Lydia's Mollusk Read online

"Stop."

  "No!" She punched him. Right on the chest. On the nipple.

  Startled, he staggered back.

  Let go.

  Lydia turned. She ran for the waves.

  Plunged in.

  Chapter Nine

  The roiling water tossed Lydia around. The roaring sound was different. Deeper. More resonant.

  The water was cold, but comfortable.

  The wave settled and Lydia stroked down and out. Stretching her arms. Feeling her way.

  Closer to the bottom, farther out, there was no turbulence. The water was clearer.

  There were other sounds too. Tiny chirps of busy fish. The crackling of crabs as they chewed their way through morsels, and clacked their pincers. The hiss of water through gills.

  From far off, the deep boom of whales.

  Lydia swam along the bottom. Going deeper. Deeper.

  She gripped her nose and squeezed her lungs, as if breathing out. To equalize her ears.

  When had she been taught that? Maybe just a conversation with a diver some time? She'd never been much of a swimmer.

  The ocean floor was alive and crawling. Thousands of clams and seastars, crabs and little transparent crayfish, something that might have been a little octopus.

  Things she couldn't identify.

  So many colors and shapes. Like one of those children's paintings. Or one of the oils they'd sold in the gallery in Minneapolis—splattered paint for a half a million dollars.

  In the distance some rocks loomed. Sticking up from the sandy bottom. Probably not that far off, just fading through the gradually increasing murkiness.

  To her right there was a cluster of mollusks.

  Just like her one.

  The group of them seemed to be systematically crawling their way along.

  But her lungs were straining now.

  She hung watching for a moment. There was such a range of sizes. From football-sized, right down to thimble-sized.

  All with unique patterns in their shells. Golds and purples. Their head threads seemed even more fluid than the one she'd rescued. More at home underwater.

  They were so beautiful.

  There was her one! Leading them along.

  Lydia pulled down. Toward them.

  But she needed to breathe.

  She felt so at home here now. The holes had changed her. That was clear.

  Didn't mean she could breathe water, though.

  Her mollusk turned toward her. Staring with those little black eyes.

  Just a few yards off.

  She looked so strong. Her colors were richer. Her threads were vibrant and busy. All of them.

  And Lydia really needed to breathe.

  She kicked and stroked for the surface. It was farther than she'd thought. She'd followed the bottom, getting away from the shallows near the shore.

  Her lungs strained.

  This wasn't her home. Not quite.

  Her muscles ached. Should have taken off the dress. It was just providing drag.

  She was going to drown inches from the surface. Stupid.

  Her head broke through. She gasped. The air almost burned.

  She was long way from shore.

  Arnt's head bobbing nearby. Panic on his face.

  Lydia waved. "I'm here," she said. "I'm here."

  Chapter Ten

  Lydia's bed was warm and comfortable and she sat propped up on pillows, looking out through the window at the old tree. A gray bird with a bright red collar alighted on one of the nearest branches. The bird opened its tiny beak and trilled at her.

  The head darted at the branch and came up with a little green wriggling caterpillar. The bird tipped its head up and the hapless caterpillar vanished down the throat.

  The bird adjusted its shoulders and inclined its head.

  "It's always the way," Arnt said from the doorway, making Lydia start. "Food chains."

  "I didn't hear you come in," she said.

  "I brought you soup. Black bean. Hope you like it." He had the tureen on her breakfast tray and he brought it over, steaming and smelling delicious.

  He was in jeans and a t-shirt now, with terrible plastic flipflop things on his feet. His boots were out on her deck, airing in the last of the afternoon.

  "I don't deserve you," she said.

  "You're right. I pulled my crazed sister from the ocean, practically carried her home and now I'm doing actual home-cooking. If you'd asked me yesterday, I would have predicted none of that for today."

  She smiled.

  Arnt walked around the end of her bed and stared out the window. The bird flew off.

  "Also," Arnt said. "The doctor has some information. He got a call from his friend in Shreveport."

  "The one with the lab?" Lydia adjusted the tray on her lap and took a mouthful of soup. It really was delicious. Maybe a little too spicy, but who would have thought that it had been made by someone who didn't really cook? He could do great pancakes, and now great soup.

  "Yes," Arnt said. "Wills will explain it all when he comes over. He went home to get all the details from his own system."

  "Okay."

  Arnt kept looking out the window.

  "And?" Lydia said.

  "He'll tell you."

  "He told you something already, didn't he?"

  "Why did you go swimming?"

  "What?" Lydia looked at her arm again. Arnt had bandaged it once more. Probably so he didn't have to look at the holes.

  "You lost your mind for a moment. You were drawn out there, weren't you? Felt like you had to go."

  "Drawn." Lydia took a mouthful of the soup. "Yes. Yes I was."

  That's how she'd found the mollusks. A whole ocean to search, but when you're drawn, you find things.

  "He said there's something with your DNA going on there. Whatever it did, it's interacting on that level. They're going to want to do more tests."

  "I bet." Lydia smiled again. The mollusk was a hybrid. A genetic fusion, and it had borrowed some of her to heal itself. Instinctive and unnatural.

