Mermaid Curse

by Louise Cooper

  A strange, tingling sensation started to creep up Lizzy’s spine. She tried to find her voice, but the words wouldn’t form properly and all she could do was stammer, ‘Do you… I mean, are you trying to…?’

  Kes’s eyes were very intense. Then he said, ‘I think I’m your brother.’

  Chapter Four

  Lizzy began to shake and couldn’t make it stop. This was impossible! She was still dreaming, she had to be! In a minute she would wake up.

  ‘Y-your parents…’ She heard her own voice, but it seemed to be coming from far away. ‘They… where are they?’

  ‘I live with my mother,’ said Kes.

  She didn’t believe any of this. She couldn’t believe it. ‘Where?’ she whispered.

  ‘I… can’t tell you.’

  Suddenly Lizzy’s self-control snapped, and she screamed at him. ‘What do you mean? You’ve got to tell me! You can’t say what – what you just said, and then – then –’

  ‘I can’t!’

  ‘Why not?’ Lizzy yelled.

  Kes glanced quickly from left to right, as if he were looking for a way of escape. Then he said, ‘Because you’d never believe me.’

  And before she could do anything, he turned and ran away as he had done before.

  ‘Wait!’ Lizzy shrieked desperately. ‘Come back!’

  Kes just kept running, heading for the rock outcrop again. This time, though, Lizzy didn’t hesitate. She sprinted after him, hair flying, feet thudding on the sand. He was halfway up the rocks when she reached them, and she scrabbled after him as fast as she could. The rocks were covered with mussels and barnacles, which hurt her feet, but she didn’t care. All that mattered was to catch up with Kes.

  By the time he reached the top and disappeared, Lizzy was only a few metres behind. She hauled herself over the cliff edge and scrambled upright in time to see him hurrying along the outer path, towards the lighthouse. She paused just long enough to take two deep breaths, and then gave chase again.

  The lighthouse was bigger than it had looked from a distance, looming over Lizzy as she neared it. Its bulk blocked her view of Kes now, but he must still be on the path. She ran round the landward side of the tower – and slid to a halt.

  The path ahead of her was empty. Kes had gone.

  Gasping, Lizzy stared at the deserted path in disbelief. Where was he? There was no way he could have run fast enough to be out of sight, yet somehow he had done it. Unless… She looked at the lighthouse. There was only one possibility. Kes must be hiding on the other side of it, waiting for her to run on along the path before he doubled back. OK, she thought. Then he’s in for a surprise!

  Very quietly, holding her breath, she began to edge round the curve of the lighthouse wall. Just a little bit further, and –

  ‘Caught you!’ she yelled, making a rush to the far side.

  There was nobody there. Only the silent lighthouse and the cliff edge beyond it, with the sea rising and falling and slapping against the rocks below.

  Confused, Lizzy turned in a circle, half expecting Kes to jump out and say that the whole thing had been a joke. Inside, though, she knew that there was nothing funny about this. I think I’m your brother. He had meant it. He hadn’t been lying, she was absolutely certain. He believed it. But was it true? Could it be true? And what was the mystery about his mother, and where they lived? She had to know!

  Movement in the sea caught her eye. Looking down, she saw the dolphins again. They had followed her, and now they were swimming in circles just off the headland. Above the noise of the tide Lizzy heard their high-pitched whistles echoing from the cliff face, and it seemed to her that they were trying to tell her something. A wild thought came to her – could they see Kes? Had he climbed down the rocks, out of her sight but visible to them?

  Moving to the cliff edge Lizzy leaned cautiously over. She couldn’t see anyone, but there were so many folds and humps in the rock where Kes could easily be hiding. She licked her lips. Could she climb down? She was pretty sure-footed, and it didn’t look too difficult. Maybe if she went just a few metres, until she could see round that first outcrop…

  Very slowly and cautiously she began to feel her way down. It wasn’t that bad; in fact it was no harder than the climb up here from the beach; it just looked worse because the sea was below her instead of firm sand, and its movement made her dizzy. All right… She had a good handhold; if she wedged her right foot here, then she could put her left foot there, and –

  Her foot slipped, her body twisting round before she could stop it, and suddenly, horrifyingly, she lost her grip and started to slither downwards. Lizzy screamed and clutched desperately for another handhold. But there was nothing to grasp. She was sliding faster down the rocks, knees and elbows scraping painfully – the world seemed to turn upside down as blue-green water rose to meet her, and with another scream she plunged into the sea.

