Fish Out of Water

by Ros Baxter

  I tried to sift through what I could actually tell Doug about what had happened over the last couple of days and came up with: not much. So I drilled him instead. “What’s been going on here? No-one snooping around?”

  “’Round Blondie, y’mean?”

  “Her name’s Cleedaline.” It was out before I could stop myself.

  Doug paused. “Right,” he said. He looked at me carefully, weighing what he could read on my face. “Course it is. Strange name, Sheriff. And how d’ya know that?”

  I wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Forget it,” he let me off the hook. “Ask no questions.” But he looked like he really, really wanted to.

  I smiled at him by way of reward. “Thanks, Doug. So what’s the gossip in town?”

  “Man, this place is all lit up with Blondie,” he said, shaking his head sadly at me. “Who she is, where she went, what the hell Billy did to get her lost. Everyone knows, and Aldus is pissing his pants that he’s gonna get the rap for it all. Almost as much as Billy.”

  “Huh.” What I’d expected really. At least no-one was asking crazy questions, trying to connect dots. “Thanks, Doug, for looking in on her. I’d better get going.”

  “Where y’off to?” He had that looking-for-action face on that I’d seen too many times.

  I hedged. “Why?”

  “Oh, I dunno,” he started. “Wondered if you might need some company.”

  “Nah, Doug,” I replied, although I wanted to say yes please.

  He looked at me steadily. “Y’know, Sheriff. You’re not responsible for saving the whole world.”

  I wanted to say “If only you knew” but he went on before I was tempted.

  “People who do bad things, they’re doin’ ’em to all of us. You need to take some help.”

  His words warmed me, but unfortunately, it seemed that there were things I was totally responsible for. It was me who called this hell down upon this town, whatever it was. And it did actually look like I may be responsible for saving the whole world. In fact, for changing the course of freakin’ destiny and saving the world entire. Entire, mind you. That’s big.

  And I knew one thing for damn sure. There was no way I was taking anyone along for the ride this time. Or ever again. As scary as that is, it sure beats the hell out of feeling responsible when someone you care about gets hurt. And this big guy might look bullet-proof, but I was in a better position than anyone to know he’s got a hundred scars to prove he’s not.

  “Look, thanks for the offer. Gotta go see a lady in Williamstown. She might know where Cleedaline was before she came here.”

  Williamstown is the closest city to Dirtwater, and it’s also where I can find The Link.

  “Well, Sheriff,” Doug drawled, less pirate than usual, more cowboy. “Guess this here is your lucky day. I’m heading there myself right now. I can give you a ride.”

  “Is that so?” I narrowed my eyes at him. “Heading there for what end, pray tell?”

  Doug feigned outrage at my suspicion, his hand clapped dramatically over his heart. “I have to see a man about a dog, for your information.”

  “A dog?” Now I was confused.

  “You really don’t need to know,” he finished. “Yet.”

  I was curious, but I could tell by his secretive tone that he really did have some kind of business in Williamstown. Actually, a ride might not be a bad idea. Least that way I could think on the way over there. “This dog wouldn’t be able to launch rockets, would it?”

  “Oh, baby,” he sighed. “Ask no questions.”

  I was developing a suspicion that Doug was higher up the food chain in the shady organization he worked for than being just a gun for hire. But I knew one thing for sure: I did trust him. “Okay,” I conceded. “Let’s go.”

  The ride up to Williamstown was uneventful, with the only break to the monotony of the highway the scattered road kill rotting in the heat. It took two hours and Doug stayed blissfully quiet, so I could think and plan. He only talked to check radio settings and climate control.

  I was stroking the larbra scale bag that I still hadn’t opened but had brought with me. Stroking it in some ancient, rhythmic wave. I kept thinking about Mrs Tripe saying I’d know when the time was right, and I wasn’t not sure plain old curiosity was enough. I didn’t know why I’d grabbed it as I headed out and brought it along for the ride. For luck I guess.

