- 1-

“Call it,” Ronin persists, circling his mother restlessly.

“No,” Shay whispers, reaching under the water to hold his tail, stilling him.

“I just--”

She puts a silent finger to her lips.

“I just want to see if someone is alive on it,” he pouts in a whisper

This statement makes Shay still.

She and Ronin had been keeping watch of the strange human vessel for two weeks now. They’d kept a safe distance, always bobbing  low in the water so the luminescent scales of their tails wouldn’t catch the light and alert the human on board.

If there was a living human on board.

It was an average human boat, smaller than the massive cruise ships the sailed closer to the shores, bigger than the speedy yachts that brought their loud music and endless amount of (somewhat fascinating) garbage in their wake. But unlike every other human vessel Shay had ever seen  this far out from land, this one just sat there.

In all her many, many  (many) years she had never seen a human vessel stay still for so long.

Well, she had seen it once before—but there had been a terrified family aboard that boat. They’d drifted too far out from shore and none of their rescue equipment worked. When it became clear the passengers were in distress and no one was coming for them she had recruited Calliope and they had slowly pushed the vessel 300 miles towards the shore in the dead of night. She had wanted to see the family’s faces when they awoke to realize they were back near land but Calliope insisted they leave immediately.

That had been nearly a century ago, the human’s rescue equipment was far better now. Besides there was no sign of a living human  or a distress signal on this vessel.

Whatever this vessel  was for, it had to be dangerous and she couldn’t be careless right now.

 “Come along,” she says softly, sinking beneath the water before straightening her tail and propelling down towards the reef.

She hears Ronin splash into the water behind her and she makes a note to remind him about the importance of being quiet when they were in unfamiliar water. There were dangerous predators  in the open water.

Within minutes they arrive at the small tangle of seaweed and debris where her egg sat, having attached itself to a sand pile. It wasn’t the best location for an egg this far along, but it was far too delicate to move at this stage.

 A few days ago she’d found a cracked plastic box with the words RubberMaid on the handle and fashioned it into a makeshift protective barrier for the egg. She didn’t know exactly what the humans used the box for but she liked that it was slightly opaque so she could somewhat still see through it.

Shay perches herself on a crate she’d anchored to the seafloor as Ronin swam in excitable circles around her. He liked to chase the peculiar shimmering golden fish that resided in this water and seemed particularly attracted to their kind.

Ronin had been fascinated by the egg, and all of it’s potential, in the beginning. Now he’d grown less and less attentive the longer they waited for it to hatch.

But it never got old for Shay. She would sit in this spot for as long as it took. Every other year, she made the long circuitous journey around the planet, spreading as many eggs as she could, hoping they would be fertilized by one of the nomadic merman tribes.

Then, the next year she’d make the journey all over again to see if there were any healthy fertilized eggs. It was all done on instinct and it was rare for any eggs to be fertilized let alone come to full term. In 20 years of making the journey she only had once success—Ronin, who would soon be on the edge of puberty.

There were others from her clan who made the decision to go on the journey too and they usually went decades before getting one success and now she was getting the opportunity for two in the same century. It made her feel special.

There were many who thought she’d fail and give up on her first go. She’d been lovingly chastised for being  too meek and timid and unable to survive without the support of her sisters.  But she was a direct descendent of the sirens too and ( heinous torturing and human eating aside), she could be just as strong as them.

The human vessel did worry her.

If she could move the egg farther away  from it she would but it was only a few more days now, and once it hatched they would go back to the Island  with her sisters and the rest of the clan and her restless Ronin would have others to play with.

But until then, she would sit with her egg and protect it from what may come at all costs.

----

-2-

Delilah Thompson had to keep reminding herself that she was living the dream.

When well meaning adults asked little kids what they wanted to be when they grew up, at least one of those rugrats will proclaim they want to grow up and be nature photographer.

On her worst days, Delilah had been paraded around to elementary schools by the magazine to tell kids that if they wanted to be a nature photographer like her they had to work hard and never give up on their dreams.

When in real life her journey to success was nothing but stupid luck, unrelenting wanderlust, kissing so much ass.

