When Max got back to shore, he crept quietly up to his secret attic, stashed his diving gear somewhere safe, dried and dressed himself up in warm, dry clothes he kept in an old trunk and slowly walked down into his room. But no sooner did he had a chance to go inside, his mother caught him.
“Young man, you certainly have some explaining to do!”
Max groaned. This was the umpteenth times this week he was caught red-handed going out to sea. She had no idea how her grudge on the sea could affect his increasing obsession towards it. As he slowly inched his way into the living room, he saw Mrs. Virginia Deanhart waiting for him with a scowl on her face and Norman standing guiltily behind her, his eyes apologizing profusely to him.
“Do you realize that you have embarrassed me in front of the whole village? What were you thinking?” Virginia asked, her temper rising. Max didn’t dare to look at her in the eye.
“Aww, Mom! I told you a hundred times,” Max tried to reason with her, “I am not interested in some stupid courting ceremony! I am not ready to get married yet!”
“And when, pray tell, will you be ready? You have missed 3 ceremonies 3 years in a row and you are now almost 21! You cannot let your youth slip away by some sick daydreams of princesses from yonder and becoming a knight in shining armour!” Virginia complained. She laid a hand on her son’s shoulder and said, “Max, I cannot stand seeing you with your head above the clouds and not getting settled down with a nice respectable family and have children of your own!”
“Yeah, right,” Max muttered a little too loud and within Virginia’s earshot, “as if having a family and kids is much fun than going out to sea and explore its wonders.”
“What did you say?” Virginia’s eyes widened, obviously hearing something she didn’t want to hear. Norman, at the background, was horrified that he would ever say such a thing in front of his sea-hating mother.
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” Max quickly denied, like he always did.
“You went down to the sea again, didn’t you? Didn’t you?” Virginia pressed. She always got her way. Max rolled his eyes and groaned.
“Nothing happened, Mom.”
“Max, how many times must we go through this?!” Virginia slapped her temple, exasperated at her son’s indignant attitude. “You are told not go to even set foot into the sea or you’ll end up being lured away to drown by one of those…sea devils…those mermaids!”
“Mom, they are not sea devils,” Max tried to make himself heard but Virginia cut him off.
“They’re dangerous! I don’t want you to fall or being dragged into the depths of the sea just like your father did when you were just a tiny child…”
“Well, like you said, I’m 21 years old, and I’m not a child anymore—”
“Don’t you give that tone, young man! As long as you live in this house, you are to obey my rules!”
“But if you would just listen—” Max tried desperately to talk but Virginia wouldn’t hear of it.
“Not another word! And I will never, never want to hear going down to the sea again, is that clear?!”
Max wanted to yell back at her and tell her that she’s a horrible mother and that she would never understand how wonderful the sea could be if she would just let go of the past and not blame the merpeople for something they didn’t do, but he knew that it was pointless and probably make things worse. So, with a loud, exasperated groan, he dashed off back into his room, slamming the door in frustration.
“Don’t you think you’re being a little too harsh on him, ma’am?” Norman asked tentatively as soon as Virginia sat back down on her sofa.
“I know, but I can’t risk him dying like Blake. You saw what happened. You were with Blake the night of his death. It’s those cursed mermaids! They did this to our family, and they will not take my son away!”
Norman sighed. Tried as he might in the past, he couldn’t convince Virginia that his late boss was killed by a wave. She was too influenced with the rumours that the mermaids killed Blake and that the sailors were trying to cover it up. True, he had seen those magical creatures swimming at a distance, but he was sure that it was a trick of the eyes. And if they were real out there, he didn’t hear them singing, for legend has it that mermaids usually sing to their victims and distract them from navigating properly, taking them down into the depths of the sea. And Virginia believed that legend instead of his truth.
‘Oh, Blake,’ he thought. ‘When will you ever got to let her see the light?’
Since that fateful day, Max’s visit to the sea became even more frequent. He would sneak off in the middle of his work (he helps her mother with her archeological research; everyone calls her a nutter and said she’ll never find any ancient creature’s bones in this provincial town) to check out his Princess Phoebe who was ever lovely wherever she goes or whatever she does. He gazed at her and followed her wherever she went and would never want to miss a second of her. Sometimes he spent so much time that he realized there was no more air in the tank and he had to frantically swim up to the surface for air.
Norman noticed his obsession with Phoebe and managed to catch a glimpse of her when he and Max went out on another of their secret diving expedition. He had to admit that she was very pretty and couldn’t blame Max for being so crazy about her all the time. So he decided to do him a favour.
One night, when everyone, including Max, was asleep in bed, Norman went to the attic to get his diving gear and checked to see whether his oxygen tank was full before he sneaked out of the house and dived into the sea. He swam all the way to the castle of King Benedict, the merman King through the secret passageway he and Max came to remember during their visits to see Phoebe and sneaked into the beautiful princess’s room. He swam silently towards the statue of the mermaid princess that was standing gracefully beside her bed. With a firm grip, he picked up the statue and swam back to the surface with it. On the way up, he passed by the King’s chamber and he could see him sleeping with the Queen.
A beautiful Queen she was, with chocolate-brown hair (he could see where Phoebe got hers from) and fair skin. If he hadn’t been slightly attracted to Virginia (yup, he has a small crush on her alright), he would have fallen for this Queen. Then he took a look at the King, gasped inwardly and quickly swam back up to the surface.
He had seen the King many times when he and Max did their secret visits and Max was convinced that King Benedict was not his late father, but he had seen something just now that told him otherwise.
