“He made me promise him a boon, for attempting the quest I assigned. I admit and I grant, the quest was a tremendous one. So he asked of me, before he agreed, ‘I want to be a legend among men; I want you to make me a myth. Let them remember my name forever, and throw festivals in my honor. The very men who scorned me and refused me—the society that forbade me entrance, and deemed me unfit to join it—let them recall me as a hero.’
“I gave my word, and my word does not bend. He set out to do my bidding.
“I sent him to another ocean, in another vessel. I gave him a crew of creatures I’d claimed and altered to better move on board, eels and sturgeons, octopi and dolphins with intelligence and strength greater than anyone save their captain. Together they would go deeper and farther and faster than any man could dive or swim, or any whale could sink.
“I sent him to a trench, to a great crack in the earth’s face, to a split that reaches past the water, past the lava, and down to the earth’s very bones.”
The woman without air shifts, makes a softly questioning sound.
Arahab understands the query, so she nods, and then she says, “I will tell you why. It is because of the thing that sleeps below. He sleeps much farther down than I hold you now. He sleeps at the center of the world, almost. He sleeps beyond the touch of men, or machines, or even me. Or so I’ve come to fear. This thing that sleeps, he coils himself tightly because he must—his size is so great, and his body so tremendous, that he scarcely fits within this world at all.
“At least, that is how I remember him. It has been so long since last I gazed upon him, I almost could not say. There is a chance that my memory fails me. A few million years here and there can cloud the details.
“But he is large, and he is sleeping, and by his very absence the rest of us are pushed aside and forgotten. We are shunted to the fringes and overrun by lesser beings. Long have I stood aside and watched, insulted. Long have I waited and been disconnected, and disgraced, and disregarded.
“While the Leviathan rests, the rest of us are wraiths—despondent and abashed. So I have made it my goal to awaken him. But he will not rise easily, or quickly. He has gone so far and sunk so deep that it is no longer easy to touch him. But there are places where the skin of the earth grows thin. There are cracks through which he can almost be seen; he rises almost to the surface, and a very small portion of his bulk can be reached with diligence. These places are scattered throughout the globe, but they are difficult to navigate.
“And that is why I took the Spaniard.
“I took him for being wise, and merciless. I took him for being strong and quick. I embraced him because he was tough and driven, and he would not be stopped.
“His errand was to reach the slumbering Leviathan. All I asked was that he touch the old god, and I believed it might be enough to rouse him. Reaching him would be the trouble. ‘Go to the trench off the Chinese seas,’ I told Gaspar. ‘The crew I’ve created will lead the way, down through the waters and into the gap—down between the waves and into the fissure. At the bottom of the earth you will find him, quiet and unmoving. You will glimpse only very small portions of him. His size is too immense to see more. Touch him, and do it kindly. There is no need to strike or scar him, for you cannot harm him. There is no need to shout or scream, because he cannot hear you. Rouse him, and the world will shatter and realign. Rouse him, and I’ll make you more than the myth you’ve asked.’
“The Spaniard agreed to these terms and he set sail with the strangest crew that ever did pilot a vessel. They led him into the Chinese seas and down to the trench itself. The vessel, which he called the Arcángel, closed in upon itself and dived down between the waves, into the sand, and down to the trench itself.
“The crew braced itself against the terrible pressure, the awesome gravity of the earth’s center. They found it hard to breathe, even the creatures whom I fashioned from the ocean’s deepest living things. The crushing weight of the water squeezed them tight, and I realized that the ship was too small and the task was too large. I had set it adrift, and it was barely a seed, being crushed in the fist of a god. I clung to my hope that the Spaniard would see the mission through; and I waited for him at the trench’s edge, down at the bottom of the world.
“I waited for him like a father awaiting the birth of a child.
“I waited, and hours passed. Days followed. Weeks went by, and I feared that my Gaspar was lost, and the Arcángel with him. And finally, when I was prepared to abandon all hope, the Arcángel emerged from the trench—as if it had been expelled, as if it were coughed up out of the deep.
“All aboard had perished, succumbed to the burden of the water’s impossible load; but my Spaniard remained. He alone had guided the vessel back to the portal, and he alone had forced the sails to press against the pressure. He alone returned with the Arcángel to the surface of the water, though he was weakened and exhausted by the trial.
“I was pleased to see him, even relieved to see him, despite the fact that he failed me.”
The woman in Arahab’s arms sighs, and the last small vapors from her lungs are expelled from her nose. There is nothing left in her of the air-breathing, two-footed girl who ran along the beach. There is nothing left of the human she was born as.
Her transformation is ready to begin.
“I carried him down with me again, so that he could recover and later, perhaps, try again. I would consider a new strategy; I would conceive a new plan.
“But he had failed me, and there was a price to pay. As he was quick to note, I had promised him a legend if he would attempt the quest, and I had not rested my oath upon his success. And my word does not bend. So I granted him the gift.
“His name has passed into legend, now. His name will go down farther into history and into myth, as I swore. But that myth was not written by his peers, or by his family. It was not created by his friends. It was made by liars and enemies, and it became a story for lighthearted bedtime sharing between children. It became a fairy tale, written by idiots and told by fiends.
