Emily Windsnap and the Falls of Forgotten Island

by Liz Kessler

  “It’s all right. And I’m sorry, too,” Shona said. “I wasn’t that nice myself.”

  I turned to Aaron. “I was mean to you, too. I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s OK,” Aaron said. “I wasn’t a very good boyfriend, either. I should have understood you were upset. But look, it’s all over now. Everything’s cool.”

  I smiled at Aaron. “Thank you. So we’re all friends again?” I turned to Shona. “You and me are OK, too?”

  Shona nodded. “Yeah. Of course we are. On one condition.”

  “Anything,” I said.

  “You promise that we can have the vacation we were supposed to have now. No more adventures and no more danger.”

  “Shona, I . . .” I began. How could I agree to her condition? I couldn’t. But if I didn’t, she wasn’t going to be happy with me.

  I thought about what we had to do. The thing was, Aaron and I were the only ones who had to throw ourselves into a dangerous situation so we could help save everyone. Shona didn’t have to go anywhere. She could relax and enjoy the holiday. And I couldn’t bear for our making up to be over already. So I did something that was probably stupid.

  I smiled at her, and then, closing a door on the part of my mind that objected to every word, I allowed my mouth to say, “Of course I agree.”

  Shona pulled me into another hug, and for those seconds, I knew I’d done the right thing.

  “Making up with you is more important than anything,” I said. “You’re my best friend, and you always will be.”

  And at least that part was true.

  Aaron swam over to join us. “Let’s go over to Sunrise Rocks, and you can tell us where you’ve been and what happened.”

  “Sunrise Rocks?” I asked.

  “I noticed them early this morning. The light hits them at sunrise,” he explained. “They’re just at the edge of this beach.”

  So we swam over to the rocks, and as we swam, I tried to figure out how to even begin to tell them about the last few hours — never mind tell them what lay ahead. And do all that without making Shona mad at me again.

  It felt like an impossible task.

  We pulled ourselves up onto the wide, flat edges of Sunrise Rocks. Our tails loosely swished in the warm water as we sat together in a huddle, and Shona grinned at me.

  “OK, now that we’re friends again, I have something for you,” she said as she reached into her tail pocket. She pulled out a couple of stones and held them out in front of her.

  I had the feeling I knew what Shona was holding out. At least, I hoped I knew.

  “Are they friendship pebbles?” I asked. Shona and I had swapped friendship pebbles when we first became best friends. It was like our special thing, a mark of our friendship.

  Shona nodded.

  “They’re beautiful,” I said. “Where did you get them?”

  “It was strange, really,” Shona began. “I found them yesterday while I was swimming around in the bay behind the falls, waiting for you to come back. I was just floating around, passing the time while I waited for you.”

  “Then what?” Aaron asked.

  Shona blinked a couple of times and talked quickly. “I came across a kind of well in the seabed,” she said. “Really deep. As I swam over it, the sand on the seabed kind of puffed up, like something had disturbed it.”

  “Something like what?” Aaron asked.

  Shona shrugged. “I guess a big fish must have swum by.”

  I didn’t say anything. I knew it wasn’t a big fish at all. But Shona wasn’t ready to hear the truth yet.

  “The water went cloudy for a second,” she went on. “Then I saw something happening in the rocks ahead of me. A couple of stones were falling down them. They must have come loose from the shaking. There was a shaft of sunlight beaming on them. They looked kind of magical as they floated down in front of me.”

  “They’re so pretty,” I said.

  Shona looked down at her hand. “I watched them slipping through the water, twirling around and around as if they were riding an underwater slide toward me.”

  I smiled at that. I’d pointed out the big twisty slide at the fairground one day when Shona was visiting me in Brightport. She said it was the one thing she wished they had in the merfolk world. Pretty much the only thing humans have that she’d ever been jealous of !

  “The pebbles floated toward me, and I reached out for them,” Shona went on. “It was like they had sought me out, chosen me.” She grimaced. “Does that sound stupid?”

