by Tim Marquitz
I turned my attention to the masters of those vessels. The bodies I left for the currents to slurp down, or batter upon the distant sands as they may. There was one I came across with warmth yet in his veins. I wrapped both arms around and drew him down with me. Beneath the runnels of blood and scraggled hair there was something of his face that spoke of fear. He jerked and thrashed as the waves closed overhead, his odd, split tail flailing uselessly against my single powerful one. I murmured reassurances in his ear, but he continued to struggle. Grimacing, I tightened my grip and swam more swiftly to gain us the sanctuary of my private grotto.
I held an eager breath. Never had I had this chance before. To speak to one who made their home above the water. One who knew of the sky jellies. There was little doubt of communication between us. In my long life I had travelled far and listened well, I was certain I could speak and understand every language the man-things spoke near the sea – which was to say all of them.
I knew what I would ask him. The only thing I cared to ask him: How? How do you reach the sky? It was my dearest dream to take my place up there, to gain those distant shores and swim the waters of the unseen moon. I dreamt of dancing with the lightning, of climbing its jagged bolts into the heavens. There were oceans there. I could not see them, but I could feel their call in the shivers down my scales and the tremors through my whisker hairs. I had no doubt those waters were there. After all, look how much spray rained down to mingle here below.
The lightning climbed up into the sky. Those like the one wrapped in my arms rode the winds. Perhaps the air-jellies were the key to gaining the clouds. This one held the secret. He would give it up. My egg sibs scoffed, but I would not rest until I was as cradled by those waters above as I was by my own sea.
And here was my chance to discover the secret to making this so.
But my effort was for naught. By the time we shook off the water’s clinging, and I drew the stranger from above up upon my own hidden sands deep below, the warmth had fled him. I stared at his peculiar face and my teeth gnashed, jagged edge against jagged edge. I traced the plump curve of his now-blue lips and peered into strange, near-flat eyes, gone blood-shot and lifeless, as if my answers were written there. They were not. But something did glitter slightly lower. I reached out, pushing aside the odd flaps that covered his chest like a skin torn loose and let flop to either side. Beneath was a wonder. It was an object like lightning-struck sand only smooth and straight and clear. Something encapsulated within glowed faintly. I lifted the thing away, breaking the thin strap it hung from around the dead one’s neck. And none too soon.
A splash behind me betrayed an intrusion. “Your bottom-feeder tendencies are showing, my dear.”
Phin. Like a case of scale rot, that one had plagued me ever since we were fingerlings. Even in the sac he was rotten, I was sure. Someday, when I spawn my young, I would eat any eggs that held darkness such as his, for Phin had one goal: by word and deed, inflict what harm he may and often. His disdainful tone sent my lips into a snarl. As if I would feed upon a thinking being.
Before he spied it, I slipped my prize into the kelp bands I’d strung about my waist for carrying such things as I did not wish to hold in my hands. I then turned and glared at where he lounged, flukes in the water, arms on the sands, bracing him up. As ever, his eyes were mocking.
He could not have noticed my expression.
Not when he was too busy staring up and down the length of me, eyes lingering in the region of my pelvic fins. Hissing with annoyance and distaste, I heaved the strange one to my shoulder. With a wiggle of my fins and tail I shoved past my egg brother – we were sheltered in the same nest, though not spawned from the same source – before sliding into the water, hauling the corpse to the grotto entrance where I let the eager current reclaim its prize.
Unburdened but still weighed down, I undulated upward. The surface was choppy yet, dotted with flotsam not claimed by the depths, but the clouds had vanished as quickly as they’d come, leaving the sky deep and dark and finely speckled like a dolphin. I let my head fall back, eyes closed, and breathed deep of the cleansed, ozone-scented air, savoring the lingering taste of salt water tinged with fresh-churned kelp on my lips. Slowly my muscles unbunched. My eyes opened to scan the sky. To the left, high up, there was a patch seemingly void of stars. A dark cloud? One of the sky jellies? I could not say, but without a doubt I could dream. With a few powerful strokes of my tail I swam again toward the rocks, hauled myself up and let the moonbeams caress my skin. I looked up to the larger moon, the one all could see. Its touch was cool, soft. Pleasant, but nothing more. The other…the hidden moon…my skin and scales glowed with the charge it imbued. Warmth bathed me on the inside, despite the chill of the night.
