Olivia

I brush a piece of the golden hair that’s fallen in my face back behind my ear and then readjust my glasses on my nose. I slide the prepped slide onto the microscope stand. The park rescued a sea lion last week. He came is with the thorn of a sea urchin embedded in his hind flipper. I removed spine five days ago and the infection isn’t clearing up, isn’t responding to any normal treatments for an urchin sting, so I took a sample to see if a strain of virus or bacteria is infecting the wound.

A soft knocking has me looking up to find Dustin Quill standing in the doorway; his ink black hair falling to his cheekbones, accenting his pale, freckled skin and gray eyes. “Hey,” he greets as he enters the room. “What are you working on?”

I push away from the desk and gesture towards the microscope. “Take a look if you want.”

He shrugs and leans over the microscope. “Cool… What is it?”

I shake my head, chuckle softly, and then push my hair back again. “It’s a sample from the rescue sea lion’s flipper. I couldn’t figure out why it wasn’t healing. Turns out that he has a pretty nasty bacterial infection, probably had it long before he got the urchin thorn stuck.”

“Can you cure it?” Dustin asks.

I nod. “Yes, I’ll start administering the antibiotics as soon as possible, though they’ll need to be ordered and rushed. I’ll need your signature on that. In the meantime, I’ll take some blood samples and a few x-rays, make sure the infection hasn’t spread or done any damage,” I state.

Dustin nods, his eyes loosing focus for a moment as he thinks. “Alright. Get your order form printed up and filled out. Bring it to me and I’ll have it sent before the supply office closes tonight, we should have the stuff by Friday at the latest.”

“Okay,” I agree. “Now, I imagine you’re here for more than just checking on my work ethic,” I tease. “So what can I do for you?”

“Oh, right, yes. I needed the files with this month’s medical reports and expenses so that I can file them away. I’m a little behind with my spreadsheets.”

“Sure, no problem. I did them up last night; I just hadn’t gotten the chance to bring them down to you yet.” I walk over to the metal filing cabinet across the room, lift a stack of folders off the top of it, and hand them to him. “If you’re behind, do you want some help filing these? I can get Lindsey or Geoffrey to do up the order form.”

“That would be amazing, thank you,” Dustin sighs. That’s when I notice the bags forming under his eyes. Things have been rather crazy around here lately. There’s been a spike in beachings and other incidents, and our rescue funds are running low. On top of that, the drop in guest attendance has been a bit of a blow. It always gets pretty slow this time of year, but with all the extra expenses, I’m worried that we’re in worse shape than he’s letting on. Either way, Dustin has been working non-stop around the clock.

I leave a message with Alexis at the front desk; tell her it’s for either of the two interns, whichever should show up first. Then I follow Dustin back to his office. We’ve become good friends in the past thirteen years that we’ve known one another. I was in my second year of employment when he was hired as a manager here. Mrs. Colt, the owner of the park, is a very wealthy woman who owns a chain of different tourist attractions across the country from parks and zoos, to hotels, restaurants, and a horse-riding center. She has a simple pattern, raises the business herself for the first year and a half, two at most, and then hires a manager and moves on. She leaves us mostly to ourselves and collects fifteen percent of all profits every year. I haven’t seen her since a month after Dustin started and as far as anyone is concerned, Dustin might as well be the owner. Mrs. Colt doesn’t do much for the business after she appoints a manager. She can afford to let one go under and if it begins to happen, would likely just sell the land. I’ve never seen Dustin quite so stressed and I wish he would let me help a little more.

I have a moment of pause when we walk into Dustin’s office. Stacks of files and reports litter the desk, the floor by the desk, and on the countertop. “Dustin, is everything okay?” I demand.

He glances around, sighs, and nods. “Yeah, I’ve been going through some of the old benefactor files and funding reports, hoping to find some looked over funds. Look, we’ll be okay, good actually, we just need to get through this rough patch is all,” he runs his hand over his head. “Look, I am have to reduce the paychecks for a few weeks, just until-”

“Okay, Dustin relax; it’s not that bad. Reduce the paychecks a little, everyone will understand. I’ll get in contact with Clear-Side Marine Park in Oregon. Otters and seals are incredibly popular with the locals there, so they would definitely cover treatment costs. We can send a couple of the rescue seals and the two otters their way. We’d pay long distance gas which is far cheaper than the medical expenses,” I suggest. “We can forward several of the smaller rescues until we get back on our feet. We’re always given a bonus on critical rescues so we keep those. And we should start some advertising campaigns and fundraisers to get people interested. Milly, that female spinner dolphin that we rescued three weeks ago; she’s pregnant. Why not start there? There’s nothing people love more than a baby animal.”

