Isaac walked among the trees with cuts fresh on his face: one on his lip; one on his brow; and one on his cheek. As he walked with sniffles from his nose and tears still bubbling at his eyes, he could feel the swell of bruises rising to the surface of his skin. He would have to explain all this to his mother when he came home, and that was a scrutiny he could live without. A long walk in the woods should give his mind space and time to find a story other than what actually happened.

I tried to punch someone's fist with my face, was all that came to mind right then. This time, the joke wasn't enough to cheer him up. The lie would need time to grow.

Oftentimes, but now more than ever, he pictured what it would be like to just drop everything - to pick a direction and just walk in it, never to come home again. It was an exciting thought, one that gave him a sense of freedom and fluidity whenever it appeared in his mind. Maybe someday he'd do it. Maybe tomorrow...maybe now. He was already beyond sight of his house, deep amidst the trees. It could be done.

But of course, as with many things, the fear in his heart dissuaded him. It would have to wait for another day or remain a pretty vision.

The root of a tree came between Isaac and his next step. He caught the dirt just before his face hit it. "Ugh," he groaned, and let a single tear fall to make the tiniest puddle of mud in the world, right before his eyes. Even the world itself wants me dead, he thought. Eventually, he rose but did not stand. Instead, he sat there, head hanging, arms resting on his knees with his feet crossed beneath them.

And he thought of nothing, only letting himself feel the pain throbbing on his face, completely disconnected from the whirlwind raging in his heart.

Then, when he opened his eyes and lifted his head, he saw in the corner of his eye a glimmer of blue light. He glanced to his right: it was there! the brambles and bushes formed a hole as though it was designed for one to look through. It was a shimmer on the leaves illuminating the way the sun does to water, except the forest was dense and the sun seldom pierced its roof. Must be a clearing, he thought. He had to investigate.

It didn't take much willpower for Isaac to find his feet. Upon seeing the mysterious glow, the troubles that had dragged him down had been alleviated. Not even the thorns his skin discovered inside the hole could stop him. They were just another hurt he'd have to deal with on the other side. A lesser one, at that.

Crawling out the other end, he gaped in awe at finding out exactly what the shimmer was. He had been right about the water but entirely wrong about the sun; the roof of leaves was as dense here as anywhere else in the woods. The illumination was the glow of blue spheres floating in the air, waving about the small clearing over a small circular pond like fireflies. The reflections of blue light on blue water touching green leaves was a vision of teal splendour. For the moment, Isaac's pains were a distant memory in the far reaches of his mind.

He inspected the pool and expected to find mud and frogspawn in it. Instead, the light of the glowing orbs seemed to reveal the rocky beginnings of some abyssal trench. It made his head spin to look directly down. The rippling water combined with the unfathomable depth got him wondering what it must feel like to be on a sinking ship, with nothing left to do but wait for the cold to freeze him or the water to drown him.

Just as he made to step back, two golden flickers of light appeared in the black depth of the pool.

They were eyes - he just knew them to be. He stepped back and stared at the water so that whatever was down there didn't jump out and grab him whilst he wasn't looking. The water began to ripple. Isaac wished he had ran. When he turned to do so he tripped and banged his knee on some deep embedded stone. Still, the pain was shrouded - no longer by wonder but by fear.

He turned back, still lay on the ground, and saw the monster. He scuttled back on his hands and feet, as a spider would scurry from a boot, until he came against a large tree trunk.

The bottom half of the creature's face was submerged under the water, leaving only those golden eyes glaring at him through narrowed lids. It's going to kill me, Isaac thought, this is how I die. His heart pounded in his ears. The fear had gripped him as though a hand from the earth had risen and dragged him down by his torso. Maybe that was the magic of the creature.

As it observed Isaac, his chest rising and his body trembling, the creature's eyes widened and its glare turned to a look a woman gives a puppy. Isaac tilted his head. His panting ceased. The head in the pool floated toward him so gently he barely even noticed until it emerged from the water in full. And only then did Isaac realise: it was a woman.

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Two hands emerged and gripped the edge of the pool so the strange lady could peer a little closer at him. Isaac realised his head was leaning a bit closer too. "H-hello?" he said. The woman flinched, making a tiny splash in the water. Isaac did the same.

"Hello," she replied, "we share a common tongue?"

"I think so," he said. "Where are you from?"

"Here," she said simply. Isaac was expecting more but she instead returned the question. "Where are you from?"

Isaac pointed to his left and waved his finger in that general direction. "Somewhere over there, in a village."