Someday….Someday I would gain that vaunted moon’s shores and swim in its vibrant seas.
Forcing my gaze down and away lest I remain mesmerized for longer than was safe, I looked down to the object tucked within my kelp bands. My hand trembled as I drew it out with care. It was fine, more delicate than I would have thought possible. I could imagine neither its purpose nor manner of creation. I had taken it because it caught my eye. I kept it for it seemed a treasure, something of value to the lost soul I had claimed it from. Perhaps it would serve a purpose for me, as lure or boon to one from his world who might aid me. I secured it once more, not wanting the jealous waves to claim my prize.
That was when I heard it. A broken sound. A weak one. It was foreign even to me, who had ventured forth through all the earthly seas available to me – which was to say, all of them. I was a powerful swimmer.
My dorsal fronds stiffened, not quite billowing as they would beneath the waves, but nonetheless they snapped at the air in eager anticipation. This was a new thing. I angled my head to capture the sound. To pinpoint the source. It had something of a seal’s bark – were the seal half dead. And something of the seagull’s caw, only much less demanding. I could not for a moment imagine what made such a sound. Taut with the need to know, I drew myself across the rocks, up through the crevice that split this oceanic outcrop. I was silent as I moved, the muscles in my tail bunching to push against the rock, aiding my arms as they may. As I drew closer to the sound I slowed my motions. A tall, thin spire of rock jutted high overhead. With care I placed my webbed fingers against its jagged mass and pulled myself up to peer around the bulk of it.
The water glittered in the moonlight as it could not hope to beneath the sun, else I would not have noticed. Breaking up that liquid shimmer was an odd form clinging to the base of the outcrop, half in and half out of the waves. It humped first large, then smaller, holding to the rocks as tight as a barnacle did. There was the odd glimmer as the moon stroked something wet and sleek, but only in patches, as if the form were not all of one thing.
I almost lost my grip and tumbled down as suddenly a different, higher wail rose, piercing my delicate ears clear through. And then I saw the one form was two, small huddled against the large. My pelvic fins fluttered instinctually. I watched as the bigger of the two pulled the other close to shelter against her…for her it was, I could see as the moon now caressed the paleness of her face. The little one looked up and a sound escaped me. It was a boy-thing, little lips full and flat eyes familiar, though lacking the tinge of blood red last seen upon the eyes of another face. Were the sea kinder, I could see this one might grow into the man-thing I’d gripped in my arms not long ago.
Perhaps it was my earlier thoughts of spawning, but an ache settled in my chest to see that young one at the mercy of the sea. I leaned closer, my head tilted for a better view, my ear hole bent toward them to pick up the words drifting on the night’s breeze.
“He said that he would find us…he promised. If anything happened to the ship,” the woman-thing murmured through cracked lips. Her words drifted, broken and as faint as the sounds she’d first made. “Find a place of safety, he said and signal him. He will come. He promised. But the flare…it’s gone.” Her one hand came up b
riefly to touch an object around her neck. From a familiar strap hung the fragments of what seemed the cousin to the object hidden in my kelp bands. As the woman-thing slid deeper in the water she scrambled to cling to the rocks once more.
