swestrup | Twice Twisted Tales

Once there was a gentle fisherman who married, for his second wife, the proudest and most haughty woman that was ever seen. She had, by a former husband, two daughters of her own, who were, indeed, exactly like her in all things. He had likewise, by another wife, a young daughter, named 'Ella', but of unparalleled goodness and sweetness of temper, which she took from her mother, who was rumored to have been a mermaid.

No sooner were the ceremonies of the wedding over but the stepmother began to show herself in her true colors. She could not bear the good qualities of this pretty girl with the skin like pearls, hair like seaweed and glittering scales of rainbow hues. The more the stepmother saw her the more odious did her own daughters appear and the more angry she became.

While the good fisherman spent his days at sea he little knew how poor Ella was treated. She was employed in the meanest work of the house. She scoured the dishes and tables, cleaned the other's chambers and was forced to gut and salt all the fish with little more than a sharpened spoon. While her sisters slept in fine rooms, with floors all inlaid, on beds of the very newest fashion, and with looking glasses so large that they could see themselves at their full length from head to foot, poor Ella was forced to sleep upon the raw fish in the holding bin. The good-hearted girl bore it all patiently, and dared not tell her father, who would have scolded her; for his wife governed him entirely. And so weeks passed and Ella began to smell so strongly of fish that the cruel sisters and stepmother started calling her Salmonella. Salmonella was deeply hurt by the taunting but didn't let it show for she knew that this would only please her tormentors the more.

Then, one day, the king announced that there would be a grand festival to mark the coming-of-age of his son, the prince. The preparations were many and long. The entire town was cleaned and polished from end to end and the old abandoned church on the point had its mouldy timbers fixed and its bells rehung for the first time in as long as anyone could remember.

Those bells, as well as every other in the kingdom, were rung on the day of the festival to mark the fateful occasion. And fateful it was, for the bells had been formed by no mortal hand, but had been found upon the points rocky shore after a terrible storm in ages past. The bells rang out with a strange cthonic sound which easily penetrated the waters of the town's harbour, and carried deep into the unknown depths where they were heard and answered.

That day, the Deep Ones swarmed from the dismal abyss in which they dwelled and invaded the kingdom, killing, torturing and mating with the inhabitants in a terrible black frenzy. Only Salmonella was spared for, at the sound of the bells, the last remnants of her earthly guise were rent and she stood forth as a princess of the Deep Ones. So terrible was her rage to behold that her stepsisters went mad at the sight of her and her stepmother ran shrieking into the sea and was nibbled to death by sardines.

While dancing in the entrails spilled from the shattered remains of her siblings, Salmonella was spotted by Drhkkgon, a prince of the stygian depths. It was a strange, twisted attraction at first sight. They fast became soulless-mates and together attended many black rituals to forgotten gods. Eventually the call of the sea overcame the Deep Ones, and they all went forever to dwell in that deep and lightless kingdom that mortal man is better off not knowing of. Of the kingdom they left behind, nothing remained. No stone was left standing except for the church on the point with its otherworldly bells, waiting to summon them once more to the upper world. Until that time they will dwell happily ever after below.