An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant (23 page)

“I
entered his mind like a thief and pried my fingers into his wound. He groaned,
a horrible sound like the rending of wood in fierce water, and his eyes
fluttered. I kept poking until I found it.

“Couldn’t
tell what it was, just that it was very hard and warm—and sharp. It moved a
little as I prodded but didn’t come loose. It reached deep into his shoulder. I
was so absorbed I forgot your father and kept jiggling it back and forth to
dislodge it. While I was busy, he groaned again and then his pain stung me.

“‘Do you
seek to kill me, you who are chosen as healer?’ he asked.

“‘If I
did, oh
dragos
, first and foremost among
mer
, I would’ve left you
to die where I found you,’ I answered.

“I
ignored his rigid body and harsh breathing because I sensed he was going to
slip away from me. I tightened my grip on his mind instead.

“
Come
here
, I ordered using
mer
speech.

“He
fought me. I kept my wits and drew upon the power of the water. He didn’t fight
long before I found myself looking through his eyes as well as my own. Pain
rolled over me. I vomited and almost let go, but I expected this. Focused on
breathing to shut off awareness of that part of his mind. In, out, in, out, in,
out—until I felt nothing else.

“I threw
a glamour around us and pushed against the power of the cay. Mother Sea pulled
us down quicker than I expected, and saltwater slapped us hard. It stung your
father’s wound. I struggled to master both of us. Then, slowly, we moved around
Luís Peña and on to Playa Tamarindo. It was excruciating, but I kept breathing
and continued to draw strength from Mother Sea.

“We
reached Playa Tamarindo finally. I was nearly beyond my limit. Got your father
behind some scrub before I had to let his mind go. Got enough energy back to
throw a glamour on him while I was gone. I reached home, clumsy and slow, dizzy
and sick to my stomach, but I managed to find my book. Then I filled my pouch
with a small knife, a candle and matches, some seaweed and a needle, and
tamarind paste.

“I
stumbled back. He was still unconscious and so pale he might have been bleached
coral. The blood on his shoulder had congealed into a sticky black mass. I sank
down on my knees and dumped my pouch out onto the rocks next to him. My fingers
trembled as I lit the candle. Then I held the knife blade in the flame until it
glowed. I let it cool a little before I started probing the wound with its tip.
Your father didn’t stir or make a sound. Scared me more than anything else. I
decided to slice the wound a little deeper and probe some more. This time the
object moved! Got the blade’s point under it and managed to pry it up. It was
the broken tip of a harpoon.

“Know
what a harpoon looks like?” She didn’t give the stunned mermaid a chance to
respond. “I didn’t spend too much time looking at it. I dropped it and heated
the end of my needle. Then I threaded some seaweed into it and sewed the wound
closed. It bled again, making my fingers sticky and the work hard, but I
pressed the heel of my hand against your father’s shoulder until he stopped
bleeding. I washed the wound, spread some of the tamarind paste over the
stitches, and wrapped some clean rags over it.

“After
that, I collapsed. We must’ve lain there for most of a day and no human found
us, thank the Creator. When I woke, I saw your father was also awake. He was in
great pain, but he didn’t have a fever. That’s when he told me what happened to
your mother.”

Here Ana
reached out and took Tamarind’s hand. Its clammy skin was firm and smooth
against her veined and wrinkled one. She ignored the spark of sympathy it
engendered and her voice grew gruffer. Time for the climax of her story.

“Your
mother was swimming alone near the cay the humans call Cayo Lobo, away from
Culebra and towards the Hidden Caves. She saw a boat there, and not having any
shred of sense, swam up to it. Your father had asked your eldest sister to keep
watch over her, so as soon as your sister saw what your mother was doing, she
called for him. He wasn’t close by because he thought the outer cays safe
enough. Didn’t know anything about drug runners.”

“Drug
runners?”

