“I didn’t know.” My tone was short, and I felt bad that Gregg, of all people, had to put up with my foul mood, but the fact that Mama might know more about the bog, but refused to tell me, left a sour taste in my mouth. Was that why she’d been so opposed to this venture?
Gregg rolled a yellow cord out behind us, a bread crumb trail with one end tied tightly to Mr. Templeton’s porch railing. I’d thought it was a dumb idea—it wouldn’t take much for a malevolent sprite to cut through the thin wire—but now that we were out here, with water and half-submerged trees and thick fog as far as the eye could see, I was glad to have something tangible to cling to.
The others’ voices cut through the mist, but they sounded distorted and strange, as if they were speaking some forgotten, ancient language. If the Reys’ daughter was still out here somehow, she’d probably run away from us, thinking we were the unearthly threats. They blended with the sounds of the bog: crickets and trickling water and, beneath it all, a cadence of something barely-heard. Something musical. I was about to comment on this to Gregg when I realized he wasn’t beside me.
“Gregg?” I swore beneath my breath. How long had he been gone? Seconds, minutes, hours meshed together in my head, disorienting me. The swamp vegetation passed through a hundred seasons, growing and blossoming, spreading seeds and wilting, all in the blink of an eye. Panicked, I imagined emerging from the mist to discover our subdivision gone, crumbled to ruin, and everyone I knew and loved long dead. I plunged my hand into Mama’s pouch and pulled out her amulet which, had I been thinking straight, I ought to have been wearing all along.
As soon as it was over my head, the music faded and my mind cleared. It hadn’t been hours. The cattails and milkweed hadn’t changed. Gregg had only been gone a few seconds, which meant, if I doubled back on the tracks I’d made in the wet earth, I ought to meet his soon.
I counted six steps backward before my footprints rejoined his, and there I found the cord caught on the thorny branches of some plant I’d never seen before. It had tiny, blood-red blossoms on it, and its sweet scent made me lightheaded, even with the protection of Mama’s amulet around my throat.
Carefully, hand over hand, I followed the cord through the mirk and gloom, not turning aside even as the others’ voices faded, leaving the world in a silence so complete that it seemed to buzz in my ears. I followed it, focused entirely on what lay ahead, until I found myself on the edge of a lake so large, so deep, that there was no way it could possibly have fit on Mrs. Ferris’s plot maps.
The cord, still taut, led directly into it, forming a long angle with its reflection until it disappeared beneath the glassy surface.
Maybe I should’ve turned around and gone for help, but something in my marrow—perhaps prompted by Mama’s amulet—warned me that a place like this was unlikely to be discovered twice. So before I could think better of it, before I could convince myself of the impossibility of what I was about to do, I stepped into the icy, still water and waded out toward the lake’s center.
The silt beneath my feet was so soft that I sank into it, and, with each step, it threatened to pull me under. I clutched Mama’s amulet in one hand and Gregg’s cord in the other, step after step, until the water rose to my neck. Only then did I begin to panic, to wonder what would happen when I got in too deep. Who knew what lurked beneath the surface?
I’d been on the swim team in middle school, I reminded myself; I could hold my breath a few minutes at least. Clinging to that rationalization, I stepped forward and allowed the water to close over my head.
If the bog was a different world than our quiet, innocuous-looking subdivision, beneath the lake was another universe entirely. As the sediment cleared, I drew in an unexpected gasp, one that—in our universe—would have drowned me. Here, however, in the green bog-water with its strange shadows of algae, bubbles floated up from my nose and mouth, and somehow my lungs functioned normally. Mama’s amulet floated into my line of vision and I tucked it beneath my collar and zipped my jacket so I wouldn’t lose it.
I pulled myself along the cord using short flutter-kicks to propel me. The water here was clearer than one would expect from a bog-lake, and, as I brushed aside a curtain of algae, an entire world opened around me. Obscure shadows sharpened into the shapes of crumbling ruins, their vague hints of elegance and style consumed by lichen and the unceasing passage of time.
