by Dani Stowe
The heat of Pike’s breath enters my mouth and I swallow. “He’s a merman.”
Pike sighs as he rubs his hand over his gaping mouth and stands upright. “You really should be ashamed of yourself, Shelley,” he says, relocating his hands to his hips, making it hard not to notice his gun. “There’s so much about this guy that points to something not right about him. Plus, there’s evidence of him on your parent’s boat, so I don’t understand how you can protect him. Don’t you want answers?” he whines.
In truth, I had forgotten. On the boat, Blue acknowledged he knew something about my missing parents, but I was too captivated by the allure of Blue’s mysticism and mysteriousness after he rescued me from a shark, not to mention from myself, that I didn’t get the chance to question him about my parents.
Pike leans down over me again, allowing his veins to bulge once more as he grabs onto the handles of the chair. His hot breath blows across my face, but this time his eyes are studying me. He looks at my forehead then follows my cheeks down to my chin before his eyes dip down to look at my breasts.
I cough and he looks me back in the eye. “I can see why your father was so in love with your mother. I knew she was quite brilliant, but he stuck by her side after she lost her mind. I think he loved her even more then.” Pike sighs as he studies my face one more time. “I can see something is going on inside that pretty little head of yours and it just makes me so damn curious,” he says licking his lips.
There’s a knock at the door. “Sheriff?” asks the deputy, poking his head in.
The sheriff stands erect, keeping his eye on me. “I told you not to disturb us,” Pike replies.
“I think we may have found our John Doe. Some zoology students were tracking and tagging sharks outside of the bay and say they spotted a man swimming naked towards shore. From their description, I believe it’s our guy.”
“Get up,” says Pike, grabbing my arm. “I’m going to get to the bottom of this, so you’re coming with me.”
“She’s not going anywhere with you,” says a tall, husky black man with a bald head and round belly, which he uses to barge in through the door.
“Ah, fuck,” Pike curses as Darius Grady, who is not only the public defender but also the only lawyer residing in our town, sits in the chair across from me causing Pike to growl. “What the hell are you doing here? Have you been tracking police business again with all your radio gadgets?”
“No!” Darius exclaims with wide eyes, which makes it obvious he’s lying and he opens a folder then begins to spread documents across the table. “I’m here to see my client, who you’re going to release because you have no reason to keep Shelley here. In fact, I recall seeing the two of you together at the Booty Festival the other night and I can’t help but feel suspicious about the intentions you have with Shelley Morae.” Darius clears his throat. “I mean with the prisoner.”
“Damn it, Darius!” shouts Pike.
“Boss,” interrupts the deputy. “We gotta go if we want to make sure we get this guy in our custody before someone else does.”
Pike looks at me and shakes his head. “Fine, Mr. Grady. She’s free to go, but make sure she understands she’s not allowed to leave town and if anything happens to her, she’s your responsibility.”
“I’ll take good care of my client, Sheriff. Thank you very much,” says Darius, winking at me.
Pike and the deputy leave and I fix my chair to face Darius, but he doesn’t say anything. I watch as he stacks each of the papers he spread out just a moment ago. I’m so confused as he places the papers back in the folder and I notice his palms.
“Wait!” I say and reach forward to grab Darius’s hand, pulling it to me and opening his fingers to look at his palm. “You have the mystic’s triangle in your palm. It means you’re a witch, but it’s upside down.”
Darius gives me the oddest, most inquisitive look. I hesitate and force a fake laugh. “My aunt taught me these crazy things. She tried to teach me to read palms. It’s ridiculous, right? Hand reading?”
“Honestly, I’m intrigued,” says Darius. “What does it mean if the triangle is upside down?”
“I don’t want to insult you,” I say trying to laugh it off.
“You could hardly do such a thing,” laughs Darius with me. “So, tell me what it says.”
I try to smile pleasantly as I report what I see. “It means that if you are a witch, you deal in the dark arts and—”
“You sound a lot like your aunt, Shelley. Next thing, I bet you’ll be telling me I’m in disguise,” Darius laughs, but I’m not laughing because that is, indeed, what I was about to say.
Plus, Darius has an odd laugh; it’s rather high-pitched and almost sinister, more like a witch’s cackle.
“I thought you didn’t believe in all that hocus pocus,” Darius continues. “You know, this isn’t the first time I’ve had to come down to the station to bail out a member of your family for behaving like a crazy person so I highly suggest you keep these things to yourself.” Darius stands up and as he grabs the folder, and I notice a scar on the outside of his hand in the shape of an “L” that looks more like he’s been branded. It matches the brand on the slave drawn in Athena’s book, so I lean back in my chair to create some distance between us.
I hear a crack of thunder pierce through the sky as Darius speaks. “You’re free to leave, Shelley,” he says and looks at me with bulging eyes. “Unless you’d like to stay, but I’d hate to see a good woman held captive for no reason against her will. That’s a true crime, don’t you think?”
Thunder cracks overhead once more and I nod in agreement.
