Oh, To Be a Fish

I woke to a sharp rap-rap-rapping son my cabin door. Being still mostly asleep, I forgot where I was and stood to go answer the knock. My shoulder hit the wall at almost the same time my head hit the ceiling. I fell back on the tiny bed, cursing.

The knocking stopped. A youthful voice said "beg pardon, sir. The captain sent me to fetch you up to the deck."

"Alright, tell him I'll be right there." I sat up, now wide awake. The cabin, my only retreat from the world for the last two weeks, gave me no clue as to the time. All day, all night the cabin never changed; it always stood hot, humid, and dark.

I reached out to open the door without trying to rise again. Air, fresh and cool, at least compared to that of my little room, rolled in with the light. As I made my way up to the deck, I kept feeling the ship roll more violently than it had thus far on my voyage, and when I reached the door, I knew why.

"Ah, there you are, Doctor."

"Good morning, Captain. The sea seems harsher today. Are we in for a blow?"

"Aye, looks so. We'll not get much more than rain and little wind before midday, but as the day goes, so the storm grows."

I looked out on the gray water and hoped the captain was wrong. One glance at the dark skies, however, and I knew better.

The first rains began sometime past mid-morning; they drenched the deck and everyone who ventured out. Still, the air below proved stifling enough that most of the handful of passengers came up for a while. Most of us came from inland regions, so we spent our time huddled together near the rail at the back of the ship, what the crewmembers told me was called the stern.

Once, while I stood there looking at the whitecaps and thinking how they seemed to be chasing the ship, someone touched me on the arm.

"Are you all right, Doctor? You look as though you've seen a ghost."

I looked into the cold, blue eyes of Charles Danvers. Danvers, as he said he preferred to be addressed, was a big man. He said he had been a teamster in his youth, and now owned a freight company; his size and rough humor indicated the story was truth. "Oh, yes, er, I mean no. It's just that I thought I saw a woman's face in the water."

"What's that? Pining for your woman so badly you're seeing her in the ocean, now?"

Minister Avery, our other companion at the rail, smiled as he leaned in. "No, the doctor here has no woman back home. Isn't that right, Doctor?"

"Yes, I'm afraid it is. No one waits for me to return."

"Well, in that case, it must have been the face of the woman you're to wed, if I recall the tale correctly." Danvers hunched closer and winked. "Was she at least pretty, then?"

"Oh, yes. She was very pretty."

Just then, the captain stepped close behind my shoulder and said, "say no more of this. I will explain later."

We all three looked him in the eye and understood his gravity, if not his concern; we changed the subject. All that afternoon, the storm increased. The rain came heavier and the wind started driving it in squalls and sheets, and even if it was unpleasant belowdecks, all who didn't have to be above stayed below.

Although the clouds blanketed the sea far too heavily for the sun to tell us the time, my stomach growled to tell me dinnertime was drawing near. As if on cue, the cook rang the dinner bell.

I had just risen from my tiny bed when someone knocked. By now I recognized the cabin boy's rapping, so I said, "I'm coming. I heard the bell." without even confirming it to be him.

When I opened the door, the scrawny blond waif was still standing there. I knew better, but I let my ire at the rocking sea loose on the boy, "Didn't you hear me? I said I heard the bloody bell. I'll be right there. Now move along!"

The boy looked terrified, but he stood his ground. "S-Sir, the captain requests you to join him in his cabin for dinner. May I show you the way, sir?"

"Oh, yes. You can. Lead on."

He led me through a twisted and most confusing group of passageways. Finally coming to a door at the end of one, he knocked.

"Enter, William." The captain knew the boy's rap too, apparently.

When the door opened, the captain stood. "Ah, Doctor, come in, please."

I must admit I expected the captain to have a feast befitting his position, but I saw with chagrin that his fare was the same as everyone else's.

"Please, join me. In the cook's words, 'You better come get it while you can, we'll not be able to cook more 'ntil she calms.'"

I sat as he loaded my trencher with sliced salt-pork and hard biscuit. "If I may, Captain, who is 'she'? I also heard others mention a 'she' throughout the day."

"'She' is the reason I asked you to dine with me this evening." The captain poured my cup full of wine and refilled his own. "This morning, you said you thought you saw a woman's face in the water."

"That's right, I did."

"I asked you to say no more of it because what you saw is called 'Neptune's Daughter'." The captain took a deep draught of wine. "Now you being a man of science, you know superstitions are not real, but my sailors don't know that. They believe in them--strongly. One of the most feared says that Neptune's Daughter will follow a ship the day it is to sink, and any man who sees her will survive; all others abroad will perish."

I stopped chewing when I realized what his words meant. I swallowed and took my own deep draught of wine.

"That is why I asked for your silence today. If my crew heard someone aboard saying they saw a woman in the water, I'd have a panic on my hands."

"Yes, I can see why."