  And it had left some of itself behind. Right there in her arm.

  "Like that kid with the spider," Lydia said. "In those superhero comics you like so much."

  "Liked," he said. "Past tense. When I was a kid."

  "You're still a kid. Aren't there movies you go and see?"

  He glanced over, kind of sheepish. "Yeah."

  "So now I'll be a superhero, right? Got injected with hybrid genetic material. I'll be Molluscwoman. Able to leap buildings—"

  "Swim with the fishes, really." He was smiling, but it faded. "I hope you're going to be all right, that's all."

  "You're here, Arnt. Of course I'm going to be all right."

  "Are you? I'm not convinced."

  Lydia took a deep breath. She stared out the window. Another bird stood at the tip of one of macrocarpa branches, gold crown bright in the daylight.

  "Lyds?"

  "I'll go to the hospital, won't I? They can examine me. Remove all this, maybe?" She lifted her left hand.

  Arnt smiled. "Thanks," he said. "That's all I was asking."

  Lydia took a spoonful of the delicious soup. Was it really, though? Was it all he was asking?

  There was much more to this than just some infection or reaction.

  Much more.

  Unlikely that at the hospital they'd be able to tell her, either.

  This was something she would have to work out on her own.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lydia slept and woke before dawn. She dressed in boots and jeans, a warm top with a thick day coat over the top. The coat had been Marlene's, gifted to Lydia when Marlene's mother passed away, having just purchased a new, and better, coat of her own.

  Marlene's coat was cozy and comforting.

  Lydia stopped at the door. Something was tugging her again. She needed to be careful.

  She went into her studio, the space rich with the smell of oils and cleaner. There were jars and tubes and bottles all ov
er. A riot of color. Brushes and swatches and rough drafts of paintings.

  The current work was propped against the wall, too big for an easel. Six feet by four feet.

  An image of an otter sliding down an incline into the ocean. Other otters waiting, lying on their backs.

  She sat at her desk, slipping off the coat.

  From the rack at the back, she took a sketchbook. A good quality Duen one, with a hundred crisp white sheets. This to the point of almost being card, with a nice texture meant for watercolors. She flicked through the notes and rough sketches until she came to a blank page.

  One of her jars had dozens of colored pencils and she quickly made a sketch of the mollusk. Her glorious whorls and remarkable body. The tendrils were just flicks from a white pencil, really. She sharpened the yellow pencil to really use the tip to show the golds. Just little pads from an orange pencil to set it off.

  When she was done, it looked like something halfway between an image from a marine biology text and a children's picture book.

  But it was the mollusk, that was for sure.

  She could show Doctor Wills later. Maybe, with a hint of irony, mount it in one of the old frames and put it up on the wall somewhere.

  Actually, that would be kind of nice.

  Lydia rubbed her left arm. She skin was alternately rough and smooth. She tried to pretend the holes weren't there.

  She looked over the picture. She'd drawn the mollusk as healthy. Upright, with strong tendrils.

  Perhaps there was something to that. Perhaps part of the thing that was drawing her out and away. Drawing her to the water.

  She pulled on Marlene's coat again and went to the studio door. She looked back at the picture.

  Yes. That was right. Just right.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lydia slipped out quietly—Arnt was asleep on the low slung sofa in the living room, snuffling to himself, limbs tangled as he'd fallen, spinning, from a trampoline.

  She reached the road and turned inland. All around, the horizon glowed with soft oranges and deep blues, brighter in the east. A bird called from nearby, a sharp trill. Hidden somewhere in someone's foliage.

  The houses were mostly dark. The Bircherson's place had a porch light blazing, and others had quietly pulsing red lights from alarm boxes.

  Behind the village lay a briny lake. The shore was low and fringed with grasses and reeds. Scaup and coots and Canada geese swam in the waters, honking and quacking. A mix of natural and genetic hybrid remnants.

  As Lydia came toward the shore, a short-eared rabbit darted from the brush at the gravel roadside. The animal stopped and stared at her a moment, and raced back. Dew shook from the scraggly branches of the scrub.

  Lydia stood at the shore. There was a small, graveled turnaround, and an informal boat ramp. Ed and others would bring down aluminum dinghies and spend an afternoon downing beers and pretending to fish.

  Once the had been part of the town's water treatment systems. The sides were straightish, and one part was supported by a berm or dam, where overflow now made its way to the streams that led out to the beach.

  Lydia took off her boots and jeans and coat and waded in. The water felt like it was just a few degrees above freezing. Perfectly chilled.

  It was invigorating. The cold worked its way through her flesh, right into her bones.

  Just perfect.

  She lay on her back and stared at the lightening sky. A few streaky clouds stood out high and bright.

  Spreading her arms, she kicked slowly. The lake covered a few acres. She could probably just drift for hours.

  What was this attraction now? Clearly there were things going on for her. She'd never been much of a swimmer. Not really. Paddling in the water at the Pensacola shores when she was a kid, looking out at the ruins of the city just beyond the small breakers.

  She turned and dove pulling for the bottom. The water was even clearer than the ocean had been, though with the sun just now cresting the horizon, it was still dark.

