The Midnight Lullaby

by Cheryl Low

  The shark rushed up to the surface toward the boat, attacking the chum as though it might make a run for it.

  The third shark rolled by in the wake of the male, swimming right by the cage to eye them. For one sickly moment, Val worried it would whip its head right through that gap of steel bars. It wouldn't fit, she was positive, but that didn't stop her stomach from lifting up into her throat when it looked back at her, seeming to hear her thoughts. When that big, black eye looked away, she noticed the pattern of scars along the head of the shark and the old scar on her pectoral fin.

  "Kajsa," Val breathed. She'd named the shark after a mountain in Sweden that she had climbed with her sister after graduation. Val still had another year of schooling left at the time and no idea that it would lead her to the ocean years later, filming sharks with her husband and a team of fanatics and camera jockeys.

  They'd tagged Kajsa on their first trip to this spot and took notice of her every season since. She was big, and she knew it. She liked to push the cages around. Last year she'd even gnawed one of the floaties to pieces. Felix loved her because unpredictable sharks made for thrilling footage and exciting dives. Val wasn't as enthusiastic about the big brute.

  "I was wondering when we'd see her." Felix laughed over the comm, and it crackled in her ear.

  Val watched the shark drift away, back down into the dark. Her heartbeat picked up the moment she lost sight of Kajsa, but by then the male had circled around and was bumping Felix's cage, giving the other cage a close encounter and Terrance some great footage.

  For a few more minutes, everything went smoothly. Just enough excitement to keep everyone laughing and grinning on adrenaline. A chill ran up her spine, making her shake out her shoulders and turn her head to the side, expecting to see something stalking her in the deep. Instead, she saw Felix in his cage across the blue. Everything was a sort of slow-motion underwater. She exhaled, and bubbles rolled up toward the surface.

  And then Kajsa hit her cage full force. Not from the side, but from the bottom. Slamming hard against the gate at their feet and pushing with such force that the whole thing launched upward. The cage broke the surface, and for a horrible second, gravity was upon them, pulling Val and Terrance against the bars. The bright morning sun glared down at them before the cage tipped forward.

  Val slammed against the bars of the half wall, grabbing at them to hang on when the floaties smacked against the surface of the ocean. She expected the cage to swing back down into the usual upright position, but Kajsa was still under them. Still pushing. Still thrashing.

  Val couldn't hear anything when everyone started shouting over the comm system at the same time. Their voices became a tangled mess that blared through the earpiece to rival her own pulse. With that massive, toothed fish beneath, she couldn't be sure if she was even breathing. Her fingers clutched so tightly at the bars that the bones in her arms strained and shook. Her legs kicked, trying to pull up under herself for fear of popping out of the cage through the viewing hole now beneath her.

  Somewhere in the flurry of sounds and panic, she heard Felix's voice shouting "babe" in that sharp tone he always said that particular pet name in. It was something he said when she was close to danger—or in this case, teeth. It wasn't creative or cute or even all that endearing, like the plethora of nicknames he'd made up for her over the years. It was the tone and the word he used when he was afraid, and it set her nerves on fire. She sucked in a breath that made her lungs ache to scream or curse.

  She had forgotten Terrance entirely until his camera sunk into the blue in her line of sight. It had fallen out of the cage through the large viewing frame set in the bars. She tasted bile when Terrance sank into the deep after it.

  For a sickly half-second, Val clung to the bars, leaning out that gap in the cage. She stared past the thrashing of Kajsa's tail and the glint of teeth, through the bubbles of the foaming surface at Terrance's body sinking, falling. His arms stretched to grab at the camera he'd dropped before he twisted around entirely to look up at her, up at the cage he was no longer tucked inside of, and up at the great white violently attacking the metal that was the only promise of safety. He let the camera fall, kicking weakly to keep himself from sinking farther but with nowhere to go.

  Val watched another shadow of a shark roll through the darker water beneath him, circling the scene.

