by Liz Kessler
The blue water, the glittering crystal. The tinkling sound that had called me over. This had to be it! It had to be.
I swam over to the rock, diving down to take a closer look. As I reached out for the chain, I could see it was stuck between two rocks. Pushing hard against the smaller one, I gradually inched it out. Then I lifted the chain over the top of the obelisk-shaped rock and held the crystal in my hand.
It had so many sides — each one flashing a silvery reflection of my surroundings.
Wait. What was the last line of the poem?
You’ll be wrong twenty times; only one way is true.
Did the crystal have twenty sides? Was it showing me twenty different reflections?
My head was full of questions — but I didn’t have time to dwell on them, or count the crystal’s edges. I had to swim back up to the surface. In the time I’d been down here, I’d lost track of the ship, and if I hung around any longer, I’d be stuck out here in the middle of the ocean on my own.
I carefully placed the silver chain around my neck, then I flipped myself upward, kicked my tail, and swam back up to the surface.
I couldn’t wait to get back to the ship and show the others what I’d found.
Ibroke through the surface of the water and looked around.
The thick mist still surrounded me, but it had risen a tiny bit. There was a gap between the bottom of the mist and the ocean’s surface — just wide enough for me to peer through. I slowly spun in a circle, scanning what I could see of the horizon through the gap.
There! The ship was some way off, but I could see the hull, slipping along through the mist.
I threw myself into a dive and swam hard to catch up with the ship. Soon, I was back in its wake. Nearly there.
I paused as I kept pace with it. What was I going to say to Sam? How could I explain what I’d found? Make something up? I didn’t want to lie to him. Tell him the truth? I couldn’t take that risk.
I shook off my questions. I would worry about it when the time came. For now, I had to figure out how to get back on the Morning Star and transform into my human self without being seen.
I surfaced as close to the ship as I dared. I could see a couple of people on the back deck, looking all around. I ducked back down, flicked my tail like crazy, and swam to the front of the ship.
I resurfaced and trod water with my tail as I wiped my hair out of my eyes. Perfect. There was no one around. This was my chance.
I spun my tail as hard as I could, to get momentum to dive out of the water. Then . . .
Jump!
I splashed back down before I could reach the deck. The ship was bouncing on the waves so hard I’d have to time it perfectly.
I watched, counted, waited, and then . . .
Go!
I leaped right out of the sea and grabbed a chain that was looped around a ledge on the bow. I pulled myself out of the water and perched on the ledge, watching my tail flap against the hull as I caught my breath. After a while, I felt the familiar feeling of my tail disappearing. Soon, it had gone completely, and my legs reappeared.
Holding on to the chain with one hand, I rubbed my legs with the other to bring them back to life. Once the numbness, and then the pins and needles, had gone, I pulled myself to my feet and, crouching low, looked across the deck.
Clear.
As I straightened my legs, I remembered the crystal. I felt for the chain around my neck. Yes, still there. I pulled it off and held the crystal in my hand. It made me feel calm, somehow.
After putting it in my pocket for safekeeping, I climbed over the ropes lying coiled on the deck and made my way toward the center of the ship deck. I could see Sam and Kat standing near the wheel.
They looked up as I approached. I held my breath. Had they noticed I’d disappeared? Was this going to be the end of the good feeling and being welcome on the ship? Was I about to get thrown back into the cell on the lower deck?
There was only one way to find out.
“Hi.” I approached Sam and Kat, hand in pocket, casual tone in my voice.
Sam looked up and grinned. “Hey, Emily. I was wondering where you were.”
“Just around,” I replied, hoping neither of them would notice my cheeks burning up. I’ve never been any good at lying.
“You’re drenched,” Kat said.
“Oh. Yeah, I — I, um, got splashed by a wave.”
Kat nodded. “It’s rough, isn’t it?”
“See anything useful out there?” Sam asked.
I paused before answering. “Umm,” I mumbled.
