Together, this unlikely pair will seek to discover what’s causing shifts in ocean floor. While their new alliance is forbidden, Anya will risk everything to save her beloved ocean. The only problem is, she’s not sure what’s really luring her in, her love of the sea or the tempest Luke has stirred in her heart. Either way, Anya knows that the dangers facing the sea are nothing compared to what will happen to her when her father learns she’s broken the merfolks’ most sacred law.
Can Anya and Luke discover what lurks at the heart of the deep before it’s too late?
One: Anya
THE SMALL SHIP intrigued me. Hundreds of boats cross my path daily, but this one, trailing temperature gauges and current trackers, interested me more than others. Rather than merely floating, this boat had a purpose, a reason to be so close to my island. Of course, the blond man diving into the water definitely had something to do with my interest and maybe the boat’s purpose, too. His long, lean body cracked the face of the water, and as he surfaced, his strong arms propelled him forward and away from the boat. Every afternoon he did the same thing, dive, swim, float, swim back. And every afternoon I watched as his fluid movements made almost no break in the ocean’s surface while he cut long paths across it.
I had announced to the tribe that we had visitors close, and immediately the chatter began. Assuring them the boat’s and crew’s focus was research, or looked to be, I held off further inquisition with a promise to continue tracking their efforts.
I met the boat for five days and each day they came a little closer. Today they sat only twenty miles from Orotava. Close enough that Phoebe and Fiona decided to join me in my afternoon surveillance. The twins heckled me as I led them through the sea. We hung back far enough that their equipment couldn’t track our presence.
“It’s a long way to go for a man, Anya,” Phoebe commented, laughing at me as we swam.
Her sister joined in. “Any distance is too far for a man.”
Both knew I’d never had any interest in humans before. I was far more comfortable in the sea than walking on land, even on our own island full of mer. But this one, comfortable in the sea and almost questing to be a part of it, lured me. At the very least, he was lovely to watch and I could fantasize about adding him to my land life.
“Look, neither of you had to come with me. I’m just fine watching this sea god all on my own.” I smirked back at my childhood friends, taunting them with my infatuation.
The three of us surfaced and watched him cut through the waves with capable, powerful movements. He looked at home with the water cradling his body.
“That’s some human,” Fiona commented, breaking into my daydream.
Phoebe seemed more awed than her appreciative twin. “He’s, well, he’s beautiful,” she added. “Look how smoothly he moves. He’s part fish.”
“No, he’s all human,” I concluded. “If he were part fish, I could do more than stare.”
“So true,” Phoebe agreed. “Unless he was a Trisanthian. Your father would rather unite you with a human.”
She had a point. Nishan, my father and the tribal council leader of the Obthaluse, wouldn’t stand for his only daughter uniting with a rival mer, but he also wouldn’t care much for a human son-in-law.
We continued to watch the boat and the swimmer until he turned and started back. We dove below the waves to be sure he didn’t look up and find three gawking mermaids. I pushed the boundaries a lot, but we had never been caught by humans. Maybe today was the day to change that.
From below we saw his tanned legs stir the water and force him forward. His steady pace moved him quickly and we kept at a distance. That gave us a chance to move closer to the drifting boat in order to watch him climb aboard, my favorite part of the last few days. Granted, while my father made plans to attend the united tribal meetings, my research sessions on the island had lengthened, not leaving lots of time for fun.
The man reached the boat and lifted himself onto the diving platform. The sun on his wet hair turned it a golden, tawny yellow, almost the same color as my own.
Fiona let out her breath with a sigh. “Too bad he has legs. Nothing good comes with legs,” she explained authoritatively.
Phoebe and I both chuckled a bit. He whipped his head in our direction and we quickly dipped below the surface. He squinted at the ripple we left in the water, but he turned away and continued to climb to the deck.
Someone called out to him as he toweled off. “Oh, hey, Luke. Glad you’re back. Amir found something we want you to see.”
“Luke,” I repeated as I exhaled and watched him disappear into the boat’s cabin.
