Fathom

by L. L. Standage

  I sunk down to my air mattress.

  “I think we know what the big secret is all about.”

  She nodded, then gasped as though a new idea smacked her in the face.

  “Olivia…these people—I think I know why they rescued you.”

  “Why?”

  “The photograph! They thought you were a…” She trailed off and the memory of the beings I saw in the ocean returned: their wet heads and their powerful shoulders as they emerged from the open water.

  Sleep came and went in sporadic lulls. I kept having nightmares of fish people wielding knives, scaling the walls of the house, and leering at me through the window...

  After my last bout of unproductive slumber, I awoke to pale light from outside and an ache in my hip and shoulder. I’d been sleeping on the ground. The air mattress must have had a hole in it.

  I got out of bed and stood to look out the window, apprehensive from my lingering dreams. The fog lay thick on the steel gray ocean. It made me wonder if last night was just another wild dream—a result of trauma from my stupidity at the Oceana Adventure Park.

  I looked over at Samantha. She slept on. A pang of helplessness, coupled with being homesick for freedom and familiarity, made me want to lie back down and cry for a while. My stomach grumbled. I hadn’t touched the food Eamon gave us last night. Maybe I could try to go back to sleep. I got back into my uncomfortable bed and stared at the wall.

  Samantha stirred but didn’t wake. Temptation to wake her arose, just so I could have someone to talk to, but I ignored it. She was as tired, if not more, than I was.

  I reached for her cell phone to check the time. Almost six o’clock. I sighed and lay down again. Whether it was my empty stomach, worry, or anticipation knowing Eamon was hours away from answering all my questions, I couldn’t get back to sleep. Finally, with a bit of bravery borne from hunger and angst, I threw the covers off and stepped out of the room.

  Sleepy, early morning silence pervaded the upstairs hallway. I walked toward the stairs, feeling like an intruder. Just as I started down the top steps, I heard someone moving in the kitchen: footsteps, and the pouring of a liquid. I came down farther. Eamon looked up from where he stood behind the counter. He held a coffee pot and a chipped green mug. I stopped, afraid of his reaction to seeing me.

  “Ah, good morning, lass,” he said in a kind, quiet tone. “Coffee?”

  I blinked. “Um, sure.” Caffeine, just what the doctor ordered. Literally. He brought out a mug embellished with splashy San Diego lettering and poured coffee into it.

  “Cream and sugar?”

  “Yeah. Thank you.”

  “Toast?”

  Was he really going to be this nice?

  “Okay.”

  He placed two pieces of white bread into a small toaster on the countertop and pressed the lever down. Then he bent over the ice chest, brought out a bottle of coffee creamer, a jar of jam, and a tub of butter.

  “I’m a bit of an early riser.” He stirred some cream and sugar into our coffee mugs with a plastic spoon, then handed me the San Diego one. “I take it you are as well.”

  I walked into the kitchen and accepted the hot mug.

  “Actually, no. Not at all. Only when I’m…worried about something.”

  “I understand.” He sipped his coffee and looked out the kitchen window. I sipped mine as well. He’d added a lot of sugar. “Let us go for a walk when you’ve finished. I find that a walk is good therapy for one who hasn’t slept well.”

  “O-okay,” I said. I jumped when the toast popped up, sloshing my coffee. Eamon placed the bread on a paper plate and handed me a plastic knife for the butter and jam.

  “You sure it’s safe?” I dipped the knife into the jam jar. Strawberry—my favorite.

  “Of course. I didn’t poison that toast.”

  “Huh?” I looked at the toast and gave a small laugh. “Oh. No, not the food. The walk, I mean.”

  Eamon grinned. “I’m teasing, lass. I think we’ll be quite all right. The waves are poor this morning and the fog just might keep the joggers from coming out early today.”

  “Can Samantha come too if she wakes up?”

  “Certainly.”

  I smiled, drank my coffee, and ate my toast. Not the most filling breakfast I’d ever had, but Eamon’s kindness both humbled and warmed me.

