by Lari Don
“How will they know if you do it or not?”
“There are judges at each of the obstacles.”
“So if you get into trouble, will they help you?”
“You can request rescue, but if you do, you’re disqualified.”
“If the judges are there, Rona, you don’t have to worry about being injured or trapped. So what are you worried about?” Yann asked briskly.
“I’m worried about panicking. About being scared and refusing to start, or seeing the fishing boat and bolting for home. That’s not something you can help me with, Yann, because you’re never scared of anything.”
Helen was about to reassure Rona, when she heard the centaur’s low voice. “I do get scared, Rona. Sometimes. But I don’t let it stop me. I know that once I’ve beaten the fear, I’ve almost beaten the thing I’m afraid of.”
Catesby asked a question in an amazed tone.
“What am I scared of? I’m not keen on small boats sitting on top of large amounts of water. Flying on a dragon’s back isn’t easy for a centaur either. Standing on the doorstep of a human house was terrifying too. In fact, most of the things I do with our human friend scare me, but I do them anyway. So Rona,” his voice was gentle, “focus on us cheering as you finish first, and the fear will melt away. You’ll be great.”
Rona said shakily, “Will you all be there tomorrow? To see me come home?”
“I’ll be there,” said Helen, “but what if Lavender and Catesby blow away?”
“No storms will be sung tomorrow morning, so if you stay in the shelter of the old farmhouses, and if Lavender doesn’t fly too high, you’ll be fine.”
Catesby added a couple of proud squawks, and Rona laughed. “Two new adult feathers? One on each wing? So if Lavender does get blown away, you can fly after her and catch her! That’s the jetty, Helen. Can you see it?”
Helen twisted round and saw a camping lantern in the distance. “We’re fine from here. You go and get a good night’s sleep.”
Rona gave each of them a tight hug, then undid her sealskin, flicked it into the air, and dived, wrapping the cloak around her. By the time she hit the black water, she was a seal.
Helen waited until Rona was out of earshot, then said to Yann, “That was nice of you to admit being scared sometimes.”
“It wasn’t true, obviously. I just said it to make her feel better. I’m never actually scared.”
Helen smiled, and rowed the last hundred metres to the shore.
Chapter 13
Yann and Catesby were both yawning as Helen and Lavender said good night. As soon as they were in their own tent, Lavender switched the light on and started fussing over her salt-stained clothes. Helen dropped straight onto her folding bed.
“Aren’t you going to brush your hair?” scolded Lavender. “Or take off your necklace? And you can’t go to sleep in your trainers and your wet clothes!”
“Yes, I can,” Helen muttered, her eyes closed.
“No, you can’t! You’ve been soaked in seawater, and I saw you spill fishcake crumbs down your top. You should put everything you’re wearing in the dirty-washing bag. And that coral necklace will leave funny marks on your neck if you fall asleep wearing it. You don’t care enough about your clothes, or what you look like. It’s like sharing a tent with a boy!”
Helen laughed, and sat up. She’d never get to sleep with Lavender nagging her. She pulled off her shoes and kicked them under her bed, then peeled off her soggy socks and chucked them towards the dirty-clothes bag.
She reached her hands behind her neck, and swivelled the necklace round to bring the clasp to the front. She stood cross-eyed with her chin tipped down to see the stiff catch, as her short fiddler’s nails struggled to open the necklace.
Then Helen stopped.
She could see a strand of pink gooey jelly trapped in the silver catch.
Helen jerked at the necklace with both hands.
The cord snapped and coral beads flew all over the tent.
Lavender squealed. “Careful! You nearly knocked me out of the air!”
Helen didn’t answer. She just held the broken cord, and the clasp with its lump of goo, out at arm’s length.
“Look,” Helen said, very quietly. “Look at the clasp.”
Lavender swooped over. “Pale pink? That’s not really your colour.”
“No, it’s the colour of the sea-through.”
Lavender gasped. “The pouch Rona found was filled with things the sea-through was claiming back for the sea. Coral comes from the sea.”
