by Chris Howard
“But—”
“H—how did you do that? Where did that come from?” Jill pointed at the sword.
“You were in your pajamas a second ago, and now you’re wearing...that.”
“I’m a...” Even with armor and a sword that had appeared out of nowhere, it sounded silly. “I’ll tell you when I can. I have something really important to do right now...I just wanted you to believe me. I’m not crazy or anything. There are no government experiments. I have some kind of power my mother gave me before she died. I can’t show you much. Right now I have to go. I had a dream of my father and I need to rescue him.”
Fresh scowls on their faces.
“From where? You can’t go anywhere.”
“And if you get caught again?” Nicole added.
“I’m pretty sure I won’t need to step outside the building to go where I need to go,” I said slowly, wondering about my ability to “use the water.”
I lowered the sword and my hand clamped around empty air. The scaly armor drifted away and my pajamas were back.
The two of them jumped in surprise.
“You’re like...” Jill gasped. “You’re like a witch.”
“More like a mermaid,” I said with a smile that made one side of my face hurt. I’d feel Matrothy’s backhand for a few days.
Jill and Nicole looked down at my legs at the same time.
“No, I don’t have fins or flippers, but I can breathe underwater.”
Nicole nodded, and both of them said “The lake!” at the same time.
“You were under there for at least twenty minutes!” Jill shrieked. “I knew it!”
“Why didn’t you tell us before?”
I shrugged. “That was the first time. I didn’t know either.”
I stared at my hands. I opened my fingers and studied the brown scar tissue that lined the skin between them. A mixture of anger and shame stirred my pulse.
“I think I had a thin webbing of skin between my fingers and toes when I was a baby, but someone cut it off.”
I held up my outstretched fingers to show them. Jill made a painful face, approaching cautiously with Nicole.
“Praxinos?”
My only friends looked around the office, and then followed my gaze, fixed on the dry-erase board behind them.
“Andromache?”
“Who are you talking to?” Jill said with a slight shudder, terror on her face at the thought that there might be invisible people in the room.
“They’re a king and queen. I can hear them but no one else can,” I whispered. “Yeah, they’re in my head.”
Oh! The princess decides to pull the stoppers from her ears! Praxinos said disdainfully.
I told you. Andromache sounded just as angry. Manners! The girl has not been taught even the simplest rules of etiquette.
“Told you what?”
That you are just like Ampharete, stubborn as a bridled Orca.
“A what?”
Black and white with a lot of teeth? Killer whales that can be ridden. Even if you manage to get the bit inserted and buckle on the V-brow headstall—
Praxinos interrupted with, The one with the gold-trimmed cheek bars because all cetaceans, from the friskiest porpoise to the slowest Bowhead, are show-offs.
—and then saddle the Orca, you still have to deal with an eight ton streamlined mass of teeth and irritability.
Right, said Praxinos knowingly. Your typical show dolphin, although capable of turning on its rider, will rarely maim him and then toss him around playfully with a lot of breaching, spouting and tailslapping before ripping him into bite-sized pieces and devouring him.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Listening only when she wants to.
We’ve been shouting for you!
“My mother was like that?”
Oh, worse! Andromache said with affected shock. That woman could turn a deaf ear to a hurricane if she stood in its path. She would have made a fine ruler.
Now, who have you been talking to? Praxinos said, his concern taking over. I told you not to trust anyone.
“I’m with Ephoros and my two best friends, Jill and Nicole. They came to save me from Matrothy.”
Dreadful monster, snapped Andromache. Is she the one you were threatening a little while ago? I hope you followed through with a nice broad stroke. Otherwise the blade will catch on the vertebrae. And make sure you clean the blade well. We have to get you out of that place, girl.
“I plan on leaving tonight.” I paused. “To rescue my father.”
After a stunned silence Praxinos said, I think that will be disastrous for us, princess.
At least let me train you to use that sword first!
