Swim

by M. E. Rhines

  “How close? Because Lennox, I’ll try like hell but I don’t think I can carry you to the surface with my tail—”

  “Calm down. Take a breath. Everything will be fine.”

  The tunnel jolted and the water slowed just as he got the words out, as if the ocean mocked him. Fear prickled my scalp as I watched his eyes widen, concern and fright dilating his pupils.

  “Now,” he said hurriedly, “we jump.”

  A scream lodged in my throat when he bounded to the side. I flipped through the water, tail over head, leaving Lennox somewhere behind in a cloud of disturbed sediment. Because I dismounted at incredible speed, the ocean didn’t have the chance to catch my fall. Lennox landed first, and though I couldn’t see him, the resounding thump he made as he hit the seafloor made my lips go numb.

  I collided face-first with the ground, screeching as bits of sand dug into my scales and gills. Excruciating pain sliced through my injured fork. I sat up, sputtering and spitting grit from my mouth and lungs.

  “Lennox,” I shouted. “Are you alive?”

  Somewhere in the distance, he groaned before replying, “A little worse for wear, but I survived.”

  “Good. Because I’m going to kill you for that landing.”

  “You’d have to catch me first,” he countered. His voice sounded closer, so I turned toward it, blinking at his shadow as it approached. “You’d usually have the upper hand. You’re a way better swimmer, but not with your tail so screwed up.”

  I waved him off. “All right. I’ll postpone your execution, then. Pending my full recovery, you’re shark chow.”

  He rubbed his neck as he chuckled. “Glad to see your spirits weren’t damaged in the fall.”

  I looked around, observing our surroundings. Small buildings cluttered the ocean about half a mile away. Voices shouted and cheered, almost inaudible. Rising above them, a rhythmic sound made my head bounce from side to side. Music. Someone was playing drums.

  “Where are we?” I asked. “It sounds like fun over there.”

  “Oh, no.” Lennox’s face went white, almost translucent. Pacing in circles, he ran his hand across his scalp, nearly wearing down the fiery red. “No, no, no. Not here. Anywhere but here.”

  When he got close enough, I snatched his hand. “What’s the matter, Lennox? Are we in danger?”

  He stopped, flitting his eyes between the kingdom in the distance and me. His chest heaved, rising and falling in a deep, panic-stricken method. Seeing him so disheveled shook me to my core.

  This was Lennox, one of Finfolkaheem’s greatest warriors. Whatever danger lurked within the nearby clan, it was enough to rattle the sort of man who wrestled great whites for sport. Common sense was enough to tell me I should be petrified.

  “I think we’re far enough away,” he finally breathed. “They couldn’t have heard us over all that noise.”

  “Who couldn’t have heard?”

  Lennox shook his head, rapid and unnerved. “Not right now. I’ll explain later. I need to surface for air, and I have to do it quickly. Here, lay on your stomach. Flatten out as low as you can.”

  “Wha— Lennox!”

  “Don’t argue with me, please. Just this once, do as I say.”

  I squinted at him, taking in the dread creasing his forehead. He was desperate, too distraught to go through our usual dance. “All right, Lennox.” As instructed, I rolled onto my stomach and sprawled out as he covered my tail with sand. Tiny pieces dug into the ragged edges of the tear on my fork, and I gritted my teeth against the pain.

  “Just in case,” he explained. “If the sun hits the blue just right, it could glisten and draw attention. You won’t move, will you? We’re in pretty deep water, so it’ll take me some time to surface and make my way back. I’ll return as soon as I can, just stay put.”

  “No, I won’t go anywhere. Hurry back, please.”

  Lennox leaned in, burying his fingertips into my brown tousles. He pressed his forehead against the back of my head, brushing his lips against my neck before swimming up. I lifted my head, watching him disappear into the blue abyss above.

  As soon as he disappeared, the music in the distance ceased. Swallowing hard, I held my breath and kept perfectly still. Something approached. It was nothing I could see or even hear, but the energy around me darkened as it came closer. The ocean grew heavy, pressing down on me with a burdening weight. The hair on my arms stood up, accompanied by a sudden urge to bolt away.

