“Oh my word! Blue! Jason!” Ashlyn’s brown eyes widened with surprise. She embraced each of us and glanced at Chance and Girtha. “And new friends. Hello there. I am Ashlyn. And you are?”
Chance and Girtha shook her hand politely but pointed to their necks and made the gesture one might make if experiencing a sore throat. I beckoned for Ashlyn to follow us and we walked out onto the pier, me hastily leading the way. Jason pulled on my arm to slow me down though—with her braces Ashlyn couldn’t keep up with the brisk pace. When we were about where we’d left Lonna, I got on my hands and knees and hung my head under the floorboards. I waved our mermaid friend over and she hesitantly moved out of the shadow into clear view.
Ashlyn was so shocked she almost fell over. “You’re a mermaid!”
“I am,” Lonna said. “Lonna Langard. I’m a princess from the undersea kingdom of Mer. I take it by this introduction that our mutual friends must really trust you. They can’t talk right now. They temporarily traded their voices to an undersea enchantress for a couple of hours. We’re on a quest.”
“I am familiar with undersea enchantresses,” Ashlyn said. “And I am a princess of Mer too. My name is Ashlyn Inero. My mother was the Little Mermaid. You may have heard of her.”
Now it was Lonna’s turn to be surprised. Her eyes darted between us and Ashlyn. “Seriously? You disappeared years ago. Our world thinks you’re dead. How are you here? How are you this old? No offense.”
“I came here when I was very young,” Ashlyn said. “I fell in love with a man from Earth and chose to stay. But a magic curse made by the Godmother Supreme of your realm kept me from ever returning to Book. The curse also keeps me from entering water, or I’ll sink and drown. I’ve lived my whole life on this island, and have grown from a young adult to a woman in her early sixties.”
Wow. Ashlyn was in her sixties? When we were here (about nine months ago Book time) she’d been in her mid to late forties. The time difference between our worlds was crazy.
“It’s amazing to see you both; the two of you look exactly as I remember,” Ashlyn said, talking to Jason and me. “I guess there is a story Lonna needs to tell us on your behalf, but if you’ll wait a moment, I’d like to get my husband and kids so they can hear it too. You can swim closer to shore, Lonna, but stay under the shadow of the dock. We own about a mile of the beachfront, so you should be safe, but I’d feel more comfortable if you were closer to the house.”
“You got it,” Lonna said. “I could use some exposition myself.” She crossed her arms and glanced at my team. “I think there are a few things that my friends forgot to mention.”
Ashlyn’s husband Donnie had retained his buff outdoorsman vibe. Though he’d obviously aged—longer beard, salt-and-pepper hair—the bulging muscles on his dark skin were still noticeable under the short sleeve of his tropical print shirt, which he wore unbuttoned over a plain white tee.
Ashlyn’s kids had grown too. Arabeth, the eldest, had been fifteen the last time I’d seen her. Now she was a stunning thirty-year-old with black hair in a ponytail, toned arms that suggested she could best any hero at arm-wrestling, and abs comparable with the mermaids of Mer.
Michael and Tina Louise, the twins, had curls like Ashlyn and hazel eyes rimmed in amber. They’d been six-year-olds and were now twenty-one. We’d been so much older than them not long ago. Now they were older than us. Bizarre.
The whole family sat with us on the dock. After Lonna told our hosts about Midnight Law, the search for Crisa, and Humilde, I wrote something on one of the “whiteboards” that Ashlyn had brought over to us. I held up the board with the words “Mary Roberts.”
The faces of the entire Inero family saddened with profound pain.
“She was taken from us,” Arabeth said. “Four months ago, some people broke into our home and kidnapped her. We have been searching for her, and for clues, but there has been no sign of her on the island.”
I nodded. I hadn’t been trying to ask a question when I wrote Mary Roberts’ name. I was trying to bring up the topic because of the visions my friends and I had seen.
