by Dani Stowe
“Yes, I know.” Heavens, my knees are weak from the touch of his hands on my face and the way he called me “librarian”—slow and with a roll of the “r” on his tongue. I really want to hear him say it again.
He tilts his head sexily sideways. His hands slip back in his pockets as if he has something to hide. Naughty boy. “So, who better than the town librarian to show me around?” he asks.
I perk up. “I’m also the town historian.”
“No way!” He’s so excited. “So, you can give me the scoop on everything here?”
“Mhm,” I nod. “And I also work for the sheriff. I’m sort of his assistant.”
He clears his throat and shoves his hands deeper in his back pockets. “Really? That’s... that’s quite fascinating. So, are you also a part of law enforcement? Do you carry a gun and all that stuff?”
“Oh, no.” I roll my eyes. “I just do all of the sheriff’s dirty work.”
“Dirty work?” The young man is intrigued. “What kind of dirty work?”
“Not dirty,” I correct myself. “It was a euphemism. I’m more of a bookkeeper. I keep our sheriff’s files and evidence organized and clean up after him when I need to.”
“Wow, you are one very interesting lady,” he leans over the counter, takes off his glasses, and bats his eyes.
Damn! He is just as cute without the glasses as he is with them on, and I figure those fluttering lashes are an indication he’s flirting with me but he just called me ‘interesting’ which doesn’t sound very enticing. Perhaps if he had called me intriguing or beautiful or—
“Listen, sexy. I want to take you out. And I’m not the kind of guy you’re going to have to clean up after. I promise.” He cocks his head with a grimace and points at me. “What time do you get off?”
A hot nerd just called me sexy and he wants to take me out!
“I’ll be closing up early per the sheriff’s orders. About six.”
“Per the sheriff, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“Fascinating,” he nods, slipping his glasses back on. “So, I’ll be back at six to pick you up?”
“You can pick me up at the bakery down the road. Perhaps at seven?” I smile.
“All righty then,” he snaps his fingers and fists one hand into the other, then points his fingers, like guns, at me and turns towards the doors.
“Hey, wait! What’s your name?” I shout.
“My name?” He turns back with narrowed eyes. He looks curiously dangerous at this moment.
“I don’t... know... yo-your name,” I stutter.
“It’s Levi. And yours?”
“Athena.”
“Of course,” he says with a chortle though it’s mostly to himself. “With so many wonderful attributes, you just had to be a goddess. Didn’t you? Athena.” He growls my name as if he’s hungry—like a wolf before it pounces on its prey, but then he bows his head down, his eyes glaring devilishly up at me through his glasses. “This is going to be a lot of fun, isn’t it? I’ll see you later.” He waves and walks out, shutting the door behind him.
I take a breath and exhale slowly. The static in the room remains electrifying. I stand behind the counter absorbing what just happened and what might happen later tonight until I get distracted by what’s in my hand.
He forgot his books!
Picking the first book up again, I rescan the barcode to return the book back into the library system. Repeating the process with the second and third, I pause when I get a glimpse of the fourth book, a reprint on political philosophy originally published in 1651 by Thomas Hobbes, entitled Leviathan.
I’m curious as to why Levi would choose such a book and I figure it’s either related to his studies or because the title curiously resembles his name. I also wonder if Levi knows the term Leviathan is an ancient name for a sea demon.
4
Athena
“Bye,” Levi waves as he rolls away.
There was no kiss but I’m fine with that.
I’m twirling. I had such a great time.
As I hike up the metal staircase to my studio apartment that sits above a small bakery below, I’m recollecting all of the events of the night.
Levi was such a gentleman. He opened doors for me, pulled out my chair, and he even helped me to scoot closer towards the table before he sat down to have dinner with me at the small Italian bistro down the road.
As we strolled through town he’d listened intently to my every description of the town from its history to the architecture to the folklore and the little-known secrets (some of which I probably should not have divulged like the time Henry was abducted right out of prison and right from under the sheriff’s nose, although I didn’t name names).
When Levi dropped me off in his Corvette convertible, I was sad to learn the car was only a rental—proof Levi was not going to stay in town for long. But he did ask to take me out again tomorrow. I feel like a fairy as I fly up the staircase in the short, mint-green sleeveless dress with a chiffon skirt that floats behind me.
I dig in my purse for my keys and... oh, shoot! I adjust my glasses as I rummage through the silver beaded clutch. I don’t have my keys!
I spin around looking over the rail of the staircase to the empty bakery parking lot below. Levi is long gone.
I wiggle the doorknob to my apartment and sure enough, it’s locked. I scratch my head before I turn towards the direction of the library. I can see the top of the building from here. As I take one step then another down the staircase, I figure it will only be a short walk. I do it every day and although my senses feel heightened due to the late hour—probably after 1 a.m.—I figure I have no choice because I have an extra key to my apartment there. Of course, I’ll have to break into the building, but I’ve already done that once before, slipping through the basement window, and it’ll be easier this time around.
My silver ballet flats hit the asphalt at the bottom of the staircase and I notice a faint shadow at my feet—my shadow. Looking up into the night sky, I see the moon is glowing, beautiful and full.
