Her mother dipped her hand into the water, reaching toward the fish that was her daughter. Anedra flicked her tail and propelled herself forward without much control, bumping her nose into her mother’s hand. She nuzzled the skin which felt strangely warm and foreign against her new fish body.When Anedra raised her head at last, the sky was pink with dawn. To her horror, she saw that she was no longer in the stream. Somewhere during her resting phase, the current had dislodged her and carried her out to sea so subtly that Anedra was not aware of it.
She turned and darted back from the way she’d been facing, desperate to find the stream mouth, determined to fight her way back upstream to rejoin her parents. But all around her was water. Swimming in every direction with erratic bursts, eyes darting frantically for the smallest glimpse of land, there was nothing but water.
If fish could cry, Anedra would have raised the sea level by several inches. But she couldn’t cry, so she drooped in the water, her fins hanging listlessly.
Something smacked into her so hard that she flipped over in the water, gasping, bubbles rising toward the surface.
“You must come with me,” a gravelly voice said.
Anedra turned and saw a fish so heavily textured that his sides looked like the thatch of a roof. “I want to go home,” Anedra said.
“That’s where I’m taking you.” The fish turned and headed off through the water. Anedra hung back, unsure if she could trust the strange fish. Before she could decide whether to follow him or not, he came zipping back through the water, as fast as a pistol shot. Alarmed, she jerked upward with a flick of her tail, arcing up over the fish as he zipped past beneath her.
He spun in the water. “That’s better than the swimming you did before, or just plain luck,” he said. “You come with me now, or I’ll have to push you into line.” When he puffed up, the thatch on his sides stiffened into spines that stuck straight out from his body. They looked painful. Anedra realized she had no choice but to follow him.
The puffer fish led the way down into water so deep it shifted from blue to purple. Just as Anedra was despairing of ever seeing light again, she spied a golden glow beneath her, so warm that it disoriented her. She thought she’d been swimming downward, but had she really been going up toward the sun? The light pulled her onward, as welcoming as the windows of her own warm house. If she could only get back home, she would do everything for her mother and father. She would obey them in whatever they told her, never talking back or making a fuss.
The puffer fish glanced back at her, frowned, and then put on a burst of speed. Anedra swam faster to catch up, feeling awkward in her fish skin. The puffer fish stopped beside a doorway of coral taller than Anedra’s father, the golden light coming from within. “Go on,” the puffer fish growled.
“What’s in there?” Anedra asked, suddenly wary. She tried to see inside, but the doorway didn’t reveal any secrets.
“For water’s sakes, go in already,” the puffer fish grumped. “It’s your new home.”
“No.” Anedra shook her head and backed away from the coral doorway. “My home is with my mother and father. I don’t belong here.”
“You do now.” Faster than she thought possible, the puffer fish circled around her, cutting off her escape and bumping into her with his cruel barbs.
“Ouch!” Anedra cried, swimming forward to put distance between them. With her eyes on the puffer fish, she scraped against something rough. When she whirled to face the new danger, she saw that she was just inside the coral doorway.
“Welcome,” a voice called out as soft as waves on a sandy shore.
Trembling in her scaly skin, Anedra turned, transfixed by the sight of a lovely lady with turtle green hair and pale skin sitting on a chair carved of rock.
“I know this must be strange to you,” the woman said, her mild blue eyes on Anedra, “but you will get used to it, as I have.”
Anedra sensed that she could trust this lovely woman with cheeks as pink as sunrise and lips as red as coral. She swam toward her, then stopped suddenly at the sight of the green tail fins waving gently in the current. “What are you?” she asked.
“I am Queen Belvedere,” the woman replied. “I used to live on land, as you once did, but a cruel giant stole my crown for his daughter, Durlynn, and threw me into the water. It was my fortune to be rescued by the water spirits who decided to turn me into my current form so I would not drown.”
Anedra gazed upon Queen Belvedere’s human half with longing. “But why am I a fish? Why don’t I have a human head and arms as you do?”
The queen fixed Anedra with her green gaze, which had suddenly gone cold. “Because you ate the fish who was my son.”
A sudden shock made Anedra’s fins tremble. “It was an accident,” she said. “I didn’t mean to kill him.”
