Twice Upon a Time

by James Riley

  “Oh yeah?” May said. “I don’t see any of you going in.”

  “Hope that ye don’t,” Bluebeard said. “If I set foot in the water, expect that things are pretty much as bad as they get.”

  “Leaving on a positive note, I like it,” Jack said. “Can we get on with this? I can barely see.”

  The sun giant had extinguished his fireball about an hour ago, and the light of the moon only did so much. There were no torches lit on the ship, so no prying merman eyes would see them and come to investigate, but that did make bumping into huge wooden planks a bit more of a constant than Jack would have liked.

  “Ye heard the Little Eye, Pan,” Bluebeard growled. “Do yer thing. And one hint that yer performin’ different magic than I tell ye, and ye’ll be a head shorter than ye are now.”

  “I get it already,” Pan said. “I do this, and you set me free. I don’t, and I… Well, let’s just move on. I’m doing it.” He closed his eyes, wiggled his tail a bit, then opened them. “And, done.”

  “Nothing happened,” Jack said, then looked at the wide eyes of the pirates in front of him.

  “Perhaps take a look at yer lower regions, Little Eye,” Bluebeard said.

  Jack looked down to find a slippery bright green fish tail growing out of his waist, and gasped… only to have the tail immediately disappear, revealing his legs once more.

  “Well, that was impressive for half a second or so,” he said.

  “At least you got one,” May said. “Mine never even changed. And wow, Phillip’s is still there. What’s going on?”

  “You’re all stupid,” Pan said. “My magic requires happiness, so says the satyr code. If you don’t think happy thoughts, it goes away.”

  “But you used magic on Bluebeard for forty years, and he doesn’t seem like the happiest guy for it,” Jack said. “How’d it work on him?”

  Bluebeard gritted his teeth. “Pan offered me and me crew our fondest wish if we went with him, then magicked us into believin’ we were gettin’ it. It’s our fault fer believin’ his lies at the start.”

  “They weren’t lies,” Pan sniffed. “It’s not my fault you hate fun. If it helps you three, I can use magic so you’ll think you’re happy.”

  “NOPE,” May said. “We’ll do this ourselves. I’m not letting you magic me therapy.”

  “This seems like a bad idea, May,” Jack said. “I don’t know if you’ve met me, but being constantly happy isn’t really where my talents lie.”

  “Phillip’s still half-fish, Jack,” she said. “He’s doing it. You really think you can’t fake happy for a few hours?”

  “Ignorance is bliss in the prince’s case,” Jack said.

  “Like you can’t pull off a little stupid.” May snorted. “Ready? Pan, let’s try this again.”

  This time all three got tails, though May’s faded in and out for a minute. She scrunched up her eyes and began to repeat something quietly to herself, and the tail soon firmed up.

  And then Jack realized that he was neglecting his own happy thoughts, as his tail began to fade as well. Immediately he began to think about all the things that could make him happy. Going home… Well, not really. His grandfather would just want him out on another adventure. Any thoughts of family just went to his father, and that made the tail almost disappear entirely. Saving the fairy queens and finding out who May was, that was a good thought, but for some reason his tail still wavered.

  Stupid magic! Why couldn’t there just be a world without magic or princes or wicked queens or any of this?

  Instantly Jack’s tail turned completely solid.

  Pan wiggled his tail again, and now they were wearing appropriately merfolk-ish shirts.

  “Get in already, ye mound of whimpering sots!” Bluebeard said. “All ye have to do is hold on to the anchor chain as it lowers. It’ll take ye straight to the ocean floor. We should be over the Sea Witch’s lair by now, if my navigatin’ is correct.” He winked. “And it obviously is.”

  The three climbed over the railing and grabbed ahold of the anchor. May moved to the bottom, the only one of the three with any swimming experience, but that also meant she was the first to hit the water as the anchor lowered, which it did with an alarming speed.

  “GAH!” May shouted as her tail broke the surface. “SO COLD! Burning with cold! You ladies are gonna love this!”

  Jack and Phillip looked at each other as the anchor continued its descent, sending May completely underwater. “She makes such a compelling case,” Jack said.

