Chapter Nineteen
Nineteen
“My family has been working here all their life, and no matter how many times I’ve been here, I never got so close to the lighthouse.
” Angie looked up beside her from Creston Harbor’s northernmost point, nearly three miles from the docks, where its lighthouse sat unused and quiet, like a ghost beacon.
“It’s a desolate area. The bright lights used to draw me to it, until the light vanished one day. I have always wondered why.” Kaden followed her gaze to the defunct structure, still standing proud.
“It stopped working a couple years ago, I heard.” She crossed her legs, into a position of comfort.
“Rumor has it the last keeper vanished one day, and his body washed ashore a few weeks later. Nobody knew what happened. It’s been abandoned ever since.
” Angie peered at the top of the lighthouse, imagining a keeper there, watching for incoming ships.
Another thought occurred to her. “How did you see it from so deep down?”
“As I said some time ago, I come to the surface every now and again.”
Angie gave him a sideways glance. “You come to the surface often? As far as I know, nobody’s seen mer. Except when I saw you a month and a half ago, when I was diving.”
He frowned. “You saw me underwater?”
“Yeah, you and a mermaid with a white tail.” She scooted forward an inch.
“Oh, no. That was my brother, Cyrus, and his lifemate.” A playful smirk formed and two dimples emerged.
“Lifemate? Then how come they have different tail colors?”
Kaden’s caudal fins curled and drew messy lines in the sand. “It can happen anytime during their life together. If not when they were first joined, it could happen with the birth, or adoption of their children.”
“I see. Is he older or younger than you?”
“Older.” He dragged his gaze to her. “Do you have siblings?”
“Older sister.” A brief thought crossed before she uttered Mia’s name. But, he had told her his brother’s. “Mia.”
“We’re both the babies of our families,” he said. “And yes, I occasionally observe the goings-on of the surface world, from afar. Human and land animal behaviors and patterns fascinate me. Life up top is so different than it is undersea.”
“And I feel the same about all of that. Except change land to sea.” Angie grinned.
Speaking of the sea. Angie’s thoughts of her recent, failed attempt at studying were fresh in her mind.
The last chapter she started reading was about deep-sea creatures, but her fatigue won, and it remained unfinished.
Kaden stretched out his tail beside her.
She asked, “You ever see strange creatures in the deeps?”
Kaden pursed his lips, tapping his smooth chin. “I have, in the rare times I explore that deep.”
He proceeded to say something she couldn’t understand at all.
“What?” Angie scratched at her temple. Kaden explained, and she brightened.
“You’re talking about a goblin shark and barreleye.
” Angie thought of the rarely seen deep sea shark, its snout shaped like a blade.
“Not sure I’d want to run into one of those. Sharks I mean.”
“It probably wouldn’t hurt you. Unless you get in its way.
” Kaden smirked. “They’re partial to ambushes rather than a chase.
But, imagine this.” He rotated to face her.
Angie sat at attention. “You’re minding your business.
You sense something coming toward you in the dark, slow, methodical.
You see a soft pink body, a blue-tipped fin.
Then the nose. It glides right by you, and you think you’re safe, until it stops. And then...” He leaned in.
“It strikes like lightning and chews your head off?” Angie wiggled her eyebrows.
“Close! But no. They circle you for a torturous moment, and before you know it, their jaws shoot out, and you’re dinner.” Kaden put his hands in front of his mouth, wiggling his fingers at her and mimicking the shark’s jaws protruding out. Angie flicked at one of his fingers, half smiling.
“Top notch impression!” She put her hands to her chest and gasped in an exaggerated, mock show of awe. “If you swam around like that, those poor little cephalopods wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.” A soft chuckle escaped her.
“I tried that once, but they weren’t fooled.” He winked.
“That is amazing, though,” Angie said with a wistful sigh. “I’d love to get myself into the deep sea one of these days. Like the Mariana Trench, even the Challenger Deep. I wish I could visit your world.”
“There is a lot to see.”
Angie gave him a playful nudge with her elbow. “Aren’t goblin sharks mostly in the Atlantic Ocean? And Oceania? And barrel eyes are way south of here.”
“Yes, thank you for the geography lesson,” Kaden laughed. “I know where they live.”
“Ha, ha. Those are animals I’ve only ever read about, seen photos of. But to see one in real life.” Goosebumps grazed her neck as she imagined the sights Kaden had seen. “You must have traveled far and wide.”
