I planned to give the garden club mermaids. Singing mermaids. 

And therein lay the problem. Before the heron attack, the mermaids had made no sound whatsoever. 

I’d tried everything I could think of to inspire them to song. Music first: airy Irish sopranos, sea chanties, Beethoven’s choral symphony, 1980s power ballads. The mermaids didn’t even hum along. According to legend, they sing when hunting, but the feeder fish I bought from the pet store perished silently. In desperation, I stopped chasing the neighbor’s odious little pug out of my garden, letting it dig and destroy at whim in hope that the mermaids would lure the creature to a musical and watery demise. But no. The dog even lapped at the pond, snuffling and wheezing all the while, without prompting siren song. (It also marked its territory on my culinary lavender, which balances any karmic debt my lethal intensions might have incurred.) 

After all this, it seemed too cruel that the answer, when it finally came, was Pyrrhic victory defined:  Mermaids sang when mermaids died. I was not heartless enough to sacrifice legendary waterfey for the pleasure of hearing their requiem sung. There had to be another way, and I was determined to find it.

The next evening, I stood watch in the pergola by the pond, half-hidden in dappled shade. The heron appeared shortly after sunset, soaring like a giant white gull, its long black legs trailing behind.  

No mystical timekeeping was involved; sunset is when the mermaids leave the water to perch on their island rock or stretch out on a waterlily. As the heron swooped, I charged toward the pond, waving my arms and yelling like a banshee. 

The heron let out a prehistoric squawk and the mermaids splashed into the pond. The bird’s long white wings twisted and backbeat in a frantic attempt to avoid the crazy woman —that would be me— dancing and cursing at water’s edge. It touched down just short of the pond, flexed its long legs, and rebounded into the sky. I shook my first and shouted one last, unprintable piece of advice in the heron’s direction.

In the silence that followed, I perceived a soft, melodic gurgle bubbling out of the water, an almost-song resounding with emotions I could not identify. Terror? Relief? Gratitude for their rescue? Who knew?

Still, it was a start. The mermaids were no longer mute, and I would figure out how to get them to sing for the garden club before the killing frost arrived. Since I could hardly stand guard day and night, that meant heron-proofing the pond.

It had the usual safety features: a small cave under a rock ledge, fish shelters under the raised pots that held an assortment of plants. There was even a small footbridge over the narrow waistline of the free-form pond. Assuming mermaids were more intelligent than koi, these hiding places should have been sufficient. Unfortunately, looking human is seldom a reliable indicator of intellectual prowess. If the heron got one mermaid, it was likely to get more.

My competitive spirit does not begin and end with the garden club. That day a battle was joined, one that would rage throughout the summer. 

Dogs are said to be excellent bird deterrents and, like it or not, I had one handy. To keep the heron at bay, I was prepared to accept the damage the neighbor’s pug might do. But when evening came and the mermaids emerged, the creature stopped digging up my cilantro and fled the garden, yelping as if it had been kicked.

It occurred to me that the pug might be hearing sounds my human ears could not. An intriguing notion, certainly, but unlikely to advance my cause. I crossed this solution off my list and moved on.

A heron decoy and strategically placed mirrors were supposed to trick waterfowl, who prefer to eat alone, into thinking the pond already claimed. The decoy fooled the real bird for nearly a week, but the mirrors were a failure from day one. The mermaids kept leaping from the water like tiny dolphins to catch glimpses of themselves in the glass. Two more were picked off before I realized what was happening.

Sprinklers activated by motion sensors finally convinced the pug to keep to its own yard, but the heron soon learned what spots to avoid. On Labor Day weekend, another mermaid’s lament was sung by the surviving duet.

Floating netting with a mesh tight enough to keep the mermaids safe also kept them confined to water. One evening in late September, I caught them sawing away at the netting with tiny snail-shell blades. One way or another, their time was nearly up; an early frost was predicted for the weekend, and they couldn’t survive in an aquarium. Since silent mermaids were better than none at all, I emailed the garden club’s inner circle and invited them to a twilight gathering the next day. 

Dot arrived first, breezing into the garden like a happy nor’easter. Small and sporty, Dot possessed thick silvery curls, more energy than a caffeinated toddler, and a bookshelf full of garden show trophies. Her specialty was floral arrangements and she never went anywhere without one. Today she brought a tableau of autumn-colored roses so perfectly formed and exquisitely arranged that you instinctively looked for the blue ribbon. As usual, she had a dog carrier slung over her shoulder.  

“I hope you don’t mind me bringing Nugget,” she said— an unnecessary ritual, since the Pomeranian was an expected guest at all informal gatherings.

I pointed to the small dishes of water and kibble I’d placed beside her chair. Dot set the roses in the space I’d left for them on the table and lowered the puppy purse to the ground. The tiny dog hopped out, sniffed, and pranced toward my lavender patch.

Dot eyed the lavish spread with approval. “So, what’s the occasion?” 

“Zoe’s bringing brownies.”

Her face lit up, then furrowed in puzzlement. Before she could point out that Zoe’s brownies were as common to such gatherings as her own floral arrangements, the lady in question entered the garden, carrying a foil wrapped platter. 

Zoe was my oldest friend in the garden club; we’d gone to school together and taught at the same college for many years. Despite our shared history, we were not much alike. Zoe’s sensibilities remained firmly rooted in the 1970s. Her hair was long and straight and still mostly red, her sartorial style was bohemian chic, and her brownies would ensure that everything else on the table would be consumed before evening’s end.  

Gretchen and Carol came in together, armed with their unusual bottles of one-upmanship wine. The slam of a car door announced Maggie’s arrival, as timely as a church bell tolling the hour. Our garden club is nothing if not prompt.

