by B. J. Smash
I turned back to Ed. He held his hand out and grabbed mine. Again, it was so cold, like ice. And as he hauled me along at a brisk speed, he talked. “I notice you go to shore with family, friends.”
“Yes, that’s true,” I responded.
He appeared confused. “Why, then, do you stay with the old, evil sea witch? She’s no good for you.”
Tell me about it! That’s what I had wanted to say to him, but instead I replied with, “She’s no good for anyone. But I must stay with her.”
“Why?” he asked.
I had only met this merman one other time. I didn’t know him or anything about him. The fact that he was asking me personal questions was putting me off. And yet when he looked at me, he somehow drew me in. I had heard that the merpeople can enchant you like no other. Even more so than the Fae. They can pull you in the water with a look or a sweet melody.
Somehow, this fellow seemed different. I didn’t sense any overkill on the charm, and he wasn’t trying to bedazzle me; he seemed genuinely concerned. But why? Why did he care?
I only answered him with a shrug of the shoulders. He didn’t pursue it, and he just smiled. Then he said, “Don’t worry, you will tell me someday.”
Well, he was certainly sure of himself. “Possibly,” I muttered. I didn’t trust anyone, and I especially did not trust a perfect stranger, whether he was a merman or not. I could only imagine that he was sucking up to me, to find out things about Magella. I’ve known for a while that the merpeople didn’t care for Magella. They would just as soon turn her out of Merribay, out of the oceans, and into a lake somewhere. She was nasty to everyone, and that included them. And while I’d like to see her gone, I wasn’t going to blab to just anyone. They might take me down with her and not even bat an eyelash.
Yet, he had just caught me some really good-sized salmon while I was having fun with his friends, and so I would be nice.
“I jus’ don’t like Magella. She treats you badly—I don’t like it,” he said. Just how much did this guy know? We arrived in the vicinity of the boat, and he stopped and handed me the net. It was amazingly full but light because the net’s magic was still working.
“All right, fella. You don’t know me. SO, why care?” I asked boldly. I was the type of person that had to get to the bottom of things. He would learn that right now.
To this, he took offense. I was coming to realize that any type of magical being, be it the Fae or merpeople, were offended easily. He squinted up his eyes and shook his head.
“Because I think you are beautiful,” he said. This shocked me a little.
He sure didn’t move slowly in taking his time to get to know someone. Perhaps that was the merpeople’s way? Then he said, “Take care of yourself, Zinnia.” And he did some flips in the water, his golden, muscular chest nearly grazing my face, and swooshed by me and out to sea.
I hadn’t meant to be boorish, but I had learned straight from Rodinand not to trust anyone. He had suckered me in, acted nice, and convinced me that I would be his equal. In the end, he was using me like a puppet. I felt sort of bad that I’d talked to Eadgar that way, but it can’t be helped. I have no friends for a reason. They turn on you.
I made my way to the boat, tapped on the side, and then swam up to switch my lungs to oxygen. I splashed through the surface and coughed a bunch of water from my lungs, and then took my first breath of air. By that time, Magella had thrown the ladder over. Her eyes were as big as the rim of a hat when she saw how full the net was.
“Holy mackerel! How did you manage to get all of those salmon?!” she called out. Whether she was suspicious or not, I couldn’t tell yet. “They are fat ones, too!”
I climbed up the ladder, coughing the entire time. She ignored me and went to the other side of the deck to inspect her fish. My throat was raw, and I slid into my ramshackle hut to retrieve a lozenge from my robe. I did this so quickly that she never noticed I was gone. And she couldn’t hear the paper bag crinkling when I opened it, because she was hitting the salmon over the head with her staff. One clunk was enough to kill each salmon. And I heard clunk, clunk, clunk at least eight times. Eadgar had caught me plenty of fish, that’s for sure. My question was, why? Why was he being nice? What did he want from me? Just because he thought I was “beautiful” wasn’t a good enough answer for me.
