“I’m not changing my mind,” I said firmly.
Lyle nodded. “You’ve got everything?”
“Yes,” I said. I had the papers and the snow globe Lyle had given me in one of Miss Platt’s waterproof bags.
“And you’ve got my chain?” Aaron checked.
I held up my wrist to show him that, too.
“OK, let’s go,” said Lyle. “I’ll swim out to the edge of the bay with you.”
We swam away from the island together. Out of the bay, out toward the channel, toward the slack tide, the dawn, the ship.
Toward Atlantis.
We were in the channel, the same place I’d seen the ship before. I checked my watch: 6:35 a.m. We had six minutes till high tide.
“Good luck, Emily,” Lyle said. “You will never know how grateful I am to you for this.”
I nodded a reply to him. I didn’t try to say anything.
Then Shona pulled me into a hug. “Please, please be careful,” she said.
“’Course I will,” I assured her.
“If anyone can do this, you can. Just get the job done, and come home — safely.”
“I will. I promise,” I said, wishing I could believe the words as firmly as I said them.
As she let go of me, she started fiddling with a starfish brooch pinned on her top. “Here, take this,” she said, unclipping it and holding it out to me.
“What’s that for?” I asked, taking the brooch from her.
“It’s a backup. In case anything happens to Aaron’s chain,” she said. “Pin it on your clothes somewhere you can easily see it.”
I pinned the starfish on my top, near my shoulder, and fastened it tight. “Thank you,” I said, giving her one last hug.
“Thank you,” she said, “for being so swishy. You make me proud to be your best friend.”
Shona let go of me and joined Lyle as Aaron came over. He didn’t say anything, just opened his arms. I swam into them and he held me tightly — so tightly I wanted to stay there forever and not do any of this.
Aaron pulled away and held both of my hands in his. “Good luck,” he said. “I’ll be thinking about you every second.”
“Me too,” I said.
“No! Don’t think about me. Think about what you’re there to do. And take care of yourself. If anything happens to you —”
“Nothing’s going to happen to me,” I said. “I’ll be fine.”
Aaron lifted my hand, the one with his chain on it, and kissed it.
Stop it! Stop it! You’re being too nice!
I pulled away from Aaron so sharply that he jumped back. “What?” he asked.
“I just . . .” I glanced at my watch again: 6:39 a.m. Nearly time. “I have to go. The ship is going to be here in two minutes.”
With that, before anyone had the chance to say anything else — or feel anything else — I flicked my tail, spun around, and headed toward the exact spot I’d been in when I’d seen the ship with Shona.
6:41 a.m. The movement of the sea slowed to a halt. Fish stopped swimming. The channel seemed to darken as everything stilled.
But no ship.
6:42 a.m.
“Can you see anything?” Shona asked.
“Not yet.” I turned to Aaron. “Aaron? Can you see it?”
He shook his head. “It’s not here.”
6:43 a.m. Three minutes to dawn, when the portal would open. But if there was no ship, there’d be no portal, either.
Were we too late? Had the ship gone for good?
“Wait!” I could just about see something. A faint shimmer. An outline. The ship — it was here! “Can you see it?” I cried.
“No!” Aaron replied. Of course he couldn’t. Lyle had said that if they were no longer trying to get back, the ship would now be visible only if you had four between states — which meant I’d be the only one who could see it.
“Can you see it?” Aaron asked.
The ship was growing more visible. It still looked more like a hologram than anything real, but it was there, and it was getting stronger with every passing second. “Just barely,” I said.
6:44 a.m. Two minutes to go. A hundred panicked thoughts came into my head. What if I couldn’t find the portal? What if I got stuck going through? What if I couldn’t get back? What if I never saw Aaron again?
That final thought was like an electric shock to my brain, reminding me of what I had to do. The last thing I could afford right now was to think thoughts like that. It was dangerous; it could make me feel things that I mustn’t feel. Not yet. I had to stay between. I had to stay focused.