With the mystery of the morning's behavior out of the way, the captain and I passed the rest of the meal in pleasant conversation. No longer hungry, and more than a little drunk, I started back to my cabin. Partway there, I looked around and discovered myself hopelessly lost. So late on such a miserable night, no one came along for me to ask directions, so I just kept wandering, sure I would eventually find something familiar or someone to help me; I found neither.

Soon, the ship's rolling and the deafening roar of her timbers groaning under every new wave began to play on my drunken mind. All the walls began leaking water, the lanterns in the passageways began hissing, and my own unsteady footsteps began sloshing. I knew it was because I was drunk, I had never had a head for wine, why I let the captain give me so much I didn't know.

The more confused I became, the more desperate I was. Finally, I came to a ladder and I started climbing. Even climbing out into the storm's fury would be better than running around in the dark unknown. Besides, my doctor's training kept telling me a cold dowsing right now might do me some good.

When I reached the hatchway, I reached up to slide it open. Just then, a tremendous crash, louder than any storm I had ever heard before, came from beneath me.

I was suddenly thrown up, down, and in every other direction. I was thrown against objects hard, objects soft, and objects with no substance whatsoever. Only one thing remained constant: water--cold, black water. My eyes burned, my nose burned, my throat burned, my lungs burned. After holding my breath for longer than I would have thought possible, I gave up; I breathed.

Nothing happened. Well, nothing besides my normal breathing, I mean. I had closed my eyes as tight as I could hold them. But when I didn't start drowning, they snapped open. Everything was black. The world had gone from a deafening roar to a roaring silence. Without sight or sound, and since all I could feel was cold, I thought I must surely be dead.

That's when I saw her. Just for an instant, the woman I saw, the one the captain called Neptune's Daughter, floated in front of me.

I looked around, but all was black as death again. Then a flash of light lit everything. She was there again, floating so close it seemed I could reach out and touch her beautiful cheek. As quickly as she appeared, she disappeared into blackness again. I tried to call out for her to wait, to come back. I could not. Try as I might, I could make no sound. Surely, I am dead, I thought.

Then something touched my cold, numb hand. I knew not what. Another flash of light, this one longer than before, and I saw my angelic guide to the hereafter, for that is what I now knew she must be, was beside me. I felt myself being pulled deeper under the sea.The flashes, what I now understood to be lightning above the surface, faded as we went deeper still.

In time, I could not judge how long, I discerned that something below me was illuminated. The closer my guide took me to the place, the more convinced I became that this must certainly be the gates of Heaven. What at first seemed a single building I now saw to be an entire city all constructed of the same material; it glowed and shimmered as a pearl.

My guide pulled me along into this lustrous city at the bottom of the sea without even once turning her beautiful eyes toward me. We passed buildings both empty and crowded, streets narrow and wide, and people young and old. They all had one thing in common: all were only human above the waist. Below, instead of legs they had the body of a fish.

When I saw these fantastical creatures peopling what I still thought to be Heaven, I was at first shocked and dismayed. I dared not turn my head and look on my angel's form, lest I see a fish's tail.

The farther she pulled me through this amazing city, the more disheartened I became. If this truly was Heaven, then it was peopled not by the souls of devout churchgoers, but by creatures that, while certainly beautiful, were also undeniably not human.

I had almost decided I was going to have to turn and look upon my angel when, with no warning at all, she turned and carried me straight toward a spire rising from the center of a huge building. We went toward an open window near the top. Just as we neared it, she saw that it was too small for us both to pass through spread as we were. She stopped and pulled me into her arms. Holding me tight against her, she carried me through.

Inside, the room was littered with a variety of lounge chairs, couches, and large pillows. She released me from her protective hug and I was floating free for the first time since I drowned. For a moment I couldn't make myself turn around in the water, and by the time I did, she was lying on a chaise with her lower half out of sight.

"So, how do you like your new home?"

I almost felt the need to hold my head to keep it from bursting. I cringed in obvious shock and pain at the thunderous voice.

"I'm sorry, I forgot the power of my own voice. I hope I didn't startle you too much."

I tried to answer, but could manage no more sound than when I first attempted to call to her.

She smiled. It was truly a smile fit for an angel. My heart soared at the realization that I had brought forth that smile. "Not with your mouth. Speak with your mind."

I frowned. She said it as if it should be easy, but I had no idea what she was talking about.

"Think the words you want to say. Don't try to say them, my magic can keep you alive, but it can't make you a true water-breather, capable of making sounds underwater." She grimaced and looked down, as if she were looking at something beyond the floor. "Father's got that kind of power, but I don't."

Again I tried. Again I failed.

"Don't worry about it. Most men have at least some trouble for the first couple of days. It will come." Someone passed by the window and she looked back over her shoulder. "That reminds me. Never, but never leave this chamber without me. My magic is what is keeping you from drowning, and only in this room are you safe unless I'm nearby."

