My breathing is slow and careful. I have to buy myself time to think.
Maybe if I rock the sub back and forth, I can loosen the grip of the kelp enough to open the hatch just a crack. I stand up on the seat, bracing my arms against either side of the roof, and lean all my weight to the left, then to the right. The sub tilts back and forth. I keep going, left, right, left, right. I push as hard as I can against the hatch.
It still won’t budge.
My lungs are aching now. My head is hurting. I can’t focus.
I close my eyes, breathing as slowly as I can.
I think about my father, wondering if he would have known what to do. I’m glad he can’t see me now. He won’t ever know I died trying to find him.
In the darkness, my mind is playing tricks on me. The sweet smell of wild orchids fills the air. I close my eyes tighter.
I hear my mother’s voice in my head. She’s singing a song. It’s soft and low and beautiful.
Taking shallow breaths, my voice cracking, I begin to sing along with her.
As I sing the last notes of the song, I see glowing points of light appear all around me. Hundreds of kelp bulbs are lighting up, glowing yellow and orange. I feel the submarine jostle as the strands of kelp loosen their grip and rise up to sway gently and peacefully around me.
I push down on the pedals and feel no resistance. The propeller turns and I slowly start to move forward. The air is coming in again. The great stalks of kelp seem to bend out of my way as I sail through, as if they have decided I am a friend.
The path ahead of me is lit up with the glowing balloon-like bulbs. I watch the waving strands warily. I think this must be the particularly deadly kind of kelp known as strangleclaw. I remember my father sometimes called it glowkelp because of its shining bulbs. He said that if you get in trouble under the water, you can use their bulbs to breathe. Each one has enough air for one or two full breaths.
At last the stalks become sparser, and I know I’m coming to the end of the forest of light. The blackness stretches out in front of me as if daring me to enter the unknown. Now I know that there will be many challenges ahead, things I can’t even imagine, but I’ll be ready for them.
Sure enough, as I sail on into the deeper waters, I see two gleaming green eyes watching me from the darkness.
6
THE CLOCKWORK SEAHORSE
The glowing green eyes stare back at me amid glints of metallic gold. I sail closer, hardly believing what I’m seeing. It looks like a seahorse, but it must be bigger than I am. I take some small comfort knowing that at least this horse isn’t made of kelp.
It suddenly darts straight toward me, stopping just inches in front of the window.
Its eyes are huge faceted emeralds. Its body is made of interlocking segments of polished gold and its abdomen appears to be transparent crystal, revealing hundreds of tiny moving gears inside.
It turns its head from side to side as if it’s looking me over. “Who made you?” I whisper, under my breath. As it turns, I can see that the back of its head and body are covered in exposed gears. There must be thousands of them, some so small that I can barely see them.
The seahorse’s body glows from inside with a dancing white light. Bright little bursts of energy crawl like lightning along the surface and then disappear back into the clockwork gears.
But its tail looks loose—it’s barely attached. Is this clockwork seahorse able to swim properly with its tail so badly damaged?
As I’m thinking all this, I realize the seahorse is looking into my eyes. I suddenly feel embarrassed that I’ve been staring. Although it’s made of metal and gears, I can’t help feeling that this peculiar creature is as alive as I am.
And I think it wants something from me.
“Hello?” I say. It just stares back at me. I feel a little silly, but I keep trying. “My name is Merryn. I’m looking for someone.” It tilts its head a tiny bit, as if it is listening. “I need to find my father,” I continue. It tilts its head again. Does it understand me?
My face is close to the glass. The window is starting to fog up from my breath. I’m about to wipe it clean with my sleeve when I have an idea.
With the tip of my finger I sketch a line of waves in the fogged glass. I draw my father’s boat below the waves. I point to my eyes and then to the boat. The seahorse just stares at me for a moment, then turns and swims away into the darkness.
