Becoming Mermaids Read online

  There was a soldier in the hold of the armored car with her. His hat was turned down over his face, gun casually resting at his side. Samantha bared her chest, bound arms, and the front of her tail to him through the net. Her voice was still a little gurgley when she asked, “Help me out of this, will you?”

  The soldier tipped her hat up. Under the fatigues, it was Coquette, grinning. “Sure thing,” she said.

  Chapter 16: The Voice of Rage and Ruin

  Sam’s world turned completely inside out. The salt water that streamed down her face became tears of joy, and her shout was jubilation. The car was not transporting her to a more secure facility, but to freedom! Words from a hundred different voices all tried to tumble out of her mouth at once. What she said was, “You came back!”

  Coquette gave her a sarcastic smirk. “’Course.”

  “How?”

  “I told you. I’ve got connections.”

  Sam couldn’t understand what was happening. She almost didn’t want to understand, as though the dream was so fragile that if she pressed it, it would burst. When Coquette tried to help her with the ropes, Sam took her hands and held them to her face, letting out a fresh stream of tears and snot. Coquette took it in stride.

  “Sure, babe. I love you, too. Now let me help you get untied.”

  Suddenly, the car veered sharply to the side and revved its engine to full speed. The turn threw Coquette and Sam into the bare wall with Sam’s heavy tail pinning Coquette’s leg. “What’s happening?” Sam asked.

  “Our cover’s blown. Damn!” Coquette reached for a handheld walkie-talkie and yelled into it, “Where are we?”

  It hissed. “Southbound on I-805. Fuckers’ve got all the cops in the state after us.”

  “Plan B. Get to the water.”

  “Roger that.”

  Coquette turned to Sam. “We’re going to have to get you out of that, stat.” She had a knife, but chewing through the tough ropes took so long that Sam’s efforts at detangling were making more progress. The car jolted again and Coquette nearly stabbed her in the gut.

  Outside, the armored car raced down highways with a million police cars in pursuit, bursting through panic-ridden streets, knocking over fruit stands. Dozens of helicopters buzzed overhead.

  “Route 54, the marsh!” Coquette barked into the walkie-talkie. “We’ve got a surprise for them.”

  “Got it.” The car jolted again.

  “Sam,” she said, “I’m going to need your help.”

  Sam nodded.

  “We’re going to need a storm.”

  “Okay.”

  “Can you make me a storm?”

  “No.” What kind of question is that?

  “Yes, you can, Sam. Please, whip up a storm. I’m counting on you.”

  “How?”

  “Start with wind, mostly. And choppy seas. We need hurricane levels, fast.”

  “You’re saying I can make storms?”

  “Of course. You’re a mermaid. Mermaids make storms, crash ships.”

  “Coquette, how many powers do I have? When were you going to tell me this?”

  “Sam, now!”

  “I don’t know how!” She panicked. “You do it! Get the stone, switch places. You know how to do it, right?”

  “If I had the stone, do you think I’d be arguing with you?”

  “You don’t? You don’t... have it?” This revelation sunk into Sam’s shoulders like cold water. She had thought that her escape would mean going back to her old self, her old body. She thought she could give up the tail and be human again.

  “She’s trying,” Coquette shouted into the walkie-talkie. “Give her time.”

  “Didn’t Andy have it?” Sam wept.

  Coquette steadied Sam with her hands on her shoulders. They kneeded her skin gently. “Sam, Andy’s got thee to a nunnery. I need you to focus. Close your eyes. Don’t see the truck, don’t be here with me. Be in the clouds. Take them in your hand. Wrench them. It’s all in your head, Sam. Do it.”

  Sam was reeling. No gemstone, no transformation, no return. She would be a mermaid forever. She would become a fish, swimming in the open seas, rather than an aquarium. This jailbreak wasn’t about freedom— it was about the size of her prison. Whether she would be a freak studied in a fishbowl or an animal ranging the wide oceans. Either way, she’d never see her parents again, or Andy, or even feel the quiet comfort of walking down the street, surrounded by human beings, eating chile rellenos and dancing to the sounds of a mariachi band. She’d be alone in the wild, becoming more inhuman everyday. Mermaids live forever.

