Fish Out of Water

chapter Four

Sting-rays and Eight-ball


Day Two: 10:00am

He is riding the ivory stallion, and I am bumping along sitting astride it, behind him. My heart is full and I can feel the ride’s bony back between my legs and the strong, muscled back of my lover pressed against my chest at the same time. The setting sun dips in front of us as we bounce across the plain. It is huge and orange and glowing with possibility.

All is well. After everything that has been, all is going to be okay…

I was groggy and disoriented, my mind blank, as I twisted and bucked in the bright room, sheets pinning me down. My eyes connected with furniture and light that I didn’t recognize, that made no sense. I was a girl, riding off into the sunset, my heart full. What was all of this? A slick black space occupied the zone where I somehow knew my thoughts and memories should be. I gasped and spluttered like a drowning woman. I groped for myself, for my soul, not knowing who or where I was. A prickly rush arced through me and I tasted blood on my tongue as I bit down against the terror. Blank consciousness overwhelmed me for a few seconds before I remembered who and where I was. Before the simple furnishings – the netbook on a desk, the Goan wall hanging – declared themselves mine.

Me. Rania. Of Dirtwater, Nowhere. Half mermaid, half cop. Half freakin’ insane.

I sat up quickly, tearing sheets from my body and wondering if death was like that. Ugly nothingness. Being empty of self. It was the shit-scariest thing that had ever happened to me.

I stretched like a cat, feeling sore patches and an aching bruise where my brain used to be. I glanced at the clock. Ten am. Brownie o’clock.

Wonder why Mom let me sleep so long.

Then I remembered. I was out of bed and hunting for Mom in one swift movement, although the larger muscles of my torso and quads were echoing the screaming of my brain. I felt like some giant hand had picked me up and squeezed until I was red-raw inside and out.

But I didn’t care.

I limped through the red shield of agony. The whole thing seemed surreal. Mermaids in Dirtwater. Sound weapons.

And, weirder still, happy ever after dreams.

“How are you this morning darling?” I fuzzily registered that Mom was speaking with her lips rather than into my head, and that she sounded forced, so I figured we had company.

“Peachy, Mama,” I lied briskly.

And then the voice of my boss was at my ear, picking at my wounds as though he was scratching them with a scalpel. “Big night, huh Rania?”

Aldus. Give me scary sound weapon guy any day. I should have known. Brownie Sunday is like a mating call to the Dirtwater male.

“Hi Aldus,” I smiled at him, sniffing the air. “Started early this morning, Ma?”

“I remember you promised some brownies to little Billy,” she confirmed, doing her best Little House on the Prairie.

Oh by the Goddess, that’s right. I needed to get rid of the Sheriff. But how? I shot an SOS like a laser beam into Mom’s head. Don’t you need something for the frosting?

Mom quickly bundled up two care parcels of freshly iced brownies for Aldus. “Here you go, dear,” she offered with honey persuasion. “Best get those over to your Ma right away, so they’re nice and warm for her.”

“Now?” Aldus had never been sent on his way so quickly. “What about Red Riding Hood?” He motioned at me in my crimson dressing gown. “She usually takes ’em to Ma.” “Oh, she would darling, but she has to go visit her father first. Didn’t you remember it’s Arty’s birthday? And you know your Ma’ll be waiting for them.”

Aldus had the good grace to look embarrassed. Dad’s still his best friend, despite having been locked up in the county jail for the last twelve years. “Oh, of course,” he lied. “Course I remembered. Gonna pop over to see him myself. Later.”

Aldus and Dad play a regular poker game at the jail, every Tuesday afternoon. It says something about Dirtwater that no-one bats an eyelid about the Sheriff and our most famous con being best buddies. Or about the con being the Mayor’s ex. Or the deputy being the daughter of said con and said mayor. I thought for a moment that maybe Dirtwater wasn’t such a parochial little shithole. Maybe Mom knew what she was doing when she chose it after all.

Aldus pried himself off the stool, moseying over to give Mom a quick peck on the cheek.

“Here you go.” She handed him the two parcels in a way that made him feel like the whole thing was his idea.

But even with the boss-man out of the way, there wasn’t much to tell from Mom’s end. Doug had taken off with Blondie but hadn’t said much. He’d dropped Ma’s ride back a couple of hours later and Mom had tried to pump him, but it seemed to me that maybe he hadn’t been sure how much he was allowed to tell, so he’d made himself scarce. He’d left a message on my cell at 8:17am: The delivery’s been made.

“How are you today, Ransha?” Her big blue eyes were slick with worry. I felt awful for putting her through this.

“Fine,” I lied, but opened my mind just a crack so she could peek at the pain.

“Oh darling,” she cried, hand to her mouth. “Is it unbearable?”

“What’s unbearable,” I offered lightly, “is that I’ve run out of cigarettes.”

“Sometimes a time of trial is the best time to add another test,” Mom responded.

