“I was researching cave animals specifically adapted to lightless, food-poor environments. Unfortunately, pollution and habitat destruction are causing many of them to go extinct.”

“I never knew this.”

“Biodiversity conservation often fails to take cave species into account. Because nobody knows much about species like eyeless crustaceans, nobody seems to care about them.”

“I meant, I never knew you were an experienced cave diver.”

“Why would you?”

“I wouldn’t. And…well, this changes everything, doesn’t it?” He grinned at her. “I would be honored for you to join me on the dive. However, why do we need to postpone it a day?”

“We need to return to the mainland so I could collect my gear.”

“No, that shouldn’t be necessary.” He sized her up. “You’re nearly my height. One of my wetsuits should fit you fine. And I have more than enough equipment to kit us both out.”

Elsa always used her own scuba gear as so many things could go wrong during a cave dive. However, Dr. Murdoch wasn’t a shady expat running a dive shop targeting tourists; his equipment was likely top-of-the-line and properly maintained.

“All right then,” she told him. “We dive tomorrow.”

Chapter 24

Chapter 24

Merfolk: From the Deep. The making-of the original Netflix documentary.

“Rolling,” Gus the cameraman said.

Jamie, clad head-to-toe in black for the third consecutive day, clapped the slate.

Fat Mike, stretching a New York Rangers jersey to the seams, in his director’s chair said, “Whenever you’re ready, Double M. You can pick up from where you left off yesterday.”

Beneath the spotlights in the West London studio, Marty nodded. “Thanks to the numerous eyewitness accounts throughout the ages,” he began, regurgitating what he’d rehearsed the night before, “we have a pretty good idea about what merfolk look like. It seems they bear a strong resemblance to us, which isn’t surprising given we likely share a common ancestor. But what about merfolk behavior? Do they act like us? Are they like Disney’s Ariel, all peaches and cream? Or are they like Homer’s sirens, predators that lure men to their watery graves? Some eyewitness accounts suggest the former, and some suggest the latter. Yet we must remember that, historically, the majority of merfolk sightings were by sailors long at sea. They would undoubtedly have had active imaginations, and it would be understandable if they interwove hearsay with superstition and lust and fear, ultimately creating a merfolk antithetical to the real thing. The truth, unfortunately, is that we simply don’t know, and can’t know, anything about the general behavior of merfolk without sustained scientific observation.