Sydney leaned close to Garrett. “You sure you want to do this?”
“Definitely. Sorry about all that before. I…just don’t want you to think I’m crazy.”
“Crazy’s what I like most about you,” she said quietly. “Besides, I’m glad you’re coming down. My mom is always asking about you.”
“She is? What about?”
“How you’re doing…why we’re not dating. The usual,” Sydney said. Then she winked and ran down the stairs.
“Syd!” he called after her. “What did you tell her?”
“I don’t date cute boys!” she said. “Come on!”
There’s that four-letter word again, Garrett thought sourly as he followed her down the bleachers. Cute. That’s what you call your brother, or your dog. Cute is a death sentence.
Garrett saw both Sydney and Johnny reach the upper pool deck gate, both so far ahead they would never notice if he left. Garrett stepped off the last row of bleachers.
Starting to see a pattern, Weaves? She just…assumes…you’ll follow her? Maybe I should just go see the sharks myself. See how cute she thinks that is.
Sydney waved for him to hurry up. She made a pouty face when he didn’t immediately come.
Why do I do this to myself? Garrett jogged over.
“Hey, Garrett, this is my mom’s friend, Barb,” Sydney introduced him to the employee.
“He looks like trouble,” Barb joked.
“Major trouble,” Sydney said. “So Mom said I should swing by with a couple of friends. Is she still up there or did she go back to her office?”
Barb opened the gate to let them through. “She’s up there. You can go, but keep an eye on these two.”
Each of them thanked her before following Sydney’s lead up onto the deck. Garrett found it slippery, and his sneakers squelched if he turned them too fast.
“This one looks like trouble…” Johnny muttered. “Ha! Why don’t I look like trouble?”
“It’s because you’re sweet,” Sydney said.
He’s sweet and I’m cute. Garrett tuned out Johnny’s immediate counter argument that his sweetness was a means of concealing his bad boy image. Neither of us have a chance, Hickey.
They crossed over a thin walkway, not much wider than a wooden plank, and headed for center stage. Nattie had just come out of the faint blue barn used to shield trainers from audience view. She carried a pair of pails overflowing with fish.
Johnny turned to Garrett upon seeing Nattie up close. “Dude!” he whispered. “Sydney’s mom is hot!”
“What did you expect? I mean, look at the cow before you buy the calf, right?”
Nattie set her pails down beside one she had already brought out, and put her hands on her hips. “There’s my girl!”
“Mom!” Sydney carefully walked toward her.
It’s like seeing the same person at two different stages of life.
“So did you like the show, kiddo?” Nattie asked.
“Loved it!” Sydney said. “I can’t believe you let Wilda out!”
“Oh, come on now. She’s not that old! Hey…is that Garrett Weaver I see over there?” Nattie asked in the way all moms sounded when they already knew the answer. “Get over here already and give me a hug!”
Garrett obliged her. “Hi, Mrs. Gao.”
“Weaver! You know I hate that! From now on you call me Nattie, or I’ll have Sydney punch you!”
“Meh. She hits like a girl anyway.”
Garrett moved sideways to miss Sydney’s immediate swing.
“Oh ho! He knows you too well, kiddo,” Nattie winked. She looked at Johnny. “Now, who’s this?”
Johnny cast his usual shyness aside. “Hi ,Nattie, I’m Johnny Hickey. Can I get a hug too?”
Garrett thought it would take years to dim the glow Johnny had when she actually gave him a hug.
“So you three want to feed the dolphins?” Nattie said, stepping away. She pointed to the pails she had brought out. “There’s mackerel over there if you want to give them what’s left, but you have to listen to Sydney. No horsing around, boys. Okay?”
“Okay,” both Garrett and Johnny agreed.
“I’ll be talking with Sarah if you guys need anything. Come on over when you run out.”
Johnny picked up a fish by its tail. His nose wrinkled, and he tried dropping it back in the pail but missed.
A small wave crashed onto the deck. The receding water carried the fish back with it, and into a dolphin’s open mouth. It swallowed the meal and clacked its beak.
“Mage thinks you're funny,” Sydney said.
