There is a place where all the world's oceans meet together like old friends. You could sail a boat over the surfaces of the sea and never find it. But if you chose just the right spot when the moon was full, you could lean over the side of your boat and see a silver path shining down through the water. At its very end lies Far Away--where the Mermaid once lived.

Far Away is so deep that even the moonlight barely reaches, and sunlight never comes. In its center rises a hill surrounded by tall plants like guards, who reach out their grey leaves. When the Mermaid lived there, they used to open a path for any of the sea creatures (even sharks) to follow. Now they stand closed, their leaves woven together like folded arms.

Behind the plants, on the hill's top, gleams a tower made of pink conch shells. Its windows and balconies open to the sea, and below it spreads the Mermaid's gardens of seaplants. Once the Mermaid cared for these plants with her own hands and lit them by the light from her eyes.

Now all is dark in Far Away--for the Mermaid had to leave.

Sharene floated on the tower's top balcony, using her tail to keep her from drifting with the current. She dug deep into her oyster shell basket and scattered algae biscuits to a school of gold garibaldi.

"Silly fish," she said, giggling. "You don't need to crowd around me so. There's plenty of food for you all."

A big garibaldi with round orange eyes didn't believe her, and he dove into the shell to get some food himself.

"Can't you find your dinner in the Upper Waters?" she asked, amazed that a fish could be so rude.

"No," the big garibaldi replied with a swish of his tail. "The plants by the shore, where we come from, are disappearing. The water smells strange, and there are things floating in it which we do not like. Some of us got sick, and the youngest died. We heard about Far Away, where the Mermaid and her graden live. So we swam all the way here."

Sharene frowned at his words. She had heard about the poison from other fish who visited. More and more schools had been coming for food. Far Away was getting crowded, and soon there would not be enough seaweed to feed all the fishes.

The school of garibaldi devoured all the algae biscuits in Sharene's basket. She looked at its shiny white bottom as if she could not believe the food was gone. This was the first time she couldn't feed all her hungry guests with one serving.

"I want more," a junior fish whined, swimming close to his mother. His scales were pale yellow instead of gold, sickly-looking.

"We haven't eaten for days," an older fish complained, weaving from side to side while a fish hook and line dangled from his jaw like a whisker.

"I'll get another basket," Sharene promised as she swam into the tower. She took the pearl key she wore around her neck and opened the storage door. From the light of her eyes she saw that the storage area was nearly empty.

"Oh no," she said, trembling even though there was no current here. "Must I gather food again so soon? Will Far Away run out like the Upper Seas? Will the poison come here and kill all the creatures?"

"Not so many questions at once," a Voice replied. Sharene opened her eyes wider, and their light filled the circle of the storage area. She could see a shadow flickering in the water. Its shape seemed like hers, but it wavered--like the shadows of passing ships above.

"Pardon me," she said as she bowed, Mermaid-style.

"I don't mind you asking questions," the Voice replied. "But it's easier if you ask them one by one. Now, the first one. It would not help to gather food again, because (to answer questions two and three) the poison already slips toward Far Away. If not stopped, it will kill all the living things. So the first thing you must do is stop it."

Sharene bowed again. "I am Keeper of the Sea," she humbly said. "I should have gone to work as soon as I heard of the poison. But I didn't know what to do."

"When you became a Keeper, on the seas' birthday, what were you told?" the Voice asked, as if testing her. Sharene closed her eyes and tried to remember. It was very long ago.

"The Maker told me to care for the sea creatures, making sure they were healthy and had enough food."

"Have you done your job well?" Sharene opened her eyes and stared at the fluttering shadow.

"There were many of us Mermaids then," she said slowly. "We lived in all the seas and lakes and ponds. We laughed and chased each other. We harvested seaweed while singing Ocean Songs. As time passed, the Mermaids started to disappear. Now only I remain. This is a big job for one Mermaid alone."

Sharene hated to say the word "alone." It reminded her of all the long days behind, days when she longed to talk to someone other than the fish and crabs (they had very little to say). At times she felt like leaving Far Away. If she swam far enough, would she find someone like herself?

"You have done well," the Voice assured her. "This is indeed a big job for one alone. Now you must leave Far Away and finish your task. You must find the poison's source, and stop it."

