Chapter 43: 43. All Shapes, All Sizes

It's overrun. Elementary students zip through Avery's hallway of aquarium tanks like a pack of goblins, gurgling out laughs and indecipherable yells. Little hands topple over cardboard cutouts of cartoon sharks, fiddle with interactive displays, and try to open locked doors with signs that read "Employee Only".

Avery's already anxious mind explodes at the scene. Screaming; the usual fishy smells; none of the kids understanding personal space: it all melds into a cacophony of stimuli that keeps the world out of focus. She scrambles through the river of children, searching above the tiny crowd for the two much taller figures that can set her free from this madness.

They're no where. At least, they're not in this hallway. Are they in the lobby? Even more kids can't still be waiting in there, can they? In spite of the thought, kids keep streaming from the direction of the lobby and around the bend.

A girl's nasally voice breaks through the buzz. "Why is that fish upside down?"

Another kid speaks up: an overconfident, smug boy. "Oh, that one's dead. I had a goldfish and that's what they look like when they die. I'm going to ask if I can flush it down the toilet!"

"He's not dead! He's just sleeping. Hey, lady! Tell him that fish is just sleeping!" The girl yells.

Avery's feet freeze in place; a weight falls into her stomach. They're just kids, they don't know.

A couple of images flick past in her mind: Larry the pufferfish dead, he bobs near the water's surface while Avery reads through a new book nearby and none the wiser; Dad's heart acting up, he lies on the living room floor while Avery listens to music just a room away.

Every feeling of helplessness, guilt, and failed responsibility she's ever felt bubbles to the surface of her skin in chills and shivers and sweat. Lightning bolts of emotion that stun her in place.

The girl raises her voice, yelling over the laughing of other children. "Excuse me? Excuse me!"

Avery inches her head around, her body following behind like a segmented robot. Her voice quavers. "A—ah, what is it? Sorry?"

She jabs a finger up toward a fish in the tank, a little too close to the arguing boy's head. "Tell him that fish is just sleeping!"

The boy flinches away from her raised hand. "It is not. Let me flush it!"

Ice freezes along Avery's spine, all through her neck. Still, Avery forces her gaze up; she grinds through the fear to act some semblance of normal. Inside the tank, a single catfish floats along the surface of the water.

Upside down. Just like the kids said.

You weren't listening were you? Today, yesterday, the day before. All the same warning and you won't listen: we predicted this. It was always going to happen again, but you wouldn't liste—

The fish's tail shifts and they drift closer: black-brown spots against an orange-brown body, with a set of whiskers peaking just through the water's surface. Whiskers that twitch above a hungry, searching mouth.

Fear melts away: Avery's hands unclench, her shoulders relax. All that worry for a goddamn, blotched upside-down catfish. She tries to laugh off the nerves and lets that professional, autopilot part of her take over. "Sorry, but no flushing. That's a blotched upside-down catfish, they just like to swim like that. One theory is so it's easier for them to eat food off the surface of the water or submerged logs. It's one of the only species in the world that swim the wrong way up, though they can swim the right-side up too. If they wanted."

Grinning, the girl puffs out her chest and crosses her arms. "Told you so!"

The boy drags himself over to the information panel in front of the catfish's tank that explains most of what Avery just said. He scuffs his shoe against the carpet. "Humph, whatever. I'm more mature than you so I can admit when I'm wrong."

Avery's eyes linger on the catfish for a moment. Nancy is her name, right? With a shrug, Avery whips around toward the lobby: toward Tamika and Valerie and — hopefully — the freedom to go home.

Thump.

A denim-overall-wearing girl crashes into Avery's raised knee. The scene pauses and the steady buzz of children turns dead quiet, like a crowd watching on as an Olympic diver smacks the water belly-first. All the girl's momentum disappears except for her hair's: two auburn pigtails fly past her head and jerk to a stop on either side of Avery's knee. Her head snaps back and her pigtails flutter after her falling body.

No thought has time to enter Avery's mind. Her body just lunges forward on its own and her hand shoots out to catch the falling girl. Denim hits the ground first, then bone. Overall-girl's head rattles against the floor and she stops moving.

Feelings catch up and flood Avery: cold sweat pools at her hairline, a heartbeat drums in her throat. She sprawls over the floor on hands and knees and crawls up beside the girl. "Oh god, oh god, are you okay?"

The girl is still, silent. Her eye's ease open and she starts to say something, but then she realizes. Her little face trembles; veins pop into existence on the whites of wide eyes, pulsing an unnatural shade of red; and she releases a stomach turning, ear rending screech of a cry.

"Oh no — no. Don't cry. It's fine! I — I mean, are you okay? What's wrong?" Avery says.

She doesn't answer. The veins pulse with that unnatural red and inch closer to her irises. Avery can feel her mouth drying out, her thoughts growing wild in panic. She casts her gaze around, searching for the other two or maybe even a parent. What do I do? What do I—

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Tink. Barely audible above the crying, something plinks off the tank's glass behind her. She cranes her neck ready to yell at a kid, but everyone is still stuck staring at her and the girl bawling on the floor. Avery stares into the tank.