“I don’t know what we’re going to do,” Sam jumped in before I could figure out what I was going to say next. “We’re going in circles. Every time I think we’re making progress, we pass a mark that we’d passed an hour earlier and I realize we’re not getting anywhere.”
“Mm,” I said again. Helpful.
I waited till I could see that Kat was concentrating on looking ahead, then I motioned for Sam to come closer. “Can I talk to you for a minute?” I asked.
“Sure,” he replied. “What’s up?”
“In private?” I whispered.
Kat glanced at us. Then she gave me a knowing wink. What, exactly, she meant, I wasn’t sure. “Don’t mind me,” she said. “Go have your little private chat. I’m fine here.”
Sam nudged a thumb toward a bench halfway up the ship. “Let’s go sit down,” he said.
I followed him along the deck and we sat on the bench together.
Sam turned to me. “So, what’s up?” he asked.
“I . . .” I began. I didn’t know how to continue. I needed to show him what I’d found. If there was even the slightest chance it could help, I had to. But I couldn’t tell him how I’d found it. I hated the fact that I couldn’t tell him, hated how it made me feel. But I wasn’t prepared to take the risk; not yet, anyway.
“Are you OK? Are you sick?” Sam asked. He pushed his hair out of his eyes. I noticed his hands were hard and red. Life on a ship did that to all of them. As I chewed on a finger, I realized it was starting to do it to me, too. And I liked it. Weird. Dry, chapped hands. Why on earth was that something I wanted?
I shook my head. “Nothing like that.”
“What, then?”
I took a breath and slowly let it out. “I’ve found something. If I show you what it is, you have to promise me you won’t ask how I found it.”
“But —”
“But nothing. That’s the deal. You don’t need to know how I got it. All you need to know is that I’ve found something I think might help us.”
Sam shrugged. “OK,” he agreed. “I promise.”
I paused.
“What?” Sam asked.
I thought for a moment. There was still something I needed to know about Sam before handing over the best clue we had. Still something I needed to be sure about. “Why do you want to win so badly?” I asked. “This ship, this life. Being a pirate prince. Growing up to be like your dad. Is that what you want? I mean, really what you want?”
Sam’s eyes flashed. “Yes,” he said. “And no.”
I folded my arms. “Go on.”
He turned away from me. “No, of course I don’t want to be like my dad. But — well, he’s still my dad. Is it so wrong to want him to be proud of me?”
Before I could reply, Sam continued on. “Is it so awful to want to see my mom look at me without pity, or my brother look at me without sneering? Is it really so terrible to want their approval and respect?”
I thought about Sam’s words for a while. “I don’t think it’s terrible to want it,” I said carefully. “But why do you need it?”
Shaking his hair off his face, Sam spoke to the wind. “Because without it, what have I got? If I’m not part of this family, I don’t know who I am.”
A couple of strands of hair fell back across his face as he turned back to me. His eyes were the color of the sky as they held mine. “You have no idea what it’s like,” he said.
“Spending all your life trying to be what others want. Trying so hard to please them and make them happy that you lose sight of what makes you happy.”
I thought about how hard I’d found it to decide which way to go home. How I was so worried about offending Shona or upsetting Aaron. I thought about how much I wanted to keep Mom happy and make Dad proud of me. I thought about how I couldn’t admit to being a mermaid because I knew Sam and his crew would find me disgusting. And if they thought I was disgusting, I might start to believe it myself.
“Yeah,” I said softly. “I do know what that’s like, actually.”
Sam stared back at me. He was looking at me so intensely I felt as though he might see inside my head. “Really?” he asked. “How come?”
I shook my head. “Just take my word for it,” I said. “I understand better than you’ll ever know. And I know you’re sick of how your family treats you. But there’s still one thing I don’t get. Still one thing you haven’t answered.”
“What’s that?”
