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BANG! BANG! BANG!
Pushing my way through heavy doors, I stop before I enter completely. I look about the hall filled with shelves high and wide of books, but the racket I’m hearing—the banging and cursing, is not what I’d expect to hear from the inside of a library.
“Fuck this stupid piece of shit.” I hear a woman cry.
Making my way in, I head to the checkout counter to find a fair-skinned woman beating up a copy machine. She hits it with her hands a few times and I force a cough to divert her attention.
The thin woman wearing a long black skirt with a cheap white rayon shirt showing her cami top through turns to me. She looks me up and down through her large rimmed glasses and furrows her brow. She doesn’t approve of my attire—frayed, short denim shorts and a purple halter-top that shows off my tattoo. The clash of our attire is an attestation of our age difference, which I suspect must span nearly a decade.
“I can’t help you today, Kumiko,” she says.
“How’d you know my name?”
“I know a lot about you. I’m the town librarian and historian, among other things.”
“You know, it’s a little creepy you say that yet I have no idea who you are other than what I’m assuming is the librarian.”
“Shelley didn’t tell you about me?” she asks, fixing her glasses with one hand as she keeps hitting the big green button on the machine with the other.
“Athena?”
“That’s right.” She smiles cockily.
“Athena, I don’t think that machine is going to work no matter how many times you keep pushing that button.”
She kicks the copy machine and it lights up. She clasps her hands together and does a little dance. “Oh please!”
I look at the mess of papers and books Athena has sprawled about. It looks like she’s attempted to put together a flyer of some sort. SAVE THE DOLPHINS TOWN HALL MEETING: 7pm @ The Library, it says at the top. She’s added a portrait of one the mammals, which she cut out of a book and below the image she added, FREE FOOD.
More banging resumes, except it’s not Athena. It’s the copy machine sounding as if it’s whacking at itself from the inside before it finally craps out.
“No,” she whines and stomps a few times like a toddler.
I feel bad she’s so frustrated, but I’m also glad. Maybe she’ll pay attention to me now. “Sooooooo, do you have a minute?” I ask.
She sighs and turns to me, running her gaze over my tattoo. “You died,” she says.
I’m so frustrated. “Why does everybody keep saying that?!”
Athena forces a half grin. “Sit down,” she grumbles. “I’ll get the book.”
The Book. Shelley talked about it, but I wasn’t listening. Athena has some special book all about Henry and his sea mates. Henry this. Henry that. Henry’s a fish then he’s a man. I still can’t come to grips with all of it despite everything I’ve seen.
When Athena comes to sit next to me in a hard wooden chair at one of the tables, she spreads the infamous book open in front of me. I am reminded of what Shelley tried to tell me—something about Henry and his mates being stabbed by a fork.
It was funny at the time, but seeing the disturbing drawing of a slave with a trident—each prong drawn with a man impaled upon it, brings bile to the back of my throat. I swallow hard when I see the man in the middle who resembles someone I’ve only recently met—Orphelius.
Confusion plagues me for in the drawing he has legs, not tentacles. My heart floats above the bile in my esophagus. I feel my cheeks warm and the corners of my mouth can’t help but turn upward when I see a sword in his hand. A replay of this morning briefly plays through my mind as I imagine Orphelius with legs and a sword, instead of birds, and he comes crashing through the window to save me from being violated.
I run my fingertips across the page.
“Don’t touch it,” Athena warns like the book is as special as the men and their stories.
It is in that moment in which I finally do feel like they are special—Henry and Orphelius, the mermen. Regardless of how it happened, Orphelius did save me this morning.
“Have you met him yet?” asks Athena pointing to the stabbed Orphelius.
“Well, sort of. He kinda abducted me and brought me to a secluded beach and the whole thing really freaked me out—”
“You know you are meant for him.”
I roll my eyes. It pisses me off. Some people might think the whole fate thing is real, but not me. Look at my parents!
Hell, even if love is real and people are meant to be fated to one another, look at Shelley’s parents. Sure. They’re together now. Together forever and dead at the bottom of the sea because of love.
“That’s absurd,” I smirk. “People are not meant for each other. It’s that kind of thinking that forces people to do stupid things.”
“Like fall in love?” Athena asks and flips the page.
I gasp with astonishment. It’s me—except it’s not me. The woman in the picture has my features, but is thinner and dressed in a kimono—and dead! My throat is cut and I’m lying in what looks like a pool of blood around me. What I don’t understand is why I look like a sea monster is dragging me. Tentacles are wrapped around my wrists and the dead me is being dragged to what looks like the next page.