On his chest was a tattoo of Venus, the Evening Star, which he got it from Peru before his death.
“Wake up, Max! Have you fallen asleep in the bathroom?”
Virginia called out to her son who was hogging the bathroom all day. He had promised Bea and Felix that they would go and help out the old man in run-down comic house to clear a few things in his shop, but since he went into the bathroom to get himself ready, he hadn’t come for the last half an hour.
“Maxwell Deanhart! Time to come out!” Bea decided to take things on her own and pounded at the bathroom door. “You’ve been in there all morning! You said yourself that you wouldn’t miss that old rag’s comic house for the world!”
Finally, Max came out, a dreamy look on his face, as he hummed the song that he had sang for the mermaid princess he had saved that fateful day. He practically drifted towards his bedroom as he went in to change. Bea and Felix, including Virginia, stared at him in awe and surprise.
“Woah, dude! He’s got it bad, baby,” Felix soon began to comprehend his oddity. Bea also had an idea.
“What? What’s wrong with him?” Virginia asked Max’s two best friends.
“Isn’t it obvious, Mrs. Deanhart?” Bea asked grudgingly. “Max is in love.”
“Max? In love?”
“Where are you taking me, Normie?” Max asked anxiously.
“To where we usually go,” Norman replied, trying to control a scoff as he led his little master up to the secret attic. His huge hands were covering his eyes and he was obviously trying to show Max, who had just came back from sorting the comic house of his old books and moth-eaten magazines, a surprise. As they carefully went upstairs, Norman said, “Promise you won’t scream the whole house down or your Mom’ll hear you.”
“OK, OK, I promise! Now what’s the big surprise?”
“Tadaa~!” Norman exclaimed as he let go of Max’s eyes. As his eyes tried to adjust to the light, he was, as expected, shocked with glee as he saw the beautiful statue of his sweetheart standing tall and proud in the middle of the attic. It took him time before he could actually register what was right in front of his eyes.
“Normie, you’re the best!!” Max hugged his big-sized butler before dashing towards the statue to ogle and admire—and probably drool—all over it. He barely had enough time to engross himself with the statue when he saw his mother Virginia standing right in front of him. He gasped in shock and horror—how did she find out about this secret attic he had kept hidden from her since he discovered it 16 years ago? His first instinct was Norman but he noticed that his butler was as surprised as he was.
“I was actually considering a reasonable woman,” Virginia muttered. She came into full view, her face filled with anger and disgust as she stared at Princess Phoebe’s statue. “I’ve set certain rules, and I expect those rules to be obeyed!”
“But, Mom, it’s not what you think…” Max tried to explain, although he knew whatever he said wasn’t going to improve anything.
“Is it true that you rescued a mermaid from shriveling on the surface?” Virginia didn’t wait for her son to answer. “Oh, don’t think that your mother is stupid, young man! I knew something was wrong when you didn’t turn up for that courting ceremony that night, and you have admitted that you went out to sea that night. Do you really think that I wouldn’t be suspicious if you sneaked off in the middle of helping me without me knowing? You have got some nerve! Just because I don’t know that you’ve been going up to this place doesn’t mean that I don’t know that it exists! What have I said about mermaids?”
“But she could die and I can’t just…”
“So what if she dies? It would be better off if there are lesser mermaids in this world! I told you that they are sea devils and are not to be trusted! Have you forgotten who killed your father? Have you forgotten who had caused us all this misery if it weren’t for them that caused your father’s death…”
“But, Mom, I LOVE HER!!!” Max blurted out desperately, only to realized that he had made the situation worse. He immediately hid behind the statue, refusing to face his mother’s horrified expression.
“No! Have you lost your senses completely? She’s a mermaid, you’re a human!”
“I don’t care!” Max replied indignantly. Norman wanted to calm Virginia down but she wasn’t in the right mind to be calmed down.
“Oh, help me, Max!” Virginia growled as her ring on her left ring finger began to glow. “I am going get it through you, and if this is the only way, so be it!!”
Virginia’s wedding ring was no ordinary ring. It was given by Blake when he proposed to her and it possessed magical destructive powers. She had never used the ring’s power before, that is, until now. She began to shoot rays out of her ring at all the things in the attic, crashing and wrecking them. All the treasures of the sea Max and Norman collected for 16 years went down to smoke and ashes. No matter how Max and Norman pleaded and protested, her mind was bent on destroying anything that was connected to the sea. Lastly, despite Max’s desperate wail, she shot at the statue, reducing it to rubble.
That struck Max real bad. Max fell onto his knees beside the rubble and cried like he had never cried before. Before he could mourn properly over the loss of his magnificent statue, Virginia grabbed his wrist and dragged out of the attic and into his room. She pushed him in and locked the door.
“What is this?! Let me out!! LET ME OUT!!!” Max pounded furiously at the door.
“You’re grounded, young man! And you’ll stay in there grounded until you get it into your head that mermaids are nothing but sea devils and until I get a really decent human girl for you!” Virginia scolded from the other side of the door before leaving. She warned Norman not to open the door except for meals and Norman nodded obligingly. Norman walked towards the door and called out to his young master.
“Max? You OK?”
Max’s first thought was to get out from the window but he realized that his window was barred. Even if he smashed the glass, he won’t be able to get out. He slumped onto his bed and whispered, “Just go away.”
Norman walked away from the door guiltily, leaving Max alone, sobbing bitterly.
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