Now she was at the top of her career, capturing  footage for Gaia--the billion dollar cutting edge nature documentary that was going yo take her portfolio to the next level.

And it sucked balls.

Her jobs had never been glamorous but this job really, really sucked.

The Hollywood producers had sold her on all their super cool expensive camera technology, trained her on it in a 4 week intensive, boarded her on a fishing boat that that looked like it had been plucked from the Jaws set and then dropped her of in the middle of the fucking ocean to get footage of the newly discovered Neopomacentrus aquadulcis.

Or, as one Twitter headline writer at Nature had been smart enough to re-christen the newly discovered species; the unicorn fish.

The deep sea fish reportedly had a golden front and a rainbow like, bioluminescent tail. It had never been caught on camera because it moved too fast for non-specialized cameras. A group of university researchers had found  a few  dead specimens partially digested in another fish  a few years ago and it’s peculiar look had garnered it click-bait-y attention outside of the marine biologist.  

Now, Gaia wanted footage of the unicorn fish alive and flipping for their documentary and Delilah Thompson had convinced them she was their girl.

Three and a half weeks into her new blue hell, Delilah had shot absolutely nothing usable to Gaia. When she’d told The Great and Mighty Hollywood Producers, they’d said it was fine. That the scientists were sure the unicorn fish would migrate through any day now and  she could have the whole month if she needed it to get their shots.

Weddings. After this job she’d hang up her nature photographer hat and do weddings

Sure, she’d never get that Peabody but at least she wouldn’t be using a vacuum toilet.

With images of harried mother-in-laws and drunk groomsmen dancing in her head she  picks up her iPad Pro and calls back her drones to look at their footage.

There were but so many sweeping drone shots of the ocean she could take while she waited for the unicorn fish to make their appearance but the producers couldn’t get enough of drone footage.  Plus, she could easily sell the unused bits to stock video websites.

After putting the drones back on their charging stations she reviews the footage frame by frame. The first few days she’d caught a pack of whales,  a few days later she’d got some killer sunsets but lately she’d been getting glimpses of something else.

The large animal moved through the ocean like a jet ski, too fast for her to ever catch without significantly upping the frames per second. It was maybe a dolphin, but the scientist back home had been insistent that no dolphins came this way and she was likely seeing some kind of big fish that hadn’t been discovered.

Here be dragons she laughs to herself.

The red light attached to her laptop blinks and Delilah starts up quickly, her heart going into her throat.

She’s set up a series of the million dollar deep sea cameras on her first day and she’d calibrated the  deep sea camera DSII software to only take a photo if it detected movement combined with the bioluminescence  footprint of the supposed unicorn fish. That way the camera  didn’t waste it's time accidentally capture  moving debris or other fish.

Three damn weeks and she’d finally caught something. Delilah eagerly scrolls through the camera’s feed and stops at an image of one very blurred golden looking splotch with a rainbow-ish tail.

“Hallelujah,” she shouts.

The shot may not be the quality Gaia was looking for but if there was one unicorn fish there were bound to be others.

She transfers the images through to Gaia’s propriety software computer to get it’s prediction of coordinates of  where she should shoot next. If the program can map the best locations, she’ll pull up the cameras and reset them to a better location. The images are running through the system when something in the background of the image catches her eyes.

“What the hell ?”

It was a plastic box with something spherical and luminous inside. Seeing human trash this far out wasn’t uncommon—neither was seeing a bio luminous object she couldn’t identify.

No, what was surprising was that the item in this photo was how it was showing up in the software’s infrared reading.  

 The thing inside was warm-blooded.

And it was alive.

***

-3-

Amped on a possible new species discovery, Delilah quickly dons her scuba gear, carefully reviewing all the protocol as she went. Because she was out on her own and had mostly remote cameras The Producers had told her to only dive if it was absolutely necessary. But as amazing as their camera equipment was, it would never give her the same control she would have if the subject was in front of her face.

She radios her intentions to go under back to base, straps on her lights, the lumbering shoulder camera and light kit she wore like a backpack, her back up camera  and GoPro before tethering herself to the ship’s back up oxygen and diving.  

Her years of scuba experience had been her main selling point to the Gaia producers. She’d been diving since she was in middle school.  But there is an eerie stillness to this water that had only been traveled by man a few times.

