by Angela Blake
AS Liviana slipped off him to the side, Tane mustered the energy to swing around to the other side of the bed, easing down onto his back, staring up at the blank, white ceiling. Tane heard Liviana cleaning herself up, and then she was kneeling beside him, wiping up the sticky mess on Tane's stomach, his thighs, around his groin. Only when she retrieved a clean tissue and lifted it to Tane's face did Tane realize that his cheeks were wet.
"I'm sorry," she whispered, her voice shaking slightly. "I didn't want to—"
"Don't worry," said Tane roughly, cutting her off. "It isn't your fault."
Liviana's expression twisted strangely then, and Tane suddenly felt that if anything could kill him, it would be the concern in Liviana's eyes. Because he knew that, whatever she was feeling or whatever her motivation was for doing this…they were not returned. He had used her body to escape. He just didn’t know why she had let him.
"I'm sorry," said Liviana again, looking down at him.
"It's okay," Tane lied.
He placed a hand over Liviana's and squeezed it tightly, then scrunched his eyes closed, trying to hide from the images that formed in the darkness.
"It's okay."
Chapter Three: Immersion Conversion
Tane woke at the crack of dawn, sneaking out of Livy’s bed and running down to the beach. He stripped down to his boxers, grabbing his paddleboard and rowed out, watching the sun creep over the horizon in all its rosy hued glory. He let the tide take him, drifting along in a mindless daze, just letting the sea breeze and the gentle rolling waves soothe his turbulent spirit. He didn’t notice when the wind picked up, or the waves got higher. He didn’t hear the screaming from the shore, carried away by the breeze as he rose and fell with the waves on his paddleboard. It was early morning after all, and the tide was going out. The big waves didn’t usually manifest until the afternoon. He used his paddle to steady him as one wave tried to unseat him. Pretty soon he was bobbing and weaving, trying to keep the paddleboard steady. He was just coming out of his daze, figuring he should turn around and get back to shore when the roar of an engine invaded his consciousness. He looked around him, realizing he was quite far away from shore…and there was a speedboat headed right for him. He gasped, trying to simultaneously catch their attention and paddle out of the way. He almost managed it but then a wave came out of nowhere and lifted him up, right into the path of the boat hurtling toward him. He leaped, trying to get away and felt the impact as the boat, trying to change direction suddenly was also lifted by the same wave as his paddleboard. Something bumped against his head and the next thing he knew, he was surrounded by water, with no knowledge of which way was up. His eyesight was failing him, going in and out. He tried to wave his arms, flapping his feet madly; trying to guess which way was the surface. All around him was darkness and he wondered if he might have been blinded by the collision with the boat. His last hope was that whoever had hit him was currently in the water, looking for him. His movements got weaker and weaker as he flailed helplessly. He could feel the pressure building in his chest as he ran out of oxygen.
‘Not like this,’ he thought, ‘I can’t go like this.’
An image of his mother’s face came to mind; the picture of grief from losing her parents. What would it do to her to lose her child within days of that? What would it do to his dad? He could not do this to them. He had to survive!
He began to flail harder, trying to flap his fins…he meant feet…as water filled his lungs and he began to feel light headed. The water seemed to come right back up again, and the feeling of suffocation lessened. Something burst open in his neck and try as he might, he could not keep his mouth closed to keep the water out. The water rushed in and he closed his eyes, praying for his parents.
‘Please don’t let them be hurt like this!’ he called to whatever deity was listening. He felt strangely lighter, and figured that he must be very close to death. His body drifted upwards, fins, no feet, flapping effortlessly, pushing his body up to the light. He could see again he realized and wondered if it was his spirit rising to the heavens. He had thought that death would feel more peaceful than this. There was still an ache in his chest and his limbs felt heavy with effort. Perhaps his subconscious wasn’t ready to admit that it was dead and was projecting pain to his theoretical body.
He burst out onto the surface, lungs drawing in air, eyes smarting from the salt and looked around him. The boat was coming towards him, people shouting when they caught sight of him. Something bumped against his head and he turned to see his paddleboard. He reached for it, climbing gratefully onto its surface, arms trembling with the effort of pulling his body up. Especially since he had no help from the gigantic fin where his legs used to be.
He froze, looking down at himself.
His legs had somehow transformed into fins!
He stared in horror at the shimmering purple, gold and silver scales that formed the most beautiful looking fin he’d ever seen, it was still flapping gently to and fro, propelling the paddleboard toward shore.
He was flapping gently.
He had fins!
Tane screamed, pulling his erstwhile feet out of the water fitting them on the paddleboard as he panicked. He wanted to run away from them, but how did you run away from your own body? There was a whistling sound emanating from his neck and he slapped a hand on there to feel three telltale openings letting air in and out of his lungs.
He not only had fins, he also had gills!
It was too much for Tane to take. His vision went white and he blacked out.
***
There was something glittering above his face when he came to and an anxious voice saying something. He blinked, trying to clear his vision but that just made his head hurt. He moaned, moving his head to the side as he felt his stomach rebel.
“Tane!” the anxious voice screeched, making him wince. He turned away, trying to shield his face from the piercing light.
