Carmilla, or, the Making of a Girl

When the boy seaman looks at me across the deck, the warmth of his gaze burns between my thighs. He is a year or two older than I am, not eighteen yet, but the sea has shaped his shoulders and legs into something hard. At night, when Mother leaves my cabin after our prayers, I dream of him, eyes open, mouth agape, hands buried under my pillow against the ruinous plea. 

Though it steals my sleep, I do not answer the ask. The folds of my flesh there sweaty, always unclean, both frighten and disgust me. I will not trust myself to any sliver of skin.

In prevention, I rest my legs apart and spread my fingers into bat wings. But inside my mind, o’ the things I do.

†

I spend afternoons below deck reading with the young widow my parents agreed to escort to England, our shoulders pressed together for steadiness against the incessant surges of the sea. The gentle scent of her unbathed skin comforts me with the secret knowledge that I am not alone in my filthiness. From time to time, she sighs and her soft, plump hands tighten over the book, and all I can look at is how the mound at the base of her thumb swells and pinks like a puckered mouth. When she laughs, lips and teeth parted, I rise and flee to the deck, seeking a glimpse of strong, bare forearms. 

†

When my savage fingers pull at the hem of my gown, rather than surrender to the urge, I leave my bed, open the small doll box I brought with me on the ship and bury both my hands in the smooth earth from home, for to be buried is to await resurrection. I’m surprised to find it warm and moist, unlike the memories of it slipping away sandlike as I packed it. My fingers curl, dirt fills my nails: there, I rest until I am myself again, drowsy and pure. 

†

The boy seaman looks at me often, under lashes paler than mine, but only when Mother watches the deep. We are not a third into our voyage, and the thought of the many nights that loom between us and the shore dizzies me. Hunger stretches me agape, a vessel crying to be filled with many things I have but one word for: sin. 

There is no priest on the ship: small mercies! I do not have to confess. Still, the sight of my face in the mirror distresses me: do I conceal enough that Mother will not guess what foulness nestles in me? 

At the captain’s table, Mother notices my appetite and laughs, embarrassed, a laugh that pretends I am still a child, ill-mannered and spoiled. I tilt my chin and look at the captain from under hooded lids, while I lick a fleck of salt from the corner of my mouth. He’s older, forty maybe, and has the allure of sharp, salient things, like the corpse whales from distant tales. A spark ablaze in his features, he offers me a flash of a grin that conjures the hundreds of mermaids he has fed on, fingers, tails, and all. This man has a taste for brine. Across the table, the young widow watches me watch him, squirming in her seat, as if the rhythm of the ship has rolled itself into her hips. 

†

That night, I am resting my hands in the doll box, a sea storm weeping down my face, when someone raps on the door. I don’t open, afraid it might be the widow or the seaman, or worse, both, come to sate my grating hunger. I close my eyes and listen to their breath, imagine it gliding over me in search of a place to moor. The earth between my fingers rustles, as I shake from the tension of wanting to wrench that door free and let them all in. I try to pray but the words that come to my mouth are salty and glib, so instead, sullen as the pious, I wait. At last they leave and I open my eyes. In front of me, the box has grown to a broad chest filled with frothy, black mud. 

†

In the heat of the afternoon, I lie in bed, sick from the swaying of the ship. Billows come faster, wilder, and their pulse sinks below my navel, a fishhook pulling me towards a certain demise. In the depth of my cabin, Mother abandons me to my swelling sickness and the widow’s slow mouthing of the Bible. 

Afraid I will bring up, I straighten and find balance against the confident body of the woman. 

I let my thigh press against hers, let myself stare at her profile, lean in so her curls brush against my cheek. Soon she sighs and turns towards me a set of beautiful, milky eyes I want to drink from, and with that thought straining me weak, I gather her hand and bite into her plush palm. She flushes pink and laughs, a triumphant sort of laugh that has the same effect on me as the seaman’s eyes. We stay like this until we hear someone approach. 

†

Night comes. Under my bed, the doll box has stretched to the proportions of my sinful needs, in all things a coffin. When I lift the lid, the scent of earth invites me. I push my naked arms in, up to the elbows, and shudder at the blackness come to life. My fingers curl around the wet, fleshy bodies of worms. They wiggle, squishy and warmer than I expect, and when I blink, I imagine my hands clasping at other pink ribbons of heated life. I moan with anticipation, erect already, fingers reaching for the doorknob, as in the mirror beside me, my face fades to mist, then to nothing at all. 

†

I go for the seaman first, he is easy. The directness of his gaze leaves no space for questions, so, hidden among the cargo, I let him do into me as he wishes, before I bury my teeth into him and drink him dry. The widow I play with until a moment before dawn, for her body is like mine, and for this, I wish to punish her. We sate each other with laughter, and between cocksure caresses, received and offered, I sip at her inner thigh. I stop only when against me, she is white as an unwilling morning sky. Last, I visit the captain: for all the devoured mermaids, I give him very little, but I take and take and take, until, under me, he has the feel of an empty stocking. 

As the first light trickles over green foam, I slither back into my cabin, breathe out a sigh of relief and naked but for the blood of lovers, climb into my earthy bed to lie among the grubs. Let Mother’s heart drip with salvation prayers.  Between my fingers, into my mouth, between my legs, life crawls. Above me I close the lid to sink into a dreamless sleep. O’ to ride the surges of high sea across a swelling day in oblivious fullness, buried until resurrection!

© 2025 Divya Kernan

About the Author

Divya Kernan (she/her) is a speculative fiction writer, a French native and an alumna of the Novel Generator 2019 and the Short Story Incubator 2021-2022 at GrubStreet, Boston. As biracial and neurodivergent, she has spent the last decade chasing a stronger sense of identity abroad and through dreamed worlds. Her work features characters alienated from their bodies and their worlds and the uncanny transformations they undergo on their journey to power. You can find her on Bluesky: @divyakernan.bsky.social