The Sapphire of the Sea

Fiona walked down the beach. It was night. The stars twinkled and winked at her. The waves gently lapped up at the shore. Suddenly, she squinted at some type of blue shell that was about to get washed away. She grabbed it before it could tumble into the surf. Fiona lifted it up to her face. It wasn’t a shell. It was a stone. Perfectly shaped, a deep blue. Almost transparent.

All of a sudden, a sound reached her ears. It was a cross between singing and wailing. It was beautiful. She let out a gasp of surprise. There was a shape on a rock, far out from shore. It looked like a person, but she couldn’t see much of him/her.

“Hello?” Fiona said. “Anyone out there?”

In response, the person slid smoothly into the waves and swam away.

“Hello? Anyone there?” Fiona said again.

After a while, she saw ripples in the water heading her way. A tail flipped out of the water. Suddenly, a man’s head poked out. She stumbled back in surprise. What was that where his legs were supposed to be? Was that a . . . tail? She almost fainted.

The merman (for that’s what he was), who sported a long brown beard, said in a deep voice, “You took it. Give it back.” His voice sounded ancient and powerful and as if he spoke a hundred different languages. He pointed to her hand and said again, “Give it back. You took it.”

She opened her clenched hand. She’d almost forgotten about the little stone. Her hand shaking, she placed the stone in the merman’s wrinkled old hand.

“The Sapphire of the Sea,” he said in his deep voice.

“What?” Fiona stuttered. He dove back under, flipping up his tail.

Fiona opened her eyes. She was lying on the beach. She squinted at the bright sun. Suddenly, the strange dream flooded back to her. She stared at the ocean as if expecting to see the blue stone. But wait . . . was that a tail she saw in the distance?