The Deep

by Helen Dunmore

  “It’s a mirror,” I say in a soft, luring voice, “Saldowr’s mirror. It’s the only one like it in the world. No one’s supposed to look into it. Typical Saldowr. He always wants to keep the best things for himself.”

  Silence. No response. The Kraken’s seen through me. He knows it’s a trick.

  I fight back a wave of despair. The whale gone, Conor’s power’s failing, the Kraken’s shape-shifting and laughing at us before he closes in for his revenge. Nothing’s working. There’s nothing left for us to do.

  No. Don’t think those lairlight thoughts. We’ve got to keep fighting. We’ve got nothing to lose now.

  “Saph, hold up the mirror so he can see it,” murmurs Conor.

  I lift the heavy mirror again, up through the dragging water. My wrist aches as I move it from side to side slowly, tantalizingly, always keeping the mirror facedown so that the Kraken can’t see it.

  “Saldowr’s mirror,” I muse as if to myself. “He’d be so angry if he knew we’d stolen it away and brought it to the Deep. He always keeps it in his treasury, because whoever looks into the mirror gains the mirror’s power; that’s how we were able to come to the Deep, of course. This mirror doesn’t show you; it shows what you could become.”

  “Saph!” stage-whispers Conor ferociously. “You shouldn’t have said that!”

  “It’s okay, Con, no one heard.”

  The silence changes. Now it’s a waiting silence, full of temptation. The Kraken is greedy, but he’s cunning. Maybe he suspects that we can be cunning too.

  At last, slowly and slyly, a shrimp’s antenna pokes through the darkness into the lairlight. “Coming, ready or not,” giggles the Kraken.

  And there he is. He’s still in his shrimp shape, and I wonder why he’s not shape-shifting anymore. Maybe it’s got something to do with the mirror, or maybe the Kraken enjoys being a shrimp.

  “But I don’t know what might happen if someone as powerful as the Kraken looked into the mirror,” I say. “He’s so strong already; maybe it wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  “Give it to me.” The voice snatches, forgetting to be coy.

  “You’re too light,” I say. “The mirror would crush you. I suppose I could hold it up for you to look in if you like.”

  “If I like. If I like. Oh, no no no no no no no. I don’t like at all. I don’t like doing what I’m told one single bit, because it makes me ask myself why people are telling me to do it. Why why why why why? You look in the mirror first, myrgh kerenza, and we’ll see what happens. And I’ll look over your shoulder, just to be sure, before I look for myself.”

  I stare at the Kraken in horror. Look into the mirror here, now, in the Deep, without Saldowr’s protection? With the Kraken tittering at my shoulder? I can’t do it. I won’t do it. Saldowr said the vision was only meant for one person, and no one else could spy on it. And what if the mirror flashes again and blinds me, maybe for good this time—

  “I’ll do it,” says Faro casually, “if it will set your mind at rest.”

  “You! You—you Mer boy. How can anything you see in the mirror be of interest to me?” asks the shrimp haughtily.

  “You’re right—I don’t suppose it will be very interesting,” says Faro, keeping his voice as light and easy as if he’s teasing me in the sunwater on a summer’s day. “It’s not going to show me any glory. I’m not worth it. Just a common Mer boy who’s never done anything special in his life. But at least then you’ll know how the mirror works.”

  The Kraken is still suspicious. “All this talk about mirrors,” he chitters. “I should have killed you hours ago. You’re taking up my time, and I don’t like that. Oh, no no no no no no.”

  “If only I could look into the mirror when the Kraken does,” I say to Conor. “Imagine what he could become!” The Kraken pounces and swallows the bait.

  “Mer boy first, Mer boy first. Let’s get him out of the way. He can have a look, and then he’ll find out what the mirror’s power has in store for him. He can have a look, and then he can die.”

  Oh, Faro. My heart squeezes with terror for him. Thousands of meters of dark water press me down. We are in the Deep, and there’s no rescue. Why did we come here? Why did we ever believe we could do anything against the Kraken?

  Faro swims forward to the mirror as easily as if he’s swimming to catch a current. His lips are pressed tightly together. It’s the only sign of tension, and I don’t think the Kraken notices. He doesn’t know Faro, doesn’t know how brave he is and how he’s risked his life to come here—

  “Faro!” I didn’t mean to say it. The word just escaped from my lips. His answering frown silences me.