The yellow cord cut through the center of it all, pointing like an arrow through a darkened arch. Inside, a dome spread out overhead, and silhouettes of fish passed in and out of its shattered stained glass. In the center of the cavern, directly beneath its apex, the severed end of the yellow cord hung suspended in the gloom.
I’d been tricked.
I spun around, my hair billowing around me and obscuring my vision. When I pushed it aside, they were there, shadowy figures in the alcoves of the domed room. Whether they’d been there all along or whether they’d just appeared, now that I’d noticed them, I couldn’t look away. I drew in a breath, nearly choking on the stale taste of brine and decay. The figures were distinctly human—head, torso, and appendages—but their stillness was unnatural. Though their hair wavered, dancing in the subtle currents, their bodies were eerily frozen.
Gathering my courage, I pushed myself through the water to the nearest one, squinting through the silt that sparkled in the rays of greenish light extending from far above. The terrified face that looked back at me was all too familiar.
Gregg.
Sprite-laughter, like trickling water, swirled through the ruins. Shadows darted about on the edges of my vision.
I pulled myself from one alcove to the next, my heart racing in fear at what I found. Mr. Templeton. Mrs. Ferris. The Reys, frozen in place like that awful painting. Every one of my neighbors who’d joined us today. And then, the Reys’ daughter. The other missing children. A man who looked familiar, like I’d seen his face in a photograph but couldn’t place where. Down and down the line, around the circle of stone, until there he was—Gregg’s brother, Lloyd, looking the same as he had all those years ago in his Batman t-shirt and light-up sneakers.
The sprites’ babbling had reached a cacophony, but I blocked it out of my mind. What could I do? I had to get them back to the surface, out of this lake somehow, but there were dozens of people and each was frozen stiff.
“Help me out, guys,” I muttered through gritted teeth as I dragged Gregg out of his alcove. Something swooped through the broken glass overhead, and its eyes—green and glowing—stared at me from the darkness. I searched my pockets, but all I had was the spoon Mrs. Ferris had given me. Hardly a worthy weapon. I had nothing else, save the cell phone I’d forgotten to take from my pocket, now water-filled and ruined beyond repair, and the amulet around my neck.
The amulet. We’d all had steel, so it must have been the amulet that had kept me from the sprites’ magic paralysis. That thought gave me some hope. Mama had given it to me, after all, and Mrs. Ferris had said she’d gone out on the bog alone and returned. She wouldn’t have sent me without the means to get back.
But the others? I couldn’t just leave them here.
The cord floated like a serpent in front of me, planting an idea in my mind.
First, I reached into my collar and pulled out the amulet, letting it float free before my face. I looked around. Nothing had changed. Good. The stone didn’t have to be physically touching me. It was a long shot, but maybe, just maybe, if I encircled everyone with the yellow cord and slipped the amulet onto that, they’d be protected as well. The tricky part, of course, would be setting it up without the sprites’ interference. And without robbing myself of its protection.
Shoving all the statuesque figures into the center of the room took longer than I’d have liked. The sunlight trickling in from overhead grew dimmer and more slanted as time wore on. Had I not been underwater already, I’d have worked up a sweat, if not from the exertion itself, then out of nervousness due to all the green pinprick eyes staring at me throu
gh the murk. The whole time, I thought of Mama. She’d escaped from here, but when? And how?
Finally, the neighbors were all gathered in the center of the room. I pulled on the end of the yellow cord, winding it carefully around each person’s wrist and then encircling the group as a whole. The amulet bobbed before my face. If this failed to restore their senses, I’d have no choice but to leave them. Gregg’s face stared back at me, crinkled in terror, as if bracing himself for something that was to come. He’d been my best friend for years; I couldn’t imagine life without him, without the others. The thought of all those dark and empty houses sent a chill through me.
I maneuvered myself inside the yellow cord’s circle, my side pressed against Gregg, and fumbled with the latch on the amulet—trickier to undo underwater than I’d expected. My fingers felt soft and unskilled, wrinkled from being submerged so long. The sunlight was fading. I didn’t have much time.
