Midnight Law

by Geanna Culbertson

Lonna waved her hand and the currents around us ceased. The aura around her body disappeared as well. We floated next to each other. “You don’t know where this light trail ends exactly, do you?” she asked nervously.

  “No,” Chance said. “All we know is that the flame it leads to will help us find Crisa, but that trail could end anywhere.”

  “This is the Abominable Abyss. Mer people don’t go into the Abominable Abyss,” Lonna stated.

  “But you don’t play by the rules,” I commented.

  “I didn’t say we weren’t allowed to,” Lonna replied. “I said we don’t. It’s a choice. This thing goes way deep and serious monsters dwell down there.”

  “What kind of monsters?” Girtha asked.

  “I don’t have a guidebook about it, but while most undersea animals live in harmony with us, the creatures in the Abominable Abyss are violent and wild. They’ve grown up in darkness and have been exposed to the wicked magic of the Sea Witch and Humilde, my second cousin.”

  I blinked. “I’m sorry? You wanna run that by us one more time?”

  Lonna sighed. “That city we traveled through is not all of Mer. Our kingdom is composed of six cities; what you saw is the one my father King Anthos rules. The Little Mermaid who lives in Book as the current queen of Adelaide is descended from the royal family two undersea cities over. Her dad King Tyron, who’s like eighty now, still rules that today and he and my father share a grandparent. Tyron’s sister was the Sea Witch who gave the Little Mermaid the potion for her famous fin-leg swap. The Sea Witch is dead now, but she had one daughter, Humilde, who lives down there.” Lonna pointed into the abyss.

  I felt the urge to take notes. Besides fighting, nothing got me going quite like a good history lesson.

  “I need to update the library’s undersea section when we get home,” I mused. “I’ve never heard of the Abominable Abyss or Humilde.”

  “Hold on, the Sea Witch was King Tyron’s sister?” Jason repeated. “I don’t understand. The Mer king and his family are mermaids and mermen. I’ve seen pictures of the Sea Witch in our history textbooks; she was a hideous creature with tentacles and stuff.”

  “The Sea Witch was actually a Mer person too, she just looked different,” Lonna replied. “Not everyone is born perfect. Sometimes mutations happen. I’ve met a couple other Mer people like that in my life. They don’t really go out in public though; they’re embarrassed.”

  “That’s terrible,” Girtha said.

  I nodded in agreement but was focused on the abyss. We had to get this show on the road. “We need to keep going to find this flame, Lonna. I understand if you don’t want to come with us from here.”

  Lonna seemed torn for a moment; then she came to some internal decision and crossed her arms. “I’ve been on a lot of adventures, you know. But the selfish kind where the exploration is all about me and I throw myself into danger for fun—without there being greater purpose and without thinking how it affects others. It’s my style. But I know my style isn’t the best way long term. I’m the oldest of seven and heir to my Mer city’s throne, but no one takes me seriously because I’ve always been a bit flusterbrained and selfish. I don’t want to be seen as vapid forever. Crisa is my friend. I would like to help save her. Using my powers to do some good seems like a much better adventure.”

  “I didn’t know you were heir to your throne,” Jason commented.

  “A blessing and a curse.” Lonna shrugged. “Now then. Stay alert. We’re going in.”

  She raised her hands and her glow ignited anew. This time, one single current consumed us as we were taken into the abyss. It was a tighter current that had us flow in a single file line.

  We delved so deep into the aquatic darkness that you could easily forget there was a surface above. I started to feel on edge as shadows passed in my peripheral vision, some unseen underwater creatures swimming nearby. Glowing specks like eyes appeared here and there. The water grew colder and colder, despite our taffy power. And then I saw two red dots heading toward us. Three more pairs of red specks swiftly joined them. I gulped. They were getting bigger, which meant they were getting closer.