I wiped away the words on my whiteboard and scribbled as quickly as possible to elaborate for the family. “Villains want Crisa to go dark. Forcing her to use magic on Earth. Book magic + Earth = bad side effects. Mary Roberts taken by villains. Using her healing magic when Crisa gets too damaged.”
The Inero family looked aghast.
“Where are they?” Donnie asked.
Chance wrote on his whiteboard this time. “Earth. Don’t know where. Midnight Law leads to Crisa. Crisa leads to Mary Roberts.”
“What can we do to help?” asked Tina Louise.
“For now, we need a place to regroup,” Lonna said. “We have a book of spells from Humilde. Blue wants to do some research to see if there is any way around the kind of voice deal the sorceress wants to make. I’m fine hanging out by this dock if you could let the others crash with you. The next wormhole out of here is tomorrow at noon.”
“Of course you can stay with us,” Tina Louise said. “Right, Mom?”
Ashlyn stared off at the water.
“Mom?”
“What? Sorry, yes, of course they can stay.”
“Are you okay?” Lonna asked.
Ashlyn sighed and shook her head. “No, I’m not. As descendants of Mer people, my children all have some form of magical power like you and I do. None of us use our powers often because of the pain that Earth inflicts on those who use otherworldly magic. That pain can vary in degree, but it’s quite punishing. If the antagonists are making my daughter regularly use her healing abilities to mend Crisa while on Earth . . .”
Her eyes filled with tears. Donnie wrapped his arms around her. Arabeth put her hand on her mother’s shoulder as well.
“I am so sorry,” Lonna said on the group’s behalf. “For a lot of things honestly—Mary Roberts, that curse the Godmother Supreme put on you, not being able to use your magic without consequences. I can’t imagine living life like that. I tried to use my powers earlier while I was waiting for you all, and the pain was too much to handle. Magic creatures have to use their magic here and there or our bodies freak out. That means you all have to face that kind of pain occasionally, but forever. Over time I imagine that can seriously damage you.”
“Yes . . .” Ashlyn said slowly. “But we must always be grateful for what we do have.” She took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her eyes. “Earth’s magic resistance may have deteriorated my knees, but it could be worse. Being in dimensions you do not belong in for extended periods causes a sickness called Portal Acid. The Godmother Supreme warned me of that when she exiled me, but my healing powers counteract the effects. Dealing with knee pain and not being able to swim is better than leaving my family as a result of succumbing to a fatal magical illness.”
I glanced at Jason. Portal Acid was what Mark suffered from.
My gaze went back to the Ineros as Ashlyn leaned against her husband’s shoulder. I respected her positive outlook on her life in general, but the fear in her eyes and moroseness in her face spoke to the woman’s torment over this current turn of events.
I could relate a little to the devastation of knowing what was happening to her daughter; something equally awful, if not moreso, was happening to my best friend.
I wanted to tell the Ineros we were going to stop at nothing to find Crisa and Mary Roberts. I wanted to assure them that we’d reunite their family in no time. I wanted to convey empathy and sympathy and my firm belief that everything would be okay.
But I had no voice.
So instead I chose to write the best, most concise words I could think of:
“We’ll bring them home. Promise.”
Arabeth nodded and stood, offering her mother a hand up.
“Come inside,” Donnie said to us. “We were making breakfast when you showed up. You kids must be hungry.”
I wasn’t sure if we were. Our time zones were all messed up and my mouth tast
ed like salt water. But food was good for the soul, and I was glad for the opportunity to refuel and regroup in the comfort of the Inero house. I hoped Daniel, SJ, Kai, and Mauvrey were having as much luck. Although I wasn’t sure if trading our voices to a magical octopus woman and getting stranded in an alternate dimension could be defined as particularly lucky, even if there was breakfast involved.
Chance held up a whiteboard to Lonna. It read: “We’ll check on you in a bit. Stay safe and out of sight.”
