SEAMONSTER: An Aquarathi Novella (The Aquarathi) Read online

  “Sorry,” she says after a long pause, her eyes darting to my sweat-soaked t-shirt, a guilty flush coloring her cheeks.

  “Creeper cousin,” someone whispers amidst an eruption of smothered giggles.

  I don’t turn around or acknowledge the jab. Instead, I take a seat in silence, feeling a rush of unwelcome heat creep up my shoulders. Something flickers in Nerissa’s eyes for a second and she does something I’d never expect. She defends me.

  “His name is Speio,” she says with a scornful look at the girls behind us. Their laughter drifts off into awkward silence. “And he’s not my cousin. He’s my step-brother, so back off.”

  Shocked, I try to grab her attention, but she turns away and sits, focusing her attention on the Marine Center Director.

  Thank you, I say via the waters in my body, feeling them connect with hers, opening a conduit between us through the moisture in the air. It’s one of our many gifts.

  You shouldn’t let them bully you like that, she responds.

  It doesn’t bother me.

  Don’t forget I can sense everything you feel, Speio, and I know that it bothers you. It’s bothered you all year.

  A part of me wants to ask her why she’s never done anything about it before if she’d noticed the teasing, but I don’t. I accept the gesture for what it is. I don’t let it get to me, I reply. It’s not worth it. And that’s the truth. The humans aren’t worth it. The last part, I keep compartmentalized in my thoughts.

  Nerissa doesn’t respond, so instead I pay attention to what Kevin is saying as he goes over all the rules and expectations for the next six weeks. It’s not going to be difficult, mostly beach and cove clean up, running errands, and working a couple fund-raising events. I notice that Nerissa is listening intently. Every cell in her body is focused on what the director is saying, although the bored expression on her face would suggest the opposite. Deep down, she does care … of course she does. I mean, how could she not? The ocean is her home, regardless of how disconnected or unwanted she may feel in Waterfell. I have to hand it to my father. Maybe he does have some tricks up his sleeve, after all.

  “Break up into groups of four, and check the assignments written on the board,” Kevin is saying. “It’s organized by group number, charted by color, and it’ll change every week.”

  I shuffle closer to Nerissa, but she doesn’t have much choice about having me in her group. That’s just the way it is. I go where she goes, and she knows that. Our final group of four includes Nerissa, me, Sawyer—Jenna’s boyfriend who happens to be stuck here sans girlfriend this summer—and another senior who looks vaguely familiar, maybe from my math class.

  “We’re group two and it looks like we have cove duty,” Sawyer says with an easy grin, after checking the color-coded board. I grin back. I don’t mind Sawyer. He’s pretty easygoing and down to earth, which makes him an anomaly at Dover Prep. His girlfriend Jenna is not bad either, although she’s uber-focused on academics and hockey. She can be a little intense, but she’s got a kind heart. I suppose Nerissa could do worse in terms of friends.

  Grabbing a black garbage bag and a pointy hooked stick, I follow them out to the beach. “We’ve got the section over there,” the girl says. “I’m Laurel, by the way.” She stares at me, squinting. “We have English together, right?”

  I nod mutely—Math, English, same diff. I stab at a piece of plastic lodged in the sand, depositing it into my garbage bag. Picking up litter is mindless work, but at least it’s for a good cause. I scoop up another discarded bottle. Keeping the beach clean means less rubbish getting into the water and leaching harmful chemicals into the ocean.

  My eyes wander across the dozen or so people spreading across the sand, armed with the same gear as we have. Some of them I recognize, others I don’t. Although Dover has sponsored the extra credit program at the Marine Center for decades, I realize that there are some kids from other local schools. Suddenly my gaze stops and swerves backward to a slight figure sitting cross-legged in the sand at the top of the dunes and doodling in a notebook—a girl with long, dark hair. Sharp recognition twitches in my gut. I blink, but it’s still her. The girl from earlier.

  Anya.

