Lewis

“You got him, right?” I inquire of my assistant, a young intern named Jessica. She nods and tightens her grip. One arm is holding down the head of a large, male harbor seal, the hand keeping a firm grip on his upper jaw, the other hand holding his lower, to keep his mouth propped open. I have my arm, almost up to the shoulder, down his throat as I search for whatever is choking him. I once again find myself thankful at a seal’s lack of a gag reflex, meaning I won’t be barfed on anytime soon.

Finally, my hand closes around the culprit, and I slowly drag it up and out of the seal’s mouth. Covered in saliva, is a crushed soda can, the red and silver paint shiny and chipped. I dump the can into a waste bin and shake my head. This is one of the many problems with leaving trash on the beaches. Many animals like gulls, seals, and turtles, mistake trash for food and then we have the problem of them choking or getting sick like this poor seal.

I check the seal’s breathing to ensure there isn’t more blockage, but he seems much better now. “Alright, Jessica, you can let him go now. We’ll keep him for the rest of the day just to be sure. I’m going to get cleaned up a bit and then write up the rescue report. Get him to a tank and get him some fish, all right? That should make him happy,” I state. I don’t wait for her response as I leave my office and head for the bathrooms.

After getting cleaned up and changing my shirt, I return to my, now empty office to write the report. As I fall into my office chair, my eyes wander the room absently. Not much in it other than my observation table, desk, supply cupboards, the quarantine tank in the corner, and a few scattered marine medical posters. The only real personalization are the two photo frames on my desk. One contains a photo of Sophie and Katie; I’d taken it the day Katie had gotten her dive certification. Sophie had suited up and taken her on a little dive through the shark tank to celebrate. I’d surprised them with the camera when they got out. Sophie was mockingly furious, she’d gotten her hair knotted around the outside of her regulator hose and was struggling with it, a goofy look on her face, when I’d taken the picture and refused to delete it. Katie had laughed and teased Sophie over it for a few minutes.

The other photo is a group picture from high school. Michael and I were best friends back then. In the photo, Sophie is giving Michael a playful shove, her attempt to rescue me from his headlock. Michael’s sister, Andy, was there too, with her arms wrapped around his neck, grin a mile long as she laughed in his ear. My gaze lingers on Sophie’s happy face. High school was rough for her; it was when her life took a horrid plunge, so it’s nice to have a moment captured where she was truly happy and carefree. I never told her about the crush I had on her, still have on her, by the time I’d worked up the courage, those tragic events stood in the way. At the time, she’d needed a friend, not a lovesick schoolboy hoping for a chance. She’d never shown any interest after that. She’d dated a few times, but never anything serious, not after that stupid accident.

Her parents had taken her to Turkey for a week as part of a month long culture vacation. It was the last stop after Greece, Italy, and Rome. Sophie had been ecstatic about the trip prior to leaving, since it was her first time on a plane. She’d promised us pictures and email updates whenever possible. She’d stayed true to that, sending an email at each of the previous three location. But we heard nothing of Turkey. Three days after she was due to return and we still hadn’t heard from her, she didn’t come to school. Afterwards, we found out that there had been a bad earthquake in the area where they were staying. People were being shipped out of the country for medical attention, and one of my best friends was one of those people. She’d spent almost three weeks recovering in the hospital, devastated at the fact that her parents wouldn’t come home. At the time of the quake, they’d all been their room at the hotel, a bungalow style cabin near the pools. It had collapsed on top of them and killed Steve and Maria, and left Sophie pinned under the rubble, a wooden shaft puncturing through her abdomen. She has a nasty scar from it, but that accident had damaged her internally. I don’t know all the details, but something was severed or damaged beyond repair and she was told that she would never be able to conceive a child. Sophie had dropped her child development course the first day back to school. Our friendship had grown stronger, but she’d expressed to people that she wasn’t interested in a long term relationship; she believed that it would end badly since she couldn’t bring a child into the picture and adoption is a long process. At the time I had been caught both between the need to comfort her and the uncertainty of whether or not I could be okay with not being a father down the line; because I didn’t want a short term relationship as that may break apart our friendship too, that I never pushed her or expressed my feelings. Something I truly regret now. I’ve been thinking more about it now too, since she lost Katie, it makes me wonder if I should try to be someone significant in her life so she doesn’t feel so alone, yet I hesitate and wonder whether or not it’s too soon to approach her. Again I find myself more willing to play the friend card than I am to work up the courage to talk to her.

I drum my fingers on the desk as I finish off my report. Life has a way of slipping past you.

I jump out of my daze when the phone rings. I frown, not expecting a call, since rescues are called in to the center and I’ve no external patients. Still, I pick up the receiver and bring it to my ear. “Hello?”

“Lewis,” Olivia’s voice echoes slightly through the phone as she speaks. “I need to talk to you. Is this a bad time?”

“No, it’s fine. Is something wrong? It can’t be later than four in the morning over there.”

