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When Tom had said, "My life, my love, and my lady is the sea," Brandy had assumed that he meant it metaphorically. It was the simplest answer, and he was far from the first sailor she'd loved, so she knew it was the likeliest, too. Sailors were like that. Brandy was used to it.
Then, late one night, nearly closing time, he came into the bar with a woman, and Brandy nearly dropped the knife she was using to cut up lime wedges. You didn't grow up on the bay without knowing how to recognize a sea goddess when you saw one. The woman with Tom looked like she was dripping wet, from her long dark hair to her bare brown toes, but she wasn't leaving puddles behind her, and her eyes - well. They were somehow gray and blue and wine-dark all at once, shifting in waves, and they pulled Brandy in like a riptide.
"What -" She cleared her throat and tried again. "What'll it be?"
"Whiskey, for both of us." So that was what sea goddesses drank. She'd wondered.
"Coming right up," Brandy said, tearing her gaze away from those eyes and going to do her job. That was all this was, surely: just her sailor - not her sailor, not anymore; call him Tom - and the goddess who'd stolen his heart, coming into this bar, of all bars, for an ordinary drink.
Yeah, Brandy didn't believe that at all. She placed the two glasses in front of her customers. "Will that be all?"
"Do you have time to talk?" Tom asked her.
Brandy looked around, hoping for a rescue, but the bar was deserted apart from the two of them. "Yes," she said reluctantly, "I guess I do."
"Good," he said. "I need your help."
She couldn't help but glance at the sea goddess's calm, lovely face. "What do you need my help for?"
He looked at her, too, a besotted smile making his dimples flash briefly. "We need your help," he clarified. "There are some things I can't do - not anymore." He fingered his scarf, a new affectation.
"Because that doesn't sound strange at all," Brandy said. "What do you mean, anymore?"
"Surely you've heard that the love of a good woman can change a man?" the sea goddess said. Her voice was somehow both rough and gentle, like a cat's tongue.
"What, do you have gills now?" Brandy demanded.
Tom looked shocked. "Yes," he said. "How did you -"
"I was joking!"
"I'm not." He tugged at his scarf, revealing - God, he really wasn't joking - lacy pink gills, shining wet in the dim light.
"Christ on a Pogo stick," Brandy said, staring blatantly at his neck. "Is anything you say a metaphor?"
"Well." He looked thoughtful. "Not really, no."
"Good to know." Brandy tried to process this. "So, what you need from me - you need me to go far away from the water?"
"Exactly," he said. "Something was stolen, and they took it further than either of us can go from the sea."
"You're going to have to tell me what it is, if I'm supposed to find it," Brandy pointed out.
"It would be easier to show you," said the sea goddess. "May I have a glass of water?"
"Of course." Brandy filled her a glass and passed it over; immediately, she overturned it on the counter. "Whoa, hey!"
"Shh," said the sea goddess. The water didn't spread out and drip onto the floor like it was supposed to; it stopped in a roughly oval shape and beaded up into a shallow dome. Brandy watched, mystified, and the image reflected in it changed from their wavery faces and the ceiling to a darkened room. It zoomed in on the center of the room, where a pale blue stone sat on a pedestal under glass.
"Is it in a museum?" Brandy asked.
"No," Tom said. "Just a house."
"Good," Brandy said. "I don't think I could pull off a real heist."
"There's not even an alarm system," he went on. "All you have to do is get inside."
"Whose house?" Brandy pressed.
"A sailor's," said the sea goddess. "He was..." She trailed off, and Brandy raised her eyebrows, waiting. "He was special to me, once."
"Like him?" Brandy asked, glancing pointedly at Tom.
"Almost," said the sea goddess. "Not quite."
"So no..." Brandy wiggled her fingers at the sides of her throat to mimic gills.
"No." This was said with a tone of finality that made even Brandy think that pushing would be a bad idea.
"He'll like you," Tom said helpfully. "You're his type."
"Thanks," Brandy said dryly. "I hear I'm a fine girl."
"You are," he said.
Brandy didn't know what to say to that, so she stared into the water instead. The stone on the pedestal was luminous, and she didn't recognize it; probably it was too rich for her blood.
The sea goddess tapped the surface of the water, and the image shattered, leaving Brandy to grab a rag and mop it up. "Will you do it?" she asked.
