being serious.  He didn’t think he ever remembered Jimmy looking and sounding so serious before, but why he was so serious he couldn’t imagine.

“Let’s go back to town, Peter, please,” Josie begged. That unnerved Peter.  He didn’t think he’d ever hear Josie say “please” outside of the presence of adults before.

“I don’t think they want to play,” Hortense said.  “You can go if you want to.  Wish you’d stay though.  I like playing with you.” Peter saw her retreat into deeper water.

“Hey,” Peter shouted at Jimmy and Josie, to his disappointing friends.  “You can be poops if you want.  Go ahead and go back home.  I like playing with Hortense and I’m staying.”  

Peter turned around and started walking back into the surf.  He heard his old friends yell something after him, but he couldn’t make out what it was.  Hortense had disappeared.  Past the breakers there was a little dark patch, almost looking like an oil slick,and then Hortense popped up for breath from the very same spot.  She’d just swam underneath the surf.  She was pretty amazing.  Peter tried the same, though was much less graceful.  Still, he made it out past the breakers, and when he broke the surface he saw Hortense right there, smiling at his presence.  His choice.  Peter remembered she’d just said she liked playing with him.  Maybe she liked him too. He hoped so.  He turned to look after his other friends.  They’d already ascended the bluff and were back in the crabgrass.  In fact, they were running.

Miss Birch checked out the book that Mrs. Thompson was interested in reading, then helped her to the front door.  It was a book on bulb gardening.  Miss Birch was pretty sure she’d checked it out the previous year.  Maybe the year before.  Oh well, bulb gardening, she assumed, was almost certainly a seasonal thing.  If it brought people into the library, all was well.  There was a lack of people who visited.  Mrs. Thompson had been the only patron to visit this Saturday morning. Miss Birch caught a brief view of Boundary Bay before the heavy wooden, but well balanced, door swung shut on its hinges.  Then she heard some chatter from up on the second floor.

Technically Mrs. Thompson hadn’t been the first or only patron in the library today.  It’s just those kids weren’t the sort of patron she usually thought of when she used the word.  She shouldn’t be able to hear chatter on the first floor atrium coming from the second floor reading area.  They knew that.  They knew that she knew that they knew that.  Maybe they heard her high heel shoes climbing up the marble steps to the second floor. They had quieted themselves to inaudible whispers by the time she made her way down the stacks, spotting them down an aisle.  Two of them, Josie and Jimmy, hunched over a reading table on the far eastern wall, before a big window overlooking the bay.

She wasn’t mad at them.  She hoped they didn’t view her as a threat.  She just wished they’d be more considerate of the patrons.  The other patrons. The way they’d quieted on her approach made her worry they took her for a disciplinarian.  “Good morning,” she said, in a clear but quiet voice, inaudible if there had been other library-goers.  Set a good example, she thought to herself, that’s the way to do it.  “Where’s your friend?”  Peter, that was his name, she remembered.  These kids almost always showed up as a trio.

“Peter?” Jimmy asked. “He’s probably still at home at this hour.”  He said it just a bit of a notch higher in volume than Miss Birch would have liked, but that wasn’t enough for her to complain.

“I bet he’s still doing his Saturday chores,” Josie added.  She said it at just precisely the volume Miss Birched had hoped for.  There was hope for these children yet.

“Very well,” Miss Birch said. “And what are we up to today?”  She leaned over the table to take a look for herself.  It would have been totally inappropriate for an adult, but children this age paid no mind if you read over their shoulders.  “Oh, Hans Christian Anderson, what an excellent choice.”  The two had selected a copy of The Little Mermaid.  Something that she herself had read in her childhood. She wasn’t exactly sure it had been at the same age, but as the years past that age all seemed to blur together.

“It’s weird,” Josie said.

“I don’t think I want to check this out,” Jimmy said.

“It is a big strange, I suppose,” Miss Birch said, now that she thought about it.  “It hasn’t got a happy ending.”

“How does it end?” Josie asked.

“You sure you won’t want to read it and find out?” Miss Birch asked.  Both of them nodded.

