Sea Foam and Silence: The Complete Collection: Fairytale Verses

By Dove Cooper

She warned of the pain. She did.
But no warning can prepare you.
Nothing can.

 

Fantastical worldbuilding meets verse novels in this queerplatonic retelling of The Little Mermaid, the first story in a series of queer fairytale retellings. The complete collection contains both the verse novel Sea Foam and Silence and the accompanying poetry collection A Harmony of Water and Weald.

 

Sea Foam and Silence

 

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?

 

A Harmony of Water and Weald

 

Maris's new life isn't all sweetness and love. She's abandoned her sisters to live among a people she doesn't understand, walking on feet like she was never meant to. Sometimes her life is homesickness, sometimes frustration, often confusion. Always, though, it is wonder and fierce delight at life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Kraken Collective
• Release date: Sep 26, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386234876

Book preview

Sea Foam and Silence: The Complete Collection by Dove Cooper

Table of Contents

Content Notes

Sea Foam and Silence

Part 1: Under the Sea

Part 2: On Dry Land

Part 3: Beyond the Endless

A Harmony of Water and Weald

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Sample: The Ice Princess's Fair Illusion

Thank you for reading!

Sea Foam and SilencePart 1: Under the Sea

I 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 bones sing for my sisters to join me.

My tail aches with the need to keep on swimming.

An octopus sends me scuttling back to familiar waters.

I am partway home when I make myself stop.

I should think, consider, prepare.

Do I go on? Do I go back?

If I swim all the way home, now, will I ever go?

No.

I must go now. Tonight.

If I am to catch a tall-crab on my own

Then I must have courage and leave.

I will not be frightened by an octopus.

I will not be swayed so easily by my own heart.

The first night on my own,

I swim as fast and as far as I dare.

Because I will not return to my sisters

And the further I go, the harder it is to return.

The first night on my own,

I do not sleep at all.

I do not even think beyond the notion of ‘further’.

The sea is not empty,

But it feels that way. :(

The further I swim from my sisters

The more empty the sea begins to feel.

The farther I leave my home behind

The less interest I take in my surroundings.

I sleep. When the morning comes.

There is a small cave deep enough to fit me

And I take the chance to rest there.

Food would be welcome,

But I am too tired to hunt.

We do not sleep much,

But when we do we need it desperately.

Afterwards I will hunt.

In waters that seem empty

Because I do not know them,

Because I have left my sisters.

Because I am afraid.

Because I am alone.

I will not be alone forever.

This I tell myself as I sleep.

I will return soon.

Morning comes

Hungry.

It is not my stomach,

Bubbling with hunger,

That wakes me as the sun rises.

It is the shark,

Hunting for its meal,

And a lone, small mermaid…

The shark does not know I am there,

Not yet. I am too still, or it is too far away.

I’m not sure, but the shark is out there

And I am just as hungry.

Do I hunt it? On my own?

Do I flee? I am faster.

I should be faster.

Hunger makes me unsure.

If I stay here and the shark finds me…

If I do that, I am trapped.

If I leave and the shark tracks me…

I long for my sisters

With their sharp teeth and strong tails.

It wouldn’t be a concern with them.

I should leave.

I’ll have the whole sea to swim in.

I am faster.

But I’m scared.

I am too anxious.

The shark will – has found me.

Fear gives me fins

And I’m faster still.

Fear has given me fins,

But it also stole my thoughts.

I swim without goal, without destination.

I do not know