The Atlantis Twins

by M. S. Kaminsky

  Dad wouldn’t let me keep Alabaster in the house, so I put her in my old guinea pig cage under the awning to the left of the tool shed, where he kept his broken metal detectors and other treasure-hunting junk.

  My cat, Clawsome, crouched low and wiggled his butt when he first saw Alabaster. I tapped him on his pink-and-black nose and shooed him away. But Clawsome didn’t spook Alabaster at all. She opened her beak wide and raised her uninjured wing as if to say “Don’t screw with me.”

  Almost anyone you talk to will say you should never, ever try to rescue a wounded seagull. But two weeks ago, Alabaster followed me along the beach. I had to do something, didn’t I? The poor thing couldn’t fly. Then I found out that seagulls don’t breed in Hawaii; they’re only visitors, trying to get home. It must be horrible to get sick away from home, just passing through somewhere. So, I rescued her. She likes Alpo Gravy Cravers dog food and sardines I nab from Dad’s Armageddon pantry—the one he stocked in case the world ends. I thought pot smokers were supposed to be chill?

  I came inside to an empty kitchen and poured a bowl of cornflakes. In the next room, I tried not to hear Dad kiss May. Then they kissed again, a big wet one. I turned on the blender, even though it didn’t have anything in it. Dad blushed when he entered and turned it off.

  “What were you trying to make?” May asked as she walked in, a goofy smile on her face. “An air shake?”

  I fake smiled and pretended to look at my phone.

  “Like a new diet. Get it? Zero calories, just air!” She chuckled.

  She was one of those peeps who didn’t know when to let things go.

  “You could have different flavors. Strawberry air, vanilla air…” May babbled.

  I blew air out between my lips. “Raspberry air. That is definitely your flavor.” I know, childish. She brought out the worst in me.

  Dad frowned at me, and I smiled innocently.

  “Yum, raspberry. Do we have any berries, snookie?” May asked Dad.

  May is the skinniest, greediest, junk-food-loving stoner I’ve ever met. She’s thirty-five, ten years younger than Dad, and recently divorced. Last month, she ate all Dad’s leftover birthday cake, which I baked, and didn’t apologize. Hate. Her. And that was before I found out she was FloAnn’s mom. The best you could say about her was that she wasn’t ugly. Nice complexion, shoulder-length hair and regular-sized breasts that were still bigger than mine, but I’m seventeen, so there’s time.

  My birth mom was Japanese-American, and so was Ama, our stepmother. Ama raised Alyx and me after Mom died. Every girlfriend Dad has had since has been some version of Mom or Ama. Jeong was Korean and barely spoke English. She got deported when Dad wouldn’t marry her. Daisy, whose real name was Dung—and no, I’m not joking, but maybe you detect a theme—dumped my dad and I never found out why. May is Indonesian.

  “I can scramble eggs, or we have toast,” Dad said to May.

  They’d been dating for a couple of months, and he still made an effort, which freaked me out big time. A long scar ran from his left cheek to chin and the other day, he’d talked about having it fixed. Dad have plastic surgery? Wrong on so many levels.

  “You still hungry?” Dad asked me.

  “Nah, I’m good. Think I’ll go for a swim.”

  “Okay, no diving at the beach though. Promise?”

  I dodged out of the kitchen and then snuck into Dad’s bedroom. On his bookshelf, a cheesy Hawaiian snow globe sat on top of a vintage hardcover copy of Treasure Island. The book cover had a hilarious drawing of a one-legged pirate next to a boy in baggy pants. I pried up the book’s secret compartment. Skunk filled my nostrils, and I shut it quick. Yup, Dad had replenished. He would get stoned with May, and I could stay out as long as I pleased. Perfect.

  I couldn’t help give the snow globe a quick shake. Silver glitter filled the orb. Inside were two dancing hula girls, arms upraised with leis around their necks. They were nearly identical. Dad told me Alyx and I called them the Hula Twins.

  As I put the snow globe back, something on the shelf below threw me into a deja-vu so intense that I knelt on the floor. Had it always been here and I never noticed? I slid it out. Even the cardboard cover with the photo of the dolphin glued to the front felt like a tip-of-the-tongue memory. Alyx’s old journal. But when I opened it, there was nothing but big, black words scrawled in marker: HA HA SCREW YOU - NOTHING HERE TO SEE. BETTER LUCK NEXT TIME. All the pages were torn out. Only the cover remained. I took a quick look under the bed to see if I could find the missing pages.

