An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant

by Neal Reilly, LeAnn

  “Never mind. I’m sure your parents wouldn’t want you to tell me your name.”

  Her next words confirmed his suspicions about her youth. “I don’t care what my father wants and my mother’s dead.” Still she didn’t tell him her name. Instead, she asked, “Where’re your pants?”

  Heat rose in John’s cheeks. He looked down, not to verify her statement but to hide his embarrassment. Nothing like exposing himself to a pubescent girl. At least he’d controlled himself in time—he didn’t have that on his conscience. “I thought I was alone. I was sweaty after walking around.”

  “Oh, so it’s not your custom to swim naked?”

  “Now that you mention it, I’d like to get dressed.”

  With as much dignity as he could muster, he swam to the beach and stood up, walking toward the rock where his clothes lay without turning to see if she’d followed. He pulled his briefs and shorts on before looking over his shoulder. She remained behind.

  “Aren’t you coming out?” Perhaps she feared him. They were alone, after all.

  After a moment, she swam closer and stood up. When she did, John understood why she’d hesitated. Except for a pair of tan cargo shorts that looked a lot like his, she wore nothing else. Heat flooded John’s face again.

  “Here.” He tossed her his t-shirt. She caught it and looked at it before looking back at him. She didn’t seem nearly as disconcerted as he felt. “Please put it on.”

  Shrugging, she pulled the t-shirt over her head. Her hair left large dark patches on the shoulders and the shirt clung to her wet breasts, negating the concealment of the cloth and testing his theory about her age. She’s too young, he repeated to himself. Dangerously young. Every aspect of her behavior pointed to innocence and vulnerability. She walked over to the rock and sat down and began to comb out the tangles in her hair with her fingers.

  “And you asked why I was naked? No wonder your father doesn’t want you to go too far from your family.” John stopped, thinking. “Maybe you should get back to him. I’d hate for him to show up and see you’re wearing my shirt.”

  She looked down. “He wouldn’t be happy, no.” She made no move to leave, however.

  John frowned at her. She seemed too slight to pull a flailing man out of the canal, but he couldn’t help himself. Too young or too slight, everything else fit. He had to ask.

  “Did you save me from drowning a couple of days ago?”

  He watched her toy with a strand of damp hair; her eyes followed the pelicans walking stiff legged through the shallows not far from them.

  “Yes, I did,” she said at last without looking at him.

  At her words, a thrill sparked the tender of his curiosity and ignited some strong emotion in him. He damped it down, as much to calm himself as to keep from scaring her. Go slowly, he told himself.

  “Please, I’d really like to know your name.”

  She looked at him and he fell into the immense blue of her eyes. In that instant, he recognized the face that he’d described to Tomás. Why had he ever doubted it? “Tamarind. I’m Tamarind.”

  “Like the trees?” When she nodded, he thought, How fitting. A water sprite with a wood nymph’s name. She really was the embodiment of a natural element. He went on, “I’m sorry if I sounded rude a moment ago, Tamarind.”

  She cocked her head, looking for the world like an inquisitive bird. “Are you going now, John?”

  “No.” He couldn’t say I can’t go now that I know who saved my life. I need to know more about you. Instead, he said, “I brought lunch. Would you like some?”

  “Lunch?” She sounded perplexed.

  “It’s not much. Just some oranges and peanut butter sandwiches.” He retrieved his backpack from the kayak and pulled out the food. She hadn’t moved from her perch. He held up an orange in one hand and two peanut butter sandwiches in the other.

  When Tamarind said nothing, he came over and sat on the sand at her feet. She watched him slide a sandwich out of its clear baggie and bite into it.

  “Would you like to try some?” he offered, holding out the other sandwich.

  “Yes!” A smile transformed her small face, which was tucked into a bed of drying hair that already showed signs of wildness. John thought he saw bits of seaweed in it as befitting a water sprite. Just like a sprite, she was small, perhaps only as tall as his shoulder, and delicately built. She was definitely too young. Maybe not even in high school.

  Ignoring the proffered sandwich, she leaned over and bit into John’s. After a few chews, she started coughing and gagging.