  While we drove, I thought again about the sound weapon, getting goose pimples all over as I remembered how it had felt as it blasted me, blasted into me. I wondered if it was the weapon that was meant to be the end of me. Soon. Very soon, according to the Seer. I thought about Mom, and Suzie. Lecanora. Mrs Tripe. The people who needed me. Then I gave myself a little slap and tried to focus again on the sound weapon, puzzling over what it could be. Seemed to me the damage was triggered by a single, perfect note, sung at a particular pitch.

  But what kind of technology did it use to wreak its peculiar brand of hell?

  What did it look like? Was it big, small? Would I know it if I saw it?

  And, most importantly of all, how could I stop it? I mean, it looks like if I’m on land, ear plugs help, at least enough to get me away from ground zero. But if I’m in water, the poisonous sound is carried in the very vibrations around me. Mom sang me out of it, but that wasn’t such a reliable antidote. I couldn’t carry my Mommy around with me while I tried to work it all out.

  I decided to take some time to question Doug. “Doug?”

  “Yup.” It was like he could feel an interrogation coming, and was already buttoning up.

  “You know you mentioned that weapons test you saw?

  He nodded noncommittally. I knew he’d seen some bad things. “Yup.”

  “Any idea how the technology worked? What it was?”

  “I’m a soldier, not a pointyhead.” He scrunched up his face. “Look, my guess is it was some kind of nuclear thing, and the sound was just the… delivery mechanism, I guess. The geeks who ran the test, they had these little boxes, no bigger’n a small TV, I guess. And they sort of… tuned the frequency in, I guess you could say. And then wham! A world of pain.”

  “You had plugs in?”

  He nodded.

  “So how do you know what the weapon could do?”

  He looked at me and I could feel his melancholy. “Ask no questions…”

  I decided not to, and we passed the rest of the trip in silence til he spoke again.

  “Up here, yeah?” I noticed we’d pulled over next to some dumpsters. It was a seedy part of town, and I clocked the square set of Doug’s shoulders and the almost imperceptible movements of his face as he scanned the block. “Maybe I should come in too?”

  “You’ve done enough, D,” I said gently, giving his hard-as-rock arm a little squeeze.

  His puppy-brown eyes held my gaze for a couple of seconds, checking.

  Words were not Doug’s thing. But I could tell he was remembering last time, and he was worried. It occurred to me that while there was a deep, wild part of me that Carragheen resonated with, like a shadow of my own self, there was also something about this guy that met a part of me too. It was like Carragheen touched the parts of me that were mermaid – the parts that sing and yearn. And Doug spoke to the parts of me that were human, practical, cop.

  I reached deeper inside myself for some words of reassurance. “Anyone tries to hurt me, I’ll just arm wrestle them,” I said with a smile I didn’t feel.

  “Yeah, right,” he sighed, and I watched his big biceps bunch as he worked the stick shift. “Pick you up at Fatso’s at noon.” He checked his watch, and I checked mine too.

  “Two hours,” we confirmed in unison, and I thought it again: cut from the same cloth.

  I looked up at the big old project blocks in front of me, so tall they threw the street into shade. I’d only been here a couple of times in my life. Both times I was a kid, and I was scared. Something about the sullen misery of the faces around me, and the trash an
d the noise. This time, stereos were singing out their rackets, people were yelling at each other and the acrid smell of despair was carried toward me on a stiff mid-morning breeze. This was a place that hope left years ago, if it ever made a stop here in the first place. It was sad, but I wasn’t scared. I had a lot of years under my belt since I came here with my Mom, and I’d seen enough bad shit to know these people were just poor. And poor don’t necessarily mean bad.

  Either way, I also knew I could take care of myself.

  Aegira keeps a Link in every nation on earth, someone who helps set up base for the watch-keepers, organizes their papers, housing, clothing. They stay under the radar, and the Williamstown projects are about as far under as you can get. The Link could live much more comfortably, with all she gets from Aegira, but she grew up here. To her, it’s home.

  Doug had barely disappeared down the street when a small black girl grabbed my hand and tugged on it. “This way,” she ordered solemnly, pulling me with her to the narrow corridor between the high grey buildings. “Mom’s ’pecting you.”

