by Ruth Joffre

My parents only had one rule when I was growing up: Every question asked had to be answered, regardless of the subject or if it was age-appropriate. Once, I asked my father where to find a pink bunny the color of my lucky rabbit’s foot, and he told me to follow the dirt path north through the woods until I found a clearing with branches arching over it like a cathedral and wait there until a coven of witches appeared on one moonlit night for a shapeshifting battle. “One will transform into a purple snake, another a green bat, and the third a silky pink rabbit; but you must never approach the pink rabbit, because underneath all that fur it is still a witch and will not give up its foot without a fight.” By then I was six and a half going on seven and knew enough to understand that witches rarely deign to reveal themselves to humans. Nothing magical shows its face here by accident. Nothing but the jelly heart.

I saw its castle when I was nine. My parents had taken time off from work to manufacture a long weekend at a beach where sea turtles were known to lay eggs. We had been watching from a safe distance for hours, peering through abuela’s binoculars and marveling at tide pools, when I spotted it: a glint in the water, then a tower, then a castle made of sea glass on the shell of a turtle crawling up the sand. “Look!” I shouted, pointing at the gleaming turrets, the sharp shine of glass polished into a smooth, continuous structure housing what, I could not tell. It shone ruby red, like a jewel or hard candy, but my father had the binoculars then, so only he got a real look. I’ll never forget the way he breathed the words what on Earth.

My mother had the good sense to restrain me before I could hop down from the rocks and figure out for myself what lived in the castle. When asked why she wouldn’t let me go any closer or even take a peek through the binoculars, she was silent for a solid twenty seconds before I reminded her she had to answer. “That’s the rule. We never break the rule.” But I could tell she wanted to.

Eventually, she said, “We weren’t meant to see this.”

“But what is it?”

Over the years, I’ve gotten many answers to this question—all of them lies, as far as I can tell. First, my mother told me the jelly heart was a squid-like alien with translucent flesh and nine tentacles of varying lengths and that it communicated via patterns of light, which is why its brain emitted that ruby red glow. Another time, she said it was an ordinary jellyfish that had absorbed a blood diamond so rare that it had been hunted for decades and if anyone found out we had seen it, hired gunmen would show up at our door and torture us for information as to its whereabouts. At some point, my father joined in the lies and began telling fantastical tales about psychic plankton and seahorses building cities inside shipwrecks, but I knew that was just misdirection, a ruse they designed to keep me from asking the most important question:

Was their marriage falling apart?

• • •

Here are some things I know to be true about my parents:

My mother is 5’6” and fashionable, with black hair and skin the color of walnut bark. Her parents immigrated to the U.S. from La Paz, Bolivia, in the early 1970s and labored long years in catering and food service while my mother studied to become a mathematician. On road trips, we played a game of calculation where we assigned each letter in the alphabet a numerical value and attempted to use simple arithmetic to generate a pre-selected number of the day from the jumbles of letters and numbers on license plates. When this game became too easy, we began to introduce more complicated operations, including means, exponents, integrals, and square roots. She would let me win just to keep up morale on those long drives. Placate me with sandwiches and Slurpees on really hot days. But I knew nothing of her interior life.

My father was 5’7” and, in his worst moments, earnestly believed that his life would have been better had he broken six feet. Many times, I heard him bemoan not getting that promotion at the bank or kissing that cheerleader in high school and wondered if he viewed our life together as temporary, if given the opportunity he would happily slip out of his love for us the way he would a cardigan and leave it on the floor for my mother to pick up later. She told me once that he could never remember their wedding anniversary, that one year he gave her presents the day before and the day after and assumed that one of them must be correct, since she didn’t tell him otherwise. It was the one time I ever heard her answer a question with a question: What day do you think it is? I figured it out, years ago, when I found a shoebox full of wedding photos while snooping around their closet. Someone had written the date on the back of one: July 16th, 1993. Two months to the day before I was born.

