Brine (11 page)

Shit. Her legs had begun to separate, but they were still glued with gummy straps of skin. Her feet were wedged together, bound at the heels so that they stuck out like a ballerina in first position, her toes flattened like coins left on a train track. She dragged her useless lower half across the deck, moving her torso with all the strength she could muster from her exhausted arms. Finally, she reached the stern of the boat and lugged her heavy, deadweight lower half up onto the transom.

She glanced down. Yikes. Long way down. She closed her eyes and plunged headfirst back into the water. In the air she flipped, and her weighted, inept legs struck the water first. Her thick-skinned lower half sunk her immediately, dragging her downward. She struggled to the surface, unable to kick with legs or to thrust with a tail, and she paddled awkwardly over to where she had heard the plunge, choking on her own splashing, barely keeping her head above water. She prayed her body would change back so she could have more control.

At first she could see nothing in the black water, but then she noticed a ripple on the surface. Could it be?

She felt the change, thankfully, and sensed the wrapping of her lower half, the thick skin like rubber binding her legs together. She kicked and felt the power of her fluke. She took a deep breath, and then dove. The underwater was like ink, but she felt with her hands, searching wildly, contorting her tail to maneuver her body in all directions, to cover the complete area.

She came up for a breath and dove once again.

Hector had said that afternoon that this was a deep-water creek. She was beginning to see the truth of those words. She thought back to the afternoon. Hector had been a different person then. She’d fallen for him. Now those feelings embarrassed her. He disgusted her—but she certainly couldn’t let him die.

She dove again, searched, and came up gasping for air. She forced her mind to calm—talking to herself—willing herself to focus, not to lose it. She dove again. Her fingers were spread wide underwater, reaching out blindly. Nothing. She felt only the soft, gooey mud of the bottom. She came up for one more gulp of air and again dove quickly. Her heart pounded in her chest from the quick breaths, the diving, and the fear. She scoured the muddy floor with her hands again, her cheeks puffed full of air, her eyes open wide but worthless in the inky water.

Then her fingertips grazed something. Clothing. She grasped the waistband of his pants with one hand and strongly tugged it toward her. She felt the heaviness of Hector’s body. She wrapped an arm around his neck and kicked her tail, racing to the surface.

She used her tail to hover and hold him in her arms, floating his body on the surface. Hector was muscular but slender. Medium frame. She could do this, couldn’t she? She was strong. Her tail was powerful in this form. She had to at least try.

She swam fast and thrashed her fluke, propelling Hector’s body and her own toward the dock with a loud crash. She held on to him with one hand and wedged her fingers into the gap between the slats of two boards. Her forearms flexed with the strain. At least for a moment, this grasp was holding the both of them. It gave her a second to think. Her arms ached, but she wasn’t losing ground. She lifted her tail and tried to use her fluke to work a leg of Hector’s up onto the dock.

Her fingers slipped.

She kicked repeatedly, pulling Hector’s body slowly onto the dock with determination. Her chest heaved. She tasted the tears on her face, slightly sweeter than the salty water of the creek.

His legs were as heavy as her tail. Why were they so heavy? The glass from the broken whisky bottle crunched beneath them, but she barely felt it. Finally, she had gained enough ground. She held onto the waistband of Hector’s pants as she positioned her own body securely on the dock. She sat up, her rigid tail cantilevering out over the edge of the dock, useless when out of the water. One final grunting yank and she pulled his body fully onto the dock.

She lay back, crying, breathless.

She flipped his body over and checked to see if Hector was breathing. He wasn’t. She called his name, slapped his face. No response. She clamped his nose with her fingers and breathed twice into his mouth. His tongue was the husky taste of whisky, and his bluish lips were the bitter taste of brine. She breathed into him again.

Nothing.

She started chest compressions. “One, Two, Three, Four, Five.” She counted out loud to keep herself sane.
Was he dead?
Her own breath pounded in her chest. She pinched his nose and breathed again. Chest compressions. Close off the nose again and puff-puff into his mouth. Chest compressions. “One, Two, Three, Four, Five!” Close off the nose.
Shit. What’s happening?