Lonna nodded and dove beneath the water. My team followed the Inero family toward their house. Before heading inside, I glanced back at the sparkling water and down to the end of the dock. What felt like forever ago, I had confronted Crisa at that very spot, insisting that she needed to trust us. Shortly after, she had finally let go of her guardedness and let us in. Now was the ultimate time to prove that the faith she’d put in me, and our friends, had not been misplaced.
My imagination formed ghosts of my best friend and I at the end of the dock, and I recalled the words I’d said to her.
“If we want this to work, we have to trust each other. But that’s a two-way street. We’ve trusted you. Now you need to stop pushing us away and trust us too. And this, right here, is your second chance to do so. So don’t blow it.”
I had been the one to blow it.
I’d reacted angrily to Crisa in Dreamland when she took the Shadow; it was easier to be mad at her than allow myself to feel other things. But with a clear head, I understood why she did it. For starters, she was trying to be good, offset the bad that her magic sometimes wrought. Furthermore, her sacrifice had been about saving Mark and protecting me. Shadows brought out a person’s dark side. Crisa was used to managing the struggle against darkness because of what Pure Magic already put on her soul. Though I was eligible to take the Shadow too, I was not adjusted to that kind of internal conflict and would have been more at risk for losing control to it. So I get why she’d rushed to take on the creature before I could.
And yet . . .
I stared at the edge of the dock. Now that I’d opened the floodgates, all my doubts and shame and what ifs came spiraling out, taking me with them.
If I were truly worthy of the trust I’d insisted she give, I would’ve done something to protect her in return. I could’ve stayed trapped in Dreamland too. Maybe we could’ve eluded the antagonists together until the next full moon.
I’d left on her insistence because our enemies didn’t want to kill Crisa, but they would’ve killed the rest of us gladly. It made sense at the time, but in retrospect all I could think was that I’d run like a coward.
Past that guilt, I should’ve figured out sooner that those dreams I was having were Crisa’s cries for help. I should’ve saved her before Arian unleashed such a cruel form of torture. And I should have—
Jason put his hand on my arm. He didn’t need a voice to calm me down. His eyes and touch did that just fine. I turned away from the dock and linked my arm through his. It wasn’t a romantic thing; it was a friendship thing.
Sometimes a girl—a person—needed someone to lean on.
y team and I spent the afternoon pouring over the Book of Speech Spells.
Most permanent voice-swap spells came with a loophole where the speaker could earn his or her voice back and keep whatever the enchanter had given in exchange. For example, we found the spell that the Little Mermaid used to swap her mermaid tail for legs in trade for her voice. The loophole for that spell was the speaker getting a predetermined mate to proclaim true love for her in a matter of days.
The problem was that most loopholes involved true love and limited days like the Little Mermaid’s spell. That wasn’t a good option for us given Humilde’s demand. With five speakers, true love plans seemed impossible.
The spell book had a wealth of other information, including the names of its previous owners written inside the front cover, and their notes scribbled in the margins throughout the text. Additionally, full journal entries were peppered throughout the book—its previous owners describing experiences they’d had with certain spells.
The entry that struck me the most was extremely old. My team and I were taking turns reading in pairs, and Jason and I were huddled together as we absorbed the somber tale. It was about a mermaid who failed to convince the human prince she loved to marry her. Per the parameters of the spell that gave her legs, her fate was to die of a broken heart, but the mermaid’s eldest sister intervened. She used a magic knife to cut off her hair, which enchanted the blade. The next person stabbed with that knife would have his or her soul’s energy sucked out and stored in the knife. Then with another stabbing, that same blade could inject the soul energy into someone new, in this case the doomed mermaid, to resurrect her life.
The mermaid sister planned to use the knife to stab the human prince and give his soul energy to the mermaid he’d dumped. However, the latter refused to use the knife because she still loved the prince, even if he didn’t love her. So our story’s heroine died.
Major downer.
