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  At the Far Waters of Forever

  Copyright © 2009 Stephanie Schaffer

  ISBN: 978-1-55487-292-3

  Cover art by Martine Jardin

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

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  At the Far Waters of Forever

  By

  Stephanie Schaffer

  Marley hummed happily in tune with her walkman as she sunbathed on the deck of her employer’s yacht. The bulk of her work was finished and she was free to relax at her leisure on the sleek beautiful yacht that even now cut through the ocean’s waves like fangs through flesh. Light and swift, if a yacht could dance, then this yacht would be dancing. Marley sighed in contentment, boneless in the grace of the sun’s warmth.

  She was fortunate in life, having found a way to make her love of linguistics and dead languages profitable. She worked as a translator for her employer, Jericho Turner, most often posing as his niece and lounging nearby with a book open in front of her nose for cover. While there was often a translator provided by her employer’s business associates, Jericho preferred to look after his own interests and Marley’s job was to let him know if the translator was telling the full truth of the conversation. She would listen to the conversation exchange as she read and would text message Jericho any discrepancies or provide additional insight into the exchange, such as if there was an argument amongst the associates or orders passed to the translator. It was a nice little thrill for her because she felt like a spy, and in a way, she was providing counter intelligence to Jericho.

  They had just completed a business deal off the coast of Thailand and were returning to North America. The yacht wasn’t the most conventional way to travel, but it was certainly enjoyable, and Marley, having a fetish for the sea, had always yearned to be on a yacht this gorgeous. She had grown up on the coast in North Carolina, in Corolla on the Outer Banks. She had learned to swim in the secluded waters of Raccoon Bay in the Currituck Sound. At night, if she couldn’t sleep, she had watched the Currituck Lighthouse’s beam slice through the night and pretended it was a sword, defending the small town of Corolla against the forces of darkness. Marley had been fairly imaginative as a child, but even so, she was perfectly aware that the lighthouse was there to guard boats from crashing against the shore.

  On this particular yacht trip, Marley scanned the sea more frequently than she usually did on ocean voyages. She admitted to herself that she likely had fallen into the habit out of anticipation in hoping she would see mermaids.

  A few short months before this yacht trip, she had spent two months visiting her brother, Jack Tanner, Sheriff of Corolla, North Carolina when he had called her for help. It seemed her older brother, who loved nothing more than swimming in the sea, no matter how frigid the water was, stumbled across a very injured mermaid, who turned out to be of Danish descent and only spoke Danish. To make a long story short, Marley had facilitated communication by first acting as a translator for the two individuals and then, later providing the means for Eddike—the mermaid, whose name which meant vinegar, of all things—to learn American English. In return, Jack learned Danish, though Eddike picked up Jack’s language much quicker than Jack had picked up hers. The two were happily paired off like a cozy pair of waterfowl lovebirds now, and it seemed Eddike was expecting their first child. Marley hadn’t a clue how that was going to work out as Eddike retained her fish-bottomed form permanently, having never been able to morph into a bipedal form. That part of the folk tales seemed to be myth. And Jack, naturally, was the normal standard for a bipedal human.

  Marley, after helping Jack muddle through his problems, found that she rather secretly fancied a merfolk mate herself and had dreamed about the possibility, though why she should think a person with a tail was sexier than a normal human, she had no idea. She certainly didn’t subscribe to Jack’s polar bear-like techniques of swimming in cold water, especially since she preferred her water nicely warmed by the sun. Eddike had told Marley that not all mermaids resided in the same region. In fact, they were pretty spread out over the world’s waters. Hearing this, Marley had been watching the ocean, hoping to catch a glimpse of a mermaid or merman or whatever they called themselves.

  So far, she had found the one person she knew of who was a mermaid a very interesting, very capable individual with great intelligence even though Eddike preferred to ignore verb conjugations. She didn’t know if Eddike was atypical or the norm, but she’d sure like to find out. She so liked her prospective sister-in-law as the case were, that Marley had asked her brother to purchase a cell phone, which he had. Now, approximately once or twice a week, Marley and Eddike conversed, often in Danish.

  She grinned as she thought of her last conversation with the mermaid. Eddike had confided, at the time, that she suspected she was with child, but hadn’t yet told Jack. Warmed by the sun and thinking of Eddike’s muscular form, rounded with new life, Marley fell asleep with a smile on her lips. She slept peacefully there on her lounging chair, at the prow of the yacht.

  Waking up was the most unpleasant aspect of sleeping, Marley decided with a stretch and a yawn. Checking her waterproof wristwatch, she discovered she’d snoozed for roughly forty minutes. The air is curiously still for a windborne boat. Marley surveyed the waves around the boat and realized even the ocean appeared still. Looking, she saw the yacht’s sails even appeared flat and droopy. She glanced down at the book in her lap, Alice in Wonderland and stole a quote from the main character to mutter to herself, “Curious and curiouser.”

