Secrets of the Deep (20 page)

Jake gripped the wails, his heart hammering as he watched in dread, waiting as the seconds ticked by.

If anything happened to Nixie all because he had wanted to have an adventure, he would never forgive himself. Archie pulled up his mask and dove into the water, swimming down to see if Nixie was alive. Maddox joined him, vaulting over the side of the boat and plunging into the waves to find her.

From the corner of his eye, Jake saw Isabelle and Dani exchange a petrified glance. All of a sudden, Nixie came shooting up out of the water and breached liked the world’s skinniest whale, arcing her body over the waves with a nasal-sounding
“Wheeeee!”

Archie’s head popped up to the surface a moment later. “Nixie! Get back here! What happened? Let me see you! Are you all right?”

She surfaced a few seconds later and swam over to him, keeping her neck in the water. She seemed to be breathing quite comfortably through her gills now.

“I’m fine. Well, go on. What are you all waiting for?” she said in a strange voice that sounded like she was holding her nose. “Get into the water first, though. Hard to move once it starts. Don’t be scared to take your first breath underwater. It works.”

Dani was the first to break the silence that followed. “I’m not sure I still want to do this,” she said.

“Me neither,” Isabelle admitted.

“You can’t chicken out now,” Archie said.

Jake gave the girls a regretful look, refusing to admit that he shared their sentiments after seeing that. Not even Maddox looked enthused about what they would have to go through. And to think, poor Sapphira had had to go through something similar alone.

“C’mon, everybody,” Jake urged. “I know it looked bad, but Nixie seems fine now. Our plan requires all of us to help. We each have our roles, and we can’t leave that little mermaid princess out there in the clutches of an undead pirate.”

“I hate you,” Dani mumbled, then hopped into the sea.

“Somebody throw me my wand before you take the potion,” Nixie croaked.

“I’ll get it.” Isabelle ducked into the sailboat’s little cabin.

Nixie glided over to the side of the boat, cutting through the waves as easily as a seal. “Don’t worry,” she told them all. “It looks worse than it is. Once you’re through it, it’s fun.”

“If you say so.” Jake dove in, and soon everyone was treading water beside the boat, except for Isabelle.

She remained aboard for the moment, first giving Nixie her wand, and then handing out vials of potion to everyone. They waited for her to join them, having decided they would all take it at the same time.

Closing the now-empty case, Isabelle held her vial of potion delicately as she climbed down the stern swim-ladder in her frilly striped bathing costume.

The moment was upon them.

As Jake scanned his friends’ faces, everyone looked both scared and excited. Sapphira watched, clearly fascinated that a bunch of “landers” should be willing to put themselves through this for a stranger.

“Well, cheers, everybody,” Jake said grimly.

“Cheers,” they echoed, holding up their vials. Then they all downed the potion.

“Oh, blech!” said everyone.

The taste was repulsive, like drinking a puree of raw fish. Spitting out the traces of the flavor, they laughed nervously in disgust. It was not long, however, before the potion began to take effect.

Over the next few minutes, it happened with each of them just as it had with Nixie. Jake wanted to keep his thoughts focused on his friends, especially Dani, since he knew she was scared.

But as the potion began to work, he suddenly couldn’t think about anything else except the sting in his hands and feet, his whole body growing awkward and heavy; it became hard to swim, and he wasn’t sure if that was right. He was doing his best to ward off the panic clawing at the edges of his mind, when suddenly, a searing sensation descended.

It felt like someone was cutting slashes in the sides of his neck with a razorblade. A howl of pain broke from his lips—and then the terror really hit, for when he went to draw a breath, he couldn’t get air.

She’s killed
us!

Something had to be wrong with the potion; he knew it. Surely he’d gotten a bad vial. He started choking, treading water violently as fast as he could, but his body was so heavy that he couldn’t stay above the waves. He was sinking, sinking…

I’m going to drown!
He held his breath for as long as he could. All around him, his friends were thrashing, sinking like stones, just as he was.

And when they could no longer fight it, their mouths opened in silent screams, and the water flooded into their lungs. Jake watched in terror, and then it happened to him, too.

