by Liz Kessler
“Aaron knows this area really well,” I said. “I’m fairly sure that’s why Noah captured him.”
“How does he know it so well?” Kat asked.
“He used to live here.”
“He lived here? Like, out here at sea?”
“No.” I shook my head. “He lived at Halflight Castle.”
The two girls stared at me with identical looks on their faces. Eyes wide, mouths open, speechless.
“He, um, he told me about it,” I went on. “It’s here somewhere. I know it is. And if Halfmoon is its legendary sister castle, I think finding Halflight Castle is our best first step.”
The two girls looked at each other and both gave a slight nod. Then Kat shoved the charts toward me. “I like the plan,” she said. “OK, you’re in charge. Let’s find Halflight Castle.”
It was about an hour later and my stomach had started growling with hunger. I hadn’t had any breakfast. I assumed the rest of them had eaten while I was locked up. My brain was complaining almost as much as my stomach. We’d been studying the charts and looking out at the sea really hard, and nothing had clicked yet.
“We need fuel,” Ana said, shuffling around to the end of the bench and getting up. “I’ll go see if Hal needs any help with lunch.”
“We’ll keep at this,” Kat said.
“OK. Back soon.”
As she left, I looked back at the chart. I was trying to find something — anything — that I recognized from the time I swam to Halflight Castle.
“What’s that blob there?” Kat asked, pointing to a tiny piece of land with danger symbols all around it. It was a really small shape, but from the markings it looked like it was definitely a land mass; it looked like a tiny hill sticking up out of the ocean.
Wait.
The idea of it was familiar. When I’d been to Halflight Castle, our boat had gotten stranded in the middle of the sea. We’d literally washed up on a tiny piece of land and gotten lodged there.
Maybe this was it. I studied the area around it and found something else. A symbol I didn’t recognize.
I looked it up in the chart’s key. “Bad visibility.”
That was it! Halflight Castle was shrouded in mist. You couldn’t see it was there most of the time.
“Kat!” I exclaimed. “I think you’ve got something! I think you’ve found Halflight Castle!”
By the time Ana got back with some sandwiches, Kat and I had figured out that we were maybe fifty or sixty miles away from Halflight Castle. Kat had estimated that as long as the current wind direction and speed stayed the same, if we kept all our sails out, and all worked around the clock, we could get there by nightfall.
“Let’s tell Luke,” Kat said. “He’s at the helm.”
They both got up from the table, leaving their sandwiches half finished.
I cleared my throat. “Wait.”
The girls stopped where they were. “What is it?” Kat asked.
“We should tell Sam, not Luke,” I said quietly. “Sam’s the captain.”
Kat made a scoffing sound. “Whatever,” she said.
“What is it?” I asked. “What have you got against him?”
Kat shrugged. “We haven’t got anything against him,” she said. “He’s just . . .”
“He just hasn’t got what it takes,” Ana finished. “No offense. He’s an OK guy. Just not cut out to be in charge. He doesn’t fit the mold.”
“Come on,” I said. “Listen to yourselves. Doesn’t fit the mold? Surely you’ve had people say the same about you. How many girls go around with a penknife tucked into their belt and a wrench in their pocket at all times?”
Neither of them replied.
“How many girls braid each other’s hair and fasten it with ship’s wire instead of pink ribbons? How many girls can fix a cable on a forestay?”
“That might be true,” Kat conceded. “But so what? What’s your point?”
“My point is that you’re making up your minds about him without giving him a chance.”
I watched the girls’ faces as they considered what I was saying. I realized I was holding my breath and I couldn’t figure out why. Then Ana replied.
“Emily’s right,” she said. “Maybe we could give him a chance.”
“OK, fine, whatever,” Kat said. “We’ll give him the benefit of the doubt — for now. I’ll go talk to him, see what he wants to do.”
“And in the meantime, I’ll have a word with Luke anyway, see if he can alter his course slightly while we — I mean, while Sam — figures out the next step,” Ana added. “How does that sound?”
They both looked at me and I realized they were waiting for a reply. How did I get to be in charge all of a sudden? I was supposed to be the prisoner!
“It sounds sw —” I began. I nearly said it sounded swishy. Swishy was a mermaid word. “It sounds great,” I said with a smile. “I’ll stay here and study the charts a bit more, see if I can find anything else on them that might help.”
“OK, let’s go.” Kat headed for the doorway.
Ana stopped her. “Wait,” she said. Then she paused. She scratched her neck and looked at the floor.
“What?” Kat asked. “What is it?”
“Just . . . maybe one of us should stay here,” she mumbled eventually.
“Emily’s staying here!” Kat replied. Then she looked at me. “Oh,” she said. “You mean . . .”
She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t have to. “I’m not going anywhere,” I said. Nudging a thumb at the doorway — at the ocean surrounding us on every side — I added, “I couldn’t get anywhere anyway, could I?”
“No. Sorry. OK,” Ana said. “I mean, I don’t want to treat you like you’re —”
“It’s fine,” I said with the biggest and most understanding smile I could muster. “I understand. But you have my word. I’m not going anywhere.”
