Authors: Naomi Fraser
He latches onto my hand, gently
helps me from the rocks and then pulls me along the bottom of the bay with
incredible speed. My ribs move, and I gasp. I don’t have time to think, but I’m
not afraid. Release of fear is a whole new world opening. My lungs feel a
little better now. The water needs to flow.
We skim the bottom of the bay. He
pulls me past stray rocks and bait fish scatter before us. Suddenly, he stops
and it’s like he’s standing in front of me with his hands twisting furiously to
hold him in place. He points to the surface, then back to his legs. Finally, he
points to his eyes with two fingers.
Watch. I have to watch.
He points to his legs again.
He drifts a little higher and
then bends his knees, those big thigh muscles flex, and he flicks out with his
feet, forward and backward. His legs are together, but not touching. He shoots
for the surface, bubbles streaming around him.
What?
That’s amazing.
It’s my turn. I slow my arms and
rise a bit, then kick my legs. My rise to the surface is a lot slower than his.
“Don’t worry,” he says at my
grimace when I surface. “You’ll get better.” He sets a hand on my shoulder
before I can dive down to try again. “But this time, I’ll manipulate your legs
and teach you the move. To get up a good speed, you need to gain momentum from
the opposite direction. It’s crucial to follow the flow of water.”
“Opposite
direction?”
He grins. “I’ll show you.
Down.”
We both dive beneath the water,
and he drags me to the bottom again, watching me try to stop rising. When I
can’t do it, he pulls me down farther until my toes touch the sand.
I nod, and then drift up. Two
manacles masquerading as hands grasp my ankles, pulling them back and then just
as suddenly, he thrusts them forward, then back again. I shoot up to the
surface, faster than I have ever done before but still not as fast as him. He
follows me up and flicks back his hair.
“That was great, Ellie. Let’s do
it again.” He grabs my hands and we both sink.
After the fifth time, my body
easily surges upward, bubbles streaming out beneath me. He makes the motion
look effortless, but I can almost feel the water moving inside me, not just
along my skin. At the surface, I feel an odd pop in the back of my head, but I
smile in spite of the pain and say, “Done.”
His gaze is on his hand. “Yes. Is
that . . . ?” His gaze drops to my neck. His fingertip traces a warm trickle on
my neck and his eyes lift to mine. “Are you bleeding?”
“What?
No.
” What a
question to ask.
He nears me. “Don’t take offense.
You must be.” He swims close and his chest touches my left shoulder. He says,
as if asking for permission, “I’m going to check for a moment.” I nod, and the
coolness of his hand cups my chin and then slides down my neck. His touch
angles my head to the side, and I hear his sudden intake of air before he pulls
away.
“What is it?”
His gaze grows hard. “Let’s go.”
I stare at the red on his hands.
“I’m bleeding? I didn’t cut myself on any coral?” I rub the back of my neck
with my hands. “I’m sure I didn’t.” My fingertips come away red, too.
“Maybe you tore it when your
chest was sore,” he mutters.
I quieten.
Or
when my ears stung as if they were burning.
“You can’t stay here like this.
I’ll teach you more about your legs next time. Tomorrow,” he offers before I
can decline.
“Same time.
We’ll go back underwater and
practice your leg technique while swimming toward the shore.”
He holds my hand on the way back,
his grip gentle, although it seems as if his gaze is on me the whole time, not
on where he’s going. He navigates around stray rocks and strange ripples in the
bottom of the sea bed with the utmost of ease.
The silence of the ocean is no
longer a hush that I used to hear as a child, but a drumming in my blood, a
singing in every cell.
Together, we stroll up the beach,
my legs all rubbery from the brief swim. I want to collapse on the sand, but I
can’t imagine trying to get all the wet grains off my body. His hand still
clasps mine. “I’ll go get dressed,” I say shyly, turning to look at him.
“All right.”
His gaze drops to my thighs and stops. His face loses all expression.
I glance down to make sure my
bottoms cover everything. A group of palm-sized silver sores spread over my
upper thighs, the edges lower than my swimsuit bottoms have a chance of hiding.
My mouth drops open and I grab a towel from my pile of clothes, wrapping it
around myself. My mind shouts, ‘Cover up!
COVER UP!
Before
he
sees.
’
I want a giant hole to swallow me.
But it’s too late—the marks have
made their unwelcome appearance again. It’s too late for a lot of things.
