Dead in the Water

by Nancy Holder

  On the dais, a dance band began to play “Always.” Lush strings, a clarinet, the flash of brass as the trombones droned.

  The cork strained against the top of the bottle. Kevin smiled and pushed, smiled and pushed—

  —and she remembered her dream of the Morris inside the bottle, and the laughing face. Captain Reade’s face.

  “No, no, my darling.” Stephen took her hands in his and kissed the knuckles. “It’s a garden here. It’s paradise. We can be here forever.”

  The room filled with people, women in slinky satin and furs, men in tuxedos. Beautiful, and handsome, candlelight gleaming on their faces and necks. The tinkle of ice, low, husky laughter; a swish of silk as the woman at the next table rose with her escort and they headed toward the crowded dance floor. A sultry brunette, with dark, deep-set eyes, who put her hand into her companion’s and her arm on his shoulder, and swiveled her head toward Ruth and smiled.

  The couple began to fox-trot. Above them, light bounced off the golden statue and cast diamonds on the lacquered walls; the diamonds blurred and rippled and the entire room shimmered, as if it were underwater.

  The cork popped. Ruth jumped. Stephen held her hands tightly, tightly, leaning over a glass candleholder and a bouquet of exquisite fish—

  —no, not of fish, but the bright colors of kelp forests, and seaweed prairies, and the ice-blue sweetness of the underside of icebergs; oh, the beauty, the beauty, the riot of sponges, the jewels of anemones, the wonder of eternal life beneath the sea.

  and Kevin poured champagne, not—

  —not anything else—

  into their glasses.

  Ruth stared into the eyes of her husband. She had missed him so much. She loved him so much. Young people couldn’t feel love like this. It was only after years, decades, half a century—

  “To you, my beloved,” Stephen said, raising his glass. Letters were engraved around the base, but she couldn’t read them. “To us, together forever.”

  He waited for her to touch her glass to his. Without moving, she lowered her gaze to the glass Kevin had set by her hand. “Normandie,” the engraving read. Another museum relic; the Normandie had burned in New York harbor when she was sixteen. She remembered her mother’s distress; she’d always wanted to travel on it.

  Tulip glasses from the Normandie. Champagne from the Titanic.

  She brushed the glass with her fingers. Anticipation rose throughout the room. The couples around her stopped chatting and watched. The dancing couples slowed, focused on her.

  The reflections of the mirror ball rippled and danced, rippled and danced, as if everything were—

  —underwater—

  “Oh!” Ruth cried. She leapt out of her chair, breaking contact with Stephen. He cried out in despair—

  —and her head flew up and out of the sink.

  And the shadow in the mirror that was, and wasn’t, there—

  The shadow misted into steam and rolled away on a night-time sea.

  “Stephen!” she cried, slamming her hands against the mirror. “Stephen, come back!”

  Just one moment of courage, my darling. A minute, and then it will be over.

  And then it will begin.

  The water in the sink swirled with the blood from her nose. Tentatively she dipped her shaking fingers into it. It had seemed so real. So very real.

  She looked into the mirror.

  “Will we really be together?” she asked aloud.

  “Of course, darling. I said we would, didn’t I?” Stephen replied beside her, his warm, gentle hand resting upon her shoulder.

  “I’m just so afraid.”

  “There’s no need. You wanted to come to me, Ruth. Didn’t you hear me? Back on that other ship, I called to you.”

  “I thought you did!” Her eyes misted. “I was too afraid. I thought you were warning me against something. I heard you tell me to … to …” She frowned. What had he told her? To jump—

  “Ruth. My darling Ruth. I knew nothing could separate us. I tried so hard to contact you, so many times. And now …” He ran his fingertips along the surface of the water. “You’ve seen how beautiful it will be. Look again.”

  And she saw the garden of her dreams; swimming through the undersea beauty with her love at her side, she was young again, and Stephen was a handsome boy-man. All this could be done. All this would continue.

  What was there for her, back on the surface? Age, and mourning, and wishing, and regrets. And here, an enchanted existence.

  And if she was imagining it all?

  Well, if she was?

  But it was too real. And she was too much in love.