Oh no, no way. I didn’t have the strength to argue right now so I made for the shower.

“How long ’til brownies?” I checked as I went. I’ve found there’s very little in life that can’t be cured by a good dose of sugar, butter and chocolate. Since she’s been Mayor, Mom’s been disqualified from the county fair bakeoff, but before that, she won it 16 years straight.

The water was good on skin that felt like scar tissue. I stood under the steaming jets and let them worm their wicked way under my nerve endings until I felt slow and floppy like a day old baby. Then I sat down on the floor for a while, a habit I’d had since I was a kid. I let the water pool around me and thought about that old mermaid movie. The one where the gorgeous blonde comes to live with the kooky Tom Hanks character and is always sprouting a tail. I looked down at my long, strong brown legs, and laughed to myself imagining a tail somehow appearing from my ass. My mind drifted to Aegira, that crazy beautiful underwater world. I pictured all the merfolk swimming, floating, standing around. Not a fishtail in sight. We started out human, after all. So we’re mostly human. More human than fish at least. Or something.

I grabbed a loofah and attacked my feet, scrubbing like I could scrub off the stain of terror and pain the night before had left on me. Then I moved to the rest of my body, washing thoroughly and reaching behind me with a long brush to scrub my back. It itched and ached from the night’s exertions and the brushing felt incredibly good, like pulling the last scabby crust off a healing wound. I wanted the shower never to end.

By the time I finished I felt totally human again.

Which, of course, was kind of ridiculous given my lineage.

As I was standing on the mat, water dripping off my nose, something happened to remind me. One moment I was rubbing myself all over with one of Mom’s soft, thick bath towels. The next I couldn’t see anything but blackness. I instantly thought I’d blacked out, which let’s face it would hardly be surpising given what I’d been through the night before, but I dismissed the thought almost as quickly. I was too aware, too conscious. More than aware. Hyper-aware. Tuned like a hunting dog, senses stretched to their most elastic ends.

The blackness made me a little dizzy and I dropped to my knees on Mom’s fluffy bathmat as it began. Flashing before me somehow, not before my eyes, but across the screen of my mind, and charging all my senses. A… story. A vision. The things I saw, heard and felt were fractured but ghoulish. A dark shape, indistinct but very definitely there. A place with no walls, or time. Or sound. The cries of young girls.

My body reacted like the whole thing was real. Like I was really there, wherever “there” was. My muscles tensed and bunched, ready to fly or fight. Sweat poured from me and my legs started to shake, tucked under me on the bath mat.

I was in danger. Terrible, terrible danger. But so were others. The crying of the girls seemed to intensify and I couldn’t work out what they were screaming but it was as though they were calling to me, right into me, asking for my help. Then the screen on my mind went red, swirling with what I knew in my heart was blood. So much blood. Blood of people, lots of people. People I hadn’t been able to help. And maybe my blood too. Last time I saw that much blood I was lying on a couch at the Red Cross with my sleeve rolled up and an old lady giving me a “Thanks for Your Donation” sticker.

“Nice shower?” Mom enquired sweetly over her shoulder, as I appeared again in the kitchen behind her.

I took a shaky breath, wondering if my legs would hold me. Here we go.

“Mom. I think I’ve developed some… powers.”

Mom laughed, a beautiful tinkling sound, not turning around, preoccupied by something she was fiddling with on the kitchen bench. “Oh darling, you know the drill. Aegir and Ran were magical, but apart from the instant magic of water-breathing, none of it passed. Even telepathy we just developed out of necessity, so we could communicate under all that water. Essentially we’re just very clever fish.” She stopped, turning around and taking me in, wet and shaken, standing in front of her in my dressing gown. She was at my side in a heartbeat, holding me up with arms so strong I remembered all over again how different we really were from humans. A random thought skittered into my brain as she steered me over to the couch and lowered me down firmly. Wonder if she could beat me in an arm wrestle? It had never occurred to me to challenge her to one.

Mom was patting and fussing on me when I clicked back into the moment.

“Mom,” I squawked. “I’m serious. About the powers thing. Something just happened to me. A… a vision, I think. I’ve never had anything like it before.” I narrowed my eyes at her. “Do you know anything about this? Has it ever happened to you?”

Mom rubbed her hands over her eyes, shaking her head. Then she sighed, rolled her shoulders and nodded slightly. “Okay darling. Listen. No, no I’ve never had a… vision. But-” Again, that thoughtful pause, like she was weighing up what and how much to tell me. “But maybe it’s not so crazy.” She pulled me closer to her on the couch, and pressed my head down on her shoulder, but whether it was to get closer to me or because she didn’t want to look me in the eyes, I couldn’t tell. “I had a friend once, who was very… learned. He believed that we… Aegirans, that is... were experiencing an evolutionary quantum leap.”

