Chapter 18
“Good gawd, what is it?” Kyle’s voice was small and a little scared.
Harper stared at the gory mess on the floor next to her bed.
“Dead thing,” Harper said flatly. “You told me on day one that Polly liked to bring us dead things.”
“But what dead thing?” Shuri asked from the doorway. “We were talking birds, the occasional mouse. That is … what is that?”
Harper crouched down and stared at the twisted pile of blood and tissue. The flesh looked like bark, and when Harper poked it with her finger, it felt stiff and grainy like wood. But there was also sinew, and tissue that clung to the mass in stringy masses, dried blood sealing it to the wood floor.
“Not a bird, it’s some sort of marmot, maybe a rat?
” Harper replied, mostly to herself. The other voices were distractions.
She had a very clear idea of what sort of dead thing Polly had brought and it was not a marmot or a rat.
She could almost make out a finger-like appendage.
She shivered involuntarily. Whatever she had seen yesterday in the brush had followed her home, and Polly was not having it.
“We should go. Wind is down. Boston sent a message last night, we can likely get out on the water today.” Harper took the plastic bag that Shuri was extending toward her and scooped the dead thing into it.
“Finally,” Kyle said. “I’ll wait on sending my soil samples if you’re going out. I assume the ferry’s back on schedule at least for a bit?”
Harper nodded. After cleaning the smeared blood off her floor and splashing cold water on her face, she was tightening her hiking boots in the doorway.
The team had an air of anticipation about them, ready to forget the wake-up call that Polly had left.
Murphy had already messaged; she was prepping the boat ready for launch.
They were quiet as they walked to the lab.
Harper could feel a strange energy on the part of Kyle, wary and suspicious.
She wasn’t surprised. He was green for the field, and this wasn’t what he’d likely been told it would be.
They’d been on Bell three weeks and done little more than unpack a lab and look for ducks.
Harper had done this before, and she knew the grind that these trips could be, weeks of nothing and then everything in the span of days.
She hoped a day on the water would turn the mood around.
Shuri looked unrattled. She looked at Harper and winked, her face energized.
Like Harper, she was accustomed to the hurry up and wait that went with fieldwork.
In the lab, Harper pulled on her thermal suit.
It was bulky and comforting, like a wearable sleeping bag.
Shuri was next to her trying to figure out the life vest. Harper reached over and pulled the straps through and latched her in.
Kyle would stay behind, and looked relieved.
The wind was right at a safe level, but the surf was full of whitecaps, and the research vessel rocked steadily even in the harbor.
“Alright, ready?” Harper looked at Kyle.
“Look, I know this hasn’t been what you were expecting.
They never are, but today’s a good start.
We need someone on land observation while we’re on the water.
Kyle, can you take the radio, binoculars, and GPS to the lighthouse?
There’s a good overlook point there. If it gets too windy or cold, let us know. ”
“Got it. Looking for?” Kyle was jotting down notes in the observation log.
“Anything. Sea life. Finbacks and minkes are out there somewhere. I have the camera, Okeanos loves those shots too. But look for air pockets near the coordinate sites, just follow the boat. You good?”
Kyle nodded. Harper looked to Shuri. “Alright, then we’re out.” She motioned to Shuri, who grabbed her pack as they exited the lab.
“Mornin’!” Murphy shouted from the boat. She reached a hand and practically lifted Shuri onboard, who immediately began to settle their packs and the log book. The sonar was rigged to the bow, and Shuri immediately pulled out the lab laptop in its protective casing and began setup.
“You have the coordinates?” Harper asked as she pulled at the heavy ropes that anchored them to shore. She tossed the line to Murphy, who extended her hand and with unexpected strength pulled Harper onboard.
“Got it,” Murphy replied. “We’re scouting today, right?”
“We’ll do what we can for as long as we can.
Let’s just get a lay of the land, water samples for DNA analysis, and sonar scans, I’m looking for what marine life is in that area.
If Thalassa is there, it’s eating something.
I want to log all the fish life in the area.
Abundancy is what we’re looking for today.
” Harper pulled on her waterproof gloves.
