The Ocean Dark

15

Papi. Wake up, Papi. I want to play.

Braulio hears the tiny voice, the precious giggle, and his eyes flutter open. Angelique is there before him, hands on her hips. She arches an eyebrow, far too grown-up for a girl of six. So smart, his granddaughter. The future holds great things for her, he knows.

Car engines rumble outside. Tires screech and he listens for the whump of collision, the crunch of metal.

Papi, come on. Get up!

All right, angel. All right, darling.

Angelique takes his hand and half drags him out of bed. Braulio expects the usual aches, the pop of old bones, but as he stands he feels nothing at all. His knees don’t hurt and he doesn’t feel the gravity of age that usually pulls on him. A good night’s rest, maybe, but it must have been the greatest night’s rest he’d ever had.

He smiles, and Angelique smiles back.

On the beach. She’s up to her knees in the surf, hands still demandingly on hips, urging him to come into the water with her.

Papi, come on. You need exercise. You’re getting a big belly.

He laughs at this. The girl spends too much time around adults and listens very well. Too well. And she knows that he will indulge her.

All right, my angel. I’m coming. Just give me a second.

The sand shifts beneath his feet as he steps into the water. Tiny waves burble around his ankles. Another step, and another, and soon he is up to his knees as well. He doesn’t like the soft bottom, the way the sand under the water gives way, causing him to stumble a bit, to shift his weight.

He glances up and sees that Angelique has kept pace with him, so that now she is up to her waist in the water.

Braulio frowns. There is no one else in the ocean. He glances around. No one else on the beach. The only sounds come from a distant buoy, a clank of metal, the dinging of a bell. But something is wrong. They are alone, but not alone.

Not alone at all.

Beyond Angelique, something moves underwater.

She grins. Dark shapes dart beneath the waves, long and sinuous. Braulio knows they are not sharks.

No! She’s not for you, devils. I’m the one!

Braulio rushes toward her in the water, arms out, reaching for his granddaughter. Angelique laughs as if he is playing a game. She doesn’t try to run or swim away, but still he cannot reach her, still she seems farther and farther away, and those dark shapes are sliding around her in the water.

He screams her name — his angel, his blessing.

The soft ocean bottom gives way beneath his feet and he slides under. He cannot breathe. Cannot see. Underwater. With them.

Braulio opened his eyes, his breath coming in shallow gasps. His body was contorted uncomfortably, his hands pressed to his open wound — glued there by tacky drying blood. He felt broken. Understanding dawned slowly, but when his fading mind cleared for a moment and he realized where he was, he managed a slight smile. Angelique was far from here. She was safe.

Numbness, nothingness, embraced him again, and he began to drift.

There came a thump somewhere on the boat’s hull, stoking the spark of terror within him. Wood creaked with the weight of movement up on the deck. The devils had returned after all.

“Angelique,” he whispered.

But that was all. Even fear could not keep the nothingness at bay. The old fisherman surrendered, drifting once more, hoping he would dream of Angelique, and that she would hold his hand in the dark, as he had so often held hers.