“Move out of the way miss,” another voice filled with authority said, “Let us through.”
Then there were hands on him, feeling him up and down, for injuries Tane supposed. He had the feeling that everyone should be freaking out right now. Did they not see the fins?
“You said his name is Tane?” the new voice asked.
“Yes,” Anxious voice replied.
“Tane? Tane? Can you hear me?” the new voice pried his eyes open, shining a bright white light directly at them and making Tane recoil.
“His reaction time is good.” The voice said even as a mask was fixed over his face and he was lifted to a higher elevation before being moved into an enclosed space. Doors closed behind them and the space began to move.
An ambulance then.
But why weren’t they freaking out over his fins?
Or was this some government unit, taking him for examination in a secret lab? The thought agitated him so much he tried to sit up and remove the mask on his face.
“Hey, hey! Relax. You’re fine. You almost drowned but you’re okay now. We’re taking you to the hospital,” the same voice from before said, ‘You’re okay. Just relax.”
Tane lay back, heart beating so fast. He couldn’t relax. Not until he knew what they intended to do about…he wiggled his…fin…and was surprised to feel…toes! He moved his hand, feeling his feet as surreptitiously as he knew how. He didn’t have a fin anymore. He wasn’t half fish anymore. Had he hallucinated the whole thing?
It was too much for his exhausted body to process and he closed his eyes, shutting the world out.
***
When Tane came to, he was lying in a hospital bed, his mother sitting in the chair to his right, her eyes swollen and reddened. His father stood behind her, hand on her shoulders, eyes on Tipene. As soon as his eyes opened his mother was on him, asking if he was alright, what was he thinking going out there by himself? Did he want to give her a heart attack.
His father looked on silently and Tane couldn’t help but
look back at him. There was something in the back of his father’s eyes. Something like knowledge.
“They said you should have died out there. That you were under for a long time,” Tipene said, deep voice calm and slow. Tane just looked at him, wondering.
“Oh yeah?” he said belatedly, “How strange.”
“Yeah. You’re lucky to be alive.” Tipene said.
“Am I?” Tane replied still unable to break eye contact with Tipene who lifted his eyebrows at Tane’s oblique reply but said nothing.
His mother was still fussing over him and Tane let her because it soothed him, calmed him. The chaos in his mind subsided and he was able to think again. His father, the deep sea diver, who came from nowhere, had no family just an affinity for the sea. Was Tane crazy to think what he was thinking?
But then…his mother was almost hysterical with fear but his father was…impassive. He definitely knew something about something. He wondered how to get rid of his mother so he could have a conversation with his dad. Whatever it was he was hiding, she didn’t seem to know about it.
On the other hand, he could have just been having a really lucid fever dream brought on by oxygen deprivation and fear. He’d wished to be rescued and assumed that he had fins and thus rescued himself.
“How was I rescued?” he asked his parents. There was a movement at the door and he turned his head to find Livy standing there looking pale and scared.
“Livy. What are you doing here?” he asked in surprise.
Her face seemed to crumple at his words but she still took a step into the room, grasping his foot with fervor, “It’s good to see you awake and aware,” she said shakily.
“Yeah for sure.” He said turning to his mother to find her smiling at Livy.
“Livy saw the whole thing,” Nikora said fondly, “She screamed and yelled trying to get the boat’s attention. They barely realized they’d hit someone. Someone tried to dive in the water, looking for you but they couldn’t find you.”
His mother stopped, covering her eyes and sniffling. Tane reached out to her, covering her hand where it lay on the sheet between them. His father took over the story.
“Then somebody from the boat spotted you on your paddleboard, passed out as you bobbed about in the water. They got a rope around you and pulled you onto the boat, bringing you to shore. Livy had already called 911.”
Tane turned to Livy, still standing at the foot of his bed, “That was very kind of you,” he said.
Livy snorted, “Kind isn’t the word that comes to mind,” she said.
Chapter Four: Revelations
“Livy? Would you mind taking my mother down to the cafeteria for some coffee? She looks worn out,” Tane requested after Livy had filled him in on her part. Calling 911 and then running up to his house to get his parents. The fraught ride to the hospital when they didn’t know how severe his injuries were. Finding that the doctors were as puzzled about his survival as anyone. His lungs showed signs of drowning in sea water otherwise the doctors might have assumed that he’d simply passed out on the paddleboard and everyone had lost sight of him for close to quarter of an hour. As it was, nobody understood how he’d survived. It was quite simply a miracle.
Tane couldn’t resist turning to eyeball his father as she said that. Tipene met his eyes unflinching, but also definitely unsurprised at this turn of events.
Livy hurried forward to help Nikora out of her chair as if his mother were the invalid. Nikora let Livy lead her out of the room, with one last glance at Tane they disappeared down the hall.
Tane turned at once to his father who was also moving toward the door.
“Dad!” Tane called wondering if his father intended to just run away from his questions. Tipene lifted one finger silencing him before he peered out the door then stepped back and closed the door behind him. He turned to Tane with a sigh.
“Ask your questions,” he said.
“What is happening to me?” Tane asked at once.
