An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant (17 page)

“I can’t
go any further.”

“You
will, you will.”

Before
Tamarind could puzzle over her words, the old woman let go of the overhanging
branches, concealing her with their leaves. She considered pushing her way out
of this cave and through the branches, but her willpower drained away into the
earth instead. The old woman returned and told her to drink something sweetish,
slightly salty and viscous. She nearly retched, but the old woman held the cup
to her lips and gripped her jaw until she’d swallowed it all. In moments, she
felt dizzy and incoherent, alternately hot and cold.

The old
woman left her alone for some time—Tamarind had no idea how long—only to return
with a pot filled with a pungent salve. The old woman dipped a finger into the
pot and traced it along Tamarind’s forehead and cheekbones, all the while
muttering. She set the pot onto the ground, grasped Tamarind’s shoulders and,
simultaneously lifting and pushing, slid her further back into the cave.
Tamarind cried out as her tail bent against the rear wall and doubled
underneath her. Her whole torso now fit inside, but her shoulders wedged at the
entrance until the old woman twisted them into alignment; then the old woman
leaned her whole weight into Tamarind until her head disappeared inside the lip
of the cave.

Tamarind
heard a sound and she realized that she was sobbing. The cave, which had
initially conformed to her in a comforting way, now painfully immobilized her.
She couldn’t have escaped if she’d wanted to and, now sober, she knew that even
the old woman could not pry her out. Blood pounded in her ears and she nearly
lost consciousness, but she fought it and her tears. After a few moments, she
mastered her breath and as it slowed she grew calm.

The cave
was darker than the deepest cave she’d ever swum within, moist and almost
airless. The pain in her tail was terrible, but now that she’d regained control
of her thoughts, she believed that she could survive this ordeal. She had to
stay focused. Neither it, nor the old woman, would get the best of her. A
paroxysm of pain gripped her. It was in her midsection and it was everywhere, all
at once. Her head arched away from her flippers, bringing her mouth toward the
cave’s opening. A scream ripped the air and she scarcely knew that it came from
her. She had no idea how long the pain seized her, but at last it subsided and
she panted in her airless space. From outside the cave came faint noises. In
the suffocating stillness, the smell of the old woman’s clove cigarette reached
her.

Tamarind
clung to the scent while the next pain squeezed her. She had no idea when it
would quit wracking her body, but every time it ceased, she prayed that it was
over. Still pain rose to overtake her and soon there were hardly two breaths
between waves, hardly enough time for her to gasp out a plea.

“Please.”
And the next time the pain hit her, “I can’t!” And then, “Oh, Mother,” and she
vomited into what little space she had.

After
that, she said no more because she no longer had any thoughts. Each new round
of pain rode upon the heels of the last so that she could no longer distinguish
them as separate assaults even if she’d been capable of doing so. Time had no
meaning for her and she couldn’t have said if moments or days passed. Groans
rolled over her lips with the immutability of waves. Yet long before her voice
failed, the pain began to lessen.

She grew
aware of her hands digging into the soft soil around her torso: they’d gouged
deep holes in her agony. Pain still shuddered through her lower body, but she
knew herself again. Before she could do more than note this return of
awareness, she felt an indomitable urge to unfold herself.

“Wait,
wait, young one!”

Tamarind
had no idea what was happening to her, but she fought the urge to push against
the constricting earth. She felt the old woman’s fingers dig into the cleft and
clamp onto her shoulders.

“Now.”

A new
insistence filled Tamarind and she gave into it; deep inside her she knew that
this was the struggle that would free her. As she pushed, the old woman pulled
her head clear of the cave wall and the pain in her lower body eased. The old
woman let go of one shoulder and then quickly brushed loose soil and vomit from
her eyes and out of her clogged nostrils. Tamarind sucked in air and laughed.

Another
need to push gripped her. The old woman barely grasped her shoulders in time to
twist them through the narrow cleft. With an odd
shlucking
sound
Tamarind slid out onto the cool ground and lay not far from the cave’s
entrance. She closed her eyes, but not before she saw that it was night. She
heard the old woman bustling around her, but she wanted only to sprawl on the
ground. She lay there without moving until the old woman rolled her over onto
her back, startling her with the light in her hand. Pushing up onto her elbows,
she held one hand out; the other shielded her eyes.

“Leave
me alone.”

“Look at
yourself.”

Tamarind
peered down her torso toward her tail. She was covered in mud and something
else: in the light’s glow, she caught sight of blood. Her blood. She was so
shocked that at first she didn’t register the oddness of her tail under all the
obscuring muck. When she did, she saw that it was no longer gray but fish-belly
white. It was no longer strong and muscular but atrophied and knobby. Where her
strong flippers had been, she saw two stubs.

“Don’t
understand, do you?”

“Understand?”

“Perhaps
this will help.”

The old
woman turned back toward the bushes, dark and indistinct against the lighter
sky. Overhead, tiny pricks of white, scattered where Father Sky had thrown
them, glittered. She knelt, setting her lamp on the ground and then leaned into
what must be the cave’s entrance. For a long moment all was silent and Tamarind
began to shiver. The old woman sat back, something sagging and dark in her
hands.

When she
turned around, Tamarind’s breath caught at the base of her throat.
My tail.

Where it
had been hard and convex, filled with muscle, bone and sinew, her tail was now
hardly more than a shell. As she watched, the old woman spread it out for her
so that she could see the inside lining. It was veined and knotted, quilted
with blood-purple fat and long strips of shredded muscle and torn ligaments. At
its center, strung like beads on a necklace, she could see oblong vertebrae
spanning the length of the tail, disappearing at last among the cartilage of
her flippers.

