Poseidon's Scar

by Matthew Phillion

  “You’ll have to come to my city to get what you need,” they said. “But that’s easily done.”

  “Okay, so how do we…” Echo started to say. Then she heard a loud, wet thump, a roar that might have also been a cry for help, and then looked up to see a shadow shaped like a man-shark flying through the air like a ragdoll. “Oh, Yuri.”

  The yacuruna beamed that same radiant smile at Artem.

  “Protectors, plural,” they said. “It looks like your shark friend has met my crocodile.”

  Echo sighed and turned to Artem.

  “I’ll go get him,” Artem said, resigned. “I’ll be right back.”

  Chapter 31: It’s a cult

  Simon Yee was a professional weirdness investigator. He knew weird when he saw it. Weird was, in fact, his job. And he knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that things in Fogarty’s Folly had gotten very, very weird.

  Sure, Jeb Sykes rambling like a madman had felt out of place, but one guy going off the rails is one guy going off the rails. But in the days since, the whole town had taken on a kind of just-on-the-edge-of-cracking energy.

  Well, not all of it. The new folks, like himself, seemed unchanged, and, frankly, somewhat put upon by the behavior of the Fogarty’s Folly lifers. Stores had begun keeping weird hours. The townies hadn’t always been particularly friendly to new residents, but they’d adopted an even stranger attitude, seemingly ignoring them rather than showing obvious annoyance, as if the new folks—with their hybrid cars and their long commutes—were barely even there, just objects to walk around in the street. The lifers puttered through the streets as if on a mission, eyes distant, faces somehow both rapturous and anxious.

  The temple, which Simon sat looking at from his spot in Ishmael’s Coffee across the street, had become a beehive of activity. If Simon was being honest with himself, this had become a stakeout. He curiously observed the comings and goings at the temple all day: local politicians, the chief of police, business owners, priests, other staples of the town, all of whom passed each other as they arrived and left without a word. None seemed particularly rushed, either, but focused, almost cartoonishly so.

  “You look like you’re on a stakeout,” a woman said. Simon snapped out of his reverie and looked up. The manager of the Ishmael’s branch, a thirty-something woman with a mop of curly hair and a quick smile, stood over him, hands on her hips.

  “I don’t…” Simon started to say, but she cut him off, sitting down at his booth with him.

  “Look, you can deny it all you want, but you are casing that building over there. And you know what? I don’t blame you,” she said. “Clarissa, by the way. I’m the manager.”

  “Do you usually accuse your customers of spying on the neighbors?” Simon said. “Not that I’m admitting to spying or anything.”

  “You’re staring at that weird temple,” she said. “Honestly, I’ve worked across the street from it for two years now and I have never seen anything even remotely normal happen over there.”

  “I’ve never seen anything happen there at all,” Simon said. “I’m pretty new to town.”

  “I could tell you weren’t local. You don’t have that wide-eyed, fishy stare the townies have,” Clarissa said.

  “Fishy?”

  “Look at them,” Clarissa said.

  Simon turned back to the street and checked out the passersby and found that Clarissa wasn’t exaggerating—the locals did have a certain wide-eyed, round-faced look. Not obvious, not over the top, but if you watched for it, there it was. A Fogarty’s Folly face.

  “Well, now I’ll never unsee that,” Simon said.

  “I noticed it after my first few weeks on the job,” Clarissa said. “I’m not local. Moved here to help open the branch, figured it was a good excuse to live by the water for a bit. But you see the same faces every day, you start noticing patterns, similarities.”

  “You think it’s just genetics?” Simon said. “Small towns like this tend to have a lot of families who intermarry. Might just be a dominant feature or something.”

  “Maybe,” Clarissa said, shrugging. “Maybe it’s something in the tap water.”

  “Do you drink the water?”

  “Up until this conversation I did,” Clarissa said. “Rethinking that position.”

  Together, they stared at the temple. Another group of people left, several business owners and a town council member.

