Dangerous Depths (The Sea Monster Memoirs)

by Karen Amanda Hooper

  Pango slid a dagger into my jacket pocket and zipped it. “You won’t be living at all if you go by your lonesome.”

  “I can do it.”

  “No, you can’t,” Treygan argued, pulling on his gloves. “You haven’t seen Vienna in almost two decades. If and when you do find her, especially if she’s sick, or hurt, or …” He hesitated, carefully choosing his words as if others hadn’t told me the same thing a dozen times already. “If she’s no longer herself, you’re going to lose the ability to think rationally. Your emotions will take over. We need to be there to do your rational thinking for you.”

  “He’s right.” Yara stepped closer to me. “No one—I don’t care how strong they are—can find their own way out of hell. Someone needs to shine the light that guides them through the darkness.” She linked her pinky with mine. “We’ll be each other’s light.”

  “Holy Poseidon,” I grumbled, trying to pull my pinky away from hers with no success. “We’re about to cross into the realm of the damned, and you’re getting all sappy and uplifting.”

  Yara squeezed my finger before letting go. “There’s plenty more where that came from.”

  I started to tell them I had a sick feeling. How I feared some or all of us would die on this trip, but Yara shouted before I could say another word.

  “The compass is spinning!”

  Pango pressed one hand to his forehead while fanning himself with the other. “Sufferin’ suckerfish, this is really happening.”

  Caspian killed the motor and dropped anchor. “This is as far as we go. You three will have to swim the rest of the way.”

  “Oh dear, I knew this moment would arrive,” Pango said. “But it’s all happening too fast.”

  “Breathe, Pango.” Treygan reached up and gripped his shoulder. “We’ll be okay.”

  The fog grew thicker with each passing second. I could barely see the bow of the boat. Electricity seemed to buzz and crackle in the thick haze.

  “This place is even creepier than I imagined,” Pango said.

  Yara flashed him a scathing look.

  “Sorry,” Pango muttered.

  “Remember, we stick together.” Treygan locked eyes with me over Yara’s shoulder as he helped adjust her holsters. “It’s the cardinal rule.”

  I nodded and put on my gloves, trying to ignore the knots in my stomach.

  “Yara.” Pango held both of her hands. “Koraline wanted me to tell you something. She told me to wait until the last second, and this seems to be it.”

  “What did she say?” Yara asked, sounding concerned.

  “She wants you to remember Harriet Stowe’s quote.” Pango bent his knees so he was almost eye-level with Yara. “Never give up, for that is the place and time that the tide will turn.”

  “Never give up,” Yara repeated. “The tide will turn. Got it.”

  “She said to tattoo it on your arm, but that’s a bit extreme. Such a drama queen, that sister of mine.”

  In spite of the situation, Yara smiled at him. “I won’t forget.”

  Treygan jumped into the water first. Yara carefully eased herself off the swimming platform like she was afraid the ocean might swallow her whole. Judging from the foreboding vibe, I wouldn’t have been surprised if we all disappeared without a trace. I climbed in after Yara, not dipping below the surface because I felt safer with the boat still in sight.

  Pango and Caspian leaned over the back.

  “I expect a full and detailed report when you return,” Caspian told us.

  Pango gingerly waved. “Oh, my brave starfishies, please return soon.”

  We all said goodbye, then Treygan turned to me.

  “You ready?” he asked.

  I splashed water on my face. This was really about to happen. We were actually swimming into the mouth of the Devil’s Triangle. Gods help us all. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

  We sank below the surface, but the soupy fog was just as thick in the water as it was above. The three of us linked hands and swam forward. I’m not ashamed to admit that Yara’s fingers laced tightly with mine were comforting.

  I wasn’t sure if I would have been able to continue alone.

  I had never flown so fast.

  My heart sped up until it felt like one steady, painful beat. My lungs stung from lack of oxygen. My wings burned, but I kept pushing, trying to gain more speed. I had to see Yara again.