  She hit the surface hard. Water closed over her head and the noise of the tide filled her ears, like the roar when an express train enters a tunnel. Salt stung her eyes, mouth and nose – then suddenly she burst up into light and air, to find herself bobbing on the swell with the cliff slope just a few metres away.

  But a few metres were more than enough. However good a swimmer Lizzy might be, the indoor pools she was used to were totally different from the surge and rush and sheer power of the ocean. The current was already carrying her away. She tried to strike out against it but it was far too strong for her. She began to panic, her swimming strokes turning into a splashing struggle as she fought to reach the rocks. The tide pulled at her, each rise and fall taking her further from safety. She couldn’t fight it, she would drown –

  ‘Help!’ Lizzy cried, spluttering as a wave broke against her face. ‘Help!’

  Through water-blurred eyes she saw something heading straight for her. For a terrifying moment she thought she was about to be thrown on to a submerged rock – then her vision cleared, and she saw the sleek shape of a dolphin. Silver glinted in a long streak down its back, and with a cry Lizzy stretched out a frantic hand towards it. Her fingers grasped its dorsal fin; a second dolphin was there too, and with her other hand she grabbed a tight hold of its flipper. She had read stories of dolphins helping human swimmers in trouble – now she knew that the stories were true. The dolphins were rescuing her! They were –

  Lizzy’s joy turned to horror, for with no warning the dolphins dived, pulling her with them under the water. She struggled wildly, letting go of the fins and trying to swim away. But the dolphins closed in on her, wedging her tightly between their smooth bodies. Now there was a third dolphin above, pressing her downwards. Like the invisible force in her dream they were taking her deeper and deeper. Colours swirled around her, green and blue and indigo; her ears were drumming, her lungs felt as if they must burst. She had to breathe!

  Unable to stop herself, she opened her mouth –

  And breathed.

  Lizzy knew that this couldn’t be happening to her. She was human! She couldn’t breathe underwater, like a fish! It was another dream; she was asleep in her own bed, and soon she would wake up – or maybe, she thought, almost calm now, this was what drowning was like. A kind of trance or hallucination. Not frightening, but gentle and beautiful. For the underwater world was very beautiful indeed. Light played in fascinating patterns, brighter above her, darker beneath. A fish with shining scales of blue, green, purple and orange swam past, and a shoal of tiny wriggling sand eels darted across her path. Then below she saw the smooth, pale sand of the seabed. Rocks were scattered on it, with sea anemones anchored to them like exotic flowers, their tentacles waving lazily in the current. As though enchanted by some strange, vague spell, Lizzy gazed dreamily at it as the dolphins guided her down towards the sand. The water was wonderfully clear, and though she knew she should be feeling cold, somehow she was warm instead.

  The dolphin to her right – the one with the silver streak – was whistling now, or at least she thought it was. Certainly s
he could hear a sound, carrying through the water, which gave it a strange, echoey quality. Was the dolphin talking to her? She thought it was, though she couldn’t understand what it was trying to say. Then from somewhere ahead came an answering whistle, and moments later a dim shape emerged from among the rocks a short way off. For a few moments Lizzy did not recognize the figure as it rose from the seabed and swam towards her. But when she did the shock was so great that her trance snapped and her eyes widened in amazement.

  The figure coming to meet them was Kes.

  As he arrived, the three dolphins veered away, leaving Lizzy suspended in the water. Kes smiled at her, but she could only stare back in utter bewilderment as her thoughts ran wild. We’re under the sea. We’re breathing! I’m not dreaming, or drowning – this is REAL!

  Then Kes smiled and said, ‘Welcome home.’

  A stream of bubbles came from his mouth as he spoke. Lizzy’s own mouth worked, and she saw similar bubbles drift past her face.

