“What did you say?” Shona asked, her eyes wide, her tail flicking gently.
“I agreed without hesitation. Like I said, she was my best friend. That’s how it works.”
I gave Shona a quick look. She smiled at me, and her cheeks colored a little. “I know what you mean,” she said.
Morvena reached out to stroke Shona’s cheek. “I know you do,” she said with a sad smile. We all fell silent. Even the fish seemed to slow down and swim more solemnly.
After a moment, Aaron asked, “So what happened next?”
“I told the others that Melody and I were going away for a bit, and they all wanted to come. None of us had seen Melody for so long; we all wanted to be together. We were all such good friends back then. Always smiling, always singing. Melody didn’t want them to come; she didn’t really want me to come. She seemed to think she’d be putting us in danger. But she was scared, too, and I insisted on coming with her.”
“And the others?” I asked.
“Melody couldn’t put them off without seeming rude or ungrateful, so she agreed. Remember, we thought it was only going to be for a matter of days. That was what Melody told me; that was what she believed.”
“Did the others know about the bad thing, whatever that was?” Aaron asked.
“Melody tried to hide it, but they knew there was something. For one thing, she didn’t sing. She never has since the day she came back. We thought at first that she just didn’t want to. It was only later — when the rest of us were stripped of our singing voices — that we realized that was what had happened to her, too.”
I was captivated by Morvena’s story. “So then did Melody tell them what had happened?” I asked.
“No. They knew not to push it. Melody has always been proud, and loyal. If she was determined not to do something, she would stick to her decision, no matter what. She didn’t want them to suffer on her behalf, and she didn’t want any of us to see how unhappy she was. I’m the only one who’s really seen her distress, and even I have never known what it’s about.”
“She’s never told you?” Shona burst out. “I thought you were her best friend!”
“Being someone’s best friend doesn’t always mean telling them every tiny thing about yourself, you know. Sometimes it means having enough trust to let them have their secrets and still be there for them.”
Shona wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know about that,” she said. “I can’t imagine ever having secrets from Emily.”
“Me neither,” I said, but my cheeks burned as I said it. Was I keeping a secret from Shona by not telling her about my feelings for Aaron? Or had I just not talked about them because I wasn’t even sure of them myself?
“Anyway, so we came to this place,” Morvena went on. “It was like a little adventure — almost a holiday. Spirits were quite high for a few days. And then the change happened.”
“What change?” asked Aaron.
Morvena nudged her head upward. “The waterfall, for one thing. We thought that was why this was such a good hiding place. It was the only way in, but then we realized that it wouldn’t let us out.”
“How did you hear of this place at all?” asked Shona.
“One of the other sirens told Melody about it.” Morvena drew in a sharp breath. “Zalia. I never knew how she found out we were looking for a hiding place. That’s another thing Melody has never shared. And I suppose I’ll never know if she knew what was going to happen. If she had anything to do with it. My own theory is that Zalia was a traitor from the start — and she was the one who somehow helped to lock us up here.”
Shona was staring wide-eyed at Morvena. “And you’ve been here ever since?”
“So long I only know it’s more years than I have wrinkles,” Morvena replied with an attempt at a laugh. “After we realized we were locked in, things began to change pretty rapidly. Then we all noticed our voices sounded harsher, and soon we discovered that we could no longer sing.”
“So you couldn’t get out?”
Morvena shook her head. “Like I said, I’ve never believed anyone’s singing could stop the waterfall.” She turned to Shona. “And your singing convinced me totally. If that wasn’t good enough to still the falls, no singing could be.”
Shona’s cheeks flushed deep red as Morvena went on. “We figured out that Melody was being punished for something. But none of us imagined it was anything that serious. We all thought our voices would return shortly and we would go home.”
“But they didn’t return,” Shona said.
Morvena shook her head. “One day, early on, the others were starting to panic. Wailing and screaming every day — it was awful. That was when Melody told us a siren song would get us out, and that we just had to stay calm and be patient and wait for our voices to return. It worked — in as much as it calmed the panic.”
“And then what happened?” I asked.
Morvena looked at me. “The waiting began,” she said. “Over the long years of waiting, the others have held on to this idea more and more firmly. It is as though this is their faith; this is all they believe in; this is their impossible salvation.”
“But you don’t believe it?” I asked.
“No. One day, I was going over to see Melody in her room. From outside, I could see that she was crying, and I knew she wouldn’t want me to see that. So I waited. But instead of turning away, I watched her. She had something in her hands. Something I’d never seen before.”
“What was it?” I asked.
“A shell. A conch. White, with gold and silver flecks running in spirals all around it.”
“Swishy!” Shona breathed.
“She was holding it in front of her, talking to it. At one point, she even kissed it! At first, I wondered if our imprisonment was making her crazy. But I swam closer. Staying hidden, I listened to her talking to the shell.”
“What was she saying?” I asked.
“She was begging it,” Morvena said. “It almost broke my heart to hear her. Begging it to help. Pleading with it.”