  “Sam!”

  Sam’s despair snapped into anger and she screamed at the clouds. Her fingers clawed into the network of ropes that ensnared her body and they became the four winds. She twisted and gutted them like the living fish she used to tear open with her teeth. Outside, a burst of thunder rumbled.

  Coquette cheered. The car hit a bump and they were both weightless as it leapt through the air, probably leading a pair of police cars off a cliff.

  “Keep that up, hon!” Coquette grinned and pecked Sam on the cheek. Her skin was hot. Her teeth were bared and her eyes glowed with St. Elmo’s fire. She was latched onto the weather now. Couldn’t let go if she tried.

  Coquette shouted directions into the walkie-talkie for the final stages of the chase. The driving was mostly level now— they were peeling through the grounds of a wildlife refuge that led to shore.

  “Right into the ocean!” Coquette cried. “That’s right— just drop us in the water with your windows down. Get out when the truck sinks. I don’t care if you can’t swim!”

  The sounds of wind now drummed on the sides of the armored car— it threatened to tip over. Just until we get to the water, thought Coquette. The electric arcs coursing over Sam’s body filled the hold with cold, blue light. She was completely consumed by the power of the storm.

  “No hesitation! Do it now!” Immediately, everything was weightless. Time seemed to slow down. Strands of netting floated off the floor. The shift took Sam out of her trance and her glow faded from her eyes. In the moment that seemed to go on and on, she looked toward Coquette, whose expression was serene relief.

  Just as suddenly, they both slammed into the floor as the car hit water. Gravity returned, though it couldn’t make up its mind between the wall and the floor. Sam and Coquette were airborne once again as the truck was tossed by a forty foot wave.

  Sam collapsed into Coquette’s lap on the downturn. Coquette fumbled for the walkie-talkie and said simply, “Blow the doors.” In a burst of well-placed C4, hinges on the back of the armored truck exploded, opening it to a gush of seawater. In one turn of the wave, Sam, Coquette, and the mesh of netting were all wrenched out to sea.

  Sam was still partly trapped by the net and Coquette was getting dangerously tangled. She reached out to Coquette, almost losing her to the violent waves. Ropes coiled around them like snakes and dragged them down. Just ten feet under the surface, the sound of the raging storm was gone, leaving nothing but confused currents.

  Coquette couldn’t breathe. A mermaid for most of her life, and now she was drowning. Sam held tight with one arm while she tried to disengage the ropes with the other, but the netting moved faster than she could. She also dragged it with her wherever she went, as it was fastened to her tail, writhing like an octopus.

  Coquette flailed as people do when they’re drowning— her scheming mind couldn’t save her when there was water in her lungs. Giddy and light-headed, Coquette remembered the sensation of the thick fluid flowing into her chest and streaming out of her nose as she swam with her powerful tail. But human lungs don’t take to the water nearly as well. They burned and cried for relief.

  Sam did the only thing she could think of. Pulling Coquette tight by the small of her back, she kissed her hard on the lips, hoping to heal her with her touch. No luck. Coquette’s eyes fluttered, then rolled backward in her head. Sam kissed her again, making a tight seal around her m
outh. But she had no air to give, only her own recycled water.

  Forgot in cruel happiness that even lovers drown.

  No, Sam thought, shaking Coquette. She floated like a rag doll. No! This is supposed to work. If she could save that bastard doctor, surely... She went in for a third kiss, but it did no good. She had to get Coquette to the surface.

  Sam strained against the ropes and one by one, got them free. It had been ten, maybe twenty minutes. If Coquette ever did breathe again, she’d be brain-dead. Unlooping the final cord, she pressed her body to her body and raced through the dark waters, up to the light of day. It was no dryer above water than below— the wind whipped stinging rain and enormous, swelling waves that picked them up and shoved them down into white foam.

  Through the rain, Sam saw a motorboat speeding toward them. There was no way they could have been found by eye on that choppy ocean— Coquette must have had a homing device. Sam waved her arm to get their attention, and they pulled up as close as possible.

