Serendipity Market Read online

  “‘You’ve got to know more than I do about this kind of stuff.’

  “‘Why?’

  “‘Because I don’t know anything. Should it be stitched, or can we just bandage it?’

  “I shook my head. Then I put very gentle pressure on the skin on either side of the cut. He didn’t say anything, didn’t even moan, but his eyes snapped shut and sweat broke out on his upper lip. I yanked my hands back nervously and said, ‘If we want him to be able to get home, I think it’ll need stitches. The pull of the water alone would just wreck any kind of bandage that I can think of.’

  “‘And if he decides to stay here?’

  “Her question was casual enough, but she wouldn’t look at me fully. I sat in the sand with my mouth open for a bit too long. I finally said, ‘Clarisse, how could he stay here? Why would he stay here?’

  “‘I do not think that would be possible,’ he said over my questions. ‘We die if we stay here. We need the sea.’ His eyes were looking directly at Clarisse. He wasn’t even making an attempt to make it look like I was included. I could hardly believe what was happening right there in front of me. Clarisse, the one who hadn’t even looked at the opposite sex since a nasty breakup over two years ago, was now sitting right here, on the beach, locking eyes with an alien species.

  “‘Hey.’ I tried to break the invisible string that was holding their eyes together. It didn’t really work. I sighed. ‘It still needs stitches. This is deep and it’s still…bleeding.’ I watched the blue liquid seeping down his chest, wondering if I’d used the right word.

  “‘Yes,’ he whispered, as if I’d asked him directly.

  “I nodded. ‘Stitches,’ I repeated firmly.

  “The string finally broke. Clarisse looked at me and said, ‘Where? There’s not a hospital anywhere that’d take him. You know that. Not any doctor I can think of, either, who’d be willing to take that kind of a risk.’

  “‘No Mer pay-as-you-go plans?’ I said, trying to lighten things up. Clarisse looked like she wanted to smack me.

  “‘Look,’ I said hurriedly. ‘We might be able to fix it ourselves. Your place is closer. If we could get him there…’

  “She was already on her feet. ‘I’ll get the Beast. You wait.’

  “She’d turned away, running, before I could answer her. After the sound of her feet slapping the sand had died away, I tried not to think about what would happen if I were found alone at dusk with a Mer anywhere close to life. The words ‘criminal offense’ kept running through my mind. We looked at each other for what seemed like a long time. His skin was drying, turning dull. His eyes seemed less blue than they had before, but that may only have been because it was getting darker. Finally, to hear the sound of something other than the incessant pull of the sea, I said, ‘What’s your name?’

  “My speech seemed to give him more trouble than Clarisse’s. I could almost see him puzzling out the words. Finally he said, ‘Vachel. I am called Vachel. And you?’

  “‘Renata.’ He was very polite to even pretend to care. ‘She’s Clarisse,’ I added, pointing to where Clarisse had disappeared.

  “He nodded, then asked quietly, ‘I will make trouble for you?’

  “Watching him steadily, I said, ‘Only if we get caught. And only if you’re still alive when we do.’

  “He nodded again, as though I’d confirmed everything he’d ever heard about us, and I realized at that moment that his sources were more accurate than mine. I’d never really believed that the Mer had only the basest intelligence, that they didn’t object to the ‘fun’ of being ridden, that they tangled themselves in the nets on purpose to meet their ‘gods.’ I’d never really believed it, but when you’ve heard the tales since you were a kid, sometimes it’s hard not to believe.

  “‘Vachel,’ I said loudly, using his name to make him hear, to make sure he was still awake and aware. Dusk was giving way to true night, but even taking the darkness into account, his eyes looked too cloudy, and his breathing was off-kilter in a way that scared me. Where the hell was Clarisse? I had to keep him alert, conscious. ‘How do you know our language? Is that your…people’s language, too?’ Was ‘people’ right?

  “He flicked his eyelids as if trying to clear his vision. His voice was soft, and I had to lean closer to hear. ‘Many years ago, one of your kind fell in love with a Mer. He was willing to give up his life on land to be with her. There is a way this can be done, though it can never be undone. He lived with her under the sea. The language he brought with him was handed down through generations. It mingled with our own, which is more sounds than words, and became a kind of second language for us.’

