by Dani Stowe
He sees my distress and kisses the insides of my palms, the ones Aunt Cora once read prophesying my death and rebirth several times over and which she said would make me a believer.
And I do believe her—I believe everything she ever said about merpeople and their stories, energies, bodies, and connectedness. I just wish I’d paid more attention, so I’d know how to stay connected like I need to right now.
He scurries back, exposing my naked body, and I can’t help but become angry.
“So, that’s it?!” I shout and he looks perplexed. “You rescue me, have sex with me, and leave? I should’ve known. Fin or no fin, you’re still just a man,” I sob. “I get it. Catch and release—there’s plenty of fish in the sea.” I smack the shallow water, stirring up the sand until it lands in my eye and I can’t help but cry harder. “Oh my God!” I snap at myself. “What the hell am I even saying?!”
I feel the water rise and fall over my waist, displaced by his weight and strength, as he swims back between my legs and kisses me. He kisses me so hard, my body ignites once more, like I’m on fire in the cool water; I swear I can feel steam rising from between us.
But then he just stops; his eyes wander to search for what lies behind me like he’s been alerted to something. Grasping the coin hanging around his neck, he slips it off and over my head and kisses me with a quick peck. He points to his chest where his heart should be then points to the coin hanging above my heart. He kisses me once more and backs away.
I look down and take the coin in my hand and look at it. I’m sure it has some special meaning and I guess I should be thrilled he’s given it to me, but the next thing I know, he’s half underwater and dives in, disappearing.
I hear sirens behind me and reach for my clothes, struggling to put them on.
Motherfuckers! Someone is invading my one psychic, cosmic, connected moment and I swear if my merman gets away they are never going to hear the end of my fire-breathing wrath.
“Wait!” I yell and I try to go after my merman. I figure I can maybe swim out to him, but I trip on my other boot, this time landing a lot harder than I did before. My head knocks on what feels like a rock.
My forehead stings; I reach up to my head with my fingertips and feel something wet and slimy—blood.
I hear men coming from behind me and I still wish to get away, to swim away with my merman, but my body feels heavy like I’m drowning again, except I can’t seem to fight to keep my eyes open or stay afloat.
Chapter 3
Blue
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE can’t talk?” The man in a long sleeve gray shirt and dark gray pants sounds angry.
I wouldn’t argue with the doctor like that.
“He can’t talk,” says the short, bald-headed doctor with a long white coat that nearly touches the floor, “because his vocal chords do not work. The X-rays show he’s suffered some type of trauma. From the look of things, it appears he has some scar tissue, likely from strong heat and smoke inhalation. He had to have been in a fire some years ago.”
“Look, Doc. This guy shows up on the beach—naked and without I.D. I need to question him and you’re saying he’s mute?”
“And illiterate.”
“You mean he can’t read? So, he’s deaf and dumb?”
“No, Sheriff,” the doctor says. “He’s not deaf or dumb. He can hear everything you’re saying and he clearly understands English, but he has no speech and, for now, he won’t be able to answer your questions beyond a simple yes or no.”
“How do you know he’s not lying?” asks the man, who I understand is the sheriff.
“I don’t,” says Doc, “but I’ve never seen a case like this and I understand all the suspicion. He’s behaved pleasantly and a social worker is coming to see if she can help.”
“So, is there anything else I should know?” asks the sheriff.
“I don’t think he can walk.”
I panic at the words Doc has spoken and I rip the white covers off my lower half—they’re there. Legs!
I try to lift one leg, but it doesn’t move, so I attempt to wiggle a toe and it certainly moves—not that much, but it’s moving.
I hear the doc go on. “His legs have some atrophy.”
“What the hell does that mean? Astro—pee,” asks the sheriff. “Don’t tell me he pees himself too.”
“Atrophy,” corrects Doc. “It means he hasn’t used his legs for some time and the muscle has degenerated to an extremely weak state. The CT scan shows with a little vitamin and protein supplementation plus physical therapy, he might be able to walk in a few months.”