  There were four in the boat, friends of Coquette, Sam hoped. One cried out, “La sirena!” and a burly Frenchman took Coquette from Sam’s arms. A doctor in a hijab laid her out on the tossing boat and did her best to perform CPR. The Mexican boy who spotted her offered his arm, but Sam dove backward, flipped her tail, and disappeared under the sea.

  She turned around, got a flying start, and burst from the water, tossing herself on board. She collided with the Frenchman, the doctor, and the Chinese captain, manning the motor. The doctor struggled to pull Coquette’s face out of the puddle of water that sloshed on the bottom of the boat, then caught sight of Sam’s tail and froze.

  Sam spat all the water out of her lungs and took Coquette in her arms. Breathing deeply, she drew water from Coquette’s lungs as well, spitting mouthful after mouthful on the floor to mingle with her own.

  Coquette twitched, but showed no other signs of life. A helicopter flew overhead, thrown by the winds as much as the motorboat was by the waves.

  “You have to go,” the doctor said. “She did this to save you. Don’t waste it.”

  Sam paid no attention, drawing water from Coquette’s lungs and filling her with air.

  The Frenchman took Sam by the arm, his fingers wrapping all the way around her bicep. She glared at him. He shook his head. They were all staring at her, their eyes darting from her face to her tail. The captain gestured with his hand: shoo! Go away now! They’re coming!

  Reluctantly, Sam pried herself from Coquette, whose eyes were open in tiny slits, but with no life inside. Before she slid over the edge, Sam said, “Tell her I won’t forget her. Will you do that? Tell her I’ll never forget what she’s done for me.” Then a swelling wave took her and threatened to turn over the boat.

  As she descended into the inky blackness, the word “never” resounded in her thoughts. Forever would be a long time without Coquette.

  Chapter 17: The Endless River

  Samantha swam faster than she ever thought possible. It wasn’t just the choppers and the government she was running from, it was the life she was leaving behind. It was Coquette, who might be dead or captured by now. It was everyone she ever knew, who would be horrified to learn that she had changed her body into something that can’t survive in their world. She’d rather let them think she was dead.

  But one thing’s for sure: she wasn’t ever gonna be caged again.

  There were submarines out there— she heard them. Maybe not with her ears, but with a sensitive line of nerves that ran down the length of her body, even the human part. Those submarines might not have been looking for her— but she couldn’t tell for certain. She kept her distance, just the same. In fact, she raced along the bottom of the ocean, mere inches from the rock bed, around formations and into trenches, just to be sure to stay under their radar.

  She was aware of the monsters that coiled around her, but somehow that didn’t bother her anymore. Coquette had lived out here for years and had never been eaten. Now that Sam was forced into it— pushed into the deep end, so to speak— it wasn’t that bad. Before experiencing the ocean, she had imagined a cold, foggy gloom in which you couldn’t see the horrors until they were right on top of you. That all was true, but she liked the cold, and although she couldn’t see much directly, she felt everything.

  It took a while for that to sink in. She had been darting out of the way of obstacles for so long that it was hard to believe that she couldn’t see them. I’m not blind, she thought, how could I have— if I had— ohmigod, psychic powers!

  She came upon a large column of rock and examined it. She felt the crunch of detail, the porous coral— or if not felt, tasted? heard? Yes, it was sound. In time with the stiff, rapid movements she was making with her tail, her mouth was chirp-chirp-chirping, sending musical notes into the water all around her. Holding her breath, it went dark. Singing again, it came back. Sonar!

  The whole landscape seemed to be lit up in florescent colors— colors made of sound. What she heard, she also “saw,” in a sense, as well as felt and tasted. The notes had a flavor as they slipped from her lips, and that flavor came back enriched by the texture of the world around her. She pressed her hands to her sides and hips, onto the lateral line that sensed these vibrations in the water, and saw that landscape trip out in funky colors.

  This is what was wrong with the dolphin pen: it had flat walls. Everything just echoed back without color, and the flat echoes had trained her to keep her mouth shut as she swam. Out in her natural environment, a medley of haunting chimes, purrs, squeaks, and clicks spilled out of her lips.