“Oh, well, let’s see if I can remember,” Miss Birch said.  “Mermaids live for longer than humans.  But they don’t have immortal souls that go to heaven like humans do.  But if she turns into a human and the Prince loves her, then she’ll get a soul.  But the potion that turns her into a human makes her mute, and also causes terrible pain. So the Prince never falls in love with her.  And she has a chance to murder the Prince and turn back into a mermaid, but she refuses, and then she dies and turns into a bunch of bubbles.”

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Jimmy and Josie turned to each other and clearly contemplated that for a moment.  There was actually a bit where spirits from the air give the Little Mermaid a second chance to get a soul, but that was so convoluted that Miss Birch didn’t mention it.

“It doesn’t make sense to me,” Jimmy said.  “How do people just make up fairy tales?”

“How do you mean?” Miss Birch asked.

“Well,” Jimmy explained. “Things like fairy tales and nursery rhymes and stuff like that.  I remember my mom reading me these stories at bedtime when I was little.” Jimmy had said it as if he wasn’t little.  From Miss Birch’s perspective it was harder to sympathize without how much difference seven or eight years could make.  “Like, it feels like those stories were always there, you know?  LIke my grandma told the same ones to my mom, and going all the way back.”

“Ah, I see what you mean,” Miss Birch said.

“Who was the guys who wrote all those fairy tales?” Josie asked. “They were brothers I mean.  It’s like they wrote all of them.  Snow White and Sleeping Beauty and all them.”

“Oh, the Grimm brothers.  The Brothers Grimm,” Miss Birch answered.  It was odd how their name changed depending on how you said it.

“Yeah, them,” Josie said.  “Hard to believe they just made up the classics.”

“Well,” Miss Birch thought about it.  “They wrote famous versions.  They were very popular.  And some of it was original. I think, though, that most of them were older fairy tales.  I’ll bet their mothers told versions to them.  What they did was dress them up and make them more interesting, then published them.”

“Kind of like Greek myths?” Josie asked.

“Well, I suppose, yes, Miss Birch said.  “Very much like that.  That’s sort of the whole basis for fiction and storytelling.  Is this why you’re coming here today?  You’re interested in mythology and folklore and how fiction stories are made?”

Josie didn’t answer, but instead turned her face towards the window, the view of the bay.  Clearly the answer was negative. 

“Not really.”  Jimmy answered.  “Mostly we were just curious about mermaids.  You know, specifically.”

“Oh!” Miss Birch said, a little bit surprised.  She’d been all excited about an interesting discussion on mythogenesis and the origin of folklore by oral tradition. Oh well, they were probably still a little young for more involved intellectual discussion.  She was hopeful they’d come around.  “Okay.  Mermaids.  Well?” Miss Birch blinked for a second, then quickly spun 180 degrees and walked away.  “To the catalogs then!” she said cheerfully.  The two children groaned, but dutifully followed.

Miss Birch descended the staircase and proceeded directly to the Card Catalog.  The two kids kept falling behind and then rushing to catch up.  They weren’t used to people walking fast.  On Boundary Island, there just wasn’t anyplace anybody had to get to in a hurry.  Nobody but Miss Birch while on the job that is.  The Card Catalog was two big wooden cabinets, on either side of a broad table equipped with scrap paper and little pencil stubs.  One of the cabinets was arranged by author’s last name, the other with the same info arranged by subject matter.  Honestly there weren’t that many books in the little library.  It made Miss Birch miss the big one back at her University library.  She pulled out the Ma-Mo drawer from the subject matter cabinet, and took a look.

It had already been used, and was naturally opened to the section on “mermaid.”  The first card read, “Anderson, Hans Christian; “The Little Mermaid.” She shot a glance at the two children, who smiled in response, glad to have been ‘caught’ doing something right for a change.  To them the Card Catalog had felt clunky and awkward, despite Miss Birch’s appreciation for it.  It sort of took the fun out of books.  Still, it had its uses.