  ‘I…’ She tried her voice, and found that she, too, could speak. ‘I don’t… understand…’

  Kes smiled again, and then put a finger to his lips. ‘Shh! It’s all right. There’s nothing to be scared of. This is my world – and it’s yours too. It always has been.’ Reaching out, he took hold of her hand. ‘Come and see.’

  Chapter Five

  All Lizzy’s common sense told her that this couldn’t possibly be happening. She was an ordinary human girl, no different from anyone else. Humans didn’t live under the sea. They couldn’t. Yet here she was, breathing water as easily as she breathed air, swimming with Kes far, far down beneath the waves. And Kes himself – what was he?

  Her mind was so crowded with questions that she didn’t know where to begin asking. Besides, everything here was so strange and beautiful that there was no time to ask, in case she missed one of the wonderful sights. She would never have thought that seaweed could look like a forest. She had never realized how many different kinds of fish swam here, of every colour and shape imaginable. She could never have believed that the undersea light was like a hundred sparkling rainbows.

  They were drifting over an outcrop of rock, where tiny crabs scurried among the jewel-coloured anemones, when she saw a glimmer of grey ahead. Moments later the dolphin with the silver streak was swimming with them. It dived under Lizzy and surged over her, rolling in the water like a huge friendly dog playing a game. As it swam past, Lizzy saw the look in its eye. There was humour and mischief there, and for a moment Lizzy almost expected it to wink at her.

  The dolphin gave a series of whistles, and Kes grinned. ‘Her name is Arhans,’ he said, bubbles streaming from his mouth again. ‘And she says she likes you very much.’

  ‘Can you understand her?’ Lizzy was astonished.

  ‘Oh, yes. You can learn too. It isn’t difficult. All you have to do is listen, and you’ll find it will start to happen.’

  ‘How? Other humans can’t talk to dolphins. Why should I be able to?’

  ‘Ah…’ Kes’s expression became more serious. ‘Yes, I… I suppose I should explain everything.’ He stopped swimming and let himself drift on the current, then looked around him, a little uneasily, Lizzy thought. ‘I don’t want to talk about it here, though. We should go back to shore. But before we do –’

  He reached behind him, and for the first time Lizzy noticed something slung over his back. It was like a shoulder bag, but it appeared to be made from woven seaweed. Kes rummaged inside it, and drew out a large empty shell with a twisting spiral shape.

  ‘It’s for you,’ he said. ‘From my collection.’

  ‘Oh, it’s lovely! Thank you!’ She reached out to take it, but he shook his head.

  ‘There’s more to it than that. I’ll give it to you when we’re on shore, and tell you about it. Come on – it’s time we went back.’

  He set off, curving up towards the surface. Lizzy hesitated, but Arhans chittered and nudged gently at her, as if urging her to follow. She had the feeling that the dolphin was reassuring her. Slowly she began to move, finning the water with her hands and feet as she turned away from the incredible undersea world and headed back to shore.

  They surfaced at the beach. There was still no one around. Even the lifeguards hadn’t arrived yet, which meant it must still be very early, though the sun was already warm on Lizzy’s skin as she waded unsteadily out on to dry sand. Water streamed from her hair and clothes and she could feel herself shaking, not with cold, but with shock. Had it happened? Now, on dry land, she could hardly believe it.

  Confused, she looked back at the sea. Arhans was gone. The dolphin had swum away as Lizzy found her feet in the shallows, and now there was no sign that she had ever been there at all. But Kes was with her, standing knee-deep in the water and swaying with the rush and pull of the waves. For an awful moment Lizzy feared he would dive back into the sea and disappear like Arhans. Instead, though, he waded to her. He was still holding the shell he had taken from his shoulder bag.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but I couldn’t tell you the truth before. You wouldn’t have believed me. You had to find out for yourself.’

  Lizzy swallowed. ‘You mean that I could… can…’

  ‘Live under the sea. Yes. You’ve always been able to.’

  Fear rose in Lizzy and she flared up at him. ‘That’s not true! It’s crazy! I’ve never been able to do it before!’

  ‘You have. It’s just that you’d forgotten.’ Kes nodded over his shoulder. ‘The dolphins knew who you were as soon as they saw you. So they showed you, and you remembered.’

  Lizzy stared at him. She was shivering more than ever but tried not to let it show. ‘What do you mean, they knew?’ she demanded. ‘Who do they think I am?’

