Using a rope from the sail, I swing down to the dock to meet the CEO of KrakenGo. "Hi Dad," I say. "Mind giving me and the crew here a tour?"
~~~
"And here’s where the females are milked," my father says with pride, leading us into a large room that looks like an indoor swimming pool. Clear barriers separate the krakens into neat individual rows, like a chart with each box filled. The chart extends almost as far as I can see, with hundreds, maybe a thousand animals, each one reeking of milk. Metal arms swoop down from the ceiling and tug the krakens’ undersides in a deathly rhythm. The whole place echoes with this rhythmic beat, the workings of a perfectly oiled machine.
"We produce fifty thousand gallons of milk a day, and ship it across the world at hyper speeds," my father boasts. "When one of these animals stops producing at capacity, we throw it out. That’s how we keep up with growing demand."
"That’s terrible," Taffy breathes.
My father looks at her sharply over his rather large nose, and she hangs her head in shame. But I’m pretty sure we’re all thinking the same thing.
One of the krakens at the edge near us starts moaning pitifully.
I step towards it and reach out my hand to gently touch the rubbery face.
My father pulls my hand away. "What are you doing, son? These are dangerous creatures." When he comes near, a chorus of half-hearted roars starts up and tentacles splash chlorinated water at us.
I say, "Sure they’re dangerous, when they’re being handled this way. I bet if you toned down the machinery and gave them a little room to graze, a little love…"
"Don’t tell me how to run my business!" The big nose grows red as the beady eyes are shadowed by bushy eyebrows.
I say, "From the looks of things, you shouldn’t be running this business at all."
That’s it. I’ve blown it. He reaches into his pocket and draws a pen that collapses open into a large knife. I unsheathe my electric sword. And there you go, we’re having a pirate battle.
He chases me around the rim of the pool, our weapons clanging together as I try to stay on dry land.
I slip in a puddle, coming down hard on my behind. His knife is at my neck. "Now I see why I disinherited you, tree hugger," he snarls.
Just when I think I’m about to be dismembered by my own father, a great cacophony of machinery is heard. The metal arms disappear into the high ceiling.
My father runs toward the control room.
I scramble to my feet to see Gayle sitting at the controls.
The floor of the swimming pool opens to reveal a blue hole in the reef underneath.
"Nooo!" shrieks my father, banging on the control room door. The clamps holding the krakens in place fold into the pool walls. With a rush of celebratory splashes and trumpeting calls, the krakens dive into the abyss.
I hope my father never manages to round them up again.
His gun is up against the window of the control room door. "I’ll kill you!" he shouts at Gayle.
It’s my turn to yell "Nooo!" as I run towards him.
The crew follows, and we have him surrounded, weapons from all sides pointed at him.
"I’m afraid I have to arrest you, Dad," I say. Soon he’s tied up in the brig.
"My business," is his last weak plea before Taffy cheerfully wraps the gag around his head and steals his fedora. Now I know for sure why I was never invited to KrakenGo Headquarters. I wish it could have ended differently.
Just before dinner, Gayle confronts me in my room. "Thank you for helping save my life," she says to the floor.
"Hey, no biggie. We all helped out." I turn towards her. "Thank you for saving all those krakens."
"What are we going to run on now?" Gayle asks. "Once we run out of Lacto-fuel…"
"I’ll work that out after dinner," I say. "I think I’ll take it in the brig. Dad and I have got some catching up to do."
Chapter Nine
Gayle
We’ve anchored in a busy harbor, with so many boats it’s a miracle they aren’t all on top of each other. The rest of the crew went to sell their wares, but they left Sander and me behind to watch the ship.
Sander is waist-deep in the murky water, searching for samples of life in this wasteland.
I stand on the balcony of the ship, leaning against the railing and sketching in my sketchbook. A curving arm begins to take shape – a masculine arm, lean yet muscled, quite like Sander’s arm as he reaches to pick a snail off some seagrass.
"Are you drawing mermaids?" he asks, looking up at me.