The girls left to do their jobs and I sat at the desk, trying to do mine. Which I might have stood at least a tiny chance of doing if it weren’t for the fact that my brain kept going over their words again and again.
I would never be accepted by them. They would never see me as one of them.
And for the first time in ages, I couldn’t help wondering if I would ever really fit in anywhere.
Everyone was hard at work.
Ana and Luke were planning the route. Sam was at the helm. Kat and Dean were working the sails. Hal was lookout. And I was helping out wherever I could, mostly pulling on ropes and keeping the deck clear and tidy.
There was just one problem.
We weren’t getting anywhere.
As we sailed, the sky grew murky. A mist started to settle around us.
We shifted jobs as we sailed through it. I was put on watch with Ana and Dean, all three of us looking out for anything we could spot in the mist that was settling more and more heavily with every passing minute.
Every now and then, we’d think we’d seen something, but it would turn out to be a bird. A couple of times, we saw something bigger in the distance. We figured it was Noah, floundering around in the mist nearby.
At least that meant he hadn’t found it either.
The more we sailed on, the more hopeless everyone started to feel. Dean was getting grumpy. Even grumpier than before.
“What’s the point of this?” he grumbled. “We’re never going to find it. We might as well give up.”
“Don’t say things like that,” Ana replied. “You should know better than to talk about giving up.”
“Why are we following Sam’s orders, anyway?” he went on, ignoring what Ana said. “The guy clearly doesn’t know what he’s doing. He’s driving us into the thickest fog I’ve ever seen in my life. What kind of a fool is he?”
“He’s not a fool,” I began. “He’s just trying to —”
“I’m not planning to die out here. You hear me?” Dean carried on as if I weren’t even there. “If it comes to it, if he expects us to go down with the ship,
I’m out. Or he is. We should all get together, take over, knock some sense into the guy.” He swung on one of the halyards, punching his hand into a fist as he leaned forward into the wind. “Come on. Let’s do it!”
“Dean, stop it!” Ana scolded him. She was half laughing. I guessed she was assuming he was joking. I hoped she was right.
“Stop what?”
I spun around. Sam was behind us. He must have handed over the helm to one of the others.
Dean let go of the halyard and jumped back down onto the deck.
No one replied.
“I said, Stop what?” Sam repeated. He was trying to sound firm, but his voice had a wobble to it.
Dean opened his mouth to reply.
“We were just messing around,” I said quickly, before Dean could say anything. “Weren’t we, Dean?”
Dean looked at me as if I were a fly that had fallen in his dinner and then turned into a giant beetle in front of his eyes. I didn’t care. I stayed calm and stared back at him.
Eventually, he lifted a shoulder in a lazy shrug. “Yeah. We were just messing around,” he repeated.
“Fine. Well, I’m glad that’s settled,” Sam said tightly. “And I’m glad you’re getting along and having fun. I’d hate to think anyone was having mutinous thoughts. I really would prefer not to have to discipline anyone at this early stage.”
He looked pointedly at Dean as he talked. He clearly knew Dean had said worse than we’d told him, but he was letting it go for now.
“OK,” Dean said. “I get it.”
Sam slapped him on the back. “Good.” Turning around, he called over his shoulder, “Another half hour and we’ll switch the shifts. Let’s get ourselves out of this fog.”
As Sam disappeared out of sight, Dean turned to me. “Why’d you do that?” he asked.
I decided to reply in the kind of language he’d understand. With a shrug.
“But really,” Ana added. “Why did you? You could have turned Dean in right then if you’d wanted to.”
I sighed. “Because we’re a team. Maybe we should start acting like it. It’s the only way we’ll get out of this.”
Neither of them replied for a moment. Finally, Dean gave me a sharp nod. “All right,” he said. “Whatever. I’ll give it a try. For now.”
“Yeah, me too,” Ana added. “Let’s cut the guy some slack — and let’s just get back to work.”
I couldn’t help smiling. “Great,” I said, maybe a bit too cheerily. They might have agreed to give Sam a chance, but they were still pirates locked in a battle out at sea, not happy campers on their way to a vacation.
At least we had a plan. It was better than the near mutiny we’d had five minutes earlier. And for now, I’d consider that to be a win.
Looking out from the deck, I stared into the thick mist. It was so heavy now that I could barely see beyond the ship itself. We were still just about making progress through it, white frothing waves splashing against the bow as we sailed on blue, blue water.
We had to find a way out of here. But how? The air was so thick with mist we could be turning in circles and we wouldn’t even know it.
Wait.
The air. The air was thick with mist.
What about the sea? Maybe I could see farther if I was underwater.
The thought pulled at me. As it did, I remembered a line from the poem.
Use a magical crystal that calls through the blue.
Maybe there was something down there, in the blue; something magical. Something that could help us.
And maybe I could find it.
I looked around. Everyone was busy with their jobs.
I crept to the very front of the ship. The bowsprit bounced almost to the edge of the water as we sliced through the waves.
One last glance behind me. Still no one around. OK. This was it.
I took one more step to the very edge of the ship, clambering onto the gunwales. A final glance around.