“You listen. Both of you. He’s sick...I heard him coughing...and trying to claw his way out of that rock tomb thing. I have to save him,” I cried. “It is my father.” My voice fell to a whisper by the last word.
Jill and Nicole stared at me, mouths open, uncomfortably shifting their feet and each taking a step back from me.
Praxinos and Andromache went silent.
You are the Wreath-wearer, said Praxinos softly. Have you figured out how to open a path through the water? You are not going to walk to the Atlantic Ocean are you?
Just like that? Andromache was livid. You’re going to let her have her way? I will never understand how you came to rule for over a hundred years and be so spineless at the same time!
“I plan to use one of the showers upstairs.”
Good! Praxinos yelled. Make sure you leave it running. Even a dribble will work. Otherwise you may not be able to make it back. Praxinos shouted the words so he could be heard over Andromache’s shouting.
“Thank you so much, Praxinos. Thank you, Andromache. I’ll have Ephoros with me. He’ll keep me safe.”
Andromache went right on cursing and accusing Praxinos of weakness.
“Eph—” I started and then cut off the rest of his name because I didn’t want him to appear and frighten the wits out of Jill and Nicole.
They were already agitated over my one-sided conversation. I looked up. “Can you appear in a not so frightening size, Ephoros?”
“Very well,” he boomed and, as expected, my friends jumped back against the door, hugging each other, staring around the office.
Ephoros drifted down from the ceiling like a cloudburst and regained his form, although he was no taller than me—and that was with him floating a few inches off the floor.
“It’s okay,” I said quickly, nothing but terror in their eyes. “He’s good. He’s a king. He’s already saved me twice from Matrothy.” I held my open hand out toward the human-shaped mass of water with pits for eyes.
“This is Ephoros.”
I indicated my two mouth-gaping friends. “This is Jill, this is Nicole. I trust them everything.”
Jill mouthed a frightened, hoarse “Hello,” and Nicole made a slight lifting motion with her hand that was probably a wave.
Ephoros bowed. “I am honored to meet two friends of the princess,” he said and swept a watery arm around the room. “If she trusts you then I will trust you.”
Greetings taken care of, I pointed at Nicole. “Check if the coast is clear. We need to get back up to the hall without being seen.”
Glad to be given the chance to get out of Matrothy’s office, Nicole pulled the door open a crack, peered out and then pulled it all the way in. She stuck her head out and looked up and down the hall.
“No one,” she whispered.
“Let’s go,” I said. “I need to get into the bathrooms. You two need to make sure that the shower keeps running, even if it’s just a dribble. If someone turns off the water I could be stuck.”
“What about...him?” Jill pointed at Ephoros.
“He’s coming with me.”
“He can’t...uh...walk through the hall. What if someone sees him?”
“Oh, right.”
I looked at Ephoros and was about to ask about possible f
orms he was capable of taking when he drifted to the ceiling like a thick cloud of vapor.
“Lead the way upstairs,” he boomed.
That worked. Nicole and Jill looked a lot calmer with Ephoros gone, calm enough to exchange a quick puzzled look. Jill turned to me, both her eyebrows up, whispering, “Princess? You said mermaid. You didn’t say anything about princess.”
I tried not to roll my eyes, waving them ahead of me through the door. I didn’t bother answering that one, but I felt them shivering with more questions.
Jill, who’d always had trouble keeping quiet, threw me inviting looks as if to prompt me for information. Nicole glanced over at me, nodding with a You’re-a-mermaid princess?-Now-that’s-cool look.
We stepped into the main hallway and closed the door to Matrothy’s office. With a glance back down the hall, the three of us and a cloud of mist raced toward the girl’s wing of St. Clement’s.
We jumped the stairs two at a time, and stopped right in front of the closed door to the nine-to-sixteen’s hall.
“We’ll go in first,” suggested Jill. “To see if everything’s okay.”
I agreed, wondering where Matrothy had wandered off to, hoping she’d found her apartment and was still brushing her teeth.
