Page 12 of Odder Still
Very funny, I reply.There’s no humor in the thought, only a fierce determination that drives my arms to pump faster.
The parasite replies with the same bitter laugh I’ve given on many occasions. Then, its warmth spreads. It feels like a single spark in a frozen pond, but little by little the heat runs through me, settling the shivers. Slowly, my arms feel real again, my skin a living thing instead of a quake of rubber and ice. The memory returns, this time with the leeches squashed and the jaguar whining on the front porch as it gives me sore looks.‘Athank youwould be nice.’
That was the least you could have done, I shoot back. It feels odd, my voice arguing back and forth in my head, my past and my present out of alignment. But the parasite isn’t me. It’s a thing that eats through my very being, taking away what little of me I have the energy to be. Perhaps it feels my resentment, because while its heat lingers, its presence recoils. I keep swimming.
Tavish slows for me, Sheona’s smaller, darker form circling dizzyingly around him. Her knife belt still hangs around her shoulders, perhaps for the practicality of having it when she transforms back, or—a funnier thought—because she’s trained herself to use it with her seal mouth. Below us, dull grey-and-brown fish flitter through mounded rocks and fields of sea grass. A gaunt mer-person with grey skin and flippers at the ends of two nearly human legs works their way along the sand, poking at empty shells and lunging after flatfish. They hide behind a boulder as we pass, tucking tightly out of view.
As the seafloor drops farther down, the horizon seems to stretch on forever, all-consuming, shifting the concept of distance until everything is either here or there, but never in between. Something akin to an undersea bus tuts southward on sets of propellers. A blur of color near the surface passes our horizon. It reappears in front of us, and when I look behind a few minutes later, I catch it again. The orca from the poachers’ nets. It follows at a respectable distance, circling so far off it barely registers.
After nearly an hour, we reach a glowing metropolis, so bright and beautiful it masks the grey of the distant sky. It winds through the water, window-lined chambers connected by gilded towers and tunnels that arch and dip, creating a many-story labyrinth of airtight buildings with channels of seawater woven through it all. As we swim between the buildings, I catch sight of little ocean courtyards where platformed rock formations teem with pastel coral and darting fish. Dolphins twirl in pods through the city’s majestic tunnels, and sharks dart from cavernous crevasses between their metal supports. A few seals with rainbow-lit brooches rush by us, chasing each other toward the surface, and another submersible rises slowly through a large gap in the city’s center that seems cut out just for that purpose, but otherwise the waterways remain clear of all but the congregated sea life and pristine ornamentation.
Tavish was right: Maraheem truly is the jewel of the sea.
As we swim deeper through the city’s waterways, though, I spot a new set of buildings below us: hulking, windowless things of green-tinged metal, where the channels look like maintenance shafts instead of decorative courtyards. Sheona stops us just before we reach this lower, internal section of the city and veers us toward a room hanging off the side of one of the larger buildings. We enter a compartment so tight that I brush against Tavish as the door closes behind us. Slowly, the water drains away.
I cough out Sheona’s breather. Circulating air greets me: mildly cool, mildly fresh, and mildly smelling of salt. My soaked shirt and pants stick to my skin. Water seeps out of my boots and into the porous mat beneath us. The opposite wall pulls back, revealing more matted flooring that stretches down a hall with a dozen small changing rooms and a row of curtained showers. At the far end sits some kind of reception desk, then a doorway.
The receptionist glances up from his book. “Right on time, Mr. Findlay. I have your clothes in room two already, and Sheona’s in three. And for you, sir—rrr.” He blinks from beneath his mess of auburn bangs and wrinkles his wide, freckled nose. His gaze bounces between my dark skin and the ignation-fueled device in my hands. “Aye, um, ID card confirmation? You have an ID card?”
While he fumbles through whatever protocol this is, Sheona has already dove whiskers-first into her changing room, her human voice shouting out a moment later, “No ID yet, but he’s with us, unfortunately. Leave him off the books for now.”