  “What?” Fear clutched John’s chest. He leaned in and put his hand on her shoulder. “Are you choking?”

  In response Tamarind began digging into her mouth. John watched her with mixed astonishment and fascination. Bits of peanut butter and bread clung to its corners and flecked her cheeks. She spit without turning her head away, her tongue pushing the tenacious paste that had been her sandwich out of her mouth. At last, she wiped the mush away with the back of her hand. She appeared totally unaware that her actions could be perceived as curious at best, disgusting at worst. John surprised himself by finding her lack of social awareness appealing. Clearly she hadn’t been molded yet in the rough world of adolescence.

  “Mmmnuhh!” She screwed her face up. “What is that?”

  John’s own sandwich lay forgotten in his lap. “All that because you’ve never tasted a peanut butter sandwich before?”

  Tamarind tossed her head a little and the tangles of her hair fluttered around her face. He wanted to brush it away, like a big brother taking care of his kid sister. He’d fixed Cassie’s hair when she was little. “It clung to the inside of my mouth, like a tongue crab.”

  “Tongue crab? What’s that?”

  Tamarind’s brow creased as she thought. “A tiny crab that crawls into a fish’s mouth. It latches onto the fish’s tongue and drinks its blood. The tongue shrivels up and falls off.” She caught his expression and laughed. It was a delightful gurgle. “Don’t worry. The crab becomes the fish’s tongue.”

  “I can see you’re going to be a bundle of fascinating facts.” John smiled and put his sandwich away.

  Tamarind didn’t seem to hear him. She dropped off the rock and waded out into the water.

  “Hey, I’m sorry. I don’t mind your stories,” he said, standing up.

  She waved a hand toward him. “I’ll be right back.”

  He sat and watched as she entered the water and began swimming what looked like the butterfly but so fluidly and gracefully that she appeared to glide through the water. She swam out about fifty yards and disappeared. He waited, his chest tightening and his throat closing, but she popped to the surface before his head began to pound. This time, when she swam back, she didn’t use her arms, which she held in front of her as though she were a human torpedo. She managed to get her feet beneath her and rose in one smooth movement, her hands cupped together. For no reason, John thought of primordial life emerging from the oceans. He kept his eyes on her face and avoided looking at her transparent t-shirt.

  Tamarind approached him, her liquid blue eyes bringing some of the sea with them. She held out her hands. John peered at them. At first, he thought that she’d brought back a jellyfish, but then he realized that it was a mess of translucent, worm-like creatures with little round white eyes with black centers—like those wiggly eyes children used in crafts.

  “Your turn,” she said and held up one of the creatures pinched between forefinger and thumb.

  “Uh, what is it?” John asked, stalling. The creatures were squirming.

  “Baby reef fish,” she said and popped a whole handful, like peanuts or popcorn, into her mouth.

  Could he tell her that he didn’t eat fish? But he’d eaten beef last night. In for a penny, in for a pound. Besides, she’d clearly never had peanut butter before and she hadn’t hesitated. Maybe he could just spit his out, too? John swallowed and reached for one of the larvae, grasping its slippery body. It squirte
d from his grip and dropped in the sand.

  Tamarind laughed, leaned over, and dropped several into his mouth, as though he were a seal. Or baby bird. He didn’t chew. He swallowed. It was like swallowing salty noodles. Not so bad after all, but he’d pass on doing it again.

  “Thanks.” His voice came out as a croak.

  She finished eating the tiny fish from her palm, sucking the last three between her lips. John shrugged; he’d watched enough cable television to know that people of different cultures ate all kinds of things. Fish seemed rather benign in comparison to insects. Or snakes.

  She lifted her face to the sky and smiled, an unself-consciously happy upturn that rendered her eyes half moons of pleasure. Particles of food still outlined the corners of her mouth and there was a smear of peanut butter in her hair, but she was oblivious to them. Instead, she started humming a tune. John had never heard anything like it before. The vibrations thrummed through her torso as if her ribcage were a tuning fork. He heard variations in pitch emanating from her throat, serving as a nice counterpoint to the bass of her body. She clicked her tongue against her teeth at the same time. John sank his feet into the warm sand of the beach and closed his eyes to listen. His spirit soared into the cerulean above them. When she stopped, he dropped back into himself.