I wipe the glass free and start to pedal forward. Soon I see a faint glow ahead of me. The seahorse is waiting for me! Is it trying to lead me somewhere? Does it know where my father is? Part of me feels that it’s foolish to trust this strange mechanical creature, but I don’t have any better ideas at the moment.
The seahorse is moving awkwardly. I think his tail is bothering him. He’s struggling to go in a straight line. Why am I calling a pile of metal and gears a he? I guess it just doesn’t feel right to call the seahorse an it.
I sail closer, beckoning him to come toward me. He swims up.
“Your tail is hurt,” I say. “Will you let me fix it?” He looks at me cautiously. I don’t think he trusts me yet. I reach down and find my screwdriver, holding it up for him, hoping I look like I know what I’m doing.
“Follow me,” I call to him, as I sail down toward a patch of kelp on the seafloor. This is going to be a tricky maneuver, but I think I can make it work. I roll my weight back and forth in the sub until it flips all the way upside down. In one quick motion I pop open the hatch and dive out. I grab a kelp strand and tie it to the hatch, holding the sub upside down. As long as it stays in this position, the air won’t be able to leak out.
The water is freezing cold. I’m going to have to make this fast.
Holding my breath, I swim toward the seahorse to examine his tail. As I reach out to touch it, a spark of energy jumps onto my hand and crawls up my arm. I feel a jolt like an electric shock. At the same time, visions flash quickly through my head.
I see a beautiful city made of gold . . . then a tall underwater lighthouse, casting its searchlight through the water . . . then a circle of stones, like an undersea graveyard . . . then another flash of light, and then the images are gone.
As strange and wondrous as the images are, I have to push them out of my mind and focus on the seahorse. I need to work quickly—I won’t be able to hold my breath for very long.
The creature’s tail doesn’t look too bad. Two of the screws have come loose and one of the gears is misaligned. Nothing I can’t fix. I snap the gear back in place, and his tail immediately begins to wiggle as if he were a happy puppy. I quickly tighten the screws and check to make sure there is no other damage, then swim back up through the bottom of the hatch.
I close the hatch behind me and roll the sub back over so I can start pedaling. I’m shivering from the cold, but when I see the seahorse swim up to me, still wiggling his tail in thanks, I know I did the right thing.
The seahorse races off ahead of me, turning back periodically to make sure I am following.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” I pant. How is he able to go so fast? I keep pedaling and steering toward the light, trying not to let him out of my sight.
He zigzags back and forth, heading deeper into the sea. His head darts left and right as if he’s on the lookout for predators. I can’t imagine what would want to eat a mouthful of metal, but I’m not about to stop and argue.
We approach a long fissure in the seabed. It gets deeper and wider as we sail above it. Then, after looking quickly to the left and right, the seahorse dives down into the fissure. I hesitate for a moment, and then follow him. The walls are volcanic rock, bumpy and black and covered in tiny holes. We travel deeper through the fissure until we arrive at a dead end. I immediately stop pedaling when I see the wall, but I still coast forward and bump gently into the seahorse.
“Sorry!” I wave to him, embarrassed. “No brakes!” I smile and shrug to try to explain that it was an accident. The seahorse just tilts his head and looks at m
e. He moves forward a little bit and lightly bumps the sub, then shakes his head up and down in a way that almost looks like laughing. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was making fun of me.
The seahorse turns back and swims toward the wall. As he does, a section of the bumpy rock changes in color. The dark brown rock fades into white spots on top of smooth gray, with a single black eye staring out from the center. It’s an octopus. With a flick of its tentacles, it shoots upward and out of our way, revealing a tunnel that leads down into the darkness below the seafloor.
The seahorse swims into the tunnel. I hesitate for a moment, thinking of the vision I had when I touched him. Who knows what dangers may await me down there?
Trusting him, I take a deep breath and follow the seahorse down into the unknown.