  “You still home, Alysa?” Dad called from the kitchen.

  I dashed out of his room and down the hall to the bathroom, where I took a few deep breaths. I blew my nose and splashed cold water on my face to hide my tears. Without saying goodbye to anyone, I escaped out the back door and headed downtown.

  Chapter Three

  Diving is like riding a bike. Even though I remembered nothing of my life before the rescue, I remembered how to dive. Deep. Dad told me Mom was a diver and my grandma dove for pearls. My stepmother, Ama, also loved the water. She carried on the tradition.

  I have photos of Alyx and me swimming when we were three. It wasn’t long before we were diving as well. Last month, I was underwater at the pool so long that the lifeguard chewed me out. Said I was risking my life. Whatevs. Diving was the only way I still felt close to Alyx, and I wouldn’t let anyone stop me for any reason.

  Most times, I headed for Lonesome Beach, which is just rocks and water. No lifeguard. Another good thing about Lonesome is that the main police precinct for Mahina is on the way.

  I was downtown when I spotted Daniel getting out of his car. He looked athletic, tanned and sexy as always. I lifted my hand to wave. What to say? “Hi, Daniel?” “Hey?” Last week, I’d finally gotten the nerve to talk to him, and I hoped he’d ask me to our prom. But when he saw me, he gaped and looked down at his phone. I was left stuck with my arm in the air.

  I patted my hair back as if it were natural to raise my hand up in the middle of the street like a loopy game show contestant. “Ooh, pick me, pick me!” Anyway, my hair was sticky with sweat. If I had been smart, I would have leapt in front of a garbage truck.

  Daniel crossed to the passenger door and opened it for Tracy as I hurried past, head down. Guess they were an item now. Perfect.

  I continued up the street to an ugly, squat brick building with rusting metal grates over the windows. Mo, the security guy, didn’t even make me go through the metal detector anymore.

  “Aloha, Al,” he said. “Haven’t seen you in a while.”

  “Hey, Al!” I said back. No one has ever called me Al in my entire life. I mean, what kind of nickname is that? But when he found out my name was Alysa, he’d started calling me Al. Because he wears a gun, I let it slide.

  Inside the precinct, an old man and woman ahead of me argued with the clerk about their speeding ticket. On the wall, a TV show droned on about what people were calling “The Glitter.” Bizarre, glittering sea-life was appearing in the water and everyone was in a tizzy.

  “Oxygen levels are declining worldwide,” the reporter said. “Temperatures are rising. Why?”

  The news cut to a suited woman from Island Inc.

  “Up to eighty-five percent of the earth’s oxygen is generated in our oceans. But something is killing the ocean’s phytoplankton,” the woman said.

  “Is terrorism suspected?” the reporter asked.

  “This may be the most advanced bioterrorist attack the world has faced,” she answered.

  Another woman, a biologist, weighed in. “I disagree. This is Mother Earth’s way of saying enough. We’ve abused our oceans to the point that the entire system is breaking down—”

  I tuned out as they argued. Island Inc. had become the world’s most loved company, and they started in Hawaii. They were the reason we changed our name from the Big Island to The Island. Two years ago, terrorists seeded the East Coast of the United States with a genetically engineered one-two
punch that combined influenza and Anthrax. Five-thousand people died, and it could have been worse, but Island Inc. found a cure.

  Finally, it was my turn.

  “Hi, I’m here about Alyx Grey…”

  “Your sister. Yes, I recognize you.” Detective Patterson finished my question for me, face deadpan.

  “Do you have any updates?” I asked.

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Is she—”

  “I’m sorry, but that case has been closed.”

  If he had taken off one of his socks, put a rock in it and slugged me in the face, I would have felt less stunned.

  “Closed? But, it can’t be,” I stammered.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “But she’s still missing!” My voice rose. “You can’t close her case!” With end-of-year finals and water polo, it had been several weeks since I’d checked in. A woman cop and her colleague behind the desk stopped their conversation and turned toward us.

  “Calm down, now,” he said.

