An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant (29 page)

“How
will I know when it’s done?”

A smile
lifted the corners of Valerie’s mouth. “I imagine you’ll know.”

Smooth
and cool, the bead disappeared beneath the white paste. Wrapping a corner of the
felt around it, she rubbed it against her palm and hummed. She thought of John,
who had left Culebra weeks before without saying good-bye and she wondered if
he still worked in San Juan. For the season that she’d known him, Mother Sea
and Father Sky had quarreled frequently. Valerie told her that the summer
storms this year had destroyed homes and businesses on islands all around them.
Now, as the time that she had human legs drew to a close, it seemed that
Culebra too would suffer.

Tamarind
stopped humming and rubbing the moonstone. She brought her eyes back from
buffing the sky and looked at her hands. The tin oxide paste rimed the felt
dangling between her fingers but a thin layer still lay upon the moonstone like
dust, or heartbreak. She lifted the bead up on a flat palm to her mouth and
exhaled warm breath over it. Then, with a delicate fingertip, she wiped away
the last of the paste. The moonstone gleamed, aloof and invincible, against her
grimy palm. It was time to set it into the womb of the Goddess.

Ana felt the air lessening
around her by incremental degrees
even as she knelt on the wet stones quizzing Mother Sea. The storm she sensed
had started far off to the east a week before and it gained power as it headed
their way. The Culebrenses might not even sense the danger yet—it had been a
long time since a hurricane had blown through their harbor. She would do what
she could to warn and protect them, but strength no longer surged through her
when she called on Mother Sea. Instead, she hoped for a generous upwelling to
sustain her through the trial ahead of her.

“What’s
this?” She fingered the seaweed and coral laid out before her that Mother Sea
had licked. She sat back on her haunches.

Mother
Sea swept them into a pile beside her.

Ana
moved several palm-sized stones aside and buried a horseshoe-crab shell into
the resulting depression. Around this, she rimmed seaweed topped with oyster
shells and the carcass of a sea star. Ocean lapped at the structure until it
had filled in all crevices and nothing remained but a salty pool. Ana closed her
good eye and stuck the fingers of her right hand into this water. An image of
Tamarind’s father filled her mind’s eye.

“Ah, of
course.”

She made
to draw her hand out of the water when another image replaced the first. This
time, she saw Tamarind. The mermaid’s lower half wavered as if distorted by
water and a tail, dark gray like a manatee’s, appeared under her transparent
legs. Even though the rainy season had weeks to go, she understood at once from
this image that Tamarind’s transformation would be decided one way or another
by the coming storm.

Pulling
her hand out at last, Ana sat back and sighed. She plucked the dead sea star
and several shells from the ground around her and slid them into the small sack
propped against a rock behind her. She unfolded her legs and stood upright. Her
knees ached from being bent so long.

A
laughing gull surfed the air in front of her face, its wings tipping to control
its descent until it landed on the rock next to her sack. On its foot, twine
secured a roll of paper.

“Thank
you, Ai my love.” She snipped the twine with her scissors and absentmindedly
pulled some tamarind pulp from her apron for the gull. It had been a long time
since she’d received a written message.

The
midwife who lived on Guadaloupe had sent this one. She had read the signs of
the brewing storm and tracked it as it came closer to the islands. Now a
hurricane that the humans called Marilyn, it had passed southwest of her island
on a course for the U.S. Virgin Islands. Its current trajectory put it on a
path to cross over the eastern coast of Puerto Rico and Culebra. She estimated
its arrival in less than two days.

Ana
looked up as the gull wobbled into the sky.

“Hey,
Ai!” She threw it another, larger, bit of tamarind pulp. The bird snatched it
from the air, flapped once around Ana’s head laughing softly, and then headed
back to its home. It would have to hurry to miss the rising winds.

