An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant (2 page)

An image
of Zoë, tall and sinewy, wavered to life in front of him. His chest tightened
and memory overlay his view of trumpet fish hovering among tan sea whips as
thick as fingers. Darkness overwhelmed him. He tugged at remembered covers that
clung to his torso and legs, but they only entangled him more tightly. Yanking
at edges, clumps under his back—anything he could grab onto—he kicked out and
then his vision cleared until he saw that a flipper had snagged on some turtle
grass.

He
panted into the snorkel and waited, his heart racing. Behind him, Zoë’s weight
shifted and she coiled her arms around his torso, binding him. John blinked and
the underwater tableau reappeared. Large yellowtail snapper, a bright yellow
stripe racing down their sides to their yellow tails, drifted past. As John
turned to follow, an octopus lunged from nowhere at a yellowtail. Writhing arms
pinned the hapless fish to the ocean floor. In seconds, it was all over. The
octopus injected the yellowtail with poison and stuffed it into its beak.

John
flinched. His heart stuttered and thudded. He kicked away from the violent
death, but a flipper again caught on turtle grass. His arms thrashed. Spears of
sunlight, bubbles, sea grass upended his vision. Then a terrible thing
happened. His lips lost their seal on the breathing tube. Saltwater choked him.
He flung his face above the surface and spit out the tube. Gasped a breath.
Choked and sputtered. Flailed under again, losing the goggles. Struggled out
into sunlight, coughing and sucking at the air. He slipped under; pushed up
again. Missed a breath, slid down. Inhaled more water. Ears ringing, he popped
up a final time. Then he swatted once at the water before slipping under the
surface. The heaviness of saltwater filled his lungs just as two arms grabbed
him from behind and pulled him free of the water. The pressure in his lungs
eased and the pounding in his brain faded to black.

Dizzy
awareness returned to him. He couldn’t focus his eyes. Everything was a blur.
His shoulder and side hurt. His chest spasmed. He coughed weakly, but something
soft and firm wrapped his mouth. He wanted to lift a hand to brush it away, but
his arm refused to move and he coughed again. The pressure on his mouth lifted
and then he retched warm saltwater until nothing came up. He continued to heave
and shake. Someone laid a hand on his back; a gentle vibration spread through
his torso, soothing his retching.

The hand
remained while he breathed. The dizziness subsided gradually. He had no idea
how much time had passed and cared only for the implacable ground beneath him,
the concerned fingers on his back. When he felt that he could move without
causing the world to spin, he rolled to see his rescuer. The hand dropped away
and he felt bereft. His eyes, still clouded by saltwater, refused to focus on
her face. He had an impression of luminous skin, and two bare breasts peeking
through a curtain of dark hair.

“Thank
you.” The words croaked from his ravaged throat. Then he passed out again.

***

John’s
savior sat some minutes, watching him. Then she leaned forward and pressed
several fingertips to his neck, feeling for his pulse. It was there, strong and
steady. She let her hand slide along the skin of his jaw, brushing the hair
away from his cheek. She put a light fingertip on his mouth, now a warm red.
Her lips tingled and she leaned her face closer—perhaps she could press her
lips there again? He moaned and rolled his head against the stones. The mermaid
snatched her hand back and waited, her breath held, but he didn’t move again.
She didn’t touch him a second time; instead, she caressed the hard muscles of
his calves with her gaze. She looked away from his feet though. One still wore
one of those pseudo-flippers that always made her shiver.

She had,
of course, seen countless humans before—snorkeling and diving, on shore and on
deck. But she’d never
touched
one before, never felt the dry skin that
prickled with fine hairs. This man overwhelmed her. Already the sun had
evaporated most of the water on his chest, which was covered with dark hair.
Not like a merman, smooth and sleek and slender. His chest, shoulders, and hips
were wider and his frame bulkier. His flesh was a different color, too. He was
pale but not shark-belly pale like the
mer
people. His skin held warmth,
the warmth of sun-bleached wood. Only his long dark hair resembled a merman’s.
Her nostrils flared at his scent. She had no words to describe it other than
hot and dry, but she used those words for the shore and he didn’t smell like
the shore. He smelled like the wind from distant lands.