  “It doesn’t sound stupid at all,” I told her. “It sounds swishy!”

  “They feel special anyway, and that’s why I want them to be friendship pebbles,” Shona said. She held the pebbles out. “So which one do you want?”

  “I can’t decide. You choose,” I said. I was too happy about being friends again to care which pebble I had.

  Shona passed me one of them. I held it in my hand. It was cold and smooth, about half the size of my palm. One side was plain gray. The other had scratches all over it, from being jostled around in the falls I guessed. The scratches looked like a square box with feathery marks along one edge. I wondered how many years it had been jostled around by tides and weather to be scratched and marked like this.

  “I’ll treasure it forever,” I promised Shona.

  “Good!” Shona grinned.

  For a brief moment, I told myself that the three of us were just sitting here, swapping special gifts and sharing the sunshine and the beautiful surroundings. But I knew I couldn’t kid myself for much longer.

  “OK,” Aaron said. “Now that you guys are best buddies again, how about telling us where you’ve been?”

  I took a breath, tried to calm my heart rate down, and told myself it would be OK.

  And then I began.

  I didn’t pause to ask if they believed me. I didn’t hesitate over the details. I told them everything that had happened, everything I knew, and everything that we had to do.

  I avoided looking either of them in the eyes — especially Shona. I barely stopped to take a breath until it was all out of me.

  Only then did I dare make eye contact with either of them.

  I’d done my part. What happened next was in their hands.

  I held my breath while I waited for them to respond.

  And then Shona did.

  “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I actually can’t believe it.” Her voice had changed. This wasn’t the friendship-pebble-sharing voice. It wasn’t even the cold voice from this morning.

  It was a voice that sounded like disappointment and betrayal.

  “Shona, I —”

  “Save it, Emily,” Shona said sharply. “I don’t want to hear what you have to say. After everything we’ve been through, the promises we made — the assurance you gave me just now!”

  “Shona —”

  She barely acknowledged me. “After all that, here we are again. Emily Windsnap has to save the world! Oh, and let’s not forget, she needs to drag her two best friends into the greatest danger to do it.”

  Aaron broke in. “Hey, hold on a —”

  “No, Aaron,” Shona snapped. “I will not hold on anything.” She turned to me. “Look around you, Emily. This place is a paradise. There’s nothing dangerous, nothing threatening. It is just beautiful. Isn’t that good enough for you?”

  “Shona, it’s not that it isn’t good enough. It’s that it isn’t all it seems. This beautiful island we’re on is under threat,” I said. My throat burned with emotion. “Thousands of people’s lives are in danger.”

  Shona shook her head. “I just — I can’t believe it,” she said. “I don’t believe it.”

  “I promise you it’s true,” I insisted.

  “Well, you would say that, so you have an excuse to go on yet another dangerous adventure that you’re so desperate to have —”

  “I’m not desperate to have a dangerous adventure!” I burst out. “People are going to lose their lives if we do
n’t do something! I’m telling you — it’s true!”

  Shona stared at me. Her eyes were steel. “And I’m telling you, I’m done.”

  “Done with what?” I asked. I could barely get the words out. My throat felt like it had been squeezed to the width of a thin wire.

  Shona held out her arms. “With all of it. This, you, crazy adventures, danger. Being swept up in your whirlwind. I’m finished. I can’t do it anymore. She slid down the rock and back into the water. “I’ll cover for you so your parents don’t worry, but that’s it. From now on, you do your thing, and I’ll do mine. Let’s just get through the rest of the week.”

  And with that, she turned away from me. After splishing an arc of glinting droplets with her tail, she dived down and had disappeared before I had a chance to argue.

  “Shona, don’t go!” I called after her.

  A tight circle of ripples was the only reply.

  “Hey.” Aaron shuffled up closer to me on the rock and put an arm around me. “She’ll come around.”

