Emily Windsnap and the Castle in the Mist (21 page)

“You mean she’s better? We’re no longer cursed?” Aaron burst out.

Smiling, Neptune replied, “I will no longer allow curses. They are forbidden — by law!”

Aaron punched the air. Then he turned and smiled the widest smile at me.

Neptune turned back to my parents. “I am a firm ruler,” he said, “and I always will be. No one can ever try to deny this.” Mom and Dad both nodded, waiting for him to continue.

“But,” Neptune went on, beckoning me to come to him, “this daughter of yours has brought something back to me that I lost many hundreds of years ago.” He fell silent.

“The rings?” I asked, hoping to prompt him,
even though I should have known better than to interrupt Neptune.

“No,” he said gently, “not the rings. You and your family may never fully understand what you have given me, but, let me tell you, it is the most valuable thing. In return, I give it back to you.” Then he reached out to Mom and Dad — and handed them the rings. The diamond one to Dad, the pearl to Mom.

Silently receiving the rings, Mom and Dad gazed at each other, at me, at Neptune.

“You represent what I have lost, and you will represent its revival too.” He spread his arms upward to the sky. “It is the spring equinox,” he said, “the day of my wedding anniversary, the day of new beginnings. Merfolk and humans will from now on live in peace together. I order it!”

I gasped and looked at Shona.
Really? Did he really say that?

“Not just on one small island. It’s time for the whole world to start again. We will start a new world. A new world that is not a new world at all. The world that was there all along, to anyone who was not too blind to see it.”

Then he turned back to us and frowned. “But you must make me a promise,” he said sternly. I
knew
there’d be a catch. I knew it couldn’t be that simple. Nothing in my life ever was.

“You must swear to me that these rings will never again be parted.”

Dad grinned so widely that his smile almost broke his face in two. Grabbing Mom around the waist and pulling me toward him with his other arm, he replied, “Your Majesty, that is the easiest of promises to keep.”

Neptune smiled. “Very well. I have said all I need to say.” Holding his trident in the air, he waved it in the direction of
Fortuna.
A group of dolphins broke away and swam off toward it. “Your boat will be fixed by morning,” Neptune said. “Now go. Travel the world. See new sights. Pass the message on to all you meet.”

“We will,” Mom breathed. “We won’t let you down, Your Majesty. How can we ever thank you?”

Neptune waved her words away with his hand. “Just respect the rings and what they represent. I am giving you a great responsibility. You must show me you are ready for this. I shall be watching you.”

With that, Neptune snapped his fingers and held his trident aloft. Motioning for Mr. Beeston to join him, he sat back down in his chariot.

“Look, I never meant you any harm,” Mr. Beeston mumbled as he passed. Blushing and stammering, he added, “I didn’t mean to — you know. I mean, it was just duty, you understand. Loyalty. I mean, Neptune. He’s the king. We’re still friends, aren’t we?”

“Friends?” Mom spluttered. “When have we ever been real friends?”

Dad touched her gently on the arm. “Penny,” he said, “it’s a new world. We have to set an example.”

Penny.
He called her Penny! Things really were back to normal. Better than normal!

“Just like that?” asked Mom. “After everything?”

Dad nodded. “Look at all we have to be grateful for. Let’s start again.”

Mom turned to Mr. Beeston.

“Very well.” Mom sighed. “We’ll try. As long as you remember that you have to be loyal to us too now.”

“I will,” Mr. Beeston simpered. “I will. Thank you. Thank you.” Then he gave me one last lopsided smile. “No hard feelings, eh?” he said, reaching out to ruffle my hair.

I stiffened, dodging his hand. “Mm,” I said. I wasn’t ready to forgive and forget yet.

“Emily,” Dad said firmly.

“OK. Whatever.”

And then the strangest thing happened. We looked at each other, me and Mr. Beeston. And for the first time in my life, I felt that we really saw each other — saw, heard, and understood each other. I saw someone like me. Desperate to fit in, to please, to belong. That was all he wanted underneath his creepy, sneaky ways. And when he smiled at me, I didn’t recoil and squirm and think about his
crooked teeth and his odd eyes. I found myself smiling back. “Yeah,” I said. “No hard feelings.”

“That’s a good girl,” he said.

“Beeston!” Neptune called again, and Mr. Beeston swam off to join him in his chariot. As the dolphins pulled them along, the moonlight lit a trail ahead of them.

In the silence of the night, I could hear Neptune’s voice as they sailed away. “I forgive you,” he called to the sky. “I forgive you, Aurora.”

As his words echoed through the night, Dad pointed up into the sky. “Look at that,” he said. I wouldn’t have thought it possible if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. The moonlight sparkled on the sea and lit up the raindrops that kept falling. In the distance, the castle stood dark and solid. But the mist had completely cleared. In its place, framing it with a perfect arc, every color bright and clear, was a rainbow.

