“Are you sure you put the right numbers in?” I asked. “We must have swum more than five miles by now.”
“It’s got to be around here somewhere,” Shona said, consulting her splishometer. “Unless Miss Merlin got it wrong.”
Which I was starting to think she must have. I didn’t say anything, though. Shona loves an adventure more than anything, and I didn’t want to take it away from her. And anyway, I didn’t have anything better to do. There was no way I could go back to Brightport yet, and I wasn’t exactly welcome in Shiprock. The best thing I could do was find the lost sirens and plead with them to let me be lost with them.
“How about we split up?” I suggested. “You go that way.” I pointed over to my right. Long, thick trails of seaweed stretched up like thick ropes. “I’ll go this way.” To my left, pink spongy fingers reached upward, open and outstretched as though they were silently begging. Deep, jagged rocks lay all around us, purple and green twigs and sticks littering every crevice. “Give it ten minutes and then meet back up again,” I said.
Shona pointed to a moss-covered rock with a tree growing horizontally out from its side. “Meet you over there,” she said.
“Ten minutes,” I repeated.
Shona nodded. “Good luck.”
Shona swam away to the right, and I swam off the other way.
Please let me find them, please let me find them, I thought as I swam, scanning every bit of rock and seaweed I could see, just in case there was a secret entrance hidden inside it. Please don’t make me go back to Brightport till it’s safe.
I swam across reeds like bunches of thick-cut spaghetti, big leafy plants like giant cabbages, bright red rocks, shining like mottled marble. A long eel, green with white spots, slithered in and out of the reeds, poking its head into holes, then slithering out again and slinking away. Two round fish smooched past in a perfectly synchronized dance. Everything moved slowly along. Nothing was in a hurry down here.
And there were no lost sirens, either.
I was about to head back to meet Shona when something stopped me.
A current was tugging at me. It reminded me of what happened at Allpoints Island if you swam out too far and got caught in the Bermuda Triangle. A shiver flickered through me like a wriggly fish squiggling through my body. What was it? Where was it taking me?
But this wasn’t like that current. It wasn’t dragging me out anywhere; it was hardly pulling at all. It felt more as if it were leading me somewhere, directing me, helping me. I wanted to follow it!
I let go of my resistance and let the current do the work. Soon I was zooming through the water, racing against a stripy yellow-and-black fish, whizzing past trails of fern and weed.
And then the current slowed. The sea had turned darker, and colder. The fluttery feeling came back. What was I doing, floating along on a current that had led me this far down? I hadn’t even looked where I was going. How was I ever going to get back and find Shona again?
And where was I, anyway?
I looked around. The current had pulled me to the top of a circle of tall rocks. I couldn’t see the bottom of them, but they were grouped around a dark hole, like an enormous well. I swam to the edge of the well and looked down. It was foaming and rushing with water that poured down like an underwater waterfall.
I could feel the current again. It was lifting me, edging me closer to the top of the well. It seemed to be teasing me, daring me to go down. Should I? Could I?
Before I had time to decide, the current nudged me right to the edge of the well. A moment later, I was hurtling over the top, into the waterfall.
Water rushed at me from every side, turning me over and around, pulling me farther and farther down, dragging me ever closer to the bottom of the sea. I tried to fight against it, tried to swim upward, but it was impossible. The current was dragging me lower and lower, throwing me down faster than anything I’d ever known. It was like a rocket — only heading down, toward the seabed.
Eventually, I gave in and let it pull me. And then, before I knew what was happening, it stopped.
Bedraggled, exhausted, and disheveled, I had landed — in a dark, enclosed, rocky hole at the bottom of the ocean.
I glanced around, my eyes gradually adjusting to the darkness. There were rocks on every side of me. I was at the bottom of the well. The weird thing was, the rushing water had stopped. All I could see was clear water leading all the way up — so clear I could see right to the top. It looked like an awfully long way up.
