An exasperated cry rings through the cove as the Elder flings up his hands and turns his back on the healer. Shaking his head, the healer steps away, tending to the other patients in the cove.
“If only you could have been more patient and waited until tomorrow,” the Elder says through gritted teeth. “Now we’ll have to see just how fast you can make your body heal.”
Gabriel blinks, his brow furrowing. “I’m not a healer, father.”
“Then pay for your mistakes.” The elder turns his venomous gaze back on Verona who had returned to caring for her father. “We all must endure penalties for our poor choices.
MORNING DAWNS, AND the day of the hunt begins. Schools of tuna travel slowly through the waters. The same Atlantic Bluefin we’d hunted yesterday wouldn’t likely move more than ten miles from the location where we’d found them. This time, a wide party of Mer, mostly male, with a few female, would join in the hunt. Only six or seven tunas are needed for the clan to feast.
“Bailey!” My brother, Brandeeb, draws near, a wide smile on his face.
I wince. When Brandeeb smiles, it’s not good news for me.
He sidles up next to me and reaches for my head to put into an arm-lock. I dodge him, but not before one of his Mer-claws rake the back of my neck, causing a shallow scratch. I hiss at him as I straighten and glare into his eyes.
His smile doesn’t falter. “So, I hear you got the darlings in deep trouble yesterday. Or... maybe it wasn’t you, and it was that bottom feeder the twins are always showing her place.”
My spine remains stiff, but the muscles in my shoulders lose some of their tension. He’s only here to ridicule me. I can handle that. At least he’s not here to make my life worse. I nod and swim away. Wait. I think upon his words. He hinted that the accident yesterday was my fault. I shook my head. No, he’s just messing with me. Brandeeb doesn’t know anything. As I leave him, he doesn’t call out or follow, to my relief. But behind me, I hear a snicker.
The party of hunters is much larger than necessary. Some come for the social aspect, not really to kill or work as much as to discuss, supervise, and coach from the sidelines. A spectator sport. I hate that aspect of hunting. It was one of the reasons I had suggested getting the hunt done without an audience yesterday.
As a group, we approach the school of tuna, the bulk of which remains in a condensed pod. Bringing this many Mer to the event has its advantages. The sharks get panicky in the presence of so many predators larger than them, and they disperse, leaving the danger of the hunt to the average five-hundred-pound tunas.
“Stay out of the way, little brother,” Brandeeb says as he swims close by and nudges me with his shoulder.
I frown and ready my spear, but inside, I have no intention of using it. There are too many hunters for the number of fish we need, and there are older, more experienced hunters than me. This sort of hunt is for the older set or the novices whose mentors want to bring them out and get them a first stab at a tuna.
I glance about. Stacia isn’t there, and neither is her brother. Loneliness overwhelms me. Normally, the twins take up my whole sphere. Because of their presence, I didn’t realize how I had no other friends. The rest of the Mer my age were mere acquaintances. For a moment, I feel as though I’m the bottom feeder again.
A group of mermaids have collected to the side. They point and giggle, cheering on Brandeeb as he goes past them, flexing his muscles. Showing off. I turn away. I’m not interested in that preening type of behavior, and I never realized how much I’d rather be alone than be friends with those shallow minded Mer.
A father and son swim by close to me. The father leans in toward his son who couldn’t be more than three years my junior. “Stay close to me. When the tuna’s fight or flight instinct kicks in, they are blinded for a moment. Their emotions take over their behavior, and they have no rational thought to put it in check. When any animal allows itself to be ruled by emotion, it becomes dangerous and unpredictable.”
“What do you mean?” the son asks, adjusting the grip on his spear. He gets the shaft caught on the webbing between his fingers before getting a better hold.
“A tuna gravely injured the Elder’s son yesterday.” The father frowned, and he lifted his gaze to meet mine. “Let that be a lesson to all of us about the dangers of the hunt.”