“I’m going to go to Lowenna’s window,” I said. “I need to be ready when the portal opens.”
“I’ll swim with you,” Aaron replied.
“I’ll be praying and wishing and sending you every bit of luck in the world,” Lyle added.
“Emily . . .” Shona’s voice was muffled. “I don’t know if you can still hear me, but if you can, good luck! I know you’ll do a swishy job!”
I laughed to myself. Swishy. Only Shona could describe something like this as swishy. She could always make me smile. I looked around me. I could barely see her, but I knew she was there.
“Thank you!” I called back into the silent stillness of the ocean.
Aaron was beside me. “Come on,” he said. “We need to go.”
One behind the other, we made our way along the channel. As we swam, the ship came and went, fading practically to a see-through image, then returning almost as strongly as the last time I’d seen it.
“Can you still not see it?” I called back to Aaron.
“No. But it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that you can.”
We were running out of time. My link with the ship was weakening by the second, and the portal still wasn’t open. I checked my watch as we swam alongside the ship’s hull: 6:45 a.m. One more minute.
We passed window after window. At each one, I glanced into the blackness within as I swam by.
And then we were there, halfway along the ship’s hull: the porthole where I’d seen Lowenna. I stopped swimming and peered into the darkness. Nothing. I checked around the porthole frame. I’d noticed a bit of scuffed paint just above the glass last time I was here. Yes, it was still there. This was definitely the right one.
“It’s 6:46,” Aaron said. “Are you ready?”
My heart thumped like a ship’s engine. “I think so.”
We waited. The sea was so still, it felt like air. The darkness on the other side of the glass was so black, it looked like night. The ship was weakening by the second.
“What do I do?” I asked. “How do I make the portal appear?”
“I don’t know. Maybe —” Aaron began.
“Wait.” I stopped him. Something was changing. Above us, I saw a faint twinkle of light. Dawn was breaking. The sun was rising. And then I saw it: the window, the porthole — the portal.
“It’s here,” I whispered. The glass was shimmering and shining. First a deep purple, then blue, then mauve, pink, yellow, green — the porthole was exploding with color. It was as if a firework display were going on behind it.
“You need to go,” Aaron said. “Before it’s too late. We don’t know how long you’ve got.”
He was right. I flicked my tail and slithered over to the porthole.
As I swam toward the colors, my fear disappeared. As the glass in the porthole melted away, so did my worries. All that was there was color, light, and a space just large enough to swim through. Not only that, but it was a space I wanted to swim through. It was as if I craved it, as if I needed it. It reminded me of the first time I’d gone into the water during the school swimming lesson; it was that same sensation of being lured by something that scared me but something I couldn’t resist.
I stopped in front of the porthole.
“Good luck, Emily,” I heard faintly, and I turned to say good-bye to Aaron, but he was already starting to vanish.
“I’ll se
e you soon,” I called back. And then I turned to the ship and swam right up to the porthole. A moment’s hesitation, and I swam into the colors, into the light, through the porthole that was now a portal.
As I swam, my body felt as if it were moving through an electric current. Every nerve ending jangled and danced and fizzed and sparked with energy. It was almost enough to make me stop and turn back. Almost pain. But then I remembered why I was doing this, and I swam on.
The feeling grew stronger. The lights that had looked so inviting seemed to have turned into a monstrous kind of energy; it felt as if they were attacking me: biting my skin, snapping at my tail, scratching my face.
No! I couldn’t do it! I couldn’t even remember why I was doing it. The sensation was too much; I couldn’t bear it.
I tried to turn back, but there was no space. The porthole had become a capsule, with me and the vicious lights battling and squirming inside it.
“Help!” I screamed. “I want to get out!” But there was no one to hear me.
I pushed and kicked with my tail, lashed out with my arms. The lights spun me around, beat me against the sides of the capsule, flung me inside out, as if I were caught in the spin cycle of a washing machine.
