Fathom

by L. L. Standage

  “Olivia, shh!” said Calder as he clapped one of his hands over my mouth.

  The whole room went quiet for a second before Linnaeus’ voice came, low and even. “Behind the US Grant Hotel in Downtown. Friday. Six o’clock pm. Sharp.”

  The line clicked. I slumped, sobbing.

  “Why,” Cordelia began, malice coating every word, “did you make such a promise? Do you have any idea what will happen if you turn one of us over to this man?”

  I looked up. She stared at me, every line in her face pulled taut and the veins in her neck throbbing. Behind her, Seidon appeared on the staircase. He was soaking wet and clutching his ribcage, staring at me as though I had committed the worst kind of betrayal.

  “Everyone, get in the van,” said Eamon. “Uther, take Olivia’s car and follow us. I have to call Linnaeus back and straighten this out.” He reached for his phone.

  “No. We can give him what he wants,” I said. “We—”

  “NO, WE CAN’T!” Cordelia shouted. “There is nothing we can do for one human girl if it means our entire civilization is at risk!”

  “Cordelia,” Seidon pleaded. “Please…let me go. I’ll be able to turn back before Friday if it’ll save her…”

  “No, you won’t.” She turned on him. “We will not sell our secrets to save the life of one human. We will not let them have you or any of us. And even if you did do it, your tail will not have fully developed by then.”

  “We can’t let them kill her,” Seidon continued, his eyes beseeching.

  “Better her than us!”

  “No,” I cried. It took all the restraint I had to keep from beating Cordelia’s arrogant face. “If you would’ve just let me talk, maybe you’d see that not all of us humans are as stupid or disposable as you think. Samantha is like my sister. I am not going to just stand aside and do nothing. And I would never think about just handing one of you to that—that—”

  “Everyone in the car now,” said Eamon. “Move first, talk later. They know where we are. We can’t waste another second in this place. Thank goodness we had everything packed already.”

  We filed silently into the garage. I could feel the heat from Cordelia as she stared me down. Once the cars pulled away from the darkened house, Eamon spoke again.

  “Now. Olivia, why did you tell Linnaeus we could give him a mermaid?” asked Eamon, his usual calm roughened by severity. All at once, Cordelia began an angry chorus, while Seidon tried to calm her and Calder agreed with Eamon.

  “Because we can,” I said over everyone. “I still have the costume Samantha made for me.”

  That shut them up for a moment.

  “A costume?” Cordelia finally shouted. “You think a costume will fool Linnaeus?”

  “It did once, didn’t it? I can do it! I can keep your secret safe and discredit Linnaeus at the same time.”

  Cordelia made a noise as if she planned to argue, but Eamon held up a hand to silence her.

  “What did you have in mind?” he asked.

  I took a deep, ragged breath. “Linnaeus obviously invited a lot of p-people to meet a real mermaid. I f-fooled everyone once before, even Delfina. Why not do it again?”

  “Because they know you’re human,” said Calder.

  “No, they assume I’m human.”

  “Didn’t they check for gills?” asked Walter.

  “We can make fake ones. We can tell him I lied about being a human the first time and my gills were covered up or something. A-all we need to do is fool him one more time, then we can get him to leave you alone for good.”

  “What if you’re discovered?” Calder asked, still frowning.

  “That’s the point.” I struggled as my nerves kept me breathless and stuttering. “He’s going to r-reveal a mermaid to these people…what if I’m the mermaid? I can take off the tail j-just after he lets people see me. People will see it was all a f-fake. No one will ever believe him again, even if one day he does capture a real one.”

  Cordelia sneered, but everyone else stared at me in wonder; even Eamon watched me through the rearview mirror.

  “Olivia,” Natasha said, “I understand what you’re trying to do, but it’s impossible. Marinus will be there. You won’t be able to fool him too. And what if they put you in a tank of water?”

  “I can handle that,” said Walter.

  “I had Delfina convinced, didn’t I?” I said, calming down and gaining confidence. “Won’t I be able to trick Marinus too?”