Nicole sent a fleeting look up at the mist before pulling open the door and stepping into the hall. The lights were still on and most of the girls were awake, watching TV or talking on their beds in groups of three or four.
I stopped just inside the threshold.
Deirdre sat on her bed, arms folded obstinately, glaring at us. It was well after lights-out, but she’d lost control of the hall. And it was clear Matrothy hadn’t yet come up to shout orders
“Where have you been?” Deirdre snarled the words, unfolding her arms, waving in our direction but not really pointing at us, which she probably thought would have appeared too aggressive...and after what Nicole had done to Autumn.
Jill took on a snotty tone that sounded a lot like Deirdre, hand on her hip. “Oh, uh...you know, chatting in the director’s office.”
Deirdre’s face went white. It had probably never occurred to her that she could lose her position as Hall Leader, as Matrothy’s favorite, but the director had been acting so strange lately, unpredictable really.
Stupid not to take complete advantage of that.
I walked down the aisle, went straight to my trunk, noticed Autumn on the way, curled up under the blankets, probably ashamed to face the rest of the hall after Nicole’s beating.
Good.
I changed out of my pajamas into shorts and a T-shirt. Should I wear socks, shoes? Probably not. I kicked my slippers under my bed.
Jill and Nicole huddled around me. “What do we do now?”
Every girl in the hall was staring our way, but that couldn’t be helped.
I kept my voice as low as possible. “I’ll go in the bathrooms. You’ll hear me start the shower. In ten minutes check to see that the water’s still running. You can turn it down to a little more than a drip and leave it. Don’t let anyone turn off the water or I’ll be stuck outside. I’ll return, hopefully with my father.”
Nicole nodded. Jill just couldn’t keep quiet, but at least she kept it to a whisper. “This is so exciting!” She grabbed Nicole’s arm, staring eagerly at me. Her voice went even higher. “You’re a mermaid, a witch, a princess, something—and you’re about to do magic to get out of Clement’s.”
I shook my head. We’ll see about that. “Make sure no one comes into the bathroom for the next ten minutes. Water needs to keep running.”
“Right,” they said together.
I took their hands and pulled them together with mine, my grip tightening. I held onto them and I didn’t want to let go. My mouth opened, but I couldn’t find anything profound to say.
“Uh...I’ll try not to get everyone in trouble this time?”
That’s not what I wanted to say. Start with how you feel. I felt...exactly as I should feel, like a frightened fifteen-year-old about to step into a world I knew nothing about. The image of the huge stone box anchored to the floor of the abyss flashed in my mind. I felt the weight of sorrow, but no words.
“You sure you’ll be all right?” Jill asked quietly.
I nodded, and then I let them go. Above me, the mist glided along the ceiling, following me to the bathroom door.
Deirdre’s look of stubbornness and hate remained on her face, and she tracked me to the bathrooms. I ignored her.
Shutting the door, I let out a breath and went to the last stall, starting up the shower.
Just to make sure, I checked the toilet stalls and other showers, even under the sinks to see if anyone was hiding in the bathroom.
“Ephoros?”
In a flash, Ephoros appeared, floating a foot off the ground.
“What do I do?” I looked up at him.
“Hold your eyes up into the water and dream of where you want to go.”
My stomach hurt. “Dream?”
“Imagine may be closer to what I mean.”
“What if I’ve never been there before?”
“You will know what to do.”
I turned the cold water all the way on and it poured over my head. I shivered, then a slow warmth spread through my body. The water felt cold but not uncomfortable.
The Gulf of Mexico, I thought, picturing the big pull-down map in Vilnious’ classroom. Not straight down. A little to the east. Gulf of Mexico.
I frowned, thinking, this is stupid.
Then it happened. The bathroom spun around me, followed by the whole school, the state of Nebraska and then the whole world as far as I could tell, spiraling, and I fell into it headfirst, flying through watery darkness.
