Julia Rios
Her name was Healuwo, and she was lonely. Well into her brooding phase now, she knew she ought to be looking for a mate to fertilize her eggs, but instead she hovered at the edges of the northern landmasses, hoping for a different sort of male to appear. She’d been fascinated by humans ever since she’d first heard about them as a broodling—fantastical creatures who lived out of water, covering the landmasses with strange buildings and art. They couldn’t just live in the above as it was. They had to change it. Healuwo wanted desperately to spend time with them.
Legends floated through the underwater about humans who came to reign below for decades at a time. Other squid scoffed, but Healuwo believed deep inside her soul that the stories were true, regardless of the many complications they presented. Squid couldn’t breathe above water any more than humans could breathe below, and that was only the tip of the iceberg. Not that Healuwo had anything against icebergs. Sometimes they killed whales, after all.
*
I was shopping for fruit to bring to my brother’s wedding picnic when I saw my father. He stood in the produce section of the grocery store in St. John’s, eating grapes like it was the most normal thing in the world. I did a double take, thinking of course it couldn’t be him. This guy was too young, and also my father had been dead for eight years. But then he looked right at me and said, “Honey Baloney?” And I couldn’t pretend it wasn’t him after he used my stupid childhood nickname. If there was anyone who’d bend the laws of nature just to spite me, it was my father.
When I say he was young, I don’t mean he was a strapping lad of 20 or anything, but he wasn’t as pale and shriveled as he’d been when he’d died at the age of 68. He looked vigorous. His skin was a warm, healthy brown, and his hair was truly black, unlike all the times he’d tried to dye over the grey and wound up with purple or green tints.
My father extended a hand, proffering three grapes that I might choose from. “Want one?”
I flinched, swamped with uncomfortable memories of grocery stores past. I didn’t want to touch him. That would make it all too real. If I kept my distance, I could hang onto the idea that it was a hallucination, brought on by my anxiety about meeting my brother’s new family. I stepped back, wary. “No. And you should pay for those.”
“Still concerned with that, eh?” My father chuckled, his baritone as resonant as always, and his accent no less pronounced. “Trina, they want me to eat them! They’re samples!”
I glanced down at the half eaten bunch in front of him and decided not to argue. No one ever won arguments with my father.
“You’re dead,” I said, as if the affirmation would make things better. “Consuela found you in the hallway. We had you cremated.”
He shrugged. “I came back. Business.”
“I didn’t think Newfoundland was a drug trafficking hotspot,” I said.
My father popped another grape into his mouth, completely unperturbed. “It’s not. I’m done with all that now.”
“Then what are you doing here?”
“Something else. You know what, though?” He held a grape up to my face for inspection, and I avoided looking at it, staring instead at the scar on his index finger from when he’d cut himself while slicing an orange. I concentrated on the strange balloon shape of the tip, and on the smooth bit where his skin had grown back without a fingerprint.
“What?” I asked.
He looked around, and leaned his head in conspiratorially, overwhelming me with his all too familiar scent. Soap and sweat blended in a way that reminded me of a bitter herb, like sage that’s gone off or something. I’d always hated it as a kid. I didn’t know what soap he used, but if I ever found it, I’d ban it from my household so I could be sure never to smell it again.
“In Colombia they have better fruit. I miss tamarinds. You don’t find tamarinds in Newfoundland.”
I took another step backward, out of his circle of intimate stench. “Are you going to tell me why you’re here?”
“I need an excuse to see my children? This is a family reunion, isn’t it?”
My father, the same man who had abandoned Este and me when we were kids, the one who had left us with the housekeeper while he went off on drug trade adventures—this man was coming back from the dead to see us? Anger boiled up inside my chest. I wanted to say so many things to him, to hurt him like he’d hurt me, but instead, all that came out was, “You better not ruin my trip.”
Jared came around the end of the cereal aisle, calling my name. I turned to look, just for a second, and when I turned back, my father was gone.
“Did you see him?” I asked, staring at the empty space by the grape display.
“Who?”
I sighed. “Never mind.”
