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Braid a Mermaid's Hair

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The dragon sets me down in a clearing in the woods.  The moons cast blue light in the open area.  The white grass bends and sways against the wind of the descending beast.  With light thumps, his four feet touch the ground and he folds his wings against his body.  I look around franticly then back at his calm silver eyes.
“Why?!” I demand.  He coos and cocks his head slightly.  Where is a mermaid interpreter when I needed one?  A rough and chilling wind the rips through the grass and leaves.  The beast tilts his head up and sniffs the air.  All the sudden, the clearing lights up with what looked like blue lightning bugs floating around.  The dragon’s head flies from side to side and snaps at the lights.  He jumps to his feet and starts bounding and prancing around the clearing, chasing the lights.  Even the dragons on this planet are like dogs.
A small cluster of blue lights flies up to me and I can finally see what they are.  They are baby fairies.  Barely two inches tall, nude, with short hair.  Their skin is giving off the blue glow, like they charged up on sun all day and were now giving off the energy.  I reach my hand out, but they let out a quiet, collective cry and flew away.  I giggle.  I guess they aren’t as curious or adventurous at the older fairies.
I lay back into the soft grass and watch the blue lights tangle and dance with each other in front of the moons and the stars.  This is quite a spectacle I never expected to see.  In the trees, I can see brighter glowing, stationary, blue lights I can only assume were the parents of this swarm of children that outnumbered the parents about two to one.
The reality of the situation slowly creeps up to me.  I’m possible miles away from home with no crutch and only an educated guess on my directional heading in relation to my house.  And the only thing that knows where I am, was busy playing with fairies.
“How to get home,” I wonder out loud as I try to get fully vertical.  Oh, how easy it is to forget you recently lost half of a vitally important limb.  I tumble forward to my hands and knee and the clearing was filled with chattering I can only assume was laughter.  I sigh heavily and roll over to a sitting position.  The dragon makes his merry way back over to me and whines at me quizzically.  “I need to get home, bud,” I say and motion to the sky.  He looks up at the dark sky then back at me.  He makes his barking sound and huffs at me.  My hair gets thrown around again and I push stray pieces from my face.
“Home!” I yell at him in frustration.  “Why did you take me?!  Take me back!”  He whines and lays down in front of me, head at me feet.  Well, foot.  His silver eyes are locked with mine and his scaly brow is furrowed.  The meadow has become quiet following my outburst.  The blue lights are still.  My face felt warm, thinking of all the eyes on me.  I feel bad yelling at this poor guy, but things are just not going my way recently.  I run my hand up his snout and his tail flicks by his side.  He warbles.  “My dad bust be going crazy.”  The chattering resumes in the air.
After a few minutes of quiet time with the dragon, a soul blue light flies down from the tree tops and rest his feet atop the dragon’s head.  As with the merpeople, when he speaks, I somehow knew what he is saying.  It wasn’t that I can understand each word he was saying per say, but it was just that my brain can somehow feel the intentions behind each word and translate it into English for me.
‘This dragon is friends with a man of the sea.  The man told him how you have lost a leg saving them from a vial man.  He just means to thank you,’ the fairy says.  He’s an adult, wearing clothes of leaves and has three thin braids tucked behind his pointed ears with the rest of his elbow length blond hair.
“The dragon talked to you?” I ask.  The fairy nods.  “Can every creature talk to each other here?”
‘Some.’  He takes a cross legged seat on the crown of the dragon’s head.  The dragon huffs warm air out his nostrils.  ‘He told me you talk to men and women of the sea.  I thought you might be able to talk to me as well.’
“I appear to be the only one who can do so.”
‘I think it is because the world has willed it.’
“The world has a will?” I ask and raise a skeptic brow.
‘How else does it defend his creatures against your people?’  My eyebrow stays arched and the fairy chimes a giggle.  ‘Why is a might beast like this,’ he pats the dragon’s scaly head.  ‘can fly through the trees but someone as small as the land man can’t?’
“Are you telling me the trees move?  I’ve never seen them.”
