The dinghy slowly swung over the side and landed in the water with a splash. Zeb climbed over the edge and dropped into the dinghy, then turned to give Corrie a hand. Corrie dropped beside him before he fully extended his arm.
“We’re on a time constraint,” she said. “No time for gallantry, although I appreciate the gesture.”
“Noted,” he said. “Start the motor while I unhook the chain, then.”
“Aye aye,” she said. Zeb’s face twitched in an involuntary smile.
“Not you, too.” When the motor roared to life from Corrie’s yank, Zeb took the handle and sat in the stern. “Let’s go fishing.”
The motor had decent horsepower, and they zipped over the waves at a good clip. Corrie held onto the side with the wind whipping loose strands of her braided hair in her face. Zeb squinted against salt spray and the sun and soon spotted the three fish jumping ahead. A mass of brown fronds, nearly an acre in size, spread in front of them on the surface of the heaving water.
“We won’t go through the bull kelp,” Zeb yelled over the noise of the motor. “It’ll wrap around the propeller. We’ll circle around and intercept them.”
Corrie gave a thumbs up and grabbed a handheld net from the bottom of the boat. It was nearly as long as she was tall, and Zeb masked a smile as he imagined her trying to wield it.
The fish dived under the edge of the kelp bed and disappeared. Zeb slowed the motor and they chugged around the perimeter. Zeb strained his eyes for any clue as to the fishes’ whereabouts. Corrie pointed at a clump of kelp.
“I think that kelp moved,” she said.
“Kelp beds are teeming with fish,” Zeb replied. “I wouldn’t rely on movement to track them. No, we’ll go to the other side and try to spot them when they emerge.”
“Zeb? Anything?” Krista’s voice came through the walkie-talkie.
“They’re in the kelp. We’ll wait them out for a bit. Over.”
“Roger.”
The island on their left was heavily forested and uninhabited, and waves crashed on the rocky shore. Corrie asked about it.
“Valdes Island,” Zeb said. “Hardly anyone lives there.”
Corrie looked back at the kelp, and Zeb’s eyes followed. A distinctive flash of silvery rainbow caught his eye at the edge.
“Damn it!” Corrie yelled. “There they are! They were too quick. Can we cut them off?”
“Too fast,” Zeb said, but he gunned the motor anyway and held up the walkie-talkie. “Krista, we’re chasing them around the corner. Over.”
The fish leaped and soared closer to the island. Zeb’s gaze raked over the rocks, where a dark chasm slowly revealed itself. The fish made a beeline straight for it.
“They’re going in that cave,” Zeb said to Corrie. “Hang over the bow. I need you to watch for rocks.”
Corrie’s face set in determination, and she shuffled to the bow and draped herself over the metal. The water was murky in the open but clear in the shallows.
“Rock there,” Corrie squealed and jabbed her finger at the offending protrusion. Zeb deftly slid the dinghy past without danger.
The cave beckoned with a dark menace. The sides dripped with seawater and barnacles, and although the cave was wide, the roof was low. Beyond the first few boat lengths, all was darkness. Zeb’s jaw clenched at the danger to his dinghy, but they were too close to answers. They had to find the fish, find out if it was what Zeb thought it was.
“Do we have a flashlight?” Corrie called out.
“Maybe a flare,” he replied. He rustled in the emergency bag behind his feet to extract a flare. He tossed it forward and the flare struck the boat near Corrie’s feet. “There you are. Should give us a few minutes. How big can this cave be?”
“Famous last words,” she muttered. Louder, she said, “Rock on your right!”
“Starboard,” he corrected with a smile in his voice. “You need to learn the lingo on my boat.”
Corrie didn’t respond to his jibe. The light was growing dim and the blackness ahead was eerie. Corrie reached around with her hand to feel for the flare without taking her eyes off the rapidly darkening rocks below the clear water. She turned for a moment to light the flare with fumbling fingers, and Zeb slowed the boat while she was inattentive to dangers. When Corrie finally struck the flare against the rough surface of the cap and averted her eyes from the dazzling red flame, she held the flare high over her head and gasped.