  “‘That sounds like a fairy tale.’

  “He shifted restlessly on the sand. ‘A what?’

  “I would have tried to explain, but the lights of Clarisse’s vintage SUV flashed across the sand. The thing weighed a ton, had a perpetual air of neglect, smelled of something too long near the water that never quite dried out. It always seemed on the verge of stalling, and she had to pop the clutch every time she downshifted to keep it running. I was overjoyed to see it.

  “Getting Vachel into the Beast was very nasty and extremely difficult. He helped as much as he could, but even with those shoulder muscles pushing him up, there was a large amount of dragging and yanking and pulling. I know we hurt him. By the time we were done, Clarisse and I were sweating in the cool night air, and covered with sand and salt. But Vachel lay curled in the back of the Beast. His fins were covered with an old blanket splattered with mildew stains and coated with bits of shell and seaweed, and he was panting, clearly exhausted. Clarisse, breath back under control, looked at him, scrambled into the front, said, ‘Renata! Get in!’ and headed back across the beach like the hounds of hell were behind her. The Beast lurched and rolled, but it kept moving, and right then, that was all I could ask.

  “During the short trip to Clarisse’s building, I told her what Vachel had said while she’d been gone. The expression in her eyes when she looked at me was unfocused and distant. She didn’t say anything, just stopped with a sharp jerk in an illegal space near the door closest to the entrance.

  “Now all we had to do was get him through the door, across the hall, up in the hand-operated elevator, and across another hall to her rooms. We looked at each other hopelessly. Vachel’s breath sounded harsh in the seat behind us.

  “Then Clarisse sat up straight. I could see her clearly in the iridescent moonlight. Through some trick of the atmosphere, the source of that light looked like it held the face of a woman with long, thick hair. Clarisse’s eyes were bright, as if she were going to cry. ‘I’m asking Michael. He could carry him.’

  “I snatched at her wrist, horrified at the suggestion. ‘You can’t! I know he’s always seemed like a decent guy, but you can’t tell how he feels about them.’

  “She started to speak, and I cut across her words. ‘No one ever talks about that. Don’t even try to tell me you did, because I won’t believe you.’

  “‘Fine,’ she said, her voice quavering. ‘We never talked about Mer. But we have talked about other things. And I think he’ll be okay.’ The tears were running freely down her cheeks now. ‘If I don’t, he’ll die. Renata…’

  “I dropped my forehead down into my hands. ‘I know. Damn it.’

  “Michael lived next door to Clarisse. He was as tall as Vachel was long. He swam and surfed (although I never, not even once, suspected him of being a Mer rider) and had a body that matched—strong arms and a broad chest. Now that I thought about it, he had a Mer’s body, without the fins.

  “Clarisse was back in less time than I expected, Michael a looming dark shape behind her. The strange moonlight seemed to be trying to hide us, and everyone looked like shadows on shadows, etched with tarnished silver.

  “Michael didn’t say a word. He just nodded at me and opened the door of the Beast. In the low light I could see Vachel open his eyes. Even in the dimness, the panicky look on his face made me want to we
ep.

  “Michael, after sizing up the situation, said only, ‘Renata, get on the other side and slide him out while we pull.’ He looked at the Mer. ‘Vachel, right?’ Vachel nodded warily. Michael said, ‘Michael Townsend. It’s going to hurt, I think.’

  “‘Yes,’ Vachel whispered. His adrenaline, or whatever Mer have, must have been pumping like crazy. The sea smell of him was very strong.

  “‘Okay, Renata,’ Michael said. ‘Push him toward us.’

  “My adrenaline was pumping, too. I wondered briefly what I smelled like to the Mer. Then I began the horrible job of pushing his gritty shoulders across the seat. Vachel screamed only once, low in his throat, and bit the sound back almost immediately.

  “Michael and Clarisse were having a terrible time finding something solid to latch onto near his fins. Vachel’s body twisted and almost slipped as he tried to help. This time I was the one who cried out. Finally Michael was holding the long body in his arms, breathing heavily. Clarisse was standing close to Vachel’s head, speaking softly and, from what I could hear, saying nothing that made any sense at all.

