Song of the Deep

by Brian Hastings

  In the distance I can see huge jagged shadows jutting up above the horizon.

  “Is that Skeleton Reef?” I ask Swish. He senses the excitement on my face and races off in front of me to scout ahead. I stare out at the sharply angled shadows in the distance, wondering how the reef earned its name.

  As we sail closer, I feel a knot in my stomach. I’m excited by the hope of finding my father and at the same time I’m frightened of what I might find instead. I remind myself over and over: If I can survive this long below the waves, so can he.

  Swish is swimming in circles, chasing a school of silvery fish. The fish group into a ball, exploding apart as Swish dives through the center, then balling up again after he passes by.

  “Let’s go, Swish. Leave the poor fish alone,” I call to him. And then, in a flash, the fish disappear down through the seafloor, and Swish dives down after them, vanishing before my eyes.

  I sail up to the spot where he disappeared. At first it seems that he just dove straight down into the sand of the seafloor, but as I look closer I see that there’s a thin layer of sand covering what looks like a sheet of fabric. Only it’s not fabric . . . it’s webbing. It’s a trapdoor entrance covered with a thick spiderweb.

  “Come on, Swish. Come out,” I plead.

  There is no sound from the trapdoor. I wait, expecting Swish to pop back out at any second. I look toward the shadows of Skeleton Reef, then back to the camouflaged webbing. I know I can’t just leave Swish down there.

  I gather speed and dive through the web.

  It’s nearly pitch black down below. As my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see faint glows of spiny blue moon urchins along the walls. I’m inside some kind of cave. I sweep my sunstar’s light through the cloudy water, looking for any sign of Swish. The walls are covered in what looks like layers upon layers of spiderwebs.

  I sweep my light downward and let out a scream at what it illuminates. The bottom of the cave is covered from wall to wall in a giant web. At the center of the web is an impossibly big black spider. Its body must be more than ten feet across. Long segmented black legs are tumbling a thick webbed cocoon around with a flurry of precise movements.

  I am frozen with fear as I stare down at the hideous creature. My breath is coming in short ragged gasps. I’ve never liked spiders. Even little ones scare me. My arms go rigid and my hands tremble uncontrollably.

  I remember an old story of my father’s, about the Watcher. He only ever told it once, years ago—it scared me so much that he never brought it up again. He said the Watcher is a giant diving bell spider that feeds on creatures of the deep. A shiny bubble of air around its abdomen allows it to breathe as it waits beneath the seafloor, devouring any unsuspecting soul that enters its lair. It has lived for ages, my father said, and will likely live for ages more.

  I stare down at it in horror, wondering how many living things have met their end here.

  The Watcher stops wrapping the cocoon and turns its head up toward me, its eight black eyes shining in the ray of light from my submarine. The cocoon wiggles back and forth, and through a small gap in the webbing I can see a patch of green scales. It’s Swish!

  I forget my fear. Without even thinking, I flip the sub over, pop out of the hatch, and swim toward the giant spider. In a flash, it releases the cocoon and grabs me by the waist, pulling me toward its mouth. Its sharp black fangs are closing down on me. I grab onto one of the fangs with both hands and twist it sideways with all my strength. It snaps in half. The Watcher loosens its grip just enough for me to slip out of its claws and swim down underneath its belly.

  I pull the coral knife from my belt and thrust it as hard as I can into the glistening bubble of air around the Watcher’s abdomen. The bubble bursts like a giant balloon, sending thousands of smaller bubbles rushing up toward the ceiling of the cave. The Watcher frantically flails its legs, trying to move toward the surface, but its heavy body sinks down into its own web. It writhes in the web, becoming more tangled as it thrashes.

  I swim to the cocoon, cutting it free and releasing Swish. He darts up out of the silk webbing and out of sight, above me.

  I slide back through the sub’s hatch, taking a huge, relieved breath of air. A little bit of water got into the sub when I went out, but it’s not too bad. I sail back up out of the cave, and Swish is waiting there for me.

  My heart is still pounding in my chest as I look at Swish. He’s waggling his tail back and forth hesitantly. He thinks I’m mad at him.

  “Come on, boy.” I smile.

  He swims close by my side toward the jagged shadows of Skeleton Reef.

  ******

  The shadows on the horizon grow larger and more distinct. I’m starting to see individual shapes within them. Tall thin shadows stick up out of larger ghostly black masses. If that’s a reef up ahead, it’s unlike any I’ve ever seen before.

  I look at Swish, realizing what we are seeing.

  “It’s a graveyard of ships,” I whisper. The tangled wreckage stretches on as far as I can see. Broken hulls and battered masts are piled on top of one another in all directions. All different sizes and types of ships lie jumbled together on the seafloor.