"No." I snap the sketchbook closed in case he can see it from where he wades, bounding over towards me.
"You’re not ready to forgive me for that conversation, are you?" he asks.
"I don’t hold grudges," I say. "I just remember."
"Same difference," he shrugs. "If you’re not ready yet, you’re not ready. I understand."
The way he talks to me is so aggravating, yet his lips are so cute on that freckled tan face… I push the thought out of my mind.
"What’s that in the water behind you?" I see a lump pushing through the water, and I fear some monster of the muck has risen to eat him.
He turns just as a chubby head featuring floppy lips pokes out of the water. "It’s a dugong!" Sander exclaims. "I never imagined they could live in such a contaminated environment." He pats the creature on the back of the neck as it grazes a patch of seagrass. He bends and looks closer at the animal. "Um, Gayle? There’s something I really think you want to see here."
I lean over the railing. "What’s that?" I ask.
He comes a step closer, grabs my arm, and before I know what’s happening I’m splashing headfirst into the brown water. When I come up, I sputter, "What was that for, you little – " Suddenly I notice an opalescent light around my neck. The mermaid scale I’ve worn since the encounter with my mother is glowing, sending rainbows in every direction. Also glowing are a series of crossed lines like x’s down the dugong’s back.
Looking more closely, I see these are stitches made with a thread the same silvery color as the scale around my neck. The creature’s big brown eyes look directly into mine, and I can swear he’s smiling, a soft, smooth smile as if to say, everything’s going to be all right. I don’t know if it’s true, but I do know this: My mother is near.
Chapter Ten
Sander
I decide to pay my old man a visit. After all, it can’t be pleasant being locked in the brig, and I figure he’d appreciate some company. I clamber downstairs to the sanitized room.
My dad is seated at a desk, poring over some ancient book. Bookshelves line the walls.
"So this is where they’ve sequestered their library," I say.
My dad twists around in his seat. "Hello there, son. I was wondering when you’d come and get me."
"I’m not here to set you free," I clarify. "I just thought you might be up for a little conversation."
"Shame, that," my dad sighs. "I mean, of course I’m up for some conversation. But I’d really like to hold it above deck, where I could get some fresh air. I haven’t caught a whiff of real air since Tuesday."
"Well, all right," I concede. After all, there’s nowhere he could run to from the middle of the ocean.
So we take a little stroll along the railing. My dad says, "I would have liked to include you in the family business, Aleksander. When you were old enough, I always planned to bring you out to the farm and let you try your hand at rearing the – "
"Farm?" I interrupt. "That place is more like a prison."
"Was." He sniffs. "It was a prison. That was the most efficient way to keep the animals in their place, to get as much milk as I could, to make as much money as I could. I needed to send you to school, after all." He doesn’t sound entirely convinced of his own righteousness.
"Well… are you sorry now?" I’m curious.
Before he can answer, a splash draws both of our eyes to the water, where a large silvery
fishtail pokes out of the surface next to a rock. It slurps back down into the water, and a woman’s head and shoulders break the surface right in front of where the tail disappeared. She’s middle-aged but youthful, with pastel orange hair and Gayle’s turquoise eyes.
"It’s a mermaid!" my dad cries. Soon we’re surrounded by the crew.
Foulweather slaps my dad on the shoulder. "Good work, Mr. Wytewind," he says. "We may need to keep you above deck from now on, to look out for things like this."
Meanwhile, Iru is lowering a net.
The mermaid darts away from us, but soon a tranquilizer dart is buried in her shoulder. Foulweather blows the dart gun emerging from his sleeve. Then it retracts back into his sleeve and is replaced once again by his robotic hand. The mermaid is dumped on the deck like a net full of cheap fish. Already, the color is draining from her skin, and the silvery tail is turning a duller gray.
"Hammerhead, put her in the bathtub," Lorenzini orders.
I walk over to where the big man is scooping up the mermaid, net and all. "You know, she won’t last long away from salt water." I warn. "If you don’t set her free within a day or two, she’ll die."