No. No. No! I couldn’t take it anymore. I didn’t have any fight left. I wasn’t going to get through.
And then I remembered what I was there for.
I wasn’t doing this for fun — and I wasn’t doing it for myself. I was doing it for Lyle and for Lowenna.
The thought of her frightened eyes and Lyle’s sad face spurred me on. I gathered all the strength I had, visualized my tail turning into a propeller and my arms into the strongest fins in the world, and gave it one last push.
Something changed. Gradually, the energy began to feel a little less hostile. The lights dimmed a tiny bit. It was all I needed to encourage me. I swam as hard as I could, working my arms like a windmill.
And then — when I was on the verge of giving up out of sheer exhaustion — the tingling feeling in my body faded. The colors calmed to soft pastel shades. My tail stopped feeling as if it were under attack from a hundred biting sharks. The lights dimmed to a warm glow and then disappeared completely. I was through. I was inside the ship.
I was in darkness.
I turned back to face the way I’d come in. The shimmering colors had gone, as if it they’d never existed. All I could see was an ordinary porthole. The same one through which I’d seen Lowenna.
Only this time, I was on the inside.
I guess you could sum up my feelings at that point in two words: sheer panic.
I mean, what else could I logically feel? I had just swum through a window that wasn’t a window, through something that felt like a live meteor shower, into a cabin that was in complete darkness, on a ship that kind of existed but not in the traditional sense of the word exist, and I was now completely alone with the possibility that I might be stuck here forever.
Sheer panic felt like a supremely sensible thing to feel.
Treading water in the dark, I pulled my thoughts into line. I didn’t have long and couldn’t afford to waste any time.
I pulled up my sleeve and set a countdown timer on my watch. I had twelve hours. Then I realized something. Even though I was treading water, the cabin wasn’t completely underwater. I swam upward, poked my head out, and shook the water out of my hair. The cabin was half submerged and lying on a tilt.
How was it only half underwater when Aaron and I had been swimming way down in the sea to get to it?
I had the feeling this was only the first of many questions I would be asking myself over the next twelve hours.
Pulling down my sleeve, I tried to steady my thoughts. On an impulse, I pulled up my other sleeve. Aaron’s chain. I touched it, tracing the delicate links with my fingers.
The chain would keep me safe, remind me what I was here to do — and what I was going back to.
I checked the timer on my watch: 11:57. Three minutes had already passed. It was time to get going.
I flicked my tail and silently glided across the dark cabin and toward the door, which led me out into a long corridor. I swam quickly along the passageway and soon came to a hallway.
Stairs led up and down. Which way?
I swam to a picture on the wall. It was a map of the ship. A YOU ARE HERE arrow pointed to a spot in the middle of the ship. Deck three. There were two decks below me and two above. According to the picture, I was on the deck with the passenger cabins. The one below me had the crew’s quarters and a reception area. Below that was a deck for the ship’s engines and cargo.
The level above me housed a dining room, a shop, and a panoramic lounge. Above that was the captain’s quarters at the front — and the shiny deck where I had seen people walking around at the back.
I swam halfway up the staircase, which was as high as the water went. I sat on a step and waited for my tail to stop flapping, stop tingling, and return to legs. Then, as quietly and as steadily as I could, given that the whole ship was on a steep slope, I gripped the handrail and climbed the staircase to the fourth deck.
I made my way along the corridor toward the small shop. “Hello?” I stepped gingerly into the shop and looked around. Empty.
One wall was lined with shelves full of key chains and coasters with a picture of the ship and the words Prosperous II on the side. They had all slipped to the ends of the shelves, which were sloping downward with the ship’s tilt.
The shop had the feel of a place that had been trashed and then completely forgotten about. Behind the counter, pencils and a bowl of magnets lay on the floor. A rack held T-shirts that had all slipped down to one end.
I made my way to the dining room.
Tables were strewn with forgotten plates and bowls. Coffee machines had unwashed cups and saucers beside them. I picked up one of the cups. Something that looked like cotton balls appeared to be growing in the bottom of it.