  “So, you’re not doing anything more?”

  “If new evidence comes in, we’ll consider re-opening it. That’s all the information I can give.”

  “You have to reopen her case!” I shouted as I slapped my hand on the counter.

  “Keep your voice down. If and when there’s new evidence, we will consider it. I’ll need to ask you to leave. Now.”

  * * *

  I sat on the street outside, leaning up against the wall of the precinct, bricks warm from the sun. Early Saturday traffic drifted along. Tears wet my cheeks, and a chubby woman pushing a baby stroller stared and then looked away. I couldn’t believe they’d closed Alyx’s case. It was my fault.

  “Hey, you okay?” Al crouched next to me. Unlike the cop inside, his face brimmed with sympathy. I nodded and rubbed my cheeks awkwardly, but I was far from okay.

  “You know, I lost someone years ago. My son. Rough times.”

  I shook my head. “My sister’s still alive.”

  He sighed and nodded.

  “If I had come more often to check, maybe they wouldn’t have closed the case,” I said.

  “No, no. Don’t torture yourself for nothin’.” Al put his hand on my shoulder. “Trust me, comin’ from a cop. That’s not why they close cases. Don’t work like that. Ain’t ever seen anyone come as regular as you. Trust me on that, ‘kay?”

  “Sure.” He gave me some Kleenex, and I blew my nose. “Thanks.”

  “It gets easier. Even if it don’t feel that way now.”

  I thanked him, because I didn’t want to be rude. But it wouldn’t get easier. Not until I found her.

  Chapter Four

  Sweat trickled down my back and itched my skin where the strap of my bra rubbed. I removed my backpack and carried it by my side. After the downpour yesterday, it felt like a hundred, even though it was only ninety. It seemed like there was less oxygen in the air, though it was subtle.

  I held my breath and counted to see how many blocks I could walk before needing to breathe. It was a game I played to help increase the time I could stay underwater. Half a block, one block. Sometimes, breath holding showed the way the world really looked, for better or worse.

  Humidity and heat had kept most people inside today, and I had the side-streets to myself. Water sat stagnant by the curbs and lawns lay squishy-brown and bloated. From the corner of my eye, I saw a taunting face reflected in a dark puddle. An old man with a gaping fish mouth. I quit holding my breath early and ran.

  Lonesome Beach is a small thumbprint of sand that dips in and covers the harsh, rocky volcanic shore. It’s surrounded by a narrower strip of courser sand bordered by giant slabs of menacing black rock. I walked past a few lost tourists taking pictures and headed to my right, where the shore narrowed. I took off my shoes, put them in my backpack and traded them for a pair of Tevas I needed to scale the barnacle and seaweed-encrusted rocks. I’d learned the hard way by falling once already. No need to keep testing my wacky abilities.

  My sister could walk on barnacles in her bare feet. I wasn’t sure if it was a memory or something I made up, but the closer I got to the ocean, the closer I got to my twin.

  Fifteen minutes later, drenched in sweat, I had the ocean to myself. I stood panting on a rocky outcropping of black basalt, not a grain of sand anywhere. Sand? Who needed it? Sand on a beach was for tourists.

  I took off my Tevas and enjoyed the spiky, hot rocks as they dug into the soles of my feet. Far to my right, a surfer paddled out into the deep water. Strange, most often no one was here. But a few hundred feet away, a spinner dolphin surfaced, jumped high toward the sun and splashed back into blue. This was a good omen that I’d picked the right spot.

  Today, I planned to beat my prior record and go deeper than ever. I owed Alyx that much. I ducked behind a rock and changed. Sun and wind dried my skin. Uncertain if the surfer could see me from his vantage point, I quickly wriggled into my wetsuit and put on my goggles and dive watch.

  I stashed everything land-related behind a rock, careful to place it high enough that the tide wouldn’t come and slurp it away. I took a deep breath and dove in. Cool water washed away salt from my sweat. I smiled as I thought of Daniel pretending not to see me. Suddenly, it was all no big deal.

  I floated over islands of black stone surrounded by lakes of white sand. Some of the Glitter was evident here. The mysterious, sparkling organisms were spreading. A school of blue-white needlefish swam at the surface. I couldn’t make out what was ripple and what was fish. Soon the bottom dropped away by ten, fifteen, thirty feet and even deeper. I swam over a bottom that I could no longer see. I stopped and looked back toward shore, which was now far away. I began my prep.