I don’t understand everything Doc is saying, but I think he’s saying my legs might not work right away, which they do look weak and feel weak to me. I try to wiggle my toe on my other foot and I smack the bed railing out of joy as I see my toe move.
“Well, someone’s happy,” says a familiar voice. It’s Yanka. She works with Doc. There are several humans dressed like Yanka in this place, which I’ve figured out is a place of healing. Many of the humans, especially the women, come to look at me, but not so much to see me as a spectacle for doctoral study. They come and look at me as if I am something exotic, like a bird in a cage.
The women are all pretty. Every. Single. One. It’s been too long since I’ve been this close to them, but Yanka really stands out from the rest. She keeps her long, pale blonde hair tied back, which exaggerates her features and wildly painted face; her blue eyes, similar in color to mine, stand out.
Yanka is nice, but she keeps shoving dry pellets in my mouth and uses a peculiar machine to blow air into what looks like a flotation device around my arm. She says it’s to check my blood, but I don’t see blood when the device blows up. I only feel like she’s about to stop my arm from having any blood flow.
“Why did you take your covers off?” asks Yanka and I smile and point to my toes. She looks down at them as I just barely wiggle the big one. “Yay!” she rejoices and claps her hands. “That’s great!” she says, but she pushes me back down and pulls up the covers.
“Listen, Blue,” whispers Yanka as she traps my eyes with a stern stare as well as my arms with a firm tuck of the sheet around me. “The sheriff is coming in here to question you. I don’t want you to worry though because I already made arrangements for you to come home with me.”
I shake my head. I can’t go home with Yanka. I have to look for my girl—my girl with earth green eyes that spits fire when she speaks. I’m sure as soon as she sees me she’ll want me to go home with her.
“Don’t shake your head at me,” scolds Yanka. “If you can’t find a place to stay, the sheriff’s going to put you in the county jail.”
County? I have no idea which county I’m in, but jail? That’s a term I know far too well. I should have figured there’d be one.
“You don’t want to go to jail, do you?” Yanka asks and I shake my head. “Great! So, you’re coming home with me.” Yanka smiles and reaches under the covers, sticking her hand between my legs to roll the two sacks of my bawbels between her fingers before grabbing at my shaft—my Man Thomas, which quickly stands at attention. “Doc says your cock probably works pretty good, so I’m sure that’s good news,” she smiles.
I look out to the doctor in the hall because the feeling of Yanka’s hand at my crotch feels good, yet makes me uncomfortable knowing someone else might walk in and see. I cough to alert her to remove her hand because the doctor and the sheriff are about to enter the room.
“What’s your name, stranger?” the sheriff questions as he pushes his way in through the door.
“He can’t speak, Pike,” replies Yanka, who covers my standing Man Thomas with a pillow.
The sheriff, whose name I figure must be Pike, pushes Yanka to the side. A clap of thunder resounds, but it doesn’t faze the sheriff a bit as he leans over my bed trying to intimidate me. If the sheriff knew my history and what I’m capable of, he might not be so eager to look down on me.
“The man looks
to be in his late twenties, maybe thirty. I’m sure he didn’t get through over two decades of life without some form of communication. Isn’t that right stranger?” asks the sheriff, but I say nothing. “Where are you from?” he asks me. “And what’s your name? Why don’t you have any ID or personal effects on you?”
I remain still and silent. If they knew the truth, they wouldn’t believe it. After hundreds of years, I still can’t believe it. But here I am and I’m not going to make a peep or perform any action to draw attention to myself. I’m not going to blow this. As much as I want to get up and use my legs to walk—no, run, I’m going to force myself to sit and wait for the right moment to look for the girl from the bay.
“You look like you’re thinking pretty hard,” the sheriff comments as I mistakenly make eye contact with him.
The sheriff looks about the same age as Yanka—early thirties, except he certainly has more stress lines on his brow and around his eyes. His dark brown, nearly black eyes, are recognizable and I search his face for more familiarity.
