Jilted Guilt: the Mermaid and the Hunter - Chapter 4
As luck would have it, the box she had expected to be locked had no lock, only a hook.
As Lavinia unhooked the clasp and opened the lid, Heliante’s eyes widened in astonishment.
“What, did you already know how to open this?”
“Didn’t we open a chest like this before?”
Lavinia felt strange as she wondered what Heliante meant. She doesn’t recall doing this before. But then, why does it feel so familiar? Heliante shook his head and laughed with a shrug.
“When? I’ve never seen this before.”
“A chest, a dress……”
As she muttered quietly, Heliante reached out to check the contents of the chest. The items that had been sitting there for a long time drifted away from his hand and scattered underwater.
Then, as if something caught his eye, Heliante clutched at something tightly.
“Oh, it’s a dress.”
“….”
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
The dress that appeared in Lavinia’s mind was yellow. And right before her eyes, Heliante held out an exact match. Lavinia silently mulled over what Heliante had just said.
He held the dress up to her and said, “It suits you better than it does me.”
Lavinia had never heard of merfolk having claivoyant abilities, but what else could she be experiencing?
“Well……I think it looks better on you.”
Then Heliante brought the dress to Lavinia’s body, turning her doubts into certainty.
This was a dream. A dream that vividly revived painful memories.
Bioluminescent sea serpents slithered around the chest, along with dark memories.
Lavinia shouted her sister’s name, scattering the glowing swarm of serpents. She swam back and forth, trying to save Heliante first.
“Heliante!”
The serpents swarmed and wriggled over Heliante. Lavinia tried to pull them off one by one, but the serpents clung to her body like leeches. For everyone she managed to get off her poor sister, more just kept surrounding her. Lavinia arms struggled against the writhing mass until there was nothing left of her sister but dark waters. Now that the snakes had disembodied her, they turned to Lavinia.
* * *
When Lavinia opened her eyes again, she found herself in the midst of a forest shrouded in deep blue shadows. Her arms were tied to small saplings, and a pool of water rose to her chest.
It was a small pond, larger than a cramped glass tank, but still a small one.
Lavinia pressed her sharp fangs against her tongue, and glanced down at her wrist.
As she wondered if she could possibly gnaw through the rope, she realized just how futile her vague plan was. How could she escape without her two legs?
She felt as helpless as the day she lost her sister in a freak accident. Would things have been different had she been able to save Heliante that day?
The sea serpents that had appeared so suddenly had merely rushed past her, as if they were being chased by something else.
For every snake she killed, another would rise up in its place. On and on it went with Lavinia desperately to come to Heliante’s aid, but it was too late. Her sister was already dead.
On that day, Lavinia exterminated every sea serpent she could find. Her siblings scolded her, but she did not regret her actions.
On the contrary, Lavinia developed a strong aversion to all things snake-like after that.
The grey sky was so overcast that it was hard to tell day from night, and the rustling of small animals in the grass to the chirping of birds filled the air.
The fact that she was not only surrounded by land on all sides but also couldn’t escape even in the water filled her with dread.
She was beginning to get used to the noise, which was never loud but not soft either.
Feeling a presence, she relaxed her body and closed her eyes, pretending to lose consciousness.
There were two sets of feet trampling through the thickets, and two voices. Both men. They wer a good distance away, but Lavinia strained her ears to overhear their conversation.
“Well, here, you think?”
“Do we have to go any further?”
“I’m certain it was around here.”
“Did you have the wrong directions?”
Their raucous laughter grew closer and clearer. What was she going to do now? She looked around, terrified. They were still not in sight.
“This can’t be it.”
“The maids say no one goes anywhere without orders.”
“So, what? You all just want me to follow you around, then?”
“We can’t just let you have all the fun, can we?”
Must she now accept the misfortune that was coming her way? She wanted to escape from this overwhelming helplessness. But the distant unease was slowly encroaching upon her.
Lavinia felt her eyes welling up as she forgot how to breathe.
The stories her siblings used to tell her before bedtime kept coming to mind. Among them, there was a chef who claimed to have cooked merfolk alive, and a young mermaid who had been abandoned by her beloved human with her sharp scales and fangs ripped out.
If it had been her old self, she would have retorted, asking how her siblings could possibly know those things. But that was not so distant from her reality now.
A wave of regret relentlessly washed over her. Now, Mother, what should I do?
“But is there even a hole?”
“I’m sure you can get your mouth around it.”
“And what if we get caught?”
“Why would that matter to us?”
