Undertow

by Steve Behling

  Dedication

  To my mom and dad,

  who encouraged me to read comics.

  And to Ramona Fradon, whose art and

  storytelling made Aquaman come alive.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Epilogue

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  “YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR PROBLEM is? You just sit there, waiting for life to happen. You have to go out and make it happen. Pretty wise words, right?”

  The water was warm for this time of year, but it barely registered with Arthur Curry as he dipped a foot into the ocean. He was too deep in conversation to really care about the temperature of the water. Not that he ever really cared about things like that, anyway.

  To a person who could survive the crushing pressures of the deepest parts of the world’s oceans, a little thing like warm or cold water was exactly that—little.

  “I know what you’re going to say. ‘Well, what have you done?’ That’s a fair question. But I have done a lot. So much. I’ve gotten so much done. Even this morning, before breakfast.”

  Arthur looked down at the dock as he sat, his legs dangling over the side. Staring into the water, his eyes met another set of eyes, breaking just above the ocean’s surface.

  “Don’t look at me like that,” Arthur said, dismissing the eyes in the water with a wave of his hand. “Are you giving me side eye? Really?” He looked behind him and saw the lighthouse. He had called it home for as long as he could remember.

  Until the day he left.

  “Okay, so it’s gonna be like that, huh?” Arthur huffed. “Well, I’ve saved the world, for starters. That’s pretty good, right? That’s doing something. Have you saved the world? Have you?”

  Arthur paused for a moment, as if awaiting a response that would never come.

  “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

  His attention turned back to the lighthouse, and the memories of childhood flooded his mind. Happy memories, for the most part. But there was always a cloud hanging over even the happiest of those memories. He loved his father to the ends of the earth and back, from its highest peak to its greatest depths, deep down in the ocean. The ocean . . .

  “Why am I telling you all this? Killing time. Don’t get me wrong, it’s good to see you, but I’m waiting for my dad.”

  Tom Curry, the lighthouse keeper. Ever since Arthur could remember, that was Tom’s job: to keep the shores free of shipwrecks. He had to maintain the beacon and make sure it was in working order every day. More and more lighthouses were automated these days, but the Amnesty Bay lighthouse still required a human operator. It was a job he took seriously, but he himself was not a serious man. Tom had a sense of humor, one which he instilled in his son. Humor was a key commodity in the Curry household.

  Sometimes, laughter was all they had. It was that sense of humor that had helped Arthur through some pretty tough moments in his childhood.

  “He should be here any minute,” Arthur said, looking into the water as the eyes bobbed up and down. “I know, I know. It’s weird that I’m the one who showed up early.”

  He stood, picked up a piece of driftwood from the dock, and raised it in the air.

  “Go get the stick! Go! Fetch!”

  Then he hurled the driftwood right over the octopus’s head. It sailed for maybe a hundred feet, then landed in the ocean with a distant plop.

  The octopus didn’t budge. It didn’t blink. It didn’t do anything.

  “We gotta work on that, buddy,” Arthur said.

  He stood up and felt the warm sun beating down upon his tattooed torso and arms. Then he scratched his beard and stared at the octopus, which was now sitting on a rock in the water.

  “Anyway, good talk, Topo,” Arthur said, waving at the octopus.

  Chapter One

  THE MEMORY WAS WITHOUT color, just shades of black and gray and pure, shimmering white.

  It began as it always did. There was the sun. A great arc of white, it had just started to peek out from the horizon. There was a chill in the air, and even though he was bundled up, he was cold.

  He remembered that much.

  They say you don’t start forming memories until you’re three years old. Or, at least, you can’t remember anything that happened before you were three. That’s how it was with Arthur Curry. The earliest memory of his mother—his only memory of her, really—came from when he was three years old.

  He was on a dock.

  The dock.

  Then there was the woman. Her hair was long, and he could see her face. But the features remained elusive, like clay that had yet to be sculpted. The expression was there—that much he could see. She was smiling at him. There was kindness in the smile; he could feel that. But he could feel something else, too.

  Sadness?

  Yes, sadness. For there was crying, too. Mournful crying, the sound of someone doing something they don’t want to do but know they must.

  But he wasn’t the one crying, and they weren’t his tears.

  It was the woman. She was crying.

  And the man standing next to her.

  The man in the memory, Arthur knew very well. The face belonged to his father, Tom.

  Arthur remembered the woman holding him tightly, their faces pressed close together. A trickle of tears ran from her cheek and onto Arthur’s.

  Words were spoken, by both the mysterious woman and his father. He couldn’t remember what they said. They weren’t talking to him, Arthur knew that much. He looked at them both, curious. They looked sad, and even the sound of their words evoked sorrow.

  The ocean waves lapped the dock beneath his feet, the sea spraying up on the weather-worn wood. Even at a young age, he had been fascinated by the water. By the ocean. He could remember how it felt on his feet.

  More tears.

  More sorrowful words.

  The woman, holding Arthur so tight he thought he might burst.

  The man, plaintive.