Jared stroked his one carefully cultivated tuft of chin hair and frowned. “Trina, are you all right?”
The only evidence that this hadn’t been a bizarre daydream was a bunch of grapes, three quarters bare. That wasn’t going to convince a skeptic like Jared.
“I’m sorry,” I said, leaning in for a kiss. Jared’s aftershave smelled fresh and spicy. He was nothing like my father. “I think I’m just tired. Did you find everything?”
“Crackers and cheese, check.” Jared gave me a mock salute. “Did you want grapes?”
“No,” I said, too quickly. “Let’s just go.”
*
Healuwo understood craggy shores and cold waters. She’d traveled all the northern coasts from Iceland and Greenland to Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Sweden, but she kept coming back to this place. Labrador was desolate and strange, so, inevitably she drifted south to be near the island. It had more people, and more of Healuwo’s beloved English. The language of the sea was not so compartmentalized as human speech. People didn’t speak as such—humans would call it telepathy. Healuwo would love to use sea language with humans, but they never seemed willing to believe in it. To make matters worse, a constant trickle of admonishment flowed across the currents each time she tried. Other squid overheard, and they all beamed back the same thing: shouldn’t Healuwo be concentrating on something else?
Her broodmates had all reproduced already, each one reporting with satisfied relief, and passing judgment on Healuwo’s continued non-maternal status. As the oldest, she should have been the first. The thing was, she knew if she let nature take its course, her life would no longer be hers. What little chance she had of getting close to humans, of talking to them, and sharing in their strangeness, would be gone forever.
Healuwo collected comforting things to cling to in the case of that eventuality. The best was a waterproof tablet she’d found on a diver. There had, unfortunately, been a few divers. She never meant for it to happen, but the passage of time wore on her nerves, and panic was panic.
The tablet had several e-books stored on it, and Healuwo read again and again about Captain Ahab, taking the tiny device into dark crevices, away from prying eyes. The parts about whaling fascinated her most of all. She pored over them, rubbing three arms against her mantle and wondering if perhaps someday she might find a whaler friend of her own. He’d be someone who would find her beautiful instead of monstrous, someone who would lovingly kill her predators and use their blubber for lamps, their bones for corsets, their meat for a Valentine’s Day feast.
When her youngest broodmate successfully completed her brooding phase, Healuwo decided she could not wait any longer. It was now or never, she thought as she prepared to head landwards. She was about to start climbing when a flash of red in the distance stopped her. Just her luck that she’d run into Shaluraya today of all days.
Shaluraya was next oldest of Healuwo’s broodmates, and she had very conservative ideas about what it meant to be a squid.
She raised two arms in greeting as she approached Healuwo, but the tone of her gesture was more accusatory than amicable. What are you doing? she asked.
Healuwo hesitated. Shaluraya would not approve of her plan, and she didn’t relish the thought of arguing. Everyone would find out soon enough anyway, though. Plus, Shaluraya was younger and had no authority over Healuwo, even if she did have her own brood now.
Healuwo adopted a dominant pose, spreading her lower half out as much as she could, and fanning water currents Shaluraya’s way.
I’m going to the surface.
Healuwo, that’s not proper. Shaluraya’s arms flailed in exaggerated shock and disapproval.
Healuwo rippled her arms and her mantle, shrugging. If you have a better way of getting humans down here, I’d love to know it.
Shaluraya’s posture grew more agitated, but Healuwo didn’t stick around to hear what other criticisms she might have. Instead she sped upward with a great push. She hoped Shaluraya stumbled in the wake.
*
Esteban and I grew up too fast after our mother died, even with Consuela to look after us. She was gentle and kind, but as our housekeeper, she wasn’t blood, and she didn’t have any money of her own. We couldn’t depend on her always being there, and all three of us knew it. No one ever knew when my father would return from his “business” trips, and we weren’t sure whether to hope for or fear his surprise appearances. He was high most of the time, benevolent half of the time, and dangerous all of the time—once he came home waving a loaded gun and carelessly shot three holes in the entryway wall by way of greeting.