  After I finished eating, Eamon rinsed our mugs out.

  “Now then, how about that walk?” he asked. “You’ll probably want to nip upstairs and get yourself a sweater.”

  I obeyed and hurried upstairs as softly as I could. Once I walked in the bedroom, however, I saw Sam lying with her eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling. I paused in surprise. Tears leaked down the sides of her face. She wiped them away with her fingertips.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “It’s my fault.”

  “What is?”

  “Everything.” She sniffed. “It wasn’t because they found you at the tidal pools. It was that stupid photoshoot. The costume and the tabloid. You getting hurt. If I hadn’t talked you into it, this wouldn’t have happened.” She covered her eyes. “They wouldn’t have thought...”

  I sat down beside her. “It’s okay.”

  “No, it isn’t,” she said. “I blamed you for it, when really I was the one who made this happen. The whole thing is just stupid and scary and I’m the cause of it.”

  I sat down by her bed.

  “You didn’t make that surfer boy take my picture. If anything, it’s his fault. If he hadn’t been such an idiot, then we wouldn’t be here now. It’s not your fault. It’s not mine either.”

  She peeked through her fingers. I continued.

  “Eamon’s taking me for a walk. Why don’t you come with us?”

  She shook her head.

  “We’re going to get some real answers.” I grabbed her hand and pulled her sitting up. Then I went over to my luggage, dug for my sweatshirt, slid on my shoes, and went back to the door. Sam still sat on her bed.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry I got mad at you.”

  “It’s okay.” I gave her a reassuring smile. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  She sniffed again, rubbed her fingers across her nose, and stood. When we got downstairs, Eamon waited by the back door.

  “Ready then?” He walked outside. We followed him down the sandy stairs of the deck and onto the deep, dry sand of the beach.

  It looked like rain. I hugged myself, glad I had my sweatshirt. My wimpy, thin-blooded body whined at me with the dense chill in the air. I was, after all, a born and bred Arizona girl.

  The froth of the waves greeted me like an old friend. I breathed in the comfort the ocean brought me. Far out to sea, the dark ghosts of a few ships were just visible through the fog. I closed my eyes and took another breath before digging my hands into the pockets of my sweatshirt and trailing after Sam and Eamon. We strolled toward the ocean until the sand became firm and damp, where he slowed.

  “So, you said you like to study the ocean, Olivia?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “And you, Samantha?”

  She snorted. “No.”

  “Ah.” He quieted for a moment, meandering along and gazing around at the sky, the sand, and the ocean like a tourist on vacation. I wanted to say cut the crap and tell us we were hallucinating last night, but I resisted the urge as we continued walking.

  “About last night…” I said when I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “You both were in a place you weren’t supposed to be,” said Eamon. “Habit of yours?”

  I closed my mouth and looked away. I glanced at Sam. She stared morosely at the sand.

  “Look…” Eamon bit the inside of his lip as if to delay his next words. “Sometimes, things happen. It can’t be undone. We took a lot for granted when our paths crossed and became careless. I’m sorry you were dragged into it. But it happened and must be dealt with.”

  Dealt with? I stopped walking.

 
“What, are you guys going to kill us now?”

  Eamon laughed. “Heavens, no! Why on earth would you think that?”

  “You just said we needed to be ‘dealt with.’ I’ve seen enough movies to know what that means.”

  Eamon chuckled again. “No, lass. That’s not what I meant.”

  “Then what? If I saw what I think I saw...”

  “You’ve only witnessed one of the most powerful secrets in the history of our planet,” Eamon replied. “You saw them yourselves. You can’t deny it.”

  “I can if you tell me I was dreaming,” said Sam.

  “I wish it were that easy. Think about all that has happened. Think about the dangerous people you’ve come into contact with. What would someone be willing to kill for?”

  I thought of Delfina, of the gun held to my head, the bullet wound in my shoulder, and the knife at my throat. As I looked back on everything, it all made sense: the vessel and everything that emerged from it, the mystery, the murder, the out-and-out obsession coming from Linnaeus, and the things written in his file.

