by Naomi Fraser
Then I try to look inside my mind, but my thinking struggles to make sense of my surroundings. Why am I here? I fell asleep on the sofa watching music videos. Before I closed my eyes, the time on the DVD player had read 11.30 p.m. Those blinking red lights.
A quick, disturbing thought sweeps through me—this isn’t a dream—I’m too aware. I step toward the house, but the walls shift, elongate, slipping farther away. I pant and take another step, then run toward the house, but when I look down at my feet, they’re not moving. I can’t make my body work.
Icy fear riots inside my chest, and I shiver.
Blood throbs in my ears. I try to slow my panicked breaths, because every inhale cuts like a thousand blades. Like broken ribs spear my lungs and spine. Instinct demands I suck in all the oxygen I can at once, but that will make me panic more. I can’t breathe so freely.
Why am I close to the cliff? Where is my mum? My mouth won’t produce sound.
I want to get back to my house. Hear my mother’s voice, feel the comfort of my room, disappear within its walls. Panic is a death dealer. I focus with every ounce of power I have to connect all the pathways in my brain, shallow breathe like I have liquid in my lungs and then take another step.
It’s toward the cliff and not the house. I growl in frustration, close my eyes and mentally count to ten. A loud resonance sweeps across my skin, buzzing in a full volume radio static, vibrating so hard my teeth gnash with a pins-and-needles numbness. Pins-and-needles in a foot? Imagine every body part tingling so fiercely it feels like burning. My muscles and brain are separated by a thin thread. I’m in my body, but not in possession of it.
As I slowly become aware of my paralysis, I struggle to fully open my eyes. Eyes open, calm down, breathe shallow. I command you, eyes, open!
My lashes flick. It works. Extreme focus, that’s all it takes.
Maybe my body wants me to see the cliff and struggling only makes it worse. How else could I be stuck? The notion is discomforting, as though my body is in control and I am not. But I concentrate and then step toward the edge of the cliff, near the raging waves. I lick my lips, tasting salt with the tip of my tongue. What a glorious night; never has anything been so beautiful. A strong, cool breeze lifts my hair, wafting around my body, calling me.
I want to fall into the wind’s arms. Stars sprinkle above me, like a black canvas tossed over a crystal ball, a snow globe, and I am stuck inside of it. My lungs nibble oxygen. As the waves slap against the stone, sound comes again, whispers carrying a watery song. Liquid ambrosia. The tune resides beneath the waves in a perfect harmony of wet nothingness. I close my eyes and listen. I’m so tired.
If the ocean spoke to me it would have this deep and cascading voice. I find a path, accepting the tide of weariness that leads me toward a sandy verge. Hard grains and crushed shells wedge up between my toes. The breeze ruffles the hem of my nightgown. Maybe I will just sit on the beach and watch the water, but each step feels harder on my feet. I step lightly and then slip, no longer walking on sand, but across stone, a rock wall that stretches deeper into the bay. I stop and stare.
Beautiful music haunts me again.
That music. That music.
Fear locks down my muscles and bones. My heart beats so fast it leaps up into my throat.
I can’t move. Wind batters me and I’m desperately fighting my body as a hand slips out of the dark water, grasps my ankle and then drags me into the wet blackness.
23
DYING IS SCARY as hell.
Sickness pounds in my heart, intensifying my silent, mental scream—Noooo!
Reality has a way of making dreams seem worthless, unless you fight. When you’re going to die, you fight unbelievably hard. If you’re stuck in water, that’s unfortunate.
Fighting means you’ll wear yourself out and die faster.
The sea is stronger than you’ll ever be and can swallow you whole. When you die in water, it’s kind of blissful. But not at first.
How do I remember that? The doctors told me I had died in hospital, not in the water.
I crash land on my butt, crack my head against the stones and then slip down the razor-sharp rock wall. Pain ricochets inside my skull, centring at my temples. My tailbone throbs and skin burns from the cuts. I twist and fling my hands out to hold onto something, anything to stop myself from falling, but the surface is too slippery. My fingertips slice open on the sharp edges.
