by Anne Ursu
Charlotte stared at him, openmouthed. “We’re going to steal Poseidon’s trident.”
“Yeah,” he said.
“And just how are we going to do that?”
“I don’t know,” Jason said. “I figured you’d have a plan. You defeated Philonecron and made your way through the Underworld! I mean”—he smiled softly—“that was pretty incredible.”
Despite herself, Charlotte blushed. No one that cute had ever noticed anything she’d done before.
Focus, Charlotte.
What Jason was proposing was ridiculous. Absurd. Charlotte was not about to tussle with Poseidon. There had to be another way.
“Anyway,” she said, “how do you expect me to get to Poseidon’s palace? I don’t scuba dive.”
“He doesn’t have a palace, or at least he never goes there. He’s got a yacht. I can take you there.”
“Look,” she said, “you want to help me? You’re part sea god, right? You go back to Poseidon’s…yacht and get me the trident and bring it back here, and then we can blast the song lady and get the heck out of here.”
“Oh,” Jason said, shifting in his seat. “Well, no, see…he’s got an enchantment that will fry anyone with Immortal blood who touches it, and since my dad is an Immortal…He really doesn’t like it when people touch his trident, you see. But,” he added quickly, “he won’t have protected it from mortals; it would never occur to him that mortals might even try something like that.”
“Really,” said Charlotte flatly.
“Yeah!” said Jason.
“Are you sure?” Charlotte was dubious.
He smiled brightly. “Positive.”
“Right,” said Charlotte. “Well, okay, I don’t know about you, but I’ve met all the Greek gods I want to meet in my lifetime, so if you don’t mind, I’m going to try to fix this myself. You can help or you can sit here”—looking adorable—“and twiddle your thumbs.”
Jason shook his head. “It won’t work.”
Boys! “Well,” Charlotte said, getting up firmly, “nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?” and with a toss of her hair, she strode out of the lounge, leaving Jason Hart, indeed, twiddling his thumbs.
The first thing Charlotte did was go near the bridge and try every single restricted door again, with as little success as she’d had before. The last door she kicked for good measure, ending up with nothing besides a sore toe underneath her sneakers.
Then she went back down to Deck Five, to the computer center. For she was not simply going to take Fish Boy at his word that the Internet didn’t work. She didn’t know exactly who she was going to e-mail now; the Greek coast guard? Her Greek was a little weak. But she’d figure something out.
She turned on the computer and waited impatiently for it to load up, while the ship drifted onward, and as soon as the desktop appeared she attacked the browser icon with the mouse. Her heart leaped as a blank page popped up on the screen. She closed her eyes and counted slowly to three, then opened them to see the words CONNECTION UNAVAILABLE.
With a gargled scream, Charlotte slammed her hands on the desk, then burst out of her chair and went back to the Mariner Lounge. She didn’t have to stop the Siren, she didn’t have to wake anyone up; if she could just get to one of the officers and get a key, she could get onto the bridge and turn on the distress signal. (Which, she hoped, was a large red button clearly marked DISTRESS SIGNAL, because otherwise there would be a problem.
Charlotte stood on the small wooden chair again and looked in. Nothing had changed—everyone was still completely motionless, riveted to the stage. As her eyes fell on her parents, her heart gave a little tug. It was horrible seeing them that way, completely in thrall to something beyond their control. She needed to get the ship moving again, she needed to get as far away from Poseidon as possible, she needed to free her parents. The lump began to rise in her throat again. They were so worried about what would happen if they let Charlotte out of their sight, but apparently they were the ones who needed worrying about. When they woke up, they were so grounded.
Thalia’s dark head was still bobbing about on the stage. She’d been, Charlotte realized, singing all night and all morning. Didn’t she get a sore throat? Eventually she was going to have to stop singing, right? And when she did, everyone would wake up and realize what had happened and they would revolt and then everything would be okay again, right?
Right?
Wrong. Who was Charlotte kidding? Thalia wasn’t human. She was never going to stop singing, and unless Charlotte did something, everyone in there was going to be lost for eternity. How dare she? How dare she hurt all these people? How dare she hurt her parents? What kind of a monster was she?