I lifted my head off Mom’s shoulder and raised an eyebrow, trying not to feel like I was in physics class.

Mom sped it up in deference to my low boredom threshold. “He believed that certain abilities, including, perhaps, a certain psychic capacity, were starting to appear among our race. We were starting to evolve, I guess.”

The skeptic in me was thinking about all the times I’d gone off to Aldus about Dirtwater Spiritual Adventures, the little shopfront down on Main where two-bit psychics and ghost-spotters milked the locals for all they were worth. But some other bits of me were saying I should be a little more open-minded. Given, you know, my own baggage.

My tension must have played out on my face because Mom leaned forward and took my hand as she went on. “My friend, he’d followed several cases where our people had experienced... visions as you call them. Or second sight. He believed… well, he used to say… the most exceptional and gifted would change first. The rest would follow. Evolution. Another Awakening, to begin with the most remarkable. But he’d never been able to prove it.”

I sighed with relief. Maybe I wasn’t going mad after all. But I was still kinda skeptical about whether I fit the theory. Remarkable?

Mom encouraged me with her eyes. “So. Tell me about it darling.”

I hesitated. “As… as I got out of the shower, I saw things. They didn’t all make sense, but it was definitely some kind of vision. And I’m sure it was about Aegira.”

She nodded and waited, taking my hands.

I could feel them shaking, and my heart was still hammering in my ribs from what I’d just experienced. This kind of shit just did not happen to me. I mean, there were certain wild bits about who we were, but I was used to them. I was used to being strong, and the telepathy, all that stuff. All that aside, I’d always felt very… normal. Very workaday. Maybe if I’d had that tail it might have been different. I would have had a daily reminder of my otherness.

As it was, most of the time, when I wasn’t thinking about the fact that a seer from an underwater kingdom had predicted my early demise, I just felt like another harassed cop, trying to stumble along, doing the best I could. I didn’t believe in ghosts or any of that stuff. I knew seers existed (knew more than I wanted to know about them, in fact) but I’d always thought second sight was the province of other creatures and I’d never thought of myself in that category.

I tried to sort what Mom had told me. Others, other Aegirans had visions too.

But why me? Why was I being affected? And why now?

Of course, there was something special about now, and it wasn’t just the fact that I had a pretty significant birthday coming up in three weeks. The words were burned in the brains of Aegiran children before their first lullaby. When Ran’s line ends…

“Mom,” I started again. “What do you really know about all this… prophecy stuff?”

Mom got up and skittered into the kitchen, coming back with a bowl with the frosting dregs and passing it to me. I began to scrape it with my fingers.

“Well,” she said. “You know the basics, darling. Aegira came about ten millennia ago when Aegir, God of the Boundless Seas, sank his island home to the deepest part of the ocean.”

I nodded. “Check.”

She settled in for the tale. “And an evil magician, Manos of course, desired Aegira’s riches and quite fancied a billow maiden wife. He killed Aegir, and his entire family.” She blinked back tears. “They say the sea ran red with blood. All dead, bar the eldest daughter.”

I sucked in my breath as I thought about all that blood in the vision. Was it mine?

Three weeks, and I’m toast. Was the vision about me?

My head spun as I wondered how it would be for me, in three weeks.

Would I be brave? Would I cry like a baby? I’d seen enough to know no-one could ever know til the end how they were gonna be. I’d seen tough guys with tattoos of the devil calling out for their Mamas, and I’d seen little kids dying from violent attacks, cooler than Joan of Arc.

My gut churned. Blood.

“Yeah, yeah,” I confirmed impatiently. “But what about the prophecy?”

“Patience, darling,” Mom clucked in exasperation. “It’s all connected. It’s mystical, for heaven’s sake. Not some…” she looked at me sharply. “…talk show.”

I smiled contritely, swallowed memories of blood and chaos, licked my fingers clean of frosting, and nodded for her to go on. Maybe not, but Dr Phil would have got there quicker.

“Okay, so on her thousandth birthday, Angeyja, the eldest billow maiden, the one he spared? She fell mysteriously pregnant and gave birth to the next sister, who then got her turn to live again. And it’s worked that way ever since. Sister giving birth to sister after living for a thousand years, then living for only a few years until her daughter/sister comes of age.”

Mom sighed, and covered her mouth with her hand, blinking quickly. “Apparently the whole system was a really creative way for Manos to avenge the sisters for blowing him off. Typical man really. It meant the billow maidens could never be together. Because apparently, they adored each other. And… and together they were unstoppable.”

We both sighed then. Men. They’ll never get the sisterhood.

“Problem is Queen Imd was youngest, so she’s now lived a thousand years and there are no sisters left. The prophecy’s supposed to come into effect when Ran’s line ends. That’s now.”

“Yeah, okay, Mom, but what does the prophecy actually mean?” I’ve wondered about prophecies my whole adult life and I wanted her best guess, at least, about this one. The Big Kahuna. Especially now. Especially after the freakin’ things I’d seen in the freakin’ bathroom.

