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Adam doesn’t remember much about his father. He remembers he was tall, and that he had moustaches. He remembers he had deep gray eyes, that they looked like a storm at sea, but also that his smile was open and wide, and that he smiled a lot. He remembers his clothes always smelled salty, and that every time he kissed him he could taste salt on his lips too, but other than that it’s nothing. He lost the sound of his voice, the games they played together when he came back home, he couldn’t say if he was a happy man or a melancholic one, he couldn’t say if he was calm or quick to rage, he couldn’t say what he liked to eat, or what he loved to do for fun. So many of the details that made him a person have disappeared gradually since he disappeared, and only the details who make him a ghost have left an impression over him. So that every time he thinks about his father it doesn’t feel like remembering a lost loved one, but summoning a fictional character, the main hero of some adventure novel, like Robinson Crusoe or Captain Ahab.
That is possibly the reason why the best thing he remembers about his father, the clearest memory he has of him, it’s the tales and legends of the sea he used to tell him when he put him to sleep before some of the men of the village came to pick him up by the house, to go get the boats ready for the fishing.
His father, who had been a fisherman all his life (like his father before him, and his father’s father before him, and on and on for centuries) knew so many of them he never told the same story twice. He knew all of them: tales of terrifying man-eating monsters, tales of charming princesses kidnapped by evil creatures and kept prisoners in magic balls underwater, tales of wrecked ships, of pirates and huge whales, tales of fantastic fishes big enough to feed entire villages with but their tails. Adam listened to him as if he were reading Bible verses, his fantasy of the sea flourishing freely inside him, fed by his father’s words. And despite being always very clear about telling legends, stories that could possibly be thorough lies, his father was good enough to keep them believable, to keep him guessing.
There was just one story over which he couldn’t admit any forgery – incidentally, that was Adam’s favorite tale. The tale about the Merfolk King’s hidden treasure.
His mother always rolled her eyes and huffed in annoyance whenever his father mentioned that, but Adam’s heart started dancing the very moment he could guess his father was going to talk about it. It was a different tale from all the others, because about the others his father was always very keen on repeating over and over that he had heard them from friends, travelers and other fishermen, but this story, this one he swore it was true, he swore he had seen the creatures with his own eyes.
“They’re nothing like you would expect them from the stories,” he swore upon his soul, “They’re not the fascinating creatures you’d imagine, they’re not the pretty princesses of the abysses you see pictured in your books. They’re vile, vicious creatures, with thick skin impervious to water and teeth like those of a shark, mismatched, sharp, pointing in all directions, constantly dirty with blood and the remains of their victims. They fear the light because down in the deep ocean, where they live, there is none, and their eyes reflect it like those of a cat. Sometimes in the night you can only see two big rounded balls of light coming towards you: and that’s when you know you’ve got to run!”
At the same time fascinated by and terrified about the monstrous creatures his father depicted in his tales, Adam used to sit on his bed and drink his father’s words up, petrified, and he begged him to go on, to tell him another story, even when the first had already gone on for hours, until it was his mother coming in to interrupt them, begging his father to stop putting scary ideas in his head, because for sure he’d have ended up spending the night scared out of his wits and unable to fall asleep, and she’d have been the one who would have to deal with it, knowing she had to wake up at dawn the morning after, to come down to the beach to help out clean the fish and divide it among the families of the village.
As fascinating as his father’s horror stories were, however, Adam’s favorite part of the tale always was the hidden treasure. His father said there was a whole citadel hidden under the sea, with houses and paved streets, just like those of the big cities up North, where the rich people lived, except they weren’t sculpted in stone and marble, but in coral and mother-of-pearl. There was a palace, too, a big palace entirely made of rose quartz, and there resided the Merfolk King with his many queens, and in the palace there was a secret room in which he stored all the riches his people stole from the ships after they had caused their wrecking.
“All the riches from all the ships lost at sea, all over the world,” his father said with dreamy eyes, “Can you imagine how much gold and precious stones there might be down there? One day I’ll find that palace, Adam, I’ll find the Merfolk King and I’ll steal his treasure, and from that day on no one in our family, no, no one in this village will ever have to work again.”
