Into the Drowning Deep (Rolling in the Deep, #1)

by Mira Grant

Communications were lost on May 17. The ship was found six weeks later, adrift and abandoned. No bodies have ever been recovered.

Katherine Stewart put her arms around her surviving daughter and held fast, like she was an anchor, like she could somehow, through her sheer unwillingness to let go, keep this child from the sea.

Luis looked at her worriedly as he unlocked the car. “You’re making the scary face again.” “Which one?” “The one that says you’re going to burn down the world if that’s what it takes to get what you want.”

“What if this isn’t what we think it is?” she asked, and her voice was small and timid, the voice of a child who’d never been allowed to say goodbye, rather than the voice of a woman on the verge of a discovery that could change her life.

Her admirers said she was beautiful, confident, and clever. Her detractors said she was fat and loud and took up too much space. All of them were, within their limited spheres, correct.

The best predators always learned how to masquerade as things that wouldn’t seem threatening. That was how they got close enough to strike.

“Wow. I can’t tell if that’s his tomcat way of giving you a dead mouse so you’ll love him again, or if it’s him trying to get you killed so he can move on. Want to take a bet?”

Sometimes loving each other isn’t enough to make up for all the things you know about another person.”

Are mermaids real? Yes. Are mermaids friendly? No. Why is this so hard?

If these mermaids are intelligent, we’ll learn to communicate with them.” “Before or after they swallow our faces?” “One hopes before, but beggars never can be choosers.”

Most people didn’t care about gender-essentialist bathrooms, but they did care about bigger hot tubs.

Children of islands and the coast went one of two ways: they learned to fear and respect the water, or they learned to live for it.

Asking scientists not to look into an open box was like asking cats not to saunter through an open door. It simply wasn’t practical.

The seas did not forgive, and they did not welcome their wayward children home.

Sometimes science was the closest thing to the sword of an avenging angel humanity was ever going to get.

Every person on this vessel was a story in the process of telling itself, and all of them were fascinating, and all of them deserved to be heard.

“All of this is my fault.” “Did they elect you God when I wasn’t looking? I suppose that would be a paradox, if you think about it. God is a middle-aged biology professor who exists in God’s own creation, only to go back to the beginning and make it for herself.

Humanity was cruel, and if you were prepared to try to find a bottom to that cruelty, you had best be prepared for a long, long fall.

the problem with trying to define nature is that nature is bigger than we are, and nature doesn’t care whether we know how to define it.

The trouble with having a bear sharing your bed was that one day, the bear was going to notice that you were there; one day, the maimings would begin in earnest.

Daryl was convinced that the word for a group of scientists ought to be a blackout, because that was what the fuckers seemed determined to cause.

Liberal mother; conservative father; autistic daughter learning about social interaction one book and course of practical study at a time.

Let deforestation do away with Bigfoot, let sonar destroy Nessie, but the sea would always be deep, always be dark, always be filled with wonders. Every cryptid hunter he knew had turned their eyes toward the sea years ago. That was where the monsters might still be.

It was beautiful, in its own terrible way. So many monsters are.

The smarter you are, the more likely you are to want to eat the world.

They could learn to heal together. Even if it was only for one night, they could learn to heal together.

“When someone kills an American citizen, we don’t say, ‘Oh well, we killed one of theirs last week; we’re calling it even,’” she said. “We declare war. We sweep civilizations off the face of the globe. They won’t care that they started it. They’re only going to care who finishes it, and to be honest, I’m not sure it’s going to be us.”

“Recent events meaning ‘killer mermaids eating people’?” asked Luis. “Yeah, I can see where some folks might find that unsettling. Probably best to offer two-for-one mojitos the next time we have an open bar. Maybe we’ll get lucky, and alcohol will be fatal to the things. They’ll eat a couple lightweights and decide to leave us alone.”

“Whistling past the graveyard is a time-honored tradition. Keeps us from screaming.”

Daniel glared at her. “I have a PhD.” “That’s nice. So do I.” “I also have two master’s degrees, and I’ve addressed the United Nations.” “I can run in four-inch heels. Are we done playing ‘who has the bigger dick’? Because I have things to accomplish, and I need you to stand in front of the siren.”

“You say no one here is guilty of murder, but she was, my Michi,” said Jacques. “She killed men who stood between her and what she wanted, as easily as she put knife to sturgeon, bullet to lion. She was a huntress, and she murdered a thousand times over to get what she desired. I murdered by her side. Would you truly look me in the eye and say there has been no murder here? Even when to say otherwise might save you?”