Were they connected somehow? The prophecy of earth and sea? And the Seer’s prediction about me? Last night, the three mermaids in town, it was all too much of a coincidence. And there was too much cop running through these veins of mine, along with that life fish, to believe in any kind of coincidence. Let alone that many coincidences.

Mom was far away, but frowning thoughtfully.

“Well, Aegiran scholars have argued about just that for millennia. I guess there are some parts of the prophecy they generally agree about. The part that says “only one world can be”, for example. They believe it means that only land-dwellers or sea-dwellers will survive the final showdown. Not both. But they’ve come up short trying to work out who or what the prophecy’s “three” are. You remember those mysterious “three”, who’ll stop the bloodtide?”

I nodded.

“Well, no-one knows who they are. Some think it’s all about the return of Manos.”

“Wouldn’t he be kind of old by now?”

“Quite,” Mom agreed. “And my thinking is that if we haven’t heard from him in ten thousand years, we’re probably pretty safe. The veil of secrecy obviously worked.” As she finished up, she took the bowl from me and wiped a trail of chocolate from my chin with her finger. “So, what did this vision tell you? About Aegira. How does it look??”

Suddenly I was back in the swirling red chaos, my breath sucked from my lungs, my heart pounding, watching it all unfold.

I grasped her hand.

“Bloody.”

Half an hour later I was on my way to the morgue again, to meet Billy. It felt good to be behind the wheel of Ariel, my beautiful red Chevy Corvette Stingray. Hey, we’re all allowed some irony. I had the Targa T-tops off and I was blowing out some angst. And I was working on nonchalant, ’cause I wasn’t quite sure how Billy was gonna take it when he realized Blondie was missing. I never had a poker face, so I was practicing my lines out loud.

“Heavens above, where could she be?” Nah, too Gone With The Wind.

The psychological wounds of the night before were opening a little at the thought of going back, just as I’d manage to mentally butterfly-clip them together and face another day. I’d thought I was cool with dying. But now, every time I thought about it, my fists clenched and red spots swam before my eyes. My pulse started to race and my focus started to narrow, just like it did when I geared up for a fight. Which was a problem ’cause meditation was tough, but it was a piece of cake compared to changing destiny and saving the world.

Where the hell do you start with that?

When I found Billy, he was draining the dregs from a very large coffee.

“Big night, toots?” I dropped the baking on the slab.

“Mmm-mmmm,” Billy drooled, yanking open the container and shoving his nose right onto the nearest, still-warm brownie. “Your Ma is out of this world, Rania,” he sighed, ecstatic.

“Oh man,” I confirmed. “You don’t know the half of it.” Truer than he’d ever know.

He offered me a cup of coffee.

“Thanks,” I accepted gratefully. I hated to admit it, but Mom had used not-so-subtle brownie bribery this morning to convince me not to cave in and buy a new packet of smokes. I’d been awake for about ninety minutes and my already-mashed brain was yelling obscenities at me, wondering why it was being deprived of one of its few small pleasures. Coffee might help.

Billy poured the thick black stuff into one of the mugs he keeps at the morgue. I picked it up and notice the barely dressed woman stenciled on the side of it.

“Nice, Billy. Now, shall we begin?”

“Guess so,” he moaned half-heartedly.

“Lead the way.”

I realized I needed to get busy as we entered the little cool room. No matter how hard I tried, I wasn’t gonna be able to feign total surprise when I saw that empty drawer. So I pulled out my little spiral book and started jotting some stuff in it.

“Holy shit!”

At his cry, I looked over at Billy’s face, which had gone equal shades green and white.

“What’s up, pal?” I was going for casual, and not doing such a bad job.

“The blonde,” Billy wheezed. “She’s gone.”

I faked stern. “What do you mean gone?” Yeah, this was good. Stern was the key to getting away with this. Turn the tables. “Are you sure you put her there? Maybe you took her to Peaceful Skies by mistake?”

Billy scratched his head. “Nah, definitely not. I put the broad in here, I swear.”

I wandered over to the drawer and pulled it in and out a few times, like I was waiting for Blondie to materialize. “Man,” I whistled. “Too weird. Where do you think she could be?”

Billy was still scratching his head. “I have not got the faintest idea,” he stammered. “Who’d steal a stiff?”

I was keeping busy with my notebook, muttering about getting down the details, and I felt rather than see Billy start to look over at me with something approaching suspicion.

When I looked up, his piggy little eyes were searching my face, so I turned the wheel one revolution. “Billy,” I started sweetly. “Did you have these drawers locked?”

“Ah…” He was hopping from foot to foot, and I could almost see his mind ticking over.

