Falling in Deep Collection Box Set

by Pauline Creeden

  “So I saw. Dropped in before I came this way. Full house there. If nothing else, I figured it would mean there were fewer uh, merpeople, here with you.”

  “We say mer,” she said through a smile. “This is when I get my best work done. Show you around?”

  She brought me through the central lab, pointing out equipment, talking about her research, and eventually taking to me a tight hallway at the back of the lab.

  “Where’s this go?” I asked as she grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the hall.

  “You’ll see, and you’ll love it. I promise.”

  The mystery lasted only moments as we climbed a narrow, spiraling staircase and then I was hit with gratification. The door at the top of the stairs led to a rooftop deck that opened to the sky and the island. We stood amid the tops of palms, looking out over the marina at the elevated end of the island. The setting sun cast an amber glow over the island, creating a candlelight effect full of complex shadows and silhouettes. Anya turned to me, still holding my hand, excited by my reaction.

  “This is amazing,” I sputtered, awed by the view, the sun, and Anya.

  “Isn’t it? No one really sees the island this way. Only researchers bother to come to the lab, and most of them are too busy to enjoy the deck. I love it though. I’m up here any chance I get. It’s as close as I can get to the isolation of the ocean here on the island.”

  “I can see that. I’ve seen hundreds of sunsets, but nothing like this.”

  “There aren’t any other sunsets like this,” she said, her voice wistful, as she ventured to the railing.

  Looking out over the island, we talked about our research.

  “My team and I were hoping to find reasons the shifts in the ocean floor are occurring faster than in the past and more dramatically. We already found changes of up to 100 feet in depth in spots not far from here,” I explained.

  “I think I may be able to help you,” she broke in. “Well, my research actually. And yours may help me, too. Well, more your encounter than your research.”

  Excited to hear that there may be some way to enhance what we were already doing, I encouraged her to continue. She began to explain, but changed her mind, grabbing my hand again and dragging me back down the stairs and out of the lab.

  She led me to a private dock behind a quaint cottage. At the end of the dock sat a 13 foot Boston Whaler with a compact outboard motor. We were both seated in the boat and rounding the end of the island before I truly knew what she was doing.

  “You dive, right?” she asked. “Free dive, I mean.”

  “Uh, yea. I can free dive. I can hold my breath for about 7, sometimes 8 minutes.”

  “Good, you’ll need to.” And with that, she stripped off her dress and sandals. Naked, she jumped into the water. Looking back up at me in the boat, she urged, “Are you coming?”

  I took off my shirt, emptied my pockets, took off my watch, and kicked my flip flops to the side before I dove into the clear water. The ocean felt cool compared to the humid summer night, and I followed Anya down below the waves.

  As we dove, she pointed below to shifting sand that seemed to be running into a crevice. I shouldn’t have been able to see it clearly. The moon didn’t offer enough light to break through 10 feet of water, but I could see the ocean floor an easy 30 yards away. We continued to move down, and the light source became apparent. Brightness seeped from one end of the crevice, glowing green. She pointed behind me. I turned, watching small specks of light flowing towards the surface of the water. They glided slowly from the trench, gaining speed and size, coming together, as they got closer to breaking the face of the water.

  We also reached back towards the air, and it was only then that I noticed her gills working and the scales on her back joining as they moved down her legs.

  As I followed the floating light, reaching the air and refilling my lungs, I saw close to the same phenomena I remembered from the Sea Star. The smallest specks drifted in the wind, but also seemed to magnetically attract to other orbs. With the orbs growing, Anya urged me to remain in the water and far away from the boat. Just then, the lights collided with the same sharp, metallic sound as before. However, instead of knocking me out, I watched luminous shards splinter across the ocean spray where they floated back to the water, regrouping as they went. But rather than rise into the air again, they sank back into the sea.

  “That,” I blurted out, pointing at the shrapnel of the explosion, “is what I saw. That’s what knocked me out and took down the crew.”

  “Is it exactly the same?” she asked.

  “As far as I remember, it is. I mean I didn’t see it from below the water. We didn’t notice it until it was floating in the air. It looked like embers from a fire, but pure white. And then bam, they picked up speed and joined each other before they crashed.”

  “Okay, that helps. At least now we know it is recreating the same thing you saw.

  Awed, I asked, “But what is it? How can you explain it?”

  Stoically she looked at me and answered. “That, we figure, is the breaking heart of the deep.”

  Seventeen: Anya

  LUKE’S EXCITEMENT AND confusion left me giddy as we climbed back into the boat. I had tried to show Phoebe and Fiona the light in the trench, but there had been only some small embers flickering about. It was nothing like I had seen alone, and even that had been far less than Luke and his crew had seen or we witnessed together.

  He and I talked about the phantasm all the way back to my dock, focusing on the intensity, the noise, the absolute whiteness of the impact. There was no outside aura ringing the burst as you see with a fire or an explosion. No shading, no differences in tone or hue at all.

  “This is the largest collision I’ve seen,” I explained. “They don’t interfere with anything in the water, and nothing on the island, but they’ve knocked out electrical systems on boats. And apparently they’ve knocked out a few people, too.”