  She hadn’t looked well enough to walk when I’d left her, and to see her sitting on a beach as if nothing had happened earlier this morning is surprising. She’d ditched the white nightgown for a shirt and a pair of shorts, but it’s definitely her. I frown and then discard my concern. Maybe I’d misjudged the look on her face before she jumped because she’d wanted to do it for fun. Or maybe I hadn’t. She’d looked distraught, not the usual holy-crap-I’m-really-going-to-do-it excited look that most cliff jumpers have.

  Either she’s a brilliant actress or I’m the most gullible guy around. I glance at the three people walking beside me and form a glimmer with my body, connecting to the moisture in the air and pushing my consciousness forward in a kind of aqua projection. It’s yet another of our many useful talents. I feel Nerissa’s acute awareness of what I’m doing—of course, she’d feel it—and ignore the unspoken question. I’m too intent on finding out what Anya’s drawing in that notebook of hers.

  Hovering in the air above her, I almost wish I hadn’t done the glimmer. The notepaper is covered with questions—Who am I? Who are you? What are you?—written in varying sizes, and all surrounding a drawing of a boy that bears a stark resemblance to me—my human self, that is. My stomach dips. The boy has a spattering of what looks like scales shadowed just above the rise of his cheekbones. I peer closer, seeing the barely there outline of a long fish tail behind the boy. Right at that moment, Anya looks up into the crowd as if sensing that she’s being watched. I snap back hard into myself, like the pull of a rubber band, and duck out of sight behind Sawyer, the image of the drawing seared into my brain. She’d seen me. She’d drawn me … a messed-up, in-between version of me.

  Nerissa’s gaze is sharp as are her mental words. What is it?

  Nothing, I say. Thought I saw something.

  What? A threat?

  Anya’s head hasn’t moved from her position. She hasn’t looked up again, even though I’m not sure why I expect her to. It must have been a coincidence when she looked toward me before. She couldn’t have felt my glimmer, and I’m one of a few dozen people walking on the beach. I … I don’t know.

  Who is she? Nerissa asks. The girl over there?

  Someone I saw on the beach.

  Someone I saved.

  Someone I should leave alone.

  Someone who has seen me. Or part of me, anyway.

  There are so many answers to choose from. In the end, I give Nerissa the one that seems the simplest. She’s just someone I met. Nobody.

  Frowning, Nerissa accepts my evasive answer, but then lets it go with one of her usual shrugs. We both focus on the task at hand—continuing to spear pieces of garbage from the beach. After a while, Laurel and Nerissa pair up, walking farther up the sand, while Sawyer hangs back with me. He’s chattering about how much rubbish gets swept into the ocean, and I let him talk. At least his chatter is helping to take my mind off the drawing I’d seen in Anya’s notebook.

  “So, dude, how’s your summer been so far?” Sawyer asks, his teeth glinting in his tanned face. “Get any surfing done? I caught some mega waves down at Trestles this morning. Tide was epic.”

  I shrug, remembering the high swell from earlier … and the fact that it’d been the only reason that Anya hadn’t had to peel herself off the jutting rocks in front of Dead Man’s Cliff. My gut hitches, wondering if she was really as okay as she’d seemed sitting there on the beach. She has to be. Otherwise, why wouldn’t she be in a hospital or something? “Had a small session last night,” I say to Sawyer. “Closed out, though.”

  “Bummer.”

  “It’s okay. Wasn’t feeling it anyway.”

  “You want to come with later? We’re heading up to Black’s.”

  “Sure, if Nerissa goes.”

  Given our connection with th
e water, we Aquarathi are talented surfers. Then again, Nerissa isn’t the kind of person to use her abilities to control the flow of the wave, and neither am I, so we throw our hats in with everyone else. Surfing is one part torture, and one part sheer awesomeness. I say torture because when the saltwater hits our bodies, every single Aquarathi cell fires, and it takes a lot of control to not light up like phosphorescent plankton. I wonder if that’s what Anya had seen, if my skin had been glowing post transformation.

  “So no Jenna, huh?” I say, trying to make conversation to distract the thoughts that seem intent on returning to a girl I should have no concern with whatsoever. I need to let her go.

  Sawyer nods with a dejected look. “Yup. She’s gone for five weeks. I don’t know how I’m gonna live without her.”