“Luke, Luke, Luke,” Phoebe chanted in a sing-song voice.
At least I had a name to go with the lovely face.
Fiona joined in. “Not a bad name. It suits him. Luke, the light-giver. Isn’t that what it means?,” she remarked thoughtfully.
“No idea, but I like it. It fits him,” Phoebe added. Then she started singing, “Luke, the light-giver, looks lovely and luscious.”
“Phoebe, seriously?” I asked, more than a bit annoyed by my normally sweet friend.
“Wow, Anya, you must really be smitten. You don’t get ticked off that easily.” She smiled, either at the thought of pushing my buttons or maybe because I was smitten. I’m not sure which, but she would derive pleasure from either scenario.
Pointing at the bow, suddenly, Phoebe added, “Look. The Sea Star.”
Her sister responded, confused, “What? What about it?”
“It’s the name of the boat. The Sea Star.”
“Okay, and?”
“Well, and nothing really. But it’s kind of cute that the boat is the Sea Star and Anya has that star mark. And did you see his tattoo? It was a sea star, too.”
“Only you would find that cute, Phoebe,” Fiona chided. She considered herself the practical twin, while Phoebe held the title of dreamer.
But Fiona was wrong. I noticed the boat’s name the first time I followed Luke to it. My father called me Sea Star. He used the nickname more often when I was younger, but he resorted to it now and again. He gave me the name when I was born because of the small, star-shaped patch of dark scales on my tail. And now it linked me to Luke. It was such a little thing, but it tied us together in a small way.
“She’s dreaming again, Phee.”
Phoebe’s voice called me back to reality and I watched the boat pick up speed. Fiona swam towards it, taunting us to join her. Not ready to back down, Phoebe and I joined, racing to see who could reach her first.
We came up on the boat quickly, far faster than any of us anticipated. Forgetting about the tracking equipment, we closed the distance, breaching the surface and playing in the waves like dolphin. I hoped that’s what we looked like. That way, if anyone glanced behind the boat, they’d just assume they’d attracted curious dolphins rather than stalking mermaids.
Unexpectedly, Luke reappeared on deck. He looked at the sky, upset, and walked briskly to the stern, reading a tablet. By the time he looked up, Fiona and Phoebe were safe below the churning water. I, however, dove head first over the boat’s wake, locking eyes with him in the process. Not the way to go unnoticed.
His deep brown eyes caught mine, holding them, holding me. I didn’t look away when he leaned over the railing before climbing down to the dive deck. I knew he saw me. All of me. But in that moment, I wanted him to know. I wanted him to know everything.
Two: Luke
“DAMMIT!” I YELLED, bellowing at the sky. I cursed myself and the ocean as yet another storm moved across the horizon. The Sea Star wasn’t large, and the strong winds and unrelenting rains along Florida’s Treasure Coast shook it mercilessly when the summer storms blew in. I hoped the winds would shift and we could avoid the traditional three o’clock rains. The Sea Star’s size made it great for our research, but it was also more susceptible to the weather and the ocean than larger vessels.
I ran onto the deck when I noticed dramatic changes in th
e tracker information. I figured the storms caused the disruption, but the temperature went up noticeably, eleven degrees, and suddenly. And the current shifted as though something was trailing us.
I had already taken my swim, not wanting the storms to interfere. I crave time with the water. Surfing and diving as a kid, I’m not sure I’ve spent more than three months of my life at a time without the sand and surf as part of my daily routine. And now, at sea, I swim at least once a day, embracing the waves and feeling unnatural without a hint of salt on my skin. Stir crazy was an understatement after my time gearing up for this trip. While we only left land two weeks earlier, I’d been in a small office full of maps and depth charts for months before the trip. Now my body itched to stretch and move through the water. Spending time in the water was, after all, my motivation to become an oceanographer. That and the girls in the University of Miami’s oceanography department looked great in scuba gear.
