Front cover of an edition of Mermaid in Chelsea Creek.
Mermaid in Chelsea Creek is a fantasy novel by Michelle Tea.
In the broken-down town of Chelsea, Massachusetts, everyone knows the story about the girl who will bring magic to take their twisted world and straighten it out, but could Sophie Swankowski with her tangled hair and grubby clothes be that girl? Sophie has weird habits and gets visions of a filthy, swearing mermaid when she's unconscious, but, behind her oddities, Sophie could be the one everyone is waiting for to save them.
Summary[]
The story starts off talking about Chelsea, Massachusetts, a "city where people landed." Sophie Swankowski, the story's protagonist, has Polish ancestors who brought magic with them when they came to Chelsea. Her ancestors came with other old women who had magic bones and who lamented the lack of magic in the land they now lived in. These women would tell their children many stories, but one story stuck out: the one about the magic girl who ate salt and who would save them.
When Sophie wakes up from a game of pass out with her friend Ella, she is struck with a desire to eat salt and dunks her head into the creek but her friend pulls her out in disgust because the creek is filled with trash. After parting on a bad note, Sophie heads home where she learns that a girl from her school who left after getting pregnant had almost killed her baby by giving her too much salt. Sophie's mom, Andrea, then explains that immigrants give babies salt due to a myth about a girl who would save everyone and would have the ability to eat salt. When Sophie tries to imagine what life is like for the other girl, Laurie LeClair, she suddenly starts to have a seizure from feeling what she thinks Laurie feels. When her mother is able to snap her out of it, Sophie tries to eat salt in a panic and ends up confessing to her mother that she passes herself out.
After a visit to the doctor's office, Sophie learns that she is getting sent to her grandmother's by the town dump for the summer. When her mother drops her off, Sophie experiences the feeling again where she becomes another person and feels what they are feeling, except this time it is Andrea. Leaving her mother's body, Sophie goes to look for her grandma, Kishka, and finds her with someone named Angel. The two are apparently arguing over the barrels of broken glass around the dump, which Angel says will be handled soon. Sophie is curious and cannot tell if Angel is male or female, so she voluntarily uses her newfound power but is shocked to find out that Angel is a girl and felt what she was doing.
After Kishka heads back to her trailer, Sophie helps Angel with the glass and learns that her grandmother thinks Angel is a boy. At the end of the day, Angel gives her some sea glass and tells her to keep it secret from her grandmother so it doesn't get taken away. When Andrea picks Sophie up, both are in better moods than when they left each other.
Later, Sophie makes plans with Ella to meet at the creek and they end up playing pass out again even though Sophie is hesitant at first. When Sophie is unconscious, she sees the mermaid again that she saw earlier, but this time the creature talks after they show each other their sea glass necklaces. The mermaid's name is Syrena and she came from a river in Poland to find Sophie. She calls herself a rusalka, a river mermaid, and then reveals a piece of salt that she had carried across oceans. After talking about ogresses and kings, Syrena tells Sophie that she is going to give her feelings, and Sophie soon feels many different pains through the mermaid. Once Syrena feels Sophie slipping, she places the salt in her mouth that was specially mined by the ogresses, and then she decides it is time to give her the pearl.
Meanwhile, Ella is trying to wake her friend back up in the real world and she starts panicking because Sophie has been unconscious for almost an hour. When she finally wakes up, she tries to explain what happened to Ella, but the latter is completely disbelieving and thinks she has gone crazy. After Ella goes back home, Sophie stays at the creek and a flock of pigeons suddenly find her. The birds all have wind flutes attached to them like Dr. Chen's bird, Livia. Sophie is, for some reason, not very shocked when one starts talking to her and tells her about a darkness in humans that Sophie is supposed to save them from. While they are talking, Sophie starts to feel ill and the birds fly off to bring back salt for her, which Livia explains is purifying and healing. Sophie then learns that she is expected to take in everyone's darkness and expel it with the healing powers of salt. While learning about who she can trust, Sophie learns that her grandmother Kishka is evil and absolutely cannot be trusted.
When Sophie goes back to the dump the next day, she tells Angel about the mermaid and the pigeons to the latter's relief. Angel then turns on the tumbler and explains that they can only speak when the machine is on because the sound scrambles Kishka's hearing and other power to hear feelings and thoughts. Later, the pigeons bring Sophie back to Angel who scolds her for going into Kishka's trailer earlier. After putting a healing paste on the poison ivy Sophie got from the plants in the trailer, the two start training.