• • •

When I turned eleven, I asked for one present and one present alone: to visit an aquarium. Our town was too small for such attractions, and I longed to descend into the depths of a viewing gallery paneled in wall-to-ceiling glass, to be surrounded on all sides by the watery light filtering through the habitats. Would I see a shark? Did they have interactive exhibits where visitors could brush the sensitive shell of a tortoise? My father said he didn’t think so, but that was okay—what I really wanted was to wear him out. To lure him to this aquarium under the ruse of much-needed father-daughter time, then wait until he parked himself on a bench so I could drift off and ask the associates: “What do you know about the jelly heart?”

Most of them, being part-time employees working summer jobs or with no real interest in marine life or its mysteries, responded with a quizzical look. “You mean jellyfish? We have some over there.” Only one associate would admit to knowledge of my query. Their nametag said Rana (they/them), and their staff sweatshirt was decorated with marine-themed enamel pins, including: a blue whale, a Squirtle, and a cartoon sea urchin with hands waving a purple spike over its head. They were feeding a tank of whitespotted boxfish. “Where did you hear that term?”

My parents had not taught me to be truthful, so I said, “I have my sources.”

They snorted, head shaking. “You mean you’ve been on the forum.”

“And what’s wrong with the forum? You’ve clearly been there, too.”

This contradiction did not seem to concern them in the slightest. Only after closing the lid of the tank did they turn to me, their gaze appraising behind the neon purple rims of their glasses. “Well, the first thing you should know is that ‘the jelly heart’ is just a made-up name—one of the surfer bros on the forum came up with it while he was high, and it kind of stuck. Second, none of the sightings have been confirmed. Even people on the forum aren’t sure the jelly heart exists.”

“It exists.” A part of me thrilled at my certainty. How undeniable it was: “I’ve seen it.”

Their face, so reserved until now, became suddenly animated. “You saw it? Where?”

“I can’t tell you that. It might put me and the jelly heart at risk.” From who or what, I still don’t know with absolute certainty, but I had been lurking on the forum long enough to have read every manner of warning. One read: Out searching today off Biscayne Bay and the g-damn Coast Guard made me turn around, telling me there was a “hurricane” coming. The sky was as clear n’ blue as my eyes after three cups of coffee. I must’ve been so close!!! And then: Police confiscated my laptop today. It had all my jelly heart research on it. They claim someone swatted us but I live with my granny, and the closest I’ve ever gotten to breaking the law is returning a library book a day late. Something isn’t adding up. Could these reports have been fabricated? Of course. But did they frighten me enough to stare at Rana with the utmost gravity? Yes.

Eventually, they scoffed. “You haven’t seen it.”

Before they could walk away, I said, “I can prove it.”

“Oh yeah?” Their arms crossed over their enamel pins. “Go ahead.”

“It lives in a glass castle on the back of a sea turtle. Or at least it did.”

Something in the way their whole body froze told me they had seen the jelly heart’s castle once and been changed forever, but before either of us could decide what to do about it, my father walked up and asked if everything was fine. No doubt he saw the adult standing over me looking cross and assumed I was asking yet another of my inappropriate questions, such as, “Have any of the octopodes ever escaped?” or “What do you do with the bodies when the fish die?”

Immediately, Rana slipped into Guest Experience Associate mode and said, “Are you this child’s father? Oh, good! I was starting to worry we’d lost you.” Their lie was so believable, their relief so sincere, that for a moment I really was a lost girl adrift in the current, separated from my father by throngs of tourists. I believed I had gotten away with my whole plan right up until the moment when my father gave me a holographic magnet depicting a moon jelly, tentacles shifting whenever I tilted my hand. I understood then that he didn’t believe me, not about getting lost, not even about father-daughter time, but had allowed me to lie to him, anyway. It was, I suppose, our family pastime.