Where had the waterfall gone?
I tried to swim up the well again, but an enormous force stopped me. I kept on landing back in the same spot, shoved back down. The waterfall’s force was still there, but with no rushing water. Impossible — but real. It was like a magic trick.
Then there was a sound of movement from somewhere nearby. I whizzed around to see where it had come from. That was when I noticed that one side of the well had a hole in it, just big enough to swim through. A bunch of seaweed hung down from the top of the hole, like thick cord. I pushed through it and swam out of the well.
I found myself in a larger opening. Above me, the ceiling was smooth brown stone. Below, the sandy floor slipped away, sloping gradually downward. All around me, the walls were lined with stony, jagged pillars and arches and caverns. Trails of multicolored seaweed dangled here and there like Christmas decorations. Behind them, I heard the swishing sound again. In the growing light, I saw a tail flick sharply.
“Shona!” I cried in relief, swimming toward the tail.
But it wasn’t Shona.
“Who are you?” the mermaid and I said in unison.
She swam toward me. “How did you get here?” she said. “No one comes here — ever.”
“I — I — I swam,” I stammered. “Where am I, anyway? And who are you?”
The mermaid swam closer to me, looked me straight in the eyes, swam all around me, then came back to face me. Her face was lined and pale. She seemed old, but at the same time almost ageless, and strangely beautiful. Her silvery hair was so long it flowed all the way down her back and stroked her tail as she swam. Her tail was a musty, dusty mix of mauve and pink. She looked a bit like someone who’d just been presented with a fairly rare, and not particularly pleasant, geological finding.
She didn’t answer my question. “Come with me,” she said, tugging at my arm.
I pulled away from her. “Not till you tell me who you are,” I said. I hoped I sounded braver than I felt.
In reply, she gripped my arm more tightly and pulled me along behind her.
We swam down tunnels, around tubes of weeds, through high-sided channels, under rocks, and around corners until we came to a large sandy opening with an enormous pillar in the middle and caves and arches dug into the walls all around it.
Four mermaids were in the clearing. One was brushing her hair with a makeshift brush that looked as if it were made of twigs. Another had grabbed a passing shiny flat fish as it floated by and was peering into its skin to see her reflection. The other two were sitting on the sandy seabed; one looked as though she were making something out of reeds, the other seemed to be playing a game with stones in the sand.
“I found something,” the mermaid called out to the others. They all looked up — each face an identical mixture of shock and disbelief. A minute later, they had crowded around me, looking into my face, examining my tail, reaching out to touch me.
“Is she real?” one of them asked.
“Of course I’m real!” I snapped, and she jumped away.
“How did she get in here?” another one asked.
“I can talk, you know,” I said. “Why don’t you talk to me instead of about me?”
The mermaid who had been making something with the reeds pushed in front of the others, glaring at me so intently that I wished for once in my life I could have kept my mouth shut.
“Leave her be, Nerin,” she said. “She is a visitor. Is that not enough? And look — the child is sca
red. Give her some room.”
Her voice was soft and gentle. She seemed younger than the others, although as I looked more closely into her face, I could see that like the rest, she had tiny squiggly wrinkles across her forehead and little claw-shaped lines fanning out beside each eye. Her hair was silver too, but shorter than the first mermaid’s.
The others nodded their agreement. “Morvena’s right,” one of them said, smiling at me. Her smile felt like warm honey flowing over me. I felt my fear and anger melt away. “We should be grateful,” she went on. “We should be welcoming her with open arms.”
Nerin, the one who’d brought me in, finally let go of me. She brushed my arm where she’d been clutching it. “Of course,” she said gently. “I’m sorry. I was just so surprised. You see, we don’t get visitors here. Never! Not in all the years we’ve —”
One of the other mermaids nudged her. “Rarely,” she corrected her. “Let’s not say never. You’ll give the girl a bad impression.” She reached out and stroked my hair. “And look at the little jewel that’s been washed in now. Girls, let’s say thank you. This may be our salvation.”