His father had never managed to find that place at the bottom of the sea. He never found the citadel, or the palace, or the Merfolk King with his precious treasure. He had kept searching for it, and in his search he had lost himself forever. One day, after a terrible storm had taken the fleet by surprise before sunup, only four of the ten boats of the village had come back, and his father’s hadn’t been among them. To this day, Adam doesn’t know what’s been of him, because his body has never been found. He likes to imagine him wandering eternally in the deepest of the ocean, one step after the other as his skin turns pale like glass and his hair turn gray like rainclouds, still searching for the merfolk and their hidden treasure.
And as he loses control of his boat, pushed and pulled by waves tall like three whole houses piled up on one another, deafened by the smashing sound of the thunders and suffocated by the burning taste of the seawater forcing its way down his throat, the only thing he can think about is that, at least, now he’s not gonna wander alone anymore.
*
When he left, last night, he refused to hug his mother. She was moody and upset, disappointed in him, and he was upset at her for refusing to understand his reasons. “I’m old enough, ma,” he kept telling her, trying to make her understand, “I have to do my part to feed the village.”
“Except this is not why you’re doing it,” she insisted, her eyes filling with tears, her honey-colored hair only barely kept hidden by the heavy hat she was wearing, trying to protect herself from the cruel cold of the night, “This isn’t about feeding the village any more than it is about fishing! You’re just like your father, and this is about the thrill, this is about facing the ocean, biting it with that sorry little boat of yours, daring it to bite you back! But the ocean has teeth, my son, not unlike those of the monsters your father often spoke of. And it will bite you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about, woman,” Adam answered, looking away from her.
“It might be,” his mother replied, sharply, “All I know is that the ocean stole your father from me, and now it’s gonna steal you too.”
He turned his back on her and walked away without even saying goodbye. She didn’t understand how important this was for him. So what if he was just like his father, so what if being out at sea wasn’t just about catching fish to feed the village? There must be something more. A way to stop needing to go out at sea at all. To prevent the ocean from biting back forever, by never getting close to it again. And no other family would’ve had to lost a father or a son. If only he could manage to find the treasure about the existence of which his father used to be so sure.
He regrets letting himself be overcome by anger to the point of not hugging his mother one last time before leaving, now. Now that he’s about to lose his life, now that the ocean bit and swallowed him whole, he regrets not having told her goodbye – at least that. Not having tried to explain her that it wasn’t for the adventure that he was about to get lost, but in search of a solution.
Then, fire starts crawling up the inner walls of his chest, clawing at his flesh, burning like snake venom, and he jumps sitting up and just as quickly he has to turn to the side to spit out what reveals itself to be not fire, but salted water.
The first breath he draws afterwards is as painful as he imagines the first breath of newborn babies after they’ve come out of their mother’s womb. Painful enough to draw tears to his eyes, actually, painful enough not to ever want to breathe again, but his body soldiers on, even against his own will his body demands to breathe, and so he lies down again, one arm over his eyes, his chest moving quickly up and down as his lungs fills with oxygen, and then release it only to draw it in again, frantically. He had never realized how tiring could breathing be. He had to stop doing it for a while to fully understand.
He doesn’t know where he is, and he doesn’t remember how he got here. It’s not dark anymore, the sun must’ve come up while he was unconscious, but the thin rays of light seeping through the cracks in the walls don’t help him in any way to recognize this place. It must be some sort of cave, barely above the sea level, but if it’s close to the coast or in some different continent entirely, that’s impossible to know from there.
He removes his arm from his eyes and tries to sit up again, hoping this time he won’t have any more fire to spit, and that’s when he first notices that he’s not alone in the cave. Someone’s watching him from a little pool of water a few steps away from him – it looks like a kid, and vaguely like a boy too, but Adam can’t know for sure. He’s got big, rounded blue eyes and his dark hair are long and sticking to his head and face, framing it. His skin, even from there, looks as smooth and perfect as a porcelain doll’s.
“Uh… hello?” he says, trying to catch his attention, “Are you from some coast village? I’ve never seen you before.”
The boy lets out a short chuckle, covering his mouth with one of his hands. Then he shakes his head, his eyes alight with amusement. “I’m not from around here,” he says, “You couldn’t possibly know me.”
