by Michelle Tea
But Sophie. Had she thought to, she could have hollered a zawolanie and become anything at all. But she was frozen with horror by the scene—an Odmieńce, but also a girl. A human girl. And through their windows the scientists in the submarine could see her.
Behind the curving glass of the submarine’s window, a man stared into Sophie’s eyes, his mouth hanging open in shock. Sophie took a quick inventory of her appearance—her neat braids and shining crown and strange outfit of linen and leather and weeds, a pile of jewels around her neck. She must look like a kid playing dress-up in a toy treasure chest. From inside herself Sophie moved close to the man, close enough to hear his thoughts: This is the beginning, I am hallucinating, losing oxygen, already dreaming. And as if the thoughts were an invitation, Sophie hurled herself into him.
The fear, the stark terror of death was a roar, a reflex, the strain of every cell in the man’s body deciding to fight or flee. His mind was sharp and orderly as a computer, working to make sense of what was happening, and she understood that he was a scientist, that this was the way he thought of the world—submarine suddenly sucked down, a vortex of sorts, had heard of such things, the girl, the girl, there seems to be oxygen, I’m still breathing. And his heart, plummeting faster than his vessel as it ran through every earthly thing he loved, people, places, things. Sophie saw flashes of smiling faces and a cozy cabin roofed with seaweed that looked out onto calm waters, she saw a dog, she saw the man’s happy life above the waves. And as Hefrig delivered the blow that shattered the glass, as Hronn rushed toward the man and wrapped herself around him, Sophie reached deep into his heart and removed all the fear, all the pain, so that the love the man had for his life surged through him. She felt his head go light and he began to cry for how beautiful it had been, his existence, and how grateful he was for it. How he had loved his work. Sophie could hear pieces of it, words and phrases she did not understand, but some that resonated, dark matter, dark energy, universe, expansion—and, as she looked into his eyes, the computer, the computer, the computer, please take the computer.
All this transpired in a few seconds, but it was the long, long moment of the dying, the slowed-down time at the bottom of the ocean. Then the man was gone, and Ran was laying him gently in a patch of sand. Sophie looked down at him, dazed, heartbroken. Tears spilled from her eyes and merged into the great sea that surrounded them all. Ran looked up at her.
“I never—” Sophie sputtered. “I’ve never seen a person die before.” She heaved with sobs, trying to catch her breath. She couldn’t get the taste of his fear out of her mouth. To have seen his death, to have been witness, would have been awful enough. But to have been inside his heart at his last moment—Sophie shuddered, felt her own heart heavy inside her like a hunk of lead.
“No time for mourning, Sophie,” Ran said, gentle but firm. “There are others. And you can help them. You must.”
Sophie turned back to the submarine and saw the other scientists struggling against the water. Without hesitating, she leapt into them, quelling their fear and illuminating the love in their hearts, giving them peace. She worked with the Jottnar, and as each scientist passed she heard some of the same words in their minds that she had heard in the first man—dark energy, source, universe, dark matter, the computer, the computer.
Chapter 19
When they were done, the Billow Maidens slowed their work until they appeared again not as the ocean itself but as women, and they looked upon Sophie with widened eyes.
“My dear,” Ran began, draping her elegant arm around Sophie. “That was positively magnificent. That was the most elegant, peaceful, truly lovely death we have ever delivered.” Her daughters nodded furiously, their eyes stuck on Sophie, wordless. Sophie could not be sure in the hazy deep, but she thought she saw an icy blue tear slide down Kolga’s blue-gray cheek.
Hronn rushed to her and strangled the girl in a suffocating embrace. “Oh, could you teach me how to do that?” she begged. “My work would be so improved! What is our magic?”
“No, it is for Sophia only,” Ran told her daughter. “It is her magic alone. The magic of half-Odmieńce, half-human girl.”
Sophie startled a bit at that. “It’s Odmieńce,” she said to Ran. “My magic. Humans aren’t magic.”
Ran smiled. “Everything has its magic. Humans can’t see their own. But your ability, this—thing you do. It is so particular. It is the powers of the Odmieńce, of course, but it those powers mixed with the magic of the human heart. It is a particularly human magic, Sophia. Which is good, because it is the humans you are meant to help.”
