Deeper (10 page)

Chapter 11

One thing Grandmother was right about.  We couldn’t live out there, without the pod.  Che, alone, could do it.  He’d been living around the edges of the Deep for months now, ever since he’d got too old to be classified a child, too old to be tolerated by the adult males, and with no female of his own.  The island he beached on was windswept and faced out to ocean.

“You could be my female
..”

Even with these stumps, he still
wanted me.  I reached out to touch his shoulder, but shook my head.

“I wouldn’t be any use to you.  I’d draw the others down on you, anyway.  They’d never leave us alone.”

Father would come, with the other males, and drive us away.  In the mer world, outliers aren’t tolerated.

“I’m going to
swim to the Dry.  I look like a human now, they’ll help me.”

Che
scratched his chin.

“What if they
don’t.  What if they drag you away and cut you up?”

He shivered.

“That’s just a story Grandmother tells to scare us. Humans aren’t really like that.”

“How do you know?”

I remembered the downy touch of your lips, the tenderness of your sleeping eyelids.

“I just know.  I’m only afraid he’ll see these and
..”

I looked down at the
strange, half-fish half human legs. 

Che
stretched out his arm and ran his fingers lightly along the top of my legs – my thigh, my knee, my calf, my ankle, and finally my foot. You taught me those words.

“I think they’re
lovely. For a human.”

We both looked at each other, knowing how absurd that was.

“They’re not.  They’re horrible.  They’re not human legs at all.  If a human sees me with these legs, he’ll probably run away and never come back.”

“
But if they think you’re their kind...”  I could see the pity and embarrassment in his eyes, though he tried hard not to show it. 

“
They’ll think I’m deformed.  It’ll be like..”

I
stopped.  There was no way I should say that.

“You’
ll be like me, you mean?”

Che
’s face was stiff, trying to hide the hurt.  It occurred to me that I wasn’t much better than Grandmother, sometimes, only instead of scoring my images in his back, I did it in the flesh of poor Che’s heart.

“
I didn’t mean that.  Only...  They’ll think I’m some kind of dolphin gone wrong.”

“They don’t always show their legs, the humans. You could put on a covering, like they do.”

He was right.  They wore coverings sometimes from the neck to the feet.  It was strange to us – but then I guess we wore our shells and powdered minerals.  I thought of Azura with her stumpy tail covered with shell and glitter. 

“
What then?”

“I don’t know.  Sometimes things wash up.  I could find something.”

We both laughed at the ridiculous situation.  What was I supposed to wrap myself in –fish scales?

“How?
I won’t be able to swim.”

“
Humans can.” 

“Not
like that – they don’t..”

“I’ll help you. I’ll go with you. I’ll watch over you.”

Che said this with all the self-importance of a full grown male, a pod leader.

“Thanks
Che, that would help.”

Che
busied himself swimming up and down the tideline, searching for something to cover my legs. At last he found some discarded netting, but I thought that’d be worse than nothing.  In the end we settled for an old piece of sail, tied with weed-rope.

“Now I look like a real human!”

We both laughed, and cried a little too.

In silence, with
Che swimming beside me, we made the bay under the Trapped Moon by the time the morning star was overhead.  I put my arms around his neck and kissed him, thinking, this is the dearest mer to me, even dearer than Casih and Dayang, even dearer than Mother – though she was dead, anyway.  And I can’t say it.  So I just put my lips to his round face, somewhere beside his squat nose with its oversized nostrils, and then dived and made for the sand.

It was harder than I remembered to wriggle up beyond the tide line.  I could only use my arms to drag myself
now, so I dug my hands into the soft sand and pulled myself up inch by inch until I was just beyond the line of damp weed and cuttle fish and pieces of wood.  I lay on my back, and thought I could just make out the darkness of the human-cave up above me.   Then I fell asleep, to the sound of the waves sucking at the sand like mer-babies for their milk.

I woke to the taste of sand in my mouth, and a
fierce ache – I’d never get used to it – in the legs.  The sun was just spreading its first light over the Deep, far away to the east, and the rock reared above me, unclimbable.  Now that I took a close look, I saw that there were steps cut into it, for humans to climb, and a path winding up to the cave-that-is-made, where the Trapped Moon sat. I turned on my back and looked up to where I’d seen you with your sun-on-a-stick.  I could still see the glint of the Moon, turning inside the walls made of clear hard water.  I puzzled at your ability – all humans – to make these things.  To pull rocks from the Deep and pile them up into a cave shaped like a white tube, to make water stand still, to build islands, to take the moon and imprison it to light the sea at night.  The spirits must be very strong in you, much stronger than in Grandmother, with her skulls and smelly concoctions.

I was very tired.  I’d never swum so far with only my arms.  My muscles ached, even though
we mer are very strong.  I put my head down again to the sand and felt the growing warmth of the rising sun caressing my back. 