  She let go of the bars and slipped out of the cage, diving down after Terrance, and heard Felix shouting through the earpiece. He wasn't speaking English anymore, but she recognized the Spanish as a flurry of curses and prayers all merged into one big sacrilegious plea. She kicked the cage to launch herself out and down just as Kajsa abandoned her metal prey, bumping it one last time before swimming off to circle around.

  When Kajsa moved away, the curious male shark returned, teeth bared and moving right for Terrance. Val kicked harder, heart slamming in her chest as she swam toward the scene. The shark grew larger the closer it swam, and just before she reached Terrance, she saw that black eye roll back and vanish. She grabbed onto his arm and pulled hard enough that, had this been any other situation, she might have worried about his shoulder.

  Terrance bumped into her, and the shark bumped into him, pushing them roughly to the side and spinning them both. Val caught a glimpse of their cage, empty and right-side up. And beyond it, she saw the second cage with Felix and the other cameraman, Gary, fighting. He was probably trying to keep Felix in the cage.

  The comm system continued to crackle violently with too many voices. The captain on deck called her name repeatedly. Gary tried to give updates to the boat about what was going on while grappling with Felix. Felix cursed a lot of people and tried to get out into the open water.

  Val pushed Terrance up, ahead of herself and back toward their cage. The swim felt like a sprint, her heart pounding and her muscles burning. From the corner of her eye, Val saw another shark. She twisted when it came too close, hand stretching out to push her gloved palm against the nose, above all those teeth. She locked her elbow and kept her arm straight. Shoving hard, she pushed herself to the side.

  As soon as the shark passed, Val started kicking again, swimming for the cage. When she saw Terrance climbing inside, she felt a wash of relief and maybe even disbelief. They'd actually survived. It was going to be a great story. It was going to make for great footage if Gary managed to get any of it.

  Val was so close to the cage. So close to this being one of those great close calls.

  She almost didn't see Kajsa coming from underneath. Her white belly gleamed when it reached the stretches of light and gave her away in that last second.

  She heard Felix shout. Not "babe" like when he was worried or afraid, but this time it was her name. Her whole name. And it sounded like the last time she would ever hear it.

  Kajsa struck her from beneath, and all Val felt was the slam of the shark's weight against her. She didn't feel teeth. The brutal force of the shark's body drove her to the surface. For one horrible moment, Val was airborne but not alone. The sky shone blue, and the sun glared brightly. The water flailed through the air by Kajsa's lashing tail, droplets glimmering like stars.

  The giant shark twisted in the air and came down with Val.

  And then she was alone.

  She couldn't move. She wasn't even sure she was breathing. She bobbed just below the surface, looking down at the deep and at Kajsa's disappearing shadow. The shark drifted deeper and deeper, farther away from Val, and all she could wonder was, why? Why would she leave when she finally had her? All those years of watching each other. All those years of Kajsa studying their cages and getting closer and closer. She finally had Val, stunned and drifting like deadwood in the sea, and she swam away.

  Val slowly started sinking, drawn downward like debris. She told herself to kick, to move, to lift her head and find the boat, but she couldn't.

  A cloud of red gathered around her, wispy at the edges where it faded into the blue but sickly thick all around her body. She wa
tched that red until the sun blinded her. Her back landed on the surface of the boat, and she finally felt the weight of gravity bearing down on her. Felix pulled off her mask and held her face in his hands. His palms were so warm against her cheeks. He said that she was going to be okay over and over again. Val wanted to nod, but she couldn't. When he had to let go of her to do something else, she turned her head to the side and saw how much thicker that red looked splattering the deck.

  "You're going to be okay," Felix said again, cupping her cheek to turn her head up so that she could only see him and the sky.

  Val watched him until she lost consciousness, but even when she blacked out, she could still hear the waves smacking against the sides of the boat. She still heard the waves in the hospital, and sometimes now, years later, when she closes her eyes, no matter how far inland she might be, she still hears those waves.