Sophie looked down at the scientists in the wet sand around them. Hronn had closed their eyes with kisses as she took them down. They looked peaceful sleeping, but the dread Sophie had lifted from them had gathered into her heart and stuck there, throbbing. Her tears swirled in the water before her face.
“I don’t feel like I helped,” she said.
“Oh, but you did!” Kolga shouted. “Even I could feel it.” The maiden touched the spot on her chest where the feeling had occurred, the place where hearts beat inside the creatures that have them.
“It is why the Dola brought you,” Dufa hiccupped.
“I guess so,” Sophie said, uncertain. She was glad that she had been there to make their last moments more peaceful, but what was so special about these humans that the Dola would want Sophie to help them? Weren’t there people dying everywhere, all the time? Why was it her destiny to be here?
Sophie swam toward the crashed submarine and squeezed inside through a smashed-out window. It was still lit up; soon the lights would dim, but for a while they would remain bright, flashing, the ship sounding its useless alarm to no one.
Sophie was surprised at how large the thing was. There were many rooms, and so many instruments and machines. Sophie realized what it must take to keep such a thing running so far down here, and she thought about where it had been headed with all these scientists aboard, into the deep, deep sea where the Ogresses lived. Sophie remembered when she had stood before the Invisible in the waters outside the cavern, how Syrena had told her about the scientists that had dropped equipment there to study it. What had they been hoping to find?
In one of the submarine’s chambers, what seemed to be an office, Sophie came upon a package. It was bundled in a thick, waterproof plastic casing, and through it Sophie could make out a laptop. She lifted it and noted its weight, feeling the shifting thump of papers inside. The dying thoughts of the scientist were still haunting her heart. The computer, the computer, the computer. There were probably lots of computers in the submarine; really, the machine itself was like one huge computer. Sophie wished the man still lived, so she could enter his heart and ask him, This one? She didn’t want to let him down. But Sophie was the only creature breathing inside the crashed submarine. Any other computer in the submarine was already water-logged. She swam back out of the vessel, the package gathered in her arms.
Ran and the Billow Maidens were arranged outside the submarine, waiting for her. Ran nodded when she saw what Sophie held in her arms.
“Bounty,” she said. “It is fair to take it. No insult to anything or anyone.”
“It’s not that,” Sophie shook her head. “It’s not a treasure or anything. It’s a computer. And some papers, I think.”
“Then why do you want it?” asked Kolga.
“I think I’m meant to have it,” Sophie said. “Maybe it will explain what they were doing. Why I’m here. The scientist—when he died, he was thinking about it.”
Ran nodded. “Well, the Dola will let you know if you’re wrong.”
“That’s for sure,” snorted Hronn.
Sophie didn’t need to harness the water, she simply rode upon the Billow Maidens as one would body surf a current, hugging the plastic package to her chest. She felt her spirits lift when the amber glow of Laeso Island came into view, faint at first and quickly becoming a glowing path that drew them in. Sophie understood now why Syrena held this place so cl
ose to her heart. It was truly a special place, and the Jottnar a special people.
IN THE GREAT hall Aegir had fixed a mighty stew and Sophie found herself as hungry as a Billow Maiden, devouring deep seashells full of the salty, umami goodness. She heard Ran bragging about her as she slurped and slurped.
“It was incredible. Like nothing we’ve seen. Just—this peace. A peace and a love for life. She brought it to them.”
“No,” Sophie corrected, swallowing a scallop. “They had it inside them. I just… brought it out. I took away everything that was covering it up.”
“But how do you feel, Sophie?” Syrena swam up to her, touched her shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. “I know it must have been shock to you, to see that. Have you recovered?”
“I’m fine,” Sophie shrugged. Deep in her heart she knew the answer was more complicated, but it was also for her alone, the one human in the room. “I don’t need salt. Though this”—she shook her shell at the chef, hoping to change the subject—“is the best, saltiest stew I’ve ever had.” Aegir smiled and held his own shell out to her in a toast.
“She bounced right back,” Ran said proudly. “I saw her.”
