The Mermaid's Secret (19 page)

But no dead lumberjacks at the Schooner Wharf.

It's a huge relief.

Lumberjack man didn't report the assault. It makes sense. A guy like that would want it swept under the carpet. Wouldn't admit to being beaten by a girl.

Sheriff used to warn me and Kay about scumbags like that. He taught us a thing or two about self-defense, showed us how to strike with an open hand. He explained which parts of the body to aim for. The red areas—the head, the neck, the spine—that's how to take someone down. As a cop, you have to aim for the green areas first—the big muscle masses. Yellow areas second—the elbows, knees, and ribs. Red areas are only when you're sure.

I went straight for the red areas.

*   *   *

On Thursday, there aren't enough customers to take the
Mack King
out, so Harold tells me I can leave, after I sweep out the shop and clean the windows.

Sammy has the day off, too.

“You going surfing? Doing your mermaid thing?” she asks as we eat leftover scallop mac and cheese out of Lobster Corral boxes.

“No.”

“No waves?”

“There are waves.” I plop a scallop in mouth, appreciating for a moment how easy it is to survive on land. “I need to know what's happening to me, Sammy. I feel like I'm changing. I feel like I'm losing control.” I don't tell her about lumberjack man.

She sips a Diet Coke. “So, how can you find out? I mean it's not like there's a mermaid expert on Yelp, right? Actually, maybe there is. I once Googled ‘How to know if your man's cheating on you' and I got, like, fifty thousand results. All experts. Can you believe it? You can probably Google ‘What do mermaids eat?' and get, like, a million opinions. Isn't Google amazing! I'm always telling people ‘If your name ain't Google, don't act like you know everything.'”

“I have an idea of where to get some answers.”

“Not on Google?”

“No. Right down the street.”

*   *   *

The sign out front of the little shop says “Truth Within”—not “Psychic Readings,” like Madame Irene's palmistry shop in the strip mall near the Stop & Shop, or “Fortune Teller,” like the woman who comes down from Nova Scotia every summer, dresses like a Gypsy, and reads tarot cards on the ferry pier for fifty bucks a pop.

Truth within. Like you're already supposed to know the answers.

When I was little, my mother and I walked past this shop together. I stood outside, watching the new tenant move in, while my mom crossed the cobblestones to Bob's Fishmonger to buy dinner. An old woman hung dreamcatchers and animal skulls, sharks' teeth, turtle shells, and strange-looking talismans in the wavy display window.
What on earth kind of store sells such things?
my little mind wondered. I was drawn to it the way honeybees descended on the crab apples in our yard every fall. The woman in the window was just as fascinating as the treasures she was laying out. I could tell by the contour of her jaw, the slant of her nose, and the hazel circle in the dark brown irises that she was like us.

I waved at her. She waved back.

I said hello. She mouthed the word back.

There was something about her that was so familiar.

She had a friendly face, and there was something in her eyes that made me think she wanted to talk to me. Then her mouth turned down and she got very serious looking. Her gaze fell behind me. When I turned to look, my mother was there, a brown bag from the fishmonger in her hand. My mother and the old woman were in a stare-off. Even as a little twerp, I understood that there was something between these women. The air around us was electrified. The hair on my arms stood up straight. I remember looking at it, thinking how strange that I'd never noticed hair on my arms until then.

Before I knew it, we were scrambling down Barefoot Lane, my mother's hand tight around mine, pulling me away.

“Stay away from that place,” she said, in a scary-mom tone I'd never heard her use before. It startled me. My mom never yelled or threatened.

Of course, it just made me want to know everything. What kind of shop was it? Who was the old lady? How did she get all the animal skulls? Where did she find the turtle shells, and how could I get my hands on one?

Most importantly, why wasn't I allowed to go in?

“No one can tell you your destiny, nomeha. You must decide for yourself. That's the only chance you have at finding happiness.”

“What's a destiny?”

My mother said, “Destiny is who you are meant to be. It's the story that's written about you before you are born.”

“Who writes it?”