At least he speaks his language. That’s already a good starting point. “Then I’m… pleased to meet you,” he says, after trying to clear his throat. It’s still burning, and he feels the urge to cough every now and then, especially if he doesn’t manage to catch his breath thoroughly enough. “I’m Adam.”
“Hi, Adam,” the boy says, crossing his arms on the edge of the pool and resting his chin upon them, “My name’s Cody.”
That’s a fairly common name, Adam thinks as he starts to calm down, he can’t have wandered offshore too far. He sits straighter with his shoulders and slides upon the rock pavement to move closer to the boy. He doesn’t even flinch, and he certainly doesn’t look intentioned on coming out of the water, which is a little weird. But he’s the only person around, and maybe he knows how Adam got here. “I don’t remember anything,” he explains, “Can you tell me what happened?”
“Yes,” Cody says, nodding slowly, “I saw the whole thing. You shouldn’t come out to sea when there’s such bad weather coming, didn’t you know that?”
“Was it a storm?” Adam frowns, a little annoyed at the kid’s patronizing attitude.
“Not in the beginning, no,” the boy shakes his head, “But you should’ve guessed it was coming by the way the wind was blowing. It threatened to overturn your boat thrice, and when it finally started raining it was too late to turn back to the coast. It was a very dangerous thing you did, you must have been very hungry.”
“Not… not me, specifically,” Adam says vaguely, turning away to try and hide his blushing cheeks from the boy’s clear, intent eyes, “My village. We’re all very poor and if the fishermen don’t catch the fish everybody starve.”
“So you’re a fisherman?” the boy keeps looking at him, blinking a couple of times. He seems surprised. “But you look so young.”
“And that’s… coming from you?” Adam arches an eyebrow, annoyed, “How old are you? Twelve?”
“I’m older than I look,” the kid answers in a shot chuckle, “But if I told you, you wouldn’t believe me.”
“Yeah… sure,” he sighs, shaking his head. He doesn’t have time for this kid’s games. “Anyway, how did I come here? Did I swim? Was I conscious? I can’t remember.”
“Conscious?” the kid seems genuinely surprised, at first. Then he laughs again, throwing his head back. Adam can’t decide if he feels more annoyed by his clear mockery, or more mesmerized by how beautiful he looks when he laughs, with his perfect, pale skin glistening in the sunlight and his silky hair sticking to it, leaving drops of water roll down his neck and shoulders in irregular trajectories he struggles not to follow with his eyes. “No, you weren’t conscious,” the boy explains, “In fact, if I hadn’t gotten to you, you’d probably be dead by now.”
“You?” Adam frowns, studying the boy more carefully, now. He really doesn’t look a day older than twelve. “You saved me?”
“I’m stronger than I look,” the boy answers, smiling enigmatically.
“So you’re older than you look and also stronger than you look,” Adam huffs, annoyed, “But how do you look exactly? Why don’t you come out the water and walk closer, let’s see how strong you are.”
“I’d rather not,” the boy shakes his head, chuckling, “I don’t move well on dry land. I’m better at swimming.”
“Kid,” Adam stands up, irritated, “I don’t have time for this. I don’t know how many hours I’ve been missing from home, but I have to find a way to go back there, and if you can help me, fine, I’ll be forever thankful to you, but if you can’t, please, just get lost.”
The boy instantly loses his smile, and his expression turns sad all of a sudden. It’s such a quick change of mood, and he seems so hurt, that Adam can’t help but feeling a little guilty about it. After all, if it’s true – and he doesn’t have any reason beside his prejudice to believe it isn’t –, this boy really saved him. He can’t answer that by being rude.
“I mean…” he starts off, trying to say he’s sorry, but the boy cuts him off.
“If I show you my body,” he says, “Do you promise you won’t try and hurt me?”
“What?” Adam frowns again, puzzled, “Why should I want to hurt you?”
“Do you promise?”
“Weren’t you the one who was stronger than he looked?” Adam replies, “Why being worried that I could hurt you?”
“I’m not,” the boy politely shakes his head, “It’s just that, if you attacked me, I’d have to defend myself. And that never ends well with those of your kind.”
“Those of my…” Adam opens his eyes wide, suddenly short of breath, “What do you mean…?”