The air had lost yesterday’s frost, but it still had a bite.
Murphy nodded. “You all ready?” With a nod she spoke into the radio to the watchtower. “Bell East, Bell East, do you copy?”
The chatter back and forth as they pulled out of the harbor was a comfort.
It reminded Harper of being on the Arctic Ocean, off the coast of Greenland, the research vessels far offshore, waiting for the movement right under the water.
The research boat flew through the waves, rocking back and forth.
Harper steadied herself as she prepped the camera.
She checked her phone. Kyle had texted her:
At the lighthouse, nothing so far, I’ll stay here till you’re at the site
Harper tapped back:
Got it, keep an eye out
Harper was glad for the salt air, the wind in her face.
She adjusted her sunglasses and rubbed a bit of sunscreen on her face and ears.
Her father had always made fun of her perpetual sunburn when she was a kid.
He was equally fair with his shared Icelandic heritage, but he somehow always managed to avoid the burns that Harper had anytime the sun peaked out over Vestmannaeyjar.
Harper was pale enough to showcase the blue veins in her arms. He was in her head today, alongside her mother.
Harper hadn’t allowed them in her head for years except as a passing thought, and now her father’s laugh, the sandalwood scent of his skin were now sitting squarely on her consciousness, shouting for attention.
He’d always been the only one who really understood her.
It was different with her mother, she was full of worry, not her dad, though.
He was the one who took her out past Surtsey to catch pollock in nets when the whitecaps rocked the small fishing boat.
Her mother would be hysterical when they returned, Harper’s cheeks flushed with wind and the surety that only children have that this happiness will last forever.
When Harper got her first gig as a research assistant in a Nuuk research study, she had written her father a letter, one that she had burned as soon as it was done.
She told her father all about the work, the dorms she would stay in in Nuuk, the vessel that she’d live on for weeks on end.
He’d been gone nearly seven years by that point.
Now all that was left of him was a carved rune pendant, Elhaz, the upside-down peace sign, a symbol of protection.
Harper shook herself out of her thoughts.
“Harper, take a look at this.” Shuri passed her the binoculars.
Harper peered through the lenses and scanned the water.
They were so far out the land had disappeared.
This was Harper’s favorite place, adrift and untethered, her spirit felt unbound by the shore when it was just the boat and the water.
As she scanned the water, she saw what Shuri had spotted, air pockets rising up in perfect round circles, one after another.
“About a hundred and fifty meters out. I counted at least three.” Harper checked her phone while Shuri was logging. Kyle had texted:
Air pockets, I can see about a dozen, three to the west, I see you looking, but behind you, the east, at least ten more. 200 meters out. Not seeing any water breaches.
Murphy had stilled the engine, watching the circular air pockets rise to the surface. “I’m stopping here.”
“Good. I want water samples. This isn’t marine life, has to be water temp.” Harper pulled the water vials out of the pack.
“We’re not nearly far enough out.” Murphy scanned the water.
“Nope. We’re not, but there they are,” Harper said as she pulled off her gloves and scooped water into the vials and tucked them back into the case. “Can you get about twenty meters east, where that big one just surfaced?”
“Yep.” Murphy inched the boat to the spot where Harper scooped up more vials for the lab.
“Shuri, you have the GPS coordinates logged?” Harper called as she reached over the side of the boat.
“Got it. Time … 8:17 a.m.,” Shuri replied as she scratched the info on the log.
“Jesus, feel this,” Harper said, looking to Shuri.
Hesitantly, Shuri reached her hand into the water and pulled it back quickly. “It’s … it’s warm.”
“Yeah, that’s got to be what? Twenty degrees Celsius? Summer water.” Harper looked to Murphy. “Stop here, something’s happening. Shuri, get these coordinates. I want a scan right here.”
“I’m getting a sample from the stern,” Harper called to Shuri, who looked up at her curiously.
“Need to see how isolated this hot spot is, we could be sitting on a hydrothermal vent,” Harper called back. Sure enough, the water she pulled as she leaned over the stern was ice.
“What’s the word?” Shuri asked as Harper returned to the bow and secured the sample in the case.
