She’d actually done it. And she’d done it without her parents.
But of course, she knew they had still helped her solve it. Their observation books. Their blood flowing through her veins. Their lifetimes of research.
Even in the midst of her glee, her heart panged.
If only they were here to see her, to see what they had helped her create.
To see the daughter they had raised.
Merrick coughed as he searched her over for wounds with the scrutiny of a surgeon. “That shark started patrolling these waters the last few times we visited,” he said. “I knew I needed the very best shark expert to deal with him and get my brooch.”
“Well,” Fidelia said, opening her palm, “here it is. I hope it was worth it.”
She finally got her first good look at it with clear eyes.
It was … ugly. A dingy piece of jewelry, and not salvageable at all — not worthy of any money, not becoming for a fashionable woman to wear. Not worthy of Fidelia’s life. The salt water had decayed most of the shine, and the fastening pin on the back was broken, irreparable.
“All this trouble for a piece of garbage,” Fidelia said, then winced.
But Merrick didn’t snap at her. He stared at the rotted piece of metal in her hand, then pierced her with that haunting blue eye of his. “Thank you,” he whispered.
He took the brooch from her. His skin was more purpled than flesh-colored; the veins bulged between his hand bones like rivers between skeletal peaks.
A dying pirate, drowning in his own phlegm and blood, all for a pewter brooch … She had to know why. “Why this brooch?” she asked, so only he could hear. “What’s it for?”
Before he could answer, a shout rang out: “At last I have you, Monstrous!”
A huge frigate approached, its red and blue flags waving boldly in the breeze. Even from the distance, Fidelia could make out the guns — at least twenty of them on this side alone — jutting from the ship like spines on a sea urchin, and all of them aimed at the Jewel.
A hoglike man stood at the helm, his golden blunderbuss drawn. A hay like mustache twitched above his lip, and a dainty pair of spectacles perched at the end of his lumpy nose.
“How many times must I kill you, Merrick?” the man hollered.
“At least one more time, it would seem, Bilgewater!” Merrick called back. Fidelia saw new life surge in his face. He clenched the brooch until his bony knuckles whitened.
“Bridgewater.” Bloody Elle’s lips crimped in a hateful sneer. “Look at him — his eyes are so close together, he should be wearing a monocle.”
Fidelia studied the man on the frigate. So this was the dreaded Admiral Bridgewater.
But he didn’t look like much of a nemesis for Merrick. Sort of like a grandfather with a pooch around his middle who made everyone listen to his war stories and refused to take off his decorated uniform.
“I see you’ve managed to resurrect the Jewel,” Admiral Bridgewater said. “What’s holding that pile of driftwood together? Pure luck?” He lifted his nose in disgust. “The ship matches the captain, I always say.”
“Would you like a ride?” Merrick asked. “There’s a spot down on the hull for you. You’ll get a nice view of the seabed.”
Naval officers in cobalt-blue jackets burst from the Mother Dog’s hatches like bees leaving a hive. They rowed to the Jewel in longboats, enough to be a scourge.
This wasn’t like the Molvanian pirates’ takeover of the Jewel. This was an admiral of the Queen’s Own Navy. This was the rescue Fidelia had been waiting for.
But even if she reached for it, she couldn’t feel a shred of relief.
She didn’t want to leave Merrick’s side, she realized. Not like this. Not when he was so fragile. Merrick must have seen her tense, because he placed a hand on her shoulder. “Steady,” he murmured. “This will all be over soon.”
Fidelia exhaled a shaky breath. Steady, she repeated to herself.
The navy’s longboats rowed closer.
Cheapshot Charlie pulled his pistol from his belt. “Our orders, Captain?”
Bloody Elle snaked her white-blond hair back into a braid as she glared — if her eyes were weapons, Admiral Bridgewater would be tattered in the water. She, too, readied her gun, and kissed the barrel for luck.
“Surrender now, Merrick,” Admiral Bridgewater called, “and I’ll make sure the sharks can’t get the biggest pieces of you!”
The Mother Dog’s longboats knocked into the side of the Jewel — a horrible sound, like the drumbeats of war.