‘You weren’t watching.’  I open my mouth to argue but my words come up short.  The times where the wind blows and leaves shift, was it really trees in the distance shifting themselves?  ‘I’ve seen you move farther in the trees than any other land man.’
“I’ve never had any trouble moving here.”  The fairy nods as if it were common knowledge.
‘There is a great beast in the sky that watches over our world.  Maybe he has taken a liking to you.  Maybe he is the one that gave you the ability to talk.’
“A man in the sky?”  I chuckle.  “My world has one of those.  He and I are not on good terms.”
‘You talk with your world guardian?!’ the fairy gasps, blue eyes wide.
“Some do,” I allow.
‘Most creatures go their whole life without seeing a glimpse of even his companion,’ he marvels.
“Have you seen it?”  He shakes his head.  “Then how do you know it’s there?”
He looks up at the stars then back down at me before he answers, ‘Stories.’
“What is it?”  I pull my left knee up, wrap my arms around my folded leg, and place my chin on my knee cap.
‘The sky beast that watches over this world is one of a kind, none other like it.  Wings similar to a dragon and a much smaller body with only two feet.  The whole body is covered in fire colored leaves and has a pointed face.  It is its own father and child,’ he explains.  The last part throws me for a loop, but then it hits me.
“A phoenix?” I guess.
‘You have one of these on your world?’ he asks.  I shake my head.
“Only stories.  So, it watches over your world?”
‘With its companion.  A sky beast with a slender body and no wings.’  I wonder if it was a different species of dragon similar to the Chinese dragon.  ‘His companion is the only one of the two that has been seen, and that’s still extremely rare.’
“They’ve never been seen together?”  The fairy seems sad as he shakes his head.
‘Some think they have been separated.  Whenever he is seen he is crying out from loneliness.’  Their God is lost just like Earth’s, only heard about in stories and living in their hopes.
“I’m sure they will find each other soon,” I say with a smile.  The fairy smiles as well.  My tiredness suddenly comes over me and I yawn.  “Would it be possible for you to explain to this big guy here that I need to go home?”  The fairy leans forward to look into the dragon’s eyes and chatters in a way I can’t not understand.  I wonder if each creature has a dialect of its language that changed depending on who it talks to.  The dragon’s head perks up and the fairy takes flight.
‘I will see you again,’ the fairy says and flies off to be with his other blue lights in the trees.  I climb atop the dragon, laying face up on his back so I wouldn’t have to be carried around by my arm again.  That was terrifying.
The ride is peaceful.  The cool air flies over me in a calm wind stream instead of smacking into me like before.  I lay in between his shoulder blades, where his wings connect with his spine.  I feel his muscles flex as he slowly raises his wings then just holds them out to glide.
I turn on my stomach and look over the side to watch the trees pass under us.  We pass an opening where I see a heard of white unicorns grazing.  I have only seen a unicorn once before when a beautiful brown one wondered into my path last year.  Unicorns are poached for their horns similarly to rhinos and when the horn is cut off they will most likely die from blood loss and infection.  Only male unicorns have horns so since the human’s involvement on Perdix the males have become terribly endangered.  However, in that group grazing there were about ten unicorns in the herd and maybe half were males.  I wonder if the world protects them when humans are after them.  If the world here really does have a mind of its own, then I’m sure it would barricade the humans out from poaching their animals.
I turn back over onto my back and watch the starry sky.  Their God protects them.  My God gave me cancer.
The sun just breaches the horizon when the dragon lands on the beach outside of my house.  I hear Dad call my name from the deck.  As I poke my head up I saw him run to us.  He swallows me up in a hug when I dismount.
“I saw so worried,” he breathes and kisses my forehead.
“Sorry, this guy has a mind of his own,” I grumble and pat the dragon’s neck.  I turn to the dragon, right arm wrapped around Dad’s waist for support.  “Don’t kidnap me again,” I chastise the beast with a wagging finger even though I know he can’t understand me.  Hopefully, he got a feeling that I’m upset with his actions.  He makes his barking sound and blows smoke at us.  With a huge gust, he’s airborne and gone within a few seconds into the woods.
