The Necklace

Written by Joanna Elizabeth Benitez

There was once a boy-man who drowned. 

It happened one August afternoon when the lake known as Alegria replenished itself.

He tried to swim. He stroked with his arms and kicked his legs but the warm waters engulfed him. A memory came to him then of Elder combing his hair. The lake is brimming with stories, she had said. Do not become one of them. He was just a boy then but he recognized the words for what they were, and so he nodded. I promise, he said.

To his people, stories were greater than history and so they worshipped often. They let their tongues dance by the fire which hung beneath the stars. They spoke and they sang the gospel of the land and of the spirits. The boy-man grew up in the temple of hushed whispers and magic woven by the rich land and so he knew better. Years had passed and Elder was long gone, but when dark thoughts engulfed him, he held her sacred words to his heart. He repeated them like a prayer. 

And yet, when the boy-man saw the lake one August afternoon, the marks on his body throbbed and the sacred words he held so firmly to his chest vanished. Feeling as though he were drowning within the ghost of memories, the boy-man sprinted into the lake. Like an animal possessed, he slapped the emerald waters against his arms and chest and rubbed until his skin recoiled. So consumed was he in his task that the warden of white trees which gathered around the lake quieted for there was nothing more they could do. For centuries the trees had whispered. Beware, they said, beware. But no one listened, and the boy-man was no different. Beware.

The boy-man continued, desperate to erase the marks on his body until he forgot his surroundings and drifted within the lake. When his feet no longer touched the ground, water filled his mouth. His lungs screamed. There was panic and then pain, but soon enough, they both faded. Maybe it’s for the best, the boy-man thought. 

Lethargic from the pressure in his chest, the boy-man blinked. He could see bubbles surround him, hovering beside his face before floating up and up and up, and then a firm hand grabbed his from below. A woman it was with hair as white as bone and eyes as clear as crystals.

“Why are you trying to leave me?” the mermaid asked.  

The boy-man stared into a face filled with so much sorrow that his chest ached with rapport. He smiled. “I’m not trying to leave,” the boy-man replied.

Time passed and though living with the mermaid was pleasant, the boy-man missed two things; the sun burning against his flesh and his mother. Only his dear mother could cradle his soul in the bassinet of her heart and keep it safe and sound, good and pure. As it was, the shadows that clung to him like leeches began to feed once more. 

To calm himself, the boy-man laid down on the lake’s floor. He closed his eyes and thought of himself, not as a boy-man but as an embryo, a pseudo fish swimming in the salty amniotic fluid of its mother’s womb. He imagined himself surrounded by the beat of her heart. It helped. His thoughts slowed and his body ceased to exist. 

Hours later, the weight of his head tipped and his cheek slammed against the floor. He opened his eyes and saw the mermaid perched on a red rock some distance away. Her tail glistened like pure silver and her hair, long and white, danced about her freckled shoulders. When her eyes met his, he could feel her loneliness and sadness echo through the centuries. It made him wonder, Do mermaids have mothers?

The boy-man sat up and opened his arms. In response, the mermaid pushed off the rock. Her tail, long and corded with muscle, parted the waters effortlessly. She swam around him once, twice, and then she wrapped her arms around his neck and squeezed. The boy-man hugged her tight in return and with a smile, he pulled back. He pressed his thumb against the mermaid’s knitted brow. 

“Are you happy here?” asked the mermaid.

“Yes,” said the boy-man, “I am happy.” After a moment of silence, he added, “No one can hurt me here.”Before the mermaid could ask more questions, the boy-man kissed her forehead and chased her worry away with a song for she loved to hear him sing.

Days passed, and then one cold afternoon when the boy-man was sleeping, a man happened upon the mermaid as she was sitting on the tallest rock in the lake. The man became filled with lust and he rushed into the water. He tried to kiss the mermaid, but she pushed him away. The man’s face reddened and twisted into a snarl. He grabbed her hair and struck, but the mermaid slithered to the side and knocked his hand away. She snatched his leg and swam to the bottom of the lake. The man kicked but the mermaid was strong and she held fast. And so the first thing that greeted the boy-man upon awaking, for the battle was loud and roused him from his sleep, was the grotesque image of a man fighting for air. 

The man died, his lungs engorged with water, and when the body sunk to the bottom of the lake, the boy-man inched closer. 

The mermaid swam to the boy-man’s side. “I had to,” she whispered against his cheek.

“I know,” he replied. 

“Then what is it?” 

Silence for a long time, and then, “He looks like my uncle,” he whispered.

Hearing the pain in his voice, the mermaid gathered the boy-man into her arms and pressed her cheek against his. The boy-man sighed and when his mind calmed, he realized how tightly she was embracing him. He gently pulled away and touched her hair. “Did he hurt you,” he asked. 

