The ocean is awash in the souls of drowned sailors, or rather in their remnants—time passes, years wear on, and the souls are rent apart by the constant action of the waves, their endless back and forth over the seesaws of coral reefs and jagged cliffs. The souls become small fragments of memories and preferences, of vague longings and dreams one could not forget no matter how hard one tried. These soul fragments, small as grains of sand and just as inconspicuous, permeated everything on the ocean floor. And they became accumulated and accreted in the shells of the horseshow crabs—forming a similar but spiritual structure that gave them not only consciousness but also fortitude and memory, persistence in the face of being quartered and stuffed into eel traps and bled half to death for profit.
And listen, listen, here’s the best part: even if you end up in the sea a few minutes after your death, your soul would still be liable to become a part of it. And the Atlantic coast—there are so many bodies there, there are so many people thrown overboard because they were dead or dying. Yes, yes, little girl—I mean the slave ships.
The wazimamoto are real, and they are not fools. Even if your soul is in shreds and a thousand miles away, a part of a horseshoe crab with a spiked shell and a long tail, even then they will find you, even then they will steal your blood. It is their nature, see, and it doesn’t matter to them if you’re a man or a crab—as long as you are helpless and alone and vulnerable; as long as there is blood (red or blue, doesn’t matter) for them to steal.
“So you see,” his gravelly voice tinted with hidden laughter said. “Your precious crabs are just people in different guises, and what you thought were their souls are just simple carapaces, same as their regular shells. They have no meaning or importance, they are not at all like human souls.”
“And yet, you took them.” Vimbai opened her eyes—she did not remember closing them—and stared into the man-fish’s, yellow and bright, so close to her face. She swam in the golden ocean, weightless, bathed and suspended in pure sunlight, just slightly blurred by the film of tears. “What did you do with the souls . . . shells you took?”
“I didn’t take anything,” the man-fish replied. “If you don’t believe me, come to my lair with me, I’ll show you.”
“Vimbai, don’t!” Maya’s voice reached her from the shore distorted by water as she sank, slowly and obediently, following the whipping tailfin, the serpentine twists of the mottled green and brown scaleless body. The water turned muddy around her, and soon she could see nothing but the clay-colored murk and the undulating tailfin before her.
It had occurred to her then in a lazy, sleepy way reminiscent of a sluggish dream, that she was not being wise, following the catfish like that. Perhaps she should turn back or swim for the surface, where she could breathe air instead of water slowly filling her lungs . . . that was not good and she started, as if jolted awake.
The vadzimu was not here to guide her senses and vision, she was not here to help her breathe—and the water was not the cold, singeing salt of the ocean, but tepid bland mud. How could she be so stupid, forgetting not to inhale? There was no time for it now, and Vimbai swam for the surface, already struggling against a pressing cough rising in her chest. If she coughed now she would swallow even more water, and that she could not allow—already her lungs strained under the weight of water as well as the overwhelming sense of suffocation, of absence of oxygen.
She kicked her feet and propelled herself upward, and she saw the sun through a thick layer of dung-colored water and thought herself saved, the motes of silt playing in the amber light, the surface so near now. But then there was a shadow darting over head, a large shadow—as long as Vimbai, or perhaps even longer. A shadow with two fanned fins and a blunt, flat head.
Vimbai kicked faster, almost reaching the surface, but the shadow returned now, and its flat face, momentarily close and clear, blotted out the sun and Vimbai felt a strong nudge as the fish butted its head against Vimbai’s, forcing her underwater. She tried again, pushing the fish away with her hands and feet, kicking it away, reaching for the surface, but the fish was too strong and too slippery, too old and too large. The impact of its massive head felt like a hit by a basketball, rubbery and yet heavy, disorienting.
Soon enough, Vimbai was not sure which way was up, and the silt particles in the water swarmed like myriads of tiny flies, blotting out the light and sense of direction, even the sight of the man-fish. Vimbai only wished she could breathe, and covered her face with her crossed arms.
