Page 4 of Oceansong
That sentiment changed when she went to Wasilla to work at a marine animal rescue center after high school, followed by Washington for college. Having people around all the time stifled her at first, but she soon began to enjoy meeting new people, especially in bustling Seattle.
Now it was just her and her thoughts, and occasionally, the isolating feeling still jarred her, as it did now.
Her mind stayed focused on the blood red tail shimmering under the sun’s glow. It wasn’t a whale’s tail. Nor a dolphin’s or porpoise’s.
So, what the Hells was it?
It had flickered over the water so quickly, as if the tail’s bearer had come up for a brief glimpse of the world beyond the surface and abruptly changed their mind. The size, color, and shape didn’t belong to any fish native to Alaska.
Angie scratched her head. Scouring through her pre-downloaded e-textbooks turned up nothing.
A hesitant mewing broke the silence, followed by a brush of soft fur against Angie’s shins. “Lulu! I didn’t know you were in here.” Her blackand white cat curled around her ankles and rubbed her cheek on her leg, whiskers tickling her skin.
“Coming out to explore?” Angie leaned down to scratch the fur between her ears. Lulu ducked away from her hand and meowed again, louder this time, and Angie took it as a cue that she was shouting for breakfast. “Okay, okay, coming.”
Lulu scurried toward her food bowl on the opposite end of the sizable home, and Angie’s feet creaked the floorboards to keep pace.
Her cat stared with unblinking sapphire eyes as Angie grabbed a can of dry food from the countertop, taking her time in scooping out the kibble and ignoring Lulu’s attempts at pressuring her.
The bell above their front door jingled, signaling that someone had entered, and she tossed the empty can into the trash.
“Beibei?” Bàba approached, calling her by her childhood name, “precious girl.” Angie walked into the foyer to say hello, in time to see him leave his boots by the door. He slid into his house slippers.
“You were at the docks? I didn’t see you leave.”
“Yes, I was called in at zero five hundred,” Bàba replied.
Angie’s lips pulled into a half smile. Bàba was a retired Chief Petty Officer of the U.S. Navy, and she always thought that though he left the military ten years ago, the military never left him.
He walked across the living room to wash his hands at the kitchen sink with a distant gaze.
Angie knew the look, where he spoke to her but his mind was elsewhere.
“I received some interesting information, and I needed to see for myself.”
“Really?” Angie leaned against the wall, folding her arms.
“Other docks have started shutting down because of the lack of fish. Some of those workers are coming to us, so we’ll have fifty new workers starting tomorrow.”
Angie raised an eyebrow. Bàba was always generous with his time and resources, but–
“How are you going to afford paying fifty new workers’ salaries?”
“Beau and Emily are footing most of their pay.” He referred to Creston’s mayor and his wife. Beau had served with Bàba in the Navy, and the two had remained friends even after they returned to civilian life. “One of the transplants is their son, Luke.” He reached into his pocket. “Second thing, divers and boaters in the area have reported seeing animals appearing to be human from the waist up and fish from the waist down below five hundred feet.” Bàba’s eyebrows came together, his expression thoughtful. “Quickglimpses, nothing more.”
“Are–are you sure?” Angie sputtered, rubbing one eyebrow. “That’s ridiculous.”
Her mind flickered back to Bàba’s stories of old legends passed to him from his parents, and their parents before. Yet without proof that they had existed in the first place, they were nothing more than fishermen’s tales.
There had to be a rational explanation. Maybe they had seen manatees or their cousins, the dugongs.
She also knew they didn’t swim this far north, or at those depths.
“Maybe there are more predators in the area driving the fish away. Or there’s something poisoning them.” If they were dead, the waves would have pushed their floating bodies ashore. Another thought occurred to her. “The tides might be changing, and they’re seeking refuge elsewhere.”
Or, could merfolk be the predators? She pursed her lips. The notion went against every book she read on them and every drawing she’d seen, against her town’s old legends that the fish-folk were kind and patient creatures who healed ailments with their hands and once lived in peace with the sea’s children and humans before their disappearance.
“I didn’t believe it at first, either. Asked them to stop making things up. Merfolk haven’t been seen around here in over three centuries. But they showed me this.” Bàba offered his phone to Angie. A frozen clip displayed on the screen.
