CHAPTER 55
The shortest night of the year. Midsummer’s Eve. The sun was finally gone, the sunset faded down to an ember, yet the sky still provided a subtle light. The blue hour. Dark, yet strangely warm.
Penny stood at the railing a moment, looking out, a welcome breeze sweeping the edge of the trouble from her thoughts. The movement of dark waves could be seen from the few whitecaps birthed by the gentle sea. Unhurried swells rolled up as if bearing some portentous message, yet remained silent in the end, their place soon taken by others, an unending procession of false promise.
Over the last few days, she had kept as close as she could to the tank, signing up for every available shift. The late night to early morning hours were her first choice. Since her first encounter with the thing they had pulled from the sea, she had felt a special relationship with it. Yet the truth was, she was no further than anyone else in making sense of what it was or why it was here.
It was time now for her watch at the tank, but she wandered over with little remaining energy, the last of her initial enthusiasm finally gone. When she got there, she stood at the bottom of the steps for a while, staring up at the starry fields, now easier to see from within the shade of tarps they had installed around the tank. To the north, a few small clouds moved across the constellation of Cassiopeia like phantom hares.
Becka was alone up on the observation platform, taking readings. Everyone on board seemed to be losing at least some interest in what was proving to be a boring guest. Few volunteered for the late-night shifts. Penny climbed the steps slowly and stood at the tank’s edge, arms folded in front of her.
“Look at it,” Becka said. “Floating like a fat matzoh ball in my aunt’s thin soup.”
Penny didn’t reply.
“You okay?” Becka asked.
“I’m fine, just tired. Anything new?”
“The remote EEG is getting nothing. Surprising. Only this old stethoscope works. Still that unchanging double heartbeat, assuming that’s what it is, which I’m beginning to doubt. I have something I’d like to check in the lab. You want to start now?”
“Go ahead if you’re bored.”
“I’m never bored,” Becka said. “But you look a little…”
“How’s your lieutenant?”
“He’s not my lieutenant. Sure, we’ve been spending some time together, so what? I don’t agree with him on many things, but he has a different load to haul, so I try to see his perspective. It doesn’t have to be us against him.”
“Against them, you mean. Who he represents.”
“You know, why don’t you try another routine besides jab, jab, punch. Find something else. Is it just the letdown after all the action and not finding…” Becka let the words trail off. “I’m sorry, that wasn’t fair.”
Penny didn’t want to say anything but did anyway. “I suppose I asked for it.”
“We’re too much alike is the problem,” Becka said. She laughed softly and gestured toward the tank. “You might have better luck with it if you’d—”
“I don’t expect or want ‘better luck.’ We’ve missed something important, and I know it’s right there staring at us.”
“You used to say we had to be patient.”
“This isn’t the same.” Penny glanced at the mass floating in the tank, light from Becka’s instruments gleaming off its glassy surface like phantom fireflies. “It’s here for a reason, and we’re too thick to get it.”
“Great observation.”
“No need to humor me.”
“And no need to play the hard bitch all the time,” Becka said rising briefly like a cobra, before softening again. “That was my old job, by the way.”
Penny looked at Becka.
“And I earned the title, believe it to me,” Becka said laughing at her word mangle then added, “Like you!” She laughed again and half sang, “Me and my shadow…”
The old song was familiar to Penny. Her mother used to sing it to lull her to sleep, especially during the summer when the sun “stayed up” so late.
Becka had her eyes closed now and was singing louder.
“…and not another soul to tell our troubles to…” She stopped. “Two’s a crowd tonight, I see.”
Penny nodded. “No, it was nice to hear, It’s just I’d like a little time alone.”
Becka put down her clipboard and her hand came gently to rest on Penny’s shoulder.
Penny didn’t look up, just said, “The lab, something you had to check, remember?”
Becka gave her a hug. “Too much alike…”
It felt good. Penny surrendered herself to it.
“You ever need someone to talk to,” Becka said, “or anything…okay?”
“Sure.”
Becka climbed down and darted away without another word.
Penny kneeled on the observation platform and put her hand in the water and swirled it around.
“Why don’t you…”
The pain in her heart was suddenly stupefying, a sour lump draining all her energy, leaving her feeling dense and heavy. She hated this feeling more than anything else. The thing in the tank could be the link to Matthew she was looking for, but it might as well be made of rubber.
“Hey, if I wanted this kind of excitement, I could go watch the bilge pumps.” She couldn’t help speaking to it. “What are you, just another joke?” The sound of her voice grated in her own ears.
An image of Matthew suddenly came, how he had looked when she slapped him during their last fight, and how quickly the anger had fled to leave nothing behind but the two of them locked in an embrace that submerged their individuality in an ocean of bliss. Was there any real chance she would ever see him again? Like crows to road kill, doubts crept closer to her heart. She let her head fall into her hands and rested on the tank’s edge.
“Dammit.”
The tears fell one by one into the water, the drops hitting, feeble ripples circling out to nowhere in the void of reflected darkness. A few stars mirrored back, dancing gaily in the wavelets as if to mock her…
I fall into eyes like dark pools in the deepest cave. Flecks of gold swirl like tiny fish in and out of space. A voice, a whisper croons softly inside me. Sounds from before the birth flow into bone and breath and, without thinking, over the edge, I am Here, the forgotten place, the unremembered home. Words arrive as harmonies shape, then free of any thought, pure as the taste of water cupped in a hand, I circle slowly, carried up in a spiraling gyre, a drifting embrace…
The form floating in the holding tank had partly opened and half enveloped Penny. Without warning it now submerged to the bottom of the tank, still holding her. She did not struggle or resist. There they remained until, after time uncounted, they floated back up and broke the surface. She let her breath out, and another fled in. It felt as if the outer part of the form was melting like hot taffy. Inside was a green translucent mass held in place by a creamy membrane. Something deep inside it, like a head, began turning weakly back and forth. Eyes, dark as night, gazed out but not at her.
“Penny, I need you to pull your head down and get as far out of the way as you can. Please.”
Elbows resting square against the tank, and with a grim look on his face, Lieutenant Chiffrey half-kneeled on the observation platform, gripping a service revolver. It was aimed directly at the creature within the form.
“No, don’t shoot!” she could only whisper, her voice somehow gone.
Others were running up and a few climbed onto the observation platform, including Andrew, who slowly raised a hand to rest on top of Chiffrey’s weapon. Though there was now a slight tremor in his hands, Chiffrey kept the gun pointed.
Penny had come free from the formless mass, but remained in front to shield it from Chiffrey as best she could. She turned as the membrane suddenly split down the middle, and dark undulating folds within began to move apart until a thick jelly, green as chlorophyll, flowed around and over it, seemingly with a life of its own. Her dream came back to her, the terrib
le thing coming out of the sea, and she was afraid, but nonetheless brought her arm up toward it. Instantly a hand sprang out and grasped hers and Matthew Amati, naked, alive, and without a hair on his body, stepped out into the warm midsummer night air.
Far From The Sea We Know Page 55