“I removed from the face of the earth every trace that he’d ever lived. There remains neither note nor relic to confirm he ever breathed before I claimed him.
“So he can have his legend, and my word has not been bent. But it is not the legend he would have chosen for himself. And, I think, it gives him great grief. His enemies insult him with their fondness, and with their familiarity. But there is always a price for failure.
“This is not to say that I hate my wicked little son, far from it. I love him, as I love you—and I have loved him longer. And this, my daughter, is where you join the story.”
If the woman hears her, she cannot signal it. If the woman cares, she is beyond the ability to demonstrate it. She sleeps, and listens.
“I have realized my mistake. It was not that I chose the wrong mortal, for I did not. It was not that I charted the wrong course, for the course was sound. It was not that my timing was false, for to creatures like the Leviathan and me, time as you feel it is meaningless. It was that the task I assigned was too much for one man. One man can do only so much against the forces I sent him to meet. Mere legend and mere lore cannot move him to the ends of the earth, and deeper and farther than that. Mere myth is not enough to push a man into darkness and beyond it.
“And so, I give him a new goal. I give him a new prize, and a new direction. I will send him again to that place where the bottom of the ocean is close enough to the surface that a man might touch it. But I cannot ask him to do this alone.
“And so, now I give him a woman. And another chance to take the Arcángel down to the bottom of the earth, where my father might hear my son if he carries a newer, more powerful call.”
The woman in Arahab’s arms does not open her eyes or signal that she’s seen, or heard. She does not move, or gasp, or agree, or dissent. She does not acknowledge hearing any of this, though she’ll remember all of it later.
The Cocoon
The tid
e receded and sunlight seared Nia’s eyes. It must have been morning.
Footsteps crunched in the sand. Nia, lying on her back, tried to turn her head to see who was coming, but her neck was terribly stiff.
In the distance, the waves chased each other back and forth across the sand, and seagulls argued over edible creatures the tide had stranded on shore. Up on the dunes behind her, the grasses whispered in the Gulf breeze.
The footsteps crashed closer. People were coming.
She wasn’t sure how she’d made it onto the beach.
“What’s that?” someone wondered aloud.
“It looks like a girl. Maybe we found one of them?”
“No. Wait.”
The two men stood over her and stared down in disbelief.
Help me, she whispered. Something’s wrong. I can’t move my . . . anything.
“Damn, Rick.”
“Where’d that come from?”
“Maybe it was on a ship. Maybe we should bring the sheriff.”
Nia would’ve jumped, if she could’ve moved. Help me, she tried again to cry.
One of the men flicked his finger against her arm. She felt the sting of the tiny blow, but his knuckle thumped solidly; it did not snap the flesh. She struggled to move, and to ask questions. The man had said, “Maybe we found one of them.” Her cousin must still be missing.
“What do we do with it?”
“I don’t know. Go ask Missus Marjorie. It’s her property. Or it’s on her property, anyway.”
Nia listened to their retreating footsteps. She was lying on her back, staring at the clouds. Come back, she prayed, because she could not speak. I think you’re looking for me. I’m right here. Oh God. Oh God. Panic surged through her limbs, but no fear, no anger, no amount of willpower could make them move.
A small crab scuttled across her toes and into a nearby tide pool. Its claws made a quick clicking noise when they moved across her. It wasn’t the right and soft sound of crustacean meeting skin.
She struggled for memories, but retrieved only blurry glimpses of the night before. There were bright eyes underwater, and wet darkness. There was blood. Someone had a knife.
Help me, come back. Get the sheriff, please. I have to tell him something. Please come back, I think I’m still bleeding. Go get my aunt Marjorie. Does she know yet? I have to tell her I’m sorry.
The men returned, and with them walked an extra set of gritting footsteps.
“You found it here, like this?” Marjorie asked, peering down into Nia’s line of sight.
“Is it yours?”
“Mine?” She shook her head. “No, I’ve never seen anything like it.”
One of the men screwed up his face and applied a battered straw hat to his balding head. “It don’t belong to nobody, but it’s on your land, ma’am. What do you want we should do with it? We can’t leave it out on the beach.”
“Why not? What harm does it do?”
No one answered her, but Nia could almost hear the stares.
Marjorie sighed. “If you really want to move it, you can put it in the courtyard up behind the house.”
The man in the straw hat reached his arms around Nia’s waist and gave a mighty heave. His friend did likewise, grabbing hold of her thigh and calf in an ungraceful fashion. They hoisted her up and lurched unevenly across the sand, dropping her on the ground, then yanking her back into the air.
Nia hated them both—their groping hands and sweaty bodies. The grass on the dune tickled at her back as they pulled her across it and down into the yard, where they gave up on carrying her and concentrated on dragging her.
They made a final rally and jacked her into a seated position.
A pair of painted Mexican tiles cracked where they sat her down.
“Where do we put it?”
“That spot where the wall dips out. We can sit it on the shelf.”
