Emily Windsnap and the Siren's Secret (24 page)

“I know Zalia,” Morvena said sharply. “She never does anything to protect anyone.”

“She brought me up,” Mr. Beeston said. “I like to think she cared at least a tiny bit.”

“Maybe she did,” Morvena said. “But let’s not forget it was her fault you were orphaned in the first place.”

Melody raised her head and held it high. “He was not orphaned,” she said firmly. “My son was not orphaned.”

There wasn’t much any of us could say after that, and we fell silent, each lost in our own jumble of thoughts and questions.

Shona was the first to break the silence. “So what did you find?” she said, turning to me and Aaron. “Did the shell give you a way out of here?”

Of course — we’d forgotten all about that. Her question made me realize something else, too. “You followed us in here, didn’t you?” I said to Mr. Beeston.

“I had no choice. I wasn’t spying on you. I’d seen the shell. I knew what it was. Zalia told me all about it. It seems her guilty conscience demanded a thorough unburdening. So I knew the shell would lead to something — although I have to confess I didn’t think I would actually find my real mother! That was far too much to hope for, or so I thought.”

“But the waterfall — you came down it?” I said impatiently.

“Yes — what of it?”

I sighed. “I hope you haven’t got any plans in the near future.”

“Whatever do you mean? Explain, child.”

So we did. We told him about the waterfall, about how you could get in but not out; we even told him that Aaron and I could somehow get ourselves out of the waterfall but no one else.

“Well, there’s only one thing to do then,” Mr. Beeston said when we’d explained everything.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“You’ll have to go out the waterfall again. The two of you will have to perform one more task. You have a visit to make.”

“What do you mean?” asked Aaron. “Who do we have to visit?”

Mr. Beeston met Aaron’s dark eyes with his own and replied firmly, “Neptune.”

I woke early and lay looking up at the ceiling, trying to get my head around everything that had happened yesterday — and what we had to do today.

Mr. Beeston had told us where to find Neptune, and what we had to say to get the guards to let us see him. All we had to do now was get there and persuade Neptune to set them all free. I wished I was as optimistic about the task as Mr. Beeston was.

I got out of bed, threw my clothes on, and wrote Mom a note. Then I hurried over to Aaron’s. The pier and the beach were deserted. Luckily for me, not many people tend to go wandering around a seaside town at seven o’clock on a Monday morning. I still had that image from yesterday’s paper in my head — and I’d convinced myself there’d be others around who did, too.

Aaron was coming out of his cottage when I got there. “Ready?” he asked, closing the door softly behind him.

“To face Neptune?” I asked with a shudder. “I’ll never be ready for that!”

He laughed. “Come on, let’s go.”

We were waiting in some sort of grand holding room in an enormous underwater palace. It turned out that Mr. Beeston’s influence and instructions were as impressive as he’d said they were.

I recognized the style from the last time I’d been in one of Neptune’s palaces. He wasn’t exactly what you’d call subtle in his decorating taste. Marble pillars with fancy golden spirals circling their bases marked the corners of the room. The most enormous chandelier you could imagine hung from the domed ceiling, swaying ever so slightly in the gentle current.

A smartly dressed merman swam up to us. “Neptune will see you now,” he said solemnly. “Follow me.”

Aaron took my hand, and we followed the merman through winding corridors and twisting tunnels. Eventually, we came to a large door. It was made of glass, and the frame was encrusted with jewels. Through the door I could see a very tall throne — and a very serious-looking Neptune sitting on it.

Memories of my previous run-ins with Neptune flooded my mind. Facing his anger in his own courtroom, having a curse put on me when I accidentally found his ring, almost being squeezed to death by his pet sea monster. “I don’t know if I can do this,” I whispered to Aaron.

“You have to,” he whispered back. “Shona’s depending on us. They all are.”

Just the mention of Shona’s name was enough to remind me of what we had to do. “You’re right,” I said. Taking a deep breath, I added, “Let’s go talk to Neptune.”

We waited in silence, watching Neptune’s furrowed brow, his narrowed eyes, his tightly closed mouth. We’d told him everything. All we could do now was wait — and hope that he didn’t throw us out on our gills.

“And this is Beeston’s mother, you say?” Neptune trained his hard eyes on me.

I nodded. “Among others.”

“Yes, yes.”

“It was a long time ago, Your Majesty,” Aaron said carefully. “A time when your laws and your world were very different.”

Neptune glared at him. I took up from where Aaron had left off. “You’ve said yourself: it’s a new world now. In fact, you ordered us to
make
it a new world. This could be part of that.”

