Brine Read Free

toward the horizon, ignoring the doubts flooding her mind and her fearful imaginings of what was out there swimming with her. Using only her arms to propel her, she let her feet drag behind. Wasn’t that how it happened before? She could barely remember. The past few days—or was it weeks?—were a blur of bizarre memories.
    She knew she could swim farther and faster if only her body could somehow return to that other form. That . . . aquatic form.
    The last vivid recollection she had of her mother flashed through her mind.
    Anna had come into the kitchen, tears still wet on her face, and kissed Ishmael on the forehead.
    “Why don’t you go for a swim, Mommy?” Ishmael had asked.
    Life got Ishmael’s mother down at times, but in the water, Anna had a way of reviving herself. Ishmael had spent a great deal of her childhood playing on the shore while her mother swam off in the distance. But that day long ago, when Ishmael looked up from her sandcastle, there was nothing but endless water. A lifeguard showed up. Then a man on a four-wheeler. Boats. A helicopter. Cops stopped by daily for weeks. Reporters called. Flowers were delivered. Sympathy cards. Casseroles.
    The incident was reported as “an accident.” No way it was suicide, her father had said. Wiping tears from his daughter’s face while he tucked the covers around her, he’d told Ishmael that her mother had swam off into the sunset as a mermaid.
    A mermaid.
    Wasn’t that just something a dad told his daughter to take away the sting of a mother’s death? She’d never really thought he was telling the truth, had she?
    Until now.
    She felt the twisting sensation in her legs. It hurt, but she welcomed the discomfort. She was scared, but she couldn’t deny that she was also relieved. Relieved and curious. This time she was more alert.
    The skin below her navel and down her legs suddenly felt padded, like she’d been zipped tightly into a warm sleeping bag. The bulk was burdensome, but she sensed that it made her more buoyant. Her feet fanned out; the webbing stretched like putty, connecting the gaps between each toe. She felt as if she were wearing thick stockings and someone was carefully pulling them off, somehow lengthening her flesh with each tug.
    With her two legs joined, she gained strength from her lower half; she felt more power and control. What had been her feet and toes was now one massive flipper. It amazed her how easy it was for her to maneuver this new extension of her body, how instinctual.
    She reached down with her hands and felt the thick skin beneath her belly button. She patted this new skin down her body until she reached what had been her ankles. There were no scales. She was not a fish. She was a woman with a tail for legs and a fluke for feet.
    “Whoa. Wow. It worked .”
    Kicking her tail, she propelled herself out of the water and into the air so that she lifted and arched. She felt a brief exhilaration but lost control, unsure of how to handle this new body hurtling through the air. She flopped back into the ocean with a clumsy splash. Choking, she brushed clumps of hair from her face.
    “Okay, so I’m not ready for that move yet.”
    She flexed her abdominal muscles and lifted her lower half so her tail was visible at the surface.
    “I don’t believe this. This is insane.”
    She dropped her tail back down and realized that she could easily move her fluke beneath her so that she hovered like a hummingbird in the water. She was able to steer herself up and down with mere flicks of this new appendage. She trailed her hands across the surface and laughed at the phosphorescence in the water, giddy with astonishment.
    “Okay, Ishmael. Now what?”
    She glanced around, hoping for some sort of answer or guidance. Finally, she tilted her head back and looked up to the masculine face on the lunar surface above her.
    She couldn’t go back to Nicholas. He said he loved her— enough to put a gigantic diamond on her finger—but did he