Sea Magic

by Kate Forsyth

  ‘Castle? You live in a castle? Under the water?’ the children cried.

  ‘Yes. Of course. Do you not live in a castle too?’

  The children shook their heads. ‘Oh, I wish we could come and see your underwater castle,’ Meg said wistfully. ‘Is it far away?’

  ‘It is deep, deep, under the sea,’ Sechiel said, twisting about to point down into the ocean.

  ‘It is beautiful,’ Samandriel said. ‘You could come and see, if you like.’

  ‘We can’t swim that far,’ Ben said. ‘We don’t have tails like you.’

  ‘No,’ Sechiel said pityingly. ‘It is very sad for you.’

  ‘It’s not so bad having legs,’ Thomas said. ‘We get to run and jump and climb trees and kick balls around.’

  ‘We get to swim with the dolphins every day. We catch waves with them, or dive down through the coral gardens and swim with the fish and the giant turtles. And sometimes we get to ride on a whale’s back.’

  ‘Oh, I’ve never even seen a whale!’ Meg cried.

  ‘At least we used to be able to do all those things,’ Samandriel said. ‘But ever since the Viperfish has come, capturing all the sea creatures, we do not get to do anything merry any more.’

  ‘Why not?’ Thomas asked.

  ‘Everyone is very afraid,’ Sechiel said grimly. ‘The Viperfish is evil.’

  ‘The Viperfish has a giant black clam that swims through the sea like a whale,’ Samandriel said. ‘He lives inside it, but can swim some distance away from it, when he goes out to hunt the sea creatures.’ She gave a little shudder that made her scales flash in the sunlight.

  ‘The Viperfish has great nets that he drags through the sea, scooping up everything in their path,’ Sechiel said. ‘Soon there will be no fish left, or seals, or dolphins, or jellyfish, or coral, or anemones, or anything.’

  ‘And worst of all, no sea-grapes!’ Samandriel cried. ‘Then we shall die.’

  Sechiel showed them the seaweedy grapes he carried in the bag at his waist. ‘We must eat them every day. They give us the gift of languages so that we may speak to the dolphins and the sea birds and the whales, and also to you today. The sea-grapes also help us breathe underwater for as long as any seal. If the Viperfish destroys all our crops, we shall die too. We won’t be able to talk to the sea creatures, or breathe underwater. We’ll all have to rip off our scaly skins and walk on land like you poor folk.’

  ‘A fish is doing all this?’ Ben was puzzled.

  ‘He is not a fish,’ Sechiel said. ‘We call him the Viperfish, for he is as dangerous as any viperfish from the abyss. But we do not know what kind of creature he really is. He has arms and legs, like you, but his skin is black and thick, and he has only one eye, very large and square, and huge flippers like a seal . . .’

  ‘A scuba diver!’ Tim suddenly exclaimed. ‘That’s what they mean, I bet!’

  ‘Of course!’ Ben cried. ‘That makes sense.’

  ‘And maybe he has some kind of submarine. That’s what she means by the clam that he lives in,’ Tim continued.

  ‘That would explain why there are no turtles nesting this year,’ Thomas said.

  ‘And why we haven’t seen any dolphins or dugongs,’ Meg said.

  ‘Yes, the Viperfish has been capturing the turtles and all the other sea creatures. We do not know why. The king and queen are very worried. That is why we were all told not to leave the castle, in case he should capture us too. But it is boring spending all day swimming round and round the castle. We wanted to swim in the surf and play in the rock pools. Except you were all here. We’re not meant to let any tail-less ones see us.’

  ‘We won’t tell anyone,’ Meg promised.

  Just then, they heard Mum calling them. ‘Kids? Where are you?’

  ‘We’d better go,’ Ben said. ‘We’d love to come and see your underwater castle, though! Do you think those sea-grapes of yours would let us breathe underwater?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Sechiel said.

  ‘Let’s try it!’ Ben cried in excitement. ‘We’ll meet you back here tomorrow, really early, OK? We’ll tell Mum we’re going fishing.’

  ‘Till tomorrow then,’ the mer-children said. ‘At first light.’

  CHAPTER FIVE

  That night, a tropical storm blew in. Battalions of black-clad storm clouds marched across the sky, wielding swords of lightning. The children lay in bed and listened to the drumming of the rain on the tin roof, the groaning of the trees and the distant thunder of the surf, worrying about the mer-children in their castle deep beneath the sea.