  There is a whole-body thrill that comes from enjoying the sound of your own voice. Singing is somehow more visceral than any art you produce with your hands— it comes from within you, exposes you— so much so that an off-key note doesn’t sound like an honest mistake, it sounds like deceit. Some kind of failure as a person. Nobody winces at an awkward drawing as much as an awkward sound. But when the notes are right, the music trills within you and surprises you with its own richness. It is pure joy.

  Not joy: bliss. Sam wondered why she had resisted for so long, how she could have caused so much trouble to avoid coming here, to the place where everything is beautiful. Poor Coquette!

  In the distance, a new sound glowed. Someone had heard her song and was answering her, someone who was rising out of the deep like a golden sunrise. The voice was low, monstrously low. For a moment, Sam thought it might be one of the other mermaids, but no— it was much too low to be coming out of anyone her size.

  It was a whale. Sam didn’t believe it until it grew like an approaching planet and sounded its bass notes through her entire body. The universe shook with its majesty. By the time she could see it with her eyes, there was nothing to see: a wall of striated flesh, a living being that filled the horizon. But the song that was the greater part of it: all the glorious notes that are too low for human ears to hear— they coursed through her. She became those notes. She was in the presence of the footman of God.

  Timidly, she returned the song to him in her own tweets and chimes. The whale stopped and listened— listening to her!— and at the appropriate time, responded with a counterpoint. From all corners of the ocean, the song resounded in intricate harmonies.

  Maybe Coquette was right, Sam thought. I do have the soul of a mermaid.

  * * *

  Coquette had been dead, but was no longer dead. Nothing Dr. Tiwana did could have done brought this about, no medical expertise, no matter how skilled. She drowned. She died. Her lungs had been completely full of water, and now she didn’t have so much as a rattling cough. Coquette touched her lips, still feeling the kiss that had saved her. It lingered there like a scar, as though she could feel it with her fingertips.

  She sat on the gunwale of the speedboat, hunched over her bare feet, leather jacket shrinking and sticking to her skin. The tempest was still running its course. Though helicopters buzzed through the air, there was no w
ay they could have approached or even cornered the small boat. The sea was far too rough. It was a wonder they didn’t capsize. Wei-Ting was a phenomenal captain, the best money could buy.

  “Nobody’s going to know about this,” she said to her crew. “As far as you’re concerned, the mermaid is a myth.” They all nodded. The matter was settled.

  Coquette peeled open her wet pocket and pulled out a large, red gemstone on a chain. She closed it in her fist without taking a good look at it. The rough edges cut into her palm. Somewhere out there, Samantha had been forced into a life of solitude— swimming and exploring, all alone. Coquette had done her time— it was only fair that someone else took up the slack. But without the stone, Sam had no hope of return. Just endless seas, forever.

  Coquette had half a mind to strip off her clothes, stare into the stone, and jump into the sea. Sam couldn’t have gone far— a hundred miles at the most— and Coquette could use her mermaid powers to track her down.

  But what if the change happens while Sam is deep underwater? Becoming human at fifty fathoms would be fatal. And even at the surface where the storm raged, it can be hard to keep your head above water. Forty foot waves have a tendency of shoving you back under. Imagine the terror of having your mermaid senses suddenly switch off, to become a naked human being tossed by the pitiless sea. It might take hours, finding her. Hypothermia could settle in.

  Coquette put the stone back in her pocket.

  * * *

  Coquette’s staff noticed the change, too. They saw that something was eating away at her. Ever since the great SeaWorld robbery, in which she was rumored to have captured a mermaid for her private aquarium, she’d been moody, lacking the zeal for organized crime that had drawn many of them to her side. Now she just paced the halls of her lair, carved into the walls of an active volcano.

  Their suspicions were confirmed when she scaled back her staff and concentrated her resources on a secret project. No one had a full picture of what it was— each team was kept in isolation of the others— but it involved a satellite, launched right under NASA’s noses on an abandoned Apollo launch site. After that, she fired just about everybody in the organization.