1. Dry Humor

CHAPTER ONE

DRY HUMOR

The Past: Sato in a Box

Sato sat in the box called a room , inside the bigger box called a house , and glared at his dumb legs – hating all of it. To be fair, they were perfectly good legs, if legs were what you wanted, but Sato missed his tail.

The box was warm and a little damp, but not in the right way. Not wet with salt, no matter how close to the ocean the box squatted. The box was forcing Sato to face up to the fact that he was beached, alone and lonely, with a body that felt heavy because in addition to the legs and the box, it turned out he also wasn’t wild about gravity.

Gravity wasn’t wild about him, either. He’d already fallen down the stairs in this dumb box… twice. It felt like he was aware of all his bones for the first time. And those bones did not want to listen to him.

His room was quiet, but not the muffled friendly quiet of the Deep. It was the quiet of an abandoned human space. A quiet that came coupled with all the vastness of an overwhelming sky just outside. Just above. More infinite than the ocean.

Or, this box was quiet.

The box next door had other ideas.

The neighbors, as it turned out, were loud.

His sire had said, in that soft abrupt way he had of talking, that the neighbors were difficult . Sato must learn to ignore them. Because everyone on the block ignored them, otherwise there would be trouble .

How did one ignore something so noisy and boisterous? It was as if the air vibrated with currents of spiky sound. Everything was too sharp here. It was maddening.

Sato went to his window and, after some fiddling, raised it up. The loud box was right there, with only a limp weed-tree between them. The noise increased but it was no warmer or cooler inside with the window open.

“Hi!”

Directly across from him was a similar window, on the second level of the noisy box, also open. A small boy was leaning out of it precariously and talking, evidently, to him. Sato didn’t know what to do about any of it.

Apparently the small boy did. He kept talking. “You’re the new kid! Mr Sato’s surprise son.” He waved his arms around like sea kelp as he spoke. It was almost pretty.

Sato wondered how the child knew. So far as he could tell, his sire didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t have any friends. He wasn’t the type.

The boy was small and extremely… what? What was the correct word to describe him? Like a brightly colored nudibranch. He had round soft pink cheeks, huge dark eyes, a big forehead, and a shock of hair the color of sun coral.

Cute was the word. The child-creature was almost unbearably cute. And sparkly. Sato was merfolk enough to like sparkly things.

“I’m Patrick!” said, apparently, Patrick. “Patrick Inis. I’m your neighbor. Well, obviously. What am I saying? Why do you have to look so… just so… ugh! Anyway. Where was I? Hi! We’re, ya know, that family. The ones that the whole neighborhood talks about. The noisy ones. And the nosy ones. The problem house. We like to know what’s happening or we like to be what’s happening. Usually both. That’s how I knew you were coming. My brother told me. I’ve lots of brothers. And sisters, for that matter. It was Con who told me, I think, the one closest to me in age. He’s hoping it will get me out of his hair. If I have a friend next door, who’s my own age. You see, Con isn’t actually that close to me in age. He’s an adult now, barely tolerates me. I’m – what do they call it? – oh yeah, the oops baby . Only not really an oops. Every Inis is wanted , my ma always says. Maybe not remembered, but wanted . Frankly, there are way too many of us. I guess we are wanted, but only in a sack of potatoes kinda way. It’s one of the reasons we’re so noisy. Not that potatoes generally cause a ruckus.”

Sato stared at the boy. Patrick’s mouth never seemed to stop moving. His cheeks were getting pinker. He was as relentless as the waves on the shore.

“Do you not speak English? Aren’t you gonna say anything?” Patrick asked.

“Are you gonna let me?”

The boy’s cheeks went lobster red but he giggled. “Hard to ever get a word in edgewise in my fam. I got carried away by all the free air space. I guess I gotta stop if I want you to answer.” He paused. “Also, you’re gorgeous.”

Sato thought that, as a merman, that was a given. Of course he was gorgeous. But it was Patrick who had eyes like one of the deep sea trenches. They seemed to go on forever, but also they had a bit of surface shine to them.

Patrick pursed his lips and made a ptttt motorboat noise. Sato had met a seal once who could make a noise like that. Impressive.

“Are you not a big talker?” asked Patrick.

“No idea,” said Sato. Nothing had ever whipped him into a verbal frenzy except, apparently, Patrick’s eyes, but that seemed to be confined to the inside of his own head. Thankfully.

“What’s your name?” asked Patrick.

“You didn’t find that bit out already?”

“Not for lack of trying. Have you any idea how exciting it is to have a boy my own age move in next door?”

Sato could not believe that. Patrick looked a lot smaller and younger. “We are not the same age.”

Patrick sort of puffed up a little, like an affronted blowfish. “Inis run small. It’s a thing . I can explain if you like. But I probably shouldn’t do it yelling between houses. Can I come over?”