Chapter 12

I went to sleep.  After a while – I don’t know how long but the air was already heavy and warm - there was a pounding in my left ear, lying against the sand.  I thought at first it was inside my head, dizzy with tiredness, but then I realised that the sand itself was vibrating with a heavy, slow rhythm.

I raised myself on both elbows, and looked up.  A human
came towards me, moving fast.  I narrowed my eyes to see you better against the sun.  You were covered in something loose and white, and you were coming towards me in a kind of leaping motion.

You
slowed, and came walking over the sand, breathing hard.  I still couldn’t believe the ease with which humans walked, as if they didn’t even have to think about it, just one foot after the other.

I looked up at
you, pushing my sand-logged hair out of my eyes, and felt fear squirm in my belly.  All Grandmother’s stories came back to me.  It was one thing not to believe the old witch in a cave in the channels, another to doubt her here, with a real human looming over me, casting a shadow like a hunting shark.

I must have
squeaked in fear, because you leaned in, and spoke to me in your deep sand-crunching words.  I’d never heard you speak before, though I’d listened to the other humans calling to one another in the wind, long ago.  Compared to us, your voices were the grinding of rock against rock.  You crouched down beside me, your long brows pulled together in a look of puzzlement.  You spoke again, touched my arm.

I’d been stupid, I hadn’t thought of this. 
My words would be useless.  How could I tell you lies if you couldn’t understand me?  How could I persuade you not to kill me if I couldn’t speak.

You
looked from my face to my bare teats and then down to my legs, my feet, stared, looked away.  You were confused but curious.  The covering we’d made from flotsam covered some of my hips but the rest of me lay in the sand uncovered.  You looked out to sea, and back at me, and to sea again, as if there must be a floater somewhere that I could have fallen from.

You took
a white wrap from around your brown shoulders and laid it over my legs.  It burnt, and I hissed and pushed it off.  That hurt too.  The skin of my new legs had turned a raw pink.  I cried out in shock, partly at the surprise of the pain, and partly because mer skin should be strong and hard and made for sun and water.

You
spoke to me again in your deep growl, but softly.  You held my wrist, listened, put your dry-hot hand on my forehead.  I looked up at you helplessly.  I hadn’t thought this far.  Here you were, and I, but I couldn’t move, any more than if I still had a tail like a fish.  Maybe you’d just leave me here on the sand, and what would I do then?

You bent to me, and
gently gathered me up in your arms, and I felt by the way that you held me that I was at least human enough for you not to kill.  I reached my arms around your neck and smelt you and trembled to be so near to you, awake and alive.  It’s frightening sometimes to have what you want.

As you climbed the steps to
the Trapped Moon, I looked back at the blue below and wondered if I’d ever feel the water around me again.  Maybe I should have slipped back into the sea before you came.  But then I’d die, without the pod.  I’d made a choice and now I had no others.

You brought me inside the cave
and put me down on something soft, while you crouched and stared at my legs.  They were ugly and I was afraid you’d spit in disgust, as Azura would.  I wondered if you’d believe I was one of your kind, after all.  

I gazed around
.  It was dry and warm.  The light came through the walls in places, and these walls were made of something like water gone hard.  Through them, I could still see the sky and the sea and the birds nesting and dropping on the rocks outside.  There were spider webs clinging to the hard-water, and moths and flies hanging from them, or I would have thought they were clear air.

Your cave was
littered with dry, dead, strange things.  Nothing that I saw grew or belonged to anything that swam or even walked for all I knew.  Some things were piled on top of other things, and there were many-coloured coverings on everything – on the floor, on the walls, on the objects that sat like strangely shaped rocks so that you had to weave your way between them. You collected things, I could see that.  Some sea creatures do that – pieces of weed, shells and grit and flotsam, to disguise themselves or to help build caves to move about in.  The mer have few things, because you can’t store your possessions in the ocean, and we don’t build our own caves, but use the ones that are there.  There were all the colours of the bright sea bed, and of sand and wood and stone and sky. 

I shut my eyes and smelled a hundred different smells all at once.  Some of the smells were familiar
- fish, and oysters, and salt weed – and some I’d never smelled before – strange smells which had nothing to do with the sea. 

T
he thing I lay on was very soft, with a covering over the top that felt easy on my skin.  I saw that you humans like to decorate, as we do, and also to hide things under other things, as well as your own bodies.  I felt the covering, to see what kind of stuff it was, and then I reached out for you, beside me.  If we couldn’t speak we must touch, to understand each other.  The feel of your skin brought back memories of sleeping beside you on the cool sand – but you were warm and dry and healthy now.

You
growled, and leaned down to me, your face close to mine, and smiled at me, or perhaps you were showing your teeth.  No, your eyes were quiet, but you waited for me to speak, brows lifted, head on side.  You’re trying to ask me a question, I thought. 

