Vodyanitsa — Made up Story
The lake had no bottom that anyone had ever found. Fisherman who dropped their lines too deep near the old willow spoke of the water turning warm in patches, like breath and then cold again just as suddenly — and of a light, somewhere far below, that pulsed slow as a heartbeat.
Get RaymondxFox’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
They Called her Vodyanitsa, though no one could say who had named her first. The old woman in the village said it the way you’d say the name of weather : not a person, but a condition. Vodyanitsa is restless tonight. Vodyanitsa let the nets through. Vodyanitsa took him.
Even though half mermaid everything is still dangerous — that part of the story never changed, even as everything else about it did. A girl who loved the lake more than the shore, who wore white flowers in her hair. But she drowned one time at the lake, something pulled her in and she couldn’t get back up.
She turned into the humanoid mermaid that rarely resurfaced and only for reasons of her own. But under the water a massive clam she called home to be protected from any hunters on the surface.