The worn cotton of my nightie bunches up around my neck, impeding my grip and vision.
Another tug away on my ankle and the sharp burst of my scream carries in the quiet before midnight water engulfs me in a heavy, wet blanket. Choking me. Moonlight beams through the water, highlighting the dark blue aura at the surface.
I have my target—and furiously struggle upward, scraping my legs against the rocks. I’m no weakling and manage to kick free of the grip around my ankle. I break through to the surface, spit out saltwater, gasp and reach out, then get a split second of diamond stars before I am yanked back under again.
Skin ripples on my cheeks. I’m descending fast and the hem of my nightie floats in front of my eyes. What pulls me along?
The pressure of tight fingers on my ankle. A hand, that’s right. A hand? Without a body? Impossible.
Throbbing temples make my thoughts hurt. Bile surges to my throat. I shake with the need to breathe and adrenaline surges in my body as I fight to get air. Panic sets in as my muscles continue to struggle. The frantic screaming in my head demands to know who is doing this to me. Why?
I stop thrashing just enough to push the fabric away and look down through the bubbles at my legs.
The hand is milky-sallow—the colour of sour milk in bluish light. Darkish veins.
Incredulity swells in my mind. I can’t grasp the image my eyes relay to my brain. The arm extends toward a cloud of long, black hair. A woman’s arm? I kick with all my strength, but purplish talons claw into my skin and drag me deeper. My blood leaks into the water. Surely, I shouldn’t be able to see the seeping tendrils of red, yet I can.
“Let me go!” I scream underwater, and then kick at the hand again with my other foot, trying to push the fingers off my ankle.
Deeper, I plunge into the cold, blue water, and my chest collapses with the pressure. A flurry of bubbles stream out of my mouth, clouding my vision. I hold my hands over my breasts, feeling my chest flatten and crunch. I’m dying. The back of my ears unzip, and I’m still sinking.
I fight like a maniac, twisting with all my might to the illuminated blue at the surface. But the resistance of the water soon overpowers my struggling limbs and an aching tiredness sweeps over me. I can’t lift my arms or reach the surface to breathe.
You only grow weaker and die faster when you fight in water.
My lungs burn and my body has become my enemy. I’m broken. Completely. This is it. All I have to give. My heart thunders with the truth, but a sense of peace washes over me. It’s OK to give up sometimes. It’s OK to let go. This has been a wonderful life—I’ll see my dad again. Calmness overwhelms my mind, a strange beauty, and I release myself, sending out a swift, silent sorry to my mum.
This isn’t a horrible ending, but a divine reality. I have cheated death once and maybe this is my destiny, my time. I move away from my body to a golden, expansive light. Complete freedom has no physicality. Suddenly, the nails scratch deeper into my skin and my ribs squeeze flat before a sharp sting of pressure expels from my body. We race to the bottom of the bay toward a mass of waving seaweed. Oh. Those girls were bound with it. If I do one thing before I die . . . I will get rid of that hand.
I reach down, but the nails are clamped all the way to my bone. I set about dislodging the fingers one by one.
Then I glimpse a silhouette of something . . . not real . . . with a huge tail, at least two metres long. My gaze roams the width at the hips and then along the tail fin and back up again. Large scales shimmer smooth as black tar. Can’t be. Not like shark or dolphin. It has a huma
n’s back. I swallow. And a fish’s tail.
The reality of what I’m seeing registers in my oxygen-starved brain.
Mermaid.
No, logic denies. I try to see a face, but catch only a side profile and then cold, salty water streams in my mouth, flooding my lungs. It’s OK. I’m dying anyway. I breathe in the seawater, exhale, inhale again. More skin rips open behind my ears, tingling in the salt. On my tentative exhale, water rushes out of my mouth, but there’s no pain. I’m breathing water. I’m not totally me. Or maybe I’m more than I’ve ever believed.
‘The power in the opposite direction will reinforce your acceleration.’ Lakyn’s words filter through my mind, daring me. I have no idea where his voice comes from, but I have nothing left to lose.