Miss Birch fingered through the next few cards, faster than Jimmy and Josie could keep up. She snatched paper off of the table behind her, and a pencil stub as well. She kept the pencil clenched in her teeth as she finished her search, occasionally, quietly, murmuring words like “folklore” and “creatures.”  Seeming to finish, she jotted down three sets of numbers, closed the drawer, spun in place and walked straight through the space where the two kids had just been standing, a little mesmerized by watching a professional at work.  They raced to catch up to her as she headed up the stairs again.  She walked down the main aisle, not looking at the books but the labels at the end of the bookcases, then suddenly turned down a small aisle between two bookcases.  Josie and Jimmy followed behind, single file.  They weren’t quite sure how she did it.  They themselves took forever to find the books they wanted.  Usually by pulling a promising one out, looking at the cover, and placing it back in, hopefully in the proper place, then repeating until finding a good book.  Miss Birch hardly even slowed down as she pulled first one, then two, then three books off the shelf and proceeded back to their original reading table, without even looking at the covers.  

Miss Birch laid all three books out on the table, presenting them to the children, and stood over them as she let them retake their chairs.  “Figures from Myth and Folklore,” “A Child’s Guide to Classical Myths,” and “Mysterious Creatures of Legend.”

The kids tore into the book like bags of Halloween candy.  “You know, mermaids aren’t always just pretty ladies and girls who live in the sea,” Miss Birch said.  “In some stories they’re actually pretty scary monsters.”

“Yeah, those are the kinds of stories I’m looking for,” Jimmy said. “They lure sailors into drowning, right?” Being a kid on an island historically famous for fishing and sailors, it’d be impossible for him not to have heard of such stories, but they were all vague and dubious, like all the stories that fishermen tell.

“That’s the jist of most of them, yes,” Miss Birch added.

“Where does that come from, I wonder,” Josie said.  “You think maybe it comes from the sirens?  In Greek Myths?  Like how you was talking about how even published stories are based on older stories?”

“I was, you were,” Miss Birch corrected, with limited reception.  “But very much like that, yes, good observation.”  Josie beamed.

“Were the sirens mermaids?” Jimmy asked.

“Sort of,” Josie explained.  “I don’t think they had the fish tails.  But they were beautiful evil women that lived on a rock in the ocean.  And they sang a magical song that made men go crazy and jump into the ocean and drown.  So when Jason and the Argonauts rowed by, they had to stuff their ears with wax so they wouldn’t go crazy and kill themselves.”

“Was it Jason?” Miss Birch asked, mostly rhetorically. “I thought it was Odysseus.  You know what, it could be both.  Lots of characters show up in different myths at different times.  That’s just how these stories persist and evolve.”

“Oh yeah, huh!” Jimmy said.  “Kind of like how sometimes Captain America showed up in The Human Torch and sometimes The Human Torch shows up in Captain America.”

Miss Birch blinked, speechless.  This was probably the first time the boy’d caught her so off guard.  She didn’t have a very high opinion of comic books.  But maybe if they were helping the boy learning the basic elements of storytelling, they weren’t all bad.  

“Anyway,” Miss Birch opened the third book the two kids hadn’t already started investigating.  “Well, let’s see.  Oh yes, there’s the ‘Silkie.’ They’re from Celtic myth.  So that’s like Ireland and Scotland.  They’re like human women and they can walk on land, but they have a magical shawl or coat that turns them into seals.”

“Seals?” both the kids asked.  That was a new one for them.  It wasn’t uncommon for seals to be seen scamming fish down at the docks.  They’d seemed more like pet dogs than people, but the idea of turning into one and having seal adventures had its appeal.

“Sure,” Miss Birch said.  “In the stories there’s usually some human man who discovers her shawl and her big secret.  And the two of them fall in love and get married and have children.  But the silkie misses the ocean so much that she takes her shawl back and goes back into the sea, leaving her husband to raise their children alone.”

“That’s kind of sad,” Jimmy said.

“It is,” Miss Birch admitted.  “Some of these are more tragic than monstrous.”

“Could she just come back to visit?” Josie asked. “If she were a good wife and mother she would.”

“If she was,” Miss Birch corrected, though it was taken as simple agreement.  “But I suppose then it wouldn’t be a sad story anymore.”