“I’ll understand if you are not up to chemo today,” Dad mentions as we walk inside.
“I’ll never be up for chemo,” I grumble.  “Let me take a shower than we can go.”

Every Perdix day I spent two hours at the doctors’ getting poisoned.  Every day for two weeks.

“How are you today?” Dr. Rogers asks as the nurse takes the IV from my arm and presses a cotton ball against the puncture.
“Fine,” I mumble watching the nurse put tape over the cotton ball.
“She’s depressed,” Dad spoke up from his seat next to me.
“No, I’m not,” I complain and Dr. Rogers looks pointedly at me.
“You haven’t left the house since you started chemo again.  Barely eaten.  Barely talked to any of your friends,” he presses on.
“You try having chemo every day and see if you can eat,” I snap.  “And I’m tired, I don’t want to go outside.”
“Have you tried the prescription I wrote you?” Dr. Rogers askes, fidgeting with his pen and sitting on the stool that the nurse vacated once she patched me up.
“She won’t try it,” Dad complains.
“We can try drops,” he suggests.  “Cannabis will significantly improve your mood and appetite.”
“The Vicodin already makes me high and spacy.  I don’t want to make it any worse,” I growl.  I hate how they were talking about what is better for me.  No one knows what I need but me.  “There is only one more week of chemo, let me wait it out.”
“Hold on to the prescription in case you change your mind.  Call me if any other symptoms come up.  If the depression gets worse, I’ll refer you to a psychiatrist for antidepressants.”  Great.  More pills, more doctors.
Once home, I bee line it to the bathroom and turn on the shower so Dad wouldn’t hear me dry heaving into the toilet.  I slip off my clothes once the nausea passes and stand under the scolding shower, using the grab rail for support.  I lean forward and dunk my head under the stream and watch as clump after clump of my hair slithers down the drain.  I clench my teeth in anger and choke out a sob.  I crumble to the tiled floor and cry into my hands.
As I stand in front of the mirror I look myself over.  My face is paler than normal, dark bags under my eyes, and cheeks sunken in.  There are very distinct patches of hair missing from my scalp.  I raise a weak, shaking hand to the mirror and pull it open.  I grab the scissors and watch my reflection as she grabs a fist full of hair and cut it off at chin length.  Two feet of dead straw like hair plops to the ground.  My reflection has a stone face and cold eyes.  It feels like pounds were cut off.
I shake my head and water sprayed the mirror.  I’ve never been able to do that before.  I’ve always had long hair since I was five.  Sure, Alexa and I made a challenge of seeing how long we could grow our hair but to be honest with myself, I kept the long annoying hair to try and be like her.  If I could have long and beautiful hair like her, maybe I’d be as happy as her.  I wanted to be like her and now I know it’s never going to happen.  Another thing the cancer has taken from me.
Dad’s at work so I don’t have to worry about him freaking out about my hair just yet.  I get clothed and throw a beanie on.
I make my way to the living room and my laptop came into the corner of my vision.  Guilt weighs heavy on my stomach.  The last time I talked to Cameron was before the surgery.  He doesn’t even know how it went.  I pull the computer open on the coffee table and saw almost ten missed calls from him the two days following my surgery.  I bite my nails as it rings.
He gets an alert on his phone when I’m calling his computer, so the fact that he isn’t answering is very concerning.  He usually spends his summer in the garage and shop attached to his house with his dad fixing cars.  Unless… he’s with Alexa.
Jealousy pings in me.
Why wouldn’t he be?  He finally has her all to himself without me being an awkward third wheel.  I hang up and call Alexa.  Her face lit up my screen after just a few rings.
“Oh, my gosh, Bell!” Alexa gushes.  “It took you forever to call!”  I want to ask why she didn’t take initiative and call first, but I don’t have time to because she just starts going.  “I started playing volleyball with a team in town and made so many new friends.  I can’t wait for you to meet them!  And one day I was shopping with one, Jen, at the mall and someone approached me and gave me a business card to a modeling agency.  Being a model!  Can you imagine?!”  She is nearly hopping out of her seat with excitement.
