The Price of Hair

They came in the dark of the night. I expected them after I heard the news.

Five mermaid princesses – all sisters – pleading for the life of their youngest, despite the fact that she turned her back on her family and gave up so much for a chance to win the love of a mortal.

Their baby sister failed. She will die at sunrise unless they intervene.

Hair does not amount to very much in my line of work. You cannot use it as an ingredient in any potion, but it does make a great conversation piece. No, I took their hair to humiliate them. Long hair is the pride of all mermaids. How could a bitter old sea witch turn down the opportunity to take it away from a bunch of royal brats?

I cut it all off with my sharpest knife. Three of them took it without batting an eyelash, their pretty little jaws set in determination. How noble.

The fourth refused to meet my eyes as I relieved her of her pride and joy. The fifth, to my delight, burst into tears. She had been lurking in the back and quivering with terror ever since she and her sisters arrived.

I gave them the knife I used on their hair and a message to relay to their little sister. If she kills her Prince, she will resume her original form and return to the ocean.

A detail that I found too irrelevant to mention was the matter of her voice. I can’t reattach her tongue and make her sing again. A payment is a payment. Her voice was an exchange for the potion that made her mortal and gave her human legs. If all her womanly wiles didn’t win the man’s love, it wasn’t my problem.

My visitors left with great haste. Time was running out. At sunrise, I will know whether or not the child took my suggestion.

The denizens of the underwater kingdom call me the Sea Witch. I once had a name, but no one remembers it anymore. I am feared, but I play a necessary role in the kingdom. There has always been a Sea Witch. Our questionable services are in demand whether respectable merfolk will admit it or not. When it is time for me to go, there will be another to take my place.

Merfolk are not immortal; they live much longer than humans but they will die eventually. I’ve lived longer than most of them, long enough for them not to remember the mermaid I once was.

I was the one who killed the Queen for the love of the King.

You see, he promised to leave her for me but like all men above and below the water, he broke his promise. So I poisoned the Queen with venom I bought for the price of my hair. There was no need for them to punish me; I sealed my own fate with that deed.

Now I wait for sunrise, waiting as five princesses raced upwards to the surface. I wait for another lovelorn female to murder for love, for only then, can I finally rest.

Kill the Prince, my little mermaid. Kill the mortal Prince. The sun is rising.