At the stern, I figured I might find the storm clouds closer than anticipated or maybe the trackers had tangled again. What I found, however, was nothing I foresaw. In fact, what I found wasn’t real. It belonged in myth, not in a research log.
But I saw it. I saw her.
“Hey, McAllister,” Brandon, my research assistant, echoed in the radio. “Mac? You there, man?”
I had a tendency to forget my radio or just ignore it, so he was definitely right to stalk me when he had news.
“I’m here. What ya got?”
“The radio says to expect the afternoon squall a little early today.”
Tearing my eyes from the wake of the boat, I blinked away the image and turned to the clouds.
Looking up at the sky, I radioed back. “Brando, believe ’em. Those clouds look angry.”
Ignoring my gut instinct to head back inside, I climbed down to the dive deck, hoping to catch a glimpse of it, of her, again. Instead, the trackers were the only things behind the boat. Maybe I hadn’t seen anything at all. We hadn’t been at sea long, but strange things happened when men looked into the horizon. Hell, at least I hadn’t pissed off Poseidon or landed on an island with a cyclops.
Brandon came down to pull up the trackers.
“Hey, you could help me, ya know,” he said, elbowing me as I stood staring at the waves rolling behind us.
“Sorry, man. Distracted. How deep do you think we can see in that wake?”
“Deep? Uh, maybe fifteen feet down if the object is a light color, like a shark or a tracker.”
Fifteen feet gave me plenty of room to misread what I saw. As a scientist, I knew repeated results were the only way to draw a solid conclusion. One observation, one test, is never enough. Maybe if Brandon had seen her too, had been there to back up my sighting, I would have doubted myself a bit less.
As a scientist charged with researching the shift of ocean depths off the coast of Florida, I studied, theorized, and met with colleagues, all to no avail. The sea was changing, quickly, and that would eventually mean changes for those of us on land, too. All the published research pointed to the many hurricanes and rising ocean levels. Some of it mentioned the fascination tourists have with driving on the beaches and residents’ need to build bigger, grander homes on the coast. But I knew there was something more, especially since the beach erosion contributed only a small fraction to the issue. And I managed to convince a few others, the ones with the money, that it was worth a look.
I spent months with my team hypothesizing the lesser known causes. We all determined one thing. The answer lies within the ocean. So we collected the grant, geared up, and set sail.
And now there was her. She didn’t fit into this at all. Or maybe she did.
We had been studying the issue for more than a year and this was our second trip out to sea. Heading back underway after what we called the “reset,” we were ready to look at different factors than we had before. She fit that category. She was definitely a different factor.
Seeing the clouds turning duskier, Brandon and I headed back up the ladder with the equipment. Amir was on deck now, a head taller than Brandon with dark skin standing out against the white of the boat.
“Just in time, guys. You know dark clouds come in fast,” Amir commented.
Then I noticed the winds picking up. Heading to the cabin, we stashed the equipment. The deck was not the place to be when you were off the coast of Lightning Alley and the skies turned black.
Amir reached into an overhead compartment, stowing equipment he had been tinkering with. The Detroit-native’s long arms saved the team on a few occasions when equipment had gotten beyond our reach. Brandon’s stocky build, on the other hand, shrouded the strength of someone twice his size, earning him the nickname “Ant” when we wanted to rile him.
The boat’s weather alarm blared suddenly.
Whooooop, whooooop, whooooop.
Lucy slipped past us, grabbing her laptop and gliding to a table. The graduate assistant was young and focused. I liked her quick wit and her fast, mouse-like behaviors as she constantly moved around the boat. We filed in behind her.
While run down and cluttered, the Sea Star’s interior was comfortable. From inside, we watched fat droplets hit the windows, splattering like paint. At this point, water and sky mirrored each other, both dark and menacing at that point, marching along the horizon. With nothing left to do, I picked up the old deck of cards. In that moment, I had to face that I would never let her slip from my mind with the same ease she used as she slid from my view.