Jealousy ices my core.  Not so much by the words she’s saying, but how she spoke.  She has so much happiness and energy and her smiling is so heartfelt.  She is just bleeding enthuse into her words.  I crave that kind of positivity.
“So, I went to the agency with my mom and-”
“Wait,” I cut in and she looks surprised I spoke.  “I really just called to see if Cameron was there.  I tried calling his house but he’s not picking up.”  Her eyebrows pull together and all that envious energy died off.
“I haven’t heard from him all summer.  I assumed he was working.”
I feel like I should feel happy.  ‘At least he’s not with her’ I think but banished the thought.  ‘Why are you even thinking that?!’ I chastise myself.  I can’t get over this uneasy feeling in my stomach.
“But, anyway,” she goes on, the energy back like a light switch was turned.  She goes on about her summer for a mind-numbing hour.  I love this girl but she needs to learn when people want to get out of a conversation.  Mom Day calls from somewhere in the house and Alexa looks over her shoulder briefly.  “I have to go.  Mom is bringing back to the agency today.  Bye!  Love you!”  The screen goes black.
“Oh, by the way, I’m fine,” I mumble bitterly and try calling Cameron again but still nothing but unanswered ringing.  I try calling Mom and wondere why I expected her to answer.  When I’m on Perdix I don’t exist to her.  When I’m here I’m Dad’s problem.  Oh, how I wish her and Dad’s roles were reversed.
I decide to take a stroll to the ocean and feel the current and tide push and pull the water at my thighs, soaking the bottom of my cargo shorts.  It wasn’t long until Shell found me.  I ditch the crutch and float on my back.  She swims up to me and floats with me.  The ocean is particularly calm today.
‘My parents showed me my husband,’ she chatters quietly.  I look over at her with wide eyes and she grins.
“Congratulations!” I exclaim and hug her tightly.  “What’s his name?” I ask as I let go and tread water to face her.
‘Wave Tamer,’ she chirps bashfully.  I thought she was about to say Wave Jumper and I was going to demand to see him to see if it was the same merman.  How serendipitous would it be that the two merpeople I know on a personal level would be betrothed?  But then I remembered how the circus man cut off his hair.  If by some miracle his family accepted him back, no family will ever let him wed their daughter.  ‘His hair and tail are the same color as mine.  Our babies will be so pretty!  I can’t wait for you to play with them!’ she gushes and leans back into a leisurely float again to smile at the day sky.  ‘We get married in three suns.’  She flips the end of her tail and it sends a splash of water into the air.
“I’m so happy for you.”  I realize then the difference between Alexa and Shell.  Shell is not bragging like Alexa was.  She was sharing because she knew it was something I wanted to hear and it would make me happy to hear.  What Shell did next was also a huge difference between my two friends.
‘Why is your hair short?’ she chirps quietly and looks over at me with pained eyes.  ‘Did something bad happen?’  Her face harbors such concern.  I nod slightly.
“The medicine I have to take makes my hair fall out.  I cut it short but soon it will all be gone.”
‘When will it come back?’
“Not for a very long time.  It might look very different if it ever grows back.”
‘Are you sad?’  I nod slightly.  ‘Is there anything I can do to make you happy?’
“You make me happy just by being my friend.  I’m happy when you’re happy,” I confess the utter truth.  She smiles shyly.  “Hey, guess what happened last night.”

I try to choke down some white bread after I had taken my pills that night.  I’m sitting on the couch trying Cameron again.  It rings and rings.  I have such an uneasy feeling about his absence I have to calm it.  Right when I’m about to give up the call connected.  The man that answers is the spitting image of what Cameron will look like in 30 years.
“You,” Cameron’s father growls.  I freeze.  “I don’t know what you said or did to my son but days after you talked to him he ran away.”  His words are filled with such hatred.  I feel like if he could reach through the computer to hit me he would.  I didn’t expect this.  “Don’t dare call here again,” he hisses and the screen went black.