  Kes’s bright blue eyes gazed deeply into hers. ‘I told you,’ he said. ‘You’re my sister. We don’t look alike, but we’re twins. Arhans told me you had come back. Then when I found your locket, and saw you hunting for it on the beach…’ His voice suddenly became unsteady. ‘You see… you look just like our mother.’

  Lizzy’s lower lip started to tremble and she had an awful feeling that she was about to burst into tears. She desperately, desperately wanted to believe what Kes was telling her. But could she? Dared she? Or was this all a strange dream, from which she would suddenly wake up?

  With immense effort she got herself under control. ‘If I am your sister,’ she whispered, ‘why was I adopted? Why did your mother’ – she couldn’t bring herself to say our mother – ‘give me away?’

  It was Kes’s turn to flare up. ‘She didn’t! You were stolen! Our father went looking for you, but he never came back and –’ He stopped suddenly as he saw the look of utter shock on Lizzy’s face. ‘Didn’t you know?’ he finished.

  ‘No, of course not! How could I have done? No one knows anything about me, except that I was found abandoned. They couldn’t trace my family, so I got taken to a children’s home, and then the Baxters adopted me.’ She was crying now. ‘I don’t know what to think. I don’t know what to believe!’

  ‘I’m your brother,’ said Kes gently. ‘You can believe that.’ And she saw that he was nearly crying too.

  Yet even through the massive surge of emotion, something else was whirling in Lizzy’s mind. Humans couldn’t live underwater. But she and Kes could. Which must mean…

  Taking a deep breath Lizzy said, ‘Kes… what are we? Are we people – I mean real people, human people? Or –’ She couldn’t finish.

  Kes stared down at the sand. ‘Our father’s human. His name’s Jack; that’s all I know about him. He went away when I was too young to remember.’

  ‘To search for me?’

  Kes nodded.

  ‘And… and your mother…?’

  He gave a funny little half-laugh. ‘She’s called Morvyr,’ he said. There was a long pause. Then: ‘She’s a mermaid.’

  Lizzy stared at him. ‘What?’

  Kes shrugged. ‘She’s –’

  ‘I heard!
But there are no such things as mermaids!’

  He shrugged again. ‘That’s what most people on land think. They’re wrong, though.’ His head came up again and he looked at her challengingly. ‘Like you said, humans can’t live underwater. But mermaids can.’

  They held each other’s gazes for a few moments more. Then with no warning it all became too much for Lizzy. She felt her legs giving way under her, and helplessly she sat down with a crump on the sand and started to laugh. There was nothing funny about her laughter; it was more like hysterics. But she couldn’t make it stop, and tears were mixed in with it too, so that she ended up covering her mouth with her hands and hiccupping violently.

  ‘Sorry,’ Kes said. ‘But you asked.’

  That did strike Lizzy as funny, and she began laughing again. Kes came over and awkwardly patted her shoulder. ‘Sorry,’ he repeated. ‘It was all my fault.’

  ‘Wh-what was?’ Lizzy gasped.

  ‘Shocking you like that. I really am sorry… I wanted to tell you the truth when I first saw you today, but I lost my nerve. That’s why I ran away. I didn’t mean you to fall in the sea the way you did.’

  Lizzy looked up at him. ‘But the dolphins had other ideas, didn’t they?’ She smiled to show she wasn’t angry, and Kes smiled too.

  ‘I s’pose they did. They’re like that; ’specially Arhans. She’s very wise.’

  ‘So she lured me, and they showed me what I could do.’ Lizzy’s eyes clouded. ‘What I am…’

  Kes knelt down beside her. He still had the shell, and he pressed it into her hand. ‘Hold it to your ear,’ he said. ‘Tell me what you can hear.’

  Lizzy knew the old stories about hearing the sea in a shell. She and Rose had often done it on family holidays. Never in Cornwall, though. At least, not until now… She took the shell and pressed it against her ear. A hissing-roaring sound filled her head, like waves breaking on shore. Then Kes said, ‘Listen harder,’ and to her astonishment the sounds started to change. The sea noise was still there, but mingling with it were what seemed like blurry, murmuring voices.