Sea Foam and Silence: Fairytale Verses, #1
By Dove Cooper
2.5/5
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About this ebook
She warned of the pain. She did.
But no warning can prepare you.
Nothing can.
Long, long ago, a little mermaid became intrigued by the way tall-crabs don't act at all like the prey she's more comfortable chasing. Her quest to understand will take her places she had never dreamed possible - onto land and beyond the endless cold.
But quests always come with a price and hers is no exception. If she cannot find love within a year, she'll become sea foam. With only a month left and no closer to understanding 'love' at all, what is Maris to do? Tall-crabs - humans - are confusing and contradictory and love comes in so many forms, how can she ever know which one is right to win her life amidst friends and family on land?
Fantastical worldbuilding meets verse novels in this queerplatonic retelling of The Little Mermaid, the first story in a series of queer fairytale retellings.
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Reviews for Sea Foam and Silence
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Book preview
Sea Foam and Silence - Dove Cooper
Table of Contents
Content Notes
Part 1: Under the Sea
Part 2: On Dry Land
Part 3: Beyond the Endless
Acknowledgements
About the Author
Sample: A Harmony of Water and Weald
Thank you for reading!
Part 1: Under the SeaI don’t remember
Being born.
I don’t remember.
I don’t
Remember.
But I remember being different.
I remember.
My sisters eeling through the waters,
Up and ever up, to where the tall-crabs are.
Laughter bouncing through the waves,
As the tall-crabs and their moving lands fall.
I remember.
Being left behind because I am too little,
Around and around, staying down low.
Making my own paths through the waters,
As I flit between the sunken wreckage.
I remember.
My first time following my sisters,
Up and ever up, though there’s no storm.
Song spouting from our hearts like whales,
As we sit on warm, rough rock.
I remember.
Being scared of the thunder,
The quick way it all turns bottom-dark.
My sisters laughing and pushing me into the water,
As they look for signs of the moving land.
I remember.
The quick vicious biting of my sisters
As I ask them why we do this.
The pull of joining them in their hunt
For tall-crabs that don’t belong in the water.
I remember.
Tall-crabs aren’t like crabs.
Not really.
Crabs are hard and cute.
They pinch.
Tall-crabs…
Tall-crabs can move like crabs.
I like that about them.
They can pinch you too
If you pull them down after a storm,
But it’s…
It’s not much of a pinch.
You can barely feel it.
Tall-crabs have shells too,
But they’re not very useful.
You tear them off quick as biting.
I’m not sure why they have such soft shells.
I want to ask why.
My sisters do not know or care.
Tall-crabs are easy food,
Better than fish or sharks.
But why do tall-crabs have such soft shells?
When I was small
My sisters would tell me stories
About what it’s like to hunt the tall-crabs.
The quick flick-flick of your tail,
Their fingers scratching at your scales.
It sounded adventurous.
It sounded daring.
It sounded fun.
So the first time my sisters let me join them
I am excited. ^_^
I will get to see my first tall-crab!
We sit on the small island,
Or lounge against the rock,
The hunting song spilling from us
And I do not know it yet.
My sisters have chased me to the highest spot
So that I’m the first one to see the moving land.
Tall-crabs! Soon I will see my first tall-crab!
But my sisters do not let me move
Away from the rock.
I’ve messed up the hunting song too much.
My eldest sister says
It means that I am still too small.
My youngest sister was just as small as I am
When she caught her first tall-crab.
So I watch them from a distance,
See the way that the tall-crabs move in the storm.
They look so small from where I am.
They dart around like tiny fish
But with less freedom.
I wonder why.
Why must tall-crabs always be in contact
With some part of the moving land?
The first time I see a tall-crab,
I can only watch my sisters bring it down.
I do not accompany my sisters again.
Not the next time they hunt for tall-crabs.
Not the time after that.
I swim in the depths, alone,
Eating whatever else I can find,
Until my sisters come looking for me.
