‘But how could you know that it would work?’ says Iona.
‘I spotted similarities in Maris’s DNA and those of the animals we were working with, and I hoped. I was never going to get another opportunity to test it like the one you provided at Wildhaven.’
It’s Nygard’s turn to soften his tone. ‘Look. We are both overwrought, but we can still work together on this. I could never have predicted physical changes would be so pronounced. The gills – they are fully aquatic – this is a miracle, Iona. Look at you! Think of the applications. The hibernation, the ability to breathe underwater. If you get them all aboard now, unharmed, we can work together on ways forward.’
‘Why do you even want them all? If it’s DNA you need, then take some of my blood now, and leave us.’
Nygard speaks slowly, his European accent thickening, clipped. ‘You don’t understand, because you, Iona, have never had any vision. Their blood can be used to shrink existing tumours drastically. I ran a successful clinical trial, developed a therapy. I need an ongoing supply of blood, there are factors within it I don’t yet understand, and that can’t be replicated in the lab. This is vital work!’
Sam presses his ear so tight against the wall it hurts. Nygard is talking about Granda.
‘You’d milk them of their blood like they were dairy cows. They aren’t yours to—’
‘And they aren’t yours either!’
A scuffle, a stifled squawk. Sam tenses, meeting Beti’s eyes. That must be Poppy. Nygard is threatening the kid.
Iona’s voice shakes. ‘Let her go, Jonathan. You don’t want to do this.’
‘I really don’t. But I will. I need every single candidate on board. Now.’
A stifled scream.
Beti’s mouth hangs open as she raises her machete. Sam draws the net gun thing out of the waistband of his shorts and grasps his knife. Are Tan and Teeth in there too? He hasn’t heard them.
Slam.
The whole boat judders, vibrations travelling through the floor and up through Sam’s feet.
Slam.
Slam.
Slam.
The blows to the hull of the boat come in quick succession, all to one side. The boat tips crazily. Men’s voices outside the cabin. A gunshot.
Beti brandishes a harpoon in one hand, her machete in the other. She nods at Sam and they charge into the wheelhouse. Iona and Nygard are grappling, his back to them, and Sam catches the glint of a knife blade. Poppy rolls across the sloping floor, bound hand and foot. Beti whacks the back of Nygard’s head with the hilt of her machete and he slumps forward over the controls, releasing Iona. Sam saws through Poppy’s ropes and she rips off the gag. He pulls her to her feet.
He can’t believe it’s her. The last time he saw her she was waving him goodbye at the airport. Now her hair is in long dreads and she’s dressed in rags, but she has the same mischievous eyes. She glares at him in recognition. ‘You?’
‘In the water, now. All of you,’ says Iona. She grabs Poppy and Beti and hauls them out of the wheelhouse door on to the front deck. Sam watches them leap over the railings, Beti’s head turning at the last moment to check for him.
Sam takes the net gun from the back of his shorts and follows, staggering as the underwater assault continues, battering the hull.
More gunshots. Crap. Steaming heaps of it. Tan and Teeth stand on the rails, firing the net gun and some kind of dart gun – tranquilizers? – into the water below.
Slam.
Slam.
The kids in the sea are going to sink the yacht. Sam looks at the net gun. He turns, searching for something else, and behind him is a red box on the wall of the cabin. Flare. He fumbles it open, takes aim at Teeth. Can’t kill the guy. He points down, where their feet are on the first rail, and presses the trigger. He closes his eyes as the flare shoots out and when he opens them, Teeth’s shorts are on fire and Tan grapples with him, slapping at his thighs.
Slam.
The boat heaves and the men bundle into each other, hands sliding on the rails, and pitch over the side. Slam.
A grinding crunch. A rushing sound and the deck judders as if in an earthquake. Sam turns. Nygard reels out of the wheelhouse, raising what Sam thinks is an automatic rifle. Sam freezes. I brought this creep out here.
Sam whips out the net gun with a shaking hand, takes aim and fires. A white web of netting encloses Nygard and he totters backwards, down the steeply sloping deck of the boat.