About a quarter of a mile away, the sun was shining on the ocean, but not here. Not on Magella’s boat. I looked at the rays longingly, but it only made me feel worse. We went about cleaning the fish, and this time Magella helped. I was so glad she wasn’t making us use the afghan, or perhaps she had just forgotten about it. It didn’t faze her in the slightest to smell like fish guts. I had to wonder if she even had a sense of smell. As we cleaned them out, she brought up the subject of gambling.
“While you were gone, I lost something precious to me in a card game,” she said. “It was given to me by my mother. If she knew that I lost it, she’d be quite angry with me.”
I knew it! She had no self-control over her gambling. But why was she telling me about it? She never talked to me about such things. I had to wonder, though, what her mother had given her that was so important. She watched me closely as I cut the fish’s belly open and spilled its guts out on the deck.
“It was a pearl. And I need it back,” she stated firmly.
“A pearl? You have tons of pearls, MILLIONS of pearls! Why, your whole kitchen is made out of pearl stuff!” I exclaimed.
“Yes, I know. But this pearl had a special quality about it.”
“Well, why did you gamble it away then?” I asked.
“That is something you do not need to know, but I will tell you anyway. I almost gambled you away, and at the last second, I put the pearl up for stakes instead, because that way you could just get it back for me.”
She was serious, I could tell. She had almost put me up for stakes. I couldn’t believe it. “Well, it’s nice to know that I am expendable,” I said.
“I said I almost put you up, but I didn’t. I can only imagine what Izadora would have to say about such a thing, and so I refrained. I don’t need that old bat breathing down my neck.” She knelt down on the deck and went about fileting the fish. “Believe me, I could sell you for more than I could win in a poker game.”
“That’s nice to know,” I grumbled.
“Oh yes, there a bunch of wizards and witches that would like to have a Seaforth as their apprentice. But not a chance. You work for me, and me alone,” she snapped. “Now about this pearl. I lost it to Jonesby the Jinxer. And he’s got a horrible reputation. You might have heard of him?”
It seems that somewhere I had heard his name mentioned, but I couldn’t recall where. “No, I don’t think so,” I said.
“He’s known for capturing the vessel, The Searaven. A pirate’s ship that sailed long, long ago. They used to dock around here from time to time, as it was safe. Or so they thought. Well, one evening the whole crew had an ‘all night in.’ This means they had no guards or watchers on deck. They all went to their beds to sleep. Big mistake. Jonesby the Jinxer caught wind of this, as he used to watch them when they’d dock. He went aboard and cast a spell over the men as they slept peacefully in their beds. By the time one of them woke, it was too late. The spell had already begun to work. And this spell was genius, if you ask me. Genius!” She stopped fileting her fish so that she could look me in the eyes to accentuate her point. The knife she held had blood and red guts dripping from the blade.
“What did he do to them?” I asked, hoping she’d get on with the story.
“He cast a spell that sucked each and every soul from their bodies, and he placed each individual soul into a glass jar.” Her stained yellow teeth were all revealed as her lips went into a big grin, and her long, greasy gray hair hung down in her face. She shook her head up and down. “You heard me right.”
It took a moment to sink in. What a horrible way to go. “What did he want with their souls?”
“Magic, you silly g
irl. To own souls and use them to do your bidding is a superpower. Don’t you understand? That’s why he is so incredibly powerful. They make him powerful.”
“That’s horrible, Magella. Why are you telling me this?” I felt sorry for the men that this happened to. What a dreadful outcome. “And why would you invite him to play poker with you?”
“Oh, that’s the thing. If I didn’t invite him, he would find out. And then we’d all be sorry. The rule out here in the waters is, if you’re playing cards, you invite Jonesby the Jinxer.” She went back to cutting the fish and tossing the filets into one bucket and the leftovers into another.
“Well, why do you even bother to play cards then?”