I helped him along. “‘Cause, y’know, Billy, morgue personnel have some pretty serious obligations under federal law. Y’know, for how they deal with dead bodies.” I had absolutely no idea whether or not that was true, but the words sound robust and plausible as they formed in my mouth. I pressed home my advantage. “These are people’s loved ones, man.”

“Yeah,” he confirmed finally. “Yeah I definitely did. Some a-hole’s picked the lock.”

It seemed self-preservation had made him forget his momentary suspicion toward me, so I relaxed. “Okay then,” I started, all business. “In that case, we gotta treat this place as a crime scene. I’m gonna have to advise Aldus. And get him down here to dust for prints.”

Billy frowned. “Can’t you do that?”

“Normally I would, Billy,” I said, “but I’ve gotta get to the jail asap. Dad’s birthday.”

Aldus was still at the aged-care home when I reached him on my cell. I told him the bare facts and explained that I needed him to come and dust. Aldus was annoyed. Not so much because there’d been a crime, but because for the second time in twenty-four hours his recreation was being interrupted by criminal activity. Sunday’s game day and the criminals of Dirtwater are usually good-mannered enough to respect it. Not today.

I was glad when I pulled away from the morgue, waving cheerfully to Billy in the rearview, ’cause I could stop the facade. And get away from a place that’s forever gonna feel haunted to me now.

Most of all, ’cause I was going to see my Dad. And that always felt good.

Twenty minutes later I was being shown into Dad’s facility.

When they locked Dad up and liberated him from the confining shackles of running a small town organized crime outfit, he poured his considerable energies into studying law. Since then, he’d used his time to petition for various allowances. Never for freedom, mind you. No Innocence Project for him. He knew he was guilty for all they’d got him for, and a whole shedload else as well, so he said he wasn’t going to perjure himself by lying about it to get out early. But he’d managed to convince the authorities that as a long-term inmate they’d be violating his Geneva rights if they didn’t knock out the wall between his cell and the next to expand his living space. Unlimited access to the recreation room had followed.

He was behind the pool table shooting eight ball with one of the guards when I arrived.

“Hi Dad,” I said, settling myself down in one of the comfortable sofas under the window and helping myself to a soda from the massive two-door fridge. “What’s goin’ on?”

“Not much, bellissima, not much,” he answered distractedly, lining up to pocket the black. I watched his broad, chunky back as he lined it up, silver curls teasing the collar of his black linen shirt and swanky black chinos pulling tight over his muscly butt. He had the body of the fishermen from whom he had descended - stocky, square, strong – and the savoir faire of the Milanese tourists he’d admired as a kid. “There’s Twinkies there too,” he called over his shoulder as he leaned down and eyed his target.

I’ve never been able to resist anything with a warning label, and I was gonna need my Twinkies intravenously to get me through saying sayonara for real to my beloved Marlboros.

Let alone all the other crazy shit that was going down.

“Bad luck, Clay,” Dad commiserated with the guard, as he expertly pocketed the black and ten bucks from Clay’s hand, slapping him on the shoulder. “Better luck next time, ay?”

Clay nodded glumly. “Hi Rania,” he said, with a quick gape of astonishment that I’d managed to scarf three Twinkies in the time since Dad made their presence known to me.

“Hi Clay,” I returned. “How much you lost to the old shark this week?”

“Seventy bucks,” he bit out grimly.

“Stop playing,” I suggested.

“I should.” Clay nodded in agreement. “I’ll leave you two alone. Be just outside.”

There are only half a dozen inmates in the county jail at any time. Dad says the only thing he really misses is women, but I suspect the guards turn a blind eye to lots of the goings-on in cell 9/10. Not that I want to think about it. It’s not some emotional baggage thing either, not some romantic hope that Mom and Dad might reconcile someday. I’ve never known them as a couple and quite frankly I find it hard to. But I know one thing: Mom and Dad were no Little Mermaid deal. Mom did not leave her ocean paradise and come live in Shitsville because she fell in love with some earth Prince. So I don’t care who he’s with, I just don’t want to know. I might be a mermaid. He might be a con. But he’s still my Dad and if there’s one universal truth in earth and sea it’s this: no kids want to know about their parents’ sex lives. Ick.

“So, Dad,” I started now we were alone. “Happy birthday.” I walked over and gave him a hug, handing him the gift I’d toted along with me. He smelled like soap and hair oil.

The gift was wrapped in brown paper and curly red ribbon, and as Dad tore it open he grinned widely at the framed picture of him and Aldus on a community service trip (hunting and fishing). “Ah, perfecto,” he intoned, caressing it. “How is the old cretino? Driving you mad?”

“You have no idea,” I moaned.

Something in my face made him look at me quickly and I saw shrewd old Arty Aqualina, King of the Swift Move, the guy who got thirty years for the biggest scam the county ever saw.

