Rani’s Sea Spell (5 page)

Rani turned to her mother and noticed something.

“Where’s Roscoe?” she asked.

Roscoe was no longer attached to Miriam’s hair – he had definitely been there the last time she’d looked – and he wasn’t swimming along beside them either. In fact,
he was nowhere in sight.

Everybody stopped swimming and started to call out Roscoe’s name.

“He must have got lost,” Murdoch said, frowning. “Come on. We’d better go back and look for him.”

“I just hope he hasn’t got himself eaten,” Octavius said. “There was an extremely large fish back there. Did you see it?”

“Octavius,
please
,” Miriam said.

“Sorry, sorry,” muttered Octavius. “Of course, sea-horses are very difficult to digest. That fish will probably just spit him straight out again if it’s got any sense. Of
course, fish
don’t
have a lot of sense—”

“Octavius,
be quiet
!” Murdoch hissed. “I think I can hear something.”

When the others listened they could hear the noise too. It sounded like someone shouting from a long way away.

“Come on,” said Murdoch. “Stay close to me.”

They swam off in the direction of the sound. As they got nearer they could tell that it was definitely Roscoe.

“HELP!” Roscoe was shouting. “GET ME OUT OF HERE!”

“I hope he’s not shouting from inside that fish’s stomach,” Octavius said gloomily.

“OCTAVIUS
!” Miriam and Murdoch snapped at him together.

They swam on a little further and then they saw him.

“Oh no!” gasped Rani. The little seahorse was stuck in the middle of a gigantic silver web.

“Keep back, all of you!” Murdoch called out, sharply. “That’s a Giant Sea-Spider’s web. That silver stuff is spider glue. If you touch it, you’ll get stuck
too.”

“Father, what are we going to do?” Rani asked, starting to panic. Giant Sea-Spiders caught other creatures in their webs in order to eat them. Everyone knew that. And any spider with
a web as big as this one had to have a very large appetite indeed.

“Find some rocks to throw at the web and we’ll try to break it that way,” Rani’s father said. But he sounded very worried.

As the others began to collect rocks, Rani hovered beside the web. If only she hadn’t used up the sea-spell. Surely there was
something
she could do. After all, she knew how to do a
mending spell, didn’t she? Surely a
breaking
spell couldn’t be that different?

She closed her eyes and concentrated, holding out her hands so that they were just above the edge of the web. She focused as hard as she could on conjuring up a picture in her mind of the web
breaking. Her belly button started to tingle and the tingling quickly spread up over the rest of her body and down her arms. Her fingertips felt hot. She opened her eyes and saw that golden sparks
were jumping from her fingers to the web.

“Look at Rani!” Kai shouted.

For an instant the whole web sparkled. Then there was a sudden burst of golden light, the web broke with a
ping
and Roscoe was hurled straight into Rani’s arms.

“It’s OK, Roscoe. You’re safe now,” Rani cried, hugging the trembling seahorse.

The others were amazed. They knew that Rani was learning to do magic but none of them had ever seen her use it on her own before.

“You’re just like Morva!” Kai stammered, looking at her sister in awe.

“Not quite,” Rani laughed, pulling sticky bits of web out of her hair. “But I hope I will be, one day.”

Just then, a large sea-snake slithered over Rani’s tail, followed by several babies. “Don’t worry,” the mother snake hissed. “We’re not poisonous. But
she
is!” She flicked out her tongue to point at the huge, hairy, eight-legged creature crawling along the sea-bed towards them. “I’d get out of here if I was
you!”

“SWIM!” commanded Murdoch, grabbing Kai and Rani and using his large, powerful tail to propel them at top speed through the water.

“Come back,” shouted the sea-spider. “I won’t eat you! I only put that web up because it looks pretty!”

“Do you think that’s true?” Rani gasped, as they kept swimming.

“Somehow,” Murdoch said, slowing down as they reached a safe distance away, “I didn’t feel like taking her word for it.”

“I have always thought that there is something quite
unnatural
about a creature with hairy legs,” Octavius shuddered, waving his arms about in disgust.

“Come on,” laughed Murdoch. “Let’s go home.”

