by A. L. Knorr
I pulled my hands away, looking at my palms again, turning my hands over. They looked the same. Why did I feel so different? I held my fingertips up in front of my face and pushed at the water again. Five little jetstreams shot from the ends of my fingers. The little streams came together and formed a barrel of shooting water. It looked just like a current. I gasped again, and then gave a startled laugh. My laughter filled the ocean, and the whale sang back its own laugh. The chattering sound of laughing sea-life swept over me. Their joyful song filled me with an inexplicable happiness.
I put both hands out ahead of me and sent two currents out from my palms, I waved my arms up and down creating two serpentine streams. Amazed, I spread my fingers wide and separated them, making ten independent currents. I could feel the water molecules and how they answered to me. I focused, narrowing my eyes with the effort. I increased the movement of the molecules in the water, using only my thoughts to do it. The water boiled, bubbling as it shot out from my hands. Then I dialled back the other way, slowing the molecules down. The water became thick and slushy, semi-frozen. I pushed it even colder, and I heard a cracking sound as an iceberg formed in a long cone-shape before my eyes. I stopped and took a deep breath, feeling the shock at what I could do. I watched the little iceberg float upward, hearing the cracking sounds it made as it melted.
Getting an idea, I sent out a pulse with my heart again, tuning in to the world around me. I felt the presence of the wreck and swam straight for it.
The information the sonar gave me was right. This wreck was recent. A fishing trawl, maybe sixty years old, its outline still distinct. I eyed the mess, taking in the pieces and imagining how it would have gone together when it was new.
I held out my hands and the streams shot from my fingertips. I sent them towards the boat, extensions of my own limbs. The currents swirled, separated, and swarmed around the wreck. The ten individual streams broke into multiples, becoming many tentacles. The many arms became an extension of my thoughts, doing my bidding. Slowly, the currents buoyed up pieces of broken wreck - a piece of the stern here, a section of railing there, a bunch of boards. The streams worked together to lift and hold the pieces back into place, like a huge puzzle. I laughed as I watched the boat resurrect before my eyes, the currents of water and my thoughts holding it all in place. I released the current and the boat collapsed again, its pieces drifting down and settling on the sea floor.
My smile disappeared when I caught a whiff of diesel in the water and gagged.
Chapter 34
Where had that come from? I hadn't detected any boats earlier, not actual floating ones. The scent had disappeared so I searched around in the water until I picked it up again. When it went through my gills, the reaction was immediate - I felt suffocated and my stomach lurched. I immediately moved to uncontaminated water to rinse out my gills.
I caught scent of something else too... something metallic, something that tasted like old copper pennies. I stopped and listened. There was no sound of an engine in the water. Aside from the sounds of sea life, all was quiet.
No, wait. There. Very faintly - water lapping against the metal hull of a boat. I heard the sound of something plopping into the ocean. I froze and listened. There it was again - something hit the water and made a small splashing noise.
I sent a pulse with my heart and the echo came back telling me there was a vessel at the outermost edges of my sonar. I also detected strange shapes in the water below the vessel, best described as torpedoes. I sent another pulse. The torpedoes were drifting down to the seabed at random. Was someone dropping bombs into the water? My heart gave a heavy frightened thud.
With this last pulse, I became aware of how it drained me. My eyelids drifted a little, and I stifled the urge to yawn. Maybe it was best not to use my sonar so often.
I descended to the ocean floor to make sure I wouldn't be seen, and swam towards the torpedo shapes. The marine floor undulated in an alternating seascape of sand, columns of seaweed, and rocky terrain covered in coral. Schools of fish, including small sharks, darted through the sunbeams shining down. I tuned in to the unnatural sounds of the boat and moved towards it. I slowed, my mother's words about how visible I was in the water reminding me to be cautious.
Following the choking scent of diesel, the tapping of water against a hull, and the frequent splashing, it didn't take long before the vessel became visible to my eyes. I could now see the underside of the vessel floating above its modern anchor.
Splash. Again the sound of something being thrown or falling into the water. I saw a white torpedo as it drifted down to the seabed. Curious, I swam closer. I was caught up short by a stronger whiff of the metallic taste and I realized what it was. Blood.
I was close enough now to see that the white shapes weren't torpedoes. Little clouds of blood drifted around each form. As I drew near I could now see hundreds of these white and grey bodies littering the ocean floor. My skin prickled with horror as I swam to the nearest one.
It was a small shark. Its dorsal fin and both pectoral fins had been sliced off at the base and the corpse tossed back into the ocean. My horror turned to outrage when I realized that it wasn't a corpse. It was still alive. This one was female and she looked at me out of a terrified, rolling eye. She couldn't swim, couldn't move. She struggled for breath. She was going to suffocate if she couldn't swim forward to keep the water moving across her gills. Blood drifted up from her wounds, filling my nostrils with the scent and bringing more sharks and carnivorous creatures from miles around.
I laid a hand on her side, feeling her agony and confusion. As I lifted my eyes and saw the hundreds, maybe thousands of finless bodies dotting the seabed, an indescribable fury filled me. My flesh crawled and my mouth filled with acid. My eyes felt hot with unshed tears and my fists clenched so tightly that the webbing between my fingers protested.