More of the tortured sounds, point and counterpoint, high voice and low. Though the sounds hurt my ears I remain perched in my crevice, oddly captivated by the scene below. As I stayed there the night air brushed over my form, gentle but persistent, until my skin and scales itched and twitched and tightened enough to bring me to wailing myself. The depths called to me, soothing and wet, cool and dark, and yet I remained until I spied the boy-thing slide into the grip of the waves. The woman-thing cried out and dove fearlessly after, in several long moments surfacing with her sputtering young. He choked and gasped as I have never heard a creature come from the sea. Great wracking coughs spewed water upon the rocks. My gaze went to his neck. I gasped myself and my gills twitched in empathy when realization dawned: as the fish remained ever below, these man-things thrived only above. My mouth gaped with remorse as my eyes were opened to what I had done in drawing the man-thing down beneath the waves. I had borne no malice, yet like Phin I’d wreaked great harm. Even could I wrest the man-thing from the sea the deed could not be undone. He would not breathe again, nor return to these steadfastly waiting. But there was one thing I could do in restitution. My numb fingers slid down to grip the rod still lodged within my now-dry kelp bands. It had clearly held import for him, kept, as it was, hidden against his breast. I suspect this was another of the flares the woman-thing worried over.
I knew what I must do.
Sliding back down the outcrop, harsh rock scraping free dried scales as I went, I slipped with a grateful sigh back into the sea. Powerful twitches of my tail sent me around the rocks to where the two I’d watched still clung. From this new vantage point I could see they perched because they could not climb higher against the algae-coated rock. This I could fix. The night air splintered with their shrieks as I braced against their bottoms, first the boy-thing, then the woman-thing, and with powerful thrusts of my tail surged forward, propelling them from the sea and up onto the rocks. They scrambled higher, clutching each other in as tight a grip as I’d held their man-thing when I drew him under the sea. I bobbed there where they had clung, merely watching, bemused but content that the waters would not have them. I met the gaze of the woman-thing, remorse in my eyes, though my tongue remained silent.
I had not the words to make my deed right, none to excuse them. I bowed my head down as I slid my hand into the kelp band, working the object free. It glowed in the moonlight as I brought it forth and the terror in the woman-thing’s expression was lightened by a gleam of hope. Like a crab she sidled toward my outstretched hand snatching my prize and scurrying back.
Without a word I turned away and dropped beneath the waves, but not before I glanced a fleeting moment up into the sky. Someday I would dance with the lightning, and climb its jagged bolts into the heavens. Someday…I would reach those distant shores to swim the seas of the unseen moon.
But not today.
Portents
R. B. Wood
R. B. Wood is a technology consultant and a writer of Urban Fantasy, Science Fiction, and quite frankly anything else that strikes his fancy. His first novel, The Prodigal’s Foole, was released to critical acclaim in 2012. Mr. Wood is currently working on the second book of his Arcana Chronicles series, multiple short stories, a graphic novel and a science fiction trilogy that he dusts off every few years. Along with his writing passion, R. B. is host of The Word Count Podcast – a show that features talent from all around the globe reading original flash-fiction stories. R. B. currently lives in Boston with his partner, Tina, two cats and various other critters that visit from time to time. http://rbwood.com/dir/
I know it’s a cliché, but I’m living proof that there are ghosts all around us.
Not necessarily the ones written about in Dickens or played in the movies by the likes of Patrick Swayze. Ghosts of the past. Hauntings from bad decisions or life experiences we wish we could do over or change, but can’t.
See, once you’ve made a decision to enter the world of demons, angels and all the weird shit in between, you can never go back. Blue pill. Red pill. It’s that simple.
But unlike The Matrix, the credits don’t roll after two hours.
I made my decision to become a practitioner of magic with the help of the Catholic Church when I was ten years old. People I respected told me it was the right thing to do. I’d be one of God’s soldiers. I’d fight the darkness with power I’d been blessed with since birth. I’d learn to wield magic. I’d fight evil. I’d be a hero.
No one mentioned the ghosts.
It’s the ghosts that keep me awake at night.
On the rare occasions when I do sleep, my dreams are filled with mistakes of the past. I’ve killed people. I’ve let people die.
So I don’t do the magic shit anymore.
I ran from the people and places I’d known all my life, ran as far away as I could from Boston-- with the help of a similarly disillusioned friend who had the good sense to leave before I did. I made it all the way to Ireland.
I hoped—prayed (even though God and I aren’t on speaking terms anymore)—that I could just make it all go away.
Blue pill. Red pill. In the end, it doesn’t matter because the fucking ghosts are still there. Including the Dickens-esque ones.
