The Penny Drops (Sea the Depths Book 1)

by Karmon Kuhn

  “Penny, I have never intended to hurt you. I only met you as part of my mission to learn about your people. Now that I know about you, I would never hurt you. I could never hurt you.”

  She let her hands drop slightly as she considered this and then dropped to the ground to grab the bat. I backed up as she raised up with it in her hands. She began to slide sideways toward the door.

  “I just thought you were a drug addict with anger issues! But, what, you’re some kind of SNAKE CREATURE?!”

  “Penny, you can’t leave by yourself, it isn’t safe,” I cautioned.

  She looked at me and then at the door and then melted down to the floor. With caution, I went to her. I rested my hand against the bat and then plucked it from her. She gave it up easily and began to cry.

  “What’s happening?”

  I sat beside her and said, “My world has been turned upside down, and I am truly sorry that I have done the same to you. But I will keep you safe, if you’ll let me.”

  Her eyes became wet and rivers formed on her cheeks and dripped onto her chest. I wiped them with my sleeves and let her cry for a moment and then had to interject, “I think we need to leave, Penny.”

  “You’re right. Just let me grab a few things.” She stood up shakily and then fell back to her knees.

  “Let me,” I said. “What do you need?”

  She told me about a few things to get from each area of the apartment and held out her backpack to be filled. Personal care items, clothing, some paper goods, medications, and a bit of food.

  Once I’d finished, I grabbed my satchel and pulled her up from the floor. Just as I had, she gazed across the large room as if to say goodbye. Then, we shut the door on the body sprawled on the carpet.

  Chapter 12

  W

  e loaded our things into her car, and when she unlocked the door and got in, she hesitated to unlock mine. I pulled at the handle to gently remind her, and she just stared at me for a moment. Then, I heard a metal clink and the door pulled away from the body of the car when I tugged the handle.

  She locked the doors from the inside and took a small orange bottle with a white label from her bag. It read Clonazepam and her name along with instructions and other random information. I’d read the label when I gathered it from the bathroom. She pulled two round pills from the bottle and took them dry, swallowing hard and then looked around the car. Her hands were visibly shaking, and she hesitated to start the vehicle.

  “What are you doing?” I asked her.

  “These will just help me calm down. They’re prescription and everything.”

  “You are in no condition to operate a vehicle.”

  “Can you even drive a car?” she answered in a screechy whisper.

  “Penny. I cannot allow you to drive . . . I’ve driven juz̈uṣùs̈s before,” I offered.Though, this vehicle with its short ceiling, navigation wheel, and mysterious panel of buttons was much different than my juz̈uṣùs̈s.

  She closed her eyes and let her shoulders slumped. Just when I thought she was going to agree, she hit the wheel in front of her hard with both hands several times and bellowed. I squeezed my body against the door, suddenly worried that I might be in more danger than she was.

  After her fit, she opened the door, slid out of her seat, and walked over to mine. I held my hand out to receive the keys as I stood up, but she held on to them until I was in the driver’s seat.

  “Please, don’t crash my car.”

  She inserted a key below the wheel she’d bludgeoned and turned it. The car roared, and I jumped a little. Her incredulous expression proved that she was unimpressed by my handling already.

  Near my feet were two levers and up top was a large wheel and another lever. I pressed each of the levers on the floor as a test. One did nothing and the other produced a jolt and a screeching sound.

  “You have to take it out of park before you press the gas!” Penny yelled and covered her face with her hands.

  “What?!”

  She took a few deep breaths and then leaned toward me. Pointing, she said, “The left pedal is the brake. You have to press that to stop the car. The right pedal is the gas. You press that to make the car go. But, you can’t press it unless you shift the car into drive from park using this.”

  She mimicked pulling down the lever by the wheel when she mentioned switching gears. I reached my hand out and then she said, “Wait!”

  “What!” I jumped.

  “Put your foot on the brake before you switch to drive.”