My stomach drops. How could the father have known about my part in Gabriel’s injury? Even the Elder didn’t know. I shrink from the man’s gaze, but he turns away almost as quickly as his eyes had met mine and darts toward the crowd around the school of fish.
I swallow. Guilt constricts my heart. The hunting party moves with the fish, and the white noise they create moves farther away from me. What am I doing here, anyway?
Tightening the grip on my spear, I leave the hunting party and head to the convalescing cove.
LOW TIDE. I ENTER THE shallow cove, the surface of the water barely above my head, while my tail slaps the white sand beneath me. I understand that shallow waters help the patients to stay warm and heal faster, but this seems a bit too shallow, in my opinion. I skirt the rocks and survey the patients.
Gabriel sleeps in the nesting to my left. His features twist and contort in pain, or maybe he’s having a nightmare. Surprisingly, Stacia isn’t there. To my right, across from him, lays Verona’s father. Prospero, the Elder had called him?
I’ve come to see Gabriel, but curiosity pulls me toward the man on my right. His eyes fix in the distance, and his bottom jaw hangs slack. Dementia. The Mer is suffering beyond what any healer could ever reach.
“Verona?” the man asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
I settle into the sand beside his nesting. He glances over me with the slightest acknowledgement before returning to eyeing the deeper waters behind me. We both sit in silence for a long moment. The Mer’s lips move, but not a sound comes from them.
“What are you looking for?” I ask finally.
He doesn’t answer or even look my direction.
I frown, but continue to sit with the Mer. Overhead, the sun reaches its zenith, and the waters fill in from the ocean allowing more space between the top of my head and the surface. The doctor goes about, tending to his patients, smiles at me, but doesn’t approach. Across the way, Gabriel stirs in his bed.
I frown and watch him as he settles back down again. The cove is peaceful; I give it that. A lone jellyfish dances in the sunlight above, and a small school of minnows swims by. It’s still and quiet, and there’s not much chatter from Mer or fish. The moment soothes my soul.
“What are you doing?” a harsh voice breaks my silent reverie.
My throat constricts, and my stomach twists. I turn around and meet eyes with Stacia. Her forehead wrinkles as she tilts her head at me. She eyes me and then the Mer in the nesting beside me. “Who is that Mer to you?”
I shake my head, my jaw clenching. “He is nothing to me. I only studied him to satisfy my curiosity.”
Her frown deepens. “Your curiosity about what, exactly?”
My lip twitched. “This Mer has the obvious markings of a bottom feeder. Are you not curious about them?”
Her forehead smooths out as she nods once. “Ah. It is a curious thing, isn’t it? His dementia has roots based in the time he spent on land, from what I understand. He was never quite right upon his return and slowly degraded.”
I nod, finding my gaze lighting upon the man once more. Could he hear us? Did he care what was said about him? Not even a facial tick happens in response to her words. He doesn’t shift a muscle in his bed.
Stacia loops her arm in mine and pulls me over toward the nesting where her brother lays. The moment of peace I had was gone the instant she spoke. Now I suffered as I listened to her prattle.
There is a wide gap between being alone and being lonely. Somehow when I sat beside Verona’s father, I didn’t feel lonely at all. The Mer paid me no attention, so I sat nearly alone, but the loneliness I felt at the hunt and now feel in the presence of
Stacia’s rambling had been distant.
“There she is again.” Stacia’s tone grows deep and menacing. Louder than it had been before, as though she wants the object of her scorn to hear her. “What business does she have here? She should at least have the decency to know her station.”
I glance back toward the Mer in the nesting across from us. Verona now sits in the space I occupied moments before. Her father focuses on her though he doesn’t seem to know who she is. He pleads with her, “Can you bring Verona here? I miss her so much. There’s so much I need to tell her.”
“I’m right here, Father. Say what you need to.”
He shakes his head. “No, I want to tell her myself. I’ll wait.”
I shake my head and focus back on Stacia who continues to frown at the pair across from us. I clear my throat. “If that’s her father, why should she not be able to visit him? What does her station have to do with her ability to do that much?”