  “As hard as it is for us normal folk to even imagine such a thing to actually exist”—he moved his gaze right into my eyes, then Samantha’s—“the only answer I have for you is—”

  “They’re real,” I whispered, my voice barely louder than the crashing waves. This wasn’t possible. This just couldn’t be possible. How was it happening here, here in this world full of normalcy, of reality, of pure, total ordinary? I looked toward the vastness of the ocean, swallowing with difficulty and tasting the salt in the sea air on the back of my throat.

  “I can’t believe it,” said Samantha, staring at the ocean as though expecting more of them to emerge. “I saw them and I still can’t believe it.”

  “Linnaeus and his men,” I continued, remembering what Samantha said last night. “They thought I was one of them. One of the men who kidnapped me that night, he looked at my neck before he told the others I wasn’t...what they thought.” I still couldn’t bring myself to say the word out loud.

  “Did he?” Eamon raised his eyebrows. “Interesting. He must have been looking for gills.”

  “Gills?”

  “Yes, gills. How else would they breathe?”

  “Haven’t thought much about it,” said Sam with a huff.

  “How could Linnaeus make a mistake like that?” I asked. “I mean, my picture was in a tabloid. It was full of fake stories. Why did everyone take the picture so seriously? Even you guys.”

  “It’s not hard to convince someone who already knows they exist. The average human would brush it off as a hoax.”

  “The red-headed lady saw the picture too,” said Sam. “At the grocery store. She heard us talking about it.”

  “Yes, Delfina confided in me about the picture,” said Eamon. “She expressed her concerns about merworld security. I assured her that the photographs in that magazine would never be taken seriously by the greater part of humanity. But she wouldn’t let it go. You aren’t the first to end up in a magazine, Olivia, just the first to convince a real mermaid.”

  “Still…how could she think that someone like me could be someone like her?”

  “Well, it isn’t too difficult to imagine, if you know enough about them,” Eamon said, casual again, as though we discussed manatees instead of—of...but I wasn’t ready for casualness yet. The shock was still too fresh, like a cut I didn’t know I had smarting in salt water. “Consider the mistake a compliment. Merpeople are beautiful creatures.”

  Merpeople.

  I shuddered as the word hit me like a bucket of ice in the face. Merpeople!

  “W-what are they like?” I whispered. “I mean, beyond first impressions.”

  “Well, I’ve only met a small number of them myself. Most aren’t too friendly, especially to humans.”

  “Ya think?” said Sam with a sneer.

  “They have much to be defensive about,” Eamon continued. “With the exploration of the oceans becoming all the more technologically advanced, we’ve made them more secluded. I’ll reckon there’re no more than a dozen or so humans on this planet who know they exist. Consider yourselves extremely lucky.”

  “But why the big secret?” I asked. “Wouldn’t people be happy to know about it?”

  “Many reasons, most of which are difficult to explain,” said Eamon. “The simplest: power. They are powerful creatures, but they know humans are powerful as well. They’ve been dismissed as mythical for so long, to expose them to the world would be catastrophic to their culture, even their lives. It’s best to keep the worlds separate.”

  Separate worlds. It felt like the world, the Earth I had known all my life was no longer real, but a dream slipping away like sand in my fingers. Could I ever go back to a normal life? I reached up and felt my wounded, miraculously healed shoulder.

  “I have another question,” I said.

  “Fire away.”

  “You guys seemed to be in the right place at the right time when I got sh—hurt.” I couldn’t bring myself to say shot. “How did that happen?”

  “Calder said he saw you along the shore with Samantha last week. He was with Delfina. Do you remember?”

  I nodded.