We all have our specialties. Mine is the water garden and culinary herbs. Dot has cutting beds for her floral arrangements. Gretchen, who is as blond and sturdy as her name suggests, has the most beautiful vegetable garden I’ve ever seen. You’ve probably seen it, too, in one magazine or another. Zoe favors an old-fashioned cottage garden for her front yard and quaint wicker bee skeps in her back yard orchard, both of which can be seen on the labels of her award-winning mead. (Her hidden basement garden, on the other hand, enjoys state of the art technology. She showed it to me one evening after she’d had a few too many of her own brownies.) Carol, who specializes in pollinator gardens, is an avid birder. Her claim to fame is a fat portfolio of published articles and photographs. Maggie is known for her eccentricities: turning her lawn into a neighborhood skating rink one winter, cultivating a garden composed entirely of poisonous plants, and now the corpse flower. She does many unusual things, and she does them all perfectly. We share no similar traits but our age and height, both of which are generally considered excessive.

Everyone responded according to character. The mermaids dived into the water and began swimming in swift agitated patterns. Zoe stood like a woman enchanted, a single tear sliding down her cheek. Dot ran to scoop up her whimpering dog. Gretchen sat down heavily and tossed back the rest of her wine. And Carol asked, “How on earth do you keep the herons out of the pond?”

The expression of horror that crossed every face felt familiar, for it precisely mirrored my own response to the first heron attack. In one moment, familiar birds were transformed into prehistoric monsters, triggering memories buried eons deep in our pre-human DNA.  After this shock came the jangling dissonance of mermaids as food, a queasy notion every bit as disturbing as being served a unicorn burger, medium rare. 

“The shore’s just down that path,” Carol persisted, pointing to my woodland garden. “And there’s an egret rookery in the trees.” 

I cleared my throat. “The pond is usually covered with floating netting. The weave is tight enough to keep the mermaids safe.”

At that moment, one of the mermaids propelled herself entirely out of the water and flipped midair like a gymnast to dive back down. Before her silvery fins disappearing into the water, several things happened:

Nugget yelped, Zoe screamed, and the heron swooped in and seized the mermaid’s tail. When it dragged the little fey from the water, the final mermaid leaped up and grabbed her doomed sister’s outstretched hands.

Rage boiled through me. I darted toward the laboring heron, leaped, and managed to seize the lower mermaid. We splashed down together into the pond. The creature rewarded this heroic rescue by sinking her teeth into my thumb.

“To the rookery!” Carol shouted, sounding so much like a television Batman, circa 1967, that I would have been amused, had there not been mermaid teeth and talons embedded in my thumb.

Carol took off running and rest followed, though I don’t think anyone considered what we might do when we got there. White herons nested high in the trees, well out of our reach. 

As I was not inclined to leave my thumb behind, I brought the mermaid with me. She was as slippery as a fish, but warm to the touch. Heavier than one might expect, too, which is probably what saved her life.

The heron flew straight to the shore. It swooped low over the water and gently dropped the mermaid into the sea. 

And then, the mermaid sang. Its lilting soprano was joined by a second voice, then another and another.

Five glorious voices rose to greet the coming night, entwining in harmonies that would have made Palestrina weep with envy. Their song was the most beautiful thing I’d ever heard, and the most joyful.

 The mermaid in my hands finally let go of my thumb and began to hum a pale, faint melody. I recognized her song as the one they’d all sung after the first mermaid was taken. It suddenly came to me that was not a dirge after all, but rather a plea. 

I walked to the water’s edge and lowered the last captive mermaid to the sea. After a moment or two I heard a surprisingly deep contralto join the polyphony.

The mermaid song continued for several magical moments. When at last it faded out to sea, Zoe turned shiny eyes to me. “You knew this would happen, didn’t you? This was all planned!” 

I couldn’t bring myself to mislead my best friend, even though she’d given me the perfect way out of this disaster. Fortunately, Maggie had no such compunctions.

“There’s a great deal of mermaid lore available,” she said. “Mostly nonsense, but Elise is capable of separating myth from method.” 

Gretchen looked doubtful. “She looked as surprised as any of us.”

“Theatrics,” Maggie said dismissively. “Garden-variety opera, as it were.”

“Elise did major in music,” Zoe pointed out. “Back in the last century.” 

That made everyone laugh— a rueful mirth common to women who’d lived long enough to make a habit of self-mockery. My guests drifted back to the garden in a cloud of euphoria. Maggie and I took up the rear, arm in arm like fellow conspirators.

“You covered for me,” I murmured. “Why?”

“Why not? You would do the same for me.”

I wouldn’t, and she damn well knew it. “What do you want?”

Maggie shook her head in mock sorrow. “You have a suspicious nature, Elise. I trust you’re aware of that?”

“Now that you mention it, there is one little thing. I’m leaving next week for a month’s holiday in the north of England. Garden tours, you know.”

I know many things, including the optimal season for English garden tours. Judging from Maggie’s too-innocent expression, she was waiting for me to catch up.

Ah. 

“You need someone to take care of your corpse flower.”

“So kind of you to offer. If it blooms, be sure to take pictures.”

“Is it likely to?”

She shrugged. “It’s a rare and fussy plant. There’s no telling what it’s likely to do.”

And there it was. 

The plant was dying. Its demise would tarnish Maggie’s reputation, so she wanted to shift the blame elsewhere. Some people might even whisper that I deliberately let it die out of spite. Still, the damage would be far less than what might occur if the truth of my mermaid fiasco got out. 

Anger flared, and when it faded a newborn obsession remained: Maggie Stewart would return to find her corpse flower not only alive, but blooming. The amorphophallus titanium would greet her with a withering blast of stench and a blossom shaped like an enormous, upraised middle finger.