“What?” Zeb hissed. Then he looked down and let out his breath in a whistle. He put the engine in neutral and let the boat drift in the wide cave.
Strolias swirled everywhere. A whole school drifted in the waters below the dinghy, their colorful scales glinting in the flare’s light as they slid their bodies against one another. Their horns were easier to see now—a swirl of translucent fish bones that water could pass through—and for a moment Zeb couldn’t breathe. They were just how he had always pictured them, just how his mother had described them.
“Damn it. I forgot my camera!” Corrie’s voice came out in a frustrated squeak. “Can you net one?”
“How could I not? They’re everywhere.” Zeb slid the handheld net toward him and held it over the water. Corrie lifted the flare higher to give him more light, and the fish glinted in the clear water like a bowl filled with rubies.
Zeb braced his knees on the bottom of the dinghy, lifted the net over the water, and stilled. He waited for a breath with his heart thumping painfully in his chest. With a sharp jab down, Zeb plunged the net in and scooped it through the water.
It was pandemonium. The surface exploded with finned bodies. Water sprayed, and tails slapped. Corrie shrieked and the flare wobbled. Zeb struggled with the net as hundreds of fish leaped to the mouth of the cave and the water boiled beneath the hull.
When the water calmed, Zeb held aloft the net. Wriggling and flashing in the red light, a strolia thrashed in the ropes. Zeb hardly blinked for fear he would miss a second of seeing this legend come to life.
“Get the bucket!” he yelled, all dignity forgotten. “Fill it with water. Quick!”
Corrie scrambled to dip a bucket below the boat’s edge and strained to lift it into the boat. Zeb carefully guided the net toward the bucket. Corrie moved forward to help, but Zeb shook his head.
“No, stay back. That horn is sharp. Looks sharp,” he corrected himself. Also, if his mother’s stories were correct, the tip was poisonous. Corrie backed away to the bow, but she watched with wide eyes.
Deftly, Zeb dipped the net into the bucket and wiggled the fish out. It swam in agitated circles, its horn scraping the sides of the bucket every few seconds in an uneven rhythm. They stared at it for a moment.
“We did it,” Corrie whispered. She looked at Zeb with shining eyes. “We caught it. A strange new morphology, possibly a whole new species. This is incredible.” A little laugh escaped her. “How did we get so lucky so quickly? What do you think we should call it, Corricus Zeballus? Unicorn fish to the layman?”
Zeb snorted. Corrie was already thinking of her science career, but he couldn’t stop going over all the stories that his mother had told him as a child. What else lurked in the deep? What else might they discover? What else in the stories was real?
“I’ll leave the scientific naming to you. Come on, let’s get this bad boy to your aquarium tank.”
KRISTA
The radio crackled to life. Krista grabbed it.
“We caught one,” Zeb said through the static. “Coming back now. Over.”
“Roger that,” Krista replied. “Over and out.”
She replaced the radio in its cradle then looked over to Jules, who lounged with his feet up on the counter. Krista eyed his boots with distaste but simply shook her head. Everything she said to Jules regarding manners tended to slide off his back like he was a particularly oily duck. She’d given up years ago.
Besides, they had more important things to discuss.
“T
ell me something honestly, Jules.” Krista crossed her arms and faced Jules squarely. He put his hands behind his head and looked at her.
“I always do,” he said. “What’s eating you?”
“That creature you and Zeb saw on the boat when you were teenagers.” Krista couldn’t bring herself to call it a troba. That would be giving too much credence to Zeb’s mother’s stories. “Really, what was it?”
Jules shrugged.
“Dunno. Could have been a mutant porpoise. Weird color, though. And I swear it had gills. Could have been some Frankenstein experiment gone wrong. But, really, Zeb’s theory that it’s an undiscovered species that his mother somehow knew about, it’s as good a theory as any.”