The one who had passed by the opening, which really seemed more of a porch from the inside, came back up to it. A man came in. "I thought I saw you when I passed by earlier. Why didn't you come tell your mother you were back? You know how she worries."

He was as noble as my angel was beautiful. His hair floated out behind him the same way hers did, and nearly as far. While hers was the pale orange of the dawn sky, his had turned a majestic white and was matched by a flowing beard. His broad shoulders carried a luxurious cape trimmed in gold and jewels.

It occurred to me as I was admiring it that no one else in the city wore clothes of any kind. All the women wore their long, sweeping hair loose, so it gave them a certain amount of concealment, and their fish bodies hid everyone below the waist.

"I told you I'd be back before the feast tonight, you two should know not to worry by now."

"Yes, I know." He raised his eyes from her to me for the first time. When he saw me floating there, his human half showed no reaction, but his fish half changed from its pale, silvery hue to the garish orange of a child's goldfish. His eyes dropped back down to her. "Young lady!" Though I could perceive no movement, he moved toward her; his size, already impressive, was now positively menacing. "I thought you promised you would not do that again."

She had turned fully around to face him, so I could just see her head above the chaise. Now her head fell out of my sight as she cowered from his obvious rage. "I didn't, Father." her voice, only a moment ago so powerful, now sounded small. "The storm came up without my help, the ship sank quite on its own. He only lives now because of my decision to bring him here with me."

His gaze returned to me. "Mmm, I see." The orange began silvering again. "Well, let us have a better look at him."

"Yes let's! I brought him straight here after his ship came down, so I haven't had time to see what he looks like." Her beautiful face and arms popped back up above the chaise and she grinned; I heard her giggling. "I may want to throw him back."

I felt movement against my waist and looked down. To my horror and embarrassment, my breeches were being unfastened by invisible hands. When I tried to push them away, more hands caught my wrists in grips as of as velvet but as strong as iron. I could only wince as my arms spread.

Within mere moments I felt all of my clothes being torn from my body. I renewed my struggles to preserve my modesty, but found the bonds now held me completely.

"Well, it seems you'll not have to throw him back, my dear."

"No, he's definitely one I'll want to keep. Now if I can only keep him. All of these land creatures seem to wither here, I warn them all not to leave without me, but eventually...POOF!"

As she said the last, she snapped her hand open and a small cloud of red burst out from just above her palm to spread into nothingness as it rose.

A deep laugh rumbled through my head. I looked at the old man and saw a twinkle in his eyes.

"Ah, yes. If only you would content yourself with one of your own. As my daughter, you could take your pick of mermen."

"I know that, but I don't want 'content'. I will not settle for less than happy."

He put his fists on his sides and looked at her as if in deep thought. Then he raised his eyes to mine and stared at me in the same manner. An idea struck him; his eyes began shining and moving rapidly from me to her and back. "What if he were able to live among us without relying your magic?"

"Live among..." She considered me for the briefest of moments before turning back to him. "Everything else about him would remain the same, you wouldn't turn him into a merman?"

"What is this fascination you have with legs?"

"It's not his legs that fascinate me, Father."

The eyes flicked to me again and the fish half of him changed color again, this time to a dazzling red. "Oh...Er...I see. Well, Uh, no. I mean no, the rest of him would not change. He would simply be able to live here in the sea with us."

"I see. In that case, yes, please transform him."

"Well, what does he have to say about it?"

"He is only alive because I chose him to bring here."

"Mmm. Still, he may have some objections. We need to hear them." He turned to face me and moved closer.

I felt him enter my mind before I even knew he intended it.

"How do you feel about what I am proposing?"

"Well, I..." I looked at my beautiful angel, her flow of auburn hair hanging behind her, moving with the currents around her. "Will I be able to move around on my own?"

"Yes."

"Well, no one waits for me to return. I would indeed be a fool if I turned my back on such a gorgeous creature as your daughter."

"Indeed."

"I'll stay with her for as long as I live, I swear it."

"Then hold on. This may sting." He raised one hand high. A white cloudiness began swirling around it. After a few moments the swirl was thicker and faster. It moved away from his hand and descended around my head; my world became a blinding whiteness.

I awoke to hear a strange voice in the room; it was a woman. "Will he be awake soon?"

"I think he's awake now. I told you Father said it wouldn't be long."

My angel took my hand and gave it a squeeze. "How do you feel?"

"Just fine; I had the strangest dream."

"I am sorry to hear that. Come on, dinner is ready." She rose from her place next to my bed and pulled me up.

The woman I had heard when I awoke came closer. She was older than my angel, but only just.

"This is my sister, Dorian. Dorian, this is my man, Um, what is your name, anyway?"

"Samuel. Pleased to meet you, Dorian."

I walked over to the window and stood there looking out. My angel came across to my side and touched me affectionately on the arm. I took her by the hand and swam out the window.