  No, I told myself. Listen to Lennox. Microscopic diamonds of sand sifted under my fingertips. I counted them, one by one, breathing in and out on each number. A distraction to pass the time.

  “What are you doing down there?”

  I gasped, jerking my head up to find an older mermaid hovering above me, her head tilted and mouth twisted as if I were the most curious thing she’d ever seen creeping out of the seafloor.

  Stunning cocoa skin graced her flesh, marked with colorful tattoos and tribal lines. Stiff wrinkles embellished her face. Tight black curls twisted down her shoulders and behind her back, almost hiding an unfamiliar breed of snake draped around the nape of her neck and resting in her bosom.

  “Well?” She raised her eyebrows expectantly. “Are you going to slither about like my friend Rellik here, or swim with the civilized merfolk?”

  A dry heat filled my mouth, absorbing words as soon as they formed. “Um…” I stuttered, unburying my tail to show her my injury. “I can’t.”

  The move was stupid, and I regretted it as soon as her caramel eyes narrowed on the specks of blood crusting on my fork. If she was a threat, I had just exposed my weakness.

  The strange mermaid reached out a welcoming hand. “Oh, my. Your poor little mermaid! That looks painful. No wonder you’re flopping around like a half-dead fish. Please, let me help you.”

  She waited, watching for permission.

  “What… what are you going to do?”

  “Don’t you know who I am?”

  “No.” I shook my head, a sheepish look on my face. “I’m sorry, I’m not from around here.”

  “Why, I’m Mami Wata. The greatest healer in the ocean. I’ve fixed merfolk far worse off than you.”

  “I’m afraid I have nothing to offer you in return.”

  She peeled back her lips, revealing a dazzling white smile that put me at ease. The skin around her mouth folded, the creases running deep with wisdom and experience. A static-laced energy moved from her body to mine, filling me with the strangest need to trust her.

  “Sweet young girl, it would be a pleasure. You can’t survive in the open ocean this way. Knowing I’ve relieved your pain will be payment enough.”

  I opened my mouth, prepared to protest. “Okay,” I said, startling myself.

  What was I doing?

  For all I knew, this mermaid could have something to do with why Lennox was so afraid of this place. At first glance, Mami Watta seemed like a harmless old matriarch, but if there was one thing I learned from the mermaids in my family, it was that no one was harmless.

  As though afraid I would recant the agreement, she hurried to place her hand flat on my tail. A soothing, massaging heat radiated from her palm to my scaly tail and webbed fork. She closed her eyes, then recited an incantation in a strange, archaic-sounding language. Her hand glowed, bright orange and fiery with power.

  Sorcery. Mami Watta used sorcery to fuse the blue flesh back together. When she pulled away, I flipped the tip, cautious at first, then harder once I realized the tenderness had subsided.

  “Good as new.” She grinned from ear to ear.

  I grazed the spot where the skin had been torn, amazed to find no scarring at all. “Thank you. You’re certainly a gifted healer.”

  “The very best.”

  As she leaned forward with her hand extended in an offer to help me up, the snake plunged into the cleavage of her breasts. “I don’t recognize the species,” I said, gesturing toward the hiding beast.

  “He’s a land dweller. A ba
ll python. This one is still a baby, but I have others in my castle who are fully grown. Some are as long as eight or nine feet.”

  “How is he not drowning? As a land snake, he needs air.”

  Mami lifted him, lengthening his body. A faint blue atmosphere surrounded him from head to tail. “I have a weakness for them. Beautiful creatures, aren’t they? It took me a while, but I found a spell that allowed them to survive down here.”

  “He carries his air with him,” I mused. “Can I touch him?”

  “You’re not afraid.” It wasn’t a question as much as an observation with a hint of admiration behind it. “Go ahead.”

  His scales danced as I ran a pointed finger down the length of him. “Marvelous. I’m taken in by any creature, really. A silly fascination, I suppose.”

  “Not at all. Animals have much to teach us about our own nature.”

  I nodded, agreeing with the sentiment. “How lucky for you to be so gifted.”