I couldn’t open my mouth and was pretty sure if I opened my eyes the force of the motion might tear off my eyelids. I didn’t want to go into this blind, and so I had to risk it. I squinted, tried to peer through the hazy line of light that came through my lashes.
I couldn’t make anything out.
A freefall drop in my stomach. My body shook, and I felt the spiraling force of the water press me one way and then another. I was hurtling down a black water pipe and had just spun around an elbow or curve in the flow.
Ephoros was with me, and that took away a couple teaspoons of fear.
I couldn’t move from the center of the current, and if I tilted my head to one side the force worked against me, straightening me out in the flow.
Ten seconds after my feet shot off the tiled floor of the shower stall in St. Clement’s, something sharp grabbed my shoulder.
Claws dug into my arm, snagged my shirt, and jerked my whole body back in the water.
What’s happening?
Something stronger than the roaring channel slowed me down and pulled me sideways.
I heard Ephoros’ angry rumble, and opened my eyes. Through the rushing water I saw shiny white tiles and across the room, a toilet. I’m in someone’s bathroom!
Then I heard a voice, clear, right next to me, and it sounded horrible, like the screeching of a bird.
“I got her! I got Kassandra!” The woman’s voice yelled with glee.
“We know! She’s up at the school.” Irritated voices came through the open bathroom door. One continued with, “Weren’t you here? I found her hours ago.”
“No, I mean I really got her!” The screechy one shouted excitedly.
Chapter 17 - The Naiads’ Bargain
I landed hard in a bathtub in somebody else’s bathroom. It was full of water and the tap was running. Water sloshed over the tiled floor, darkening as it spread into the hall carpet. Ephoros made an unfathomably deep angry rumble that made the bathroom’s walls shudder.
Prefect. The sound almost entirely covered up my choking, coughing and retching. Then the room went silent except for the water running into the tub.
“Hello?”
I called up my armor. Thousands of scaly plates slipped over my body, and then I stepped from the b
athroom.
Fists tightening, I had my sword out—and this time it came with the scabbard, held in my other hand. The sword fed my courage, crushed my fear. It felt good in my grip, deadly sharp but light, like I could chop through a forest of trees if I wanted to.
Ephoros floated behind me with two giant columns of water defensively half-wrapped around on each side.
“Is this supposed to happen?” I asked quietly out of the side of my mouth, looking up at Ephoros.
I coughed up more water, wiping it away with the back of my hand. I re-gripped the sword.
“No, it is not,” he rumbled through his thick pointy ice teeth.
I filled in Praxinos and Andromache, whispering as softly as I could. “Someone grabbed my shoulder and pulled me out of the water,”
I elbowed Ephoros in the arm, looking up at him. “Where are we?”
“We are still in Nebraska, not far from the school,” he said, eyeing the room with distaste.
I blinked the water out of my eyes and took in the details of the room. It looked like an apartment or motel room someone had ransacked. Two large beds were pushed into the far corner. Some alarm inside my head went off, directing me, warning me of potential threats, and I glanced over my shoulder, noticing the door behind me, closed and chain-locked.
Good. Cover your retreat. Know the exits.
At the end of the room, three freakishly scary women stood side by side in front of the armchairs and curtains as if protecting something behind them. They looked similar, maybe sisters, all with cold gray eyes and dark hair, long and tangled and wet, like black eelgrass. A fourth woman, who looked similar to the others but with pointed teeth, crouched against the wall, partly hidden by the TV cabinet.
I turned my attention back to the long chest of drawers that ran half the length of one wall. It was painted in cheap shiny maroon lacquer, chipped in dozens of places. Two worn armchairs squatted by the window at the other end of the room. The curtains were closed.
Then I noticed the hundreds of glasses, cups and mugs of water, placed randomly on every horizontal surface, lined up along the top of the television set, propped in the corners of the cushions of the armchairs and placed here and there on the splotchy brown carpeting.
