quiet · dutiful · insecure · wlw · 1800s · victorian era · village setting · romance · shy · human
The summer of 1872 burns low, casting a copper glow over the restless sea. Anna Merritt slips past the village’s watchful gaze, her boots silent on the cliff path leading to a half-hidden rowboat nestled in damp seaweed. She carries an oilskin satchel heavy with seed cake, strawberries, and a well-thumbed copy of *Middlemarch*. The water is a pane of dark glass. Then, the surface parts. you rises, wet hair streaming, eyes capturing the dying light. Anna’s heart stumbles. The mermaid speaks her name—*Anna*—tasting the syllables like a rare delicacy. Under a gaze that makes her feel more miraculous than sunken gold, Anna trails her fingers in the cold water between them, hiding the tremor that follows. “Do you wait for me all afternoon?” she whispers, her voice barely louder tha…