by Liz Kessler
There’s absolutely zilch to do. We’ve been out at sea for — well, I think it might be two days, but it’s hard to tell since there’s nothing to distinguish one deadly boring second from the next. I’ll never forgive my parents for this. Especially Dad. Why did he have to see that stupid magazine?
And guess who’s left to entertain herself all day while her parents go back to being totally wrapped up in themselves?
He’s the only one who’s enjoying himself. Mom’s spent all her time inside so far, cooking or sleeping and occasionally turning green and rushing over to the side to be sick. Why I thought it might be different I don’t know. When will I learn that nothing nice ever happens to me?
I wish one day it would. Just once.
Even the captain looks like death warmed over most of the time. Just stands at the wheel looking out at the sea. Not that there’s anything else to look at. He hardly talks to any of us. He must be at least fifty, so it’s not as if I want to talk to him. But he could make a little effort.
Dad doesn’t seem to realize that the rest of us are having the most awful vacation in the world. I wish he’d pay some attention to Mom, but he’s too busy running around with a fishing net, getting all excited about the stupidest things. Like now, for example. I’m lying on the deck reading a magazine — well, trying to read. It’s not exactly easy while you’re careening up and down and having to watch out for water splashing all over the place. Dad’s on the deck next to me, leaning over the edge with a pair of binoculars. He’s wearing bright yellow shorts, and his back is bright red to complement them.
Then he leaps up. “Mandy, love. Come and see. Quickly!”
I put my magazine down. Maybe he’s spotted the cruise that we’re really supposed to be on. Perhaps this was just a joke and we’re on our way to start our real vacation on a real ship! I look out to sea. “There’s nothing there, Dad.”
“Wait. He’ll do it again soon.”
Turns out he’s seen a turtle. A turtle! Well, excuse me, but BIG DEAL!
I decide to go inside. It might be even duller in there, but at least Mom won’t try to convince me that I’m having the time of my life.
Only something stops me. I squeeze past the captain, and I’m about to open the cabin door when I catch a glimpse of something. Not just a stupid turtle. A . . . well . . . a kind of nothingness. Just ahead of us, it’s all dark. The sea looks black and shiny, and the sky above it is suddenly filled with heavy clouds. Great. That’s all we need now, a thunderstorm.
I look at the captain. He’s taken off his cap. He rubs his eyes.
“What is it?” I join him at the wheel.
“Look!” He’s pointing to a load of dials. They’ve got numbers on them, but they’re changing too fast to make any sense.
“What do they mean?”
He bends down to study the dials more closely. “They should stay pretty much constant,” he says. “Might just be a loose connection.”
“What about that?” I nod toward the compass. The pointer’s spinning around like mad.
The captain wipes his cap across his forehead. Beads of sweat bubble down his face. “I don’t know what’s going on,” he says, his voice quivering. “It happened once before. It’s — we need to get away from here!”
The boat’s heading toward the darkness. And I don’t know why I haven’t thought of this before now, but I suddenly remember a comprehension test we did in English, about the Bermuda Triangle. It was called “The Ocean’s Graveyard,” and it was about all these ships that sailed into the Bermuda Triangle never to return.
The Bermuda Triangle. Is that where we are?
I glance across at Dad on the back deck. He’s still staring through his binoculars.
“Dad.”
“Hang on, I think there might be another one in a sec.”
“Dad!”
He puts his binoculars down. “What?”
I point ahead, at the darkness. We’re getting closer and closer. It’s as though we’re being pulled along, toward where the water’s lying motionless and black.
Dad turns around. “Mother of . . . what’s that?”
We gaze in paralyzed silence as the boat slowly begins to pick up speed, gliding toward the glassy blackness.
I don’t notice Mom coming out from below deck, but at some point I’m aware that she’s there, too. We’re slipping over to one side as we careen through the water.
“We’re going to drown,” Mom says suddenly. Almost calmly.
