Lost

Several meters below the surface, where sunlight pierces the Atlantic in columns that dissolve before reaching the seafloor, the young Sanya swims.

The swell moves gently around her. The light descending from the surface, far above her head, stretches across the sand and climbs the coral formations. Where the reef breaks, the water gradually loses its transparency and takes on a blue hue that seems infinite. Sanya remains motionless between two limestone outcrops. In front of her, a flat-bodied fish rises just above the sand, looks at her with one eye, and covers itself again with a shiver of its fins.

Sanya extends a hand. The animal disappears beneath a cloud of sediment before she can touch it. The young woman gives a sequence of short clicks. They do not seem to form a voice; they are deep pulses, almost imperceptible outside the water, spreading through her throat and the cavities on either side of her skull. At once, a similar response comes from the reef.

“Sanya.”

She recognizes Manja without needing to see her. Her older sister always ends her calls with a descending vibration that leaves little room for interpretation.

Sanya pushes away from the rock with a ripple of her body and rises toward the light.

At some distance, her other five sisters are resting on a sandbar sheltered by a natural coral wall. They are neither lying down nor sitting. They remain suspended, correcting their positions with minimal movements of their limbs and powerful caudal structures. The current carries their hair in different directions and sweeps small flakes of organic matter between them.

At first glance, their faces might remind someone of young human women. Their eyes are separated by a narrow nasal bridge, their cheekbones are defined, and their small mouths can express displeasure, amusement, or surprise. The resemblance ends as soon as the rest of their bodies comes into view. The neck continues into an elongated trunk covered in scaly skin with an irregular texture.

On either side of the thorax, beneath flexible folds that open and close with each respiratory movement, lie their gill chambers. Their arms retain recognizable joints, but their forearms are flat and their broad hands are joined by tough membranes. A translucent crest runs along their backs, folded while they rest and extended when they need greater stability.

Below the trunk, there is none of the clean division between woman and fish that some navigator might imagine while recounting a legend. The entire organism is adapted to water. The muscles of the rear region extend into a narrow, powerful structure ending in a vertical fin. When one of them accelerates, she does not beat that fin up and down: she makes her body sway from side to side, like the fish crossing the reef around them.

The differences among the six sisters are obvious to anyone who remains beside them. Manja is the most robust, with dark-blue pigmentation along her back and pale plates over her jaw. Danya has a narrow scar beside one of her gill openings. Lanya is longer and thinner; Ranya has a reddish band running across her flanks. Ganya, the youngest, can barely keep her dorsal crest extended for long.

Sanya is distinguished by the copper-colored markings on her sides, her blue-green eyes, and chestnut hair that, under certain reflections, seems to catch fire with red.

Manja, the oldest of the six sisters, waits for her with her upper limbs moving.

“You wandered off again,” Manja tells her in the sounds generated by vibrations in the water.

Sanya looks at the fish swimming behind her, as though she could still use it to explain her absence.

“I was close by,” Sanya defends herself in softer, more delicate vibrations.

“Close by is not behind the reef.”

“I didn’t go behind it.”

Manja looks toward the cloud of sand still descending from the opening through which Sanya has appeared. Sanya understands that arguing will serve no purpose. Ganya lets out something that might be interpreted as a little laugh made of sharp, tiny impulses. Ranya, meanwhile, answers her with a dry vibration telling her to be quiet, though she is amused as well.

Sanya is annoyed that they all know where she has been, what she ought to do, and even how long she is allowed to have fun. It does not annoy her enough, however, to make her want to leave without them. She likes swimming among her sisters, recognizing their voices even when none of them is in sight, feeling that there is always an answer when she calls. She simply finds it hard to endure a world that ends at the boundary the others point out to her.

Above their heads, the sea ripples against an invisible ceiling. Beyond it lies something Sanya knows only through warnings: a space without water where creatures live that she knows almost nothing about, objects that cross overhead making a sound capable of traveling great distances, and a brightness impossible to look at directly during the day.

Her older sisters have seen shadows moving across the surface. They have also found fish injured by hooks, nearly invisible lengths of line, and fragments of material that do not belong in the ocean. Manja has taught them to recognize the distant vibration of a propeller. When it is heard, they must all descend. Sanya knows these rules, though she would like to know what exists on the other side.

A long whistle then intrudes upon the reef. All six turn. A dolphin emerges from an opening between two coral formations. It moves fast enough to force a school of silver fish to split in two, then reunites with it on the other side as though it had done so only for amusement. It describes a wide circle around the sisters and releases several clicks.

Sanya answers immediately.

“No,” Manja warns.