“I see you, Siren!” Charlotte shouted, banging on the door. “I see you!” She scowled and added for good measure, “Your music’s awful!”
And with that, the Siren’s cat-like eyes glanced up toward Charlotte, and then she did the single most aggravating thing anyone had ever done to Charlotte, which is really saying a lot.
She winked.
She winked! The nerve! The gall! Red spots began to dance before Charlotte’s eyes, and in one quick motion she hopped down, lifted the small chair up over her head, and bashed it against the door with all her might.
One of the chair legs splintered off with a loud pop. The door barely moved.
Charlotte let out a frustrated scream, then turned around and leaned against the double doors. There was nothing to be done. Nothing. Either she could trust Fish Boy and embark on his ridiculous, crazy, moronic, suicidal plan, or she could float out here in the Mediterranean until she was eighty.
Grimacing, Charlotte closed her eyes and buried her face in her fists, took a deep breath, then straightened and stalked off to her room.
As soon as she walked through the propped door, Charlotte grabbed her backpack and emptied it of all the things she had put in there for her ill-fated afternoon in the sun the day before, then reached into her closet and pulled out a rain jacket, a sweater, and her life preserver. (It seemed like a good idea.) Then she went over to the minibar. Her parents had once given her a lecture about taking things from the minibar in hotel rooms—everything was ridiculously overpriced, they said. One time she hadn’t been able to resist and had eaten a bag of potato chips, and they made her pay for it with her own allowance—and they were right, the chips had been really, really expensive. But these were extenuating circumstances. Charlotte unlocked the minibar, quickly ate a granola bar and drank some juice, and then emptied everything else edible into her bag, along with a couple of bottles of water.
Charlotte had done this before, of course. She had packed extremely well to go down to the Underworld just five months before. All she ever did, it seemed, was load up her backpack for journeys to meet Greek gods. If you ever wanted to know what to pack for a quick jaunt to the realm of one of the Greek gods, just ask Charlotte Mielswetzski.
Then, with a pounding heart, she left her room and went back up to the Observation Lounge, where Jason Hart was waiting for her.
“Ready?” he asked.
Charlotte exhaled heavily, and though her heart was throbbing and her stomach churning, she drew herself upward and nodded at Jason. “Ready.”
A few minutes later Charlotte and Jason were outside on Deck Seven, studying the lifeboats. The storm was gone, but it had left behind a thick mist that hung over the deck.
Each lifeboat was suspended by a complicated series of pulleys about three feet above the deck. Charlotte had absolutely no idea how it worked—they didn’t exactly cover that in the drill. It’s like no one on the ship considered what might happen if everyone onboard but the eighth grader had been mesmerized by a Siren.
“Well,” Charlotte said, “let’s get the tarp off first.”
Together, they reached over and started snapping off the bright blue tarp. At the bow of the boat was a console with a steering wheel and some buttons. Charlotte used the small staircase next to the boat to climb
in and examine the console, while Jason watched.
As soon as she got into the boat, she saw a steel plaque on which was written, quite clearly, LIFEBOAT INSTRUCTIONS. Her heart leaped slightly. It was nice to feel that someone was watching out for them, even if it was some guy in a lifeboat-making factory. Charlotte would take all the friends she could get.
“Okay,” she said, scanning the instructions, “see that lever?” She pointed to the lever on the steel beam she’d noticed during the drill. “That’s the safety. Pull it and climb in.”
“Okay,” said Jason, his voice full of determination. Charlotte cast a glance at him. She still didn’t know what to think about Fish Boy, but there was a chance that he was on her side, and if he was, he was going to be an excellent companion for this journey. He knew things about the gods. He was part god himself. Last time she’d done this, with Zee, he’d been as lost and clueless as she. And Zee was her cousin and therefore not cute at all, unlike Jason. And unlike Zee, Jason did not think they should just get over the whole thing.
