by Eden Winter
The stories of the fish originated in 800 AD and spread from Europe to certain parts of the Americas. It is said that the fish has been spotted thousands of times all over the world, though there is no video evidence to support any of these claims.’
That was all that was said about the history of the fish. The rest of the information about the fish had to do with folk songs and urban legends based on the fish. Some were what I remembered learning in school, and some were new to me. I hadn’t known that the fish was said to have ties to Roman-Greco mythology. I just thought someone was bored and came up with a tall tale about a magical fish.
The way it was described reminded me of what I had seen in my dreams. It couldn’t have been possible that it was really the fish. We had heard so many stories as children that the description of it was widely known. My subconscious more than likely conjured up what the fish looked like as I was sleeping.
I continued to flip through the pages until my actions were absentminded. I was no longer reading anything but turning the pages out of habit. I was getting more and more tired by the second.
“I’ll nap for just a little bit,” I said as I yawned. I put the book back on the console table and rolled over on my side. “Just a little bit.”
There was darkness all around me. At first, I thought I had been blinded, but then I realized I was somewhere at nighttime. My eyes adjusted, but only slightly. I was walking slowly, and I knew I was not alone. I could hear the sounds of grass, dried leaves, and shrubs beneath my feet and knew I was in the woods that led to a section of the park where no one ventured. These woods also led to the lake. I had never been there before, and I wondered what I was doing there now. I wanted to look around and see my companions, but it didn’t feel like I was moving of my own volition.
I did not do or say anything that gave me away. I just kept walking through the trees and the bushes. If I was walking in the direction of the lake, I could have walked at the side of the park that was mostly flat grass and occasional flowers. This meant I was sneaking somewhere, or sneaking away from somewhere. But from what?
In my right peripheral, I saw the silhouette of one of my companions. It was a figure taller than I was. It was possible that it was Peter, though something was telling me it wasn’t.
I did not feel panicked in the slightest, and that let me know I wasn’t a prisoner to anyone who was walking beside me at that moment.
I could see some light coming up ahead, but it wasn’t that there was light shining from somewhere; it just meant we would soon no longer be in the thick and dark woods. I was grateful for that and wanted to breathe a sigh of relief, but I knew better. Right now, it was time for me to be silent. So, I said and did nothing aside from walking forward toward the light.
I made it to the clearing. I could see the lake out in the distance about a quarter of a mile away from where I was standing. I must be trying to get to the lake. It confused me once again that I did not simply take the way I was used to.
‘Come on,’ I heard myself whisper. I walked as quickly as I could while keeping as quiet as possible. My companions and I had not covered much ground when I felt a strange sensation on the back of my neck. I was getting chills.
‘I sense something,’ I whispered too low for anyone around me to hear. But it was certainly true. My senses were naturally heightened, though not like that of someone who was full elf. I stopped and looked around me. I could hear the slight rustling of the grass around me become still. Everyone I was with had stopped walking too. They must have been waiting on my word.
I held out my hand to the side and then placed the pointer finger of one hand over my lips. It was time to be still and to be silent.
And that was when everything changed. The world was moving in slow motion. I turned my head to look, but it was moving like someone pouring a thick pot of honey. I could see an arrow coming toward us. It was so smooth and precise, and I wondered how I hadn’t sensed it before it had been launched.
There was nothing I could do. I wasn’t able to control anything that was happening around me. All I could do was watch in horror as the arrow flew through the air. The arrow was moving closer to me, but it hadn’t been aimed at me. It was aimed at someone I was with. I sucked in a breath, immediately afraid of what that could mean for one of my companions.
The arrow moved a few feet away from my face, and I followed it with my eyes to see its target. It may have been dark, but my eyes had adjusted enough to be able to see my surroundings and the arrow that had been launched almost as clear as day.
I looked over to my right and gasped. The arrow was traveling so fast, too fast for it to not be able to reach its target. And now I could see who it was.
The arrow was headed straight for Delilah.
Chapter Eight
You Ain’t Seen Nothin’ Yet
I was awakened by the sound of pounding on my door. Rather, someone had been knocking on my door for a long enough period of time that it upset my cat. Tangerine pounced on my stomach and started meowing wildly. I woke up to her squishing my tummy.
I had been thrust out of my dream so quickly that I was already beginning to forget what had happened in it.
Delilah.
“Delilah,” I said out loud. I was so tired that I didn’t realize I was talking, but I hadn’t made any effort to stand up and answer the door. I tried to put the pieces of my dream together while I stood and went to answer the front door.
Since I wasn’t expecting any company, my natural instinct was to look through the keyhole to see who was standing outside. But I was still half asleep and didn’t even think about doing that. I opened the door at the same time I opened my mouth to yawn. I was halfway through my yawn when my jaw almost collapsed.
Malcolm was standing in my doorway. He smiled, but it seemed disingenuous. I knew I was making every excuse in my mind to demonize him, but I really could see in his smile that there was something wrong.