But Sanya has already moved away. The dolphin spins around. She passes beside it, brushes its smooth skin with her palm, and moves off; the animal follows her. They change direction among the rises in the seafloor, pass through a cloud of tiny transparent fish, and return toward the group. The dolphin pulls slightly ahead, just far enough to provoke her. Sanya accelerates.

Her dorsal crest unfolds. The membranes of her hands tighten against the current. For several seconds she manages to stay almost level with the animal and feels such simple happiness that she completely forgets the reprimand.

“Sanya!” Manja calls.

The answer comes while the young woman is still turning. She promises to return at once. She says it with the confidence of someone who has no intention of measuring time. Ganya tries to follow her, but Danya cuts her off.

“Not you two,” Manja orders, watching as Sanya disappears behind the reef once again.

The day passes in games, chases, and brief rests. At times the dolphin swims away to breathe and Sanya loses sight of it. It always returns. She learns to recognize the tilt of its body before a turn, the way it changes course upon finding a school of fish, and the sounds with which it seems to announce a new race.

When the sun begins to descend, the water changes. The rays arrive at increasingly oblique angles, the coral colors fade, and a colder current rises from the outer slope of the reef. Sanya pays no attention until she realizes she can no longer see the sandbar where her sisters were. She stops. She looks to one side, then the other.

She recognizes a perforated stone on the seafloor, but does not remember passing it. She vibrates the water with sounds and calls for Manja. She waits for the answer with her crest raised and her hands still. Nothing. She calls again. The dolphin approaches and gently nudges her with its snout. Sanya dismisses her worry. She is still close; the sound has simply been lost among the rocks.

After one last race, she will return by the same route. The animal seems willing to grant her that wish. It moves toward open water, turns, and comes back with a determined surge. Sanya swims beside it. For an instant she rests her fingers on its back, behind the dorsal fin, without holding on. They both rise. The movement is much faster than she expects.

The pressure of the water decreases, the last strips of coral fall behind, and a white brightness appears above their heads. The dolphin reaches the surface and leaps. Sanya lets go at the last moment. The water stops supporting her. For one complete heartbeat, her body continues moving through the air without understanding what has changed. Her gill chambers close by reflex. A cold sensation runs across her wet skin.

Her hair, previously spread by the current, falls against her back. And then she sees it: an immense sphere hangs suspended in the darkness. It has none of the sun’s searing radiance, nor does it seem intent on penetrating the water. It is white, a whiteness Sanya has never seen on the sandbars or the palest parts of the coral. Around it are countless tiny points of light, and below it an uneven surface covered in silver reflections.

Beyond it, a short distance away, she discovers a coast. She has no time to understand it: a strip of pale sand, low rocks, vegetation moving without being submerged. The entire landscape takes only a few seconds to vanish; she falls back into the ocean. She dives, the impact tearing a cloud of bubbles from her. She straightens her body, reopens her gills, and descends several meters. The dolphin appears beside her and gives a short whistle.

Sanya does not answer; she is still distracted, still looking upward. She has spent her life surrounded by water. Until that moment she believed she knew its beauty, its sounds, the lights that changed with depth, and the creatures that hid in its dark zones. But now there is something she cannot name, something that has always been there while she swam, slept, or amused herself by searching for fish among the rocks.

The dolphin rises again. This time Sanya follows without touching it. She breaks the surface under her own power, lifts her head, and remains floating. A breathing opening behind her mouth lets out the air she has been holding; she immediately takes a short breath. It is uncomfortable, unlike the constant flow through her gills, and it hurts a little, but she manages it.

The moon is reflected on the water in a trembling band that seems to lead to the beach. Sanya turns her face and finds the coast where, only moments earlier, she had seen patches of color: white sand, clusters of dark rocks, bushes bent by the wind. She hears the regular crash of the waves and, far away, a sound she cannot identify.

The dolphin breathes beside her, waiting to continue playing, releases a cloud of vapor, and disappears beneath the surface. Sanya remains there a little longer. She remembers Manja’s warnings and also realizes that it is already dark and Ganya is surely asking where she is. She dives decisively. She will have to orient herself by the edge of the reef and return before her sisters go looking for her.

She descends until the moon becomes a confused glow. Water wraps around her body again and her breathing regains its rhythm. For a few moments everything seems familiar. Then she senses a jolt near the seafloor. A sea turtle moves between two clusters of coral, or at least tries to. Its front flippers stir the sand without managing to move its body. Its neck is stretched out, its head turned to one side, and one rear flipper is tangled in something Sanya cannot make out.

She approaches carefully. The turtle tries to flee when it notices her. The effort drives its flipper even deeper into a tangle of taut, very fine filaments. Sanya recognizes one of the strange materials Manja has shown them before: a lifeless fiber, too regular to have grown on the seafloor, capable of cutting skin when pulled tight.