  “Lonna, wha—”

  A crab claw the size of a forklift jutted from the canyon wall to our right and sliced down in the middle of our group. The claw severed our current and missed severing me by a nanosecond. Lonna and I spun off course in a swirl of water while Jason, Chance, and Girtha were gushed away in their own flow. A second claw came out of the crevice, followed by smaller—but still huge—mint-colored appendages that gripped the rock to pull the body they shared from the shadows. The crab in full was the size of a house. Eyes the size of dinner plates stared at us. The crab raised a claw for another strike.

  “Shark!” Jason shouted.

  Lonna and I whirled around. The red specks I’d been wary of belonged to four massive, mutant sharks with glittering bellies and hairy appendages protruding from their sides like spider legs.

  HOLY—

  Lonna waved her hand in panic. Radiant blue energy expelled from her body and a magic current sucked all five of us back together into a tight funnel that zoomed beneath the inbound sharks. They gave chase.

  Our current darted through the canyon’s twists and turns. It was a blur of fear and rock and shadows. I was great at facing and fighting monsters, but right now I felt like a helpless minnow that couldn’t do anything but flee. I wasn’t even in control of the fleeing! We’d abandoned our green light trail in order to stay alive. I glanced back and saw the three spider sharks gaining on us.

  Wait, weren’t there four of them?

  OOMPH!

  We crashed into the body of a fourth spider shark that had cut us off from the front. Our magic current disbanded. The blow spiraled Lonna into the darkness and out of sight. I was thrust toward a canyon wall. I flailed my arms to slow myself down, but still smashed into an encrustment of barnacles pretty hard.

  Serious ow.

  The spider shark pivoted toward me and used its hairy arms to raise its body up, giving me a perfect view of its sparkling underbelly. At the center of its stomach, a slit opened and ejected a goopy green substance like spider webbing mixed with algae. The goop hit me like a net and glued me firmly against the rock. The shark swished its tail like an eager dog and opened its mouth wide, revealing a cavern of sharp teeth with two massive fangs where the incisors should be.

  I gulped. The shark charged. Jason appeared by my side, axe in hand. He called up the magic force field it was enchanted with and the indestructible barrier spread over us like a small dome in the nick of time. The spider shark collided against it; we didn’t feel a thing. The shark shook its head in surprise. Then it swam a ways back and tried again. The shield did not waver but the shark was not deterred. It backed up once more. Beyond our shark, I could see the other monsters encircling Chance and Girtha. Time to act.

  I shimmied my hand around the algae webbing and grabbed my trusty hunting knife from its sheath at my side. With a forceful jerk, I sliced upward and cut myself free. Jason continued to protect us, his arms holding up the axe to keep the force field in place. Once again the shark swam to get more distance.

  “Lower the force field when I tell you, then dive to the side,” I said, pressing my feet against the wall.

  Jason looked at me like I was crazy. “I’m sorry, what?”

  “Trust me,” I urged.

  The spider shark shot forward.

  “Now!”

  As the spider shark came at us, Jason lowered the force field. He dove left and I pushed off the wall with my knife gripped in both hands—extended as far as my arms would go. My knife stabbed into the face of the spider shark. Letting momentum take me, I released the knife a split second after it pierced the creature and flipped through the water over the shark’s head as it smashed into the canyon wall. Then the spider shark started to sink. Dark purple blood oozed from the monster, drifting up in the water. My strike had been fatal. My strikes were always fatal when I wanted
them to be.

  I swam down and wrapped my hands around the handle of my knife—pushing on the head with my boot to get the leverage to yank my weapon from the creature’s face.

  Girtha shouted. I whirled around. Algae webbing had trapped her and the prince. Jason was already swimming toward them to try and help, but it was not needed. Before Jason could reach them, a powerful current collided with all three spider sharks, surging them away from Girtha and Chance. Lonna darted into view—body glowing with three times the blue energy as before. She raised her hands as the spider sharks reoriented themselves. Her aura pulsed and she released powerful focused currents that acted like punches, pummeling the spider sharks again and again until they all turned tail and swam away.

  I floated there for a moment—relieved the attack had stopped and rolling my shoulders. My bones still hurt from my slam against the rock, but I rarely showed vulnerability or injury to others. It was better for everyone if I came across as invincible, action-packed Blue. That’s what the team expected from me. That’s what the team needed from me.