  And then, a kiss on his forehead, her lips cool. A hand touched his cheek, gently brushing away a lock of hair.

  Then the woman kissed his father. And she turned away from them, looking out toward the vast ocean before her. To his surprise, the woman didn’t turn around to look at father or son.

  She dived into the water, never to be seen again.

  Chapter Two

  “DID SHE LIKE FRENCH FRIES?”

  The man laughed as he picked up a smooth stone from the sandy beach. “Yeah, she liked French fries.”

  “With ketchup?” Arthur asked. It was the kind of question a six-year-old would ask. This was important stuff, and Arthur wanted to file the information away for future reference.

  The man, Tom Curry, looked at the rock in his right hand, grasped between his thumb and index finger. Then he drew the arm back, and whipped it forward, releasing the rock. The stone sailed through the air, very low, then hit the surface of the water, glancing off once, then twice, then three times
, before it finally landed with a satisfying plop in the ocean.

  “With ketchup,” Tom said. “And mayonnaise.”

  “Mayonnaise?” Arthur gasped in legitimate horror. “That’s gross! Why would she ruin French fries?”

  Tom laughed again. “I don’t think she was trying to ruin them, kid. She just liked them that way, is all.”

  Arthur thought about this for a minute and shrugged his shoulders as if to say, I guess that’s possible. Then he picked up a rock. “I bet I can skip it more times than you,” Arthur said to his father.

  Tom nodded. “Maybe so. Let’s see what you’ve got.”

  The boy held the stone just like his father had shown him. Then he started to walk toward the water, and then he started to run, the sand beneath his feet going from grainy and dry to wet and clumpy.

  “Arthur! You’re in the water!”

  But the boy wasn’t listening, and before he knew it, his feet were in the shallows, water around his ankles. He released the rock from his right hand and watched hopefully as it hit the ocean surface once, then promptly sank. Dejected, he turned around, looking at his rock-throwing mentor.

  “You’ll get the hang of it, kid,” Tom said, walking toward his son. “And next time, don’t run into the water. Just stay on the sand, like I did.”

  “Okay, Dad,” Arthur replied. He stomped his feet in the wet sand, trying in vain to hide his disappointment at not being able to skip rocks just like his dad. The water flowed all around his ankles. Something brushed against his left foot, and he thought it might have been seaweed, brought in by the tide.

  Then it touched his right foot.

  Then his left again.

  “What’s going on, kid?” Tom asked, noticing Arthur’s distraction.

  “Something keeps touching my feet,” Arthur said, gazing into the murky water.

  The touch came again, and this time he saw it—a tentacle. With suckers. Then he saw what the tentacle was attached to. An octopus.

  A baby octopus. The creature poked its bulbous head through the water’s surface, and Arthur let out a laugh.

  Tom put his hand on Arthur’s shoulder and chuckled. “Looks like you’ve found a friend,” he said. “Lots of octopi in these waters, but I don’t remember seeing one so close to shore before. Certainly not a . . . looks like a baby Pacific.”

  “Are they really pie?” Arthur said as the baby octopus stroked his foot with one of its tentacles.

  “Are they what?” Tom said.

  “You called them ‘octo-pie.’ Are they really pie?”

  Tom laughed again. “You mean like dessert pie?” he said, shaking his head. “No, that’s just what you call a bunch of octopuses. Octopi.”

  “But why not call ’em ‘octopuses’ like you just did?” Arthur asked.

  The man let out a soft sigh, put his arm around Arthur, and they started to walk along the beach.

  “Because people are strange and make up weird rules,” Tom said.

  “Like putting mayonnaise on French fries?” Arthur asked. Tom laughed and ruffled his son’s hair.

  Arthur took a bite of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich (no crusts, cut into triangles) as they sat on the dock, watching the fishing boats come in. “Yoo puhhhhh ahhh oooo muuuhhhh peeeenuhhh buhhhh!” Arthur said, his mouth full of sandwich.

  “Pretend I could understand even a word of what you just said,” Tom said, taking a bite of his own sandwich.

  Taking a big swig of milk from the thermos, Arthur washed down the sandwich in his mouth. “I said, you put on too much peanut butter! I don’t like it with that much peanut butter, only a little.”

  Tom straightened up and looked at the sandwich in his hands. “I guess there is a lot of peanut butter. I like it that way.”

  “Well, I don’t,” Arthur said. “Can you make it with less next time?”

  “Of course,” Tom said. “Your wish is my command.”

  The waves splashed the rocks in the distance, and Arthur thought he saw something.

  A tentacle.

  Was it . . . ? It was! It was the baby octopus. Perched on the rock. Like . . . like it was watching him.

  “Can you tell me about Mom?” Arthur asked.

  Tom took another bite. “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything. Like, how did you and Mom meet?” Arthur looked at his dad, eyes open wide. It was a look that Tom was unable to resist, though he tried.

  “That story? Again? Arthur, I’ve told it to you, like, a hundred times. A hundred times a hundred times.”

  Arthur hit his father on the shoulder playfully. “I know, but I like it! It’s a good story!”