"How will I know the way?" Sharene asked, thinking of the vast and unknown sea. She had never swum beyond the plants which guard Far Away.

"The sea creatures will show you," the Voice replied. It grew fainter, its shadow fading before the Mermaid's eyes. Then the Voice paused and reached out a hand. As the strange, soothing fingers flickered on Sharene's arm, she felt she chould face the long journey and what would meet her at the end.

"You will not always be alone, Sharene. You will find someone like yourself to help you Keep the Sea."

The Voice disappeared, and Sharene floated very quietly, staring where it had been. All she saw was the pink shell wall and some seaweed stacked against it.

She locked the tower door and tied the key back around her neck. With a flash of her silver tail, she swam out of Far Away, past the parting plant-guard leaves, not once looking back. The school of garibaldi watched her and wondered about their dinner.

The first thing Sharene noticed when she slipped past the guard plants was how the light from her eyes formed only a small circle around her. In Far Away she had been able to see everything from the top of the tower to the garden's edges. But here the black ocean stretched beyond the white light like a barrier. She wondered what lay beyond it. She floated for a moment just outside Far Away, wanting to return.

Sharene was not afraid of the sea. It was her home, even though she had never explored all the vast rooms it contained. When other mermaids lived, they had journeyed to Far Away for visits. Sharene would share kelp and sea biscuits. They told her what their part of the sea looked like, from coral reefs to deep sea trenches to rocky shores. None of them had spoken of the Land.

What was the Land like? Did it come upon you suddenly, like a huge open hand ready to grab you? Was it like the ocean's sandy bottom, or like the rocks of underwater caves? Sharene hesitated, thinking about the Land. Then she remembered the Voice's words:

"You will not be alone."

She put one hand over her smooth pearl key (which hung on a seaweed chain around her neck) and swam toward the open sea.

Sharene saw no plants or hills. The darkness overwhelmed her, making her light-circle shrink. She could barely see a few feet in front, so she swam slowly, hoping she could stop before hitting something.

Good thing she did.

A huge round object covered with lights and thin bare arms lunged from the darkness. It made a whirring noise that hurt Sharene's ears, and she barely avoided swimming into it. As it was, she let out a Mermaid scream, but even that could not be heard above the noise from the thing.

When she realized it would not harm her, she decided to swim closer and find out what it was. Since it swam very slowly, Sharene had no ploblem floating beside it. She reached out to touch it. It felt harder than the inside of a shell.

On one side glowed a round hole. She moved over to it and looked in, careful to avoid the long arms. What she saw filled her with such surprise that she bumped her head on the rim of the hole.

Inside the thing, not more than three inches from her eyes, loomed a face like her own. It had two grey eyes (which did not glow very well), a nose, and a mouth. It had short brown hair (not long and silver like hers), with two ears below. It even had a dimple in its chin.

Sharene had not seen another face since the other Mermaids stopped visiting her a hundred years ago. She stared and stared, then lifted one hand and pressed her fingers to the hard clear surface of the hole.

The face on the other side stared back, its mouth half open and its eyes very big. It too placed a hand on the glass. But they could not touch each other--an invisible barrier hung between them, stronger than the surface of the sea.

Suddenly a powerful ocean current bounced the thing down and then up. As it came down one of the arms struck Sharene's head. For a moment she could not see, and she felt as if she were falling into a deep hole. When she could see again, the thing was gone.

Sharene was once more alone.

"What kind of animal lives in a big round shell with arms and lights on it?" she asked out loud.

"I don't think it was a clam," a voice replied behind her.

Sharene turned around to see a pale fish. It looked a little like the thing (but much smaller), with one fishing-pole arm that dangled above its head. Its eyes glowed like hers--so did the light on its head-arm. Sharene realized she was addressing a deep sea angler. She had met one before in Far Away.

"No, I suppose not," she agreed. "Its face was like mine, only brown-skinned instead of white."

"Probably not good to eat," the angler muttered as he yawned, showing Sharene his double row of teeth, "You couldn't crack open its shell."

Sharene sighed and drifted away from the angler, remembering why talking to fish wasn't as interesting as it could be--all they talked about was food.