Josie and Jimmy both grimaced.  The idea of fictional kids drawing the short stick just for a story’s contrivance didn’t settle that well with them.

Miss Birch skimmed further into her book.  “Oh,and then there’s Suvannamaccha.”

“What are they?” Josie asked.

“Not ‘what,’ ‘who.  She’s a golden mermaid who’s a character in the Ramayana.  That’s from India.  It’s like… an adventure romance story.”  She’d actually read it in college, not the whole thing but large excerpts.  The point where Hanuman shows up with his army of monkeys to save the day was one of her favorite scenes in all of fantasy fiction.  She was sure the kids would have loved it, if there were a suitable adaptation for their ages.

“Her father is a rak… like a demon.  He’s the head bad guy.  Kidnapped a beautiful princess the good guys have to rescue.”

“So she’s a bad guy too?” Jimmy asked.

“Well, no, you see the concept of absolute good and evil isn’t really… well you see, she’s tricked.  You see, one of the heroes of the story, Hanuman, the Monkey King, he’s building a bridge over the water so his army can save the princess.  But the mermaid steals the stones away from the bridge so Hanuman can’t finish it.  Hanuman gets very angry, and jumps into the water to fight her. But she’s a much better swimmer and she always swims away.  Anyway, both get nowhere, and they end up falling in love.”

“Pfft, a monkey and a mermaid?” Josie asked, incredulous.

“Oh, yes, I suppose that might seem a little silly.  But really he’s a very brave and wonderful character.  Anyway, Hanuman explains why they’re building the bridge, and they have a noble cause, and Suvannamaccha realizes she’s been tricked, and she and her mermaids help Hanuman finish his bridge and save the day.  And I think they end up having a baby together afterwards.”

“Hmm,” Josie groaned.  “Seems like everybody’s always having babies.”

“Yes, well,” Miss Birch tried to wax philosophical, “that’s where all the new characters come from.”

“Excuse me,” Jimmy said after a few moments, getting up from his seat, sounding even softer than usual.  “Gotta use the boys’ room,”  and he left the other two alone.

Miss Birch, fixated on some of the stories from the book she wasn’t familiar with, lowered herself into Jimmy’s seat.  She’d give it back when he returned.

After a while, Josie spoke up.  “Oh,” she said, “this might be it,” as if finding something specific that she’d been looking for.  “Yeah,” she added, “that sounds right.”

“What have you got?” Miss Birch asked, missing any significance in Josie’s exclamation.

“Umm,” Josie read, “Rus… rusalka.  It comes from Russian folklore.  They are unclean spirits, the ghosts of fallen women that live in swamps and marshes and rivers.  They give moisture to surrounding areas to make the plants grow.”

“So they’re ghosts,” Miss Birch thought,  “that’s spookier than half-women, half-fish people.”

Josie kept reading.  “They are typically the ghosts of young women.  Suicides, pregnant unwed women or in some stories women murdered by lovers or fathers.  Very evil beings, they seek to lure young men into the water, with the hope that they will take care of them and their unborn child, only to have the young men drown instead.”

Josie laid the book down on its spine and stared out the window, a thoughtful but disturbed scowl on her face. “A pregnant woman committing suicide?  That’s horrible.  That would kill the baby too, right?”

“Yes, it would.”

“I don’t get it,” Josie said.  Why would a pregnant woman be unwed?”

“Well you see…”

“Don’t answer that, that’s not what I meant.” Josie cut her off.  “I mean, if she’s pregnant, how come she doesn’t just get married.  She’s got a boyfriend, right?  That’s how she’s pregnant in the first place.”

“Ah, well, you see, these stories come from olden times, some from the middle ages.”

“Olden times, right,” Josie said.  “They’re ghosts.  So she could be like a hundred years old or something.”

“Older than that,” Miss Birch said, missing Josie’s observation entirely.  “For some reason the boyfriend wouldn’t want to marry the woman.  It could be a nobleman and she just a poor peasant.  Or there could be some reason why they couldn’t get married.  Either way, back then it was considered a terrible shame.  Her father would have disowned her, her village would have cast her out. No other man would have married her and raised somebody else’s child.  Or, well, maybe there was no boyfriend.  Maybe it was rape.”