  There was the glass snake, coiled on its pillow. It saw them, and straightened itself. Why, it wasn’t a snake at all! It was the champagne bottle from the Titanic.

  Deftly he uncorked it; the stopper was a precious little sea creature, a crab or a shrimp of some kind, that skittered off to join his fellows among the heavenly cloud of bright orange and yellow sponges. A large bubble the color of the sun at day’s end undulated above their heads and she thought of her favorite hymn: “Now the Day Is Over.”

  Yes. The days were over. Time was over. She would drink the shimmering, silver potion that poured from the bottle. She would drink, and in the twinkling of an eye—

  —nearer, my God—

  Ruth’s hand gripped the sink edge, spasmed, dropped to her side. The last oxygen bubbles of her life flooded out of her mouth.

  It did not hurt.

  Thank God for that.

  King Neptune said, “Very good, Cha-cha. Let her go.”

  Cha-cha stepped back. The lady’s head bobbed in the sink. Her hair was a floating mass of jellyfish tentacles. Her hands slipped down to her sides, she collapsed to her knees, and then she flopped over onto her back, smacking the floor hard. Her eyes were open, staring at him sightlessly.

  “She’s at peace now.” The king clapped Cha-cha on the arm. “You did a good thing. Now, for your reward.”

  Cha-cha stared down at the dead woman. A good thing? Why was it a good thing?

  “Come, Cha-cha.”

  COME

  Cha-cha started at the sound of the other. Saw that King Neptune hadn’t heard it. Puzzled, he followed his master.

  Shut the door after him.

  “I can make them jump,” the king said offhandedly. “I whisper to them, over and over, and they hear me. They do it. Because I am the power.” He shrugged. “Others are not so … receptive. They don’t hear me.” His face hardened, and Cha-cha thought the king was mad at him.

  He looked up at the king and said, “Officer Donna? She heard … she was down where you found me. She was there, freakin’, before you came.”

  There was a change in the king’s face that knocked Cha-cha for a loop. For one sec, he was just nothing, just a heap of puss—

  No! Flashback, that was all!

  “Cha-cha, come,” the king said impatiently.

  COME.

  “Yessir,” Cha-cha said, and for another sec, he wasn’t sure which of the two voices he heard was the one he was answering.

  Make that three or four secs.

  But just two voices, baby.

  Just two.

  Donna ran—was chased, no of course not—into her stateroom. With a gasp she slammed the door shut and stumbled into the center of the room. God, why come back here, to the place that frightened her the worst? Why come back here, indeed, when she needed to find the others, needed to figure out what the hell had happened. Toxic reaction. Something organic. Like the blindness, something … reasonable

  ’Cuz there had been something down there, don’t deny it; some kind of spook-show vision. She had seen something, felt something. Now it was cloudy, but the terror remained. She was heaving with exertion and fear; tears of shock ran down her cheeks. Hyperventilating, and trying to stop as she reeled with dizziness.

  Something was very wrong on the Pandora.

  And someone had her gun.

>   She turned to go back out.

  Something was in the room. A stinging cold hopped onto her back, spread like syrup down her chest. Something was right behind her.

  “All right,” she said. “All right, freeze.”

  But it was she who was freezing. She shivered, tried to move her head. And slowly, as if someone were projecting a movie of her into the room, she collapsed forward, slow, slow, chin tilting upward an inch, two, three; her lips parted, slow, slow, slow; her wrist lifted toward the ceiling, fingertips arching—so very slowly; and it all floated

  down

  down

  down, her face against the back of the door, smacking it a cell at a time, a tissue at a time, and her head rocked backward; and her neck slid down the slick latex paint like a cat’s languid tongue, and she caved in at the threshold, crumpled in a heap; and her mind said

  Heeeellllpppppppppppppp

  because the floor was covered with fog, thick gray, and putrescent. There was something in it, colder than ice; it was hot-cold; and it tiptoed up her backbone

  on little cat feet

  and it whispered past her ear, right into her brain:

  Tell me your Desire, you bitch. Tell me.

  What potions I have drunk of Siren tears

  What do you want? What will open you?