Three: Anya
I SPOTTED THE boat as it moved overhead the next day. As I swam out towards it, I noticed its glistening hull, its props churning a silvery froth. I knew they were closer to the island. I knew my father and the counsel wouldn’t welcome them. I knew the entire tribe may be in danger. I knew Luke had seen me. But I kept swimming.
Complacency had gotten the best of me after a long few months not leaving the boundaries of the island of Orotava. Our secluded island was quiet. Mer life was peaceful. There is never anything to avoid there. Unmapped islands don’t attract much attention. I’d spent most of my time cooped up in my research lab on the island trying to explain the changes in our native waters. Once in a while I’d visit the trench, looking for a reason or rhyme behind the sudden changes, but today was different.
Today, I decided to run down a boat, a boat with an appealing, swimming sailor. A sailor I was sure hadn’t understood what he saw. I would become another mirage in the waves. One of those things he could easily write off as a trick of light on the water.
The tribal scouts reported the boat when it was more than 25 leagues away. Nishan, knowing about the boat, forbade me from going anywhere near it.
“Anya,” he said in his authoritative voice, “let me remind you, lest you have forgotten, that your research must lead you to the deep and not to the surface — or to anything that may come from it.”
However, I needed to know if the boat or the equipment, the devices they’d been trailing through the water, related to my own research and what we found beyond the reef.
“If you feel the need to swim constantly, at least remain deep enough to avoid attention. That boat is getting far too close to our island. Do not investigate. I’ll receive a report tonight at the festival, Anya, and I do not expect to hear your name associated with it. Do not ignore me,” he said.
Warm he isn’t. But I always know where I stand with my father.
I shocked him with my unusually quiet response. “Yes, father. I’ll see you tonight.”
*****
The Festival of the Fourteen Seas began hours after I returned from my research. As I swam through the garland-strewn reef, approaching the bay, my eyes feasted on the color and gaiety of the day. Seaweed draped the red and orange corals of my lovely Atlantic home.
The sunken pirate schooner, the Scarlet Witch, turned green by algae, sat dressed in ribbons of pink and white scallop shells shining in the dispersed sunlight. Barnacles laced through and across the planks. Pearls sh
own in strands draped from the mast. The effect was ethereal and everything seemed to glow.
The tides would turn for 31 days throughout the festival, and we would pay tribute to each of the seas. Then, at the festival’s final ceremony, we would learn of the news of each tribal nation.
The Obthaluse, my tribe and Orotava’s founders, had plans to reveal new developments in our research, my research. Although we had no definite findings, we did have preliminary information that could change our world drastically. Nishan had finally been convinced that we needed to share that information with the Coalition of Tribes. To me, our declaration was nerve-wracking; however, it was the news the other tribes would release that panicked others.
Tribes revealed everything from new land acquisitions to changes in counsel leadership. In the bad years, wars started. In the good years, alliances were made and treaties signed. This event dictated relationships between tribes and the goings on for the next year.
While we celebrated the festival in Orotava each year, the greater Coalition would meet in the Aegean Sea. This year the Garceaenians would play host to the festival and counsel leaders, including my father, prepared for their travels.
The counsel gathered to discuss the ebbing, as we called the information reveal, for months prior to the festival. Then, as the reveling began, the Coalition called upon the Nereids to further direct their decisions. The daughters of Nereus and Doris were ready to prove their prowess this ebbing cycle. Having swum the seas hundreds of years before merfolk existed, the sea nymphs controlled quite a bit of the ocean. Luckily, we catered well to the ocean daughters, and we allowed for the traditions of the Nereids, including the festival.
The Nereids oversaw the ebbing, adjudicating the ceremony for the Coalition and mediations throughout the year. Granted, fights erupted between the nymphs often, as with any sisters, and that could make for an interesting ebbing. While the festivities were underway, the celebration would be the only thing anyone focused on in the mer community. Every choice or plan in our tribes, in our lives, would depend on the ebbing. Unfortunately, that meant our lives and worlds also depended on the political and personal alliances of the Nereids.
Falling in Deep Collection Box Set Page 34