“No…” I breathe.  What happened?  What made Cameron do this?  Was it something I did?  The image of all the unanswered calls the days after the surgery pop in my head and I can’t swallow the guilt.  Of course, it was my fault!  Where did he go?  Why?!  I throw out the half-eaten piece of bread in the trash and curl up with my comforters.

Two days later when I get back from chemo, I take a shower and watch as more hair sneaks down the drain.  Wrapped in a towel, I call for Dad to come in.  I hold up the electric clippers and he wordlessly buzzes the remaining hair from my head.  He has not spoken about my hair at all since it started thinning.  I can see in his eyes, though, he knows how much this hurt me.
He takes the day off work and asks if I want to go swimming.  I nod slightly.  Once our feet get washed over we see Shell breach.
“Do you, like, send out the bat signal or something every time you touch the ocean?” he jokes and I chuckle half-heartedly.  I keep my beanie on as we jump into the next wave together.  When the three of us meet up, I announce the new betrothal.
“To a strapping, young man named Wave Tamer,” I tell Dad and Shell grins.  “His tail and hair is auburn colored too so their babies will be pure colored and adorable.”
“When’s the lucky day?” Dad asks, grinning as well.
“Tomorrow at sunrise,” I explain.  “I wish I could be there but the whole ‘mile under water’ thing kind of puts a damper in that plan.”  Dad laughs.  Shell seemed to understand the gist of what I said because she laughs her dolphin like chirps too.  Sometimes I lose her in translation if I don’t speak plainly.
She reaches up with her webbed hand to my beanie but I take her hand in mine and shake my head slightly.
“It’s gone,” I say simply and she retracts her hand with sad eyes.  “It’ll be okay.  It’s not the only thing I need to be happy.  I have you and Dad and my new friends like Wave Jumper and the dragon.  I’ll be fine.”
“Friend?!” Dad gasps and laughs.  “Is all someone has to do is kidnap you to become your friend?”
I laugh and look at Shell to translate, “He can’t believe I’m friends with a dragon.”
‘Neither can I,’ she chirps quietly with a forced smile.  ‘Crazy.’

Dad and I sit on the deck to watch the sun set.  It casts the most beautiful purple and blue rays into the sky.
“You have to leave soon,” he spoke quietly.
“I know,” I spoke just as quiet back.  The waves our only background noise.  I lean my head back into the lawn chair.
“If you weren’t in chemo you would already be heading back.  You’re going to miss the first bit for school,” he mentions.
“I’ve been thinking of a way to bail out of school anyway,” I joke and he smiles slightly into the distance.  “I just wish they had school here,” I sighs wistfully.
“You and me both, Bell,” he says and scoops up my hand with a squeeze.
Just then, a merperson breached.  It wasn’t until the third time in a row we realize it is Shell trying to get our attention.  We walk until we are waist deep in the water and she swims up to us.  Both of us take in panicked gasps and cover our mouths in shock when she surfaces.
“What happened?!” I cry out.  Her hair is jaggedly cut off at her chin.  She lifts her hands out of the water and held two fistfuls of two-foot-long, dreaded, tangled, auburn hair.  I hold out my shaking hands and she drops the hair into my hands.  I grasp it tight and start sobbing.  “Why?!” I demand.  “You were getting married tomorrow!  What if he doesn’t take you now?!  What if your family-” I gasp heavily, breathing sporadically.  She just smiles softly.  I hand the locks to my father and throw myself into the arms of my friend.  We sunk below the surface but she pushes us back up.
‘I’ll get married when it grows back,’ she promises and wipes my new tears from my eyes with her webbed fingers.
“But you were so excited,” I urge, my sobbing still chaotic.
‘But you were so sad.  I’m happy when you are happy.’  I hug her again.
“I know someone that can make quick work of this into a wig,” Dad chimes in.  “A month or so?” he guesses.  I spin around.
“So fast?!” I cry.  He smiles and nods.
‘I have to go tell my family what I have done,’ Shell chirps hesitantly and gives me a weak smile.  She flips backwards and descends.  Dad helps me back on land and promises first thing in the morning he will drop the hair off at the seamstress.
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