Sato didn’t say anything. Was that something humans did? Just invited themselves into each other’s boxes?

“So, your name?” Patrick pressed again.

“Why?”

“So I can ask for you when I knock.”

That sounded like human interactive guest practices, so he said, “Sato.”

“Isn’t that your father’s name?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, so you’re like Sato Junior?”

Sato did know this part. His mother had made him memorize it before she chucked him up onto the shore – a beached-wood child no longer wanted by the sea. Returning him to the land, so far altered from any land-bound state that he was now to be called by a new name. “No. I’m Sato Daiki. He’s Sato Kenta.”

Patrick tilted his head, lips pressed together. “Confusing, but that’s cool. Be right over.”

Sato gave an expressive look at the tree between their two houses. He’d heard that humans did strange things like climb trees – was this kid proposing to transfer between their boxes that way?

Patrick laughed. “Oh, I think not. I’m water-born too. I don’t climb. Or I do, but then I usually get stuck. It’s not pretty or fun for anyone. I’ll come in through the door like a proper friend.”

“Friend?”

“You and I are gonna be friends. I can tell already.”

Sato had never had a friend before.

The window across from him slammed shut.

The house remained loud.

Sato closed his own window and went to his bedroom door. Opened it carefully.

His sire had shown him to this room, his room, and told him, curtly, to “settle in.” That he would “call him down for dinner.”

Sato took that to mean he was to stay in his room until summoned, but it wasn’t like he had anything to unpack. The pod had sent him to surface with nothing but one set of clothing, too big, a mermaid’s purse of pearls, and his DURPS paperwork. Well, it was a DURPS authentication shell, but it could become paperwork when needed. He wore it around his neck, strung on a piece of braided fishing net, never to be removed. Like he’d been caught by them, by the humans.

It was up to a merman’s human father to provide anything beyond the shell. Sometimes fatherhood might be purchased, for the price of an egg case full of pearls. If the father declined, died, or disappeared, then the merman would have to make it on his own two feet. Sato was considered one of the lucky ones. His sire at least felt compelled to put a roof over his head. A box around him. Had taken the pearls away with a heavy sigh, like their value worried him. Had asked him about his mother. Asked if he would ever see her again.

Sato knew sirens’ law. The sires, the better ones, the ones who retained any connection to the sea, they always asked. One night with a mermaid and they never forgot, they never stopped wanting her, they never let go, and they never settled for anything less. They never settled for anything human . They’d live in their boxes looking out at the sea for the rest of their lives, remembering one night. Not knowing that sex with mermaids had consequences, and sometimes those consequences turned up on their doorsteps ten years later.

Sometimes, the sea spat a pubescent mer-boy back out at them. A boy who shared half their genes – born of the sea but who that sea no longer wanted. A good sire raised that boy until the sea reclaimed him.

His sire, Sato Kenta, was one of the good ones.

And Sato Daiki was supposed to be grateful for it.

Instead he stood at the top of the staircase, that he’d slipped on twice, and listened.

“Who are you?” His sire’s voice at the door.

“Hi! I’m Patrick. I live next door. In the problem house. I’m decent, though, I promise. Although, to be fair, I’m also kinda loud. I’m here to visit Sato. I’m his new best friend.”

“What?”

“Well, I’m gonna be. You just wait.”

“What are you?”

“Friendly.”

“Is this a kid thing?”

“It’s okay, Mr Sato, you’re new to being a father. You’ll figure it out soon enough. Sorry about my family, they think playing country music really loudly will help them fit in. I hope you don’t mind the Dixie Chickens.”

“Chicken?”

“It’s this new band, very hip.”

“Hip?”

“Ah, I see. Nevermind. You’re making dinner, right? That’s part of parental obligation.”

“Yes, catfish katsu. Kids like fried food, yes?”

“We do! Well done, you. Let us know when it’s ready.”

“You are staying for dinner?”

“Most definitely. We never get anything as fancy as stew made by cats. Training your cats to cook sounds awesome, but also kinda labor intensive. Imma go up to Sato now. You two have the same first name but different last names, that’s wild, you realize? Very innovative.” The boy stumbled over the word. “Mad props and all.”

“It’s Japanese. We say the last name first.”

“Then why do you call it a last name?”

“We don’t call it that, you do… oh never mind. Just go up.”

“Thanks, Mr Sato, sir.”

“Sato-san.”

“Oh, so you do have a different first name! See.”

“No, that’s… shoes off, please.”

“Oh? You don’t like ‘em? But these have hardly any holes. They’re my good pair.”

“No shoes inside.”

“Like inside the house ? Cool idea. Easier to keep clean.”

“Just leave them by the door.”