“There. You see?” The sheriff looks at the doc and then points to me. “This man is up to no good. He’s up to something. I can see it in his eyes.”
I look away.
The sheriff laughs. “I knew it! There’s practically smoke coming out of this stranger’s ears and I can hear all those gears grinding in that grisly skull of his.”
I feel the sheriff lean in closer to speak in my ear. It’s the same tactic slave traders used to irritate slaves for fun; I feel unfortunate to know a lot about the slave trade.
The sheriff continues to tease me, tempting me to push or hit him, which would give him an excuse to use his authority to whip me or lock me up. “Whatever you’re planning, stranger,” says the sheriff pointing his finger at my forehead, “I’m going to get to it before you will.”
“All right, that’s enough,” Yanka protests. “Stop intimidating my patient before I call the orderlies on you, Pike.”
Sheriff Pike gives me one more glance over with a wicked eye and a snicker and steps back as Doc comes up.
“Are you comfortable, Mr. Doe?”
I don’t know why the people here keep calling me that—John Doe, but it works. Yanka prefers Blue, which I’m comfortable with, too.
I nod to Doc. With the exception of the poking and prodding, I’m exceptionally comfortable. I’m surprised they would give a stranger such a comfortably firm bed. Whatever feathers they stuff them with must have come from at least a few hundred birds.
Doc continues, “I’ve ordered a high-protein diet plus some physical therapy and the social worker will also be in to see you. I’m waiting on a call from the psychologist, maybe she can help you remember a few things.”
“So, we can send your ass back to wherever it is you came from,” interrupts Sheriff Pike who points his finger at me again. “Don’t get too comfortable, stranger. As soon as I get to the bottom of this, I’m shipping your ass out.”
Ship. It’s been a couple of hundred years since I’ve been on one. I watched them from under the water. They’ve changed so drastically, from winded sails to giant metal buckets and heavy underwater cans. Over centuries, they keep getting bigger, becoming more of an eyesore than a vessel meant to travel, explore, and enjoy the seas.
I miss the boats of the old days—finely crafted wooden ships made by hand. There were boats as beautiful as the women who hand-sewed the outsized sails affixed to high masts making it easy for men atop of wooden decks to be blown across oceans.
But I’ve decided no more boats for me or fish or sand or endless salty seas. I want what all these humans have—to live on land.
I tug at the sheet Yanka tucked snug over my chest and arms as she, along with Doc and the sheriff, exit my room. Once they are out of sight, I pull at the sheet to expose my lower half and there they are again—my own legs.
But now, I want pants. I don’t understand why they put me in a dress, not to mention it’s backward and shows my arse. For heaven’s sake, I’m sure there are some extra clothes lying around somewhere. This is a place of healing. In the days before I was cursed to reside in the sea, places of healing were primarily a place of death. Surely, there are pants lying around from some dead guy here somewhere. And shoes! I especially want to try the white ones with unusually bright colors that everyone is wearing that seems to make people bounce.
I might be getting ahead of myself. Doc says I can’t walk yet, so I think I’d better see if he’s right. In my day, physicians were sometimes madmen in disguise.
I yank at the contraption that traps me in the bed—bedrails, as Yanka called them, are intended to keep me from falling out, but I know she puts them up to keep me trapped so I’m stuck to take her prodding and pellets.
I yank at the bedrails again, but they won’t budge. I figure I’m going to have to climb over. I turn and push myself up on the bed rails; my legs are, indeed, weak and I can hardly use them to help me. I lean over the rails and reach to the floor. I feel a pull on my leg and the pain is excruciating as my thigh gets stuck.
I wiggle my waist and hear a familiar voice. It’s her voice—the girl I’ve come for.
I push with all my might. Having legs again is not as easy as having fins, if I’m honest with myself, but I push harder. I feel myself let out a gasp as my knee comes to a crash on the smooth hard floor. This is one of the rare times I’m glad I can’t make a sound; I would’ve screamed at the sharp pain of my bone hitting the ground and probably whined, too, from the throbbing ache. But I have to get over this fall and be glad that no one heard the commotion I’ve made.