“Did you see two what that thing just did?” Johnny yelled. “It made the wave so it could get the food!”
“You said they were smart,” Garrett said.
“That wasn’t smart. That was genius!”
Sydney slipped out of her shoes and socks, and placed them on the docks. “Don’t stroke his ego.”
“It’s a dolphin, Syd,” Johnny said. “You act like it knows what I’m saying.”
“They know more than you might realize.” Sydney undid the button on her pants and let them fall.
Garrett knew he should be a gentleman, but he couldn’t bring himself to look away. Unknown to him a second before, Sydney wore a black wetsuit similar to the one her mom wore.
Stripping off her shirt and throwing her clothes in a pile near the fake rock ledge, Sydney strode to the pool’s edge. The dolphin with yellowish swatches of skin appeared and swam to her side the moment she stepped into the wading area. Sydney knelt. “Hi, Amelia!”
The dolphin opened its mouth and squeaked.
Sydney kissed its nose. “You might want to take her, Johnny. Amelia’s a good girl, aren’t you?”
Amelia vigorously nodded her head.
“How did you get her to do that?” Johnny asked.
“She likes attention, just like us,” Sydney said. She whistled, and Amelia disappeared beneath the water. “Johnny, come over here.”
Johnny rolled his pant legs up, but hesitated before stepping in.
“Come on,” Sydney motioned him in. “Come on, Hickey. They’re not going to hurt you.”
Johnny arched his neck and tried to peer further out into the pool. “I can’t see them…wh-where did they all go?”
“Oh, they decided to go for ice cream,” Garrett said.
Sydney shot him a disapproving look. “They’ll be back in a minute. I just didn’t want them to scare you.” She reached into her pail and took out a mackerel. “Here, take this.”
“What am I supposed to do with it?”
“Hold it out over the water.”
Johnny took the fish. “But won’t the—”
“Trust me. Amelia won’t hurt you.”
“Amelia might not,” Garrett said. “But the others…”
“Garrett! You’re not helping!” Sydney took Johnny by the hand and inched him closer to the shallows edge.
Johnny closed his eyes and extended his arm over the deeper, darker water. His arm quivered so much that the fish seemed to wiggle.
Quietly, a dolphin beak broke the water’s surface and slowly rose up and down like a fishing bobber.
Garrett gasped. “Hickey…”
“What?”
“Open your eyes…”
Johnny did. “That’s so awesome!”
“Right?” Sydney said. “I told you Amelia is nice. Okay, now keep your hand steady…she’s going to take the fish from you.”
“Out of my hand?”
“Mmm-hmm. She’ll go slow though.” Sydney put her left hand on Johnny’s lower back and her right hand on his chest, relaxing him, then whistled.
Amelia ascended from the water. Up, up, up she rose, even to the point Garrett swore he would soon see the tip of her tail.
“Now let it go,” Sydney said.
Johnny released the fish into Amelia’s mouth, and she dipped beneath the surface again. “Whoa! Weaver, did you see that? I fed a dolphin! Can I do it agai
n, Syd?”
“Sure! Hold another fish out over the edge.”
While Johnny reached for another mackerel—without being disgusted this time—Sydney left them by the pool and walked behind stage. A second later, she came back out with two whistles dangling from black shoestring necklaces. She gave one to Garrett, the other to Johnny.
“Now, blow it,” she said.
Johnny slipped the string over his head and put the whistle in his mouth. He thrust the fish out above the deeper water and blew his whistle.
Amelia peeked above the surface again, took the fish from his hand, and disappeared.
“See, Hickey!” Sydney said. “You’ve got it down!”
The dolphin with black spots appeared when Johnny performed his act a third time and tried to steal Amelia’s fish.
“Uriah! No!” Sydney said. She quickly grabbed a fish from her pail and threw it far out into the pool.
Uriah shot off after it. A second later, Garrett saw a grey arc appear where the fish landed. The dolphin’s tail splashed the surface and the fish Sydney threw vanished. Only a few expanding rings indicated anything had been there a moment ago. The same dolphin resurfaced back at Sydney’s side, cackling.
“Think you’re funny, huh, Uriah?” Sydney said.
