Effortlessly he moved along, helped by the current, and, scorning the schools of small fish swimming by his side, he raced toward the herd.
If She recognized him, She did not show it, but She signaled to him nonetheless by raising one hand. As he moved toward Her, She swam out to meet him.
He went right up to Her and She drifted so that they touched, Her face on his shoulder, nuzzling. Then She ran Her fingers over his face and down both sides of his head, a knowing touch. As if satisfied, She moved away, but he followed. He touched Her shoulder. She did not turn, not at first. Then, after a long moment, She rolled and lay face up, almost motionless, looking up at him. The not-quite-scent struck him again, and all the males began to circle, slowly moving in. She flipped suddenly to an upright position, and a fury of bubbles cascaded from Her mouth. The males moved back, waiting.
She turned to him again, this time swimming sinuously to his side. He wanted to touch Her, but could not, some remnants of his humanity keeping him apart.
When he did not touch Her, She swam around him once more, trying to puzzle out the difference. She put Her face close to his, opening Her mouth as if to speak.
It was dark red and cavernous, the teeth really a pearly ridge. Two bubbles formed at the corners of Her mouth, then slowly floated away. She had no tongue.
He tried to take Her hand and bring it to his lips, but She pulled away. So he put his hands on either side of Her face and brought Her head to his. She did not seem to know what to do, Her mouth remaining open all the while. He kissed Her gently on the open mouth and, getting no response, pressed harder.
Suddenly She fastened onto him, pressing Her body to his, Her cleft tail twining on each side of his thighs.
The suction of Her mouth became irresistible. He felt as if his soul were being sucked out of his body, as if something inside were tearing. He tried desperately to pull back and could not. He opened his eyes briefly. Her eyes were sea-green, deep, fathomless, cold. Trying to draw away, he was drawn more closely to Her and, dying, he remembered land.
His body drifted up toward the light, turning slowly as it rose. The water bore it gently, making sure the limbs did not disgrace the death. His arms rose above his head and crossed slightly, as if in a dive; his legs trailed languidly behind.
She followed and after Her came the herd. It was a silent processional except for the murmurations of the sea.
When Eddystone’s hands broke through the light, the herd rose into a great circle around it, their heads above the water’s surface. One by one they touched his body curiously, seeming to support it. At last a ship found him. Only then did they dive, one after another. She was the last to leave. They did not look back.
The press conference was brief. The funeral service had been even briefer. Gabe had vetoed the idea of spreading Eddystone’s ashes over the sea. “His body belongs to Hydrospace,” Gabe had argued and, as Eddystone’s oldest friend, his words were interpreted as Eddystone’s wishes.
The medical people were wondering over the body now, with its strange webbings between the fingers and toes, and the violence with which the Breather valves had been torn from their moorings and set afloat inside Eddystone’s body. None of it made any sense.
Gabe was trying to unriddle something more. The captain of the trawler that had picked up Eddystone’s corpse some eight miles down the coast claimed he had found it because “a herd of dolphin had been holding it up.” Scientifically that seemed highly unlikely. But, Gabe knew, there were many stories, many folktales, legends, cousteaus that claimed such things to be true.
He could not, would not, let himself believe them.
It was Janney Hyatt at the press conference who posed the question Gabe had hoped not to have to answer.
“Do you consider Thomas Eddystone a hero?” she asked.
Gabe, conscious of the entire staff, both yellow and green smocks, behind him, took a moment before speaking. At last he said, “There are no heroes in Hydrospace. But if there were, Tommy Eddystone would be one. I want you all to remember this: he died for his dream, but the dream still lives. It lives Down Under. And we’re going to make Tom Eddystone’s dream come true. We’re going to build cities and farms, a whole civilization, down under the sea. I think—no, I know—he would have liked it that way.”
Out in the ocean, the herd members chased one another through the corridors of the sea. Mating season was over. The female drifted off alone. The bulls butted heads, then bodysurfed in pairs along the coast. Their lives were long, their memories short. They did not know how to mourn.
Forever, Miss Tapekwa County
Lisa L. Hannett
Verralee trusted the bluebird tattooed behind her mother’s right ear.