“I dig it. Socks are cool. Shoes are dumb.”

Sato watched a small figure dart in from the open doorway, slide across the floor. “Wheeee!”

There came a faint thud as the boy hit… something, and then Patrick was bounding up the stairs. He was a lot better at stairs than Sato.

Sato met Patrick at the top, looking down at him. He was so small and sparkly. No actual sparkles like scales, but sparkly in the way he moved and smiled. Huge shining eyes, flashing white teeth, rosy cheeks, a full head shorter than Sato, and Sato wasn’t big by human standards. Probably about half his weight as well. But mermen were extra dense on land.

Patrick twinkled up at him. “Hi!”

“Are we really the same age?”

“You’re starting fifth grade?”

“I guess so.”

“Then no, we’re not technically the same age.”

“Technically?”

Patrick hung his head and whispered. “I’m two years younger. But can you pretend I’m not? I’m so tired of being the youngest.”

“Only two years?” That meant he was eight. Sato was used to a lunar calendar but still, Patrick seemed undersized.

“Like I said, we run small.”

“We?”

“My people. My family. Us. Trouble. Let’s go into your room and talk about it. I don’t think your father should hear. I really just call you Sato ?”

Sato dipped his head. “Maybe eventually you’ll use Daiki.”

“I have to, like, earn the privilege?”

“I guess. I just learned the rules myself.”

Patrick straightened up. His jaw tensed. “Okay, I can do that. What did they call you, the people you were with before you moved here?”

Sato thought about his pod. Or not really his anymore, now just the pod that had raised him. “Daiki.” He put the siren song shriek into it, but not enough to bleed human ears. Still, Patrick winced. “But everything worked differently there.”

“Under the sea?”

Sato started. Patrick knew? This strange cute child-boy knew what he was? But that was supposed to be a secret. From humans. Only his father should know. Well, DURPS because registration was required, but no one else. That was the whole point. He was supposed to learn how to pass as a human. How had he already given himself away, just talking between boxes, when he’d barely said anything?

“How could you possibly know?—?”

“I told you, my family makes it their business to know. Particularly about…,” Patrick lowered his voice conspiratorially, “... shifters . This your room?”

Patrick opened the door as if he were the one who lived there. Sato wondered if all human boxes had the same layout.

He followed Patrick inside.

Patrick launched himself onto Sato’s futon.

“It smells like the sea,” announced Patrick.

Sato had been lying on it earlier, staring up at the ceiling. He didn’t have a very good sense of smell, but he loved the way Patrick’s little nose twitched. He wasn’t sure anything should be allowed to be that cute.

Patrick instantly bounced back up again, began investigating the small freestanding plastic wardrobe – empty. The tiny desk and shelves – bare. The one set of drawers – empty.

“You arrived with nothing?”

Sato nodded once.

“I’ll have to take you shopping before school starts. Will Mr Sato give you a clothing allowance? Oh – supplies too. I mean, I can show you how to pinch the necessities, but you probably shouldn’t risk being arrested until you’ve found your land legs.”

“Tell me how you know?”

“That you’re merfolk? Local selkie saw your pod dropping you off. Reported it to my dad by way of gossip exchange. He told the family. Not that my fam cares much for a merman in our town, especially a male pup – you have so little power in the grand scheme of things. But like I said. The fam likes to know, ya know, who’s who in the local shifter community.”

“Why?”

“Why do we care? Well, otters are usually up in everyone’s business. We come by it naturally. But my family likes to think we’re big water-dogs in this part of the Mississippi delta. Ya know, movers and shakers via land, river, and sea. It’s a good thing we’re in the middle of nowhere so far from New Orleans. Less competition. Here we get to be important . Basically? We run a lot of import-export ops. All that noise right now? Moonshine party.”

Sato frowned. More words he did not understand, but basically what Patrick was saying was, “You’re not human either?”

Patrick finished his perusal of the room, threw himself back down on Sato’s bed, writhed about a bit. Not like he was trying to get comfortable but just because, like talking, movement seemed to be his natural state. He was squirmy and bouncy. Like a squid. Spurts of activity and then a lot of wiggling. Sato liked it. Sato liked him. Liked him there, in his strange box room in this strange dry surface-world of oppressive weight and sharp sounds. This was the first time he’d felt comfortable in his skin-without-scales since he’d left the sea.

Sato moved cautiously, perched on a corner of the futon, focused on Patrick. Fascinated.

Patrick stared back at him, silent for a change, eyes big. Then he sort of shook himself and sat up, leaned against the frame.

“We’re dobhar-chú! You know – otter shifters. Dratsie? Heard of us?”

“Yes. But only sea otters. You’re not that, are you?”

“Technically river otter, but we can swim in both. Not like you.”

