The Mermaid's Secret (26 page)

I wait until dinnertime, when the tourists thin out, before I head out to Tutatquin Point.

The sun is low on the horizon and the moon is a waning crescent. I have a sick, scared feeling in my belly: scared that someone will see me and try to copy me and I'll have another Jay Delgado situation on my hands; scared about sharks and the darkness and the infinite loneliness of the ocean; scared that Matthew won't talk to me and I won't get a chance to say good-bye; scared that losing me will be the final nail in Sheriff's coffin.

Scared that I'm making the wrong choice.

The beach is empty. An offshore wind shapes the waves into perfect lines. It sheers off the tops of the waves, spraying sheets of white water high into the air. Against the dark blue expanse of ocean, the waves look like the jaws of a shark.

There is still time to decide my destiny. Today I'm just going hunting, I tell myself, as I run into the water with my board. The straps of my knife rub against my arm as I paddle through the boneyard, avoiding rocks. I pause for a minute on my board, gazing back at the rugged shore of Wabanaki, wondering what it would be like to see that view from the water and not be able to set foot on it again. How lonely would it feel? How liberating?

Then a set comes in. I spot a massive, right-handed peeler.

I paddle for it, pop up to my feet, and ride the barrel down the rabbit hole.

*   *   *

Under water, the world is calm compared to the churning surface above. I lie still on the sandy bottom, close my eyes, and let my body sway in the current.

When I open my eyes, my vision is perfect. Better than perfect. I can see the minutiae of life in the rocks. I can see tiny organisms so small they're almost invisible. Shells no bigger than grains of sand appear in splendid detail.

My body is changing, adapting, evolving.

I pluck a tiny crab the size of my thumbnail off a rock and let it crawl up my arm to my shoulder. Then I pop it in my mouth while it's still alive. I chew, swallowing shell and meat in one gulp.

My body craves more.

There's a flicker in the sand. My senses fire up. Smell, sound, taste, touch. Electrical currents in the water. Pulses down my side. They all lead me to a small skate camouflaged against the sand.

Swiftly I unsheathe my knife and thrust the blade into the soft, flat wing. It's as easy as spearing crappies in the creek with Sheriff. The skate wriggles wildly, twisting itself on my knife.

I cut off the wing and stare at the raw hunk of meat. The smell of blood sends a shiver down my body. Something inside of me takes over. Hunger. Desire. It's not like the hunger I feel late at night, when I'm standing at the open fridge, scanning for munchies. This is a thousand times stronger.

I bite into the skate. It slides down my throat. It doesn't taste good or bad. It's food. Fuel. Life-sustaining energy. My teeth tear apart the tough cartilage, the thick skin. I swallow half a wing before I'm swarmed by smaller fish looking for a free meal. They rush at the drifting carcass, ignoring the threat of bigger fish nearby. They gnaw off bits of flesh and retreat into the dark.

This is nature as my mother taught it. She despised Disney movies with cute cartoon characters. Couldn't stand how they showed animals singing happy songs and species intermingling with reckless abandon. She thought kids needed to see what nature was really like. Bloodier than the movies. And more beautiful.

I sit in the ruins of the skate, bits of bone and pointed ray tail drifting around me.

As I sheathe my knife, I feel a prickling sensation on the back of my neck.

When I look up, there she is, hovering in the water like an angel. I gasp a lungful of water and rub my eyes.

Her tail, like mine, shimmers with color, oscillating from purples to reds to greens. Her hair flows around her in luscious black waves. She smiles. It's her best smile. Exactly the way I remember her smile in happier times. It's the smile she reserved for me whenever I showed her one of my treasures, unearthed in the creek behind our house—tadpoles, salamanders, tree frogs. “What beauty you've found, little fish,” she would say, and we'd make a temporary home for the creature in one of the fishbowls we stored next to the pots and pans. It's the smile that only a mother can give.

I swim to her and she hugs me with all her might.

She opens her mouth and a glorious voice comes out—not human, not like anything I've ever heard. “Jess.”