"A day or two, you said?" Lorenzini raises his eyebrows. "That’s long enough to sell her!"
The crew skips and skedaddles down to the second-floor bathroom, giggling and celebrating their victory.
"You gave her away," I turn to my dad. His head is in his hands. I remember the seahorses, and put a hand on his shoulder.
Chapter Eleven
Gayle
That afternoon, when the men are done poking fun at the novel creature, they leave the door to the bathroom ajar.
I sneak in to be confronted with a sorry sight. Her scales are a dull gray, and her alabaster skin is drained of all living color like a bleached coral reef. Her eyes open, and it looks like it takes a lot of effort, but she smiles weakly at me. "Abigayle," she sighs. "I think…you are old enough now… you are ready."
I kneel at the base of the tub. "What can I do for you, Mom?" The word feels strange on my lips.
"You have the power… to heal…"
"I do?" Just then I notice a light bursting through the dull scales of her tail. The same light is coming from my necklace. It’s the same glow we saw when we encountered the dugong. Now I know where my healing power lies – it was inherited from my mother.
I reach behind my neck, brushing my long hair to the side to unclasp the necklace. I don’t know exactly what to do.
My mother says, "closer, closer," with the same desperate hunger as a starved person inches from food.
So I hold the scale closer and closer to her skin. Now it’s touching her, rubbing over the smooth shoulders, the gray tail turning silver and iridescent.
A natural glow returns to her cheeks, and now I see the face of my mother in the glory of health.
"Wow, that was like magic!" I exclaim. "Are you better?"
"Much, thank you."
"But – how?"
"Mermaid scales have healing properties. That’s why many of us travel the ocean as healers. Especially now that so many are poisoned with human waste and battered by human vessels. Not that I blame you at all, my little sugar urchin."
"I’m sure it’s my fault as much as the others," I say. "I’ve been trying to make up for it, learning about the animals, trying to help Sander. But I’m not sure I’ve made any difference at all."
"You’ve probably made a small difference – would you like to make a bigger one? You could come to Mystycetii Island and be a mermaid like me. Then you’d have many healing scales, not just the one you borrowed from me." She smiles the indulgent smile of a mother, and I want to be in her arms – but not contained in the tiny bathtub.
"How do you plan to get back home?" I ask her.
She yanks on the drain covering, and soon a whirlpool begins swirling in the bathtub. "All drains lead to the ocean," she says with a wry smile. "At least, I know this one does." Before slipping down the drain herself, she beckons me to follow.
I step into the tub with my pajamas on and dive down the hole after her. After navigating through some piping that tickles my claustrophobia, I make my way to open water, where my mother floats, waiting for me.
She reaches into her silken belt and produces a small vial of amber liquid. "Drink this," she orders softly. "It’ll help you breathe underwater." I drink a few drops of the stuff. It tastes like fermented caramel syrup with a hint of sea salt. Then, at my mother’s encouraging nod, I dive headfirst into the blue, squeeze my eyes shut, and suck in, fully expecting my lungs to fill with choking water. Instead, I feel like I’m breathing very moist air. No bubbles are expelled at my exhalation, so I must truly be breathing the oxygen directly from the water.
My mother joins me just beneath the surface.
"Thank you," I say, and the words come out clearly, not mutated by the water.
"No, thank you, Gayle," my mother embraces me, and we circle in the gentle current. "Now I’m going to show you Mystycetii Island. You’ll never want to leave."
Before we set off, I glance backward once more at the ship, realizing for the first time I may never set foot on it again. In fact, I may not have a foot to set. I won’t miss Foulweather’s bitter expressions, or Oneye Walter’s grim reality, or Taffy’s girlish emotions… but I admit I will miss the man who didn’t believe in mermaids. A little. I should say good riddance of him, but a part of me wants to see him again… if only to gloat in his face.
