...is getting to be the first one to read her books!
Ros' new title, Fish Out of Water, released this week. But I got to read this hip mermaid mystery when it was a mere guppy. Today I'm sharing my favourite bit.
But first, the setup:
Dirtwater's straight-talking Deputy Sheriff has a lot on her
plate: a nicotine addiction that's a serious liability for a mermaid, a
solider-of-fortune ex who's hooked on her Mom's brownies, a gorgeous, naked
stranger in her shower, and a mysterious dead blonde with a fish tattoo on Main
Street.
Oh, and one other thing. She's scheduled to die on her thirtieth birthday - in three weeks - unless she can 'change the course of destiny and save the world entire'.
Throw in a Mom who's the local Mayor and a Dad who's been locked in the county jail for twelve years, and that's all the trouble she needs without her mermaid roots coming back to haunt her.
Rania's heading home to Aegira for a family wedding but she's starting
to have a sinking feeling that's got nothing to do with hydroporting seven
miles under the sea and everything to do with some weird connections that seem
to be emerging between her, the dead blonde, her Mom's shady past and a ten
thousand year old prophesy.
Now if she can just steal a corpse, get a crazy
Aegirian priest off her case, work out who the hell's trying to kill her and
stop sleeping with the fishes, she might be able to unravel the prophesy, the
mystery of the missing choirgirls and the secrets hidden in her Mom's past. And
maybe even save her own ass while she's at it.
Now, my favourite bit:
4:00am
Dirtwater Morgue
“Okay, so you
weren’t kidding.” Larry’s face was grim,
the deep lines that normally accentuated his handsomeness intensifying his
seriousness. In some other kind of man
it’d be freaked out, but Larry’s seen a lot.
“She really is from someplace else.”
“Yep.” I wasn’t sure what else to say.
“Someplace
wet?” He was asking the question but it
wasn’t really a question.
“Yep,” I
confirmed again, shortly. “Very
wet. What gave it away?”
“Well…” Larry scratched his head, as if where to start?
“The dual
respiratory system, that’s kind of unique, and these interesting internal gill
things. Nice. Beautiful, actually, I’d be inclined to
say. So… tidy.”
He stood back,
as if admiring a work of art, and considered Blondie for another moment or
two. She was stretched out on the long
white bench. It was dark. He’d used only the lights he absolutely
needed for the clandestine procedure.
But I could tell he’d been careful, and neat as ever. The railroad track across her chest and
forehead was made up of perfect little stitches, and there wasn’t a trace of
blood or fluid on her.
He kept looking
at her, carefully wiping down a line of tiny silver instruments.
“Then there’s
the dermis. Our skin’s waterproof, but
this stuff, this is something else altogether.
Looks like ours, but is actually made of these microscopic organic
shields. Scales, I guess you’d call
then. Perfectly adapted for long term
submersion. Remind me of this incredible
scuba get-up a SEAL buddy of mine usedta have.
I won’t even go into what I found in here.”
He tapped
Blondie’s forehead gently.
“But let’s put
it this way Rania. I always knew you
were a smart girl. But what I’ve seen
here today makes me wanna ask what the hell’s a smart fish like you doin’ in a
dive like this?”
I smiled at him
wanly. It felt weird, hearing her
described this way. Hearing me described this way. “What else?”
“Well. There’s the muscular-skeletal system, but I
probably shoulda guessed about that.
After all, those arm wrestles have been messin’ with my head for… what? Thirteen
years now?”
He shook his
head. “Incredible artistry, y’know
that? The weighting system built into
the sinews. That how you guys stay
under? No dive belts needed. And then
her vocal apparatus. Amazing. I guess it’s hard to communicate underwater
without some special equipment.”
I was smiling
again although my whole body felt numb.
But we needed
to cut to the chase. I needed to know what he was able to find out about what
happened to her. Whether he could give
me any leads. Because I’d surprised
myself by not being able to watch the autopsy.