  Chapter 2

  More than three years later, and not for the first time by a long shot, Val was on another boat in the ocean. She watched the sun come up over the blue horizon rather than looking at the island behind her. They weren't far from land, but she was more than happy to stay on the boat. The sky changed colors over the sea. She'd seen it happen at least a thousand times, the dark shades of night giving way in slow folds to light through waves of pink and orange. It never got old.

  The coffee cup in her right hand passed to the left, sharing warmth between palms and digits. Kajsa had taken a chunk out of her left hand, leaving Val with three fingers and a thumb but no pinky and a particularly ugly scar trailing up her forearm. Sometimes, when changing, she took a moment to bend her arm in just the right way so that the scars lined up over her hand, forearm, upper arm, and back. All those teeth, like razors through her skin, and yet somehow the shark only took a pinky. Kajsa managed to break a number of bones and tear a lot of flesh. Even after they healed, the bruises gone and the stitches removed, the scars still looked gruesome—thick, puckered flesh in pale, jagged lines twisting around her body.

  She heard Julie practically skip onto deck behind her, deeply breathing the ocean air as though for the first time. Val took another drink of coffee to hide her amusement. Even when they were kids, Julie had been a morning person. Up at dawn and happy about it. Val, on the other hand, reserved all enthusiasm for after eight.

  Julie bumped into her on purpose and then promptly stole the mug from her hands. She wore a blue cable knit sweater and had her brown hair in a messy bun. When they were kids, they looked nothing alike—different noses, different heights—and yet, somehow it had all evened out over the years. On more than one occasion, Julie and Valarie convinced friends that they were twins in college.

  Val pushed up the sleeves of her hoodie just as the sun finally peeked over the horizon to spread out over the surface of the water. She could hear the crew stirring down below and a particularly large grumble about creamer that had to have been Julie's fiancé, Zach. They had met in the rainforests of Peru. Julie had been there with a group of other biologists to look for new species and take samples while Zach had been there as a wildlife photographer. Love at first sight, it seemed, or, as Val liked to say, love at first bug bite.

  Julie had dragged Val into the rainforest once, and that had been enough. She'd only managed to get her along on this trip by promising that Val wouldn't have to step foot on the island. She'd even made Julie write it into her contract with the channel they were filming for just so there couldn't be any misunderstandings.

  Val turned to look at her sister. The shadowy peak of Isla de los Perdidos loomed in the still-dark sky behind her. It wasn't much. A speck of land coated in thick vegetation and humming with life, relatively untouched. A handful of attempts to make settlements on it over the last five hundred years had been unsuccessful, and the locals on the mainland offered only ghost stories for explanations.

  Isla de los Perdidos was abandoned. An island within eyesight of the continent it had broken away from centuries ago and yet completely uninhabited by people. The locals wouldn't even go there to show Julie and her team around. It had all just made her more excited about the idea of spending a week on it. Julie wanted to know all of its secrets, possibly discover something new, and then show the world. She and Zach were taking two videographers, Henry and Megan, with them. Julie had worked with them in Cameroon and boasted their skills to the company.

  Val got the chance to meet them the night before when they arrived at the mainland, before boarding the Charlene, a boat she had worked on before with its captain, Kevin Lochner. She was close friends with his husband, Calvin, and had worked with him dozens of times on dives for different programs. They did tropical work along reefs and beaches in Central and South America.

  "Sleep well?" Val asked her sister, knowing the answer.

  "Not a wink!" Julie was too excited. She was like that, too much energy for her own good sometimes—though most of the time that energy and excitement worked in her favor.

  Julie spent the last eighteen months getting together this expedition and its funding. She'd worked it out so there would be three teams with camera crews to get the most material possible for the videographers, and thus the nature channel to which Julie had pitched this whole expedition. Julie, Zach, Henry, and Megan would go to the island to unravel its mysteries. Calvin, an experienced diver and cameraman, would go with Oliver Camden, a salvager, and Maeko Watanabe, a marine biologist particularly beloved by the channel, to take a look at the reef.