  I shook my head. “No, she won’t. She hates me.”

  “She doesn’t hate you,” Aaron argued. “Just give her time.”

  “We don’t have time,” I mumbled.

  “She said she’ll cover for us. That’s going to have to be enough for now.” He shifted so his face was in front of mine. “Look at me,” he said, tilting my chin up.

  I met his eyes.

  “I believe you,” he said. “I believe all of it. We’re in this together.”

  “Thank you,” I said, my voice cracking slightly with emotion. After the argument with Shona, Aaron’s belief in me felt like it put me back together again.

  “I will do whatever is needed to help.”

  “Thank you,” I said again. We sat there in silence for a few moments, till Aaron cleared his throat. “OK then,” he said. “Enough of feeling miserable. Are you ready to start talking about what we do next?”

  And, as much as I would have loved to pretend that we didn’t have to think about what lay ahead and kid myself that this was the relaxing vacation it was supposed to be, I knew I couldn’t lie to myself.

  I couldn’t blame Shona for being angry that I’d dragged her into something like this yet again. I didn’t blame her for not believing me, for not wanting to be part of it. She didn’t have to be involved in it.

  But I did, and so did Aaron.

  “I’m ready,” I agreed. “Let’s make a plan.”

  It was the next morning, and we were trying to act normal at breakfast.

  Considering Shona wasn’t speaking to me, and Aaron and I were about to go on a dangerous mission to prevent a world-threatening event from taking place, acting normal was not exactly the easiest thing I’d ever done.

  But we got through it somehow. Shona had at least agreed to go along with the story that we’d been invited to spend the day with some friends that we’d met the day before.

  “So who are these friends again?” Mom had asked, frowning as we finished up breakfast.

  “Oh, it’s Calum and Jennie,” I said, feeling bad about lying to them, but knowing there was no way we could tell them the truth.

  “They’re great,” Aaron added. “We were playing with them at the playground yesterday.”

  Dad shrugged. “As long as you’re not a burden on them,” he said.

  “We won’t be a burden on anyone,” I replied. At least that much was true.

  “And you promise to be careful,” Mom added.

  “We promise,” Aaron said, so somberly it reminded me how important this promise was.

  “Why aren’t you going, Shona?” Millie asked.

  “I just . . . I’m feeling lazy,” Shona said. “I’d rather stay around here with you. If that’s OK?”

  “Fine by me,” Millie said.

  “Well, I guess that’s all settled then,” Dad said. “Have fun!”

  “We will,” I replied, even though the words stuck in my throat as I said them. I honestly wasn’t sure that “fun” was the best way to describe the journey that lay ahead.

  “And bring us back a memento!” Millie trilled as we got up from the table.

  I couldn’t help wondering what Millie would make of the memento we were planning to get. The only thing we were going to bring back was a giant whose very existence might still turn out to be a myth.

  “Will do!” I replied as Aaron took our plates into the kitchen.

  I paused for a moment, as I didn’t want to give anything away — but I couldn’t stop myself. I went over to Mom and put my arms around her from behind.

  “I love you, Mom,” I said, hugging her tightly.

  Mom kissed my arm, woven around her shoulders. “Hey, silly sausage, I love you, too.”

  Then I went over to the edge of the balcony and knelt down in front of Dad. After wrapping my arms around his neck, I breathed in the familiar scent of him. “Love you, Dad,” I whispered.

  “Love you for always and forever, little ’un,” Dad replied.

  Millie reached for another croissant. “What’s with all the big good-byes?” she asked. “You’d think you were off on a six-month trek around the world, not a day out with friends!”

  I kissed her on the top of her head as I passed her. “Just feeling affectionate,” I said, forcing a lightness I didn’t remotely feel into my voice. I didn’t want them to get suspicious and run the risk of them changing their minds.

  I looked over to Shona. She turned away.

  “Have a good day,” I said.

  She nodded. “Yep, you, too,” she replied without looking back at me.

