Claim OwnershipThe Bathtub Mermaid
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© Copyright Melissa A. Bartell
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Tales from the Tub
355 Episodes
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Jean—called Grandma Love by strangers more often than family—felt that familiar tilt in the air. The almost-midnight tilt. Midnight wasn’t a time so much as a mood, a soft doorway between one thing and the next. She’d always been good with doorways.
She set the sled down. Ran her glove over the wooden slats. Felt her heartbeat double-tap behind her ribs.
Then she climbed on.
The world tipped. Not dangerously. Not wrong. Just… sideways enough.
It was finished. Actually finished. She and Trisha had built it with their own four hands, two questionable YouTube tutorials, and one bottle of wine.
Across the Coalition of Aligned Worlds, she could imagine this same carol rising in a hundred places at once: sung in English, Centauran Creole, SolCommon, Vulhari, SynthCant. Sung in domed colonies, hydroponic farm chapels, mining outpost rec halls, starship sanctuaries. Sung by people who had never stepped on Earth, yet carried its stories like inherited starlight.
No one there was particularly observant. A few weren’t Jewish at all. But Hanukkah had a way of widening the doorway. Light was light, after all, and the station nights were long.
She snorted. “‘Cause of death: holiday décor.’”
“‘Victim was in the wrong place at the wrong time, but was at least festively themed.’”
“Daniel,” Jenna said, voice dangerously calm, “we live in Florida.”
He looked at the wreath again. “…Right. So it might’ve been sand.”
That was his favorite part of the holidays—the way people found the book they needed by accident. Not the one they came in asking for, but the one that met them halfway.
“What’d you fly?”
“Oh, whatever needed flying.” He gave a small shrug, as if the details were unimportant. “Cargo. Rescue. The odd emergency route on Christmas Eve.”
“Christmas Eve?” the student holding the baby asked. “Like… weathering storms?”
“Like whatever came through the air that night,” he said, eyes glinting.
She held still, afraid the smallest movement would break whatever spell she’d stumbled into.
Christmas Eve aboard the Cousteau was usually a warm, bustling affair. The crew decorated bulkheads with replicated garlands, brewed small batches of spiced tea in the galley, and argued cheerfully about which Earth tradition counted as “real Christmas.”
Her mother’s voice rose up in her mind, soft and warm and carrying the cinnamon scent of the kitchen from decades ago: Put your finger right there, sweetie. She could still feel her own small hand, steadying the ribbon the same way her daughter was doing now. She hadn’t thought about that moment in years—not really—but suddenly it was as clear as the afternoon it happened.
The transformer outside gave a low, uneasy hum, faltering just long enough to make her pause with the mixing bowl in her hands. Then the lights blinked once — sharp, warning — and everything went dark.
Her husband—“Santa” to the winking masses—sits in his study polishing spectacles, pretending not to hear. He hates this part. Always has. Kindness comes naturally to him. Old power does not.
One by one, they step into the starlit desert. Their glow grows brighter as they move away, pale lights bobbing like will-o’-wisps across the dunes. She watches until they’re only a constellation of tiny sparks at the edge of sight.
The circle widens, ripples spreading, and the two species drift into a shared rhythm — some with hands, some with arms, all with joy. In their mingled glow, something ancient rises, older than language or gravity: the understanding that warmth is not bound to flame, and family not bound to form.
“It’s the longest night,” he says. “Not for sorrow — for balance. The dark gives the light a place to return to. Winter holds the world still, just long enough for hope to gather its breath.”
The lights above them pulse, soft as breathing. She remembers that first storm — the fear of the power failing, the scramble to secure the greenhouse domes, the way they’d worked side by side in the cold until dawn. That was when it began, really: not the flirtation or the laughter, but the quiet respect that came from surviving something together.
Below her, ribbons of green and violet curl across the poles, shimmering like breath against the night. It’s not the first aurora she’s seen from orbit, but this one feels different — brighter, alive. She thinks of the Christmas lights her father used to hang along the eaves of their house, blinking patterns that never quite synced. He’d laugh every year and say, "Perfection’s overrated, sweetheart. Just make it shine."
Inside the café, the world softens around the edges. The espresso machine has gone quiet, its metal belly releasing one last sigh of steam. She wipes down the counter in slow, practiced circles. When she finishes, she pours herself a small mug from what remains in the pot — lukewarm, but still comforting — and brings it with her as she turns.
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