  Phillip smiled, then silently screamed as he hit the water as well. Jack sighed, hating them both, then winced as the ocean rose up to meet him.

  The chill bolted through his body like lightning, freezing his blood as his heart tripped over its own pacing. He’d never been so cold in his entire life, but there was no turning back now. This was it. They were all in.

  Beneath the waves the water pushed back and forth rhythmically, despite the anchor’s weight. The three of them held tightly to the chain, frantically breathing in and out, hoping for any degree of warmth they could find.

  “Whoever’s idea this was needs to pay!” May yelled. Again, Jack expected bubbles of air to escape as she talked, but none emerged. Magic was strange.

  “If payment involves getting out of the water and anything to do with fire, I’m all for it,” Jack said.

  As the anchor continued down, May gasped. “Was that a fin out there?”

  “Where?” Phillip said, pulling himself down the chain to pass May. “I shall protect you, Princess! Stay behind me!”

  “It was just a fish,” Jack said, though he had to push past a lump of terror in his throat to speak at all. “A big fish, but still. Everyone, calm down.”

  “Oh great, sharks, even better,” May said, climbing up the anchor chain a bit.

  “Sharks?” Phillip asked.

  “Huge fish with tons of teeth,” May said, shuddering a bit. “You’ll love them.”

  “Either way, we’re going to have to deal with the mermen eventually,” Jack said, biting down to keep his teeth from chattering, though from the cold or the terror, he didn’t know. “If we stick to the plan, we should be okay.”

  “And since when have our plans ever worked?” May asked, her voice getting a bit shrill.

  “Have faith, Princess,” Phillip said, though he didn’t sound much better than she did.

  “Yeah, Princess,” Jack said. “We’re bound to get lucky one of these times.”

  CHAPTER 18

  As it turned out, the lair of the Sea Witch wasn’t really that far from the anchor, which was good. The farther they progressed, the deeper the water got, and that much water for some reason didn’t agree with the moonlight. The light must have just gotten bored or lazy and given up before coming all the way down to the bottom. Fortunately, just as the last bit of moonlight gave up, an eerie glow from below appeared, giving them enough light to see by.

  “Look,” Phillip said, his fishtail swaying gracefully as he pointed down at the glow. “Fallen stars.”

  Jack followed his gesture to find a scattering of fallen stars, each one only a bit larger than his hand, glowing just as they had in the night sky. “They always seem to fall into the ocean,” he agreed. “They must just land here and gradually die, losing their glow.”

  “Okay, seriously?” May said. “No. That’s a starfish.”

  “A fish?” Jack asked, swimming closer. “It doesn’t look like any fish I’ve ever seen.”

  “A starfish!” May said, gritting her teeth. “Look, I’ll show you—”

  Phillip quickly followed her and pulled her back away from the star. “Beware, Princess,” he told her gently. “We do not know what dangers the stars may hold.”

  “It’s not a star!” May shouted. “It’s just the same shape!”

  “It’s glowing, May,” Jack pointed out, trying not to get her going. “Just like a star. You have to admit it makes sense.”

  “But it doesn’t!”
May said, almost pleadingly. “It’s a fish, or something like a fish, I don’t really know! It’s maybe not really a fish, it’s something else, but still a fish! An animal! Kinda! Like coral! I know it’s not supposed to glow, but there aren’t supposed to be mermen either, and I’m all right with that, but I will not say those are fallen stars!”

  “You know, this really isn’t important,” Jack said, gently turning May away from the fallen stars. “Let’s just move on, shall we? Whatever the stars—sorry, fish—whatever they are, they’re giving us enough light to see by, right?”

  May just looked at him sadly. “Well, yeah, I guess.”

  “Well then,” he said with a smile. “We’ll just leave it at that. We must be about to the Sea Witch’s lair.”

  “It is right there, in fact,” Phillip said, nodding in the direction they were going. “Just at the edge of those fallen stars.”