• • •

Here are some things I suspect my parents have lied about:

My father claims alternately to have met my mother at a college bar, where he offered her a whiskey sour and managed to lose thirty bucks before he realized she was hustling him at pool, or while crossing a bridge on campus, where he saved the pen she dropped before it could roll off into the waterfall below, or in their intro to astrophysics class, where she helped him calculate the pressure inside the heart of a star, but I think what really happened was: He was dating her junior-year roommate. “In college, Joel was a real ‘hit it and quit it’ kind of guy,” that former roommate said, a little drunk, in her wedding toast. I watched the video one day while pretending to be sick. Rewound the VHS over and over. Saw them laughing at half speed. For once, they looked happy.

My mother insists that she did not want a honeymoon. Doctors forbade her from traveling right after the wedding because she was already seven months pregnant with me, but roughly two years later, when I was old enough to bear leaving with my abuelos, my father surprised her with a trip to Rio de Janeiro, where they spent days lounging on the beach amid the rich and would-be models posing in their swimsuits. One day, my father forgot to apply sunscreen before dozing off and spent the rest of the trip recovering from a full-body sunburn. “You could see the outline of a book on his chest,” my mother snickered, drawing its shape over her top. He had to take sleeping pills so the discomfort wouldn’t keep him awake all night. What she did while he was conked out those hours, he can’t say. She swears she just slept, but I have my own theory: I think she saw the jelly heart.

• • •

Online speculation about the jelly heart is almost as old as the internet itself. Back then, it revolved around a Geocities website, and many people assumed it was just a hoax, the product of an avid X-Files fan attempting to create a new urban legend to garner the attention of studios; but when the original series ended and the site remained, the legend of the jelly heart began to grow. I read about it in a pinned thread on the history of this forum. Conspiracy theorists logged on, now and again, to yell about the jelly heart being “just another CIA psyop,” but nobody paid them any attention. I spent most of my time on the Heart Track thread, with all the latest sightings and map projections. I happened to be lurking around when someone posted: I hear some kid in Virginia is going around saying she saw the jelly heart in a castle. any chance this is real?

I must’ve inhaled a sharp breath, because my mother looked up at me. “You okay, honey? You look worried.” We were facing each other on the couch, our legs overlapping at the ankles as we plugged at our clunky laptops, the way we did when my father was golfing or grabbing drinks with a client or whatever he did when he didn’t want to act like part of a family. His betrayal hurt less than Rana’s. How could they have told someone about me—and someone so indiscreet?

“I’m fine. Just saw a photo of a dead fish,” I lied as I clicked on the poster’s profile. Their username was ready4jelly and their avatar was of a glowing cartoon heart. Their profile had been created the same day, and their only other post was the obligatory just-signed-up hello.

My mother poked my shin with her toe. “Now you look even more worried.”

I minimized the window and feigned consternation. “I’m supposed to do this big report in biology, but I don’t know what species to do it on.”

“What are the options?”

“Our teacher’s letting us pick.”

“Is this Mrs. Bartlett? I would’ve thought she’d assign you a species.”

“Right? She’s such a control freak about everything else. Now I have too many options.”

“You could pick a species from Bolivia. The Andean condor is pretty iconic.”

“That’s a great idea—I’ll do that,” I said, pulling open a tab so I could pretend to research while monitoring the Heart Track thread in a separate window. I happened to be studying it at the precise moment a moderator deleted the post speculating about me. A message appeared in italics where the post had been: Post deleted by mods because it speculated on something other than the jelly heart’s location. Please stay on topic, people!

Out of curiosity, I navigated to the list of moderators and their forum rules. That’s where I spotted something I recognized: a cartoon sea urchin holding a purple spike, the pin pictured here in close-up, the avatar of user aquaflair—Rana. I clicked the direct message button but debated a while on what to write, in case the chatlogs weren’t actually private like the mods claimed. In the end I settled on something simple: thank you for deleting that post about the kid. not cool, even if it is true!