Weirder and weirder. I’ve seen dozens of them, and I was only sick
once, the first time. But something
about her, so still and perfect and secret.
Relying on me to find out what happened.
I couldn’t watch her get cut.
And maybe it
was more than that. Maybe I was just
getting squeamish about death as my own appointed time drew closer. As I wondered if I’ll be lying on some slab,
just like Blondie…
So I’d sneaked
outside and avoided the temptation to ransack the morgue for stray cigarettes,
raiding the fridge instead. Larry keeps
it stocked. Three bagels, four slices of
cheese, two quarts of orange juice and three Hershey bars later, Larry was
done.
“So did she give anything away? About her death?” My voice sounded shaky and I didn’t like it,
so I tried again. “I mean, probably not,
I know. Nothing visible from the outside.
Anything internal?”
Larry scratched
his big grey beard again as he spoke carefully. “Most things seem to be in
place. Far as I can tell, of course, not
being an expert on what ‘in place’ is supposed to look like for her. But there was something odd.”
I leaned
forward, desperately curious and sick inside at the same time.
“It’s her
ears,” Larry said. Then paused, like he
didn’t quite have it right. “Okay, not
her ears exactly. More like deep inside
the ear canal.”
“What is
it?” The creepy fingers of fear I hadn’t
shaken off tightened their grip.
“It’s
like…” He searched for the right
analogy. “The tissue in there’s all been
melted.”
“Melted?” I was confused. “Like with heat?”
“Yeah,” he
sighed. “But… not. I mean, it looks melted. Hmmm… no.
Dissolved. Turned to mush and nothing.”
My mouth was
suddenly very dry, and I got a sheen on my top lip. But I wasn’t gonna lose my lunch in front of
Larry, so I reached for the jar of kool mints and gobbled four of them in a
row. He silently handed me a glass of
water.
“Anything
else?” I was asking more to keep busy than anything else.
Larry consulted
some notes he’d made on a little pad next to the kool mints.
“Um,” he said,
and was I just imagining it or did he look kinda shifty?
“Stomach
contents are pretty standard vegetarian fare, but I’d say she’s from the
city. God knows you can’t get a good
no-meat chow mein round here.”
Huh. I was listening
but not computing.
“Otherwise
seems to be in good health. No surgery,
broken bones, illness.”
Again, not
surprising. Aegirans don’t get sick
often. With little pestilence and crime, they keep themselves nice well into
their sixties and beyond.
Larry went
on. “She’s never had a baby.”
I shouldn’t
have been surprised. Watch-keepers are
young, focused. But Larry’s words made
my throat close over. No babies. And now she’ll never have any. They love children, in Aegira. They got population control sorted out
several millennia ago, realizing the population couldn’t grow like on The Land
if they were to continue to hide. So
Aegirans have only one child, but each belongs joyfully to the community, and
they share and delight in every birth.
Larry put his
book down.
“Rania. There
is one other thing, and I don’t know what to make of it so I’ll just tell
you.”
He paused
again. I’d never seen him look so
uncertain as he ran his hands again over his mouth and rubbed at his
beard. “Actually,” he corrected
himself. “Maybe I’ll just show you.”
He lifted the
sheet that he’d used as a modesty cover for Blondie. Her legs were slightly apart underneath it,
and the gold of her skin looked impossibly smooth and unbroken against the
white of the cotton. Larry pointed, high
on her thigh, almost to the top of the inside of her leg. I could see another tattoo, blue-green like
the watch-keeper fish. But fresher, a
very recent tattoo. I could see the angry red lines indicating it had just been
done. And this time it was a name.
My name. Rania
Aqualina.
Me.
I’m the reason
she was here. She came for me.
Suddenly, in my
mind’s eye, I saw that big old aquarium, and things started to make sense. I knew how she got here.
But why me?
***
Buy
Fish Out of Water.
Find out more at www.rosbaxterink.com