“Not if I can help it!” The captain grabs at the wheel, flinging it around as hard as he can. But it hardly makes any difference. His cheeks are purple. “Hold on!” he yells.
We’re edging closer toward the silent black water. It’s pulling us sideways, drawing us in like a magnet. We’re slipping farther and farther to the side. Bits of spray spatter the deck. The boat starts to rock.
Mom’s fallen onto her knees. The captain’s lurching at the wheel. I’m gripping the mast. I reach out to Mom. “Get hold of my hand!” Spray lashes against my face as the boat leans farther and farther over to the side. Mom reaches out, our fingertips almost touching before she slips back across the deck.
“Maureen!” Dad lets go of the rail to reach out for Mom. He’s holding her in one arm, gripping the rail with his other hand. He’s got his arm around her — at last. I didn’t want it to happen like this.
The captain is shouting something at us. He’s spinning the wheel one way, then another. It’s not making the slightest bit of difference. I can’t hear what he’s saying. I think I’m shouting, too. I don’t even know what I’m saying. Seawater is everywhere. We’re spinning sideways toward the strange glassiness, mast first, the bottom of the ship almost out of the water.
All is darkness, water, shouting, screaming. We’re going to die! Out here in the middle of nowhere, on our own. A stupid, stupid death. I close my eyes and wait for the boat to veer into the blackness.
And it does.
Or it starts to.
We’re teetering on our side when the boat suddenly jiggles and shakes. It’s leveling out. What’s happening? It slips and rocks a bit, there’s water all over the deck and I’m soaking, but we’re straightening out. We’re not going to die! We’re safe! Everything’s going to be —
But then I see Dad’s face, gray and heavy, as though he’s suddenly aged thirty years. He’s staring at something behind me.
“Don’t tell me you’ve seen another turtle,” I say shakily.
Then the boat lurches again and I fall to the floor. That’s when I see it, rising out of the water. What is it?
First, huge tusks, curving upward like giant bayonets. Below them, a long, long, olive-green lumpy snout. It’s taller than the ship’s mast. It almost blocks out the sun. Horror seeps into my body. Huge white eyes bulging and popping out like great big fat full moons on either side, lumps all over the snout. Oh, GOD!
Enormous tentacles slap the water, extending outward and up, khaki-green greasy things with suckers all the way down, waving around, splashing, making a whirlpool. We’re spinning into it.
I’m trying to scream, but all I can manage is a kind of dry clicking sound. We’re being sucked into something, into the whirlpool, a mass of tentacles rising all around us.
And then Mom’s screaming. I think maybe I am, too. One of the tentacles reaches right up into the air, then hurls itself down toward the boat and grips the mast.
I’m screaming for Mom; the boat’s on its side. Where’s Dad?
Water everywhere, a crashing sound, and then —
Shona didn’t talk to me all week — that first week in our new home. It was supposed to be a fresh start, a dream come true. Instead it was the worst week of my life. Think Brightport Junior High’s worst moments and multiply by a hundred. I was still the odd one out, still the one who didn’t fit in, who no one wanted to know. Was it always going to be like this for me?
Shona started hanging around with Marina and Althea. Maybe sh
e thought anyone was better than me. Maybe she was right. After all, I was the idiot who had finally gotten to live with both of my parents and been given a new life on an island full of merpeople and glistening turquoise sea and white sandy beaches, and what did I do? I couldn’t bear to think about it.
And yet I couldn’t think of anything else. I even forgot to be scared of starting school. I drifted through it, like everything else, in a daze. I couldn’t even get excited when I learned to dive with the grace of a dolphin and brush my hair like a real mermaid and sing the wordless songs of the sirens. None of it mattered. Everything was ruined because of what I’d done, and marred by a constant fear of the consequences. What was going to happen? Had it already started? The weather had changed a little since we went in the cave. Nothing all that dramatic. It had just been really windy, sudden sharp gusts making the sea all choppy. Probably just coincidence, but people had been commenting on it.
