Page 6 of Oceansong
“Mermaids, huh?” Stefan snorted.
“Right? But my bàba wants to see if the footage is real. I kind of do, too.” Angie swung her pressure gauge and inflator hose over one shoulder. “Either way, maybe we’ll see what in the Hells kind of creatures were on those videos. Or where the fish are going. I mean, the fish that we actually eat.”
“What do you mean?” Stefan stopped in his tracks. “Only the fish we eat are going missing? Others aren’t?”
“I came in earlier today to look at the reports from the last month, try to find a pattern of what kinds of fish we were getting and how many.” She set her jaw. Their catches normally had an abundance of safe, sustainable king salmon, rainbow trout, and pollock, but lately— “We had a shit ton of bluefin tuna and rockfish, much more than usual.” Fish that her village tended to avoid.
“The mercury-drenched, prickly stuff that nobody around here really wants to buy.” Stefan finished for her.
“Maybe we’ll see if mermaids are really doing this.” The wordmermaidhitched and broke as Angie spoke.
It still didn’t seem real to her that they were actually doing this.
“Alright. On the off-chance we find them, I want to tell Ken I saw them first. I’d like to know where the fish are, too,” Stefan remarked. “But fish matters aside, it’s good to see you. Been a minute since you’ve come out with us.”
She gave him a tight smile. He didn’t need to know that losing Mama was the reason she stopped diving.
The captain cupped his hands around his mouth, amplifying his voice so Angie, who was in the back of the group, heard it loud and clear. “All aboard! Let’s go!”
Holding her flippers steady, she followed the group onto the boat.
“You still diving out here on the reg?” Angie performed a final check, ensuring her dive computer was functional and felt for her flashlight resting snug in her upper pocket. Relief draped over her, and she relaxed against the boat’s bench, knowing everything was in place.
“Ken and I try to get out here every few weeks. I have to say, I’ve dived a lot of places, but I haven’t found anywhere as satisfying as here. We can’t get enough.” Stefan kept his eyes on the horizon, where the water linekissed the sky.
“Hubby’s at the dive shop?”
“He agreed to run the place today so I could come out. He’s trying to close on time. We have the grandkids and Ken’s entire family is here.” Angie caught the smallest of eye rolls from Stefan, even if his soft smile remained. “They came all the way from the Philippines, so we’d feel terrible if we didn’t entertain them every hour.”
The two chatted until the boat hit a bump in the water. Angie yelped in surprise and threw her hands forward on instinct even though there was nothing to stabilize herself with. She dug her feet into the deck so she wouldn’t topple over.
Had they hit a rock? Was the boat damaged, and their search was going to be over before beginning?
The other divers settled back into their seats and chattered amongst themselves, their nervousness palpable.
Angie looked around. No rock to be found.
Yet the seawater rippled with angry waves. A strong wind gust barreled through and walloped her face.
“Hey! What’s that?” Stefan pointed to the water. The other divers crowded around them.
A dark streak of scales appeared with two flowing, transparent caudal fins. The boat rocked again, a violent wave smacking the hull, and Angie clung to the sides to keep her balance.
The waters calmed once the tail vanished from sight.
Angie drew her head back, covering her mouth with her palm. The other divers chatted in low murmurs. She sat, resting her hands on her lap and took a deep breath so she wouldn’t still be anxious when she started diving and burn through her oxygen too fast. The bumpiness and waves appeared when the—merman? Mermaid? Some other strange creature? —appeared, and calmed when it disappeared. As if it carried the turbulent waters on its back.
She’d never heard of such a phenomenon. The sun and moon controlled the tides. Not sea creatures. Curiosity and bewilderment rose.
The boat slowed to a stop, and the captain killed the engine. Standing, the divers donned their tanks and congregated at the side of the boat.
“Guess if that was a mermaid, here’s our chance to find out,” Stefan muttered from beside her.
Here we go.
At the divemaster’s signal, they rolled backward and tumbled into the icy sea. Angie cracked the surface with a loud splash, screwing her eyesshut as icy hands surrounded her head and neck, squeezing with brute force.
The ocean was an icebox surrounding her for the next several minutes, until her body acclimated to the deep freeze.
