Bottom of the Sea

OCTOBER 17, 1963

 

Although there were many waterfalls throughout the mountains, few were as great as the hidden gem of the backcountry. Roaring in with a twenty-foot drop and white water for miles, the waterfall had claimed many lives over hundreds of years. But despite their notoriety, there was Ruby, treating this dangerous river like a wading pool. She was lying flat against a boulder, her legs dangling off the edge and her toes barely skimming the top of the water. There was a pure look to her: soft, at peace, seemingly careless. Had Rigan looked normal and not like a creature of the night, he’d have taken the opportunity to spook her from behind. However, he didn’t need her screaming and macing him, so he called her name.

“Ruby Starr, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

“Rigan!” She hopped off the boulder faster than she likely should have and started shuffling over to him. Water splashed everywhere. “Give me a second!” She moved effortlessly but with purpose. The moment she hit dry land, she pulled Rigan into a hug, but seemed to instantly regret her choice. “You’re damp.” She pulled away with a slight cringe. With teeth as well-shaped and sharp as glass shards, Rigan imagined he frightened Ruby, but he hoped that she saw past all of it in remembrance of the boy on the motorcycle.

“That’s normal,” he said.

“No wonder you don’t wear a shirt.” She brushed at her floral top as though that would somehow dry it. “I’m so glad to see you up. I’m glad to see you alive. Tim didn’t mention you were going to be the one meeting me this time.” Their drop-off arrangement led Ruby not to their camp but to an agreed meeting point halfway down the mountain. Not only because Ruby did not have the time to make the full hike, but also because Diana was uncertain she wanted Ruby knowing where the camp was.

“They weren’t sure I was going to be able to walk.” Rigan shrugged. “But thanks to the likely illegal amount of painkillers you brought us, I’m up and talking again.”

“Is it bad that I brought more?” She handed off her backpack to Rigan.

Rigan glanced into the open sack, then did a double take and gawked at not only the sheer amount of things Ruby had managed to stuff into her one small bag, but at the alarming amount of men’s clothes and hardcover books.

“How can you afford this?” he muttered under his breath.

Sadly, no matter how low Rigan tried to keep his voice, it still was obviously not quite enough for Ruby to miss it.

“Um, Earth to Rigan. First time we met, you gave me two hundred dollars?” Ruby looked at him as though he was speaking another language. “Did you forget?”

“You didn’t spend any of it before finding us?” Rigan’s words came accusingly. He immediately regretted speaking. There was an obvious expression of hurt on Ruby’s face.

“What’s that got to do with anything?” She had her hands on her hips and she was drilling into Rigan with her glare. “You’re not going to do this, too, are you? Tim and Diana both cross-examined me the first time I brought supplies. I thought we were good. Haven’t I answered enough of questions?”

Rigan’s stomach dropped as he realized that was why he was asking so many questions. Of course, they’d already investigated. They hadn’t told him they had, but they had. They were two agents better than Rigan. There was no reason for him to ask her all his normal questions, learn her history, demand names and childhood homes.

“Did you get mad when they accused you of being from Florida, too?” He snickered and she rolled her eyes.

“I am so over you four saying I’m from Florida. I’m not. I’m Ruby Starr and I’m from Maine. I’m a nameless waitress.”

“Sure,” Rigan teased. “What kind of hippie-commune parents name their kid Ruby Starr?”

“Okay, first off, mean, and second off, uncalled for.” Ruby laughed as she turned away from him. “I am going back to my river rock, because at least at my river rock, no one is sassy and rude.” She stepped into the stream and started toward the same large boulder she’d been on before.

“Oh, no, water, a fish’s sole weakness.” Rigan followed her and even caught up, making it to the boulder while she was still hobbling across.

“I am going to fight you off there in five seconds if you do not move. Hiking three hours while carrying twenty pounds worth of fresh fruit and other foods with the necessary vitamins and minerals does wonders for a lady’s leg strength.”

Rigan waited for her to clamber onto the rock before admiring her nonsense. “I’m just saying, what kind of parent names their kid Ruby Starr? Sounds like something a flower child would pick out for themselves.” Ruby narrowed her eyes as she tried to push Rigan from the rock, but using his sharp claw-like nails, he dug into the boulder and held his ground. “What’s so bad about Florida? Don’t bother lying. I know I’m right.”

“Besides the people?” Ruby snorted. “A lot. A whole lot.”

Rigan looked at her curiously, examining the worth of prodding. She had his attention. He wanted to know. “Like what?”

“Please.” Ruby tsk’d. “Like the world traveler hasn’t been to Florida.”