All around, the green-glowing eyes of the sprites blinked and shifted in the lengthening shadows. Their restlessness was palpable, cold and sharp. They ventured closer, allowing me glimpses of their ever-shifting faces, faces that stole the features of the men and women and children gathered around me. Gregg’s eyes. Lloyd’s childish nose. The chin of that man whom I thought I’d seen before. A chin that, seeing it like that, disembodied as such, made me recognize its similarities to my own.
I spun around, searching for that man, and when a beam of light fell on his face, I realized where I’d seen his photograph before: tucked away in the box beneath Mama’s bed. Could he be…my father? My chest felt tight with the realization: she’d had to leave him here.
The sprites chittered their devious laughter, and I turned my attention back to the amulet. I had to get it free. In my haste, the clasp broke, and as soon as the circle around my neck was broken the music of the sprites flooded my ears, and the bog-water and brine filled my nose. I held my breath; I could no longer breathe.
The music was beautiful and terrible. It was more wonderful than anything, and so loud. It was precious and powerful and I longed to stay here forever. And yet…
The amulet twinkled, suspended before my face. Mama.
I snatched it out of the sparkling suspension just as another hand—thin and green, with sharp, curved claws—reached for it. The being shrieked, a sound that, even underwater, stabbed at my ears. I repeated the syllables—Mama, Mama, Mama—over and over, picturing her face as I held the amulet tightly. If she’d escaped, I could, too. My fingers, numb and slow with cold and the sprites’ magic, tried desperately to thread the cord through the ring atop the amulet, even as the sprites laid their hands on me, digging their sharp nails into my skin and pulling me away from the circle.
Return our stolen property, the voices hummed. Daughter of thieves. Offspring of robbers.
Their song burned my ears. It wanted me to stop. I wanted to stop. I wanted to lay down my arms, let my fingers go limp. Rest. Rest. Rest.
The cavern dimmed, like all the light was going out of the world, and in that last moment, when everything was merely a muddy blur of desires and mirk and green-glowing eyes, when they had me in their grasp and I could feel my body stiffening, the cord slipped through the amulet’s loop and my fist closed around the two pieces of cord, completing the circle as they stiffened, becoming like stone.
Then all was still.
* * *
I woke on Mr. Templeton’s back porch, spewing soupy water from my lungs.
The faces surrounding me were familiar and strange, and they burst out in smiles and laughter when I blinked. Mama’s arm was around the man with the familiar chin—my father, back from the dead—and the Reys clutched their little girl’s hands between them.
I sat up, coughing, and someone yelled to give me space.
“How?” I asked.
Gregg was beside me, his arms wrapped around me. “We woke up down in that cavern, tangled up in that protective circle of yours. Your hand was holding it shut so tightly, we had to all work together to drag you out of the bog. It wasn’t until we crossed out of it that you woke. You saved us, Hilly. All of us. Even Lloyd.”
From the edge of a circle, a small boy stared with wide eyes at all these people he’d once known. How strange it must be for him, to wander into the bog one day and wander out the next, finding the rest of the world had moved on.
“It’ll be tough for him,” I said quietly to Gregg.
“I know. I’ll have to be the big brother now.” He reached down to the cord tangled at my feet. He carefully untied the amulet and handed it to me.
“Things will be different now,” I said, staring at the glimmering stone.
“Different, yeah.” Gregg glanced over his shoulder at the crowd gathered there, at Mama and my father and his own, now-younger brother. “But better. Right.”
I smiled, because I knew that’s what he wanted from me, but as I clutched the amulet—cold as ice in my hands—I could almost hear their songs again. Bog-lights flickered in the distance, restless and hungry, and I knew, somehow, instinctively, that this wasn’t the end. They’d keep calling, keep taking, until we returned what was theirs.
“Come on in, everyone,” Mr. Templeton called. “I’ve got some hot chocolate on the stove for the kiddos, and some wine for the grown-ups. We have a lot to celebrate tonight!”
I stood to the side as the others wandered through the back door, until Gregg and I were the only ones left on the deck.
“You coming?” he asked.
“Just give me a minute.”