The mermaid shook her head and grabbed his hand. She kissed his palm gently. “Do you want to play?” 

The boy-man nodded and when the mermaid raced off, the boy-man laughed, her excitement over the childish game contagious.

The next day, the drowned man’s body was fished out with nets and a new tale was added to the list surrounding the lake. As the days came and went, the boy-man grew to know much about the lake. He knew when the waters grew and when they fell. He knew when the birds would sing their songs of sleep and adventure, and he knew of the rootless tree that could never decide where to stand. But try as he might he couldn’t find the lake’s magic.

“You will leave me soon,” the mermaid whispered one day as she tentatively played with a rock that to him resembled a cracked eggshell.

The boy-man shook his head. “Why would you say that?”

“Because no one likes to be alone.” 

“But I have you,” he replied.

“You will let me go.”

And she was right. The time came when the boy-man grew desolate. 

“What is wrong?” the mermaid asked. 

The boy-man shrugged but he knew he must answer, and so his chest caved and his shoulders drooped. “I want to go home,” he said.

“I’ll take you,” she said softly, meekly, “but you must swear to tell no one about me.” 

“I promise,” he said. 

In that instant, a road of red rocks appeared before him. 

“Follow the path,” the mermaid said. “Remember, don’t tell.” The mermaid hugged him goodbye, but the embrace was much too brief. The boy-man reached out…but it was too late. The mermaid was gone, the only sign of her existence, the white strands of hair that hung between his fingers. With a bruised heart, he carefully placed the token in his pocket, then followed the road. When he reached the end of the path, he floated up and up and up. 

Standing on dry land once more, the boy-man turned and stared at the green waters. There was no trace of the mermaid, but hoping she’d appear for one last goodbye, he waited in the cold for several hours, but not even a trail of bubbles broke the water’s surface. With a regretful pang, he walked home. 

“Where have you been!” his mother screamed when he arrived for the boy-man had been gone for months and she was sick with worry.

“I was with uncle,” he said, and for a moment, he thought about telling her the truth; his uncle was not a good man. But as always, he closed his mouth and swallowed the words.

“You should have told!” His mother sobbed, her face filled with anger and relief.

The boy-man merely nodded, and with tears in his eyes for he hadn’t meant to cause his mother grief, he allowed himself to be pulled into her arms. He closed his eyes and listened to the lullaby of his mother’s heart. 

Later, when he was alone in his room, the boy-man took the strands of white hair from his pocket and braided them into a necklace. He wanted something to remember his time with the mermaid and he liked the idea of having her around his neck like a permanent hug. 

“Isn’t that a little tight?” His mother asked when he walked out of his room, but before he could answer she patted his cheek and rushed him to the table where all his favorite foods were laid out. She had been cooking all day.

At that moment, however, his aunt burst through the doors for theirs was a small village and word had spread of his miraculous return. “Where has the boy been?”

“With brother,” his mother answered, her smile unwavering despite the aunt’s chilly demeanor. “Come, sit, we are about to eat.”

The aunt eyed the boy-man for a long moment and then she left without another word. When she returned at the end of the day, she was a tempest laying siege. 

“Let him rest,” the boy-man’s mother said.

“No, I want to know,” his aunt replied and so she entered his room and shut the door. 

The boy-man, startled, sat up.  

“You lied.” 

“No, I didn’t.”

“I visited my brother and he said you lied.”

The boy-man shook his head.

“You lie,” she said. “You lie, you lie, you lie.”

Desperate to drown out her screeching voice, the boy-man clamped his hands over his ears. “Okay!” he said. “Okay.”

“Where were you?”

“I was with the mermaid.” 

A pause. “Oh really, and what did you do with this mermaid?”

“We just played.” 

A curl of her lip. “You slept with her, didn’t you? A mermaid? You mean a prostitute.”

“No.”

“Tell me the truth.”

“I am. We just played.”

“You played with the mermaid?” 

The boy-man nodded.

The aunt scoffed and then she ran outside. “He played with the mermaid,” she screamed at a passerby. “He played with the mermaid!”

Everyone stopped and stared and inside of his room, the boy-man swallowed thickly. He couldn’t breathe. He closed his eyes and touched the charm around his throat. He felt it tighten. Alarm chilled his spine. He clawed at the necklace with trembling fingers. The skin on his throat tore open under his nails, but the necklace held. He coughed and water suddenly poured from his mouth. Realizing what was happening, the boy-man cried for he was sorry. He hadn’t meant to break his promise. He didn’t want to die.

But as it happened, the boy-man was found on the floor, his eyes open in death. It was his mother who found him. She tore at the necklace around his neck and screamed until her voice shattered. Until silence engulfed her.

 Unbeknownst to all, under a lake named Algeria, a mermaid ripped her gleaming white hair from her head, opened her mouth, and echoed the sound.