  Tom finished chewing the bite of sandwich and relented. “Okay, okay. I know I’m not going to win this one. So, the day I first saw your mother, it—”

  “‘It was a dark and stormy night,’” Arthur interjected. “That’s how the story starts.”

  Tom raised both hands, as if to surrender. “I stand corrected. It was a dark and stormy night, one of the darkest and stormiest nights that Amnesty Bay had ever seen. I was outside, battening the hatches, securing the lighthouse against the storm, when what should I see?”

  “Mom!” Arthur whooped.

  “Well, yes, but she wasn’t your mom yet. She was then a strange and mysterious woman, lying faceup in the water. She was hurt. And she was holding—”

  “A TRIDENT!” Arthur yelled. He grabbed the thermos and raised it high over his head, like he was holding a trident, too, spilling a little milk in the process.

  Tom laughed. “Yes, a trident. You know what a trident is, right?”

  In unison, both father and son shouted, “SEA FORK!” and cracked up.

  Arthur slapped his hand on his knee, then noticed something move in the distance. It was the octopus. Arthur slapped his knee again, and then he saw the octopus slap the water with a tentacle, almost as if in response.

  Instinctively, Arthur waved.

  Chapter Three

  IT WAS COLD INSIDE THE CURRYS’ house. Arthur was wearing an oversized, bulky knit sweater that threatened to devour him. He liked the orange-and-green sweater. His father told him that his mother used to wear it. Arthur swore that he could smell his mom whenever he wore it. But truthfully, he couldn’t remember what she smelled like.

  “With meatballs or without?”

  Arthur walked into the kitchen, and saw his father holding a can of premade pasta in each hand. Spaghetti in one, spaghetti and meatballs in the other. Thinking for a moment, Arthur pointed at Tom’s right hand. “With!” he shouted.

  “Meatballs it is,” Tom said, opening a drawer and reaching for the can opener.

  “Can I help?” Arthur asked.

  “Yeah, sure,” Tom replied. As he cranked the can opener, he gestured with his chin toward a nearby cabinet. “Can you get the pot?”

  The young boy ran to the cabinet, his socks skidding along the smooth tile of the kitchen floor. Tom started to laugh. “Why walk when you can run? Why run when you can slide?”

  The words didn’t register with Arthur, who was already at the cabinet. Throwing the door open, Arthur dug around inside, and the sound of clanging pans echoed in the tiny kitchen. Tom winced with each new clang, but Arthur was undeterred. A few seconds later, the boy emerged from the cabinet holding a blue saucepan, its paint chipped and worn away in places. He held it in his right hand, raised over his head, like a sword. “Mission accomplished!” Arthur announced, and Tom had to laugh again.

  “Set it on the stove, kid,” Tom said, and Arthur placed the saucepan on a front burner.

  Arthur watched as his father poured the contents of the can into the pan and turned on the gas burner. There was a click, the smell of gas, a spark, and then a flame. Tom grabbed a big spoon from a container on the counter and handed it to Arthur. “You stir, like I showed you,” he said.

  Arthur grasped the large wooden spoon in his hand and stirred the pasta awkwardly.

  “You’re turning into a real
chef,” Tom said. “Your mom would be proud.”

  Arthur smiled, but the grin quickly turned to a frown, and he stopped stirring. “Where is Mom?” he said, without looking up. The tone was impatient.

  Tom shifted on his feet uncomfortably. “She’s out there, somewhere,” Tom said, pointing an index finger out the kitchen window, at the ocean beyond.

  “You always say that,” Arthur said, a note of irritation in his voice.

  “That’s because it’s true,” Tom said, as he gently ran a hand along Arthur’s back. “When I—when we said goodbye to your mother, she was on the dock, and she jumped into the ocean. And as far as I know, that’s where she still is.”

  “Then why doesn’t she come back?” Arthur asked, banging the spoon against the sides of the pan. “What is she waiting for?”

  Tom placed his large, weathered hand over his son’s, and gently stopped the spoon from banging the sides, then slowly started stirring again. “Only she knows” was his reply. “And we have to trust her.”

  The boy looked up at his father, eyes piercing. “Where is she?”

  The voice wasn’t asking. It was demanding.

  Tom looked at his son and bit his lower lip. Then he turned off the burner on the stove and moved the pan of spaghetti and meatballs off the heat. He put the pan on the small table, on top of a pot holder. Then he went to a drawer, grabbed two forks, and offered one to Arthur.

  “Sit down, dinner’s ready.”

  Arthur grabbed the fork, then sat down. “I’m not hungry,” he said, letting his fork drop to the table.

  Swirling his fork in the pan, Tom collected strands of spaghetti, then stabbed a meatball. He shoved the food into his mouth, then looked at Arthur. The boy just sat there staring, his eyes big and unblinking.

  “There were . . . some people who were after your mother,” Tom said, and Arthur instantly perked up.

  “What people?” Arthur asked. “Why did they want Mom? Can we go after them?”

  Tom shook his head no, chewing his food. “That would defeat the purpose of her leaving in the first place.”