Sharene swam without stopping to rest. She swam through the deep ocean for awhile, then approached the surface, where the water lit up by the sun. Thousands of sea animals lived there--most of them too small for any human eye to see. But Sharene saw them--tiny shrimps, graceful copepods like water butterflies, baby fish larva, diatoms built like translucent circles and squares.

She saw ocean sunfish, rabbitfish, squid, and schools of sardines that flashed silver in the sunlight. As she swam she asked the creatures if they knew from where the poison came. If their mouths were not too full, they would reply:

"Swim for the Land, the Land!"

Only the playful dolphins seemed interesting to talk to. Sharene had never met one before, because they lived near the surface and needed air. They had grey tails which looked like her own, except they were not covered with small silver scales. Dolphins could skim through the water so fast that even Sharene had trouble staying beside them.

"We'll show you where the Land is," one of the dolphins said, jerking back her head playfully.

"Yes, swim with us," another said, jumping up through the surface to ride on a wave.

Sharene watched them go, afraid to follow. She had never broken through the water's barrier before. What lay above?

She could see the dolphins' shadows as they raced above her. The sun shone very bright, turning the water's color a pale greenish-blue. She held out her hand and tried to touch the rays of light as they angled yellow through the dusky water. What did the sun look like, which caused all this warmth and light? Long ago other Mermaids had seen it and told Sharene. Now she wanted to see it for herself.

Without hesitating long enough to change her mind, Sharene flicked her powerful tail beneath her and swam straight up. She expected it to hurt when she broke the barrier. But the water parted gently above her head.

What she saw looked so beautiful that she wondered how she had ever been afraid.

A yellow circle of light shone from a pale waterless ocean that spread above as far as Sharene could see. The circle flashed so bright that it hurt Sharene's eyes to look at it. Was this the sun? And that light blue ocean--the sky? Sharene lifted her arms, and they moved through the air faster than they did in bouyant water, wind caressing them dry, sun heating their pale skin.

She breathed the light substance called air, amazed at how different it felt in her lungs than water. She looked down at the sea's surface, which splashed around her waist, and saw sunlight on the waves like circles dancing. When she touched it, she could feel nothing but warm water. A shadow passed over the light, and Sharene glanced up to see a creature with long fin-like things gliding in the sky. Was this a bird? And those white things like giant jellyfish above it--were they clouds? Sharene opened her mouth and sang.

"Hurry up! We want to show you the Land!" a dolphin scolded, treading water beside her. Sharene smiled at her and replied,

"Yes, I want to see it! If the sky and sun are so lovely, then I won't be afraid of the Land."

The dolphins kept their word and guided Sharene to Land. She followed them for several days. Once a storm hit the ocean, and thick grey clouds covered the sun. Wind blew the waves so high that Sharene and the dolphins had to swim under the surface. Things floated by on the waves--old tires, empty bottles, a shoe. Once Sharene even saw the wreck of a ship--its mast broken off and its hull turned to one side. She swam beside it for awhile, trying to find any living creatures on board. But the storm sent a huge wave crashing down on it, and it sank beneath the water before Sharene could find its crew.

When the clouds blew away and the waves calmed down, Sharene found herself in shallow water. It was very clear--she could see all the way to the sandy bottom. She dove down and skimmed along a coral reef, amazed at the bright colors. Red sea whips, pink sea fans, and orange stone coral lined the reef. Black and yellow butterflyfish, blue clownfish, and brown moray eels darted among the reef, looking for food. Sharene touched the soft purple tentacles of a sea anemone and laughed when it closed up like a hundred tiny doors.

She chased a spotted triggerfish for awhile, then coasted back to the surface where the impatient dolphins waited.

"See!" they cried in one voice. "The Land!"

Sharene spotted a white stretch of sand not far away, covered on top by plants like tall sea fans. It was not a very big Land, for Sharene could tell where it stopped on either side to make room for the ocean.

"This is not what I expected," she said. "I don't think any poison comes from here. The triggerfish told me the water tastes clean. I think you brought me to an island, not the Land."

The dolphins swam backwards on their tails and chattered to one another for awhile. Then the leader nudged Sharene with its head and told her:

"This is all the Land we know. Perhaps the whales could show you something bigger. They swim past here on their long ocean journeys north. Ask them."

