Author's Note: Hey guys! Yes, I'm still working on 'Sharp Seville Oranges' but I've had this story going around in my mind for days and I just had to write it down! I've always had a fascination with mermaids, which inspired my story. There's going to be time jumps between the past and present, so please tell me if the device works ok! Enjoy the story, dear readers.

….

Beaches are strange places. They are part of the land, yes, but the sea also claims them as its own. Just watch as the tide washes over the sand twice daily, then recedes to its proper place as a misty line blurring into the sky at the horizon. And they can be dangerous. Pity whoever lingers too long on a sandbar, only to be cut off completely from land and safety. The sea, you understand, has no mercy. It takes no prisoners and makes no judgements, rolling indiscriminately back and forth as it has always done and will always do. But yes, beaches are strange places, neither one thing nor the other, a constantly shifting landscape. And many a strange thing has happened there, between sea and shore.

…..

Copenhagen, 17th May 1830

The room was like a deep and frightening cave, the weakly spitting candle serving only to illuminate the tiny corner of the room where it was most needed and throwing everything else into shadow. The gold lettering on the spines of the neatly arrayed books glowed flame-fierce in the yellowish light and the crumpled, days-old shirts strewn across the narrow bed appeared like sleeping animals in the half-darkness. The only sound in the room was the insistent scratching of a pen across paper, the wet sound of it being dipped into ink and the occasional tired sigh from the writer. It was coming up for two in the morning, every other house across the city submerged in sleep. Not so for Mathias Køhler, the lonely writer labouring through the night. He was not doing this by choice. There had been no wonderfully romantic spark of inspiration when he was on the verge of sleep, no muse refusing him rest until whatever work of brilliance it was had been poured out onto paper. No, the cause of Mathias's wakefulness was far less idealistic: money.

A respected member of the city's high society could not be seen to be poor, not even a young writer like him. He had a reputation as a satirical novelist and fashionably jaded wit to uphold, these gifts granting him access to all the literary gatherings where men liked to take pinches of snuff, swill wine around the bottoms of their glasses and act like they'd seen it all before. The more desperate among them, perhaps, would secretively decant a few precious drops of laudanum into the wine, to dull all their sensations and make the world-weariness less tragic and more a matter to joke about with slow voice and dry, urbane laughter. Mathias was in this latter group, and now he reached out for the tiny bottle that was never far from his craving hand and studied it with his writer's eye – more to the point, studied himself. He was a sad specimen, he mused, a man who was totally entangled in the gossamer web of the society he tried so hard to lampoon in his novels. Then, he took a sip of the drug, not bothering to disguise its vile taste with alcohol, and he didn't have to think anymore. He knew that, with awful inevitability, once he had surfaced from his trance, he would have a passable chapter completed, one that would get him a little more drug money and perhaps allow him to pay the servants and hold a small party as well. It was high time that he played host, or else he feared that people would begin to whisper, speculating about his lack of funds. But the relief that came from the laudanum was wonderful. And he was so tired…

Despite the maid's best efforts to be unobtrusive, he was woken at dawn by the scrape of coals against the scuttle as she laid the fire. He straightened up from where he had fallen asleep over his desk and winced at the pain in his back from sleeping in such an uncomfortable position.

'What time is it, Lili?' he asked, voice slightly thickened by tiredness and intoxication. The girl peered up nervously at him, then averted her gaze as she concentrated on the task in hand. His addiction was no secret among the servants.

'Six in the morning, sir,' she murmured, busying herself with the coals and trembling a little through her uniform.

'Wonderful. And what amusements do I have planned for today?' His tone, intended to be sarcastic, sounded defeated.

'The Beilschmidts are coming to dinner this evening, sir, then you're all going to the theatre to see that new play.' He laughed bitterly.

'Excellent! What joy, what joy. And just think, only another forty years or so of this. An awfully long time to devote to enjoying oneself, don't you think, Lili?' She stood up, having laid the fire a little less perfectly than usual in her haste to be out of her strange employer's oppressive company.

'Yes, sir,' she mumbled diffidently, then bobbed a quick curtsey and fled. Mathias was alone again.

