“Father!” Tamarind lifted her head and upper body away from John.
The hollow where she had lain only moments before ached with its cold emptiness.
Twenty-one
Tamarind pulled herself away from John at her father’s voice, a sound of sand washing over broken rocks. She was a bare promontory, exposed and cold after the shelter of John’s arms. Above them, the anxious wind, which had abated during their trip from the refuge office, keened through the treetops and whirled around her bare head. Fine icy raindrops prickled on her face and upper chest; she shivered even though the water in the lagoon was warm as blood.
“Release her, human.” Her father spoke in a low, flat voice. His mind resembled the ocean at midday under a blazing sun; its impenetrable surface reflected Tamarind’s silent entreaties, dazzling her inner eye.
John did as her father bid and she slid completely under the water, her face submerging. Her diving membranes, unused for months, slid noticeably into place. For a moment she lay there, soaking the water into her pores and extracting oxygen. Here, in the dense atmosphere so like her mother’s womb, the raw world outside no longer threatened. Only distorted sounds reached her ears and for an instant even these soothed her. But the fluorescent light of the refuge office flashed across the murk in front of her, and again a dark figure bent over her.
She sat up. An awful sound met her ears and she flinched. Then she realized the sound emanated from her throat.
Before she could say anything, her father erupted across the lagoon, launching himself at John. He swept past her in the water, his powerful tail churning it until it foamed. His wake washed over her; when the water had streamed out of her eyes and nose, she blinked and saw her father gripping John’s neck. She stared at his rigid, alien tail.
“What have you done to her, you vile squid? What happened to her hair?”
John clawed at her father’s hands and arms, gurgling and choking over the implacable fingers.
Let him go, Father!
Her father ignored her. Instead, he shook John as easily as a shark brandishes a mouthful of whale flesh. John’s head snapped back and fresh blood soaked his torn shirt.
No, Father, don’t! Standing, she pushed her feet down into the mud of the lagoon and its ooze calmed her. The lovely dark energy she’d felt earlier at Playa Tamarindo surged through her and she stood. Water dripped off of her bare skin; she’d lost her ravaged t-shirt in the lagoon.
Father. The dark energy smoothed and deepened her voice, carrying it easily through the shrillness of the wind.
Her father looked at her, his eyes steely-blue and turbulent. John hung limp from his hands, rasping a few breaths around his grip. He’d lost his ponytail holder somewhere during the afternoon and his tangled hair hung around his face. In the storm’s twilight his skin had the bleached look of old driftwood or dead coral.
What is it, daughter?
Tamarind switched to speaking aloud. “Let him go. He’s not responsible for my hair.”
Her father kept his hands on John’s throat, but he didn’t shake him again.
Does it really matter? He’s responsible for you putting off your tail, isn’t he?
“No. I am.”
I’ll deal with you later. You’re coming home. Back to the sea where we belong. Where you belong, with your sisters and your community.
“Not if you don’t let him go.”
You think you love this human, don’t you? Don’t you realize how vile, how abominable, they are?
“I know about Mother.”
Her father’s eyes dilated until she couldn’t see any trace of the blue and his hands tightened around John’s throat. John tugged weakly at them and then slumped into her father’s grip.
How could you lie to me? How could you put off your tail and walk among these foul creatures knowing what they did to her? To me? He turned so that his scar gleamed in the dim light.
“They aren’t like grains of sand, one as alike as another, Father. I have spent enough time with them to see them as they are. Many of them are worth knowing. Some worth loving.” She kept her gaze on his face, but her heart beat against the cave of her ribs.
Bah! This jellyfish? He’s only good for feeding bottom dwellers.
“If you kill him now, when he’s done nothing wrong to you, then you’re no better than the men who killed Mother.” Her voice remained steady, but she heard her breath, ragged and shallow.
The wind calmed after she spoke, and so did the world around them. Trees and shrubs slumped at the respite and the lagoon, which had slapped at calves and the merman’s muscular tail, subsided to a flat expanse of murky water. Her father stood immobile, silent and terrible.
“Put him down, Father, and I’ll come with you.”
When her father said nothing, she stepped forward and touched the back of his hands with her fingers. Her fingertips felt frozen on his cool skin and she dropped them hastily, waiting. He grunted and released John, who fell into the lagoon and crumpled to his knees so that the brackish water reached his chest.
Tamarind knelt beside him and touched his face. He raised his eyes, green as the leaves of mangrove, of tamarind, of palm—of all the trees and shrubs and flowers that she’d grown to love on Culebra. “Good-bye, John. May the Creator bless you.”
His mouth opened, but nothing came out. His lips moved futilely, like a fish lying on its side on the beach suffocating in the open air. Keeping his eyes on her face, he fumbled for an instant with something below the surface of the lagoon and then lifted the small wire-wrapped moonstone Goddess, dripping and gleaming, up between them. He held it out to her and when she brought her hand up to accept it, his fingers clasped hers, hard.
Come, daughter, we go now before the fury of the storm whips the sea beyond my strength.