I bow my entire body back and then jolt my legs forward. The grip dislodges a little. Again, I arch backwards and then kick my legs together how Lakyn taught me, uncaring if my skin shreds to bits.
The hand momentarily slips. My heart jumps and I rocket to the surface.
Someone grabs my shoulder, looping a cord around my waist and then pushes me off to one side. Before I can speak, the tension in the cord snaps, yanking me closer to the surface, and I gasp at the different pressure on my sore ribs.
A wink of silver glistens, and the mermaid floats up, a spear through her cheek. The diver reloads and shoots again. His spear pierces the hand that held my ankle. Dead aim. A high-pitched screech shudders through the water. Wincing, I pull back and hang onto the line. Another arrow lances straight through the mermaid’s shoulder. I focus, but a black haze covers my eyes.
I open my mouth to breathe in again and the water tastes of blood. Salty, musky and metallic. I gag, and arch back, kicking my legs, wanting to get away from both of them.
The cord around my waist is a taut lifeline and I hang on as my entire body vibrates with a strange energy.
Power, undiluted and ferocious, is who I am. This is my place.
Blood heats up under my skin; sunlight on the inside. A vein of fire snakes through my legs to my belly button. Tingles buzz under my skin and the pores in my legs rip open with tiny hatches.
Crying, I gingerly touch the loose skin, worried they will wash away. Salt stings the gaps of raw flesh. More skin rips open along my thighs, navel, overlapping across my bottom and knees. A jellied substance secretes down my thighs, slipping toward my feet. Hatches of skin lift, and then harden beneath my fingers until they finally overlap, binding my legs together in a matrix of scales. Thigh bones push into each other, pressing so tight they become one.
My toes extend, bones lengthening. Bubbles whip around my ankles, and the jelly substance hardens, gluing my ankles together. A web forms between my toes, stretching into a glinting tail fin.
Then the pain of a thousand, tiny cuts dissolves into nothing. Blessed relief washes across my body. My mouth hangs open as I stare at where my legs used to be. Bits of hair enter my mouth and float around me, straighter from the heaviness of the water.
I can’t look away. I’m in Moreton Bay at night with a tail instead of legs and breathing in bloody water.
The diver swims into my line of vision, spear gun in hand, flippers rhythmically moving.
I swim closer in a breaststroke motion rather than flicking my . . . tail. I have a tail.
His eyes are a fierce, glowing blue and he reaches out for me.
Lakyn? I gasp in a lungful of water and the skin splits deeper behind my ears. I clasp them, moaning in pain. “Lakyn, I have a tail. Someone tried to kill me.” But I realise he can’t hear me. “I think she was a mermaid.”
He shakes his head, points above his head and then grabs hold of my wrist. With his other solid arm around my waist, we swim for the surface. It takes forever, but I don’t have to worry about oxygen, and he has his tank.
Finally, we break through the waves. My lungs expand in a fierce crack. A cry explodes from my lips and carries across the surface of the water. My ribs swell. I panic and lean forward, digging my fingers into his arms.
He lifts up his mask and squeezes me. So close. “Ellie.” His voice wavers. “I’m going to get you to land. I didn’t think they’d make a move so soon.”
“They?” I breathe in more air and expel sea water out of my ears. My eyes burn and nasal passages sting. “What’s happening to me, Lakyn?”
“Later,” he says grimly. “We have to leave here before they come back. There’s always more than one. I’ll take you back to the hostel.”
“You can’t,” I gasp. “I have a tail, Lakyn. I’m a fish.”
Moonlight glints off his slow, secretive smile. He peers deeply into my eyes, hesitates and then his hand drops to my waist to trail over my hips and across my scales. “I know it’s a shock, but you have to trust me. You’re a mermaid, Ellie. Well, half human, half mermaid. We have to leave here. There’s too much blood in the water. And you will be able to swim faster with a tail.”
“I’m a mermaid.” My lips tremble uncontrollably. “You saved me. All the way down there. You saved me from that . . . that thing. Thank you. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I should have been faster. It took me too long to get on all the gear after I heard your scream,” he mutters against my neck. “I was afraid you’d drown, that the transformation hadn’t been complete. Are you OK to swim on?”