   Chapter Seven   

Morva was trying to sing Pearl to sleep when they got home. She had tied some shells to some seaweed ribbons and made a beautiful shell-mobile which was dangling from the
ceiling above Pearl’s cradle. Pearl shrieked with excitement when she saw her parents and sisters again, and stretched out her chubby arms to be picked up by Miriam.

After everyone had hugged each other, Rani took Morva to one side.

“Morva, I’ve got so much to tell you!” Rani began excitedly, but she stopped when she saw the look on her friend’s face.

“Where did you get that?” Morva was staring at the amber pendant around Rani’s neck as if she had just seen a ghost.

“My grandmother gave it to me. It was in her treasure chest. She gave a necklace to Kai too. Look.” She pointed to her sister who was swinging Pearl round and round, making her
giggle. But Morva kept her eyes fixed on Rani.

“Rani, that is no ordinary stone—” Morva started to explain but, at that moment, Rani’s mother called over to them.

“Morva, thank you so much for looking after Pearl. Would you like to stay and have supper with us?”

Morva shook her head, still looking dazed. “I must be getting back to my lobsters and my starfish. The poor things will be wondering where I am.”

“But, Morva . . .” Rani began. “Tell me what’s
wrong
.”

“There’s nothing
wrong
, Rani,” Morva said, as she swam towards the door. “You’ve just given me a bit of a shock, that’s all. Come and see me tomorrow.
I’ll explain everything then!”

As soon as she woke up the following morning, Rani set off for Morva’s cave. Her mother made her have some breakfast first, but she was too nervous to eat more than a few
mouthfuls.

Why had Morva looked so shocked yesterday when she saw the pendant? And what did she mean about it being no ordinary stone?

When she arrived at the floating cave, Morva was cooking breakfast on her hot-rock stove. “So, Rani . . .” Morva turned and smiled at her. “You have found your message-stone.
Or it has found you! It gave me quite a start yesterday, to see you with it.” She swam over and touched Rani’s amber pendant.

“
Message-stone
?” Rani frowned. She had never heard of such a thing.

Morva motioned for Rani to take off the necklace. As she took it from her, she said, “Look how it stops glowing when it leaves your skin. It is yours for certain!”

“Morva, what
is
a message-stone?” Rani demanded, getting impatient.

“A message-stone . . .” Morva explained slowly, “is a special stone that magic mermaids wear when they are separated from their families. That way they can always be sure that
their loved ones are safe.”

“I don’t understand,” Rani said. “How can a stone tell you that? And anyway, my family
is
safe. I’ve only just left them.”

“I’m not talking about your family
here
,” said Morva. “I mean your true family – the family you were separated from as a baby. If this is
your
message-stone . . . if you open it . . . you will see your true family inside.”

“But how—” Rani gasped.

“A message-stone will always open for its true owner,” Morva said, as she dropped it back into Rani’s hand. “You must blow on it.”

Rani lifted the amber stone up so that it was level with her face. She filled out her cheeks with air and blew.

“That’s it,” Morva said.

As they watched, the stone seemed to be glowing even brighter in Rani’s hand. Gradually, its surface changed. Instead of being hard, it was becoming soft, like jelly.

“Look inside now,” Morva urged her gently. “Go on. Don’t be frightened.”

Slowly, Rani lifted the stone up again and looked inside. It was like looking in through a window. Inside, she could see a merman, a mermaid and two babies. They all had red hair. The mermaid
was young and beautiful and looked a bit like Rani. The merman was broad-shouldered and handsome.

“Is this . . . Are they . . .?” Rani stammered, unable to say any more.

“This must be your family at the time you were separated from them,” Morva whispered.

“But . . . but there are
two
babies!” Rani said hoarsely.

“I know. Watch carefully and see what happens next.”

As she watched, Rani saw the two babies slowly changing before her eyes. “That’s
me
,” Rani gasped, as one of the babies grew into a little girl. At the same time, the
other baby changed into a little boy with short red hair and twinkling goldy-brown eyes like Rani’s.

“You must have a twin brother,” Morva said.

Only the man and the woman didn’t change. As Rani watched, they slowly faded away until they had completely disappeared.

“Where have they gone? What does it mean?” Rani cried out.