  “THEY’RE NOT—”

  “Remember, happy thoughts!” Jack said, noticing May’s fish tail fading in and out as she grew more frustrated. “Let’s get on with things. The faster we find the Sea Witch, the faster we don’t run into any mermen.”

  As they all began to swim off, May steadily avoiding looking at the fallen stars, repeating something happy quietly to herself, Phillip fell in beside Jack.

  “Do you find it odd that we have yet to see a merman?” the prince asked him quietly.

  “I find it fantastic more than odd, actually,” Jack said, gritting his teeth and thinking of his own happy thought over and over. “Maybe our plan is actually working for a change. Ever think of that?”

  “How likely is that?” Phillip countered. “Do you remember traveling to Malevolent’s castle, the trip by the river?”

  “Vaguely,” Jack said, rolling his eyes.

  “Try to recall it,” Phillip said, clearly missing the sarcasm. “We never approached within ten feet of that river, yet mermen watched us the entire way.” He glanced all around them. “It worries me that we have yet to see one.”

  “The ocean’s a big place,” Jack said, awkwardly turning himself in all directions, but all he could see was empty water and glowing stars. “Maybe there were more in the river because they know that’s where humans live? Either way, I don’t see any here.”

  “The question is, can they see us?” Phillip said solemnly. “I will keep my sword ready, all the same.”

  Jack shook his head. “We can’t use swords, you know that. Not unless it’s absolutely necessary. If they are falling for our disguises, pulling our swords off our backs will completely give it away. Mermen use tridents, not swords. Unless they attack, our weapons stay hidden.”

  Phillip sighed. “I never liked this plan.”

  “Blame Bluebeard,” Jack said, half-smiling. “If he’d just thrown us into a dungeon like everyone else we met, none of this would have happened.”

  The ground in front of them was littered with grotesque, stunted plants, two lines of them bordering a path of glittering rocks that led toward a dead-looking cave. As Jack and Phillip caught up to May, Phillip shook his head. “As obviously happy as I am, this seems a bit unnatural for the home of a fairy queen, my friends,” he said. “We should be cautious.”

  “The stones are kinda nice,” Jack said, pointing down at the path leading to the cave.

  “I think those are eyeballs,” May said, swallowing hard.

  “Of course they are,” Jack said, then pushed some bile back down into his throat.

  His tail wavered again, and Jack immediately began imagining a world without eyeballs or Sea Witches or any of this, fixing the tail in place immediately.

  “Well, I guess we should go in and see if she’s home,” May said, but no one moved. A minute passed, then two, the bent plants swaying with the current.

  “Maybe she’s not even there,” Jack said. Right now, that was an even happier thought than any of his daydreaming about non-magical worlds that didn’t exist.

  “Then we should go in and see if we can find out where she went,” May said.

  No one moved for another minute.

  “We always seem to get in over our heads,” May said, breaking the silence. “Why do we ever think we can do this stuff?”

  “It all sounds so much easier in theory,” Jack said. “But we really need to just do this already. Phillip?” He gave the prince a push forward. Phillip yelped and shot a dirty look Jack’s way, but turned back toward the cave and began to slowly swim toward it. Jack moved to follow him, with May right behind.

  As they swam forward, they created little ripples that sent the deformed plants lining the path into ugly little dances, almost convulsions, as they passed. The strange thing was, the dancing continued after the water settled back to the ground. Probably just the water’s current.

  As they got closer to the cave, it looked no more inviting than the path of eyeballs and bent plants. And it wasn’t as if the plants were uniform; there wasn’t even any sort of beauty in symmetry. No, instead they were each a different size, even a different color, which was odd. In fact, some of the plants were a dark gray, a color Jack never would have associated with anything plantlike. Still, it was hardly a leap to think the fairy queen’s magic had affected the local plant life.

  The eyes, Jack just ignored completely.

  No matter how much Jack would have wished it otherwise, he and Phillip did finally reach the mouth of the cave. Inside, shadows seemed to swirl and bubble, a nauseating effect aided by the eerie glow of what few fallen stars were still around. Despite that glow, the going would be tough without more light.

  “I know what I said,” Jack whispered to Phillip, “but I think I have to use my sword.”