  “I’ve got to find out what’s going on in there,” Simon said. “I don’t even know what it is. Is it like the Masons? The Elks?”

  Clarissa leaned in conspiratorially.

  “That I can help you with,” she said. “Okay, so when I first got here, I asked about it, and everyone in town passes it off as a community center. As you say, like the Elks. People giving back to the town, a sort of mock exclusivity that pretends it’s a secret society for fun. But dude, it’s a cult.”

  “Seriously?”

  “No joke. Some of my staff are local teenagers, and like any kids being forced to join anything with their parents, they usually want nothing to do with the temple, right? Nobody wants to go to the local community center to volunteer at fifteen, they want to hang with their friends. But a few weeks later? Total change of personality. They’re in it.”

  “What do you mean, total change of personality?” Simon said.

  “Well first off, most of them quit. They get jobs with someone who’s in the group. The local businesses, with owners who are lifelong residents, they hire all the local kids. I’m actually relieved this town is starting to attract the upper middle class folks from out of town now so I can hire those kids,” Clarissa said. “I still hire townie teenagers when I can because it gets you points with the community, who hate that a chain coffee shop is here in the first place, but seriously, I’ve never had a kid stay on after they start going to the temple.”

  “Okay, so it’s a closed circuit,” Simon said. “But that doesn’t scream cult to me. That screams, well, favoritism, maybe. Insular behavior.”

  “Oh, it gets worse,” Clarissa said. “They don’t talk about it openly, but you can catch snippets of it sometimes. There’s a sort of religion involved. They hold ceremonies a few times a year. They keep it really quiet, but there’s this talk of rising again—I figured it was like the Rapture, right? Except it’s totally not. They mean something rising again… from the ocean.”

  Simon raised an eyebrow.

  “Are you sure they’re not just LARPing a Lovecraft game?”

  “I’m telling you… I didn’t get your name.”

  “Simon.”

  “I’m telling you, Simon, if what’s going on over there is a game, the people playing it don’t think so,” Clarissa said. “I even asked if I could join as a local business manager, y’know, maybe sponsor a little league team or something. You would’ve thought I said something scandalous.”

  Simon sipped his coffee, grimacing as it had faded from lukewarm to below room temperature.

  “I’ll refresh that on the house,” Clarissa said. Simon waved her off.

  “Okay, look, all these anecdotes are interesting, but I need more to go on,” Simon said.

  “So, you are staking the place out,” Clarissa said.

  “Fine, yes, I am,” Simon said.

  “Are you a cop? A private eye?” Clarissa said.

  “I am something so much weirder than both of those, but that’s a story for later,” Simon said. “I need something actionable. Is it possible to get inside the temple?”

  “Are you willing to break in?” Clarissa said, barely concealing the hope in her voice.

  “That would be a bad idea,” Simon said.

  “I was really hoping you’d break in,” Clarissa said. “Although I don’t know how you’d do that with no windows.”

  “Yeah, about that—who builds a concrete block of a building with no windows?” Simon said. “That’s got to be some sort of safety violation. Anyway. No breaking and entering.”

  “Well, one of
my regulars told me the temple folks are setting something up on Pickman’s Beach,” Clarissa said.

  “Define ‘something.’ And maybe ‘setting up.’”

  Clarissa shrugged.

  “I don’t know. Just telling you what I know.”

  “Pickman’s is the private beach down on the south side of town, yeah?” Simon said.

  “Yup.”

  “So, I’ll have to trespass on a private beach to get there,” Simon said.

  “That, my weird not-a-cop friend, I can help you with,” Clarissa said. “Guess whose apartment building has a walking trail next to it that state law says has to allow access to the shore?”

  Simon leaned in and pointed at Clarissa.

  “I have this feeling either we’re going to be best friends, or you’re setting me up to get murdered,” Simon said.

  “So, I’m going to take that as a yes to coming by later to spy on Pickman’s Beach?”

  Simon sighed and threw back the rest of his cold coffee.

  “It’s a yes,” he said. “What time should I come by?”