“Because, you fool, I can usually win! And I get all sorts of magical items from my friends. Like magic horns, magic lanterns, rare herbs. The list goes on!” she yelled. “Now, here is the deal. You must go to Jonesby the Jinxer’s and retrieve my pearl. This pearl is important. It allows me to enter waters that are usually forbidden to me, and I need it back! I do a lot of trading in these waters, and I can’t get there until I have that pearl.”
How could I even tell her no? I was forced to live here; I had no one to help me escape. I had NO other option. I would be forced to retrieve this pearl, no matter what.
“I suppose I have to,” I said.
“You are damn right you do. So, tomorrow morning, we sail close to his home. You’ll have to swim down and make your way into his cavern.”
“What?! His cavern? He’s underwater?” This was incredulous.
“Yes, you heard me right. He lives in a cavern in an underwater cliff. Oh, I didn’t mention that he’s a merman, did I? Shoot. Well, he is. He’s an overweight, eight-foot merman. And he wasn’t born that way—he uses magic to aid him. Otherwise he’d have to live above water. But he likes to hide below the sea, where he can be out of sight and do whatever he wants to.”
“Great,” I said plainly. This would be the end of me. I could only hope that I’d die before he caught me alive. I couldn’t imagine living as his captive or something. It was bad enough living with Magella.
“What if he catches me?” I asked.
“Oh he won’t. I have some spells to help you. And if he does, I suppose I could win you back in cards. It could happen.” She didn’t sound too convincing. This was definitely the worst idea ever.
Chapter Eight
I awoke early the next morning to the sound of waves splashing the sides of the boat. The afghan my Gran had given me kept me nice and warm. I never thought I could love a blanket so much, or appreciate the little things in life that I used to take for granted.
I lay there for a few minutes replaying what Magella and I had discussed the night before. I had cooked half of a salmon and some beets, and we ate the whole thing. She actually didn’t mind that I had seconds. She told me that I’d need my strength. To me, it was like having a last supper. There was no way I could get into some crazy merman’s cave to get a pearl. Where was I even going to begin to look for it?
I could hear the deck boards creaking, and I knew that she was coming. The sun was barely up, and she was already going to send me out. I placed my diary in my robe. I had fallen asleep last night while I’d been writing in it. I documented everything so that if and when I died, and my family got my robe, they would find my diary and see what had happened to me.
I had just stuffed it away when Magella pulled back the black tarp. “You up? Good. Let’s get a move on. You can come below for breakfast.” She dropped the tarp. She was going to let me eat in her fancy kitchen. I dressed quickly in black clothes again. Then I exited my makeshift bedroom and walked below to the kitchen.
The kitchen was amazing. It was all done with glamour spells, but just the same, it looked real and so it was real. Like I said before, she could conjure any material item. She ushered me onto a barstool made of white lacquered wood, inlaid with pearls. The sideboard in front of me was made out of expensive marble and inlaid with a pearl arabesque flower design. On top were eggs, toast, and bacon. I knew these food items were rare for Magella, as she usually preferred fish.
“Eat up. In an hour, you’ll be leaving,” she said.
I ate sparingly. I wasn’t hungry. This task that Magella was sending me on was apparently important. It had to be if she was treating me civil.
When I was done, she handed me a pill and told me to swallow it. “This will make it even easier for you to breathe underwater.”
“You mean this whole time you could have enhanced my breathing? But you wanted me to suffer, and so you what? Performed a lazy spell where I could barely breathe underwater?”
“You better take the damn pill, before I change my mind. You have been on my boat as punishment. I do NOT have to treat you good. If you remember right, you betrayed ME and stole my mother’s spell book!”
It wasn’t ever really hers to begin with, but I didn’t dare say so. She would probably knock me out of my chair. I took the pill and swallowed it.