Sharene reached out and petted the dolphin's silky nose.

"You've been very helpful," she said, smiling. "I'm glad you brought me to this island, so I could see bright colors and the place where poison has not yet spoiled. The whales will show me the rest of the way."

"You're welcome! I hope you stop the poison," the dolphin replied, splashing water on Sharene with his nose before he and the others swam away.

Sharene watched them go, wondering if she would find anyone else to talk to. The dolphins were the most interesting sea creatures she had met, and they were a little like her. But they were so quick and playful you couldn't speak to them for long. Sharene thought of the face she had seen inside the giant shell. Could she talk to it if she ever found it again?

After a few days Sharene left the island with a helpful family of huumpback whales. They were very large--Sharene watched carefully as she swam among them, so they wouldn't accidentally crush her. They sang songs to each other underwater, the high notes vibrating until the ocean echoed with their sound.

The leader, a barnacle-covered old male, talked to Sharene about what he had seen in his many travels through the sea.

"It seems like the ocean shrinks each year," he observed as they swam through ever-colder water. "Wherever I go, I find Humans have been there already."

"Man?" Sharene asked. She dimly remembered the other Mermaids mentioning that word.

"Man," the whale repeated, moving his eye back to look at Sharene. "Man looks like you. At least, he looks like part of you."

Was that a Man she saw in the big shell?

"Man sends the poison into the sea," the whale continued in his deep, slow voice. "He hunts the sea creatures for food or pleasure, until many of them disappear forever. He changes the face of our shorelines, dumping sand where it should not be. He sends old tires and cans and barrels full of deadly energy. He sends sewage and oil--and things you can't see, called chemicals. They are the worst. They kill the clams and oysters by the shore. Even the fish and plants are dying. I have seen it all."

"But I thought the Maker made Humans Keepers of the Land, as I am Keeper of the Sea. I don't poison their world, so why would they poison mine?"

The whale turned silent for awhile, his large brown eye staring ahead at the black water through which they swam.

"They have poisoned the Land too. I don't think Man realizes how bad the poison is."

"Or maybe he doesn't take his job as Keeper seriously," Sharene commented, wondering now if she wanted to meet such a creature.

The whale kept his eye turned ahead, searching for his old pathway through the currents. Sharene could tell he no longer wanted to converse. If dolphins were too playful, she decided as she swam in puzzled silence, whales were too serious.

After a few days in cold water, Sharene and the whales passed beneath chunks of ice floating near the surface. Amazed at how water could turn solid, Sharene swam free from the whale family to explore the strange seascape. When she broke through the barrier this time, near a huge chunk of mostly-submerged ice, her lungs were struck by the cold air and nearly-frozen spray that lashed around her.

She floated closer to the iceberg, fascinated by sunlight shining through clear prisms of ice, and by blue-covered water pools where sections had melted. Surely no poison reached this far north, where the sea was cold and sparkly! In the distance she saw more icebergs, and further on a layer of frozen sea, criss-crossed by frosted wavelets. Even further she spied mountains white with snow. The Land!

Excited at nearing her journey's end, she dove back down to the whales and thanked them.

"Be careful," the leader advised her. "We do not swim too close to Land. Further south, Humans send boats out to watch us. Humans rarely hunt us anymore, but the watcher-boats make us nervous, and sometimes our babies are separated from their mothers and lost."

"I'll be careful," Sharene promised. She waved and watched the whales flip their huge tails as they swam away. What would the sea be like if whales disappeared forever, like the Steller Sea Cow did? She would miss their ocean songs.

She turned and swam between ice chunks toward the frozen Land. After a few minutes she arrived in a bay where the water still ran liquid. She should have thought it strange that the bay lay so silent, and that she saw no fellow creatures. Indeed, gobs of black stuff floated down from the surface. Puzzled, Sharene swam upward and broke through the barrier, this time into a sea of oil.

Black, slimy tar clung to her hair and arms and eyes. She screamed, and thick crude oil filled her mouth. Was this the poison? Even here? She spat out the foul-tasting substance, wiping her eyes. Near the shore she saw oil-caked birds struggling to raise themselves from the mess. They tried to cry out, their beaks sealed shut. They tried to rub the oil from their feathers, but they could not. They slipped on oil-covered rocks, the sluggish waves beating them into the oily sand.