7
THE MERROW MAIDEN
We travel down through the rocky tunnel until it opens up into a huge undersea cavern. The cavern must be more than forty feet tall, from floor to ceiling. The walls are made of shiny black obsidian, with patches of red and orange crystal that gleam like fire opal. Rays of yellow light shine down from the ceiling, as if the sun were somehow peeking through the rock above.
Large cylindrical rock formations are grouped in clusters all around the cavern. Long strands of kelp with brightly colored bulbs grow up from the floor, stretching their flowing leaves toward the rays of light. I sail closer to the rock formations, and as I get nearer I see why the seahorse brought me here. These aren’t rock formations at all. They’re houses.
This is an underwater village. Each building is round and is built from perfectly interlocking gray stones of all different shapes and sizes. The roofs are covered in shiny overlapping tiles, like beautiful gleaming fish scales. Colorful coral gardens blanket the seabed between the buildings. I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Does someone live here? I sail from house to house, checking the windows. They are all dark and still. The only movement comes from the schools of silvery fish weaving through the rooftops.
Looking closer, I see that many of the walls are crumbling. A few of the houses have been smashed entirely, leaving only a jagged circular foundation sticking up from the ground. The rocky floor is lined with dents and craters, some more than twelve feet across. Bits of rubble lie strewn in all directions.
This must have been a very beautiful place once, but whoever lived here is now long gone. I wonder . . . could this have been where the ancient explorers lived? I suppose they would have needed domes or some other source of air, and I don’t see anything like that. Whoever lived here was born to live in the sea. Could this have been a merrow village?
I feel a rush of excitement at the possibility that merrows are real. How old are these buildings, and why would the merrows have abandoned them?
I look back at the clockwork seahorse. He’s floating near the center of the village, watching me. That must be where he wanted me to go . . . but why? Am I supposed to do something there?
He senses my confusion and swims over.
“What do I do?” I ask. “Is my father here?” The seahorse lowers his head. “Am I supposed to search for clues? Can you at least give me a hint?” He looks back at me and then points his head toward a tall house on my left. I sail toward it. Its round outer wall has been broken on one side, revealing what once was a merrow home.
The inside walls are covered with bright yellow and orange seashells. A tall stalk of glowkelp grows up from the center of the floor up to the ceiling. That must have provided light for the whole house. Along the walls, at different heights, are four giant clamshells attached with ropes of kelp. Those must have been beds. A whole family of merrows once lived here.
I get closer. The smallest of the clamshell beds hangs just below a round window that is decorated with pink and purple stones. The wall around the bed is covered with mosaic pictures made of tiny pieces of colorful stone and seashells. Each picture depicts a different adventure. In one there is a young merrow girl with flowing black hair and shiny black eyes riding on the back of a giant serpent. In another the girl is being chased by a monstrous nine-eyed squid.
I can’t stop looking at the drawings. There was once a young merrow girl living here, making pictures on her wall just like me. What happened to her? What happened to her family?
My eyes move from one picture to the next, looking for some kind of answer without even knowing the question. And then I see it.
Just above the clamshell bed is a picture of the girl playing with a golden seahorse. The seahorse has emerald eyes.
Was this why the seahorse brought me here? Did he know the merrow girl?
Suddenly I have the eerie feeling that I am being watched. I turn around, but the seahorse is nowhere in sight.
I speed the sub away from the merrow house, toward the center of the village. I shouldn’t have let my guard down like that—now the seahorse is gone. Did he just abandon me here? The whole village is perfectly still and quiet. Maybe I was only imagining being watched.
Then, behind the wall of the house where I had just been, I see a flash of green and blue. I sail around the back side of the building. There is nothing there. I search all around, sailing up above the colorful shining tiled roofs. And then from the corner of my eye I see the golden glint of the seahorse. He swims up toward me and wiggles his nose.
“Is there someone else here?” I ask. “Is that why you brought me here?” He tilts his head at me and then looks back down in the direction he came from. There is something coming toward me.
