“You mean like a mouse? Har, Har, Har, Har.”
“If you want, but I’m not a cat. I don’t eat mice. Almost anything will do, I don’t care what, just not rocs.”
“Like what?”
“Like, a person. Why don’t you become people? You could still catch me if I tried to get away if you were people.”
“Don’t want to be people. We’re birds. We like it. Let’s eat her,” and they started to move in closer again.
“How about seagulls? I don’t mind if you’re seagulls again. Then you could still be birds and I could answer your questions.”
There was a lot of unintelligible conversation after this suggestion and then one at a time, with a kind of a ‘pouf’, they were seagulls. Apparently, this was a satisfactory compromise.
“Where’s our boat?” one of the seagulls repeated.
I didn’t want to be eaten. But I didn’t want to give up the Maiden Voyage either. My answer was a compromise, and as it turned out, not a very good one.
“What boat?” I said.
“Let’s eat her.”
“Don’t be dumb, we’re seagulls. Seagulls don’t eat people. Yuch! We eat fish. Remember?”
“Half of her is a fish. Let’s eat that.”
While having half of you eaten by seagulls is significantly less intimidating than having all of you eaten by rocs, it is not something to look forward to. Therefore, it was with considerable relief that I saw in the distance, but moving in fast, something that looked just like a traveling bubble.
“Oh, thank you, Zazkal. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you,” …words I thought I would never say.
“What!”
“What!”
“What!”
“What!”
“Look out,” I said. “It’s one of those exploding bubbles headed this way. You know, the kind that explodes as soon as it touches anything alive.”
Very quickly, all four gulls scattered in the opposite direction.
“Wait, don’t leave me,” I couldn’t resist. “It’s headed this way.”
They were bumping and flapping and generally falling all over each other to get away and didn’t see me slip into the bubble when it reached me. They didn’t see me take the fern coat out of my wing pocket and put it on as fast as I could.
They were still close enough, though, and quiet enough for once, that they heard the loud ‘click’ when I closed the coat’s clasp hard in my hurry to become invisible.
“Aaghh, there it goes,” one of them cried, and they waited for the explosion that didn’t happen. Finally turning around and cautiously flying back, all they saw was an empty bubble floating gently out to sea, and an equally empty sandbar island.
“Where’s the kid? You forgot the kid.”
“I didn’t forget the kid. You did. I remembered. I just didn’t say anything.”
“You’re stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid.”
“I didn’t forget, either. Because this isn’t the same kid. That one had legs. She’s still on the boat. Where’s the boat?”
“I’m not in charge of the boat, you are. Where did you put it, stupid?”
“You expect me to remember where I put it! I don’t remember what I ate for breakfast. How can I remember where I left some boat?”
That was the last thing I heard as they flew off still arguing among themselves.
CHAPTER 32
THE PIRATES’ SECRET
I was long out of sight of both land and seagulls when the bubble stopped. Ollie was all over me, the moment it dissolved and dropped me into the water.
“Miriam! Miriam! Wait till you see what we found. You have to see for yourself… the way we did,” he said mysteriously.
“Where’s the sampo?” Zazkal demanded.
Naturally, that would be the first thing he noticed.
“There was an encounter…” I said, “...with the Hazmats.”
Zazkal’s eyes narrowed and he looked me over like he was checking my bits to see if they were all there.
“What happened?” he asked.
I started from the beginning and when I got to the part where the seagulls trashed the sampo, I could see him simmer. When I got to the part about the sandbar island, he started to steam. By the time I finished, he was red-faced and speechless with anger. Zazkal speechless is not a bad thing.
Ollie, on the other hand, kept bumping up against me like he wanted to be attached. When I finished, I was shaking and I had a lump in my throat that was pushing its way up to my tear ducts. Nobody said anything. Awkward.
“So…what did you guys find?” I asked trying not to let my voice crack.
Bitterly angry, probably more over the loss of my sampo than anything that happened to me, Zazkal was not speaking, but Ollie, was full of praise after hearing my story.
“Oh, Miriam. I’m so glad you are okay. You were terrific. I bet you would have gotten away, even without the bubble.”
“She talks herself into trouble as much as out.” Zazkal was less generous in his praise.
“Those birds sound stupid and they are,” he said, still furious, his fists clenched and his arms rigid. “Greedy and stupid. That’s what makes them so dangerous. Years of switching back and forth from creature to creature, has destroyed any memory of what they once were. They live completely for the desires of the creature of that moment. It’s what makes them so arbitrary and so unpredictable.”
We were a quiet group swimming along the sea bottom, moving further and further out to sea. The fear and panic I had felt continued to cling to me.
Finally, we came to a place where the ocean floor dropped steeply. The bottom of this undersea cliff was lost in the darkness of the sunless places of the ocean.
Turning, we followed the top edge north for a few minutes until Zazkal, recognizing some landmark from his earlier visit, began swimming down, following the cliff wall. Ollie went up for air and rejoined us before we had gone very far.
It grew darker and darker as we left the sun behind. Then, there, between the light and the darkness where there are still shadows, but not much else, Zazkal stopped in front of a shallow overhang in the cliff.