  I pressed my foot down on the left pedal and then pulled down the lever as instructed. Some of the tension left Penny’s face. “Good. Now, SLOWLY push on the right pedal.”

  I removed my foot from the brake and the car started to slide forward automatically, “I’m not doing that!” I screeched.

  “It’s okay! Just lightly touch that pedal on the right.”

  I pressed the pedal with my foot, and the car started forward even faster.

  “Woah woah woah! Too fast! Hit the break!” Penny yelped.

  I slammed my foot onto the other pedal and we both lurched forward in our seats. She was wearing a safety belt that held her in place, but I slammed forward into the wheel which caused a new drip of blood from my nose.

  “Hoḧe!” I swore.

  It went on like that for some time until I was able to pull the car from it’s parking spot along the empty street and into the light flow of traffic. Although I finally felt like I’d mastered “stopping and starting,” I quickly learned that driving entailed much more. Once on the main road away from the apartment complex, cars whizzed passed me. They blared at me angrily, and their driver’s began to screech profanities and wave their middle fingers in the air.

  “It’s okay. It’s okay! Just keep going. Try pressing the gas a little bit harder. They just want you to go faster.”

  We lurched forward and then another car sped in front of me so that I had to screech the brake. This time, I had the safety belt buckled across my body, so I didn’t sustain any injuries. But, the abrupt stop caused a whole new wave of profane screams and roaring horns.

  The drive through the city was traumatic to say the least, and Penny directed me to rural roads as soon as possible. From there, the drive was mostly quiet besides the random directions that Penny gleaned from a paper map she’d had rolled up in the car.

  Every so often, I’d see her looking at me from the corner of my eye, and I couldn’t place the expression. I wanted so badly to ask what she was thinking, to put her at ease somehow, to make sense of this all. But, I had no way to do it. So, I just drove in silence, urging my sick stomach to forgive me for forcing it through this jerking, tumultuous journey.

  A few hours into the drive, she spoke, “We should get some food and gas, I think.”

  “I hope that we’ll be safe here, but I can’t know that for sure.” I answered, steadying the wheel. It was difficult for me to drive and speak.

  “I’m pretty hungry. Maybe I can just put on a hat and stop in somewhere quick? If people might recognize us, I’ll buy some hair color and sunglasses. Do you have long sleeves to cover up your tattoos?”

  “Oh, yes.” I answered and then added, “What makes you think of all of these precautions?”

  “I . . . um . . .” she started, “I had a stalker once and had to be really careful for a while. Learned to change a lot of my habits.”

  “I’m sorry.” I was flooded with guilt for being another source of anxiety for her.

  “He’s not a problem anymore,” she said. “I just never thought . . .”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I just didn’t think lightning strikes twice is all,” she answered with finality.

  Eventually, Penny saw a small store that sold vehicle fuel. We stopped, and she showed me how to fill the car with gas. She covered her hair with a hat that had been rolled up in her pack and went inside. She returned with her hands
full of plastic bags like the ones that congregated in trash islands in the Pacific.

  We drove on, and watched as the sun began to fade along the coastline, casting its likeness along the water. My eyes moistened. I’d taken my ocean home for granted, and now it was lost to me. In my peripheral vision, I could see Penny looking at me again, and I was surprised to feel her hand on mine.

  ***

  “Turn here,” Penny said quietly. “This is the place. Let’s get the bags and get inside.”

  Obediently, I pulled over toward a large patch of trees. Just passed them, down the path, a simple home began to emerge. A single story with a few squat windows and an outdoor sitting area in the front. But, as simple as the home was, the view behind it was magnificent with the multicolored sunset cascading over the beach just below.

  I went to the trunk to get our things and looked around cautiously at the beach and the dark house before us. We approached it silently, and Penny reached out for my hand. I wasn’t sure if it was to comfort me or to keep track of me, but I was glad either way.