  “Why’d you stop?” He looked at her. Whatever she’d done, she’d gifted him with the sweet blankness that he’d experienced on his bike ride.

  “Do you ever fly up with the birds?” she asked. In the space of a heartbeat, she went on, “Do you ever go underwater, I mean, way underwater or do you only use one of those tubes and stay near the surface?”

  “I’m trying to learn to dive, but—”

  “Where’d you come from? Is it far from here?”

  “I’m from Pittsburgh, which takes two short flights to get here. I—”

  She didn’t wait for more but leaped up. “It was very pleasant meeting you, John. Thank you for the shirt. I hope to see you again.”

  She laid a cool, moist hand onto his cheek and looked at him unsmilingly. After a moment, the spectacular smile split her face again and lit her eyes, and then she backed away from him without looking at the ocean.

  “Wait!”

  But she only waved and turned to run into the shallow water. When the water reached her thighs, she flung herself into the next wave. John saw a tangle of arms and hair as she surged away from him.

  “Wait,” he repeated to himself. He didn’t know what else to say.

  When she looked back at him, her laughter danced like sunlight on waves. And then she disappeared around the point toward the canal.

  ***

  That evening, John ventured south over the drawbridge to the Dockside, as much to avoid running into Raimunda as for a change of culinary pace. Isla Encantada was small and intimate, and he’d be a sitting duck if she showed up. He’d had all day to consider what he’d done last night and he still didn’t know how it had happened. He wasn’t a saint by any means, but he knew where his boundaries were. At least, he thought that he’d known. Raimunda had waltzed right over them as if they didn’t exist. As if she had a secret code that bypassed his system programming. The question was: would Zoë believe him? Would she forgive him? They lived together; it mattered a great deal what he did with another woman, to himself as much as to Zoë. Stefan, if he knew, would grin and offer to buy him a beer.

  John asked the waitress to seat him as far from the entrance as possible and she led him to a small table next to the canal. While he waited for his order, he drank iced tea and composed a speech to Zoë, but no matter how many times he tried, nothing he said sounded plausible or defensible. He stayed there all evening trying to find the words, sitting in an ever-increasing cloud of mosquitoes who dined on his penitent flesh until the waitress gently shooed him out.

  Five

  When it finally came time for John to strap on an oxygen tank and drop sixty feet to the ocean floor, he found that nearly drowning no longer dominated his thoughts. He couldn’t look at the Caribbean without seeing Tamarind’s luminous eyes—everything else about the sea receded into meaninglessness. He hadn’t entirely lost his fear. It had just moved inside a plexi-glass box inside his mind: he could see his irrational self pounding and mouthing words, but it had been reduced to wild gestures that he ignored.

  He met Chris at his shop. Chris had lost the feral gleam in his eyes and never mentioned the gente del mar while they loaded gear with Pablo and Jorge onto his boat. His no-nonsense demeanor and thorough checklist turned the lights out in John’s anxiety box. As they worked, he told John what to expect at Amberjack—the reef southwest of Culebra named for the silver fish that clustered in schools there. The currents were variable, for good and for bad, but nothing that a neophyte couldn’t handle. John started to look forward to it, to see himself surrounded by water and breathing fine.

  They’d boarded the boat and were casting away when he caught sight of Raimunda slouching against a corrugated building on shore, one knee bent under her tiered skirt. Even from a distance, warm, spicy smoke from her cigarette drifted over the cool smell of saltwater, mesmerizing and insistent. A familiar hollowness filled John. He nearly cried out to Chris to reverse course and tie up again, but he clinched his jaw instead and wrenched his gaze forward to the brilliant horizon. The scent of clove lingered like regret until Culebra had shrunk into a dark speck.

  While they sailed, an ominous patch of clouds obscured the sun. Pablo and Jorge shielded their eyes and muttered to each other, but as quickly as it had appeared, the patch blew away. Chris pulled out photo albums with hundreds of pictures of fish, crustaceans, coral, and seaweed from dives he’d taken throughout the Caribbean. John nodded and murmured over as many pictures as he deemed polite. Perhaps it was the protective sheet overlaying the images, but the sea life looked plastic and posed.

