Footsteps echo through the stairwell leading down to my cavern, rippling the surface of my pool. I set aside the jewel-encrusted dagger I’ve been toying with —once a shining beacon of power, now red with coralline algae instead of blood— and surface, waiting.
The steps are timid and light, and I can already guess what the wish will be. I’ve been doing this for ages, and I’ve learned the rhythm of the humans. The ones who wish for power come with loud footsteps, deadly metal in large hands, no time to waste. Those who wish for gold scurry with desperation, shoulders bent, their last penny dripping from their fingers into my pool. And this one, who is timid and shy, comes for love.
Unrequited love. Or perhaps a love that used to be, but has faded.
The woman who steps into the chamber wears a simple dress of dark grey wool, no adornment, and clutches a stuffed bear in her arms. A metal band on her finger reflects the little light that comes down the stairs behind her.
A love that has faded, then.
“Who?” I say, my rasping voice loud in the quiet of the cavern.
She jumps slightly, clutching the bear tighter. There’s a blue ribbon around its neck, the only color visible on either of them. “Me,” she says, voice barely above a whisper.
“Who would you love?”
“Myself.”
I blink, taken aback. No one has ever asked to love themselves before.
“You don’t already?”
She stares at her feet, knuckles white around the bear. “N...no. He says...” She swallows hard and doesn’t finish that statement.
I swim closer, although I’m more likely to scare her further than comfort her. I am a monster to the humans— a tool that only the most desperate seek out. My skin is nearly translucent, my tail that of a sea serpent, long and lashing, my eyes large to take in the little light in the cavern. They only see a sea witch who feeds on their desires.
The woman takes a step back, fearful.
“The magic is temporary,” I say. “The next king tide will wash the enchantment away.”
She swallows hard. “I know.”
A new magic bubbles within me: curiosity. I’ve never cared what these humans do with their fleeting gifts before, but now the thought consumes me.
“Why? Why are you willing to give up your love for the bear, to have a love you should already know?”
Her thumb absently rubs a worn spot on the bear’s ear. “Maybe...maybe if I know what it should feel like —if only for a short time— I will figure out how to do it myself.”
I flick my tail as I study her face. “You are sure?”
In response, she edges closer and stretches her arm out to hand me the beloved bear. Most people throw their object in the pool and have as little contact with me as possible. This woman leans in, shy as she is.
I lift a hand out of the water and take the bear. Its fur is soft against the snakeskin of my palm, and the thin webbing between my fingers. My claws sink into the stuffing as the limbs soak with water, growing heavy. I pull it down to the depths, bubbles streaming from it in my wake.
The love the woman had for the toy warms the pool, fizzing the water with its energy. The bear begins to phosphoresce, and I absorb the magic until I also softly glow.
I surface. “It is done.”
The woman looks around the chamber, although it’s clear from her distant gaze that she’s actually looking inside herself for the love she just bought with a precious childhood toy.
A small smile blooms on her lips, and when she looks at me, her face glows— not with the phosphor of enchantment I glow with, but with love. For herself.
“Thank you,” she says, breathless.
“It’s temporary,” I remind her. “Magic you bought.”
“I know.” She looks herself over, still smiling, wondering at herself.
Usually I stay below after the exchange, letting the human leave on their own, but I’m too curious to let this be. “What will you do with it?”
Her eyes light up. “Tell him no.”
“To what?”
“To whatever he wants. It doesn’t matter what it is, he says I can never do anything right. NO.” She stamps her foot as the single syllable rings out in the cavern, triumphant.
I smile, although my teeth are sharp and terrify the humans. She smiles back.
“Thank you. I...you have no idea what this means to me.”
I don’t reply— she paid for the enchantment; it wasn’t something I could give away for free even if I wanted to.
“Thank you,” she repeats, then prances back up the stairs, leaving me to wonder when she’ll return.
They always return. Until they can no longer pay.
When she returns, her grey dress is hemmed with blue thread, a pattern I’ve seen on other humans before. The band is still on her finger, and a locket dangles from her other hand. There’s a bruise around her eye, and from her slow, careful movements, there are bruises I cannot see as well.
“The same?” I ask, because I can’t guess based on her entrance and the locket. Perhaps this time she wants power, to kill the person who kept her from loving herself, or gold, to get away.
“The same,” she agrees. The first enchantment shouldn’t be working any longer, but she sounds confident. Maybe her plan worked, and she knows what it feels like to love herself.
I study her face, gaze lingering on the bruise. “You are sure?”
She lifts a hand to hide it, turning her face so it falls in shadow. “He didn’t like it when I said no, but it felt so damned good.” She turns back to me, dropping her hand. “I’m sure.”
The locket is cold, and I open the clasp to see the photo inside. It’s a woman— I’d say she looks like the woman before me, but all the humans look alike to me.
“My mother,” she supplies, although I haven’t asked. “She passed away last year.”
I nod— this will work. There’s more than enough love to transfer.
I dive, placing the chain around the neck of a skeleton. By the time I return to the surface, I glow again.
“What does it feel like?” she asks.
No one has ever asked me that before. “Like life. A deep breath of clean air. Hunger, satisfied.”
“If no one comes, do you starve?”
I chuckle. “Someone always comes. You humans are full of desires you can’t satisfy yourselves.” I flick my tail and dart across the pool. The woman jumps back with a small squeak of surprise. “And I hunt. There are plenty of fish and crustaceans in here.”
Her eyes widen. “You never leave?”
“I can’t. I’m the conduit.”