“That can make a baby?” Josie asked.  The tone of her voice made it sound rhetorical, as if she already knew, and just wanted to confirm.

“Yes, I’m afraid so.”  These weren’t the sort of questions she’d expected to answer when she left for work this morning.  Yet she felt they were very important questions to answer properly, nonetheless.  Josie had indeed known what that meant.  She just hadn’t encountered it in any of the myths she liked to read.  In fact, the subject was a major focus of the Greek myths she liked, but her versions were heavily bowdlerized to remove the subject, rewriting it as “love” and “marriage.” 

“So you see,” Miss Birch went on, “an unwed mother back in those days would have been in a terrible desperate tragic situation.  Suicide was a thing that happened, I’m afraid.”  She thought about it some more.  “But that was a long time ago.  Things are better now.”

Miss Birch almost kicked herself in her own mind’s eye.  That was an absolute lie.  She knew it was.  She knew that back in New York City, there were women, women her own age, that threw themselves off of skyscrapers or flung themselves in front of trains, because jilted lovers had left them pregnant.  Still, even in this modern age with submarines and radio and four-engine airplanes.  It should have changed, but it hadn’t.  She didn’t know why she’d lied to the girl.  It’d just happened.  She supposed she was trying to spare her the pain of knowing, but it wouldn’t do any good.  She’d find out herself, sure enough.  At the very least, maybe she’d rage at the concept, instead of just going along with it like so many others.

“So the woman wants to have a man to marry and help her with her baby.  But everything goes wrong and she drowns herself, and her baby.  But then her ghost is doomed or cursed, whatever, and she still looks for a man who gets drowned too.” It seems like Josie was still wrapping her mind around it.

“That seems about the long and the short of it,” Miss Birch said.  She was reading over Josie’s shoulder.  There was more about how the rusalka had slippery skin so her doomed suitor couldn’t grasp her.  And long hair to tangle him in.  Or how she might tickle him or laugh at him at the very end.  But nothing more about the tragedy of her origin.

“I’m pretty sure I already know this,” Josie said, “But how young can a girl… oh, nevermind.”  Both were distracted by the return of Jimmy.  Miss Birch, content in thinking the conversation’s dark topic was over, and just in time, got up out of his seat.

“So what I don’t get,” Jimmy said, first loudly then remembering his place in a library.  ‘How do you fight a mermaid in the first place?”

“Fight a mermaid?” Miss Birch blinked, confused.  “What do you mean?”

“I mean let’s say your friend… er, let’s say you’re on the Argos with Jason and Hercules, right?  And your sailor friend has his ear wax fall out, and he jumps in the water to swim to the mermaids.  So how do you rescue him?”

“Oh,” Miss Birch said, thinking about it.  The Odyssey hadn’t covered that, as far as she could remember.

“I think it’s the charm,” Josie offered.  Both turned to look at  her.  “I mean, that’s the big way they work in the first place, right?  Their magical song, their magical beauty.  They use their charm to trick the boy who falls in love with them.  When really they’re a horrible monster.  So if you can find a way to break that spell, they have no power anymore.

“OK,” Miss Birch said, “But sometimes it’s not always a spell.  Sometimes it’s just true love.”

“Well, okay,” Josie said.  “But in those cases, like the silkies, they wouldn’t be a danger, because no true love would lure a boy to his doom.”

From down below in the first floor atrium, they could clearly hear the distant bell of the front door opening.  Another patron had finally come in.  “Goodness,” said Miss Birch, “it’s already a quarter to eleven.  Well, this has all been very interesting.  Let me know if you need any more help.  Would you like me to reshelve these books?”

“Not this one,” Josie said, re-examining her book on rusalka.  “I wanna show Jimmy something.”

“Okay,” Miss Birch took the other two non-fictions and the copy of “The Little Mermaid.”  “I’ll be downstairs if you need me.  Remember your voices.”