I turn it and there I am again! It’s just my face that is drawn with a slit throat as Orphelius kisses me with squinted eyes and tears in each corner. Orphelius is crying as he kisses the dead me.
The. Dead. Me.
I shut the book. “I don’t understand this. What does this mean? Is this some kind of joke? Did Shelley and Henry put you up to this?”
“Put me up to what? You’ve seen Henry. You’ve seen him with your own eyes. Why are you in denial? You know you want to sleep with the tentacled Orphelius.”
“No, I don’t.” Gross!
“If you didn’t Kumiko, you wouldn’t be here. You’re really here to see if it’s safe and I can tell you for sure, Orphelius may look scary—a bit different, but—”
“Different! The man has a massive balloon for a lower body that splits into a mess of purple slimy feelers that reach at least twenty feet long! He’s a freak!”
Athena’s brow furrows again. “They are not freaks. And by the way, have you looked at yourself lately? If there are any freaks in this town, it’s you,” she says pointing.
I look down and I don’t get it. “So I like cute clothes, that doesn’t mean I’m a freak.”
“You’re right, you’re not a freak. You look like a slut who’s in desperate need of attention.”
Bitch! “I’d rather be a slut than a virgin.” Athena bites her bottom lip. I knew it! The nerd is a virgin.
She closes and then retracts the book.
“Don’t tell me you’re saving yourself for one of them,” I sneer.
Athena stands up and cradles the book against her chest. “I’m sorry. This is not how I planned this conversation to go. I really do wish you would at least consider befriending him; he is very special. A Master at Arms and officer in the old British navy, but you see, Orphelius will never be able to come on land until he finds a mate that will accept his ring and lay with him. According to Henry, it’s a relief to live like a normal human, but more so among friends and not in isolation. He says it feels like being stranded. It’s not something I guess we can understand.”
“So, I’m just supposed to spread my legs and sleep with a sea monster?”
“You might enjoy it. It’s obvious you’re looking for—oh, I don’t know, something.”
Athena turns her back to me, heading towards the copy machine again to knock it around. I look at the flyer she’s left behind. The words FREE FOOD triggers a grumble in my stomach and I’m missing Shelley and Henry more now because they cook.
I don’t cook so I figure maybe I should come back for the food, plus I like dolphins, especially more so after I’ve interacted with a few.
“Athena, what’s this thing about dolphins you’re preparing for tonight?”
She stops banging. “There’s a tank at the marina the university uses on occasion with its students, but the tank is privately owned. There’s a baby dolphin that got put in there last night. I’m pretty sure it’s illegal to keep the animal in there and the poacher is taking bids to sell it. I went to the sheriff, but he says he won’t do anything about it.”
I rub the top of my head where a welt still throbs. “Who’s the poacher?”
“Brad something. He’s new in town. Would you believe I hardly know anything about him? I do know he was at the hospital this morning after a freak attack by a bunch of seagulls. He lost one of his eyes. Serves him right though. Seriously, who steals baby dolphins from their mothers?”
I recall asking myself the exact same thing: Who steals baby dolphins from their mothers? Rapists!
“Are you coming tonight? The whole town will be here,” Athena continues. “Not much ever goes on here except during the annual Booty Festival, but you missed that. So, if you come, I’m sure you’ll pretty much get to meet everybody. I’m sure Shelley and Henry would’ve come.”
“I can’t come,” I tell her and to hear myself say that makes me sick of my own existence. I love that stupid little mammal and it might even be my fault it got caught, but I don’t want anything to do with Bradley. I don’t want to see him. I don’t want to face him. In fact, it’s probably in my best interest to leave town because of him.
I decide that’s what I’m going to do. I get up and head towards the doors when Athena calls out to me. “Kumiko! I forgot to tell you Orphelius has powers.”
“Oh yeah?” I pretend not to know.
“Yeah, Poseidon granted his powers between the three men. Orphelius has the power to control sea animals. He is a master of beasts. I suspect Orphelius can feel their pain. If you do see him, will you let him know I will do my best to return the baby to its mother?”
I still think it’s very strange that Shelley and Athena can talk so coolly about mermen. The issue continues to feel foreign to me, but what I hate most is that the more I know, the smaller I feel in the grand scheme of things.
I think of the birds that crash-landed into Shelley’s window. The small things saved me—sacrificed their lives to stop Bradley from assaulting me and I wonder if Orphelius could feel each bird’s pain. I wonder if he could feel each one dying just to save little ol’ me.
I nod to Athena, who is without a doubt a much bigger person than I, and leave.