Rigan huffed, leaning back and lying against the rock. His abdomen was killing him, he hadn’t healed completely, but he pushed through it. He was tired of seeing only three people for days at a time. Ruby was a beacon of light in the shadows of the woods.

“I love Florida. It reminds me of home. What’s your deal?”

“Hmmm…too awful to tell.” She shrugged. “Some things are never meant to see the light of day. My story is one of ’em.”

“Too awful to tell?” Rigan leaned in. Now, she had his full attention. There was something in the way she moved and the tone of her voice that clued him in that he was electrically close to getting to hear this story. “Is the story sad or just awful?”

Ruby sighed and pressed her fingers to the bridge of her nose. “I did something awful.” She seemed to shut down suddenly. “But that was the past and this is the now. And now I am a good, positive person who does things like help spies trapped in my mountains.” She sounded as though just one quirky statement could change the entire path of the conversation, but Rigan was still mulling over her previous words.

“You did something awful.” He kept his voice low. “Ruby. Me? The people upstairs? We do awful things. You’re what? Middle-class, black, female, young. You’re a hippie at best. We’re monsters.”

“What?” Ruby snorted. “Come on. Tim’s greatest pleasure is when I bring him paperback romance over new cutting-edge fiction. Diana just seems desperate for an eyelash curler, and Da Vinci let me go that first night I met him. And you.” She eyed him smartly. “Don’t even get me started.”

Rigan hummed, lowly, subtly, more to himself than anyone else. “Tim got into the spy business so he could stalk women without legal repercussion. Diana has killed more people in one day than most agents do in their entire career. And she did it on a whim. Da Vinci has put more people on the rack than any other negotiator I know. And his signature move is pulling molars out with pliers. And don’t even look at me. The people I’ve waterboarded for intel. I can’t even begin to count. Whatever you did can’t be as bad as what we’ve done.”

“I don’t believe that for a second.” Ruby put her hands behind her head and lay back on the rock, the two of them now watching the clouds together.

“You don’t believe Diana and Tim wouldn’t have killed you if Da Vinci and I weren’t there? You didn’t feel any fear the first day just Diana or just Tim showed up for the supply drop?” Rigan asked, not to be assertive but to make her think. He assumed he succeeded when there was a lull of silence between them.

“I just didn’t know them yet,” she finally said.

“So, assuming everything said was true, still think your actions are too awful to be said?”

“Why’s it so important to you, anyway?” She nudged his side with her elbow and propped herself up.

“Because you ape out whenever it’s brought up. Besides, I’m sick. Humor me.” Rigan smirked and made Ruby roll her eyes.

“Yeah, sick in the head,” she shot back. Eventually the sound of her words faded into the hills and there was nothing left to hear but the roar of the falls and the rubble of water for a moment. “You’re not going to hear this and then hate me, right? Even if I did something really awful. Now that I’m spending half my days climbing up a mountain, it’s best that the people on top actually like me.”

“No judgment,” Rigan assured her. “Unless what you did is really, really awful.”

“Oh, my god. Stop.” Ruby shook her head as she switched to a seated position. “See this is why I’m not telling you.”

Rigan was laughing as he pulled himself up and sat next to her. “Ruby, I’m fucking with you. Just tell me.”

“I know you’re just fucking with me, but if you ever ‘just fuck with me’ about what I’m about to tell you, I will hate you, and when the rest of the gang gets cool things like books and magazines, you will get nothing but fish products. And then you’ll have to be a cannibal and you get to enjoy that entire moral dilemma.”

Rigan, being someone who loved anchovies, took a moment to consider her deal. However, his curiosity got the best of him. “Tell me.”

“So, one night, I almost killed my ma.”

“Oh, my god, what? In no scenario was that what I imagined you saying.”

Ruby wailed, ignoring Rigan’s interruption and carried on, “So for like…almost a year? Maybe two?” She paused and seemed stuck in her own head, as though working through a difficult math problem. “So like up until ten months ago, I did a lot of LSD. Like, a lot.” Her face relaxed after a moment and she carried on. “Almost every night, I was sneaking in through our bathroom window, stumbling around, making a mess, and my parents would pretend like they didn’t hear it, and I’d sneak back in bed, wake up, and do it all again the next day, and…” She took an indulgent few seconds to remember. “It’s scary how much I remember. I can still taste the peppermint coming off the lips of the boy I’d kissed goodbye and the olive curtains on the slightly too-small window I squeezed through, the sound of boots on linoleum, harsh fluorescent lighting.” She sighed. “There’s no dignified way to tell this story.