Helen nodded.
Lavender whispered, “Did the sea-through try to reclaim this necklace too? Did the sea-through try to drown you?”
“I think so. It must have squeezed through the sea hole, tied my plaits to the chain, and tried to steal my necklace.”
“Then why didn’t the sea-through get the necklace?”
“It has a really stiff clasp. I only got it off by breaking it. The sea-through must have ripped a bit of skin trying to open it.” She shuddered and dropped the clasp on the floor.
“Why didn’t it break the necklace if it wanted the coral that much?”
“The sea-through couldn’t have broken it without waking me up. Perhaps it thought if I drowned and was underwater, the coral would be back in the sea.”
Lavender hovered above the clasp looking at the goo clue. “So this is suddenly more complicated, but also a lot simpler. Simpler because there’s only one attacker. You and Roxburgh were both attacked by the sea-through. It’s nice to know the mermaids aren’t murderers. But more complicated because it makes no sense at all. What motive does the sea-through have for attacking a selkie at the Storm Singer competition, then attacking a human at the Storm Singer feast?”
Helen was scratching her scalp and rubbing at her neck. Knowing she’d been attacked by a sea-through was making her feel much yuckier than thinking she’d been attacked by mermaids. “Maybe it likes ruining selkie events? Maybe it came to disrupt the feast, saw me alone and took the opportunity to drown me and take the necklace?”
Before Lavender could answer, Helen heard a noise outside. Not the rustle of tent fabric, nor the murmur of the sea. A sudden splash and a faint whisper.
“What was that?” Helen bent nearer to the tent wall.
She heard a voice hissing, “Where is she?”
“Did you hear that?” Helen breathed.
Lavender nodded.
“Where is she and that stolen coral?”
“It’s the sea-through!” Helen sat very still, Lavender hovered beside her, and they listened.
“Where is that nasty girl who ripped my bag? I’ll drown her with her pillow this time. I’ll get that coral back before my midnight meeting, even if I have to cut it off …”
The voice was right outside the tent.
“Who’s it talking to?” Helen whispered. “Are there two of them? Two of them wanting to drown me again!” She was shaking. She couldn’t decide what to do.
“HIDE!” Lavender said, urgently, right in her ear. “HIDE!”
Helen looked around the tent. She couldn’t see anywhere to hide. She was too big to fit behind the rucksacks or the bag of clothes or Lavender’s shoebox bed.
So she slid to the floor and crawled under her own bed, catching her hair on the springs under the thin mattress, and squishing herself into the low space, curled up round her wet trainers.
She heard the faint voice whisper outside, “She’s not in this big tent. I just see that heavy-hooved horse boy and some sky bird. What about the small tent?” The soft hissing moved nearer.
Helen held her breath.
She heard the tent entrance unzip.
Then Lavender called out in a high voice, “Isn’t it nice to have this huge tent all to ourselves, Pansy Petal?” Helen heard her whizzing round the tent, humming to herself.
“I said, Pansy Petal, isn’t it nice to have this tent all to ourselves?”
Helen wondered who Lavender thoug
ht she was talking to.
Then Lavender said, even louder and more sharply, “And you’re very lucky to have that huge bed to yourself, even if it is a bit ridiculous for such a small fairy, aren’t you, Pansy Petal?”
Helen suddenly realised who Lavender was talking to. “Oh!” she squeaked, from under the bed, in a tiny fairy voice, “Yes, Lavender. I’m very lucky to have such a big bed!”
She heard the zip creak back up and a soft hiss outside. “Nothing but fabled beasts and fairies in these two tents. The coral thief must be with the other human children. I’ll search their tents before my meeting with the selkie.”
As the hissing whisper faded, Helen crawled out. Lavender was fluttering, very pale, above her bed. “I saw its eye. Its eye was bigger than me!”
“We have to follow it,” Helen said.
“No! It’s out there hunting for you! You can’t follow it! It might see you, with those big gooey eyes!”