As long as he was still alive, we had a place to stay, though. We worried about what might become of us if he didn’t come home, didn’t pay the bills. I always told Este it would be okay, but even though I made tons of survival plans, I dreaded the idea of having to use them. We were lucky that the worst case scenario didn’t happen until we were both adults. When our father was declared legally dead, we didn’t get a wicked guardian like fairy tale children. We just got the house, and a truckload of debt, which we ended up selling the house to pay.
We turned out okay, though. I had Jared, who was sweet under the smart-mouthed surface, and Esteban found a whole family who adored him.
Kimberly had two kids from a previous marriage, and Esteban got along with them amazingly well. He was a dream stepdad—supportive, engaged, and gentle: the exact opposite of our father. Almost every picture Este posted online showed Annie and Shane climbing all over him like he was a jungle gym. I’d met them once when they’d come down to Tampa, but it was only for one day before they headed off to Disney World. Still, they’d treated me like I was one of them. Like I belonged.
Because of the kids, and because it was a second marriage, Kimberly and Esteban decided to forgo a traditional wedding and honeymoon in favor of hosting a family reunion in Kimberly’s hometown. It was the sort of bonding thing that I had craved my entire life. I should have been ecstatic, not preoccupied, but once again my father had found a way to ruin things for me.
My mind kept drifting back to my father during the short ceremony in Bowring Park, and I hardly ate when the post-ceremony picnic began, even though there was tons of delicious homemade food. While everyone else played Frisbee on the lawn outside the bungalow, I sat inside, brooding.
We went on a whale-watching cruise the next day, and I kept thinking I saw my father in the gift shop. On day three, at the top of Signal Hill, I didn’t even notice the stunning views of St. John’s because I was too busy examining the crowd of tourists, looking for him.
Este joined me by one of the cannons, away from everyone else in our group. “Trina, What’s with you? I thought you really liked Kimberly and the kids. You said you were excited, before, but now it’s like you don’t even want to be here.”
“I do,” I said. “I’m sorry. I think I’m just jet-lagged or something.” When Este walked away, I kicked the old stone wall, wishing it was my father.
That night we went on a ghost tour. As soon as our group arrived, the guide banged his staff on the sidewalk, activating green and purple flashing lights.
Jared snickered, and I elbowed him in the ribs.
“Don’t make fun.”
“Oh come on, Trina. I count on you to mock stuff with me. It’s what makes us so good together.”
“Doof,” I said. “The kids are really excited about this. That’s all I meant.”
An hour later we’d walked maybe a quarter mile, and heard about several buildings with cold basements along with a few bonus stories that hinged on terrible puns. Every single story made me think about my father. If Este had accused me of not wanting to be there tonight, I would have had to admit he was totally right.
“And now for the most chilling tale of all. What you’re about to hear is one hundred percent true, and completely unsolved.” The tour guide flipped his cape over one shoulder and waited for the crowd to draw near.
“In the summer of 1857, two children went missing. Mary Jones and Elijah Harper played together every day in front of Mary’s father’s store.”
The guide whirled to the left and pointed at a building down the street. “The store was just over there, where the bank is today.”
A few people took pictures, and one woman asked her companion if there were any orbs on the digital camera’s display.
Jared rolled his eyes. “Oh come on,” he said. “Not even the jackasses on Ghost Hunters take orbs seriously. I can’t believe people are so dumb.”
It wasn’t aimed at me, but I felt defensive anyway. “Just because you don’t believe in ghosts doesn’t mean they don’t exist.”
“Uh huh,” said Jared. “Sure.”
The flurry of activity wound down, and the guide cleared his throat.
“Nine days and nights passed, and the children were given up for dead, but on the tenth day John Rowe found them on the docks when he went down to his fishing boat. Their hair had gone stark white, and they looked withered and old, like thinly veiled skeletons. It was as though for each day they’d been gone, a decade had passed. The children lived less than a week after that, and they never did say what happened.”
