Emily Windsnap and the Monster From the Deep (10 page)

She flung her black cape over her shoulder
and stepped toward a barrier at the edge of the pool.

“Your Majesty,” she said firmly. “I’m not one to interfere, but I may be able to help you.”

Neptune almost smiled. He looked as though he was smiling, anyway. It might just as easily have been anger twisting his face into a contorted frown. He pulled on his beard. “
Help
me?” he repeated.

“I can see things,” Millie explained. “I don’t like to boast, but I
have
been told I have something of a gift. I just need your star sign.”

“My STAR SIGN?” Neptune yelled.

“Yes, you know, your horoscope, your —”

“I know what you mean! It’s PISCES, of course!”

“Thank you,” Millie said through tight lips. “That anger won’t do your karma any good at all,” she added in a stage whisper. Then she closed her eyes and folded her hands over her chest. “I believe I can tell you exactly what has happened,” she said. “I just need some quiet.”

Neptune looked as though he was about to burst, but he didn’t speak. Nor did anyone else. Could she really see what had happened? Millie’s cosmic ways didn’t often come to much, but she did have an accurate moment now and then. What if this was one of them?

“I see riches of some sort,” Millie murmured. “What is it? Gold? Let me focus.”

Gold! She was describing the cave! No! Trust Millie to have one of her flukes and get it right when I desperately needed her to come out with her usual wacky nonsense. I’d heard enough. I had to get out before she told them everything. Maybe her vision had me in it!

I glanced up and tried to catch Mom’s eye. She was watching Millie with a look of admiration on her face. How would she look at me when she found out what I’d done? I couldn’t bear to imagine it.

I edged quietly away from Dad toward the darkness at the back of the pool. I could hear Millie’s voice warbling across the water. She sounded as if she was humming. Everyone was watching her. This was my only chance.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered into the darkness, and slipped quietly away.

I swam frantically through the dark tunnels, not even thinking about where they were leading me. I pounded past underwater stalagmites faintly lit up with soft, glowing crystals, around twists and turns
and crevasses, almost gasping for the sight of the sky. I had to get out of the caves. Had to think.

Eventually, I came out into the open water. The light shocked me. Two little blueheads hovered at the cave’s mouth, pecking at the rock as though giving it little kisses.

A noise behind me. Splashing. Someone was following me!

I dived down into a thin cave under the rocks, stumbling upon a group of fat hogfish who looked up at me with black eyes before scattering away to find another den.

I watched the cave’s entrance. It was Dad!

I swam out from under the rock. “What are you doing here?”

“Emily!” He swam over toward me. “Why have you run away?”

I retreated farther under the rocks. “I’ve let you down. You, Mom, everyone. We’ll get thrown off the island and it’s all my fault. I’m so sorry.”

Dad squeezed into the crevasse with me, scattering clouds of sand as he slithered along the rock. “No one’s going to throw you off the island, little ’un. Why would they do that?”

“You don’t know!” I wailed. “You don’t know what I’ve done.” A tear snaked down my cheek, mingling with the water. All this time! All those years without him, and now that I’d found him,
I’d done something so stupid, so awful, he’d hate me forever. I’d ruined everything.

“What? What have you done?”

I bit hard on my lip, squeezing my eyes shut.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me. We’ll figure out what to do together.”

My face was wet with tears. “It was me!” I blurted out. “
I
woke the kraken!”

“You
what
? But how —”

“I went exploring! I knew I shouldn’t have, but I did. It was in a cave. I’m so stupid! I found it. I woke it up, Dad. I’ve ruined everything. I’ll never be able to show my face on the island again. You’ve only just got out of prison and now — oh, Dad, I’m sorry.”

Dad stroked my face. “Look. I don’t quite understand, but it’ll be okay. We’ll fix this. I’ll look after you.”

I pushed his hand away. “Dad, it
won’t
be okay. Don’t lie to me. I’m not a
baby
!”

He stared at me, his face red as though I’d hit him. As I held his gaze, he nodded slowly, as though he was watching me grow up in front of his eyes, catching up with who I really was, instead of who he remembered me being. “You’re right,” he said eventually. “Of course you’re not.” He turned to swim away.

“Wait.” I grabbed his arm. “I’m sorry.”

“You know what you are?” he asked, his voice as tight as his mouth.

I shook my head, holding back fresh tears.

“You’re my daughter, that’s what you are. You’re a Windsnap. And you know what that means?” Before I had a chance to answer, he added, “It means we’re going to straighten this out.”

“I’m not going back to the meeting. I can’t. Please.”

“Who said anything about going back there?”

“What, then?”

Dad stopped swimming and searched my face. “We’re going to the cave. Show me where it happened.”

