Page 10 of The Lighthouse Keeper and the Mermaid
So now all she had to face was the haunting ghosts that lived in her memories.
She circled her small rocky island and forced herself to face her discomfort and look out to the sea in search for bodies. The island sat some twenty-plus feet above the water level, giving her a good view out over the distant shore.
She saw nothing at first. Nothing. As if ten men hadn’t lost their lives just some hours ago. As if the sea had not become their murderer. Andtheir grave.
But nature was even crueler than killers. Unlike them, it wouldn’t remember these men—or her—at all. No matter how much time she spent with it or how often she spoke to it or sang to its waves, it would forget her the moment she was gone. And it wouldn’t even miss her. What a faithless friend.
So why had it saved her?
She believed in God as much as any man should, but still, she reckoned it had to be the sea, not angels or the Lord’s own hand that had saved her. Somehow she must have drifted to shore…all the while keeping her head above those fifteen-foot waves and timing her breath just so when they pummeled her?
No. It didn’t make sense. Maybe it was angels.
She froze. There was something in the water. Something light. Something about the length of a human. It was under the water maybe a foot—which really made all too much sense considering she expected only bodies—and it was moving. Moving? Yes, somehow, it seemed to be moving steadily southward, faster than a current would usually take it.
She couldn’t think of any animal that dragged its prey like that, especially dead prey. But she couldn’t think of any other reason either.
She found herself heading to her father’s boat without any real knowledge of why. Yes, it was headingtowardthe lighthouse, and given its speed and how fast she could row, she was sure she could intercept it, but did shewantto intercept such a beast? If it really was something dragging human prey, she hardly wanted to be nearby lest her freshness tempt it otherwise.
But she was already rowing.What could it be?she wondered. She hadn’t seen anything like it, not in the twenty-three years she’d been staring at the sea. She couldn’t just let it go.
So doing what she was sure the clerk had warned her about this very morning—acting recklessly—she paddled harder. Maybe it was dumb. Hell, maybe the fishers were right andshewas, but she had to know, and if the best scenario was that she’d find a body, well, so be it. Though she didn’t relish the idea of touching a dead man, she was sure his family would be thankful he wouldn’t become fish food.
But once she had paddled out to where she thought she should be to intercept, she saw absolutely nothing. Even standing on the wooden beam of the seat, she saw nothing odd in these waters at all, nothing human shaped, nothing white.
Sighing, she sat down. Had she imagined it? Unlikely. She had hit her head certainly, but she wasn’t crazy—or at least not crazier thannormal. She had seensomething, but if it was some sort of animal, she supposed it wasn’t surprising that her boat and her rowing had scared it away.
Sighing harder, she looked back to the lighthouse and was swept away with a wave of melancholy. It wasn’t far—maybe a quarter mile or so—but it looked small while the ocean hadn’t changed its size at all. No, the ocean was looming, endless, overwhelming, like it would swallow her without needing to chew, like it could break her without needing to even move.
She had never felt this way before. She’d always known its expansiveness—it was one of the things she loved about the sea for she had loved how it showed the world was full of limitless possibilities and discoveries—but it had never made her subsequently feel small. Not before. But now it did. Now she felt like a turtle facing down a lion—or perhaps a dragon—and she was sure to lose.
She let out a bitter laugh. How ridiculous, to let one night sway her so. It was still the same ocean. She was still the same girl. Nothing should have changed.
How funny that should have’s so rarely happened.
She leaned over the edge to stare into the water—she refused to be afraid of the only thing that gave her comfort—and gasped so hard she stumbled backward. There was a face—a ghostlike face with white, nearly translucent hair. It hovered an inch below the surface like a spirit trapped in a mirror longing to be free. Her mind told her she had seen it last night, and then like a flash she remembered red eyes staring back at her seconds before the darkness hit.
She didn’t have long to remember nor had her luck seemed to improve for in her recoil, she staggered back, her foot caught something, her weight flung her sideways, the boat tipped, and once again, she was unwillingly in her beloved sea.
CHAPTER 6
Daria did her best not to gasp, not at the sting of the coolness of the water, not at the fear clutching her throat and chest at the thought that she was nowinthe water with whatever that thing was, not at falling headfirst into the depths. Her mind tried to reassure her that she had been in the water with it before, but there had been far more bodies for it to feast on then.
She opened her eyes, trying her best to will her heart to be calm. She saw sunlight. She just had to right herself and swim for it.
Something was around her waist. She couldn’t help it; she gasped a scream that exploded almost silently in air bubbles. Those bubbles ran, darting up to the surface, abandoning her alone with whatever this thing was as they fled to the sunlight, the traitorous cowards.
It had wrapped itself around her torso and she kicked back, shocked to hit something firm and coarse there too. How big was this thing? And why did it feel like…arms around her?
No, she didn’t have time to think of that. Her lungs were already burning from losing all that air. She had maybe ten seconds to get away or she would surely die. But what were the chances she could outswim this thing even if she could get free?
She shoved the thought away. Now was not the time. She squirmed violently, with all the strength she had, but its arms were fast, holding her like lead, and each move made her lungs scream for oxygen.
They exploded to the surface.
The surface?
Her body was smarter than her mind. It gasped a breath whileshe languished in confusion.