She's punching the coordinates of the mysterious box into her watch,  when a school of fish dart past her. She can only catch a glimpse, but the fish appear like they’ve been touched by King Midas himself, their thin flowing fins reflected the light from her helmet into pale rainbows as they pass.

Unicorn fish.

 So, they were real.

And they were just as uniquely magnificent as she’d heard.

Turning on her camera, Delilah follows the unicorn fish—who seem to be also going for the mysterious box. They gather like a pack of fluttering butterflies around the plastic box.

Delilah gets to work using a combination of reinforced wire and sea floor to set up a tripod and one of the cameras. She sets the camera with the setting to match the unicorn fish’s lighting and tail speed  and then turns her attention to the mysterious sphere under the box.

The sphere was definitely being housed in  the same kind of plastic box she had stuffed in her storage room. She peers inside the and her insides recoil a bit. 

It was less of a sphere and more of  gelatinous egg shape about the size of a throw pillow, the insides were cloudy but she was sure she could see the shape of a  human fetus inside.

The veteran nature doc videographers had joked that you could go crazy on long solo assignments. Was that what this was ?

She closed her eyes and shook her head. Then looked again.

Nope, still there.

Fuck.

Something intelligent was trying to  protect the egg with the turned over plastic box, but the plastic box was cracked  in places and she could see it easily being toppled by a passing sea animal.

 Delilah swims to pick up deep sea camera DSIV,  and carries it back to the surface and heaves it back into Sampson. Getting up on the deck, she takes off  the patented boxy clear glass covering of the DSIV. The Producers had the square shaped glass covers specially made to protect the million dollar cameras  from making contact with animals who may see them as threats.

With the glass camera cover in hand, she descends one more time and swims back to the egg where she deftly replaces the old plastic container covering the egg with the clear glass camera cover. Now that she can see the egg clearly she’s not quite sure the thing inside it entirely human.

Delilah’s admiring her handywork and readying her camera to take a few shots of the egg when she hears the hiss.

At first she thinks she must be hearing things but then the first low oxygen warning light flashes.

 That couldn’t be right; she had her own oxygen tank on her back and she was tethered to a back up tank on Sampson.

She turns to check that her oxygen line isn’t tangled and meets eyes with a woman. 

The woman’s eyes are on the brim of tears but her face is twisted in a snarl. Her features are sharp and criminally beautifully, wavy dark hair flows from her head, pointing in all directions. Elaborate jewelry decorates the woman’s tawny brown face and neck, large ornate strands loop and connect to cover her bare breast. And her flat muscular stomach concaves into a peach colored tail, covered in glittering scales and ending with a fin like a ruffle on skirt.

Cowering behind the woman is a boy surrounded by a school of the unicorn fish. The boy reminded her of cherub in a renaissance painting—pale skin, pink cheeks and curly blonde hair. His deep green tail is  coiled up behind him and he looks at Delilah with both fascination and like he wants to ask her to play.

Only, she really can’t play right now because the woman is also holding a bejeweled dagger in one hand and the nicked  line to Delilah’s oxygen in the other.

She starts to feel hazy and her suits warnings go from a playful ding of low oxygen to the blaring warnings of  get of the water or die.

***

-4-

When the magic hour falls,  Shay lights their evening fire with shaking hands. She was starving, and if she was feeling famished she could only imagine how Ronin must be feeling. They’d been about to get a mid day snack when the human had approached her egg and after the encounter she’d stayed put to ensure it didn’t come back.

She hated that Ronin had to go without his meals for the day while they sat watch  but not as much as she hated the thought of leaving her egg for too long.

Others in her clan who made the journey had given her coordinates to the islands she could make camp in along her journey. They had discovered this small  island to be the most fruitful and still convenient to the egg. They’d made camp, burying their few travel belongings in the sand so curious animals didn’t find them.

Ronin rolled lazily on the sandy beach as she made quick work  decapitating and peeling  shrimp with her knife. She speared them on the sticks, sprinkled them with spices from her pouch and set them over the fire for a minute before laying the skewers on a bed of seaweed.