  “I’ll try to make an already long story short,” said Eamon. “She’s the one who told us about you. A couple weeks ago, someone stole the vessel from their sacred cache. Delfina’s mission was to get it back. She contacted us after she came to the surface, though reluctantly. We came here to help her. She thought you were one of her people. You see, merpeople can visit land pretty much whenever they wish, if they have the means and permission—especially those that have just come of age. In some marine cultures, there are young merpeople who will live on land for a period of time as a test of courage. She figured you were just such a one, though a novice at transformation. Her assumption, and ours, was that you came and happened to befriend Samantha.” He paused and his grin faded as he continued. “Delfina had gone on her own to try to get the vessel. She was successful stealing it back from Linnaeus but had to flee and had no choice but to give it to you to keep it safe. By the time we found her again, she was dead, and the vessel was gone. Then we tried to find you to see if you had any information since you were the only other merperson we knew of in the area—at least, one who might be willing to help us. We were almost too late.”

  “What is the vessel? Why is it so special?” I asked. Aside from the fact that smoky people singing strange poems came out of it.

  “They’re important artifacts. They store information. When Delfina said one of her people had stolen it and brought it here to San Diego, Linnaeus was our first lead. We’ve dealt with him before. We knew it wouldn’t be a simple matter of getting the vessel back. It all became a tangled mess when Delfina mistook you for a mermaid.”

  “Because of me,” said Sam with a grimace. “I talked you into it, Liv. It’s my fault. It was just a stupid photo shoot. I was trying to be more creative.”

  “No,” I said, “it’s Brock Mallory’s fault.”

  “Who?” asked Eamon, his demeanor darkening with concern.

  “No one, just the stupid guy who sent my picture to the tabloid. He’s got a few screws loose.”

  “Ah. I’ll have to put Uther on the alert for the lad. If he’s a threat, we’ll find him out. But generally speaking, his type fade into obscurity quickly.” He leaned over to Sam. “We can’t expect you to have known what would come of that picture.”

  “And…did Delfina really kill herself?” she asked.

  Eamon sighed, long and sorrowful. “I’m afraid it’s very likely. Someone of her skills and experience would carry poison in case they were caught. There must have been something to threaten the merpeople’s very existence or she would not have done it. Unless, of course, we are mistaken and someone killed her. Walter has gone with the merpeople to retrieve her body.”

  “I’m really sorry,” I said. “She seemed nice.”

  “She was to you.”

>   “What do you mean?”

  Eamon clasped his hands behind his back. “Merpeople are dangerous and suspicious creatures. You’ve seen that already, from the, uh, warm welcome you received from Cordelia. It is a rarity for one of them to trust a human, much less be kind to one. I seem to remember Delfina threatening to throttle Walter once.”

  He looked up, his brow rumpled in recollection. “Ah…a story for another time.” He stopped walking and looked us both in the eye. “I trust you understand the delicacy of this situation. You weren’t supposed to find out about what we do. Secrecy is absolutely vital.” He folded his arms and stared at us as through narrowed eyes as though trying to laser the importance of silence into our brains.

  Sam and I nodded.

  He continued with more fervor. “I’m serious, now. We may have joked about you being ‘dealt with’ a minute ago, but in truth, there are ways of ensuring your silence. Ways the merpeople will not hesitate to use. However, because of your innocence and your actions in bringing back the vessel, Cordelia has allowed us this conversation. I do not believe human life is expendable but the merpeople will disagree. If there is any doubt, even a whisper of treachery—”

  “I get it,” I said quickly.

  “All too well,” said Sam in a small voice, her fingers traveling again to her throat.

  He bobbed his head once. “Come, let’s get back to the house. I see our beach is no longer deserted.”

  He motioned toward a few wetsuit-clad people in the distance trying their luck with the minimal swells and threatening rain. It felt odd to see them, like the world was trying to remind me of just how ordinary it used to be. Not anymore.

  We followed Eamon away from the sand and the sea. I turned back once to gaze long at the ocean—only because I knew from now on, there would never again be any turning back.

  Showering felt miraculous. The hot water sloughed off a lot of the worries I carried. I wanted to stand there and let the heat roll over me for hours, but of course, being half gate-crasher and half prisoner in this house, I turned the water off quickly. Six other adults in this place wanted a hot shower sometime today too.