How to be a Mermaid: A Falling in Deep Collection Novella (2 page)

I touched my mermaid necklace and said a silent
prayer for good luck before I grabbed my tail and headed for the door, following Alaina through the backstage area of the aquarium towards the dolphin tank.

The Houston Aquarium was huge. With six tanks totaling over ten million gallons of water, it put our three tanks at Neptune’s World to shame. On my first day here, someone told me that on its busiest days, the aquarium could accommodate over twenty thousand people, which was mind-blowing. It was November, so it wasn’t going to be anywhere near that many. Yet based on the audience yesterday, we were still going to have more people watching us here than we ever did back home.

The aquarium held every kind of aquatic animal, from Belugas, turtles, and sea otters, to even three whale sharks in the largest tank. The tanks replicated their respective environments in all their underwater splendor, and I was genuinely impressed.

As expected, my nerves flared up. Even though I was prepared for it, still, it made me feel a little nauseated. Though it’s not exactly stage fright, I always get this feeling that I’m going to screw up my routine. It usually passed as soon as I started, a weird, butterfly feeling in my stomach that I had to stomp on in order to be in top mental shape for my performance.

The Dolphin Arena consisted of three open-aired tanks at the back of the aquarium. There were two tanks that housed the dolphins when they weren’t performing, and the performing pool was larger and shallower compared to the other two. A curtain dropped down from the ceiling, bisecting the pool, so that the audience sat in stadium-like seating on one side while the behind-the-scenes work happened on the other side, along with the holding tanks for the dolphins while they weren’t performing.

The backstage area was buzzing with activity, where volunteers and stagehands were busy prepping the stage. Six dolphin trainers were busy petting the cetaceans and feeding them fish, talking to them in low, encouraging tones to get them ready for their own show. The dolphins responded in happy clicks, their eyes trained on their respective handlers. Every so often, one would disappear under the waves and swim a lap to release energy.

It was like babysitting a bunch of three year olds.

Nature’s acrobats,
I thought, smiling to myself. This is why I became a professional mermaid. When I did go to college, I was going to study marine biology so I could always be close to the water. I couldn’t imagine life without it.

The coolest thing about the dolphin tanks at the Houston Aquarium was that they backed up to the ocean. The pools led to a landing that extended about eight yards into the Gulf of Mexico. From here, I could see the water and some boats on it, and beyond that, the horizon leading to the edge of the world.

Our boss walked up, his weather-beaten face grinning, and he clapped me on the back.

“Good luck, guys,” he said. He always smelled of the ocean, even though I’ve never actually seen him in the water. I think he could never wash out some of the sea salt that got under his skin.

Neptune—which I don’t think was his real name—was a man of contradictions. He’d built up his fortune as a captain of a fishing boat in the seventies, which must have been pretty lucrative because he made enough money to start his own aquarium. He told me once that he set up Neptune’s World as an apology for all the terrible things he did to the ocean and its animals when he was younger. He wouldn’t go into details, which meant that it must have been bad. Now though, I couldn’t imagine him being a bad person.

“Are you joining us today?” Jordyn quipped.

“Hell, no,” Neptune growled gruffly, although it was good-naturedly. “No one wants to see an old man with a mer tail.”

“Are you so sure?” Christine asked.

“I’d pay good money to see that,” Alaina added.

“Trust me, you don’t,” Neptune warned.

We all laughed. As the butt of the joke, Neptune grinned and joined in. It was like that with him. He was a grandfatherly figure to us and we were like a surrogate family for him.

A lone, high-pitched squeak brought my attention to the smallest of the tanks. Whereas the other two pools were connected by a hatch, this one was completely isolated from the others. A crane with a sling hovered a few yards above the pool, where it could transport animals from that smaller pool to the other ones. The sound was mournful in its cadence, and based on the other dolphins’ reactions, I could tell that they weren’t pleased by it. At the sound of the cry, they all dipped under the water, away from the trainers, who were obviously perplexed by their behavior.

“What was that?” I asked.

Neptune frowned, following my gaze. “I asked about it earlier. Apparently, that’s the newest member of the dolphin family here at the Houston Aquarium. They just brought him in today.”

I could tell from his voice that he wasn’t happy about it. I looked up at him, trying to read his expression, but he refused to look my way.

I meandered over to the holding pool and looked down. A bottle-nose dolphin much smaller than the others in the pool was listing to the side near the surface, its blow hole spraying every so often, like it was in sorrow. Based on its size and darker coloring, it was a young calf, probably only a few months old, squeaking piteously. Other than maintaining its position, it wasn’t moving much.

A lone aquarist was crouching on the edge, trying to tempt the dolphin with some fish. Every time he got close to it, the young calf veered away from him.

“Come on, Kai, you have to eat,” the aquarist said in a thick Texan accent. He tossed another bit of food into the water and the dolphin swayed away from it. The aquarist groaned in frustration.

“Kai?” I asked, startling the aquarist, who jumped up to his feet and looked back at me.

“Yep,” he said, nodding towards the dolphin. “That’s his name. It fits him, doesn’t it? He’s the newest addition to the aquarium.”

“He sounds so sad,” I said, more to myself than the aquarist.

The aquarist flashed me a smile. “Don’t worry your pretty little head.”

I knew he didn’t mean anything by it, but that comment with his accent rubbed me the wrong way.

Not noticing my anger, the aquarist continued. “He’ll be fine. He just needs to get used to being here, and we’ll get him acquainted with the other dolphins after his quarantine in the isolation pool.”

“How long will that take?”

The aquarist shrugged. “A week or so, until we know that he doesn’t have any diseases that can be passed onto the others in the group.”

