The Twilight Swimmer (15 page)

The first few search results brought up numerous images of mermaids, almost always female. They ranged from cartoon drawings of teenage waifs in seashell bras to refined oil paintings of the same mythological figures, nude and full-bodied. She found still more images, including photographs, that were more overtly sexual. Evidently, mermaids were a niche fantasy for men. The models posing as mermaids wore little or no clothing, and they looked directly at the viewer with sultry, come-hither eyes suggesting that the pleasures of the land were nothing against the pleasures of the sea. Despite their intent, the images were laughable as the human torso inevitably gave way to vividly colored lower halves, rented from a costume shop and zipped on, with flared fins where high heels would otherwise be. She even found a calendar that featured mermaids photographed, very obviously, in a large swimming pool. The chlorination of the water gave the otherwise attractive models a sickly blue-green pallor as they strained to smile and hold their breath at the same time.

Actual information was hard to come by. Most of the literature about people who lived underwater was exactly that – literature. There were children’s books and fairy tales, comic books and graphic novels. She even found a sub-genre of romance novel that featured busty damsels and shirtless mermen posing on the cover, their lower halves conveniently shielded by boulders with just a hint of a tail peeking out from the side. The novels appeared to be period pieces, for no reason Brandi could guess. Were mermen a thing of the past? Was it more believable for readers that mythological creatures had existed two hundred years ago than to believe they populated the shallows just off shore even now? Perhaps so.

The online encyclopedia discussed sea people only in terms of mariner legend and ancient folklore. A small section of text was devoted to hoaxes, many of which had been perpetrated for profit by the owners and operators of traveling circuses and freak shows. Women were displayed in large fish tanks, even plastic swimming tubs, wearing particularly silly costumes and wigs, golden hair shining, false eyelashes batting wildly, while eager men shelled over a nickel to have their picture taken with “the real McCoy”. In their bowlers and mustaches, these men beamed with pride as if their photographs would be documents of historical or scientific importance. Why mermaids from far-flung waters had ended up in the employ of shabby con men was a question these enthusiastic customers were not inclined to entertain, apparently.

She was able to locate one medical journal from the mid 19
th
century in which, according to the text, the body of an expired “genuine fish woman” had been donated to the University of Virginia for research. Several professors of biology had, in secret, endeavored to dissect the cadaver and explore the peculiar transition – on a skeletal level – from
homo sapien
to
ichthus
. They had discarded the flesh but ably preserved the bones, and presented detailed sketches for publication. While these charcoal drawings were finely rendered, they were far from convincing. Of particular comedic effect was the complete absence of a pelvis to support the womanly hips that had no doubt enthralled the men photographed with this prize specimen in life. Her spinal cord transitioned seamlessly into the spine of a fish, complete with off-shooting rib bones to support the flipping weight of the tale. To Brandi, the effect was laughable and obviously contrived.

Her research was interrupted by the creak of her bedroom door. Cody was at the handle, head lowered to stare at a handheld videogame and ears covered by oversized headphones. He silently closed the door behind him and wandered over to Brandi’s bed, dropping to the floor and crossing his legs Indian-style, all without looking at his sister.

“I’m studying, Cody.”

He couldn’t hear her through the headphones, or was content to pretend he couldn’t.

She couldn’t remember the last time Cody had been in her room. Not since Jenny died, she was certain. When the girls shared the room, they’d shut the door and turn up the music, dancing around and making enough ruckus to stir up their mother’s ire. Cody would take up position outside the room, his ear pressed against the door. If he heard them laughing, which he usually did, he wanted to join the fun. His little knuckles rapping on the door was loud enough to be heard despite the music, but they usually pretended they couldn’t hear him. One day he was distressed enough by their unwillingness to include him that he scrawled a plea on a scrap of paper and slid it through the crack under the door. He asked them if he could come in and watch, just for ten minutes. He promised he wouldn’t talk or interrupt, and that he wouldn’t tell Mom and Dad anything (he seemed to think fun was something to hide). In case his sisters didn’t know who had written the mysterious note, he made sure to sign his name at the bottom. In case they failed to see his name at the bottom, he underlined it. Brandi was unmoved by the note, but Jenny thought it was painfully cute. She persuaded Brandi to open the door, for the first time ever, and usher Cody inside. Before long the three of them were dancing together, laughing, and ignoring their mother’s knuckles rapping on the door as she hollered for them to turn the music down and quit stomping around like a herd of buffalo.