  Marley bounced to her feet to walk about the deck, wondering all the while if the boat had hit a patch of the doldrums, even if she didn’t think they were in the right longitude or latitude for that particular scenario to be realistic. She peered over the gleaming silver rail of the yacht. The water, except for its stillness, appeared normal.

  “You helped, Eddike,” said a deep, ringing voice that seemed to echo in Marley’s ears.

  She propped a hand on one of her lean hips and looked around. “I must be going nuts,” she muttered beneath her breath, peering around at her surroundings. She saw nobody on the deck, no crew and no Jericho or his mistress. “Dr. Talison, are you playing a joke?” she called, raising her voice.

  “I am known by many as Leviathan,” the deep voice continued speaking. “You helped one of my children. I have seen your sympathy to my children of the water.”

  Marley looked around, suspiciously, and then pounced on her empty soda can. She sniffed the aluminum container and was unable to discern anything outside the norm. She curled her lip in disgust and heaved a sigh, figuring her idea would have been better if she had possessed a nose more akin to a basset hound. “Hunh, I doubt I’m hallucinating, but it’s not every
day a voice speaks out of thin air to a girl. Perhaps the paranormal phenomenon is going to be the norm for the Tanner siblings.”

  “Perhaps, it is more likely an antecedent was of one of my children and you can hear me because there is faint ilk of one in the remnants of your genes,” Leviathan’s voice suggested patiently. “Though I can tell you, the merfolk were not of your blood, until Eddike’s child, which is to be born soon. Likely your family came from a selkie descendent without the gift of the seal form.”

  “I’m dreaming, maybe?” She tapped her index finger of her left hand against her pursed lips. “I must be as nothing that cool has ever happened to me on demand except in my dreams.”

  “I think not,” Leviathan stated in an amused tone. “What fanciful folk my children are.”

  “You do realize if I told anyone about this, I’d be wrapped up in a loony straight jacket faster than you could say snip snap snop, right?” Marley demanded heatedly. “And why am I just finding this out now? It would have been so exhilarating to have had this conversation during my angst ridden teenage years instead of now, when I’m a not-so-old and un-washed out twenty-eight year old.”

  “My apologies,” Leviathan’s voice said humbly.

  She had the impression this Leviathan was still amused.

  “Marley, I ask a boon of thee. I need you to be a bridge of understanding between my children and the land dwellers. Resources are ever in competition. This is a finite world where the races have the capacity of infinite procreation between themselves. I fear, even should the children of the water compete with the children of the land, that great harm from the technology of the land dwellers to my followers would arise.”

  “Who are you again? Besides your name, I mean?” she demanded, incredulously.

  “I am known to the selkie and the merfolk as Leviathan and they worship me as their creator. I suppose the human word would be God. Is that what you mean?”

  She abruptly sat down onto her lounge, knees shaking as she considered the explanation. “I’ve been mouthing off to the God of the Merfolk?” she said, her tone near a whimper. “Oh please, don’t smite me, I didn’t know!”

  “Smite thee?” Leviathan said in wondering tones. “You have done nothing to earn my enmity, Marley. All my children speak freely to me, though I do not always speak back as I am to you now.”

  “And I’ve earned this honor how?” She still had a queasy feeling in her stomach at the thought of smarting off to a god.

  “Because in you I see a way to bring understanding to my children through a means of greater communion with both an open mind and intelligence. I wish change to come with understanding. I have often remarked in communion with my own siblings that the greatest sorrows come at the hands of those with fear and misunderstanding. Understanding comes first with communication, followed by acceptance. I watched you bridge the communication between Jack Tanner and Eddike, my own vessel.”

  “And you want me to do the same for your other children?” Marley inquired, having visions of herself playing matchmaker to humans and merfolk.

  “In a similar manner, but not as a matchmaker. I want you to take a representative of my merfolk onto dry land and show forth the civilization of the humans and what is to be found on land as well as what is to be found on and in the water from the perspective of land dwellers. My folk need to make a choice about whether to reveal themselves to land dwellers or not. There are as many folk below the water as there are land dwellers above the water, only more dispersed, as the sheer volume of water is three times the amount of land.”

  “Whoa.” Marley blinked as she took in the fact of the statement. She smiled weakly. “I suppose we’ve been pretty arrogant as a race to think the way I am used to doing.”

  “A deserved one. Your race has made great leaps in technology and gained much knowledge in an admittedly short amount of time compared to the age of the planet that is home to many. I understand they may be slow in changing or accepting my folk if they decide to reveal themselves to the land dwellers. That is what I hoped your role would influence and in a positive manner.”

  “How come our technology hasn’t spotted any of the merfolk before if there are so many?” Marley asked, curious now.

  “They are very careful, very wary. Land dwellers are skeptical, especially because they have no proof that others of learned fields would accept. My merfolk have called to me in need and I answer when they find themselves in circumstances beyond their ability to control. I have agreed with my people that to stay hidden was best, but as time has changed so has circumstance. I no longer believe that is the proper way for my folk to continue evolving. The unknown breeds fear and unrealistic beliefs that would create harm to others. I do not wish to continue in that direction.”