“Up and down the Pacific, and I once swam to the Indian Ocean two tidesyears ago. I went with Cyrus, a trip for him before he was to be bonded.” Angie grinned to herself at the thought of a merman bachelor party.
Kaden propped himself on his forearms, ventral fins waving in the breeze.
“Afterward, we almost crossed the Dead Sea. I wasn’t prepared for the waters to be so warm, or to see so little marine life.
It was eye-opening. To see territory and cultures so different from here.
Took us more than a tidesyear.” He leaned in close enough for Angie to catch his scent, carried on the gentle gust of wind.
He smelled of a fresh sea breeze, crisp with a hint of salt, or maybe that was what she was actually smelling.
“Eventually, I would like to see other oceans and seas.”
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t envious.” Angie surprised herself when her voice lowered. She sat back upright, putting her hands on her lap. Kaden mirrored her.
“But, enough about me. Have you been to places other than here?”
“I didn’t see the exotic places you did, but I dived in the Caribbean, and the islands around Vancouver between high school and college. Otherwise, I haven’t been anywhere else, really. Except Washington. Now I’m back home.”
“Travel is something we both enjoy doing.” A glint of approbation crossed his features. “What of your plans now? Will you stay here?”
Angie couldn’t infer the meaning behind his question, if he was fishing for information or if he asked simply out of curiosity. “I’m here for the rest of the summer. Living with my bàba. I’m going back to Seattle for grad school in September.”
“Do you and your father live close to the main island?”
“No. It’s an hour and a half northeast by ferry and a bus, both of which come once every hour or two.” Angie hedged before saying more about where she lived.
Kaden didn’t press it. “It sounds like quite the ways to travel. What brought you here, if your school is not near?”
“Work experience and money for school. I also promised my bàba I’d help him when I could.
At least, that’s what I wanted. But with this mess now, I’ve been working way too much.
Wondering if I’m going to get drowned or speared if I dare get too close to the water.
I just want to live through this, if stress or your people don’t kill me first.” Angie stared at the base of the lighthouse, watching the breeze stir up a small tornado of sand.
She never thought she would have to add the last caveat.
“I wish this was not happening, either,” Kaden murmured, “that there was more I could do. I know I asked to meet you to discuss how we could stop this bloodshed. My leaders will not hear of any request for a ceasefire. They believe that you landwalkers started it, then taunted us with the strung mer at the shoreline, and believe you must pay.” A despondent chord struck in his voice.
He slid one arm out to his side to shift his weight, his fingertips touching hers.
A tiny jolt buzzed to her hand, a surprising visceral reaction to such a minor touch. Neither of them moved.
“I suggested that we speak to the mer. Instead of killing them. But since our ship, uh, the Odyssey sunk and your people killed everyone onboard, and then killed our leaders’ son, they’re out for revenge, too.
” Angie shuddered. She thought about what he said, and her heart sank.
“What’s happening with the mer now? They’ve been quiet, and it’s a little unnerving. If you can tell me. Or want to.”
Kaden’s fingers shifted away from hers, the sand crunching under his fingers.
“ I cannot say much more because I don’t know, but we are deciding our next move.
We have noticed the same silence with your people, though they lurk in our waters sometimes.
” His voice dropped to a whisper, choking out his next words.
“We await news from leadership. And we are to keep a lookout for divers and sea vessels. We were told not to attack for now unless the humans strike first.”
Angie brightened with a sliver of hope. “So, if we stop attacking, you’ll stop too?
” Hopefully, Bàba and Nick would listen to reason.
Then she furrowed her brow, thinking. It would leave them at a stalemate.
They still needed fish. “Never mind.” She pulled her knees closer to her.
“I’m afraid. Afraid my family will be caught in the crossfire.
” Her words shook as they left her lips.
“I understand. I am afraid for my family, as well.” A forlorn glint flashed in his eyes as he stared over the horizon. “But, on the topic of family. The child with you earlier. She is yours?”
“Oh, no, she’s my sister’s.” The words came out faster than Angie intended.
“She appears very attached to you. I respect that you value family.”
“Always have.”
He leaned in, eyes sparking with interest. “Yes, family is important, whether blood or found.”
At eight p.m., the sun still beat down on them, and Angie soaked in the warmth.
They had inched closer so their shoulders were touching, and the tiny jolt from her fingers moved to encase her arm, his presence electric.
In the distance, a humpback whale breached toward the skies and fell back into the sea with a mighty splash, a marvelous sight to behold.
She wouldn’t squander this rare moment of peace. Or the feeling that if their two species weren’t at each other’s throats, all would be right.