“You’re right, Merissa,” Nerin said. She swam around me. “A pretty little siren like this,” she murmured.
“I’m — um, I’m not exactly a siren,” I said nervously.
The mermaid who had been brushing her hair pushed in front of the others and put a spindly arm around me. “Of course you are, dear,” she said. “You mustn’t say things like that. Putting yourself down is a terrible thing to do — especially in one so young and so pretty.” She tilted my chin up. “You listen to your auntie Lorelei,” she said softly. “You are a beautiful young siren. Right?”
“Right, OK,” I said. At that point, I would probably have agreed to anything she said. They were all being so nice! And there was something about them that was so — what was it? Comforting. Peaceful. It made me feel happy, and I wanted to stay here forever. In that moment, I forgot about everything else. All I could think about was being here, with these mermaids, and feeling this warm, peaceful feeling.
“Now, how about a little song?” Lorelei suggested in that same sweet tone of voice, her smile still big and warm and welcoming. The other mermaids froze and looked first at her, then at me.
“A song?” I said, laughing nervously. “What do you mean?”
The other mermaids were around me in a moment, all with the same encouraging smiles on their faces. Lorelei’s arm was still around my shoulders. “A song,” she repeated, a slight edge creeping into her voice. “A beautiful siren song, to welcome you here. We’ll join in.” Her arm still rested lightly on my shoulder.
“You start,” Merissa said sweetly.
I burst out laughing. “You clearly haven’t heard me sing!” I said.
The arm around my shoulder tightened.
“Whatever do you mean?” Lorelei asked, still smiling, although there was definitely something more strained about the smile now. It was beginning to look as though it had been painted on her face, rather than belonging there naturally.
“I — I mean, well, I can’t really sing,” I said. “In fact, my singing voice is terrible.”
The mermaids stared at me, their expressions suddenly dark and full of threat. They seemed closer than they’d been, right up against me, and their faces looked ugly, their smiles false and harsh.
“Terrible?” one of them said. Then she forced a laugh. “You’re being modest.”
I laughed back — only my laugh was more of a nervous cackle. “I’m really not,” I said. “Even my mom makes me stop, and her voice is bad enough!”
The arm around my shoulder became a vice. Lorelei’s fingers dug into my shoulder. “What — do — you — mean?” she whispered hoarsely.
“Oww!” I tried to break free from her grip. My shoulder felt as though a scorpion was biting into it. “I mean I can’t sing!” I said. “I’m not a siren and I can’t sing. If you want beautiful singing, then you need to ask Shona!”
Shona. My chest leaped at the thought of her. Where was she now? How long had I been in here? Was she still waiting for me?
One of the mermaids pushed past Lorelei, picking her hand off my shoulder. She gently took hold of my arm and swam us away from the others.
“Hello, dearie,” she said. “I’m Amara. Now then. Tell me about Shona,” she said softly. “She’s a friend of yours, is she?”
I nodded. “My best friend,” I said, gulping back a rock-shaped tear in my throat.
“And this Shona,” she went on. “She’s a good singer?”
“She’s the best in her school!” I said proudly.
Amara smiled. “And where do we find her?”
“You tell me!” I cried. “We came out here together. We were looking for —” I stopped, and looked around at the mermaids, all staring intently at me. I’d been right earlier. A mysterious place, hidden in the deeps of the ocean, miles from anywhere. I swallowed down a mixture of fear and excitement. “I think we were looking for you,” I said.
Nerin, the first mermaid, joined Amara and me. “Never mind that,” she said. “Tell us more about Shona.” I could tell she was trying to sound all friendly and nice, but her voice came out desperate and rasping. “Where is she? Where can we find her?”
“I don’t know! I’ve told you. We came here together. We were looking for —” I felt my cheeks heat up and I stopped.
Nerin nudged me. “Go on.”