“Then the next day, they would sit me down and have a long talk about my future and my choices, college, stuff like that. It was always the next day because there was no point trying to talk to me when I first came home.” She grew rigid. “I can see it so clearly now. Every day that goes by, I understand it a bit better.” She took a long breath. “That night, I just went too far. It messed me up bad. When I got into the bathroom, I hit the floor just like that.” She smacked her hands together for added effect. “My bracelets made so much noise against the tile, it was echoing in my skull. I didn’t stay on the ground for long, though. I picked myself up pretty quick. And then I saw my reflection. I don’t know if it spooked me or if I thought it was something else, but I just knee-jerk reacted and bashed the damn mirror in with the palm of my hand. After the initial shock, I picked up all the pieces and carried them around. Blood was getting everywhere at this point.”

She ran her hands over each other, her thumb caressing the palm of her other hand. “So like any rational druggie, I got into the tub. I didn’t run myself a bath. I just wanted to bleed all over my nice clothes in the tub rather than on the floor. I even kept the pieces of mirror nestled in my blouse.” She sighed, laying herself back on the rock, staring into the sky as though it would take the weight off her shoulders. “I thought I was going to die. It seemed like I sat there for hours, decades even. I was scared. So, I started screaming. Rational thought? Not my strongest suit when I’m that messed up. Next thing you know, Ma and Pa are busting open the door. Ma has got a pan and Pa has a bat. I jump out of the tub faster than any high person should. Then I charged at my ma, glass in hand.” Ruby’s eyes began to well with tears. She was working hard to fight off any kind of emotion.

“There were no words and no connection between me and my actions. I looked at my family like they weren’t mine. I thought they were…you know…imposters. I thought they were imposters of my family, pretending to be my family. I ended up slicing Ma’s arm open. They nursed me back to health that night and then told me the next day I could quit and stay, or keep using and leave.”

“You chose to leave?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“No,” Rigan scoffed. “Food, house, a loose tolerance for drug usage. You had it made.”

“Man, forget you.” Ruby rolled her eyes. “My parents gave up on me way too quickly. Look at me now. Healthy, got a steady job, got four illegal felons chilling out in the woods that I bring food to. I have it made now. Got to ride a motorcycle not too long ago.” She winked. “They were stupid and old-fashioned. I still survived.”

“Ahhhhh,” Rigan cooed. “My bike was pretty sweet. There’s something I miss.”

She paused for a minute before speaking. “You don’t think I’m awful now, do you?”

“I think you’re petty.” He snorted but then gave way to a more serious persona. “Ruby, when I was eleven, I took what little savings my family had, joined an organized crime ring, and left them for dead.” Rigan shrugged. “If they were able to survive the week with little to no food, they may have lived, but if they starved, then that’s on me, for the rest of my life. So, no, I don’t think you’re awful.”

“Rigan.” Ruby frowned, flopping around on the rock, looking for a comfortable position. “How do you live with that? Does it ever haunt you? Do you feel bad?”

Rigan looked at her, surprised any of those questions had left her mouth. For a second, he just stared, and then he shrugged. He almost spoke, but she cut him off.

“How’d you get your tattoo?” Breathlessly, she pointed to the octopus tattoo on the left side of Rigan’s chest. “Less heavy stuff, yeah?”

“Do you really believe in aliens?”

Ruby and Rigan had a stare-down for a moment as both of them clearly wanted to divert the subject from themselves. It was tension, but it dispersed into bubbly laughter, like a soda-fizz that had calmed down.

“You next,” she said. “You’re better at this.”

“Well, it begins in the Caribbean.”

*

When he first laid eyes on her, he knew he’d follow her to the ends of the world. Isabelle was five-foot-nine and had legs that went on for days. In the crowds of the Caymans, she stood out like a blinding ray of light. Rigan was drawn to her immediately. Although he and Da Vinci were there for work purposes, there was downtime in between stakeouts and torture mills. Isabelle was how he chose to spend his.

“You eat like the wolf hunts.” Isabelle was just barely peeking out over her sunglasses. “You eat as though you’ll never see food again.”

Rigan was presently scarfing down a plate of rice and fish as though he was competitively eating against his dainty partner. “Oh,” he said, attempting to appear distraught. “I’ll just stop eating at this point.” He gently placed his fork and knife down and glanced at Isabelle like a wounded animal.

“Could you imagine if I ate like that? We’d be stared at no matter where in the market we went.” She teased him, picking a piece of shrimp off his plate and popping it in her mouth. “Have you seen the turtles that come up to shore in the nighttime?” She picked at his plate of food, taking only small ladylike bites.