Dustin nods. “You know what? Those are some good ideas. I was also thinking about starting up a new attraction. I wanted to use the empty tank out back, the one with the huge viewing area. Let me show you were I got the idea.” He hurries over to the computer and brings up a google search. Seconds later he has images of an Oceanarium up. He taps the screen. “This place has recently been opened fully to the public and has opened a massive hit attraction. At first I thought it was fake, but research papers and evidence say otherwise, look.” He enlarges an image of one of the tanks. The image is a little blurry but the two creatures in the massive tank are unmistakable.

“This is real?” I ask, my eyes scanning the pixelated tails.

Dustin nods. “Yeah, it is. I’ve been wanting to check it out myself, but I can’t leave or afford the trip at the moment. Anyways, because of this, interest in mermaids has skyrocketed. I was thinking we could take advantage of it and hire someone to dress up. It may attract a little attention,” he states as he scrolls through more images. He pauses on one very clear image where both mermaids are very clearly defined. They are different ages; that much is clear. The younger one has enlarged blue eyes, exceedingly long, light brown hair, and a slender tail coated in sapphire scales. Her older companion has hazel eyes, a face peppered in freckles. Her hair is cut short around her chin and is a very dark shade of brown. Her tail is a deep violet color. I find myself drawn to her face. “What do you think?” Dustin asks.

I nod. “Yeah, sure, that sounds great. Can you zoom in at all without distorting the image? Focus on the purple one.”

“Uh, sure, here,” Dustin replies, following my request.

I feel my eyes widen, suddenly more than sure. “Here, do you mind if I sign into my email a moment?”

Dustin steps out of the way and I sit down in the chair and open a new tab, clicking into my account. “What’s going on?” Dustin asks.

“Just a minute,” I reply as I pull up an image from a folder sent to me a few weeks ago. “You’re good with computers, right? With media arts and stuff?”

“Yes, I took several classes in college, why?” Dustin demands.

I stand up. “Here, sit, I need you to do something for me. Can you put this image and the mermaid one side by side?”

A few clicks and my request is complete. “Who is this girl?” Dustin asks, pointing to the image I brought up.

“Do you remember Lewis Pater?” I ask. “Australian marine vet?”

“Right, he’s the one that comes here every like four years, and you go there in between, right?”

I nod. “Yes, we meet up and exchange information and techniques, stuff like that. We went to university together. Anyways, the woman who owns the park that he works at is named Sophie. Sophie Brooks. I know her a little. She went to our school too, though she was in a different program, and she and Lewis have been close friends since high school. A few weeks ago, Lewis contacted me, asking me a favor. He knew that my brother in law was really good with computers,” I begin. “Here, can you take the background out of both of those pictures. Anyways, they had a bit of a tragedy down there. Sophie’s adoptive daughter, Katherine Waters, was killed in a hit and run accident. She was a sweet girl and an amazing photographer too; she’d have made a good career for herself. Lewis sent me a bunch of pictures hoping that Tony could put them into a high quality home movie. It was something he wanted to give to Sophie, give her a lasting keepsake because Katie was the last of her family. I didn’t know her really well or anything, but she’s been on my mind lately with the images and such. Now, would you be able to remove the hair from both of those? And get rid of the freckles on the mermaid?”

“Okay,” Dustin sounds a little weirded out, but he cuts the hair from both images. “But I don’t see what this girl has to do with… oh,” he breaks off as he finishes my final request. We stare in silence at the two images, now exactly identical. “What in the world?”

I let out a long breath of air. “When did this exhibit first open?”

“Two months ago,” Dustin answers.

I nod. “Two months ago. Katie was killed about two and a half months ago.”

“This has to be a coincidence, right?” Dustin asks as she glances at me. “I mean there’s no possible way…”

“Five minutes ago I would have told you that mermaids were impossible too,” I point out. “I think we may have a problem.”