“Men who
sneak around with pills and powders and herbs outlawed by some humans because
they’re so powerful and dangerous, for the mind and the body. Drug runners are
nothing more than bottom feeders—violent and mad. They saw your mother and
dragged her out of the water, probably thinking she was spying on them. When
they saw her tail, they dropped her back into the water and started throwing
things off the boat at her but she didn’t leave. Your father got there just as
one of the drug runners picked up a harpoon. He grabbed your mother and dove
underwater, swimming as fast as he could with her to Luís Peña. When he came
up, he realized two things: the harpoon had caught him as he dove and your
mother was dead. She had a large black hole in her cheek, but he didn’t know
how or when it got there.”

Tamarind
pulled her hand from Ana’s grasp, leaned over her legs and dropped her face
into the tent of her hands. She didn’t move or say anything as Ana finished her
story.

“Your
father hid on Playa Tamarindo until he got strong enough to swim back to a
hidden cove on the far side of Luís Peña where your mother’s body lay. He took
her to an underwater cave far east of Culebra and entombed her on a ledge under
piles of sea rocks and bits of coral. I hadn’t wanted him to swim so far so
soon, but I didn’t bother saying anything to him. He came to see me only once
afterwards so I could check the scar on his shoulder. I gave him an infusion to
help him heal faster and get his strength back.

“I
haven’t seen or spoken to him since.”

***

At the
bottom of the service road to Tamarindo Estates, John slowed the Samurai and
stopped, his foot resting on the brake while he looked up the hill through the
dusty windshield. Finding Tamarind in the tangle of thorn acacia, stunted
tamarind trees, and cactuses posed no real difficulty, but still he hesitated.
For the first time since he’d found an apartment in San Juan and traveled back
to Culebra for long weekends, Tamarind had not waited for him at the ferry dock
when he arrived. He drove on to Posada La Diosa where Valerie sat in her
kitchen sipping lemonade and crafting wire jewelry for sale at The Mermaid’s
Purse. Since he’d left for San Juan, Tamarind sometimes hung out talking with
Valerie and learned how to shape and twist wire into jewelry from her. She’d
created some unique pieces after only a few lessons that Valerie sold for her
in San Juan and as far away as New York, and Valerie helped her spend the money
on clothes and hair accessories. Valerie had only the neighborhood stray cat
with her today, however.

“Seen
Tamarind?”

“Nope.
Come to think of it, I haven’t seen her all week.”

“Huh.”
John set his backpack and travel bag down on the floor next to the table. “It’s
not like her to miss the ferry.”

“Maybe
she’s tired of waiting for you, John.” Valerie clipped the end off of a piece
of wire and looked up at him.

John
refused to meet her eyes. Instead, he walked to the cabinet where Valerie kept
drinking glasses and took one out. He poured some lemonade and sat down.

“That’s
pretty cool.” He pointed to the piece she worked on. “What is it? A pregnant
woman?”

Valerie
slipped a long strand of her graying-blond hair behind a delicate ear and
picked up her lemonade, which she sipped. “Well, yes, she is. But not just any
pregnant woman, John. She’s the Goddess, the Divine Mother, that many cultures
worshipped before the Judeo-Christian patriarchy tried to eradicate Her. She’s
always shown with a large belly and breasts because She symbolizes fertility,
of the mind and spirit as well as the body.”

“Does
something like that sell well?”

“Oh, I can’t
make Her fast enough for the two shops I supply in New York. Chuck’s always
telling me I have to return and open my own shop, but I told him he doesn’t get
it. I need to be here on Culebra to channel the Goddess. In New York, I only
channel lots of cappuccinos while running from meeting to stressful meeting.”

“You
don’t ever look like you get stressed.”

“Oh,
don’t let my serene appearance fool you. I spent a dozen years as an aggressive
media buyer in New York. I
lived
on stress until I realized it was
making me sick.”

“Is
Chuck still moving here in September?”

Valerie
sighed and shrugged. “Apparently, he hasn’t quite topped off his retirement
funds as he’d like. I keep telling him that he won’t want much once he gets
here, but he’s not ready to give up the game yet. Whatever. I’m not going
anywhere.”

