by Liz Kessler
I get closer, and I notice a tail. No! It can’t be!
He has! He’s actually caught a mermaid!
It turns around. I see its face, its mousy hair, skinny little arms. It can’t be! It’s impossible! But it is. It is. I grab the lamp and bring it closer as I stare at her.
It’s Emily Windsnap!
And then I remember. I remember everything! The pool, the swimming lessons. She came to us once before she left, showing off as usual. She had a tail! She swam in front of us all, swirling it around. Grinning at me as if to say she’d won. It wasn’t enough for her that everyone thought she was so wonderful. Julia, the swimming instructor — they all liked her more than they liked me, all thought she was better than me. She had to rub it in, didn’t she? Had to prove they were right. As if I didn’t already know it.
How could I have forgotten?
There was something afterward — they gave us doughnuts. That was when it all faded. The doughnuts! Had they drugged us or something? And what the heck is she doing here?
Our eyes meet. She’s as shocked as I am.
“Mandy!” she says.
I pull myself together quickly. “Oh, hi, Emily,” I say, nice and calm. I sniff and turn to Dad. “Why are you bothering with her, Dad?”
Dad pulls off his mask and snorkel. “What are you talking about, Mandy? It’s a mermaid!”
“Dad, have you actually looked at her face?”
He gawks at me for a second before turning to Emily and then back to me. I can almost see the realization crawling into his mind. He points at Emily. “But that’s, that looks like —”
“Yeah, Dad,” I say, trying to sound bored, or at least as if I’ve got a clue what’s going on here, “it’s Emily Windsnap.”
“But how . . . but she’s a . . .” His voice trails away. He looks at her again, then at me. “Don’t be stupid, Mandy,” he says suddenly. “Of course it’s not Emily Windsnap. It just looks a little like her. This is a mermaid!”
Mom joins us on the beach. “What’s the fuss, Jack?”
Dad runs toward her, ignoring me, and ignoring reality, it seems. “No time now, Maureen,” he says. “We need to get ready. Where’s all our stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“Everything. Everything we need. Get it in the boat. We’re off as soon as it’s light.”
“Off?” I follow Dad out of the water. “What d’you mean ‘off’? Where are we going?”
Dad stops and turns back to me. “We’re going home, Mandy. With our mermaid. We’re going to save the pier. Just like I said.”
He runs over toward the boat.
“But it’s broken!” I say, following after him. “We capsized, remember?”
“I’ve been working day and night on this boat,” he calls back. “I think she’s ready to sail again. Pack your things, and then get some more sleep. First light of dawn and we’re off.”
“Mom?”
Her eyes are vacant. She looks as if she’s already given up hope. “I haven’t got a clue what’s going on,” she says. “What’s that he’s got in the net?”
I leave her to find out for herself as I follow Dad to the boat. Maybe we can sort everything out. Maybe he’s right. It’s worth a try, I suppose. Anything’s better than rotting on this stupid island for the rest of our lives. Even if it does mean sailing home with fish girl.
The boat seems to be just about holding up. It would be better if Dad had the slightest idea how to sail it. We’re buffeting about all over the place. He keeps staring at the navigation dials and then yelling things at Mom, like “Get over onto starboard!” and “We need to tack! Watch the boom! Hard alee!”
She yells things back, but her words are washed away by the wind and by the seawater spraying us on the back deck. Just as well. Judging by her expression, it’s probably best if neither of us can hear what she’s actually saying.
Anyway, I’m busy with Emily. I’ve got to keep an eye on the net, make sure it doesn’t come loose. Can’t have her escaping.
“Comfy down there, are you?” I call down to her. She’s being pulled along like a water-skier. “Enjoying your little trip?”
“What are you going to do with me?” she whimpers. She’s scared. I swallow my guilt. Why shouldn’t she suffer? Why shouldn’t she understand how I feel most of the time? Would it hurt for someone to understand?
“Oh, didn’t Dad tell you? We’re taking you back to Brightport,” I say.