I open my mouth and try to respond, “Mom,” but it comes out sounding more like grumbling belly.

She laughs and her eyes light up. I try to speak again, I need to ask her how long she's been here. Is she permanently a mermaid now? Is she happy with her choice? Does she think I should stay? Does she know the legend of Ne'Hwas? (Which is a stupid question, because of course she does, and she's probably known it her whole life.) Where does she live? Do the sharks bother her? Is it scary to be out all night? What does she eat? Are there other mermaids out here? Did she know I would find my way here? Is it in our blood? Does she ever watch me and Sheriff from the water?

And then I start to think of all the other questions I want answered, and I start to get angry. Does she know how sad and lonely Sheriff is? How could she just leave him without saying good-bye? How could she leave
me
? Why didn't she tell me where she was really going? Does she understand how selfish it is to leave one daughter because you're devastated by the loss of the other?

Has she at least gotten rid of her sorrow? And if I stay a mermaid, will I get rid of all
my
sorrow?

She holds my face in her hands, which feel soft and familiar. She strokes my hair. The whole time, the smile spreads across her face, the joy in her heart impossible to hide.

I try to talk, but my vocal cords don't work under the water. As much as I want my answers, I also don't want to ruin this moment by stewing on the past.

Neither does she. She takes my hand and we start swimming in silence.

A massive school of sardines appears like a silver cloud in front of us. Sunlight shimmers off their metallic bodies. They explode through the water like fireworks, lit up by the sun and the crazy neon light of energy surrounding them. They move in perfect synchronization, mimicking each other's moves so quickly and precisely they appear like one organism. We swim through them and the silver cloud splits in two. Their little eyes dart at us as they speed ahead.

I want to talk to her, but I can't make my voice work, so I point up with my thumb to the surface, where we can have a conversation. She cocks her head. I point to the surface again with my thumb, the universal symbol for “Go up.”

She stares at me blankly.

Suddenly, I feel a cold tremor up my sides. The vibrations are so strong I can feel them in my bones. I feel the rise in temperature. The sound of the great white's beating heart. She is near. She is getting closer, fast.

Move,
my body screams.

In the murky distance, the silver sardines scatter like dandelion seeds in the wind and the great white shark appears.

I look at my mom, searching for the fear that I feel. But she's cool. Calm. Serene, even.

“Swim,” she says, in her melodic voice.

I try to screech out the words “Let's go, let's go,” but my voice won't cooperate.

The shark circles.

“Swim,” she sings, and then, “fast.”

I pull on her hand and try to swim, but she drags behind like deadweight.

She lets go of my hand. “Swim.”

I shake my head.
I'm not leaving you.

The shark makes another circle, this one tighter. It's the same full-grown female who tried to eat me for dinner before. Circling is aggressive behavior. She's going to strike.

I grab my mom's hand and try to pull her, but she doesn't budge.

What is she doing? Why is she giving up so easily? Doesn't she know that sharks hunt mermaids? Why won't she talk to me?

She looks me in the eyes and the smile disappears. “Go.” She points west, toward Ne'Hwas. I shake my head again, violently.
I'm not going to leave without you,
I try to say with my eyes.

“Go,” she says again, and there's something in her voice that I can't ignore. It's like I'm eight years old again, standing in front of the seer's storefront, my mom coming across the cobblestones from the fishmonger's, warning me not to enter that place.

I make prayer hands, hoping she'll understand what I want. But she points west and I know I have to go. I start to swim away, feeling more scared than ever.

I turn around one last time. My mother is kicking toward the great white. She's sacrificing herself for me. I stop. Terrified to look. More terrified to look away.

The great white swims slowly toward my mom. They're going to cross paths any second. She's going to end up as dinner.

But they don't touch.

The shark swims right past my mother. I'm the one the shark wants.

My body sense is telling me she won't pass me up the way she did my mom. A stream of logical questions run through my mind, but right now I need to listen to instinct instead of logic.