“It might hurt the Scouts if it doesn’t find me. And we need to follow it to that meeting, to find out what it’s up to.”
Lavender shook her head.
“Fine, I’ll go myself,” said Helen.
“You could take Yann?” Lavender suggested. “He’s always up for something daft and dangerous.”
“No, getting his attention would make too much noise. Anyway, he’s not built for sneaking about. I’ll go myself.”
“Helen! I can’t let you go on your own. I’ll have to come too!”
Helen grinned, and unzipped the tent.
She was worried it would be difficult to find a transparent creature in the dark, but as soon as they were outside, they could hear the gentle hiss of its constant commentary, “She’s not here … not there …”
Once they were round the first row of Scouts’ tents, they saw a greeny glow.
Helen took a quick step back, and then peered round the tent again.
The glow was coming from a globe-shaped lantern hanging from the sea-through’s fist. When it moved and the light swung round, Helen realised the splashing noise was coming from the globe. It must be filled with water.
The sea-through whispered to the glowing globe. “Driftwood! The sea’s beautiful floating wood. Carved and cleaned by the sea, and these savages are going to burn it! We’ll rescue it. Take it back to the sea.”
The light from the lantern wavered, and Helen saw a fish floating in the water. The glow was coming from a tiny light dangling from its head.
“The sea-through’s brought its own torch,” she murmured to Lavender.
She watched as the sea-through put the driftwood piled by the Scouts’ campfire stones in a huge woven kelp sack. Then it crept up to a tent, held the globe high, and pushed its head slowly through the opening.
Helen gasped.
Lavender chuckled on her shoulder. “It’s ok. It’s not going to find you! You’re not in there.”
“I’m not in there, but other people are.”
The sea-through’s head appeared again. “Boys. Not girls.”
It went to the next tent, and peered in. “Yes!” It was whispering very quietly, and Helen had to strain to catch each word, but it didn’t seem to have the sense to keep completely quiet. “Yes! Girls! But which one has the necklace? Maybe I should just drown them all?”
“It’s going to attack them! We have to stop it!” Helen took a step forward.
“No!” Lavender hovered in front of her. “We can’t let it know we’re here, or we won’t be able to follow it to its meeting.”
“But we can’t let it attack the scouts.”
“I know. Let me think.”
Helen watched as the sea-through laid the sack and globe down by the tent, and reached inside, its tentacles unwinding.
“Lavender!”
“I’m thinking …”
“Stop thinking, and do something, or I’m going to whack it on the head with that driftwood.”
So Lavender muttered some soft words and flicked her wand towards the tent. Suddenly there was a giggle from the tent. Then another. Two different high-pitched giggles. And someone said sleepily, “OI! Who’s doing that!?”
The sea-through jerked back out of the tent. The giggling got louder, and so did the questions. “Who’s … ha-ha … who’s doing that?” “It’s not me … hee hee … please stop!”
The sea-through lurched away from the tent, dragging its sack and lantern behind it.
“What did you do?” asked Helen.
Lavender whispered, “Tickling spell. One of my cousins is an expert at them. I’d been saving it to use on Yann. Come on. Let’s follow it to that meeting.”
So Helen and Lavender followed the glow of the sea-through’s lantern, out of the dark campsite, into the night.
Chapter 14
“Ouch!” Helen tried to keep her voice down, but Lavender, floating a few metres ahead, snapped, “Shhh!”
“It’s your fault my feet hurt,” Helen muttered. “You made me take my shoes off.”
They were following the sea-through’s sickly green light along the grass above the shore. Then the light changed direction. “It’s going down to the sea,” Lavender whispered. “We won’t be able to follow if the meeting is underwater.”
The light wavered and stopped halfway down the beach. Helen could feel round pebbles under her feet as she and Lavender hid behind a rusty boat trailer, watching as the sea-through placed the lantern on the stones. The light glowed through its purple toes and the wriggling tentacles round its ankles. It dropped its big sack, and pulled out the driftwood.