Fish wobble through the water like drunken sailors caught above deck in a tropical storm. In a fit of bewilderment, she climbs to her feet and creeps toward the tank. What in the world?

Rocks and plants swirl in a frenzy and a heavy, limestone castle lazily scrapes along the bottom. She sticks her face up near the glass. Current? From where?

Tink. Another rock smacks against the glass and zips back to the cluster of twirling detritus. A rainbow of different fishes start to drift toward the center of the underwater twister: Congo tetras of orange and silver; purple-black mollies; and green, black-tiger-striped angelfish.

Avery plants a hand on the glass and the switch deep inside her flips. Every molecule of water leaps to the front of her mind and feels... odd. Usually it feels free, weightless. Now, it feels chaotic but ordered. Untamed and wild but with purpose. Like it's trying to force its way out through the thick slab of glass right next to her face.

In a smooth motion, the twister breaks and all the water rushes at her. Ice pierces Avery's heart. She flinches away from the glass. The moment her fingers break contact the feeling of rushing water evaporates, leaving behind only fear that judders up her spine in chilly bursts. Don't tell me...

The tank's vertical seams groan under the pressure and a series of larger rocks smack against the glass. The girl's screeching cry turns to pained screams; her tiny hands grasp at her head and she curls into herself.

It clicks in Avery's mind. She can't control it.

Children begin to crowd around the screaming girl; they drone out an indecipherable stream of chatter, pointing and snickering all the while. Avery's heartbeat thunders. Adrenaline clarifies her frazzled mind and she slaps both her hands on the glass. "Shit! Shit, shit, shit." She raises her quivering voice above the children's chatter. "Everyone, please walk calmly to the lobby and get the adults."

Everyone goes quiet again, but no one moves.

She cranes her neck around and yells. "It's an emergency. Go get them. Now!"

At that, the children shuffle in the lobby's direction. Some mutter insults at the still-crying, overall-wearing girl. "Of course she loses it on the field trip."; "Don't worry about ruining our fun, you'll grow up soon."; "Gah, I don't want to leave!"

Avery's gut curdles at the comments, but she flips the switch and the water flows through her senses in a torrent, washing away near everything. Everything that isn't the cool glass under her fingertips, the swirling objects and fish, or her own sense of self. She concentrates on each rock, and one by one they drop to the floor with muted thumps and — for large ones — resonant thuds. As if the water blinked out of existence and left them behind.

Pain flares behind her eyes.

She splits her focus to the castle. It's askew, all one hundred pounds of carved limestone spinning on a single corner of its flat base. It weighs on her mind and body just like she was trying to lift it herself: knees tremble, planted hands slick the glass with sweat, and pain burns hotter. Slowly, guide it slowly...

The grounded rocks shift, they vibrate, they threaten to jump back into the current. Avery chest and arms scream, straining under the weight of the castle. She squeezes her eye's shut; she wills herself to keep track of it all, to keep it out of the water's influence, but — for just a second — her concentration breaks and she overcorrects. One hundred pounds of limestone crashes down onto the tank's steel floor and the entire building shakes under her feet.

Avery gulps in hot breaths over her humid, sweaty-drenched body. God. Keep it together. Keep the kid safe. Keep the fish safe.

Even without the rocks bouncing off the glass, the tank's seams whine higher and higher notes of distress. Possibilities threaten to run rampant, but Avery clenches her eyelids tighter, forcing the worries out of her mind. Someone will come and stop it. They'll get her to stop, just focus. Rocks, castle, now fish.

Palm-size angelfish already spin end over end in the current. The next moment, they hurtle directly at the glass. Avery splits her focus again: each angelfish plummets through the water like it isn't there. The fish still need to breathe, so she lets them splash into the safer part of the current near the floor and they zip off into the twisting waters. She juggles all eight schools of varying species of fish just like that. In a rainbow Ferris wheel of pure stress.

Each second that passes, the pain grows hotter. Her knees start to buckle, her head starts to buzz. Just a bit more. Keep it all just a little longer.

An octopus of gray hair flings itself forward with tentacles that lash out and connect to the walls, floor, and ceiling. Suspended at its center, an odd mass of hair writhes in concentric patterns.

Black tickles at the edges of Avery's vision. Finally. A hero.

Once above them, tentacles retract and the mass splats onto the ground. Writhing patterns unfurl, slinking back up to form a head of long, silver hair. Valerie's hair. The old woman kneels down and gently pries one of the tiny hands away from the screaming girl's head. "You're going to be okay, dear. Just hang on a moment longer."

Avery blinks away tears, and grunts words through clenching teeth "What— are— you doing. Call— someone!"

Valerie doesn't pay her any mind. Instead, she coaxes her hair with her other hand and it slithers down from her head. Strands break away and wrap around the girl's wrist. They circle around and around, gradually forming an intricate weave that looks like an ornate bracelet. The instant the hair stops moving, the water changes. All hints of influence, order, and purpose dissipate and the weight on Avery's mind lifts. She lets her concentration fade. What did Valerie —

The darkness closes in and her consciousness winks out.

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