***

John
woke in the early dawn on September 15th, its pale glow filtering through the
blinds in the northern wall of his guestroom in Culebra. Something was wrong,
but it took him several minutes to realize that the morning was eerily silent.
Every weekend for nearly five months, he’d awakened daily to the cries of
thousands of brown boobies, laughing gulls, and a variety of terns at their
nesting grounds on Flamenco Peninsula and, in the nearby lagoons, competing
calls from brown pelicans, Bahamas pintails, masked ducks, and ruddy ducks.
Then he remembered that Hurricane Marilyn appeared to be headed straight for
Culebra, and he knew why the birds were silent.

Late
last night when he arrived back on the island after taking a charter flight
with a pilot, who made no secret that he thought John had lost his marbles, he
went straight to Posada La Diosa. Valerie sat listening to her radio in her
kitchen. When she caught sight of him, she jumped up from her chair, threw her
arms around his neck and squeezed him hard.

“You’re
a welcome sight! I’ve been pretty nonchalant this season, even though Luís gave
everyone else a scare. But after what Hugo did to us, I’m not sure I can
weather Marilyn by myself.”

“I don’t
know what help I’ll be.” He looked down at Valerie’s jewelry-making supplies
and the wire-wrapped pieces laying there. “Is Tamarind still making jewelry
with you?”

Valerie
went to the refrigerator and pulled out a pitcher of lemonade, which she poured
into two glasses.

“Here.”
She handed him one. “While we still have electricity, we should enjoy cold
drinks. Yeah, I see Tamarind a few times a week. We’ve been going to San Juan
every now and then. She’s never been off this island so I’ve made it my duty to
educate her a bit, take her to museums, shopping, whatever.”

John
nodded once and sipped his lemonade.

Valerie
sat down at her table and studied him. “But that’s not what you wanted to know
is it? She’s not seeing anyone. I think she’s still stuck on you.”

“Is she
still staying with that old hag, Ana?”

“John!
That’s a horrible thing to say! Ana’s rough around the edges, I’ll give you
that, but she does a lot of good for the folks around here.”

“I’m not
a big fan of herbal lore and witchcraft.”

“Don’t
knock what you don’t understand, John. To paraphrase Shakespeare, there are
more things in heaven and earth than you dream of, my boy. And, yes, Tamarind
still lives with Ana.”

“Do you
think she’ll be safe there?”

“I think
Ana’s one tough cookie who’s weathered a lot. I think she’ll know when to run
for cover. But if you’re so worried about Tamarind, why don’t you go find her?”

John
hadn’t left town to look for her this morning, even though the hurricane watch
had been upgraded around midnight to a warning. Instead, he’d gone to the ferry
dock with Valerie to help unload a shipment of plywood, nails, and water. Everyone’s
mouths remained in tight lines, even the people that John knew and greeted.
Today, everyone would be consumed with boarding up windows and buying supplies.
And then they’d wait.

Somewhere
in the small guesthouse, he heard a door slam and then low voices. Luís had
already spooked most of the guests away from Culebra, and only one other of
Posada La Diosa’s guests planned to stay through the coming storm. He got out
of bed, dressed hastily and went into the bathroom to piss and brush his teeth.
He’d borrowed Stefan’s cell phone so that he could call his parents before the
storm hit—thank God he’d be able to reach them if the power went out. After
he’d grabbed a bagel or something like it, he’d head over to the Sunken Reef
Dive Shop and help Chris secure his boat in the marina and finish boarding up
the windows in the shop. After that, he’d make sure that Valerie had gotten
enough bottled water and groceries to last for a few days.

He
arrived at the dive shop to find Chris already hammering at the piece of
three-quarter-inch plywood he held over his front door; the larger sheet for
the front window lay propped against the side of the shop. Chris said only
“hey” when he saw John and handed him the bucket of nails to hold. Together,
they finished boarding up all the glass surfaces for the shop before heading to
the marina to add a few more lines from the dive boat to its mooring at the
dock. As they worked, John paused frequently to stare at the southern horizon,
which seemed a little darker to his searching eyes; even though the weather was
still mostly sunny, the wind had picked up considerably. By the time they’d
finished at the marina, it was mid-morning.