  Chapter 32: The upside-down city

  Artem had seen a lot of strange things in his life. He’d been to the bottom of the sea, fought monsters, lived among myths and legends.

  But nothing prepared him for the city of the yacuruna.

  The strange, androgynous being led them beneath the Amazon, smiling radiantly when the group told the yacuruna every one of them could breathe underwater.

  “This river is a little different than the oceans you are used to,” they said, and before Yuri could get a snide “I know” out, the yacuruna disappeared beneath the brownish river water. The others followed, Artem momentarily disoriented and uncomfortable, so much time having passed between the last time he had to use the magical earring he wore.

  Instantly, the world made no sense.

  He dove beneath the waves, expecting darkness, expecting confusion, but he did not expect anything like what he saw underwater—the riverbed seemed to expand, an inverted sky, disappearing into impossible depths. He immediately felt an animalistic panic set in, his mind trying to wrap itself around the impossible while his body fought against the belief it might drown.

  He felt a strong, slender hand on his upper arm, and found Echo there waiting. She took his hand in hers, and, without pride or embarrassment, let her guide him into the abyss beneath the river. I know my strengths, and I know hers, he thought. The wise man takes the hand when offered; the fool drowns.

  Beside them, Yuri had transformed into his were-shark form, allowing Barnabas, in an accidental but not inappropriate approximation of a lamprey, to latch on for a ride as well. Muireann drifted on the currents as though she were born there, a fluid, elegant, effortless grace to her movements as she swam behind the yacuruna. Months ago, Artem might have been frustrated at feeling momentarily weak or out of his own control, but now, after fighting beside these strange people, he felt comfort knowing they watched out for him beneath the waves the way he watched out for them above.

  Echo pulling him along also allowed Artem a chance to study their surroundings. The riverbed teamed with life along the edges, plant matter and fish, the glitter of daylight. And the deep emptiness they swam toward did not turn to dark the way such a space on the sea floor would—it seemed to glow with a light of its own, or to draw the daylight into it like warmth, a pale light made green by the living matter all around them.

  As they dove deeper, Artem felt the strange sensation of gravity reversing. He no longer felt as if they were diving down, but rather floating up, drawn toward a surface that was not there. Artem felt a hint of vertigo the deeper they traveled, his internal senses telling him the opposite of what his eyes did. This feels a little bit like going mad, he thought.

  And then he saw the upside-down city and truly questioned his sanity.

  The city seemed to rest on the bottom of the river, but at an impossible depth, but also inverted, flipped so that spires of buildings were pointing downward into the blurry haze of the sky that was not the sky beyond. There were two skies, like in a mirror, and the effect was dizzying. It cast an alien shadow on the horizon, dark fingers of stone and wood reaching out to grasp at ghosts.

  Artem felt Echo’s hand tighten around his, shocked at the magnificent image before them.

  The yacuruna guided them closer, swimming parallel to the floor of the river—both floors, Artem realized; the river mirrored itself, as above, so below. The being darted through the water with the flexible grace of sea lion. From the murky depths, a shape merged, enormous with a wedge-shaped head, and the yacuruna reached out to take hold of this new creature, another massive black crocodile, and together they guided the companions into the upside-down city.

  The yacuruna effortlessly placed their feet against the street, the disorienting gravity of this place not impacting them at all. As Artem looked around at the city to try to orient himself—to try, in essence, to pretend up is down, to walk on the “ground” of this inverted place—he saw just how beautiful this city was. I need to take this in, he thought. I need to absorb this. I am amongst the impossible. I want to understand what this means.

  Soon they were close enough to touch the first of the city’s spires, and Artem saw, shockingly, that the buildings were made of pure crystal. Only vaguely opaque in some parts, pristinely clear in others, the upside-down city felt as if it were made entirely of glass. Beautiful, brittle, waiting for the wrong touch to master it, or to destroy it.