Jimmy and Josie were already bent over the book before Miss Birch disappeared into the stacks.  She placed the books on the reshelving cart next to the front check-out counter.  It was only Mr. Simmons.  He’d be in at least the rest of the morning reading all the recent periodicals.  A few minutes later the two kids rushed by, placing their last book on the reshelving cart, and hustled themselves out the front door, seemingly with purpose.  They smiled and waved their ‘thank you’s ‘to the librarian instead of saying them outloud, the best kind of ‘thank you’s’ for a librarian.

In the few seconds before the front door swung shut, Miss Birch caught a brief whiff of the sea breeze coming in.  It gave her a brief chill.  The weather must finally be changing.

Jimmy and Josie walked, at speed, over the shrubby, duney moor land that was most of Boundary Island’s eastern side.  Jimmy sometimes had to hustle to keep up, mostly due to Josie’s longer legs, though both of them felt an urgency.  They’d each gone home to get warmer clothes, Josie her fleece jacket, Jimmy a heavy too-large sweater his mother had recently knit for him.  Then they showed up at Peter’s house, hoping to talk some sense into him.  Instead, they had found his mother, who was surprised at their appearance, because Peter’s mother had thought he’d gone off to play with the two of them.  He’d finished all his chores early just to run off and play.

The two thanked Peter’s mom, assured her that Peter was fine, and they knew where he’d be.  The last of those three things was technically true.  Whether or not he was fine was their current concern.  Even if the weather hadn’t changed for the cold, which it had, it was too early in the day to swim.  And even if he wasn’t enthralled by… something that shouldn’t be, he ought to be out of the water.  The two talked their way through Josie’s fears on the subject as they made their way to Baby Doll Cove.

“So, the book said the mermaid… thing, she can shift her appearance to suit her suitor’s desire?” Jimmy asked.

“Yeah, that’s what the book said,” Josie replied, “Though I don’t know if that’s what she’s doing, besides fixing herself up.”

“I was thinking.  She’s our age.  At least she looks like it.”

“Uh huh.”

“Well, is she really our age? She doesn’t just look our age to trick Peter?  I mean, was she our age when she…”

“I kinda think so,” Josie said.  “I mean, what you and I saw wasn’t what Peter saw. At least I hope not.  But she was our age in both.”

“OK, that makes sense.  It’s just, if she’s our age, or was our age… is that old enough to even, I mean, old enough to, you know, even have a…”

“Yes,” Josie replied, confidently.

“OK, but are you sure?”

“Yes,” Josie said firmly.

“Okay, but how are you sure…”

Josie stopped in her tracks and spun around to face Jimmy so fast that he almost walked right into her.  “Listen,” she said in a mood he’d seldom seen her in.  “I can give you an answer to that.  But if I do, then I’ll have to really sock you after. Real hard.”

“Okay, nevermind,” Jimmy said.  Jimmy hadn’t meant anything by asking.  If it was some girl thing, okay, he could just let it go.  He didn’t know why these things had to be so difficult.  He changed the subject.

“Hey, you think if we search the archives of the newspaper, we can find a story about Hortense Winlock?  And how she went missing?” Jimmy asked.

“Yeah, probably,” Josie said.  “We’ll have to do it after we rescue Peter.  There’s not enough time now.  I don’t know why we didn’t figure it out sooner.  When was the name ‘Hortense’ ever popular?”

“I don’t know,” Jimmy replied.  “Hey you think it might mention that she might have been, could have been…”

“No chance in hell,” Josie answered.  “I’ll bet you what we might be able to find though?  Why they named it Baby Doll Cove.”

Jimmy thought about that for a minute, then he shivered, despite his heavy wool sweater.

They crested the last bluff before the beach, and the great Atlantic ocean was laid out before them.  There, just past the surf, was the bobbing head of their friend Peter, and just beyond that, the dark head of “Hortense,” whatever she may be.  Lower in the water, they could just make out her eyes, just above the water line.  Last time they came out here, Peter had been laughing and splashing and playing in the water.  This time he looked sedentary, sullen, lacking his former spark.

“Peter!” both of them cried, as they lowered themselves onto the beach.  Peter didn’t turn.  They kept calling, but it wasn’t until they got just to the water’s edge, risking their shoes and socks getting wet, that he finally noticed and turned.  If Hortense had seen them approaching, she hadn’t told him this time.