Stacia blinks, her eyes widening in surprise. “Really, Bailey? Are you taking her side in this?”
The pit of my stomach feels as though I swallowed a rock. I bow my head slightly. Peace. I need peace. “I didn’t mean to do such a thing. Forgive me.”
She huffs, and then places a hand on my shoulder, her claws digging as deeply into my skin as they can without actually breaking it. Unpleasant, but not exactly pain-inducing. “This cove is too crowded. Gabriel should recuperate at home. I’ll speak to father about it, no matter what the healer says.”
I nod, and she scratches the bare skin on my shoulder lightly, just enough that a few droplets of blood are pulled from my flesh and disperse into the surrounding water.
I wince, my frown deepening.
Then Verona jumps up from her position on the sand, drawing both my attention and that of my sadistic friend. Verona’s eyes dart our direction. “Did you hear that?”
Stacia sneers. “How dare you speak to me first. You have no right, bottom feeder. I shall—”
I grasp her arm and stop her mid-sentence. I hear it too. The chirps and squeals are unmistakable. It’s a cry of distress, coming from a youngling, and they are not very far away.
Chapter 5
Where did I put my spear? My eyes dart around the cove, but I can’t find it for a moment. Verona’s gaze meets mine, and then she lifts the spear from under where she sits.
I nod, dart over toward her, and take the spear she offers from her hands.
“What are you doing? Where are you going?” Stacia asks, her pitch getting higher with panic.
I glance her way and shake my head. Then I dart off in the direction of the distress.
The current pushes against me, but I concentrate on controlling it. I slice my way between, cutting through the miles as quickly as I can. Adrenaline keeps me going, even though my synapses pulse in my muscles when I stop.
Most of the hunting party has already dispersed. They have likely caught their fill and moved on. Hunting typically only takes up the morning, but by the time the sun reaches zenith, they fill their quota.
A few of the hunters have straggled. No, not hunters. Younglings. One of them is caught on the hook of a tuna line and is struggling to break free. The hook has him caught in the flesh of his underarm. Two other younglings are pulling on the line to keep the boat above the surface from reeling him in.
More Mer rush in beside me, their undertow pulling me back as they’ve used their water magic as well.
“What’s going on?” a deep voice cries out. I don’t need to turn around to see who it is. The voice belongs to my brother, Brandeeb.
I don’t care to see who else has arrived. Instead, I rush forward, sliding the grip on my spear so that I’m next to the sharp point. Using it as a knife, I grab hold of the line above where the younglings are pulling and begin to saw at the line with my three-inch long Great White Shark tooth. The serrated edge cuts through the line, but it’s a slow process, and we’re all being pulled up toward the surface by the mechanical wheel on the boat.
By the math, there’s only about four-hundred or so pounds that we’re pulling with, which is less than the size of an average tuna. Two more Mer pull the line from under the younglings, adding more weight and strength, slowing down the reel’s pull upward.
Brandeeb begins working on trying to get the hook out of the youngling’s arm. His rough hands make the youngling scream in pain. Blood clouds the water around the youngling’s face.
“Stop it. You’ll make it worse,” one of the Mer below me corrects him. Verona. She slides forward on the line and rests a hand on Brandeeb’s. He winces and pulls away as though her touch burns.
She begins humming a soothing tune to the youngling who had been struggling against my brother’s touch, and his panicked eyes rest on her. Once she has his attention, she speaks. “Don’t pull on the hook, you’re only embedding it deeper. Just relax. Come forward toward me. It will loosen. We won’t let go of the line. I promise. We won’t let you get reeled in.”
The youngling’s nostrils still flare from the panic, but he’s no longer struggling against the hook. He settles down, even though he doesn’t come toward her. She reaches out a webbed hand toward the youngling.
What am I doing? I’d let myself get distracted by watching the maiden correct my brother and soothe the youngling that my sawing against the line had slowed. To correct this, I attack it more aggressively. Then I feel the surface of the water breaking against the tip of my tail. The boat has almost reeled us all in.