The boat swerves and surges, so I don’t hear her reply. Just a kind of yelp from inside the net.
“Yeah, we’re going to put you on display,” I continue when she bobs above the surface again, her hair plastered across her face with seawater. I smile down at her. “Hey, maybe all your old school friends will come and visit. That’d be nice for you, wouldn’t it? We were thinking maybe five dollars a visit. What d’you think?”
“What about my mom? She’s stranded on a ship! I’ve got to find her! And my dad? Let me at least get a message to him!”
I want to. Part of me wants to shout and cry and ask why it has to be like this. But I can’t. Show her my weakness and she can hurt me even more. Forget it.
“Yeah, right,” I say.
“Mandy, I need you!” Dad’s calling.
“Back soon,” I call down to fish girl. “Don’t go anywhere now. Oh, sorry, I forgot. You can’t!”
I stand up to see what Dad wants. But I don’t need to ask. The boat has leveled out; all is calm. But just ahead of us is something I’d almost forgotten about.
The darkness, spreading like an oil slick in the pale morning light, pulling us in.
“Dad, what are we going to do?”
He shakes his head. “I haven’t got a clue, dear. We’ve got to get across it, somehow.”
Mom’s inching along the side deck to join us. “Jack, are you crazy? Have you forgotten what happened last time? The last two weeks foraging for food like beggars after nearly drowning? And that poor captain. Have you?”
“What choice do we have, Maureen?”
“We can think about our choices as soon as you’ve gotten us away from here. But I, for one, am not going to gamble with my life when the odds look like that!” She points to the sheet of water, glistening like glass ahead of us.
“Well, I, for one, am not going to live on nuts and berries for the rest of my life!” Dad yells. “And I’m not going to go back and watch my home and my livelihood demolished either.”
“So you’ll kill us all, then, will you?” Mom screams.
“Mom! Dad!” I try to get between them, but the boat suddenly lurches and I slip across the deck. We’re starting to tilt. We’re being drawn toward it again. “Please — please don’t fight.”
Neither of them is listening. They’d rather scream at each other than try to work out what to do.
“DAD!” I yell, clutching the railing as the boat dips farther. I nearly fall over the side. Emily is down below in her stupid net. We’re going to capsize again. I’m going to drown out here, all because of her. I can’t believe it!
The boat lurches again.
“I can help.” A voice from down below.
“What?”
“I’ll help you.”
I grab the railing as the boat leans over. Spray hits us on all sides as we skid through the water, soaking me. She looks up at me pitifully, her big brown eyes round and shiny. I can’t bear it. I turn away. I bet she’s only putting it on anyway. “And why would you do that?” I ask.
“I don’t want you to die,” she says.
“I’m supposed to believe that, am I?”
“I’ve got enough on my conscience,” she calls up. “I don’t need that as well. You can keep me in the net. Just let the rope out. I’ll pull you away.”
I glance over at Mom and Dad. They’re not screaming at each other anymore. Mom’s trying to make her way over to me. She’s not even holding on to anything.
“Mom! Stay where you are!”
“Let
the rope out!” Emily yells. “Do you want to be killed?”
I glance at the rope. It’s looped around and around over a hook. “Don’t try to do anything clever, all right?”
“Just do it!” she shouts. “It’ll be too late in a second.”
I lurch over to the back of the boat. One last glance at the water ahead of us, then I unhook the rope. “I’m warning you!” I shout as I throw it into the water.
The coil lands with a splash. Then nothing. Where’s she gone? She’s disappeared! I scan the surface of the water. Where is she? She must be in there somewhere.
I’m staring so hard at the water it looks like it’s changing color, getting darker. It is changing color! There’s a shape in there! A huge gray outline of something — something very, very big. Something we saw before and like idiots pretended to ourselves we hadn’t.
Without warning, it bursts through the surface. A piercing, screaming siren sound screeches into the sky as an olive-green tentacle rises up, way up above us, then sheers downward to wrap itself over the top of the boat like an arch.
No!