She slips two fingers between the loops of the mesh and tries to pull them apart. The turtle thrashes; Sanya withdraws her hands so she will not hurt it. She tries again, this time gripping the edge of one of the openings. The net moves. Sanya follows the weave with her eyes. It does not end at the turtle. It extends into a dark area, circles a rocky outcrop, and rises into an almost invisible wall.

At several points, fish are trapped by their gills. Some are still thrashing; others hang motionless. A small shark struggles with its tail tangled, opening and closing its mouth. Farther on, a ray shudders, so exhausted that it can barely lift one of its wings. The young woman draws back when she sees all this. She has never seen so many animals held in one place.

The turtle moves one of its flippers again. Sanya looks toward it and decides to stay. She returns to the shell, checks where the tightest filament passes, and brings it toward her jaw. Her thin, triangular front teeth manage to score the fiber but not cut all the way through. She bites down again. The artificial texture resists; an acrid taste irritates her tongue. From above the rocks comes a dull vibration.

At first she thinks it is the dolphin. Then she distinguishes a lower, repetitive frequency accompanied by small metallic knocks. It travels through the mesh she is holding. The net tightens. The turtle thrashes violently. Sanya loses the point where she was biting, and a loop of mesh slips around her forearm. She tries to pull it free, but the movement tightens the knot.

Another jolt comes from above. The entire wall begins to rise. Sanya drives her body downward with all her strength. The mesh holds her arm and pulls her in the opposite direction. With her free hand she tries to loosen the fiber, but a second fold closes around her caudal region. For the first time, she feels fear.

She calls for Manja with all the intensity she can produce. The signal strikes the rock, scatters among the trapped fish, and vanishes into open water. No answer comes. Sanya turns over. The crest along her back catches on another section of net. The current grows stronger, or perhaps the entire mesh is shifting. The animals strike one another and collide with her.

A fish passes through the mesh in front of her face and is crushed against the turtle’s shell. Sanya calls for her sisters again. The vibration of the mechanism pulling the net grows stronger. She can now distinguish a deep rumble rising from the surface, interrupted by creaks and dry blows. She tries to free her arm first. She spreads the membranes of her hand for leverage, but discovers that their very width keeps her limb from passing through the opening.

She contracts, folds her fingers, and twists the joint until a sharp pain makes her cry out. The fiber gives a few centimeters, but not enough. The brightness above her increases. Sanya realizes she is rising far too quickly. She contracts her gill chambers, turns her head, and searches for one last way out among the animals. Then she sees it: an opening beside the lower edge of the net, large enough to pass through if she could free her tail.

She pushes with all her strength. The filament cuts into her skin. A dark stain peels away from the copper plates on her flank and disperses in the water. The turtle, dragged along with her, beats its front flippers as if it too has seen that way out. The opening is one movement away. Then the net leaves the sea.

Gravity catches her by surprise. She can no longer keep her body suspended or balance with her tail, yet she continues beating it with all her strength. She falls against the other trapped animals and the turtle’s shell strikes her ribs. Cold air enters in ragged pulls through the opening behind her mouth, while the gill folds contract beneath the weight of her own body.

An engine rumbles nearby. Sanya raises her head. She is hanging over a boat. The deck moves beneath her, and on either side an expanse of darkness is flecked with reflections. She sees thick ropes, lamps fastened to a metal frame, plastic containers, boots crossing from one side to the other. A taut cable passes through a pulley above her head. She does not understand where she is.

She recognizes only the ocean, several meters below and out of reach. She hears what she interprets as noises, but they are voices. They are broken, harsh sounds unlike her sisters’ calls or the dolphin’s whistles. Some overlap; others rise sharply in intensity. Among them she hears laughter. The net descends and slams hard against the deck.

Sanya falls onto her side. A large fish twists beside her face, dying; another strikes her neck before becoming still. The smell overwhelms her at once: fuel, wet wood, blood, entrails, sweat, salty air that she cannot easily draw through her respiratory passages. She raises her head. There are at least six men around her. They wear clothes, boots, and heavy gloves; one holds a flashlight. Another is holding a metal tool with a curved end.

They remain motionless for several seconds, looking at her as though they cannot decide what kind of animal they have before them. Sanya watches them too. Their faces share something with hers, though their jaws are less mobile and their eyes seem small beneath those lights. They have two separate legs, without membranes, and skin that shows neither plates nor gill chambers. Sanya draws her arms against her body when one of them raises the curved tool.

One of the men approaches. Sanya opens her mouth and gives a short call. The sound comes out distorted because there is not enough water around her to carry it as it normally would. One man stops.

“Did you hear that?”

“What the hell is it?” another asks.