“Why was that human by itself ?,” Ronin asks, smacking a  coconut against the beach to crack it open.

Shay didn’t want to talk about the human woman. It ate her up what she’d done to the woman’s oxygen—the woman was probably dead now- but she had to protect her egg. Sure, the human hadn’t exactly hurt it but she could never be sure. Not to mention the camera.

Her ancestors would be ashamed. They’d lured and eaten humans for sport and here she was feeling conflicted over maybe inadvertently suffocating one.

“I don’t know,” she says. “Let’s eat.”

“Did you hurt her ?,”

“I—I don’t know,” she repeats.

“Cause I think she was trying to help protect the egg,” he says

Shay doesn’t have a response for this because she’d had that thought as well but pushed it away as her being weak just like her sisters always teased her for being.

“What were those things she had--,” Ronin asks, easily switching topics.

“They are called cameras—you know how we have oral  stories ? Well, humans are more visual. They like to see everything. Let’s discuss something else.”

He lies back, his tail swishing back restlessly, sending sprays of sand all over the beach.

“How much longer until we go home ?”

“Soon.”

***

When Shay awakes the next morning she notices the emptiness almost immediately. In the place next to her where her son slept, curled in her arms with his face buried in her shoulder and tail lazily over hers--is nothing.

She should have eaten the human.

She starts off the beach and  into the water, summoning up all her strength she speeds back to the human vessel. She wasn’t sure if siren’s songs worked on females or if she could even do one but she’d try it and then crush the woman against the rocks until she gave her Ronin back.

 Her visions of murderous revenge are halted by the sounds of laughter. Shay  pauses and listens again, her lip quirking at the sound of Ronin’s sweet laughter followed by a large splash.

 She moves quickly towards it and sees Ronin jumping  and diving into the water, making big splashes.

The human woman is leaning over the vessel, alive and well, watching Ronin’s antics with a mug cupped in her hand.

And she’s clapping. Which makes Ronin giggle.

Shay could only blame herself for this, perhaps she had kept him too naïve about the dangers of the world.

Making sure to keep her face threatening, Shay swims over to pull her son away.  

“I…I come in peace,” the woman calls. “My name is Delilah.”

The woman spoke English, a language Ronin thankfully didn’t know so atleast he hadn’t spoken to her.

Shay points to one of the large cameras sitting on the deck of the vessel and shakes her head as sternly as she can.

“I’m not taking video,” she says. “Or pictures.”

“She likes it when I jump!” Ronin explains to his mother in their native tongue. “Do your flip for her—”

“No. You shouldn’t have let her see you.”

“But she already saw us--”

“--That was a mistake--”

“But last night  you said humans like to see things. And she helped protect the egg.  Maybe if she sees us she’ll go away--”

“No,” she says softly. “They will try and control us--”

“Hey!,” Delilah calls. “Are you guys alone out here ? Like, do you need help or--”

Shay cuts her eyes at the human and shakes her head no. While there weren’t any others of their kind for thousands of miles she never felt alone.

“You understand English, then ?,” Delilah says.

Shay turns to the woman and nods her head.

“Listen. These fish--” she holds up an image of the pesky golden fish that always followed them around when they were in these waters. “I need pictures and video of these fish to finish my job and go home…the fish seem attracted to you/ Let me follow you and I’ll take pictures of just the fish. Then I’ll get out of here, my lips totally sealed.”

***

Why the hell wasn’t she freaking out more ?

Delilah didn’t know. She assumed that once you outswam your own death at the hands of a pissed off mermaid you just kind of went along with anything.

After making it to Sampson with seconds to spare, she’d taken a shot of tequila, passed out and was going to put it all behind her. Only the next morning she was awoken by the boy mermaid putting on a show for her. Her hands had itched to take photographs, to capture the lines and angles of his fantastical body.

But experience had taught her that sometimes once a new creature was committed to film, within in a few years, it may never be seen again.

After finishing her tea, she donned her full scuba suit once again, shouldered all her supplies and dove to meet the mermaids.

The mermaids bodies glided effortlessly and quickly beneath the water, Delilah wasn’t even keeping up with them, just following the jetstream they left in their wake as they went. When they get to the egg, the woman perches on a crate and holds out her hands for Delilah’s waterproof dry erase board.