  The rain had blown over by morning, although it was still cold and blustery. The children begged their mums to let them go down to the lagoon. Ben wanted to try out his new fishing line, while everyone was keen to play with Thomas’s new remote-controlled boat.

  ‘There’ll be waves today that we can try to jump,’ Thomas said. ‘It’ll be so cool.’

  Mum was snuggled up in bed with Ella, looking tousled and sleepy. ‘Well, all right, as long as you’re careful. Don’t go in the surf! Or climb the headland.’

  ‘OK, Mum,’ Ben said, grinning.

  ‘And get rugged up! It’s cold today.’

  The boys pulled on their hoodies, but had to wait around for Meg to choose what outfit to wear. She wanted to wear her mermaid dress, but knew she would never be allowed to wear it to the beach. So in the end she put it in her beach bag, along with her favourite mermaid doll and her seashell comb, then dressed herself in her best swimmers with the matching kaftan and hat, and her high-heeled sparkly party shoes.

  The boys raced ahead, Jessie bounding joyfully beside them and Meg teetering along behind. The beach was a different place from yesterday, with the sea so wild and grey and cold. The rock pools had all been swallowed up by foam, and water spurted up through the witch’s cauldron like a whale’s spout.

  ‘No sign of the mer-kids,’ Tim said.

  They climbed Lookout Rock and stood staring out to sea, watching the grey waves churning about in a welter of dirty-looking foam, like a giant’s washing machine.

  Ben’s heart leapt, and he pointed. ‘Look! A dolphin!’

  The four children watched the dolphin racing through the surf, then cried out in dismay as they saw that it was being chased by a huge grey shark with gaping jaws. The dolphin leapt right out of the water, and they saw a boy bent close to the smooth curve of the dolphin’s neck.

  ‘That was Sechiel!’ Ben cried. ‘He’s in trouble!’

  They scrambled down to the rocks, slick with spray, and shouted to Sechiel, who turned his desperate face towards them. The next moment, he dived away from the dolphin, speeding towards the shore. The shark raced after him, allowing the dolphin to dive deep under a wave and disappear. The children reached out their hands and grasped Sechiel, dragging him from the water just seconds before the shark’s jaws snapped shut upon him.

  ‘That was close!’ Thomas cried.

  ‘Too close,’ Ben said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The children scrambled back towards the beach, carrying Sechiel between them, his tail dragging behind. He was shivering with cold and shock, and blood trickled down his side.

  ‘What happened? Where’s Sami?’ Meg asked. She could not remember the mermaid’s full name.

  ‘She’s been taken by the Viperfish! It’s all my fault! We should’ve stayed at the castle like we were told. What am I to do?’ Sechiel was almost in tears.

  ‘Sami’s been taken? How?’

  ‘The Viperfish was lurking just offshore. As we swam here to meet you, that shark-thing came racing after us. We couldn’t get away! I called my dolphin Delphina to come and help, but the shark was too quick. It seized Samandriel and dragged her off to the Viperfish’s giant clam. Then it came after me. I have to rescue her!’

  ‘You can’t go back in the water, that shark is lurking out there!’ Tim cried.

  ‘It’s not a real shark,’ Sechiel said. ‘When it first attacked us, I tried to speak to it bu
t it did not hear me or understand me. It’s hard and cold, like iron rock, and its jaws glitter and its eyes glow blue like those of the deep-sea fangtooth. It belongs to the Viperfish! It will have gone back to him, I’m sure. Besides, I can’t just let Samandriel be seized like that. She could be hurt!’

  ‘But what can you do? Look at you! You’re hurt too,’ Thomas said.

  Sechiel put one hand to his head, and they saw a swollen cut on his temple, as if he had hit his head on a rock. The blood from his side was still oozing sluggishly. ‘What does that matter? I have to go and rescue my sister!’

  ‘You can’t rescue her by yourself! Why don’t you go and get help? There must be someone at your castle who could help save her,’ Thomas suggested.

  ‘It’d take too long. That Viperfish could have gone by then, back into the abyss where we could never catch him. No, I have to go now, while he is still nearby.’