  I followed, watching the girl’s skinny shoulders through her too-small dress as she jumped and skipped over discarded bottles and puddles of God-knows-what. She reminded me of Susie, roughly the same age, I figured. I made a mental note to ask The Link why she subjected her children to this hellhole. But once I was standing in front of her, the thought was chased away by what I saw in her eyes.

  The Link was scared.

  It’s like a chemical thing, a smell you recognize once you’ve smelled it enough times.

  She wasn’t doing anything different, just taking my coat, fixing tea, pulling out a chair from the Formica kitchen suite. But it was sticking to her, the way cigarette smoke gathers in the folds of your clothing and the pores of your hair after a big night out.

  She commanded the kids to leave, and sat opposite me.

  I was onto her. “What is it?”

  The Link cocked an eyebrow.

  She was a huge woman. As a child, I’d found her astonishing bulk reassuring among the noise and waste. But today she looked smaller, shrunken. I took a moment to quell the racing of my pulse, breathing like my trainer at the academy taught me when I was learning to shoot. Sweat was pooling in the deep grooves of her face and her eyes looked wide and wet, alert.

  She didn’t pull any punches. “Dey know you here, mermaid. Dey know all about you.”

  Thud, thud, thud. Time seemed to slow down as my heart rate sped up.

  I’d forgotten. Forgotten that accent, and that way of speaking, full of portent.

  “Who are they? What do you know?”

  “Nothin’,” she responded quickly, and just as I knew she was afraid, I could see it was the truth. “But the kids tol’ me. Dey followed you here, mermaid. Followed you to me. The kids, dey saw dem. Dey’ve been in here too. I knows it. Dey been through all da papers.”

  “Is that how they knew where to find me?” I could smell bitter fear over the sweetness of peppermint tea.

  “No.” She eyeballed me straight on, challenge in her stare. “No records of you girls here. Yo Mama’s case too old.” She sighed. “But I real sure it’s how dey found Cleedaline.” She sighed again, the action causing her chin to wobble. “And I guess dey followed her t’ you.”

  “How did you know about Cleedaline?” How could The Link know she was dead? She’d only been gone a heartbeat. No-one back in Aegira even knew yet. So how did The Link?

  “We was supposed to meet, yestaday. You don’t break a date ’less you can’t come.”

  “Because you’re dead?”

  “Mm-hmm.”

  The clock ticked noisily into my head. I could hear young children outside, singing a song about all falling down. They were chanting it, nursery rhyme style. It made me shiver and I shook it away. “Did you tell Cleedaline where to find me?”

  “Nuh-uh.” She shook her head, quickly. “Nuh-uh, you know da rules. No-one knows where da watch-keepers are, unless dey placed at da same time. Sometimes dey get together, but only ever in twos. For company, like. Udderwise, we never tell, not allowed. Not to anyone.”

  I looked around. “So whoever it was, they broke in here?”

  She shook her head, and the long, droopy arc of flesh underneath her chin wiggled again. “No. Dey didn’t have to. I fink dey just hydroported right on in. Me, I was at church. Musta left on foot though. Because da whole file was gone.”

  “Gone,” I repeated. She nodded. “Can you tell me where she lived?”

  She hesitated, then obviously decided the code didn’t count anymore. “Over on Filmore,” she whispered. “Corner of eleventh. Da top floor.”

  I went to leave, and The Link touched me. I could see her eyes were wet with tears. “I never lost one before, mermaid,” she said, breathing cigarettes and peppermint tea. “You know dat? I never lost one until now. And she was so…” She cast her eyes up and to the right, searching. “She was like moonlight.”

  “I know she was,” I whispered, holding her hand briefly on her landing.

  “Whatcha gonna do?” Her eyes cast about rapidly, wet and huge in her face.

  “I’m gonna find whoever hurt her.”

  “Den what?”

  “I’m gonna kick their ass.”

  She let me go, and I almost sprinted the short distance to Filmore.

  As I ran, I could feel eyes on me. My skin prickled and my radar pinged madly.