“Captain!” Cheapshot Charlie said. “They’re here. What are your orders?”
Merrick took his gun and spat out a gob of blood. “Your orders are to jump,” the captain said, and aimed his gun right between Cheapshot Charlie’s eyes.
“Captain, no!” Bloody Elle cried. “Bridgewater will shoot you as soon as he gets the treasure —”
“I am a dead man already,” Merrick said. “Bridgewater will take the treasure, and he will take the Jewel. And then he’ll hang the two of you, if he doesn’t kill you right here.”
Cheapshot Charlie didn’t move, Merrick’s gun still pointed at his forehead. “We stay and fight,” he said.
“This is an order from your captain.” A bead of sweat rolled down Merrick’s forehead as he cocked his pistol. Cheapshot Charlie and Bloody Elle didn’t even flinch.
The naval sailors were scrambling up their grappling ropes.
“I’m warning you, Charlie!” Merrick’s hand shook, his pistol rattling. “Jump now or I’ll shoot!”
“Then shoot me,” Cheapshot Charlie said. “I’m not leaving.”
Merrick cursed — then lowered his aim and pulled the trigger.
The shot hit Cheapshot Charlie’s leg — the pirate doubled over with the pain, clenching his muscle as blood soaked his pants.
Fidelia screamed, the burn of gunpowder piercing her nostrils.
“Captain, stop!” Bloody Elle whipped off her headscarf and pressed it into Cheapshot Charlie’s wound.
Merrick readied another ball in his pistol, aiming it at Bloody Elle this time. “I said go.” His black-and-red eye twitched in its socket.
“What are you doing?” Fidelia yelped.
The Mother Dog was now parallel, close enough that Fidelia could see the sails of the Jewel reflected in the frigate’s shiny guns.
“I’m giving them a fighting chance,” Merrick said. “Which is more than Bridgewater will give them.”
“No! I won’t abandon my captain!” Bloody Elle’s lips trembled.
“Nor will I,” Cheapshot Charlie gritted out. “Not until it’s finished.”
“Please, go.” The sound of Merrick begging, even as he held his pistol steady — it broke Fidelia’s heart. “This is your last order.”
But it was too late — naval seamen leaped over the railing, swarming the Jewel’s warped deck.
Bloody Elle and Cheapshot Charlie were tackled and cuffed. Merrick’s wrists and ankles were bound, his pistol thrown overboard, sinking to the seabed — perhaps finding its way into his cave of treasures. He lay trussed on the floor of his own ship like a worm, coughing miserably at the strain.
A pair of sailors seized Fidelia’s arms and held her, unsure of what to make of her. Fidelia let them; she had no fight left in her.
Merrick had shot his own man. His own boatswain.
But not out of monstrousness, no. Out of mercy. It was as unexpected and jarring as seeing Grizzle — massive, toothy Grizzle, the most powerful and primeval of all sea creatures, a terrifying living dinosaur — protecting his three pups.
Merrick the Monstrous, yes — but not a monster. And that was, perhaps, the most unsettling discovery of all.
The inevitable transfer happened — Bloody Elle, Cheapshot Charlie, Merrick, and Fidelia were lowered into a longboat and rowed over to the frigate. Officially in naval custody.
“Search that sorry excuse for a ship!” Admiral Bridgewater commanded hi
s officers. “Every board, every cranny! Find it. Find it all!”
“Go on and search, you old —” Before Merrick could finish his insult, he erupted in a fit of coughs, flopping against the Mother Dog’s railing.
Admiral Bridgewater’s grin only brightened, his eyes replaced by two gold coins. “Run that mouth of yours all you want, Monstrous,” he said. “Because today, at last, I have it.”
The naval crew spread across the Jewel like cockroaches swarming a larder; they touched every inch of the ship, lifted every loose board, jammed the butts of their guns into knotholes to widen them. Bits of wood flew from the ship, a storm of splinters.
Merrick watched in silence as the navy violated his ship, his face chiseled in stone — so calm.
Fidelia spotted his left hand, tied behind his back, squeeze in his ropes. The brooch. He still had it. Bridgewater’s men hadn’t found it — not yet.
The most valuable of all of his treasures, he’d called it.
