The Maiden of the Deep

Odaise Gaelach

I wrote this nearly a year ago. I was (and still) trying to dip my toes into everything, and try out different things. It's 2247 words long ('bout three pages?).

Reapers Reaping wasn't that great after all. Hopefully this will be better. Enjoy.

---

The Maiden of the Deep

In the Caribbean seaport of Santa Cruz, when John was 18 and first started his apprenticeship as a sailor, one of the things he remembered most were the myths and fables his mentor captain used to tell him. There were more than just dangerous pirates out there on the seven seas – all sorts of evil creatures lurked in the bottom of the water, and if John wanted to be a proper seafarer then he had to know all about them.
One of these spirits was called the Maiden of the Deep. John first heard this name when he had finished his chores one evening and the captain took him down to his cabin. The wooden ship slowly rocked and creaked in the water as the captain took a dusty book off the shelf and placed it down onto the table near the lantern. He began to speak:
“The Maiden of the Deep was a woman from long, long ago. Even before the trees that made this ship were little saplings she were alive. No one really knows who she was, or where she came from... The Maiden used to roam the earth, searching for someone. She went from town to town, village to city, looking for just one person in the whole world that would fall in love with her.
“But no matter how much she searched she never did find ‘im. In the end her loneliness and desperation and fury consumed her until one day she threw herself into the ocean. But she didn’t drown like she should’ve. Instead she became a horrific half-fish; a monster of the sea.”
The captain opened the book and turned the pages until he came to her. John gazed at the illustration of the Maiden and a tiny shiver flowed down his back.
She was like a huge pike: her bony, scaly head had a long narrow spear for a nose and two big, black, round eyes. Her body was round like a woman’s with two arms and a dorsal fin protruding from her back. She still wore some ragged, faded clothes. She only had half-legs: below her thighs there was a big grey flipper like a mermaid. Her body was scaly in places but there was bare human skin in others.
“Whenever a ship sinks she comes for the survivors. In her heart she has a deep hatred of all men. She takes the survivors of the wreak and drags ’em down into the bottom of the ocean where they’re never seen again. No one can love ’em down there.”
The captain snapped the book shut. John jumped.
“Ye’ve had a long day, sailor. And ye’ve worked hard. Now be off to bed with ya. And don’t have nightmares.”

That was eight years ago. John was now a skilled sailor, one of the best in the crew. He had sailed many times over the seas, and had not once been in danger from pirates or rocky coasts or any of the hundreds of hazards that could befall a sailor. So far he had been lucky.
Of course luck doesn’t last forever.
The ship was called the Wind Spirit. It was a small, fast ship with a crew of ten or so that was used for trading precious materials, things like gold and silk and spices. John was on board the fateful ship one morning when it left the port, sailing into the dawn-blue horizon until it disappeared and was never seen again.

Odaise Gaelach

It happened at dusk on the second day of the voyage. The seas were a little choppy, but that was nothing unusual. There were no pirate ships to be seen for miles around. Up on deck John felt as relaxed as the ocean wind.
Below deck there was a storage brig for where they kept the goods safe. Today this brig was full of barrels filled with tropical spices. But, at the very back of the brig, there was a small plank with a crack in it. It had been damaged in the Wind Spirit’s last voyage and the shipwright hadn’t repaired it yet.
More cracks began to form in the plank and tiny little drops of water squeezed into the ship. Soon it became a trickle of water, and then a small flow, until the strain was too much for the wood to bear. It shattered to pieces and a tidal wave of water gushed into the brig.
John heard a dull thump below. He groaned – some of the barrels mustn’t have been secured down properly.
The boards around the fracture started to weaken until they also split into two. When they finally were ripped apart all John heard was a strange, rending, crashing sound and he only had a moment to wonder before the ship lurched suddenly to port side. There were shouts of shock and surprise as several sailors fell into the water.
John scrabbled at the deck to stop himself from being thrown overboard too. But suddenly there was another noise of smashing wood; the Wind Spirit tilted violently to the side and began sinking quickly.
John was tossed from the deck and flung into the water. His arms flailed wildly to try and swim but the currents pulled and dragged him under the surface.
A minute later the Wind Spirit was no more. The captain and most of the crew were brought down to the bottom of the sea where Davey Jones’ Locker was waiting for them.

That night there was a full moon. For miles around where the Wind Spirit sank there was nothing, save a few barrels that had escaped the doomed vessel, and the body of an unconscious sailor draped over one of them.
John woke up again and his belly and lungs were full of seawater. He coughed and spluttered and retched until there was none left but a bitter taste and a burning feeling in his throat.
He held on tighter to the barrel and stared around him. The horizon was bare as far as he could see. He was lost and alone.
He remembered... he remembered surfacing for one brief breath of air before the sea tried to pull him under again. Floundering he grabbed at the barrel and clung onto it for dear life. And then... he couldn’t remember anything at all.
John knew that all he could do was hold tight and pray that he gets washed up onto a beach or a ship comes by and saves him. But he couldn’t honestly hope that either would happen, and there were many dangers in the ocean too. He thought about the sharks and the squids that fed on overboard sailors. He thought about the calm weather turning into a violent storm and drowning in it. Either way John was certain that he was going to die.
For hours in the freezing water he floated on the barrel. The night was dark, and even thought there was a full moon the sea was as black and as deep as an abyss. But he was determined not to fall into it; he resolved to keep holding on and never give up.