  Unlike her apartment, there was a pad of numbers on this door, and she entered a code. There was a click as the door unlocked, and she pushed it forward, revealing a pitch black sitting room. She closed the door and then punched in more numbers to the touch screen inside. A disembodied voice said, “Security system engaged,” and I jumped.

  “It’s just the alarm system,” she said. “If any of the windows or doors open, that voice will tell us. We’re safe in here. But, just in case, let’s check everything out.”

  Still holding my hand, she led me through the house from room to room in the dark. We leaned into closets, checked under the seating, rummaged through chests, and squeezed behind the large bookcases to be sure that nothing looked suspicious. Once we were satisfied, we peered out the windows to see if anyone had appeared outside since we arrived.

  We were alone here. Then, she led me to the modest bedroom in the back of the house where we took all of the bags of supplies and our things. Next to the bedroom was a wash area where she began to unload some of the items she’d brought and purchased.

  “I think this is the best room because the windows face the coast over there and the woods to the south. The master bath, here, faces north. So, we can see quite a bit from here without leaving.”

  I had no better ideas, but somehow, I doubted that this would protect us from the best trackers and brightest minds of the tsez̈ø. Now that we were no longer in motion, my mind had time to catch up with me, and I was frazzled. In my head, images of our capture, played over and over again.

  ***

  “Have you ever dyed your hair before?” Penny asked.

  “Hm?” I half grunted, still lost in my thoughts.

  “Your hair,” she answered, “have you ever dyed it a different color before?”

  “No.” I shook my head.

  “Okay,” she answered, “I’ll help you with it. You just have to be careful because this is the cheap stuff. It’ll stain your skin, and it burns if you leave it on too long. I think we need to cut your hair too. That should change your appearance quite a bit.”

  She walked into the bathroom with the items, and I heard the bathtub begin running water. A flash of the blood at the inn lit up behind my eyes, and I winced. I shoved the thought down to ignore it. No matter what I did, though, all I could see were my mistakes, my traumas, my failures.

  Penny on the other hand, seemed to be almost unphased by it all. When I walked deeper into the bathroom, she barely noticed me as she laid out towels and all of the tools in the hair dye boxes. It perplexed me that she had such a singular focus until I came close enough to smell her. There was the finest hint of salt and a sharp clinical scent. The smell of an artificial, medical calm.

  “You need to wet your hair all the way.” She pointed to the running tap.

  I leaned down under the faucet of the large tub. At one point, she sat on the edge of the tub, and her fingers grazed my shoulder. With her hands that close to my neck, I thought of Darius’ claws clenching my throat and whipped my head away. It hit the white wash basin and water flooded my nostrils until I coughed.

  “Geez! Are you okay?” she asked and stood up. “Here’s a towel.”

  I began to dab at my face and hair as she leaned under the running water. I noticed that she held a pair of sleek, silver scissors tightly in her palm. And, even though water periodically ran into her eyes, she kept them trained on me. Her suspicion made me uneasy.

  “Let’s go ahead and cut yours before we dye it. That’ll save some time.” she said, pulling the towel off my head and laying it around my shoulders. She pointed at the edge of the tub for me to sit, and I obeyed.

  She held the scissors to the hair that had fallen at my chin and hesitated. “Is that a good length?”

  “You choose, Penny.”

  She let out a puff of air. “No. I think I’ll just cut it to your shoulders.”

  I watched strands fall onto my lap and the floor in front of me.

  “Have you cut hair before?” I asked her.

  “Yeah. I do hair sometimes for extra cash.”

  Her strokes and snips were quick, but occasionally, her gentle maneuvers became rough. The pull on my hair hurt, but I didn’t assume it was intentional. Perhaps, she just had a heavy hand.

  “So . . .” Penny began and then cleared her throat, “You were on a mission, and I kind of get that. But, what exactly were you going to do with me, if you hadn’t found out about all of this . . . stuff?”