There’s a list of curse words I use if I stub my toe when making my bed. Or
when I hear something horrid happens to someone I love. I’m thinking of them
all now.
The entire list.
I almost trip in my haste to put
on my shirt. I pinch the bridge of my nose and stare up at him. “I’m going to
walk back,” I say, feeling sick. “Good exercise.”
“I’ll come with you,” he says
softly.
“No!” I bite my lip, and then
smile too hard at him. “No. I enjoy walking by myself.” I grab the rest of my
clothes and don’t look back at his call of, “Same time tomorrow.” But the
entire way home, his presence makes my nerves prickle, although I deliberately
don’t turn around to investigate. If he wants to follow me, that’s his
prerogative.
Exhaustion creeps into my bones
as I step over the threshold of my house and when I look back, he’s gone.
“THIS IS THE form I need to sign?” Mum reads over the notice.
I sigh and look out the kitchen
window at the light blue sky. “You don’t have to. It won’t bother me if I don’t
go.”
She’s quiet for a time. I control
the urge to get up and escape. There’s a power that’s part of being a teenager.
I don’t have it.
Everyone’s been a teenager and
known. I can’t do this. I can do that. What do you want me to do, Mum, Dad,
Aunt, Uncle, Granddad, Grandma? I’m a piece on a chessboard and by that I don’t
mean I’m a pawn. I’m a useful part of society, but I have my place.
“What do you want to do?”
My gaze flicks back to her.
“What?”
“How do you feel about it? Do you
want to do this? I thought you’d be too scared to go back into the water, but
if it’s part of school training, it might be all right.”
I can’t show I’m trembling, so I
lock it all inside. “Thanks for asking. I guess I can do it.” My phone plays a
melody. I jerk it free from my pocket and check the screen. I have a message:
See
me at school tomorrow. We’ll swim somewhere else.
Lakyn.
Yeah man
I type and slide
the phone back into my pocket.
“Who was that?” Mum asks, rifling
through the bureau. She finds a pen. “Aha! They’re like gold around here.”
“It was Lakyn, the guy who came
around home the other day to ask about the swimming trials. He wants to train
with me. That’s where I was after school today when I tried to call you.”
She smiles mischievously. “He’s
cute.”
“Mum!”
“You never know, it could
be fun.” She laughs. “I’m surprised you did so well, considering you didn’t show
any talent with swimming at your last school.”
“I had no talent, Mum.” I meet
her gaze. “I couldn’t swim like that before.”
She takes a deep swig of her
coffee and then
thunks
the mug on the table. A
troubling expression flits over her face. Finally, she does something I don’t
expect—she carefully studies me with a face that has seen mine since the moment
I appeared in this world—and she pulls out a chair, sits down, then leans back.
“Is that what you think?”
The proof is there, Mum. “It’s
what I know.”
“Maybe we should wait and see,”
she says.
That doesn’t appeal to me,
either. What has waiting brought me? Silence falls between us for a few
seconds. “Sign it, Mum. I’m not scared anymore.”
She looks back at the notice,
signs her name and then hands me the form, which I tuck into my back pocket. My
suddenly chest seizes and I pull out the puffer from my bra, press on the
canister and suck in deeply.
Ahh
, relief.
Her eyes widen in pure horror.
“What’s wrong? Where did you get that?”
Snap.
≈≈≈
I JERK BACKWARD, startling myself.
My breath ebbs and flows. It’s an
echoing rasp in a hollow shell. This armour—my body—stands in the middle of a
lush, open field. The back of my house is a small, white box in the distance,
but when I strain, I can faintly make out the splintered beams along the
rickety porch, a blue back door and the nut grass overgrown around the septic
tank.
I imagine my hand wraps around
the cold brass door knob, twisting, so I can enter. Breathe in the scent of
Mum’s cooking. Maybe she’s standing in the kitchen, pottering around, but
instead I suck in a lungful of briny sea air.
A wheeze pinches my chest. I
attempt to slow my breathing and then look around me. The casuarina trees sway
in the breeze. Little brown burrs dig into my toes. I focus on my feet. They’re
suspiciously bare. Am I naked? My gaze travels up my legs and torso. No, I’m
wearing my white nightie, the one I wouldn’t be caught dead outside my house
in, because it’s far too short and thin.
Perfect for
Queensland summers, though.