  The yacuruna watched as the group awkwardly gathered around. Echo drifted, her demeanor calm but her eyes betraying confusion and discomfort. Muireann easily followed the river spirit’s lead and placed her feet on the ground to stand upside down, soles of her feet aimed toward the surface of the water from which they’d come. Barnabas tried to stand as well, but kept slipping and drifting upright again. Yuri clearly gave up completely and floated with his back to the ground, completely upside-down in the eyes of the yacuruna.

  The river spirit gestured for the group to follow them inside, and they complied. The beauty of the building once again struck Artem—walls made of pearl, floors and ceilings designed with hand-crafted fish scales. He saw hammocks made from the feathers of birds the colors of which seemed impossibly vibrant. They were not alone, either—turtles the size of chairs walked around with meditative calm, and serpents like the one that trapped Artem on the surface had free rein of the place, though they kept a respectful, almost suspicious distance. Not a one seemed at all bothered by the upside-down nature of this place. Artem wondered if they ever left, or even if they were born to this life and knew no other.

  Once inside the crystal building, the inversion of gravity fully took effect. Muireann, Echo, and Artem—with Echo’s help—managed to stay on their feet. Barnabas tipped and fell like a drunk in the street, struggling to get back onto his feet. Yuri just flopped on the ground like a shark on a boat, laying there until he transformed.

  “I feel like I’m going to vomit,” he said.

  “Perhaps your friend should just stay here, for now,” the yacuruna said, and then, before their eyes, the spirit transformed. Gone was the androgynous beauty, replaced by a creature covered in fur from head to toe, a wide, inscrutable, but inhuman face looking back at the group.

  “Your true face,” Echo said.

  “I have many true faces. This face is no less true than the one I wore above. Faces are meant for convenience, not truth,” the yacuruna said.

  “But this is the face you wear at home,” Muireann said. “That means something.”

  The yacuruna smiled at her.

  “Said well by someone who wears many faces herself,” they said.

  “Many faces?” Yuri said, trying to stand up but falling over again.

  “We can talk about that later,” Barnabas said. He was on his feet now, but had his eyes closed, and even wrapped a bandana from his coat around his eyes to remain balanced.

  “Spirit,” Artem said,
interrupting. “You know why we’re here.”

  “I suspected,” the yacuruna said. “The rivers and the seas don’t talk to each other the ways you might expect. We have different magic. We are siblings who have moved to different villages, who no longer speak, simply because our paths never cross. But even the rivers have heard that something has awoken, a malignance that spreads even here.”

  The yacuruna pointed at a corner of the room, where a corpse, brutally killed but tidily laid to rest, waited in eternal repose. It was a short creature, thick bodied but not stocky, with spindly limbs, large feet and hands, webbed fingers tipped with sharp claws. It had a fishlike head with a wide, crescent mouth. Artem immediately thought of the shapes of the bites on the seahorse body they’d seen.

  “It’s one of them,” Echo said, noticing the same details.

  “I don’t know what you mean by that,” the yacuruna said. “But it was an unwelcome invader in my lands, a straggler from a larger school, left behind and gluttonously ravaging the creatures I call friends. It had to be put down. Swiftly and painlessly, of course. We yacuruna are healers, not killers, despite what the legends sometimes say.”

  Artem took a step forward, but the moment he strode away from Echo, who had been quietly assisting his balance, Artem felt the room sway.

  “Spirit, we were told you might have an object. Something that might help us bind this menace, to stop it from hurting anyone else,” Echo said. Her voice was tight and strained. Artem could see the stress of this inverted place weighing on her. But then Muireann walked up to Echo, placed a hand on her shoulder, and leaned in, whispering something into her ear. Artem watched as Echo’s body loosened, her eyes cleared, and a soft smile crossed her lips.

  “Thank you,” Echo said.

  “Muireann, I’d hate to trouble you, but…” Artem said. Muireann moved softly to his side as well and repeated the gesture. He could not understand the words she whispered in his ears, but the felt like a cool bath, his skin rippling with a calm comfort. He stood at his full height and felt a strength return to his limbs he hadn’t known was gone.