by Vera Strange
“Let’s fetch your parents,” Mr. Aquino said. “I’m sure they’ll want to take you home.”
Shelly’s mind flashed to how swamped her mom and dad were at work, not to mention stressed over the finances. The last thing she wanted was to be another thing her parents had to worry about, especially when it was just a little water.
“No, I’m fine,” Shelly protested. “I’d rather go back to school. I’m used to being in the water.”
“All right then. Let’s at least get you dry.”
After thanking Enrique, Mr. Aquino helped her back up the beach toward the aquarium. It was lit up against the dark sky like a sea palace. Shelly glanced back at the ocean. That was when she saw them: the two glowing yellow eyes—staring at her.
Then the eyes diverged, swimming in different directions until they were suddenly swallowed up by the dark waves. Shelly took the nautilus out of her pocket and clutched it in her hand, feeling chills.
The bus was already loaded with her classmates and ready to whisk her back to school, where her mother would pick her up after swim practice later. Shelly glanced through the window at Enrique. She could barely make out his silhouette in the dim light, but he lifted one hand to wave goodbye. He saved me, she thought. She didn’t want to think about what would have happened if he hadn’t.
For some reason, Kendall got out of her seat beside Shelly and moved to an empty row toward the front of the bus, and the twins followed her silently. Shelly didn’t know why they were acting so weird, but she hoped it didn’t have to do with her almost dying or Enrique.
Maybe littering wasn’t worth it after all, she thought sourly.
But still she was determined to smooth things out with the girls the first chance she got. For now she needed a breather and was somewhat relieved to be alone at the back of the bus.
* * *
“Shell-fish, did you get it?” Dawson hounded Shelly the second she walked into the kitchen. Her mom went directly to her bedroom and shut the door.
“Go away,” Shelly said, feeling exhaustion in every inch of her body. She glanced around the kitchen. Dirty dishes were stacked in the sink. Overflowing trash needed to be taken out. Dawson’s algae-covered fish tank sat on the counter, needing to be cleaned for a new occupant.
“So, what kind of fish did you get?” Dawson asked.
She had to think of something—and fast. “Well, I didn’t get you a goldfish, exactly,” she said, knowing she had to play this just right to avoid a major Dawson meltdown that would result in her losing her phone privileges or getting grounded and having to skip the swim meet the next day.
“Another kind of fish?” Dawson asked. “I miss Mr. Bubbles so much. He was the best.”
Now Shelly felt even worse. She loved animals of all kinds, but the truth was that Mr. Bubbles had been pretty dull. He never did much of anything. His most dramatic act was doing a lifeless bob and taking a ride down their plumbing. “Not a fish,” she started. But his face fell, so she plowed forward. “Even better. It doesn’t even need food. And you won’t have to clean its tank.”
He scrunched up his face. “What kind of pet doesn’t need food? Or a clean tank?”
“And it won’t die,” she added.
He frowned. “Like a vampire fish?”
She shook her head. “No, not a vampire fish.”
“Fine, I give up,” said Dawson. “What kind of pet did you get me?”
“This kind.” She pulled the nautilus from her pocket. It shone under the kitchen lights.
His eyes lit up. “Cool! A shell! I love it!” He grabbed it and clutched it to his chest.
Shelly breathed a sigh of relief. She was safe. Now she needed to eat dinner, and then she had to figure out which outfit to wear the next day, but her mind was on the swim meet. Shelly made herself a turkey sandwich, hurried up to her room to eat it, and got ready for bed. She laid out her outfit on a trunk at the foot of her bed and flicked off the lights.
The second Shelly’s head hit the pillow, she fell fast asleep. Her bedroom dissolved, and darkness stole her away. Everything that had happened that day—the aquarium field trip, the wave snatching her from the catwalk, her almost drowning, Enrique saving her—had worn her out.
But even her dream was tense. She was swimming in the school pool but was swimming in place as her competitors raced past her in a wave of water. Judy passed her, then Kendall.