“What do you mean?” Aaron asked. “Pleading with a shell? What was she saying?”
“The same thing, over and over and over. ‘Please, please, get us out of here. Release the magic and help me find you.’ I’ve heard her do the same on many occasions since then. In fact, I believe she has done the same thing every single day and night since we’ve been here.”
“Does she know you’ve watched her?” Shona blurted out, clearly as shocked at the idea of spying on your best friend as she was at the idea of keeping secrets from her.
Morvena shook her head, and her long silver hair flickered behind her. “I know her well enough to know she would be devastated to think I’d seen her in such distress.” She smiled wryly. “I have my secrets from her, too. To protect her.”
This best friend thing was starting to seem more complicated than ever. “So she’s protecting you from being upset by not crying in front of you, and you’re protecting her from being upset by not telling her you’ve seen her crying?”
Morvena let out a soft laugh. “That’s about the long and short of it, yes.”
Aaron’s tail flashed as he flicked it sharply. He was getting impatient. “Where do we fit into all this?” he asked. “You said you’d tell us your story if we promised to help you. What do you want us to do?”
Morvena met his eyes with a firm stare. “All I know is, you can work some kind of magic. You can get out through the waterfall! No one has ever managed that before — not even the sea life that is down here with us. It gets in. But, like us, it doesn’t get out.”
“But it was only the two of us who could get out,” I said. “Just me and Aaron. We couldn’t get Shona through with us.”
“I know. I saw that, too.”
“Then I don’t see how we can help.”
“Listen. Here are the facts. You have powers. You can do things that none of us can do. Agreed?”
I looked at Aaron. “Agreed,” he said.
“And from what I’ve observed in here, I am now convinced of one thing. Melody’s shell is the key out of here. Whatever it is that Melody lost, whatever it is that she has begged the shell to help her find, I’m positive it is our only hope. Even though she has let us believe the way out of here was through singing, I’m sure this was always a diversion to keep the others calm, and to stop us from questioning her too much and finding out the truth that she’s fought so hard to keep secret. Even I have never gotten close to knowing this secret. All I do know is that the only thing she has put any faith in to get us out of here is the shell.”
“OK, I’ll go along with that, too,” I said. “But I still don’t see how —”
“Wait,” Morvena said. “Don’t go anywhere.” Then she swam to the opening and out through the seaweed curtain. She must have been gone for at least five minutes. When she came back, she was holding something.
She opened her hand out to reveal a glistening, beautiful, pearly shell. “She goes to it every morning and every night without fail, but never in between,” she said. “She won’t miss it now until this evening.”
“You’ve stolen it from her!” Shona exclaimed. Her idea of what it is to be a best friend was taking a hammering.
“I’ve borrowed it, to help us all,” Morvena insisted. “Melody will get it back before she knows it’s gone. Whatever magic the shell holds, maybe your magic can bring it out — especially if you take it away from here. The shell will never get the chance to share its secret bound and trapped down here with us.”
“What if you’re wrong about all this?” I asked.
“If I’m wrong, as long as it’s back in her room by tonight, we haven’t lost anything. If I’m right and you can reveal the shell’s secret, you could save us all.” She looked at Shona, and then back at me. “Including your best friend,” she added.
I turned to Aaron. “What do you think? Should we?”
Aaron shrugged. “Like Morvena says, what is there to lose?”
“OK,” I said, reaching out to take the shell from Morvena. “We’ll do it.”
Aaron and I swam up the well. Looking down, I could see Shona and Morvena staring up at us. “Look after her!” I called down. “Don’t let them hurt her!”
“I promise!” Morvena called back up to me. She reached out to pull Shona toward her and held a protective arm around her.
“I think we can trust her,” Aaron said to me. “After everything she’s told us today, she’s got as much to lose as any of us.”
“I guess so,” I said, tightening my grip on his hand. Holding the shell carefully in my other hand, I gave a sharp flick with my tail.
Moments later, we were through the opening at the top and swimming away from the sirens, away from the caves, away from Shona — taking two things away with us: the shell, and the question I had no idea how to answer.
How would we ever make it release its magic and get Shona out of that place?
I didn’t want to go home. I didn’t really want to set foot in Brightport at all. I’d almost forgotten about the newspaper and everything that had happened before I found the sirens’ caves. It seemed like years ago! But now that we were in town again, it came flooding back.
“I don’t want to see anyone,” I said as we crept out of the sea onto the beach and shook our clothes dry.
“Just stop by your house and let your mom know you’re safe,” Aaron said. “Then come back to my house. We’ll do it there.”
I agreed reluctantly and headed home. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see Mom. I just didn’t want to go up to the pier and along the jetty and all the places between here and home where I could run into someone trying to catch a mermaid who might recognize my face from their newspaper.
“Hurry,” Aaron called. “We haven’t got long.”
Aaron was right. I had to get home as quickly as possible — preferably avoiding any eye contact with anyone along the way — tell Mom everything was fine, put on a big false smile, and hotfoot it back to Aaron’s.