Only a year had passed, but Cody seemed so much older now. Even with his eyes glued to a videogame most of his waking hours, Brandi could tell his mind was wandering. She supposed he thought about Jenny, just like she did, but it didn’t seem possible her loss affected him as much as it had affected her. Jenny and Cody were too far apart in age, and hadn’t spent countless hours enjoying the company of each other and no one else. They hadn’t shared clothes, or late night confessions about which boy they had a crush on. The bond between them, between the sisters, was something Cody couldn’t understand. His grief at losing Jenny, if he felt it at all, must have been much more general, much more of a dull ache, than what Brandi felt.

He didn’t really know her. He probably couldn’t even picture her face.

She leaned over the side of the bed to look at the top of his head. To her surprise, he had toppled over onto his side and drawn up his knees, mouth agape and breathing deeply. Fast asleep. She reached over the edge of her mattress and pulled his headphones off of his ears. It was a warm night, but she draped an afghan across his slender body just in case he got cold.

The door was still open a crack from when Cody entered the room, and it swung open a bit farther. Conrad poked his head in, his eyes landing on Brandi but moving to his son curled up on the floor. “What’s that about?” he asked.

Brandi shrugged.

“I’ll carry him to his room.”

“No, it’s okay. If he doesn’t wake up in a little while, I’ll kick him out.”

“Tough but fair.”

“My father’s daughter.”

Conrad smiled, and started to pull the door shut.

“Dad?”

“Yeah?”

“Sorry I stole your chair. That was kind of dumb.”

Conrad furrowed his brow, thinking hard. “Which chair are we talking about?”

“At the station. Nevermind. I’ll put it back tomorrow.”

“Sally said you did great today. Said you were the picture of professionalism.”

“Nothing happened. Not a single call. I just sat there.”

“Did you put your feet up on the desk?”

Brandi shook her head no.

“Then you were the picture of professionalism. She’s not that hard to please.” With another smile for his daughter, something mournful in the way he lifted one corner of his mouth while the other remained level, Conrad waved goodnight and gently pulled shut the door.

 
             She went back to her Internet search. After following a long parade of links, she stumbled across a forum called Mertalk. It was very poorly designed, white text on a deep blue background. In the top right corner there was a single image, of a starfish. Her first impression was that the forum was designed for children, but the entries from forum visitors featured language that was too adult, at times even scientific. One post was titled ‘Diel Vertical Migration in Marine Species’. Another was titled ‘Habitable Regions of the Continental Shelf, by Continent’. She clicked on the second link. In addition to a detailed explanation of oceanic level distinctions such at bathypalegic, there were charts and graphs that described pressure changes, currents, the changing composition of rock formations at different depths. The detail of the data was staggering, and while Brandi could understand the gist of much of what she read, she recognized that she was out of her element. She clicked on another link titled ‘High Temperature Vents as a Deep Ocean Food Source’, and found photographs – taken from a deep water submersible – of fissures in the ocean floor that spewed jets of fluid. Tiny white and black specks surrounded these plumes of hot water. According to the caption on one image, these were tiny creatures drawn to the hot water vents for their high mineral content. They were the building blocks of a tiny ecosystem, one that could support a food chain. How large a food chain, and where the food chain led, was the exciting part to the scientist who posted the information. He speculated that the tiny creatures could not help but draw slightly larger creatures like fish and crustaceans, and that fish and crustaceans could very well draw something larger still.