Millie and Archie came over one night. Millie stared at me all the way through dinner. “Are you all right?” she asked as she helped herself to a huge scoop of ice cream.
Mom turned to look at me, cupping my chin in her hand. “Are you, sweetie?” she asked softly. “You have been quiet.”
“I’m fine!” I snapped. “Why shouldn’t I be?”
“Your aura’s looking gray and patchy,” Millie said. “Usually means you’re fighting demons in your mind.”
Dad burst out laughing. “Don’t think my little ’un would stand a chance against demons,” he said with a smile. Millie glared at him.
I got up to clear some plates. Anything to get away. But just then, the boat rocked violently as a wave thrashed against the side, knocking half the dishes from the table and tipping me back into my seat.
Archie and Dad darted outside to see what had happened while I helped Mom and Millie pick up the broken dishes.
“Freak wave,” Archie said, pulling his hair behind his head as they swam back up to the trapdoor to join us again. “Seem to have been a few of those lately. Wonder what that’s about. I’ll have to report back to Neptune about this.”
“Neptune? Why?” I asked.
“It’s my job to keep him informed of everything. That a problem?” He seemed to look at me suspiciously as he spoke. I must have imagined it. A freak wave couldn’t have anything to do with me — could it?
On Friday morning, I bumped into Shona on the way to school. She’d avoided me all week but could hardly pretend she hadn’t seen me when I was right beside her in the water. For a brief second, I wondered if she wanted to make friends again, but the look on her face said otherwise. Her expression was like mine when I’m faced with a plate of mushy peas, or a spider near my bed.
“Have you told anyone?” she asked, pulling me into a tiny cavern that led off from the main tunnel toward Emerald Cave.
“No! I don’t know what to say. What are we going to do?”
“WE?” She stared at me. “I didn’t even want to go up that stupid creek in the first place! I didn’t want to go in the cave. I didn’t want to knock the wall down. I am not going to do anything!”
A tear burned the corner of my eye. I’d never seen Shona like this. “Well, what am I going to do, then?”
“I don’t think we should say anything,” she said more softly. “We just forget it, okay?”
“Forget it?”
“Pretend it didn’t happen. Whatever it was, it must have gone back where it came from. It didn’t follow us. So we say nothing. Please?”
“But what if —”
“Em, think about it. We’ve only just gotten here. Do you want everyone to hate us before we’ve even had the chance to make any friends?”
“Of course not. But —”
“But nothing. We leave it. Please, Emily.”
I nodded. “Okay.” A drop of water plopped down from the ceiling into the pool between us. “You’re still my best friend, aren’t you?” I asked as we set off along the tunnel.
Shona didn’t meet my eyes. “Let’s just act normal, okay?”
A couple of merboys were coming along the tunnel. Shona smiled at them as they caught up with us, and then swam ahead with them. I trailed behind, pretending to get something out of my bag. I didn’t want anyone to think I was all on my own with no friends. Which is exactly what I was.
We hadn’t gotten much farther when I noticed that the water around me was swaying and swirling. It was building up, spinning around. I tried to move forward but got thwacked against the side. The monster! Was it here?
The caves were shaking. A thin stalactite fell and crashed down from the ceiling, missing me by inches. I jerked backward through the water, scraping my back on the rock. Within seconds, merpeople were rushing from the caves.
“Quick — out!” a merboy shouted as he raced past me.
I didn’t need telling twice. We pelted out through the tunnels, back to open water. Outside, others were already gathered. Someone was swimming in between them, talking to groups of people, telling them to move on. Then he turned and I saw his face. Archie!
What was going on?
I swam over to him. He hardly looked up. “Just follow the others,” he said gravely. “We’ll meet in the Grand Caves.”
The Grand Caves? The ones Marina had told us about? But weren’t they only for really special events?
I followed the others in a daze, my mind swirling with images of what I’d seen — and fears of the destruction and horror that might be ahead; thoughts churning like the sea.