She looks around the shadowy cavern, nose twitching slightly. This is not a place where humans feel comfortable, although if she were to dive to the bottom of my pool, she’d be in awe at the amount of human treasure there. A man tried to steal some once, but he was so full of avarice and narcissism that the enchantment in the pool sucked him dry, and I was satiated for weeks after. He sits among the treasure he so desired and wears this woman’s locket now.
The woman gingerly sits on the damp stone step. “Have you ever refused a wish before?”
“Only if the object didn’t have enough magic in it. Some people try to cheat me, but the pool doesn’t work for them.”
She nods absently. “Have you granted a wish you didn’t want to?”
I wrap my tail around myself and look away. “Nearly all of them. All the young girls who want the love of a boy who won’t truly love them back. All the powerful men who want to hurt others. All the greedy rich who will never be happy, even with all the wealth in the world. There are very few wishes I’m happy to help grant.”
She frowns, then prods the bruise around her eye. “And mine? Did I force you to grant a wish you’d rather not?”
“No.” I swim closer and rest my arms on the stone ledge. “You are the only person who has asked that of me, and I was happy to help.”
She smiles at me, just a little.
“Try not to get hurt this time. Self-preservation is a part of self-love.”
She nods as she pushes herself up. With a wave, she heads back up the steps, and I go back to my treasure far below.
The next time she returns, I don’t recognize her at first. She wears a blue dress, bright as the ribbon around the bear’s neck, and her steps are confident and sure. She carries nothing with her except a wide brimmed hat to keep off the little sunlight that follows down the stairs behind her.
The bruise on her face is gone— replaced with a happy grin. Her eyes shine with joy.
“You aren’t here for a wish...”
“I am.” When she reaches the edge of the pool, she tugs the ring from her finger and holds it up at eye level, studying it.
“That will not give you what you desire,” I say, although I’m not sure what it is she desires this time.
“It never has,” she agrees. “It has been my prison, much the way this cave has been yours. But today it represents freedom, and that’s what I wish for you.”
“For me? Why?” No one has ever made a wish for me before— why would they? I’m the conduit. I’m not even sure she can make a wish for me.
“Because you’re trapped. Because you are forced to grant the wishes of people who wish for the wrong things. Because you haven’t tasted the deliciousness that is the word ‘No’, and I have.” She twists the ring around in her fingers. “Because I would like to be the one to grant a wish this time, and give to you what you have given me. Freedom.”
I swim back a kick, unsure. I have never been scared of the humans before, but the thought of making my own wish makes me as nervous as she was when she first came to my pool.
“What is your name?” she asks.
“I don’t have a name. The humans call me Sea Witch.”
“What would you like your name to be?”
“I don’t know any human names. What is your name?”
“Delilah.”
I like that name. It is the only human name I know, but I think I would like it no matter what. “What name do you like for me?”
She thinks a moment, finger pressed to her bottom lip. “Mariana. That’s what the humans call the deepest part of the ocean.”
Mariana. I try the name on for size. It’s awkward. Human. But I like it all the same.
“Mariana,” she bends down, holding the ring out to me. “Would you like to join me in freedom? I can teach you how to be more than just the conduit, as you taught me.”
I hesitate for a moment, because this pool is all I’ve ever known. The dark water, the human treasures, the wishes. I don’t know what lurks at the top of the stairs, but I can guess based on the humans I’ve met, and the wishes they’ve made. 
“One moment,” I say, then swim down to the pile of human things below. I grab two daggers, recently acquired so they aren’t covered in coralline algae yet, a handful of coins, and the locket from the neck of the skeleton. The pool lets me take them because the magic is gone from them, and they belong to me now. The pool has no need of them. I place these things on the ledge, then nod at Delilah.
The ring is warm from her fingers, and as it touches the water, it heats until it burns. I release it with a gasp as a sharp snap echoes through my body. The enchantment that usually sustains me rushes out, eager for a new conduit.
I haul myself onto the ledge with weak arms, my snake tail coiling beneath me next to the treasures.
Delilah stares at me with wide eyes and a small frown. “I thought…hmmm…can you climb the stairs like that?” She must have expected the wish to make me human, but all it did was release the pool’s hold over me.
“I can try.” I uncoil myself and slither towards the stairs. The wet rock scratches the scales on my underside that are soft from the water, but they’ll harden with time. The stairs are not as difficult as they seem— I slide up them one by one, back and forth, in a smooth motion.
“Wait,” Delilah says before I get too far. She places the hat on my head and ties it beneath my chin. “So the sunlight doesn’t hurt your eyes.” Then she puts the locket back around her neck, pockets the coins, and hands me one of the daggers, before leading the rest of the way up the stairs.
At the top is a ledge that looks out on the ocean, and I get my first view of the human world. It’s bright, and loud, and so big it makes me nauseous. Waves crash below, and a glimpse of metal catches my eyes. Human treasure spills out of the other end of the pool— so much treasure that it clogs the exit, and now I remember who I was before I became the conduit. A simple sea snake, who swam into a cavern during a storm and was trapped there when the treasure shifted. I was trapped, and the pool chose me as its conduit. I wonder briefly who it will chose to replace me— a fish? A crab? Another hapless sea snake who can’t get out? I wonder what they’ll look like after ages drinking in human emotions and desires; if they’ll ever get free.
A soft hand touches my shoulder, and I turn to find Delilah, a worried frown etched across the smooth skin of her face. “Do you want to go back?”
I glance back down to my dark cavern, where I always knew what to expect. Where I was always safe, if trapped. “Do you regret your wishes?”
“No.”
I look in her eyes. I couldn’t tell in the cavern, but they’re also blue. As blue as the giant sky above us. “Then no. Let’s be free.”