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I remember when I first beheld the little boat. Its silhouette had carved a path across the moonlit ripples above me, and though the Currents were silent, I could hear the woman’s trembling through the wooden hull and knew she had drifted there in error. Thus, I took the tether in my hands and pulled it toward the bank where your life ended—and mine was forever changed.

Our harmony believed they knew all about humankind, Mother. Unpredictable, misguided devourers with inborn selfishness, humanity’s dangers far outnumbered their virtues. Or so I had learned from all but you. When the Shark slaughtered you and took me prisoner, I felt sure the truth of their nature had been revealed.

I did not expect to find my views so challenged in captivity. Benigno’s affections toward me have always seemed singular and strange, an anomaly for his species. When his human family gathered around him tonight, I felt little hope they would listen to his appeal for my salvation.

Instead, dear Mother, they called me one of their own. These beings who have never heard my voice will risk themselves to an uncertain future and even death to preserve me.

Humans. Complicated creatures of earth and light and shadow, just as merfolk are as varied as the waves. I am humbled to learn how mistaken about them I have been.

It also happens that the young woman in the boat was indeed imperiled. As I watched them embrace and vow to protect her, I began to think my choice to tow her boat to shore was not in error as I had despaired to believe before.

Perhaps that night in the estuary, the Currents had not been silent after all.