  “So why don’t you just, I don’t know, do a public broadcast and speak with them the way you are doing so with me?” Marley asked.

  “That is not the way of it. It must be their choice even if I seek to shape their destiny for the better. They have free will. If I did an announcement as you suggest, even those that have concerns or would not freely act in that manner, would bow their heads to what the race would perceive as a holy dictate. That is not the way. My race is not like you in the way they think. I find you remarkably freethinking and bent toward critical thought and possessing an open mind, which I observed when you cared for Eddike. That is what I want for my children. I have seen interactions before between land dwellers and those of the sea. I have not seen that quality before in the dealings, a willingness to make change without a benefit to self. It is not common.”

  “I have no answer to that comment,” she admitted. “I’m just me. Learning new languages require having an open mind because change between dialects is essential to speaking the language correctly.”

  “You do not sound like you will deny what I ask of you, Marley.”

  “That’s because I’m thinking maybe I’m not dreaming and if this is real, it would be the chance of ten lifetimes to experience this and I don’t want to miss out on it.”

  “Your brother thought he was dreaming when he met me once. It seems you Tanners are willing to accept anything that defies reality in dreams, no matter how lucid.”

  “It’s a human trait,” she assured Leviathan. “Though in America, we’re more open to dreams then most. Our whole nation was founded on a shared dream. I figure it must be part and parcel of the air we breathe and the water we drink. We always have so many immigrants because they’re looking for a place to dream and make dreams reality. We’ve got a good track record for it.”

  “My children would understand pride and patriotism to a home, an ideal, a loyalty—all admirable traits.” Leviathan paused, “I would offer you something as a gift I have yet to offer to any other. For your services to Eddike and to make this task I have asked you to fulfill for me easier, I would grant you the ability to assume a water folk form such as Eddike. You may assume that form or your original as many times in your lifetime as you desire without penalty or harm.”

  Leviathan’s voice rumbled, deepening in tone and rich in power that Marley felt in the reverberation of the deck, which she now felt rolling against her soles and her toes of her feet. She wriggled her toes and looked down at her feet with the manicured toenails and pretty pink polish. “Is there a downside to any of this?” Marley wondered.

  Leviathan said quietly, “I await your answer, Marley.”

  She considered her life for a moment. Upon return to American shores, her most recent job would be over. She had no other job offers lined up and waiting for her at home. Marley relished the idea of experiencing Eddike’s world. “All right. It sounds like fun,” Marley consented. “When does this job for you start?”

  “Right now. I have directed an emissary of my children to meet you, Marley.”

  The air felt different after that comment and Marley realized the entity, known as Leviathan, was no longer in her presence. She barely had time to process that last thought
when the yacht suddenly pitched wildly and violently. Marley, in her surprise, was not braced and found herself slipping right over the edge of the deck only to land with a painful slap on the water’s surface all along her front—the biggest belly flop in the history of man. As her lungs seized up, she didn’t know whether it was in fear or from the shock of the slap on her diaphragm. She felt her body start sinking and inhaled a cold mouthful of brine, whereupon she unwillingly sucked it deep into her lungs and started choking as it burned. She thought she heard the words, I am sorry for your pain, child, whispered into her bewildered mind and briefly had the hysterical thought that if she really had been talking to the God of the Sea as she had believed, surely there was a gentler way of accomplishing this task.

  Then, she twisted and writhed, bowing and arcing through the currents of the ocean as her body’s form altered. Stunned by the pain and the changes wrought on her form, Marley was frozen in reaction. With wide-eyed disbelief and panic, she had just enough time to realize that the yacht’s huge rudder was coming right at her. Suddenly, a hard jerk of motion on her arm pulled her deeper down into the ocean. She looked up and stared just as the rudder passed safely over her head.

  Almost as a distant awareness, Marley’s brain realized she was no longer choking on brine and she could see normally without the salt of the ocean stinging her eyes. She slowly looked around her surroundings in the water that was dim beneath the surface with enough diluted light to make out items in the ocean. Her attention was caught by her lower body, which resembled Eddike’s form, only without so much muscle that the very athletic mermaid possessed.

  Eddike had resembled a cross between a dolphin in alignment and a goldfish in her fin structure. Marley’s fins reminded her more of a dolphin crossed with beta’s fin. She had a sleek tail, less powerful then Eddike’s, and of a color similar to purplish silver kelp in tones and accents. The filmy trailing fins at the end of Marley’s tail did not inspire visions of strength or speed. She flicked her tail experimentally, visualizing a point and extension foot movement. She watched, fascinated, as her flukes and fins responded. A scrap of white fabric fluttered away slowly, which she finally recognized as her bikini bottom, or rather what was left of it. Then someone or something tugged her upward. Marley went with the motion, breaking the surface of the water. Another set of shoulders, neck and head watched her calmly and without fear.