The woman’s handwriting was like a master class in calligraphy, the letters she wrote looked like they could almost be a computer font. She writes the name Shay and an arrow pointing to herself and the name Ronin with an arrow pointing to the boy, who was swimming around excitedly as his mother wrote.

Shay cups Ronin’s chin in her hand and whispers in his ear, then she turns to Delilah with a nod.

Ronin takes Delilah’s hand and swims with her a few meters from the egg, a long trail of curious unicorn fish follow the boy like mosquitoes on a hot summer day.

Delilah takes out her cameras and begins to shoot, careful not to get Ronin in any of the frames. Together they find a nearby nest of unicorn fish and with clumsy hands he helps her set up all of the deep sea cameras to take overnight footage. 

Hours later, when she has to come back to the surface they follow her. Shay still keeping Ronin a few inches behind her as they bob infront of the ship.

“Thank you,” Delilah says removing her mask and climbing into the ship. “I got more done in a few hours than I did in the entire time I’ve been here. I’ll be heading out soon, I think.”

Shay nods and Ronin wraps his arms around his mother’s waist and says something to her in the language Delilah didn’t understand.

Ronin then wades away from his mother,  submerges himself under water and then jumps, attempting a half backflip that doesn’t go all the way and he flops sideways into the water.

 Smiling to herself, Shay gives Delilah and look that seems friendly and then springs  out of the water, into a Disney movie money shot back flip, splashing water on the boat’s stern.

With a little assist from Shay, Ronin copies his mother’s move and she watches them, playing and jumping in and out of the water. It makes her laugh and her heart sinks a little when Shay gives a shy bow, waves and swims away, pulling Ronin after her. 

 

***

-5-

Bone tired from all the work and time spent underwater, Delilah wakes groggily from her sleep by the tonal blare of her emergency services radio.

“ATTENTION VESSELS,” An automated voice cracked after the blare. “ANCHOR DOWN. A STORM LIKE SYSTEM HAS BEEN SPOTTED BY THE INTERNATIONAL WEATHER SYSTEM.”

Stumbling out of bed and turning on the lights Delilah pulls down the emergency procedures booklet she was meant to read on day 1 and scrambles around the vessel, anchoring the ship and locking down any objects that could be turned into projectiles when the ship hit hard waves.

She’s about to shut down the laptop and lock it in a cabinet when she sees the camera nearest Shay’s egg. Spooked sea life  fleeing the storm had knocked into the glass covering, cracking it and turning over—exposing the egg to the open sea.

Delilah checks the weather service’s live radar. With her scant meteorology knowledge she guessed she had maybe 20 minutes before the brunt of the storm hit Sampson. It would be close but she’d make it if she acted fast.

Delilah doesn’t bother with the tether, she suits up with a portable tank and dives. She’d never seen so many animals in this water before. They seemed unbothered as she swam through the schools of fish, knocking a few temporarily off course. It was like rush hour for sea creatures and she was going against traffic.

She reaches the egg site as the same time as Shay and a sleepy looking Ronin. Shay has a leather sling fashioned over her shoulder and carefully lifts the egg into it like it’s anti-matter that could annihilate the world at any second.

Delilah motions for Shay to follow her to Sampson and to her surprise she does. The mermaid is moving slower than before, using her body and tail to keep the egg  from being accidentally bumped while also looking back to see if Ronin is following.

When they break the surface, the waves near the Sampson have picked up, rocking the ship as rain sprays down from overhead. Delilah climbs up on to the boat, pulls off her suit and reaches down to take the egg sling.

Shay’s eyes are filled with trepidation but  seeing no better choice she hands over the sling carrying the egg.  Delilah delicately sets the sling into the cushioned container the scuba gear had come in and turns to see Shay lifting and pushing Ronin on to the bow. He grabs on to the railing and flops over on the deck, then looks down at his mother expectantly.

Delilah anchors herself and leans over the boat to help Shay out of the churning water when a wave crashes over the mermaid  sending her smack into the side of the boat with a loud crack.

Ronin cries out a word that Delilah can’t understand but is sure translates to Mommy.