The receptionist swallows uncomfortably, but he doesn’t protest.
Sheona reappears in a black outfit identical to her old one, scowling as she tosses me a plush towel. I pat my hair, turning it from drenched to soggy. I’m nearly finished doing the same to my clothes when Tavish emerges from his changing room, still buttoning his silver suit jacket, his wet curls askew.
He taps his cane to the floor—a new one, with a deep-blue and black color scheme—and calls for me. “Come now, Rubem, wouldn’t want you to get lost in this great big city.”
He says it bright and relaxed, but it still hits my lingering fears. I tug my once more wet scarf a little tighter around the parasite. “Lead on.”
Tavish heads for the exit. My blood curdles as I catch up to him, because each step I take makes my feet slide soundlessly within my boots. I try setting down my toes first, try rolling forward from my heels, try moving slower or faster. Nothing helps with the sickly feeling, nor the complete silence of it. I’m about to grimace right out of my skin when Tavish pushes the door open.
City sounds rush in: the rumble of chatter, the hum and beep and hiss of machinery, children crying and adults shouting. In the wide room before us stretches a systematic checkpoint. To the right, a gleaming sign with the wordsupper citycrowns a series of majestic, golden archways, while the stout brass ones to the left havelower citywritten in worn, green paint.
Very few people leave the upper city, but lines of tired workers wait to enter it. They wear a variety of grey uniforms, some I can pinpoint as cooks or maids, and others too vague to determine. As the workers reach the upper-city archway at the front of their line, they unlatch their brooches, handing them over to be scanned by a machine with ignation running through the tiny tubes in its sides. Tavish leads me to the empty arch beside them, where a queue for upper-city residents would be. The guard on duty straightens as we approach, fidgeting with the bold letters pinned to her grey uniform: aBand anA. She’s another redhead with freckles.
The rest of the room’s inhabitants bear a range of orange, red, auburn, and strawberry locks mixed in with a few who’ve gone grey, and freckles cover all the skin I can see. Features and heights seem to differ among them, the typical slightly knobby northern look giving way to a variety of other traits, but always the freckles and red hair remain.Genetics, Tavish had said. It’s clear what human genetics the seal-shifting bloodlines are attached to.
Tavish doesn’t bother drawing out any kind of identification. He taps his cane against the guard’s boots. “Oi, burd, you sleeping on the job again?” His teasing tone matches the softness of his expression.
She clasps her hands behind her back, her chest puffed out. “Never, sir.”
Tavish laughs. He leans in. “My friend here doesn’t have a visa, but I’ll watch out for him.”
Her lips bunch together. “Boss isn’t gonna like that.”
“Does your boss bring scones every Tuesday?”
“We ken you’re only taking them to those medical center meetings,” she grumbles, but a hint of red colors her cheeks as she waves Tavish through. “Still gotta run him some basic paperwork, though.”
Now it’s Tavish’s turn to grumble, but the corners of his lips quirk. “Quickly, then, get on with it! I’m going to grab us coffees from up the lane. Sheona, be nice to them both.”
He waves as he passes through the archway.
The checkpoint guard leads me across the room, back to the lower entrance, where she pulls out forms from a rack behind one of the queues and starts filling them out, skipping more of the spaces than she actually writes in and bouncing me questions I answer as vaguely as possible. I keep my gaze on the entrance to the upper, so I spot Tavish when he rounds the corner beyond the gates, three mugs held precariously in one hand.
He barely makes it into view before a flurry of movement from the upper city cuts him short. The lights fade and flare. An alarm sounds in the gate’s central chamber, echoed by other bells throughout the city, each a searing siren that panics the civilians and sets the guards on high alert. Five of them draw out sticks that spark with electricity, and usher people back to the lower city. The rest set to work on metal gates, sliding them down to cover the archways to the upper. They gleam, snapping shut one after another. The lights fade and flare again.
In the chaos, Sheona seems to forget everything but Tavish. She sprints across the room, darting past guards and through one of the last open archways to the upper districts.