  Jason freed Chance and Girtha while Lonna kept watch.

  “How does it feel to use your powers for so much good?” I asked her.

  “Does beating the crud out of something count as using my powers for good?”

  “If that something is trying to kill you, always and absolutely.” I took a gander at the surrounding area then my eyes widened—not because of monsters this time. “Hey, look,” I called to the others. As luck would have it, a segment of our green light trail was visible by a bend in the canyon ahead.

  The others joined Lonna and me. There was a brief pause before Chance addressed the group. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “Why?” Jason asked.

  “I—”

  “You guys . . .” Lonna said, pointing up.

  The green light trail was moving, bending in another direction.

  “Maybe someone found the flame?” Girtha suggested. “And they’re on the move with it.”

  My head whipped toward Lonna. “No spider sharks are chasing us.”

  “Um, yeah I know.”

  “Can you pretend like they are?”

  She caught my drift. Then she conjured her magic currents and we took off after the light.

  he green trail led inside a cave. Lonna halted our current at the entrance and we swam forward at a more cautious pace. Unsettlingly large reddish sea anemones grew from the rounded walls and throbbed with light. Clumps of burgundy algae that looked like mangled hands sprouted from the sea floor. Ancient fossilized fish and seashells could be found imprinted in the rock.

  Our trail ceased in a grand room where the entire ceiling was one giant sea anemone. Putting aside the unfathomably big marine creature, the vibe of the space was like an underwater loft apartment crossed with a potions lab. In one corner a hammock-style bed was adorned with big pillows. An enormous sealed glass vat filled with radiant golden liquid throbbed in the center of the room like the world’s creepiest lava lamp; thin glass tubes sprouted from it and connected to a shimmering coral device with bronze cranks. Countless books lined shelves—surprising given that we were underwater. A trio of miniature spider sharks swam near the rear of the room where a desk was positioned facing the other way. A woman sat there. Well, a woman-creature.

  The skin on her top half was a ripe peach color, her hair was bronze and short in a Tinkerbell cut, and she wore a flowy top the same color as her locks. Where Mer people would have a long, shimmering fish tail, this woman’s lower half branched out into six tentacles, each about the size of my thigh where they met her body, and then tapering. The skin of the tentacles was a blend of reds and pinks—fluctuating from watermelon to ruby—while the suction cups were magenta, bright purple, and fuchsia. The woman was thick, but not fat; she was maybe a little larger than Girtha.

  If this was the daughter of the Sea Witch who stole the Little Mermaid’s voice, I was surprised. She looked different, but not like a monster. Honestly, as an objective observer, I’d have even proposed she was beautiful in her own way, even if she was not a perfect aquatic specimen like the supermodel Mer people I’d seen.

  “Humilde, I imagine,” Lonna said confidently.

  “It’s been a while since I’ve had visitors.” The woman turned around. She held a shimmering green flame that pulsed like a pet in her webbed hand. The flame amazed me, but something about her voice caught my attention more. “I assume you children are after this.”

  When she spoke her lips did not move. She wore a strand of onyx mussels as a necklace; different shells pulsed with silver energy with each word she said. They were projecting the voice, not the woman. Stranger still, they weren’t projecting just one voice. “My mother once told me about Midnight Law,” Humilde continued.

  Every few words sounded like they came from someone else. “My mother” was higher pitched and feminine, whereas “once told me” came out as deep and masculine, and “about Midnight Law” was kind of raspy.

  “I am honored to be a part of some hero’s quest,” she said.

  “Honored enough to give us that flame and call it a day?” Girtha asked.

  “Where would be the fun in that?”

  “You can’t talk,” I blurted, my curiosity getting the better of me.

  Humilde blinked at me. “I am mute,” she said, her words continuing to flow through her necklace. “Mutism runs in my family. I use spells to collect voices to speak with. They fade after a while, so the voices I’ve collected must work together to form my speech.” She raised a hand and beckoned to the miniature spider sharks. She caressed one on its head. “Luckily, with only my sea pets to talk to, I can conserve the voices for long periods. But I am overdue for a fresh new voice.”