I shook my head, trying to see him as Mom had, thirty years before. One thing was for sure. My stocky, gangster Dad had never seen a girl like Mom. And he sure hadn’t been Robinson Crusoe there. But he’d managed to make made her laugh and the rest is history. For her part, my brainiac Mom had been pretty dense when it came to protection. Aegirans used to believe it impossible for mermaids and land-dwellers to reproduce. Before me. I came along almost nine months to the day after my Dad made my Mom laugh, so I guess Dr Phil might say my crappy track record with men is just me repeating some kinda pattern. Of course, he’d also ask: is this workin’ for ya? And assure me that today could be a changin’ day.

“Let’s shoot before we talk,” I said.

Dad’s good, but I’m pretty good too, and he only beat me by a whisker. It doesn’t matter that I never lived with Dad. He was the one who taught me to shoot, fish, and throw a ball. We finished the game without much conversation. It felt good to just pocket balls, and be together.

“Okay now, so what is it, bambina?”

I’d been thinking about what I wanted to ask all the way here, weighing the words in my mouth. I needed to find a way to manage the sick undercurrent that churned my stomach, lurked at the back of my consciousness. “Dad,” I started. He just watched me with brown almond eyes that I knew from experience didn’t shock easy. “D’you think someone can learn to be brave?”

Dad burst out laughing, this great throaty chuckle. “Madre de Dio,” he roared when he finally caught his breath, wiping away tears. “I’ve been headstrong, stupid and stubborn, but never brave.” He stopped smiling and studied me closely. “Want to tell me whatcha ’fraid of?”

I wouldn’t have said it like that. But once he did, it settled into my pulse and picked up its rhythm. Something had lodged itself, deep and silent in my blood. The pain, the terrible pain from last night. Then realizing I’m really not at all cool with dying. In three weeks time. Or ever. And realizing that, according to the Seer at least, that means I got some work to do.

Y’know, to change the course of destiny and save the world entire.

I shook my head once. No, I definitely don’t want to tell this man what I’m afraid of.

Dad nodded. “Okay, then,” he tried again. “All I can tell ya’s this. Courage is for fools and heroes. And heroes end up deader than dead. It’s fear that keeps you thinkin’. Making the right decisions. Livin’ to tell the tale.” He paused for effect. He loves a touch of the theatrical. “Fear is your amico, your pal.” It sounded kinda corny, like maybe he’d heard in the Godfather, he loves that movie. But it made sense too, like something clicking into place inside me. I didn’t have to fight the fear. Maybe it was there for a good reason. I just had no idea what it is.

I was about to talk some more when his next visitor arrived.

It was always like this at Dad’s. Grand Central Station.

“Hey, Aldus,” I sighed. “You were sure quick at Larry’s. Any leads?”

“Nah,” Aldus sighed right back at me, plonking his ass down on the sofa near Dad and handing him what looked like a hastily wrapped gift and a six pack of beer. “Just kids I bet. I’m sure our dead blonde’ll show up.”

Aldus blames everything on kids. I think he watches too much cable news.

Dad raised his eyebrows at me as if to say dead blonde? But he said nothing.

I’d had enough Aldus for one day, so I made to leave.

“Great seeing ya Dad,” I said as I kissed him good-bye.

Then I remembered. “Uh, Dad. Mom and I have to go away. Coupla days…”

“Huh?” Aldus’ head snapped up. “First I’ve hearda it. What’s going on?”

“Family wedding.”

I knew Aldus wouldn’t want me to go, especially with the Case of the Missing Dead Blonde to deal with. He can usually rely on me to do more than my share of the work.

“Short notice. Sorry Aldus, I know it’s bad timing, but do you think you can spare me?” I was doing the obedient underling thing, but I’d made up my mind. I was going no matter what he said. And he was going to say sure, fine. But we had to get through this charade first.

He whooshed spit out through his teeth like he was thinking. “Don’t worry sweetheart,” he winked at me. “I got it covered.”

Dad winked at me too as I pushed out into the wall of heat, on a mild sugar high from the Twinkie I demolished on the way out. I ran quickly through what I had to do. Water Mom’s plants (she’d be working like crazy all day.) Visit Mrs Tripe. So she didn’t think I’d deserted but also to ask her a few things. Oh, and check in on Larry.

Last things first, I supposed, gunning up Ariel and making for The End of Days.


12:50pm: The End of Days

Larry was washing glasses when I arrived, like he really did work there.

“Hi honey,” Larry called. “To what do I owe the pleasure? Thought you’d be rolling around in sweet brownie heaven right about now.”

“No such luck,” I sighed, on a nicotine withdrawal low. “Got any Cheetos?”

“Sure,” he offered, throwing a little packet across the bar at me, even though they weren’t his Cheetos. And it wasn’t his bar. He looked at me properly for the first time. “What’s happened now?”

“I need to take off. Wanted to make sure your guys got that parcel.”

I knew from Doug’s message that he’d made the drop, but I wanted to make sure everything was okay the other end. Larry looked at me, he could see I had things to do. Places to go. And he was just the about the only one who knew where those places might be.