Krista released her breath explosively.
“Damn it. I need Zeb to put this to rest. Move on with his life. He’s obsessed for months about whatever secrets Dad was keeping from him. It’s not healthy. I was expecting this trip to show him that there’s nothing else out there, and then he could let it die a natural death. But now? Whatever this unicorn fish is, it’s only going to fan the flames.”
“Yeah, he’s not going to stop now that he’s getting proof. But don’t you think there might be something to the stories?” Jules looked at her with curiosity. “Zeb is different, after all. Is his theory really so far-fetched?”
“Yes, it is,” Krista snapped. “Don’t go feeding into his obsession.” There was something different about Zeb, just like there had been something different about her step-mother, Clicker. But helping Zeb find answers was less important than keeping him safe. Krista had promises to keep, and she never made promises lightly.
ZEBALLOS
Zeb pushed the little dinghy motor as fast as it could handle, and the engine whined. Corrie gazed at the bucket between her feet with rapt attention, her conversation stifled by their discovery. Zeb stole glances when he could. Every so often, the horn of the fish poked out of the top and a shiver ran down his spine. He wanted to look at it more closely. He needed to.
“What will you do first?” Zeb’s voice was hoarse with anticipation and tension. Corrie looked overwhelmed at the question.
“Put it in the tank and observe, first. Observations always come first in science. Then, maybe some water samples, try to swab the skin, analyze it for proteins and DNA back at the lab…” She shook her head. “We’ll have to play it by ear.”
Zeb nodded, but couldn’t force any more words out of his tight throat. They approached the boat, and Krista came to the deck to help bring the dinghy up. Her expression was stern and resigned, and Zeb could practically hear her consternation over their capture. He wondered if this would finally make her believe.
He pulled up next to the boat and Krista leaned over the side.
“Here, pass it up first,” she said, her hands at the ready to grab the bucket. “I’ll send the winch over in a minute for the dinghy.”
Corrie took the bucket and carefully stood in the swaying dinghy. She gripped the bucket with both hands, then slowly raised it to Krista’s waiting ones.
Before Krista could grasp the handle, a wave hit them broadside. The dinghy rocked, and Corrie wavered. Water in the bucket sloshed. The movement must have frightened the fish, for it made one last attempt at freedom. It leaped out of the bucket, body flipping back and forth, scales winking brightly in the sunlight. Zeb cried out and dived forward to catch it, poisoned horn be damned. He couldn’t let it get away. His fingers almost landed on the creature’s tail, but his fist grasped only air. The fish flopped over the edge of the dinghy and splashed into the ocean.
“No!” Zeb shouted. He stood and prepared to dive in. Swimming was as simple as breathing for him. If he dived in now, there was a chance he could recapture the fish. It was his first sighting of a strange creature since the troba. He needed to catch it.
“Zeb!” Krista’s voice was sharp with a hint of fear. He paused, and the moment to catch the fish died. He balled his fists. He knew that Krista didn’t want him to act strangely in front of Corrie, but her hesitance had made him lose the chance to get the fish. It was a strolia from his mother’s stories, he was convinced of it. But now he couldn’t be certain beyond a shadow of a doubt, because they didn’t have the creature on board. Krista couldn’t understand the draw the answers had for him. He stayed facing the sea for a moment, breathing hard, too angry to meet his sister’s disapproving eye.
“Were you going to jump in after it?” Corrie asked, her voice incredulous. “Better you than me. It’s freezing in there.”
The cold never bothered Zeb. He imagined the fish sliding through the cool, green water, forever out of reach, and his usual stoic façade cracked. He took a breath then slammed his fist against the hull. It made a dull ringing sound.
“How did we lose it? Hundreds of strolias. We even caught one, and it got away.”
He ran his fingers through his short hair, trying to master himself.
“What did you call them?”
Zeb kept his eyes on the sea to avoid Corrie’s gaze. He hadn’t meant to let that word slip. They were calling them unicorn fish before; while not original, it was at least descriptive. He was supposed to be getting Corrie to talk about her monster interests, not his. No one else needed to know. Krista and Jules were enough.