“Mandy!” Emily’s yelling. Where is she? Did she know it was here? Did she somehow make this happen? I know it’s a crazy thought — but maybe, I mean, she had the rope. She was in the water; she hates me. She could have done it. Just as I was starting to trust her — that’ll teach me.
The monster lifts the boat right out of the water, high up into the air. I can see the underside of its tentacle. It looks like a giant worm, extending and retracting, slithery and lumpy. Gasping and retching, I fall against the railing, clutching on for my life.
With an almighty crash, it drops us back down onto the water, and the surface explodes.
We’re such fools! How could we let it happen again? She’s done this to us. She’s made it happen. She tricked us somehow.
The thing has tentacles all over us, sliming over the boat, roaming, searching for things to grab and latch on to. I’m slipping across the deck, water everywhere. It sucks the boat down, throws it around, tosses us one way and then another.
Any second now, we’ll all be in the water. Should I pray?
As if praying would help.
The only thing giving me courage as the boat is thrown over, as I clutch the railings, hold my breath, and grab the lifebelt, is one single thought:
I’ll get you for this, fish girl. I will SO get you for this.
Total stillness. Utter darkness.
What had happened? Where was I?
I rubbed my eyes, tried to move. I was still inside the net, trapped under a rock. Out of the darkness, a shape was coming toward me. It looked like a submarine, gliding along the very bottom of the sea, black on top, white underneath, large fins flapping below. As it came closer, it opened its jaw. Serrated lines of teeth, above and below: the sharpest bread knives.
A killer whale!
I grabbed the net, rubbing it hard on the edge of the rock, sawing and scraping frantically. My fingers bleeding and raw, I yanked and tugged at the net. Come on, come on! Break!
The string started to fray and tear. I was nearly out.
But then the water was swirling all around me, whisking up and around, faster and faster, like a whirlpool.
It was back.
The sea filled with giant tentacles, writhing and grasping and sucking. I crouched tight under the rock and prayed it wouldn’t see me.
THWACK! The tenticles crashed against a rock, only a few feet away from me. It split and crumbled instantly. My tail flapped wildly; my teeth rattled so hard my jaw hurt.
CRASH! The tentacles came down again, scattering a spiraling shoal of barracuda before searching for their next target.
And then they found it. The whale! Jaws wide open, the whale thrashed, snapping its teeth at the monster. I crouched under my rock as the kraken moved closer, and for the first time, I saw its face. I clapped a hand over my mouth, swallowing back a scream.
Horned and full of snarling lumps, with huge white eyes on either side of its head, it opened its mouth to reveal teeth like shining daggers. Briefly opened wide, its teeth came crashing together, snapping shut, again and again, pulling and tearing at the whale. On and on it went, flinging the whale from one side to the other as tentacles and horns and teeth grabbed and tore at its skin.
Eventually, the thrashing slowed. The whirlpool stopped. The sea began to change color, blood seeping into the cracks around me. Go away, go away, I said silently, over and over, until, miraculously, the water became calm again, almost as though it had heard me.
In the darkness, I cried.
Mom.
I kept seeing her, reaching out to me from the ship, wild and screaming as she was taken farther and farther away. The image bit into me like wire. I curled into a ball and tried to push it away.
I had to find Mandy and her parents. There was no way of knowing where I was or how to get back. I knew it might be madness to search for them but, much as I hated to admit it, they were my only hope now.
I tore at the net till I’d made a hole big enough to squeeze through. Edging out of my hiding place, I forced myself not to think about what I’d just witnessed, although my twitching body made it hard to forget. I scanned the water. Nothing. It had gone.
Swimming away from the rocks, I searched desperately for something familiar. I soon came to a deep sandy stretch, rocks on either side. Around them, weeds floated and swayed, surrounding me like a thick curtain. I swam along the sandy channel until it came to a rocky reef, full of holes and ridges and gray peaks like castles and hills.
I fought the rising panic in my chest. This wasn’t familiar at all. I was completely lost. A large, sullen gray fish drifted silently ahead of me, hovering like a hawk. Bright blue eyes bore down on me as I passed it.