“The
kraken’s
cave?”

“Why not? You heard what Neptune said. It’s probably still in there. Maybe we can straighten this mess out, somehow. Seal it back up so it’s safe again or something.”

“Dad, it was really frightening. It was the most terrifying thing ever!”

“Worse than going back to face Neptune? You stood up to him in his own court, remember.”

I dropped my head. “I know. That was pretty frightening, too.”

“Exactly. And you did that, so you can handle this as well.”

“I suppose.”

“Come on.” He held out his hand. “Let’s see what we can do.”

Letting out a breath it felt as if I’d been holding in for a week, I took his hand and we swam on.

“It’s that way,” I said as we came to the lagoon. It looked different. The water was murky and muddier than I remembered. Sand-colored flatfish skimmed over the seabed, moving beneath us like shifting ground.

My throat closed up. We’d reached the carving on the wall. The trident. How on earth could we have missed it last time? Maybe if we’d seen it, none of this would have happened.

It was pointless thinking like that.

We came to the pinwheel, except this time when I looked at it, I realized I knew exactly what it was. The long shoots spiraling out from the round body in the center . . .

“That’s it,” I said, my voice rippling like a breaking wave. “I don’t want to go any farther.”

He stopped swimming. “We need to do this, little ’un — I mean, Emily.”

“Dad, you know, it’s okay if you want to call me —”

“No.” He put a finger over my lips. In charge. Strong. “You’re not a baby. You’re a scale off the old tail, and I couldn’t be more proud of you. And we’re going to get to the bottom of this, find out what we can, right?”

“But it’s out of bounds. This was how the whole trouble started.”

“And this is how it’ll end, too,” he said. “You don’t think we found ourselves at this place by the pair of us doing what we were told, do you?”

I didn’t say anything.

He reached out for my hand. “Come on. I’ll go ahead, but you need to tell me where I’m going. I’ll look after you.”

Eventually, I took his hand and we swam in silence.

Everything looked familiar, until we came to an enormous gash in the rock. Maybe the size of a house.

“In there.” I held out a shaky arm. “Except it was a tiny hole last time!”

Dad swallowed. “Okay, then. You ready?”

“I’ll never be ready to go back in there.” A solitary fish flashed past me: soft green on one side, bright blue on the other, its see-through fins stretched back as it swam away from the cave. Sensible fish.

“Come on. You’ll be okay. I’m right beside you.” He squeezed my hand and we edged inside, slipping back through the rock.

But it was completely different. So different that I started to wonder if we were in the wrong place. There were no thin winding channels, just huge gaping chasms all the way. We swam through them all.

And then we came to the gold. We
were
in the right place. Jewels and crystals lay scattered across the seabed. As we swam lower, the surroundings felt less familiar. Colder. And there was something else. Something very different. The deeper we got, the more we saw of them.

Bones.

Just a few at first, that could perhaps have passed for driftwood. Then more: clumps of them, piled up like the remains of a huge banquet. Long thin bones, twisty fat ones — and then a skull, lying on the sea floor. A dark fish slipped through an eye socket. I clapped a hand across my mouth.

“Dad!” I gripped his hand so hard I felt his knuckles crack.

“Don’t look at them,” he said, his voice wobbling. “Just stay close to me.”

We swam into every bit of the cave. Every inch.

“What do you see?” Dad asked as we paused in the center of the biggest chasm.

I looked around. “Nothing.”

“Exactly.” He turned to face me, suddenly not in charge anymore. Not strong. Just scared. “It’s gone, Emily. The kraken — it’s on the loose.”

How long have we been here? A couple of days? Who knows? All I know is we’re stranded on a deserted scrap of an island, the boat’s broken, and I’m hungry.

And scared.

Nuts! How long can a person live on nuts? And water from an iffy-looking stream. Dad figures he’ll catch us some fish. And he thinks we could fix the boat if we all “shaped up a little.” He’s acting as if he’s on some kind of Boy Scout trip, as if this is all part of the adventure. I know he’s putting it on, though. It’s too manic. I can see the truth in his eyes. He’s just as scared as I am.

Mom’s hardly spoken. It’s best that way. If we talked more, we might end up talking about what happened. About how we could have died. About the . . .

Anyway.

It’s hardly even an island. I can vaguely see something that might be a real island, out at sea.
Far too far to swim. Just our luck to get stranded on this tiny speck of land instead. Two hundred paces from one side to the other. I counted yesterday. Or the day before, I don’t remember. Some time when I was collecting twigs so that Dad could build us a so-called shelter. Not that I’m likely to get any sleep. It lends itself to a touch of insomnia, getting stranded on an island the size of a pair of underpants, with nothing to eat, no way of getting home, and no one to talk to except your parents.