Neptune turned his cold stare on me. “And how do you presume to figure THAT one out?”

I gulped. “Well, I —” I began. And then my mind went blank. Being in front of Neptune in his own palace trying to ask him a favor while he’s staring at you booming out doubts against everything you say kind of has that effect on you. On me, anyway.

“It would send a message,” Aaron said.

Neptune swung back around to face him. “It WHAT?” he bellowed. I wished he could just talk like a normal person. Why did everything always have to be so, well,
loud
with him?

“You would be showing the mer world that Neptune really has let go of the old ways. That sirens luring fishermen to their deaths is a thing of the past. The message would be huge, especially with what’s happening now at Shiprock.”

Neptune wrinkled his forehead sternly. “What IS happening in Shiprock?” he asked. “My updates have been getting unacceptably unreliable lately.”

“They’re turning against humans more fiercely every day,” I said. “They’re feeling under threat because of the development in Brightport.”

“And can you blame them?”

“Well, no, but perhaps if you let the sirens go, they could join us in trying to calm the situation down. Humans and merpeople working together, to show Shiprock that there’s nothing to fear . . . somehow? Perhaps that could be a condition of their release.”

Neptune rubbed his beard. “Hmm, OK, let’s say I do that,” he said quietly, talking to himself, thinking aloud. “Attach conditions. Yes, I like that. But on the other hand . . .” Then he nodded. “Right, that’s it!” he barked. “I have decided what we will do.”

I froze as I waited for him to continue. What was he going to say? Would I ever see Shona again? Had we made a massive mistake coming here?
Please help us. Please don’t send us away with nothing.

“I shall undo the waterfall curse on the caves,” he announced. “The sirens will be free to leave.”

“And Shona?” I asked, hardly daring to hope.

Neptune waved my question away. “Yes, yes, of course, all of them — including Beeston and your friend.”

Aaron caught my eye and gave me a thumbs-up. We’d done it! Shona was going to be free!

“I haven’t finished!” Neptune boomed before I had the chance to get too serious about the idea of celebrating. “Here are my conditions.”

We waited in silence.

“ONE: you are to redouble your efforts with the task you have been set. I gave you a mission, and I intended for you to take this mission to heart. Until now, I can see no serious progress. You are to make
significant
progress. And this progress is to begin with settling the situation with Brightport and Shiprock. I want it taken care of. You hear me?”

“Of course,” I said. “We’ll do everything we can to —”

“You will not do
everything you can
to make this happen — you will MAKE THIS HAPPEN!” Neptune bellowed. “Or else you will face my wrath!”

“Absolutely, Your Majesty. We will make it happen,” I hastily agreed.

“TWO: the memory drug remains lifted in Brightport.”

My hopes began to sink. The whole of Brightport was still on a mission to catch a mermaid. How could we keep on living there? We’d have to move. Or I’d have to get a plastic surgeon to give me a new face. I opened my mouth, about to ask Neptune to reconsider this condition. I couldn’t imagine trying to convince Mom and Dad to start again in yet another new town. And if I was honest, I quite liked my face the way it was.

“Nonnegotiable!” Neptune said, reading my thoughts and cutting them down in one simple word. “How do you expect to bring together the human and the mer worlds if you wish the one to be in darkness about the other? How do you expect the people of Brightport to care about their neighboring town enough to stop destroying it if they don’t even know it EXISTS?”

He did have a very good point.

“You will make this work,” he said somberly.

I let out a sigh. “OK,” I said eventually — not that we had any choice in the matter, so I don’t know why he was waiting for us to agree each condition. Then I had a thought. “My grandparents,” I said.

“What about them?”

“Well, if we agree about the memory drug staying lifted in Brightport, will you lift it from them too — permanently?”

Neptune’s face reddened. “Do not PRESUME to barter with me!” he roared. “I, and only I, make conditions! Do you understand?”

“Yes, of course, Your Majesty,” I said meekly. “I’m sorry.”

Neptune thought for a moment. “If I do not know where your grandparents are, there is nothing I can do,” he said. “But I will grant you this: if they come to Brightport, the rule will apply to them also. That is the best I can offer you.”

“Thank you sir, thank you, Your Majesty,” I gabbled.

Neptune raised his hand again. “There is one more condition,” he said. “The most important of all.”

This was it, then — the bit where he told us that I had to give up Aaron and Shona, never see either of them again, or leave Brightport forever, never to return, live out my days in a solitary, dark —

“You must give up your power,” he said. For the first time ever, he seemed uncomfortable, awkward, almost like a normal person.