John
wished Chris good luck, then almost ran all the way back to Posada La Diosa
where he came across Valerie trying to herd the stray cat from the neighborhood
into her door with her foot, her hands filled with grocery bags. The stupid
animal refused to enter the half-opened screen door, instead insisting on
winding itself around Valerie’s ankles until she nearly tripped. Bending down,
John swooped the cat through the door and left it in the entranceway where it
stood mewling in outrage. Valerie, clucking, urged John to grab the bag of cat
food just outside the door and feed the cat to make up for its rough handling.
John held the cat back with one hand while he reached through the half-open
door for the food, and then squatted down to feed the stray, which purred
vociferously. John laughed at how greedily, yet delicately, it ate its meal.

“Hey,
Johnny. I have a couple cases of bottled water in the back of my Jeep. Can you
bring them in for me?”

“Sure,
no problem.”

She came
out with him to unload still more bags. John hiked the box of bottled water
onto his shoulder and followed Valerie into Posada La Diosa. Valerie had
already set the other remaining guest to boarding up the windows to his room,
and his hammering blended with the hammering echoing up and down the street.
She took the bottled water from John and directed him to the back porch where
there were sheets of plywood propped against the guesthouse wall, an open paper
bag of nails, and a couple of hammers. Grabbing a handful of nails, he tucked
them into a front pocket of his shorts, slid the hammer’s claws into his
waistband, and then lifted a piece of plywood before heading toward the
northwest end of the guesthouse and the window to his room. On this side of the
guesthouse, which was less sheltered by the surrounding buildings, the gusts of
wind were strong enough to whip his ponytail into his face and eyes. Still, he
managed to nail the plywood securely in place without too much struggle and he
prayed silently that all their efforts would be unnecessary.

When he
returned to the back porch, Valerie was waiting for him.

“Why
don’t you come in and grab a sandwich? It might be a long couple of days and
you don’t need to start skipping meals now.”

Valerie
made hummus sandwiches and poured lemonade for both of them. They sat at the
kitchen island eating and listening to Latin pop on the radio. Before they’d
finished, reports from Miami aired. Although Marilyn currently moved toward St.
Croix at more than 70 miles per hour, forecasters didn’t expect her to
strengthen beyond category one once she passed St. Croix. Still, she would
reach Culebra before midnight.

 “Dear
God, why do they have to use the term ‘strengthen’? It sounds so positive, like
what you do for someone who has a bad back or weak immune system.” Valerie
licked the tip of her index finger and pressed it against the crumbs on the
counter. She was about to stand up when John spoke again.

“Do you
remember what you said about Shakespeare last night? You know, about more
things in heaven and earth than I dream of?”

“Yes.”
She pushed her empty plate and glass away from her and bent her head in an
attitude of listening with all her attention.

“Well,
I’ve had some pretty vivid dreams in the last six months, nearly all of them on
Culebra. For most of the time I was back in Pittsburgh, I didn’t have any
dreams—it was like I slept in a coma while I was there. And then two nights
ago, I dreamt again about Tamarind.”

“Again?”

“Yeah. One
time, when I was in San Juan, I dreamt she’d come into my room and, you know,
did that humming thing she does. But she looked and sounded so real I nearly
reached out and touched her. A couple of nights ago, I dreamt that she was in
my apartment with me and she looked frightened. She asked me to come back to
Culebra before the storm hit.”

Valerie
squinted her eyes before standing up to get a cup of coffee. “Dreams are
powerful messengers.”

“This
was more than my subconscious trying to tell me something, Val. Look, I know
this sounds crazy, but I think Tamarind really came to me somehow, that she
needs me.”

“You
must not believe too seriously or you’d have gone to find her before now.”

John
stuck his fingertips into his hair, pulling out long strands from his once-neat
ponytail. “I believe it, but I also don’t believe it. I believed it enough to
get on a plane and come here, but now that I’m here all these doubts crowd in
my head and I can’t bring myself to face her.”