Secrets of the Deep (60 page)

“About forty-eight hours after I met you,” he said, staring into her eyes.

Overwhelmed, Isabelle looked down at the brooch in wonder. She could barely speak. “You made this for me…right after we met?”

“At Merlin Hall. Dani was the one who first told me you’re a Keeper of the Unicorns. I thought you might like it.”

“Oh, I do. It’s
beautiful
. Thank you. I just… I’m in shock!”

He smiled wryly. “I thought you might be a little surprised.”

Her panic over her brother momentarily forgotten, she stared at Maddox in amazement, trying to figure out what exactly he was telling her. “If you’ve had it all this time…what made you finally decide to give it to me now?”

“Well, as a certain young redhead reminded me earlier today,” he said slowly, “a Guardian’s not supposed to lie. And I’ve been lying to you, Miss Bradford.”

She held her breath as they stared at each other, inches apart, as though the rest of the world had ceased to exist. Isabelle could feel her heart boom-booming as both Maddox and she started leaning closer.
Oh my goodness. He’s going to kiss me, I think.

Isabelle suddenly wasn’t sure if she still wanted him to, though. She had been so infatuated with him for weeks, and had only just freed herself from her preoccupation with him yesterday.

If he kissed her now, it would get her all confused again and probably change everything. She didn’t see how there could be any going back to a normal friendship after that. They both knew all the reasons they couldn’t be together…

A hundred questions stormed through her mind in that brief moment as Maddox leaned toward her. Heart pounding, she couldn’t decide whether to pull away or accept her first kiss ever from him.

It was hardly the perfect situation, what with her brother and friend kidnapped, and her possible beau sitting there with his arms nigh pulled out of their sockets.

But he
had
rescued her from the pirates and, of course, it was Italy, there was the moonlight sparkling on the waves, so didn’t that make it at least a little romantic?

Sitting stock-still, Isabelle decided there was no time like the present. She squeezed her eyes shut, the way she’d heard other girls say you were supposed to do when being kissed.

Unfortunately, Maddox’s lips had barely brushed against hers, soft as butterfly wings, when along came Jake to ruin it all.

“I’ve got the feather!” he shouted from the top of the stone stairs.

His voice jolted them apart.

The clamor of his footsteps came pounding down the beach stairs.

“I’m going to kill him,” Maddox breathed.

Isabelle let out a nervous giggle, her cheeks incandescent. Though mostly disappointed, a tiny part of her was relieved, because she knew she really wasn’t supposed to be doing this.

And Maddox knew it, too.

Gryphon feather in hand, Jake dropped into their midst, all business, Dani and Lil just a few steps behind him.

Maddox gave her a look that said,
Oh, joy, the whole crew came.

Izzy’s lips twitched with a smile that did not match their dire situation, but she doubted her cousin would’ve seen anything from up there.

“How are you feeling?” Jake asked him, tense.

Maddox glanced discreetly at Isabelle. “Just dandy.”

Joining them, Dani gasped when she saw the unnatural slope of his shoulders.

“Oh, Maddox!” she murmured, but rushed past him to go and hug Isabelle. “I’m so sorry, Izzy! Jake told me on the way about Archie. I could hear some of it from Lady B’s room, but I wasn’t sure what happened.”

“Where’s my sister?” Liliana cried in alarm. “They didn’t kidnap her too, did they?”

“No, Lil, your sister’s fine. Sapphira wanted to follow the
Flying Dutchman
,” Isabelle told everyone. “She’ll be back as soon as she finds out where they’re taking Archie and Nixie. Once we have their location, then we’re going to rescue them…somehow.”

Lil turned and gazed at the shimmering silver waves. “You mean Sapphira got to go back in the water?”

Isabelle nodded, then filled the younger mermaid in on how Davy Jones had sent the huge wave crashing down on them, breaking the Landwalker’s spell on her sister.

“Lucky,” Lil said, glancing toward the waves with great envy.

“Don’t worry,” Dani said, putting her arm around Lil’s shoulders. “Your sister will be back soon, I’m sure, and when all this is over, you can both go home.”

Jake was preparing to use the magic from the gryphon feather on Maddox’s shoulders. “Hate to say it, but this is probably going to hurt a bit.”