“Sure enough—this is probably ten degrees Celsius. Whatever this is, it’s no more than a meter, maybe two in diameter. You on that scan?”
“Got it, here we go.” Shuri tapped rapidly on the laptop. “Underway, whoa, hold up, you have to see this.”
Before Harper could respond, her phone buzzed urgently. Harper answered to Kyle’s frantic voice.
“You gotta get out of there. Far out, like three hundred meters out the water is pulling back. Do you feel it?”
The boat rocked wildly, and Murphy looked at her confused.
“Yeah, it’s rough out here,” Harper replied, nodding to Murphy, who was checking the horizon line. At the same time the radio crackled to life.
“Bell East to Thalassa—get out of there, we’re tracking activity from our end, you’re right in the path, get back to shore.”
Harper hung up on Kyle as Murphy hit the engine and the boat roared to life. Shuri pulled the connecting cables from laptop to sonar and quickly secured herself in the stern. Harper steadied herself standing next to Murphy as the water seemed to rush out from under them to sea.
“Shuri! Get the laptop in the casing! We’re gonna get hit!” Harper yelled back to Shuri, who was already pulling the waterproofing over the equipment. “What is this?” Harper asked Murphy in a voice far calmer than her heart.
“No idea, it’s gonna suck us out. We have to make a break.” With that Murphy pulled the boat into a tight turn, forcing Harper to brace herself or be thrown overboard. “Sorry about that!” Murphy yelled over the noise of the engine. “It’s fighting me!”
Harper started to reply when an icy wall of water knocked her off her feet. She gasped and choked, looking for Shuri and Murphy. Both nodded acknowledgment.
“You okay!” Shuri shouted. Harper nodded, she started to secure herself when the engine cut out in the din of the water that overtook them.
Harper was falling back and then blackness.
Ice cut through the thermal suit, her chest felt as though it would explode; the life vest around her shoulders stayed limp, and she grasped with useless fingers for the manual pump.
She felt herself falling rapidly through the inky blackness being pulled by the rolling water.
She gasped and opened her eyes to see the shape of the boat above her, the motion of the water painting a strange mosaic; she gasped as she felt the water push her under, her hands falling limp at her side.
Her lungs screamed with panic and then release; a strange weightlessness overtook her.
She drifted down, the underside of the boat growing smaller and smaller.
Suddenly, a pressure wrapped around her waist and legs, and Harper flailed helplessly.
The shape was mother-of-pearl luminescent, and Harper was suddenly face-to-face with its alien intelligent eyes that looked right into her.
It knew everything then and now and all that was to come.
For a moment that seemed to last an eternity the creature stared into her.
Harper forgot her burning lungs, the panic, the icy numbness of the frozen water.
In that moment only she and this translucent being filled with light existed.
Harper knew in that moment that she was dying, and was glad for it.
Somewhere deep below was the smell of salt and sunblock on her mother’s skin that she’d almost forgotten, the feel of her tiny fingers in her father’s large, calloused hand.
She relaxed completely as the water filled her lungs, and her body went limp.
But right at the edge of consciousness, the creature flourished its long, glass-like tentacles like dancers in a ballet, gracefully fighting the water.
Harper felt herself being pulled upward and before she could lock with the crystalline eyes again, everything went black.
She was weightless and floating in an eternal ocean.
The octopus was gone, only a gentle clicking in her ear, a pattern; it was speaking to her, the words ancient and eternal.
She felt the gentle, silk-soft tentacles move the water around her, invisible to the eye, the words in the clicks were starting to form, familiar and alien, the meaning almost clear.
From deep below, a faint ringing almost like the laugh of a child danced effortlessly through the icy water.
Cold air hit like a brick wall, and pain radiated through as Harper gagged and vomited sea water. She felt strong hands flipping her to her side as she coughed violently on the water leaving her lungs.
“Got her!”
Harper heard the voice and continued coughing up sea water.
“Hang on!” Murphy’s hands released her. Harper’s arms and legs were dredged in an exhaustion she’d never felt; she lay on her side, coughing weakly now as the boat pulled through the swell and back to dock.