Rigan wiped his face off with a handkerchief before nodding. “A few times. Why?”

“I haven’t,” she said. “I’m going to go see them tonight and wanted to invite you along if you’re interested.”

“Finally, something I can show you,” he teased. “About time.”

“So, is that a yes?” She laughed behind closed lips and dragged her fork along his plate before picking up another piece of shrimp.

Rigan hesitated. “Do you hear someone?” Rigan turned around, and as expected, Da Vinci walked toward the two of them with a warm, charming expression on his face.

“Excuse me, Miss. It seems I need to take my partner for the time-being. I’ll be sure to return him once we’re done.” He bowed his head, his attention never leaving the woman.

“Oh.” She sounded sad. “Where are you going?” she asked Rigan.

“Just work stuff,” He sighed, staring Da Vinci down for a moment, displeased by this interruption. “Right?”

“Of course. Environment can’t save itself,” Da Vinci mused. “Come on, Marco. We’ll be back.”

She turned to Rigan with kind, understanding eyes. “I will hold my breath until you return.”

“You would suffocate,” Da Vinci grumbled.

“Forgive me.” Rigan took her hand and gently kissed it. There was something so Victorian in their relationship. Their romance seemed rooted in longing stares and sweet nothings. But Rigan had to turn his attention back to Da Vinci. They left Isabelle for the time-being.

Things were fine and cordial and warm right up until they got back to their hotel room.

“Kid, I get that the new-and-exciting appeal is there, but you have an unhealthy attraction for that woman.” Da Vinci groaned, yanking their suitcase of weaponry out from their hotel safe. “Like grossly so. You know we’re leaving in a few days, right?”

“Like you haven’t gone through a parade of women over the past week.” Rigan pulled a few spare maps from under his mattress.

“Exactly, a parade. I don’t have an unhealthy fixation on any one.” Da Vinci rolled his eyes.

“The only one with an unhealthy fixation is Dresden.”

“Now, listen here…”

Da Vinci went on to explain some type of break-in. A few big names, a few minor grunts, a general mission objective, but Rigan’s thoughts were already back at the market, wondering what Isabelle was doing. Sometimes, she rested on the beach, her feet in the sand. Other times, she snacked in the market, a pastry in one hand, coffee in the other. And on rare occasions, she sang. Her voice was that of a siren. He’d never met a woman quite like her before. Da Vinci and Rigan completed their mission. It was fine. It was routine. Everything was as expected. That was two of three assignments taken care of. One more needed to be done before they left the islands. Luckily for Rigan, that was still a few days away. When they returned to the hotel and cleaned up, he was quick to bolt out the door and head to the open-air market, not even giving Da Vinci a chance to voice his concerns.

He found her dancing to the beat of a steel-drum band set up on the outskirts of the market.

“Isabelle!”

“Marco!” She wrapped him in a hug and pulled him out of the shade and into the sun. “Dance with me.” Her wild hair blew in the light sea breeze. It was at that moment Rigan knew he was in trouble. She had him—hook, line, and sinker. He joined her, gently taking her hand and spinning her under his arm.

“Check this out!” Isabelle pointed to right above her elbow. Newly tattooed there was an outline of a large sea turtle. “I got it down at this cool little dive by the beach! You should get one, too,” she gushed. “It’ll be golden.”

Rigan took her arm and examined the ink for a moment. He had never seen a tattoo on anyone who wasn’t either A. a mission objective or B. trying to kill him. But that was just Isabelle. She was a whole new kind of person to Rigan. Even more endearing, she was a woman, out on her own, getting a tattoo in 1958. It just wasn’t something you saw back in the States.

“O-okay,” he replied. “What should I get?”

“You should get another sea creature.” She started leading them away from the street band and closer to the shops at the end of the market. “You could get a turtle like me.”

Rigan mulled it over for a second, and although he loved telling Isabelle yes on all accounts, he decided against her recommendations. “How about a giant octopus?”

“A giant octopus? That sounds perfect.” She giggled before ducking under a low-hanging tapestry and pulling Rigan into a deep kiss. For a moment, they lingered there.

As she pulled away, she said, “If you’re going giant, it should be fighting a pirate ship.”

“A pirate ship?” He raised a single eyebrow. “I could tell you stories about pirates you wouldn’t believe.”

“It’s settled then.” She took him by the hand and guided him a few stands farther down the line. “There’s this shaman-type guy who does them. It’s really something.”

They stopped in front of a rather small, open tent with a chair and a few ink blots around. As they stood there waiting, an older-looking man with a deep tan and calming eyes came up from behind.