He sputtered. Water flowed from his mouth, and he coughed, raspy and congested. His eyes opened. The round ocular spheres spun in their sockets without recognition and then rolled back into his head. His heavy lids slowly lowered.

Ishmael put an ear to his sternum and heard a heartbeat; she felt his chest rise once and then fall. He was breathing. She checked the pulse in his wrist. Her hands trembled. She put her face near his and felt the warmth of his liquor breath. He was alive.

She sat back and stared at the body. She’d never been that scared. She’d been less scared when her truck went off the freaking cliff.

She looked down and saw that without her awareness her lower half had transformed back to legs. Her toes were still slightly webbed, but she pushed herself up to standing regardless. Only a few trickles of blood drizzled on her bare skin from the broken glass. Her clothes, scattered on the dock, were sopping wet. She yanked the wet shirt over her head, and then jerked on her shorts.

Tip-toeing across the floating dock, careful of the glass beneath her feet, she reached the main dock and ran to the dock house.

She found a broom and hurried back down the dock, waddling in a pair of Hector’s rubber boots, carrying a broom over her shoulder. Hector never stirred, even when she moved him aside to sweep beneath his body. She knew she was going to have to get him off the dock. She couldn’t carry him, but could she possibly drag him?

No. Wait. She remembered Lena’s gardening cart. Of course. She pulled the flower-painted wagon from the corner of the dock and removed the metal box of tools. She shifted Hector’s legs first and then grasped beneath his armpits to hoist his upper body onto the cart. It was clumsy; Hector’s legs overflowed, but the wagon at least held the bulk of his body. It was a rising tide so the ramp wasn’t as steep up to the main dock. She wedged his arms tightly across his chest, and hauled the cart slowly through the gateway and off the main dock. She parked the wagon just outside the dock house door, panting, and paused. He was in a safe location. He was alive. She’d done her part.

But could she just leave him there? Splayed out in the cart like that?

Yes. He was a jerk.

She caught her breath. She couldn’t leave him there. She turned the knob on the dock house door and felt along the inside walls, flipping on a light.

Ishmael froze. She wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find, but certainly not this. An enormous world map spanned one entire wall, covered with tiny red pushpins marking positions in oceans all over the world. Newspaper clippings were strewn about. Technical-looking charts were stacked in chaotic piles. Books collected in messy stacks throughout the room, bright tabs jutting wildly from their pages as placeholders. Exotic shells and feathers littered the windowsills. The room looked like the office of some absent-minded oceanography professor.

Hector mumbled outside: she yanked the wagon inside, stopped the cart beside his bed, and grabbed him beneath the armpits. In one last heaving effort, she managed to sling Hector’s shoulders onto his bed and maneuver the rest of his body onto the mattress. His pants were soaked. Should she take them off?

Nope.

She watched him for a moment, checking his breathing, then switched the light off and closed the door. She slid off the clumsy white boots and darted across the lawn. Peeling the creaky screen door open just enough for her body to slip through, she silently crept into the house, stripped off her damp clothing, put on a dry T-shirt, and slid into bed. She held her breath as she positioned herself under the covers, making sure Diane hadn’t stirred. Lying completely still, eyes wide open, she listened.

Nothing. Her body loosened.

What a night. Her mind was still racing. What had Hector been talking about on the dock? What did he mean when he said his family was “trapped?”

She clamped her eyes shut—she had to get some rest, and dawn was fast approaching. She wasn’t ready for the sun to rise yet, but in the daylight, things would be clearer and she’d have more perspective.

She took ten deep breaths, slowly, counting them, forcing a calm over her exhausted body. The humming of the fan, combined with Diane’s soft breathing, soon triumphed over the chattering in her head and lulled her into a heavy sleep.

IN THE MID-MORNING LIGHT, she dug through her box of art supplies. Drawing would ease her mind. Hunting for a sharpener, she nudged the bed and felt for the first time the ache in her upper thigh. She pulled her nightshirt up and looked down. A massive yellowish-purple bruise was forming on her hip from the night before.

What a night
.