  I had refused to say goodbye or good luck, and then, like a child, I had flown off with attitude. I had expected her to follow me and talk to me. Almost all night I stayed awake, gazing out of the nest and watching for her. I didn’t remember falling asleep, but when I finally woke, Medusa’s sun shined at full power. I rushed to Treygan’s house, but they were gone. No note, no message left for me, nothing.

  I never thought she would go to Harte—knowing she would probably never come back—without saying goodbye. How could she care so little about me?

  I almost flew right over the boat. The fog was so thick I couldn’t see more than a few feet in front of me or below me. I swooped down, grazing Caspian’s head. Pango waved to me and pointed east. I nodded and flew off as fast as my wings would carry me.

  They weren’t far. Thank the gods for Rownan’s and Treygan’s dark hair because Yara blended into the waves and fog as if it they were already erasing her. I coasted down to them and landed on the water, skidding to a squatted position a few feet ahead of them. Just before they passed below me I reached down and yanked Yara to the surface. Treygan and Rownan popped up beside her.

  “Nixie?” Yara looked surprised, but also as terrified as I felt her to be. “What are you doing here?”

  “You left without saying goodbye.”

  “You refused to say goodbye.”

  “Are we still moving?” Treygan asked.

  We all glanced around. We were being pulled eastward even though no one was making any effort to move. I examined the surface of the water where my boots sank into it. The water was tunneling around the heels rapidly.

  I glanced over my shoulder, hoping to see where the current was carrying us, but behind me was just more blinding fog. I pointed at my boots so the others could see the rushing water. “We are definitely moving.”

  “The fog seems to be moving at the same speed as us,” Treygan noted. “It’s creating the illusion that we are staying in place.”

  “This is weird,” Yara mumbled. She held her hands out in front of her and spread her fingers wide. The water rushed through them. “We’re picking up speed.”

  “Everyone stay together.” Treygan linked his arm tightly with Yara’s. She latched on to Rownan with her other arm. Clearly, Treygan meant everyone except me. They all stared past me, their eyes widening. I was afraid to turn around and see what was causing their expressions, but I did.

  The fog had thinned out. Charcoal lines curled around us like a spiraling tunnel.

  “Time lines,” Yara shouted. “Just like Joel said.”

  I snapped around to look at her. “What do you mean, time lines?”

  A loud sound filled the air around us. I had never heard anything like it. Whooshing in and out like waves, but with a high-pitched, eerie echo. I stepped over Yara and sank into the water so that only my head was above the surface, just like the others. I don’t know why I thought the ocean would protect me from whatever strange phenomenon was going on, but I hid behind Yara and held on to her and Treygan’s linked arms.

  “Time is different in Harte.” Yara turned and spoke over her shoulder so I could hear her. “Joel said we’d see time lines in the fog when we reached the gateway.”

  Treygan glanced back at me. “We have to be out by the third sunset from today. If not, the gate doesn’t open for another year and a half.”

  “Treygan,” Yara hissed.

  “She has the right to know.”

  My heart sank to my toes. Yara kept a lot of things from me, but this was unacceptable. They could lose track of time and never know when or how to get back.
“What if you don’t know when the third sunset is?”

  The wind sucked us forward. I held on to Yara and Treygan so tight they grimaced.

  “We’ll know,” Yara tried assuring me. “We have a plan.”

  That didn’t make me feel any better. We picked up speed, moving closer and closer to the time lines spiraling through the sky. I lifted myself up out of the water just enough to confirm what I suspected. A whirlpool was forming ahead of us.

  I ripped Yara and Treygan apart then turned Yara to face me. I grasped her wrist and laced each of my fingers with her gloved hand, squeezing hard. “I’m begging you, don’t go. Don’t do this.”

  She squeezed back, freed her other arm from Rownan, and pulled me so close our foreheads touched. “Believe in me, Nixie. Because I believe in you.”

  Her words meant the worlds to me, but they were bittersweet. “Believe in me? I have nothing to do with this.”