“It just came to me.” He picked up the net and tossed it to Krista, who glared at him in remonstration for letting the word slip. “Let’s get on deck.”
“And figure out what the hell those were, and how to catch one?” Corrie said with a question in her voice.
While she was the director of scientific operations on board the Clicker, Zeb was still the captain and had the final say for their sampling program. But this was the opportunity he had been hoping for, dreaming for, and the same eagerness infused Corrie’s question. Zeb met her eye.
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
CORRIE
Corrie climbed out of the dinghy using the ladder that Krista had slung over the side. Her body shook from adrenaline and disappointment. The unicorn fish had been in the bucket. They had been so close to bringing it aboard, examining it, studying it. She dug her nails into her fists in frustration. She’d been hoping for something like this ever since she had seen the mermaid. Something, anything, that would prove that she wasn’t making it all up. She didn’t know how they could have found something so incredible on their first day at sea. Why didn’t everyone know about the unicorn fish if they were that easy to spot?
This was big. So big. Had they discovered a new species, or at least a morphology so different it was worth documenting? Could this change her career, or science itself?
Could they catch one first?
“I had so many tests I wanted to run,” she burst out when Zeb cleared the deck, his mouth and eyes grim. Krista had retreated into the cabin. Corrie slammed her fist into her palm. “How could we be so unlucky?”
Zeb shook his head tightly.
“We just need to try again. Come up with a plan.” He glared at the ocean in the direction of the cave. “We can set up a net trap in the cave. Fish can be habitual. Or maybe they like caves in general—we find other caves and put traps in their entrances. We could dive to find more. Let’s not give up.” Zeb’s words were hopeful, but his tone held all the disappointment that Corrie felt. He was very enthusiastic about the unicorn fish, even though to him they were surely no more than a weird species of salmon. Although, he had called them by a funny name…
“I’ll get a net,” Zeb said. “We’ll go by the cave on the way to your next station and I’ll set up the trap. Let’s keep doing your stations but keep an eye out for caves on the way. We can circle back here tomorrow.”
Corrie nodded, and Zeb walked toward the wheelhouse. She took one last look at the water, but when no flashes of rainbow shimmered on the surface of the sea, she turned to go to the lab. She had science to do while they waited for their lucky break. Although the unicorn fish wasn’t a m
ermaid, its uniqueness would validate her blog, validate her whole belief in the legendary. This opportunity was too amazing to ignore. However, she had plenty to do in the lab while she waited for a unicorn fish to appear. While not legendary, her work on metabolites was important and far more likely to help her career.
Corrie froze. She might not have a unicorn fish, but she had the water that it swam in. Were there traces of the fish in the water? Urine, scales, any excretions it might have made—Corrie whirled around to find the bucket. It sat forgotten on the deck, half-full of seawater. She carried it carefully to the lab. It was a slim chance, really no chance at all, but if she could concentrate any DNA from this water, she might be able to find something out about the fish.
Corrie stayed in the lab when Zeb ran the dinghy to the cave once more with Jules. She had plenty of samples to prepare and analyze, and she couldn’t face the disappointment of the empty waters of the cave. Sure enough, when the dinghy returned, Zeb’s face was shuttered, and he went to the wheelhouse without a word. Jules leaned against the lab’s doorway.
“No unicorn fish in sight, but the net’s all set. When’s our next station?”
“A couple of hours, I think,” Corrie said. She pursed her lips in concentration as she pipetted a chemical solution into a sample tube. “Niskin bottle, same as last time, but diving as well. I need to collect some anemone samples.”
“Roger that,” Jules winked at her and gave her a salute. “We’ll be ready. But first, lunch. I’ll call you when it’s made.” He disappeared into the galley and Corrie’s shoulders slumped. Then she tightened her jaw. The unicorn fish might be back tomorrow. And when it was, she would be ready.
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