Secrets of the Sea
By: Mandy Botlik
(Below is a short story I wrote some years ago, enjoy.)
The Deepest sapphire-gloom encapsulates me. It is wet and piercing cold everywhere. I feel the pressure steadily increasing as I am pulled deeper and deeper. Here, it is so quiet and has a sort of eerie serenity to it.
Something moves in the salty deep. I feel it against my skin; the way one might feel the wind as it moves through the trees. If I listen, I can hear it move too; a deep thrump as it passes. What is it doing? Circling me, I think. After all, I am in its home. I am the invader or guest.
I try to remember how I came to be here. My mind is muffled by the throbbing pressure on my skull, feels as though it might explode. I feel the creature move around me again. Opening my eyes, I catch a glimpse of a silvery blue tail.
—I remember now, I was in my kayak paddling out alone. The day was clear, and the sea sparkled in the sunlight. It was my first day off in months. I spotted a dolphin tail and stopped to watch. Dolphin’s were common out here. They often came to play alongside the commercial fishing boats and the other boats from the harbor. Its tail slapped the water spraying me on my kayak. The water rippled as it moved beneath me in the depths.
I leaned ever so slightly to see it below me. I saw the silvery glint of scales, not a dolphin I realized, but couldn’t make out what kind of fish it was. It began to circle my kayak moving swiftly. The small vessel began to rock violently in the waves it made. My heat pounded as I realized whatever it was didn’t want me here.
Tentatively I placed my paddle in the water intending to turn my kayak and leave. Suddenly, the paddle was wrenched from my grasp and I felt the kayak tipping. I plunged into the water. A shadowy form shrieked in the water moving around me, pulling me down. —
What was it I wondered, as I continued to sink? I looked behind me trying to make out its shape. Salt stung my eyes, but the fish wasn’t there. The water rushed against my face and I turned.
Words cannot describe the beauty and horror of it. Deep blue eyes stared unblinking at me. It shimmered with the silvery scales that covered it from head to tail. The tail was like any other fish, but that is where it ended. The rest of the creature resembled a woman, a scaly woman, but a woman all the same. Around her head danced a halo of silvery white hair that fluoresce in the deep. Gills on her neck worked to change the water into something breathable.
We stared at one another transfixed; well, at least I was. Mermaids aren’t real! I must be dying. Yes, I inhaled some sea water and I’m dying, that’s it. She turned my head in her slippery hands from side to side feeling my smooth neck. Then she looked into my eyes.
I’ll never forget what I saw in those eyes. They seemed to hold within them the vastness of the waters around us and all its secrets. My mouth fell open in shock. Bubbles drifted up to the surface.
She turned her gaze to the bubbles. Then she touched my lips with her fingertips as I struggled not to breath. She must have seen it on my face; that aching need for air. She pressed her lips to mine. The gills on her neck pulsed rhythmically and she exhaled air into my mouth. I inhaled deeply. I could almost taste it salty and fishy.
She pulled away from me and effortlessly swam to my feet. She prodded them and pressed them flat against her hand. Without warning, she grabbed the back of my t-shirt and pulled me along. Were we going deeper or rising? I wasn’t sure. After a while the pressure seemed to lessen. Rising, I thought.
Light filtered through the blue haze; the water tugged at me as he picked up speed. Water splashed as she broke the surface arcing over my kayak and diving back in. I lay across my kayak coughing and gasping. After a moment I looked for her. Only her head poked out of the water. Swimming forward she nudged my paddle towards me. I grasped the paddle and attempted to thank her as I coughed. She smiled revealing razor-sharp pointed teeth. I felt my heart begin to race again.
“just this once,” she said in a voice that was human, but also seemed to carry like the eerie whale-songs. “And only because you weren’t fishing.” Her smile vanished and so did she beneath the waves.
It was a long time before I collected myself enough to paddle back; longer still before I could admit that it wasn’t a dream. There are times when I still wonder, but then I remember her and that eerie voice, and I know.
