“We don’t want war. And humans can’t know about your kind,” Sam said, realizing the stakes had just skyrocketed way above his pay grade. Regardless, Sam knew that the most pressing issue was keeping Maris’s existence hidden. They’d deal with the other crisis once this one was resolved. “If she really is who you think she is,” Sam told him, “then we’ll get her where she needs to go. But you have to get out of sight, right now.”
“You are going to return the princess to Ta Cathair?” the selkie asked, amused by the thought.
“Ta Ca-where?” Sam replied.
“Ta Cathair,” Maris repeated firmly. “Her home.”
“Sure….Just tell me where it is and we’ll—”
“I am forbidden to tell you its location. And she won’t understand,” Maris said with exasperation as he hooked his thumb in Pearl’s direction. “But if you are serious—”
“I am,” Sam told him.
“There is another way….It is difficult and dangerous and has never been undertaken by man—”
“Quickly!” Sam said as the Coast Guard drew closer.
“The journey to Ta Cathair begins at the first sacred point in the city that never stops. Take this.” Maris handed Sam a cylindrical crystal four inches long. It shimmered with an iridescent sheen, and for a brief moment, Sam could have sworn he saw a fractured image of a gleaming city appear in its face. But then the sunlight refracted off the surface and the image disappeared.
“Do you promise to bring her back to me…to us?” Maris asked with a sincerity and warmth Sam had not yet heard from the creature. In that moment, Sam could see he truly cared and loved Pearl, who he clearly believed was Princess Iaira. Sam instantly felt the weight of his pledge and nodded apprehensively.
“I do,” Sam replied. “Now go.”
Maris smiled slightly, as if hopeful for the first time.
“Then may the luck of your gryphon be with you,” he said, and dove into the water. His fin broke through the surface and slapped down before disappearing beneath the waves.
Shortly thereafter, the first Coast Guard response boat arrived and fished Pearl out of the water, while the second was hurriedly approaching Sam. They used a long, telescoping pole with a loop at the end to secure him and pull him close before two of the guardsmen grabbed on to Sam, lifted him out of the water, and strapped him onto the boat as it sped toward land.
Several minutes later, Sam was carried to shore and left to rest on a bench, where he huddled under a blanket and sipped a slapdash hot cocoa prepared by the Coast Guard officers. He was woozy and a little nauseous, like he had just ridden the carnival Tilt-A-Whirl ten times in a row after downing a milkshake. It also felt like there was a ten-pound barbell sitting on his chest. He took quick, short breaths to counteract the sensation. But he was alive, and that was the most important thing.
Pearl sat a few yards away, also warming up, though still shivering. Her hair was a tangled, wet mess that she unsuccessfully tried to fix. She glanced over to Sam with a look of fear and uncertainty. Sam didn’t know what to say or do—the poor girl had been through quite an ordeal at the hands of Maris. How could he tell her the truth about the selkie? How could Sam even prove to her that it was true? He considered that for a moment, before Lief Eklund’s SUV screeched to a stop at the edge of the beach. He leapt out and rushed to Pearl’s side.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m sorry I let this happen,” Lief told his adopted daughter while embracing her. Sam could hear Pearl begin to sob quietly. Then Lief addressed the Coast Guard personnel angrily. “Why hasn’t an ambulance been called? Can we get an ambulance here, please? And why aren’t you out there looking for that lunatic!”
Sam’s attention was pulled away from Lief’s tirade when he heard a familiar, albeit aggravated, voice.
“What in the Sam Hill were you thinking!” the person said. Sam had known this would be coming. He peered up to find Tashi and Dr. Vantana looming over him. Both were visibly annoyed—arms folded and eyes glaring. Sam shrugged as best he could under the weight of the wool blanket.
“I wasn’t thinking. I just sprang into action,” he replied.
“Your springing nearly got you killed, Sam London,” Tashi told him sternly.
“I’m thrilled you’re okay, kid, but that was absolutely, positively, unequivocally unacceptable. You got that?” Vance said with a fatherly ire.