“And what is this?” Syrena seemed to sense that Sophie didn’t want to dwell on the topic, and she touched the package in Sophie’s arms.
“A computer,” Sophie said. “I took it from the submarine. They wanted me to.”
“Whatever for?” the mermaid asked, taking it from her arms. She began to tug at the plastic. “You need to check your—how is it?—Facebook from underwater? You want to Tweet Laeso Island?”
“Don’t!” Sophie grabbed it back. “It’s waterproofed. I can’t open it down here. It will have to wait till Poland.”
“It’s heavy!” Syrena said. “You think to carry all the way to Vistula River? To swim with it?”
Sophie shrugged. “I guess so. I don’t know how else to open it. I can’t open it down here, right?”
“No, not a computer,” Bloo nodded. “Or paper. It will disintegrate.”
“Well, I not carrying it all the way home,” Syrena said. “So don’t ask me.”
“I didn’t!” Sophie said. “I’ll take care of it.”
“Why do you want?”
“I don’t know,” Sophie admitted. “I think it will tell us what the scientists were doing down here. It was—I heard their thoughts. I think it’s important. The submarine was on its way to the Ogresses’. To the Invisible, maybe.”
“Scientists don’t understand the Invisible,” Syrena scoffed. “That why they going there.”
“Well, whatever they know, I want to know,” Sophie insisted. “I heard their thoughts as they were dying. They were thinking of the universe, and of darkness and energy.”
“You make plan based on last thoughts of dying person?” Syrena asked. “Maybe not person’s best moment.”
“I could tell what was fear, I took it away. This was something else.”
“She did,” Ran said, coming up behind the girl and placing her large, elegant hands upon her shoulders. “We all could see it. We could feel it.”
“The Dola said I was meant to be there. To see something. Is the Dola still here?”
“No.” Bloo shook her head. “The dolphin is still here, but it’s just a dolphin now.”
Sophie gazed out at the pod, playing as they waited for Sophie and Syrena. She spotted the one the Dola had inhabited. It was back with its fellows, leaping and nosing around. Sophie felt a tug of longing. She wished she’d gotten to say good-bye to the stupid Dola. She wished she could have shown the Dola her package and asked, This? Is this what I am meant to have? But the simple fact that the Dola wasn’t there perhaps confirmed it. It was her destiny.
“Well, we learn everything in Poland,” Syrena nodded. “But your arms be sore, carrying that so far!”
“In Poland I come out of the water, right?”
“Right,” Syrena nodded. Sophie brightened at the thought. Sunshine, fresh air, regular movement. Syrena looked skeptical. “Do not be so happy. Will be hard. Should know that.”
“Okay,” Sophie said. “But then I get sunshine back, right?”
“Ya. You get your sun. I do, too. I river mermaid now. Much used to sunshine myself.”
AS SYRENA AND Sophie prepared to leave Laeso Island, Kolga swooshed up to Sophie in her current of chilly water.
“Sorry about that,” the maiden said sheepishly to Sophie, watching her shiver. “I can’t help it.”
“It’s quite all right,” Sophie said. Kolga reached out and touched her, running her hand up and down Sophie’s arms, rolling with goose bumps.
“So interesting,” Kolga said. “I myself don’t really feel the cold. I just am it.”
She held out a backpack. It was roomy, canvas, army-issue. The buttons had started to rust, but Sophie could make out the mark of an anchor stamped upon the metal. There were handsome striped patches decorating it. She offered the pack to Sophie.
“I thought you could put your thing in this, while you travel. I think the straps go over your shoulders—”
“Yes, it’s a backpack,” Sophie said. “I have one at home.” Of course, the one back at home was small, fit for her own body, not a man’s. Sophie tugged the straps tight, but the bag still sagged down her back. Still, she supposed it was better than nothing. And she liked the rugged look of it. She slid her package inside and, after a thought, removed the heap of gold and jewels she’d rebelliously looped around her neck. There were so many strands she could not hold them all in her hands, and some slid loose, falling into the sand like bejeweled eels.
“I’m sorry I was so rude,” she apologized to Kolga. Sophie didn’t need to go inside the Billow Maiden to understand that Kolga’s coldness was no more personal than the coldness of snow, the sharpness of icicles. She might not have a heart as Sophie had come to understand such a thing, but she had what she needed, and the same forces that had created everything else had created her.