#
I never even saw the lorry that hit us.
Cillian was thrown against me and my head slammed into the side window in the back of the taxi, shattering it. I must have blacked out momentarily, because the next thing I remembered was being covered in blood and being hauled out of the car by a member of the fire brigade.
It was only later in the ambulance that I realized most of the blood that soaked my clothes belonged to Cillian.
After an hour or so of being prodded and poked by doctors, I took my concussion and bruised shoulder out of the ER and went looking for news of my friend. I found Cillian comatose in the intensive care ward. A large machine was breathing for him and plastic tubes and wires were connected all over his shattered body.
A doctor spoke to me using carefully thought-out words such as ‘massive head trauma’ and ‘induced coma,’ he then left me alone.
Emotions seethed and churned and I closed my eyes and focused on control. If I lost it here, at the very least my power would probably destroy the equipment keeping Cillian alive. I put my arm gently on his right shoulder--the one part of him that didn’t seem broken, bruised or connected to machines and said quietly, “Jesus mate, you look awful.”
“Look who’s talkin’,” said a voice from behind me.
I swung around and came face-to-face with…Cillian.
He looked exactly as I’d seen him before the accident. Except his outline was slightly blurred and his eyes glowed slightly with some unknown inner light. I looked back at the body in the hospital bed breathing in time with the machines, then back at the slightly opaque doppelgänger leaning against the wall.
Fucking ghosts.
“Cillian, you…” I couldn’t think of an insult nasty enough.
The ghost burst out laughing. “I never thought I’d see the day when tha’ great Symon Bryson would be speechless. Keep your gob closed for a minute more and listen.”
Cillian’s weirdly-glowing eyes took on a somber look. “I’m done for, but I need your help. Alannah needs your help.”
Alannah was Cillian’s half-sister. That’s a story in itself for another time. Along with being related to my now comatose friend, Alannah, until recently, had been my occasional bedmate. Really, the only woman I’d been with since I came to Ireland. She was also a troublemaker, even more than I’d been. We’d been on our way to see her when the accident happened.
I guess I should have been a bit freaked out by Cillian’s shade chatting with me in a hospital ward, but I’d seen far worse in my day. The world of mag
ic held horrors and wonders that would paralyze the mind of someone not trained as a practitioner like I’d been. Like Cillian had been as well. The difference is that I swore off anything to do with magic years before, although the beast still churned within me, looking for release when my emotions got the better of me. I fought those urges. Cillian didn’t. He still dabbled in magic when the need arose, or when it suited him. Or when there was money involved.
So instead of shrieking in terror and sprinting out of the hospital room, I quickly regained my composure faced the phantom with a scowl on my face.
So, instead of an insult, I quietly said, “You never told me why we were rushing off in a taxi.”
“Will you feck-off your high-horse for a minute and hear me out?” The ghost of my friend began to pace. “Yeah, right. Problems. You need to just listen for a few minutes and not interrupt. I was working a score with the Monk…”
“Jesus fucking Christ, Cillian!” I couldn’t help myself. Michael “the Monk” O’Conner was one of the biggest mob bosses in Ireland. He had his fingers in everything: imports, technology businesses, travel. Hell, he even owned the biggest Christmas tree company in the country. Many bodies that eventually washed up on the coastline were a direct result of a falling out with the Monk. He was powerful, dangerous, and, if rumors were true, completely ‘round the bend.
“I knew you couldn’t keep your gob shut,” Cillian snorted. “Anyway, there was this archeology dig down near the Ring of Kerry, uncovered a lot of Church artifacts and stuff. The Monk wanted it.”
“So why didn’t he just take it?”
“He did, just with my help, see. It was all loaded into this big shipping container and was gonna be hauled up to the dockyard in Dublin and shipped off to the Vatican.”
“Ok, since the Monk basically owns the docks, I’ll repeat my question. Why didn’t he just take it?”
“It needed to disappear before it got to Dublin. If he nicked it at the docks, everyone would’ve known it was him.”
