The water ended in front of Njord, so we couldn’t swim right up to him. The mermen pulled us as close as we could get.
Before any of them could say anything, I decided to take the initiative. After all, we had come here to help Njord. As soon as he heard that, he was bound to let us go.
I was about to speak. I looked at his face — the only part of him that seemed capable of movement. As I did, it broke into what I guessed was probably supposed to be a smile. If you try to imagine a shark as it spots fresh prey and opens its mouth ready to swallow it whole, you’d be halfway to imagining what his smile looked like.
“I am glad you decided to join us,” Njord said as I stared. His voice felt like a snake, slithering around the caves.
“I . . . I . . .” I tried to tell him why we were there, but couldn’t find my voice. Instead, I reached a hand into my pocket to show him the crystals.
“Silence!” Njord bellowed. For the first time, I seriously began to doubt our plan. Could this really be Neptune’s beloved brother? Could Neptune really want us to free him? It didn’t seem possible.
The guard roughly grabbed my arm. “Quiet, you,” he growled, in case I hadn’t understood what “silence” meant. I gripped the crystals even tighter inside my pocket.
Njord stared at me. “I saw what happened,” he said. “And I saw that it was an accident. I might have been ice, but my eyes were open. Inside, I was alive. I saw what you had, but it wasn’t enough. Yes, it freed my head enough that I can now speak. It freed my fingertips enough that I can now grasp. It freed the tip of my tail enough that I can now flick it with rage and cause a storm.”
Of course! If this was Neptune’s twin brother, he probably had the same powers. It was his anger that had caused all the freak storms at sea!
“But clearly I need more than one crystal to free me completely,” Njord said, his voice a whisper, so quiet and so sharp and so cold it felt like a thin blade slicing through me. “And I believe you have more.”
Njord continued to stare at me. My fingertips were warm against the crystals in my pocket, but they didn’t seem to want to let go of them. What should I do? I decided the truth was the only strategy that would protect us. After all, we had originally come here to do the very thing he was now asking of us. If only I could get rid of the feeling in my gut screaming at me not to do it.
I spoke quickly. “We know that someone did this to you,” I said. “We know who you are. I mean, we think we kind of know your . . . brother?”
Njord raised an eyebrow. “Continue,” he said.
“Neptune can’t remember what happened,” I went on quickly. “He knows something bad happened to you, and he knows that whoever did it took his memory away. We’ve come to help you. We want to reunite you with your brother.”
The caves fell silent. Not the tiniest sound. Njord’s eyes bored into me. Behind me, Shona and the guards waited for a response. It felt as though the moment itself had frozen.
And then, suddenly, everything changed.
Njord smiled broadly. “The child has come to help us!” he announced. “To reunite me with my beloved brother!” Njord laughed a raw, rasping laugh.
He shifted his eyes to look at one of the guards. Njord’s neck was still frozen, so he couldn’t actually move his head. “Release them both!” he ordered. “We are all friends!”
The two mermen instantly untied us, bowing low as they backed away again.
Njord smiled at me. “I’m sorry about that,” he said sweetly. “I’m sure you can understand we have to take precautions until we know if our visitors are friends or foes.”
I rubbed my tail where it had been tied. “It’s OK,” I said. He had a point. And he was Neptune’s twin brother, after all. Neptune had never been known for his great social skills. I mean, look how he’d brought Aaron and me to see him at the start of the mission — blindfolded and bundled into fishing nets!
“So, you were saying,” Njord said, his voice oozing friendliness and warmth, “about wanting to help.”
“We want to bring you and Neptune back together,” I said. “It’s what we were sent here to do.”
“How wonderful,” Njord replied, smiling broadly.
I edged closer to him, wondering exactly what I was supposed to do. Did I have to drop a crystal on him, or what? I still had the crystals in my hand, still had my hand in my pocket. I wanted to open my fingers — I really did — but something was stopping me. Fear? Doubt?