It wasn’t long before John lulled into a very deep sleep. In his dreams he was standing on the deck of a grand ship, holding the hand of a woman wearing a wedding dress. A veil covered her face and John didn’t know who she was, but he felt like he couldn’t bear to be apart from her. He looked behind him and saw the crew of the ship all gathered around. He felt as though he should know who they were, but he couldn’t recognise any of them.
There was a crash of thunder and it started to rain. There was a flash before John’s eyes and suddenly the crew were all dead. They were skeletons, propped up frailly against each other, heads tilted upwards, jaws opened as if they had been screaming.
John twisted back to his bride and he saw her face-
The next moment he was awake, shaking and shivering and breathing rapidly. At that instant he knew that she was coming for him. His bride – the Maiden of the Deep – was coming to bring him down to the ocean’s bottom.
And he barely had time to move when, under the water, a hand grabbed his ankle.
John kicked and thrashed powerfully and the hand loosened and let go. He tried to swim away from her but he was too weak. Suddenly a stream of bubbles appeared in the water next to him. And then the Maiden herself, in all her horrible glory, surfaced before him.
For a split second John’s mind flashed back to the day when he first learned about the Maiden, the first day all those years ago when he saw her in the book. The deadly spear-like nose, the scaly bony face, and the murderous gaze in her black eyes. But nothing ever shocked him more than the creature he saw now.
The Maiden’s nose was short and curved. Her hair was brown and her skin was pale. Only her head and neck was above the surface; her arms were gently paddling the water to keep afloat. She was just like a normal woman of the earth. The moonlight lit up her face and John could see her soft brown eyes. She was smiling kindly.
The Maiden began to rise, up, up, until she brought her legs up out of the water and stood on it. She reached down and took John’s hand, pulling him up and out until his feet were standing on the water beside her.
She walked forward a little bit and her bare footsteps made tiny ripples. John held back nervously, afraid to move in case he couldn’t walk and fell back into the water. He looked at the Maiden and she looked at him, still holding his hand. There was something deep in those eyes: something deep and heartening and it encouraged John. So he gently raised a foot, placed it a little out in front of him, and pushed his weight back down onto it again. It stayed above the surface; he stayed afloat. John took another step, and then another.
The Maiden smiled at him broadly. John couldn’t understand how she never did find someone to love her.
So they began walking the journey across the endless ocean, with the Maiden faithfully guiding them in the right direction. She often stopped and stared around them before continuing on again. The Maiden could see things in the currents of salt water and sea air that John couldn’t even begin to imagine. The sky began to brighten and slowly the sun rose up beside them, and as the black night turned into blue day they could finally see a small speck of land in the distance.
Together, still hand-in-hand, John and the Maiden walked across the final stretch of sea.
John was so happy to see the beach that he ran the last few yards away from the Maiden, running straight from the water onto the shore. The ground beneath his feet never felt as glorious or as wonderful or as welcoming as it did now.
He turned around and the Maiden was there on the beach just behind him. She looked unsteady, tense, as if it had been a long time since she last stood on solid ground. She knelt down onto the wet sand and began to trace her finger into it.
Suddenly it occurred to John that he had never heard her speak.
He walked around to see what she was writing. She traced only five letters into the sand:
Julia.
John read the name, and then he and the Maiden looked at each other.
And a tiny nuance of understanding passed between them.
The Maiden stood up and John realised with sorrow that the time had now come for them to part. The Maiden had nothing left to do here but say goodbye. So she bowed gracefully to John and then turned towards to the sea and walked onto it again. She went out a little way before she paused and stared back at John. They waved to each other for a moment and then, like a dolphin, the Maiden leapt into the air and dove back under the water. John never saw her again.

For a long time he just stood there, cold wet, shivering and in absolute awe of the wondrous woman who had rescued him. Eventually he walked away from the beach and found a trail nearby. He recognised the trail; it could bring him to a town not too far from where he set sail with the Wind Spirit almost four days ago.
John was in a sorry state as he stumbled along the dirt trail. One time he met a lady who was picking berries at the side of the trail. She had some food and fresh water with her, so she shared it with him. John, aching with hunger and thirst thanked her. They smiled at each other and suddenly John felt ashamed and guilty. He thought about the Maiden and all the years that she spent alone under the sea. Falling in love now almost felt like a betrayal to her, especially after she had just saved his life.
What the lady said next, though, changed it all forever.
“My name’s Julia,” she said. “What’s yours?”