“It’s lucky that Miss DeSilva called me when she did—”

“Jacky, please.”

“Then you can call me Elsa. And had you called an hour later yesterday, Jacky, I would already have turned the skull over to the authorities. However, I was able to talk them into letting me hold onto it for the time being. So to answer your question, Dr. Murdoch, yes, it’s still in my possession.” She went to the steel shelves lining one of the room’s walls and returned with a cardboard box. She set it on the necropsy table, peeled back the top flaps, and lifted out the bleached-white skull.

Marty didn’t take his eyes off it. “May I?” he asked, holding out his hands.

Dr. Montero passed him the skull. As he turned it this way and that in his hands, he experienced the same unfiltered wonder that he did when first viewing Fat Mike’s merfolk video. Yet that had taken him time to digest and to ultimately conclude that he believed what he was seeing. This was different. The skull was in his hands. It was tangible. There was no digital magic between him and it. There was no convincing himself this time, no wishful thinking.

The skull was authentic. It was merfolk. He felt it with every fiber in his being.

To nobody in particular, he said, “It’s so very much human, isn’t it? The bulbous cranium, the flat face. But it’s different too. Look here.” He drew a finger along the top of the skull. “A sagittal crest, which is only found in some early hominins. And here, the brow ridge is quite pronounced, one of the last traits lost on the path to modern humans. But, my God, look at that frontal bone! It’s not receding as it is in apes, and it’s not vertical as it is in humans. It’s protuberant. Look at it!” He glanced from one face to the next—they ran the gamut from delighted (Jacky) to skeptical (Rad) to plain unreadable (Dr. Montero)—and added, “To be clear, these are only my initial, visual observations… Dr. Montero, I’ve seen the look on your face far too many times from the orthodoxy to not know it well. You think I’m an out-and-out crank peddling cryptid pseudoscience.”

“I’ve followed your work for many years, Dr. Murdoch,” she said. “I find your aquatic ape theory fascinating. However, to be perfectly frank, I have yet to see any evidence to convince me of the reality of mermaids and mermen, and this skull has not changed my position on that.” She saw that he was about to interrupt and held up a hand. “The enlarged forehead struck me as quite unusual, certainly. Indeed, it compelled me to do some armchair research last night, and my conclusion is the skull is that of a person who suffered from cloverleaf deformity.”

Rad said, “Cloverfield deformity?”

Marty said, “Cloverleaf. It’s a genetic disorder in which mutated genes cause the sutures on a skull to fuse together prematurely. The results are facial deformities such as abnormally formed eye sockets, flat nasal bridges, a small upper or lower jaw—and a misshapen head, often bulging at the front. However,” he added, “it’s usually noticeable at birth and corrected with surgery.”