  Again, she held the scissors still. Too near my throat. I provided a slow answer, “I would have dressed you in a compression suit, taken you to my juz̈uṣùs̈, and then brought you to my instructor at the tsez̈ø.”

  “And, what? You were going to leave me there? At the zezo or whatever?” Her hand didn’t move.

  “Honestly, yes, Penny. I thought that my people would talk with you and then return you home, so yes, I would have delivered you and then left you there.” Her eyes widened. “But, it was in good faith! I’ve believed in this tradition my entire life! And, as soon as I learned that something was strange, I left! I came to you!”

  “But why me? Why did you pick me? Of all of the 7 billion people in the world, why did you choose me?”

  “I . . . I liked you. I like you still. It came naturally. You were receptive to my bonding, and you were kind to me.”

  “I still don’t understand all of this. Why the hell do you guys want humans so badly?” she asked and then looked directly into my eyes.

  “There are many reasons that we have a tradition of human contact. Primarily, there are just so many. Fierce predators of animals on land and sea. In modern times, humans pollute the water in which we live, and the impact of that is devastating. And also, our ability to change is meaningful in itself. No matter where this ability came from, it is the best way that we can protect ourselves and grow our knowledge of the world. Even so, I don’t understand what they’re doing at the tsez̈ø. What they are using our gift for . . .”

  “Why don’t you just approach humans in your real bodies?” she asked.

  I stared at her and waited for her to consider the sheer idiocy of the question. When her expression didn’t change, I said, “You saw Darius. How powerful and magnificent he is . . . or was. He was sick, Penny. Imagine the majesty of us when we are healthy. Do you think that humans would accept that?”

  “Like, what . . . humans would be too vain to live on a planet with you guys?!” She lowered the scissors and put her hands on her hips, looking indignant.

  “No! If Darius had meant to kill us, he would have crushed our skulls between his fingers! Even he, who is weak among my kind, could have easily destroyed us both. Humans would recognize the threat of that power. And, my people would be annihilated. Our numbers are not high enough to survive an attack like that. Even with our technologies.”

  Her face became pensive. “So, you gu
ys are scared of people?”

  “Of course! Humans are a powerful force and have the population size to survive massive casualties.”

  This news silenced her, and her eyes squinted in thought. She began cutting my hair again. When she’d finished, she spoke only enough to teach me how to mix the hair dye.

  As we applied it and waited for it to cure, we sat on the side of the bathtub, she spoke again, “Is Natalie your real name?”

  “Natalie is my human name. It fits well into the English language and is easy to pronounce for most Americans,” I answered.

  “What’s the name you were born with?”

  “Names are not given in my community the way that they are here. We earn new names as we age. My human name is as much my name as the first name that I received when I was young. It just signals that I’m older and have begun my land trials. My most recent name before this was Essehi.”

  “Huh.” she answered, scrunching up her brow. “Do you want me to call you that instead?”

  “No. I like Natalie.”

  “I do too,” she answered, “It’s a nice name. It’s something I liked about you right away. I had a friend when I was little who was named Natalie.”

  “I’m glad that you like it.” I said and took her hand. I was grateful that she let me hold it.

  She opened her mouth and then closed it. After doing this a few times, I asked her, “Is there something you want to say?”

  “Yeah,” she said, taking her hand from mine. “Did you ever look like that thing . . . um guy . . . creature? The one in my living room, I mean. He kept saying ‘your’ kind…”

  “Well, my people look similar to his, yes. We are a different race though, so our coloring is different, and we have some physical features that adapt us to the ocean rather than fresh water life.”

  She started to pull her hand away as she asked, “How do you look like this now then?”

  “This is an ability that my people have always had. Each community has a story of how it came about, but I don’t think that there is a definitive answer.”

  “Hm.” She completely retracted her hand from my grasp and scratched her scalp. “I think we’d better rinse. This is starting to itch.”