Then I try to look inside my
mind, but my thinking struggles to make sense of my surroundings. Why am I
here? I fell asleep on the sofa watching music videos. Before I closed my eyes,
the time on the DVD player had read 11.30 p.m.
Those blinking
red lights.
A quick, disturbing thought
sweeps through me—this isn’t a dream—I’m too aware. I step toward the house,
but the walls shift, elongate, slipping farther away. I pant and take another
step, then run toward the house, but when I look down at my feet, they’re not
moving. I can’t make my body work.
Icy fear riots inside my chest,
and I shiver.
Blood throbs in my ears. I try to
slow my panicked breaths, because every inhale cuts like a thousand blades.
Like broken ribs spear my lungs and spine. Instinct demands I suck in all the
oxygen I can at once, but that will make me panic more. I can’t breathe so
freely.
Why am I close to the cliff?
Where is my mum? My mouth won’t produce sound.
I want to get back to my house.
Hear my mother’s voice, feel the comfort of my room, disappear within its
walls. Panic is a death dealer. I focus with every ounce of power I have to
connect all the pathways in my brain, shallow breathe like I have liquid in my
lungs and then take another step.
It’s toward the cliff and not the
house. I growl in frustration, close my eyes and mentally count to ten. A loud
resonance sweeps across my skin, buzzing in a full volume radio static,
vibrating so hard my teeth gnash with a pins-and-needles numbness.
Pins-and-needles in a foot?
Imagine every body part tingling
so fiercely it feels like burning. My muscles and brain are separated by a thin
thread. I’m in my body, but not in possession of it.
As I slowly become aware of my
paralysis, I struggle to fully open my eyes. Eyes open, calm down, breathe
shallow.
I command you, eyes, open!
My lashes flick. It works.
Extreme focus, that’s all it takes.
Maybe my body wants me to see the
cliff and struggling only makes it worse. How else could I be stuck? The notion
is discomforting, as though my body is in control and I am not. But I
concentrate and then step toward the edge of the cliff, near the raging waves.
I lick my lips, tasting salt with the tip of my tongue. What a glorious night;
never has anything been so beautiful. A strong, cool breeze lifts my hair,
wafting around my body, calling me.
I want to fall into the wind’s
arms. Stars sprinkle above me, like a black canvas tossed over a crystal ball,
a snow globe, and I am stuck inside of it. My lungs nibble oxygen. As the waves
slap against the stone, sound comes again, whispers carrying a watery song.
Liquid ambrosia.
The tune resides beneath the waves in a
perfect harmony of wet nothingness. I close my eyes and listen. I’m so tired.
If the ocean spoke to me it would
have this deep and cascading voice. I find a path, accepting the tide of
weariness that leads me toward a sandy verge. Hard grains and crushed shells
wedge up between my toes. The breeze ruffles the hem of my nightgown. Maybe I
will just sit on the beach and watch the water, but each step feels harder on
my feet. I step lightly and then slip, no longer walking on sand, but across
stone, a rock wall that stretches deeper into the bay. I stop and stare.
Beautiful music haunts me again.
That music.
That music.
Fear locks down my muscles and
bones. My heart beats so fast it leaps up into my throat.
I can’t move. Wind batters me and
I’m desperately fighting my body as a hand slips out of the dark water, grasps
my ankle and then drags me into the wet blackness.
DYING IS SCARY as hell.
Sickness pounds in my heart,
intensifying my silent, mental scream—
Noooo!
Reality has a way of making
dreams seem worthless, unless you fight. When you’re going to die, you fight
unbelievably hard. If you’re stuck in water, that’s unfortunate.
Fighting means you’ll wear
yourself out and die faster.
The sea is stronger than you’ll
ever be and can swallow you whole. When you die in water, it’s kind of
blissful.
But not at first.
How do I remember that? The
doctors told me I had died in hospital, not in the water.
I crash land on my butt, crack my
head against the stones and then slip down the razor-sharp rock wall. Pain
ricochets inside my skull, centring at my temples. My tailbone throbs and skin
burns from the cuts. I twist and fling my hands out to hold onto something,
anything to stop myself from falling, but the surface is too slippery. My
fingertips slice open on the sharp edges.
The worn cotton of my nightie
bunches up around my neck, impeding my grip and vision.
Another tug away on my ankle and
the sharp burst of my scream carries in the quiet before midnight water engulfs
me in a heavy, wet blanket.
Choking me.
Moonlight
beams through the water, highlighting the dark blue aura at the surface.