Kolga bent and snatched up the fallen jewels, slid them into Sophie’s backpack. “You can have all of them. I want you to, please. Enjoy them. Trade them for food, whatever you need them for. I am lacking in certain intelligence,” she confessed without shame. “I have a very strong mind, strong instincts. But without a heart there are many things I can’t comprehend. Human things, especially.”
Sophie dropped the mound of necklaces into her backpack. It weighed her down, but she couldn’t resist the treasure. She wanted to show the jewels to Ella, to give her some, to give some to Andrea, to Angel. Angel wouldn’t wear such things, Sophie imagined, but she could sell them and have more money for her and her mother.
“What about the crown?” Kolga asked. “Should I help you with it?”
Sophie’s hand rose up to her head, where she felt the chalky toughness of the coral and the ridges of the seashells, the smooth chunks of gems and the heavy golden links. She gave the little octopus a pat and was startled to feel how it had grown. It’s a baby, she thought. Not a teacup octopus. Not a miniature. It will grow.
“No,” she told Kolga. “I think I’d like to wear it.”
“It suits you,” the maiden nodded. “You look more regal than when you arrived, more…” She searched for the words, then gave up. “You look more the way I expected you to look. Having heard so much about you for so long.”
Chapter 20
It took forever for Syrena to extricate herself from the endless round of hugs the Jottnar heaped upon her. Sophie watched as the mermaid lifted Hronn’s hands off her, holding them in the air.
“Take her!” she cried. “Someone take her, or I will never get home to my river!”
Ran stepped up and grabbed her daughter, redirecting her embrace. Hronn hung on her mother so that their two robes flowed together as one. “Travel safe to your home,” she said, “and please remember that this is your home as well. You too, Sophie.” She smiled at the girl. “You are always welcome at Laeso Island.”
/> “Thank you, “Sophie said. “I really hope to see you all again.”
“You will,” Bloo said with a smile. “The Dola told us.”
Ran stared in amazement at Blooughadda’s face. “A smile,” she said. “I haven’t seen this one smile since she was a wavelette. Your magic is evident, dear Sophie!”
“It was my pleasure,” Sophie said humbly, almost shyly. She had entered the Jottnar home so confused by them, so overwhelmed and condemning. She was happy her departure was different. They were in her heart now, even cold Kolga, even and especially bloodthirsty Blooughadda. “It was an honor,” she addressed the maiden, “to visit your complicated heart.”
“It was an honor to host you,” Bloo replied, bowing her head. They were like two queens regarding one another. With her crown on her brow and her backpack heavy on her back, Sophie commanded the waters and, alongside Syrena, she left Laeso Island, a chorus of love at their backs.
IT WAS THE Dola who had evicted the mermaid from her home on Laeso Island, back when she was a young mermaid who had just lost her sister. In the form of a seal, the Dola had glided into the golden chambers where Syrena was tending the Billow Maidens. The maidens all trilled with glee at the sight of the slick, whiskered animal, but Syrena rose quickly and put herself before them, considering the creature, then the girls. They were no longer babies, or toddlers either. They were big enough to fend off a hungry seal, and there were many of them, nine in total. Plus there was Syrena, her narwhal tusk never far from her grasp. And just one seal, plump, well fed. The mermaid relaxed.
“May they pet you?” she asked the seal, holding back the tide of maidens who swirled around her legs, in love with the sweet-faced creature. And the seal answered not in the seal squeals she’d learned to understand, but in the language of mermaids—though spoken in the chilling voice of the soulless.
“They may pet the seal, but it is you I have come for, Syrena.”
The mermaid’s tail went numb and her heart grew sore at the sound of the being’s voice. The Billow Maidens backed away, and the more sensitive among them began to cry. “Shush,” Syrena scolded them, fighting back her own sob. “Go to your Moder. Go now—tell her the Dola has come.” The myth Syrena had been raised with was that one would always know the Dola if the creature came for you, and now she found the myth was true. Syrena’s spine was cold, as if formed from vertebrae of ice. The maidens scuttled back into the cave.