The Merbaby E-Book

alastair macleod

• Herausgeber: BookRix
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

"Grandmother said, “Something is about to happen; a baby is going to appear.” “Where will it come from grandmother?” “They come from the sea.” And so I found myself looking each day by the shore"

Leseprobe

alastair macleod

The Merbaby

and other tales of the shore

"to the shell people" BookRix GmbH & Co. KG81371 Munich

The Merbaby

Grandmother said, “Something is about to happen; a baby is going to appear.”

“Where will it come from grandmother?”

“They come from the sea.”

And so I found myself looking each day by the shore. I often went to the shore, there between the land and the sea, and walked along the tide line; for grandmother had said,

“The shore is a magic place where all manner of strange things appear.”

I had already found mermaids’ purses, cowrie shells and odd seaweeds.

Each tide can bring new things washed up and left, especially after a big storm. Then large shells can appear, torn from the deep, far out at sea.

And then one day there it was, a big whelk shell, bigger than any I had seen before. I saw it from the end of the beach but I didn’t run, rather I crept up on it.

It lay on its side, shaped like a cone. It swirled from a small point getting bigger and bigger until it opened up into a round hollow like a little sea cave.

I could fit my head into it.. I listened.

Far off I could hear waves lapping a shore and I could smell the ocean.

I whispered into that shell,

“Are you in there baby? I want a baby brother for my mother. Come out come out, for my mother wants you so.”

There was silence

I sang a little song, one my grandmother sang,

“Sea baby, sea baby, come out to me, come from the waves and the seagull to me.”

But all was quiet in my shell.

After a little while I left and went home a little disappointed.

I told grandmother what had happened.

“How big was the shell? She asked.

I stretched my arms.

“That’s big enough,” she said

“Go down tomorrow and sing “Sea baby sea baby, come out to me.”

“But I sang that grandmother.”

“And it didn’t appear?”

“No.”

“Tonight is the spring tide, perhaps it will come then. Go down tomorrow again.”

I went to bed a little cross.

The next day I was up early and rushed down to the shore and there, high on the tide line, was the big shell still.

As I approached I thought I heard a noise, a little gurgling sound like water in a cave.

I crept round to the mouth of the shell and there, on a little bed of slippery seaweed, was a baby. No ordinary baby. It had the head and shoulders of a normal baby but below its belly button, instead of legs, it had beautiful silvery scales and a fishy tale. It was a Merbaby!

I knelt in the sand and spoke to it,

“You came at last.” It chuckled and gurgled at me.

I scooped it up, wrapped it in my jacket, and carried it carefully home.

“Is it a boy or girl?” I said to mother.

“We’ll soon see.” Said grandmother. “Bring some fresh water in a basin.”

The water was brought and she sat the Merbaby carefully in the water.