  “Michael’s arms were shaking by the time we made it to Clarisse’s door. He missed stepping on the lucky crab drawn on the hall floor, skidding his foot onto the doorsill instead. A sure sign of bad times to come. I saw him realize what he’d done and turn slightly pale, but he didn’t try to go back, only kept walking, heading for the couch. Clarisse insisted he keep going, though—into the bathroom. She started running water over Vachel as soon as he was propped in her tiny tub. His eyes were screwed shut and the gash on his chest looked worse, but color started to come back into his skin once he was wet. When the tub was half full, Clarisse left, then came back with a round pink box of salt. She dumped the whole thing in the water. Vachel managed a weak smile.

  “I was more thankful than I could possibly say when I found out that Michael had taken a first-aid class. He’d even once put emergency stitches in a friend’s arm. ‘Reginald,’ he said as he threaded his needle, ‘surfed right into the rocks that edge those thick waves at Strather’s Beach.’ I shuddered. I knew those rocks. They were by a sea so violent that no one ever dared try to surf a Mer there. Michael saw my reaction and grinned. ‘Reginald always was an idiot.’

  “Then he turned his attention to Vachel, and I boiled things and found peroxide. Once Michael had everything he needed, I didn’t even pretend to watch. Instead, I sat on the broken-tiled floor of the bathroom, making pictures out of the cracks in the wall above the shower nozzle until Michael was finished.

  “When I couldn’t find any more pictures in the cracks, I watched Clarisse, on her knees, squeezing Vachel’s hand. I was hurting more for her than for him, for reasons I didn’t want to name. Vachel made it through two full stitches before he passed out. Even then, she didn’t stop talking to him. I don’t know what she said. She barely knew him, and yet I was sure that I was watching the most intimate thing I’d ever seen in my life.

  “Once Michael had finished his medical treatment, we didn’t know what to do with him, or for him. But Mer must have some astounding powers of recovery. Within two days Vachel was up and moving, or moving as much as a Mer can on land. I stayed at Clarisse’s, willing to do anything I could to help. Whenever we needed a bathroom, we went over to Michael’s. He finally just left his front door unlocked, day and night.

  “We all took care of Vachel, but it was Clarisse Vachel wanted to see, no matter how polite he was to all of us. And vice versa.

  “I told Michael the story of the man living under the sea one afternoon when the sun came through the dusty windows in golden bars and warmed the faded rug in Clarisse’s living room. ‘But it’s got to be a fairy tale, right?’ I looked toward the bathroom. ‘She wouldn’t go with him—she couldn’t. Could she?’

  “I wanted him to say no. Unequivocally no. Instead, he gazed past me and said, ‘Water’s a wonderful and amazing thing. It carries your mind and it carries your body. It can caress you and it can kill you. One’s as easy as the other.’

  “I glanced up, confused. He stood in the newly-churned-butter light in front of the couch, looking down at me. ‘I guess what I’m saying is I don’t know. Renata, I just—don’t know.’

  “I remembered Michael’s foot missing the lucky crab. I think I’d been waiting for the bad times ever since we’d brought Vachel home. It looked like they were on the way. I watched Michael in that yellow light, and I started to cry.

  “I guess fairy tales can come true after all. Vachel and Clarisse slipped into the sea when the moon was the egg shape it gets just before it turns full. The same face I’d seen the night we found Vachel was back. This time, the woman was smiling, and the light coming down was the color of new pearls.

  “Gossamer webs of moonlight swept over the waves. Michael and I stood in the sand, and I swear, just before Clarisse disappeared, I saw her legs mold into a fin. But who knows? That strange moonlight might have played tricks on my eyes.”

  “I’ve moved into Clarisse’s rooms. They’re so much nicer than mine. Michael comes over a lot. Noodles with hot green sauce; beer; and word games. Tomato flatbread, rice wine, and dice. We’re building our own story, just like I imagine Clarisse and Vachel are doing. Ours is, of course, land-bound. But then, everyone’s story is different.

  “We spend a lot of our nights on the beach. I get excited every time bottles or fishing balls wash up onto the sand. I grab them and hold them up to the moon, looking for the note I expect to find inside. Someday I’ll get a message from Clarisse.”