Jason pulled the lever and climbed on into the boat. “Okay,” Charlotte said, “now I press this—,” and as she did so she heard the sound of hissing air, then turning gears, and then the beams on which the boat was suspended began to move slowly, steadily outward. In a few moments Charlotte, Jason, and the lifeboat were suspended directly above the ocean, swaying slightly in the mist as the ship rocked back and forth.
“All right,” Charlotte said, her voice catching a little. “Now this will lower us down.” And she pressed another button, the cables began to move through the pulleys, and the little boat began its slow descent into the Mediterranean Sea.
PART FOUR
FISHIEST
CHAPTER 19
Strait and Narrows
WHEN THE LIFEBOAT HIT THE WATER, JASON AND Charlotte began to slowly unhook it from the cables and from the ship. They were so small next to the cruise ship, like a mouse next to a hippopotamus. Charlotte couldn’t believe something so vast had been rendered completely helpless. Poor hippopotamus.
The lifeboat was white on the bottom, which Charlotte hoped kept it from looking delicious to any passing shark, and the entire interior was bright red. There were containers of various sizes built into the boat, and Jason and Charlotte poked through them. One was filled with life preservers, another with a thick rope, another with clear packets of water and bars of something that looked like it might approximate food. Possibly. Charlotte was glad she’d raided the minibar. In a smaller box in the back of the boat lay something that Charlotte first thought was a handgun, but proved to be a flare gun. Charlotte was relieved; it didn’t seem like you should have handguns on lifeboats. People might start using them to eat one another.
On the bow of the boat was a big red button, marked, as all distress signals should be, with the word BEACON. Charlotte reached for it, but Jason suddenly exclaimed, “Wait!”
“What?” Charlotte said. “Someone could find us and then we wouldn’t have to go!”
Jason shook his head. “The yacht has a radio too. We really don’t want them to know we’re coming…. Anyway, even if someone did come for us, the Siren would just get them, too.”
“Right,” Charlotte said, pulling her hand away. “Well, should we go?”
Jason promptly took the passenger seat next to the console, meaning, Charlotte assumed, that she was going to do the driving. When they had gone to the Underworld, Zee hadn’t let her do anything. He was obsessed with being chivalrous and had always insisted on going first all the time, like she couldn’t take care of herself. Well, she could. Zee went and got himself taken by Philonecron, and Charlotte had gotten by just fine.
(Mostly.)
Charlotte stepped over to the console, took a deep breath, and hit the big green button labeled PRESS TO START MOTOR. That seemed clear enough. And indeed, when she hit the button, the engine began to rumble. There was a lever near her elbow marked as the throttle, so she pushed it forward, and the boat burst forward into the mist.
“Okay!” shouted Charlotte. “Now what?”
“Just go northwest,” Jason said, nodding at the compass on Charlotte’s console.
“Right,” said Charlotte, moving the steering wheel around.
She had driven her uncle’s boat on Lake Sissabagama the previous summer. He’d said knowing how to drive a boat could come in handy—and Charlotte had to applaud his prescience.
The trick to going to see Greek gods, Charlotte had found, was not to think about it too much. Because if you focused on the fact that at the end of your journey would be, you know, Poseidon the Earth Shaker, it would be a little hard to get going. What you had to do was focus on the journey itself—one step in front of the other, as it were. Which was, really, exciting enough, given a sea monster could leap out at you at any moment.
Calm, Charlotte. Breathe.
Today Charlotte Mielswetzski was supposed to be enduring Colonial Williamsburg with her parents, learning about blacksmiths and bakers and one-room schoolhouses and all that stupid stuff. She was not supposed to be taking a lifeboat with the cute new boy to Poseidon’s yacht. Next time, she was going to better appreciate the opportunity to see some historical reenactments.
“So, the trident,” Charlotte said when they were on their way. “Poseidon doesn’t, like, leave it somewhere when he sleeps, does he? Or take it out to have it cleaned?”
“Nope. His power is bound up in it, so he’s not really going to let it out of his sight, you know?”