“How far are you willing to go to get their respect? How much do you want it? Enough to be a pirate just like them? To be as cold and unfeeling as they are? If it means finally taking your place in the family, is that what you want? To live your life like they live theirs?”
Sam looked away as he chewed on a fingernail. Not that there was much nail left to chew on. Finally he turned back to me. “No,” he said. “That isn’t what I want. But I don’t know anything else. This is my life. It’s the life I’ve been born into and I don’t know any other.”
“You could fight it,” I suggested. “Or run away. Leave them to it.”
“Ha!” Sam shook his head as he laughed bitterly.
“What?”
“Run away? I’d never outwit them. I can’t escape my family. They’d catch me in no time — and the punishment would be harsher than I care to think about.”
“So, then, do the opposite,” I said.
“What’s that?”
“Make sure you win. Like we’ve agreed. If you get to make the rules, you don’t have to do what anyone says.”
“That’s the plan,” Sam said. “And you’re right. If I win —”
“When you win,” I corrected him.
Sam smiled. “OK, when I win, I promise we’ll do things differently.”
His words had convinced me. “OK. In that case, let’s make it happen. We can do it,” I said.
Sam grinned.
“What?”
“You said ‘we.’ You’re in this with me? Not just to help Aaron but actually for me?”
“I . . .” I mumbled. I hadn’t even realized what I’d said. Was he right? Did I want to help him for his reasons? Why on earth should I care about what happened to a pirate family? All I cared about was why I’d come here in the first place.
Wasn’t it?
“Look, I want you to win,” I said quickly. “That should be enough. You do it for your reasons; I’ll do it for mine.”
“OK. Whatever you say,” Sam said with another smile. When he smiled like that, I could let myself forget where we were for half a second. I could strip away the expectations, the contests, the traitors and thieves, and just pretend we were a normal boy and girl, just hanging out on a daytrip on the ocean.
And then almost immediately, I hated myself for thinking that.
“Now, are you going to tell me the thing you wanted to tell me?” Sam asked before I got too lost in confused thoughts.
“On one condition.”
“What’s that?”
“That whatever happens, you stop trying to be what you think everyone else wants you to be, and you just be you.”
Sam looked at me for a long time, his face suddenly serious. Then he said, “I will if you will.”
Still holding my eyes, he held out a hand.
I took his hand and shook it. “OK,” I said. “You’ve got a deal.”
Sam let out a breath and sat back. “So, what’s the big, important thing you have to tell me?”
“It’s not something I have to tell you,” I said. “It’s something I have to show you.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out the crystal. I held it out toward him.
Sam leaned forward. “What is it?” he asked. He took it from me and examined it. The crystal flashed reflections of the water in every direction.
“I think it has about twenty sides,” I said. “I haven’t counted them yet, but there are lots.”
“Twenty sides?” Sam asked. “So what?” He studied the crystal for a moment. “I mean, it’s pretty, but I don’t get why this is so important.”
I waited a beat before replying. I wanted him to figure it out for himself. He turned the crystal over in his hands.
There! I saw it! One tiny flash of something other than ocean.
You’ll be wrong twenty times; only one way is true.
I couldn’t wait any longer. “Sam,” I said urgently. “It’s the crystal from the poem.”
I watched the facts click into place in Sam’s eyes. “Wait — you mean, my dad’s poem?” Handing me back the crystal, he rummaged in his jeans pocket.
He pulled out a torn piece of paper, unfolded it, and read aloud. “Find it with math, with a compass and pen. Or find it by bribing a hundred wise men. Use a magical crystal that calls through the blue. You’ll be wrong twenty times; only one way is true.”
Sam folded the paper back up. His eyes were dancing with life. “Emily,” he breathed. “You found it. You found the crystal! I don’t know how. I don’t care.” He jumped up from the bench and pulled me up with him. “We’re going to win!” he said. “We’re going to beat my brother!”
Grabbing hold of me, he pulled me into a hug. I paused for a moment, then I hugged him back.