She was not looking forward to seeing Hector. Such a waste. He was an attractive guy. Wait. No.
Gross
. She couldn’t believe she was still thinking like that. I mean, sure, she could appreciate his strong back. The flowing black hair wasn’t so bad either. And those eyes. Like hunks of obsidian . . .

“How’d you sleep?”

Ishmael spun around. Shoot. Had she been talking out loud?

Maggie was standing in the doorway. Her straw hat hung against her back from a leather cord around her neck. The room around her was a disaster of clothes and shoes and toiletries. Mostly Diane’s mess, but Ishmael was embarrassed.

“How about that walk I promised you last night?” Maggie asked.

Ishmael set down the pencils in her hand.

“Maggie, I’m sorry if I was rude last night. I—I’m not really feeling like myself and—I came all this way to see you, and I feel like—”

“Well, I’ll take that as a yes. I won’t take no for an answer anyway. We’re going to pick blackberries. There’s a wild thicket that’s looking ripe just up the road on our property.” Maggie tripped over some clothes on the way out, without commenting or even turning around. “I’ll be waiting out back.”

Ishmael splashed cold water on her face and threw on some shorts and a clean T-shirt. Her outfit didn’t match, as her options were slim, but she hardly cared. She found her grandmother sitting on the back steps. Maggie didn’t turn around when the screen door slammed. Her hair was pulled back exactly as the day before. Silver wisps escaped the braid, giving the arrangement an indelicate and purposeful look.

“I hope you won’t be too hot,” Maggie said. “It’s a steamy one today.”

Maggie stood and started walking down the road.

“No shoes?” Ishmael asked.

Maggie turned briefly, “I wear them only if I have to.”

Ishmael smacked her arm, leaving a bloody smudge.

“You’ve got to be
one
with the mosquito,” Maggie called over her shoulder. “Like a beekeeper is one with the bees.”

Ishmael hurried down the steps and caught up with her grandmother.

“That’s quite an outfit you’ve got on there,” Maggie said. “I didn’t realize tie-dye had made its way back in style. You and Allen seem to be sure of it.”

Ishmael, who had barely slept the night before, was too tired to be offended. As they moved farther away from the creek along the dirt road, the breeze completely died. She hadn’t anticipated the heat would be this intense. She wiped her sweaty upper lip with the inside collar of her T-shirt: it was Allen’s shirt, and it smelled faintly of incense. A wave of hangover hit her.

“What’s the matter—can’t keep up with an old lady?”

“If you tell me my grandfather is Poseidon, I’m turning around.”

“I’m not making this stuff up,” Maggie said, shrugging her shoulders. “Remember what I told you last night? That you’re a special breed of aquatic human?”

Ishmael nodded. “Of course. That’s why I couldn’t sleep.”

“In your aquatic form, you’re an alpha female,” Maggie said. “That’s your ticket. You don’t need an outside catalyst to move between your aquatic form and your human form.”

Maggie stopped and perked up.

“Hear that? Car just turned onto our road.”

She looked off at the tree line in the distance. A grind of shifting gears exposed the culprit of the dust cloud.

“Must be Leon. He really can’t drive straight-stick for diddly-squat.”

Ishmael started walking again. She rubbed her head in an attempt to stop the pounding.

“Are you alright?” Maggie asked.

“No. I’m hung over.” She kept her hands on her head but looked at her grandmother. “So how does it work exactly?”

“It has to do with pheromones. And I’m sorry to say that this is as close to an answer as I can give you.”

“That’s it?” She looked over at her grandmother. “Pardon my French, Maggie, but that’s bullshit.”

“The only human example that might compare is how women who are together somehow start to share the same menstrual cycle. It’s one female, the alpha, that usually dominates and therefore sets the cycle. In our case, the alpha female somehow sets the stage—makes it possible—for the process of transmutation to occur.”

“I still don’t understand why you were able to change once and then weren’t able to change back,” Ishmael said.

“Oh, who knows? The alignment of the planets? The barometric pressure? Chakras not properly tuned?” She lifted her arms up to the sky. “Transmutation is nothing if not a mystifying process.”

Maggie caught Ishmael’s eyes.

“You want answers, I know. Clear-cut, rational, precise. I was that way once. But that’s not how this works. The more we find out about this universe we live in—the cosmos, the atomic particles, the energy that forms matter—the more we realize how little we really know.”

