The Little Mermaid of the Gulf (#OnceUponNow)

Part 5: Black Water

Past the sleeping dolphin pod, through the stream current. Somewhere along her travels home, between the dark golden water and the dolphins, Miranda had begun to cry, though no one would have noticed had they seen her. That was something she always appreciated about her species more than the humans: in the water, no one can see you cry.

She cried for Calden, for the loss of his soul, for her collections of strangelings left for her as bait, for her fear. She had to stop swimming, too overcome with emotions to continue forward. Miranda lifted her head above water to let her tears dry.

A whirring hum buzzed over the water, but by the time Miranda turned her head to the source, it was already too late. A motorboat sped toward her, and with the drop of a net, Miranda was ensnared in its mesh and lifted onto the jetting boat.

"What kind of sea snake is that?" a man on the small boat asked as Miranda struggled to break free.

"That doesn't look like a sea snake at all now that I'm seeing it up close," a younger man's voice said. It sounded familiar to Miranda, though still not the voice of the merman she once knew. She stopped struggling to see Calden, examining her from across the boat.

"Calden, I know you," she said.

The two men in the boat laughed in disbelief. "She talks," the older man said.

"Who are you talking to, mermaid?" Calden asked.

"You... what do you call yourself now?"

"Bill," he answered, as if it were a question in itself.

"Ok... Bill... you used to be like me, but you left us. You asked Mama Perrine to turn you into... Bill."

"That witch doctor lady?" the older man asked. "She creeps me out."

Calden's expression was frozen in curiosity, his left eyebrow lifted above his right. "She said I hit my head on some rocks while swimming."

"You can't remember a thing before that, can you?" Miranda asked.

Calden shook his head. "What is going on? Mermaids are real? And I was one of them?"

The order of what happened next neither Miranda or Calden were entirely sure of. A blast sounded over the waves, an explosion rose above the sea, and screams echoed in the distance. Though neither of them were sure what happened, the blood in both Miranda's and Calden's veins ran cold.

Calden furrowed his brows. "Black water," he said. Miranda turned to him. "Does that mean anything?" he asked.

Her fear manifested in dingles that pricked her skin. "Yes, it does."  

"What's going on?" the older man asked. "I got to get back to town. That fire is from the oil rig out there. My boat's not good with oily water."

"Neither are mermaids," Calden said. "Right? Isn't that what black water is all about?"

Mama Perrine was wrong, Miranda thought. Some memories last.

"Let me go, Calden--Bill. Let me go so I can make sure our people are safe."

His eyes began to water. "I don't know what's going on. I'm so confused."

Miranda pressed her hand against the net, reaching as far as she could for Calden. "Let me go."

Calden reached in his pocket for a Swiss Army Knife and opened it to the blade.

"Don't you dare," the older man said. "That mermaid is going to make us rich." He reached for Calden's arm to stop him, but Calden pushed him away. As the man fell back in the boat, the side tilted, spilling Miranda and the net into the sea.

Beneath the water, she struggled to break free, but couldn't manage to untie the knots with her webbed fingers. A splash sounded beside her and in a hurricane of bubbles, Calden appeared in the water with his knife. His cheeks were puffed out with air and his eyes squinted in the briny water, no longer accustomed to it now that he was a human. He cut into the strings of the net until he had loosened a large enough hole in the net for Miranda to slip out of.

Miranda's chest felt like it was filled with bubbles, bursting and prickling her with every second of uncertainty that passed. She untangled herself from the net and started to swim off, when Calden grabbed her wrist. He pulled her up to the surface with him, and he gulped the air for relief.

"You'll come back," he panted. She wasn't sure if this was a question or a command.

"I will," she said. "But first, I need to make sure everyone is ok. I need to find my dad."

"Come back to tell me about who I was... to tell me about mermaids." He laughed. "I can't believe they're real. I can't believe you're real."

Miranda rested her hand on his cheek. There was no denying what all the other mermaid girls saw in Calden: his smile was sweet and kind, turning his eyes into crescent moons that shone brighter than the one above them. "I promise," Miranda said.

Calden released her wrist just in time for the older man to yank him from the water and start into a tirade. Miranda darted off, swimming harder than she ever had toward her pod.