  “Hold up the mirror, little sister.”

  It is the worst thing I’ve ever had to do. As I raise the mirror slowly, I feel as if I’m signing Faro’s death warrant. Once he’s looked into the mirror, the Kraken will kill him. Why did I ever start this?

  Faro looks, and even in the lairlight he grows pale. I try to find him with my thoughts, but he’s made a wall around his mind, and I can’t get in. I don’t know what he’s seeing, but I can tell it cuts him to the heart.

  The Kraken shrimp skitters toward the mirror. Cunningly he positions himself. He’s trying to spy on Faro’s reflection without seeing his own. The Kraken peeps side-long through the water in a paroxysm of spiteful relish. Can he really see what Faro sees, or is he just pretending? Maybe the mirror’s law doesn’t apply to the Kraken.

  “Oh, Mer boy! Oh, silly silly little Mer boy who’s not what he thinks he is! How upsetting! How terribly terribly terribly upsetting. But don’t worry, silly little Mer boy, because you’re not going to be upset for long. You’ll soon be dead dead dead dead dead, and you won’t have to worry about your blood because there won’t be any.”

  I feel sick. The Kraken is winning again. No matter how hard we try, he turns everything inside out until he’s winning. He’s got to look into the mirror. I’ve got to persuade him. Tempt him. Convince him that he’ll really see something wonderful.

  “Poor old Faro,” I say callously, and I wink at the Kraken. “The mirror hadn’t got much to show him, had it? Not much greatness there!” The Kraken snickers.

  “Saldowr will be so angry,” I go on, making my voice frightened. “He was terrified in case you—”

  “In case I what?”

  “Nothing. It’s nothing, Kraken. Anyway, he knew you wouldn’t look in the mirror. He said you couldn’t bear to see your own reflection.”

  “Did he indeed? Indeed indeed indeed indeed,” chatters the Kraken. “Scared of my reflection? Scared of my shadow—did he say that?”

  “N-no, please, please, Kraken, I shouldn’t have told you—”

  “But you have told me. You humans are all blibber blabber blibber blabber. Saldowr didn’t want me to look into his precious mirror. Ha! He was scared. Scaredy scaredy scaredy anemone. Wanting to keep his precious mirror to himself. He’s selfish. Selfish selfish selfish selfish. Always trying to cheat the Kraken out of what is rightfully his….”

  He’s shifting. He’s moving closer to the mirror. It’s luring him. He wants to see greatness. His vanity is swelling, conquering fear and suspicion. He believes he’s going to see greatness.

  “Ugly Mer boy,” he murmurs, “ugly, ugly little Mer boy. If I were you, I wouldn’t even want to be alive. But don’t worry, you’ll soon be dead. Dead dead—”

  He stops himself and edges even closer to the mirror’s rim. “But before I bother to kill you,” he goes on, more quietly than ever in a voice like poisoned silk, “I’m going to cheat Saldowr. I’m going to have my turn with the mirror.”

  The Kraken dances into position, then whips round. My heart thunders, choking me. He’s going to look.

  There’s a long moment of silence. I wait for him to be blinded or struck like lightning by the horror of himself. But the moment lengthens, lengthens, and the Kraken continues to stare. He’s still a shrimp—yes, but not just a shrimp. Phantoms are bulging out of
him and darting toward the mirror. The Claw Creature, the sea serpent, the Portuguese man-of-war, the ravenous shark, and the cloud of piranhas. They dart toward the mirror, and the mirror throws them back, more real and solid with each reflection. The mirror is making them stronger. It’s multiplying all the demons that the Kraken makes of himself. With each shape-shifting the Kraken is gaining power.

  My blood feels like ice. What have I done? We’re going to die, and there’s no hope for the Mer.

  “Oh, yes yes yes yes yes yes yes,” comes the incongruously tiny shrimp voice out of the mass of monsters. “How great I am! How great I am!”

  And then the mirror flashes.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE KRAKEN FREEZES. He’s not a shrimp anymore, or an octopus with writhing tentacles, or a sea slug. He’s everything at once, like a TV screen with its pixels scrambled and frozen. All the shapes he’s shifted in and out of are clamped around him.

  I keep holding up the mirror. I don’t know what else to do. The lairlight is growing weaker. I can still see Faro and Conor, but the Deep is coming closer, pushing in on us.