The dolphin cackled louder and nodded.
“Okay, come over here. Johnny, you keep feeding Amelia while I take care of this rascal!”
“Syd, where should I go?” Garrett asked.
“Um…I’m not sure where Mage went. Hang on.”
She blew her whistle and threw another fish to Uriah.
Garrett searched the pool to see when and where his dolphin would show.
“You don’t want Mage, son,” said a stately, southern voice.
Garrett turned.
The old woman sat on the edge not twenty feet from him, her dolphin tail lazily swaying in the water.
Garrett opened his mouth to yell for Sydney. His tongue refused to form the words.
“No need for that,” she said. “I don’t aim to hurt you.”
“H-how do you—”
“Best keep your voice down. Elsewise, Miss Sydney might hear you and ‘spect you gone crazy.”
Now close, Garrett saw what resembled a glistening and pearl-white latex top that covered her stomach, stopped just above her breasts, and left her neckline and shoulders bare. Her human skin—pale and wrinkled—had aged, tan blotches. And from her hips down, Garrett saw a pale and slender dolphin tail no different than Amelia’s.
She rested on her long, willowy arms, and used her tail to splash some water onto her stomach. A second later, she sat upright and squeegeed the water from her silvery hair. Her blue eyes twinkled.
Garrett stepped closer. “How is this possible?”
“We all are what we are,” she said. “Been made such. Each and every one unique.”
“You’re unique. I’ve never seen a—”
She grinned. “A what?”
“I-I don’t know,” Garrett said. “I don’t know what you are. You look like a lady, but—”
“Like a dolphin too.”
“Ye-yes, ma’am.”
She splashed more water on herself with a quick flick of her tail. “I’m a bit a both, ain’t I?” she asked gaily.
“Yes…”
She laughed. “I reckon’ I’m the first one you seen. Or at least the first you seen like this.” She motioned to her lower body and tail.
“I’d remember seeing someone like you,” Garrett said.
“Aw, come now. Maybe the others just didn’t have a tail at the time.”
Garrett stepped closer still. “I don’t understand.”
“Most don’t.”
Her tail began to change color. Like slipping off a pair of grey tights, her lower dolphin torso gradually morphed into pale skin. The remainder of her tail split from the top down; it changed into human legs, then calves, ankles, feet, and finished with her toes. Within moments, the dolphin tail disappeared and only an old woman sat in a one-piece bathing suit of snowy white with her feet dipped in the pool.
“Wish I had my ol’ mirror, son. You look like you seen a ghost.”
Garrett heard bare feet slap the surface behind him, but he couldn’t look away.
Sydney walked past him and knelt to run her hand over the dolphin-lady’s head. “I see you found Wilda.”
“Syd, you can—”
“She can’t see me,” Wilda said to Garrett. “Neither can your heavyset friend. All they hear when I talk is a dolphin squeaking. All they see too.”
Garrett heard a loud splash near Johnny.
Drenched and terrified, Johnny clenched a fish in his outstretched hand. One of the dolphins careened onto the ledge near him and stole it, then slipped back in the water.
“Oh, Mage!” Sydney said. “Garrett, stay here with Wilda. I’m going to save Hickey from those two.”
For the first time in his life, Garrett didn’t watch Sydney leave. How is this possible?
Wilda pointed. “Mage is laughing at your friend.”
“Is Mage…like you?”
“Course he is.”
Wilda’s toes turned grey and rounded off together—forming the tips of a tail—and her ankles grew together. The changes moved up toward her torso like a zipper. In seconds, she had her dolphin tail back. “Any Salt Child coulda’ seen me, if’n they had their eyes open, that is.”
“What’s a Salt Child, ma’am?”
Wilda chuckled again. “Ain’t got the time to explain it to you. Wouldn’t believe me if’n I told you anyhow. Don’t much matter I ‘spect. You gone find out soon enough.”
“How am I supposed to find out what I don’t know?”
“Oh…I reckon’ someone’ll come to call,” she said. “You’ll know ’em when you see ’em. Ask if they been Salted, or if they’s born a Salt Child.”
“Hey, Weaver! You almost done?” Johnny yelled. “I’m all out of fish!”