Peter approached the shore, to talk.  He was slower this time, and he fell over a lot in the waves.  More than he should have.  He seemed… weaker.  He got close enough to where his ankles were still submerged when the highest wave receded.

“Hey, guys,” he said, with none of the excitement he had last time.

“Hi, Peter,” they both said.  “Hey Peter.”

“You guys wanna play?” Peter asked.

“We would, Peter,” Josie said.  “But not here.”

“Yeah, we miss you,” Jimmy added.

“Why not?” Peter asked.

“Don’t you think you’d have more fun back on the Athena?” Josie offered.

“Well, maybe,” Peter said.  “But not without Hortense.  And her parents won’t let her go that far from home.”

“I’m not sure that’s really true,” Jimmy said.  “And besides, it’s dangerous here.”

“Pfft, c’mon!” Peter was incredulous.  “It’s fine!  C’mon in, the water feels great.”

“Remember the boiler, Peter?” Josie asked.  The smile dropped from Jimmy’s face.  They hadn’t spoken about it since that fateful day.  They had never really known what it was, or what it was doing there.  What they did know was that it wasn’t natural, some sort of monster beyond any of their understanding.

“But that’s back on Boiler Rock,” Peter said.

“Not what I mean,” Josie said.

“I don’t get it,” Peter said.

“Peter,” Jimmy said, “You’re in danger.  We’re in danger.  This place isn’t right.  Deep down you know that.  Besides, it’s way too cold, even without… her.”

“Guys, it’s not cold!” Peter laughed.

“Peter, look at me,” Josie said, not quite in her commodore’s voice, but with a clear intention of authority.  Peter did so.  They were a piercing blue.  “It’s cold.”

Peter didn’t know what they were talking about.  He was perfectly fine.  Had since he’d gotten in the water with Hortense, well, since he’d gotten used to it.  Maybe Josie was cold, but not him.  That would explain why she was wearing her fleece jacket.  Jimmy was wearing his knit sweater.  And his knit toque too.  These were their fall clothes.  That was silly, it was summer.  Though, Peter thought about it.  Technically it was fall.  School was back in. 

Then he had a thought.  What if it really was cold? And with that, looking at his two friends, both dressed warmly, both as serious as death, the spell was broken.

Peter let out a choking gasp and started coughing.  It wasn’t like getting dunked in a tank of cold water, at least then your insides are still warm.  Peter felt heavier.  His back felt crooked, his muscles stiff.  The knuckles of his hands wouldn’t flex like he wanted them too.  He got the idea that if he tried to re-tie his swim trunks, he wouldn’t be able to.  His fingertips were thoroughly wrinkled, and he couldn’t feel them, but knew they were clammy.  His friends saw the change with their own eyes.  His skin took on a blue tinge, and it seemed he couldn’t control his own shaking.  They would have rushed into the water and grabbed him, except…

Hortense was standing right next to him.  Peter looked her in the eye. He understood now, not fully, but he understood what he needed to. He understood why his friends had referenced the boiler.  He understood why Hortense wasn’t able to leave.  He understood why he was in danger.

Hortense didn’t look angry.  She just looked sad and lonely. Peter understood this, because that’s exactly what Hortense was.  She didn’t quite look so pretty anymore.  At least not pretty in the way that he had first described her to his friends on the Athena that day he’d first met Hortense.  That’s not to say he thought she was ugly, he’d never think anything mean about his friend Hortense. It was just that the charm that had left Peter like a sudden gust of cold wind, was only slowly receding from Hortense, like a tide.

Her hair was much darker than he had remembered.  Not black, maybe a dark shade of gray.  Her skin was a similar hue, though very light in tone.  Too light.  The oversized shirt or gown she’d been wearing was now full of holes and tears.  When he looked down, he saw that her belly was bulging outwards in unnatural proportions for her frame. She drowned, Peter thought.  The belly must have been from swallowing all that sea water ever since that day.  He’d heard that’s what happened to the drowned, just like the old stories of mermaids.  Later on, after it was over, Josie would explain to him what it really meant.