“Back again so soon, chérie?” he said.

“Yes.” Isabelle smiled gracefully, hints of excitement in her eyes. “He’s going to get a matching one,” she cooed. “A big octopus and a pirate ship.”

“Quite an order to fill.” The old man patted a seat farther in the tent. “Sit.”

Rigan reclined in the seat, unbuttoning his shirt. “How much do you think this’ll run me?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Isabelle cooed. “I’ll cover you.” She took his hand and tilted her head. “You can squeeze away. The tattoo will hurt no matter how tough you may seem.” She gave his arm a light punch. “My hand can take it.”

The entire process of getting the ink done was surprisingly fast, and although it did indeed hurt, Rigan was more than happy with the end product.

“Now you’ll always have something to remember me by.” Isabelle ran her thumb over his hand, her eyes sad and her face long, but a smile still pushed its way through the pain.

“What?” Rigan frowned. They held hands as they walked through the market, Rigan’s shirt unbuttoned just enough to show the corner of a thick black bandage pad.

“Oh, you don’t have to play so coy.” She ducked in between two stands and guided them onto the white sandy beaches of the shore. “You’re here for work. If I were to guess, I’d say you’d be gone in what, two? Three days?”

Rigan’s face flushed as he kept his attention on the ground. “I’d been meaning to tell you.” He took both of her hands and stared into her eyes, a sadness overtaking him.

“I am smarter than I appear.”

“I-it’s not like that. I didn’t think you weren’t smart. I just didn’t know how to tell you.”

“It is all right, Marco.” She dropped one of her hands away and began leading him farther down the beach and away from the market. “Come with me.” She smiled. “The sun will be setting soon. I wouldn’t be surprised if the green sea turtles have already come to shore.” There was something so heavenly in her smile. When she looked at him, he felt as though she could see him for who he truly was. He didn’t know how he’d live without her. Her hand fit so perfectly in his. In a place like this, with the skyline of mountains and waterfalls, with the music-filled markets and ever-turning tide, Rigan wondered why he’d chose to leave. He briefly considered it. What if he ran away with her? But as the cold reality of the situation settled in, he knew he couldn’t. Working with Da Vinci was the only thing keeping him from deportation, prison, and a potential hit from his former boss. Some things couldn’t be, but for the time-being, he and Isabelle weren’t one of them. With the waves lapping over their feet and the sun setting in the distance, he drew her in and kissed her.

And after a moment, she threw her arm up, knocking Rigan in the face. After that, she wrestled him to the ground, her manicured nails digging into his skin.

“Isabelle!” Rigan choked, flailing his arms as he attempted to fight her off. “Isabelle!” He swung for a hit but missed. He attempted to throw her off of him, but as her limbs spread over him, he found himself pinned. It was then that she grabbed his head and pulled him under the water, holding him by his hair and ignoring his many half-landed hits.

He was choking, trying to cough up the salty sea water flooding his throat. “Is-Isa—” Only syllables were getting out in between the moments he was able to thrash just enough to breach the water’s surface. He fought her until he felt his limbs going numb. His mind was emptying. He was dying. He tried to call out for help, but was met only with a rush of water in his lungs. Everything was going black until Da Vinci yanked him out of the ocean.

Isabelle was lying on the shore, bleeding profusely from the back of her head, a bloody rock not too far from her body.

“Y-Y—” Rigan wheezed, his neck already bruising. “Y-ou, knew?”

“I suspected.”

*

“After that, we didn’t talk for days. We did our mission and got out of there.” Rigan paused. “We’re fine now. Clearly.” Ruby and Rigan were both lying on their backs, pressed flat against the boulder, their elbows barely grazing.

“My real name’s Robin Harrison,” she admitted abruptly. “You’re right. I picked the name Ruby Starr for myself. My family is from Florida, and they’ve been trying to contact me for months. They’ve sent countless PIs, called the cops. That’s why I freaked out when you said I was from Florida.”

Rigan placed his hand over hers. “Thank you.”

They watched as clouds passed overhead. In time, she turned over onto her stomach and looked him in the face. “Do you think about her more now?”

“What?”

“Now that you are the way you are. Do you find yourself thinking about her more?”

Rigan contemplated the question, eventually he shrugged. “No. That was a long time ago, and she tried to drown me so that helped me get over her.” He exhaled deeply and turned his head toward Ruby, propping himself up on his elbows. “I think about our first trip to the mountains. Play it over and over in my head.”

“Was that the last time you were normal?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you ever think it could have gone any different?”

Rigan laughed, his gaze lingering on her heavenly face. “All the time.”