  ‘We could help,’ Ben said. ‘We’re pretty good swimmers.’

  ‘I’d like to rescue a mermaid!’ Meg cried.

  Sechiel snorted in contempt. ‘I saw you all yesterday. You looked like baby walruses flopping about and splashing and screeching. You can’t call that swimming!’

  The four cousins all went red.

  ‘I can swim faster than just about anyone else in my class!’ Thomas said. ‘And dive deeper too!’

  ‘Can you dive deep down into the depths where the great squids live, and the bristlemouths, and the lanternfish with their glowing green whiskers? So deep down that sunlight can never reach?’

  ‘Well, no,’ Thomas said.

  ‘Well, what use would you lot be?’ Sechiel’s expression was caught between anger and misery. Ben thought about how he would feel if his little sister Ella had been captured by a lurking submarine and tried not to be offended.

  ‘There must be something we can do. It’s true we can’t swim as well as you. You’ve got a tail and we don’t. But we could do something . . .’ Ben’s voice trailed away.

  ‘I suppose I could lend you my tail,’ Sechiel said.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  They stared at him in amazement. ‘It comes off?’ Tim said.

  ‘Of course. We take our tails off whenever we want to walk on the shore and gather seaweed, or collect oysters. We have to be really careful not to lose our skin if we do come out on the shore, though, because then we could never go back into the sea.’

  ‘So you could take off your tail now and give it to one of us, and we could swim just as well as you do?’ Ben was so excited he could barely speak.

  ‘I wouldn’t be giving it to you.’ Sechiel stared at him suspiciously.

  ‘No, no, just lending,’ Ben gabbled. ‘So we can help save your sister.’

  ‘You’ve got to promise to give it back.’

  ‘We will, I promise.’

  ‘Swear on Neptune’s trident.’

  ‘We all swear on Neptune’s trident that we will give you back your tail,’ the four cousins repeated, trying not to giggle. It sounded so odd. Sechiel glared round, and they all tried to look solemn. At last he said grudgingly, ‘Very well then, I’ll take it off. Don’t look! It’s not polite.’

  So the children turned their backs and looked away. They heard a grunt, like someone struggling to get out of a wetsuit, a strange slithery sound, then a plop! like the sound you make popping your finger out of your mouth.

  ‘Ready,’ the mer-boy said.

  They looked round eagerly. Sechiel stood before them, his skin as white as an albino frog’s. Dangling from his hand was a long, slinky, silvery suit of closely overlapping scales that flared out at the bottom into a frilly tail.

  ‘I’m the best swimmer, I get to go first,’ Thomas cried, grabbing at it.

  ‘No, I’m the oldest,’ Ben argued.

  ‘Me, me!’ Tim shouted.

  ‘I want to wear the mermaid’s tail,’ Meg wailed.

  ‘Me first!’

  ‘No, me!’

  Thomas had one end of it and Ben the other, and for a moment it looked like they might rip the fine mesh of silvery scales apart. But Ben then let it go, reluctantly, feeling very cross. Thomas crowed in triumph and sat down, trying to pull it on over his swimmers. He yanked, he heaved, he wriggled, he writhed, he panted and puffed, he groaned and moaned, but he could not drag the mer-boy’s tail up any higher than his thighs.

  ‘You’re too big,’ Sechiel said. ‘It doesn’t fit. Someone smaller try.’ Rather thankfully Thomas dragged it off, feeling like a stepsister trying to squeeze into Cinderella’s shoe. Meg at once grabbed it and wriggled into it, but it hung loosely on her and she had to hold it up to stop it from falling off. ‘You’re too small,’ Sechiel said. ‘It doesn’t fit. Someone bigger try.’

  Both Ben and Tim made a grab for it, but Ben gave his brother a warning glance and seized tight hold of the tail. To his delight, it fitted him perfectly.

  ‘We’re much the same height,’ Sechiel said. ‘You’ll have to be the one to wear it.’

  ‘I’m going to try it out right now!’ Ben cried in delight, and tried to run towards the lagoon. Next thing he knew he was flat on his belly, his mouth full of sand. Thomas crowed with laughter.

  ‘You don’t have legs anymore,’ Sechiel said. ‘You’ll have to slither like a seal. And here, have some of my sea-grapes, or you won’t be able to breathe underwater.’

