I scream and water fills my mouth.
And then the mother is on me, its beating heart-head pressed against my chest, its tentacles wrapping around my neck like it’s holding me fast. And we’re sinking, down through a grand tunnel of water. Sinking or swimming? Don’t know, but down we go. And I’m dying, I feel myself dying, my heart and lungs frozen in mid-spasm. And as we sink down through water, more and more red jellies wrap themselves around my body, legs, arms, chest, all of me covered in red jelly, all but my eyes wrapped entirely in jelly bodies as I sink or swim down. Then suddenly my lungs open, underwater they open, and I’m breathing underwater, covered in jellyfish; these are jellyfish. The jellyfish are breathing for me, or I am breathing through jellyfish? And we’re not sinking, we’re swimming, they’re swimming me down the endless tunnel of water, through the many floors of this house. I can breathe and open my eyes and watch us swimming down. Through the water and warped glass, I see the grand hall where I danced and drank of the red stars, where people are dancing still. In horror, they watch us turning and swimming down. They bang their fists on the glass. I feel things being thrown at us. Champagne flutes. The sound of shattered glass like rain against the tank walls. We swim down faster, down to the very bottom of the tank. They know where they’re going, these jellyfish. I hear what I think are voices all around me. Saying, Hurry. Saying, This way. We’ve reached the bottom of the Depths, which is a floor of glass. Through the floor, I see a dark room with a white massage table. The Treatment Room. Where I lay with Seth, I remember now. Where I grew my little jellyfish from a ghostly white wisp into a red creature like the ones wrapped all over me. The water down here feels so much colder, why? Where is the cold coming from?
The jellyfish swim my body toward a dark grate in the tank glass. The cold rushes in from the grate like a cool breeze from an open window. Except instead of a breeze, it’s water. Darker, colder like the water of night. I feel the jellyfish sighing.
Ocean, all the voices say as one voice.
They swim me up to the grate. The cold water is a wind in my face. In all our faces. They sigh around me. Yes. Here. Gently, they guide my hands, covered in pulsating heads and tentacles, to the lock. They slide farther up my arms, leaving my hands suddenly empty, free of jelly. My fingers that can open the lock. That will open the lock for them, please. They who have no hands and fingers. Who can only swim me here. Up above, I hear shattering glass, oh god. Someone has broken the tank and the water is spilling out onto the floors above. I can see Seth at the very top. Standing in the open throat of the tank high above us, his body shimmering darkly. Watching the water flood, the glass break, I feel his eyes on me like voids. I see the Queen of Snow running down the stairs with her Statues of Cold. “After them. After them.”
Hurry, hurry. Unlock, unlock, the creatures say.
But my fingers are slippery on the lock. Numb with cold on the cold metal lock, oh god, oh god.
Please hurry, Belle.
The water empties above us. The glass is raining down. The lock gives in my fingers. Opens.
And together we swim into a dark night of water.
I do know how to swim after all.
31
How long does it take us to surface from the night of water? It was a long way down. It is a long way back.
In the ocean, I see faces in the red creatures that surround me. Human faces. Mostly children’s faces.
Once upon a time there was a little girl.
Once upon a time there was a little boy.
I hear the whisper of thank you, thank you in my ears. You saved us.
They swim away into the dark one by one. Unwrapping themselves from my arms and hands and legs. Until there is only one creature left with me. The one wrapped around my chest. The one with its bell-shaped head pressed against my neck, beating like a heart against my heart. The mother. I am still breathing as she swims me. She will not let me go. She alone is helping me to breathe through this dark night of water. Maybe she alone always was.
A light above us now, creating a brighter pool of blue. And I know this is the night lifting, I know this is the bright dawn we’re swimming to, she and I. Are you swimming me or am I swimming you, Mother? Does it matter? There is the sun above us. The sun she was always afraid of and then I was always afraid of. Though not anymore. They told us it was our enemy, can you believe it?
She swims us toward the light.
* * *
I’m lying on the shore. Sand on my back. White waves crashing over me. She hasn’t left me yet. She’s lying there too, right by my side, though she’ll have to go soon. I don’t need her to breathe for us anymore. And she can’t breathe out here. She has to go back to the water. But I don’t want her to go. We lie side by side in the light she hated. All her life.
But I loved you, Sunshine.
“I love you,” I say to her. Beating like a heart against my heart.
Tentacles around my neck turn to white arms. The red head becoming a face I know so well. That smiles at me now.
“I’m sorry, Mother,” I say to the face. Tears of salt spill from my eyes.
They spill from her eyes too. I’m sorry, they say, even though she does not speak, cannot speak. I hear the words in my heart. I hear them all through me like waves.
She kisses my forehead.
And then a light fills me. A warmth. A remembering that branches.
Of you and me, Mother.