∆∆∆

Marty snapped awake, bathed in sweat, his pulse fast and his embarrassment acute.

I’m going to show all you assholes, all you doubters, I’m going to show you…

Chapter 15

ELSA

Elsa lay in bed, in the dark, staring at the shadow-veiled ceiling. She glanced at the glowing digital clock on the bedside table once again. 1:14 a.m. Thirty minutes since she’d last checked. Usually when she couldn’t sleep, she thought about food. Cooking was a hobby of hers, and most nights she would prepare herself small yet satisfying meals. Yesterday had been stacked eggplant parmesan. The day before that, bourbon shrimp, and the day before that…either lemon garlic salmon or beef and mushroom stroganoff. She couldn’t remember. The days tended to blur together the older she got.

She began planning out the meals she would make in the coming week, but she barely got through the second one when she found herself thinking about Dr. Murdoch and his expedition tomorrow. She couldn’t possibly accompany him and his friends, could she? No, she had already declined. Besides, they were nutty, all three of them. Dr. Murdoch was brilliant but delusional, and the two women were… Elsa didn’t know. Were they delusional as well? Did they truly believe in merfolk? Or were they going along with Dr. Murdoch’s theory with a grin and a wink.

Jacqueline’s motive was clear: she wanted to write a sensational story. And she could write it with impunity. She was a journalist, not a scientist. She was simply reporting the news; she wasn’t creating it or advocating it. Regardless of the blowback the story would most certainly receive, she had nothing to lose and everything to gain.

And Radhika? What would be her motive for enabling Dr. Murdoch’s ludicrous claims? She was in a relationship with him. Loyalty then? Obligation? Dr. Murdoch was worth many millions of dollars. Perhaps there was a financial motive involved?

But what did any of that matter to Elsa? It didn’t…only it did. Because she felt an attraction to Dr. Murdoch’s theory. Yes, she thought it was ludicrous. Or at least the rational, sensible part of her did. But there was another part of her she wasn’t so well acquainted with, a youthful, wondrous part that wanted to believe that there was more to the world than meets the eye, that there were miraculous mysteries left to be discovered that defied the restrictions of reason and sensibility.

So what was she to do? Stay behind and analyze whale feces while Dr. Murdoch and company set sail on an adventure that, while doomed to failure, might actually be…fun? Or get off her ideological high horse, let her hair down for the first time in recent memory, and join them?

It should have been an easy decision. Elsa’s three years in Sri Lanka had been anything but interesting. She’d met no new friends. She’d had no romantic encounters. Her work, while important, was unremarkable and lacking the critical acclaim she’d garnered in the US.