The Mermaid of Bucerías

Story parameters: Write about a minor character in the pre-modern era. It should be a male shapeshifter who is Optimistic and impatient. It takes place in a foreign country, conflict is Vs Supernatural, and the overall theme is Love.

It was always hard waiting for the tide to come in. The sun set more than an hour ago, and he had another hour at least before high tide. It was the only time he could see her. The only time she would come to shore from the Islas Marietas. That was her island sanctuary, far away from the curious eyes of the villagers. The islands were just close enough to see from the shore in daylight, but at night they could only be seen by the light of a full moon.

Tonight, would be one of those nights. He paced back and forth along the shoreline, hoping she would come before it arose. The lunar cycle was always changing, moving forward by one hour each day. His beloved would only be able to safely come to shore when the tide was high and only at night. In the daylight she would be visible to the people of the small town of Bucerías, and that would be bad.

It was never good for common folk to encounter the supernatural. In the same way that Isabella hid herself by only approaching at night, he hid himself as best he could. He very much wanted to see her, but this was a dangerous night for him. Once the full moon arose, the inevitable change would overtake him, and he would remember nothing else until morning when he returned to his human form. Not only did he ache to see her, but he needed to warn her as well.

They had been visiting regularly for months. They first met by accident as he was walking along the beach alone. He didn’t normally get this close to the village but had grown despondent about the isolated life he led in the mountains. Ever since he learned of his affliction, he had lived there alone. As far away from others as he could. He knew the damage a werewolf would cause to an unprotected village like Bucerías, and he didn’t want to be responsible for that.

He had been considering ending it all the night he met her. There were tall buildings along the shoreline that offered a high enough perch where he could not possibly survive the fall into the rocky ocean below. That would put an end to his loneliness and the constant threat he represented to others. He had just started heading in that direction when he saw her.

She looked like a ghost at first. A human form coming out of a dark wave in the dim light shed by a partial moon. He thought his eyes were playing tricks on him, but when she rested on a rock in the shallows close to shore, he grew intensely curious and couldn’t resist wading out into the water to see more closely.

Her beauty shocked him as he approached. Her unnaturally perfect human upper body was fully visible as she combed through her long hair in the dim moonlight. She didn’t notice him at first and he got quite close as he slowly waded through the shallow waters of high tide. The transition between the human looking skin of her upper body to the fish tail was remarkable. It should have been shocking, but it somehow looked natural on her. The textured skin of her tail glittered and looked more like a dress than anything else.

Benita almost screamed when she had finally noticed his approach, far closer than expected. She was ready to dive back into the ocean, but the way he was looking at her gave her pause. In his eyes she saw both despair and adoration. Instead of disappearing into the dim night they spent an hour talking in the shallow water of the high tide. When she finally dove back into the receding ocean, she agreed to meet him again the following night and he had decided to give life another chance.

In all that time though, he had never told her of his true nature. How he had been bitten as a child and how the transformation had overtaken him at the next full moon. Driven off from his small village in the hillside, he had been living alone for many years. In all that time he had only ever seen other werewolves. They were dangerous creatures though. All those he met had turned themselves over to their bestial nature, even outside of the full moon they were savages. People had good reason to drive them away.

Jose had never felt that way though. Before every full moon he locked himself in a cage which could only be unlocked with human fingers. The beast inside of him could never escape on its own. That allowed him to live closer to the people of Bucerias than they would have allowed had they known. Instead, they thought of him as a strange little hermit and were kind to him the times he came to town to sell skins and buy clothing and food.

Tonight, he was pushing his luck though. He would need at least a half hour to get back to his home and lock himself away for the rest of the night. With the constantly changing lunar schedule though, he didn’t want to miss this evenings high tide to see his beautiful Benita. They would not be able to meet like this again for another couple weeks, and he didn’t want her to think he had forgotten her.

The moon wasn’t quite over the horizon, but he could feel it’s looming presence on his skin. The change was close. Since he was a child, he had never pushed it this far. The village was near, and so were all those innocent people. What was he doing? He was just about to turn around and leave when a splashing sound caught his attention.

“Benita,” he breathed, smiling to himself with relief. She splashed her fin slightly sliding up on the rock where they had sat and talked so many times before. “Jose,” she said. “Are you alright? You seem nervous…” She looked at him closely. “I… I…” he stammered. He wasn’t even sure how to say what he needed to say. “I need to tell you something quickly,” he finally said, as he approached the rock where she rested.

Suddenly she pulled back from him. “You,” she said in shock. “Your skin… You are changing… Oh…” Jose felt his heart breaking when she pulled away, moving to the edge where she could escape quickly. “Wait, I want to tell you…” he began to say, but even he could hear the change in his voice as he spoke. It was happening now. The moon was just starting to peak over the horizon, and he could feel the awful change overtaking him.

She dropped quickly into the water and grabbed her trident. She always kept it near when coming close to shore, just in case. With Jose she had never felt a need to defend herself before now. He had always seemed such a gentle soul, but also very broken and alone. She never understood why until right now. She whipped around to face him.

Jose was fading into unconsciousness, and the animal was coming out. It tore free of the fabric his body was wrapped in and shook itself. Standing in water was not the way it wanted to hunt. He wanted to run free across the hills. There was this creature before him though, and she smelled like a tasty morsel. A deep part of himself resisted the urge to lunge at her though, and the creature turned toward the shoreline instead.

There was food here, and he would not have far to go. There, on the shore, were a couple people unaware of his approach. He charged at them, they screamed and ran for the village. Too slow, he caught the larger one by the foot and they stumbled to the ground. He pulled back in satisfaction to view his prey victorious before tearing into him.

The village was coming alive with people now. The screaming brought them out in droves. The monster that once was Jose snarled at the approaching group. This was not the way to hunt. It was better to catch them one by one when they least expected. They were all carrying weapons now and approached him cautiously.

He didn’t feel fear in this state, but he was starting to feel trapped, and the monster did not like that. He retreated back into the ocean, snarling at the crowd and looking for an opportunity to get past them. The crowd was thinning as the water got deeper, and he was starting to think he could take them down here, since they could not move as fast as him. He bore his teeth and prepared to attack.

Suddenly he heard a scream behind him. He whirled to face the creature he had turned his back on earlier. With a huge leap into the air, she flung herself at him with a three pronged spear in her delicate hands. Half of him looked on the approaching weapon with concern and the other half of him could not take his eyes from her beautiful face.

The trident sunk deep into body of the monster, propelled by the mermaid’s full body weight. The killing blow pierced his core and pinned him under the water. The monster snarled, but without the strength left to resist it faded away as its blood turned the moonlit water red all around him.# Jose awoke to pain and weakness. He opened his eyes once his body floated to the surface of the water. He looked into the eyes of his beautiful Benita and she held him with tears flowing down her cheeks. He reached up with a weak hand and touched her face one last time before death took him.

“Oh, my Jose,” she said, weeping over his body. “Why didn’t you tell me. Why…” she held him for a moment longer, and then looked up at the people of Bucerias standing in the water all around her. There was fear and wonder in their eyes. They had seen a monster, and now they beheld something else they were not quite sure they understood.

With one last sad look at the face of her lost love, Benita dove back into the waves of the high tide. Seeking the refuge and quiet of her home in Islas Marietas. A place to rest and a place to grieve.


The people of Bucerías were never the same after that night. One man had been mauled but survived his injuries. The mighty trident that slayed the monster was mounted in the town square. A symbol of their mysterious protector from the sea. The story of the mermaid lives on in the legends of the town to this day. While the story of the poor lovesick werewolf lives only in the heart of his lost love.# 

Written by Bradley Thiel - 02/2024