Sam nodded sheepishly. “Yes, sir. I’m sorry.”
The doctor didn’t respond, but his expression clearly said, You should be.
“You…” Sam heard a man call out. Lief Eklund was pointing in his direction and approaching.
“Out of the frying pan,” Vance quipped.
“Let me do the talking,” Sam insisted.
“Be my guest, kid,” Vance replied. “Not sure things could get any worse.”
“My Pearl tells me you leapt into that car and rescued her in the nick of time,” Lief said to Sam as he reached the trio.
“Right place at the right time, I guess,” Sam responded humbly.
“Twice in a row is a bit too coincidental, don’t you think?” Lief asked, his eyes narrowing. “And I’m not one to believe in coincidence. So how about you tell me who you all really are.”
“You’re right, it wasn’t a coincidence,” Sam began. “We owe you an apology, Mr. Eklund, as we haven’t been entirely honest with you.”
“Sam!” Vance whispered anxiously. “When I said things couldn’t get worse, it wasn’t a challenge.”
Sam waved him off. “It’s all right. It’s time he knew.”
“No, it’s not,” Vance replied firmly.
“Tashi isn’t a fashion designer and she didn’t come here from Tibet to have Pearl model her clothes,” Sam continued as Lief eyed them with newfound suspicion.
“I really don’t think—” The doctor made another attempt to intervene.
“Truth is, we’re just really big fans of your daughter. Me and Tashi. We follow her on social media, and we totally love her. Isn’t that right, Tashi?” The Guardian furrowed her brow in discomfort.
“Totes,” she chirped.
Sam grinned. Tashi must have heard that word in one of the videos he had played at the cabin, and he couldn’t have been more thankful for her resourcefulness.
“We convinced our dad to bring us to see her, and I cooked up that whole story, hoping to meet Pearl,” Sam explained, injecting a mournfulness into his voice. Eklund’s attention turned to Dr. Vantana.
“You encouraged this?” he asked Vance. Vantana nodded, feigning shame.
“They were just going on and on about your daughter. Pearl this and Pearl that…and I really wanted them to have a chance to meet their idol. This is all my fault,” Vance conceded. Eklund considered the new information with surprise, but not disbelief. Sam knew they had him.
“I can understand trying to make your kids happy. They’re our everything. And fact is, if it weren’t for you people, who knows what would have happened to my Pearl,” Eklund said with a slight but forgiving smile. “What can you tell me about this lunatic?” he asked Sam. Sam considered his response carefully.
“Not much….The window between the front and back was closed, so I didn’t get a very good look at him.”
“That’s interesting,” Eklund replied. “The Guardsmen said they saw you talking to him.”
Sam played it cool. “Me? Talking to the crazy guy who tried to kill us? No way. I was too busy spitting up water and trying not to drown,” he told Eklund. “He just swam off.”
“All right,” Eklund responded, appearing satisfied with Sam’s answer. “I have my best people combing the bay looking for him, and when they find him, I’ll make sure he pays for what he’s done.”
“Is Pearl okay?” Sam asked.
“I think so. I’m having her taken to the h
ospital just in case. What about you?”
“I’m fine. Just a little freaked out,” Sam answered.
“That’s understandable,” Lief said. “Thanks again for what you did…and, tell you what, leave your information at the security desk back at my building. I can have Pearl send you an autograph or something.”
Sam smiled. “That’d be Pearl-tastic!” he exclaimed. Eklund smiled and nodded before walking away.
“Pearl-tastic?” Vance inquired.
“Long story…and I have a way more important one to tell.” Sam climbed to his feet and coughed, and suddenly the world spun like he was back on that carnival Tilt-A-Whirl, except now it was on its highest speed, spinning and spinning and spinning until he blacked out.
* * *
* * *
When Sam opened his eyes again, he was disoriented and groggy. There was a man squinting down at him with scrutinizing eyes. He was small, with shaggy white hair, a bushy mustache, and a beard that framed his worn, leathery face and came to a point right below his chin. His eyes were hazel and his skin was the color of tree bark.