Whatever it was, Njord could obviously see it, too, as he kept talking in a soothing, cajoling voice. “I will be so happy to see my dear brother,” he said. “So happy to make friends again after such a silly squabble.”
“Squabble?” I asked.
“Oh, we were always at it. It was nothing unusual. A petty disagreement. A bit of silly nonsense that went too far”— Njord looked down at himself —“and ended up with this.”
“Your disagreement ended up with you being frozen? But how?”
“Oh, you know what brothers are like when they fight. And when the brothers in question have as much magic and power at their disposal as the likes of us, it can be a bit dramatic when things get out of hand.”
“I understand,” I said, trying to sound as if it were exactly the kind of thing I came across every day: arguing with someone and accidentally finding one of you had been turned to ice. Again, the doubt gripped me. I turned to Shona. She seemed to shake her head. Did she feel the same way as I did?
I closed my fingers more tightly around the crystals. Shona swam to my side. “Something isn’t right,” she whispered, echoing my feelings perfectly.
“I agree,” I whispered back. “But I don’t know what to do about it.”
“Me neither.”
I gathered all the courage I had and turned to Njord. “I think you’re lying,” I said, imagining myself being carried away by those guards and fed to the shark with the spear.
“We thought someone horrible had done this to you,” Shona said. “We thought someone turned you to ice and then took Neptune’s memory away so he couldn’t help you.”
“And your point?” Njord replied.
“Our point,” I said, “is that we don’t understand why Neptune would be so desperate to free you again if he was the one who turned you to ice in the first place! He told us something awful had happened, and we assumed he meant something awful had happened to you.”
“But if Neptune himself did it,” Shona continued, “how can we be sure he really wants you to be unfrozen?”
“We just can’t take that risk,” I told him.
Njord frowned. “My dear brother has clearly come to regret his actions,” he said.
“Hmm,” I murmured.
“Look, it was a silly brother’s prank that got out of hand — no harm done. Now, let’s just get on with unfreezing the rest of me and we can all have a lovely reunion.” A tight edge had crept into Njord’s voice.
I looked at Shona. “I’m not convinced,” I said.
She shook her head. “Nor am I.”
Njord fixed his steely eyes on me. “There is nothing not to be convinced about,” he hissed. “Now, give me the crystals!”
I flicked my tail and tightened my grip on the crystals.
Njord sucked on his teeth. “Neptune wronged me,” he hissed. “I had something he wanted, and he wasn’t happy, all right? And, yes, he did this to me. He did it out of greed, the only thing that truly motivates him!”
I turned to Shona. “To be fair, that does sound quite typical of Neptune.”
Njord’s face was red, his cheek pulsing as he spoke through gritted teeth. “He probably remembers how he wronged me and wants to make amends. And he probably sent you because he knows you can undo the damage.”
Shona and I looked at each other. “I don’t know what to do,” I whispered.
Njord’s fingertips were reaching out to me, edging between the crushed, frozen ice. They were like tendrils of seaweed, stretching and swaying on th
e tide. “Please,” he begged. “Help me. Help my brother. Bring us back together.” A tear edged out of his eye and trickled a wet track down his face.
Maybe he was telling the truth. I pushed one of the crystals deeper into my pocket — just in case — and slowly brought the other one out of my pocket. The second I did, Njord’s face changed.
“Seize her!” he bellowed.
The guard was by my side in moments. Before I even knew what was happening, he had grabbed my arm and snatched the crystal from my hand.
“Take them away!” Njord ordered. His eyes had narrowed to black slits, his forehead creased like corrugated iron. The other guard grabbed Shona. He quickly tied the seaweed around her waist. A minute later, we were prisoners again.
The guard who had stolen the crystal turned to Njord. “Now what, my lord?”
“Now, release me from my prison!” Njord bellowed. “Give me the crystal!”