Sharene's eyes burned, yet still she saw the blurry bodies of dead seabirds, seaturtles, fish, even dolphins and a killer whale. If only she could save them! How had the oil found its way here? She saw no signs of Humans.

Unable to stand the pain in her eyes and the greasy coating which burned her skin, Sharene had no choice but to dive, dive, dive. She swam as fast as she could back to the open sea, scooting her body near the still-clean sea bottom and scraping off the oil with grains of sand. A few hours later she headed south again, clean herself, but crying for the struggling seabirds who would never be clean again.

How could she enter the Land? It seemed as if Humans warned her to keep away. Lost, she swam southward along a great coastline. Gradually the water became warmer. There were no more signs of oil. Exhausted, Sharene skimmed along the shallower bottom, over rusty cans and muddy bottles. In places the water seemed too warm, with too many plants crowded together near smelly currents. Silt covered the crabs and lobsters as they crawled along, and a yellow liquid stained the blue water green.

There were not many fish. When Sharene did see one, it scurried past her without speaking. Had the poison made it unfriendly, or was it frantically hunting safe food? The water grew shallower, and soon Sharene found herself near some rocks. Giant green kelp wove along their sides, and little kelp fish darted among the leaves. Sharene reached out to touch one, but a wave broke against the rock, scaring the fish and scratching Sharene's wrist against some barnacles.

She moved around the rocks. Below her, in a dark cave, an inky octopus hid. She waved, and he reached out one arm in greeting. At least someone still seemed friendly.

Sharene was still gazing down when she swam into a brown stream. It blinded and choked her, surrounding her like the giant hand she had feared. Sharene dove through it, her arms stretched in front of her. Would it swallow her if she did not get away?

At last the water cleared, and she could see the muddy bottom. She rubbed her eyes and wiped the silt off her arms, wondering if the poison would make her die.

Sharene was tired. She had swum so far; she had found poison and Land. When she came to more rocks, she pulled herself up and sat on them. The sun had just poked up over the horizon, and it spread orange brighter than coral over the sky. She looked at it for awhile, then turned toward the beach and waited. Something walked toward her over the sand.

Wil Newmoon strolled along the early morning beach without thinking about where he was going. He did not notice the pink clouds hovering above the horizon far out at sea, or the waves lapping the beach like tongues. His curly brown head faced down at the sand as he remembered what Dr. Davis had told him after marine biology class yesterday.

"There's not much time left," the old Professor had said in a tired voice. "Soon the poison will kill all the creatures and plants. You know we get most of our oxygen from seaplankton. Much of our food comes from fish and seaweed. When the sea dies, so will the Land."

"What can I do? I am only one person, " Wil had replied, wondering who would listen to a college student.

"One voice is better than none," Dr. Davis pointed out, placing an arm over the classroom aquarium as if to comfort it.

"But you have worked all your life to protect the sea. What have you accomplished?"

The words wounded the old man, and he rubbed his head with his hand.

"Very little," he admitted. "But I tried."

Wil had tried, too. Even though he was born on an Indian reservation fifty miles from the ocean, he had lived at the beach--swimming, walking, tide-pool watching, even surfing. The blonde, blue-eyed surfers used to tease him--an Indian riding waves instead of ponies! He would look at them with his strange grey eyes and smile, wondering why people thought Native Americans didn't belong with the sea. Many tribes, like his, lived near coastlines. After all, who made the first ocean vessels?

Later Wil joined groups to protest the dumping of poison into the sea, writing letters to Congress, marching in rallies, gathering signatures for petitions. He also studied hard to learn the sea's secrets, both in the classroom and in the water itself. He had even journeyed down the Marianas Trench in a deep-sea diving bell, and imagined he saw a Mermaid peering into his portal. Maybe he was dying with the sea--maybe he should quit school and move to the mountains. Then he would not have to watch what was happening.

Wil was thinking so hard about the problem that he passed the person sitting on the beachead rocks without noticing her. He walked several more steps, then turned around and stared.