A yawn sounds. “Yes, well, I needed to make sure you would be up, and in your office; you really ought to get a cell, Lewis, it would make it easier to get a hold of you.”

“I’ll think about it,” I reply. “Now what’s this about?”

“We need to talk, there’s a lot I have to tell you and you’re not going to believe a word of it right away, but I need you to bear with me alright?”

“Alright…” I trail off, feeling a little concerned and suspicious.

There’s a long moment of silence before, “Katie didn’t die.”

I feel my muscles tense, feeling cold anger flare in my heart. “Olivia if this is meant as some sort of cruel joke, I assure you it isn't funny.”

“Would I joke about something like that?” She retorts. “I told you it would be hard to swallow, but she’s alive. I can prove it to you; I'm sending you an email now, are you near your computer?”

“Yes,” I reply as I boot up the system and log onto my email. Seconds later an email from Olivia pops up.

“Just open the file and let me know when you’re watching.”

I move my mouse and click on the attached video. “It’s open.”

“Alright, you see the first image?”

“Yes, it’s some girl in a mermaid costume,” I reply, squinting at the image of a girl swimming in a purple tail.

“Not a costume,” Olivia replies. “This is real, an exhibit in Oregon that recently opened up. You can google it if you don’t believe me. The second slide is a close up of that mermaid and Katie.”

“Yes, I see it. Okay, so they have a few similarities, that doesn’t make this creature her.”

“Just watch the rendering Dustin did up. He removed the background, the hair from both girls, and the mermaid’s freckles.” I fall silent and watch, feel anger and doubt fade into shock and disbelief. “They’re identical. And before you say that it’s rare, but not unheard of for two people around the same age to look exactly alike, you should know that this exhibit opened up only two months ago, and that is more than simply a rare coincidence.”

“If this is true…” I feel anger begin to burn inside me. “What did they do to her, and why? Katie never would have agreed to this, especially not if it meant faking her death to Sophie. She would know how much that would tear Soph apart.”

“This wasn’t willing, Lewis, it can’t have been. This mermaid thing has intense backstories for both girls. But Katie is there, I'm certain of it. Which means she was likely kidnapped or blackmailed. Either way, they took her and hid her under a haircut, some dye, and tattooed freckles.”

“And the tail? It’s just a really great costume, right? Intricate, hard to get off without help, which is why she hasn’t run, right?”

“Lewis, I don’t know how, but that tail is real, Katie spends little time above water now. There are hundreds of photos and videos, some of which are ten to fifteen minutes long. She doesn’t surface once in them.”

I continue to stare at the images. “How on earth?”

“I have no idea,” Olivia admits.

I swallow, hard, and set my jaw. “So what’s the plan?”

“We’re going to get her out. You can have no involvement, they’ll look for people connected to Sophie first when we break her out. It will be a few months until things die down a bit, but the second we can, both of them will be sent to you. It’s likely that the other child is in the same boat as Katie and likely isn’t from the US. I’ll leave that task up to you for after. Lewis,” Olivia’s voice turns stern. “Don’t tell Sophie.”

“What? Why?” I demand. “She deserves to know about this.”

“I know,” Olivia takes on a solemn tone. “But Lewis, it will be hard to convince her of this and even harder to convince her to stay out of it. Months of knowing, being forced to wait… no one deserves that. Better to keep her in the dark until Katie is home safely.”

I long to argue, even though I can see the sense in her words. Finally, after a long moment, I reluctantly agree. Olivia doesn’t take up any more time, simply warning me not to phone her so that there’s less of a chance of this getting traced to us. She also advices me to clear her email from my history as well as my contacts and that she’d get in touch only if absolutely necessary. I wish her good luck and hang up the phone. I lean my cheek against a fist and sigh. Katie’s alive and will hopefully be home soon. It’s a miracle in itself even if it means that we were deceived and she’s being held against her will. I find myself hoping desperately that she’s all right where she is.

I'm startled from my thoughts when the door to my office bangs open. Sophie is standing in the doorway, her fiery red hair pulled of her face and into a messy bun. She waves a hand at me. “You need to get to the van, the rescue team is gathering there. It’s bad.”

I’m up and grabbing my to-go medical bag before she’s finished speaking. I hurry down the empty paths of the marine park. We’re closed today for tank repairs, so it feels vacant and silent, my footsteps seeming to echo against the concrete. Sophie stays hot on my heels and I cast her a questioning look. She returns it with a stern gaze.

“I want to help. That was the point of opening this place way back, and I haven’t been on a rescue team in a while, so I’m coming with you,” her statement comes across as a challenge, daring me to argue with her.

I smile and shake my head. “We’re always glad to have you, you know that. So what’s the deal with the case?”

“Definitely a beaching, but I sounds like a badly injured creature. I’m guessing a manatee.”

“Guessing?” I raise an eyebrow. Sophie always knows; she’s the first to get the report.

She nods. “Yeah guessing. It’s the closest thing I can think of that makes sense. The people that called in are reporting the stranding to be a mermaid.”