Squirrels and rabbits and all manner of small forest creatures hovered in a corner by the fireplace, shivering as Nina began scooping them up, stroking their heads while she ordered the bluebirds to explain that they weren’t there to harm them.
Seven small men in pointy red-and-white-striped knit caps with festive suspenders attached to their breeches stood to the right inside the cozy cottage, arms crossed over their chests, stout, short legs wide apart, stoic faces in place.
One sneezed, and without thinking, Toni said, “Gesundheit.” She approached him with slow steps, taking care not to frighten him. “I’m Toni. You’re Sneezy, right?”
“Who?” he barked up at her, his face scrunching, making his bulbous red nose almost disappear into his face.
“Sorry. I meant, what’s your name?”
“Charming’s my name,” he growled at her, his face screwing up into a scowl. “We’re the Seven Wharfs. And I warn ye, harm one hair on her head, I’ll make yer liver my supper!”
“Okay, little man, chill on the death threats,” Nina said, patting him on the head with a grin. “We ain’t gonna hurt anybody. Sit yourself down over there with your little friends and mind your manners.”
Then she turned to Toni, dropping two fuzzy rabbits into her arms. “Make nice. They’re freaked-out.”
Jon sat beside the tub on his haunches as he listened to Muriel explain to him how she’d ended up in a cottage in the middle of nowhere after a battle with some sea witch named Pricilla, while the real Marty and Wanda rifled around in the kitchen, scavenging for food.
Muriel was simply stunning, her red hair spilling from the bathtub and falling to the floor in pools of color. The sapphire-blue of her clamshell bikini top shimmered, reflecting against the four or five inches of water left in the tub.
But her tail? Her tail was magnificent, regal in its ever-changing color, iridescent against the firelight.
And it was a tail.
She was a real mermaid.
O. M. G.
“What happened?” Jon asked, his gorgeous face full of concern.
Yeah, what happened, Perfect Ten?
Muriel’s eyes burned with anger, her creamy cheeks flushing red. “It was Pricilla the Sea Bitch! I angered her when I clubbed one of her smarmy pet eels to death after he made a pass at me. She hurled me from the sea and I landed here.”
“How long have you been here?” Jon asked, looking around the cozy cottage with its homemade quilts and tiny chairs made out of rough wood.
“Too long,” she drawled, fanning her fin, her eyes sad.
“How have you survived like this, Muriel?” Jon asked, leaning into the beautiful woman…er, fish.
She lifted a long, slender finger and pointed to the small, very angry-looking Wharf men with a gentle smile. “These little darlings fill the bathtub to keep my fin alive. But they can’t carry me to the ocean and they simply cannot do this forever. I so long for home,” she wailed, a tear escaping her emerald-green eye. “Damn that thorn in my side Pricilla! When I get my hands on her, I’m going to dine on her eels for supper!”
“You know each other?” Toni asked, her eyebrow raised. Why it bothered her that Jon knew this luscious creature was a sure sign she needed to take a step back. She had no claims to him. He’d kissed her, and he hadn’t been back for more.
Jerk.
Jon nodded affably, his smile fond, his white teeth flashing as he allowed a squirrel to cuddle against his ear, scratching its chin. “Aye, she often swam near my boat with her sisters when I was a child. We’ve known each other many moons, have we not, Muriel?”
She fairly purred her consent. “Indeed we have, I—um, Jon. Some of my most precious memories are from the days we spent together, when the sun was high and the water warm as a freshly heated bath.”
Yeah, yeah. Good times.
“So why don’t we just take her to the ocean?” Toni asked. “I heard it as we searched for berries, didn’t I? It can’t be that far.”
“’Tis dangerous, Toni,” Jon said, as though she were some kind of dolt. “You have no idea the kind of power Pricilla the Sea Bitch has—she can steal your very voice.”
Toni rolled her eyes at him. “Is that all? I can think of a few voices I’d survive without. Don’t be such a sissy. We just need to get her to the water’s edge, right? Dump her in…I mean, gently place her in the ocean, and we out. What’s the big deal?”
“You know nothing of the sea, Toni,” he spat, his blue eyes angry, his expression tense.
Was he willing to let Muriel suffer because he was scared of some crabby witch? Clearly, he wasn’t so flawless after all.
The long day, her frustration, her aching, pinched-to-within-an-inch-of-their-lives feet, and her stupid, confining dress made her lash out. “No, you know nothing, Jon Doe!” she yelled at him, stomping toward the back door, her arms full of shivering bunnies.