“Who’s that?”
A voice! A male voice.
“Come no farther!” The voice called out again. I stopped swimming.
“Who are you?” My words bubbled away from me.
Silence. Then, “You’ll do as I say. I am armed. Do you understand?”
Armed?
“I — yes, I understand.” Understand? Of course I didn’t! I didn’t understand any of this.
Out of the shadows, a thin, lanky figure swam toward me. A young merman, maybe in his twenties. He pulled some fishing line out from a packet on his back. “Hold your arms out.”
“Who are you? Why should I —”
“Do as I say!” he bellowed, reaching for something at his side that looked like a knife. I thrust my arms out in front of me and watched while he tied my wrists together. “This way.”
With that, he turned and swam, pulling me along behind him. All thoughts of my mom and the kraken and Mandy were dragged away by this — my second capture in one day. I let myself be pulled along. What choice did I have? No strength left to fight, this time.
The reef stretched and curved, a lunar landscape dotted with ornamental gardens. Deep brown plants lined rocky chasms. Round boulderlike chunks of coral clung to every surface; thick green spongy tubes waved and pointed threateningly as we passed over them. I glanced at the merman as we swam. He had a thin gray tail with silver rings pierced along one side. Wild blond hair waved over his shoulders; a chain made of bones hung around his neck.
We came to a cave with green and blue weeds hanging down from the top of its mouth in a curtain. Crystals were embedded in the rock all around the entrance.
“In here.” He pushed me forward.
“Where are we?”
“You’ll see.”
Inside, the cave ballooned out into an enormous dome. Crystals, jewels, and gold lined the route. Mosaics filled with gems of every color swirled along the seabed: a round body, swirling arms . . .
“Where are we?” I gasped. “Who are you?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” he replied. We’d reached a building. It looked like a castle, or a ruin of a castle. Half-collapsed turrets were filled with diamonds; crumbling wall
s held pale jewels in clusters around their base. A giant archway for a door, a marble pillar on either side. As we came closer, I could see something embossed onto each pillar. A golden sea horse.
I knew this archway! I’d seen it before, or another one very much like it, when I was taken to Neptune’s courtroom. “This is one of Neptune’s palaces, isn’t it?” I asked, shuddering as I realized we were swimming over a mosaic shaped like a mass of tentacles.
The merman didn’t reply.
Through the arch, a chandelier hung from a high ceiling, jangling with the water’s rocking. That confirmed my fear. Neptune had found me.
We ducked low to swim through a smaller arch, adorned, like the others, with elaborate jewels. A wooden door lay ahead. The merman paused to neaten his hair. Then he turned a shiny brass handle and nudged me inside.
We were in a small room. A stone desk embedded with shells took up half the space. Conches and oyster shells lay scattered on its surface. Next to it, an old merman turned as we came into the room. He had a scraggly beard and dark eyes that stared at me, holding me still.
“What’s this you’ve found, Kyle?” the merman asked in a deep grumble. As he spoke, he stroked something lying very, very still by his side. It looked like a giant snake. Greeny yellow with purple teddy bear eyes, its gills slowly opening and closing as its mouth did the same, it swayed its head gently around to face me. A moray eel!
I opened and closed my mouth too, rigid with fear. Nothing came out.
“She was trespassing, sir,” Kyle answered briskly.
“Untie her. She won’t try leaving here in a hurry, if she has any sense.” The old merman smiled at his pet. It leered back, stretching up almost as tall as him.
Kyle clenched his sharp jaw into a scowl as he pulled at the fishing line. I rubbed my wrists. “Tell us how you got here,” he demanded.
“I don’t know!” I said, tearing my eyes away from the eel. “I don’t even know where I am. I had an accident, got lost, and you found me.” Then, trying to control the quiver in my voice, I added, “Can I go home?”
“Home?” The old merman leaned toward me. The eel rolled its neck down into a spiral and closed its eyes. “And where would that be?”