She couldn’t hear what it chirped—those songs were for Kaylene alone—but long ago she’d learned to decipher its coloring, to translate the rhythm of inked wings flapping. Ultramarine feathers blurred with excitement meant Kaylene’s tattoo had truths to tell. If he had gossip to share, little black-beaked lies, the sialia’s downy throat would flush lurid red, and molting shoulders would slump beneath the weight of false news. His voice, as far as Verralee was concerned, sounded just like her mother’s. His insights were shaped on her tongue.
In the makeshift kitchen backstage, Kaylene’s frosted-blond hair was pulled back, unbleached roots framing the bird’s sapphire promises, his sketched body still visible through the steam of canning pots boiling on the camp stovetop. Smile pretty, he said with her mother’s mouth. Tilt your head to avoid doubling your chin. Keep your hair out of your face. Clean pickling jars were extracted with tongs from scalding water. And don’t hold your breath, my girl. Don’t repeat your Mamma’s mistakes. One by one, three wide-mouthed Masons were expertly lined up on a small countertop, the workspace identical to six others the judges had ordered made for this year’s contestants. Prepared for their test runs.
The glass cooled, waiting to be filled with a practice-round of preserves.
One last time, for lungs’ sakes. Pay attention.
He didn’t always make sense, at least not at first, but Verralee was used to the bird’s riddles. She looked up at the clock: fifteen minutes until the final round. Quickly, she changed into her bikini as the audience, hidden now beyond the stage curtain, babbled in the auditorium. She joined her mother at the stove while the crowd quaffed shots of whiskey, wolf-whistling as last year’s winner was paraded around for their entertainment. The tattoo chirruped nonsense—breathe deep, breathe deep—and though she still didn’t catch his meaning, Verralee believed in that deep Egyptian hue, that lapis lazuli warbling. With his fluttering wings mussing Kaylene’s loose French roll, and that grin curling her mother’s magenta lips as she spoke, Verralee knew things would turn out fine. One way or the other.
For fins’ sakes, pay attention, the bluebird repeated. Don’t you want to win?
She was—honest—and yes, she really, really did.
Goldfish whirlpooled in her stomach whenever she thought about being crowned Miss Tapekwa County. Though she tried not to care—she’d primed herself to be a good sport, even practiced her gracious-loser smile—in truth her hopes were sky-high, tied fast to her soul with kite strings. Sometimes she wanted to win so bad, it felt like a hurricane raged around her. Hope yanked at her heart, dragged it up her throat, blocked her windpipe, cut off all rational thought.
She watched polliwogs swimming in the clear round beads of Kaylene’s long necklace and knew just how they felt: spinning, spinning in cramped bubbles, stuck in one spot, all heads and tails, half-formed limbs and inhibited growth. She was eighteen now; she had to stretch out of her plain-girl shell, shine like the ageless harvest queens, and prove that her face looked best when not darkened by the shadow of a book. If Verralee won the pageant—and she would, wouldn’t she? The bluebird was rarely wrong; only that one time, all those years ago, just that once. When it’d been her mother’s turn to compete, when he’d said, without the slightest trace of red at his
throat, that Kaylene could win. Not would, Verralee reminded herself, could. That one simple letter made all the difference: could, not would. Like he’d known without knowing that tattooed Kaylene, stunner though she was, would never transform into a true Miss Tapekwa County. But once Verralee won, her smooth olive skin colored only with spray-tan and dabs of makeup, her hair dyed a black so convincing it almost looked natural, she’d see things and go places her mother, in losing, had missed.
She’d be one of Town Hall’s main girls. They’d take her to Nationals, staged on an island on the far side of the country, where ladies with flower jewelry and grass skirts danced beneath palm trees, where they cooked pigs in coal-filled holes in the ground. Where she’d perform, too, under that foreign sun, and when they liked her best she’d be given a special crown; one she could bring back to Tapekwa County after her nation-wide tour. Goldfish churned at the thought of how pretty she’d be then. Officially.
The bluebird said it would be so.
Kaylene plucked one tadpole bead from the strand around her neck, popped it into a jar, handed another to Verralee. You watching? asked the tattoo, as his high-heeled interpreter filled the vessel with jellied liquid. She spoke secret words that didn’t come from his beak. Last chance, Vee. Then it’s all you.