Tamarind
tore her gaze from the remnants of her tail and looked again at herself. Now
what she saw were unmistakably legs, thin and wobbly looking but legs
nevertheless. She pushed herself up into a sitting position.

“I did
it! I put off my tail!”

“That
you did.” The old woman had lit another clove cigarette and now took a long
drag on it. “Help me bury it.”

Tamarind
blinked. She rolled onto her side, pausing to look at the night sky. After
several moments, the old woman cleared her throat. It was a harsh, rattling
noise like the sound of pebbles inside a desiccated crab shell. Gripping her
lower lip with her teeth, Tamarind pulled herself along the ground to the spot
where the old woman waited. Once she was there, the old woman knelt down and
together they dug a shallow trench with their hands and lay her tail in it.

When
Tamarind awoke later, the sun sailed overhead and hunger hollowed her to her
new toes. She lay on a thick, rough cloth on the floor inside the old woman’s
house, which was filled with the scent of fish, among other odors that she didn’t
recognize. Blood and soil caked her skin and her lower body burned near where
her new legs extended from her torso. She was about to call out for help when
the old woman appeared in the doorway to her house.

“Awake
are you? Lots of new sensations? Bet most of them aren’t pleasant.”

Tamarind
nodded and licked her lips. She couldn’t speak.

“First
things first. Let’s get you outside so you can empty your bladder. After, food,
drink and a bath.”

She came
over and helped Tamarind sit upright; Tamarind’s head spun and she clutched the
old woman’s arm.

“That’s
it, take it slowly.”

Tamarind
gathered her concentration from where it had scattered and pushed herself up
onto her feet. If the old woman hadn’t pulled at the same time and steadied
her, she might not have made it. Twice she stumbled and once she actually fell,
pulling the old woman down beside her. It took five minutes before they were
both standing outside the house in the sunshine.

“Don’t
go far. Squat down here. I’ll clean it up later.”

The old
woman never let go of her arm as she slunk down onto her new haunches. She sat
there until the old woman told her to urinate.

“I don’t
know how.”

“Yes you
do. Focus on your functions. Remember what it felt like to empty your bladder
in the sea.”

Tamarind
nodded and withdrew her thoughts into herself. At last, she could remember the
feeling that came whenever she released her bladder. She triggered that release
now. Hot urine shot out between her shins, splattering her. As it hit the
ground, she saw a trickle of blood from between her legs. After the ache and
burning from her over-f bladder had drained away, she felt her soreness as
well.

“You’ll
bleed for awhile, maybe a whole moon. Then you’ll bleed again, once each moon.
All human women do.”

As she
stood up, Tamarind clutched the old woman’s arm. “Will I always feel so tender
in the place between my legs?”

The old
woman removed the stub of her cigarette and tossed it onto the damp ground
where it hissed and stopped burning.

“No,
you’ll heal. The only time you’ll feel sore is if you copulate with a man.”

The old
woman steadied Tamarind against her side and led her back to the shade inside
her dwelling.

“Do
humans also have difficulty mating their minds?”

The old
woman ignored the question and shuffled Tamarind to a far corner where she made
her sit on something hard and round that was raised from the ground by several
long sticks of wood.

“Don’t
mind how hard it is. I didn’t want to get your blanket wet.”

She
turned to a flat surface that was raised higher than the one Tamarind sat on
and pulled a shallow container of water towards her. In it was a small cloth,
which she rung out before carefully wiping Tamarind’s face. She hadn’t
forgotten Tamarind’s question, however.

“Humans
don’t mate their minds. Sometimes two humans grow close. They appear to share a
mind, but they can’t mate the way
mer
do.” The old woman bathed the rest
of her with gentle hands. “For humans, mating is temporary and absurd. They try
to make up for it by committing their will to each other. They call this
‘marriage.’ It’s as flawed as humans are.”

“Marriage.”
Tamarind tried the word out.

“I was
married once. Didn’t last more than ten rainy seasons.
Couldn’t
have
lasted much longer.”

“What
happened to your husband?”

“Don’t
know and don’t care.” The old woman’s pincer-like fingers gripped Tamarind’s
thighs as she scrubbed the dirt away. “When it’s dark, go to the resort not far
from here and use the beach showers.”

“Why do
I have to go when it’s dark?”

“They
don’t want you to use the showers, young one. Don’t worry about why. Just don’t
let anyone see you.” She dropped the filthy cloth behind her and stood up.
“Time to get you some food.”

The old
woman walked over to the shiny vessel, which emitted a fish-scented cloud.
Picking up a flat stick with an appendage that looked like a curled hand, she
scooped up some of the liquid and poured it into a shallow container near her.
This she set on the flat surface, simultaneously handing Tamarind a shiny
object.

“What is
it?” Tamarind held the object in her hand before waving it in front of her.

The old
woman laughed. “Got a lot to learn, don’t you? This,” she said, touching the
object in Tamarind’s hand, “is a spoon. This is a bowl filled with fish broth.”
She mimed using the spoon to dip up the broth and bring it to her lips.

Tamarind
wasted no time in tasting the broth. As she ate, the old woman pulled something
out of an opening in the front of her clothes and tossed it next to the bowl.

“Crackers
to eat with the broth. Dip them in.” She paused. “Since we’re naming things,
I’m Ana.”

Tamarind
hardly paused in spooning in the broth; she grabbed crackers and dipped them
into the bowl. Ana chortled so loudly that Tamarind looked up at her, the
crackers halfway to her mouth.

“No, no,
young one! Tear the plastic bag open to get the crackers!”

As
Tamarind watched, Ana took the bag from her and pulled at one end of it until
it split open like a skate’s membrane. Out tumbled several white crackers. Ana
laid the bag next to Tamarind’s bowl and pursed her lips, her hands on her
hips.

“What
are we going to call you?”