The guide let his voice trail off into ominous silence for a few seconds, then banged his staff on the sidewalk once more and said, “This concludes our tour. Be sure to buy a copy of my book, The Haunted History of St. John’s, with all of these stories and more!”
Our group scrambled to take photos with the guide and his flashing staff, but I hung back, thinking about my father, and about children growing old before their time. Then I looked up, and there he was. He stood in the shadows outside a circle of orange streetlight, his hands in his pockets with the knobs of his knuckles outlined under white linen. I could feel him watching me, slouching casually like he’d been there all night, waiting.
“Honey Baloney,” he said.
“Why are you tormenting me?” I asked. “Can’t you just leave me alone?”
My father smirked, the same full lips I have turning up at one side in an expression I knew I’d made a thousand times myself. He sketched a mocking half bow and stepped backward into the darkness.
*
After many hours of probing along the brown rock walls of Newfoundland’s eastern coast, Healuwo found a cave in which to rest. She could hear the outer edge of the thought cloud that was human existence, but didn’t venture close enough to distinguish voices. She needed to think, and to go through her new cache of human things. She’d lucked into a good find while she was up at the surface recharging the tablet’s solar battery. A boat, small and splintered, had capsized and gotten trapped between two sea boulders. There weren’t a lot of exciting things, but she’d separated a small bit of netting to wear as decoration, one with a pretty green glass charm. It was, she thought, a good omen to finish her journey to human areas thus bejeweled.
It was an even better omen when she noticed the book floating nearby. The pages were almost too waterlogged to read, but any human text was worth trying to save. Healuwo had collected it carefully, using four arms to bring it close with the least amount of pressure, and progressed with painstaking care and slowness after that. Now that she had found shelter, she relaxed her grip ever so slightly, and with a fifth arm, shined the tablet’s screen at her prize.
“…istory of St. John’s”
It was an historical document, perfect preparation for her upcoming contact. Some of it was beyond salvation, but Healuwo was clever, and she didn’t mind filling in the blanks. It was full of wonderful stories about how humans could continue in their humanity even after the corporeal phase had finished. The best piece, though, was about children who disappeared and grew old in a short time for humans.
The human document did not explain how this happened, but Healuwo knew the answer. These were surely some of the kings and queens of the underwater she’d so loved to hear about as a broodling. They went under the sea and became friends with all the people, learning the secrets of how to talk and breathe underwater. Some squid said those stories were untrue, but this proved otherwise. And if this was true, then her quest was not for nothing.
She settled in for her rest period with renewed hope. Soon she would take the next step. Soon she would find some human children of her own.
*
On our last day in Newfoundland, we went to Cape Spear, the easternmost point in North America. Kimberly took half of our party into the historic lighthouse, but Este kept Annie and Shane outside with the rest of us. There was a series of bunkers left over from World War II, which interested Jared and the kids particularly. Rusted, damp, and streaked with salt, they felt like sets from a video game. We took turns posing for pictures as zombie hunters, but my heart wasn’t in it.
I hadn’t seen my father since the night of the ghost tour, but I couldn’t get him out of my mind. I didn’t want to see him, but I couldn’t keep from expecting it. It was like being twelve all over again, dreading his absence, and his return.
There must be unfinished business between us, I thought. That was always the way it worked in ghost stories. He wouldn’t come back and talk to me without a reason. Would he?
This restless distraction drew me out of the bunkers and away from the group. I wanted to be alone. There was a busload of tourists on the main trail, so I veered onto a side path that led down the cliff side. It was probably a terrible idea, but I suddenly wanted very badly to touch the water.
About halfway to the bottom, I began to imagine a voice. Gentle as Consuela’s whisper, it felt like it was coming from inside my own head. It spoke small encouragements to help me climb down.
By the time I reached the bottom, I had made up a whole story for the voice. It was a giant squid, lonely and benevolent, and we had moved on from encouraging remarks on my hiking skills to fantasies about escaping the drudgery of land life to live as a queen under the sea.
We can travel the world under the waves.
“Great,” I said aloud, laughing at the surreal whims of my imagination. “But realistically, I could never leave Jared for a sea creature.”