I swim with everything I have. We're at the far edge of the shelf. There are no caves or rocks to hide in. I will have to outrun her.

I speed ahead, riding a burst of energy fueled by fear. The vibrations thump through my veins. Without slowing down, I look behind me. She's there. Her teeth shimmer white and the lines of her mouth curve downward in a menacing frown.

She is only a few feet away. Her heart beats in my throat.

Change course!

I skim along the bottom, using every last bit of speed I have. I zig left, then right.

She copies my zigzag pattern.

This is it. I'm done for.
Forget about choices. Human or mermaid. Matthew or no Matthew. Nature is making my decision for me, right here, right now.

Faster!

I swim as fast as my body will allow. The chase takes us way out into the basin, past throngs of fish.

Any energy I gained from eating the skate is starting to fade. I won't be able to outrun this shark forever. Professor Sherwood's lectures run through my mind. Great white sharks cross thousands of miles every year to breed. They can reach speeds of thirty-five miles per hour. They can swim without food for up to two weeks.

I can only last a few miles. Tops.

I'm not going to last.

Faster!

Professor Sherwood's class comes to mind. White sharks have highly complex brains. They are older than the dinosaurs. Humans are their only natural predator.

I am human. I have a human brain and a human heart.

And a knife. I have a knife.

Despite the weakness I feel working into my body, I swim up from the bottom. The shark follows immediately behind me. Then, with all the speed I can muster, I bend at the waist and do a flip turn, just like I did a million times in the pool at Ne'Hwas High, racing the hundred meters. Coach Flanagan telling me to tighten my form.

The shark passes right over me, so close that our white bellies touch.

Her eyes are black pools. She is a fish, nothing more. I am fish and human. I have the courage of the Passamaquoddy.

And I have hands. Ten digits with powers not found in the fish world.

I reach up and grab her tail fin as she whizzes past. I hold on for my life.

The drag of my body slows her down. She knows I'm behind her, but the great mass of muscle and cartilage can't bend. I'm out of the reach of her jaws.

She thrashes her tail to shake me off. I tighten my grip. The rough skin is like sandpaper against my palms.

We swim along the seafloor like this for a while. I can feel her heart beating. The vibrations course through my body.

When we get out of the bay and into open ocean, she dives down into the cold darkness. And I hang on.

We travel far, the sun disappearing into a wash of aquamarine, then dark blue. Then black. I don't know how far we swim like this. My energy is low. I'm not sure I could swim all the way to the surface from this depth. My hands are the only thing keeping me alive.

Eventually, she slows down. Darkness closes in around us. There is only enough light to make out the broad shape of her body. She keeps moving, to flush water through her gills, but her power and speed are gone. If she makes a sudden move, I'm not sure I'll have the strength to hold on. It's now or never.

Kill.
The word is coming from a place I can't name. An instinct deep in my bones.

I reach for my knife and unsnap the buckle of the sheath. The animal in me knows what it wants.

I pull my knife.

Find its weakness.

I could slice through the narrow section of her body just before the tail. The “caudal fin” as Professor Sherwood would say. The only fin that connects to the spine. Paralyze her. Bleed her out. Save myself. I move my blade to that skinny part of her tail.

I stop and tune in to my senses. The vibrations running through my body and spine are gone. Her predatory signal is turned off. Is she trying to make peace with me?

Professor Sherwood's words play out in my mind, my human brain. Sharks are essential to the ecosystem. Populations have been decimated. Humans are their only threat. They face extinction.

I move my hand along her sides. Even in the darkness, I can feel the complex structure of muscle beneath her skin. I'm suddenly awed by her power and beauty.

I try to communicate with her like I did with the seal and whales. I pulse out a thought:
Truce?

But there's no response.

Leave me and I will leave you,
I say.

Again, there are no words. She's a fish. I'm a mammal and a fish. We're wired differently.

But I do feel something from her. Not with my senses. Not a taste or a tremor or smell. I feel a connection—my heart to hers. One apex predator to another. Can she feel it, too?