  At least a dozen ships had sunk in these waters, and Julie had convinced Oliver that he might find something worthwhile. Oliver was a bit of a prick but good at his job and excited to go hunting for sunken ships.

  Julie gave Val back her coffee after drinking half of it and then complaining about how much sugar was in it. Val gave her a vaguely sympathetic look. She knew what she was getting when she took it.

  "So, when are you setting off?" Val asked, and Julie beamed with excitement. Val took another sip of her now-cold coffee to hide the way her sister's smile infected her own mouth.

  Henry and Megan, each carrying a camera and bouncing bags of lenses and supplies on their hips, were arguing about something as they made their way up from below deck. They looked almost as eager as her sister.

  Julie glanced back at them before looking at Val again, and then past her shoulder to the ocean. Val didn't think her sister was looking at anything in particular until she got that look that triggered her flashbacks from their childhood. She half expected Bobby Spencer from sixth grade to be sneaking up on her with a spider.

  "We're just going to get some interviews of the teams and make sure everyone is settled in before we head out for the island," Julie said, forgetting to breathe between words, and Val knew in that instant her sister was hiding something.

  Val frowned because Julie looked outright guilty. Was Bobby Spencer really emerging from the ocean behind her? Val turned her head to look back over her shoulder and squinted at the small boat making its way toward them, cutting a line from the horizon. "What do you mean settled in? We're already settled," she mumbled.

  Julie took her coffee again, and Val looked at her, noting that she didn't drink it this time. She just held onto it. Was she afraid she would throw it?

  "Okay. So, you know how much the network loves him," Julie started in that casual tone, the diplomatic yet somehow flippant one she liked to take up when she knew she was in trouble but had no intention of apologizing.

  Val stared at her for an awkward length of time before sucking a breath and realizing what her sister had done. "No," she exhaled, then turned to look at the approaching boat again. It was much worse than some shitty eleven-year-old boy and a bug. It was her ex-husband.

  "He gets great ratings, and the network just loved the idea of seeing the two of you working together again. They're talking about it being the feature of next year's summer programming!" She pitched her sentences with shrill enthusiasm now. It earned her Henry's attention, the young cameraman making his way
closer to discreetly film their interaction.

  Val let out a groan and grabbed her coffee cup from her sister. Julie looked worried about the tacky green porcelain, but Val didn't throw it at anyone just yet. "I need more coffee," she mumbled, and shouldered past Julie.

  Her sister heaved a whine and turned to watch her retreat. "It's mostly sugar!" she shouted after her.

  "Then I need more sugar!" Val called back. Megan almost bumped into her but quickly skirted to the side, looking sheepish. She could hear Julie already recovering from their interaction to tell Henry that they could get started with the crew interviews. She would go first. Julie never shied away from being the leader. It was a great quality. It's too bad she didn't shy away from stabbing people in the back either.

  Val felt abruptly trapped when she reached the little kitchen below deck. She filled her cup halfway and then started heaping in spoonfuls of sugar.

  Calvin came in just in time to watch the last two spoonfuls go in and raised an eyebrow. "Looking for some diabetes to go with that sulk?" he asked, taking two mugs from the cupboard, one metal and the other chipped and stained but bearing the name "Lochner" written across its front in permanent marker. He filled both mugs with black coffee and left it at that. Neither Calvin nor his husband were fans of sugar or milk in their coffee. Val remembered from the last few times she went out to sea with them. They both enjoyed giving her a hard time when it came to her sugar intake. Calvin liked things sour, and Lochner was the classic ship's captain—he only overindulged in black coffee, facial hair, and ugly sweaters.

  They were an odd pair, even at sea. Calvin was clean shaven, organized, and stylish. He had a collection of vintage t-shirts and sunglasses that Val realized after their third outing together must be extensive because she never saw him in the same ones twice. His diving gear and cameras were always meticulously cared for, and he did sets of sit-ups and push-ups every morning. She'd witnessed it a number of times and seen the results in the form of hard abs and cut traps.