Almost immediately, they replied: no prob! I know the user. he’s still learning the rules

Maybe Rana didn’t realize it was me on the other side. Maybe they thought it was normal and fine to gossip about a child and reveal one of the most closely guarded secrets about the jelly heart to a newbie who didn’t know enough to keep it to himself. That information could drive the users on the forum to distraction. The jelly heart had already bewitched countless people, leading them to ditch work and drain their bank accounts on fruitless expeditions. One user even rented a submersible to look for the jelly heart inside the Marianas Trench. Four hours after the scheduled resurfacing time, the diver and his pilot were declared lost. Jelly heart research was nothing if not dangerous. Rana should’ve known better. At the very least, they should’ve apologized for talking about me with randos. Instead, they wrote: this thread is for collating sightings and extrapolating travel patterns. if you have a sighting (even an old one), you should post it there!

We have not communicated since.

• • •

What my parents said when asked how they felt about the divorce:

My mother told a story about a sea creature trapped in a tidepool. A passerby took pity on this helpless creature and returned it to the ocean, believing it wanted nothing more than to swim amid the multitude of species lumped together under the word “fish.” Only: What it really wanted was to wrap a tentacle around its rescuer’s finger. To hold onto that finger like a life raft as it was carried through the air, that rarest of mediums, full of life it never dreamed of before then. Now it longed to go back, to wrap itself once more around a finger and to feel safe in the knowledge that this human, this bipedal land creature, would protect it. It called out for that passerby. Guided her to a place where life could be cradled inside an egg until it was ready to hatch. It thought, when it saw her there on the beach, that she longed for it as much it longed for her. But she had her own life and another heart to protect and could not risk the creature attaching itself to her. Not again.

My father I waited to ask until the agreement was reached and he settled into his bachelor apartment with a distressed leather couch and a new set of dumbbells in the living room. Divorce had not proven to be the liberating experience he expected. After his lawyer explained alimony to him and confirmed that child support was not just for kids in diapers, his dreams of buying a new condo and becoming a womanizer stewed on the back burner while he made mac ’n’ cheese with hot dogs, like he did when I was a little girl. He grinned at me then the way I imagine he did with customers he didn’t expect to look under the hood, so to speak. “Your father’s making big moves now. Big investments in the future. Just you wait—next spring, it’s all going to come up roses for your dear old dad,” he said, while serving up dinner; but I could see the screws in his smile come loose. One can only deny reality for so long.

• • •

My mother and I tried to uphold the one rule after the divorce, but eventually we began to keep secrets from each other: the results of a chemistry test, for instance, or the truth about where she went and with whom on those nights when she claimed to be taking beginners pottery classes only to return home well after midnight, tipsy to the point of giggling at her own clumsiness. She seemed to blossom in her newfound freedom, this rare time of life when she answered to nothing and to no one. For myself, I felt no need to curtail her happiness. I had my own obsessions. Long nights spent willing myself not to check the Heart Tracker for new sightings and then checking it and endeavoring to forget everything I had learned by morning. A part of me wanted to beg Mom to drive me to the spot of the last sighting, to abandon everything in pursuit of the jelly heart. But another part of me understood that the jelly heart wanted to be found and was afraid to ask why.

• • •

Rana was the one who posted it: the first known photo of the jelly heart. Apologies for the quality, the post read. Shot this on my flip phone. Only have 3 megapixels but you can clearly see the jelly heart inside the glass structure. Other users were skeptical, of course. In the thread, they wondered why the jelly looked so small, if it was alive or had cut itself on the glass or was only a clump of bloody tissue left over from a creature choking on a piece of trash from a garbage patch in the Pacific Ocean. That was the only detail that gave me any real pause: Rana was on the West Coast, on a beach in Oregon. I’m here on vacation, they explained, as if to say, I wasn’t expecting a sighting, but I didn’t believe that. I could tell from the way the jelly heart extended one tentacle through the window of its glass castle. It had found someone to carry it.