She woke spluttering. “No, I need to win!” The words escaped her throat. She took a few deep, ragged breaths, then checked her digital clock, which showed it was ten. “Only a dream,” she whispered. She began to close her eyes, lowering her head back onto her pillow.
Then she noticed the strange light. Pulsing. Yellow. Eerie.
It broke up the darkness with staccato flashes. It was coming from the room across the hall. Dawson’s room. She blinked and sat up, wondering if she was seeing things, but it was still there. Still flashing. She pinched her cheek and winced. Nope. She was awake. The light was real.
Mesmerized, Shelly climbed from her bed. Her feet hit the carpet. Her blanket, which was soaked with sweat from her nightmare, slipped away from her body. She shuddered, as if a cold wind whipping off the ocean had hit her. The room smelled like salt and seaweed—most likely from the canals near the townhouse. Goose pimples pricked her skin, from the cold, but also from a sudden fear. The light continued to pulse, breaking the darkness. Silently, she followed it.
When she padded into the hallway, the pulsing light grew brighter. Her toes sank into the thick carpet her mother had installed when they moved into the townhouse. It was a small way to make the new place feel more like home. Her mother’s door was down the hall, cracked open. Shelly considered waking her up. But lately when Shelly tried to get her attention, her mother just seemed annoyed. Though Dawson’s door was shut, the glow lit up the frame and keyhole.
Usually, she avoided the little barnacle’s room like an outbreak of Ich, the parasitic disease that made fish grow slimy white spots. She hesitated at his door. She took a breath, held her nose with her fingers against the fishy stench, then pushed the door open.
In the pulsing light, her eyes scanned her brother’s room. She took a step, then shrank back. Her bare toes had touched cold water. Puddles, leading to his twin bed, soaked the carpet.
“Dawson?” she whispered, trying to gauge if he was awake. No one answered.
She took in the small room. Old toys littered every surface. The contents of Dawson’s closet spilled out onto the floor, revealing his half-hearted attempt to obey their mom’s insistent orders to clean up his room—or else! Dawson lay asleep, his small body curled up in bed. His hair was mussed from tossing and turning, and drool clung to his chin.
There, resting in the palm of his tiny hand, was the source of the pulsing light.
The nautilus.
Its pink-yellow spiral glowed brighter.
Intrigued, Shelly approached it, her feet squelching as they pressed into the drenched carpet, one step after the other. Reaching out her hand, Shelly could see the delicate flesh of her fingertips illuminated by its strange glow. As if in response to her presence, the shell flashed faster and grew so bright that she had to squint. She froze when she heard a voice.
“My dear, sweet child. Go ahead. Don’t be afraid.” The voice was rich, and kind, and as deep as the sea itself. A voice full of laughter, it seemed to emanate from inside the shell.
“H-hello?” Shelly whispered, unable to take her eyes from the vibrant nautilus.
“Go ahead, dear . . . take it. It was my gift for you. Go on. Take it. Take it!”
Shelly touched the nautilus.
And fell through the floor.
Cold water enveloped Shelly as she plunged.
She spiraled down through what appeared to be tangles of kelp. What was happening to her? Where was she going? Finally, she somersaulted to a stop in a dim underwater cavern.
She began to swim, holding her breath, not sure where she was
going but knowing she needed to find an exit, to find air. But seaweed snagged at her ankles, trapping her.
“Leave here . . . turn back!” came a tiny, pained voice as clear as day, even that far underwater.
Shelly looked down and saw faces on the seaweed. And with her heart racing and air running out, she realized it wasn’t seaweed at all, but withered gray life-forms with sallow eyes and gaping, contorted mouths. They were nothing she had ever studied or seen in the aquarium. They couldn’t be talking to her, though. She must have imagined it.
A current gripped her and sucked her down.
She tried to swim against it, but it was too strong. Her lungs ached, fit to burst.
Suddenly, an enormous crystal ball clamped around her, and her mouth opened in a silent scream. But then the water drained from the enclosure, and she was able to breathe, though she spluttered and spat and pounded her fists on the curved crystal.