As soon as he stepped inside, I turned to the bog—that strange, otherworldly place. It was terrible and beautiful and I knew if I went through with this, I’d never set foot out there again. A small price to pay to make things right. I squeezed the amulet one last time and then, with a whisper of a prayer, I launched it as far as I could into the star-studded evening sky, watching until it dropped, lost forever among the milkweed.
SON OF BLOB
Marsheila Rockwell & Jeffrey J. Mariotte
I met the giant squid one week to the day after my parents disappeared.
I was standing on the dock in Sitka, Alaska. It was a warm November day for Sitka, mid-sixties, and I was wearing a t-shirt, jeans, and sneakers. In front of me was the R/V Ed Ricketts, the research vessel from which my parents had vanished. I heard some gentle splashing in the water and looked down, expecting to see a wet-suited swimmer or a pelican or something. Instead, a tentacle was reaching out of the water toward me. It was terra cotta-colored, like a houseplant pot that someone had spilled water on. I uttered a wordless cry.
Gayle Federici, a Stanford grad student who was working as a research assistant to my parents, came to the rail of the Ricketts. “Oh, that’s Lucy,” she said. “She’s an Architeuthis marensi—a northern Pacific giant squid. She was a friend of your folks. She just wants to meet you.”
I peered down again. I couldn’t tell how long Lucy’s tentacle was, but there were already eight feet or so extending out of the water, coming closer to me, and it looked like plenty more where that came from. I could only get a sense of her size through the dark water, but she appeared to be gigantic, easily as long as a city bus, if her tentacles were included.
“Is she…dangerous?” I asked.
“Hell, yes,” Gayle said. “Probably not to you, though. If you were a fish, or a killer whale, or even another squid—even another Architeuthis; cannibalism has been recorded in the species—she might be. But as far as I know, she’s never preyed on humans.”
I wasn’t particularly reassured. “Umm, hi, Lucy,” I said, trying to sound squid-friendly. “I’m Nick.”
Lucy kept reaching up, and up, and up some more. Finally, the tentacle was waving around right in front of me. “She can’t see through that, can she?” I asked.
“No,” Gayle said. “But the suckers are remarkably sensitive. She knows where you are. Go ahead and give her a high five.”
I held out my right hand. Nervously, I a
dmit. “I really didn’t enjoy that calamari I had last month,” I said. “I felt a little sick after, in fact.”
How she did it, I don’t know, but I held my hand still and the squid’s tentacle found it, touched it, wrapped around it. I could feel her suckers, but they didn’t latch onto my flesh as I had feared.
That was it, that brief, tapping contact. I felt—I don’t know. Somewhere between nothing at all and a little tingle, a frisson, at the idea of touching a representative of the largest sentient species on Earth. Whether Lucy felt anything different, I couldn’t have said. Based on what happened later, I think maybe … but I’m getting ahead of myself.
The tentacle disappeared and, moments later, so did the squid. I trundled up the gangplank and onto the boat, backpack over my shoulder. Gayle waited with a smile on her face. She was thin, compact, with dark curls and eyes that blazed with intensity. “Welcome aboard,” she said.
“Thanks for making this happen,” I said. “It couldn’t have been easy.”
“Don’t thank me,” Gayle replied. “Thank the NOAA. Only, you know, thank them silently, because they don’t know you’re going out with us.”
That surprised me. She had told me it was all set up, but not that it was on the down-low. “So what am I, a stowaway? An outlaw?”
“I wouldn’t go that—” she began. Then she caught herself. “—well, okay, you could look at it that way. Is that a problem?”
I thought it over for about five seconds. “No. Not at all.”
“Okay, cool,” she said. “Come on, I’ll introduce you to the crew. Everybody loved your folks to pieces.”
My folks were Dr. Betty McFall Larson, esteemed oceanographer, and Dr. Dr. Harold Larson, the double-doctor thanks to his doctorates in marine biology atmosphere and oceanic sciences. Also thanks to his twisted sense of humor—he typically introduced Mom, whom he’d married just out of college and to whom he had remained married for almost 34 years, as “my first wife, Betty.”
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