  “You have your own talents, I suspect Miss…?”

  “My name is Angelique. And no, I’m not any good at sorcery. My mother was. I tried to study the art, but I never had a knack for it. Although, I suppose I’m a fairly strong telepath. Then again, so are many of the mermaids in my clan.”

  “What about that transport tunnel I watched you fall from? You could’ve spent more time perfecting the collapse, I admit. It might’ve saved you a few bumps and bruises to do so. But that took some aptitude to create in the first place.”

  My spine straightened, and I drew my bottom lip between my teeth. Mami Watta was kind to me. She spoke softly, healed without compensation, and appeared to use her powers for decency instead of destruction. For all outward appearances, I liked her. Still, something still felt off. Something deeper remained hidden, and I wasn’t prepared to divulge the whole truth until I knew more about her.

  “I didn’t create that,” I answered honestly before adding a lie. “One of the other mermaids… back home. One who is far more powerful than I am. She thought it would expedite my journey.”

  Mami regarded me with a skeptical look. “You’re traveling alone?”

  “Yes. I needed some time to myself.”

  “Where is your journey guiding you?”

  I looked around, silently begging Lennox not to appear and blow my cover story. “No place in particular. Call it a voyage of self-discovery.”

  “Hmm. One must lose oneself before finding who they really are. You’re on the right track, then.”

  “Speaking of lost, where am I?”

  “Just off the coast of Africa. Moroccan waters, to be precise.”

  She might as well have spoken in the foreign tongue she used to cast spells. Africa, Morocco… I closed my eyes, sifting through the hundreds of maps Mother had stashed away. The more I concentrated, the more familiar the names sounded until at least some recognition came to light.

  Africa was a gigantic landmass, and Morocco was a part of it. With more effort, I dredged through the still-muddy details. A vague, distant memory conjured only one important notation stuffed away in the queen’s files.

  Snapping my lashes open again, I saw her for what she truly was. Her blue tail resembled mine, except hers was slender and longer, with silver streaks cracking the surface. The tattoos along her arms and torso weren’t celebratory or decorative. Closer inspection showed them to be little more than an attempt to cover scars. As the snake around her shoulder undulated a bit, his absence revealed solid bronze flesh on her neck where her gills should be.

  “You’re not a mermaid.” I gaped. “You’re a shapeshifter.”

  “Not entirely, no. I was a mermaid, like you. That was a long time ago, mind you. Until the day I was cursed. Now, I keep watch over the ocean and her spirits.”

  “That sounds… lonely.” In Mother’s research of Mami Watta, at least on the scrolls I had found, she was never noted to be anything other than what swam in front of me—a spirit guide and protector of the ocean. For a moment, I wondered if she’d ever met my mother. Surely a guardian of the sea wouldn’t take kindly to the chaos Queen Calypso created. Where was she during Mother’s reign?

  Mami thought on my statement, seeming confused by the word lonely. Perhaps it was an emotion she tucked away, a means of surviving her fate without going mad. Mami blinked, then her eyes glossed over. At first, I thought they were brimming with tears, but then I looked closer. Something more sinister clouded her retinas. A green, hazy fog covered the whites.

  “It comes with perks,” she explained, as though she hadn’t noticed the change. “When you’ve been around as long as I have, you see things. Things no being is meant to see.”

  Through thick lashes, she peered at me as though she could see straight through my soul. I inched away, frightened she might glimpse the evil beneath my surface. Or the pain it took to keep the festering at bay. To force Mother’s voice from overtaking my senses.

  “There’s a darkness in you,” Mami abruptly announced. The sea witch placed her calloused hand over mine and squeezed. “It claws at your skin, trying to escape through your eyes. Tell me, does it burn to harbor such wickedness?”

  Moisture pooled in my eyes. I looked away, filled to the brim with shame as a few shimmering tears escaped to float up. “Every single day,” I admitted. “I’m trying so hard, but I fear it’s not good enough. It will never be good enough.”

  A sad look washed over Mami, profound and convincible pity. “I can help you, Angelique.”