She also showed me an invisibility spell, one that would last for an hour. I memorized it in seconds. Then she handed me a few magical items that would help me if I was caught, including a small cone that fit around my pinky. If I chanted the word “whippersnapper,” it would fly out and expand into colorful rays and encompass my enemy, holding them long enough for me to escape. Also in the items was a rare herb that was like a thorn; if you stuck a person with it, it would blind them for up to twenty minutes. And there was an armband that would turn into a shackle, and a poisonous snail that would cause a big stomachache to whomever ate it. The last thing she told me was a spell that would help me find the pearl. It would illuminate the area I was to look in.
“You are all set! Now don’t fail me,” she commanded. “If you complete this mission, I may make you a bedroom below deck, and you won’t have to sleep above deck any longer.”
We went above deck and she slammed her staff into the floorboards, and we were sailing at high speeds through the dark, gray clouds, and out to sea. As the wind whipped through my hair, I watched in the far distance as the shining sun dazzled on the white capped waves. It may be the last time I ever get to witness it.
***
We came upon a giant rock that protruded out of the water about fifty feet. It had many grooves and niches, and atop the island was an uneven green landscape with several trees. Magella stopped the boat about a half mile away and magically anchored it there.
“I cannot get too close, he’ll sense me. But you can easily swim that distance,” she said. “The pill I gave you will enhance your breathing, and help with your endurance.”
That was nice to know. If I had to make a quick getaway, I wanted to be able to do it without getting tired.
I carried with me a small bag that held my magical items, all except the pinky cone and armband which I wore. But the bag was strapped over my body so that I could easily swim.
“Well, I’ll hurry as fast as I can. If I don’t come up within two hours, you come for me, Magella. Don’t leave me there!” I looked her in her beady eyes.
“Of course, of course!” she said. But I didn’t think she meant it. “Now, swim out to the island. He lives below the water, alongside the rocky wall. Just look for the darkest part.”
“Great.” This was going to be a nightmare. I stood up on the railing and took in my last breath of fresh ocean air and jumped. I hit the water with a loud splash and continued to fall like a sack of rocks. When I finally stopped, I swam ahead against the current. Oh man, there was nothing worse than swimming against the ocean’s current. For one thing, it worked your muscles like nothing else could, and it made you gasp for air. Or I guess in this case, gasp for water. It was the ultimate helpless feeling, knowing the ocean could actually sweep you away in a heartbeat.
By the time I reached the rock wall below the island, my lungs burned badly, and my arms ached. I latched onto a protruding rock and caught my breath. While I waited, I scanned the area around me. Wa
y down on the ocean floor and before me was a shipwreck. There was a row of three toilets that were once walled in by stalls, but no walls remained. They were covered in algae, and thousands of little, tiny fish swam around them. The toilet lid was up on one, but the other two didn’t have any lid attached to them at all. The toilets were attached to a long piece of steel, and that was all that remained of the ship. It was evident that this ship had come too close to Jonesby the Jinxer’s lair and was taken down, sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor without a second thought. I had to wonder if the people had died and he now had their souls, too.
I had caught my breath and was now ready to venture forth. Swimming around, I scanned the rock for open caverns. I saw a couple of places that could be somebody’s lair, but they were too far up. Magella had said to look in the darkest part, and so I swam farther down. At one point a moray eel popped its head out of a hole, causing me to jump back five feet. He was rather long and brownish gray, with black dots. I didn’t think that morays lived in this area, but then again, I hadn’t originally thought that mermen did, either.
The lower I went, the darker it became, and finally I knew exactly where Jonesby the Jinxer lived. The water was dark and ominous, murky, muddy, and gloomy. Ahead lay a big open entrance with large rocks covered in black algae. A stick was driven into a crevice and on the end of this stick was a flag, and the flag had a skull and crossbones on it. He had to have stolen this from the pirate’s ship years ago and kept it as a souvenir—along with their souls.
Oh yes, this was definitely the spot. I crept my hands along the slimy rock wall and made my way to the opening. Peeking my head around, I looked in. It was so dark and had to be quite deep. I let out a long breath, bubbles escaping my lips, and I pulled away for a moment, leaning my back to the rock wall. I had to get my nerve up.
