Ah, Sweet Mystery

I’ve never fancied myself to be a writer of mysteries. I tend to leave that sort of thing to the big boys like Ian Rankin. Nonetheless, I did fold a few into Urban Mermaid. If you’ve read the novel, you’ll know whereof I speak. If you haven’t read the novel, then go buy a copy, post-haste. I’m starving here and could really use the money to buy my parakeet a new iron lung.

There is, however, a minor mystery you may have overlooked. I had originally planned to ‘solve” the mystery in the epilogue but including that bit just made things clunky. I resolved to use the mystery’s solution in a subsequent title but book # 2 is pretty much set and still no place to put the answer.

There’s always book # 3 or # 4 or even # 5 but I doubt that someone is going to remember this wee mystery four books later. If I do, you’ll have forgotten all about this blog post by then. In other words, no harm, no foul.

Here’s what happens

So, let’s get down to business, shall we? The mystery begins when Penelope goes shopping for a wedding dress. The merfolk of Colony Island don’t do weddings and therefore Peter has been dragooned into tagging along since he is somewhat familiar with this sort of thing.

At the bridal salon, Penelope goes through dress after dress and finds nothing that suits her. The owner[1] of the salon has about had it with these wahoos from Colony Island and is eager to see the back of them. She announces that Penelope has seen just about everything except for a very retro gown that arrived a short while ago. There was no price-tag or any other kind of documentation with it. The owner assumes that the company was simply getting rid of some old samples.

A lingering question

As it turns out, the dress fits perfectly, and Penelope looks beautiful in it. Penelope says yes to the dress and a major item on her to-do list has been ticked off. The astute reader is left wondering just how the perfect wedding dress managed to turn up out of nowhere, shortly before Penelope pays a visit to the salon.

The mystery solved

Well, the astute reader will remember from the Epilogue that Poseidon was the deus ex machina for the whole affair. Penelope and Peter finding each other was the result of some divine matchmaking by the god of the Sea. Poseidon even went as far as to choose a dress that Penelope would adore, a dozen years before she went shopping. And that, my friends, is how Penelope’s wedding dress showed up out of nowhere.

[1] The owner is a caricature of Lori Allen from Say Yes to the Dress – Atlanta. Bet you didn’t know that.

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