“There you are, Mr. London,” the man said, his whispery voice instantly giving away his identity—this was Ranger Woodruff Sprite. Sam’s eyes darted around the room. He was lying on a bed in the ranger cabin, surrounded by Sprite, Tashi, Dr. Vantana, and fellow ranger Penelope Naughton, who was busily checking Sam’s vitals. “It is nice to finally make your acquaintance,” Sprite added.
“What happened?” Sam asked weakly as he tried to rub the tired from his eyes. It was a feeling Sam compared to sleeping in way too late. A cloudy haze was slowly dissipating from his mind and body.
“You almost drowned,” the ranger answered.
“But I didn’t,” Sam responded.
“That may well be true, but you spent a king’s ransom in adrenaline in that car trying not to,” Dr. Vantana explained. “It was too much for your body to take, so it shut down for a spell.”
“How long is a spell, exactly?”
“One day,” Tashi revealed.
“A whole day?” Sam said with surprise. The group nodded in unison. Sam sighed, then looked at Penelope. “Ranger Naughton, what are you doing here?”
“I called her in,” Vance explained. “It looks like we might be in need of some gills on this case, and she can make that happen.”
Penelope was the Department of Mythical Wildlife’s expert on creating serums that enabled humans to not only see mythical creatures, but also acquire some of the creatures’ magical abilities. Though whether these serums actually worked on Sam was still an open question. The bigfoot serum that had given Vance his enhanced sense of smell had had no effect on Sam, and no one had a good explanation as to why.
“Where’s Trevor?” Sam asked as he glanced around the room, expecting to see Penelope’s right-hand man, or right-hand troll, as it were.
“I’m not entirely sure,” Penelope answered in a slightly unsettled tone. “He begged me to come along and I finally relented, but then at the last minute he said he had to help a friend and took off in a hurry.”
“Oh. Well, you know him and friends,” Sam noted.
“You seem right enough to start spilling the beans,” Vantana observed.
“Perhaps we should wait on the spilling of beans and have Sam inform us as to what occurred with the selkie,” Tashi suggested in all seriousness. “We can all play this game you speak of later.” Vance grinned, and Penelope did a poor job of suppressing a chuckle.
“Of course, Tashi. You’re absolutely right,” Vantana told the Guardian with all sincerity. Sam thought it was a kind gesture on the part of the doctor. No doubt Tashi would have been embarrassed by her misunderstanding. “Go on, Sam,” he prodded.
“Well, Maris is convinced that Pearl is a mermaid princess named Iaira, who he’s supposed to marry,” Sam said.
“Did she transform in the water?” Vantana asked.
Sam shook his head. “I was hoping she would, believe me, but it didn’t happen. Maris was pretty annoyed. He said she was ‘surface’ too long and needed more time.”
“That would certainly have an impact on her ability to transform,” Sprite remarked. “Her body would no longer remember. It is similar to what humans experience with muscle memory.”
“Is that why Nuks has to return to raccoon-dog form every now and then?” Sam asked.
“Exactly,” Vantana replied. “What else did he say?”
“He said if she didn’t go home, there would be a war. And it would expose everything to everyone. It sounded serious,” Sam revealed.
“It is,” Penelope noted. She pulled out a small video device and presented it to Sam. She touched the screen, and a video played. “This is footage from several DMW monitoring buoys positioned throughout the world’s oceans.”
The video Sam was now watching appeared to have been taken underwater, with the monochromatic, green-tinted look of a night-vision camera. The footage was mostly just fish, but suddenly a swarm of creatures passed by the camera lens.
“Whoa! What are those?” Sam asked in surprise. Penelope paused the image. Sam got a better look at the creatures, and the fins were unmistakable. “Selkies,” he concluded. Penelope nodded.