“Like me what?”

“Merfolk are salt-triggered, right?”

“Oh, yeah.” Fresh water, large amounts of it, was a strange idea to Sato. The concept that there would be enough fresh water collected in one place for him to get fully inside and not sprout tail was, frankly, terrifying. How was he supposed to swim without a tail? The surface world was insane.

Patrick wrinkled his cute little nose again. “I can change form at will. Dobhar-chú are lucky that way.”

Sato wondered if Patrick would change for him right then and there, in his bedroom.

“Wanna go swimming sometime?” Patrick asked, sounding hopeful, eyes huge. His cheeks less pink now.

“Yes.” Sato thought there was nothing he would like more. He wondered what Patrick’s otter form looked like. Probably just as cute as his human one. He couldn’t possibly be any cuter.

Patrick bounced, went pink again. “Awesome!”

The box next door emitted a metallic crashing noise. Then went back to a kind of twangy whump whumpping.

“Your house is very loud,” said Sato.

“Sorry about that. Imagine growing up inside it! I mean, I know I’m a chatterbox, but I assure you I’m the quietest one. I have nine older sibs. Nine ! Someone should’ve stopped my parents at some point. They started with two sets of twins and then triplets. That’s just excessive. Plus assorted aunts, uncles, and cousins. You should know, it’s mostly shifters but the fam deals with humans too. Nasty ones.”

“What is it they do?”

“My parents? Lots of stuff, most of it illegal. So the humans that do visit are some of the worst. Cops too occasionally, but Pa pays them off. So on the bright side, everyone tends to keep lots of secrets. Your identity isn’t important to them. Still, I wouldn’t recommend letting anyone else in town know what you are, if you can help it.” He gave a chin nod to Sato’s webbed hands.

“But your whole family knows?”

“Yeah and the local selkie. But they won’t tell unless it’s to their advantage. And it’s only advantageous if you develop power in shifter circles or human government. You’re not thinking about a career in politics, are you?”

“I’m ten, Patrick.”

Patrick pursed his lips, looking both wise and rather silly. “And I can already tell you aren’t a fan of public speaking. Stay off their radar and you’ll be fine. Just another shifter kid that no one wants. No offense.”

“None taken. It’s true.”

“Being a merman kinda sucks? Like being the youngest in a big dobhar-chú family?”

Sato didn’t know if that was correlative, but being a merman did kinda suck .

Patrick was looking at him closely out of those shiny deep sea eyes. “Do you miss it?”

“What?”

“Your mer-family, your… what do you call it?”

“Pod.”

“Yeah, that. Do you miss your pod?”

“No. Maybe I miss my little sister. She’s cute.” Fun. Chatty and adorable. Like Patrick. Only he thought Patrick was even cuter and more his. More than his own sister had been. Meymey had belonged to his mother first and the sea second. She had loved him, but had always known she would lose him to the land. So she was his sister, but never his . Patrick seemed to be something different. Like this room, Patrick had been gifted to Sato. Lonely and waiting. No pearls required.

Sato had no idea how he knew that. It was just the way Patrick looked at him. Like he couldn’t quite believe Sato existed. Like he was inhaling, after holding his breath underwater for too long. Even as he moved and darted glances, quick and sharp and restless around Sato’s space, he was comfortable in it. Like Sato was both a new exciting thing and a mooring point.

“I do miss the sea,” admitted Sato.

“That’s easy to solve. After dinner, let’s go swimming.”

“We’re allowed to do that?”

“I don’t see why not. I know all the beaches. Most of them are deserted at night. I can show you how to shift and not get caught.”

“That sounds nice,” said Sato, because it did.

“So we’re gonna be friends?” asked Patrick.

Sato thought they already were, so he inclined his head at his first friend.

Patrick ejected himself forward and across the futon, scrambling to the corner where Sato sat.

Sato found himself wrapped in skinny, oddly strong arms, squeezed from behind.

The kid was like a barnacle. Was it an otter thing or a Patrick thing?

“What?” Sato asked, confused. He didn’t know what to do with his hands, so he clenched them at his sides.

“This is a hug. It’s nice. You’ll get used to it.”

Sato wasn’t sure he liked it, but Patrick seemed to, and that mattered.

Later, years later, Sato liked to think he’d known it from the start. From that very moment. It was Patrick. For him, it was Patrick, and it would be Patrick, and that was just it . Like he’d somehow known and decided on forever, in that one moment.

Sato liked to think he was decisive and confident and sure of himself. Even at ten. Even as a terrified abandoned sea-child in an alien world of gravity and legs, cutting sounds and fathers who were not fathers, with horrible sad eyes.

Would he have made it? On land? Among humans? At a human school? In the human world? Without Patrick?

Fortunately, he never had to find out.