Sam climbs the rail at the higher side of the deck. The yacht lists, rocking drunkenly. Before Sam drops into the water below, the last thing he sees is Nygard wrapped in net, tumbling over the side.
Igrip tight to Sea Boy’s waist as the manta ray loops round the back of the sinking yacht. Moonlight only penetrates the top couple of metres of water and despite the glowing globes attached to my shoulders, it is terrifyingly dark. We don’t have long before the boat sinks and my chest clenches with fear for Poppy.
The first part of the plan worked better than expected.
The manta rays and their riders battered the hull of the boat one after the other at full speed, the power of the fish’s giant wings driving the metal pipes and other weapons gripped by their riders. The key to success was aiming at the exact same place each time, which we’d marked on the white hull with a big black cross from Iona’s pen. After each hit, the manta rays swept under the ship, out of the range of the nets and darts which rained down. A boy I remember as Dimi held our only torch, making sure each rider was out of the way before directing the next to attack, aiming the circle of light on to the cross on the hull so they would know where to hit.
Once the fibreglass of the hull was broken through, the pressure of the water quickly made the hole bigger, and we retreated away from the dangerous suction and turbulence of the sinking boat.
Now is the most dangerous part. We need to climb on board the sinking yacht and find— A figure ahead, no manta ray. Moonlight illuminates her long cords of hair.
I release Sea Boy and strike out towards Poppy.
We cling to each other in the water, and then she grabs hold of my waist and propels me upwards.
Poppy and I break the surface and I gasp the light cool air into my lungs before I’ve even thought to hold a lungful of water. I remember Sea Boy when I first met him, diving underwater to breathe and I tense, ready for the onslaught of pain. But Poppy grips my shoulders.
‘It’s OK. Turns out we can breathe both,’ she says.
I release the air I’m holding and look down at my gills. They have closed to shallow grooves on my chest. I can breathe sea and air, and so can Poppy. I am light-headed with the strangeness of it, and the strangeness of her, my brave little sister. She’s so different and yet exactly the same.
The ship is now over halfway sunk, bubbles boiling all around it.
‘We need to get everyone away. It’s dangerous,’ I say, through wheezy breaths, surprised by the weightlessness of the air. ‘Can you gather them?’
She nods. ‘They are scared,’ Poppy says, her voice gruff. ‘They don’t believe they can breathe air on the surface.’
I grab Poppy into a tight hug, crushing my cheek against hers before I release her and dive. Sea Boy is below, eyes wide, stripes of moonlight dappling him. Poppy swims to him, tapping her chest, pointing upwards and making a series of determined gestures. He nods, uncertain. She’s the same Poppy all right. I feel a swell of pride at my plucky kid sister.
She clicks her teeth, over and over. Sea Boy does the same and my ears are pounded by answering clicks as the others start to stream towards us, circling around a metre below the surface on their manta rays.
Poppy and Sea Boy count them. My eyes flick from face to face. They aren’t worried. Everyone must be accounted for—
Where is Iona?
I dive and edge closer to the sinking yacht. Only a couple of metres of the back deck remain above the surface, we have just minutes before the sea hauls it down for ever. I sweep down deeper,
scanning the water below with my torch. Poppy is beside me and I mouth to her, hoping she can make it out in the dim light of her violet globes.
Iona.
Her eyes follow my lips and her mouth hangs open in understanding. She nods and we dive together, swimming deeper than the now descending yacht, but still keeping our distance. The pressure is like giant hands crushing my skull but Poppy continues down. The beam of my torch highlights a grey hand, a flash of netting. We swim towards it, now surrounded by inky black. The sinking ship is directly above us, blocking the moonlight. I follow the beam, and catch sight of Iona for long enough to see she is way below and is grappling with a man wrapped in the same pale netting that caught Poppy.
I swing my torch around, but all it highlights are clouds of bubbles and I’ve lost them. There – the man is limp and drifting free of her. Nygard’s pale eyes are open, lifeless. Iona sees us, illuminated by our globes. She shakes her head, frantically pointing upwards at the mass of the sinking yacht, accompanied by fat globules of escaping air and clouds of smaller bubbles, only metres above her.