The place was completely abandoned. Where was everyone?
A door behind the coffee machine was half open. I approached it cautiously. Pushing through the door, I called out again. “Hello? Anyone around?”
This was starting to get creepy.
OK, it was way beyond starting to get creepy. It was full-on, out-and-out, brain-mashingly spooky. What had happened to Lowenna? To all of the passengers and crew?
I checked the lounge at the front. Same thing. Completely empty. Corridors: empty. Reception area: deserted. The ship was a ghost town.
Finally, I climbed up to the top deck. I pushed open a heavy glass door and went outside.
The first thing to hit me was the feeling of the air against my skin: warm, soothing, gentle, it was like . . . like what? I’d never felt anything like it before. As smooth as melted caramel, as warm as a summer’s day, as comforting as a blanket — it instantly soothed my worries.
There was no one out here, either, but I no longer minded all that much.
In fact, I was struggling to remember whom I was looking for.
Ahead of me, there was a wooden changing hut and a small pool. It looked like a hot tub, although the water was still and had a layer of light-green slime around the edges. Like everything else, it had clearly been neglected for months.
I slid along the downward-sloping deck to the edge of the ship and a couple of deck chairs. I opened the nearest one out into full recline and sat on it. I could just lie here and enjoy the heat and the lovely feeling.
The sun was so warm, so beautiful. I had never felt so at peace, so calm, so happy. I could stay here forever.
I lay down, rolled up my sleeves to enjoy the sunshine, and . . .
Wait! What was that on my arm? The chain! From Aaron. My boyfriend.
I sat right up. What was I even thinking? I wasn’t here to sunbathe! I was here to find Lowenna and all the others. How had I let myself forget? Was Atlantis working its magic on me already?
I got out of the chair and clung to the railings, looking out. All
I could see was blue. The bluest blue I’d ever seen. The clearest sky, stretching down toward the ocean and blending with it so seamlessly it was hard to tell where the sky ended and the sea began.
I turned away and climbed up the sloping boards to the opposite deck. For a moment, the sun blinded me. It was so bright, I had to shield my eyes. Using my hands as a visor, I eventually managed to see what lay ahead.
A beautiful, sparkling, shimmering blue bay. Behind it, an island. A palm-fringed beach in front of me that looked like a postcard from the world’s most exclusive paradise. Behind that, bridges, streams, a waterfall running down to a river beside the beach, sparkling as if it were filled with a million silver coins. Beyond that, buildings that seemed to climb up and down hills all across the island. Houses in a hundred different pastel colors, on hills so green they looked as if they’d been colored in with the brightest felt-tip markers in the world.
I swallowed as I stared across at the island. Suddenly, all I wanted was to get there, to be there, be part of it. I couldn’t wait to explore every inch.
And that was when I knew for sure that I wasn’t looking at just any old island.
I was looking at Atlantis.
I slipped down to the lower side of the ship and dived into the blue sea. Swimming around the ship, I made my way toward Atlantis.
The sea was turquoise and so clear that the ocean floor looked as if it were in high-definition. Close up, the sand on the beach looked as soft and white as powdered sugar. A single palm tree reached out from each end of the beach, almost horizontally, as if each tree wanted to dip its leaves in the ocean.
A long jetty stretched out from the soft white beach, right into the sea. I pulled myself out of the water and sat on the end of the jetty, shaking myself dry and watching as my tail slipped gradually away and my legs returned.
As I walked up the jetty toward the beach, two people padded over to greet me. A man and a woman, one on either side of the jetty; they wore identical garlands of multicolored flowers around their necks, and they beamed with identical smiles.
“Welcome!” the woman said, reaching out to hug me tightly, as if I were a long-lost friend.
The man handed me his garland. “We are so pleased to have you join us,” he said, placing the flowers over my head. “We hope you have a delightful stay. Make yourself at home. Enjoy.”