“Let me get a head start, okay? Feet first. There’s a bit of a current just below the surface. Three minutes max, okay?”
As Joey reaches the boat, Danny drops off the other side and I follow him. I cling to the buoy and wait for him to go down. My weight belt is so heavy, I struggle to stay on the surface. When I can’t feel Danny’s movement below me anymore, I fill my lungs, then stomach, and let go of the buoy. In the darkness, fighting the current, I grip the wire and follow it down, desperately trying to bring my body in close to it, but my legs float out behind me. The pressure in my head builds, but my ears won’t pop. Danny’s face is right up against mine as we descend. Every now and then he lifts one hand and motions for me to relax, slow down, stay calm. I focus on his face as the water around us gets cooler and darker.
Finally, my legs no longer feel as though they’re being pulled out. We settle our bodies so we are vertical again, and I hold the wire with one hand. I dare myself to look down, following the cone of light from my flashlight. The water is muddy brown with white bits floating in it. A dust cloud billows below us. Small gray fish emerge and then disappear. My watch says forty-five seconds, then forty-six, then forty-seven. My ear pops with a loud bang. I groan, but the water muffles the sound. The pain is excruciating for a second, but then the pressure in my head is gone.
It’s now or never. Danny is turned away, shining his flashlight on some kind of flatfish—a flash of orange in the darkness. I let go of the wire and sink toward the dust cloud. As soon as I hit it, water seeps in through the bottom of my mask. The salt stings and I can’t stop blinking. I resist the urge to swim back up and instead let my weight pull me down. A high-pitched voice tears through the water.
“Over there,” the voice cries. The voice is mine. I’m on the beach that day, yelling to everyone to look at the spot where Eddie disappeared. I make my way to the edge of the water but fall down onto the pebbles. Shaking, murmuring, I try to work out if I’m looking at the sea or the sky. There’s a loud crack of thunder, and it keeps on going, vibrating through my head, and then I see my father’s feet moving across the pebbles, toward me. In his hand he has my mother’s blue coat. He throws it over me.
“Help, someone! I need help,” he cries. “She’s fainted.”
Danny grabs my arms and pulls me up toward him. I kick as hard as I can for the surface, and lactic acid burns in my thighs.
The air above the water is cold, but I suck it in and wait for the dizziness to pass. All this time, I thought the blue haze that tinged my memories might be significant in working out what happened that day, but it turns out it was just Mum’s coat.
“What the fuck was that?” Danny growls. His blond hair is skewed to one side, and he has red marks around his eyes where his mask was pressed against his skin. I yank my mask down so it sits around my neck.
“I slipped,” I lie, trembling.
“You mean you let go on purpose. Damn, Elsie—why do you always have to take risks?” Danny’s lips are pursed again. He brushes a clump of seaweed from his hand and tries to shake the water from his ears. “I nearly didn’t find you,” he says.
“How was it?” Joey calls from the boat, oblivious to Danny’s anger.
“She let go of the wire,” Danny says, glaring at me.
Rex and Joey help me out of the water, and I slide over the side ungracefully, landing on the bottom of the boat with a thud.
“What happened?” Rex asks, handing us beers. Now I really want that beer. I sit up and drink nearly half of mine in one go, hoping it will stop the shakes.
“I slipped. But I didn’t go very far. It’s not really a big deal.”
Rex smokes and looks at Danny, confused.
“How deep did you go, then?”
Danny coughs and presses a button on his watch.
“Thirty-two meters,” he says neutrally.
“I was just following something. A fish, maybe. I didn’t notice I was going deeper.” I smile to show them I am fine, and it works. It makes me feel at ease too. I almost believe this is the truth.
Rex and Joey laugh and pull fish faces.
“That’s what happens when you go that deep. It messes with your mind,” Danny says.
“Nice one, Main,” Joey says.
“You’re a true mermaid now,” Rex says.
Thirty-two meters. I shiver because I realize that I was only eleven meters from the bottom. If Danny hadn’t grabbed me, I might have got down there.
“I bet Tay could’ve got to the bottom.”
Even before I’ve finished saying his name, I know I shouldn’t have. They all eyeball each other and go silent.
“What?” I ask.
“Nothing, mermaid,” Rex says.
“Have you heard from him? Has something happened to him?”
“I’ve not heard anything,” Joey says defiantly.
“God! Will someone please tell me what’s going on? Where is he?”