Brandeeb is next to me, and he pushes the water upward, causing a wave to crash against the side of the ship. If anyone had been looking over the edge on this side, they no longer would be. The boat rocks away from us with the wave.
Finally, the line breaks free in my hand and relief floods over me. I allow myself to sink down and join the others, my arms growing limp and my muscles flaccid. The rest of the rescue party and the younglings are already at the seafloor when I reach the bottom.
“Who do you think you are, touching him, bottom feeder?” a feminine voice asks.
I glance down and find the mother of the youngling gripping his face to her chest. Her eyes are shooting daggers at Verona, and her words drip with venom. “You should know your place. You are not fit to look upon my son, much less touch him. Useless, revolting, unsightly thing. Your influence is not needed. Do not even lift your eyes my son’s direction, ever again.”
Verona’s eyes remained fixed on the white sand below her. In her hands is the bloody hook and line she’d removed from the boy’s shoulder. Her treatment is unjustified. Verona had helped the boy, but instead of being rewarded, she’s being berated. I lurch forward, but my brother catches me by the arm.
“Where are you going, little brother?” Brandeeb asks with a sneer. His blue eyes sparkle with mischief.
“What is it now?” I ask, yanking my arm free from his grasp. His claws leave another scratch on my arm, but I refuse to show any symptom of the pain in my expression.
“Our mother is looking for you. It seems your disappearance during the hunt did not go unnoticed. The parents wish me to accompany you to them.”
I swallow and cast a glance toward Verona. But she no longer stands where she once was, only the hook and line remain set upon the sand. The maiden and her son have also left. Waters around us swirl with their departures. I frown.
AFTER BEING SCOLDED by my mother, I swim like a bullet as far as I can go before the water magic exhausts me. At first, I head randomly west, the current rushing past my face where the pressures of the waters run low. I run blindly, until I realize I am heading to a specific place. Brandeeb and I had discovered an underwater cave once when we were exploring off the eastern shore of Maryland and Virginia. To this day I still consider it a safe haven, but I haven't been there in years. I decide to make my way there and see if it still looks the same as it had years ago.
Large rocks sit in front of the small mouth of the cave. Brandeeb and I had put them there to keep the openi
ng hidden from others. This way, it was our secret place. Overhead, orange stretches across the sky as the sun begins to set. It will be dark before I get home if I leave now, but home is the last place I want to be. My hand sets against the rock formation, the barnacles biting into my palm. I'm so tired. The swim back taunts me because I know it's going to be too hard to handle with my muscles exhausted as they are. I push the rocks aside and enter in.
Darkness swallows me almost immediately. The cave starts as a long narrow tunnel. It doesn't have as much room as I remember. My shoulders barely slip past the walls of the entrance tunnel. My tail slaps against the roof and the sand underneath. I'm blind. Whatever possessed me to swim this way when I was little? I try to think back.
I was never the kind of youngling who was afraid of dark places or small spaces. Instead, the source of my fear was much more real. Brandeeb. At first it was Brandeeb at home, Stacia and Gabriel at school. My torment never ended day or night. I had nowhere to go, nowhere to hide, and no one to turn to. So, on that day many years ago, Brandeeb was likely torturing me in some way. I don't remember exactly what he had done to upset me, but I remember the way that my heart raced when I first entered this tunnel. I remember feeling that he would find me any moment and chase me through the darkness. I had hoped that I would get lost forever, and the tunnel would just keep going until I could finally get away. But the tunnel does not last forever.
Back then, I reached the end of the tunnel, just like I do now. I'm still awestruck by the green luminescence covering the walls. The algae glows and keeps the wide, deep cavern dimly-lit. No one would ever think it was here. I swim to the top, an area littered with stalactites, and swim around the giant columns created when this cave sat above the surface of the water. Black sand covers the seafloor here, and not many fish have ventured into the area except small ones.
Submerged_a mermaid tale Page 3