The boy doesn’t try to put it into words – and that’s good, because Adam has no idea how he could’ve. He points both hands firmly against the rocky ground, and pulls himself out of the water, revealing an entire bottom half looking exactly like a fish tail, but at least twice as big than a normal one. It’s a deep, dark blue with purple and silver reflections, and the fin at the end of it is light blue and translucent.
He doesn’t look like his father’s tale at all, but it’s undeniable – he must be a merman.
“Are you fucking kidding me?!” he springs on his feet, stepping back as fast as he can and as far as the little cave where he’s trapped lets him, “You’re… are you real?!”
“Last time I checked,” the boy answers in a short chuckle, landing on the rocky pavement. His long tail folds underneath his ass, or what passes for it, anyway, making him assume a vague kneeling position that resembles a human pose so much that for a moment Adam is under the impression that he’s just wearing a costume. “You seem scared.”
“No, I’m not,” Adam shakes his head, but he doesn’t get closer. “I mean… it’s just… it’s so weird. I thought you were different.”
“You mean my kind?” Cody chuckles, moving a little closer to him, “How did you imagine us?”
“I don’t know…” Adam swallows, kneeling down next to the boy, to look at him better, “Less… pretty, I guess?”
Cody chuckles again, and this time his cheeks turn a pleasant shade of pink. “You think I’m pretty?”
“What?” Adam blinks, suddenly realizing what he just said, “Well, yes— I mean, it’s undeniable. You’re all white and smooth, you look like a doll. Dolls are pretty.”
“I guess?” Cody chuckles again. He seems extremely amused. “You’re pretty too,” he says then, “Even if you don’t look like a doll.”
Adam looks away, blushing vividly. “I’m no such thing,” he answers surly, “I’m a fisherman.”
“I know fishermen,” Cody answers, shaking his head, “And you don’t look like one. Fishermen are dark and their skin and lips are cracked. Their eyes are wrinkled and narrow because they need to protect them from the salty burning wind. Their hands are rough, their fingertips like pumice stone. You don’t look like that at all. Your skin is tanned but fair, and your lips look soft. Your eyes are open wide and your hands…” he reaches out, holding one of Adam’s hands in his own and rubbing its palm and back in slow circles, “Your hands are strong but delicate. You know how to sail a boat, but you hadn’t sailed one yet, before today. Am I right?” he asks, looking up at him.
Breathless, for a moment Adam just looks at him, at a loss of words. Cody’s too pretty, and he’s also too close. His fingers have the lightest touch he’s ever felt, but they’re so cold, paralyzing. It’s so uncanny, and so disturbing to look at him, because part of him looks so innocently and harmlessly human but there’s another part of him – and that’s not just his tail and fin – that looks so clearly inhuman it makes Adam shiver inside. It’s like watching a familiar landscape, but with something irreparably wrong, a twisted detail that makes what should be known frighteningly unknown.
“Was I wrong?” Cody asks, puzzled by his prolonged silence.
“No…” Adam shakes his head, focusing on him again, “No, you’re right. I was…” he swallows, retrieving his hand, “It was my first time at sea. I lost my father a few years ago.”
“So you were out searching for him,” Cody nods, knowingly.
That’s not entirely accurate, but he barely knows the boy and despite how cute he looks he doesn’t trust him. He doesn’t think it’d be wise to tell him the whole story right away. He is – as absurd as that is – a merman, after all. If Adam starts talking about hidden treasures and the quest to steal them from the Merfolk King, no one knows how he could react.
“…something like that, yes,” he answers vaguely, clearing his throat. “Anyway. Where are we now?”
“I brought you to a safe place,” Cody answers, raising his head proudly, clearly satisfied with himself for this, “We’re maybe four or five hours from the coast at full sail.”
“Four or five?!” Adam blinks, surprised, “You dragged out there for five hours all by yourself?”
“I told you I’m stronger than I look,” Cody answers with a dismissive smile, “Besides, the water makes bodies lighter. It wasn’t hard at all. I apologize if we got so far from your home, but I had to get you out of the storm, or you would’ve drowned.”