Ishmael stared blankly at her grandmother.

“Okay, granddaughter—well, let’s see here. Let me tell you something that might appease you. How about this? You come from the strongest lineage of alpha females. It was my great grandmother who discovered this whole transmutation process. There’s a nice fact for you to chew on.”

Maggie started walking again. Ishmael hastened to catch up. “So you’re an alpha too?” Ishmael asked.

“I am. Though not as powerful as you, which I’ve proven simply by the fact that I changed forms once and was not able to change back.”

Maggie kept a brisk pace. Ishmael’s head was spinning with information; she struggled to think and walk.

“You’re more like your mother,” Maggie explained. “Strong. Courageous.”

“I’m like her?” Ishmael felt pride, but the feeling was quickly overcome by a tinge of resentment. “Guess I’m not quite sure that’s a good thing.”

“Your mother—well, her
alphaness
, for lack of a better word— was just exaggerated somehow. She could transmutate faster than anyone our kind had ever seen.” Maggie stopped briefly, tilting her head to look at Ishmael with raised eyebrows. “That is, until you came along.”

A rusted red pickup was now barely visible at the end of the road. The sight caught Maggie’s attention, and she paused to watch the approaching truck.

“Lena must be going shopping in town today,” Maggie said.

Ishmael stood beside Maggie, deep in thought. Finally, she asked. “So what does that mean—her
alphaness
is exaggerated?”

Maggie pulled her eyes away from the truck. “Well, it means your mother’s pheromones are stronger, so the process works faster and cleaner with her. It means that if Joe and Maria Cruz had come to land with your mom, they probably wouldn’t have had any problems.”

Ishmael’s eyes glazed over, transfixed by her sudden realization. “Maria and Joe were . . . wait a minute, you mean Hector—”

“Is from an aquatic bloodline, yes. Like you.”

The truck pulled up next to them.

The driver was a massive man with skin that glistened like a polished coffee bean. He wore overalls, and the forearm that hung out the window was as thick as a hefty tree branch.

He tipped his hat.

“Maggie.” His voice was so deep it was barely intelligible.

He turned to acknowledge Ishmael with a slight nod of his sturdy chin.

“Well, hello there, Leon,” Maggie said in a cheerful voice, taking a different tone than she had been using with Ishmael. She pulled her straw hat from off her head, and it hung down her back from the leather cord. “Mighty kind of you to take Lena into town. This is my granddaughter, by the way, Leon.”

Leon tipped his hat again. His eyes shifted up the road to the house. Maggie had her hand resting on the side mirror, and she turned around and looked over her shoulder. Lena stood on the back steps.

Maggie tapped the truck twice with her hand.

“Always good to see you, Leon.”

Maggie stepped back, and the rusty truck rolled along toward the house.

“You told him who I was,” Ishmael said as he pulled away.

“I didn’t tell him your name.” Maggie looked at Ishmael. “Oh, don’t get all fussy. He’s not exactly the town gossip.”

Maggie veered off into the brush on the side of the road and reappeared, dusting off two buckets she had retrieved.

“We’ve got a little shed tucked back up in those trees,” Maggie explained with a smile as she handed a bucket to Ishmael. “I got these big ones for all the blackberries we’re going to pick.”

Maggie and Ishmael could hear the truck approaching behind them; Lena was hanging her head out the passenger side, talking loudly over the growl of the diesel motor.

“We’ll drive slow this time up the road. That dust cloud nearly
choke
y’all the first time!”

Leon stopped the truck. His deep voice grumbled as much as the truck’s engine.

“Gettin’ us some rain thus afa-noon,” he said, looking off as if he could already see the rain clouds coming. “That help the dust.”

“I’ll keep an eye out for rain clouds. Thank you, Leon.” Maggie said. “Make sure we don’t get caught in a downpour.”

“Ishmael,” Lena beckoned, “You look pale as a ghost. You feeling sick, child? Y’all hop in this truck and we’ll drive y’all to them berries.”

Ishmael was tempted, but Maggie responded for them.