We stood there in silence for a few moments just sizing each other up. My eyes darted around and tried to see behind him, but he was big enough to be hiding most of my view.
Where was my sister? Did he come alone?
I swallowed and my heart skipped several beats. I didn’t like this. I didn’t like this at all. The last time one of my sister’s boyfriends came to me when she wasn’t around, my whole life changed. And it didn’t change for the better.
I didn’t invite Malcolm in. There was a part of me that wanted to hear what he had to say first. It was easier to kick someone out if they were already outside.
“Hi, Samantha,” Malcolm said. His voice was pleasant and had an almost musical tone to it.
“Hi, Malcolm,” I said. I gave him a smile that disappeared just as it had formed on my face.
“Are you okay?” he asked. His face changed from fake happy to genuinely concerned. “Is this a bad time? If this is a bad time then I don’t mind coming back.”
“No, it’s not… I just woke up and wasn’t expecting you is all,” I said. I was getting less groggy by the second, but it was being replaced with grumpiness.
“I was just checking on you to see how you were doing after our almost-accident the other day. Isabelle said you were doing okay but you seemed a bit distant. I don’t want to overstep or get into your business, but I just wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help,” he said.
I noticed my body was tensed up, but after he said that, I let my shoulders and my abdominals soften. I had to remember that he was a good guy. The heightened sense of paranoia could have very well just been my anxiety. I had to separate that one instance from the person my sister loved.
“It was just a scary incident. I’m feeling much better now, especially because I saw Isabelle today,” I said. He nodded to let me know he knew that already.
“Thank you for the offer, but I think I’ll be fine,” I added.
“Are…” Malcolm’s expression had changed again. He looked like he was trying to let the fact
that he was upset not show on his face. He wasn’t doing that good of a job of it. “Are you upset with me?”
I stood in my doorway and blinked at him. I couldn’t imagine what could have made me mad at him. I just knew that something had changed when I swore I heard him call me by a nickname my shitty ex had given me.
I moved over to the side and invited him in. It was clear that he wasn’t going to go away for now, and standing in the doorway was too awkward for both of us.
I directed Malcolm to my living room couch, and he literally waited for me to offer him a seat before he sat down.
“I’m not upset with you,” I said.
“Who’s Delilah?” he asked.
That question caught me off guard. How did he hear me say her name from all the way outside? I had to remind myself that he was a full fairy by blood and therefore had heightened senses. But even still, it weirded me out that he thought that was the right question to ask me.
“I was just on the phone with a friend,” I said.
“Oh. I thought you just woke up.”
“I did. But I missed the call. Just missed it, that is. I answered it right when she hung up, and I was saying her name to see if she was still there. Weird tired brain,” I said. I laughed it off and Malcolm chuckled too.
“But you’re absolutely certain you’re not upset with me? It just felt like things changed between us after that day. I didn’t want you to be mad at me or think that something like that would happen again.”
“I really don’t,” I said. I was becoming impatient, but then I thought better of it. I needed time to get over my anxiety, and I had no idea if the anxiety was something I would ever recover from. It was something that I had to manage and keep getting better at day by day. It was very possible Malcolm had a form of anxiety himself. He might have just needed to be reassured that I wasn’t mad at him or believed he had almost killed us all on purpose.
Whatever his reasoning, he was such a weird individual. He had all this confidence, and he still was desperate to make sure I liked him. I hoped it was because he really cared about my sister and he wanted our family to be close with him because he was getting closer to her.
“I promise I’m not mad. I just like being by myself sometimes,” I said. This time I smiled, and it was much more sincere than the last few times.
Tangerine wandered into the living room ignoring us entirely. She walked like she was stalking some prey in the far corner of the room.
Malcolm smiled and called out to her. Tangerine stood stiff as a board with one paw raised in mid stride, and her blue eyes wide and fixated on us. She gently placed her paw down, and the hair all over her back stood up and her ears folded back.
“What’s the matter with you, TanTan?” I asked. She wasn’t looking at me. She stared at Malcolm for another few seconds and raced out of the living room like a bat out of hell.
“Sorry about that. That’s my cat, Tangerine. She’s either super friendly or she keeps to herself. I think she’s just having a bad day today.”
Malcolm let me know that it was okay that my cat had reacted so negatively to him. I had to admit that there hadn’t been anyone else that Tangerine had responded to in that way. It could have been something to do with his scent and not related at all to who Malcolm was as a person.
But still. It was always important to pay attention to how animals behaved around certain people. There was something about Malcolm that frightened or angered her. Maybe my random instinct was right and there was something off about Malcolm. My mind was all over the place, and I couldn’t think of a way to push my thoughts either way. Whatever the case may be, I wanted to be absolutely sure about Malcolm. The way he was slightly off-putting was enough for me to distrust him, but I couldn’t allow one thing to put me off an entire person. There were so many great qualities about him.