“Them other type…the mean ones with Salt running through they veins…they cain’t come inland. Cain’t breathe the air.” Wilda paused. “Less’n they figured out some ways to walk on the Hard since I been gone, that is.”
“Weaver!”
Garrett did a double take from Johnny back to Wilda. “He really can’t see you, can he?”
“They done forgot about our kind and all we done for ’em.” Wilda looked toward the water. “I ‘spect it’s about time for you to move on, Garrett Weaver.”
“How—how do you know my name, ma’am? And wh-what’s yours?”
“Oh, I heard a lot about you. Heard Miss Sydney talk to her mama ‘bout you many a night,” she said playfully. “And you already know my name, if you was listenin’. Why, Miss Nattie and Miss Sydney done told you already! You remember it now, don’tcha?”
Garrett remembered. “Wilda…” he whispered. “Your name is Wilda.”
She beamed a smile that made Garrett believe his heart would burst if he looked into her wizened face much longer. “Most certainly is. Don’t you forget about me now! What you gonna do when someone comes to call?”
“Ask if they’ve been Salted, or…or if they were born a Salt Child.”
“Weaver!” Johnny yelled. “Let’s go, dude!”
Garrett ignored him. “Wilda…” he said. “What are you?”
“My darling child…you already know what I am.”
“A…um…a…mer-mermaid,” he said.
Wilda fought a fit of laughter. “Call us what you will, Mr. Weaver, but that’s just what humans named us in their ol’ stories. I’m a Merrow.”
“A Merrow…”
Wilda grinned. “The dolphin-folk.”
“Does that mean there are more of you?”
“Whole underwater cities full,” she said. “But I ‘spect you’ll see ’em ‘fore too long. They’s something special in you, son. These ol’ bones can feel it.”
Johnny came over to join him. “Weaver! Come on, dude! We shou
ld be at the bus in a half hour!”
“Best be goin’ now,” Wilda majestically lifted her left hand. “It’s been so nice talking with you.”
Garrett raised his right hand and, realizing he lifted the wrong one, lowered it.
“We Merrows shake with our left hands,” she corrected. “Lotta’ things is opposite in the Salt. You see soon enough.”
Garrett grasped her hand. He half expected to find it cold and clammy; Wilda’s hand warmed his, and her grip made him feel weak. “I-I have so many questions.”
“How about I give you one more answer then? ’S about all the time you have left before your friend over there pulls you away.” She released his hand.
Garrett noticed a silver ring on her forefinger with a plain, stone pebble adorning it. “What’s that?”
“Oh, that ol’ thing,” Wilda said. She stretched out her fingers and moved them like a wave. “A special someone gave it to me so many years ago. Pretty, iddn’t it?”
Garrett didn’t think so. He also didn’t want to lie. “Who gave it to you?”
“Now, Garrett Weaver, I said I’d give you another question and you’s trying to get a second outta me.”
Garrett felt a nudge in the back.
“Thought you didn’t like dolphins, dude,” said Johnny.
“I was wrong,” Garrett said. Please show him too.
“He cain’t see me,” Wilda reminded him. “They’ve forgotten how.”
Johnny sighed. “Let’s go already! The bus is leaving soon and we still haven’t seen the sharks! Plus, Nattie said it’s time for them to lock up for the day.”
“Okay,” Garrett said. “Give me a second. I want to shake her han…fin one more time.”
Johnny laughed. “You want to shake her fin? You’ve lost your mind, bro. Knock yourself out. I’m gonna see if I can score another hug from Nattie before we go!”
Garrett waited for him to leave before raising his left hand again. “Goodbye, Wilda…”
“Ain’t saying goodbye,” Wilda cheered him with another smile. Then she took his hand in hers. “What’s an ol’ lady like me to do if she didn’t have a visit to look forward to every now and again? ‘Specially from someone handsome as you.”
“I’m-I’m hardly handsome,” Garrett stammered. “My skin—”
“Makes you who you are,” Wilda said, stroking his cheeks with the flat of her warm hand. “You are a painted beauty, my child. Don’t never let no one tell you different.”
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