Free Fish Out of Water by Ros Baxter Page B

cheek.
    “Here you go.” She handed him the two parcels in a way that made him feel like the whole thing was his idea.
    But even with the boss-man out of the way, there wasn’t much to tell from Mom’s end. Doug had taken off with Blondie but hadn’t said much. He’d dropped Ma’s ride back a couple of hours later and Mom had tried to pump him, but it seemed to me that maybe he hadn’t been sure how much he was allowed to tell, so he’d made himself scarce. He’d left a message on my cell at 8:17am: The delivery’s been made.
    “How are you today, Ransha?” Her big blue eyes were slick with worry. I felt awful for putting her through this.
    “Fine,” I lied, but opened my mind just a crack so she could peek at the pain.
    “Oh darling,” she cried, hand to her mouth. “Is it unbearable?”
    “What’s unbearable,” I offered lightly, “is that I’ve run out of cigarettes.”
    “Sometimes a time of trial is the best time to add another test,” Mom responded.
    Oh no, no way. I didn’t have the strength to argue right now so I made for the shower.
    “How long ’til brownies?” I checked as I went. I’ve found there’s very little in life that can’t be cured by a good dose of sugar, butter and chocolate. Since she’s been Mayor, Mom’s been disqualified from the county fair bakeoff, but before that, she won it 16 years straight.
    The water was good on skin that felt like scar tissue. I stood under the steaming jets and let them worm their wicked way under my nerve endings until I felt slow and floppy like a day old baby. Then I sat down on the floor for a while, a habit I’d had since I was a kid. I let the water pool around me and thought about that old mermaid movie. The one where the gorgeous blonde comes to live with the kooky Tom Hanks character and is always sprouting a tail. I looked down at my long, strong brown legs, and laughed to myself imagining a tail somehow appearing from my ass. My mind drifted to Aegira, that crazy beautiful underwater world. I pictured all the merfolk swimming, floating, standing around. Not a fishtail in sight. We started out human, after all. So we’re mostly human. More human than fish at least. Or something.
    I grabbed a loofah and attacked my feet, scrubbing like I could scrub off the stain of terror and pain the night before had left on me. Then I moved to the rest of my body, washing thoroughly and reaching behind me with a long brush to scrub my back. It itched and ached from the night’s exertions and the brushing felt incredibly good, like pulling the last scabby crust off a healing wound. I wanted the shower never to end.
    By the time I finished I felt totally human again.
    Which, of course, was kind of ridiculous given my lineage.
    As I was standing on the mat, water dripping off my nose, something happened to remind me. One moment I was rubbing myself all over with one of Mom’s soft, thick bath towels. The next I couldn’t see anything but blackness. I instantly thought I’d blacked out, which let’s face it would hardly be surpising given what I’d been through the night before, but I dismissed the thought almost as quickly. I was too aware, too conscious. More than aware. Hyper-aware. Tuned like a hunting dog, senses stretched to their most elastic ends.
    The blackness made me a little dizzy and I dropped to my knees on Mom’s fluffy bathmat as it began. Flashing before me somehow, not before my eyes, but across the screen of my mind, and charging all my senses. A… story. A vision. The things I saw, heard and felt were fractured but ghoulish. A dark shape, indistinct but very definitely there. A place with no walls, or time. Or sound. The cries of young girls.
    My body reacted like the whole thing was real. Like I was really there, wherever “there” was. My muscles tensed and bunched, ready to fly or fight. Sweat poured from me and my legs started to shake, tucked under me on the bath mat.
    I was in danger. Terrible, terrible danger.