Clear green eyes looked right into me, and I was sure those little lines at the edges of his eyes hadn’t been there the night before. Then he smiled, and threw another pack of Cheetos at me. “No problemo, honey. And hey. I want a song each night when you’re back. Deal?”

“Deal.” I was so grateful to this man I’d give him my firstborn.

Next stop, Mrs Tripe.

Visiting Aldus’ Ma has been a Sunday ritual of mine ever since grade school. I was maybe only eight or nine when I had to do a project on senior citizens. Mrs Tripe’d just retired at the time, after being a school teacher for fifty years, and Mom knew she was at a loose end. We’d bonded over plum cake and stories, and I’d been in love with her from that moment on.

If I’m in town, Sunday afternoon belongs to Mrs Tripe.

Lots of people think Mrs Tripe’s crazy, ’cause she claims to see things. I’m ashamed to say maybe I’d always thought she was a little crazy too. I guess life sends you lessons to teach you not to be so closed-minded. ’Cause now that I was an official member of the Seers’ Club, I wasn’t thinking she was crazy at all. And I needed to talk to her about it.

During our history together, Mrs Tripe has gone from active seventy-year-old to frail ninety-year-old, and moved from her cozy little three bed duplex to the Dirtwater Aged Care Home. Aldus wanted her to come and live with him, but his place just wasn’t set up for it, and his job meant he often had to be out and about at strange hours. Mrs Tripe needs round-the-clock care. Not that you’d know it. She was waiting in the parking lot when I pulled up in Ariel, hardly looking a day over sixty-five in a yellow dress covered with sunflowers.

“Afternoon, Rania,” she called cheerfully. “I hear you’re heading out of town.”

This damn town.

“Yeah,” I muttered as I unfolded myself from the Corvette and folded her up into a hug. She was a neat package in my heavily muscled arms, only a shade over five foot, but her eyes were sparkly and her tongue was scalpel sharp. Or maybe I just had scalpels on the brain.

“Yes, not yeah. Really, Rania, for such a bright girl you speak terribly.” But she smiled at me and returned my hug, holding me so close I could smell lavender and berries and feel the cottony softness of her cheek.

“Ah well,” I consoled her. “At least I can sing.”

Her eyes misted over at the thought. She always attends the recitals I organize with the local choir. “Below the belt, darling,” she agreed. “But true.” Never one not to have the final word, she felt obliged to add: “No reason you couldn’t do both, of course.”

With that, she looped her tiny sparrow arm in mine and steered me ever so gracefully to a little bench resting sweetly under a nearby oak. “Let’s chat outside this time, darling. The old people are acting up terribly inside today.”

I love how she says “the old people” like she’s not one. And I love how she holds my hand when we chat. She’s the closest I ever came to a Grandma.

We covered the usual things – the weather, the old people. Then I started to steer her ever so slightly onto something different, and she knew it, but allowed herself to be led anyway.

“She was quite amazing when she first came to town. I mean, truly amazing. As in, a thing which amazes. Not in the casual way the word is thrown about by young people these days to describe any vaguely interesting thing.” She sighed, remembering. “Yes, she was amazing, your ma. Not just the uncommon beauty. But the poise, the lack of artifice. And the mystery.”

Aha, there’s where I wanted to go.

“Anyone wonder what it was all about? The mystery?”

Mrs Tripe thought, stroking the soft, bubbly skin of her neck, eyes focused upwards and slightly to the right. “Most folks did, I guess. When she wasn’t there. When she was around, we just liked that she was there. Dirtwater just seemed less… dirty… with her in it. Woman like that…” Mrs Tripe clucked her tongue. “All those brains, that beauty. Coulda been Mayor of anyplace. Paris even. Why Dirtwater?”

We both sat, musing, Mrs Tripe stroking one soft finger along the top of my hand, like petting a kitten. Unconscious, affectionate. “I did ask her once. You know, in the early days.”

“What did she say?” Like picking at a scab, my mind often came back to worrying at the frayed gaps in my knowledge of my Mom and her mystery.

“A funny thing.” Mrs Tripe looked far away again.

“I remember it so clearly, word for word, because it was so strange. She said that sometimes you have to leave the things you love to make sure they stay safe. Sometimes you can be the most dangerous thing for them, even though you’d happily die for them.”

I felt a sudden cold hand clutch at my belly, and knew it was about to happen again.

Mrs Tripe’s words echoed through the walls of my still-aching brain, even as they started to dissolve and turn to something else. And there it was again. The same thing. From the bathmat. The dark shape, the cries. But this time my Mom’s voice was crying too, and Mom was swimming, fast, carrying something in her arms, but I couldn’t see what it was.

And then it was gone, and my mind was black and aching again. And Mrs Tripe had her arms around me, holding me while I shook and tears poured down my cheeks. She was talking but it took a few moments for her words to make their way through to my overheated brain.

