Submerged

Submerged

Catherine made her third pass up the beach, trying not to worry. Perhaps Lou had been held up. Perhaps she felt poorly, like Catherine had yesterday. Perhaps—

Perhaps she was furious.

No. Surely she had understood. Catherine had written a note and hailed little Jem from next door to deliver it, letting Lou know she was ill and couldn’t come last night.

Catherine kept walking, her long skirts cumbersome as ever. Lou was always expounding upon the practicality of trousers, but Catherine couldn’t seem to put aside conventions.

And yet she loved Lou, was here waiting for Lou, had promised—

“Lou’s not coming.”

The sudden voice stopped her. Dusk was slipping into darkness, and Catherine peered into the shadows.

Matt.

He was well drunk; she could hear it in his tripping tongue. He must have been sitting there awhile, yet she hadn’t noticed him until now.

She and Matt had been friends as children, before he took up with those awful Morrison boys who delighted in heckling Lou. Catherine couldn’t remember the last time they’d spoken.

“I watched it all,” Matt said, “but it weren’t me.”

“What wasn’t you?”

“That chased her in last night.”

Catherine’s lips went numb. “Who did, then?”

“Freddy. Mick. She should’ve run. They wouldn’t’ve gone after her. Instead she fought like the dickens. Spat and scratched and kicked. Riled them up even more, till there was no escaping.”

Catherine swallowed down the slickness on her tongue. “What did they do?”

“Pinned her at the water’s edge. I told them to stop, truly…”

“Go on!”

“She wrenched away. Rolled into the surf. Mick grabbed for her, but…”

Catherine shut her eyes, saw it all. “She drowned.”

“No! No, she…changed.”

Catherine blinked, half expecting Matt himself to have transformed. But he was still a drunken fool, a coward trying to convince himself he hadn’t stood by while his friends committed murder.

Desperation oozed off his face. “She was there, and then—she wasn’t. Wasn’t Lou anymore. Became something fierce, powerful.”

“Lou was fierce and powerful!” The past tense slipped out. Catherine wanted to take it back, but words didn’t work that way.

“Not like this. You should’ve seen her...”

She could do nothing but stare.

“I’m sorry!” He gulped a breath and added, “I took your note. From Jem.”

Her hands tightened into fists she’d never use. “Why would you do that?”

“You’re not like her, Cat.” His eyes pleaded with her.

She longed to contradict him, but she couldn’t. She knew Matt meant the short hair, the trousers, the sharp tongue, but she also wasn’t as brave as Lou, or as strong, or as all-fired certain about herself. She was just sad and confused and alone.

But Lou had been alone, too. What had she thought in those final moments, when Catherine hadn’t been there?

Catherine took off down the beach, ignoring her heavy skirts and Matt’s slurred apologies.

She tried to pretend it was two nights ago, when she’d last seen Lou. When she’d told Lou they should move away together. It was a plan she’d been brewing awhile, as she accumulated her seamstressing money. “We can tell people we’re cousins and get a cottage together, do whatever we like behind our own door.” It made her blush just to say it.

“Leave the Cove?” Lou asked incredulously.

“We could still live near the sea,” Catherine offered.

“It wouldn’t be the same.”

“Do you love the Cove more than you love me?”

Lou frowned. “I couldn’t do without either of you.”

Perhaps Catherine should have taken offense, but she knew it was a compliment.

“Besides, I have a better plan,” Lou said. “One that doesn’t require any money. Let’s go into the sea together tomorrow night.”

Catherine stared at her, but Lou didn’t appear to be joking.

They’d both lived in Mermis Cove their whole lives, had absorbed the legend since babyhood. That Cove folk were kin to the sea, and if they went swimming after dark, submerged themselves completely under moonlight, they would transform into seafolk again.

Of course everyone over the age of six knew it was nonsense, yet they still gave the ocean a wide berth at night.

Only Lou was obsessed with the lore in a way that Catherine couldn’t fathom. As a child, Lou had made sketches of the seafolk, so many variations: sleek merpeople, otherworldly creatures with pleading eyes, hideous devils with dangerous mouths.

None of them looked like anything Catherine could ever be, yet she could see Lou in all of them.

Still, Catherine had agreed to her plan because surely Lou just meant it as a lark, an experience to share before they moved away.

But the next day Catherine could barely get out of bed, retching and shivering. She’d written the note, cancelled on Lou’s dream, given into her own fears.

It was easy to do in the empty house. Catherine’s father was a sea captain, frequently absent. She thought of Lou, equally lonely, boarding with a peevish great-aunt. Why couldn’t Lou have agreed to her plan? Why couldn’t she see the dangers of her own?

Catherine counted those dangers again and again. They might drown. They might not transform, and Lou would crumble beneath her crushed dreams. They might transform into monsters, a hellish life without escape. They might transform and not know one another.

Or Lou might transform, and Catherine might not.

But now none of those fears was worse than the reality of Matt’s tale. That Lou had died alone, believing Catherine had abandoned her.

Unless she’d actually—

Yesterday the idea of transformation terrified Catherine. Tonight it was her only hope.

She saw movement far out in the water, a strange dark shape that might be nothing or everything.

What would Lou remember?

What did it matter, as long as they were together?

Catherine shed her clothes and entered the surf, her bare legs strong and certain. She submerged, giving herself to whatever magic the Cove possessed, whatever might be waiting.