  What will make you come aboard?

  What potions, fair Donna Pandora, belladonna; why are you so closed, that chambered nautilus of yours, that hard shell of a heart that I CANNOT CRACK! And make you see,

  and make you do,

  and make you die.

  The voice, urging, Swim to me, Donna, swim down, and don’t hold it any longer. It will only hurt a moment; it will feel so good to let it out, all in one deep breath. Open, open, and

  For all I know, Billie Holiday sang. And this was what was known:

  Tahoe. So senseless. Choking like that, on his vomit. She should have run faster. That bastard, that bastard; she should’ve … her fault, her fault, her fault. Never forgive herself. Never.

  … This is a dream. Glenn. Please, Glenn, please. So alone. Other people had lives. Other people. Mom, brothers; where was her dad? Don’t cry, don’t be a baby …

  … And I dream … House and kids, p&j in a brown paper sack, don’t miss the bus! Mommy ashtray, papers on the fridge.

  … to know your heart …

  What do you want?

  One note, one long, sad, keening note …

  “Please,” Curry moaned, his eyes tightly shut as the sounds came closer.

  A hand of bone and ice prodded—and didn’t prod—his shoulder. And a voice he recognized whispered, “We want to mutiny. Go to the woman. The one he can’t quite get. Tell her.”

  “Wh-what?” Curry rasped. He started to turn his head, was too terrified to. Lately, everything went away if he looked.

  Lately, he saw what they all were: illusions. Ghosts. Rotted things somehow animated. The figureheads that crept in the night. He, Curry, had bargained with the devil. He hadn’t known it.

  “Tell her. Save us. And yourself. Mutiny.”

  The clack of bone; a squishy sound. Curry turned his head and saw nothing.

  A mutiny? Could it be possible? How could corpses do anything? How could they dare fight against the captain?

  Hope sparked inside him. Mutiny! Yes! He would find her. He knew who they meant. And he would tell her everything! He would save himself!

  He rose to his feet and began to walk, slowly, numbly, very like a dead man. But his heart pumped fast, and full, and his blood rushed like a river through his veins.

  One long, sad note, as she floated on the floor of her stateroom.

  The sea has wide arms, Donna, and they are open for you.

  Jump, you sodding, sodden bitch.

  25

  Bobbing

  And I am barbing my hooks, and throwing out the net yet again, for the most delectable of fishies.

  The small boys,

  the boys,

  the Nathaniels.

  It was early morning, and they’d just finished getting dressed when Matt’s dad realized Nemo was having her babies. It was kind of scary: she squalled and yowled, crouching, shifting, bracing herself. Her body shuddered as if she were boiling, and then she grunted a couple of times, and rocked back and forth.

  She was in the cardboard box they’d fixed up for her and pushed into the closet where it was private and dark. His dad told him when she wanted to have her kittens she would probably climb into it.

  Sure enough, she had. Matt was very impressed with his father for knowing how to arrange everything. But then, of course, his dad was a doctor. And his dad was also his dad.

  Matt’s knees ached, but he wouldn’t move for anything. His stomach did flip-flops every time the cat cried and shook, but his dad said she had to do it her way, and unless she had an emergency, they could only watch.

  “Easy, Nemo,” Matt’s dad said as Matt hung over the box. Kitties! Four so far, black and white ones, and one all black. They were tiny, and mewing, moving like windup toys. They were so little, and squirmy, and cute. It was so weird, and cool, that they came out of her and just started … living.

  He had already given them names: Leonardo, Donatello, Michelangelo, and John, ’cuz that was his dad’s name. His dad wanted to name the other three Paul, George, and Ringo, but Matt didn’t get it—he knew his dad was making a joke—and his dad said it was mean, but okay, to name them after a pack of washed-up mutants. Matt got that one, and socked him on the arm for it. He still liked the Turtles, and they weren’t washed up.

  Nemo made her funny growl and jerked like a puppet. “Here comes another one!” Matty cried, bending over the cardboard box.

  “Any second now,” his dad said softly. He had told Matt to speak quietly, but Matt kept forgetting.

  Another tiny head poked between Nemo’s legs.