  My chest hurt.

  But I couldn’t dwell on it. We had to get going.

  As I went back to my room and gathered my thoughts, I pulled out Shona’s friendship pebble. Stroking its smooth surface calmed my nerves. Even if I didn’t have her actual friendship, I had this. It would keep me strong and remind me that when all this was done, our friendship was worth fighting for.

  I packed the pebble firmly into my pocket, and then I set off to join Aaron.

  Together, we ducked under the water and swam away from the bay, out to the sea, and across toward Forgotten Island.

  We reached the cave in the island’s side, still submerged since the tide hadn’t yet revealed it today.

  “Ready?” I asked.

  “Ready as I’ll ever be,” Aaron replied.

  And so, together, we swam into the darkness of the cave toward the tunnels. As we swam, I hoped and prayed that we were up to the task ahead.

  Whether they knew it or not — whether they believed it or not — far too many people were depending on us.

  Failure was not an option.

  We swam single file through the tunnels. Some of it felt familiar, some completely different. I don’t know how many wrong turns we took, but I was starting to feel despondent.

  I found my way here and back again yesterday. Surely I could do it again today, right?

  Aaron had studied his map and guidebook before we came back, and he was trying to match up what he’d memorized with what we were swimming through now.

  “Em, I think I recognize this tunnel we’re in now from the map,” he said. “If I understood you correctly yesterday, I think it’s a bend to the left, a long narrow stretch, a final bend to the right, and we’ll be there.”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “Let’s give it a try.”

  So we swam on.

  “Anything seem familiar to you yet?” Aaron asked.

  “Not really,” I replied. “I wasn’t exactly thinking about where I was going last time. I was too busy being stupid and stubborn. Plus, the tunnels weren’t underwater then.”

  “What about when you came back again?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “Everything kind of looked different coming from the other side.”

  We’d swum into a new tunnel, and it was narrowing. “Wait,” I said.

  “What is it?”

  “This feels
familiar.”

  “OK, that’s good. Let’s keep going.”

  So we did. We swam down the tunnel in single file. As the ceiling grew lower and lower, we stretched our arms ahead of us and streamlined our bodies as much as we could. The ceiling grew so low there was barely room to flick my tail.

  “This feel familiar to you?” Aaron called ahead to me as the ceiling dropped down even more.

  “I think so,” I replied. “I remember it got pretty low at one point anyway.”

  Had it been quite this low though?

  Just as I was starting to doubt whether we were in the right tunnel, I heard something ahead of us. The sound of rushing water, a channel gushing along like a furious, magical underwater river.

  “Aaron! I think we’re there!”

  We swam on until, finally, we reached the end of the tunnel, and there it was ahead of us. The death chute.

  I turned back to Aaron. “This is it. You ready?”

  Aaron nodded. “Let’s go.”

  We dived into the tunnel, and within less than a second, it whipped us up in its force, hurling us around and around, closing in on us, thrashing us around. It went on and on and on, until, eventually, just like last time, it spat us out, one after the other, deep into Blue Pool.

  I stayed low in the water, looking around for Aaron. I’d come out first. He was behind me, flung tail over head into the pool.

  “You OK?” I asked, swimming over to him.

  “I — I think so.” He looked a little green.

  I pointed upward. “Swim up. Let’s get our bearings.”

  So we propelled ourselves upward and broke through the surface of the water together.

  “Emily!”

  Joel was on the side of the pool, sitting on a rock. He jumped up as soon as he saw us. “And I’m guessing you’re Aaron.” Joel perched on the edge of the pool and reached out a hand.

  “Um. Yeah.” Aaron took his hand and shook it.

  “I’m so glad to see you both,” Joel said, smiling broadly. “Let me tell the others. Ella and Saul are up there.”

  While Joel clambered up the rocks to get Ella and Saul, I glanced at Aaron. He was turning slowly around in the pool. He seemed mesmerized by it.