As a child, my mother warned me about the salt water. She told me not all things that lived in there were meant for eating. The jellyfish, sharks, and stingrays, however were not what she meant.

But, I didn’t know that until the day I sat on the dunes of sand, looking out to the ocean. Past the dunes was the rocky shoreline where the pools were sunk into the rock. The kinds of pools that go down deep, but only span the length of a small child’s arm spread. I had been warned to never go near these at twilight, but when the tide pulled back on the ocean shore, the water in the pools decreased. A sound began to whistle from them. I stopped to listen. The longer I stood there, the more I heard. I took a step closer thinking it sounded like a person whistling. I tried to spy anyone among the rocks, but no one stood silhouetted out on the rocky pools.

I stepped closer.

That one step shifted the whole sound. Was it a dog? Whining?

My heartbeat picked up.

Maybe it was hurt.

My feet stopped.

Somehow I’d crossed halfway towards the pools. Only two more sand dunes stood between me and the rocky shore. I moved to step back.

A high pitched bark echoes against the sky. I rush forward on habit and only stop when I find my feet right at the edge of the rocky area.

I want to keep going, but I know better. I don’t believe my life is more precious than an animal’s, but I know which one my mother prefers. So I take a step back.

Suddenly the noise is gone. The sounds of a hurt animal no longer softly echoing.

The air feels too silent. I turn to look around me and find that I can’t hear anything. I can see the waves crashing against the sand, but there’s no sound. The wind picks up through the palm trees, but I don’t hear them flap against each other. I feel suffocated in the silence and when my breathing turns chaotic I can’t even hear that.

Then the high pitched squeak starts. It’s soft at first until it becomes all encompassing. If I put my hands against my ears the sound still exists. The piercing and shrill noise transitions in my ears. The sounds of a woman screaming in utter pain.

I remove my hands, trying to hear where it’s coming from better.

One of the pools in the center of the others.

The sounds of scraping and waves overpower the scream.

It grows in volume the closer I get, but the only thing I see when I dip my head over the edge is the black abysmal of endless water.

I get on my knees and lean over as far as I can into it.

But the sound stops as soon as I do.

I try to get closer, but my hand slips against a rock. I feel a sharp pain before I panic and send myself falling over the edge into the pool. My body slips into the water easily as it wraps around me. Dregs of seaweed pull my ankle, wrapping around me firmly as I kick frantically. I grab the wall of the pool and try to yank myself up, but the water level is lower than I thought.

Then the water around my rushes inside and i feel it push me up as the water rises inside the pool. The seaweed untangles from my ankles as the water pushes me up. My hand brushes the edge of the pool and I climb back out.

I crawl back from the pool and lay on my side shivering from the cold. The water drips out of my hair from the tips onto my nose until it runs into my eyes and I can’t tell which are my tears and which is the ocean water.

Then I hear a different sound coming from another pool, the sounds of whales. I lay there listening to it. Another pool pops up with noise, the sounds of gurgling laughter. The laughter shifts into humming. The most beautiful humming I’ve ever heard. I crawl closer to the pool it comes from just to hear it better.

Every inch I move forward against the hard rocks I feel myself suffocate.

My eyelids fall heavily against my eyes. The more I blink, the more warped the world becomes, until there’s only blurred blue. I don’t shut my eyes again, but the sight before my eyes goes black.

They say mermaids enchant men out at sea, but that’s not true. I do not take what I do not need. I do not enjoy enticing men, in fact when I can, I pick the children. That way I can give them sounds of puppies, songs of merry, and sweet laughter. In those cases, they die without ever realizing what’s been done.

I do not drown them. I trade them; their air for my water. But not only water and air get traded. The deal is always fair. I give a service of melodious entertainment and they give me the oxygen I need to survive underwater.

You know, I was once drowned as well. All mermaids are drowned people. The ocean pities you if you drown in her. She morphs your screams and final outputs of air into every beautiful sound. She gives you a means for living, and all you have to do is sing them to sleep.