My mother sighed. “Jess Creary, promise me you will
not
go in that shop.”

“But the woman in the window was Passamaquoddy, wasn't she? She looked like one of us.”

“Not our kind.”

After that, I never went back. So powerful were my mother's words over me. And I never saw the old woman again, even though her shop has been here the whole time, and only a couple blocks down from my apartment.

*   *   *

“So, knock already,” Sammy says, gum snapping.

I pause, waiting for lightning to strike, or the garden gnomes out front to rise up and stage an intervention, or some other supernatural force to stop me.

The old woman answers right away, her eyes rimmed in hazel, her face unchanged.

She smiles. “Follow me.”

Not “Hello.” Not “Hi. Can I help you?” It's like she's expecting me.

She leads me and Sammy to the back room, which smells like animal hide, but not in an unpleasant way. A large turtle shell hangs from the ceiling. There are fish skeletons mounted on stands. Dozen of maps, tinged yellow with age, line the walls. The Maine and New Brunswick coasts. Nova Scotia. Cape Cod. Islands I cannot place. They're creased and smeared with handwritten notes. Dozens of Xs appear on them like marks on a treasure map.

There are also dreamcatchers, fossils, dowsing sticks, soapstone carvings of animals—a mishmash of artifacts. What did my mother know about this place? About this woman? Is she a witch? A shaman? A treasure hunter?

“I'm a seer,” the woman says.

I spin around. She's seated at a small table, staring at me. Was I thinking out loud?

I take the seat facing the woman, and Sammy sits on a bent-hickory chair near the window.

“You are from the Upriver People,” the woman says.

I shrug. “I don't know. My mother's Passamaquoddy. She's from the mainland.”

“You are Passamaquoddy, too.”

“Yeah. I guess so.”

“There is no guessing. You are what you are.”

“My mother didn't talk about her family much. I'm a Ne'Hwas islander, born and raised.” Miles of ocean separate me from my Native American heritage.

Out the plate glass window a fleet of small skiffs and fishing trawlers is docked at White's Wharf, and I spot the little derelict boat I boarded the other night. The night I saw the other mermaid.

“What do you want to know?” the woman asks. Spikes of sunlight illuminate her face, revealing the tight, shiny skin of her high cheeks.

Sammy speaks up. “If you're a seer, shouldn't you, like, already know what she's going to ask, before she asks it?” She crosses her arms and gives me a conspiratorial wink. Holmes and Watson, the two of us.

“I don't see the future and I can't read minds,” the old lady snaps. “All I can do is help you see the present.”

“Well, okay then.” Sammy rocks back on her chair. Mystery solved. Case closed.

The woman folds her hands on the table. They are ancient hands, brown and lined in wrinkles. “Your mother was with you when you saw me before. Does she still forbid you to see me?”

“She doesn't live on Ne'Hwas anymore.”

Her eyes are piercing. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I'm sure. She was devastated when my sister…” I stop myself. “She's on a spirit journey.”

“What do you want to know?”

I take a deep breath and look out at White's Wharf, at the skiffs listing sideways on the hard-packed sand of low tide, thinking how, in a few hours, they'll be floating.

“Something has happened to me,” I start. I pause. It all seems too foolish. She'll laugh at me. Who wouldn't?

Across the table, she takes my hands in hers. It's an intimate gesture. I close my eyes, and suddenly I can feel the sway of the current, the weightlessness of being in water. A school of herring swims by, flashing silver as it parts like a curtain for me. Images come at me like a movie—the shipwreck, the seal, the inside of the barrel.

The old woman squeezes my hand, snapping me back into the room.

“I can breathe under water,” I blurt out. I look from our entwined hands to the woman's face.

Her eyes light up. She smiles so completely, with such radiance, it looks like she might spontaneously combust. She doesn't laugh. She nods as though she's heard this sort of thing a thousand times. “Tell me what happened.”