  “How long have you guys been together?” I ask, curious.

  “About a year. We got together sophomore year.”

  “Sounds like it’s serious.”

  Sawyer shrugs. “Well, when you know, you know, I guess. My parents were high-school sweethearts and they’re still together, so it’s not like it doesn’t happen. Everyone keeps telling us we’re too young, but Jenna feels the same way. It’s like we’re two pieces and we’re not quite whole until we’re together. I know it’s corny …” he trails off.

  “No, it’s not,” I say and I mean it. Human relationships intrigue me. In Aquarathi culture, we don’t exactly date. I mean, we court each other, but it’s on a far more instinctive level. When we come of age physically—via a process called dvija—we become ready to take a mate. And when we physically bond with another Aquarathi, we do so for life. In the human world, you could have your share of partners, and it would have no bearing on whether you would stay with any one of them or not. I’ve seen more than my fair share of casual hook-ups, make-ups, and break-ups at Dover the last few years, and given my cynical view of humans on the whole, Sawyer’s perspective is curious. “Did you date anyone before Jenna?” I ask him.

  “Dude, I was fourteen.” Sawyer laughs. “No, I surfed and skateboarded. She used to take photos for the yearbook in middle school. We got to hang out and became pretty good friends, and then we started dating sophomore year. She only let me kiss her like three months ago. She has priorities.”

  “Priorities?” I arch an eyebrow.

  “She wants to graduate as valedictorian, get into Stanford, have her own studio one day, get married, and have some rug rats. In that order, specifically.”

  “And you?”

  Sawyer shrugs, tossing a couple discarded soda bottles into his bag. “I want her to be happy, and I want her to achieve whatever she sets her mind to. Hopefully, that guy she marries will be me.”

  “You sound like you’re thirty,” I say dryly.

  “Old soul, dude, old soul,” Sawyer says with a grin. “Come on, looks like everyone’s heading back. Can’t believe it’s been like three hours already. We only covered a couple miles of beach.” He makes a disgusted face and hefts his garbage sack. “I just don’t see what’s so hard about putting bottles in the bins where they belong. Drink a soda. Toss it in the recycling. Not that hard.”

  “I didn’t realize you cared so much,” I say with a sideways glance. Truth is, I’ve never exchanged more than a few words with Sawyer before, especially ones that weren’t centered on surfing.

  Sawyer stares at me as if I’m an imbecile. “This”—he says, gesturing to a bottle at the top of his bag—“is one of the most serious threats to the ocean. Do you know over a hundred thousand sea creatures get killed by plastic, and those are the ones we know about. Because of plastic pollution, there are already dead areas in the ocean where nothing can live. Seriously, can you imagine?” His face is flushed, and outside of surfing and his girlfriend, I’ve never seen him so passionate about anything. “I’ve been helping out here every summer since I was about nine. It’s our planet, dude. If we don’t take care of it, what do you think’s going to happen?” He stares disgustedly at the bottle. “Takes a thousand years for these things to degrade. We won’t even be here to see what we leave behind, even though it’s our mess. You gotta respect the ocean, you know?”

  “I hear you,” I agree. “But at least the Marine Center’s trying to do something about it now. That’s a start, right?”

  “We’re already behind the eight ball,” Sawyer says. “But you’re right. Better late than never.”

  We head back up to the Marine Center. I look for Anya on the way back, but the spot where she’d been sitting is now deserted. Maybe I’d imagined her being there earlier. Still, I peruse the row of houses, wondering if she’d disappeared into any of them. I think of the drawing in her notebook and shiver. I’d been careless. Too careless. I should have just minded my own business and turned the other way, letting her do whatever she’d gone to Dead Man’s Cliff to do. If Echlios finds out that I’ve revealed myself to a human, I’ll be dead meat. Worse, maybe.

  At the beachside entrance to the Marine Center, my bag is nearly full, and so are the bags of the other three. We separate the rubbish into recyclable and trash, and go to the locker rooms to get cleaned up. Filing into the foyer, I shoot Sawyer a thoughtful glance. He’d surprised me. We need more people like him—those who care enough to try to make a difference. Otherwise, our new Aquarathi home—just like the dying planet we’d fled from—will be at risk.