  “Delfina didn’t see you in a mermaid’s natural state at close quarters,” said Cordelia with disdain.

  “I told you, we can fake everything. And we can make it all the more credible because we have the real thing to be the judge.” I looked at Seidon, hoping he’d take my side.

  “Olivia, if we do this, there’s a chance you’ll be killed instead of Samantha,” said Eamon.

  I swallowed in trepidation, but I didn’t relent.

  “You guys can get me out.” I looked at Calder. “You’ve done it before.”

  “If we can get them to do this by our terms, it may be possible,” he said. My heart lifted. Eamon sighed and looked at Walter, who nodded. He then looked at Calder, who looked back at me. I bit my lower lip, silently begging Eamon to agree. Please.

  He nodded. Cordelia sniffed.

  “We can tell them you let them have me as punishment for handing over the vessel. Captain.” I added the last part as an afterthought. A little brown-nosing never hurt anyone. She stared at me with a severe glare, her jaw so tight she could shatter her own teeth. But she jerked her head in assent and I could almost swear I saw a flicker of respect pass over her face.

  “Let’s get started,” said Eamon.

  We pulled into a motel and planning began. We started with my disguise. I showed everyone the tail Sam had made. Cordelia examined it, felt the texture in the fabric, held it up, shook it out, then dropped it on the bed.

  “Flashy. But it’ll do. As long as Marinus doesn’t touch it. Or get too close to it.”

  “It’s almost the right color,” said Seidon, scrutinizing the fabric of the tail in front of his face.

  I also agreed to superglue the tail to the skin around my waist to keep it from shifting, until I had to take it off. I didn’t care about pulling away layers of skin at this point. I just wanted Samantha back.

  “Some of us can go tomorrow morning to the nearest costume shop to see what you could dig up as far as gills go,” said Eamon, listing the items on a sheet of paper. “Anything else?”

  “Um…” I began, wishing all the male members of the group would look away or at least stick their fingers in their ears and hum loudly to themselves. “Do I need some, um, seashells?”

  “Seashells?” Cordelia raised her eyebrows as though she had never heard of any such thing.

  Oh no, did mermaids go topless?

  “Yeah. To—you know—cover me.” I gestured across my chest, my face reddening. Then of course, everyone in the room had to glance at my bosom. I wanted to vanish. At least the men had the decency to look uncomfortable.

  “Mermaids don’t wear seashells over their breasts,” she said. Uther coughed.

  I groaned and covered my face. “I’m not going topless,” I murmured into my hands.

  “What are you talking about?” said Cordelia. “I said we don’t wear seashells, not that we fin about uncovered. What do you think we are, animals?” She got up and walked out. Had I offended her somehow?

  “What are my options?” I asked Natasha in a panic.

  “Don’t listen to Cordelia,” said Seidon “She just thinks wearing seashells is for commoners. You’ll be fine wearing them.”

  “No, you won’t,” said Cordelia as she came back in. “You’ll wear this.” She tossed something into my lap. It looked like a shredded piece of silvery, scaly leather.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s called a sark,” she replied. “My fellow mermaids and I all wear them when not on patrol duty. I wore it when I
came out of the water. And no, there’s nothing special about it, so don’t get any ideas about sealskin, or whatever old mermaid legends humans tell each other for entertainment.”

  I held it up. It looked almost like a halter bikini top. Humbled by her offering, I looked up at her in disbelief. “Wow. Uh, thank you. Captain.”

  She offered a quick, very small smile.

  I didn’t get to bed that night until two a.m. I camped on a rollaway bed in our motel room while Cordelia and Natasha each got a bed of their own. The men had two other rooms nearby. While everyone else slept, I stared at the dark ceiling and listened to the traffic outside through the thin walls. My eyes couldn’t close, despite my exhaustion. I kept envisioning Samantha with those horrible men. Was she tied up? Had she been beaten as Seidon had been? Were they giving her food and water? Were they keeping her in a cell?

  The visions grew steadily worse as I wept into my pillow and clutched my blanket.