  Free diving is easy once you know how. No equipment to worry about, just you and the ocean. Most of it came naturally to me, and some of it I’d learned from YouTube videos. If you want to go deep, really deep, you need to flood your blood with oxygen on the surface and totally relax when you go down. I’m not talking about your everyday relax while you watch TV or some crap like that. I’m talking about muscles so relaxed you can’t tell where muscle starts and water ends. Where you’re so relaxed that you have to remember to breathe and sometimes almost forget.

  I huffed air on the surface, hyperventilating until rainbow dots danced behind my eyes. Then I flipped up and went down, head first. The first twenty feet are tough. It’s a battle between land and ocean. You are a land creature. Then after twenty feet, you get to what they call neutral buoyancy—sometimes I’ve lain on my back and floated there, looking up at the sky reflected in the surface.

  Today I shot right through neutral buoyancy and headed deeper, thirty feet, then forty and onward to fifty. According to my dive watch, I’d been under for ninety seconds, but it felt longer. After neutral buoyancy, you get pulled down like a magnet. I let it happen. I didn’t kick or use my arms. I became an arrow.

  I’d learned that even using your eyes or thinking too hard uses more oxygen. Now I kept my eyes shut as much as I could. At seventy feet, I was about ten feet shy of my record. An octopus darted out from between two large rocks and hung in the water, observing me, before slipping back into a colorful grotto of coral.

  Are you there?

  I heard her voice faintly. I sank a bit deeper, but the pressure was immense.

  “Please come,” Alyx whispered. I could hear her more clearly now. Flickers of images began to appear. A dark cave, deep in the bottom of the ocean. She was alone and hurting. I struggled to keep my heart rate down. I’d felt her presence before, but this was the first time she’d spoken or shown images.

  I miss you. Where are you? I said in my mind and hoped she heard.

  I saw our birth mom, holding us as newborns. We were wet; my father dried us. She sang a lullaby. “Sing, dolphins, until the twin sisters hear. Sing in the ocean vast and clear.” I heard the rest of the melody but not the words.

  My dive watch alarm beeped. The severe pressure made me feel like I was caugh
t in a giant’s fist. I was short of my old record by over eight feet. I didn’t want to resurface, but I had to. I’d started to ascend when I hesitated. Far below me, it looked like someone or something swam toward me. Visibility in this trench was spectacular, but all I could see was a distant greenish-blue form, swimming upward.

  When you went this deep, hallucinations were possible. Free diving is the world’s best, legal drug if you have the guts to do it. Or if you’re just plain crazy. But this didn’t feel like a hallucination. I looked down again. Yes, it was a man, swimming up toward me. Electric fear traveled along my spine. No one could possibly get that deep. My watch beeped louder. I’d been down too long. I kicked toward the surface.

  I’d gone about twenty feet when his hand grabbed my left ankle. I spun around and yanked myself free. A wide-faced man looked up at me. Pale blue eyes, no expression, mouth like a fish with snaggle teeth. Fish Mouth. The man from my nightmares, the man I’d seen staring from puddles, come to life. His mouth was open wide when he lunged at my foot again. I shot up and he missed, but I was running out of time.

  Black spots floated in front of my eyes. Terrified, I felt myself burn through the little air I had left much faster than I should have. I was headed for a blackout. Blackouts were a huge risk when you free-dive, but until now I’d been lucky, ‘cause I’d only read about them. He lunged again, and this time I felt his teeth tear a gash in my left Achilles. White pain propelled me into action. I kicked as hard as I could with my right foot and made contact with his head.

  Lungs bursting, I continued with an emergency ascent. I’d never stayed down this long. At thirty feet, I sensed a dark shape above me. What now, a shark? My heart pounded even quicker. But I’d rather face a shark any day than the foul underwater creature chasing me.

  When I looked up, there was no shark, only the surfer I’d spotted earlier. He had tried to get down to me but couldn’t equalize. Totally squeezed, he kept pinching his nose. I swam up to him. By then he was so caught up in trying to stop his pain that he jumped when I touched his shoulder.