  Renata unfolds herself from the cushion. Her audience is murmuring, this time in approval. She leaves the teller’s area, feeling parched from talking for so long, and comes face-to-face with Roberto, who offers her a cup of lemon tea. Renata takes the tea and smiles.

  Mama Inez smiles, too. She says, “Nicely told.” Renata thanks her, her eyes held by the flashes of the moon mirrors on Mama Inez’s scarf.

  Renata knows that moon. She starts to speak, but before she can, Mama Inez says, “You live near a beautiful sea.”

  Renata says, “I thought you might have seen it.” She gives Mama Inez one more shell, a gold one flecked with blue. “Now you can hear it, too,” she says.

  Pleased with the mood of the night, her shell cupped in her hand, Mama Inez turns around, and John is right there.

  “I am the next victim, right?” he asks. There’s a snap in his eyes, enough to let her know this is a joke.

  “You are,” she answers, a laugh rumbling in her voice.

  John reaches into his pocket, takes out a gold coin that matches his talisman, spins it with a practiced hand, and then, with a twist of his wrist, twirls it. The coin flips through the air, flashing colors of pink and yellow. Mama Inez sets her shell on the ground and holds out her hand. As if it’s a homing pigeon, the coin lands in the exact center of her palm. Like returning to like.

  “I thought I recognized you,” John says, and he walks out to his waiting audience. Mama Inez nods. She remembers just how it felt to be a coin tossed from the cloud shape Toby had become. She can feel the flat spin, can see the sun flashing red and gold, and can remember exactly how it felt to land smack in the center of John’s palm, with the warmth of his hand curled around wavy edges. “Magic on top of magic,” she says.

  Once in front of the crowd, John tries to adjust his thinking. Giving something away is hard for him. It goes against his merchant sensibility. Giving something personal away is even harder. He looks at the waiting crowd. They appear to be ready for a good story. He sees Franz and Roberto sitting together, discussing their rings sotto voce. They glance his way, then set aside a tapered piece made of silver and gold. Mama Inez stands by the entrance to the teller’s area, John’s coin flashing in her hand. Toby sits on his haunches, expectant. Everything John sees lets him know just how much they want what he has to give. He breathes three times, nods to Toby as he would to a prince, and begins to spin his story into the web of the evening.


  Beanstalks in Enlay

  “WHEN JACK, THE LAZIEST fellow around, first tried to sell me the beans and told me to plant them, my assumption was that he was trying to get out of work. Again. You see, I knew Jack, and I knew that even the little amount of work it would take to dig three small holes, drop in the three warm, shiny beans, cover them up, and give them a little water now and again was three times as much work as that boy was likely to do. Getting a few coins for them would be so much simpler.

  “And when he whispered ‘Magic beans’ to me, I laughed right in his face. ‘Magic beans’ my ass. Of course, I was more cynical then than I am now.

  “I’ve always been a traveling merchant. I followed in my father’s footsteps. But I differed from him, too. My father could never stay in one place for longer than one or two days. When I was only a boy, my mother despaired of ever taming him and took me, and herself, to Enlay to set up what she called ‘a real life.’

  “I tried to take the best of both of them. I traveled, but I always came home. Which is why I knew all about Jack.

  “‘You could sell these beans yourself, John, after they grow,’ he said to me, but he must have seen the doubt in my eyes, because he kept talking. ‘You don’t believe me, and why should you? I know what the people in Enlay think of me. And I know it’s not much.’

  “He stopped, as if waiting for me to contradict him, but I just kept rolling my cigarette, there in the sun. I was hoping he’d just go away.

  “‘You could sell them,’ Jack repeated, ‘for more than you could dream. Magic, John. Things you can’t even imagine.’ He picked up the beans from where I’d put them, on the shady side of my bench. He held them out to me, shook them in his palm. Colors flashed off their smooth black skins, flashed off and pulled at the eye. It was as if the greens and reds, the blues and violets—oh, the shades of violet, from a pale, newborn tint to a purple the color of the best red wines—were growing inside the beans and being born in the sunlight.