Page 29 of Oceansong
She waved weakly.
“Whatcha doing down there? Little late to be wandering around by yourself, isn’t it?” He grinned like he knew something she didn’t, making the mole on the upper right corner of his lip more prominent.
She didn’t recognize him. He looked young and bright-eyed, and must be a new hire.
Frantic, invisible hands racked through Angie’s mind. “I’m sweeping the area before I head home.”
“Oh, okay. Me too.” He laughed. “Hey, you be careful if you see any of those crazy fish!”
“Yup, got my trusty Glock.” Angie patted her side pocket hard, making a point to him. Her hand met with her filled holster, her palm molding around the comforting lump.
He walked away, disappearing into the distance. A minute later, it hit her. He had asked why she was hanging around so late, but she never thought to ask him why he was still around by himself, when everyone else had gone home. She made a mental note to ask if she saw him again.
Angie walked down the shoreline, watching out of her peripheral vision for mer in the vicinity. Her vision closed in on a set of footprints, looking to have been made with boots larger than hers. Someone, perhaps a dock worker had been here recently. Maybe they were still nearby.
“Kaden.” She got to one knee. She kept her pitch low, hoping he alone heard her and not anyone else. As she expected, no answer. Her lips thinned. She called his name again, louder. Nothing, not even a ripple of water to acknowledge her. He had five minutes, and if he wasn’t here by then, she was leaving.
Five minutes passed. Still no merman, but as she walked away, a bottle jumped from the water and rolled across the wood planks, stopping when it touched her feet. “Of course. More trash washing up.”
Grumbling to herself, she picked up the bottle and turned back toward the docks to drop it in their single recycling bin. While walking, she turned it over in her palm. A hastily scrawled “A” on a rolled-up sheet of viridian algae inside gave her pause.
“Message in a bottle. Cute.”
She slid the algae sheet out into her hand, a thick sheet of kombu kelp. Perplexed, she found scratches on it, appearing to form a pattern. She looked closer.
A simple message.
Follow where the currents shift westward.
Angie pursed her lips. She pulled out her phone to check the Maps app compass, and followed where it pointed west.
She found Kaden a three-minute walk away, waving to her and sitting in between two gray boulders. A wave rose behind him and crashed into the rocks, creating a liquid fan capped with snowy seafoam.
“Sorry to have you come all the way down here,” he said as soon as she was within earshot. “Humans found our meeting spot, and it was too dangerous for me. Especially after I saw—” Kaden visibly swallowed, an air of panic clutching at him.
“I figured.” Angie waved the kelp-directions at him. “The bottle was a little cryptic. It was about to go right into a recycling bin.”
Kaden’s lips quirked into an amused smile. “Pray tell, Angie, how I would have made it more obvious without sticking my head out of the water and screaming your name? I threw a bottle at your feet. Is that not obvious enough?”
“All right, whatever.” Angie raised her hands in surrender. She wanted to get to the point, not linger around and give someone a chance to see them. “I get it. I know there are other people around.” Also, she was sure it didn’t help to see three of his people impaled.
“I saw what your people did to mine.” His nostrils flared, and his eyebrows drew together, his jaw tightening. His gaze pointed where the dead mer hung, fingers curling tight around the rock he sat on. His countenance flickered to reflect some hidden rage mounting inside him. By instinct, Angie took a step backward, keeping him in her sight.
His fingers relaxed and his expression collapsed, lips falling into a frown.
“I’m sorry you had to see that.” A sorrowful note spiked her words.
After all, she couldn’t forget the sensation of fear and despondency when she saw Luke, and she hadn’t been forced to see his decaying corpse each time she came to the seaboard.
“I am too.” Kaden’s chest heaved with heavy breaths, as if something in the air affected his respirations. “They were old friends of my family.” He let out a quiet cough and bowed his head. “But you’re not here to hear me lament.”
“I wasn’t, but I feel awful that happened.” Angie found herself at a loss for words. “That is horrible.”
The bottom third of his tail emerged from the water and curled at the end, caudal fins draping like an upside-down fan. “Agreed. But I know we agreed to meet for another reason. I spoke with my family of your proposal, to release the fish back into the seas to feed your people. See if we couldcome to an agreement. They would not hear it.”
Angie’s next breath caught in her throat, her eyes feeling as if they were popping out of their sockets. “They wouldn’t listen at all?”
“I tried to convince them to see my side.” His voice became more strained with each word, and she crept closer to hear him clearly. “They said it’s too late. Your people keep killing ours, and now mocking us with that tragedy at the shoreline. They refused to keep talking about it and said landwalkers brought it on themselves.”