The sea invaded his nose and mouth, salty on his tongue, but then—to his shock—it slid right out again from the tender gills carved into the sides of his neck.

It
worked…?

His heart was still pounding, but he saw to his relief that he hadn’t died. Bit by bit, the panic receded and he strove to collect himself.

Breathing water was the strangest, chilliest sensation, utterly startling, but somehow he found that he could function now.

His eyes stung a bit, and they seemed to be working differently, too; but whatever properties they’d gained, he could see much more clearly underwater now. As his vision focused, he looked around anxiously at his friends.

They, too, had switched over to breathing through gills. Everyone looked shaken up but relieved, little bubbles trailing from the sides of their necks.

This is just bizarre.
Jake’s limbs felt much stronger in the water as he paddled to stay in place, but still, he was sinking.

Sapphira glided into the center and surveyed them with ease, so much more graceful now than when she’d been on land. “Is everyone all right?” Her voice was bubbly and soft.

“I think so,” said Jake, taken aback by the gurgling, nasal sound of his own.

“But why are we still sinking?” Isabelle asked, her golden tresses floating above her head as gravity pulled them all slowly toward the seabed.

“That would be the Stone Bones part of my potion,” said Nixie.

All their voices sounded slightly muffled, and the soft sound of the current was like the wind soughing through the trees.

“Perhaps we’d better take a little time to get used to how things work down here,” Archie suggested in a burbling voice.

This seemed a sensible idea, but Sapphira was impatient to rescue her sister. “Can’t you do it on the way? You’ll have time. We have to make a stop first and pick up some supplies. Come on.” As she swam off, they had no choice but to follow. After all, she was the only one who knew her way around down here.

As they were not yet used to their strange environment and new body features, such as webbed hands and feet, Jake saw that now he and all his friends looked as clumsy as Sapphira had on land. For her part, the mermaid was totally at home here. But when she glanced over her shoulder to make sure they hadn’t lost anyone, the skeptical glint in her eyes seemed to ask,
These are the people I’m trusting to save my sister?

Of course, they, in turn, were putting their lives in her hands. Jake hoped it wasn’t a mistake.

Somehow Sapphira’s beauty overrode his doubts.

He redoubled his efforts to prove himself to her. By Jove, they’d come down here to rescue Princess Liliana, and rescue her they would.

Sapphira dove deeper, and Jake glanced around at his friends as they followed her lead. It was odd to see them all swimming underwater together like a school of fish.

Everybody seemed stabilized in their new forms now, but Jake waved Dani a little ahead of him so he could keep an eye on her, make sure she stayed safe.

The first place Sapphira led them to was an old shipwreck on the seafloor. The sand was littered with lost luggage and old traveling trunks.

“I need to pick up a few things I left here earlier, plus find some sort of disguise so none of the kingdom’s subjects recognize me and tell Father where I went. Feel free to look around,” she added, beckoning them on.

They swam lower and began exploring the barnacle-crusted wreckage while Sapphira swam through a hole in the side of the sunken ship. In moments, she returned with a satchel and a medium-length spear with a bone-white blade.

Jake watched her curiously as she proceeded to open traveling trunks here and there, taking out articles of clothing, and tossing each aside carelessly until she found a hooded cloak.

He could hardly take his eyes off her.
Poor girl.
The taut anger in her motions gave away the fact that she blamed herself somehow for Davy Jones’s attack on her city. Jake could certainly relate, given the possible war he had started with the Dark Druids.

Maybe that was why, deep down, he needed so much to help her, he mused. He swam over to see if there was anything he could do as Sapphira put on the cloak she had found and tied the tapes around her neck.

“I don’t want to be recognized,” she explained in answer to his curious glance. “Otherwise, Commander Tyndaris of the royal guard will be here in a trice to take me back to Father. I’m sure he’s worried sick about me.”

“Would it be so bad to let him know you’re safe? Maybe you should stop at your home first,” he suggested. “We don’t mind.”

In truth, he was quite keen to see the Coral Palace and the underwater city of the merfolk she’d described.