Heading towards the sidewalk, I admire the street lamps. The town association has done a fairly good job at preserving the original Victorian feel after recently installing burnished antique copper light posts that zig-zag down Main Street. But the lights, themselves, are solar and the light is already beginning to dim. Soon, the street lights will have no glow. On any normal night, I wouldn’t be able to see past ten feet in front of me. So, I’m thankful for the moon brightening my path this evening.
The streets are empty. The night still feels magical but the air is stagnant until a chilly breeze blows past me.
I hear a caw. A crow perhaps? And a dark shadow feels like it’s looming.
I look up. Clouds are rolling in to hide the moon.
Seeing the path ahead, a shadow unfolds like a blanket completely covering Main Street.
Hastily, I cross into the darkened street when I stop. Right in the middle there is a tapping noise coming from the direction where I need to go. I can’t make out exactly what the tapping is though.
Is it an animal? A person? Someone’s watch on their wrist ticking? Or is it their footsteps?
I recall I was not supposed to be out at night. The town is on curfew per the sheriff’s orders because of the missing girls.
The tapping continues and then there is another kind of sound, except this time, it’s coming from behind me.
I spin around. “Hello?” I call out but no one answers. Only a soft echo returns my words from between a dark empty alleyway.
A knocking—is it a knocking?—begins in addition to the tapping and I’m wondering, what the hell is going on!
The taps are getting louder and the knocking is turning into somewhat of a boom on repeat. Now I’m wondering if someone left their stereo on inside one of the little shops that line Main Street.
I take a step forward, but I stop again when I hear tinkering. A high pitched tink-tink-tink repeats itself as someo
ne seems to be fiddling with metal.
I take a step forward, but I stop again. My heels feel damp and a cooling sensation slowly makes its way from my ankles to my shins and then above my knees. When I look down, I see my legs have disappeared up to my thighs into a thick layer of fog.
The fog is rolling. Rolling and rising. The fog behaves as if it’s breathing. The cloud is so dense, I wiggle my toes that are going numb, to make sure they are still there as I cannot see the lower portion of my legs.
I look to the library in the distance. The fog fills the street now, moving between the dated buildings as if the fog was a gathering of ghosts in search of victims.
My blood is racing. I can feel the calamity of my heart pounding in my head, which is competing with the tap, knock, and tinker that is getting louder and louder around me.
Where are these sounds coming from?
I feel like I’m in a dream and I wonder if perhaps I got food poisoning at dinner and am getting sick.
The fog rolls in even thicker, rising to my chest until it’s over my head, so I can no longer see anything but clouds. I feel like I’m suffocating even though I can breathe. But then I sense someone come around from behind.
“Who’s there?”
I’m blinking, trying to get a good look. I’m freaking out, trying to keep it together. But I figure right now would just be a good time to run from this madness!
I shuffle one foot forward when my name sounds out. “Athena.”
Something has spoken my name. I say something because it’s not a voice. My name sounded out from all around me.
I gulp, listening intently. The tapping, the knocking, the tinkering have all slowed down. I bring myself to focus on the sounds when they clamor in unison once again but more loudly this time.
“Athena.”
Only a slight tap—or drip, I should say, resounds now. I realize the sounds are being made by water, dripping and banging against objects in a chorus to create speech in surround sound.
I close my heated eyes. Thirty years I’ve been chasing this man, this creature, or whatever he is. Thirty years I’ve dreamt of this, this very moment, the moment I would meet a magical merman—the merman.
My heart is still eager to engage with him and although I’m bitter that he humiliated me earlier, my voice insists on replying back. “Captain?”
“Where have you been?” The clamor makes him sound somewhat angry. The high-pitched tinker finishes each syllable with a sharp tone.
“Why are you asking?” I’d really like to know. He’s never cared before.
The fog moves swiftly across my line of sight. “Last night, you said you would return to me this evening. I waited on the beach.”
I clutch my purse tight in my hand. He was waiting for me? Then why did he embarrass me today?
“Truthfully, I always hoped you were listening, but I was never quite sure.”
“I was always listening.”
“Right,” I chortle. “That’s your job, isn’t it? To watch over the seas? To pay attention to everything that connects with the ocean?”
“Ha, I wish I could laugh,” he snickers. “I pay attention to nothing and to no one. Except...,” he pauses, “you.”
My eyes scan the dim, damp cloud that surrounds me as my heart floats up into my throat. “Me?”
“Yes, you.” The sounds—his voice—has deepened. “You will return with your books to the beach tomorrow to finish the latest story and you will bring another to begin.”
I swallow. I’ve already promised Levi I’d take him on a tour of some underground passageways that lead from some old homes to the docks that were was once used by pirates to shuttle goods. They’re closed off to tourists but are still maintained by the historical society.
“I... I can’t,” I stutter.
Cold. My toes suddenly feel colder as the fog sweeps between my legs, rolling into a dense cloud before me. I’m squinting at the cloud, trying to get a good visual as it becomes transfixed into a dense ball of rising water and the next thing I know I’m looking at a block of ice that morphs into a man. A very tall, a very brawny, a very angry-looking man. Not a merman. A man. Made of ice.