“I think I should go,” Peter said.

“Okay,” Hortense said.  “I know.”

“I think I probably shouldn’t come back.”

“I guess I know that too,” Hortense.  The sound of waves coming and going filled a brief moment.  “If it matters, I don’t know if it matters, but if it still matters, I never wanted to harm you.”

“I know,” Peter said.  “I mean, I didn’t know any of this before just now.  But now that I know… I know.  I know you’re not a bad person.”

“I’m not?”

“No.”

“I just…,” Hortense thought some more, “I think I just wanted somebody to love me and take care of me.”

“I know,” Peter said.  “I think that I could have loved you.  Forever.  But I don’t think anybody can take care of you.  Not any more.”

Hortense sniffed, then nodded.  Then big tears started to fall from her cheeks.  Peter looked very closely.  They were water.  No salt, Peter thought.  Maybe the purest water in all the world.  Real water, that was really there, while the rest of Hortense was becoming increasingly less there.  

“It’s not fair,” Peter added.  “What happened to you.”  He said it without knowing just how unfair it really was.  “If there’s something I can do.  On this side, I mean.  To make anything better.  I don’t know what it is, but if there is something I can do, I’ll find it and do it.”

“You were always very nice to me, Peter.”

“You were nice to me too.  I wanted you to like me.”

“You’re cold,” Hortense said.  “Too cold. You should be with your friends.”

“Okay,” Peter said, “see you later,” he added.  This had been a reflex.  He didn’t know if he would.  Maybe, some day, he would.  Maybe not.  It was beyond his control.

His friends were waiting for him, just above the line of wet sand.  They’d found his clothes and his towel and wrapped him in it the second he stood on dry sand.  He looked back, a brief moment.  He saw that Hortense had swam beyond the breakers.  They dried his hair, hoping to get him warm as fast as possible.  When he looked again, he only saw her hair, just a dark black splotch under the water, almost an oil slick.  Then just a pool of bubbles.  Then nothing.

It was a struggle to get Peter’s clothes back on him, over his wet trunks.  Jimmy had to button Peter’s trousers for him, because his own hands weren’t working right.  Jimmy put his sweater on Peter, then Josie her jacket, then bracing themselves in the cool air, hustled back into town.

The kids in them wanted to go back to Athena, that being their safe space, their base of operations.  The adults in them took Peter home.  His mom was in the backyard bringing in the laundry when they’d come through the door and rushed upstairs.  They’d made up a story, how Peter had fallen in the creek, trying to help a cat that had been chased in by a dog.  They’d rushed him home, they told her, as soon as they could, before he caught his death of pneumonia.  His mom seemed to buy it, without noticing the smell of sea water, or the sand on his skin.  Peter got in a warm bath without any punishment, at any rate.

Peter’s mom insisted Jimmy and Josie stay for an early supper.  Chicken soup and grilled cheese sandwiches.  It was an award too good for finishing their latest misadventure, but they appreciated it nonetheless.  Warmth soon returned to Peter’s belly, though there was a cold spot in his soul that would linger long after.  In time he’d search the library for a way to help a lost soul move on.  He’d search the records for a target for a poetic and just revenge.  He’d find neither to his satisfaction.  At night he’d lie in bed and wonder how things could have been, if he’d been born many years earlier, or she later.  There was never a good conclusion to the stories he’d imagine.  The idea of a time machine always ruined his stories and turned them into silly dreams which he’d soon forget in his sleep.

For that first night, though, Peter would eat his fill of soup.  Then, in his warmest pajamas, played a game of Monopoly with his friends in front of the fireplace, while the radio played detective stories.  When it got dark he was his friends to the door, and they too would finish their days in the comforts of their own homes.  That night, in bed, he’d find a restful sleep, free of any dreams, troubling or otherwise.

Outside, in the cold, far above his trouble’s, or of Hortense’s, a thick bank of clouds rolled over little Boundary Island.  Like a blanket, it surrounded it, smothered it, kept the worst of the cold away.  Like a blanket, it sheltered it, and kept it safe from monsters.