I look towards the door. I need to get to her before she’s gone; I can hear her still talking, but she’s not alone. She’s talking to the sheriff. I listen intently.
“So, you don’t remember anything?” he asks her.
“Nothing,” she says.
“Shelley, I need you to be honest with me because the doc says your body shows evidence of nearly drowning and it's possible you might have been sexually assaulted. Did someone force themselves upon you?”
“I don’t think so, but I really have no idea,” she replies.
Shelley. Her name is Shelley and I wish the sheriff would quit interrogating her.
“The only reason we came out that way,” he says, “is because a friend of yours called and said you were hiking up to Lovers Peak at which time she claims you reported a man was following you and you were scared and then your phone cut out.”
“I don’t remember that,” says Shelley.
“What’s the last thing you do remember?” asks the sheriff and I hear them stop in the hall.
“Honestly,” she says, “I don’t even know how I got to town. It must’ve been by plane. What day is it?”
I start to panic again. Is she serious? Does she really not remember or is she covering for me?
I can see the pair of them now coming closer to the door and I use my elbows to scoot my body forward dragging my legs behind me. I get to the wall and try to pull myself up on a chair, but I can’t get myself up there. I want her to see me, but I notice her bottom half in a chair with wheels as it peeps through the door and the sheriff’s shoes right next to her.
I crouch because I don’t want the sheriff to see me. Pulling myself to the side of the chair in my room, I grab my legs, yanking them close to the wall to hide them so I can listen again as they speak at my door.
Shelley describes what she remembers up until a few days ago and it sounds genuine—she’s lost her memory. She doesn’t remember the small communications box she dropped into the water and the sheriff says he cannot recover it. It makes me ill to hear her mention she wants to leave town and go back to her home, wherever that is. It also sounds like she’s been injured, but I did not leave her that way. She says Doc is planning to let her out of this place, a “hospital,” tomorrow, but she’s afraid of returning to her vacant aunt’s home alone.
I need to speak to her. I need to help her remember.
I look at my legs—they’re useless and only half healed. I rub my head, which is aching just as bad as my knee.
“You’re welcome to stay at my place,” the sheriff says.
I could stab him. I really could, but then I’ll get thrown in jail. I toss it out of my mind. Peeking around the chair, I see the sheriff’s back is towards me as he tries to convince her to stay with him. I push myself out a bit further to see if I can get a better look.
Shelley looks beautiful, but she looks like she’s been injured; she has bandages on her forehead. My heart aches for her. It’s strange, but she has the same dress on that I do and I realize my arse feels cold.
I see her wrap her hand around the coin hanging from her neck. I’m elated she still has it; this is why I still have legs. But the curse isn’t broken yet—she has to love me, too. This is why my legs don’t work; I’m going to have to make her remember.
“Did you give this to me?” she asks the sheriff and it’s evident she surely doesn’t remember anything that’s happened between us.
Sometime between the period I dove in the water to hide from the lawmen as they rolled up on the beach inside of their metal bucket carriages and when I surfaced to see them carrying her away, Shelley must’ve been injured and lost her memory.
“No,” says the sheriff, “you had that on when I found you.”
“But you did save me?” she asks.
The sheriff hesitates. He shifts back and forth as if he’s contemplating what his answer should be, which had better be the truth.
“Yes, I did save you,” he says proudly.
Fucking bootlicker! I roll onto my side and slide myself towards the door using my arms and hands to pull me as fast and as hard as I can go. I’m dragging myself across the hard, cold floor and my cheeks flush when I make eye contact with her.
“Oh my God!” Shelley yells. “What is that man doing?”
I grab onto the wheels of her chair and Shelley starts yelling. I try to speak to her. I try to motion to her with my hands pointing between the two of us so maybe she’ll remember as the sheriff is yelling at me to “back the fuck off.” I feel my face hit the cold floor as the sheriff gets on top of me. He pulls at my arms and shackles them behind my back.