Still stiff from a cold night spent sitting up, he rose from his chair, picking up the sheets of paper he'd covered the previous night as he did so. He never gave his writing more than a cursory glance. It was always excruciatingly bad, tragicomic in its depictions of young men's dissolution – comic because of its humour, tragic because of its truth. Well, he thought grimly, it may not be any good, but it pays. He didn't feel like sleeping again but it was far too early to be up and about – for the master of the house, anyway. Far along the corridor, he could hear the creak of doors opening and closing as Lili went about her duties. He worked her too hard, he knew that, but he couldn't afford more than a few servants, not with the way his publisher was treating him. Going over to his bed, he stretched out on his side so that his hot cheek was cooled by the untouched blankets. He picked up the letter sent to him by his publisher and scanned it. Only a few phrases penetrated his opiated brain.

Inferior quality… Stale wit… Unoriginal… Reconsider… He laughed, even though it hurt his dry throat.

'Inferior? Inferior indeed!' he declared like a madman to the empty room. Then, the laudanum still coursing through his body hit him again and he slipped into sleep once more, the crumpled letter falling out of his hand, to be kicked under the bed and forgotten when he woke again. Such was life, and the inevitability of things.

…

Copenhagen, 12th January 2013

God, he was tired, Mathias thought to himself as he prepared for a day of telling children how wonderful it was to be a writer and flogging his books to the accompanying parents. He really wasn't feeling it this morning, having been awake all night. Lately, he was finding it impossible to drop off, always worrying about the next unexciting plot twist to stand between the heroes of his books and the utterly predictable ending. And now his publisher wanted him to take on yet another job, a new and child-friendly edition of fairytales, with special focus on Hans Christian Andersen.

'Just 'cos I'm Danish,' he muttered while doing his hair in the mirror. He splashed water on his face in an attempt to wake up fully. Maybe adult authors could afford to be reclusive and oblique and a little eccentric but he, as a children's author, had to put on a squeaky-clean grinning front every time he did one of these frequent book events. Today it was to be a class of eight-year-olds, all eager – or not so eager – to hear about his latest book Fun with Ferrets, which pretty much did what it said on the tin. 'Cheer up,' he exhorted his morose reflection as he applied the last lick of gel to his spiked-up hair and studied himself. He was dressed in a calculatedly casual style, right down to the T-shirt with the Lego brick motif and the Converses that he may or may not have spent hours personalising on the website. Really, he had quite a good fashion sense, but he found that early mornings and school visits were not the most conducive to snappy dressing.

'So, do any of you think you'd like to be writers when you grow up?' Sixty pairs of eight-year-old eyes silently observed him. Brilliant, he thought. These completely unresponsive groups were always the hardest to deal with. 'Anyone?' he prompted hopefully. Still no answer. Several of the parents at the back were chatting. After a moment, however, a small green-eyed boy hesitantly put his hand up.

'I'd like to write about magical creatures and things,' he confessed shyly, to the derision of his classmates. There was much eye-rolling and muttering 'Oh, it's stupid Arthur again.' Mathias gave the boy a thumbs-up.

'That's really cool!' he said encouragingly. 'What kind of magical creatures?' Arthur hugged his knees, retreating into himself.

'Umm… Well, I have this friend called Flying Mint Bunny and I want to write about going on adventures with him.' The little face broke into a smile. 'He's right here now!' Of course, there was nothing there, but Mathias was desperate to coax some enthusiasm out of the children.

'Oh, there he is! Hello Flying Mint Bunny!' He took the opportunity to move the speech on. 'The thing is, guys, we all have a story inside us. All of us. Even if it's just one. Thinking of the story is the easy part – it's already in your heart, so you just have to let it out. The difficult part is making it a good story. A fun thing to do is carry a little notebook with you and just write down whatever comes to you. Stories don't have to be boring like schoolbooks. Stories can be fun and exciting. They can make you happy or sad and they can make you think about things.' He looked out over the assembled children. Most of them were sitting up straighter, looking interested. He allowed himself a small smile of triumph. Now for the sales pitch…

He got home late that evening, having had to go to a meeting with his publisher. He really, really didn't want to do the fairytales but he had been threatened with having his contract withdrawn if he didn't comply. God, he thought as he lay on the couch watching a mindless reality programme, he would never have imagined when he was starting out that the children's book industry could be so… cynical. He cast his mind back to the little boy earlier, the one with the imaginary rabbit. If he'd been in the business of destroying dreams, he would have told him straight off not to bother. It was so difficult getting published and then, because he wrote for children, there was no respect. The books weren't considered to be worth anything, something he hated. He despised pointless ceremony, the deliberate ambiguousness that characterised so many more 'literary' novels. The thing about children's books was that they were open, their meaning clear.