  Phillip frowned. “I dislike relying on such an evil object just for light,” he said. “However, we appear to have little choice in the matter.”

  Jack sighed. “It can’t be a good sign that no matter what we do, we have ‘little choice.’”

  Phillip nodded back up toward the boat. “We could always turn back.”

  Jack sighed. “Wouldn’t it be nice if we could.”

  The prince clapped Jack on the shoulder. “You are a decent fellow, Jack,” Phillip declared softly. “If this is to be our death, it has been a pleasure to fight at your side.”

  “I’m sure it has,” Jack said, then took a deep breath and pulled out his sword. Instantly the entire area lit up with a ghostly white glow as the translucent sword’s inner liquid lit on fire, though again, it flickered oddly. What was causing that?

  Under the light of the sword, the plants by the path began to wither and shake, and the eyes between them shone like small suns, but other than that, the light didn’t seem to attract any unwanted attention. At least, not that was revealing itself.

  “Looks like you might have been right about using our swords,” Jack said to Phillip, carefully searching for any sign of mermen. “I hate to be optimistic here, but I think we got away with the light.”

  “Small victories are still victories,” Phillip told him as May swam over to them.

  “Why,” she said, “is there another kind?”

  “I wouldn’t get your hopes up,” Jack said, bringing the sword around to shine it into the cave.

  Phillip watched the sword, his expression unpleasant. “I swear, Jack, if you had heard the stories I had about the Eyes…”

  “Not all of them were bad, right?” May said. “I mean, the one who talks to you in your dreams sounds okay, right, Jack?”

  “The Eye speaks to you? In your dreams?!” the prince asked, dark suspicions flashing all over his face by the light of the sword.

  “Uh, whoops,” May said, looking around at anything but Jack. “This probably isn’t the time to discuss—”

  “You never told me,” Phillip said, still focusing on Jack.

  “This really isn’t the time, Phillip,” Jack agreed, trying to get around the prince but not able to maneuver himself with the agility May had. “We’re already making enough noise. We ne
ed to get in and out before we bring an entire army of merfolk down on us!”

  “Then why are you causing your sword to glow so brightly?!” Phillip demanded.

  Jack started to yell back, then realized the prince was right. Why was the sword glowing so brightly? And getting even brighter with every second?

  “Oh no,” Jack said quietly.

  “Oh yes!” said a remarkably familiar voice from all around him. “Probably shouldn’t have used the sword, Jack,” Lian said. “Not when someone’s been messing around in your head.”

  Jack quickly pushed the sword back toward its sheath, but just as he raised it over his head, the light exploded like three sun giants rolling their fireballs right into each other.

  CHAPTER 19

  Whoops!” Lian’s voice said from everywhere and nowhere. “Well, that can’t be good! I bet that could be seen for miles and miles! Hope no merfolk saw it!”

  “What did you do!” May shouted, her eyes wide with surprise and anger.

  “I didn’t do anything!” Jack yelled, shoving the sword into his sheath, were it went dark as usual. Perfect timing. “The girl—the Eye—she messed with it somehow. I heard her, talking in my head, laughing.”

  Phillip grabbed Jack by shirt vest and threw him against the wall. Back on land, the jolt would have hurt, but under the water, Jack barely felt the hit. “The female Eye is talking to you in your head?!” the prince shouted, veins popping out all unroyally across his face. “If she is in your mind, she knows all our plans! And if she knows, then so does the Wicked Queen!”

  “I haven’t told her anything!” Jack shouted back.

  “Stop it, Phillip!” May said, trying to pull the prince off of Jack. “Jack wouldn’t betray us!”

  “Oh?” Phillip said. “Because the Wicked Queen claimed either he or I would betray you, and I know that I could never do such a thing.” Phillip turned his gaze back to Jack. “How long has the Eye been talking to you, Jack? How long has she had access to our plans?”

  “I’ve seen her… twice in my dreams, and only heard her just the once when I haven’t been asleep,” Jack told him, his huge irritation at being manhandled by Phillip unfortunately offset by the guilty suspicion that the prince might be right.