I looked back at Kai and frowned. Even though I’d only been at Neptune’s World for a couple of months, I knew from talking with the aquarists at that park that dolphins were highly social creatures and that isolation was really hard on them. While quarantine was a must for new animals, surely they acted a bit more lively than this one.

“Where did he come from?” I asked.

“Not too far from here, actually,” the aquarist said. “He was caught in a fishing net and separated from his pod. The little guy is lucky to be alive. Mr. Stevens wants him to start training for shows within the next few weeks.”

I’ve met Mr. Stevens twice before. As the president of the Houston Aquarium, he was Neptune’s counterpart, though it sure didn’t seem that way. I could tell from the way the two men interacted that they weren’t on good terms with each other. Based on those two meetings with him, I didn’t like Mr. Stevens because he treated everything like a business venture. He wasn’t in this because he loved animals; he wanted to make money off them.

My heart broke for the poor dolphin. I wanted to reach out and touch him, to tell him that he was going to be with new friends soon.

“Hey buddy,” I whispered. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I miss my mama... I miss my friends...”

I froze at the words. They were in a childlike voice I didn’t recognize. In fact, they hadn’t even been audible. I had heard them inside my head. The aquarist was still flitting about the edge of the pool, acting like he hadn’t heard anything.

“Did you hear that?”

He blinked up at me. “Hear what?”

I hesitated. It was so weird, like a young boy was speaking to me right in my ear.

“
...Mama...Daddy...”

A surging sense of heartbreak imploded my chest, making my ribs feel like they’d crack under the force. The air was sucked out of my lungs, and for a few terrible moments, I couldn’t breathe, and an overwhelming sense of desolation overtook me. Tears pricked the corners of my eyes.

These aren’t my own emotions.

As suddenly as it happened, it was gone. Bewildered, I looked down at the dolphin. Kai was watching me with one eye, keen intelligence bearing down on me in that gaze.

Did that dolphin just speak?

He moved slightly and when my gaze followed him, he stopped.

“
Can you hear me?
”

As crazy as it was, I opened my mouth to answer, then I heard my name from across the landing and I completely forgot what I was going to say.

“Tara!” Christine yelled. “Are you coming or what?”

Torn, I made my decision and called out, “I’m coming!”

I gave the dolphin one last mystified glance before turning away.

I’m going crazy
.

I sucked in a deep breath, glad my chest seemed to be in working order again. I shook off the last remnants of that dreadful feeling and jogged over to the other pool, feeling mostly normal by the time I arrived.

The other mermaids were already in the water and checking their breathing hoses before going on stage. Our breathing hoses were nothing special. They were long tubes that we carried with us that allowed us to stay underwater for the entire performance. The tubes fed us air from tanks on the side of the pool, and a trigger at the end released air when we needed a breath. It took a bit of getting used to, but after two months of using one with my performances, it came natural to me.

“I’m here,” I announced, slowing my jog as I got close to the edge of the tank.

I gave myself a shake, wanting to immerse myself in the world of mermaiding and brush off the crazy thought that the baby dolphin had talked to me.

Luckily, I can get into my tail pretty quickly. I grabbed it from where I’d left it by the side of the pool and pencil-dove into the water. I pulled it on, glad that I hadn’t gone a size down when I ordered it, otherwise this would have been really hard. Alaina was already having trouble fitting into her tail with the little that her pregnant belly showed.

“Where were you?” Christine asked me. She was treading water, testing her air hose. It made hissing noises as she squeezed the trigger to see if air was flowing normally.

“I wanted to see the new dolphin.”

I held onto the wall, tugging up the last bits of the tail with my free hand. Inside, my legs were strapped tightly together to create the body while a large flipper at the end camouflaged my feet. I loved this tail. With its silicon green iridescent scales and dorsal fin, it made me feel like a real mermaid.

“Here you are.”

I looked up to see Neptune handing me my air hose. His expression was distracted and grim, not the usual look that he had before any of our shows. When he stood up, he cast his eyes over to the quarantine pool, his frown deepening further.

Yeah, I feel that way too
. I felt awful for the little guy, and with the strange voice in my head, I couldn’t quite get all my thoughts together.

I forced them from my mind. I’d have to think about it later and see if I could help Kai. For now, the show must go on.

I sucked in some air from my hose, testing it as the sweet oxygen filled my mouth and lungs.

“Okay, I’m ready.”

Christine nodded and signaled to a volunteer, who relayed that information. The audio system on the other side of the arena wall boomed as the announcer went through introductions about the wondrous mermaids of Neptune’s World.

My heart pounded in time with the music.

When our cue sounded, Christine was the first to move, dragging her air hose with her.

As I submerged my head, ready to swim for the staging area, I heard one last mournful cry.

Focus, Tara,
I reminded myself.

I dolphin-kicked my way underneath the curtain to the performance-side of the pool, where spotlights blinded me and the cheer of the crowd deafened me. I took my spot on the front glass to the right of Christine. I surfaced and graciously waved to the crowd.

“Here are your Neptune’s World mermaids!” the announcer roared.

Caribbean-style music echoed throughout the arena, and after a four-count rest, I dove underwater and began my performance. They blasted the music underwater, too, so we could clearly hear our cues.

When I was five, my mother had enrolled me in ballet class right after my dad died to take my mind off his death. At the time, I didn’t know how much it would help in my professional mermaid career, I just really liked the tutus. While my mermaid performance was underwater, a lot of the principles were the same; it was an underwater dance. Instead of pointe shoes and leotards, I had my mermaid tail, the water, and my breathing hose.