“I surfed a big wave and something happened and I can swim like a fish. I'm like a fish. I
am
a fish. It was scary at first, but then I liked it. It felt right. It feels … natural. And it's so beautiful down there, and I'm beautiful when I'm down there.

“I got scared a few times. It's a dangerous place. And then, last time, I thought I saw another mermaid, but I can't be sure.”

I look up at the fish skeleton, at the precision of bones lining its spine, and wonder what my skeleton looks like when I'm under the water.

“I'm a mermaid,” I continue. “And I want to know why. And I want to know if there are others out there. And I want to know if I should keep going back.”

“Do you believe her?” Sammy asks, practically leaping out of her chair.

The woman puts up a hand to silence Sammy.

“Well,” I say, “do you believe me?”

She closes her eyes, then opens them. “There is a legend that the Upriver People tell. It's where your story begins.”

“
My
story?”

“You are in a story. We all are. The story was written long ago, from beginning to end. All there is for you to do is decide which character you are.”

“Dude, it's like one of those old Indian legends,” Sammy says. “Like, where some animal talks to a little kid in the woods and the kid's supposed to figure out the riddle and save the village. They used to tell us these legends on class field trips to the lobster cannery.”

“Not another word out of you,” the woman says.

Sammy sulks.

“Long ago, in the land of the pollock spearers, there were two girls, twin sisters, who lived with their parents by a river. They were very close and shared all their secrets. One of the girls was very good and obedient and did all she could to please her parents. She was thought of very highly by others and was often rewarded for her efforts. Her name was Sipayik.”

The woman clears her throat. “The other had a wild streak in her. She was known to wander off alone and lose herself in her thoughts. She was often in trouble with her parents for failing to finish her chores. Her name was Ne'Hwas.”

“As in Ne'Hwas Island?” Sammy says.

“Hush,” the woman says. “You talk too much. You have much to learn and you need to listen.”

“Jeesh, all right.”

“One day, the girls went to the river at the edge of a waterfall to collect water for their household. It was a hot day and Ne'Hwas wanted to swim. Sipayik told her they did not have permission from their parents to swim. She said that they needed to get their work done and go home.

“But Ne'Hwas looked down at the sparkling blue water and couldn't resist. She got undressed and stood up on the high rock at the edge of the falls. It was a very tall cliff and very dangerous. She summoned her courage and jumped into the pool below.

“The water was cool and refreshing. She called for Sipayik to join her. Sipayik was afraid to make such a jump, but Ne'Hwas kept calling to her until she agreed. Now they were both swimming in the clear, blue water, and they felt a fine sensation wash over them. After a time, they swam to shore to return to their duties. But when they got to shore, they could not stand. The weight of their bodies dragged them down. They had grown long tails in place of their legs. This made them very afraid.

“When it grew dark and they still had not arrived at home, their parents came to look for them, fearing they had run into trouble. Seeing their parents on the shore, the girls called out.

“The parents were stunned when they saw what had happened to their beautiful girls. They believed it was the spirit of the river, cursing the girls for disobeying their parents' orders. The parents wept for their girls, for they could not bring them onto shore.

“Each day, the parents came to check on Sipayik and Ne'Hwas, to see if the river spirit had cut them loose from the spell. For a month, from new moon to new moon, the girls lived in the river, eating mussels and raw fish. Every day, Sipayik would wait on the shore, hoping for her legs to return, missing her parents and her life on land. But Ne'Hwas found great pleasure in the world under the surface. She became a great hunter, and enjoyed the freedom of the river.

“One day, the parents were paddling their canoe and capsized in strong wind and waves. The girls came to their parents' rescue and carried them to shore safely. Now, after performing such a good deed, the girls could get their legs back and return to land. Sipayik walked up the sandy shore and joined her parents.

“Ne'Hwas stayed back. She decided to remain a creature of the river. The family wept and pleaded for her to return, but Ne'Hwas needed to stay. She had found the place for her wildness to live. She slunk back into the water and was never seen again.

“Some people believe that she lived the rest of her days as a goddess, roaming the rivers and ocean freely. Some people believe she's out there still.”