Sophie learns how to block her feelings with a mental wall and eventually proves to be stronger than Angel when she breaks through the latter's walls and is able to stay within her feelings despite Angel trying to kick her out. At the end of their lessons, Angel reveals she only stayed in the dump waiting for Sophie. Now that she has taught Sophie all that she knows, she wants to leave and counsel drug addict kids. Before the two separate, Angel gives Sophie a white candle dressed by her mother.
The next day, Sophie's mother wakes up feeling ill and her daughter calls Dr. Chen to let her know about the absence from work. While on the phone with Dr. Chen, Sophie reveals she met with the mermaid after playing pass out one more time, and Dr. Chen responds that she does not need to pass out to see her anymore. Right after that phone call, Sophie calls Kishka to let her know she won't be coming to the dump and her mental shield is immediately attacked. Before hanging up, Kishka reveals that she knows exactly what Sophie is doing, and she tells her that she cannot win.
After giving her mother some cold medicine and bathing the pigeons, Sophie goes to Hennie's store with the candle Angel gave her. Hennie is a witch and also, as it turns out, is Sophie's aunt. Hennie explains that Sophie is a summer witch like Kishka so her powers are greater in the summer. Sophie also learns that Hennie and Kishka are twins, which shocks her because they look vastly different. Kishka apparently wears a glamour that makes her look younger, but she is seven hundred years old like her sister.
She then learns that Kishka had turned her husband into a dog that now lived with Hennie, but the magic changed his mind and now he thinks that he is a dog. After deciding that she needs to explain things to Sophie, Hennie casts a spell to slow time before giving her a magic pouch filled with salt, good stone, and pigeon bones because pigeons are Sophie's "animal." After receiving her gift, Sophie is happy to have a loving family member, but the moment is ruined when Hennie tries to tell her more about herself--like the fact that Ronald, the drunk who loiters at the dump, is her father. Not wanting to hear the truth, Sophie tries to leave, but Hennie casts a spell to enchant Sophie into staying. Realizing what is happening, Sophie's anger accidentally unleashes her power and knocks Hennie unconscious, and she runs away in horror.
While headed home, Sophie sees frozen people all around her that were stopped by Hennie's spell. When she gets home, she is surprised to see Andrea not affected, but then she remembers that she is Kishka's daughter and most likely immune from the magic. Sophie is shocked to see, however, Laurie LeClaire standing outside with her baby. The baby is frozen in time but Laurie does not seem affected, and it turns out that a Dola has taken control of her body. It is Sophie's destiny to go back to Hennie and learn about her past, and the Dola is here to bring her back.
Angry that the Dola is telling her what to do, Sophie undoes the spell and her mother immediately comes out when she hears Laurie's baby crying. After the Dola threatens to jump into Andrea's body if Laurie is taken away, Sophie finally agrees to leave with her. Back at Hennie's, the witch has cleaned up the mess left behind and is ready to tell Sophie her story again. While the Dola rests, Hennie says again that Ronald is Sophie's father, but she also reveals that her mother, Andrea, actually had twin girls. Knowing that magic skips a generation, Kishka had wanted the baby with the power, but Hennie had tricked her by taking over each body. She forced one to eat as much salt as she could without killing it and, when in Sophie's body, prevented her from eating salt. Thinking that her sister was the magic baby, Kishka took her away and she lives in the trailer with the plants.
When Sophie asks why they cannot rescue her, Hennie explains that the plants are poisonous and her sister had been breathing the poison since a child—fresh air is now poisonous to her and she would not survive. After learning all this, Sophie finally leaves knowing that she has to spend the summer with Syrena learning more before returning. On her way home, she sees Ella with some boys that taunt her and she reaches into their feelings. Instead of taunting them with their own secrets, Sophie walks away crying.
Back home, Kishka has put Andrea under a nightmare spell and she tells Sophie that she does not know the first thing about what she is. It turns out that she is letting Naw, ghosts, torture Andrea, and, when Sophie tries to stop her with a swarm of pigeons, Kishka kills them all and disappears. Sophie wakes her mother up to let her know that she is leaving with the mermaid, and, at first she is angry but then she understands. Sophie goes with the pigeons to the creek to meet Syrena, but, as they are leaving, Kishka attacks. Sophie is sad to see Livia die in the attack, but the pigeons take her away and Sophie continues with Syrena to learn more.