Why isn’t Iona swimming away – escaping? Poppy holds me back.
I manage to hold the torch steady as Iona grips my eyes with hers. My gaze slips downwards. The hilt of a knife protrudes from between the first and second gill slit on her chest. Billows of murk glow red in the torch beam like sunset storm clouds.
She’s been stabbed.
It doesn’t matter. Sea Boy healed me, so he can heal Iona.
I plead with her in my head.
Come on.
Reach. Kick. Breathe.
Never give up.
No matter what she has done, Iona is our family.
I shake free of Poppy and dart towards Iona but it’s too late, the ship is now plunging downwards and I’m dragged towards it. A fog of bubbles tickle the skin of my face and I try to kick away, but the suction is powerful. Then I am snatched backwards and Poppy’s arm winds around my waist as she yanks me up diagonally, away from the ship as the last big pockets of air escape, and it dips its nose downwards, and plummets. My sister and I hang there, clinging to each other, kicking against the suction, as we watch the yacht, Doctor Nygard and our Aunt Iona being swallowed into the dark heart of the atoll.
Quivering waters fall calm. The moon creates a single shattered star in the surface far above, drawing me and my sister upwards.
Sam and Beti watch from the back of the sailing canoe at a safe distance, as the yacht lists to the side, then dips. Finally it tips forward and the last part to be engulfed is the steel ladder they climbed up only a little while before. Sam crouches, wondering if he should dive in and help, but figures the guys riding giant fish and breathing underwater probably don’t need his help. The surface bubbles like a boiling pot but no one breaks it. Sam licks his lips. Could the sinking yacht have created some sort of vortex and they’ve all been sucked down with it?
‘Hey,’ a cracked voice calls out. Sam scans the black water and there she is, Poppy and another girl next to her, hair bundled on top of her head, clinging curls at her neck. Aster.
Beti leaps off the side of the boat into the water and hugs Aster tight.
‘Aster! What happened? Nygard – is he . . .?’
‘Dead. And the other men are gone too; Sunee saw them tangled in the rigging as it went down. Beti . . .’ She holds Beti at arm’s length as the three of them tread water. ‘Sorry. Iona didn’t make it.’
Sam realizes his teeth are chattering and clamps them together. Nygard is gone, along with Tan and Teeth. Iona as well. People have died here, and he’s stranded.
The three girls clasp each other tight, bobbing on the surface. Aster tells Beti about the others who are below, too scared to surface as they think the air will hurt them. The girl and boy he and Beti rescued seem to be called Mai and Darnell and they are underwater, trying to communicate to the others that it is safe to surface.
Sam scans the water and makes out faint shapes. Dots of violet-blue light flicker and dart, and he sees a face looking up at him from below, before vanishing into the depths.
This is . . . insane. He remembers what Iona and Nygard were saying. These gills are a side effect of a genetic cancer preventative. Nygard really did find a fossil – there really were mermaids living on earth, once. And now these guys seem to have some of their DNA.
When Sam looks back at the girls, Aster’s chin is tilted up, surveying him. Her eyelashes flicker.
‘Sam?’ she says.
She swims to the back of the boat and takes his hand as he hauls her up, then quickly drops it. She is dressed in the same grey suit as Beti, unzipped to her stomach, a swimsuit underneath, ragged at the neckline revealing her gills. Gills. Sam tries not to gawk as the slices in her skin close to form furrows so slight he can barely see them. No one would even know . . . what she was.
‘Really hoping you weren’t with the maniac doctor out here to capture us for our blood,’ says Aster.
Sam winces. ‘I thought Nygard could cure my Granda. I didn’t know anything about what he had planned. But yeah – I did bring him here and I’m really sorry. I guess I got a bit – out of my depth.’
‘Are you being funny?’ says Aster.
Sam shakes his head as all three girls stare at him. Only Beti’s lip twitches in amusement.
‘Sam helped Beti rescue me and the others,’ says Poppy from the sea down below.
‘And he marooned himself out here to help me,’ says Beti.
Aster shrugs and stares back over at the boiling sea, at the dying gasps of Nygard’s yacht.