She felt him approach again and waited for him to get close, within striking distance. As soon as his face touched hers, her hands shot out and grabbed at the sensitive whiskers, the only part of him she could hope to grasp and to hurt. She pulled and punched, aiming for the eyes, and the catfish thrashed, one of its whiskers held firmly in Vimbai’s hand, wound for security across and around her palm.
Vimbai’s fingers clawed blindly until they felt a glassy slippery fish eye underneath; then they tore. The catfish thrashed more, the paddle of its tail whipping Vimbai across her chest and face. Every second stretched and went on forever, and even their fractions dragged like funeral hearses—at least, this is how it felt to Vimbai’s flooded and exhausted lungs.
Another slap of the tail, and Vimbai closed her eyes; but even through closed eyelids the flood of sunlight was unmistakable and welcome. She gasped, sputtered, and spat out half a gallon of tepid water just as her lungs expanded, drinking in tasteless but welcome air. She thought at first that she had managed to struggle to the surface, but then she realized that her feet were planted firmly on the bottom of the lake.
Her gaze cast about, to see the man-fish, his whisker still in her left fist and his face under her right, flapping in the shallow water—the level of the lake was no higher than two feet now, and falling. Vimbai saw the Psychic Energy Baby kneeling on the lakeshore, his face in the water, his chest and back rising and falling with great measured gulps, and only then did she realize that he had saved her once again—he had drunk the water of the lake, saving Vimbai and trapping the man-fish. As if sensing her looking at him, Peb raised his face and gave Vimbai his new and terrible tongueless smile. Then he resumed his drinking.
Chapter 14
Maya helped Vimbai out of the mud in the lakebed, and sat with her on the grass by the lawn chairs, rubbing her shoulders with her large, warm palms. Her touch was comforting to Vimbai, and she struggled with an overwhelming desire to rest her head on Maya’s shoulder, to let her hold Vimbai and make her feel at peace and at home.
The Psychic Energy Baby swelled up with all the water he had swallowed—an entire lake’s worth!—and sat back on the bank, great quantities of lake water sloshing inside him, as if he were a giant distended wine-bag, half-sunken into the soft mud by the shore. The cattails and sedges nodded in the breeze, sleek and green in the subdued glow from the sky-ceiling. It seemed so peaceful here, so calm—if one were to ignore a gigantic catfish flailing and thrashing in the wet mud where barely two inches of water offered it some comfort.
“I’ll die like this!” the man-fish rasped. “I swear to you, I won’t harm you again.”
“And you’ll give back his tongue and the horseshoe crabs’ spirit shells,” Vimbai said. “Right?”
“I promise!” the man-fish pleaded. “I’ll do what I can, but I don’t have those spirit things . . . they are of no use to me.”
“The wazimamoto,” Vimbai said. “Where are they? Do they have what we want?”
“Yes,” the man-fish said. “I’ll help you, I swear. And I’ll tell you now, that bald head on one leg is also helping them. See? I am on your side.”
Vimbai nodded to Peb and he leaned forth, a thin stream of water dribbling through his slightly parted lips. He let out just enough water to let the man-fish lie on his side, gills submerged, but the other side still exposed to harsh drying air.
“Tell us more,” Vimbai said. “Tell us about the wazimamoto, and where they are.” She did not ask about their purpose—after all, it was their nature.
The man-fish remained silent for a while, greedily pumping the tepid muddy water through his gills. “All right,” he said. “I’ll tell you how to find them.”
What he told them did not surprise Vimbai—as the man-fish spoke, Vimbai realized that she had known it already, but was too embarrassed to admit that it was her part of the communal creation within the house that gave the vampires shelter. It was too painful to think that the blooming jacaranda trees, their branches heavy with purple and blue flowers, sheltered and blessed those who sought to harm Vimbai and Maya, and had already harmed Peb and the crabs.
The man-fish hemmed and hawed, but finally told them that the vampires did have a truck and all sorts of medical equipment. They asked the man-fish about things, and they promised him favors—he hinted at it obliquely but Vimbai felt a cold hand constrict her throat when she realized that the man-fish was looking forward to swallowing her and Maya’s souls, after their blood had been drained away.