Tamarind extricated her hand from John’s grip and looked steadfastly toward the sea as her father hoisted her onto his back, although she couldn’t see it through the trees and scrub north of the lagoon. She knew from her walks on Culebra that the beach at the far northeastern corner narrowed until almost nothing remained between ocean and lagoon; her father would head there for the shortest path back to Mother Sea and safety. The full force of the storm loomed on the southern horizon and when it reached the island, it would devastate it. She felt nothing, no fear nor sorrow at the thought of mangled homes, trees ripped by the roots from the soil and denuded, birds and horses and giant anoles drowned or flung against concrete and rock.
Her father swam with one arm bent back to hold her around her waist—her own indifferent hands slack around his neck, the Goddess dangling against his chest—and they’d nearly reached the corner of the lagoon when the winds died again and she heard splashing behind them. Her father quit swimming and turned awkwardly in the shallow water to peer back toward the spot where they’d left John. The sky had darkened so much that she knew John would have trouble seeing.
“Tamarind! Tamarind!” The wind enlarged and directed his voice so that it reached them easily. “Don’t go. Stay with me.”
A faint surge of electricity prickled around them and her father shifted. The muscles in his back bunched and tightened. When she reached her thoughts out for his, his mind had darkened and again closed to her. He looked out toward John, whose head appeared as a darker splotch against the dusky lagoon. He said nothing, but waited. After moments long enough for them to reach the open ocean and race away, John neared, slapping the water with heavy arms that hardly cleared the surface of the lagoon. He stopped to look for them every few strokes. Against her father’s chest, the Goddess glowed faintly even though the clouds hid sun, moon, and stars.
Her father took the Goddess from her hand and rubbed his thumb over the moonstone gem. It calls to him.
She didn’t respond, only shivered against his back.
This stone is warm, almost alive. You imprinted a part of yourself on it when you wrapped it within this figure.
She clutched his neck. It’s only a
piece of jewelry, nothing more. Throw it into the lagoon and take me away. Even the rain now falling over them felt warmer than her chilled skin. Please, let’s go, Father.
I cannot. His imprint is on it, too. His blood and his care for you have altered its essence indelibly. You are both bound by whatever magic lies wrapped inside it.
Tamarind closed her eyes, trying again to see into her father’s thoughts, but they had taken on the polished sheen of obsidian.
“Tamarind.” John’s voice, a few tail lengths away, sounded frail. He’d stopped swimming and only his head bobbed above the water. As the sound of her name faded, his head disappeared. It appeared again, but only long enough for him to lift his face to draw a breath and then it slid a final time below the surface.
Before Tamarind could respond, her father lashed his tail against the lagoon, propelling them to the spot where John had slipped under. Without pausing, her father dived under the surface and black water pressed on Tamarind’s eardrums and eyes. She started choking before the valve in her throat closed and her skin extracted oxygen from the water around her. Her diving membranes descended and she saw John’s pale face; his open eyes stared at them.
Tamarind let go of her father’s neck and swam towards John. She grabbed at his hand; his fingers curled around her wrist. She kicked her awkward legs against the enveloping water and reached upward with her free arm. Suddenly her father grabbed her hand and she soared to the surface. Next to her, John’s head broke free, but she knew that he’d taken in water and couldn’t breathe on his own. Before she could plead with her father, he’d pulled both of them up onto the bank and turned John onto his side. Sheets of rain washed over them until her father wove a spell in the air, surrounding them with an invisible bubble into which no wind or rain penetrated.
For several moments, they said nothing. Her father bent John’s prone form over one thick forearm and began massaging his back with the other hand. In a moment John vomited copious amounts of brackish water and he coughed and choked violently afterwards. Her father waved his hand over John, murmuring until he grew limp and quiet. Then he lay John down again on the ground.
In the dark, her father’s eyes glistened. He studied her face for some time before speaking. “Live well, daughter, and know that I’ll love you until the stars fall from the sky and the oceans dry up.”
Tamarind stepped closer to her father and into his embrace. Warm saltwater dampened her cheeks and blinded her eyes. Until now, she hadn’t known what she would give up when she left the ocean behind. After the briefest interval, her father pulled back, kissed her gently on the forehead, and then eased her down onto the ground next to John.
Farewell, Father. Until the stars fall. Until the oceans dry up.
And then he’d slipped out of the bubble and heaved himself onto the sandy bridge to the ocean and disappeared into the roiling night.
***
They remained there on the lagoon’s muddy bank, trapped between the ocean and Marilyn, in the protective bubble that Tamarind’s father had woven in the air. Tamarind sat with her knees to her chest, shivering, while John lay inert at her side. Even though no wind penetrated the cocoon, its howling tore at her with vicious fingers. It sent rain at them with such a fury that Tamarind imagined waves crashing against rocky shores.
She had no way of knowing how long she sat there in the violent dark, but she’d grown so cold that her teeth began to chatter and her knees banged into each other even though she wrapped her arms around them tightly. She remembered the warm ooze at the bottom of the lagoon when she’d stood in front of her father and she wanted to lie down in that ooze, to wrap its velvety embrace around her. Occasionally the winds died down for a moment and she heard the lagoon slapping fitfully at the ground where they sat, unable to proceed higher up the bank. If John hadn’t lain there next to her, she could have escaped into the lagoon and anchored herself among the mangrove roots. She shook her head and rocked on her buttocks a little. If John hadn’t lain there next to her, she would have returned with her father to the sea.