Merrick had pulled a lot of tricks — scuttling the Jewel in a forest lake to keep it hidden, escaping from the navy’s inescapable prison — and those were just the ones Fidelia knew about.
But as the sailors swept the Jewel for treasure, she hoped, with every bit of Quail blood she had, that he had one final card to play, one last trick in him: a way to keep that brooch. After everything he’d done for it — he had died to get it.
The navy crew found nothing aboard the Jewel — of course they didn’t, not on this rickety old ship held together only by slivers and nostalgia. Fidelia waited for an outburst from the admiral, for gunfire and threats. But Admiral Bridgewater wasn’t fazed. He raised a hamlike fist in the air and called to his men, “Bring me the suit.”
His officers carried a sea chest from the admiral’s quarters out to the main deck, and Fidelia started when they opened it.
“The diving suit!” she cried. So that’s why it wasn’t in the garden shed back on Arborley Island — the admiral had stolen it for himself.
The admiral turned his beady eyes on her. “You’re their daughter, aren’t you? Those fishy scientists, the Pheasants.”
“It’s Quail,” Fidelia said. Admiral Bridgewater sniffed; he couldn’t care less about names. Her name, their name.
“That suit and helmet are university property,” she informed him.
“My men commandeered it, in the name of the queen.” Admiral Bridgewater yanked the canvas suit up and over his body, somehow managing to zip his bulk inside the rubber. “Shall I have Her Majesty personally sign it out?”
Fidelia watched him secure the diving helmet, one of his officers twisting the corselets into place. Break off, she ordered fiercely. You old rusty screws — fall off ! She willed any of the usual problems the Quails had with the diving suit to manifest: a crack in the glass visor, a split in the canvas, a leak in the rubber … But the admiral looked every speck the part of a real diver.
He opened the helmet’s visor, holding his arms aloft while the officers inflated the suit. “I knew I’d catch you, Monstrous. I knew I was the bigger, stronger, faster animal. How does it feel now, to have my teeth around your throat?” He grinned, his cheeks flushing triumphant pink. “And here comes the bite.”
To his officers, he said, “If any of them attempts even a whiff of escape, blow their heads off. That includes the girl.”
He snapped the visor shut and tipped himself backward over the railing of the Mother Dog, splashing into the turquoise water. A weighted net was lowered over the side of the Mother Dog, and it sank into the water after him.
Silence washed over the two ships, broken only by a ghastly wet cough.
Then they waited.
June 4
Today’s the day.
I’m so anxious, I can hardly write straight.
Today’s the day I try my new submarine!
We picked the perfect spot for a test run — a continental reef ledge on the east side of Arborley that attracts all manner of pelagic creatures during the summer: crustaceans, octopuses, sea turtles, and of course — sharks.
On a hot day like today, it’s going to be shark city.
I’ve made smaller-scale submersibles before — the Ocean-Soaker, the Aqua-Flood, the Wave-Walker — but nothing as ambitious as this.
The Egg is a full-size mechanical submersible with propellers. It’s capable of hundred-foot depths — at least, I think it is. I’ve made sure the chambers are properly pressurized for deep-sea diving. I’m calling it the Egg because it’s shaped like one. The chandler was running a sale on some old cans of aquamarine paint.
Fidelia watched Merrick’s face. Hog-tied and breathless, there was no crooked smirk, no hardened jaw, no inferno in that blue eye of his.
Merrick got what he wanted, she reminded herself. That pathetic brooch in his hand.
Still, her heart ached for him. He was about to watch his worst enemy pull up his life’s work. Bridgewater would spend every bit of this great wealth that had taken Merrick years to compile … and Merrick would be fertilizing daisies.
We’ve just sailed out. It’s a perfect sunny day — nothing but blue sky and blue water. It’s teeming out here, busier than the canal on a Monday morning. I tried tracking fins — I lost count at thirty sharks. We’ve got a bunch of duskies, tons of blacktips, some nurses munching on crabs, and a tiger shark (who took off as soon as we anchored the boat). They’re all hovering around the drop-off, right where the reef ledge ends and deep water begins. Right where we’re going to lower the Egg and see if it works.