Not everyone was Alex. I kept having to remind myself that.
“That’s fine. Maybe Tangerine will like me a little later on. Oh, what’s that book over there?” Malcolm said. He looked over my shoulder at the book on my console table.
“It’s just a book on certain mythical creatures,” I said. If he asked me anything else, I would just tell him it was a new hobby. I had told my sister almost a hundred times during the drive back from the park that afternoon that she wasn’t allowed to tell anyone… especially not Malcolm. I didn’t need to keep telling her because she was so incredibly trustworthy, but I knew how women could get around men they believed they loved. I shook that thought away because I knew it was going to bring up unwanted thoughts about Alex.
“Can I see it?” Malcolm asked. I took up the book and handed it over to him. He started to flip through the pages when he noticed my bookmark dangling inside it close to the center. My heart jumped into my throat when he turned to that page, but I relaxed right after. It was just a random page in a book I was reading. There was nothing unusual about that, unless he knew what I was looking for and why. This was not something to be worried about.
“Oh, the fish of Cesar. I remember some stories about this from when I was a kid. Do you think it’s real?” Malcolm asked. He was speed reading through the page and flipping here and there to check out some of the folk songs associated with the fish of Cesar. When he finished asking his question, he looked up intently at me.
“Nah. It was just a fun tale we got taught as kids, you know? I didn’t know there were so many possible riddles it could ask if you caught it though. I’m going to try to memorize them so I can trick my friends,” I said. That sounded like a good enough excuse to me. He would more than likely ask about the other creatures in the book, which I was honestly hoping for. I had to draw as much attention away from the fish of Cesar as possible. If it was actually real then that meant it was also incredibly valuable. I didn’t want to be responsible for leading someone like Malcolm directly toward it. Of course, this was assuming that the fish needed my help instead of it just popping up in one of my dreams.
I was so sleepy now that my mind was spinning with thoughts of a mythical creature and a conspiracy theory that involved the people in my life. I couldn’t believe I allowed my thoughts to veer so far to the right.
It was stupid of me to think Malcolm had anything to do with my visions or dreams, or even the weird ghostly fish. I couldn’t believe how absurd it all was. Had I really gotten so paranoid about trusting anyone that one word could make or break how it was I associated with that person?
I couldn’t shake the weird feeling though. There was a heaviness in my house now that I only noticed when Malcolm had stepped foot inside. It didn’t get any better with the freaky behavior of my black cat. Whatever the case may have been, this weird way I was talking to Malcolm was going to have to stop.
I thought about telling him what I heard him say, but it was so irrelevant now that it might not have made sense. I was usually one to confront someone I felt had done me wrong, but now I was getting used to giving people the benefit of the doubt. Malcolm probably called everyone ‘bunny’. It could have been something he said often like how people call each other ‘sweetheart’.
“I wish I’d learned more about these stories when I was a kid. Some of them seem so interesting, like the story that you’re reading now. I like some of the songs about the fish. I wish there was more history about him. I’d like to know if the gold on his body was actually real gold,” said Malcolm.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t mind knowing more about that too. I just think mythology in general is very fascinating. It’s nice to see how cultures share their stories with others and some of those stories are altered based on the retelling of it. Or different regions have different eras of the same story,” I started.
“Yes,” he said with the same intent expression on his face. “The world and the beings in it have a way of surprising us.”
And there went that feeling again. That feeling that he was watching me beneath my surface, that anything I said or did was being studied. I thought it was probably
best if Malcolm left. I didn’t deserve to feel so uneasy in my own home. He didn’t need to drive all this way to say he was worried that something had changed about our dynamic. He could have called me or texted me with his concerns. I was battling myself again about whether that was creepy or if he was just that swell of a guy to want to talk things through.
“Listen, I’m sorry to ask this of you, but I’m still so tired. I was gonna make something for myself to eat before going to bed early tonight. Is it all right if we reschedule a time we can really spend some time together?” I said. I yawned and even though it was clearly exaggerated, Malcolm understood.
He put the book of mythical creatures back where he’d found it and stood up from the couch.
“Remember, I’m here if you need anything, Sam. You’ve been through a lot, and it’s nice to have people who are on your side,” he said when we had walked to the front door.
I opened it and smiled at him.
“Yeah, I like knowing there are people in my life whom I can trust.”
He reached over and gave me a warm hug. He smiled and playfully poked my nose. I giggled and smiled wider when he did. I watched him as he got into his pickup truck and watched him as he drove away.
I kept the fake grin on my face long after I closed the door on Malcolm. I could still feel his energy in my house, and I had this strange thought that if I stopped smiling while the energy lingered, he would be on to me.
But after the visit, I noticed I was much more awake. My intuition had been put on high alert, and it helped me through that stage of fatigue.
I was awake enough now to remember that there was something I had to do. It was why I cut the talk with my sister short.