"Village?" The girl repeated.

"Yes." There was a pause. Now that he had calmed down he took in the woman's beauty: long black hair crowning a fair, small face, and the golden eyes that just a moment ago seemed to want Isaac dead now looked irrefutably lovely. The illuminating orbs glowing across the pond made her wet skin glisten with a radiance as though God himself was presenting her as his finest angel.

"How long have you been down there?" Isaac asked finally. He'd realised he had been staring at her.

"I live here," she said again. Her face had no humour in it.

"...In the pool?"

"Yes."

The woman turned his furrowed brow into a raised one when a the tail of a large fish splashed in the water behind her.

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A mermaid. They're real! Isaac thought. No legend he had heard could have prepared him for their beauty.

The woman smiled at his amazement, and Isaac perceived that she had even blushed a little bit as well. "What is your name?" she asked.

"Isaac. What's yours?"

"Nilibetta."

"That's a strange name," he said, then quickly added, "but a nice one!"

"I was thinking the same."

The two shared a laugh; then an entire conversation that lasted until sun-fall. At least, that's how it felt. It was the afternoon when Isaac retreated to the woods, and though the leaves were dense, it was still easy to see if night had fallen. The forest in dusk was darker than black.

Only here, in the glade, the time of day was imperceptible. The blue orbs glowing and drifting from the ground all the way up to the roof cast the illusion of a constant midday state. Or maybe he had truly been lost in time in the presence of Nilibetta. Perhaps that was the magic of mermaids.

During their conversation, Isaac learned that the beautiful woman had been separated from her family for years, and that all her life she had thought humans to be a myth that her parents would tell her. Isaac told her the same about mermaids.

"That is curious," she replied, her head resting on her arms, "I wonder what else we don't know. I suppose we can never truly imagine each other's worlds, no matter how much time we spend talking."

"I suppose so," Isaac said, deep in thought. "What's it like down there?"

Nilibetta turned sullen and silent for a moment. The silence was not unpleasant. Then she spoke her mind. "Empty. You're the first being I've spoken to in years."

Isaac was about to express his sorrow for the woman, but looked back on how lonely he had been the past few years. You are too, he wanted to say. "I'm so sorry."

"Don't be," she said with a smile, "I'm glad to have met you."

Isaac blushed. "I'm glad too."

Another silent moment fell between them, more pleasant than the last, one shared with warm smiles and warmer eyes; a silence eventually broken by Isaac. Looking up at the thick leaved roof, having forgetten the sky was out of sight, he said to Nilibetta: "I need to go."

"No," Nilibetta said, her voice wavering, "I mean, please stay. Just a little bit longer."

"Okay." Isaac didn't need any convincing.

Home wasn't a place he longed for any day, but especially not that day. Everything that happened to him had all been worth it for that moment: a night among the luminous orbs and shimmering water; a night shared with someone he could call a friend.

Nilibetta spoke of great cities under the sea, with lights of every colour under the heavens, and glowing like the orbs floating around the glade, ever brighter and stronger than any lamp. Isaac lay on his back, his eyes now heavy with sleep, and looked up at the dark roof as a canvas for the picture painted with the mermaid's words. The orbs were an ever shifting constellation for his imagination.

The image in his mind was replaced with a vision before his eyes when he heard the water splash and trickle on the ground as Nilibetta lifted herself from the pool and leaned over Isaac's face. The mermaid continued the story of the grand metropolis under the sea, whilst looking him the eye, and stroking his head with a gentle, wet hand. Isaac realised it was the first time they had touched. With the pitch black roof and the illuminating lights behind her, it felt as though only he and Nilibetta were all the life left in the world, and that they would never tire of each other's eternal companionship.

Isaac's eyes closed to the soothing voice. He never heard the end of her tale, though he had been interested in it from the beginning. The moment before sleep finally took him he felt a droplet fall on his cheek and something warm and sweet touch his lips, and instantly he knew it to be the mermaid's kiss. That night on the cold hard ground was the best night's sleep he would ever have. In his dreams he knew he would have no problem going home and facing what awaited him - not now or ever. A mermaid's kiss is an eternal blessing.

His eyes opened. The roof of leaves was still before his eyes. The lights were gone. He turned his head and saw Nilibetta was gone too. The pool was nowhere to be seen; just a shallow puddle in its place. He tried looking down at it anyway, seeing only his reflection looking back at him. 

A reflection without cuts or bruises.

Neither fear nor happiness resided in his heart on the walk home; only the absolute certainty that everything would be okay.

And that was the magic of mermaids.