Episode 18: Deeper Than the Sea

*The recording resumes shakily in Voncids hands. There’s the brief adjusting of dials and when it returns there are a few moments of silence.*

Voncid: Ah good. Not broken.

*We hear Voncid walking over broken glass and crouching next to Luca.*

Voncid: Luca, remain calm. I know you are unable to move voluntarily but your autonomic functions will be unaffected.  

Luca: *Groans unhappily*

Voncid: Yes, it is very uncomfortable. You’ve never had the power used on you before have you? Well, it will pass. I simply couldn’t let Christine kill Darlene the waitress. I needed everyone to just… be still a moment.

*Voncid coughs, staggering weakly for a moment.*

Voncid: *clears throat* I was able to pry the malignant dead free of Christine. It does not even approach the most possessive ex I’ve had to deal with. There was this one time involving a woman in Morocco and a jilted fiance who invaded over a hundred different-

Luca: *groans more loudly*

Voncid: Yes yes, another time. The authorities will be here soon, let me see how much *pause to consider wording* smoothing out I can do before they arrive.

*The audio cuts with a click, when it returns Luca and Voncid are driving, there is an ever present wiring of the recorder*

Luca: I still feel stiff.

Voncid: *the reassuring tone that comes with experience* That will fade. There are no long term effects associated with that expression of the power.  

Luca: That's good. *regretful, but also tired* I wish we could have kept Christine from getting arrested.

Voncid: We altered perception as best we could given the time frame. I highly doubt Christine will suffer any serious consequences. A temporary mental hold, and some court ordered therapy. I’ve never seen anyone look that happy to be taken away to jail.

Luca: Well it’s actually over for her now. A night in lockup and a minor assault charge are nothing compared to what she’s been through.

Voncid: They do not indeed…um, is this very much of a drive?

Luca: It will be, yes. Painted Cathedral Caverns. Bit of a ways.

Voncid: Very well. I will use the time to remit a remembrance to the wax if you have no objection.

Luca: Yeah, as long as it’s not too… you know, *finds the word* intense?

Voncid: It should be sufficiently safe to drive while listening to it.  It is, however, quite sad.

*with an almost wistful tone* A few years ago I stood at the edge of the sea.  I could have sworn I heard something… some lost echo of an echo of a song.  Before I knew it I had waded up to my waist, my suit and long coat undulating around me like kelp. There, drifting over the surf like so much flotsam, I found a story. 

*Voncid’s voice takes on a hint of magic, and faint whispering noises start along with the crackling of a campfire* A story of longing. This is the remembrance of a girl named Jane Wilson, now committed from my mind to the wax.

*There’s a short pause*

Jane Wilson: I’m pretty sure I was the only one who didn’t have to beg their parents to go on the senior beach trip. *chuckles* They were so relieved I wanted to do something so normal. It’s not that they didn’t love me. They just didn’t know what to do with me; didn’t understand how the nauseatingly perfect high school sweethearts could produce a *pauses to find the word* pale, awkward daughter without an athletic bone in her body. So while everyone else was getting lectured on the dangers of drugs and sex and swearing on their grandmother’s grave to check in every night, my parents bankrolled my whole trip.

I don’t really know why I wanted to go. It just felt like a rite of passage, especially after COVID. I’d been a sophomore in March 2020, when the world changed overnight. We left school one Friday and just… didn’t go back. We were virtual for almost a year. High school is hard enough, but online? Sitting in your bedroom, that hasn’t been redecorated since you were eight, trying to focus on chemistry, or geometry, or history while everything around you goes to hell? Only seeing the girl you’re secretly in love with in a tiny square in the corner of your screen, panicking that you didn’t shove your childhood teddy bear far enough out of view, cursing the younger you who wanted a bright purple bedroom. *spoken as if confiding* Sometimes it all felt fake, like all those people, my friends and classmates and teachers, just disappeared as soon as I clicked the x at the top of the screen, leaving me all alone. 

My parents and I had never been close and those months were rough. My mom was a nurse, labor and delivery, usually, but she got pulled into the emergency room in May when things got bad. I didn’t see her most days. She left before I woke up and came home after I went to bed. I couldn’t sleep, though. I’d lie awake for hours, waiting for her headlights to pull into the driveway, clutching the bear I’d exiled during the day. She didn’t want to talk about it. What she saw. How tired she was. *quieter* How scared. My dad wasn’t any better. He’s not exactly good with emotions in the best of circumstances and he just shut down. He insisted that we have dinner together every night, but we usually ate in silence. The only thing we really had in common was mom, and neither of us wanted to talk about that. Things got better when she went back to her normal job, but there was always this shadow, this looming sadness that no one was allowed to mention.  