  “You have everything to do with this. We have a bond that I don’t have with anyone else. You’ve been with me since childhood. You were with me when my mom died. I wouldn’t be alive today if you hadn’t told Treygan I was drowning. You knew my own mother better than I did. Now we’re sisters, but you’re also my siren.”

  An overwhelming need to protect her engulfed me. “Let me come with you. I can help.”

  She shook her head. “I need you to stay in Rathe.” Sage slithered behind her neck. “I need you here, believing I will make it home. I need to know the people I love need me to return. Knowing that will give me the strength and courage to get out of Harte.”

  “We’re getting pulled into a whirlpool,” Treygan yelled, grabbing Yara with one hand and Rownan with the other.

  I finally, genuinely, felt needed by her, but I still pleaded, “Don’t go.”

  “Stay strong for me,” Yara urged. “I have to come back. I can’t leave you or Uncle Lloyd.” She smiled, even as waves crashed against her face. “Or the sprites and all the other creatures I love so much.”

  The pulling sensation tugged hard at me too. I could have easily let myself be pulled in with them. I could have claimed I wasn’t strong enough to fly to safety, but that would be betraying Yara. I would do what she needed me to do.

  I kissed her then flew up out of the current. I was high enough to see how massive the whirlpool was. My hair whipped my face so hard I could feel it cutting my skin. I prayed into the screaming winds ripping past me. “Medusa, please help them.”

  I watched their three bodies circling deeper into the giant, dark tunnel. They became smaller and smaller until I could no longer see them.

  Tears formed in my eyes, but they were immediately carried away by the wind. Carried away and lost in the ocean, just like Yara.

  The clock had begun ticking.

  Riding the spiraling whirlpool down into the belly of the ocean was the easy part.

  Then stillness hit us so abruptly that I wondered if we were dead. Except I had died before, and it was nothing like what we were experiencing.

  Everything went white. The lack of scenery, of sound, of … anything was disorienting. We were weightless. I didn’t know if we were floating in air, water, or something entirely different. I flexed my biceps against Treygan’s and Rownan’s. Their arms were linked together too. We faced each other, forming a tight triangle. The feel of them beside me, and seeing us all still linked together, gave me hope. I tried speaking, but no words came out. Rownan and Treygan did the same thing; their mouths moved in slow motion but there was no sound.

  Then the real spinning started. My head and arms were forced back, like gravity was pressing against me harder than a hurricane. My body folded so far backward I thought my spine would snap. My limbs felt like taffy being stretched until they would rip apart. Rownan slipped away from me first, followed by Treygan.

  I tried yelling out for Treygan, but I couldn’t open my mouth against the intense pressure. I let out a close-lipped scream that stayed buried inside me.

  I fell.

  And fell.

  I kept falling through a soundless tunnel of white that gradually turned gray then darkened to black.

  I landed facedown with a thud so hard it should have broken every bone in my body. I lifted my head and saw Rownan and Treygan sprawled on the ground just a few feet away. Then I realized the ground was only a patch of land, like a sandbar hovering in … air? Black and blue surrounded us, but it didn’t look like sky or water. At least, no sky or water I had ever seen. I sat up and inhaled. My lungs strained, but at least I could breathe.

  I pushed my hair out of my face and discovered some strands floating freely above my head as if we were in water. But when I gathered all of it and pulled it over my shoulder, it remained in place. The laws of gravity were nothing like in Earth or Rathe.

  “Yara?” Treygan’s eyes flew open, and he sprang to his feet just as fast, but then he toppled over and fell to his knees.

  “I’m here. I’m okay.” I crawled closer to him.

  His bewildered gaze landed on me. He hugged me so tight I was certain he would crack any bones that were spared in our fall.

  “Easy,” I groaned. “That was a hard landing.”

  His grip loosened. “Sorry. I felt you slip away from me. I didn’t know what to do.”

  “Treygan?” Rownan turned his head. “You all right, man?” He struggled to sit up, grunting while rubbing his arms and back.

  I took off my gloves and assessed my own limbs. I ached all over, but amazingly all of my muscles and bones were still intact.