“I had a pretty good idea of what I was looking for and a fair guess about where it might be,” he said “but all in all, we were lucky to find it so soon. It was Ollie who actually spotted it,” he admitted reluctantly.
“Wood and metal echo differently from rock or coral,” Ollie said.
Not having echolocation, to me this spot looked like most of the other bumps, dents and holes in the wall that we had already passed.
“I can’t see anything different about this place,” I said.
“Look again,” said Zazkal, “that square shadow at the very back.”
I looked hard. “I see it. It’s not a shadow. It’s a door, isn’t it.” The dark of the wood of the roughly-made door looked like a shadow against the lighter rock around it. But there was a dull gleam that caught my eye and helped me to spot it.
What little light there was, was reflecting off a large padlock. “It’s locked,” I cried in dismay.
Swimming over to the door, Zazkal reached up and moved a loose rock lodged in a small hole near the door. Reaching into the hole with his other hand, he took something out and held it up. It was a key.
“I can’t believe they went to all that trouble to get a door down here, set it up and lock it, and then leave the key right there, where anyone could find it,” I said.
“Uh, Miriam, ‘anyone’ doesn’t come here,” Ollie pointed out. “How often do you think anybody who might be interested actually swims down here? And then, if they did, that they would even notice the door?”
“The truth is,” said Zazkal, “they’re not capable of keeping track of a key. They would have lost it the first time they changed from one animal to another. I imagine the door is just a precaution to keep anyone from accidentally wandering in the way they probably did when they first found this place. The lock and key are almost unnecessary.”
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“So, this is where they keep their treasure,” I said. My mind filled with visions of piles of gold and heaps of jewels. I forgot how frightened I had been.
“How did you know it would be near where they had the boat that night, when I was trapped on the deck in that old wooden crate?”
“There’s no pirate treasure in there,” Zazkal said. “I wouldn’t think they had any. They probably spend, eat or otherwise use up anything they have, as soon as they get it.”
“We think it must have been a barracuda’s lair before the Hazmats found it,” Ollie interrupted. “The bottom near the door is filled with bones and yucky stuff.”
“Isn’t this kind of deep for a barracuda?” I said, thinking about certain others who might have used it for a place to devour their victims. I shivered, remembering how close I had come to being a pile of bones myself and looked around, suddenly nervous about being here at all.
Zazkal unlocked the door. “Come on,” he said, “let’s go. I don’t want to hang around here any longer than necessary”.
“What’s there, if it’s not a treasure?”
“You’ll see for yourself in a moment,” he said a smug grin of superiority on his face.
Ollie was nodding his head up and down with the excitement of anticipation. “He’s right, you have to see it yourself.”
Zazkal went in first and then Ollie. They turned around to get a good view of my reaction.
Trying not to look down at the pile of unidentifiable but disgusting stuff on the ground, the first thing I noticed was how brightly lit the water was.
“I can’t see any fairy lights,” I said.
I looked around and then up, thinking that they must be hidden in the rocks. Just a few feet above me was the fuzzy glow of outsea sunshine. Oh, wow!
I burst through the surface and looked around at a now familiar landscape. I was in a swimming pool sized salt lake in the fairylands. There were more trees here than at the Metsoola lake but not many.
“I know where we are. This is so cool. We’re really close to the salt lake that goes to Metsoola. At least, I’m pretty sure we are. It’s on the other side of those trees…I think.”
“I thought as much,” said Zazkal. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Ollie is overdue for some air.”
“Uh, Zazkal,” I said. “There’s fresh air right up there.”
“Oh, right. Hurry up, Ollie. I don’t want you and Miriam to stay here any longer than necessary.
Zazkal and I followed Ollie to the surface for another look around. This may have been my second salt lake, but it was still disorienting, seeing land and sunshine from so deep in the ocean.
“Ollie, did you echo any bubble people when we were onsea?” Zazkal asked.
“A lot,” Ollie said.
“Go and find a pod and stay with them. Because if Miriam and I are not back by morning, I want you to sound the dolphin alarm.”
“How will you know where to find me?” Ollie asked.
“I will know. Get moving! Now!”
“Now’s your chance to relieve that poor, desperately unhappy king of his anxiety,” Zazkal said sarcastically, after Ollie left. “Just hurry up and get back here fast.”
“What? You’re not coming with me? Why can’t you make a bubble for the land…uh, outsea part?”
“There is a good deal of magic I can use to defend myself if the Hazmats show up. You know perfectly well that I can’t construct a traveling bubble without access to the supplies in my workshop or your sampo. I will stay here to make sure the door stays open for you.
“Just be brief. Find the king quickly, apprise him of the situation and get back here as fast as you can. Now get out of here.”
He was not happy, and I moved quickly, pulling myself out of the water and switching to legs. I stood up and looked down at Zazkal, helpless to leave the lake. Without stopping to think about it, I took the fern coat out of my wing pocket and handed it to Zazkal.
“Here,” I said using my best ‘do it or else’ tone. “Wear this until I come back. At least you’ll be invisible,” and knowing what to expect, I turned and walked off before he could respond.