She smelled blood. Even though she wasn’t breathing and could not gasp, she knew its odor, and it triggered more moments from the night she’d been there last; the fractured memories flashed through her head and burned themselves out like embers.
There was Bernice, sitting on the edge of the fountain. Her dress was sprayed with gore. There was a red tablecloth; she wore it like a gown. Silver glinted in the starlight, and there was shattered china.
It was an awkward process, but with many rough curses the men propped her into the cubbyhole. They stood back and surveyed their work. They shook hands. They smiled and joked about a job well done.
And they left.
From her new vantage point, Nia could peruse the whole scene, not that there was much of a scene left to peruse. Someone had scoured the place good; a passerby would never know that anything unusual had happened there, unless he looked very closely—as Nia had time to do.
Someone with nothing better to do would see the dark stains on the grass, stains that could easily be mistaken for shadows. Someone might notice the stray silver fork lying in a corner by the mosaic bench.
Later, someone might check his shoes and find a slim shard of glass wedged in the sole.
This happened, Nia swore to herself.
The fountain had been shut off, so no water spurted artfully over the small ceramic fish. The table where all the anniversary party goodies once were stashed had been taken away. Plywood boards were nailed across every opening in the house, even the second-story windows.
What was that name again?
She very strongly suspected that she was losing her mind.
The first few months, she talked to herself incessantly and nonsensically. About anything. About nothing. She repeated history lessons learned years before and recited snippets of poetry and songs she’d picked up here, there, anywhere. There was one phrase in particular that stuck, and repeated, and wore a groove in her memory.
One impulse from a vernal wood may teach you more of man, of moral evil, and of good than all the sages can. And oh, how she hated that damned vernal wood.
The courtyard couldn’t keep it at bay. No one mowed the yard, and the grass grew tall, tangled, and nasty. Raccoons and possums prowled at night; cicadas shrieked. Once, Nia thought she saw a great cat—a huge beige panther that moved through the grass more quietly than an owl sweeping through the air.
Our Father, she tried to pray, but eventually she could not remember the rest of the words. So she told herself stories instead.
I was born in the middle of the night. A thunderstorm—or it might have been a hurricane—was tearing through the Gulf and smashing into Tallahassee, where I was busy being born.
Windows broke, wind blew through the halls, and my mother was lying in a cast-iron bathtub screaming at Aunt Marjorie, who was telling her to push.
Later that night, the clouds lifted and they wrapped me in a cotton blanket, and my aunt Marjorie, she held me close in what had once been my grandparents’ living room, and they stared at the sky, watching the stars fall.
They fell by the thousands; Aunt Marjorie swears by it.
I’ve never seen a star fall since.
For a long time, she watched the leaves and moss and animals encroach on the courtyard with interest, since there was nothing else present to entertain her. She gave the small things names and placed them in the plots of penny dreadfuls, or concocted fantastic impossibilities of romance between the frogs and the mice.
But in time she gave up. She quit those ramblings and left herself alone in silence, unable or unwilling to keep herself company anymore. The boredom numbed her mind, and she came to something like peace with her unchanging surroundings.
The scenery didn’t change much.
Winter and fall meant it was cooler sometimes, and for maybe a week or two it actually got cold. Nia would have shivered if she could, but at least it never snowed.
She’d only seen snow once before, back in Tallahassee, when it floated down in sparse waves of small flakes that died as soon as they hit the ground. It was unbelievable even that far north, but he
r grandmother said there’d been a terrible freeze a few years before, and all the world must be turning colder. Soon they wouldn’t be able to grow oranges there at all.
Times were changing and the world was changing, and farms were dying. An orchard could die, too, just as easy.
Summer and spring meant bombastic thunderstorms every afternoon for ten minutes, a wet break that took the edge off the stifling heat.
Nia’s spot was surrounded and shaded by several large trees—a banyan, a magnolia, and a mimosa. The sun never beat her directly, and the rain was deflected as well.
Eventually the island’s population grew.
Two mad boys with paint sometimes assaulted the back porch, splashing obscenities in red and white. Nia hated them deeply; the sour smell of the paint overwhelmed the flowers, and she, of course, could not escape the stench.
Indeed, her senses were uncomfortably heightened despite the immobility. Strictly regimented carpenter ants tickled her ribs until she would’ve sold her soul to scratch them away, and she could almost count each raindrop that pelted her body during a storm. Even the slight shifting in the concrete beneath her caught her attention, the way the bricks adjusted as grass grew into the cracks and forced them apart with knotty tangles. During the spring while the vandals were away, the huge, leathery magnolia leaves held soft white flowers, so sweet and close in her nostrils that she could tell which individual trees had produced the drifting petals. Her ears became so sharp that she could hear termites across the yard, slowly turning the vineyard frame into pulp. Their grinding jaws worked day and night until the wood dropped to the grass and rotted where it lay.
In time, the porch fell in as well, and cracks formed in the boards that covered the windows. Curious island residents came in the afternoons to peek inside, marveling at the cool emptiness within.
Most of them avoided Nia, looking over their shoulders as they left, fearful that she might hop off the ledge and follow them.