She lowered her face to her knees and breathed into her cupped palms. As she did so, she saw the Goddess lying on the ground next to her. When she picked it up, it radiated a steady heat that set her to shivering even more violently. She curled herself around her hands, holding the figure against her abdomen where it warmed her enough that she finally stopped shaking.
“Hey.” John pushed himself up to a sitting position, wincing. He looked towards her, but she knew that he couldn’t see her. “Where are we?”
“Inside my father’s glamour, on the edge of the lagoon. We won’t be able to stay here when the heart of the storm moves over us. The waves from the waters to the north will surge over the beach and flood this lagoon. My father’s protection won’t be able to hold against them.”
“You should have gone with your father. No need to save me a second time only to have a hurricane sweep me away.”
“You won’t be swept away.” She reached out and touched his knee. She left her hand there. “We’ll take the road up Mt. Resaca together and shelter in the tower until Marilyn is far out to sea.”
“That sounds like a walk in the park.” His tone belied his words. “Okay, let’s do it then. I can’t see so well in this crap so you’ll have to take point.”
“‘Take point’?”
“Lead.”
“Okay. You hold her then.” She handed the Goddess to him. The moonstone glowed enough that his fingers found hers without fumbling.
“She’s so warm. Makes the night seem colder still.” He lifted the figure up next to his eyes and looked at Tamarind through the sphere of light she gave off. “Holy crap! You’re blue!”
He scooted behind her and wrapped his arms and legs around her. The Goddess dangled in front of them, her beam swaying as John’s arms pulled Tamarind closer.
She leaned back against his damp t-shirt. “My senses tell me we need to go while the winds are still gusting. In a few hours, they will shriek without let up.”
He said nothing, only held her against him for a moment. When he released her, she pushed herself up and away to stand. Her toes splayed against the muddy ground and she wobbled a little until her balance asserted itself. Behind her, John stood up as well.
“Which way, sir?” She knew he meant it as a joke, but his voice trembled.
She took his hand. “This way.”
Putting her hand through her father’s protective glamour, she dismissed it and stepped away from the lagoon. Mt. Resaca loomed over them, a darker shadow within the night’s enveloping penumbra. Together, they plunged into the cascade, their hands a lifeline between them.
***
Tamarind clutched John’s hand as hail tattooed her chest and stung her face and scalp. Not far off to her left the ocean, already frenzied beyond understanding, no longer offered her any strength or comfort. The alien drops in the air around them hissed static in her thoughts and refused to yield to her numb fingertips. She could weave no protective shield around them as her father had done and whatever benign force had aided them earlier as they drove from the refuge office had disappeared in the merciless onslaught. The gusts abated for a moment and she pulled John forward a few steps before bracing for another rush; as they walked across the grain of the storm’s path, every fresh gust threatened to hurl them to the sea.
During one of these brief interludes, John swung the Goddess into the hand that held hers; now they cradled the figure between their interlocked fingers. Warmth radiated up Tamarind’s arm and down her trunk, flowing into her feet and then into the ground. The dark, rich energy hummed inside her and flowed back through the Goddess to John, linking them more securely than their joined hands. When the wind next whirled around them, it barely rocked them where they stood. Tamarind lowered her head and trudged forward, moving through the rain as easily as if she swam in a calm sea. They passed through the first line of trees and thorn acacia lining the eastern edge of the lagoon and th
e strength of the winds diminished noticeably. John came up beside her and they picked their way side-by-side through the low-lying groundcover to the road that led up the western flank of Mount Resaca. He kept one arm across his abdomen as they climbed.
Half an hour later, they’d reached the top of Mount Resaca and the observation tower there, panting and bleeding from a myriad thorn scratches. When Tamarind twisted the doorknob on its only door, it remained stubbornly closed.
“It’s locked.”
“Of course it is.”
John stepped around her and battered the door with his shoulder. It didn’t budge. After a moment, he held the glowing moonstone figure up and studied the door, whose red paint had long been weathered to a pale echo of itself. In the faint light, he was a moulos, a dark water sprite with tangled hair and hidden eyes. She blinked and willed the image away. He reached above her and she felt him tugging at something along the doorframe.
“Good thing this is an old door and no one thought to put locking pins on the hinges. Here.” He held a short stick-like item toward her. “Hold this.”
She took it; it was rough and heavy and made of metal. John’s body rocked beside her as he worked the second and third pins out of the hinges. After each pin slid free, he handed it to her and then he gave her the Goddess. She pressed the small figure between her breasts.
“You might want to stand over there for a moment.” He gestured away from the doorway.
She stepped back a few steps and he lifted the door away from the doorframe and propped it against the doorway so that there was a space big enough for them to enter.
“C’mon.” John turned and caught her hand before leading her into the black interior of the tower.
They shuffled along the curving outside wall toward the far side away from the partially open doorway. John, who walked ahead of Tamarind, stopped abruptly and swore.
An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant Page 24