“Shush, darling, shush. It will pass. Don’t fight it.”

And she waited with me while I made the slow and scary journey back from the abyss.

“You’re both different.” She was holding my face now, looking into me. “You, your ma Lunia. But I know you’ll be okay. It doesn’t matter what you are, you’re ours.”

She pulled back from me, and I noticed for the first time since arriving that she had a little blue-green bag with her. It looked sequined, and Mrs Tripe handed it to me.

“Your Mom gave me this, shortly after she arrived. Asked me to keep it safe, and I always have. I have no idea what’s in it, but she asked that I give it to you if anything ever happened to her. And that I must tell you not to open it until you need to. And that you’ll know when you need to. I’ve seen something, and I think maybe you’re going to need it soon, even though she’s still with us. This journey you’re going on, there’s something different about it.”

I opened my mouth to speak, but she silenced me with a finger. “You don’t need to tell me, dear. An old woman like me, I don’t need to know. But I know you need something to keep you safe. But maybe you don’t need to tell your Mom I gave it to you. Not just yet.”

She passed the little bag to me, and as I turned it over in my hands, I realized it wasn’t sequined at all. The tiny, shiny, translucent things adorning it were scales. Scales from the larbra fish, which Aegirans believe are divine. There was a shell clasp on the top, and I ran my fingers over its impossibly smooth finish. “How will I know when to open it?” I wanted to ask a thousand things, but she stilled me.

“You’ll know. Of course you’ll know. You already know enough to know that.”

She held me a little tighter than usual as I made to leave, and I felt my heart thump against her frail body and my breath ragged and coarse in her hair. I wondered what she’d seen in her visions. I wondered if I should try to pump her a little.

Then I remembered that no-one had ever been able to make Mrs Tripe do something she didn’t want to do. And I doubted that I was the one to buck the trend. Doubtless she’d told me all she could, all she thought I needed. And I guessed that had to be enough for now.

I jumped back in Ariel, glad to feel the smooth kiss of the leather on my thighs and hold her reassuringly hard steering wheel in practiced hands. She was what I needed – familiar, real. An antidote to the cryptic rabbithole world of visions and secrets I seemed to have fallen into.

I was so tired. But I still had one more stop.

She opened the door and shrieked the instant she saw me, arms clawing towards me.

He was a heartbeat behind her, his arms around her, shushing her gently, leading her back to the couch as he motioned me to come in. My eyes swept his pad, impressed as ever.

Doug.

He’s this big man’s man that you assume will have mildew growing in his bathroom, but instead he has the whole thing gleaming and alphabetized. And you should see his armory. If some girl ever marries him, he’ll never need Dr Phil’s Man Camp.

He was talking so softly to her. “Ma, it’s just Rania. Remember?”

I waited for Doug’s mother to rail at me some more, but I was relieved when her brow cleared and she relaxed in the sofa beside me. “Oh.” She sounded uncertain, but friendlier than a moment before. Her soft, still-pretty face looked lost and confused. A child caught in grown-up things.

“Hi.” I stayed as still as I could, like Doug had told me, and eventually she relaxed completely, and her eyes cleared. It was like the last few moments had never happened.

“Hi Rania. Nice to see you, girl. I’ve been baking. You want some?” She motioned to the kitchen with eyes an all-too-familiar shade of chocolate that tugged at a place deep inside me.

I saw a charred black circle on Doug’s granite benchtop.

“No thanks, Mrs D. But it sure smells good.”

Doug rewarded me with a smile. “Aw come on, Rania.” He gave his mother a quick squeeze around her frail shoulders as he led me away. “I’m sure I can convince her, Ma.”

When we reached the privacy of his slick chef’s kitchen, I touched his arm. “Bad day?”

“Nah,” he smiled cheerfully. “We’re fine. Burnt bench-top better than burnt Ma.”

“Some pair, hey?” I punched his shoulder. “Both living with Mommy.”

He smiled ruefully, indicating the bench-top with his head. “Least you get brownies.”

I laughed. “Listen, D, I just stopped by to say ‘bye. And thanks, y’know, for last night.”

He offered me a mock salute. “Don’t mention it, Sheriff.”

I hesitated a moment, then pressed on. “I’m sorry… you know, when you tried to tell me something.” I waited, but his face gave nothing away. “Last night. You want to tell me now?”

Doug’s glance flicked to his mother, who had started keening to herself. “No, Rania. I can’t. Not here. Not now.” I was surprised by how disappointed I felt. What had I expected?

But he pulled me to him in a rough hug. I smelled salt and cinnamon in his skin and tried to quash the memories of how good that skin tasted. I felt him pull himself back as he started to press into me. He drew a circle around my face with a calloused finger.

“I don’t know where you’re going, and I’m not gonna ask. But just stay safe, huh?”

I was sure as hell gonna try.