Sam pulled away and took my hand. “Come on,” he said, grinning. “Let’s tell the rest of the team.”
As Sam called everyone together, I tried not to think about the fact that Sam had hugged me. I tried not to dwell on how good it felt to be part of the team. I tried not to think about any of it. All that mattered was winning this contest.
For everyone’s sake, including Aaron’s.
The mist still hadn’t lifted — but our moods had. Everyone agreed that finding the crystal was the first break we’d had.
We passed it around so that each of us had the chance to give it a really good look.
“Where did you say you found it, again?” Dean asked, giving me a sideways glance as he took his turn examining the crystal.
“Emily spotted it in the netting on the bowsprit,” Sam answered quickly, before I had a chance to reply. “We must have picked it up on some of those rough waves back there.”
“Is that right?” Dean asked, still looking at me.
“Yeah,” I said quickly. I turned away and started fiddling with a rope so he couldn’t see my face — and cursed myself once again for being so bad at lying.
Why had Sam covered for me? Did he know how I’d really found it? Surely not. He couldn’t. There was no way I’d still be on board this ship if he knew I was a mermaid.
I batted away that thought and shook off the accompanying discomfort before it took root.
“Come on,” Ana said. “It’s the middle of the afternoon. We’re almost halfway through our time. We need to figure out how to use it.”
“Ana’s right,” Luke added. “Just because we’ve found a tool that might help us, doesn’t mean we’ve won this round of the contest yet.”
I stepped forward and held my hand out to Dean. “Can I . . . ?” I asked. He handed it to me.
“I’ve been looking at how it works,” I said. “It shows reflections from all of its sides. But every now and then, there’s a flash of something different.”
“Like in the poem,” Kat said.
I turned to smile at her. “Exactly. And I’ve noticed something else, as well. It seems to show a brighter image than we can see with our eyes. Look.” I held the crystal up in the ai
r. “Do you see?”
The others crowded around. “It’s showing the ocean where we can only see the mist!” Ana exclaimed. “That’s amazing. It’s . . .”
“Magical!” I finished. “So I’m thinking, we should position it somewhere high up while we sail. If it’s got the ability to burn through the mist, then maybe it will show Halflight Castle before we can see it with our eyes.”
“Sounds like a long shot,” Dean muttered.
“Have you got a better idea?” Sam asked.
Dean replied with a shrug.
“In that case, here’s what we’re going to do,” Sam went on. “We’re going to put it at the top of the mast and see what happens.” He looked around at us. “We’ll each take turns doing an hour’s watch from the crow’s nest. Kat, you can go first.”
Kat nodded. “Will do.”
Sam turned to Ana. “Ana, you’re on chart work. Keep an eye on our position in relation to the maps.”
Ana nodded. “OK.”
“Luke, you’re on the helm. Dean, you’re in charge of sails. Shout if you need anyone to help you.”
Luke and Dean both did a kind of shrug-nod back at Sam.
“Hal, you’re on food. And can you draw up a schedule for all this?”
“Sure,” Hal replied.
Sam turned to me. “Emily, you’re on lookout from the deck.”
“No problem,” I said.
“I’ll keep an overview of everything and will cover for anyone who needs a break or an extra pair of hands.” Sam looked around at everyone again. “We’re all clear on what we have to do. Any questions?”
No one said anything. I felt as if they could also see what I was seeing — and hearing: Sam was starting to sound more confident, more in charge. More like a pirate prince.
“All right, come on; let’s go!” Sam shouted. “Let’s get to work — let’s win this contest!”
As the meeting broke up and we all got started on our tasks, I could feel the change in the air. We were finally starting to work as a team. And for the first time since I’d come on board, I found myself starting to believe we might even stand a chance of being the winning team.
We were on the third shift change and hadn’t had a breakthrough yet. The jubilation of only a couple of hours ago was already starting to give way to feelings of hopelessness and failure.