“Help! Let me out!” she yelled. Everything looked distorted through the glass. She could barely make out the underwater cavern. Glass bottles lined the rough-hewn walls, and there were glowing anemones and the eyes of those . . . things. She gasped as something huge, bulbous, and black swam past her. What was that?
“Lose something, dear?” The same deep, rich voice she’d heard in Dawson’s bedroom emanated from the shadowy corner of the cavern. “So coy!” A black tentacle shot out of the gloom and rapped on the glass. Shelly cowered, fear gripping her.
“Wh-what do you want?” she gasped.
Suddenly, the black tentacle reappeared, unfurling to show off an empty coffee cup.
Shelly felt her cheeks turn hot. She knew tossing that cup in the water had been a huge mistake. She knew it had been wrong. But she had done it anyway. “I’m s-sorry,” she stammered. “I-I didn’t mean to!”
“Use my ocean as your—oh, what do you landlubbers call it? Dump?”
Shelly’s heart thumped fast.
Then the voice softened. “But don’t be afraid, my child. I’m here to help poor unfortunate souls like yourself. Souls who have problems that need fixing. It’s what I do!” The voice broke into a dark, churlish chuckle. Where was it coming from? Was there a creature with tentacles that could . . . talk?
“What happened to me? Where am I?” Shelly said, her voice echoing in the crystal ball. Peering down, she could faintly make out some sort of clawed, spiny pedestal that held it.
“You are a poor unfortunate soul,” the voice replied. “That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? My dear, you can trust Auntie Ursula.” There was another flash of something swimming through the cavern.
Shelly shied away from the glass, sitting in the ball with her arms wrapped around her knees. Was she a poor unfortunate soul? All the things that had gone wrong in her life lately flashed through her head. Her parents splitting. Her father moving out. Her moving with Dawson and their mother into the townhouse and changing schools. The Semester of No Friends, as she’d come to think of it—those few months at the beginning of the year. And now that she had friends—Kendall, Attina, and Alana—all she could think of was losing them. And where was she? Dreaming? How had she gotten there? Her memory was fuzzy, but she recalled the nautilus in the dark.
“Ursula . . . can you let me out of here?” asked Shelly.
“In time,” replied Ursula. “But first, what do you want even more than that?”
That caught Shelly off guard. She thought about it and said, “To be happy?”
“Is that it? Come on, now. I’m a very busy woman. Go ahead and make your wish.”
“A wish? You can grant wishes?” asked Shelly. The words felt funny leaving her mouth. How was any of this strange dream possible, if it even was a dream?
“Of course I can, silly girl,” said Ursula. “Now, what’ll it be?”
“But who . . .” Shelly began, feeling a stab of fear. “But what are you?”
“Oh, a good question, my dear. Some call me the sea witch.”
“You’re a witch?” Shelly asked, straining to get a glimpse of her captor in the dark. Something shifted in the shadows. She caught sight of a flash of what looked like white hair and a ripple of more black tentacles. Shelly backed against the curved glass, but then the voice probed at her again.
“Some called me the protector of Triton Bay, but not in many moons.”
“Well, are you a witch . . . or a protector?” asked Shelly.
“Would you believe that I’m both?” A deep chuckle—booming like thunder—emanated from the watery shadows. “Now, hurry up and make your wish. I really haven’t got all day.”
Shelly couldn’t explain it, but she felt like the voice understood her.
“One wish?” Shelly said, then bit her lip. She closed her eyes. What did she want more than anything? To patch up her family? To be popular? To get certain people to notice her?
Nothing was worse than having no friends. She couldn’t let that happen again.
There was one way she could be sure to get some popularity points. She needed to win her event against Judy Weisberg at the swim meet and advance to the championship meet. That way she could help her team win the trophy. That trophy mattered more than anything to Kendall, so Shelly had to do everything she could to help Kendall get her hands on it.
Shelly opened her eyes. “I want to be the fastest swimmer in Triton Bay,” she said, “so we can win the swim meet against Little River.”
“Oh, my dear, now, swimming is something I know a bit about.” The dark shape darted past the crystal ball again. Suddenly, an image projected onto the curved glass like a movie.