A voice,
sandy and familiar, abraded her thoughts. “What have you done, young one?”

The
mermaid looked up to see an ancient woman as gnarled and twisted as the roots
of the trees that grew at the shore’s edge. The woman picked her way across the
stones toward the place where the mermaid sat. She stopped a few feet away.
Freeing her bag, which the mermaid had always seen at her waist, the old woman
rummaged around for a few moments before withdrawing something. Then she came
forward and nudged John with her foot. He didn’t stir.

“Pulled
him out of the water, did you? Cough up all the water he breathed in?” The
mermaid nodded. “And his heart’s beat is still strong?” The mermaid nodded
again. “He’ll live then.”

She bent
and tugged the flipper from the man’s foot. When it came off, the mermaid let a
sharp sound escape her.

The
ancient one laughed, a sound like dry stones shifting. “You think he’s strange?
No wonder you find him so interesting, girl.” She smiled. It spread like seal
oil on water. “I can help him, if you’d like.” She paused and waited. The
mermaid stole a glance at the man and nodded. “This herb tincture will rouse
him. I’ll see to it that he’s recovered his senses and can walk. You’d best get
going. I’ll tell him I found him here.”

The
mermaid nodded again. After one more look at the unconscious man, she propelled
herself backward with her hands, her tail lifted slightly above the stones.
Once she was in the water, she paused, her gaze taking in the wide stance of
the ancient woman, who stood over the stranger as though he were
her
bounty from the waters. Was this all there was to saving a man’s life?

Before
she could lower herself underwater and speed away, the old woman called to her.

“Oh,
yes, young one, I need some turtle grass, and a sea cucumber. And one of those
pink sea urchins, you know the ones.”

There
was nothing of the usual promise of a human artifact or any stories about the
human world on this island. The mermaid nodded. It was the old woman’s price
for keeping her secret.

***

When
John regained consciousness, he found a wizened old woman hunched over him
holding what looked like a mini-bar liquor bottle. But its rank liquid was no
whiskey that he’d ever smelled. Upon seeing her wild, white hair and a burning
right eye in a face like a walnut, he sat up quickly. She chortled and hunkered
down, her ragged skirt splayed across her bony knees.

“So, you
don’t like the smell? Strong it is. Just be glad you aren’t dead, then, and can
smell it.” Her voice crackled. Her accent was odd, not like the locals.

John
shook his head, trying to clear the confusion that still hung over his
thoughts. “Who …?”

The old
woman just sat there and looked at him. He cleared his throat and began again.

“Who
pulled me from the water?”

“You
were pulled from the water?”

“Yes.” A
cough interrupted him. “Almost drowned.”

“What’d
he look like?”

He
shifted his position on the rocky shore, bracing himself and pushing his hair
out of his eyes. “Not he, she.”

“She? Then
you did see her?” The woman’s voice was sharp.

“No.” He
shook his head. “Not really.”

The old
woman at first said nothing; instead, she wrapped the top of the bottle with a
bit of cloth and then tied that with a bit of string. She dropped this bottle into
a bag that lay on the rocks behind her before turning to face him again.

Finally,
she spoke. “You were lying on the beach. You were breathing; you weren’t dead.
That’s when I put my tincture under your nose.”

John
recalled the foul odor of the tincture, grateful that she hadn’t poured it down
his throat. “Thanks.”

“It’s
little enough I did.” She shrugged. “If you want a doctor, there’s one in the
pueblo
,
across the plaza from the dock. But you’re all right.”

Without
waiting for him to agree, she picked up her bag and slung it over her shoulder.
She headed toward the east and the low-growing shrubs there. Not sure what he
should do or say next, John sat watching her go. As she reached the edge of the
rocks, the old woman turned for a parting shot.

“You
should thank God for your life.” She raised her chin toward the water of the
canal and continued, “The ocean is as lethal as it’s lovely. You’d do well to
remember.”