If mermaid heads were anything like human heads a hit like that would have left Shay unconscious. Saying a silent prayer, Delilah looks over the bow to see Shay. The mermaid's body has gone slack, her eyes flickering as she is washed away from Sampson by the tumultuous water.

“Shay ! No! Come on!,” Delilah screams.

Ronin moves to the edge of the boat and Delilah can see him weighing the decision of jumping in after his mother to pull her back.

Delilah runs to the other side of the boat, quickly ties one of the stupid expensive DSLR cameras to the end of the scuba tether line and throws the weighted tether out into the water like a fishing line.

“GRAB IT!,” Delilah calls. “JUST HOLD ON TO THE TETHER ! YOU DON”T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING ELSE.”

A weary Shay grabs  hold of the tether and Delilah turns on the automatic emergency crank that pulls the tether with Shay attached back to the boat.

The woman is all muscle and if not for the adrenaline rush coursing through her Delilah isn’t sure she could have heaved her up on to the boat.

Shay slides across the slippery deck to check on the egg, Ronin slides awkwardly on his tail to follow her and  Shay pulls him in to a fierce hug. He clings to her, his face ruddy and eyes wet.

“It’s gonna pick up. Let’s get below deck--,” Delilah starts.

“No,” Shay says softly, speaking for the first time to Delilah. Her voice is youthful but filled with conviction.

Being on this ship was already pushing every boundary Shay had been taught to keep around humans. As much as Shay trusted this human, the thought of being confined in a boat, unable to see the ocean or any easy escape terrified her.

Delilah could sense her fear, unrest and also her exhaustion.

Shay gently pulls the egg sling over her torso and slides into the orange lifeboat anchored to the ship’s deck.  Ronin slides into the lifeboat beside her, his tail curling to fit the boat while hers lolled over the edge. They hunkered down together as sprays of rain battered the boat.

Shay made eye contact with Delilah and nodded, as if to say “this will do.”

Delilah watched them for a moment. The lifeboat wasn’t going anywhere and the boat was safely anchored. Who was she to know what was best for them ?

She leaves the deck lights on and goes back to her bunk below deck trying to settle her mind so she could go back to sleep and not worry about the mermaid family above deck.

***

-6-

The turbulent seas calm during the night and Delilah wakes to a gently rocking boat. She throws on her nearest piece of clothing and scrambles for the deck.

The lifeboat is empty.

A splash alerts her and she turns to see Ronin and Shay in the water—Shay cradling a baby low in her arms. It had looked freakish to her inside the egg but now it was like any other newborn, save for the tail that was likely hiding  just below the water.

Shay lifts her hand in an awkward goodbye wave.

“Wait!,” Delilah calls.

Delilah scrambles back down the steps, rifles through her trunk and  pulls out her favorite camera (her first camera) and hustles back to the deck.

Before Shay can react she snaps a photo and quickly laminates the still developing polaroid and loops a string through it. Weighing it down with a lens cap, she hurls it into the water.

Ronin catches it, his face beams and he swims in an excited circle before showing the picture to Shay who seems surprised and delighted by the snapshot of herself and her two children.

Shay smiles at Delilah and bows her head in thanks.

After a quiet moment, Shay nods at Ronin and then she submerges underwater. The boy waves once and follows her as they begin their journey back home.

“Home Base to Sampson. Sampson do you read ?” A voice cackled from Delilah’s radio, nearly giving her a heart attack.“Sampson ? Did you make it through the storm ? The producers from Gaia are here and want to check in.”

“Roger that,” she answers in a half laugh-- they’d told her on day one no one says that kind of thing but she got a kick out of it.

“You make it through the storm unharmed, Sampson ?,” the voice repeated

“It’s all good,” she says. “I even got my photos and I have a camera going on the unicorn fish nest right now. Can you call the producers for me ?.”

“Sure. What’s the message ?”

“I am so,so,so  ready to go home.”

“Goin’ crazy out there ?”

Delilah stared at the spot where Ronin and Shay had been and back at her Polaroid camera.

If she really wanted to she could get the Polaroid to duplicate the last shot she took.

But she wouldn’t do that.

“I hope not.”