“What do you mean by that?” Tipene asked caution in his eyes.
“You know.”
“Do I?”
Tane closed his eyes and took a deep breath, opening them to stare straight at Tipene. There was a pregnant pause before he said, “Fin, gills.”
Tipene appeared to collapse in on himself as he bowed his head, letting out a breath seemingly long held.
“I didn’t know,” he said.
Tane struggled to sit up. He had a feeling he did not want to be lying down for this conversation, “You didn’t know what?”
“If you would have it. If I could still…pass it on.”
“Dad? You’re not making any sense.”
Tipene closed his eyes and opened them, and Tane gasped, almost recoiling at the site. His father’s eyes were normally the same ice blue as his own, but now they glowed with a weird purple light and Tane was honestly scared.
Tipene blinked, and his eyes were ice blue again.
“When I was a teenager,” he began, “I wasn’t very popular with my peers. I was a watcher. I liked to watch the humans in their boats as they sped by. I liked to follow them and see what they were up to when they came in the water.”
Tane opened his mouth to interrupt but closed it again. He would let his father finish first.
“Bullying is not something that only happens in the human world. Our species have in common the suspicion of anything that is different.”
“Okay wait, when you say ‘our species’ you mean…” Tane just had to know.
“Scientists have labeled us Sirenia. They think of us as herbivorous aquatic animals adapted with arms and a paddle for steering. Folklore has called us the merpeople.”
“And you dad? What do you call yourselves?” Tane’s head was spinning.
Tipene shrugged, “We have no real name for what we are.”
Tane nodded, “Go on.”
“Like I said, I liked to watch the humans and one night, there was one human. A girl. She wore a flowered costume that left nothing to the imagination and her breasts bounced on her chest as she ran down the beach, laughter ringing out, chased by a boy. She was beautiful and I was very taken with her. I took to watching her every time she came near the water. She liked to swim, with the boy, in the mornings. Then they would huddle in a cove and make out. It made my heart burn with jealousy to see it.”
Tane scrunched his eyes shut, “Wait. Dad? Are you talking about mom? Because if you are I’m gonna need you to skip those details.”
Tipene huffed a laugh, “Very well then, I was enamored of this girl and wanted her to look at nobody but me the way she looked at that boy. But I knew that I couldn’t show myself to her in my current state. Let alone woo her.” Tipene’s voice trailed off, eyes far away.
Tane leaned forward, “And then what happened?” he asked.
“Well, like you I had a grandmother I was close to and I went to her, crying, to explain my predicament.”
“And she had a solution,” Tane finished for him.
“Yes. She had a solution.”
Tane just looked at Tipene, eyebrows raised.
“She told me about an ancient sacrifice to the god, Tangaroa. He was known to grant legs to merpeople who wanted to live on land. They would be able to breathe with lungs and walk on two legs.”
“Oh, so you didn’t become human, you were just modified?”
Tipene sighed, “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“Please, do explain,” Tane said.
“It’s more of a glamour than a transformation. While I am on land, my body adapts like an amphibian, and I am able to breathe through my lungs and walk on two feet. When I go back to the deep, I take my usual form.”
Tane felt like he had literally opened the mythical Pandora’s Box. And now he was going to have to live with this new knowledge.
“So how do you disguise your shape when you go deep sea diving?”
“I h
ad the navy modify my suit. They think it’s some sort of idiosyncrasy of mine. They call it my mermaid suit. If I wasn’t so good at what I do, they would probably have kicked me to the curb long since. But because I am so efficient they are looking to redesign the entire line of navy diving equipment.”
“You can’t let them do that.”
Tipene laughed, “Don’t worry. They found out soon enough how impractical it was for the average sailor. Who is not used to steering with a single fin. They chalk it up to my unique upbringing.”
Tane’s eyebrow went up, “And what ‘unique upbringing’ do they think you had?”
“I was raised by a pair of divers you see. Natural divers who went into the deep without suits and attempted to copy the fish they worked among. They taught me their methods and that’s how I am so good with a fin shaped suit.”
“I see…so what am I? Am I human or mer?”
“I thought perhaps you were fully human with simply a mer love of the sea but clearly, your er…attributes were just waiting under the surface for when need arose.”
“So you’re saying I turned into a fish because of the emergency, but otherwise I’m normal?” Tane asked hopefully.
Tipene shrugged, “Normal is stretching it. You still have gills, and a tail. You can survive under water for periods longer than a human. But you are also clearly human. There has not been anything quite like you in centuries.”
“Oh how nice. I am unique. So what now? Does mom know?”
Tipene shook his head, “We do not tell humans who we are. Never Tane. You understand me?” his father’s voice was harsh in a way that he rarely spoke to his son. Tane subconsciously straightened his spine, looking his father in the eye as he nodded his understanding.
“But what if-” he began to ask before his father interrupted him.
“There are no what ifs, no exceptions. We do not tell humans about us.”
***
Tane could not settle down to rest after everything his father had told him. Livy and his mom returned soon after from their coffee break and Nikora insisted on staying with him. The doctors wanted to keep him overnight even though he was technically unharmed by his adventure, because they did not understand how he’d survived.
