Rani’s Sea Spell

by Gwyneth Rees

  “So we both got found on the same day!” Rani said, carefully fastening the pendant round her neck.

  “It’s glowing!” Kai gasped.

  Rani looked down at the pendant. The amber stone really did seem to be lit from the inside now that it was touching Rani’s skin.

  “Let me try it on,” Kai said.

  The girls swapped necklaces but for some reason the pendant looked quite dull and ordinary on Kai.

  “I like mine better,” said Kai, quickly swapping back.

  “Ah, here comes our hairdresser,” said their grandmother, as a loud jangling noise attracted her attention.

  Sure enough, the noise was Octavius’s sister, Flora, who wore several bangles on each arm which clinked against each other as she moved about.

  “Did Octavius find you?” Rani asked, excitedly. “I bet you weren’t expecting him, were you? Did you get a lovely surprise when you saw him?”

  “No, I certainly wasn’t expecting him,” said Flora, creasing her large forehead into a very wrinkly frown. “I’ve never been so—” She gave a polite cough as Octavius followed her into the room, “. . . so surprised in my life!”

  “Nobody minds if I watch, do they?” Octavius asked, settling himself on the most comfortable-looking rock.

  Since Flora had eight arms to work with, she could do marvellous things with mermaids’ hair, very quickly indeed. Even Octavius was forced to admire the speed with which his sister combed and curled and crimped the long mermaid strands.

  “If only I didn’t have red hair,” Rani sighed, as she waited for Flora to finish. Flora was using some of her arms as curlers in Kai’s hair, so she only had three arms free to work on Rani. Octavius was suggesting ways his sister could use her arms even more efficiently as she wove Rani’s hair into a long plait.

  “I’ve only ever seen one other mermaid before who looked like you,” Flora said, as she fixed Rani’s shell-clasp in place. “She had hair the same colour as yours and she was very beautiful. She told me she came from a secret place a long way away.”

  “You’re talking about Morva,” Octavius interrupted impatiently. “We all know her.”

  “This wasn’t Morva,” Flora said. “Morva’s ancient. This was a young mermaid. She had eyes just like yours, Rani, and she wore a pendant just like that one. She was resting in a cave because she was about to have a baby. Her husband had gone to look for food. I offered to do her hair for her. I couldn’t resist – it was so beautiful.”

  “Where did you see her?” Rani gasped. “When was this? Did she tell you her name? Did she—”

  “Oh, I can’t remember the details,” Flora interrupted. “It was about ten years ago. It was out in the Deep Blue somewhere.”

  “Flora – you’ve never told me any of this before!” Octavius said crossly. “This is very important information. How can you forget to mention something like this?”

  Flora started to jangle her bangles in an irritated manner. “I probably wasn’t speaking to you at the time,” she snapped back. “Since you were just as much of a know-all ten years ago as you are now!”

  “Well, really,” Octavius snorted, and the two octopuses started to bicker loudly.

  Rani was stunned. Flora had met a red-haired mermaid with a pendant just like hers! And that mermaid had been about to have a baby – a baby who would be Rani’s age by now! What if . . . What if . . . What if the mermaid Flora had met had been Rani’s true mother?

  Chapter Four

  There was no time to ask Flora any more questions because by the time she had finished arguing with Octavius, it was almost time for the party to begin. But she promised to come and find Rani later so they could talk some more.

  As the mermaids gathered together in the big hall, chattering excitedly, Rani thought that they all looked beautiful. Their long hair had been dressed up by Flora and decorated with shell-combs and flowers, and they all wore lovely jewellery made from shells or precious stones. The mermen looked very handsome too, with garlands of twisted leaves on their heads and colourful seaweed belts.

  The band was the biggest Rani had ever seen. Mermaids and mermen were playing shell-horns, flutes and drums of all different kinds. There was even a harp with bind-weed strings. But Rani’s favourite thing was the glocken-shell – an instrument made up of lots of different-sized shells, each one sounding a different note when it was played.