What would I ask if I were you– and you washed up on the sandy edge of the channels,
a strange, twisted mer I’d never seen before?  I’d ask, what are you? What happened to you?  Which pod are you from?

But I couldn’t answer
any of these questions so you’d understand.  If I told you I was mer, you might pick up a rock and hit me with it.  I’d much rather you thought I was human, like you.  But if I was a human, wouldn’t I be able to speak in your words, and walk?  Lies are complicated things.

You lifted one
pink-burned leg, bent it slowly and carefully, and then took the other in both your hands.  I hissed a little, as you touched my sun-tender skin, but I could see you were trying not to hurt me.  You spread your hands apart, palms towards me – I don’t know what to do - then pointed eastward.  I thought I understood.  You wanted to take me to the Big Dry, where they skin mer and eat them.  I wouldn’t go.

I shook my head, no, no
, and clung to your hand tightly - but you didn’t look convinced. I held your face, and dug my fingers into the outline of your half-familiar bones.  You felt full of life and danger.  You’d been cold and wet that night, helpless, almost drowned.  Now you were warm and in your full strength, and already you didn’t want me.  I touched your chin, rough as no mer’s chin is rough, with tiny spiky hairs, and your forearm, also covered with tiny hairs, but soft ones, like the hairs at the nape of a pup’s neck.  You let me touch you, but your eyes still strayed east. You had no feeling for me.  Why should you?

You went away into another part of the room, and came back
after a little while with a container of something, which you held out to me.  It was liquid, and I was thirsty.  I put it to my lips and gulped, and then dropped the container on the floor and hissed and screeched, and rolled off the soft thing on to the floor with a bump.  It was burning hot and stinging – inside my throat as it went down, my lips, my mouth, and my legs where it’d spilled on me.  It spilled on you too and you jumped and cursed.  How do I know you cursed?  I just knew.

You jumped and brushed at
the hot wet with your hand.  You looked at me crossly, the way Suria used to when I yanked her hair, your brows hard down over your eyes and your upper lip drawn back in a half snarl.  I was frightened.   But why’d you give me burning hot water to drink?  Was it a test, to see if I was really human? Maybe humans drink and don’t burn. Maybe if I passed you’d keep me.

You
got another piece of stuff and mopped up the puddle.  Then you took away the container and brought another one.  You held it to me and I shrank back.  I’d had enough of your tests.

You grimaced, and put your finger into the contain
er, and brought it out with clear drops falling back - water.  You drank yourself, and looked at me.  I put my own finger in and felt that it was cool, at least.  It looked like water.  I drank, and found that it was water.  I wondered what you’d do next.  I could see you were wondering the same thing.

You brought me food.  It was something white and soft
, shiny with fat on one side.

“What is it?”

I pointed at the square lump in my hand. 

“Bread?” you said, laughing.  That was my first human word – not your name, not my name, but bread.

Bread.

I bit into it.  I might as well have eaten sand, for
all the taste it had – and the fat stuff was sour on my tongue.  I spat it out and you swore again.  I thought, I’d better get it right for once or you’ll take me away to the Big Dry for sure.  Maybe I’d wasted your scarce food. It must be hard for you to catch it, living on this rock and not being able to swim well.  I reached for where I’d spat, to pick it up and put it back in my mouth.  I would have swallowed it this time to please you, but you stopped me.  I could see I’d made it worse.  I was embarrassed.  I had no idea human habits could be so hard to learn.

You brought something flat with
more things laid out on it.  It didn’t look much like food but I could tell it was something you were meant to eat, from the smell.  There was yellow stuff, some small sand-coloured things – and something that I recognised – fish!

I took the
stuff that smelled of fish and bit into it.  Something was wrong with it.  It had no blood at all, and it was dry.  Perhaps on the Dry, everything was dry – even the food!  I would have spat it out again, but caught your eye, and didn’t.  I was learning fast.  So I chewed it and swallowed, and felt a bit better for having something in my stomach.  Later, I was sick.  It took my stomach a while to learn about human food – not so long as it did me, though.

You
looked again at my legs.  You drew your hand down my thigh, pressed your fingers hard into the blue-white flesh, from the knee down to the foot.  I watched you as if it wasn’t my body you were feeling.  In some ways, those legs were as strange to me as they were to you.  They weren’t me, they were just the price I paid.

You
leaned back, regarding me.  You were making up your mind. 

Everything I’d done so far had gone wrong, with you. 
I drew your face close and kissed you on the lips, in the same way that I’d kissed you on that night.  You looked into my mer eyes, and I saw a gleam come into yours.  It was curiosity.  You ran a finger over my face, pale and round compared to yours, and touched my sharp teeth. You took a thick rope of my hair, still sand-logged, and turned it over in the palm of your hand.  You shrugged.  I was safe for now.  You wanted to examine me.