“We were looking for the lost sirens,” I said, looking down at the sand as I spoke, so I didn’t have to see their shocked expressions, and I could pretend I hadn’t noticed the gasps at what I’d said. I guess they didn’t know they were a well-known ocean myth that mermaids studied at school.
Two long, thin, bright yellow fish wove in between us all, as though having a slalom race with each other. “We decided to go in different directions and meet up again in ten minutes,” I went on. “But then I got dragged down this kind of underwater waterfall and couldn’t get out again.” I looked up at Nerin. “Then you found me and brought me here.”
Nerin turned to the others. “We need to find this Shona,” she said ferociously, the nice act all but gone now. “We must have her!”
Amara pursed her lips into a frown. She glared into my eyes. “Try, anyway,” she said.
“Try what?” I asked.
“Sing,” she said simply. “Do it.” She turned to the others. “You never know, she might just be over-modest, after all. It’s worth a try.” She turned to Nerin. “Go to the place,” she said. “Hurry. And come back immediately if anything changes.”
Nerin hurried away and we waited in silence.
What was she talking about? What place? And what were we waiting for?
Before I had time to ask, she’d turned back to me. This time there wasn’t even a pretense of a smile. She waited for a minute or two, and then her lips rolled into a snarl. “Come on, child,” she said. “Sing.”
I had no choice. Anyway, what harm could it do to try? Except that my mind seemed to have gone completely blank. I couldn’t think of a single song.
“Sing!” Amara repeated impatiently. “What are you waiting for?”
My mind grasped the only thing it could think of. A nursery rhyme.
“Twinkle, twinkle, little star,” I began. It didn’t come out how I’d hoped. I cleared my throat. “How I wonder what you are.”
I stopped. The mermaids were all looking at me, their faces an identical picture of horror.
Amara was the first to speak. “What in the ocean’s name was that?” she spat.
“I told you I can’t sing,” I protested.
Moments later, Nerin swam back into the clearing and joined Amara. “Nothing,” she said. “The force is just as strong. We need to find the other one. This Shona. If the two came together, she must be nearby.”
“And if they really are such good friends, surely she’ll come looking when she realizes her best friend has gone missing,” Am
ara added. “We need to find her.”
“You’re right,” Merissa said, her voice dripping with desperation. “She can’t be far away. We should split up and go in search of her.”
The five of them talked among themselves at the other side of the clearing, hatching a plan to find Shona. I could hear snatches of their conversation, but none of it made any sense to me.
“We have to find her!” one of them was saying. “Maybe she will have the voice that can get us out of here. We need to hear her sing.”
“This is our best chance in years,” another replied.
“Our best chance ever, you mean,” the third added. “Find this siren and it could all be over.”
“As long as she came in.”
“We need this siren to get out of here.”
I swam toward them. “What are you talking about?” I asked. “I’ve got a right to know!”
Amara threw her head back and laughed. “A right? You want to talk about rights, do you? Ha!” She swam straight up to my face and stared into my eyes. “I’ll tell you what we’re talking about, you useless disgrace of a merchild.”
I flinched as though her words had hit me. I didn’t speak, though. I waited for her to continue.
“We’re stuck here. You’d probably figured that much out for yourself. We don’t know why, and we don’t know how. And after all this time, we don’t even know when.”
Morvena swam toward Amara. “Come on, it’s not the girl’s fault,” she said. “Let’s —”
Amara shook her off. “And not only that. Every one of us has been stripped of our singing voice,” she went on. “Do you know what that means to a siren? To the best sirens known for miles and miles around?”
“Amara, you know we weren’t the best,” Morvena said. “Melody was the best. We backed her. It’s not —”
“That’s right. Stick up for Melody, just like you always do. Not that she ever bothers to stick up for herself nowadays.”
“She doesn’t even show herself nowadays,” Nerin added.
“Too good for us, isn’t she?” Amara sneered.