What persists after this is only air and water and me between them, not quite either and with one foot straining for the sand.
LEAH
We surfaced, of course. This is something to remember—that we turned toward the panel after who knows how many hours spent staring into that eye and told the craft to take us upward. That we grasped each other’s hands, Matteo and I, and begged a being neither of us believed in to allow us to surface. I don’t remember much about the rest. I know the creature did not stop us, though its eye held a strange, anticipatory expression as we receded, if “expression” is the word I want. I know, too, that Matteo held on to Jelka’s rosary beads as we rocketed upward, as we moved up from darkness into further dark, the light so many miles above our heads. I know all this, and I know that as my head cleared, finally, of everything, sunken thoughts receding with the thing that we had left below, I thought to myself Miri Miri Miri and I waited for the ocean to end.
A NOTE ON THE TEXT
In case you haven’t guessed, I am not a marine biologist. However, in my willful imitation of one, I’ve been lucky to rely on some incredible books and articles, particularly the following: The Sea Around Us—Rachel Carson （Staples Press） The Soul of an Octopus—Sy Montgomery （Atria Books） “Thirty-six Thousand Feet Under the Sea”—Ben Taub （The New Yorker） “Her Deepness”—Wallace White （The New Yorker）
I’m also highly indebted to Neal Agarwal’s Deep Sea resource: neal.fun/deep-sea.
In addition to this, a couple of nonmarine texts were crucial to shaping the preoccupations that in turn shaped this book. I am grateful in particular to Annie Proulx’s The Shipping News （4th Estate）， for fostering a decade-long obsession with sea lungs, and Claire Cronin’s Blue Light of the Screen （Repeater Books）， for making me think about the intersection between ghosts and demons in a new and different way.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
To Ansa Khan Khattak and Caroline Bleeke. Most people are lucky to have one editor, so for this book to have two such dedicated champions feels like a wild and undeserved luxury.
To Kish Widyaratna, for seeing this book on its way with such grace and generosity.
To Sam Copeland, with thanks for infinite patience and humor.
To Alice Dewing and Katie Bowden: not only the best but also the coolest.
To Sydney Jeon, Marissa Constantinou, Nicholas Blake, Katie Haines, and everyone else who played a part in getting this book off the ground.
To Eleanor Harris, Cordelia and Ed Harper-Masters, Jess and Ash Burton, Pete Quigley and Amanda Williams, Lucy Baraona, Katie Clark, Daisy Mortimer, Sellisha Lockyer, Kerry Upham, Sophie Jagger, Hannah Leach, Emma Waring, Gabriella Shimeld-Fenn, Beans Webster and Jess O’Sullivan, Lindsay Smith, Greg Barrett, Eliza Clark and George Royle, Alison Rumfitt, Peter Armfield and Sarah Crowden, Elizabeth Macneal, Mikaella Clements and Onjuli Datta, Pete Scalpello, Alice Slater, Kirsty Logan, Heather Parry, Rosalind Jana and Marlena Valles, Nina Harvey-Brewin, and, of course, Louise Bower—for watching movies, for reading drafts, for making drinks, for sending messages, for all of that.
To Martha Perotto-Wills and Avery Curran, beloved coterie.
To Isobel Woodger and Sarvat Hasin, my forever girls.
To Tiggy, who did nothing.
To Mum, Dad, Nick, and Emily, with absolutely all of my love.
And to Rosalie—the only person I could be trapped with for over a year and still want more of everything.
This book is offered in memory of Michael Waring, a fellow shark lover and someone I wish I could have known better.