  “I can’t hold it up much longer, Conor.”

  “Wait.”

  Conor supports my elbow from underneath. Faro grasps the mirror handle.

  “It’s getting heavier! It’s slipping!”

  The mirror weighs like lead. It wants to fall through the heavy, dark water to the ocean floor and then down and down through sand and rock until it reaches the earth’s fiery core. And then it’ll melt, and remake itself, and wait for another wizard to conjure it up from the Deep…

  “Saph! Hold it up!”

  I jerk myself awake. I’m so tired. So tired of holding on. Why not let go now and let the mirror do what it wants…?

  “He’s moving, Faro!” calls Conor sharply.

  I look up, aghast. The pixels of the Kraken are reassembling themselves, making shapes that are even more monstrous than before because they’re not complete. The giant sea slug has a hole in its belly which the Deep pours through. The cute little shrimp has no head. An octopus tentacle, detached from any body, lashes the water. And the mirror’s still forcing my hand down, as if a giant magnet’s pulling on it from the center of the earth.

  Conor and Faro brace themselves. Muscles and tendons stand out on their arms. We’re holding on to one another for support, struggling to keep the mirror from falling. But the Kraken’s winning. He’s coming back, reassembling all his monstrous selves and getting ready to strike.

  At that moment something scratches my leg, like the end of a twig. There’s something in my pocket.

  Earth and Air surge back to me so powerfully that I almost choke. Salt fills my mouth. I must let go of the Air.

  But Earth has come with me this time. I almost forgot I had the rowan in my pocket. Granny Carne told me to bring the rowan wherever I went and not to let go of it, because it was full of Earth magic.

  But what good is Earth magic in the Deep? As this thought flashes through me, the rowan scratches my leg again, like a signal. It’s as if the rowan wants to communicate with me, to help me.

  But Earth and Ingo are opposites. Surely it’s not possible that Earth wants to help Ingo?

  Granny Carne gave me the rowan. Maybe she foresaw something. Maybe Earth has got to join together with Ingo because their common enemy is so powerful….

  Thoughts swirl in my mind, so fast that everything seems to be happening inside the beat of a second. Earth joining with Ingo: That’s what’s happening in me too. Mixed bloods, running together.

  The mirror drags at my arm. Veins stand out on Conor’s forehead from the effort of holding on to it. It’s like a tombstone, tilting down, ready to fall. We can’t hold it any longer. Its metal handle slithers through our hands. Then the mirror kicks out of our grasp, turns over, and plunges away through the black water. One last gleam of metal, and it’s swallowed up in the Deep.

  The Kraken rears up in front of us in all his threadbare horror.

  “Oh, yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes,” he snickers. “You thought you’d beaten the Kraken, didn’t you? But nobody beats the Kraken. Nobody wins except me. Your silly silly silly little mirror’s gone where it can’t hurt anybody ever again. But it did hurt me. Oh, yes yes yes yes yes. It nearly made the Kraken cry. And so I’m going to have to hurt you, to make it fair. Mer boy first, and then you, myrgh kerenza.”

  Conor spreads his arms in front of me. “You’ll have to kill me before you touch her,” he says.

  “Oh, yes yes yes yes yes, no need to worry about that, I’ll kill you all right. You’re all going to die. That’s so obvious it doesn’t even need saying. Trickety trick trickety trick. What a trio of trite little tricksters. You tried to bamboozle the Kraken, and the Kraken doesn’t like that. I’ll tell you what he does with tricksters and bamboozlers. He munches them up. You’ll enjoy seeing it, I promise you. First Mer boy, then myrgh kerenza, and then, when you’ve had a good look at what’s going to happen to you, it’ll be your turn, singing boy! And you’ll get out of my way when I want you to.”

  The rowan. The Kraken’s voice clack-clacks in my ears like claws. Got to think of the rowan. The rowan brings protection. No evil can pass its threshold.

  It’s the only thing left. Earth and Ingo joined together. You’ve got to try, Sapphire.

  I let my hand drift down to my side, very slowly so as not to attract the Kraken’s attention. He’ll strike any minute, but he wants to gloat over us first. I slip my hand into the wet, tight opening of my jeans pocket. My finger touches something that burns hotly. Salt water hasn’t changed the rowan. It isn’t soaked with seawater; it’s burning hot and dry. I nearly cry out from the shock; but I stop myself, and I don’t think the Kraken notices.