“I see,” said Charlotte, sighing. For all his information, Jason didn’t seem to have much of a plan here. They were just going to have to go and figure it out on the fly. On the fly was usually the way Charlotte did everything, but getting out of your math homework and getting Poseidon’s trident weren’t exactly analogous. “And am I actually going to be able to work the trident? I mean, I’m not exactly a god.”
“For a while,” Jason said. “Every time Poseidon uses it, the trident is infused with his power—so it will work for a little while. And without it, he’ll be at about half strength.”
“You’ve thought a lot about this,” Charlotte said, casting a glance at him.
“I keep my ears open.”
Not open enough to figure out how to get the thing, though, Charlotte noted as she squinted through the mist. They could be right on top of the yacht, and she wouldn’t have any idea. “So how far is it, anyway?”
“I dunno,” said Jason. “About ten miles. That’s where I left them.”
“What?” Charlotte turned to look at him. “Left them?”
“Yeah. I lived on the ship. Dad took me there when I was young so I could learn to appreciate being part Immortal…. Learn to appreciate it? As if. All they do is go to parties and watch surfers get eaten by sharks and stuff.”
“Wait…who’s your grandfather, then?”
“Huh?”
“Your grandfather. I heard you lived with your grandfather.”
“Oh,” he said. “No, that’s my dad. He just looks old. Well, he is old. But, you know, he’s Immortal. Anyway, he told me I had to take some responsibility, so he made me come with him and get to know”—he stopped himself suddenly—“get to know you. But then I met you and, well, I couldn’t do it. I ran away. But Dad sent his goons after me and made me go back on the ship.”
As he spoke, Charlotte eyed Jason out of the corner of her eye. She was no fool, of course—she’d been through enough not to trust a random cute boy who was thrown at her feet with all the answers for saving the day. It was just as likely that he was trying to lure her to Poseidon’s ship. Charlotte knew all about being lured. But the fact was, it seemed like she was going to have to get there anyway, so she might as well go with someone who knew the way.
Plus there was a chance he was telling her the truth. Charlotte did hope he was telling the truth.
“At first I thought they just wanted to spy on you,” Jason continued. “I didn’t realize what they were doi
ng, but when I heard what they were planning on doing to you, well”—Jason’s voice softened—“I had to come.”
“Really?” Charlotte turned her head toward him. Jason was looking up at her, green eyes wide, and whatever she was about to ask him slipped out of her mind. It’s hard to concentrate when your heart is making like a possessed bass drum.
“Of course!” He inched closer and put his hand on Charlotte’s shoulder. “I felt a connection with you, Charlotte, even when we first met. I couldn’t stand the thought of them hurting you.”
“Oh,” Charlotte said, her knees growing slightly weak. Was it getting warm in the boat? She tried very hard to pay attention to her driving, but Jason Hart’s hand seemed to be radiating electricity into her shoulder. It was probably because he was part Greek god, Charlotte thought; he had some magical electricity-radiating power. And maybe that’s why she was suddenly feeling so lightheaded….
“I never thought I’d meet anyone who could really understand, you know? Either I could lie about it like he did to my mom, or I could tell the truth, but who would believe me? I thought in addition to ruining my life he’d also made sure I’d never have a social life. But Charlotte”—he gazed into her eyes—“you know. You know everything. And you’re so strong and brave. You’re amazing.”
She was? And then, before she knew what was happening, Jason Hart’s gorgeous face was leaning into her slowly and his eyes were closing and his mouth was reaching for hers, almost as if he wanted to—
Thump!
As the boat hit something in the water, both Charlotte and Jason were thrown forward. The mist lifted slightly, as if it had been spooked by the collision, and as Charlotte straightened, she saw that they seemed to be in the middle of a rocky, narrow strait. The boat must have run over a rock, which seemed like something to avoid doing in the future.
The strait was framed by two large cliff walls, and in the middle of the strait was a row of three-story-high rocks. As Charlotte looked back and forth, she noticed that there were matching caves gaping like mouths in the walls on either side. The lifeboat was currently heading right for the rocks in the center—not really a good place for it to be going—so, uttering a small thank-you to the mist for its timely departure, she turned the steering wheel to the right.