I have my target—and furiously
struggle upward, scraping my legs against the rocks. I’m no weakling and manage
to kick free of the grip around my ankle. I break through to the surface, spit
out saltwater, gasp and reach out, then get a split second of diamond stars
before I am yanked back under again.
Skin ripples on my cheeks. I’m
descending fast and the hem of my nightie floats in front of my eyes. What
pulls me along?
The pressure of
tight fingers on my ankle.
A hand, that’s right.
A
hand?
Without a body?
Impossible.
Throbbing temples make my
thoughts hurt. Bile surges to my throat. I shake with the need to breathe and
adrenaline surges in my body as I fight to get air. Panic sets in as my muscles
continue to struggle. The frantic screaming in my head demands to know who is
doing this to me. Why?
I stop thrashing just enough to
push the fabric away and look down through the bubbles at my legs.
The hand is milky-sallow—the
colour of sour milk in bluish light.
Darkish veins.
Incredulity swells in my mind. I
can’t grasp the image my eyes relay to my brain. The arm extends toward a cloud
of long, black hair.
A woman’s arm?
I kick with all my
strength, but purplish talons claw into my skin and drag me deeper. My blood
leaks into the water. Surely, I shouldn’t be able to see the seeping tendrils
of red, yet I can.
“Let me go!” I scream underwater,
and then kick at the hand again with my other foot, trying to push the fingers
off my ankle.
Deeper, I plunge into the cold,
blue water, and my chest collapses with the pressure.
A
flurry of bubbles stream out of my mouth, clouding my vision.
I hold my
hands over my breasts, feeling my chest flatten and crunch. I’m dying. The back
of my ears unzip, and I’m still sinking.
I fight like a maniac, twisting
with all my might to the illuminated blue at the surface. But the resistance of
the water soon overpowers my struggling limbs and an aching tiredness sweeps
over me. I can’t lift my arms or reach the surface to breathe.
You only grow weaker and die
faster when you fight in water.
My lungs burn and my body has
become my enemy. I’m broken.
Completely.
This is it.
All I have to give. My heart thunders with the truth, but a sense of peace
washes over me. It’s OK to give up sometimes. It’s OK to let go. This has been
a wonderful life—I’ll see my dad again. Calmness overwhelms my mind, a strange
beauty, and I release myself, sending out a swift, silent
sorry
to my
mum.
This isn’t a horrible ending, but
a divine reality. I have cheated death once and maybe this is my destiny, my time.
I move away from my body to a golden, expansive light. Complete freedom has no
physicality. Suddenly, the nails scratch deeper into my skin and my ribs
squeeze flat before a sharp sting of pressure expels from my body. We race to
the bottom of the bay toward a mass of waving seaweed.
Oh. Those girls were
bound with it.
If I do one thing before I die . . . I will get rid of that
hand.
I reach down, but the nails are
clamped all the way to my bone. I set about dislodging the fingers one by one.
Then I glimpse a silhouette of
something . . . not real . . .
with a huge tail,
at least two metres
long. My gaze roams the width at the hips and then along the tail fin and back
up again. Large scales shimmer smooth as black tar.
Can’t be.
Not like shark or dolphin. It has a human’s back. I swallow.
And
a fish’s tail.
The reality of what I’m seeing
registers in my oxygen-starved brain.
Mermaid.
No,
logic denies. I try to
see a face, but catch only a side profile and then cold, salty water streams in
my mouth, flooding my lungs. It’s OK. I’m dying anyway. I breathe in the seawater,
exhale,
inhale
again. More skin rips open behind my
ears, tingling in the salt. On my tentative exhale, water rushes out of my
mouth, but there’s no pain. I’m breathing water. I’m not totally me. Or maybe
I’m more than I’ve ever believed.
‘
The
power in the opposite direction will reinforce your acceleration.’
Lakyn’s
words filter through my mind, daring me. I have no idea where his voice comes
from, but I have nothing left to lose.
I bow my entire body back and
then jolt my legs forward. The grip dislodges a little. Again, I arch backwards
and then kick my legs together how Lakyn taught me, uncaring if my skin shreds
to bits.
The hand momentarily slips. My
heart jumps and I rocket to the surface.
Someone grabs my shoulder,
looping a cord around my waist and then pushes me off to one side. Before I can
speak, the tension in the cord snaps, yanking me closer to the surface, and I
gasp at the different pressure on my sore ribs.