  He smiled back at me appreciating my small jab at him and his crew.

  “That was larger than the one I saw, too. Well, from what I remember, at least. How often does it happen?”

  “I’ve recorded 27 instances in the last three months, but they vary in intensity and frequency. Nothing seems patterned at all. They happen when they happen, and I’m trying to figure out why.”

  “We thought, well one theory at least, was tectonic plate shifts. Amir brought it up, and considering the trench in the ocean floor, that could be true.”

  I thought for a minute, agreeing, but wondering if I bothered to tell him the rest. Sensing my hesitation, Luke asked, “What is it, Anya? Is there more you aren’t telling me?”

  “The trench, it isn’t very deep. And it wasn’t there until about six months ago. It seemed to begin at the reef and reach outward. When I first saw the light, I had been swimming the reef. It climbed from below the coral, up along the reef and out to the sky. Just one small orb, tiny really, moving through the water.”

  “Amir tried to touch one. It shocked him, but just now it did nothing to us in the water. Why?”

  “I don’t quite understand that, but I can tell you that it is happening more frequently now. And I think that if we can harness this light, this energy, we can utilize it. The combustion could fuel almost anything.”

  “You’ve been thinking about it for a while then. That’s an amazing discovery. But where does it come from?”

  “We think it comes from reactions within the core. But these are much closer to the surface than others we’ve heard of or seen.”

  “You’ve seen this before?”

  “You have to understand we’ve been swimming these waters for thousands of years. We’ve seen lots of things. There was a story when I was young about the ocean’s heart and how it broke because the love of two mer was not condoned by the sea. It was a folk tale, but it explained sea trenches to the youngest mer and the importance of listening to your tribe and avoiding poor relationship choices.”

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p; “Oh, so the Romeo and Juliet of the deep broke the ocean’s heart? That makes sense,” he said with a small laugh.

  “It may not make much sense, but it was hundreds of years ago. Like I said, we’ve seen things. But not this, and not here. There’s record of something similar along oceanic trenches that are far deeper than we were tonight. And never with any frequency to speak of.”

  “And now?”

  “Now it happens almost daily. And the light leaves the water. I can’t find any documentation, folk lore or otherwise, that offers an occurrence of that phenomenon. I was thinking, this could be an answer to your research though. You’re studying shifting ocean floors, changing depths, and maybe this is related. I mean we’ve seen a new crack in the ocean’s floor and now it emits electromagnetic energy. Seems related, doesn’t it?”

  He took my arm, forcing me to look him in the eyes. I turned my attention to Luke and waited for him to come to the same realization I had days earlier.

  “Anya, you may have discovered a new energy source in the ocean.”

  “Yes. That’s what it looks like at this point.”

  “You must know what this means. By the looks of it, you found an environmentally neutral, clean, self-renewing, oceanic energy source,” Luke said, shaking his head in disbelief.

  “It sounds great, but it may literally be tearing my island apart. It may be breaking the ocean.”

  “Whether that is true or not, Orotava won’t stay unmapped for long.”

  With that, we sat in silence at the end of the dock.

  *****

  I wondered if I had told Luke too much when he finally turned to me. Neither of us made any motion to disembark and instead sat in the boat, feeling the waves move gently.

  Cautiously, he began, “So, what do we do with this now? How do we advance your research?”

  “I’m not sure, but I know I need to find out all I can about the energy source before…” I trailed off, not wanting to finish my sentence.

  Luke looked at me then, took my hand in his, and spoke purposefully. “We will stay here and help then. That’s how this is going to work, Anya. The team will stay and do what we do best, research, test, theorize, and document. That is, if you’ll have us? I’m sure walking around with six human scientists must have stirred up things for you on the island.”

  “Of course I’d have you. There have been comments about you and the team, but what my tribe doesn’t understand what’s going on in the ocean. They don’t realize they need you,” I explained. “But you don’t have time to do that, Luke, and you can’t make that decision. You need to talk to the team.”

  And if they planned to stay, I had some serious talking to do too. The tribal council could had accepted the idea of humans on the island for a few days, but involving them in our research, our lives, would be a different thing altogether.

  “No need,” he explained. “They’ll feel exactly the same way. And you and I both know that this is at the center of our research too.”

  “Even if the decision to stay may put all of you in danger?” I asked him pointedly. “Is Kate going to sit here and help us, knowing her family is far away and she’s in danger?

  “Danger? So you really think the trench will erupt?”

  “Possibly,” I answered. “I’m more concerned about the tribe though and their reaction. And if you do decide, as a team, to stay, for how long? How much can you devote to us before you’re needed back on shore? How long until someone looks for you or expects you? Until Lucy has to start her next semester of school or Norton wants to head back to sea?”

  “I can’t answer that, but I know that you’ll have us for a bit.”

  His gallantry sent my mind reeling as I considered how much risk he willingly took upon himself. He couldn’t know how noble his actions were, nor how attractive. Chivalry was considerably sexy on this man. Sexy, but dangerous.