"Of course I will," Brandy said, confused. "Did you really think I'd say no? You need my help."
"You are kind," said the sea goddess.
"I try." Brandy shrugged.
The sea goddess rose from her stool. "We will return in three days."
"Here's the address," Tom said, scribbling on a napkin. "I'll see you later."
"Later," Brandy echoed.
The two of them left. Brandy kept expecting to see a trail of wet footprints, but they left no trace at all. After a while, she stopped watching and closed up, then went back to her apartment to sleep.
***
The next evening, Brandy dressed up in a low-cut blouse that showed off the beautiful silver locket with Tom's name in it, as well as a considerable amount of cleavage, and a tight skirt. She knew that whatever tipsy sailors might say about her eyes, they weren't the first thing that attracted them to her, and she wanted to make the most of her assets.
The address, when she plugged it into her GPS, was only about 90 minutes inland. It surprised her that even Tom couldn't go that far from the coast, but then, she didn't really know what it was like to have gills. Looking in the mirror to put on a little makeup, she tried to imagine what she would look like if she did have them.
Like Tom. Brandy turned away from the mirror and got together her things: wallet, phone, keys, a wadded-up reusable shopping bag to hide the stone in. She stepped into her shoes and headed out.
***
Brandy had learned early on that it was pretty easy to get what you wanted from men, as long as what you wanted was short-term. It was a cynical outlook, maybe, but it got her laid fairly regularly, and it got her nice things once in a while, and most of the time, that was enough.
This knowledge meant that getting into the thief's house was trivial. All she had to do was flirt a little, tell him her car had broken down and her phone was dead, and ask if he'd mind helping her out - then, once he had his head under the hood, ask to use his bathroom.
"Sure, sweet thing," he said, distracted, and she slipped into his house. The bathroom was on the right; on the left was a room with a closed door. Brandy tried it, and it wasn't locked - it opened onto exactly the view she'd had in the dome of water on the counter the night before, the stone catching the light in a pale gleam.
It only took a moment to get it into the bag she'd brought for the purpose and stuff the bag into her purse, and then she went across the hall and used the bathroom. A good thing, too, because when she was finished, the man was just coming in the front door.
"Should be just fine now," he said. "Could I get you a drink?"
Brandy let out a nervous giggle. "Oh, you're too kind! But I've got to get over to visit my mother and charge my phone. Thank you again!"
"If you're sure," he said, sounding disappointed.
"You know how mothers are!" She hurried out to her car, which should indeed be just fine, if he hadn't done anything to screw it up, hoping she just seemed eager to get on her way.
For half the ride home, Brandy's heart was in her throat, waiting to see - what? Police lights? The thief tailgating her? She wasn't even sure - in the rearview mirror. There was nothing, though, and eventually, she relaxed and enjoyed the drive. She always felt better the closer she got to the sea, even if it wasn't as dramatically important to her as it was to Tom.
All in all, it was fairly anti-climactic: she went to the place, she got the thing, she went home. Now, all she had to do was wait - well, that and lock up the stone in the safe under her bed. She wasn't some kind of idiot.
***
Three days, nearly to the minute, had passed when the sea goddess and Tom came back to Brandy's bar. It was empty again, and Brandy didn't think it was a coincidence.
"I have it," she said unceremoniously, taking the shopping bag out from under the bar and handing it over.
"Thank you," said the sea goddess, her voice serious. Maybe it was just Brandy's imagination, but she looked healthier as soon as the stone was back in her possession, her dark skin almost glowing."You have done me a great service."
Brandy nodded, thinking about this. "How great?" she asked, at last.
Tom laughed softly. "I knew you'd come around."
"What?"
But the sea goddess was nodding. "Enough that we could take you away," she said, "if you wanted to come with us."
Brandy rocked back on her heels in surprise. "Really? What would I do?"
"Whatever you wanted," Tom said. "And you'd never have to leave the sea again."
"Or be able to," Brandy said automatically. She was seriously considering it, though, much to her own surprise.
"We'd love to have you," said the sea goddess, meeting Brandy's eyes. Brandy was already half in love with her, and she knew she was still more than halfway there with Tom.
And it would be an adventure. That, in the end, was all Brandy needed to know. "Yes," she said. "I'll come."
The sea goddess smiled, and everything changed.