She set
her lemonade down and returned to the Goddess figure.  “I did see Ana, the old
woman who sells herbal remedies in town, a couple of days ago. I showed her one
of the pieces of jewelry that Tamarind made and she knew somehow that I hadn’t
made it. She got very excited and practically gave me some of her most
expensive remedies to buy it. When I asked her if she knew Tamarind, she told
me that Tamarind is her apprentice and has been staying with her all summer.”

“Funny,
Tamarind never mentioned her. I thought all this time she lived at home with
her father and sisters. Does this Ana live out near Tamarindo Estates?”

“Yeah,
not far west of 251. You can’t really miss it. It’s a one-room cinderblock
house with a dirt front porch and a chicken coop out back. The wild horses and
laughing gulls really love her and she brews this wicked ale from a mash made
from tamarind pods.”

“Wait a
second. Do you mean that scary-looking old woman who sits on the plaza selling
herbal remedies?” John frowned. He’d gotten the distinct impression that
Tamarind avoided Ana. He knew that
he
did. “Tamarind’s staying with her
and learning her arts?”

Valerie
nodded. “That’s what Ana said anyway. Why don’t you go out there and talk to
Tamarind yourself? You look about as forlorn as a puppy sitting in the rain
while his owner doesn’t see him from the kitchen window.”

“Whatever
that means.” John stood up and rubbed the stray cat’s head where it lay on the
table among Valerie’s jewelry-making supplies. “Don’t worry about me for
dinner. I’ll grab something to eat at Isla Encantada.”

Ten
minutes later, he waited at the bottom of the hill leading to Ana’s house in
the growing heat of afternoon. Tamarind didn’t magically appear to save him the
trip so he slipped the gearshift into drive and eased the gas pedal down. At
the top of the hill, he parked the Samurai and walked the rest of the way on
foot toward the cinderblock house to which he’d followed Tamarind nightly in
June. A few brown hens meandered through the dirt patch beaten in front of the
low-gray building, but no one sat in the rusty aluminum chairs outside the
front door.

He
knocked on the door, but when no one answered, he walked around to the back
where the chicken coop and what looked like an apartment building for birds
stood. To his surprise, several laughing gulls poked their heads out of the
holes in the stacked wooded compartments and eyed him curiously. A rooster
strutted around the side of the low cinderblock wall and crowed when he saw
John. John jumped a bit and relaxed. The spicy warmth of clove insinuated
itself in his nostrils as he stood there facing the vigilant rooster.

“She’s
not here,” rasped a woman behind him.

John
turned to face Ana. He hadn’t been this close to her since March. Her white
hair wove a fine mesh around her miniature features. The drooping lid of one
eye lent her a sinister air. She stood with her arms crossed loosely over her
chest, a hand-rolled cigarette smoking in one upraised hand.

“How do
you know who I’m looking for?”

“Don’t
sound so belligerent,
gringo
. Would you believe I can tell the future?”
She laughed at his response. “Okay. Scratch that. I saw you and Tamarind in
town more than once. And she told me you might come looking for her.”

“She did?
Where is she?”

Ana
narrowed her eye and took a drag on the clove cigarette. “I’m not sure she
wants to see you.” The words issued forth in an effluence of hot smoke.

“Why
not? Why can’t she tell me herself?”

Ana
dropped her cigarette arm and walked a few feet away from him. Several laughing
gulls fluttered out of their nests and hovered around her head. Reaching into
her apron, she tossed bits of something into the air around her. The birds
lunged and snapped for them. One bird, bigger and faster than the others,
managed to shoulder aside another gull and snatch its catch away from it. This
bird landed on Ana’s shoulder, looked directly at John and laughed, and then
began to preen itself.

“This is
a small island,
mi amigo
. Some have seen you here and there. Sometimes
you are with Tamarind, sometimes you are with another woman. Perhaps you
understand how people in such a small place as this love to gossip.”

“Where
is she?” He gritted his teeth as he spoke.

“Carlos
Rosario, not far from the nesting grounds on the peninsula, gathering seaweed
and bird dung.” Just as John started to turn and go she called out to him.
“From what Tamarind told me about your fight with your girlfriend, it sounds
like you have quite a way with women,
gringo
.” Her laugh rang in his
ears.