Suddenly, the engine of the boat rumbled to life and a new burst of diesel fumes filled the water. Whoever they were, they were going to drive away and leave this massacre behind, taking the fins that belonged to these creatures with them.
Not on my watch.
Chapter 35
I shot straight towards the boat. For the first time in my life, I was ready to kill. Whoever these evil bastards were they were about to breathe their last. I envisioned tearing heads from necks with my bare hands.
As I shot towards the surface, intending to fly out of the waves like an avenging angel and land on the deck ready to mete out justice, a net was thrown over the side directly over my head. I swam straight into it at high speed. The thick rope pressed hard into my head and face and encircled me. My neck creaked in pain and instinct told me to thrash. I whipped my tail back and forth, the sea frothing around me. Like an animal caught in quicksand all I knew was the desperation to free myself, but for all my efforts I only became more tangled. Gone was the feeling of power I had only just discovered, I felt as helpless as a child.
Through the water my siren ears picked up male voices from the boat speaking in tones of surprise but I couldn't make out what they were saying.
I pulled a big draught of water through my gills and greedily stored up the oxygen it gave me. Then I willed my tail back into legs and prayed that they hadn't gotten a good look at what was thrashing in their net, that the churning bubbles had hid me.
My mother had seared into my mind that my identity had to be protected, unless I wanted to spend the rest of my days in an aquarium, a laboratory, or floating in formaldehyde.
I held the breath that I had taken and waited to be retrieved from the water. Oh mother, what have I done? I need you now.
I felt the vibration more than heard the sound of a winch running as the net dragged closer to the boat. The engine died and the only sound was now the whir of the winch.
The net tightened around me, pulling me through the water towards the surface. I felt my weight as the net lifted me out of the water and up over the deck of the boat. I took a deep gulp of air with my huma
n lungs.
With every breath of the open air my mermaid instinct dissolved. The outrage about the sharks was still there, but my mind was also racing to find a way to protect myself, free myself. What story could I give? That I'd been snorkelling completely naked and miles from shore? That I'd stowed away on their boat, hid myself in some corner and then gone for a swim when they'd parked? Everything I came up with sounded ridiculous.
Why had I never thought to bring a weapon with me when I went out swimming? Because I'd never once felt in danger of the ocean's creatures. It hadn't ever crossed my mind that I might have to defend myself from people. I was the one who had powers over them, not they over me. Until now. All the power I had been playing with seemed useless.
I sank to the bottom of the net as it dangled low over the deck. My limbs stretched painfully at awkward angles. My back creaked. I couldn't see well through my tangle of hair and the netting that obscured my vision. The net was swinging and someone put a hand on it to steady it. Then I felt it lowered to the deck slowly and my body came to rest on the floor of the boat. The smell of blood was overwhelming.
I pulled my limbs toward me, disentangling them from the net and covering myself as well as I could, just the way a human girl would. I took deep breaths to calm my racing heart. I still couldn't see anything other than the wet and bloody deck of the boat and the net cutting across my vision.
"What have we here?" said an incredulous male voice. "I thought I'd seen everything. Never in all my life did I expect to catch a mermaid in my net."
Please be saying that as a metaphor.
"She's naked!" said another male voice, this voice was full of phlegm. The sound of wheezing and coughing blended with nervous laughter.
That last statement revealed something in my favour. If they'd seen my fins then they'd know what I was and being naked shouldn't come as a surprise. Or was he just a guy who liked to state the obvious?
I struggled to clear my vision but in the tangle of netting I couldn't reach up to brush my hair away from my eyes. I was not ashamed of being seen naked, that modesty had died in the Baltic when I did, but the cold air against my skin and the scraping of the net made me feel vulnerable. I fought against the fear that was threatening to overwhelm me.
"What the hell?" said a new voice, approaching from the boat's cockpit. Why did that voice sound so familiar?
The net was opened and pulled away from me. The sun glared down at me from the cloudless sky. I felt more exposed and more afraid than I had ever felt in my entire life. I was finally able to brush my wet hair away from my face and squint up.
"Targa?"
I didn't know whether to be relieved or more afraid as he stepped into view and I was able to look him in the eye. It was Eric.
Chapter 36
"Grab me those shorts and that shirt, will you Donovan?" Eric said, holding out his hand towards them. "I know this girl."
As far as I could tell there were only three men on the boat. It was a fishing vessel with a closed cockpit at the bow, but it was too small for more people to be hiding somewhere. My mind skittered around for ideas of what to do next. For a moment my eyes lay purchase on a strange looking gun leaning up against a red plastic box near the cockpit. A speargun?
"You know her?" Donovan replied as he handed Eric a lump of clothing which Eric passed to me.
"Yeah, help her up out of that mess. I'll be right back." Eric went to the cockpit.
The other two men lifted away the net and one of them used the winch to lift it so it hung over the water at the back of the boat.