The guard swam toward Njord and placed the crystal into Njord’s outstretched hand. Njord closed his fingers around it. He shut his eyes. “At last, I will be free,” he said. “My turn to reign is nearly here.”
“The girls, my lord,” said the guard who held Shona. “What do you want us to do with them?”
Njord didn’t even open his eyes. Smiling to himself, he said, “Take them to the dungeons. Lock them away while I decide what is to be done with them — and with my traitorous eel of a brother.”
The guards turned and swam off, dragging us along the winding tunnels and down to a dark, cold cave in the deep belly of the mountain.
The guards threw us in a cell and locked the door. Laughing and congratulating themselves, they swam away.
I was beginning to get a sense of déjà vu. Except, this time, I had the feeling that Neptune wasn’t about to turn up and tell us things weren’t how they looked.
I suspected things were exactly how they looked. And I can tell you, they didn’t look good.
I swam to the edge of the cave and slid down the wall next to a pipe with a brown jellyfish poking out of its end. Beside me, a bunch of thin reeds were tangled up like a plate of spaghetti. They swayed with the movement of the water.
I put my head in my hands and wondered if things could get any worse.
Which was pretty much the moment that they did.
“Emily.” Shona was tugging on my arm. Her voice was as wobbly as the jellyfish in the pipe.
I looked up. “What?”
She pointed to the bars at the front of the cave. Or, more accurately, she pointed just outside the bars to the tunnel, and to what was swimming along it.
I put everything I possibly had into stopping myself from screaming — mainly because it was such a small space that I would probably have deafened Shona if I had, and the last thing I needed was for my best friend to be incapable of ever hearing me again.
Actually, that’s not quite true. The last thing I needed was to see the shark with a giant spear on the front of its head swimming directly toward us.
But, unfortunately, that was exactly what I got.
“Just stay calm,” I said to Shona.
Who was I kidding? Stay calm? How were we supposed to do that?
The shark was coming closer. It was right outside the cage. What if it got in? Had Njord sent it? Was this it? Was this was how it was all going to end? After everything we’d been through, were we going to be a midmorning snack?
It came closer still. The spear was up against the bars now.
Shona edged toward me and gripped my arm. “I’m scared,” she said.
“Me too. Just . . . just don’t panic,” I said, stating the obvious and the impossible.
We swam slowly and carefully backward, edging into the farthest corner of the cave.
The creature pressed its head against the bars. Its spear poked right through them and into our cell. We had nowhere to go. The spear was longer than the cave.
Shaking, and trying to remember the words to any prayer I’d ever heard, I closed my eyes as the spear edged toward me and touched my forehead.
Do not fear me.
What was that? I opened my eyes. The shark and its spear had retreated. It wasn’t going to smash my skull in. Not yet, anyway.
“Shona, was that you?”
Shona was curled up next to me, her tail flapping as fast as a butterfly’s wings, her eyes tightly closed.
“Was what me?” she asked, nervously opening an eye.
I will not hurt you. I am not your enemy.
“That!”
Shona stared at me. “What?”
“The voice. Listen.”
She will not hear me.
OK, this was getting freaky. “Did you hear that?” I asked, a little less certainly.
Shona sighed. “Did I hear what?” she demanded. “All I can hear is you asking me questions — and my heart thumping at about a thousand beats per minute.”
“Right,” I said. “Sorry. I’m just imagining it. Must be the waves, or maybe one of the guards somewhere.”
You are not imagining it. And I am not a guard.
I jumped up, swam to the front of the cave, and looked both ways. “Come on — stop hiding!” I shouted. “I know there’s someone there. You’re just trying to freak me out.”
Shona swam to join me. She looked left and right, too. “There’s no one there.”
“Exactly. They’re too cowardly to show their faces — hiding in the shadows!” I stuck my head through the bars. “Ha! See! Called your bluff there, didn’t I? You can’t scare me, you know. I’m not —”
Look directly in front of you.