  My fingers close around the spray of berries. They feel as if they’re dipped in fire. But there can’t be fire in the Deep. It must be an illusion. My fingers aren’t really scorching. I bite my lips and force down the sickness and pain. Don’t be such a coward. If you let go of the rowan, there’s nothing left.

  I bring out my hand, curled, with the spray of rowan hidden in my palm. “Kraken,” I say, “Kraken!” I feel like a bullfighter waving his red cloth. “Look, I’ve got something for you.”

  This time the Kraken doesn’t freeze, but he goes very still. All his eyes glitter feverishly. “Something for me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Like your mirror mirror mirror mirror mirror—”

  “No. Not a mirror.”

  I spread out my hand with the rowan spray in my palm and hold it out. The weight of the Deep presses the burning berries against my hand.

  The Kraken stares with his sea slug eyes and his crab eyes and all the other eyes in his body.

  “That’s not a Deep something,” he chatters. “That’s a something that’s not allowed in the Deep.”

  “Like us,” I say, staring straight at him. “Humans can’t come to the Deep, Kraken. The Mer can’t come to the Deep. But here we are.”

  “Saldowr never gave you that. I’ll munch your finger finger finger finger finger if you say he did.”

  “It’s not from Saldowr’s treasury. It’s not from Ingo. You plant it by the threshold, Kraken. No evil can pass it.”

  A groan of terrible frustration escapes from the Kraken’s many bellies.

  “I should have killed you all,” he moans. “I should have killed you all when I had the chance.”

  Conor, Faro, and I are side by side, the rowan in front of us. It makes me feel stronger than a siege wall. Its blood-red berries look as if they’re bathed in golden fire that spreads outward, lighting the Deep. The Kraken groans in agony.

  “Take it away. Make it not be alive. No no no no no no no. Give it to me now, and I’ll break it into a million million pieces. The Kraken wants it, the Kraken wants it,” he mutters.

  “No. The Kraken can’t have it.”

  The Kraken looks down at himself, at his slug trail leaking through the water into
the oily lairlight, his scandalously detached tentacles, and his jumping, headless shrimp tail. He lifts a monstrous claw and passes it over himself. Even the claw shivers when it finds the holes where the Deep has swum through him.

  “The Kraken doesn’t like it,” he moans. “Oh, no, oh no, oh no, oh no. The Kraken doesn’t want the light.”

  His voice has changed. It isn’t chittering with malice and hatred now. It’s keening like someone who’s lost the dearest thing in life. “Oh no, oh no, oh no,” the Kraken laments. “Don’t show me the light. The Kraken never wanted to hurt anybody. The Kraken never did those bad things. Don’t show me those things.”

  Faro folds his arms and looks at the Kraken coldly. “He’s seeing himself,” he says.

  We watch, chilled to the bone by the horror of it all. And now, in front of our eyes, the Kraken is changing yet again. His many selves are dropping away like old rags. I hold the rowan high. No evil can get past it. No evil…

  Dark water swirls around the Kraken, and for a few seconds he’s hidden from us. Something is lashing the water. A tail. A strong seal tail, glistening like Faro’s. A cloud of hair, glistening like seaweed, eddies around a face that looks…

  Human. Mer. Mer and human, mixed. His eyes are dark, without the silvery gleam of Mer eyes.

  “Who are you?” I ask.

  A cloak of oily water wraps itself around the Kraken’s body, half concealing him.

  “I want to go to sleep,” he says.

  “To sleep?” I echo.

  “Cusca, cusca, cusca,” the Man-Mer-Kraken moans. “I never hurt anyone. I didn’t do anything. I want to go back to sleep.”

  “Sleep then,” says Conor. “Sleep for a thousand years, Kraken.”

  “But I might dream.”

  “The rowan will put you to sleep,” I say. Words rise to my lips like lullabies I’ve forgotten years ago. “There won’t be any bad dreams or nightmares. You’ll be safe in the dark. Cusca, cusca, cusca, Kraken. It’s time to sleep.”

  I make my voice soft, as if I were putting a child to bed. The rowan burns even more brightly, searing my palm. I stretch my hand out and touch the Kraken with the spray of rowanberries.