“I’ll be there in five minutes,” I called over my shoulder. And then I ran home.
Mom was sitting on the front deck with Millie and Aaron’s mom. I could see them from the end of the jetty. I was glad to see Aaron’s mom here. At least that meant their cottage would be empty.
“Hi!” I said, all smiles. Mom looked up at me and smiled back so innocently that I could almost believe that the whole morning had been a figment of my imagination.
“Emily darling!” she said, waving me over. “I thought you were going to be at Shona’s all day.”
“Did you?” I asked nervously. “Why did you think that?”
“Mandy came over and passed on your message. It’s nice that you’re friends again, isn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, of course.” I’d forgotten about asking Mandy to cover for me. Had that only been this morning? It felt like a lifetime ago.
“Come and sit down, sweet pea,” she said.
Millie drained her cup. “Just pop in and put the kettle on first,” she said. “I could kill for another cup of Earl Grey.”
I went inside and turned the stove on in a daze. While I was waiting for it to boil, I grabbed some bread and made a sandwich. The morning’s swim had been exhausting and I realized I was starving! How could they be sitting here so calm and casual when people were hunting down mermaids for cash prizes? Or while Shona was trapped in an underground cave with the meanest sirens in the world? It all felt unreal.
“I just wanted to let you know I’m over at Aaron’s if you need me,” I said when I came back out.
“Oh, chicken, aren’t you going to join us for some lunch?” Mom asked, squinting up at me.
“I just had some. See you later, OK?” I tried to sound as though everything was normal. I wasn’t going to start getting into it all with Mom — not after everything else that had been going on with her parents. I turned away before I could see any disappointment in her eyes.
I sauntered casually down the jetty, my cheekbones aching from the false smile and my limbs feeling like a marionette’s, all loose and floppy as I tried to imitate the way I might walk on any other normal Sunday afternoon when I was off with my friends.
“Be careful!” Mom called to my back. In reply, I turned and gave her a quick wave. A moment later, I was on the pier and out of sight. I dropped the smile, broke into a run, and hurried over to Aaron’s.
“I don’t get it. It’s just a shell,” Aaron said. He was holding it in his hands, turning it around and around for the hundredth time. “It doesn’t do anything!”
He shook the shell. He lifted it to his ear. “I mean, it does that thing that all conches like this do. It sounds like waves when you listen to it.” He put the shell down on the table in front of us. “But that’s it. Nothing else. I think Morvena’s wrong. I don’t think it’s got anything magical about it at all.”
I stared at the shell. “Why would Melody talk to it, though? Why would she hold it and cry over it every morning? We must be missing something.”
“OK, maybe we are — but I’ve got no idea how we’re going to figure out what it is.”
I reached out to pick up the shell — and so did Aaron. As our hands touched, I got that tingly feeling in my fingers. I snatched my hand away, embarrassed in case he could tell how it made me feel when he touched my hand, in case it wasn’t the same for him.
“That’s it!” he said. “Of course! How could we be so stupid?”
“What is it?”
Aaron lowered his eyes and shuffled awkwardly. “Look, you know when I — when we — you know, kind of touch hands . . .” His voice trailed away.
“Uh-huh,” I said, trying to keep my voice casual. Touch hands? Did we? Oh — maybe, yeah. I hadn’t really noticed.
“Well, d’you ever get, like, a kind of tingly feeling?”
“You get it too?” I asked.
Aaron grinned. “Course I do!”
I smiled back at him. That mea
nt he felt the same way I did. Maybe he was my boyfriend!
“Just — well, you know there’s all the stuff about the power that we have,” he went on. “You know, the thing about Neptune.”
Oh. OK, so maybe it wasn’t about him being so crazy about me that his skin danced in happy leaps because I was close. It was just about overturning a curse.
“Mm, yeah, that’s what I was thinking too,” I lied.
Aaron laughed. “As well as anything else,” he said. He’d gone and read my mind again. And this time, his face had turned as pink as mine felt. He did feel the same way! I couldn’t suppress a happy smile.
“Just now, when we touched hands, and we were both touching the shell too, did you feel it then?”
I considered lying. If I said I’d felt it, what if he laughed in my face and said that he hadn’t? It could be a trick to get me to confess to my feelings for him so he could tell me he didn’t feel the same way.
Then I thought about it a bit more. This was Aaron I was talking about. He wasn’t like that. He would never do something like that.
“Yes,” I confessed. “Actually, I felt it really strongly.”
“Me too,” he said. Then he lifted the shell and held it between us. “Link my fingers,” he said. “If we hold hands and hold the shell between us, maybe something will happen. Perhaps the shell’s magic has something to do with Neptune — and if so, maybe we can undo it!”
I took his hand. As soon as we touched, I felt the tingle again. First in my fingertips, then it traveled up my arm. Soon it felt as though it was spreading through my whole body.
“Look!” Aaron said. The shell had started to vibrate in our hands. I tightened my grip on his fingers so we didn’t drop it.