Shelly saw herself in the championship swim meet. She dove off the block and plunged into the pool, easily outswimming her archnemesis from the rival school and winning the freestyle race. She swam faster and faster, slapping the wall far ahead of Judy Weisberg.
The image morphed into one of her standing on the top of the podium with a gold medal draped around her neck. Kendall and her friends, still in their swimsuits, swim caps, and towels, cheered for her with their coach. She saw her proud parents and Dawson rooting in the stands.
Her mother then did something wild. She turned to Shelly’s father and hugged him. Was it possible they could get back together? Could their daughter’s winning the race make them remember how great their family was? This wish could make everything in her life better!
It was so clear, just like the crystal ball.
The vision in the crystal faded, and Shelly found herself staring at her warped reflection. “You can make all that happen?” Shelly asked. She wanted it so badly, more than she’d ever wanted anything. If she could be the fastest swimmer, then she could make her friends happy and, better yet, make her parents happy. Maybe even bring them back together again.
“Oh, my dear,” Ursula said, “all that and more.”
The vision reappeared in the glass.
Shelly ran her hand over the image of her family back together. She touched her friends’ jubilant faces and the gold medal hanging around her neck. The scene began to fade away again.
“No, wait! Bring it back!” She hit the glass, trying desperately to make the beautiful scene return. But it kept dissolving, like a sandcastle washing away in water on the shore.
“Well, my dear, there’s only one way to make it work,” Ursula said as the image faded.
“I want it! Please help me!” Shelly begged.
“Don’t fret, my child,” Ursula said. “Of course I can help—provided you pay a price.”
“Please. I’ll do anything!” cried Shelly.
“Anything, you say? Well, I like the sound of that. I have something in mind.”
Suddenly, a rolled-up piece of parchment materialized before Shelly inside the crystal ball. Hovering in the air in front of her, it glowed with the same eerie golden light as the nautilus had, and as it unrolled, a fountain pen with a bony fish tail materialized. Her eyes scanned the length of parchment as she read the ornate script.
“A . . . co
ntract?” Shelly asked. She reread the words scrawled on the page:
I HEREBY GRANT UNTO URSULA, THE WITCH OF THE SEA, ONE FAVOR TO BE NAMED AT A LATER DATE, IN EXCHANGE FOR BECOMING THE FASTEST SWIMMER, FOR ALL ETERNITY.
“Go ahead and sign,” Ursula said. “I don’t have all day, you know.”
Shelly swallowed hard and put the pen to the page, which rippled with golden light.
“Good girl!” Ursula egged her on.
Shelly hesitated, biting her lip. “What favor, exactly? What do you want from me?”
“Oh, my dearie, all will be revealed in time,” Ursula said, sounding perturbed. She swam around, shifting in the shadows like a murky cloud of billowing smoke. Her eyes glinted hungrily for a second. “Great power was stolen from me by someone close to you. I cannot be a protector of the sea without it. All I want is for it to be returned to me . . . but all in good time.”
“Great power? But what is it?” asked Shelly.
“Tsk, tsk. You’re wasting our precious time!” Ursula’s black tentacle emerged from the darkness and tapped on the crystal ball, pointing at the contract. “Do you want to be the fastest swimmer, or not? Many poor unfortunate souls would kill to be in your position right now.”
Shelly studied the contract and considered her situation. Returning something that was stolen didn’t sound so bad. Stealing was wrong, of course. If anything, it would be good to right an old injustice. But still something worried Shelly. Her mother always said not to act hastily.
“Can I think about it?” she inquired.
“Think about it?” growled Ursula, no longer kind. “What’s there to think about, my child? Either you want your wish or I’ve got better things to do with my time and I can set you free to swim back through my cave with the hope you get out before something comes after you. It’s what a child like you deserves, for thinking it acceptable to throw your toxic trash into my domain.”
“I’m sorry. Please, I just need a day,” said Shelly, peering again at the contract. It flashed with an intense light, then vanished. Nearly complete darkness flooded back into the cavern.