You’re not young enough, the voice said sadly.
“Not young enough?” I asked, confused. The rest of it had seemed like a fanciful brain tangent, but this was different somehow.
I need the children, the voice said. I’m bringing them down.
Looking up, I saw two small figures starting down the cliffside path. They were too far away for me to recognize their faces, but I could see the colors of their clothes—one in lavender, the other in olive green—Annie and Shane. My breath caught in my throat, and my chest felt tight. Amusing daydreams were all well and good, but the reality of my brother’s new stepchildren in danger? Not cool. I was all the way down by the water’s edge, too far to reach them, even by shouting. I did the only thing I could think of.
“If you’re real, and if you’re luring children down a cliff, you need to stop,” I said.
The voice that answered over the roar of the waves was not the one I expected. “Honey Baloney?”
I whipped around to see my father on a rocky outcropping several yards away. He wore the garish coral brocade suit that had always made Este and me embarrassed to be seen in public with him.
“I don’t think you should be here,” he said.
“What are you doing here?” I asked. Trust that he’d show up to complicate things at the worst possible time.
“I’m saving the children.” He pointed to the cliff behind me. Annie and Shane were almost halfway down, both focusing with trance-like intensity. I knew their goal: touching water. Hadn’t I had that same idea myself?
I looked back at my father, marveling at the vivid detail. His suit jacket flapped in the wind, and I could see the seams in the satin lining. His right hand gripped a spear with a nasty barbed head. I remembered all the violent stories from his drug trafficking years, feeling sick and angry. He’d always been unashamed of his crimes. He’d rationalized every horrible action and laughed at me for caring.
“You don’t save people,” I said. “You hurt them.”
He didn’t laugh now, though, which pissed me off even more.
“Why do you have a spear?” I demanded.
“Technically speaking, it’s a harpoon,” my father said, infuriating as always.
“What do you need a harpoon for?” I took a step toward him, thrusting my shoulders back, determined not to let him be the dominant one. Not this time.
He smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “There’s a lot about me you don’t know, Honey Baloney.”
I didn’t back down. Enough was enough. “What are you doing here? You were never around when I was a kid. Why am I seeing you now?”
“Trina, I love you. You’ll always be my favorite daughter—”
“I’m your only daughter,” I interrupted.
“Still,” he said. “It’s the truth. But you think everything is about you, and it isn’t.”
“What kind of answer is that?” I asked.
“You should go help them get back up,” he said, pointing to the kids. “Be a good Auntie.”
“Are you doing this to them? Who do you think you are to just show up like this and make trouble?”
My father shrugged. “Call me Ishmael,” he said. Then he dove into the ocean.
I stood, mouth agape as his body disappeared under the water. A flash of red against his black dress shoes might have been the tip of a tentacle, or it might have just been a trick of the light on his gaudy suit.
Jared’s shout from above jarred me out of my daze. He was halfway down the cliff, hot on Annie and Shane’s trail. Annie and Shane were already more than three quarters of the way down. I’d been so distracted by my father that I’d missed most of their descent.
“Stop,” I called. “Don’t move! I’m coming up to where you are.”
I guess adrenaline made the climbing easier because it seemed like I reached them instantly. I grabbed their hands and held on tightly, carefully sitting us all down to wait for Jared. I wasn’t about to try bringing them up without another adult to help.
“Why did you decide to climb down here on your own?” I asked.
Annie looked at me with serious grey eyes. “She said we could be king and queen under the sea.”
“Who said?”
Shane scrunched up his face in confusion. “Don’t know. She’s not talking now.”
“Because of Ishmael,” Annie said, nodding. “He gets to be king instead.”
I didn’t know where to start untangling all the questions that came to mind when I heard that. Before I could even try, Jared came into earshot.
“Annie, Shane!” He called from a spot some twenty feet up. “What on Earth do you think you’re doing? Este’s going to kill me for letting you come down here.”