Dad’s going to man the Platypus while Mom and I go below.
Crossing my fingers, my toes, and all my insides that this works.
The net emerged from the sea, and despite herself, tears fell from Fidelia’s eyes, steaming up her glasses. There it was, a net nearly the size of the frigate itself, full of the world’s largest accumulation of wealth. Sparkling gems. Gold doubloons. Silver chandeliers.
Admiral Bridgewater sputtered as he wrenched open the visor of the diving helmet. “Reel me in!”
Fidelia looked at Bloody Elle and Cheapshot Charlie; they were shockingly still. Bloody Elle stared down at her own toes, and Cheapshot Charlie’s gaze was already beyond the horizon — finding anything else to focus on while their cave was plundered.
Stop him! Fidelia wanted to cry. You’re the greatest pirates who ever lived — break free from your ropes and get your treasure!
Merrick met her eyes, and she brushed her tears onto her shoulder. Wait until all the sailors back home heard that the legend of the red daisies ends with a cheap pewter brooch.
IT WORKS!
I’m writing this from the inside of my very own submarine!
A very curious nurse shark keeps bumping her nose against the porthole.
“Tell her to come on in; it’s nice and cozy!” Mom said, and held up her tea in cheers. That’s right, tea — the Egg is working so well and it’s so smooth that we’ve been down here for nearly three hours! Mom went topside for a bit so Dad could have some time in the sub.
“This is going to change everything,” he kept saying, using the Periscope-Anchor to spin the Egg three hundred and sixty degrees around. “You wait and see, Fidelia. You’ve just revolutionized our line of work.”
I don’t know which I’m more excited about — the things that happened today or the things that could happen tomorrow.
Admiral Bridgewater’s officers pried the suit off his uniform, still pristinely ironed and starched beneath the canvas. The treasure was carted off to the admiral’s quarters; it took two dozen men several trips each to carry all of it.
“What happens now?” Fidelia asked Merrick softly.
He clicked his tongue. “Don’t let him scare you, Quail,” he said. “He’ll get you home in one piece.”
Her throat strained. “I meant what happens to you?” Another one of her incessant questions.
There. There was that crooked half smile. “Don’t you worry about me,” he said. “You j
ust tell that old aunt of yours —”
He toppled over in a fit of uncontrollable coughing. Blood flecked the spotless deck.
“Stand him up!” Admiral Bridgewater said.
Officers snatched Merrick and pulled him upright; he wavered, still coughing, until at last he found his balance.
Admiral Bridgewater came inches away from the pirate. “In another lifetime, Merrick, you and I could have made a team for the ages. If only the navy had beaten all that sauce out of you.” His piggy eyes disappeared into the flesh of his face. “You could have been the next me.”
Merrick lifted his chin. “I would’ve tied my own noose, if I ever became a bilge rat like you.”
The corners of Fidelia’s mouth sprang up. This was why Merrick would always win, she realized. Admiral Bridgewater didn’t really want to kill Merrick — he wanted to kill Merrick’s arrogance. Tame him. And since the admiral never would, he’d have to settle for killing Merrick the Monstrous instead.
Admiral Bridgewater’s elation was blown clean off his face. “We shall all see the great Merrick the Monstrous hang. Just like every other black-hearted pirate. That’s right, Monstrous,” he whispered as he leaned over Merrick, seawater dripping off his soggy mustache. “You may have fancied yourself the king of the nine seas, but you’re going to die in the same way as every other sea dog who decides to sail under a red flag — dancing the hempen jig where anyone who wishes can watch you take your last breath. But first.” He rubbed one of his silver buttons, polishing it spotless with the tip of his thumb. “Gunners, at your ready!”
The Mother Dog’s cannons were already powdered, loaded, and aimed; the gunners awaited their signal. Fidelia followed their sight lines, and her heart leaped into her throat.
“Do something!” she said to Merrick and Charlie and Elle. Save your ship, your lucky ship, her heart screeched as it flapped into her mouth, circling and desperate.
Merrick’s face was still marbleized.
With some relish, Admiral Bridgewater shouted, “Fire!”
Race to the Bottom of the Sea Page 19
