by Sarah Porter
He'd been asked way too many questions already, by a parade of out-of-towners flown in to investigate the ship's crash. Therapists and cops, insurance agents, and even someone who claimed to be from the FBI. What had happened? Had he noticed anything unusual? And, of course, how on earth had he swum twelve miles alone in less than an hour? Some of them seemed to doubt that he'd been on the ship at all, though his name was right there on the passenger manifest.
He gave the same answers to all of them: he didn't remember anything. He'd been standing on the deck, and everything had gone black. He'd come to on the shore.
It had turned into a kind of game. They asked the same questions; he gave the same answers. Like some kind of nightmare merry-go-round: I don’t remember, I don’t remember, I don’t remember.
He wasn't about to tell them that he'd been rescued by a killer mermaid.
His reserve wasn't only because they wouldn't believe him or that they might even throw him into an asylum for hopeless lunatics, though those were definitely factors.
It was all just too private: the mermaid girl's painfully beautiful face, the searing amazement of those voices, the squeezing closeness of death. He wouldn't have described it even to his best friend, much less to a bunch of pushy, self-important strangers.
For all he knew, he might be the only person on earth who had heard the mermaids singing and lived. The memory was his. It was all he had to make up for the loss of his family. The darkhaired mermaid's song burned his sleep, twined through all his waking thoughts.
***
Over dinner Lindy asked him at least five times if he was enjoying his macaroni and cheese mixed with hamburger meat; every time she asked in precisely the same simpering, anxious voice. Pink scalp winked through the wisps of her fuzzy, apricot blond hair, and her pale eyes looked permanently frightened inside their red rims. She made Dorian think of a sick, senile rabbit.
“It's delicious,” Dorian replied automatically. He kept looking over at the window, where early twilight glowed between red checkered curtains. The kitchen was prim, secure, and always extremely clean. A painted wooden bear in a chef's hat and apron stood on the counter, forever frying a wooden egg. A game show host jabbered on the TV about how fabulous that evening's prizes were. How long would it be before he could get away? “I'm going to go study at a friend's house. Okay?”
Lindy and Elias both nodded so cautiously that it was like he'd just confessed to suicidal impulses and they were terrified of saying something that would push him over the edge. Not that suicide seemed like the worst idea ever sometimes.
Dorian scraped and washed his plate. It was important to keep going through the motions. Convince them that he hadn't been driven totally crazy by the trauma. It was bad enough that he screamed in his sleep sometimes. They were probably already afraid that he was going to come after them with an ax.
He had to find the mermaid who'd saved him. Not to prove to himself that she hadn't been some kind of hallucination—he knew what he'd seen. But she owed him an explanation at least. After all, what kind of reason could she have had for murdering so many people? Absolute evil? If that was it, though, why make an exception for him, singing or no? He didn't deserve to be alive when his parents and Emily were dead.
He needed to talk to her, needed it urgently, and he told himself that it didn't matter why. He just had to hear what she would say. But how was he supposed to find a mermaid? Steal a rowboat and go paddle around in the open sea like an idiot? He'd been brooding over the problem for weeks, and tonight he thought he might have found an answer. It was worth a try at least.
It was only the middle of September, but it was already cold enough that he pulled on a parka and hat before stepping out into the wild dusk, where the wind reeked with the weedy, fishy breath of the harbor. The smell always brought back the sickening taste of mingled bile and salt water horribly flecked with the sweetness of the previous night's chocolate cake that he'd disgorged that day on the shore. His stomach lurched a little from the memory, but he did his best to ignore it.
The small tan house stood on a narrow street that ran straight down to the tiny harbor. The hill was steep enough that the sidewalk was a staircase with broad cement steps. He could see the black masts of a few sailboats crisscrossing like chopsticks in front of the electric blue sky while farther up clouds sagged in a violet jumble. He walked between glowing windows, heading for the sea. It was obvious he'd have to walk for a mile or two, past the beach north of town where she'd left him, then up onto the low, ragged cliffs where a path wound through stands of half-dead spruce. The farther the better, really. She wouldn't want to come too close to a town.
He didn't want to care how she felt about anything, but sometimes he couldn't help wondering if she still thought about him. Maybe she'd completely forgotten him in the three months since she'd swum with him in her arms.
Then he'd remind her. He wasn't about to let her forget what she'd done. He'd show her what a big mistake she'd made by letting one of her victims survive. Especially since that survivor was him.
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About the Author
Sarah Porter is the author Lost Voices, Waking Storms, and The Twice Lost. She is also an artist and a freelance public school teacher. Sarah and her husband live in Brooklyn, New York. Visit Sarah’s Watery Den online at www.sarahporterbooks.com.