But the princess shook her head. “If I do, he won’t let me leave again. Besides, I can’t show my face until I’ve got Liliana back, considering it’s my fault this happened in the first place. Excuse me—I need to find your warrior a weapon.”

Jake frowned as she swam off to help Maddox.
Hey! I’m a warrior, too!
he wanted to protest. But after the general sense of rivalry he had already overcome regarding Maddox at Merlin Hall, he was in no mood to indulge himself on that point again.

Instead, he joined in his friends’ perusal of the odds and ends from the shipwreck. Sapphira was right, anyway. Maddox
was
the best fighter. Still, he’d need something suitable to ward off whatever might be guarding Liliana.

“Hoy, Jake!” Dani called just then in rookery fashion. “What’d ye think?”

He glanced over and found the carrot-head trying on huge, old-fashioned hats she had found amid the wreckage. He shook his head at her, smiling.

“Peachin’ lover-ly,” he said.

“Here’s something I could use!” Maddox kicked aside a broken plank and picked up an old musket with a rusty bayonet attached. He held it up and inspected it. “I could use this as a spear.”

“What about this thing?” Dani suddenly called, swimming a few feet to her right to pull a long stick out of the sand.

When she lifted it up to show him, Maddox’s eyes lit up at the sight of the nasty hooked blade on the end.

“That’s perfect!” Casting aside the bayonet, he swam over and took the weapon from her.

It proved to be some fisherman’s lost harpoon, with a spike on the top and a nasty hook right alongside it. A frayed rope still dangled off one end.

Sapphira approached with a nod of approval. “That should do the trick.”

Dani stepped back while Maddox gave the harpoon a try, practicing with it a bit. Jake lifted his eyebrows as he watched; it was the first time he’d ever seen Maddox move awkwardly. The Guardian apprentice soon discovered it was much harder to fight underwater than on land. Without solid ground to brace against, he couldn’t get much force behind his jabs with the weapon.

Sapphira set her hands on her hips and offered a few helpful hints. “You have webbed feet now, remember? When you thrust forward with the weapon, push the water backward with your feet and your free hand to compensate for the momentum.”

He nodded and tried it. The technique still looked clumsy, but at least it seemed to work.

Jake and Dani glanced at each other and shrugged.
Better than I could do,
he thought.

“Let’s go,” Sapphira ordered once Maddox seemed to be getting the hang of it. “We need to keep moving.”

As they all swam on, Maddox lingered behind for a moment, still practicing with his new toy. “Guardian, come on!” Jake yelled, glancing back at him. The older boy was nothing if not determined, but as he caught up with them, he still looked a bit perplexed by the disorienting feel of their fluid environment.

From there, they swam for a long time, heading for the outlaw town of Driftwood. Sapphira’s dolphins flanked them on all sides, guarding them, especially the princess.

At one point, Jake reached out and touched one of the sleek, massive mammals; it eyed him sweetly and seemed to smile. Indeed, the whole sea around them held no shortage of wonders, the landscape continually changing as they went.

He marveled as schools of fish whizzed by overhead like shimmering silver clouds, then he tapped Archie on the shoulder and pointed when a sea turtle wafted past underneath them, slowly flapping its big green flippers.

His cousin grinned.

They were all so filled with amazement that Jake just hoped they’d be able to concentrate on the mission when the time came, for the stakes couldn’t have been higher. After a while, though, he started getting a bit more used to the mysterious underwater world and was better able to focus.

The aquamarine color of the shallows turned to cobalt, and the deeper they swam, the chillier the water grew. His ears popped a few more times and he felt a squeezing sensation of the growing water pressure around his midsection, but Nixie’s potion held.

“Hey, what’s that?” Dani asked in a flurry of bubbles, pointing below them.

Jake glanced down and spotted mysterious glowing lights in a variety of soft colors.

“Ah,” said Sapphira. “Something useful! This way, everyone.”

Filled with curiosity, they followed her down to a clump of boulders on the seafloor. Plants—or were they animals?—growing on the rocks proved to be the source of the dainty, colorful lights.