Everyone knows that when you steal a mermaid's girdle, she'll grant you a wish in order to get it back.  Jasper's spent his entire life seeking a mermaid.  He's thought out the perfect wish, just one wish, with no room for trickery or error.  However, it seems the mermaid has other plans...
 

    Jasper turned to the bristly sailor who stood in the center of the deck, expertly coiling a rope in his muscular hands.  “Is it true that if you steal a mermaid’s girdle, she must grant you a wish?”

    The sailor shrugged.  “’S possible.  I’ve been up ‘n’ down this spot dozens o’ times an’ not a hint o’ a woman or even half o’ one.”

    “But Square Cut Bay is famed for mermaids throughout the world!  Half my reason for taking this route around Calithwain instead of the shorter overland trip was to feast on their beauty with my own eyes.  And maybe,” Jasper added, nervously licking his lips, “just maybe have a wish granted to me as well.”

    A cluster of sailors who’d apparently been listening in, burst into hearty gales of laughter.  

    Jasper glared at them.  “You may think I’ve no sense, wearing the robes of a scholar instead of your rags or a soldier’s armor, but I know what I’ve read.  I’m not big or strong but I’m wise.  Calithwain is different; everyone knows magic abounds here.  There are ways to steal a mermaid’s girdle, and then you can just go about begging for jobs if my wish is to own all the merchant ships in the country.”


First appeared in Spellbound. Fall 2000.