The Mermaid Chair–The End

The Blessing of the Fleet:

The mermaid chair was carried to the dock that was covered in colored lights.  Each boat was blessed, the chair was splashed with seawater, and the people tossed Mermaid Tears (tiny pearly pebbles) into the bay.  This honored the mermaid saint’s sadness at leaving the ocean.  The islanders would then have a feast of fried shrimp.

Back in the church after the procession Jessie found the mermaid chair painted in green, gold and red, slightly faded from the years.  Jessie remembered how, as a child, she would sit on her father’s knee on the chair.  When in the chair you were to pray.  Here was the rhyme each child knew:

“Sit in the chair.

Say a prayer.

An answer tomorrow

From St. Senara.”

While in the chair, Brother Thomas came in.  Although she was married and he was a monk in training, she couldn’t deny that she was drawn to him.  And in that moment, in that chair, she wanted to believe in the prayer power.  What if it could undo you?  What if it fished up forbidden feelings in you?  She came to the truth.  She was falling in love.  She couldn’t deny it anymore.  She knew she didn’t want to be a mythological siren and lure sailors, or in her case priests, to the rocks to take a fall, but she wanted to touch his face.  She just did.

But what about Jessie’s mother Nelle and her finger?  Well, there was a mermaid, Sedna, whose fingers, all ten, were severed.  The story goes that a woman was fleeing from her evil husband so her father took her away on a fast boat.  In fear for his life, he tossed his daughter into the sea.  When she grabbed on to the boat he cut off each finger, one by one.  Sedna sank and became a powerful deity with a head and body of a woman and the tail of a fish.  She was Mother of the Ocean.  Her fingers became sea creatures.  Jessie’s mother was suffering and she realized she wouldn’t stop until she’d cut off all of her fingers.  Her mother wanted her husband back, she wanted her world to return to normal again.  Now Jessie understood.

Do you think Jessie had an affair with Brother Thomas?  And what about her husband Hugh?  She hadn’t talked to him in so long.  She didn’t want to see him but HE came to the island to see HER.  She got into the bathtub and slid all the way down in the water that night.  She didn’t move.  She could hear the beat of her heart and she thought her heart no longer belonged to Hugh.  She wanted to stay under forever.  (When I was a teenager, I would sometimes go into our backyard pool, slip under water and scream.  Teenage years can be dramatic that way right?)

Now let’s connect her dad’s death and her mother’s finger fetish.  Her mother’s friend Kat gave her the clues.  There was a toxic plant called “Dead Finger”.  Her father died from ingesting the plant.  But why would her mother give that to her father? Her father had said he wanted to leave this life sitting on the mermaid chair.  Did he?

Well, I am not going to reveal everything about this book.  There is so much more.  You’ll have to check it out to find the truth about her father’s death.  And did she have an affair with Brother Thomas?  Did she stay on the island or go back to her husband?  The answers might surprise you.

I give this book  ***** 5 stars.  It contains lots of beautiful descriptions (that is the beauty of her writing), and some twists that you won’t suspect.  I highly recommend it!  Climb into the Mermaid Chair and say a little prayer…

Until next time…