I guess after all those months in the dark I just wanted something bright and… vibrant and alive. *hesitantly* Something real. Plus I’d been invited. I’d joined the lacrosse team when we finally went back to campus – my school wasn’t big enough to have tryouts – in a shameless attempt to pad my college applications to maybe, finally, have something to talk about with my parents. To fill that space at the dinner table with something good. I got bumped to team manager pretty quickly, but I didn’t hate it. I enjoyed the camaraderie more than I expected and understood why some people liked team sports. And so when Lauren and Kennedy, two of my teammates, asked if I needed a hotel room for the trip I said “yes.” 

  I guess I wasn’t immune to the lure of coming-of-age teenage dramas–shy lonely girl goes to the beach and everyone realizes she’s actually hot! I had visions of the three of us walking down the beach, suntanned arms linked, people turning to stare, whispering about the mystery girl with the lacrosse team. *chuckles as if bemused by the thought of it* It’s stupid. I was stupid. But God I just wanted to be seen. To be known? Just wanted to go off to college as someone more. Someone interesting. *pauses* Someone. 

And so I went. I crammed myself into the backseat of Kennedy’s second hand Camry, between Lauren and Kyle, ones of the guys from the boys’ team, for the five hour drive to the beach. Drew was in the passenger’s seat next to Kennedy. I hadn’t realized they were dating. I sat quietly while they blasted pop music, screaming lyrics I didn’t know with the windows rolled down, trying to convince myself that this was fun, that I belonged here.  

It was harder to pretend once we got there. *as if trying to convince the listener* The hotel was fine! Some unremarkable 2-star place that you could find in any city in the US. Two beds, white towels and sheets that had been bleached God knows how many times, generic paintings on the walls. I think these were mermaids. It was incredibly obvious that while Lauren and Kennedy liked me fine as team manager, they were mainly looking for someone to split the hotel bill and chip in for gas. They ditched me *small self-pitying chuckle* as soon as we checked in to go hang with Kyle and Drew in their room next door. They did at least offer me my own bed. 

I weighed the options in my head as I leaned back against the faux-wood headboard, the sound of some slasher film drifting through the paper-thin hotel walls. I could accept that this was a disaster and cry… or I could continue deluding myself that they had wanted me to come. That I could still use this trip to be someone. I chose the latter, I decided to try to enjoy myself. I wonder how that would have happened if I’d wallowed in self pity instead.

One of the girls, Lauren, I think, screamed, and the room next door burst into laughter. It hit me like a slap in the face. I was alone again, but this time I knew my classmates hadn’t disappeared. They still existed, they just… didn’t want me with them. I couldn’t stay here, not if I had any chance of saving this trip. I could feel tears gathering and if the girls came in and found me crying there’d be no coming back.

I decided to walk down to the beach. It was farther than I had expected, not at all the beach-front resort I’d let myself imagine on the car ride down, but after 20 minutes or so I’d made it to a public beach access. It had been raining off and on all day and was still drizzling -  *disappointed sigh* strike… 17 against sunny teen movie dream glow-up - so the beach was quiet, especially after the noise of the car and the hotel. In fact, I had the beach almost to myself. 

*A faint background noise of waves starts, with some of the breaks onto the beach being louder than others*

There were a few older people walking dogs, some surfers out near the pier, one young family braving the weather, determined to make a sand castle, but for the most part everyone had been driven away by the weather or the threat of teenagers on break. 

I only saw one other person who seemed to be my age. I was getting cold and was about to head back to the hotel when I saw her standing waist deep in the ocean, face tilted back towards the horizon, arms outstretched, long dark hair falling nearly to her waist. She looked naked, a thin strip of skin just visible between the surf and her hair. I shivered just looking at her, and pulled my sweatshirt tighter around me. I watched her for longer than I should have, much longer than you should stare at a stranger on the beach. She was mesmerizing – and not just her tall, graceful frame, but the confidence and joy with which she stood, head thrown back in the wind and the ocean’s spray. *small under the breath huff* She was everything I wasn’t. Everything I wanted. 