It’s a merrow! A merrow maiden, with flowing raven hair draping down around her body.
She swims up right in front of me. Her eyes look like big shining black jewels. Her long tail moves gracefully back and forth, gleaming like it’s made of blue and green sea jewels. She reaches out to touch the sub’s window. I reach out in return, placing my palm against hers, with only the glass between us.
“Why are you here?” I can hear her voice in my head without her lips even moving. I don’t know what to say or how to even begin.
“I’m looking for my father. He’s a fisherman. Have you seen him?” She is quiet, studying me. She’s looking at me the way people do when they know your face but can’t remember your name. I feel self-conscious and blurt out the next thing that comes to my mind. “Are you the girl who made the pictures in the house?” If it’s her, then she must have made the pictures years ago. She looks away in silence toward the ruins. I feel embarrassed, as if I said something I shouldn’t have. “Are there . . . other merrows living here?” She lowers her hand from the window and turns away. “Wait!” I say. “I’m sorry!” Now I feel even worse. A terrible thought occurs to me. Is she the only one of them left?
The clockwork seahorse moves next to her. She strokes his nose with one hand. She studies his tail for a moment. Then she looks at me. Uh-oh. Can she tell that he had been damaged? Does she think that I did it?
She puts her hand back up to the window.
“Thank you,” she says. “Thank you for fixing him. He says you did very good work.”
“I . . . did my best,” I say, weakly. “I’m sorry he got hurt.” She looks at me for a while. Maybe she’s never seen a human before?
“Just once,” she says. Can she hear my thoughts? I feel suddenly uncomfortable. Don’t think anything stupid, I tell myself in my head. The merrow laughs. “You’re a funny one,” she says. I cover my face with my hand, feeling more foolish than ever.
She swims away from me, then turns and beckons with her hand. I follow her toward a narrow tunnel in the rocky wall behind the village. She turns back to me.
“You are trying to find your father?”
“Yes! Do you know where he is?”
“Travel west from here and you will reach Skeleton Reef.”
I look at her uncertainly.
“If your father’s boat is anywhere below the sea, it will be there,” she says.
“Thank you,” I say. There is so much more I want to ask her, i
f I just had more time. Yesterday I thought the merrows were just a myth. Now I have to wonder if all my father’s stories might be real.
I start to wave good-bye when I see a sudden look of terror in the merrow’s eyes. I turn to see a golden submarine sailing toward us. Its oblong hull is perfectly smooth, without a hatch on top. At its rear is a wide fan-like rudder and from its front it casts a sweeping light back and forth through the water, as if it’s searching for something.
“This way. Follow me,” the merrow’s voice says in my head. She swims around behind the wall of the house.
But that was a submarine! I want to signal to it. Maybe whoever’s inside can help me search for my father.
The merrow senses my thoughts. “You don’t want to get its attention,” she says. “There is no one alive inside.”
******
From the shadows of a half-crumbled wall, we watch the sleek oblong submarine glide silently past. On its roof, mounted near the front, is a long segmented mechanical arm with a three-pronged metal claw at the end. Its bright searchlight sweeps past us, casting long jagged shadows across the broken rocks that were once a home.
“What is it?” I whisper once the vessel has passed by.
“A Fomori sentinel,” replies the merrow. Her voice sounds colder and distant now.
“Fomori?”
“Long ago there were human explorers who visited our world. They were like you. They respected the sea. They respected us.”
“What happened to them?” I ask, beginning to fear the answer.
“In the beginning they were friendly. We showed them our secrets. We helped them to survive the perils of the deep. Over time they grew stronger . . .”
“They didn’t do this, did they?” I ask, gesturing to the broken walls of the ruins around me.
“They were builders and inventors. They made whole cities beneath the waves,” she continues. “They became rich from the treasures of the sea . . . and with each year that they grew richer and more powerful, they also grew more afraid.”
Song of the Deep Page 3