  Rani was scanning the room for Flora. Flora had said she was coming to the party too, when she had finished doing everyone’s hair. Where was she?

  “First, everyone must have a turn at singing,” announced Rani’s grandmother.

  Mermaids were known for their beautiful voices and most of them loved to sing, but Rani had always felt far too shy to sing in front of other people.

  Rani’s mother sang first. She had a particularly lovely voice and everyone had tears in their eyes as they listened. Rani really wished that she could sing like that. As the other mermaids took their turns Rani started to feel nervous. She had to be the only mermaid whose voice always trembled whenever she tried to sing. What would the others think of her?

  “Rani, it’s your turn now!” her grandmother said.

  Rani was about to make an excuse when she happened to glance down at her pendant. It made her happy just to look at it and suddenly she felt like she could do anything if she really wanted to! She swam up on to the stage and – much to her amazement – found herself able to sing after all. In fact, she sang so beautifully that the whole room clapped and cheered when she had finished.

  “I never knew you could sing like that,” whispered Kai afterwards.

  “Neither did I,” gasped Rani, touching the pendant in awe. She was about to say more about it to Kai when their grandmother announced that it was time to have supper.

  Rani and Kai swam to the table to choose what they wanted from the delicious spread of mer-cakes and sea-trifles and ocean-fruits. The grown-up mermaids were drinking lots of mer-wine and getting very merry indeed.

  “This is yummy. Not a bit of seaweed in sight!” laughed Kai, who was always being told off for not eating her greens.

  “And no stew either!” laughed Rani. Suddenly she spotted Flora across the other side of the room. “I’ll be back in a minute,” she told her sister.

  “Wait, Rani! Where’s your necklace?” asked Kai, seeing that it was gone from Rani’s neck.

  Rani looked down. “Oh, no! It must have fallen off.”

  At that moment, Rani was surrounded by a group of mermaids who demanded that she sing for them again. Rani protested that she had to find her necklace first, but the others were very excited and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  “Don’t be a spoilsport, Rani!” her grandmother called out from the other side of the room.

  Rani didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t tell her grandmother that she had lost the necklace, but how else could she explain that she didn’t want to sing without it?

  “I’ll look for it,” offered Kai. “Give them one song and then come and help me. Don’t worry. It’s got to be here somewhere. It must be.”

  Reluctantly, Rani agreed but as she took her place on the stage again, she had a horrible thought. What if it was the pendant that had given her the ability to sing before? What if now – without it – she was just as hopeless as ever? Rani’s throat felt tight. Her stomach started to churn. She was sure that her voice would come out totally shaky and everyone would laugh at her. She quickly mumbled something about a sore throat and left the stage.

  “I can’t sing without my pendant,” she told Kai.

  “Maybe it fell off when you went to get your food,” Kai said.

  They swam back over the top of the long table and looked in between all the dishes but they couldn’t see the necklace.

  Rani felt like crying.

  “Don’t worry. You can share my necklace,” Kai said, putting her arm round her sister. “Or maybe Grandma has another one you can have.”

  But Rani kn
ew that the amber pendant was far too special to be replaced.

  “I’ve got to find it,” she told Kai.

  And together, the two sisters started to search again.

  Chapter Five

  It was getting late and Rani was starting to feel sleepy. She still hadn’t found her pendant although she and Kai had searched the whole room. She kept checking to make sure that the little shell containing the sea-spell was still fastened to her belt.

  Flora seemed to have disappeared from the party. Rani was just giving up all hope of speaking to her again when she heard an unmistakable jangling sound right behind her.

  “Flora,” Rani gasped. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”

  “I’ve been avoiding Octavius,” Flora confided. “He’s just so bossy. It’s just as well I don’t live in Tingle Reef or he’d drive me mad!”

  “He drives us mad too sometimes,” Rani grinned. “But we know he always means well!”