Verralee paused, frogling in her palm.
It’s all you.
That’s what Simon had said yesterday, holding her hand, pressing her close, his glasses knocked to the ground from the urgency with which he hugged her, begging her not to compete. You’ll be different, he’d said to the only girl he’d called his own since the eighth grade. He didn’t ask her how hard it all was, didn’t mention the fact that winning might hurt more than losing. No relationship can survive what you’ll become—but Verralee had cut him off. She couldn’t cry the night before the pageant. She couldn’t afford the puffiness.
This isn’t about us, she’d said.
No, he’d agreed. It’s all you.
The polliwog rolled into the jar. Verralee splashed in a cupful of water, added a frond of seaweed, then rested her hand on the rim. The rest of the spell, caught between her tongue and teeth, refused to form.
This wasn’t just about her, not completely. Not only. Winning this title would make her part of a larger, more beautiful story. She’d follow in her great-auntie’s footsteps, pick up the trail where Kaylene had gone astray. Folk would come from all over to see the display at Town Hall, to bathe in the wonder of Miss Tapekwa County: Now and Forever. Just like Verralee had each year, donning her new birthday dress and the polished shoes Kaylene wouldn’t let her wear ’round the farm. They’d gaze with reverence at row upon row of dewy faces. Drooping ropes would prevent spectators from touching the winners’ sequins and shimmer and shine—but every last one of them would want to. Oh, how they’d want to. Instead, under the guards’ watchful eyes, they’d resign themselves to commenting on the changing fashions over the years; on the curve of that one’s waist, the glimmer in that one’s eyes. All would agree, even without touching or tasting or knowing them intimately, that each girl was the most beautiful in the world. And as they turned for home, back to dry fields and cold dairies and dwindling bales of hay, their bellies would warm with pride. These perfect girls in their swimmers, they’d say, these paragons of aquatic beauty, came not just from God, but from the very soul of Tapekwa County.
What was wrong with wanting to give folk such pleasure?
Verralee shook her head and again looked at the clock. She hoped Simon would continue to visit the show, if and when she won.
Focus, said the bird. We’ve rehearsed this a million times. While Kaylene’s tadpole flourished, transforming in the pickling solution she’d charmed, Verralee’s sank listless to the bottom. The producers had kept the light dim backstage, but even so she could make out the unmoving shadow in her jar; she could see sparks and phosphorescence illuminate Kaylene’s. You’ll always regret it, you know. If you mess things up now.
True.
The songbird’s collar glowed Persian blue, the lines of each feather delicately rendered, thin as the fine crescent scars ribbing both sides of Kaylene’s neck. Traces of gills half-formed. Permanent reminders of the only time the tattoo’s truth had been one letter off.
Focus, he repeated, after Kaylene cleared the lump from her throat. You can do this, darlin’. Make us proud.
Kaylene passed the necklace to Verralee, watched intently as she slipped the length of gelatinous beads over her head.
We’ve dreamt of this day for years.
Verralee’s arms shook as she lowered herself into the tank.
It stood on a wheeled mahogany platform, the third of seven stationed in a gentle arc across the stage for all to see. Twelve feet high and twice as wide, its faintly green glass ballooned like a brandy snifter. Verralee’s fingers caught on its scalloped rim, then slid into a recessed ridge that would, once she’d won, support a silver filigreed lid molded into the shape of a crown. Footlights refracted through the tanks’ gallons of liquid, casting rainbows across the ceiling and the lucky few who’d snagged seats in the front row. Overhead, spotlights shone so hot Verralee worried the mascara would melt from her lashes before she had a chance to submerge; so bright she could no longer see Johnny, her stepfather, standing in the wings at stage left.
They’re ready for you, hun, he’d said with a wink, his pomade-slick head poking through a split in the curtains. I’d say break a leg but, you know. Somehow that don’t seem right. He stepped through the gap and held the drapes closed behind him, avoiding the stagehands cleaning Verralee’s rehearsal space before her performance. Johnny leaned forward, jolly as a clarinet, and kept his voice low.
You look gorgeous, Vee. Real gorgeous. Glad you done yerself natural—the rest of them girls is painted up like a herd of carousel ponies.