“Hundreds of them,” she said. Then she swiped to a video that showed another group of creatures swimming past the lens. She paused it again, and Sam could see that these creatures were less muscular in build and sported a fishlike fin. “And these are mer-creatures. We’ve seen activity like this in nearly every corner of the world.”
“Where are they going?”
“We don’t know, but they look like they’re being called to something,” Penelope suggested.
“War?” Sam posited with concern.
Penelope shrugged. “That’s the prevailing theory at headquarters. We’ve already had to remove a few videos taken by divers that wound up on the internet, and conspiracy theorists are having a field day. If war does erupt, it might be hard to hide.”
“Maris said it would spill over to land,” Sam told them.
“It sure would,” Vance agreed. “So with all that going on, how did you get him to leave?”
“I promised to return Pearl to her home. A place Maris called Ta Cathair,” Sam explained. At the mention of those last two words, Ranger Sprite leaned back in his chair.
“Hmmm,” he murmured reflectively. The ranger’s hand went to his small, pointy beard and stroked it. “Ta Cathair…Are you certain?”
Sam nodded. “Yeah.”
“I haven’t heard that name since I was a child. My mother spoke of it in bedtime stories,” Sprite said.
“So you know it?” Vance asked.
“I know of it,” Sprite clarified. “It is a legendary place…a city of mer-people so secret that even the mighty Phylassos himself does not know where it lies.”
“Then how are we supposed to find it?” Tashi wondered.
“Maris said I had to begin my journey in the city that never stops,” Sam informed them. “He said there I would find the—”
“First sacred point,” both Sprite and Sam finished in unison.
“Yes,” Sam added, surprised the ranger knew. Sprite smirked, as if remembering.
“Of course…of course….As the story goes, there are five sacred points positioned throughout the world. Like stepping-stones, these points form a trail that leads to Ta Cathair,” Sprite explained. “No one knew where the first point was, and without that first stepping-stone, you could not step to the others in the correct order.”
“So the first point is in the city that never stops, but where is that?” Sam asked.
“It’s Atlantis,” Vantana said with a protracted sigh.
“Atlantis? I knew it was real!” Sam exclaimed. He couldn’t contain his excitement. He loved reading about Atlantis, th
e fabled lost city that was home to an advanced civilization. According to the myths, the city had been destroyed by a volcano and sank into the ocean, never to be seen again. “This trip is going to be so cool!”
Dr. Vantana scoffed. “Not cool, kid. Not cool. That place isn’t exactly welcoming to humans, and it’s near impossible to get to.”
“But I saw Atlantis on the dvergen map. Can’t we just take a subway there?” Sam wondered. On Sam’s first-ever ride on a dvergen subway, he’d caught a glimpse of the name “Atlantis” on the globe that acted as the vehicle’s navigational system. At the time, Sam had assumed it was the location of the remnants of a once great civilization, not a thriving city.
“Not so simple, I’m afraid,” Sprite spoke up. “The map you refer to was no doubt made at a time when Atlantis was still stationary.”
“What do you mean ‘stationary’?” Sam asked slowly.
“In the wake of the gryphon’s law and the increased amount of human seafaring, the Atlanteans—with Phylassos’s blessing—concluded that it’d be best if the city didn’t stay in one spot for too long,” Dr. Vantana explained. “So it’s constantly moving—floating, I guess is a more accurate term—around the world, avoiding potential interference with humanity.”
Sam’s lightbulb finally flickered on. “And that’s why it’s called the city that never stops.” Sprite nodded.
“Now you see the dilemma,” Vantana announced. “How does one find a place that is never in the same place? And how are we supposed to find Ta Cathair when just getting to Atlantis is about as easy as puttin’ socks on a rooster?” he asked aloud, not expecting an answer. But Sam’s haze had now completely lifted, and he remembered something crucial from his encounter with the selkie.
“Maris said this would help.” Sam retrieved the strange crystal the selkie had handed him in the water. Ranger Sprite’s face lit up like a Christmas tree.
The Selkie of San Francisco Page 11