Darius allows his big round belly to lead him out the door and as he leaves, I look at my palms; there are three spaces in my lifeline running from my middle finger down to the center of my wrist. Three times, my lifeline says I would come near death. The scrapes I have are near healing. I figure those are from the first time, which I can’t remember, but I did end up in the hospital and I know it has something to do with Blue. The second time must’ve been the time Blue and I faced the shark. Nevertheless, the third time is yet to come and something tells me Blue is going to be involved in that somehow as well.
I stand up and glance down at the outfit I’m wearing and laugh at myself. I’m a lot older than how I am depicted, but I’m dressed as I am in Aunt Cora’s painting, Catch of the Earth, that hangs in the beach house. She made sure I could always see it, even in the mirror if my back was turned towards it. The psychic old bitch made sure I’d always see myself in a teensy red tube top and skirt as she predicted.
And I predict it’s time to go catch that fish.
Chapter 17
Shelley
I HEAD TOWARDS THE sheriff’s office receptionist and I hear a tapping. The sound is coming from behind a closed door and transforms from a tapping to a knocking. Soon enough that knocking becomes banging and the door flies open.
In truth, I’m really not surprised to see Yanka fall out of the closet and land on top of the deputy, both of whom have their pants down.
“Yanka, I need your car,” I tell her.
“What the hell happened to you and Blue? And what the fuck are you wearing?” she asks with a bug-eyed face. “You all disappeared and the second Athena and I made it back to shore, we were arrested. Then Darius, the public defender, showed up to get us released and—” Yanka looks down and smiles at the deputy, who smiles back.
“I got it,” I tell her. “I don’t need those details, but we do need to get to Blue before the sheriff locks him up and throws away the key.”
Yanka reaches down to pull up her tight leggings. “How did you all survive down there? After you both jumped in, neither of you came back up. We waited for hours. We thought the two of you must’ve drowned or got eaten by a shark. I didn’t believe a word of anything Athena was spouting until the deputy told me they found you. Now, I’m not so much a skeptic, but tell me the truth. What happened?”
“What happened
is everything Athena said is true and we need to go save Blue.”
The deputy, struggling to pull up his pants and red from embarrassment, proclaims, “You can’t go after John Doe—”
“Especially dressed like that,” says Yanka sarcastically.
“Will you focus, Yanka? Where’s Athena?” I ask.
Yanka brushes her blonde hair back with her hands into a ponytail. It’s a sign; she’s going to help me. “Athena already took my car,” she says.
“Listen to me!” shouts the deputy as he tucks his shirt into his pants. “The sheriff is on a rampage. He didn’t even take me with him because he’s got it in for John Doe. The sheriff doesn’t want anyone standing in his way when he goes to collect the stranger. And if this stranger you all keep protecting gives the sheriff any trouble in any way, the sheriff is not going to hesitate to drop some heavy shit on John Doe’s ass.”
“Take us where the sheriff is headed,” I tell the deputy.
“No,” he says, “I’m already in enough trouble from John Doe’s escape. There’s no evidence pointing to the three of you, but I know you all had something to do with it. That was my responsibility, so I have no doubt I’ll be out of a job soon and living on the street like our homeless stranger or a lost dog.”
Yanka’s eyelids flutter. “If that’s really the case, you can always stay with me.”
The deputy turns red again. “I can?”
“Sure,” Yanka replies. “If you’ll be out of a job with nowhere to go, I’d be happy to take you in.”
I roll my eyes and interject. “Yes, Yanka will be happy to take you home when you become a stray dog, but you have to help us save Blue first.”
“I don’t know,” replies the deputy, fidgeting with his holster.
“If you help me and Shelley, I’ll take you home tonight,” Yanka wantonly adds.
The deputy glances down at Yanka’s enormous tits. “My car is out front,” he says.
Before we leave, I stop at the front desk to collect the coin, which was placed in a large yellow envelope, and we get into the deputy’s police car headed towards the coast. The three of us each take note of the approaching storm as lightning flashes, illuminating the gray sky at half-second intervals. The patrolman’s radio cracks in loudly, alerting us to the sheriff’s actions.
“Deputy, this is dispatch. We have a 10-24 suspicious person on scene near the marina and a 10-50 sheriff needs assistance. Do you copy?”
The deputy picks up the radio. “Copy that dispatch. Report sheriff’s status.”
“Possible 10-1 officer in distress. The sheriff is failing to acknowledge radio contact. Do you copy?”
“Copy that, dispatch. I’m headed to the marina now.” The deputy hangs up the radio. “Listen,” he says to us, “I don’t know what’s going on, so when we get to the marina, you two are going to stay in the car.”
“You mean we three!” I say and point out the front windshield.
We glare out the window at Athena off the side of the road waving her hands as a flurry of gray smoke wafts from Yanka’s car up into the sky.
The deputy pulls up to her and as Athena gets into the backseat with me, it starts to rain.
“What the fuck did you do to my car?!” cries Yanka.
“I didn’t do anything!” Athena whines. “It was struck by lightning while I was inside and to be totally honest, I would think you’d be more thankful I’m not dead.”
Yanka rolls her eyes as the deputy presses on the gas.
“And what the hell happened to you?” asks Athena, squinting her eyes at me. “What’s in the envelope and what are you wearing?”