“Not as much as the other part did, I’ll bet,” Maddox drawled.

Isabelle smiled at his wry humor.

Then they all watched, silent, while Jake took one of the scarlet feathers that Red had left for them in case of emergency and held it between his palms. He began rolling it back and forth swiftly. It twirled in his hands until white smoke began to rise from it, and then, all of a sudden—poof! The feather exploded into a handful of glittering gold-and-crimson dust as the magic was released.

Jake quickly sprinkled it over Maddox’s shoulders.

Maddox yelled out and Isabelle winced as the joints lifted and popped back together, the humerus bone reconnecting to each shoulder socket. The internal tissues around the joint began healing in seconds.

“Sorry about that,” Jake mumbled.

After a minute or two, Maddox moved his arms gingerly, one then the other. “You know, I think it worked. It feels like the swelling’s already going down.” He looked at Jake. “That’s amazing.”

“That’s Red for you.” Jake glanced around. “Is anybody else hurt?”

The girls shook their heads.

“Good. Then let’s get back inside and figure out what we’re going to do.”

Maddox rose to his feet, relief and exhaustion written all over his face. “Jake, would one of those gryphon feathers work to bring your aunt out of her coma? I assume she’s still asleep. Dani?”

Dani nodded to confirm this. “All that noise, and she never even stirred. C’mon, Lil. We’re going in now.”

The little mermaid was still standing on the beach gazing out to sea. Dani went and took her hand before Lil was tempted to follow her sister.

But Jake had narrowed his eyes, considering Maddox’s suggestion about the gryphon feather. “That’s not a bad idea. Maybe we should try it.”

“Oh, I don’t know if Nixie would go along with that,” Isabelle said as they climbed the stone steps wearily as a group. “Whatever did this to Aunt Ramona, it must have come from a very powerful magic source. Doesn’t Nixie always say you should never mix magic unless you know exactly what you’re dealing with?”

“Yes, she does,” Dani agreed, “and she also said Her Ladyship was working High Magick, whatever that is. But it sounded serious. I don’t think you should do it, Jake. We don’t want to make things worse. Let’s just send the Inkbug message and let the adults from the Order figure out what to do with her.”

“Very well. I suppose you’re probably right,” Jake said.

Isabelle moved aside and let the others walk ahead of her, waiting to go up the steps beside Maddox. In the darkness, they exchanged a shy glance, but said nothing.

Then they all went back up to the house.

Unfortunately, the Inkbug’s little wooden box had been thrown across the room when the pirates had stormed through the house, upending furniture and hurling things about. At first, the kids thought the magical caterpillar had run away—or worse—until they finally found the tiny creature cowering under a bookshelf.

Isabelle managed to coax the Inkbug out of hiding onto her hand, but to their dismay, one of its antennae had been broken, leaving it unable to transmit messages. It would be weeks before a new one grew back. Nor could they fix it with one of Red’s healing feathers.

A book Jake had found in his library back at Griffon Castle some time ago had said that gryphon magic only worked on mammals and birds, not fish, insects, or plant life forms.

Izzy opened the lid of its box and let the shaken Inkbug flee back into the comfort of its home, but its injury meant that now they were cut off from the Order.

They could still send an ordinary message, but the telegraph office didn’t open until nine tomorrow morning.

She was beginning to wonder if they’d even make it that long, for with Nixie as leverage, Davy Jones could easily force her lovesick brother to fix the orb…and unleash a second watery Armageddon.

# # #

Archie and Nixie kept nudging each other with their elbows and squabbling through their masks as they were taken deeper into the sea to be brought aboard the
Flying Dutchman
.

This was nothing short of a catastrophe, and Archie knew it.

He already felt awful for his failure to escape with the orb, and knew enough to dread the consequences of refusing this particular captain’s orders.

Indeed, the only thing that could’ve possibly made the situation worse was exactly what Nixie had done.

It was all very admirable of her, of course, but now she was in the most awful danger, all because of him. He had half a mind to throttle her. He never would’ve dreamed they’d have their first official fight under such circumstances.

Then again, it was most likely to be their last, so they might as well have it.

“How could you do that?” he whispered for the tenth time.