  “Rissa! You and Speio coming with?” Sawyer yells from the entrance to the parking lot. “Black’s. Thirty minutes.”

  “We’ll meet you there,” she says. “Need to swing back to get our boards. Did you check the surf?”

  “Decent swell.”

  She glances at me, quirking an eyebrow. I’m surprised that she’s actually looking to me for permission. “We should check in with Echlios first,” I say.

  “Text me when you get there,” she says to Sawyer. “If we can come, we’ll meet you. If not, see you tomorrow and carve one up for me.”

  “You got it!”

  We meet Soren outside and climb into the Jeep. On the drive home, Nerissa doesn’t say much. My mother exchanges a concerned glance with me, but I shrug my shoulders. I throw it down to the fact that she’s just being Nerissa—uncommunicative and aloof, as usual. But she’s gnawing her bottom lip between her teeth and staring out of the window with a worried expression.

  “What’s wrong?” I ask her once we get home and out of Soren’s earshot.

  “That girl from today,” she says. “Who is she?”

  My stomach winds into immediate knots. “No one.”

  “I followed your glimmer,” she says gently. “I saw what she was drawing. Did she see you in your true form?”

  “No.” I’m not exactly lying, but I’m not exactly telling the truth, either. I keep my face composed even though I can feel my body overheating at the white lie. “I don’t know why she drew what she did.”

  She shoots me a thoughtful look. “Speio, I don’t care what you do, but whatever you have going on with that girl, get it together before Echlios finds out. You know the laws, even if we’re not in Waterfell.” She eyes me and for the first time in a while, I see a little of the old Nerissa in her … the best friend who used to look out for me and vice versa. “Make sure she doesn’t become a problem.”

  Connections

  I find Anya in the same spot as yesterday. I watch her for a few minutes, figuring out the best way to approach her without being a creeper. Tiny lines bracket the corners of her lips. She doesn’t seem as distressed as the first day I’d seen her, but she doesn’t seem that happy, either. It’s as if the weight of the world is resting on her shoulders. I can’t begin to imagine what could be so emotionally taxing for a teenager. All the sixteen-year-olds I’ve met are entitled without a care in the world. They have money, cars, and beachfront property, and most days the only thing they have to worry about is which restaurant to choose. Then again, none of those people have a death wish, braving a hundred-foot plunge wearing nothing but a nightgown.
/>   I take a breath and edge closer, noticing that she’s doodling in the same notebook. I’m instantly relieved that it’s not a picture of me. “Hey,” I say. She doesn’t look up from her drawing, so I clear my throat and say the greeting a little louder along with her name. The pencil stalls and Anya’s eyes lift slowly. Recognition flares in them as she sees my face, and she slams the notebook shut, a half-guilty flush coloring her cheeks.

  “You,” she says hoarsely.

  I smile even though all I want to do is pepper her with questions to see if she’s a threat and something I need to regret. “Mind if I sit?”

  “Free country.”

  “How are you feeling?” I ask after a minute or two of awkward silence.

  Anya tucks a strand of chocolate-brown hair behind one ear and squints at me. The soft blush from before turns fiery with embarrassment. She stares at the sand and cracks the knuckles of her fingers one by one in some kind of nervous tic. “I’m fine. Why do you ask?” Her voice trembles slightly.

  As much as I want to be considerate, I don’t want to play games and I need to know where her head is. If that means being brusque, then that’s what I have to do. I ignore the faint twinge of empathy in my belly. “So why’d you jump? If you’re fine, I mean.”

  Anya’s eyes snap to mine, a bedlam of emotion running through them. I wait them out—shock, anger, resentment, fear, shame, and finally acceptance—before she nods quietly to herself as if coming to some conclusion in her head. Her fingers skim over the face of her notebook like it’s a lifeline. And then she stares right at me as if trying to see down into my soul. My cells leap in response to her intense scrutiny, but I force myself to remain unresponsive. She nods again.