The man with the flashlight crouches. Sanya backs away until a rope prevents her from going any farther. The light hits her eyes full on, forcing her to close the transparent membranes protecting them.

“It looks like a person,” the man says.

“How could that thing be a person?”

A gloved hand tries to grab her by the jaw. Sanya turns sharply and bares her pointed teeth. The fear is so great that she barely notices the pain pulsing from the cut the net made in her trapped arm. The man pulls his hand back with a shout. He stands so quickly that he trips over a fish and lands sitting down. The others retreat. For a moment, no one laughs.

“Hold her!”

Sanya uses the opening to crawl toward the edge of the deck. Out of the water, the muscles that propel her so effectively can barely move her. Her caudal structure strikes the wood with a dry thud. She pushes with her forearms, braces her jaw against a wet plank, and moves far enough to see the ocean between two stretches of railing. It is right there, within sight.

A blow hits her side. The pain cuts off her breath. Someone has used a pole to stop her. Another man throws himself on top of her and tries to pin her arms. Sanya twists and fights as best she can. Her dorsal crest opens, and the man pulls his hands away when one of its rigid edges tears his glove.

“Don’t touch her like that!” a voice shouts from the cabin.

The man who appears to be in charge comes down a few steps and surveys the disorder: the catch scattered across the deck, the net still hanging, the fallen sailor, and the creature that is trying to reach the edge of the boat again.

“Move the fish aside. And bring a tarp.”

Sanya does not understand the words, but she recognizes the coordination of their movements. Two men surround her. Another stands in front of her, blocking the way to the water. The turtle remains beside the net, still moving one of its front flippers slowly. It is bleeding. Sanya spots it between the boots and sends a sharp sound toward it. One of the fishermen turns.

“We need to get that thing out too.”

The man with the hook pulls at the turtle to free it. Since it is still held by the mesh, he takes a knife from a toolbox. Sanya tries to rise. She sees the flash of steel, hears one blow against the shell and then another, wetter one. The turtle’s flipper is severed from its body. The animal writhes in pain one last time, in silence. Sanya releases a sound so intense that everyone stops.

For a moment it seems that the engine has gone silent too. But it is still running; it is the men’s silence that makes the boat’s noise unbearable. The fisherman with the knife looks at the turtle, then at Sanya.

“Get her below! Now!”

They throw a dark-colored tarp over her. The wet fabric covers her head, presses down on the crest along her back, and lets through only a faint yellow glow. Sanya thrashes and beats her tail, managing to shift it a few centimeters, but hands seize her forearms and wrap a rope around them, pinning them against the front of her trunk. Another loop partially immobilizes her caudal region.

She tries to bite anything she can reach. The men pull their hands away and lift the tarp by its edges, using it to carry her without coming near her mouth. The world rocks. Beneath her there is wood, then air, then several steps against which her body strikes as they carry her down. A door opens. They drag her into a place where the smell of fuel mixes with rotting fish. Something heavy falls beside her tail.

The tarp disappears. Sanya finds herself in a narrow compartment, with no windows at her height. There are stacked crates, coiled nets, and containers secured to the walls. A bare bulb swings above her head. The floor is wet, but not wet enough. The skin along her flanks begins to pull with every breath, and the gill folds, deprived of the flow of water, close against one another.

Her air-breathing mechanism continues to function, though it demands slow, painful movements of the thorax. A man remains in the doorway. His glove is torn and there is a small line of blood beside his wrist. He looks at her for a moment, presses his lips together, and closes the door. The light is reduced to a line beneath it. Sanya crawls toward it. She pushes with her shoulder, but the thick wood does not give.

She strikes with the thickest part of her tail and receives a pain that travels up her spine. She tries again. From the other side she hears footsteps and voices. Then a metallic blow: something slides into a piece of iron and locks into place. She calls for Manja again, as loudly as she can. The vibration barely reaches the boards beneath her body. She repeats the call, longer this time, and feels the sound die inside the compartment without finding water through which to travel.

She calls for Danya, Lanya, and Ranya. At last she gives the brief signal she uses to find Ganya when they play hide-and-seek among the rocks. Nothing. She falls still. She remembers the reef lit by sunlight, the dolphin turning beside her, and the white sphere she saw suspended in the sky. She also remembers the turtle, the movement of its flippers, the knife severing one of them. A new vibration runs through the hull and the engine changes rhythm.

The boat begins to move quickly, carrying her away from the reef. Sanya turns her head toward the door. Her eyes adjust to the dimness, but it is not like diving in the ocean depths; she can make out the edge of a hinge, the fibers of the wood, and the rope tightening around her forearms. The arm cut by the net begins to throb more intensely. She tilts her head until she can reach the knot with her mouth.

Her teeth close around the first strand.