  Chris closed the creaky cover on the last album. “I’ve been everywhere. Always come back to Culebra though. It isn’t the best diving in the world, but there’s something about the waters around this little rock in the ocean. It’s not just that they’re so clear. There’s something, I don’t know, something eternal. Something bigger than us here.”

  John, who’d let the sound of the engine lull him into a trance, stirred and stretched. He’d been thinking of Tamarind’s crazy hair and infectious laugh. The outrageous way she’d spit out her food, the graceful speed of her swimming. He’d tried to recall her humming, but he could only identify its absence. He tugged himself back to the present and Chris, who sat rubbing the album cover.

  “I guess Culebra really is the ‘Enchanted Isle,’” he said. It was the first thing that came to mind.

  Chris looked at John out of the corner of his eye. His introspective mood visibly changed. “Think you’ll see your mermaid?”

  The question didn’t surprise John. It didn’t bother him as much as it would have two days ago. “Maybe.”

  “Ah-ha! You’ve already seen her again.” Chris studied him. “She’s pulling you under her spell.”

  A dolphin broke the surface of the water. John watched as it leapt beside the boat, racing them. An image of himself riding on its back filled his mind, echoing his dream from the morning after his rescue. “I met the girl who pulled me out, yes.”

  Chris beamed. “What’d I tell you?”

  John smiled at him. “She’s a scrawny young thing.” He almost said, Too young for me. He didn’t. Instead, he pointed out the obvious. “With legs.”

  Chris grinned. “Oh, yeah. They can put on legs, walk on shore. I’ll bet you cold cash you won’t find it easy to go back to Pittsburgh next week.”

  It was clear that Chris couldn’t be talked from his irrational belief. But how irrational was it? How had Tamarind pulled him, a 165-pound male, from eight feet of ocean? She’d grabbed him as he slipped under that last time. Perhaps that explained it….

  John shoved the doubt aside and ended their debate with a joke. “Don’t tell my girlfri
end that. She’ll come down here and kick my ass all the way back if I don’t.”

  Chris shook his head and stowed the albums away in watertight bags. As he headed below decks to put them into a locker, he called over his shoulder, “I came to Culebra to escape my girlfriend. Best thing I ever did.”

  ***

  At Amberjack, they descended through warm, clear water to a bottom where tan-colored soft corals sprouted, sheltering tiny black-and-yellow-striped wrasses. A sharp, brief twinge of fear erupted through John’s mental restraint, but it was too late. He succumbed to the press of water overhead, gave into it—and found himself free to mingle with a teeming world of alien life. Even as John watched, the wrasses set up cleaning stations there to rid barracudas and orange hogfish of parasites. Not far from the coral lay a long line of rocks where delicate sponges and red and black deep-water gorgonians blossomed in a rich brocade, large French angels gliding among them. At the end of the row of rocks a cabin-sized boulder jutted off the flat sand. A school of amberjack swirled around John, many of them larger than his torso. Here Chris urged him to shoot some photos.

  As John floated over the boulder with his waterproof disposable at his eye, he heard—or rather felt—humming like the song Tamarind had hummed the day before. The weight of the water around him disappeared and colors brightened. Yet when he looked around he saw nobody but Chris, who hovered nearby. Chris turned his palm up, questioning. He grabbed at his own throat with two hands before repeating the upturned palm. John shook his head vigorously and brought the camera again to his eye. No panic assailed him now. He’d shed his fear as easily as a sea snake shed its skin.

  ***

  In the warm air afterwards, his body weighed more and the nerves in his skin tingled, exposed. The fiberglass deck burned his bare soles, but John scarcely noticed. As he moved around the deck, he swayed to the rhythm of his afternoon dive even though the boat rocked little. When they returned to Chris’s dock in the harbor, they tied the boat up and began stowing gear in the lockers. Voices further down the dock, the thin cries of seabirds, and the sawing of outboard motors out in the harbor all washed over him after the deep silence of Amberjack.