Mathias himself was neither open nor clear. The persona he displayed to children, teachers and librarians who might potentially bulk-buy copies of his books was very different from his real self. It was true that he was a naturally happy and outgoing person, but he hadn't felt that way in a long time. He was lonely and had been for a while now, ever since Gilbert had made it clear he wasn't interested. God, he thought, how was he to know Gilbert was straight? Talk about leading people on… Well, maybe it was his own fault for asking him out. At any rate, he'd lost his best friend in the process. Now he didn't have anyone. The TV droned on in the background but he was so tuned out that it might as well have been in a different language. He had once unsuccessfully auditioned for the X-Factor, it was true, but this humiliation that people brought upon themselves was of another order. So sad, this life, and so profoundly exhausting.

He got up, silencing the TV with the click of a button, and went through to his study, figuring that he might as well do something productive to get out of this depressive mood. While there, he found his eye drawn to his illustration from The Little Mermaid, his favourite story. He'd always had a fascination with mermaids and remembered reading somewhere that there were legends of them in the sea off Norway. Perhaps there was a book in that, he mused. Then again, maybe not. But he was desperately tired, and thinking was just too much effort right now. He felt himself falling asleep, silver mermaid tails flickering through the blackness of his mind.

….

Copenhagen, 17th May 1830 (Afternoon)

Mathias struggled awake for the second time that day with a head that was mercifully clear. The laudanum, apparently, had ceased to work its magic. He had no idea what the time was but realised that he'd best be getting ready for the evening. It would be difficult, for the guests were his best friend, Gilbert, and his wife, Elizaveta. And Mathias was hopelessly, completely and desperately in love with Gilbert, so much so that it was a struggle just to be around him. There was no point in hoping that Gilbert might secretly share his feelings, he knew that just by the way he looked at Elizaveta. He yawned and stood up. The shaving water that had been put out for him and gone cold hours ago and was rimed over with the dirt that was in the room and that was coming through the open window. Still, needs must. Having shaved, he rifled through his wardrobe for something clean and relatively formal to wear and oh… Maybe, just maybe, could he have another drop? Just to blunt the sharp edge of Cupid's arrow…

The theatre was unbearably hot with the closeness of almost three hundred people packed in to see the first night of a new play that Gilbert had written. The curtain was not yet up but the grinding of instruments could be heard from the orchestra pit where they were tuning up. Mathias took the opportunity to observe his friend, to take in his hair that shone like moonlight, his garnet-red eyes and his elegant form shown off to such great advantage by his currently fashionable tight-fitting suit. He fanned himself with the programme, beginning to feel dizzy, although whether it was the heat of the auditorium or his proximity to Gilbert that was making him feel the way he was was impossible to say. The curtain rose and the main character appeared on stage. What was the play about again? He couldn't remember. God, he felt awful. He breathed deeply, almost faint. He loosened his cravat and tried to focus on the action, on the young man flirting with the young woman.

'Mathias, are you alright?' Gilbert whispered to him. He nodded.

'Yes, it's just a little warm in here.' he lied. Gilbert made a noise of agreement and turned his attention back to the stage, a frown creasing his face as he watched his work being brought to life. Mathias reflected bitterly that his novels didn't need to be adapted for the stage – all one had to do was go into any fashionable drawing room. Such decadence. Such genteel poverty. Such hypocrisy. The heat was suffocating him. He couldn't stay a moment longer.

Heedless of Gilbert's hissed demands as to where he was going, he rushed down the stairs, through the deserted foyer and outside into the street. The stars were wonderfully, thrillingly bright tonight, exquisite little knives needling his vision. God, what beauty was wasted on ignorant people on Earth. He raised his arms and face to the sky like a mad prophet, inexplicably ecstatic.

'I will go!' he cried to the empty street. 'I will leave this place, and live in isolation. I'll find myself an island and I will reign over it! I will be king of my own country!' He gave a maniacal laugh and reached into his pocket, withdrawing his laudanum bottle. For a moment he held it up to the starlight, a sort of offering, then uncorked it and poured its entire contents down his throat. The world slowed down, the stars dimmed and faded and, for Mathias, the universe was reduced to his own breathing and the thick sourness of the drug in his mouth.