  Lonna swam in front of our group.

  “Humilde, my name is Lonna. King Anthos is my father. These protagonists are on a noble mission to save a friend. Cooperate and I’m sure we can reward you in some reasonable way. But let me make something clear. I get where you’re going with this and you are not your mother nor am I the Little Mermaid. We’re not doing a voice-magic-swap deal. It’s not happening.”

  Humilde smiled. It was the first time her mouth had moved, though her lips remained sealed. “I agree we are not making that kind of deal. I have a bone to pick with the Mer royal family that’s much bigger than one voice. The Little Mermaid you speak of had five older sisters. I want all five of their voices.” She stroked her necklace. “Enough to sustain my speech for many years to come. Only then can you have this flame.”

  “You must be insane,” Lonna replied.

  “No, I am bitter. And I am owed the dignity that your lovely Mer kind didn’t deign to grant my mother and me. I suppose it’s fitting we didn’t get voices—the world can’t hear us just like your kind has always pretended not to see us. I am a princess by birth, the same as you. But while you are a size two blonde with graceful arms, inspiring cheekbones, and the hourglass shape that our underwater society praises, I am a big-boned, thick woman with arms that flap and a body that causes the water to swirl when I cut through it. My mother’s siblings treated her like a pariah and hid her away. If I can never be beautiful like a Mer princess is supposed to be then I want the beautiful voice that I am owed. Let my royal cousins experience what it’s like to feel invisible in a world of floating perfection.”

  We were speechless. No pun intended.

  Lonna glanced back at us.

  “I understand if you need some time to get your affairs in order,” Humilde said, tentacles ballooning and contracting to propel her toward a bookshelf. Interspersed among the books were several jars of long hair and other weird knickknacks. Humilde grabbed a text with one of her tentacles while the green flame continued to float near the palm of her hand.

  She turned to face us. “Water and other ordinary elements may not be able to extinguish a Midnight Law flame, but the person it bonds to can snuff it out—exactly what I’ll do if you fail to bring me my five co
usins.” Her tentacle raised the book to call our attention to it. “You can educate yourselves on the voice-swap spell I intend to use. It’s on page twenty-two. Here.”

  With the flick of her tentacle she chucked the book to Lonna, who caught it. “According to my mother’s journal,” Humilde continued, “your Little Mermaid was sweet but not very bright. She signed her magical contract without even reading it. I like to make sure the people I do business with are well informed. I’m bitter, but I’m fair. Which is why, in the interest of fairness, four of you are going to give me your voices temporarily to show you’re serious about doing business. Call it a deposit until you come back with the real thing. One of you can keep his or her voice in order to explain this to the Mer royals. I’d suggest that’d be you, Miss Lonna.”

  Humilde made a sudden, pained face and she touched her throat. “My voices weaken. Read and decide.” She waved us away and went over to lie in her hammock, tossing the green flame from hand to hand like she was lobbing a ball. The spider sharks circled around her.

  Lonna swam over to us with the book. “I don’t know what to do here,” she whispered. “But I think she’s serious about putting out the flame if she doesn’t get what she wants. Her insides seem as ugly as her outsides.”

  “Hey now, that seems a bit low,” Girtha replied. “Isn’t that the exact attitude she’s accusing your kind of having? She may be wicked, but don’t prove her right.”

  “Girtha,” Chance said. “You’re being too considerate. She doesn’t have to live in this cave with spider sharks. If she feels ashamed about her appearance, that’s hardly a reason to seek revenge on her family.”

  “You wouldn’t understand,” Girtha said coldly. “How could any of you? I’m not saying Humilde is super sane or justified, but you’d be surprised how bitter a person can become when they feel different and how they’re treated reinforces that. You think it has been easy for me at a school of princesses and other female fairytale protagonists? I’m like a foot taller and way thicker than the average girl at Lady Agnue’s. My nickname for years was Big Girtha.” She shot me a look. “I also got called more colorful names like Gigantore, clapper-clawed, she-bear . . .”