“What was I supposed to do? Leave you to fend for yourself?”

“Oh, I see! You think I’m such a thoroughgoing boob that I would botch this part, too—humph!
Well
.” He sniffed with indignation. “No doubt I deserve that, after I failed to get away. I admit it, I tarried, but not on purpose. Excuse me if it’s not in my nature to abandon my friends in their time of need!”

“Oh, would you shut
up
?” Nixie scolded in a whisper. “What are we going to do?”

“Die, most likely,” he huffed. Though it probably applied to her, too, Archie couldn’t bring himself to repeat Davy Jones’s threat about chopping him up into pieces if–or rather, when–he refused to carry out the captain’s orders.

Meanwhile, Jones’s crew had metamorphosed back into various aquatic monsters once they were submerged, similar to the effect that contact with salt water had on the mermaids.

“See those lights ahead?” Nixie asked, pointing to the dim red and green clouds of illumination glowing ahead, deeper down.

“I’m not talking to you,” Archie replied.

“Ridiculous egghead,” she muttered. “Don’t you want to know what it is?”

“Obviously, it’s the ship!” he retorted.

And so it was.

The
Flying Dutchman
floated at anchor midway between the tossing silvered surface overhead and the sandy seabed below. The sinister red and green gleam of its signal lanterns revealed the ominous silhouette of the jet-black, three-masted ship.

As their captors propelled them closer, he glimpsed the figurehead under the bowsprit: the grinning skull of a cloaked Grim Reaper skeleton with its scythe at the ready.

Archie gulped, but it was probably due to Jake’s influence that a small part of him was excited to be going aboard the legendary
Flying Dutchman
. He shook his head at his own illogic.
I’m becoming as mad as he is.

“All aboard!” yelled the thresher shark man, whom Archie had heard addressed as Carnahan.

The fellow kept giving him dirty looks. Apparently, he hadn’t forgotten Archie shooting him with the blunderbuss in Driftwood.

Then Captain Jones turned to him and Nixie. “Now, are you two going to cooperate, or do I need to put you in soul cages?”

They assured him they wouldn’t cause any trouble, so they were allowed to remain on deck under the big round watchful eyes of Squid Head, a.k.a. Lebrec.

“Make sail!” the captain barked. Bubbles trailed up from his mouth as he gave his crew several more orders. “Mr. Carnahan, find a good landing spot and take her down!”

“All the way, Cap’n?” Thresher Shark asked.

“Aye, Carny, all the way,” Jones said heartily, “but not so deep that these two pop. A hundred feet or so should do it.”

“Aye, sir.” With an eager flick of his long, angled tail, First Mate Carnahan bounded over to the weather deck, passing the ship’s huge double steering wheel, which was taller than he was. He checked a chart on the wall; Archie wondered how it did not dissolve as he waited to see what would happen next.

Carnahan turned to the four waiting helmsmen and gave them their bearings. At this, the four muscular shark men—two on either side of the two connected wheels—took hold of the spindles and began to turn them as directed.

For his part, the first mate swam over to a big lever jutting up from a long slot on the deck a few feet from the wheel. The beam was as thick as a railroad tie, but Carnahan planted his feet and seemed to have no trouble hauling it toward him.

“Aha,” Archie said to himself, realizing the lever controlled the up-and-down pitch of the ship, while the great helm wheels steered it left or right.

“Make ready to descend!” Carnahan yelled.

Jones turned to Nixie and Archie. “Hold on, ye lubbers!”

Startled, they gripped the nearest railing as the ship lurched, but their feet floated up off the deck a bit as the
Dutchman
left its current mooring and began gliding down and down toward the seafloor.

Archie and Nixie exchanged a look of amazement.

The captain stood boldly at the bow, his long black frock coat flapping behind him in the current as he watched his ship fly down through the water, which turned increasingly dark and cold.

They sailed only for about twenty minutes before the ship came to rest in a dark, lonely spot somewhere on the seafloor.

While Carnahan pushed the big lever so that it stood upright in the center of the slot, a flurry of sailors hurried to turn the capstan, lowering the anchor. The ship gently bumped along the seabed, raking up clouds of sand until one of the massive flukes of the gigantic anchor dug in deep enough to stop its motion entirely.