  “What in the—?” Rownan gazed at the dark, dingy haze surrounding our floating island.

  “My sentiments exactly.” I motioned to the emptiness around us. No stars, mountains, water, plants, nothing. “Where are we supposed to go from here?”

  Rownan walked to the edge of our plot of land. Taking off his gloves, he pointed downward. “There, I’m assuming.”

  Treygan helped me to my feet and we walked over to join Rownan. I looked over the edge and gasped. I couldn’t tell if we were floating high above a raging fire, or if the sky/water/land below us just looked like burning embers.

  “Holy Poseidon.” Treygan clutched my waist, pulling me a step back from the edge.

  Rownan ran his hand over his goatee. “We’re going to burn to death, aren’t we? Who would have thought hell would be so predictable?”

  Leaning forward, Treygan squinted. “Is it just me, or are those flames getting closer?”

  “Oh, gods, we’re sinking.” Panic rushed through me.

  “Or the flames are rising up to meet us,” Rownan mused.

  The shifting shades of red, orange, and yellow were almost level with our island, but when they hit our sliver of land the flames—were they flames?—burst into billions of pieces.

  Treygan reached forward, waving his hands through the sparks.

  “No!” I tried pulling him back before he got burned, but he glanced up at me and smiled. His bare hand still glided through the fragments of fire.

  “It’s warm but doesn’t burn. It feels like rain.”

  The sea of flames kept exploding into droplets as it rose around us. Rownan and I waved our hands through the glowing rain. Or embers. Or whatever.

  I tried catching a few drops in my hand to examine them, but they evaporated. “Rain that starts as fire and falls up?”

  Treygan shrugged. “We knew to expect the unexpected.”

  “What else do you suppose is down there?” Rownan stared over the edge again. “And how deep do you think it goes?”

  “Or does it ever end?” I did not want to fall again. The last long trip was disorienting enough. I strained my eyes, trying to see what existed below us, but the constantly moving flames created too many optical illusions.

  “For the love of Medusa,” Treygan gasped.

  Rownan and I snapped around at Treygan’s remark. My mouth actually fell open.

  A giant ship, most of it decayed or rusted, slowly floated toward us—upsi
de-down.

  “Do you think there are any people on it?” I whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Treygan muttered. “I don’t know what to think about any of this.”

  We all watched the ship sail closer, slightly rotating as if trying to right itself. Its iron sides groaned and creaked so loud I covered my ears. I turned away, not wanting to chance seeing someone, or something, on the ship.

  I immediately regretted facing the other direction. “Guys!”

  They turned, and together the three of us watched the front half of a plane flying toward us. Seaweed hung from its propeller, but it wasn’t spinning.

  “That looks like it’s from the 1950s or ’60s,” Treygan said.

  “Is it going to hit us?” I asked.

  Rownan glanced between the ship and the plane, then down at our plot of land. “It’s like everything is just orbiting around each other.”

  I held on to Treygan’s hand. “What if we collide with one of them?”

  “You’ll have to fly us out of the way if they get too close.”

  I pinched my shoulder blades together, confirming my wings still functioned. Why hadn’t I already thought of that? Sage. My hand flew to the back of my head, searching for her. She slithered over my shoulder until I could see her.

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured, feeling guilty for hardly acknowledging her. Sure, I was banged up and disoriented, but Sage was a part of me and I hadn’t even thought to check on her. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

  She rubbed against my cheek, but I still felt guilty.

  “Where do we go from here?” Treygan asked.

  The plane crept closer and tilted as if steering around us. The broken right wing passed directly over our heads.

  “Maybe we’re supposed to …,” I didn’t want to say it out loud because I couldn’t imagine actually doing it, but finally I suggested, “board the ship or plane.”

  Treygan and Rownan looked as horrified as I felt.

  “No way,” Rownan said. “That would be like climbing into a used grave.”

  “So, this is it?” I spun in a circle. “We just stand here, watching remnants of crashed planes and lost ships float by us?”