Zazkal looked down at the small bundle in his hand and then up at Miriam’s retreating figure.
“Stupid child, she’s lost her bag, and gives away her only protection. What next, will she tear off her wings?”
But he put the on the coat while he watched her disappear, then, finding a relatively clean spot at the bottom of the lake, he settled down to wait.
CHAPTER 33
INTO THE WOODS AND UNDER THE SEA
“She’s back. She’s back,” whispered the trees.
“I’m back, I’m back,” I sang out when I reached the trees. My recent encounter with the Hazmats had overwhelmed the slight nervousness I felt on the first visit. All that was left was that feeling that I was not alone and a desire to know more.
Or, maybe my drylander self was homesick. I don’t know. But someday, when I have more time, I’ll come back.
I turned left to keep following a faint trail through the woods and right in front of me, almost blocking the path, was a majorly big tree.
“Whoa, check it out.” A tree with three trunks. A really big tree. Mom used to tell me about trees like this. She said they were always called the three sisters.
“Hi, sisters. Nice to meet you.” I stroked the trunk affectionately.
“Guess. Guess our names.”
There’s that nice whispery sound again. I put my hand up to feel the wind that must be blowing through the trees, but the air wasn’t moving. I guess it’s just a tree-top breeze.
As soon as I was past the trees, I opened my wings. I could see Metsoola’s salt lake as soon as I was airborne.
A few minutes later I switched back to tail and slipped quietly into the water headed down to the cave entrance in Metsoola.
This time I had no invisible coat to wear and was more than a little nervous about my reception after so many days missing. Not a problem. The blackness of the garden was more than sufficient to render me invisible.
What’s going on here? Where are all the fairy lights? All of a sudden, I was no longer worried about being seen by less-than-friendly Sky. I was more worried about finding anyone at all.
“Glori!” I whispered.. “Can you hear me?” I said a little louder. “Can anybody hear me?”
“Over here, Miriam.” I looked around at the not-as-bright-as-they-should-be lights coming from the castle. There was a shadowy form backlit by the light from one of the entrances. The shadow was Sky shaped, and seemed to be waving two arms at me.
“Edward,” I called, recognizing the shape, “is that you?” I headed towards the shadow-filled entrance. “What’s going on?”
“Yes, it’s me. I don’t know. Hurry up.”
“What’s going on?” I said again, as soon as I reached him.
“I don’t know.”
“I hate it when you repeat yourself,” we both said in unison, and then giggled.
“Oh, Edward, oh, Spec, I am so glad to see you both,” I said and gave Edward a big hug…big but brief. As soon as I realized what I was doing, I backed off…fast.
“What happened to the lights?” I asked, glad that it was dark enough to hide any blushes.
“Where were you?”
“You’d better go first. It will take a long time to answer your question. Also, is your father around? I need to see him right away.”
“He’s here and we’re already headed that way. My answer is short and easy. I don’t know. Nobody knows. Your turn.”
“When did they disappear?” I asked, not ready to let him off that easily.
“During the last sleep period,” Specter said. “There’s hardly anyone in the castle right now, and no one saw it happen. Everyone is still out scouring the sea for you.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “I sort of have an idea of what might have happened.” I didn’t elaborate, because we came up thr
ough a floor door into a large meeting room filled with sea fairies all talking at once.
The room had plenty of floor pillows, but the conversation, if you can call it that, was so agitated that hardly anyone was sitting on them.
Glori was floating near the wall at the far end of the room, looking very serious and probably the only person in the room who was just listening and not swimming around.
She was also the first person to spot us just before we swam in through the floor door. In one sweet second she was transformed into intense happy, bouncing up and down in the water with excitement.
Everyone else was talking and waving their arms so much to get everyone else’s attention that they floated up off the ground, sinking slowly back to their seats when they had finished, only to be struck by some new idea and float back up in passionate speech again.
The moment we entered the room, all conversation ceased and everyone looked at us. Then everybody looked at one particular person in the room, except for that one particular person, who continued to stare at me and Edward.
CHAPTER 34
LEAVING THINGS OUT
That one particular person was King Mundiflure. He had the angry look in his eyes that grownups get when a lost child has been found and they don’t have to be worried anymore. Everyone in the room could see a serious royal temper tantrum coming.
I knew that out-talking him was the only thing that would check the impending hurricane.
“Your Majesty,” I said as deferentially as possible, then continued quickly, so as to leave no conversational holes for him to jump into.
“I left Metsoola twice, the first time, it was because I was scared. I came back as soon as I calmed down. The second time was by magic, but it wasn’t my magic and I had nothing to do with it. But it does have everything to do with the disappearance of the lights in the garden.” I paused, for effect, but mostly to take a breath.
The room stayed silent. No one, including the king, spoke. He reclined into his cushion with ‘this had better be good’ written all over his face.
I started with my second disappearance from the garden, describing the traveling bubbles that were bringing us to Metsoola and explaining how Zazkal got stuck in the lake when he stopped to explore.
“Zazkal used a kind of reverse sender spell to bring me back to the lake. Honestly, I never knew it was coming and I had no way to contact you to let you know what happened.”