  Hope threatened to seep in, but I reined it back. A lump lodged in my throat. “Impossible. No one can help me. The hatred that pollutes my soul is beyond redemption, put there by way of breeding and upbringing. There is no escape from what I am, from what I was created to be. All I can do is keep it hidden from the world. I have to save them from me.”

  “A noble quest, but don’t you see? The only way to save them from what threatens to devour your heart is to save yourself. My powers extend far beyond repairing broken fins and seeing the un-seeable. I can purge your demons, make you whole again. Introduce you to the mermaid you were destined to be.”

  Delicious promises made from strange lips. My senses said to ignore them, cast them off as little more than the ramblings of a woman hungry for company. The distant drums started again, reminding me about the voices I heard earlier. Mami Watta was not alone; she couldn’t be. No less than a couple of dozen merfolk could have made such noise.

  No doubt, I could stay in one place and come up with hundreds of sinister possibilities. Countless reasons I shouldn’t trust this mermaid. It seemed just as likely, though, that if she wished to harm me, she would have done so while I was injured and vulnerable.

  I took a deep breath, filling my cheeks with air and blowing out. “If you can help me, Mami Watta, I would be in your debt.”

  Mami Watta led me through her humble kingdom, which amounted to little more than a winding maze of merchants lining the streets. Their stands were erected from driftwood, a silly choice for an undersea market. The water would eat away at the bark, rotting it from the inside. None of these structures would last long.

  The merfolk wore the same cloak, which was red and white, split down the center. They swarmed in our direction, their hands outstretched with assorted merchandise for sale. Pottery, jewelry, and even food items were presented to us for purchase. Mami shot them a warning glare and they backed away, bowing their heads as they did so.

  “Everyone wants a bit of silver, don’t they?” she asked through tight lips.

  “At least they’re earning their keep,” I offered as I stopped to admire an assortment of beadwork one merchant displayed. “These are beautiful.”

  The older merman selling the trinkets held out a necklace made of black stones with a cross in the center. “It’s called a rosary,” he explained. A heavy, thick accent marked his words. “The humans, they love them.”

  “You sell these to the humans?”

  “Of course. Every full moon, we lumber onto land,
selling them to tourists mostly. The natives, they have their own market. Sometimes they protest our presence, but they mostly leave us be.”

  “I see.” I furrowed my brow, trying to figure out how a mermaid could traverse from sea to land. My gaze swept from the jewelry to the merman holding them. His flesh not covered by the cloak seemed… off.

  Looking closer, I realized the light moved through instead of around him, and the skin on his arms faded in and out. I jumped back as my mind processed that the merman in front of me was not solid. Tendrils of smoke made up his person, and his figure wisped with the ocean’s natural current. Where his eyes should be, I instead found holes as black as night.

  The shimmer of his skin resembled Lennox’s, but instead of legs this… this thing had a pale white tail the same shape as mine. I looked around, stunned to discover every other merchant to be just like this one.

  “What are these people? Some kind of Finfolk-Merfolk hybrid?”

  Mami threw her head back and laughed. “What a wild imagination you have. Could you picture it? I can’t decide if such a creature would be beautiful or hideous. Although, I should warn you, they may take offense to being compared to Finfolk. In fact, Fin-men are banished entirely from these waters. This merchant is a merman.”

  “Mermaids can’t sprout legs to pander to humans,” I countered. “These beings… they reek of death. I’d say they only appear to be half alive.”

  “You’ve got it. That’s exactly what they are, Angelique. They’re spirits, unable to move on to the afterlife. Trapped in this kingdom until they change their ways.”

  I leaned in and whispered, “You mean… they’re ghosts?”

  “That’s right. I told you, it’s my job to look after the lost souls of the ocean. They serve me until their sentence is lifted. Making goods and selling the wares, only to hand the earnings over to me. Once they have paid their debt, they move on.”

  “But I thought you didn’t care about payment.” I wrung my hands, overcome with a fear that she’d brought me here to work off the magic she spent repairing my tail. A gurgle exploded in my stomach, choking me with bile as I imagined myself in their condition. Going from princess to servant in an instant. “Remember, I told you I had nothing to give!”