I open the envelope and allow the coin to slip into my hand as I yank up the red tube top.
“I was right, wasn’t I?” asks Athena. “He’s exactly what I said he is.”
I look at her ebullient face; I don’t know what she’s seen or what more she knows about merpeople, but this is the moment she’s been waiting for her whole life. I know what it means to want the truth, to have validation for the things you believe.
I grab Athena’s face in my palms and look her straight in the face. “Yes. You were right.”
Athena closes her eyes; a single tear drips from the corner of one eye leaving a salty trail down her face and into her mouth where I know she can taste the evidence bringing her closer to her lifelong conquest. She takes my hands off her cheeks and reaches for the coin then slips the chain over my head. “You have to keep it on,” she says. “Don’t ever take it off,” she mutters and I nod.
There’s something more that happened to Athena, which motivates her. It is something beyond a possible sighting of a merman. There’s something going on with her, but as I’m about to ask her the deputy brings the car to a halt.
“You three stay here. You understand?” the deputy instructs, throwing on his hat and skipping out into the pouring rain beneath crackling thunder and lightning.
We gather towards the center of the vehicle to see if we can get a look beyond the fogging windshield painted with images blurred by heavy rain.
“I can’t see anything,” I say and get out of the car. Within seconds, I’m soaked. Rain flies about in every direction—down over my eyes, up into my nose, and sideways to spout in my ear.
I hear men yelling and I run towards the sound. Running past a fallen tree, I can’t believe my eyes. Blue is diving in and out of the water next to the sheriff’s car, which looks smashed in the front and is half under water. The deputy is frantically skipping about up to his knees and pounding at the glass with the sheriff, who looks to be unconscious, inside.
I sprint down the sandy steep slope of the marina’s borders where tire marks are left from where the sheriff’s car slid off the road, over a pier, and into the water. When my feet reach the water, they feel heavy and I can’t seem to walk or swim fast enough, even with all of the adrenaline pumping in my body, towards the front of the sheriff’s car facing the beach.
Lightning strikes the ocean not far from where we are and I hear a voice yell at me. “Go back! Go back, Shelley!”
My heart stops—it’s Blue. He’s made his way onto the hood of the car. He’s naked, using his legs, and yelling to me.
“Shelley, get back!” shouts the deputy who has managed to climb up to the hood of the sheriff’s vehicle with Blue. “Get back!” the deputy warns Blue. “I’m going to shoot the window.”
Blue dives into the water and the deputy pulls out his gun, firing into the windshield. The glass crumbles into thousands of pieces as water begins to seep in.
“Fuck!” the deputy cries out, reaching through the open window trying to free the sheriff. Blue gets back up on the hood and both men are frantic, attempting to wrench the sheriff free. He’s clearly stuck as the car takes on more and more water as it sinks.
I watch in horror as the car goes down until the deputy is treading water with only his head visible. I swim out to him.
“Shelley! Go back to the car,” shrieks the deputy as his head dips beneath the surface to look for the other two.
I plunge my head under, barely recognizing the silhouette of the vehicle and Blue’s body—he’s still trying to free the sheriff under the water.
Coming back up to the surface, the fresh rain mixed with the salt water fills my eyes and mouth. I take a deep breath and then clamp my mouth as I try to swim down to the car. Swimming as low as I can get, I realize it’s too deep and swim back up.
The deputy, hardly able to stay afloat due to his uniform and boots, yells, “Ah, fuck!”
“They’re both still down there,” I tell him. “We have to try again.”
“Go back to the fucking car!” he cries and, although I cannot see his tears mixed with the rain, his face is so wrinkled I know he’s crying.
I duck my face back down into the water, but this time I cannot see them—no sign of the vehicle, the sheriff, or Blue.
I pop my head back up above the surface of the water as both the deputy and
I tread next to one another. Rain pours straight into our eyes. I close my eyes and take one more breath of air, as much as I can hold, and dive into the water again.
I use every bit of kick I can to propel myself downward until I see Blue. Swimming towards him, I see he freed the sheriff so I help pull the sheriff by his collar, dragging him with me as I kick us both towards the surface.
As soon as I pop up, the deputy takes a hold of the sheriff, talking to him as he swims the unresponsive man back to shore.
I put my face back in the water, but I don’t see Blue. I try to swim back down again, but I’m so exhausted I can’t. Reaching the surface once more, I just breathe.
I take a moment. I look up at the gray sky then look back into the water. I still don’t see him. I can’t find Blue.
On the shore, Yanka performs CPR as Athena and the deputy watch. I should swim back to them, but I don’t want to. I look for Blue once more then I look to the open sea and swear I can hear it calling me; it sounds like my mother is calling me as she had often done when I was little to come play with her. I can’t help but cry.
As I lift one arm to swim towards the open ocean, a voice asks, “Where are you going?” I turn around to see Blue’s head above the water. “Land is this way,” he says.
Chapter 18
Henry
ADDING ANOTHER PIECE of driftwood to the fire, I poke at the mound of woven timber that crackles as tiny pieces of burning red cinder float into the evening atmosphere.