  Thanks to the internet, we found a costume store the next morning, only a few miles away from the motel. Uther wanted me to stay in my room, but I insisted on going.

  “I’m pretty sure we’re going to be the only ones in a costume store at this time of year,” I said. I couldn’t stand staying cooped up in the motel room any longer. And anyway, Calder was going.

  It came down to me, Calder, and Seidon. Calder kept casting me discreet glances as he drove, as if I were on the verge of flying into hysterics again. Once, I caught his eye before he looked away.

  “In case someone starts to question us, you should probably do the talking,” he said. “Say you’re going to a costume party or something.”

  We got out of the car in front of Pitty’s Party and Costume Supply. The large store sat sandwiched between a locksmith shop and a Water ‘n Ice. In the front, a flashy glass window framed in black tinsel contained several dressed-up mannequins. One was a pirate, one a wizard, one a Jedi knight, and one a princess.

  I followed Calder through the glass door. A small bell tinkled overhead. Shelves stuffed with kitschy novelties and Halloween makeup covered the walls. Rubber masks, both the grotesque and the familiar variety, sat on ledges above the aisles—everything from goblins to previous presidents.

  A curvy young woman with long brown hair looked up from behind a tall checkout counter, where she sat reading a novel. Her eyes brightened. A sweet, eager smile spread across her friendly face—a nice contrast from all the animosity we’d been hit with lately.

  “Hi there,” she said, putting down the book. She wore a tee shirt with a big heart on the front and a name tag reading Amber. “Anything I can help you with?”

  “Uh, yeah,” I said. “I’m, uh, looking for some things for a costume.” I sounded like an idiot, but Amber smiled again, looking as though nothing could have brought her more pleasure than to help us out. She probably didn’t see much action during the summer.

  “You’ve come to the right place. You guys from a production company? We provide stuff for costume departments all the time. What do you need? We’ve got everything.”

  A production company? Okay, I could go with that.

  “I’m not sure. I’m new to the whole costume department thing.”

  “What kind of production is it?”

  “It’s a movie about…mermaids.” Though I was reluctant to give out too much information in case Linnaeus’s cronies went digging, we needed help to make my disguise look as real as possible.

  “Ooh, I love mermaids!” She came around the counter and led us down an aisle. Her long, loose skirt swished around her bare feet. “What’s the movie called?”

  “Mermaids.” I couldn’t think of anything more inventive on the spot. I heard Calder snort behind me, but the girl didn’t notice.

  “Hm, sounds quick and to the point. Over here we have various fish tails, sea-shell bras, starfish, wigs, glitter…” She walked deeper into the store, down an aisle displaying the items she described. The fishtails she pulled off hangers were wispy and corny—a lot less realistic than the one Samantha made. I felt a pang of admiration for her skill and a new sting of worry for her predicament.

  “Actually, we already have the tail,” I said. “We just need some things to make gills with.”

  “Gills! How creative!”

  By the time we finished, we had some liquid latex, special heavy-duty adhesive, and some thin strips of flesh-colored rubber we could use to make gills.

  “Thanks for stopping by, come back again if you ever need anything!” Amber handed me the plastic bag of merchandise with one last enthusiastic grin.

  “Thanks for your help,” said Seidon as we walked out of the store with our purchases. A few minutes later, we arrived back at the motel.

  “Did you get it?” asked Eamon when we walked into the motel room where he and the others waited.

  “Yes. Everything we need.”

  “Excellent. Sit down. Listen to what we’ve come up with.” Eamon ushered Calder, Seidon, and me to sit in whatever space was available in their motel room. Walter went first.

  “I made some calls, and I found a connection at the high-end aquarium store providing Linnaeus with a water tank.”

  “How did you find the store he was going to use?” Calder asked.

  “Linnaeus is too predictable,” Walter replied. “I simply called the most expensive places. Took a few calls, but I found the right one. I told them I was Linnaeus’s personal marine biologist and they told me everything I needed to know. Linnaeus has led him to believe he is using the tank for decoration with tropical fish. They’re also letting me come in to add my own ‘modifications’ and final check before it is sent to the hotel. There’s going to be an air tank hidden in some of the artificial plant life.”

