The Beauty of Death Vol.1

Fathomless Tides-3

I almost call out her name, wanting to check and make sure everything’s all right, but I remain silent. I get out of bed, moving slowly so the mattress springs don’t creak too loudly, and I pad barefoot across the old carpet to the bathroom door. I can make out the whispering clearly now. I can’t tell for certain that it’s Lila’s voice, but it has to be hers. Who else could it belong to? There’s a distinct rhythm and cadence to her whispering, as if she’s repeating the same phrase, a prayer, perhaps, or a mantra of some kind. I’m not sure the language she’s speaking is even English, but if it is another language, it’s not one I recognize. There’s a regular rise and fall in the volume that reminds me of something, and it takes me a few seconds to realize what it is: the sound of ocean waves rolling into shore. The sound disturbs me on a deep level, and I raise my hand, preparing to knock on the door and ask Lila if she’s okay.

But before I can rap a knuckle against the door, Lila stops. I freeze, breath caught in my throat. I want to run back to the bed before she opens the door, but I resist the impulse. She’d hear me, and then I’d have to explain why I ran. If I’m standing here when she opens the door, I can say I got up to use the bathroom and didn’t realize she was in it. But the door doesn’t open. I get the sense that she’s moved close to the door, that she’s crouching next to it, one ear pressed to the wood, listening. I continue holding my breath and a single bead of nervous sweat rolls down my spine. I stand like that for only a minute, probably less, but it feels much longer, and starved for oxygen, I nearly draw in a gasping breath, but then I hear the sound of Lila’s bare feet moving on the bathroom’s tile floor as she steps away from the door. A moment later, the whispering begins again.

I take a quick breath, release it, and then make my way back to the bed. The whispering continues for several more minutes, and then it stops for good. Lila flushes the toilet, washes her hands—or at least pretends to—and leaves the bathroom. She crawls back into bed and snuggles next to me. I keep my eyes closed and feign sleep, but in my mind I keep hearing that strange whispering, and I keep seeing a dead bird lying in a dresser drawer.

I start walking back to the hotel, intending to pack our suitcases, throw them in the car, and wait for Lila to return to the room so I can tell her we’re ending our trip sooner than anticipated. But I force myself to stop. I pause, take a deep breath, let it out. I’m being childish. Lila didn’t mean any harm. She just wanted me to meet her at the halfway point between land and water, wanted me to take a risk, to show her that I’m at least willing to try to deal with my fear—for her.

Like hell she didn’t mean any harm, a voice inside me says. What about that sparrow? It looked pretty damned harmed to me.

I ignore the thought, turn around, and start back toward the water. I don’t see her right away, but I’m not worried. I figure she’s gone farther out, swimming, maybe diving beneath waves and riding the next ones into shore. I continue walking toward the water, confident I’ll see her any moment. But I don’t. The sun’s almost all the way above the horizon now, and there’s plenty of light to see by. But there’s no sign of her. I feel a cold stab of fear, and my first thought is a ridiculous one: It got her. What the it is, I’m not sure. Whatever secret dark thing lurks beneath the surface of the world, a shark as in Blood in the Water, cancer cells, a dead sparrow in a dresser drawer, strange whisperings in hotel bathrooms…The shape of the it doesn’t matter, because in the end it’s all the same—the bad thing you can’t see coming, that you can’t prepare yourself for, that you can’t fight, can’t survive.

I run down to the edge of the beach, careful to keep several inches between me and the water. I cup my hands to my mouth and call out Lila’s name once, twice…

The sight of the shark fin surging toward shore should terrify me, and I suppose on some level it does, but my main reaction is a fatalistic acceptance of what’s coming. That’s why, even if the sand wasn’t holding me in place, I wouldn’t run, why I don’t now raise my hands in a futile gesture to ward off the creature racing toward me. There isn’t any point. The hidden things in life, whatever they are—sharks, cancer, secrets—will always get you in the end.

When the fin is less than five feet from shore, the creature rears up out of the water, and at first I’m uncertain what I’m seeing. My mind struggles to make sense of the thing, and the concept it comes up with is mermaid. Lila is a mermaid. But then I see lines of blood trailing from her mouth, and instead of her torso’s skin transitioning to fish scales, a shark grips her in its mouth. Blood pours from the wounds caused by the shark’s teeth, but if Lila feels any pain, there’s no sign of it on her face. She’s pale from shock and blood loss, but her expression is one of loving concern. The hybrid thing that Lila is now part of has come so close to shore that it rests in less than a foot of water, and it’s almost fully visible. The shark’s head is raised so that the Lila part of it remains vertical, and its tail thrashes back and forth, churning the water behind it to white froth. The mouth slowly gnaws on Lila’s abdomen, causing fresh blood to squirt from the wounds its teeth have made.

“Miss me?” Lila says. Blood bubbles from her mouth as she speaks, but her tone is light, almost teasing.

“I was worried about you,” I say.

I don’t turn around to look, but I can feel the others on the beach watching me with their glossy black eyes, slowly edging closer as we talk. I hear soft clack-clack-clack sounds, and I know that the others are tapping their teeth together hungrily as they approach.

“There are no guarantees in life,” Lila says. “No real safety. Only chances that we take or pass up.”

“Mysteries,” I say.

“Yes.” She smiles and once more holds out her hands to me. “Come. Take a chance with me.”

The sand releases its grip on my legs, and I step forward, into the water and into Lila’s embrace. For good or ill, I’ve made my choice.

I realize then that we never did figure out what Jenna thinks we have in common. I almost ask Lila if she knows, but then I figure, what the hell. One more little mystery to add to the collection.

The shark thrashes harder, wriggling its way backward, taking Lila and me with it. Cold water rises over my legs, up to my waist, my chest, and then over my head. I feel the shark turn and head out to sea, carrying us with it. As it goes, it begins to descend, my lungs on fire from holding my breath. Surprisingly, I’m not afraid. I’m at peace.

Lila kisses me, long and slow, as we continue descending into darkness and wonder.