“No… it’s okay,” Adam smiles sweetly, a glint of amusement making him itch underneath his skin when he sees Cody blush a little in response. He stands up, walking towards the entrance of the cave. He has to lean in a little to look outside, because the opening in the rock wall is smaller than he is. He can see land from there, though it’s nothing but the vague outline of a promontory, evanescent as if wrapped up in a blanket of fog. He supposes Cody’s calculations are right, it must be at least four of five hours of smooth sailing from here – if the weather allows that. “Alright… I need my boat.”
“That’s impossible,” Cody answers in a surprised voice. When Adam turns around to look at him, he finds him lying on his back, with his tail swinging lazily back and forth in the little pool of water, as if he needed that to keep himself hydrated, “Your boat was destroyed.”
“Well, I need a boat anyway, if I am to go back home,” Adam answers, frowning. “Are there boats here?”
“This is nothing but a rock in the middle of the sea, Adam,” Cody answers in a short chuckle, stretching up like a big cat. With a fish tail. “The cave goes deep down to the bottom of the sea, if you follow the water stream, but there are no boats here, it’s not an island. It’s just the tip of a submerged mountain peeking out of the surface.”
“Cody, listen to me,” he walks towards him, kneeling by his side. The boy props himself up on his elbows, batting his eyelashes at him, his sudden proximity making him blush again. Adam holds his hands firmly, looking straight into his eyes. “My mother will be terrified. She already lost a husband, she can’t lose me too. I need help. I have to build a new boat. Is there anything you can do for me?”
Embarrassed, Cody looks away, blushing. He seems to be fishing for something to answer, for a while, but then he finally turns back towards him, holding his gaze as he speaks. “Maybe… I could find you some wooden planks here and there. Every now and then the currents make me find the most disparate things. Boards, cord, sails… I could gather whatever I found and bring it to you here, but… it might take time, and…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Adam shakes his head, looking intently at him, “I’ll wait as long as it’s necessary. What matters is that I manage to make it home.”
“But what if the materials I bring here aren’t good enough?” Cody replies, fretting a bit, “What if something’s wrong with the new boat and it can’t sail? What if there’s another storm and it sinks?”
“Then— why don’t you make the trip back with me?” Adam insists, knowing he can convince him if he just pushes more, “I’ll sail, and you’ll swim by my side. Once I’m close enough to the coast to be safe for sure, you’ll be free to go, and if something happens while I’m still too far away from shore, then you’ll be there to help me. Besides,” he adds with a shy smile, “You’re nice and cute. I’d love the company.”
Cody blushes vividly again, and something changes in his attitude. He seemed pretty confident and sure of himself, before, but now Adam sees him free himself from his hold and hasten to disappear down the water pool, leaving only a few spurts behind. Surprised by this sudden change and half-scared that he won’t come out again, Adam gets closer to the ring of bright water, calling his name a couple times, and it doesn’t take Cody much time to come out again. Just with the upper half of his head, though, so that, for a moment, Adam can only see his eyes, half of his tiny childish nose and the blush of his cheeks.
He says something underwater, and all that comes out of it are bubbles.
“I can’t understand you,” Adam chuckles, sitting next to the pool, “Come out there, come on.”
Cody blushes even more, but in the end he complies. “I’ll help you,” he mutters embarrassedly, “But it might take days for me to gather all you need, and you need to eat.”
“And to drink, actually,” Adam smiles, nodding, “I’m way more thirsty than I’m hungry, to be honest.”
“Oh, but that’s easy!” Cody says, smiling brightly, “There’s water everywhere, here! Look around!”
“No, I can’t drink this water,” Adam laughs, shaking his head, “It’s the first thing you learn when you’re a fisherman’s son. No matter how thirsty you are, you can’t drink from the sea. It’ll only make you sick.”
“For real?” Cody opens his eyes wide, looking at him with a puzzled expression, “Drinking sea water is literally what we do all day.”
“It makes sense,” Adam nods, “You’re sea creatures, your body must be built for that. We’re land creatures, we need freshwater to survive. Will you be able to find me some?”
“…honestly, I don’t know,” Cody looks down, his eyes looking a little lost and discouraged for a moment. Then he looks up again, his eyes now filled with new determination. “But I’ll try!” he promises confidently.
Watching him disappear underwater as quickly as he can, Adam chuckles, amused, thinking that’ll have to be enough, for now.