  The party had livened up even more since Octavius had suggested they dance a few reels. The mermaids were swishing their tails as fast as they could in time to the music as they held hands and swung each other round. Octavius was dancing with eight mermaids at once and looking very pleased with himself.

  “It’s getting very noisy,” Flora said. “I hope we don’t upset our neighbours.”

  “What neighbours?” asked Rani.

  Suddenly, as if in answer to her question, an incredible bellow sounded.

  “Oh dear,” Flora said, looking out into the Deep Blue with a worried frown on her face.

  “What is it?” asked Rani anxiously.

  Flora pointed out into the dark water which had suddenly become very choppy, and Rani saw an enormous black-and-white whale charging towards them.

  “Whales have got very sensitive hearing,” Flora whispered. “She’s probably come to complain about the noise.”

  The furious whale banged against the side of the wreck and everyone stopped dancing.

  The other mermaids made way for Rani’s grandmother as she swam to the edge of the room so that she was looking out at the whale through a gap in the side of the wreck. “We’re terribly sorry for disturbing you,” she began, politely. “Can we make up for it by offering you some refreshments?” She looked across to the table where Octavius was helping himself to the last of the trifle. “We have lots of mer-wine and sea-fruits and—”

  “I only eat plankton!” barked the whale rudely. “And I’ve had a belly-full of that on the way here!” She belched loudly.

  “Of course, we’ll stop the music—” Rani’s grandmother tried again, but the whale interrupted her.

  “You shouldn’t have started it in the first place! I’m sick of you mermaids and your silly parties! You never think about anyone else but yourselves!” And she rammed her whole body against the side of the wreck again, in protest.

  “The ceiling!” somebody yelled, as a loud ripping noise came from above their heads and splinters of driftwood and barnacles started to fall from above.

  The mermaids looked up and screamed. The huge wooden beams that made up the ceiling were splitting down the middle.

  “What are we going to do?” gasped Flora, as everyone tried to swim away at once. “The roof garden will cave in on us.”

  Rani knew that there was no time to lose. She had to use the sea-spell. She took the golden shell from her belt and clasped it tightly in her hand, concentrating as hard as she could on starting up the magic. Gold dust began to trickle out from inside the shell – the spell was being released! Rani closed her eyes to help her focus better. When she opened them again, the water in the room was sparkling.

  “What’s happening?” someone cried out.

  The whole room and its contents – except for the mermaids themselves – seemed to have frozen. A huge piece of ceiling had stopped in mid-water as it fell. A heavy rock from the roof garden, which had been about to fall on top of the band, was suspended in the water, not moving.

  “Quick!” shouted Rani. “Everyone must swim out. Now!”

  It took several minutes to clear the whole room so that only Rani was left. A layer of sparkling water surrounded her as she closed her eyes again. Now, all she had to do was fix the ceiling and the roof garden would be saved. She remembered everything Morva had taught her and concentrated very hard on the spell.

  Everyone cheered as the ceiling slipped back into place and the roof garden was restored.

  Rani’s grandmother leaned closer to Miriam as they waited for Rani to join them outside. She spoke very quietly so that no one else could hear. “I understand now what you mean about Rani,” she whispered. “She is very special.”

  Miriam nodded. “I know.”

  “She may want to go and find her true home one day,” the old mermaid added gently. “You realize that, don’t you, my dear?”

  Rani’s mother didn’t reply.

  When she was sure that the spell had really worked, Rani swam outside to join the others. She knew that her mother and grandmother had been watching her very carefully, and now Miriam seemed quiet. “Mother, is something wrong?” she asked, swimming up to her. “You look sad.”

  “I’m fine, Rani,” Miriam replied. “We all are . . . Thanks to you.” And she pulled Rani close and gave her a very tight hug.

  Suddenly, there was a big shout behind them. It was Octavius, still clutching his bowl of trifle. “You mermaids really aren’t very good at cooking,” he muttered, fishing something hard and shiny out of it. And Rani saw that what Octavius was holding up – half covered in gooey trifle – was her amber pendant!