  “But I’ve never used a scuba tank before.”

  “We’ll let you practice. It’s not hard. Every time you need a breath, you just find the mouthpiece and breathe.”

  “That could go seriously wrong,” said Calder. “What if they see it, or what if she can’t find it?”

  “Then she’ll just swim to the top of the tank and take a breath. It’s only going to be about seven feet deep. Remember, according to the invitation, it looks as though Linnaeus plans to ‘unveil’ you, Olivia. If you can’t get the tank to work, it should only be about a minute or so before you’ll make your change and escape.”

  “I guess I could hold my breath for a minute.”

  “I’ll teach you some tricks,” said Walter. “You’ll be able to hold your breath for at least two minutes by tomorrow night. The air tank is only a precaution in case you have to stay under the water to be more convincing. The water tank won’t be full to the top and it won’t be encased.”

  Calder leaned back on the chair and rubbed his face.

  “Okay,” I said, my nerve endings popping like fireworks. Uther spoke next.

  “After the unveiling, we just need everyone to see you for about thirty seconds, so swim around a bit before removing the tail. Once the tail is removed, Cordelia and Seidon will break the glass so you can run to safety.”

  “Uh…how, exactly?”

  “We can break glass with our voices,” said Cordelia. “I’d demonstrate, but—well, needless to say, this establishment wouldn’t be happy with us.”

  “No glass broke when I heard the songs in the vessel,” I said.

  “That’s because it was a recording and not intended to break glass.”

  I waved aside the astounding fact that merpeople could shatter glass with their underwater songs and expressed my other, more pressing worries.

  “What about the hundreds of gallons of water I’ll be swimming in? And the broken glass? I won’t have any shoes on. It’ll cut up my feet.”

  “Maybe you could include a pair of sneakers in the plant life,” said Natasha with a teasing elbow to Walter’s side.

  “Or maybe you could just climb out instead,” said Seidon. “Do we have to break the glass?”

  “The pressure of the w
ater should wash the glass away,” said Walter.

  Eamon snapped his fingers. “Got it. We’ll lift her from the tank with a rope and pulley.”

  “A little conspicuous in a conference hall, don’t you think?” said Calder.

  “Not if we hide it in the ceiling. Historic hotels like the US Grant have been renovated many times over the years. We’ll find a way.”

  “Uther, can you hack into the hotel’s website?” Walter asked. “Can you check which room he’s using?”

  “Not even a please or a thank you,” he said as he whirled around to face his laptop.

  “I’ll google the hotel on the other computer,” said Calder, sitting in front of another laptop. He brought up the website on the screen. He clicked through several pictures. I recognized the opulent lobby of the hotel where my kidnappers had taken me. Even Linnaeus’s hotel room, called The Presidential Suite, was included in the website’s photo gallery. We scanned the pictures of various ballrooms and conference halls. Each room boasted intricate décor fit for any occasion of the rich and famous.

  “No, too small. Too small,” said Eamon as we clicked through each picture. “Wait, stop. Go back.” Calder went back to a picture of a large conference hall with a blue arched ceiling called The Celestial Ballroom.

  “He won’t use that one,” said Calder, pointing to some square, wood-paneled pillars lining the hall. “Those pillars block the view.”

  “I’ve got it,” said Uther. “He’s reserved The Presidential Ballroom.”

  “There.” Eamon pointed to the screen. This room, labeled The Presidential Ballroom, was even larger than the Celestial one. It made sense. Presidential Suite, Presidential ballroom.

  “Linnaeus is definitely a ‘go big or go home’ kind of guy,” I said.

  “Look at the chandelier,” said Calder. “There are skylights around it.”

  “Perfect,” said Eamon. “We can set up the pulley system here.”

  “We’ll need to make sure the tank is beneath the skylight,” said Walter. “I’ll go undercover and help with the tank’s setup.”