“And why not?” his glass lips are unmoved as the surround speaker of water clamoring around me speaks for him in a low tone.
He walks closer and my eyes are ogling his magnificence. I can’t believe it! He steps with sloshy crushing sounds—ice against the pavement, which makes me feel uneasy. When he stops in front of me, I have to tilt my head back, way back, to look up and observe his face. His eyes are the only part that is left of his human state, encased in two perfectly fitting craters of ice, and they are fixed on me. I don’t recall ever drawing his eyes this way. He doesn’t look happy.
“I have a date.” The words tumble out of my mouth.
Ice against ice makes more grinding noises as Willis moves his arms and legs—pacing back and forth in front of me.
“A date?” he asks.
I forgot. He likely did not use such a term in the time before he was transformed. “I mean a guy is taking me out.”
“You have a gentleman who’s called upon you to court you?” He clarifies, stopping in his tracks and my heart stops, too.
What am I saying? What am I telling him? I’ve waited forever for this—to meet Willis—and here he is in front of me! I have so many questions. So many things I also want to say.
I step closer, clutching his arm and it burns! “Ah!” I quickly retract.
“Don’t touch, Athena!” The bang and boom of his clamoring voice vibrates into my bones and echoes as if we were in a canyon. “In this state, I will hurt you. You can never touch me like this. Just as fire burns, ice this cold causes instant decay.”
Fanning my hand, I blow on my fingers, attempting to ease the pain. I see that Willis is watching me. Through odd angles of ice plus the reflection of moonlight against the edges of his glimmering frame, I think I can see what he would look like as a real man with flesh. His square jaw hosts prominent square teeth under natural plump pouty lips and a heavily curled cupid’s bow. His high cheekbones sit opposite a straight long nose under a strong brow. Despite the searing throbs where my fingerprints have been removed, I would still like to touch him, touch his face. The ice is thick but looks so clear, so empty. I’d even risk kissing him to break his curse, as kisses often do in fairy tales. That giddy teenage girl who all too often fantasized about a magical merman emerges and I step closer with a pucker.
Willis steps back. He is suspicious of my intentions. I can see it in his narrowed brows. “Bad girl. You never learn.”
What did I do? I’m just trying to help him.
Pieces of him break off to form smaller chunks of ice as those pieces further break off to form even smaller pieces.
“Wait!” He’s leaving! No!
I reach out.
Before my fingers have a chance to graze against his frigid sculpture, he explodes into thousands of small shards of ice, which quickly materialize into little clouds.
“Willis?” I call out as the clouds gather to form a fog once again, unfolding from the center of the street—departing—to reveal an empty low-lit damp road illuminated by nothing but moonlight and silence.
5
Athena
The ocean folds over my toes. It isn’t cold. It isn’t warm. The temperature is just right. Laying up from dry sand, I look about. This is the most perfect beach I’ve ever seen. The coast stretches for miles in both directions and there is not a soul in sight. As ocean water gently folds over my toes again and again in small waves, teasing me to come swim and play, I smile to myself...
I’m in a dream.
I decide to let my mind wander and instead of getting up, I lay back flat, closing my eyes and enjoying the sun casting its warm glow over my naked body.
After another wave pools about my ankles, I feel a drip at my shin and then another at the opposite knee. More drips follow up my thigh to my center, to my belly,
and finally over my breasts where each trickle becomes a welcoming tickle at my nipples that scrolls down my small pillow mounds, soothing my entire body.
I open my eyes and hovering above me is a man but not really a man. He is made of water. His features seem strong though I can’t really tell what he looks like. I reach up to touch him, to run my fingers across his front, but regretfully my fingers poke right into his mass of fluidity.
It breaks my heart and I swirl my hand inside of him exactly where his heart should go when I see something—a tiny red bubble. Gently, I poke at the little blob and it pops, spreading streaks of more red bubbles.
Quickly, the streaks elongate as they also begin to twist and swirl. Faster and thicker the red streaks grow, becoming entangled upon themselves, weaving into a mass—a firm deep-red mass of muscle bigger than the size of my fist.
It beats.
My own heart thrums with what I am seeing—Willis’s heart is beating. I look to his face in hopes more pieces of him will become flesh but only the orbits of his eyes besides water remains. A droplet falls onto my forehead and then another and another. I close my lids as water begins to pour, filling my every orifice, drowning my face. I gasp to breathe and slap the water—pound at it—only to feel more water fall...
Pounding. It’s reminiscent of heavy water being thrust against a barrel in the street, which I remember from last night, but this pounding has less defined rhythm. I open my dry eyes.
And now?
I hear yelling.
“Athena!” It’s the sheriff. He pounds again—harder this time.
“I’m coming,” I yell, wiping the sleep from my eyes and reaching over to grab my pink and red cherry blossom printed silk robe.
Securing the robe with a tie and putting on my glasses, I open the door, squinting.
It’s so bright, I must’ve slept in. “What can I do for you, sheriff?”
“You got those signs?”
Shoot! I forgot. “No, can I get them to you tomorrow? I’m sorry I completely—”