Naturally, after the little episode outside of the retail store, I had a few questions for Sean Mori. He said that was fine as long as I could keep up with him on his way back to the arcade. His shift was almost about to start.

“So that’s normal? That sound coming off of the walls?”

Clearly I was not cut out for driving an interrogation. 

Sean dodged the question and asked, “How would you describe what you heard?”

After I got past the memory of my whole body becoming a level 5 earthquake, I tried to recall the actual sound of what I had experienced. Standing there, taking everything apart, I kept coming back to the sensation of being deep underwater, somewhere vast where sound could travel for ages before it collided with any real barrier.

“To me, it felt like something was singing underwater. But the song was sad.” I paused and locked eyes with Sean. “What did you mean earlier when you said it sounded like a family?”

Sean’s expression was unreadable as ever. But I did notice that his throat bobbed ever so slightly from swallowing. Finally, he said, “Have you ever watched just past the opening credits of Free Willy? When the fishermen steal the baby orca away from his mom. It sounds like that.”

I thought about it before offering a slow nod. “I think you’re right.”

So we were in agreement. The sound we heard was the same one made by orca whales. Just like the one in the Pacifico logo. 

Did that mean anything or was that just what our minds associated the sound with on instinct?

Something told me that Sean had spent a lot of time thinking about these phantom sounds. It felt like he was talking about this out loud with someone else for the first time. 

“You’ve never told anyone about this,” I said, testing my theory.

Sean looked off to the side and shrugged while dragging his hands through his messy waves.

His answer came out as barely more than a mumble. “You’re not the first, but it’s been a while.”

I wanted to ask Sean about who else knew, but suddenly the look on his face wasn’t so ambiguous. As if reading my mind, his brow became heavy over his dark eyes and his jaw set in a way that could only mean one thing.

Don’t.

So I didn’t. 

The rest of the walk was quiet and kind of awkward if I was being honest. We were about to round the corner and enter the family fun zone. Player Nexus was where Ocean Villa Cafe, the arcade, the roller rink, and the laser tag playground were all located. 

It had been a while since I had been to the massive carousel that rotated in the nave right outside the entrances to all of these places. 

I was thinking about maybe taking a spin down memory lane when Sean said, “We don’t have to stop talking about this.”

His voice broke me out of my reverie. I crossed my arms, not really understanding his point.

Sean looked somewhat conflicted as he labored through his explanation, “What I mean is, there’s stuff I’m not going to talk about. I don’t really know you yet.” 

I hugged myself a little tighter. “Yeah, I get that.”

Sean sighed. “But.” He stopped walking and waved me towards a little alcove just before the nexus. When I didn’t move, he waved again, harder. 

I groaned under my breath, but met him in the tiny corner. My spine braced against the narrow crease as Sean used his body to wall us off from any passerby. I was still holding tightly to myself, growing colder under Sean Mori’s shadow. 

“But what?” I urged, wondering why he looked like he was fighting back a moment of panic.

Sean closed his eyes. “But there’s more. There’s more to this place than just noises, Aqua. It’s driving me crazy – past the edge sometimes.”

My heart pounded without warning. What was I seeing right now? What was happening to Sean?

His eyes were still closed. As tightly as ever. His head jerked this way and that. He looked in pain.

“Sean,” I whispered, not knowing what kind of comfort he needed. He was still standing, but he braced the rectangular pillars on either side of my head. If the building wasn’t there, I don’t think he could have held himself up otherwise.

What the hell happened to this guy?

“They won’t go away.” A tight whisper. “And I can’t leave them.”

I wanted to help him, but I didn’t know what I would be walking into.

“We can talk,” I said, hoping that would break the spell. “I can talk about it with you. And I won’t tell anyone else. I don’t need to.”

Who would believe me anyway?

Hi. I heard and felt a thunderous pod of killer whales force their way through my system when I touched the old Pacifico store.

Yeah, no. I wasn’t going to go there. No matter how much people joked about this place being haunted.

I doubted that talking it out with Sean was the same as leaping into the abyss with him. At least I hoped it wasn’t.

“Will that be enough?” I asked. “Can that be enough for now? If we just talk? You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.”

Sean was starting to calm down now. His breathing was getting back to normal. 

God, this dude was going to give me a heart attack. Did I really need this?

“Thank you.”

I caught Sean’s gaze and for the first time, I felt something warm in it.

All this time I thought his eyes were brown, but this close up, they looked kind of green. Like the murky water in the wetlands just off the highway. Everglades green.

“Thank you, Aqua.” Sean repeated, breathing much easier now.

He finally backed up, dragging an unsteady hand through his hair again. His eyes lingered on me with yet another cryptic read. I sidestepped Sean’s lingering gaze and deceptively green eyes. Then I whisked around the corner, searching for the nostalgic sight of the carousel to calm my own nerves.

But it wasn’t there.

I must have looked so mature to Sean when I realized that there was no giant carousel from my childhood. Just an empty nexus with a circle of benches, a couple of decorative dracaenas, and some ATM machines. 

When I whined to Sean about where the carousel went, he told me that they moved it to a different part of the mall, but it wasn’t running anymore.

I was still stewing in the unfairness of it all when Sean said, “I get off at eight. Will you still be here?”

I told him that I would.

“We won’t be able to ride it, but I can show you where it is.”

It would definitely be a way to pass the time until my mom picked me up on her way home from work. The question was, did I feel comfortable going on another creepy escapade with Sean Mori in such a short amount of time? Like he said earlier, we barely knew each other.

But then he did that hand-drag-through-the-hair thing and I tossed all of that necessary logic to my own personal survival out the window.

“Yeah, that sounds good. Let me give you my number.”

And by that, I meant my pager number because of how my parents wanted to keep letting me live in the dark ages.

Of course Sean pulled out the sweetest little pocket flip phone and punched my number in there like it was nothing. Based on the model, I’d say his was a couple of years old. Still, here was another person that I knew who had a phone and I didn’t. 

There were invisible aquatic ghosts haunting the floors of the neighborhood mall, but I, Aqua Moore, was still using her dad’s old beeper from the 80’s.

Speaking of which, the little dinosaur in my pocket started vibrating. I really didn’t want to pull out my pager in front of Sean, but if it was going off, that meant it was important.

I wrestled the black beeper out of my jeans, expecting to see a message from my mom. But it was Elliot’s number that popped up. And there was a short message that went with it too.

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