The voice nearly made me leap out of my scales. Look directly in front of me? I wasn’t going to do that. The only thing right in front of me was the scary shark with the giant spear. Nothing in the world would make me look that in the eyes! Unless . . .
I slowly turned my head to face it. “Is it you?” I whispered.
“Is what me?” Shona asked.
“Not you.” I pointed at the shark. I swallowed hard, and then I looked it in the eyes. “You.”
The creature lowered its head in a soft nod.
Yes, it’s me.
OK. So it wasn’t enough that we were trapped in a cave, down in the belly of a mountain, in a place no one would ever find us as long as we lived. Now I was going mad as well, hearing sharks talking to me. Well, that was just great.
You brought me back to life. In exchange, I will be your loyal friend forever.
“What if I don’t want a spear-carrying shark to be my friend forever?” I said.
“What?” Shona asked. “What are you talking about?”
I am not a shark.
“Not a shark? What are you then?”
I am a narwhal.
“A what?”
“Emily! What are you talking about? Are you OK?” Shona was shaking my arm.
How was I supposed to explain this? Lie? Make something up? Brush it off? No. This was Shona. She was my best friend, and I’d always told her the truth about everything. I wasn’t going to change that now — even if she did decide that I’d lost my mind and was probably better off staying locked up.
I nudged a finger at the shark — or the narwhal — whatever that was. “It’s talking to me,” I said.
Shona let out a breath and nodded slowly. “OK . . .” she said.
“Honestly!” I insisted.
Shona looked at the creature, still hovering outside the cage, still directly facing us.
As she did, I looked more closely at it, too. That was when I realized it didn’t actually look like a shark. It didn’t have a fin on its back, and actually, apart from the spear, it didn’t look frightening.
It looked more like a small whale than a shark. It had a dark-black back, two small fins, a little tail, and tiny black eyes. Its tummy was speckled with gray spots that looked a bit like freckles, and its spear wasn’t all that scary. In fact, it made it look almost magical — like a unicorn of the sea.
&n
bsp; “You know, there’s something familiar about it, now that I think of it,” Shona said. “I’m sure I’ve seen a picture of one of these somewhere — at school, probably.” She thought for a moment. “I think it was in Seas and Species. There are these rare creatures that have spears sticking out of their heads. What were they called, now?” She scrunched up her forehead, tapping a finger against her mouth and flicking her tail from side to side as she thought.
“Um. Were they called narwhals?” I asked hesitantly.
“Narwhals! That’s it!” Shona said, clapping her hands together. “Wait! How did you know that?”
I pointed at the narwhal. “The narwhal told me.”
Shona stared at the narwhal, then back at me. “It told you?”
Please, tell your friend I am a “he,” not an “it.”
“Er, he’s a he,” I said awkwardly.
Shona swam up to the bars of the cave. “Wow. This is, like, one of the rarest creatures in the ocean.”
Stay here.
The narwhal’s voice was urgent.
I will be back.
In a flash, he was gone.
“Did we scare him off?” Shona asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t think so. He said to stay here.” Not that we had any choice in the matter.
“What do you mean, he said? I didn’t hear anything. Are you making this up?”
I thought for a minute. How was I going to get Shona to believe me? Then I remembered something: the kraken. “Shona, do you remember on Allpoints Island when I could hear the kraken’s thoughts?”
“Because you were the one who woke it.”
“Exactly! Maybe this is similar to that. I dropped the crystal that woke the narwhal, so now I can hear his voice.”
“Wow,” Shona said.
“But I think he only activated it when he touched me with his spear just now.”
Neither of us had time to say anything else, as a swishing sound was coming toward us. We both looked up to see the guards heading back to our cell.
“Njord sent us to search you,” one of them said, reaching into his tail pocket for a key. “Says we need another crystal. He thought two would be enough and they’ve melted everything else, but because the spell was cast directly on him, it turns out he needs one more. And you’re our best hope of finding it.”