*We hear the sound of a slow, melodic hum-singing beginning, it’s haunting, and slightly echoes*

She was singing, her voice rising and falling with the waves. I was too far up the beach to make out any words. I’m not sure there were any. She seemed to simply be enjoying the sound of her song against the crash of the sea, a restless, playful melody that ebbed and flowed and soared. I didn’t know the song, *as if confused* but I couldn’t get it out of my head. 

*The singing stops*

I took one tiny, tentative step towards her. To… I don’t know, introduce myself? Get a better look? I wasn’t out, not really even to myself, but… maybe that would be even better than the physical transformation I imagined. Self acceptance, and all that. A first kiss on the beach? *amused huff* I stepped on a shell and yelped, the sharp pain in my foot breaking the trance. I hadn’t noticed it was raining again, or realized how late it was? How long I’d been standing there staring. I let myself hope that the others might be wondering where I’d gone, might even be worried, and made my way back to the hotel. 

*The noise of the waves also fades out*

Kennedy and Lauren were in the hotel room when I got back. They didn’t say anything about leaving me earlier or asking where I’d been all afternoon, but they told me about the bonfire at the beach later that evening - as if they assumed I was coming with them. It was enough of an invitation to reignite the tiny, shameful part of me that longed to be included, that clung to the hope of being wanted. Lauren even let me borrow a jacket since mine was wet from the walk.  

 The girl’s song was still echoing in my head *the singing briefly plays in the background* as I trailed my classmates down to the beach where some of the boys had built a massive bonfire. 

*The sounds of waves begins again, along with the crackling of a bonfire*

I didn’t know it was possible to be ditched in a crowd of people, but somehow I was. Lauren and Kennedy had paired off with the guys again, and everyone else was clustered together in twos and threes. Still, I tried to make the best of it. I had a few beers, watched the boys showing off, wrestling way too close to the fire, the girls giggling and pretending not to notice. I glanced down the beach and saw more bonfires, heard snippets of more music and laughter and flirting, more groups of kids doing exactly the same thing. I’d never really appreciated how small my school, my town, my world was until that moment on the beach, drunk, surrounded by what felt like every high school senior in the world, simultaneously overwhelmed by the sheer number of people… and completely alone. I walked a few paces away from the group, *the sounds of the bonfire grow quieter* towards the ocean, and sat in the damp sand at the edge of the fire’s glow. 

I was panicking. I’d been drunk before, but only in the dark comfort of a friend’s basement; a safe, cozy drunk before we all fell asleep. Here I was exposed. Terrified. I’d never been more certain that I didn’t belong. Never felt *pauses* more alone. I wondered if I could pretend to be sick, to go back to the hotel early, then worried that I really would be sick, right here in front of the entire world. The beach was spinning, tilting, threatening to throw me off. I pulled my knees to my chest and rested my head on them, squeezing my eyes shut and trying to breathe. 

That’s when I heard her. 

*The girl’s humming tune starts again, in the same haunting melody*

I thought the song was still in my head, but it got louder and louder, until I finally looked up. I hadn’t noticed her approaching, but I was distracted by my own drunkenness and existential dread. All that mattered was that she was walking towards me, looking directly at me. She was dressed like everyone else, gray sweatshirt and black running shorts, but nothing else about her looked like anyone I’d ever seen. *Fondly* She was beautiful. Just to call her that, *long pause* just “beautiful”, would have been an insult. She was so… so much more. Her hair was still loose, falling in waves around her face and shoulders, skin so pale it seemed lit from within. She smiled, the corners of her lips curving upward, cheeks dimpling. I couldn’t look away. My mind whirled, searching for an adequate word to describe her, muddled by the alcohol, and by her. The best I could find was “ethereal,” but that felt… stupid, pretentious. She reached down to take my hand and my thoughts stilled, soothed by her song. *the singing grows quieter and more subdued* There simply weren’t enough words to capture her. There didn’t need to be. 

She pulled me to my feet, threaded her fingers through mine as I followed her down the beach, farther from my friends, away from the music and yelling. I know it sounds ridiculous. That I’d just… walk away with a stranger. It is ridiculous. But it wasn’t. It was right. She’d seen me. She’d… chosen me. The weight of her hand, the pressure of her fingers – it was the realest I’d ever felt. 

I looked back once. Kennedy sat in Drew’s lap at the edge of the bonfire, the two of them so closely entwined I couldn’t tell where one body stopped and the other began. Kyle had thrown Lauren over his shoulder and was running towards the water, both of them screaming. They fell, laughing, tangled together in the wet sand. No one was looking at me, no one seemed to notice me walking away. That much I was used to; I’m not sure any of them had ever really noticed me. But her? How could they not notice her, when I couldn’t see anything else?