I looked up, searching his face as he drew closer. He hadn’t seen anyone else. I could tell. I would have to puzzle this out later, though. I stood, careful to keep myself between the kids and the steep drop. Jared held Shane’s hand, and I held Annie’s, and we all climbed up with painstaking slowness, grabbing onto jutting rocks to help us balance against the wind. By the time we reached the top, Este and a small crowd had gathered to receive us.
“What happened?” Este asked Jared. “I went to get a jacket from the car, and suddenly you were gone.”
Jared shrugged sheepishly. “I swear I didn’t look away for more than a second. They’re wily little beasts. By the time I found them, they were halfway down the cliff.”
The rest of the story tumbled out in confused chunks, everyone overlapping with clarifications and interjections. No one mentioned the strange voice, or my father, though.
Este pulled the kids close. “Thank God Tía Trina was there to stop you. Don’t ever scare me like that again.”
I wanted to tell him about what Annie and Shane had seen and heard, to make him reassure me that I wasn’t crazy, but looking at the way they all clung to each other, I knew I couldn’t. Not then. The echo of my father’s voice lingered in my head. You think everything is about you, but it’s not. He might have been a bastard, but sometimes he was right.
“You know what?” I said instead. “I think we all need some ice cream. Let’s go find the others and get out of here.”
Este took my hand and gave it a squeeze as we started walking toward the lighthouse. “Thanks,” he said. “You know you’re my favorite sister.”
“I’m your only sister,” I said.
“Still,” said Este.
“Still,” I agreed. “I’m glad I got stuck with you, too.”
*
For the first while, Healuwo flushed with the pleasure of a task well-accomplished. She had not found children. She had found better. The man, the Ishmael, knew all about Captain Ahab. He carried a harpoon, and even if she could see he had no idea how to use it, even if the first Ishmael never used one anyway, it was the thought that counted. She could touch him. She could show him all the underwater places.
But soon her crimson faded to a demure rust. Always the guilt, always the remonstrance from Shaluraya and the others, bearing the echoes of their broodmother, who had died when they were still small ones. She was not behaving as a squid should. She was a discredit to her family. The knowledge itched and prickled like an urchin under her mantle.
Ishmael left for a few days—to find tribute, he said. He returned with a steak, which he claimed was whale, but which she knew was only tuna. He had not used the harpoon. She could sense the humanity on him. He had gone to the surface for it.
Why do you pretend? she asked. She was in between bites, her beak still half full of meat. Ishmael shuddered slightly when he looked at her, but he did not turn away.
What is truly troubling you? Ishmael asked. His eyes flashed sympathy and concern. He understood about the language of the sea. He did not need to breathe.
Healuwo didn’t answer in words, but her agitated ripple showed well enough how she felt. Ishmael placed his soft human hands on the back of one of her arms, stroking down the length of it in a slow, firm gesture, and Healuwo calmed a bit in spite of herself.
The water is warmer in the South, said Ishmael. I could show you my home as you have shown me yours.
Healuwo curled two arms to cradle the place where she should have nourished a brood by now. I have already displeased them so.
Staying with family is optional, said Ishmael. They will continue without you.
Why do you stay with me?
Ishmael’s hands stilled, and his mind closed as he sorted through his thoughts. She wished she could take the question back, was on the point of doing just that when Ishmael answered.
Apart, we might be monsters, whether we will it or not. He stroked her arm once more. Together, we might do better.
Healuwo considered this. She had never meant to hurt anyone. Not anyone human, anyway.
I will not brood if I go, she said. Shaluraya would find that much worse than killing some divers.
Another long, soothing stroke. You do not wish to brood.
No, Healuwo admitted.
The water is warmer in the South, Ishmael said again.
But what is in it for you?
Adventure, he said. Homecoming. Tamarinds.
Healuwo could feel her color strengthening already.
***
Julia Rios is a writer, editor, podcaster, and narrator. She hosts the Outer Alliance Podcast (celebrating QUILTBAG speculative fiction), and is one of the three fiction editors at Strange Horizons. Her fiction, articles, interviews, and poetry have appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Apex Magazine, Stone Telling, Jabberwocky, and several other places. Visit her online at juliarios.com.