“But you intentionally ate him.” Queen Belvedere gestured to Anedra. “I see the mark of his tail on your forehead.”
Anedra spread her fins. “I only had one bite. He was dead, he was a fish, and I was hungry. I didn’t know he was not what he appeared to be.”
“Your father warned you.” The beautiful queen gave a humorless smile. “And now you are a fish. Do you think if someone caught you and you begged them not to eat you that they would be so kind as to listen to your pleas?”
Anedra warmed with shame, wondering about all the fish she’d eaten over the years. Her stomach lurched. “Was every fish once a human?”
“No. Most fish are simply fish. Only a few were transformed into fish from their original human selves.”
“Can they go back?” Anedra thought of her mother and father and their warm embrace. She longed to feel their arms around her again. She would scrub a thousand floors to feel her mother’s hug, cook a thousand dinners to feel her father pat her hair.
“Very few manage to find a way. As for me, without my crown, I will stay as I am.”
“I’m sorry,” Anedra said. “If I had legs and lungs, I’d get your crown for you and restore you to human form to show you how sorry I am.”
“Do you mean it?” the green gaze sharpened.
“Of course,” Anedra said. “But what can I do? I am a fish.”
Queen Belvedere began singing, a strange, echoing song that resonated from the coral walls around them. She reached up and pulled three strands of green hair from her head and carefully braided them, still singing, then moved close enough to slip the braided hair around Anedra’s middle, tightening the green band behind her dorsal fin.
Queen Belvedere fell silent. The sea seemed ominously quiet without her song vibrating through the cold, dark water. When she spoke, her voice was low and solemn. “Now you can change yourself into any animal you choose by thinking of that animal and hitting yourself on the forehead over the fish tail mark.”
Anedra put a fin to her head. “It’s still there?”
Queen Belvedere gave a single sharp nod. “Always.”
Anedra dropped her gaze. “I’m truly sorry. If I could bring your son back, I would.”
The queen’s voice was gentler when she said, “The giant gave my crown to his homely daughter, Durlynn, who used it to enchant a prince. Even though the giant died, the wedding is scheduled to take place tomorrow in the mountain country north of here. If you can get my crown back before they are wed and return it to me, then the spell will be broken.”
“I shall do it,” Anedra said. She turned toward the coral doorway, then paused. “Will the puffer fish leave me alone?”
“With my green weaving, you have complete autonomy in the sea. No one will bother you.”
Anedra nodded, then flicked her tail and swam through the doorway. Angling upward, she swam as fast as she could manage toward the surface. The sun was high when she poked her head out of the water, blinking in the brightness. Then, with a mighty wrenching of muscles, she managed to slap herself in the forehead with her tail while imagining a seagull soaring through the salty air. Before she could think twice, she was skimming above the green water on strong and slender wings, Queen Belvedere’s green braid weaving in between fresh white feathers, behind her wings and before her dangling black feet.
Anedra’s small bird heart raced as she skimmed the surface of water, fearful that her feet would catch in the waves and drag her under. She tried tipping her wings to angle her body upward. Soaring higher, her initial alarm gradually gave way to the thrill of wind flowing against her body, the superior sensation of watching miniaturized objects passing by beneath her.
She circled, her round, black eyes scanning the horizon until she spotted what looked like land to the north. Mama, Daddy! Without a second thought, she zoomed toward the smudge of brown, excited to find her parents again. As soon as the land came into focus, she studied the shoreline, searching for the stream that emptied into the ocean. Once she spotted it, she’d follow it back to her parents’ house. Somehow she’d make them realize she was their daughter. Somehow she’d find contentment just to live near them.
Suddenly she became aware of something moving toward her through the sky. She turned her head and looked over her beak to see an eagle arrowing toward her. She squawked and dove just as the eagle flew past her head, ruffling her feathers. She beat her wings in panic, unsure of how to evade this baffling new attack.
The eagle circled back, beak open, cawing, “You have a mission to fulfill.”
Anedra called back, “I only want to see my parents.”
The eagle swooped close and Anedra shied away. “There is no time. Head for the mountains.”
To be continued…
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