Now!
I jumped.
The moment I hit the water, I flipped myself over and zoomed straight down.
As I swam deeper, I felt my body start to change. My legs stiffened and tingled as they began to join together. Soon, they had completely disappeared. In their place, my tail had formed.
I was a mermaid again.
I allowed myself a minute to enjoy the feeling. It was like breaking out of a prison and experiencing freedom after years in a cell. It was like feeling the sun on my face after the longest winter. It was like coming back to myself after being lost for longer than I could bear.
As I let the feelings of joy wash over me, a thought came with them.
I could escape.
I could swim away. They’d never find me, especially in this mist. They’d never know what had happened to me. I’d never have to see Sam’s face turn to disgust and horror when he found out I was a mermaid. I wouldn’t have to suffer the inevitable consequences when we lost out to Noah and became his servants, or prisoners, or whatever he decided to do with us.
I could go home to my family and pretend none of this had happened.
Apart from one thing.
I was here to find Aaron — and I couldn’t do any of those things knowing that he was still being held prisoner on a pirate ship.
No. My only option was to keep trying to help Sam win the race and then make sure he came good on his promise to free Aaron.
I swam back up toward the surface to get my bearings. The ship had already sailed farther into the mist. I swam toward it, to keep it in my sight. I didn’t want to lose them altogether. That would ruin everything.
Once I was close enough to follow the ship’s trail through the water, I dived down again.
I was right. It was clear. I could see ten times farther than above the water. I looked around. I barely even knew what I was looking for — but I kept one phrase in my mind. One line:
Use a magical crystal that calls through the blue.
And I made a silent promise. If the magical crystal was here, I would find it.
A sleek black fish with big white eyes slithered by without a second glance. A large shoal of tiny black fish came close to me, buzzing like a spinning top as they moved together in perfect synchronicity, their shape barely altering as they spun through the water.
Below me, the ocean floor seemed a long way away. Rocks, reeds, darkness. I suddenly felt very alone. A shiver ran through me, from the top of my head to the tip of my tail.
Shaking off my anxiety, I swam on. And on.
There was nothing down here. Nothing magical. Just dark, wide ocean — and me.
What exactly was I doing here?
What had I been thinking? I always thought I could save the day, didn’t I? One day I’d learn that I couldn’t do it every time. Maybe one day I’d learn to stop chasing after trouble.
Maybe.
But not today. Because a moment later, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. Something bright and sparkly. It looked silver. It looked like crystals glinting against the current.
Had I found it? The magical crystal?
Making a quick mental note of exactly where the ship was, I turned and swam as fast as I could toward the silver flashes. I couldn’t wait to tell them I’d found it. Everyone would be so happy. The girls would be proud. I’d be —
I reached the magical crystal. It wasn’t a crystal at all. And it wasn’t magical. It was a large silver fish, shooting out sparkly darts of light across the water as it slithered along.
I swam back toward the Morning Star, feeling more hopeless than ever.
And then I felt it.
A current.
At first, I thought it was from the ship, pulling me along in its wake. But I wasn’t directly behind the ship, so it couldn’t be that.
What was it, then?
Something came into my mind. The other time I’d felt this. It was when I came to Halflight Castle for the first time. I’d been wearing Neptune’s ring and it had led me thr
ough the water, pulling me along in a current that felt just like this.
Could this be . . . ?
I didn’t dare hope. Instead, I simply let the current take me. With the slightest flick of my tail, I zoomed along, following its path. Soon, I’d overtaken the ship. I could see the hull behind me, getting farther away.
What should I do? Each time I looked back, the ship was more distant. If I got too far away, I might never find my way back. But I couldn’t resist the current. As it pulled me along, the sea grew clearer and clearer. It was so blue I felt almost as if I were flying through the clearest sky.
And then . . .
What was that?
A sound. A gentle tinkling. Almost like a birdcall, or a delicate bell. I bent my tail to try to create at least a bit of resistance against the tide. It worked. I was slowing down. I glanced behind me. The ship was still in sight. Good.
Now, what was that sound? I ducked down and tried to dive. It was tough. The current was still pulling me forward but I managed to inch gradually down.
Soon, I’d reached the ocean floor. I skittered across it without even trying, gliding so quickly across the seabed that the sand below me exploded in great blinding puffballs. The tinkling sound was getting louder. It was as if it were calling me — and the current was leading me to its call.
My heart thudded fast.
Use a magical crystal that calls through the blue.
This was definitely calling. And until the sand had started billowing out like this, the water had been the bluest I’d ever seen.
I swam on. The sandy floor gave way to rocks. I whizzed across the top of hermit crabs hanging out in front of their caves. I held my stomach in as I flickered close to a rock covered in sea anemones. I marveled at the fish darting around through rocky channels: blue, orange, spotted ones; others with large red mouths.
And then I saw it.
A huge jagged rock, standing upright like an obelisk. Hooked over the top was a silver chain. Looped onto the chain: a crystal. It looked like a mini version of the glitter ball that they hung on the ceiling of the gym for school dances.
