Unfortunate Soul
The conch shell buzzed in its holder. The sea witch sighed. Well, time to make a living. “Yeah,” she said, trying to ignore the pounding in her head, “Rhonda’s Sea Witch Wonders, what can I do you for?”
“Yeah, sure, hold on, let me see what we got.” She waited an appropriate amount of time; of course she didn’t have a calendar let alone appointments to fill it but it was the principle of the thing. “Yeah,” she said, “Sorry about that, I got a 10:15 today, that work for you? Sure. Sure thing, honey. See you then.”
10:15 arrived and, sure enough, an anxious mermaid floated outside the tangle of vines that comprised the door to her cave. “Um, hi, excuse me,” the mermaid said. “My, my name’s Claire, and-”
“Let me guess,” the sea witch said. “There’s a guy, you like him, but of course he’s a human and you’re not so you need legs, am I right?”
“Yes, how did you-”
“This ain’t my first water ballet,” the sea witch said. “Okay, first question. Have you met the guy?”
Claire flushed. “Well, well no, not in person, but I’ve seen him on his ship and he’s magnificent-”
“Okay, Claire, I’m gonna cut in here for a second and let you in on something, okay? Just because someone’s good-looking doesn’t mean he’s good on the inside. You gotta get to know the guy. I mean, do you even know his favorite color?”
“Um,” Claire said, bubbling in confusion. “Blue? Like his eyes? His dreamy-”
“Okay,” the sea witch said, sighing. “Love conquers all, I guess.” She pulled out a drab bit of scroll. “Standard fin-to-leg contract, no reversals, no guaranteed love spells, and no promises of protection against other girls trying to get this guy. Or other guys for that matter, I mean, you know that’s a possibility, right?”
“What?”
“Moving on,” the sea witch said, coughing, “Like I said it’s a standard fin-to-leg so you sign right here and then hand over three thousand in coins (gold if you got it, silver’s fine too), and I’ll start working up the spells.” She was already turning away to hunt up her narwhal horn powder when she noticed that Claire wasn’t moving, much less signing anything or handing over coins in any form.
“I…I thought…”
The sea witch muttered something foul under her breath. Of course. Of course. “You know, this used to be so easy,” she complained. “People paid, I did the spell, wham, bam, there’s your legs. Sometimes it worked out, sometimes it didn’t, but still, I did my job. Strictly cash-based business, and I never got a complaint, at least about the legs. Then someone squawked to the humans and they made a story about it and then they made a movie and now every day some poor kid like you thinks I’m gonna steal her voice and steal her guy and turn her pops into a creepy crawlie or some such thing, and let me tell you-”
The door vines swished closed. Claire had gone. Rhonda the sea witch groaned. “Third time this week. I’m gonna be stuck working this cave forever.”
This story inspired by Scoot’s MerMay prompts:
She's not making much of a living if her dumb customers can't pay up, lol!
lol