She led me towards the ocean, she tugged her hand free as we reached the water and pulled her sweatshirt off over her head, *almost cheekily* dropping it carelessly behind her. She met my gaze and smirked, eyes teasing, inviting, then slipped off her shorts and walked into the waves. I hesitated, then unzipped Lauren’s jacket and left it in the sand. 

*The waves become louder and more clear*

*Amused, but self-deprecating huff* I still can’t believe I followed her. I’m not a good swimmer. It was all I could do to pass the swim test at summer camp every year, and that was in a pool. With a lifeguard. In the daylight. So to follow her into the ocean at night? Even drunk, I should have known better. Should’ve snapped out of it. 

And maybe I started to. *tone going from fond to increasingly distressed and panicking* We were about waist deep when a wave hit me in the chest, knocking me backwards and forcing water up my nose. She grabbed me as I stumbled, her grip surprisingly strong on my upper arm. I felt sharp nails as she dragged me upright. I sputtered, choking, and just for a second reality set in. I realized how cold I was, how far from the shore we were, that none of my friends knew where I was, that even calling them my friends was a stretch. Would they even notice I was gone? Would anyone report me missing? Who would tell my parents? I took a step towards the shore and her grip tightened, pulling me deeper. *sounding besotten again* Back towards her. I looked into her eyes and saw the sea. Blues and greens and grays, constantly shifting around the black of her pupil, never still. Beautiful and terrifying. I could have lived in those eyes. She smiled again, almost gently, drawing me in. 

*The waves are almost the same volume as the voice, ebbing and flowing with the words*

And then her lips were on mine and her hands were on my neck in my hair pulling. Always pulling me closer. And deeper. 

But all I knew was her. The taste of her mouth, mixed with the salt of the ocean. Her body against mine, pushing away the chill of the water. Exquisite pain as she bit my lower lip between her teeth. 

I couldn’t breathe. I was drowning in her.

*A loud wave, and an extended pause, the singing has faded completely*

No. Just… drowning. 

She’d pulled us farther than I’d realized. *sounding desperate* I kicked, stretched until my toes touched the ocean floor, only to be knocked off balance again by an incoming wave. I gasped, pulling out of her grip as I tried to orient myself. *struggling to get the words out around the panic* I threw myself towards the shore, towards the safety and warmth of the bonfire, salt water flooded my mouth as I yelled for help. 

Along the beach heads turned, the sound of my cry or my thrashing cut through the thudding bass of the music, the drunken laughter around the fires. Up and down the beach, people searched for the source of the noise. *insisting* They must have seen me. A few people even started towards the water, but as soon as they stepped into the dark, beyond the glow of the flames and the safety of the crowd, something *hesitantly but insistent* stopped them. They froze, leaving me alone in the dark, icy water.

*Losing the sound of panic, as if reminiscing* Lauren and Kyle were closest, drawing hearts in the wet sand just beyond the reach of the waves. They stood up when I yelled. Kyle took a few steps towards the water, but Lauren grabbed his hand as a wave swept over his ankles, held him back. I could see them watching me, see the firelight reflecting in their eyes, but neither of them moved. They just stood there, hands clasped, staring out into the sea. 

 The fires on the beach were so small. We were so far from shore. 

*A long pause, and then rising panic causing a stuttering start*

She grabbed me again, spun me to face her. I opened my mouth to scream at her to fuck off, to let me go. Instead I just screamed. Her face had changed. *the singing is faintly in the background* Her eyes were dark. No iris, no sclera, just black, bottomless, and merciless. She was smiling at me. Grinning. I saw her teeth for the first time. *as if on the verge of tears* Rows and rows of sharp, glittering teeth. 

I was still screaming when she dragged me under. Her song filled my ears as water flooded my mouth and nose. 

*The girl’s singing gets louder and louder, until it's almost as loud as the talking, while the waves mostly fall off into the distance as she sinks beneath the sea* 

I could feel my lungs burning, desperate for air, was… vaguely aware of my vision blurring at the edges, but the panic faded, lulled away by her singing. She had her arms around my waist again, holding me close, cradling me as she carried me down. I cried out one last time as her teeth bit into my neck, tearing into the hollow just above my collar bone. The warmth of my blood mixed with the chill of the ocean as the world around me faded to blues, and greens, and blacks.

*The tape continues running for a moment, before clicking off*