  Chapter Six

  “Octopuses are very emotional, aren’t they?” Kai said the following morning, as they waited for Octavius to finish saying goodbye to Flora. Having argued for most of the visit, the brother and sister were now embracing each other and getting horribly tangled up.

  Rani had finally got the chance to speak to Flora on her own but she hadn’t really discovered anything more about the mysterious red-haired mermaid. Flora was certain that her amber pendant had been the same kind as Rani’s, though, and she had added that the young mermaid had been very sweet-natured. But apart from that Flora couldn’t tell her anything else. She didn’t know what had happened to the mermaid after she had left her – or to her baby.

  Murdoch gently reminded everybody that they needed to set off.

  “I can’t wait to see Pearl again!” Kai said, as she waved goodbye to her grandmother.

  “Me too,” said Rani. “And Morva!” Rani was longing to tell Morva everything that had happened.

  But the journey home seemed to take for ever. Roscoe was so tired that he kept falling asleep holding on to Miriam’s hair.

  “We’re probably tired out from all that dancing,” Murdoch said. “That’s why it seems like it’s taking longer. We’ll stop and rest soon.”

  Rani turned to her mother and noticed something.

  “Where’s Roscoe?” she asked.

  Roscoe was no longer attached to Miriam’s hair – he had definitely been there the last time she’d looked – and he wasn’t swimming along beside them either. In fact, he was nowhere in sight.

  Everybody stopped swimming and started to call out Roscoe’s name.

  “He must have got lost,” Murdoch said, frowning. “Come on. We’d better go back and look for him.”

  “I just hope he hasn’t got himself eaten,” Octavius said. “There was an extremely large fish back there. Did you see it?”

  “Octavius, please,” Miriam said.

  “Sorry, sorry,” muttered Octavius. “Of course, sea-horses are very difficult to digest. That fish will probably just spit him straight out again if it’s got any sense. Of course, fish don’t have a lot of sense—”

  “Octavius, be quiet!” Murdoch hissed. “I think I can hear something.”

  When the others listened they could hear the noise too. It sounded like someone shouting from a long way away.

  “Come on,
” said Murdoch. “Stay close to me.”

  They swam off in the direction of the sound. As they got nearer they could tell that it was definitely Roscoe.

  “HELP!” Roscoe was shouting. “GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

  “I hope he’s not shouting from inside that fish’s stomach,” Octavius said gloomily.

  “OCTAVIUS!” Miriam and Murdoch snapped at him together.

  They swam on a little further and then they saw him.

  “Oh no!” gasped Rani. The little seahorse was stuck in the middle of a gigantic silver web.

  “Keep back, all of you!” Murdoch called out, sharply. “That’s a Giant Sea-Spider’s web. That silver stuff is spider glue. If you touch it, you’ll get stuck too.”

  “Father, what are we going to do?” Rani asked, starting to panic. Giant Sea-Spiders caught other creatures in their webs in order to eat them. Everyone knew that. And any spider with a web as big as this one had to have a very large appetite indeed.

  “Find some rocks to throw at the web and we’ll try to break it that way,” Rani’s father said. But he sounded very worried.

  As the others began to collect rocks, Rani hovered beside the web. If only she hadn’t used up the sea-spell. Surely there was something she could do. After all, she knew how to do a mending spell, didn’t she? Surely a breaking spell couldn’t be that different?

  She closed her eyes and concentrated, holding out her hands so that they were just above the edge of the web. She focused as hard as she could on conjuring up a picture in her mind of the web breaking. Her belly button started to tingle and the tingling quickly spread up over the rest of her body and down her arms. Her fingertips felt hot. She opened her eyes and saw that golden sparks were jumping from her fingers to the web.

  “Look at Rani!” Kai shouted.

  For an instant the whole web sparkled. Then there was a sudden burst of golden light, the web broke with a ping and Roscoe was hurled straight into Rani’s arms.