Thank goodness for the epilogue. According to the journal entry, the enchanter felt sorry for the dead mermaid and turned her into a spirit connected to sea foam. Mer people on Earth could now call upon the mermaid in times of great strife. If she served thirty mermaids in less than three hundred years, she would be reincarnated as a mermaid again.
Jason and I passed the story to Chance and Girtha so they could have a look. I sat back as they read, letting the sun warm my face as I thought about the jars of hair I’d seen in Humilde’s lair. Were they related to this tale? Were mystical haircuts commonplace for mermaids?
We’d been doing our research in the kitchen. The windows provided plenty of reading light, the table was roomy, and the décor was a nice contrast to our solemn moods—pale yellow walls, blonde wood floors, white window frames, and cheerful tropical cushions on all the chairs.
The Inero family had left us after a hearty brunch. Donnie, Ashlyn, and Tina Louise went out on their boat, The Seabeagle, to do their daily fishing. Arabeth was in the office running the family’s tourism business. Because Bermuda was such a hotspot for wormholes, the area had gained a mystical reputation for weird things happening—boats vanishing, peculiar creatures popping up, and other crazy stories that were not really so crazy considering these wormholes connected to other dimensions. People on Earth called it the “Bermuda Triangle” effect.
The Ineros had found a way to capitalize on this while downplaying the seriousness of rumors to protect the existence of other magic worlds. They even worked closely with the port authority and island government to steer ships around wormhole activity.
Although black holes were typically unpredictable, after forty years of doing this, Ashlyn and Donnie could forecast wormhole openings a lot of the time. They were like Mark with his wormhole mapping. They proved that even unpredictable things could be understood if someone paid close enough attention.
A knock came at the door.
“You guys have been reading for hours,” Michael said as he entered. “Maybe you should take a break. Anytime I’m studying for a test, I always make sure to give myself intervals away from the books. It’s the only way of surviving college.”
I wrote on my whiteboard and held it up. “What’s college?”
He blinked. “You mean you guys don’t have that in Book? Okay, well . . . college is basically a kind of extra, advanced school you can choose to go to once you’re done with regular school.”
I erased my whiteboard and wrote again. “Why?”
Michael cracked a smile. “I think a lot of people don’t feel complete when they graduate primary school. There’s a lot more to learn in specialized areas, but also a lot more to learn about the world, working with others, yourself, and what you want to do with your life. College is a place to learn how to be a more full person, if that makes sense.”
I nodded. It did make sense. A shocking amount of sense. Why didn’t we have something like that in B
ook? I mean, there were specialty training programs and schools for certain professions, like doctors and lawyers, but for most people—protagonists included—when we graduated, we just went off into the world and were expected to own it. Once Crisa and SJ graduated from Lady Agnue’s at the end of the coming year, they would return home to their kingdoms and live as princesses, training to be queens and someday run their respective kingdoms. As for me, I had no plans. I had no guarantees about my future or income or purpose. I had no idea how to take everything I had learned and transition into a life outside the relative safety of school.
Then again, this seemed like a petty concern at the moment given that we were trying to survive Midnight Law. If we returned home in one piece, I could freak out about my future and adulthood then.
“I always find a walk on the beach calming,” Michael suggested. “And Blue, my mom told me you really loved the Die Hard movies when you visited fifteen years ago. Two more Die Hard movies have come out since then. Want to watch one? Might clear your mind for a bit.”
For a second I forgot I couldn’t speak and opened my mouth to scream in delight.
We had twenty hours until we left for Book. I scrawled on my whiteboard with haste. “Time for both?”
Michael shook his head. “You’re going to have to trust me on this. The fourth movie really holds up. You don’t want to see the fifth one though; it ruins everything.”
I looked over at my friends. Jason gestured for Chance’s whiteboard. “Meet back here in three hours?”
Everyone nodded and got up from the table. Chance put the quill from Humilde’s lair back inside the book like a bookmark and shut it. I reached to take the text, but he gestured that he’d like to hang on to it. I wasn’t nuts about that, but let it go when Michael distracted me.
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