~~~
After a swim that feels like forever, but at the same time no time at all with my mother’s exhilarating twisting and twirling through a pod of dolphins and my catching her up on my life since age eight, we arrive. And what a sight it is, that we arrive at! A mound of earth covered in lush rainforest rises out of the indigo evening tide. A mountain peak is submerged up above in pink clouds as the sun’s last rays light the starry sky.
Rather than going on land, my mother dives below the surface, and I experience the underwater side of this paradise. Crystals jut from every angle, broken only by humble earthen circular doors and windows through which people with fishtails swim. A few glance at us, and some smile and wave. My mother waves back. We come to an open window near the surface, framed by coral and amethyst. My mom swims right through the window. I follow, careful not to kick the sea anemones growing on the sill.
Inside is a watery studio apartment. We’re floating in the living room, where a giant clamshell is filled with couch pillows and a sea glass mosaic covers the coffee table. To the side, I spot a round open door to a bedroom where a seagrass hammock hangs next to a window. Somehow, it looks infinitely more comfortable than my cot on the ship.
She motions for me to follow her into the bedroom, past framed pictures hanging in the hallway. There’s one of some sort of crinoid, one of a mudskipper… then I spot one of her and my dad. She sits in a blow-up wading pool on a grass field with a picket fence in the background – our yard back home. My dad is smiling like I’ve never seen him smile. His arm is wrapped around her shoulders, he leans his head towards her, and both of them have one hand supporting a human baby in a pink dress.
"Why did you leave?" I ask quietly as we enter the bedroom. I want to put the words back in my mouth – anything not to remove from me what I have spent most of my life searching for.
She says, "I was needed here. And I just couldn’t be tied down to the land. It wasn’t a sustainable arrangement… I felt like I was fading every day." She turns to face me. "That isn’t to say," she says sternly, "that leaving you in the hands of that wreck of a man is in any way excusable. I need to learn to take responsibility for my actions and not get defensive…" her voice quavers.
I reach out before she can say more, and touch her shoulder. "It’s all right, Mom," I say. "The important thing is, we’re together now."
She pulls me in for a full embrace. "It has to be all right," she says. "I always thought I’d come back for you, when the t
ime was right. I never expected you to be the one to come find me." She looks around the room. "I have something I’ve been keeping for you, something I always meant to return…" She pulls a large black chest out from under the hammock and opens the creaky lid. Then she reaches inside to produce a piece of paper that’s been ripped in half, crumpled and then taped together and smoothed again. "Take it. It’s yours," she tells me, though her hand grasps it a little longer than necessary after I begin to seize upon it.
When I hold it up to the living lantern of a sea jelly hanging out on the ceiling, I recognize the childish pencil strokes immediately. "My drawing!" I marvel. "From the week I met you."
She smiles and nods with tears in her eyes.
"Thank you for keeping it all this time. I think now it’s more yours than mine."
She shakes her head. "It belongs to you," she says softly, but eagerly takes it in her hands when I hold it back to her.
I suddenly become curious: "How is that paper staying dry in the water?" She tells me, "There’s a lot to being a mermaid you don’t know yet, my dear. But I can teach you. I think you’ll learn fast."
"But I’m not really a mermaid," I say, kicking my white stick-legs through the water.
She says, "Not yet, but I think by releasing the krakens from the death grip of industry and forcing humanity to rethink their fuel source, you’ve earned the honor." She gestures around her, indicating the whole structure of Mystycetii. "Most of us were born with our fishtails, but since we mer-folk needed to enrich the diversity of our gene pool and expand the species’ range, we’ve been looking above water quite a bit. Anyone who meets certain criteria, such as working to save the ocean and getting along with sea creatures, can choose to join us and work to preserve this place. It’s hard to find people who care, though, and lately some of us are saying all our efforts are for nothing. The land folk are still burning kraken milk – up until recently. And even with this victory, they’re working to recapture the kraken. They’re searching for other, dirty forms of fuel. They keep dumping into the ocean, and even places like this the magic shield is wearing through. We’re vulnerable," she says, "and it’s beginning to worry me."