A wink of
silver glistens, and the mermaid floats up, a spear through her cheek.
The diver reloads and shoots again. His spear pierces the hand that held my
ankle. Dead aim. A high-pitched screech shudders through the water. Wincing, I
pull back and hang onto the line. Another arrow lances straight through the
mermaid’s shoulder. I focus, but a black haze covers my eyes.
I open my mouth to breathe in
again and the water tastes of blood.
Salty, musky and
metallic.
I gag, and arch back, kicking my legs, wanting to get away
from both of them.
The cord around my waist is a
taut lifeline and I hang on as my entire body vibrates with a strange energy.
Power,
undiluted and
ferocious,
is who I am. This is my place.
Blood heats up
under my skin; sunlight on the inside.
A vein of fire snakes through my
legs to my belly button. Tingles buzz under my skin and the pores in my legs rip
open with tiny hatches.
Crying, I gingerly touch the
loose skin, worried they will wash away. Salt stings the gaps of raw flesh.
More skin rips open along my thighs, navel, overlapping across my bottom and
knees. A jellied substance secretes down my thighs, slipping toward my feet.
Hatches of skin lift, and then harden beneath my fingers until they finally
overlap, binding my legs together in a matrix of scales. Thigh bones push into
each other, pressing so tight they become one.
My toes extend, bones
lengthening. Bubbles whip around my ankles, and the jelly substance hardens,
gluing my ankles together. A web forms between my toes, stretching into a
glinting tail fin.
Then the pain of a thousand, tiny
cuts dissolves into nothing. Blessed relief washes across my body. My mouth
hangs open as I stare at where my legs used to be. Bits of hair enter my mouth
and float around me, straighter from the heaviness of the water.
I can’t look away. I’m in Moreton
Bay at night with a tail instead of legs and breathing in bloody water.
The diver swims into my line of
vision, spear gun in hand, flippers rhythmically moving.
I swim closer in a breaststroke
motion rather than flicking my . . . tail.
I have a tail.
His eyes are a fierce, glowing
blue and he reaches out for me.
Lakyn?
I
gasp in a lungful of water and the skin splits deeper behind my ears. I clasp
them, moaning in pain. “Lakyn, I have a tail. Someone tried to kill me.” But I
realise he can’t hear me. “I think she was a mermaid.”
He shakes his head, points above
his head and then grabs hold of my wrist. With his other solid arm around my
waist, we swim for the surface. It takes forever, but I don’t have to worry
about oxygen, and he has his tank.
Finally, we break through the
waves. My lungs expand in a fierce crack. A cry explodes from my lips and
carries across the surface of the water. My ribs swell. I panic and lean
forward, digging my fingers into his arms.
He lifts up his mask and squeezes
me. So close.
“Ellie.”
His voice wavers. “I’m going to
get you to land. I didn’t think they’d make a move so soon.”
“They?”
I breathe in more air and expel sea water out of my ears.
My
eyes burn and nasal passages sting.
“What’s happening to me, Lakyn?”
“Later,” he says grimly. “We have
to leave here before they come back. There’s always more than one. I’ll take
you back to the hostel.”
“You can’t,” I gasp. “I have a
tail, Lakyn.
I’m a fish.”
Moonlight glints off his slow,
secretive smile. He peers deeply into my eyes, hesitates and then his hand
drops to my waist to trail over my hips and across my scales. “I know it’s a
shock, but you have to trust me. You’re a mermaid, Ellie. Well, half human,
half mermaid. We have to leave here. There’s too much blood in the water. And you
will be able to swim faster with a tail.”
“I’m a mermaid.” My lips tremble
uncontrollably. “You saved me. All the way down there. You saved me from that .
. . that thing. Thank you. Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. I should
have been faster. It took me too long to get on all the gear after I heard your
scream,” he mutters against my neck. “I was afraid you’d drown, that the
transformation hadn’t been complete. Are you OK to swim on?”
I swallow.
“Barely.
What do you mean about the transformation or they’ll come back?”
He releases me reluctantly. “I’ll
tell you more
later
. Now is not the time.”
“Was she a mermaid, too?” This
time there is no mistaking my fear. I shake with the intensity of it.
His expression hardens to a mask
of stone, and his eyes hold unfathomable pain. “No, that was a siren.
A deadly creature who steals human and finfolk souls.
They
killed my family.”