  There were freshwater snails scouring along the bottom. The biggest the size of her thumb, the smallest little more than dots. They were bland brown things, with black flesh. Making their way across the stony bottom.

  How come she could see so well?

  They'd had play diving sets when they'd been kids. Printed-off things that Grandpa Davis made them for them in his garage. He'd had a cool workshop there. Flippers, goggles, snorkel. They'd probably lasted a season before breaking down and he would have put them back into the cycling hopper and printed something new. Some shelf for the chiller or some ornament for the craft fair.

  But those goggles had been good at the local pool. With goggles she'd been able to really see through the water.

  Just as she could now. And when she'd dived after the mollusks.

  Without goggles.

  Lydia stopped stroking and let herself rise to the surface. The lake wasn't very deep.

  She bobbed up near some geese. The honked quietly at her, but didn't fly off. Didn't even swim away.

  Treading water gently, she lifted her arm to look again at the wounds.

  That's what they were, really.

  It was almost as if she had to force herself to look.

  There were little growths now, from the holes. Stalks. Like a pig's bristles. Some of her brushes were made of them. Stiff and durable.

  The holes were pushing aside her own flesh. The tendons and ligaments of her wrist shoved aside by the growths.

  Should be more worried. Really.

  The stalks stuck up maybe a half a centimeter or so above the level of her skin. One from each hole.

  Another symptom. Something new for Doctor Wills to look at. Something new for Arnt to worry about.

  She should be more worried herself. Shouldn't she?

  If she went outside herself, tried to look in objectively, then sure. Worry. What was going on?

  But it felt all right.

  As if these growths were natural. A part of her. As if they were doping her with some kind of endorphin to keep her calm.

  Perhaps that was the thing she should worry about. Perhaps this whole thing was simply going to consume her and she would just be blissfully swimming and eating Arnt's pancakes.

  Well. If that was it, then that was it.

  She swam to the shore and stood. The sun was up now, and its light was warming and refreshing. She took off her shirt and twisted it up to wring out the water. The drops made pretty tinkling sounds around her legs. The air smelled fresh and clean and ready for the day.

  She walked home and Arnt saw her coming from the kitchen window and he hurried out, carrying his phone.

  "I was worried," he said. "You didn't take your phone."

  "Nope." She held her arm up for him to see. She was dry now, after her swim. The day was warming up.

  He looked. Took her hand and pulled it closer. He cursed.

  "It's all right," Lydia said. "Did you make breakfast?"

  Arnt glanced at her house. "Sure. Come eat." He let go of her hand and headed back to the house without looking at her. He seemed weary.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Arnt had gotten blueberries from somewhere and he piled them onto her pancake and poured on syrup and added a knob of butter. The smell was heavenly.

  Lydia sat on one of the old vinyl-covered chairs and at using her mis-matched cutlery. The boys in the painting looked on hungrily, as if they might tumble out onto the table any moment and gobble up any stray morsel.

  "Doctor Wills is coming again," Arnt said. "He'll want to see this."

  Lydia glanced at the holes on her wrist and hand. The stiff stalks sticking out. It was kind of like flowers now, with petals within the hole and, what were they? Stamens or pistils or something? Sticking out.

  As if she might attract bees.

  That would be something all right.

  There was music playing somewhere. It sounded like someone playing a guitar, but there was a resonance to the sound, and
a real dexterity to the picking.

  "Music?" she said.

  "Gordon Theorbo Ensemble," Arnt said. He was back at the stove, cooking more pancakes. The pan sizzled.

  "Interesting name," Lydia said.

  "Interesting people. They are putting together some songs for Earth Day and asked me to help with the set list."

  "It sounds quite lovely."

  "It is. Beautiful instruments. There are four of them in the group. I got them some seed money to tour through some small Canadian towns April just gone."

  "Make your money back?"

  "And then some. So, I just seeded them again."

  "You're very generous."

  "I can afford to be. I've made some lucky investments over the years."

  "More like canny and calculated, with a sense of timing that defies most people."

  Arnt smiled, shrugged and flipped the pancake.

  The music continued, bright and flighty, some moments racing along, others dropping into something more glacial. It was both engrossing and somewhat in the background at once.

  "Eat," Arnt said. "Eat up please."

  "Of course." Lydia used her knife to fold and cut her pancake. She popped some into her mouth and it was delicious.

  "I was worried about you," Arnt said. "I thought you'd gone into the ocean again."

  "Even if I had, I would have been all right."

  "You sure?"

  "Something's changing in me. I realized that I could see really easily when I was underwater. Almost as if I was wearing goggles."

  "Oh."

  "And the water was drawing me to it. I went up to the lake."

  "Tollen Lake? That's hoofing it."

  "Just the reservoir."

  Arnt looked around at her. "You went swimming in it?" He lifted the pan and put another pancake on the stack.

  "Sure. Good enough for the water fowl, good enough for me."

  "You know what used to happen in that water, don't you?"

  "People fish in it."

  Arnt sighed. He put the pan back. "Turn off," he told the stove. It clicked, shutting the element off.

  Arnt sat. "I know it was a long time ago," he said. "But still, the thought of it is kind of off-putting."