I swallow. “Barely. What do you mean about the transformation or they’ll come back?”
He releases me reluctantly. “I’ll tell you more later. Now is not the time.”
“Was she a mermaid, too?” This time there is no mistaking my fear. I shake with the intensity of it.
His expression hardens to a mask of stone, and his eyes hold unfathomable pain. “No, that was a siren. A deadly creature who steals human and finfolk souls. They killed my family.”
24
“STEALS SOULS?” I shake so hard I can hardly catch my breath. “Killed your family? What are you talking about?” Water rasps in my tight chest and throat.
His iron clad arm wraps around my middle and then he tests the cord’s strength behind my back.
“Good—” Satisfaction ripples in his voice, and he nods. “—No matter what keep this around you. Don’t let go of it until I say.”
My eyes widen in shock and I begin, “But—”
“We don’t have much time.” A muscle leaps in his jaw and he lowers his voice to a steady pitch. “I can’t discuss your tail right now.” His piercing blue gaze holds me to the present. “Or the sirens. But we will, Ellie. We will. It’s too dangerous to try and swim straight for the hostel. We’ll head back for the nearest patch of land. Sirens normally return in greater numbers.” A grim expression lines his chiselled face, making him seem older than normal. “Get moving.”
His grip on my hand is almost painful.
“If it’s so dangerous why did you want to take me swimming then?” I ask dully. I can’t help feeling I’ve shifted to some alternate reality. I have a tail. Sirens steal souls. And obviously bodies, too. They were going to take mine. I can’t stop shaking.
He stops squeezing my hand and concern hovers on his brow. “I wanted to take you earlier than today, remember? Because you were so late in the water, I only had time to teach you one thing.” He lifts his hand, and using his thumb, he gently wipes the tears from my eyes. “I wanted to see how you would change. I didn’t know whether you would become a full mermaid or a hybrid. Don’t cry, Ellie. Calm down. We have to leave. There’s too much blood here.”
Realisation hits. If he didn’t save me tonight, the move he taught me earlier in the ocean would have. I used his technique to break free from the siren’s hold.
He settles the black diving mask over his face.
I want to say more, how blind I’ve been, but his strong hand around mine forces me to follow. Together we dip our heads beneath the silky, dark water. My ripped nightie balloons up and the sea caresses my stomach in divine sensation. My lungs shift again, rib bones sliding into place.
A grating, popping sensation echoes inside my body. The water tastes strange and, like he says, there’s too much blood.
Part of me wants to leave him for a moment to completely explore the sensation of escaping human bonds. Now, I’m something else. We sink deeper, and my large tail goes straight down, twice as long as my legs. For once, I want to go deeper. To the bottom. Swim away to an unknown destination; bask in the moonlight on a tropical island with the soft wash of water at my back.
I scoop out my hands, releasing his hold and laugh a little. Tendrils of my too-blonde hair float in a cloud in front of my face. My white skin and his wetsuit clad arms contrast starkly. But he needs an air tank, and I . . . don’t.
Instinct makes me twist to the left toward an echo. “Something’s coming,” I say.
On the alert, he follows my line of sight.
Moonlight turns the particles into silvery white atoms. A soft glitter emphasises the vast emptiness in the blue-black depths. Again, an electrical pulse hits my chest and I point into the open water with a shaking hand. My breathing picks up as I look back to him.
His eyes glow, but he points in the opposite direction. I nod, attempting to move my arms in a wide breast stroke. The flick of my tail halts my progress and the cord snaps me to one side.
“Help . . .” The plea releases as a sound and vibration. Oh God, we need to get out of here. How far does sound travel? I struggle to go forward and clench the cord, trying to pull myself along. “They’re coming! I can feel them.”
He grasps my hand, drawing me closer. A slight frown mars his brow. He releases me, makes a wavy motion with his hand and then points to my tail. He touches his head and does the wavy motion again. He grabs my hand while plumes of bubbles stream out over his face as he floats horizontally.