I had expected jeers and comments but Donovan and the wheezing man actually turned their backs while I pulled the clothes on. The shorts were men's red swim trunks and the shirt was a dingy, ripped tank top with stains on it. The smell of body odour hit me and I made an involuntary face of disgust. It was bad enough I had to accept help from these monsters, but I also had to wear their reeking clothing next to my skin.
Eric came back with a pair of old deck shoes in his hands. He put them down in front of me saying, "Better put these on, this deck is slippery."
I ignored the shoes and glared at him. "The deck is slippery because it's covered with blood." I gestured to the bins full of freshly amputated shark fins. "What the hell are you doing, Eric?" There were surely hundreds of pounds of fins in the bins that these men had stolen already.
I knew that shark-fin soup was a specialty in many Asian countries and sold for a disgusting amount of money. I also knew that it was illegal in these waters, and further to that, it was completely immoral. Not only did I plan to shame them until they felt like the pieces of crap that they were, this was also a tactic to direct the attention away from myself and what I was doing so far out to sea, naked and all alone.
Eric looked surprised, and then angry. "What do you mean what the hell am I doing? What the hell are you doing? You're miles from shore!" So much for the distraction tactic. "Where are your clothes? Does your mom know you're out here? How the hell did you even get out here?" He scanned the ocean surface. "Where is your boat? What are you, an Olympic swimmer? I know you like the water, but jeebus."
"You're going to have a lot bigger problems than catching a skinny dipper in your net. Don't you know that shark finning is illegal?"
He glared at me. "Yes, I know it is. Don't you rain your little girl judgement down on me. You have no idea the trouble I'm in." He actually waved a finger in my face. His voice became more threatening. "You're not going to tell a soul about this if you know what's good for you."
"Like hell I'm not. You leave hundreds of sharks to die on the ocean floor to line your pockets and you think I'm just going to let you sail off into the sunset? You're a butcher and a criminal." I took a step closer to him, vaguely aware that the boat had started to turn. "You and your buddies..." I took another step and shoved my nose into his face. We were eyeball to eyeball, "...are finished."
He jerked back when he heard the multidimensional sound in my voice. I hadn't meant to use the violins but I was so emotional that they'd come out of their own accord. The look of fear that crossed his face was very satisfying. I noticed that the shadows on his face were moving as the boat turned under us.
"Uh... Eric," said the wheezing man, "We've got a problem."
Eric and I turned our heads towards him. Both he and Donovan were peering over the side of the boat into the water. We went to the railing and looked over the side.
Fish and sharks, thousands of them, were swimming around the boat in a perfect circle. Then I noticed there were turtles, squid, and dolphins in the crowd of fish as well and more were coming by the second, they could be seen swimming towards us from the surrounding waters. It explained why the boat had started to spin. The fish were creating a whirlpool.
I saw a flash of black hair and pale skin amongst the thickening crowd of sea-life. My heart jumped and then hammered hard, almost painfully, in my chest. My mother was here. The two other men must have seen something strange because they turned their heads toward each other in shock.
"Did you see that?" said the wheezer to Donovan. The whites were showing around his eyes, his irises were small blue circles of fear. He looked back into the water, bending over the railing of the boat to get a better look.
Suddenly, my mother leapt up from the water, grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him into the ocean with her. The sea closed around them and the surface went calm again. Eric and Donovan went stumbling back from the railing edge, yelling curses.
I waited, heart pounding, my eyes darting around for a glimpse of my mother or the wheezing man. They had disappeared completely into the thick mass of circling creatures.
I put a foot up on the railing to leap in when a hand grabbed my upper arm and pulled me back. "Where do you think you're going?" Eric said as he yanked me back. I sprawled in the boat and we both toppled over. I landed on Eric's chest and he exhaled sharply. We went sliding across the slippery deck.
We scrambled t
o our feet, skidding in the slurry. "What's going on? That thing..." Eric yelled, "...that thing looked like a M..." He looked like he wanted to say it but couldn't get it out.
My mother shot out of the water a second time. She came flying over the railing and into the boat, landing on human feet in a crouch.
Eric and Donovan both screamed in terror. She slowly stood upright and with a sinister hissing rattle, a sound I had never heard from anything aside from maybe a rattlesnake, she faced the men.
She looked as I had never seen her look. Her skin reflected the sunlight as though it was still covered in scales. Her irises had grown in size and had changed from her beautiful bright blue into a golden colour and the pupil was a vertical black slash, not unlike a shark's eye. Inch long razor-sharp white fangs had appeared in her open mouth. She lifted a hand and pointed it slowly at Eric. She now had talons instead of blunt fingernails, and her hands had retained their webbing.
A breeze blew across the boat, touching my skin and raising gooseflesh. For the first time in my life, I was afraid of my own mother.
Chapter 37
"What the hell is that?" Donovan yelled, his voice cracking. He moved to cower behind Eric. Before I realized what was happening, Eric had a forearm across my neck in a vicelike grip and his fillet knife at my throat.
"So that's how you've been doing it this whole time, you freak," he hissed over my head at my mother. "I knew there was something off about you, but this..." he seemed to be at a loss for words.