Half in and half out of the water sat a lady. He guessed she was his age. Her hair gleamed so blonde it seemed silver as it hung wildly around her body like seaweed. He crept closer, making no sound on the wet sand. She looked at him. Her eyes were the same color as the pink-tinted water which circled around the rocks.

"Who are you?" she asked in a voice like seafoam bubbling on wet sand.

"I am Wil Newmoon," he replied, sounding very ordinary and human. "Who are you?"

"Sharene. I have never sat at the edge of the sea before. This shore I've been following since the icebergs must be a continent. It's a long journey from Far Away."

"From where?"

"Far Away. Don't you know the place where all the oceans meet?" She paused and stared at Wil's tan legs. "Perhaps you haven't swum in the sea. Those two things you move about on look awkward. They probably wouldn't swim very well."

"They swim well enough with fins on," Wil said, wondering why Sharene's words sounded so strange. "I'm a diver and a marine biologist. I understand the sea."

"Do you?" she asked. "When the Maker formed the World, he gave those like me the oceans. He gave your kind the Land. Why have you ventured to the sea?"

Wil had snuck so close to where Sharene sat that he realized she was no early morning beachgirl headed for a swim. In the water, where her legs should have been, floated a tail as large as a dolphin's. The sun sparkled on its scales, lighting them like polished chain mail. He stepped back as if his eyes touched something hot, and he landed in the water.

"You are . . . "

"A Mermaid," Sharene finished his sentence.

"But you can't be," Wil stated, climbing out of the water to sit on a rock a few feet away. "When I saw you in the Marianas trench, I was imagining. Pressure from the depths does strange things to people's minds."

But Wil remembered how real she had looked in that deep, sunless water, arriving out of nowhere to press her face against the glass and stare at him. He remembered that she had placed her fingers against the glass, and he had followed the movement with his own fingers, as if hypnotized. Then she had disappeared . . .

Sharene also remembered the meeting. As she watched Wil's face she realized she was seeing her first Man. Now no portal hung between them. She started to reach her hand to him, then shyly brought it back.

"I am Keeper of the Sea. I left Far Away to find the poison and stop it. My search brought me here, after I found a horrible black poison up north where the glaciers live. I couldn't land at that shore! You are my first Land-dweller. I don't doubt that you are real because I couldn't even imagine a creature with two skinny limbs beneath him instead of a tail."

"I'm sorry I doubted you," Wil mumbled, looking sideways at Sharene. "These 'skinny limbs' are called legs. We humans aren't good at facing the Unknown. You are what you are, and I must believe my eyes. I'm not surprised your search for the poison led you here. Do you see those towers?"

Sharene gazed down the beach. Against the sky like huge burnt fingers reached smokestacks. She shivered as she remembered the brown stream which had blinded her.

"That is Tech Corp, where much of the poison is made and dumped into the sea. On the other end of the beach lies the Institute, where a few sea-loving humans put on masks and fins and pretend to belong in the water. We learn what the poison does, and try to stop it. But people are greedy; they will not listen."

"I'm glad I found you, Wil Newmoon," Sharene declared, smiling (Wil thought her teeth really did look like pearls). "You can help me."

"I have no power to help you," Wil said, throwing a rock hard into the water, causing ripples to spread out from the place it hit. "Even if a Mermaid told Tech Corp to stop poisoning, they wouldn't listen. Besides, this problem is world-wide. We couldn't convince all the polluters."

"We must try," Sharene stated, sounding a little like Dr. Davis. She slipped into the water, gliding under the surface to the rock where Wil perched. He looked down at her face, noticing that her eyes shone as transparent as the water above them. She pushed her hand up, breaking the surface into a hundred crystal droplets. Wil hesitated, then reached down and grabbed her hand. It was cold and pale in his own brown hand, and he had no trouble lifting her onto the rock beside him.

"I suppose it's not every day that a marine biology student meets a Mermaid," he said. "I will take you to meet Dr. Davis at the Institute. He'll know what to do."

"The Voice said I would find someone like me to help," Sharene whispered. She had journeyed a long way to reach the Land, and her eyelids started closing, her long lashes white against her shell-pink cheeks. Wil picked her up and carried her down the beach. This time he noticed the clouds on the horizon, and the sun-specked waves where the Land meets the sea.