Read An Ordinary Drowning, Book One of The Mermaid's Pendant for Free Online

fish, my friend?”
    “That’s
the plan. What gave me away?”
    She
shrugged and tipped up her bottle to drink. “That is why most norteamericanos come. Others? They run away from their demons and hide here on the Island of
the Snake.”
    “‘Island
of the Snake?’”
    “ Culebra .”
It sounded slightly dangerous when Raimunda said it. “Did you not know that you
are on the Island of the Snake?” She watched him closely. Her right eye drooped
a little. John found it enticing.
    “And? Are there snakes here?”
    Raimunda
looked at him from between lowered eyelashes. “Not enough, some would say.”
    John’s
eyes widened. “And what do you say?”
    “I say,
my friend, there are always snakes if you know how to find them.”
    “I bet
you’re a regular snake charmer.”
    She
tipped a modest face and the hair behind her ear slipped free. John wanted to
reach over and push it back but he couldn’t bring himself to touch her.
    “You see
my flyer?” He tilted his head toward the wall next to the door. She followed
his motion with her gaze.
    “That
was you?” It was her turn to widen her eyes.
    “‘Fraid
so. Do you like to swim?”
    “Sometimes. Por qué ?”
    John
looked at his hands, which were wrapped around the half-empty Medalla. She
didn’t match his mental image of his rescuer, but he wanted her to. “Someone
pulled me out yesterday. I would’ve drowned.”
    “Oh, no!
That is terrible, my friend. No, no I could never save you.” She shifted so
that she leaned closer. Her husky voice lowered. It caressed his jaw on its way
into his ears. “I am muy débil . How you say? Weak. I am only una
mujer . How pull I such a big man from the water?” Here she touched his arm.
     John
lifted his Medalla and drained it. At the moment, finding his mystery woman
seemed less compelling.
    She slid
the bottles to the side of their table and took one of his hands in her own.
“It matters not, my friend. I can make you even more glad to be alive.”
    ***
    The
mermaid circled the canal over and over and over, long after a glaring Ana left
the shore. She worried the water over the hapless sea star. A hot, foul stench
rose off of it, poisoning the water for a tail’s length around it. Its death
stank of cruel purpose, not natural release. She hovered over it for long
seconds and then darted away toward the spot where the man last treaded water.
Here, a different kind of echo altogether colored the water’s essence. It was
soft, luminous, and warm still. When she’d had more than she could stand from
the sea star’s final resting spot, she returned to the man’s echo and renewed
herself.
    She’d
hardly touched him last night. She’d found him after hours of searching along
the coasts until she’d detected him on the northern shore. She’d drawn upon the
dark energy of the earth and walked on temporary legs to his sleeping place.
His sleep was hollow and yet heavy, devoid of nurturing dreams. He’d come from
a far place where something had bound his soul, delicate as a sooty tern chick,
in a filament as light and unbreakable as whale sinew. She tested this binding,
finding that it had loosened a bit. There was hope then. She could send him
dreams and free him entirely.
    She lay
next to him and sent visions into him as he slept. His dark hair covered her
cheek and tickled her nose. She nuzzled the musky hollow beneath his arm. He
smelled rich, his salty body excretions becoming his own human cologne, the
breath of plants, and cool night air. He smelled like the promise of life. Next
to his sharp odor, the mer males she knew smelled faint and diffuse,
pale and unreal.
    In the
time between night and day, before the sky lightens with the sun’s approach,
the mermaid drew away from his warm, dry body. He sighed and she watched his
sleeping face as long as she dared. When the shifting light sharpened his
features, she stole away to the ocean. A gossamer thread connected them now. It
was enough. She could trace him,