They swarm around me,
Family-school that we are,
And together we circle all the way up.
Back to the rocks where we call the tall-crabs.
Back to the light where I am too small to hunt.
We are a family.
We swim together.
Lonely.
My sisters and I are playing
When one of us is caught in the net.
She screams.
She screams and we scream
And she thrashes and we dart and eel around her,
Trying to find a way to free her.
The net is hardly visible,
Only scale-glimmer bright.
I scream.
I scream and she screams and we scream
And the cool of blood lies in the water
As I thrash and fight and tighter tighter the net.
I float.
I drift.
The net coils around me like an eel,
Slips underneath my scales so fine.
It hurts. Nets are strong, but teeth are stronger.
Nipping bites that fill the sea with pieces of us.
My sisters and I are free.
We are wounded and in pain.
Today, we shall not eat the tall-crabs.
Today, we hunt to soothe our roaring hearts.
Too weak to hunt,
I stay behind and rest.
The rock is slick beneath me,
The sun is warm above me.
I tilt my face towards it.
My sisters do not care for the sun.
It dries our skin too much.
But today I do not care about my sisters.
It tingles, this sun.
I slip back into the water
And look for a place where I can float.
I want the sun on my face,
To keep feeling that… That.
I do not want to dry out, either.
That is why I let only my face peek out of the water.
For a moment, I wonder what it must be like
To feel this all day long.
Such a strange thing.
I am glad my sisters are away hunting
Because I do not think they would understand.
No. I know they would not understand.
I find myself dozing in the water
And a song comes burbling from my throat.
It isn’t a strong song,
Nor one my sisters would know.
It is mine. Mine and the sun’s.
I wonder whether any of my sisters have a song that
Is theirs alone.
I wonder…
I can’t be the only one with a song.
Can I?
It takes a long time
For my sisters to return.
In that time, I have watched the dry sea change
And the sun sink below the waves
Where none of us have ever found it.
When they return they bring with them tall-crab
And tall-crab shell.
The shell trails from my sister like algae.
Coarse like our own bodies, it caught her.
It fits around her torso, has room for her arms.
We laugh at her and dance around her.
We take playful nips and make playful nudges.
Soon we are all laughing.
Soon we all sprawl on the rock,
Watching as the dry sea comes to glow.
Soon we sing to our long-lost sisters
Who are hailing us from above.
We are always singing,
My sisters and I.
It is a comfortable time,
All of us fitted together around the rock,
Skin against skin.
Could we stay like this forever?
For a long time, I do not heal.
For a long time, my sisters will not let me join them.
I am still only small.
(Not that small anymore.)
And I slow them down.
I want to catch my first tall-crab.
I’m tired of being considered small.
I’m going to change that.
Without the help of my sisters.
They left me behind
And who needs a school anyway?
I want to see tall-crabs.
On my own and without my sisters.
I want to see tall-crabs
And prove that I’m big enough to hunt.
If I can catch a tall-crab on my own,
Just me, me alone,
My sisters will have to let me join them.
I won’t be too small then.
I won’t be lonely then.
So, when my sisters have left me,
And I can no longer feel them in the water,
I leave them too.
I will search for the moving lands
And see the tall-crabs.
I will follow the moving lands
And catch a tall-crab.
We hunt as a school.
I will be the first to kill a tall-crab
All on my own.
It is a little frightening,
But I will find them.
I will find the tall-crabs
And bring one home.
The first night on my own
Is frightening for its loneliness.
It’s not that I haven’t been alone before —
My sisters have abandoned me to hunt
And left me to fend for myself for days —
But I have never been alone by my choice.
I have never been alone in waters that
My sisters and I have not explored together.
I have never been alone in places I don’t know.
That is what frightens me.
More than anything, that
Is what is making my heart race.
There is darkness, yes,
But there is always darkness in the night.
There is cold, yes,
But the water is no colder than otherwise.
It just seems that way.
I do not sleep at all that night.
My