“Back to the wet arms of the sea.” The sea-through looked huge in the low-down light, whirling a lump of driftwood round its head and throwing it out to sea. With splash after splash, it threw branches, planks and roots out into the deep darkness.
A voice growled out of the night, “Collecting toys for the sea again, cnidaree?”
“Selkie. You’re late.”
“Better late than obvious, like you sneaking about at our feast. What a ridiculous idea, trying to speak to me there. At least this is private. Though if you make too much noise playing with your toys, we might gather an audience even here.”
“I’m not playing. I am performing my sacred duty. Just as I am part of the bloom, so this wood is part of the sea. I don’t ask a reward for doing my duty. Unlike greedy seals, who take from the sea, then demand rewards for giving something back.”
“You are just throwing litter into the sea. You do not even know if the sea appreciates it.”
“Don’t question my sacred duty! You selkies, half-land beings that you are, can never understand.”
The selkie chuckled under his breath. “You have a landform too, cnidaree, or how else could you be here, breathing air, talking to me?”
“We’re granted this disgusting half-human shape so we can leave the sea to retrieve what belongs to the sea. We don’t enjoy it. We don’t sing and dance about it like selkies do. But if our equinox plan succeeds, the sea will be able to seize back so much more than we can ever carry.”
As the sea-through chucked one last piece of driftwood at the waves, Lavender murmured to Helen, “Which selkie is that?”
“I don’t know. We can’t see properly unless the sea-through lifts that light up, and I don’t recognise the voice. I’ve mostly met selkies at feasts, speaking loud and clear, not whispering like this. It could be any of the big male selkies …”
Helen moved round the trailer for a better view, but she couldn’t see their faces, just their bare feet and the pebbles.
The low selkie voice said, “Now you have played your games, what do we do next?”
“We? There is no ‘we’ any more. You and your family failed us.”
“We failed you? That fiasco today was your plan. We did all you asked of us, but it was not enough.”
“We have another plan now, and we don’t need you.”
“But … but …” the selkie spluttered, and Helen almost recognised the voice. Despera
te to see who it was, she went further behind the metal trailer and clambered onto the tyre, to see if she could get a better view from higher up.
“But …”
“All we ask of you now is your silence.”
“For my silence, will I still get my crown?”
The sea-through laughed. Helen, teetering barefoot on the wheel, grabbed at the edge of the trailer to hold herself up.
“No, you greedy seal. For your silence, you get to keep your life! Not be stung and swallowed! For a crown, you’d need to give us …” The sea-through’s voice dropped so low Helen couldn’t hear the next few words.
The selkie answered in a despairing whisper, “I can still help. I still have influence. You could let me …”
Then Helen’s bare foot slipped again on the worn rubber of the old tyre. She jerked forward so she didn’t fall off the wheel, and thumped her knee against the side of the trailer. The thud was as loud as a drumbeat.
She heard gasps, then a flurry of splashes.
She scrambled round the side of the trailer, but the lantern had flickered out, and the beach was too dark to see anything. “Light!” she whispered to Lavender. “Light! We need to see who that was.”
Lavender lifted her wand. A circle of bright clean lightballs rose up and floated to the edge of the sea.
Helen saw a shiny head disappear under the water. She sighed. That dark fur could be any seal.
Then she looked nearer to the shore. The sea-through had stopped to pick up its globe and empty sack, so it was still in the shallow water. And it was changing.
Under the bright light, Helen and Lavender saw the sea-through’s skull and skeleton dissolve into its gooey flesh, as its landform twisted into a circle round its own innards, and then spread out into a bell-shaped lump of transparent jelly round the pale pink belly. The sea-through pulsed off into deeper water, its lacy stings stretching and growing into dozens of thick ropy tentacles, which towed the globe and the sack behind it.
“Yuck!” Helen grimaced. “I thought it was horrible when it was on land!”
“It took much longer to transform than the selkie, which changed so fast we’ve still no idea who it was,” said Lavender.