“Just go through it once more,” Millie said, blinking around at us all on the front deck. Aaron’s mom was sitting on the front benches with her and Mom. She looked just like Aaron, thin and pale, with jet-black hair. She hadn’t said much since
she’d joined us, but she’d smiled a lot — a great wide smile that infected everyone around her, just like Aaron’s now.

Dad leaned over a rail along the side of the boat. Aaron was in the water with me and Shona.

The sky was pale blue, wispy clouds floating lazily across it, each one tinged with pink edges. Millie had only just woken up. None of the rest of us had been asleep at all. How could we have slept on a night like this?

Mom laughed as she handed Millie a cup of tea. “We’ve told you the story three times now!”

“Yes, but I still don’t believe it!” Millie replied, closing her eyes in ecstasy as she sipped her tea.

“Nor do we,” Dad said, smiling at Mom as he reached for her hand. The rings shone on their fingers. “But it’s true.”

Millie took another gulp from her cup.

“We can go anywhere we like,” Mom said. “We don’t need to hide what we are.” Then she glanced at Shona. “Of course, we’ll go back to Allpoints Island first. These last few days I’ve realized how much everyone there cares about us.” She smiled at me. “And I’ve realized a lot about what really matters to me. We may even stay there for good if we want to.”

“Swishy!” Shona and I shouted in unison.

“Can we go too, Mother?” Aaron asked.

“I don’t see why not,” his mom replied with a laugh.

“Of course you’re coming too,” Mom said, linking her arm. “We’re not letting you go that easily.”

“And if we ever get bored with Allpoints Island, we’ll move somewhere else. Anywhere we like,” Dad said, his eyes shining with excitement.

“And if we don’t, we’ll just take lots of vacations.” Mom smiled.

“We’ll visit every country, every land, every sea,” Dad went on. “We’ll show the whole world they can get along in harmony like us!”

“We will, darling,” Mom said, smiling back at him. “And maybe we’ll even bring a tutor along with us so Emily doesn’t miss out on school.”

“Perfect!” Dad said. “She’ll come back from her travels and still get top grades in Shipwrecks and Sand Dunes.”

Mom’s face tightened. “I was thinking more of math and spelling, Jake.”

“I’ll get her a new hairbrush, a whole set of hairbrushes, and an ocean chart so she can recognize all the fish in the sea.”

“Or a ruler and a dictionary,” Mom insisted.

“Oh, you two.” Millie sighed. “You’re not at it again, are you?”

Mom and Dad looked at each other and burst out laughing. “OK,” Dad said. “Maybe changing the world is a bit ambitious just now.”

“We’ll start small,” Mom said, reaching for his hand.

Dad kissed her palm. “Lead by example,” he said. “No arguing.”

“Never,” Mom agreed.

“Come on,” I said, “let’s get going. Shona needs to get back to her parents!”

We’d hooked
Fortuna
up to some ropes so we could tow it back. I don’t know what Neptune had done, but the lower deck was dry and sealed up so it floated like a normal boat. “We’ll put it back to normal when we get home.” Dad smiled.

With a bit of help from Aaron’s maps, we’d set a course back to Allpoints Island. Dad reckoned it would take only a few days if we took turns pulling. He had left it to the three of us for now while he hitched onto the side of the boat near Mom.

Shona and Aaron and I pulled on the ropes as we set off, flipping our tails to make rainbows with the water, ducking under to see the rubbery round yellow fish with big black eyes bouncing on the seabed, racing and chasing each other.

As we passed the castle, we fell silent. Without the mist, it looked almost naked. Lonely, even. “We’ll come back,” Aaron’s mother called down. “Even if it’s just for a visit.”

Aaron smiled up at her, then splashed me and grinned. He pulled his rope taut. “Race you to the next wave!” he said.

Shona dived down to follow him. But I stayed close to the boat for a while. The sky was growing
lighter and lighter. Up behind me I could hear Mom and Dad talking.

“I’ve got nothing against rulers,” Dad was saying. “But protractors? I mean, come on, does she really need one of those?”

“I tell you what,” Mom replied. “I’ll let you have the scale polish if you give me the algebra set.”

“The scale polish and a kiss,” Dad said.

“Done.”

They were quiet for a while after that.

I smiled to myself as we swam on. What lay ahead for us? Where would we go? What would the future hold?

I couldn’t answer the questions spinning around in my head any more than I could stop Mom and Dad from bickering about my schooling, or Shona from worrying about her hair, or Millie from trying to tell fortunes with coat hangers.

It didn’t matter. What mattered was what I could see around me: my best friend racing our new friend along the waves; Mom and Dad smiling at each other and joking and kissing; Millie spreading the tarot cards out on the deck for Aaron’s mom.

And beyond that? Well, beyond that lay a brand-new day.