  Ben forced down a handful of sea-grapes, which were bitter and salty and left an awful taste in his mouth, then slowly, clumsily, wriggled along the sand. The others followed closely behind, laughing and giving him unwanted advice. At last, exhausted, Ben managed to flop into the water.

  At once everything changed.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Ben swooped and soared through the waves, twisting his body into a triple roll, flicking into a high somersault, diving deeper than he had ever dived before. He had a sensation of extraordinary lightness and power. One slight flick of his tail and he was shooting forward like a rocket, trailing bubbles like starbursts behind him. A flowing gesture of his hand and he was racing along the curve of the wave, the water thrumming beneath him like a galloping racehorse. The sea, which had felt so icy when he had splashed in the foam before, was now merely cool, and the waves, which had seemed so rough and wild and dangerous, were now bridled and saddled. It was exhilarating.

  Ben swam to the mouth of the lagoon and peered out anxiously into the deep water. He had no desire to see the shark. There was no sign of any triangular fin, though, so he took a deep breath to calm his nerves. It felt very odd to be underwater, and yet breathing as freely as if he were on land. It had taken a while to get used to it. He dived down through the churning grey waves. The ocean floor was bare and white, swept efficiently clean. He swam over a coral reef and saw that the delicate stone flowers were broken and crushed. There was not a fish to be seen.

  Soon Ben saw, some distance away, a long, dark, snub-nosed shadow chugging along. It was shaped like a cigar, with propellers at one end and a small angular watchtower halfway along. Swiftly and silently Ben swam after it. He had never seen a submarine before, except in pictures. This was much smaller than he had expected, and looked very sinister. He came up carefully behind it, and held on to one of the narrow fins that protruded from its side. It was made of cold iron. He let go, feeling scared.

  Just then, a huge, dark shadow flicked over him. Ben spun round. The shark was bearing down on him, jaws agape. Heart hammering, Ben dodged behind the submarine’s fin. The shark crashed into the submarine with the sound of an iron hammer hitting an iron anvil. Ben was too scared to move. He stared at the shark. It hung in the water, unmoving, giant serrated teeth bared. They glinted in the light from the watchtower. Its eyes glowed an electric blue. With sudden realisation Ben saw that the shark was made of metal too. Sechiel was right – it wasn’t a real shark. It was a robot.

  Ben let the submarine drag him along. The shark followed, moving its head from side to side, looking for him. Soon Ben could hear the crash and
roar of the surf, and see it churning above him. He waited until he could see the rocks looming through the water, then let go of the fin and struck out for shore.

  At once the shark was after him. Ben swam desperately fast. The shark loomed over him. He could hear its machinery whirring. Ben flicked his tail and darted to the left. The shark overshot him, and Ben was able to gain some space. He undulated his body furiously, racing along the rocks, searching for a way to escape. The shark had turned around ponderously and was bearing down on his tail once more.

  Ben saw a narrow, dark tunnel in the rocks and shot into it, squeezing himself inside. The shark crashed into the rocks behind him with a dull clang that reverberated through the water. Ben swam blindly up, up, up, scraping his body on the rock walls, his hands feeling soft, waving seaweed, sharp oyster shells, squishy anemones. Then he shot out of the water, and found himself safe in the witch’s cauldron.

  CHAPTER NINE

  ‘You mean the shark’s a robot?’ Thomas exclaimed.

  Ben nodded. ‘It guards the submarine. It’s got some kind of movement sensor. It only saw me when I moved.’

  ‘So you need to get rid of the shark before you can get into the submarine,’ Tim said.

  Ben gulped. He had not actually thought that far ahead. He thought of the sleek, sinister lines of the submarine and said, ‘And what about the Viperfish? We need to get him out of the submarine too!’

  ‘Yeah, then we could throw a net over him, or something,’ Tim said.

  ‘There’s an old net over there on the rocks. We could use that,’ Thomas said.

  ‘Good idea!’

  ‘How are we meant to get him out of the submarine?’ Meg wanted to know.

  Ben’s mind was skipping ahead quickly. ‘Well, he’s already caught one mermaid, hasn’t he? Bet you he wants more. That’s why he’s still lurking around here. Why don’t we lure him out by making him think he can catch another mermaid?’