Gods love you, Pa, she’d laughed, the sound only slightly forced. He’d blown her a kiss before ducking back out, blissfully ignorant of the fact that the “natural” look took the most makeup to achieve.
The viscous tonic smelled faintly of lime and was cold on her bare legs. She wriggled her feet, savored the sensation of chill creeping up from her toes. Her mind wandered as the Master of Ceremonies announced the final task; the pickling challenge, the preserving. Breathe deep, breathe deep, the bluebird had said. And she’d intended to, she really had: but now her teeth were chattering as the liquid reached her shoulders; and the chain of tadpoles was squirming around her neck, floating up to her chin as her hair fanned out behind; and Simon, her quiet Simon, all fancy in dress pants and a collared T-shirt, was leaving the auditorium. Fluorescent bulbs over the audience reflected off his lenses, blinding ovals of white that obscured his gray eyes. He stared at her for a moment from the end of the aisle, a gash between rows of threadbare velvet seats.
Her fingers slipped as Simon snuck out the back door.
Water cooled the flush from her cheeks.
Inside the tank Verralee’s world blurred. Folk were reduced to diluted colors, glowing patches of liquefied light. Echoes of the band’s music grew deeper, more resonant, sound felt as vibration; chords thickened into tangible waves, harmonies licked her long tresses into art nouveau swirls. Air caught in her lungs, nostrils, and ears; bubbles jeweled her limbs and gilded her gold Lycra bikini. She closed her eyes. Listened to herself sinking.
Though her pulse raced, though the goldfish in her belly fought their way down to her bowels, it was too late to shout Wait! or Simon! or I’ve changed my mind! But had she, really? Changed it? Shaking the bubbles from her head, she blinked. Plucked the beads from their chain, squeezed pollywogs from their round crystal prisons. Wait! she could’ve called; but she hadn’t. If she were the bluebird, her larynx might’ve reddened at such an exclamation.
The spell Kaylene had taught her frothed from Verralee’s mouth, from lips gone cerulean.
She pushed sinuous strands of hair away from her face, like her mother had instructed. Let the judges see your f
ine features. Pain seared through her chest as she ran out of oxygen; it speared through her guts, sent shocks to the tips of her fingers, shredded her inner thighs, calves, toes. Don’t forget to spin; let them see how fresh water accentuates the arrival of your new fins, your new curves.
To her right and left, contestants floundered in their tanks. Two girls were hauled from the water, their limp bodies thrown to the floor. A third came up for air, just a quick gasp, hoping the panel of judges would be too busy with the drowned to notice her infraction. No luck. The men took to her tank with cast-iron canes, smashed its rippled glass as she went back under for a second attempt at winning the crown.
You get one shot, the bluebird had said. Breathe deep.
Verralee wanted to—don’t make your Mamma’s mistakes—but she was afraid her heart might have left the room with Simon. Still, she didn’t want to be slapped to the ground like those three—those four—girls. She wasn’t strong enough for that disappointment. She couldn’t bear to let Kaylene down.
This pageant was hers to win.
Just breathe.
She turned a slow pirouette, showed off the muscles in her thighs and upper back. Her arms grew heavy, her head throbbed, her lungs nose eyes veins guts blood screamed for air: Breathe! Her neck split and burned, sprouted opercula. Breathe! Spots darted in front of her eyes: tadpoles turned frogs turned eels and, finally, turned into a legion of indigo-crimson Betta splendens. Verralee heard the crowd cheer in delight as around her swam iridescent flashes of joy.
She tilted her head in gratitude, glugged out a prayer.
At last, she inhaled.
Pure Tapekwa water filtered through her new gills. The pressure in her head subsided as she drank in each fluid breath. She exhaled words of binding, phrases of change, and other spells that could only be formed by liquid voices. Delight buoyed her up as the veiled fish latched onto her legs. At her command, the bettas multiplied; tripled and quadrupled; burrowed into her flesh; dug into sinew and bone. They gnawed and knitted, knitted and gnawed; transferring their scales, their long silken fins, to create the pageant queen’s unique double-tail.
Mermaids and Other Mysteries of the Deep Page 40