“Oh, we’ll be fine. My granddaughter can handle it.” She poked Ishmael in the ribs. “Leon, I’ve been meaning to tell you, that okra you gave us last week was the best I’ve ever had. You seem to pick it just right at the perfect time.”

“Yessum. Thank ya.”

Lena walked around to the back of the truck holding a basket, and Ishmael noticed that Lena was wearing hot-pink flip-flops with her apron. The apron strings hung loose about her waist.

“I packed y’all a thermos of lemonade. Few of my homemade sweet buns in there, too.”

Maggie smiled. “What would we do without you?”

“Oh, you’d survive,” Lena said, hiking her dress as she climbed into the truck. “Mm-hm. I do like some berry pie. Get us those real juicy ones.”

The truck eased away. Maggie smirked.

“I haven’t told anyone this, but I think Lena has a crush on old Leon. Just you watch. When she comes back from a day with him, she’ll be as chatty as a cheerleader.”

Maggie pointed off down the road.

“The thicket’s just a little-ways up the road. There’s a nice big oak tree there. We can have a seat in the shade and sweeten you up with one of Lena’s cinnamon rolls. But let’s get a move on.

If Leon says it’s going to rain, it’s going to rain.”

Maggie adjusted her straw hat on her head and marched forward. “So I’m having a little trouble here,” Ishmael said. “Swallowing the fact that Hector is—well, like me.”

“Hector was born on land like you, but he’s never been able to change.” Maggie said. “Which isn’t that strange considering both his parents couldn’t change back.”

“This is ridiculous. Why were all these aquatic parents coming to land if there was such a risk?”

“Good question. I’ve pondered this exodus many times. Bottom line, they all were searching for the best future for their kids.”

“So Hector’s never—?”

Maggie looked at Ishmael. “Even in your mother’s presence and mine together, the alpha energy wasn’t strong enough. Just because I can’t change anymore doesn’t mean I’ve lost my alphaness—it just means I’ve used up the trick on myself, I guess. But it didn’t work on Hector.” She looked forward, growing pensive. “Or maybe something else was missing . . . something we don’t understand yet. It crushed Hector at first,” she said, shaking her head. “But he’s beginning to accept his fate.”

“Joe Cruz—no wonder he was such a drunk. He was trapped on land.”

“Exactly. And males have a harder time facing that fact, I’ve discovered. What made it worse for Joe was that he never really learned to talk when he came to land. On top of everything else, he couldn’t properly communicate like a human.”

Ishmael walked slower for a moment, pondering.

“Okay, this all makes more sense now. The female that saved me—she didn’t speak. For some reason, I guess I just figured that mermaids—since they look so similar to us in the face and all—would talk.”

“Opening the mouth underwater to voice something would be absurd, so in the ocean, aquatic humans don’t use speech like we do on land. They communicate in other ways.”

“So you couldn’t talk when you first came to land?”

Maggie shook her head.

“Wow. What did you do?”

“Like learning any language, I took my time. The ability to talk is vestigial in aquatic humans. The capacity is dormant, but using the voice box for speech is still accessible. When aquatic humans come to land, they simply have to work at it and they can learn. At least, most of them can. Hector’s father was an exception.”

Maggie pulled a white handkerchief from a pocket in her pants and wiped her forehead. She pointed off to the side of the road. “The blackberry thicket is in that small clearing. Let’s sit in the shade for a bit and have a little snack before we get to picking.”

The oak’s branches draped all the way to the ground and swooped at one place into a perfect little bench. Both women took a seat, and Maggie removed her straw hat. Ishmael poured lemonade into the lid of the thermos.

“I always thought Joe just didn’t talk,” Ishmael said. “I didn’t know he
couldn’t
.”

“Do you recall that Joe used to type on Maria’s arm when he wanted to communicate?”

Ishmael nodded, remembering. So that was what Hector was talking about last night on the dock.

Maggie continued. “Well, that’s an older form of communication in the water. It’s becoming a bit outdated. Typing-on-the-arm is comparable these days to sending a fax versus sending an email. The younger ones really are so savvy with their mental capabilities nowadays. They communicate more with subtle sounds and minor telepathy.”