  Nemo struggled. Her eyes rolled. John said, “Okay, kitty, good kitty.”

  She pushed the kitten from her body. It was ooshy and wet and she began to lick it at once, and to bite at the cord. It didn’t make any noise, just sort of shivered hard. Matt’s heart thrilled. It was so amazing he was almost afraid of it.

  This one was all white. Donna, he decided. He’d call it Donna. Oops, it might be a boy.

  “Can we keep them all?” he asked. He wanted very badly to touch them, but his father had warned him that Nemo wouldn’t like it. “They’re a family, Dad.”

  His dad smiled. “What if she has a dozen?”

  “So?”

  “Well, Nemo belongs to the men on the Morris. They might want to keep them.”

  Matt extended his hand to pet one of the tiny kittens, then remembered again and drew his fist back and held it against his chest. Things were too complicated sometimes. They had saved Nemo, so they should get to keep her and her babies.

  His dad was just making an excuse, anyway, so they wouldn’t keep her. For a second or two, Matt was angry—how come his dad said no so much?—but then Nemo squalled and yowled again and Matt eagerly leaned over the box. Another one?

  There was a knock on the door. “I’ll get it,” his father offered. Without taking his eyes off the mother and her litter, Matt nodded.

  It was Dr. Hare, and he had a little boy with him. He was small with brown hair, and he had on way too many clothes for indoors—ski stuff and mittens. Matt regarded him curiously, until Nemo’s thrashing drew back his attention.

  “Oh, excuse me,” Dr. Hare said, peering around the door when Matt’s dad opened it. “You’re in the middle of something.”

  “Nemo’s having her kittens,” Matt’s dad said in a friendly voice. “Come on in.”

  “Oh? This will be an experience.” He prodded the boy forward. “Matt? This is Dane. I thought you might enjoy meeting a boy your age.”

  “Hi,” Matt said without turning.

  “Matt, Dane is deaf. He can’t hear you. He can only read your lips,” the doctor said. “You’ll have to
look at him whenever you want to speak to him.”

  Matt stared at the boy, fascinated. “Can he talk back?”

  “Yes, but it sounds a bit different. It takes some getting used to, eh?” He tousled the boy’s bangs. The kid had on his ski jacket hood and everything. He must be really sick, Matt thought. Whenever he had to go to the hospital, he had trouble staying warm.

  “Dane’s from Lake Tahoe,” the doctor added, shepherding Dane over to Nemo. “Look,” he said precisely. “The cat is giving birth.”

  The boy knelt beside Matt, who scooted over to give him some room. His skin had a funny bluish tint.

  Nemo thrashed around and meowed. Her eyes blinked open, shut, and she growled low in her throat. The kitties mewed and lurched on their stubby legs. Then she backed away, slowly, into a corner of the box, hissing.

  “Maybe one’s stuck,” Matt said.

  Then a big yucky glob of goo spewed out of her. “She’s expelling the afterbirth,” his dad told the boys as he walked over and stood behind them.

  Dane wrinkled his nose and Matt made a puking noise. “Gross.”

  Nemo hissed again. She shifted her weight onto her front legs and arched her back; the hair on her back stood straight up, and so did her tail. The fur bristled as she focused her gaze on Dane, and she shook hard and bared her teeth.

  Dr. Hare chuckled. “Protective little creature, isn’t she?”

  “I think we’d better give her some privacy, boys.” Matt’s dad gestured for them to move away and he pulled the closet door three-quarters shut. “I think she’s finished, and she wants to clean them and nurse them.”

  “Oh.” Matt was disappointed.

  To Matt’s dad, the doctor said, “Well, if it’s over, then. May I speak to you a moment?”

  There was one of those funny pauses adults shared sometimes, and then Matt’s dad said, “Hon, I’m going to go get some ice and Cokes for you and Dane. Be right back.”

  That frosted Matt a little. He never got to have Coke this early in the morning. His dad didn’t need to make dumbo excuses to talk in private. He understood about that. But he also understood his dad was under a lot of strain. So he nodded carelessly and said, “Hurry back. Nemo might need you.”