Girl at the Bottom of the Sea by Michelle Tea Page B

like switching gears on a bicycle. Sophie could feel her body adjusting to the new conditions as she pushed through, water streaming around her. At first she had been cold, but like a walrus, like something that belonged down there, her body had started to adjust, and she was fine. The goose bumps that covered her arms and legs were probably permanent, but Sophie had ceased to notice them. What she did notice was the new creatures popping up in the dusky waters—the glittering spirals that shimmered up from a clump of dowdy algae, looking like the fizzing sparklers Sophie and Ella had lit on the Fourth of July.
    â€œ Clavelina lepadiformis ,” Syrena offered, noticing the girl noticing the creature. “Sea squirts. Very tasty. Tingle on the tongue.”
    A jellyfish red as a clown’s nose pulsed by, trailing long, crimson tendrils, looking like a tropical flower. When a school of cod passedby, Syrena reached out and snagged one, her long nails puncturing its scales.
    â€œWhen I girl, schools of cod so great, mermaid get lost in them! Once me and Griet separated by cod and took minutes to find one another. So many fish! Not now. Too many humans, and ocean so dirty.” She took a vicious bite from the side of the fish, spitting out bones. “Not as good,” she shook her head. “Don’t taste like what cod used to taste.”
    Syrena could be so jaded , Sophie thought. The North Sea, to Sophie, was perfect and full of magic. Up ahead she spied a gang of spotted seals playing together, swimming and swirling, diving and tumbling, their whiskery noses making them look like undersea puppies.

    Syrena noted the wonder on Sophie’s face, and in her mermaid way, she went about killing it. “Ya, they cute,” she said coldly, “Unless you so little they try to eat you.”
    â€œSyrena!” Sophie whined. “I like them.”
    â€œI like them, too. Wrapped in seaweed, cooking by a vent in the seafloor. Delicious.”
    They passed over a forest of sea pens, their feathery polyps outstretched and glowing, like a stage full of burlesque dancers bearing fans and sequins. Lobsters scampered below, gazing up at the pair with eyes as blue as the sea that was their home.
    â€œWish I hadn’t filled up on that cod,” Syrena said regretfully. “I’ll be back for you.” The lobster rushed to hide among the coral. A minke whale, its skin elegantly ridged, its mouth impossibly long, coasted by, creating a wake that Sophie and Syrena bounced upon.
    Something nagged at Sophie as she slunk through these rich, new waters. Her body still felt worn from her latest magic—her teeth loose in her mouth, her throat scorched from the fire of her zawolanie. Her stomach felt unsettled; she hadn’t been able to ingest anything but a few bites of seaweed and some algae sucked from her hair. But all in all, she was okay. She had tangled with Kishka, and it seemed that she had won.
    â€œSyrena?” Sophie called to the mermaid. “You know everything that just happened to me? With Kishka?”
    â€œHow you turn to shark and bite head off? Ya. You tell me. I wish I had seen. To see you bite Kishka! I would have cheered!”
    â€œWell, I feel pretty good, you know? I don’t feel that sick. I mean, I need to take a nap—”
    â€œAfter the Swilkie, the Ogress will give you nap.”
    â€œYeah, but I mean, my point is, how come I’m okay? Why aren’t I more hurt? It was Kishka .”
    â€œYou in ocean,” the mermaid said. “You soaking in salt. You are salt, almost. You strongest here. You bathe in it, swallow it. You constantly getting salt. It heal you before you even hurt.”
    â€œHmph.” It was true that Sophie could barely taste the salt anymore. The salt had become everything, her whole world.
    â€œYou no try to look into Kishka, right?” Syrena asked. “Peek into her heart, or whatever she has? No heart,