The scientific posts on the forum were all very reserved and sober, but Brandi found another section called ‘Testimony’ in which forum visitors posted stories about personal encounters with ‘Sea People’. She clicked on a post labeled ‘She’s Waiting for Me’. It was written by a man whose username was ‘Fishfriend1968’. He claimed to have had his first encounter with a mermaid as a young man, fifteen-years-old, when he fell off his grandfather’s trawler in choppy water off the coast of Florida. The impact of his head on the water stunned him, and he sank quickly. The water turned dark as he slid deeper, and he thought he would soon die, but he felt hands latch onto him and drag him upwards. His grandfather and other men hauled him back aboard the boat, but never saw his rescuer. He doubted his own memory, but as the years went by he found himself drawn to the same area of water, constantly searching for the creature that saved his life. He spoke to the water, thanking it – the creature – for rescuing him. And then one day he saw it. He saw
her
. Swimming just below the surface behind his boat, darting in and out of the wake, blond hair trailing behind her, and pale white legs propelling her forward, working in unison like the tail of a dolphin. When he slowed the boat to get a better look, she dove down and disappeared. For weeks, for months, he returned to the water and called out for her. And she would appear, again and again, but only when the boat was moving, never turning over so he could see her face, never emerging from the water. But he could tell, he was certain, that she was as obsessed with him as he was with her. And she was waiting for him. Waiting for him to return to the water. To return to her.

There were other stories, from coastal cities and villages all around the world. Some people provided photographic evidence of Sea People, most of the pictures as blurry and unconvincing as the Sasquatch photos that appeared on late night television exposes. Other photos were more difficult to dismiss. A glimmer of white beneath the water, too long and thin to be any sort of fish or marine mammal. A hole cut out of a fishing net, too deliberate to have been the result of aging fibers or wear, too precise to be the result of a ravenous shark ripping the mesh to get at its edible contents.

Brandi realized her heart was pounding and she hadn’t drawn a breath for a while. She inhaled deeply and slid off the bed, careful to avoid Cody still curled up on the floor. She crossed the room and slid open her bedroom window, stepping through and onto the shingled roof. She perched herself beside the window, her knees drawn up, leaning back against the slanted plane. It was a dark night, the moon hidden behind voluminous clouds, their shapes just visible against the blacker sky. Despite the warmth of the air, the darkness made her shiver.

“You said you wanted to see my voice. You could hear it, but you wanted to see it.” She spoke the words aloud. “Can you hear my voice now?”

She heard a car engine rumbling down the street. She heard a television from a neighbor’s house. A dog barking. Crickets chirping. The night was alive with noises, all of them subtle but much louder than her own voice.

“No, of course you can’t. You never could.” She shivered again and leaned back toward the window, ready to climb back inside. But she turned back to the night sky, to the massive gray clouds and the ocean churning beneath them. “If you really can hear me, come back. I need to see you again, to know you’re real. I have to see you again.”

As she slid back through the window, she was badly startled to find Cody standing just inside. He was staring at her, his face screwed up in a quizzical expression. He looked confused, even frightened. Was he dazed after waking from his short sleep on the floor, or had he overheard her appeal to the Swimmer? Brandi couldn’t be sure. She pulled the window shut with a gentle thud, then turned Cody around, scooped up his videogame and headphones, and walked him out of her bedroom.

“Time for bed,” she whispered.

He could hear her.

Her voice traveled the miles from her bedroom window, through the neighborhood alive with so many other nocturnal sounds. It traveled to the rocky beach where she sometimes brought her kayak ashore. It plunged through the tumbling surf and dove into the icy water, diving deep and deeper. It spread out, searching, along the slope of the sea floor, as if searching for him. And when it reached the rusty frame of the sunken ship, it probed for points of entry, for cracks in the hull and doorways left gaping, without hatches, by the passage of time. Through the maze of corridors, over manmade obstacles and the buildup of sediment and calcified carcasses, her voice penetrated into the bowels of the ship. Until, at least, it reached him in his hiding place. Until, at last, it found his ears and woke him from his fitful slumber.