  “How long until we have to explain to your team that the island is full of mer? You already know, and the longer you’re all here, the more likely it is they’ll have to face this truth, too. That will put them in even more danger. It may put my tribe in danger. You know that, don’t you?”

  “Well, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said, and finally climbed out of the boat.

  “But it could, Luke.” I pressed the issue, urgency in my voice. “What happens when you head back to land, to human land, and Brando lets it slip that there are mermaids? How does Kate justify to her husband and her son that she is going to stay here and help us without telling them everything?”

  “We can be discreet, you know. We’re researchers, and with that is a certain amount of discretion.” He seemed insulted, but I continued.

  “I know that. But your research, your entire job, is to find things no one has found before. To make important and life-altering discoveries. Are you telling me your instinct wouldn’t be to document the mer, the island, your experiences? I don’t believe that, even if you didn’t mean to. Eventually, it would come out.”

  “You don’t trust me. I guess there isn’t really a reason you should, but I’m still insulted.”

  “I trust you, as much as I can. But I have the future of my island and my tribe to think about.”

  “We may have more than that to concern ourselves with, Anya, and you know it. This could do more than disrupt your tribe and your island. It could open up part of the ocean. I don’t even have words to figure what that could mean.”

  “You think I don’t know that?” I asked, my volume of my voice rising. I was waving my hands as I talked now, emphasizing my frustration. “Do you actually think that I don’t worry about that? The entire ocean could open up. My island could be swallowed. The coast of Florida could be flooded by tidal waves, washed away even. The whole state could be broken off of the continent. I think about all of that. And more! I think of things I’m pretty sure you don’t even know to be possible!” Sitting back a bit, I started to feel ridiculous.

  “Feel better now?” he asked me, not shaken at all by my actions. That was annoying.

  “Not really. But maybe you understand a little now.”

  He looked at me, care obvious in his eyes, a crooked smile on his face. “I understand, and I’m not sure I want to think about anything I haven’t already. Mass oceanic destruction is enough for me. But I also know that the more danger, the more potential damage, the more you will need our help.”

  “Okay, but what happens when we fix everything and your team inadvertently tells someone? Hundreds, maybe thousands of people head to my island? Mer are captured and ‘studied’ in the way humans like to prod and dissect things? I can’t risk that.”

  “If you don’t, there may not be a tribe or an island to worry about.”

  He was right. I couldn’t worry about later when right now was causing enough anxiety.

  “So, was that our first fight?” he prodded, laughing a little. “It wasn’t awful or anything, but I think it counts.”

  “I think it was.”

  “And there are sure to be plenty more,” he said, taking my hand and leaning back, relaxed against the side of the boat and staring at the sky.

  Looking at him in that moment, the moon and stars lighting the sky around us, I felt comfortable for the first time in months. Even after an argument, I felt happy, relaxed even. I wasn’t worried about the ocean’s heart breaking any more. I wasn’t worried about my heart breaking either.

  Eighteen: Luke

  WE WALKED BACK up the dock together toward the cottage. The excitement and anxiety from our conversation wound down as the sound of waves hummed a constant and relaxing note. The breeze drew across the flowers and ocean, mixing the two into a tropical perfume.

  Stopping at the top of the pier, Anya turned to me.

  “Luke, I appreciate your willingness to help, but this isn’t your problem. I’m not sure what we’ll do, but I know we’ll take care of it.”

  She looked vulnerable standing there. The heroic mer who rescu
ed me, who now readied to protect her tribe, seemed immediately frail and slight. Maybe it was the new discovery in the ocean, or how she looked in that moment, but I found myself drawn to her. I found her attractive before, but now she appeared a possibility in some tangible way.

  With that thought, I reached for her, drawing her mouth close to my own. She leaned in easily, meeting my request with a soft and gentle kiss. She pulled back sharply.

  “I can’t kiss you. I have been making terrible choices, and I don’t want kissing you to be one of them,” she confessed.

  “Kissing me would be terrible?”

  “No, kissing you would be wonderful. But the choice to do it would be terrible. Don’t we have enough to worry about without complicating it?”

  “Everything’s complicated, you know. So what other choices have you been making?”

  She blushed and turned away, obviously embarrassed. I didn’t press the issue, but I was curious.

  “I just haven’t been thinking very clearly lately. Not thinking things through,” she said.

  “Well, situations of high stress will do that,” I offered, still wondering what she was talking about. Before I could ask, she led me into the cottage in silence.

  Her home was airy and comfortable. It reminded of something in one of my mother’s Coastal Living magazines with rosebud wall paper and white bead board ceilings. White washed shiplap clad the hall walls and there were collections of shells and blue and green sea glass in small bowls on tables and shelves. It was welcoming and soft, just like its owner.

  She continued to lead me through the home and we eventually entered a bedroom with a large bay window facing the water. She sat me on the bed and stepped back. We had both redressed in the boat, and while she was covered in the soft fabric of the dress, I continued to wonder if her scales had all disappeared.

  Awkwardly, I asked, “So, this is where the mermaid sleeps, huh?” I had nothing else to say and a head full of possibilities.