She
disappeared into the shrubs and darkening shadows, going who knew where. John,
feeling chastised, sat for a long moment before studying the rocks near where
he’d been lying. There was nothing to show how he’d gotten ashore, no
footprints, no drag marks. No way of knowing where his rescuer had come from or
gone to. Why hadn’t she stayed around?

John leveraged himself
to his feet before shaking gripped him. He sat down
again, hard, on the stony shore. His heart seized up and he flushed hot and
cold before it resumed beating. Turning to look at the canal, he thought that
he saw his snorkel floating north but the fractured sunlight dazzled him and he
couldn’t be sure. His second flipper and mask had disappeared into the
deceptive water. The shaking intensified. He’d almost lost his life in an
out-of-the-way corner of the Caribbean. The silence of the empty shore
confirmed how fantastic his rescue had been.

Maybe
his rescuer was still close. The thought impelled him to his feet and a mad,
yet fruitless, search of the scrub around the shore. Whatever girl? woman?
superwoman? had pulled him to safety must have hightailed it along the path
back to Carlos Rosario. Or maybe there was access from the nearby Tamarindo
Estates. Zoë would have stood over him, hands on hips and smirk on lips, until
he’d stumbled upright with his head hanging. Frustration filled him, drowning
his shock. He couldn’t remember what she looked like. A bleary memory of long,
wet hair that could have been any color swam across his mind’s eye, panning out
into a clearer image of breasts, small and strangely vulnerable. If ever he saw
those breasts again, he’d recognize his rescuer—and cover her up. Given that he
wasn’t likely to see any other breasts than Zoë’s for the foreseeable future,
his frustration magnified ten-fold.

A
nagging bladder drew him from his predicament and the mundane act of pissing
behind a tree brought him back to himself. He felt as empty as the stony
shoreline, as blank as the impervious waves, drained and hollow from his
struggle. He couldn’t stand here all day, longing for an ephemeral sprite to reappear
and finish saving him. Maybe he wanted some magical creature to enter his life
so badly that he half-believed that she had, but nothing had changed from the
time he’d gone under to the time he’d awakened on shore: the sun would still
set tonight on dreamless sleep and tomorrow it would rise on unfulfilled
fantasies.

He
looked around, trying to get his bearings. Directly opposite him rose the
jagged outlines of a cay. He’d have to take the path back north toward Carlos
Rosario where he’d left his gear. There was no way he was getting back into the
water. He’d gone only a couple of feet along the path when a prickling
sensation along his spine caused him to stop. Yet when he looked behind him, he
saw nothing but the regular lapping of water on stone. No one watched him.

By the
time he returned to the Playa Flamenco campground, his frustration and
emptiness had bottomed out into resignation. He was accustomed to the hilly
terrain of Pittsburgh but had no stamina for Culebra’s dry heat or the uneven
trail. His head hurt and his throat had constricted around a layer of dust.
He’d earned a sunburn from going so long without a t-shirt. All he wanted now
was air conditioning, low lights, and a cold drink. A shower was out of the
question. He wouldn’t get one of those until Zoë arrived in two weeks and they
stayed at Tamarindo Estates.

Against
all expectation, there weren’t any places to retreat to near here, not even a
stand to buy a bottle of water or a soda. He’d known that Culebra was
undeveloped, a “hidden jewel in the Caribbean,” but why hadn’t someone set up
at least one thatched-roof shack with an ice tub filled with drinks and a
hot-dog steamer? No wonder all those people on the ferry had lugged those huge
coolers with them. One of the world’s ten best beaches and you were on your
own. He’d hiked into wildernesses with more civilization.

He
consulted the island map that he’d gotten at the dive shop. The closest
restaurant outside Dewey was at Tamarindo Estates, but it only opened on the
weekend for lunch and dinner. He suspected that it was what passed for nice on
Culebra. He didn’t want to wait two hours while covered in trail dust to order
a beer there. Tamarindo Estates
was
the only place near where he’d
almost drowned, but he couldn’t be sure that his rescuer had any connection to
it. And really, what would he say? Any of your guests like to swim topless in
the canal?