I gasped as I entered the Grand Caves. Impossible shapes hung all around us: upside-down forests, frozen bunches of arrows waiting to fall as one, long paper-thin flaps that looked like dinosaur wings. Drips from the ceiling bounced off majestic boulders and into the pool, ringing out like church bells.
Ahead of me, a stone platform jutted over the water. On one side, thick, marblelike columns reached down from the ceiling into the depths of the water, frilly edges folding around them like icing on a cake. On the other, the wall stretched up like a cliff side, stalagmites lining its surface, clumped together in chunky groups. Lanterns glowed among them, spreading shimmering lights across the pool as they shook. The walls were still trembling. Surely it wasn’t safe to be inside if there was an earthquake?
I looked around for someone I knew. Shona had disappeared. Probably with Althea and Marina, I thought miserably.
In front of me, a long wooden walkway divided the clear azure pool. A few people were carefully picking their way along it. I looked away, feeling guilty as I did so. The last thing I needed now was for Shona and the other mermaids to see me as one of the humans. They’d never want to be my friend then.
But then I spotted Mom! She was here, too, edging across the walkway with Millie.
“Mom!” I couldn’t stop myself from shouting out. She looked up and waved briefly before grabbing the rails as the caves shook again. She pointed up to the stone benches that stretched high up on the cave’s sides. I wondered if I should get out of the pool and join her. A glance at the mermaids. No. I was staying in the water. Then another mighty crash thundered through the caves, throwing me under, leaving me with no choice anyway.
Gasping, I gave myself up to the water. It wasn’t as bad underwater: it was a little like a Jacuzzi. It might almost have been enjoyable if it wasn’t for the fact that I didn’t have a clue what was going on, my best friend wasn’t speaking to me, and the island seemed to be crumbling around us.
As I resurfaced, I spotted Shona with Althea and Marina. I knew it! A shot of anger speared through me. It wasn’t fair! I hadn’t exactly gone to that lagoon on my own. She’d done wrong just as much as I had. Nearly. I mean, it wasn’t as if I’d forced her to go. And it was their suggestion in the first place! She looked up and caught my eye, just for a second. I nearly smiled. Then Althea said something to her and she turned away. She didn’t look back. Traitor.
This was worse than Brightport Junior High! At least then, I could sneak out at ni
ght to meet Shona. Now I’d lost her, and it seemed as if all three of them had turned against me. It was so unfair! I’d be better off going back to Brightport, I thought, my heart heavy, my eyes stinging with tears.
I didn’t have long to dwell on it. All thoughts were catapulted out of my mind by an explosion of rocks as the caves shook even more violently. A column that looked like marble fell into the water with a mighty splash. Forests of stalagmites shuddered and trembled. I looked up to see Mom gripping the bench. Millie was holding her arm and looking serene. As serene as anyone can look when they’re sitting on a bench that seems to be doubling as a seaside rodeo horse.
Where was Dad? I scanned the pools. And then I saw him. Terror on his face, he was hurtling across the pool.
“Emily!” he cried into my hair as he pulled me toward him.
I grabbed onto him while the caves crashed and crumbled all around us. It was growing louder. It sounded like thunder, cracking right over our heads, coming from everywhere.
And then something happened. Something almost familiar. I almost knew it was going to happen, almost remembered it from somewhere else.
The shaking stopped.
Just like that.
The sudden stillness was almost as much of a shock as the violent movement that had come before it, throwing people across the floor, dunking merfolk under the water. I gripped Dad so hard it must have hurt him. He held me close.
“Look!” Someone was calling out. I turned to see where everyone was looking. The caves were splitting! A crack opened up, starting from the base, shaking and creaking as it crumbled open. The whole thing would fall in on us. We’d be buried alive! Oh, God. The monster — the monster! It was here! I fought back waves of terror.
But I soon realized that nothing else was moving. Just one section of the caves was splitting open, almost like a hidden door. Almost as though it was being opened by someone. Or something.