Sam breathes out and sways a little, feeling weak as it hits him. It’s actually them, the sisters from the plane.
The sky is now royal blue, edging towards dawn. Poppy, Sea Boy and the boy and girl who were captured, Darnell and Mai, eventually persuade all of the others to leave their mantas and enter the Halo West lagoon. They dart around, gesturing to each other, gazing up at the silvered surface through fearful eyes. They have seen us breathing air, but refuse to try it. I am desperate to get them to the beach, out of the dark water and on to dry land, but tell myself there is no rush, not now. Not any more.
A tap on my shoulder. Sea Boy. He points towards the island and I swim with him. When the lagoon becomes so shallow we can touch the bottom with our hands, I push out the water from my chest and stand up. I watch my gills close, feeling their slim channels with my fingertips and wondering if I’ll ever get used to them.
Sea Boy rises with a splash next to me and strides out on to the beach, shoulders hunched. His neck is corded with tension, his eyebrows high. Unlike when I first met him on the mangrove island, he has pushed the water out of his lungs. As his oxygen runs out his desperation will set in. I know that feeling too well.
‘All you have to do is inhale, exhale,’ I say, exaggerating my breaths like Mum used to when I had a panic attack. Like Poppy did – and probably will again.
Sea Boy watches my lips, and clutches at his chest, but I take his hand and I hold it tight. The gills on his chest are closed flat. He rolls back his shoulders and draws in a deep, whistling breath, chest rising, nostrils flaring, and then slumps as he breathes out. He finds the same rhythm as me, taking longer and deeper breaths. When Sea Boy straightens up to his full height, he’s taller than I thought.
‘Anyone would think you’d never breathed air before.’ As the words leave my mouth, I remember people have died – Callum, my aunt – and that Sea Boy’s been underwater for God knows how long. Might be too soon for a joke. But he grins.
‘It has been a while,’ he says, his voice rumbling, gravelly, ‘I’m Talal.’
‘I’m Aster,’ I say and I hold out my hand. He takes it.
‘You told me. When you were trying your hardest to get eaten by a shark. And I remember you . . . from camp,’ he says and coughs. He has a slight accent, Middle Eastern maybe.
I drop his hand as his words sink in. He knew who I was? Then he knew all along that I was Poppy
’s sister, how worried I was, how terrified she must have been. I feel heat in my cheeks.
‘If you knew me, why didn’t you try to explain what had happened, bring Poppy to me?’
He raises his eyebrows. ‘I did try to take you to Poppy, but you were with Iona. I couldn’t bring the kid to you, couldn’t risk taking her anywhere near Iona after what she did.’ He meets my eyes and my anger fizzles out.
Sea Boy draws a few more breaths and continues: ‘You have to understand. When Iona found me I was living in a tent camp in Turkey with thousands of other Syrian refugees. My father was already dying of cancer, there was nothing more she could do for him. I had no one else. Iona said she could take me away from there, to a good, safe place. All I had to do was agree to a medical trial to make sure I did not get cancer like my father. And Wildhaven was good. But then there was the boat and when I woke up here, she did not come. I continued to believe she would find us at the wreck, even when the others lost faith. It took a long time for me to accept that she’d experimented on us, lied to us. Then left us.’
A flash of desolation crosses his face, like a cloud across the sun.
‘But she did come back in the end, guys. Told you she would.’ His voice croaks and he winces as if talking is painful, shuts one eye . . .
And in that gesture, I know him.
The boy with the dark hair who was working on an animal skin at Wildhaven. Grey eyes under dark eyebrows, and a goofy grin. Now he has a mane of hair, killer cheekbones, and a lot more shoulder. And the scar across his cheek and eye looks less obvious on dry land, but helped disguise him underwater.
‘I remember you. You winked at me,’ I say.
Sea Boy looks down, grimacing. ‘I was almost glad when you didn’t recognize me, because at least you wouldn’t remember that.’
I blow out a long breath. I can’t blame him for not telling Poppy he’d seen me, not after what he’s been through, and what we’ve been through together.
Secret Deep Page 18