  They’d been following me, she said. Watching.

  I ran harder as thoughts filled my brain of how they tried to kill me, and how they killed her. The girl like moonlight. My lungs were screaming when I arrived.

  A few blocks, but a whole world away.

  Cleedaline’s building had a doorman, and good security. But despite the show, I was a cop, and I’m really freakin’ devious, so I was taking the stairs two at a time before the guy with the uniform on could even wonder whether I really did look like a realtor. I used my skeleton key on her door, and it popped like a champagne cork.

  Some security, I humphed in disgust.

  Cleedaline’s place was beautiful. She’d done it in shades of blue and green and I realized with a sad jolt that she was desperately homesick. As I spun in an arc, taking in the walls and floors of the spare space, I could see that she was an artist as well as a song-maker, and that she’d filled the space with her own memories from home. Pieces of driftwood and shell. Whimsical sketches, watercolors, oils. All of home. Of Aegira.

  And of Imogen.

  I looked at the four or five images I could see of Imogen and wondered if maybe they were lovers, after all. There was something about the graceful, sloping lines Cleedaline had used to draw her face, and her body. There was love in them, and I stretched the boundaries of my intuition to try to pinpoint what manner of love it was. And then I decided it didn’t matter. She loved her, that was all. And she found out she was missing. But what else did she know?

  Then I saw it. Against the wall on the south-facing side. Or maybe it’s more accurate to say I didn’t see it. It was just a square space, a fine imprint where the dust hadn’t settled. A hole in the room. And beside it, a tattered box of fish food, and other assorted paraphernalia.

  For an aquarium.

  The reef fish, back in Dirtwater. They were hers. So I was right, that’s how she did it. That’s how she hydroported to me. She used her fish. Her aquarium. Incredible. And she must have really been distracted, in a terrible hurry, because the aquarium came through the portal with her, like it can sometimes, when you do it wrong.

  Suddenly I had a whole new level of respect for this girl. The aquarium was big, sure, but surely she didn’t actually fit inside it. I mean, the girl was seriously big. Amazonian. She was no teeny little Chinese contortionist. She must have stood in the tank. Stood in the water and sung. But why? It must have been so hard to do it like that, she must have been desperate.

  There was an unsettled energy, a jarring note to the vibe of serenity with which C
leedaline had filled this place. The bastards followed her and hunted her down and… I felt sick at the thought. She came to me. But why? Why me? There had to be a reason.

  I could feel it almost throbbing, calling out to me like a lost child.

  Cleedaline’s secret.

  Chapter Ten

  Cookies and Visitors

  Cleedaline’s Apartment, Williamstown

  I looked around the beautiful room once more, at the blue-green sea of love and peace, and for the first time, I consciously tried to will myself into a vision.

  I focused on her face.

  I tried to see it as it would have been in life, mobile and beautiful, rather the cold mask I’d known. I tried to imagine her distress as she heard about Imogen. My eyes flashed open and settled again on the canvasses she had painted, the images of her beloved friend. I focused on one of them, a watercolor of Imogen, swimming naked amid a shimmering mass of tiny blue fish, her face half turned, the long sinews of her back and neck dominating the scene.

  My, how Cleedaline had loved her.

  Then the vision came. But this time it was different. I wasn’t overwhelmed and pulled under by it. It settled into the private places of my brain. I was in control, not swept away.

  In the eye of my mind, I saw a book, leather-bound, with a note sticking out of it.

  My mouth dropped open. Everyone knows the cardinal rule of watch-keeping. Keep no records. The vigil must be secret. No-one must know what we are, or from where we come.

  For some reason, Cleedaline broke the rule.

  I concentrated again, hoping like hell I wouldn’t have to tear this place apart to find that book. I turned my mind inward, focusing on it. The caramel leather was worn. I focused on the fuzzy edges of the picture I could see inside my head. What was near it? Where was it?

  The indistinct lines started to take shape, forming and re-forming as I concentrated on them with all I had. And then it was clear. The book was here, in her apartment.