  I sail over the barnacle-encrusted remains of an old wooden freighter. Could the Fomori sentinels have done this? Or did something else bring these ships down? I recall the dream I had of the great tentacle arm pulling my father’s boat underneath the waves.

  I drift over the hills of wreckage, searching for any sign of my father’s tiny boat.

  In the distance I see the sweeping lights of Fomori sentinels. They must be searching the wreckage too. One of them sails toward me, its light still aimed downward at the wreckage below.

  I turn toward Swish and hold my finger to my lips. As long as we stay away from the searchlight, I don’t think it will notice us. I watch as its thin metal arm reaches into the wreckage of a ship. The claw snaps up an old wooden shipping crate, crushing it into pieces. The sentinel must be looking for valuables in the wreckage.

  I carefully follow along behind the gliding vessel. If my father’s boat is down here, the sentinel might lead me to it. Swish swims alongside me, glancing toward me protectively every few seconds.

  Then I see it.

  My father’s boat is pointing nosedown in the wreckage, a gaping hole in its port bow. The sentinel reaches its claw arm inside the boat, but it comes back empty. I watch its searchlight pass over the boat and into the darkness beyond.

  Checking that there are no other sentinels nearby, I flip the sub over once again and swim out the hatch and down to the boat. I squeeze in through the hole in the bow and swim inside. There’s a pocket of air trapped at the back. I swim up into it and take a breath. The faint light from my sub shines in through a porthole window.

  My father isn’t here. But he must have had air, at least for a little while.

  I look around the hollow hull of the boat, hoping to find some clue about what happened to him. Then I see something wedged between two boards—his journal.

  The journal is a little wet, but I can still read what’s on the pages. It’s filled with my father’s notes about fish migration patterns. He’s drawn maps showing his routes at sea. He’s sketched a little fish at the locations where he was successful, and an X in the places where there were no fish. As I flip through the pages, I see that there are fewer and fewer locations marked with a fish. By the end of the journal, the maps are completely covered with Xs.

  I flip past the last page and see my father has written a note. It’s written to me.

  Did he write this after the boat sank? My heart races as I read it:

  I close my eyes as tightly as I can. Tears roll down my cheeks. I don’t want pretty dresses or paints. All I want is to open my eyes and see my father again.

  My eyes open slowly. I’m alone in the darkness.

  I tuck the journal under my arm and swim back out of the boat and through my submarine’s hatch. My father didn’t give up. He was trying to reac
h the surface. I look at the darkness of the water above me. How far is it to the surface? Could he have made it?

  Swish peers in at me through the window. He knows I’m sad and doesn’t know what to do.

  “It’s okay, Swish. We’re not giving up. We’re going to find him.” I put my hand up to the window. He rubs his head against the glass next to my hand.

  My eyes refocus toward the distance as an enormous silhouette glides over the jagged wreckage. Long flowing tentacles trail behind the fast-moving shadow. The searchlights of the Fomori sentinels turn and follow the shadow eastward out of the reef.

  Could that be the creature that is sinking the ships? The sentinels followed it, but they didn’t attack. Maybe they are tracking it. Or maybe it’s the other way around—is it possible that creature is actually the one controlling the sentinels?

  A voice from behind me startles me out of my musings.

  “I see you’ve made a friend.” The merrow maiden swims up to my window and strokes Swish’s head. He wiggles his tail happily. She turns back toward me. “Did you find your father’s boat?”

  “Yes, but he’s gone.”

  “Good,” she says. When she sees the hurt look on my face, she adds, “There wouldn’t have been enough air for him to survive. If he’s not in the boat, then there’s hope that he’s okay.”

  “Oh,” I say, embarrassed that I misunderstood her intent. “But how do I find him now?”

  “There is a strong current that runs through the reef. It was once used by the early Fomori explorers. It passes directly above us. If your father tried to make it to the surface, he may have been caught in it.”

  “Where does it lead?”

  “Somewhere I cannot go, I’m afraid.” I think this over, uneasy at the thought of using a Fomori pathway alone. “Follow me and I’ll show you the current,” says the merrow as she swims up above the wreckage.

  “Do you know what sunk these ships?” I ask. She doesn’t seem to hear me. Or maybe that’s a conversation we don’t have time for right now.

  “Here is the current,” she says, pointing to a powerful flow of water that courses, nearly invisibly, through the wreckage of the reef. “You should hurry. I will tell you all you want to know the next time we meet.”

  I see the light of a Fomori sentinel approaching us. I hesitate. If it sees me enter the current it will be able to follow me, and I may have no way to escape. But the merrow is already one step ahead of me.

  “You have to go,” she says firmly. She swims toward the sentinel’s light, distracting it away from me. I see it turn toward her as she dives into the wreckage to hide. I wait a moment longer, unsure what to do.

  It’s now or never. I sail into the current.

  I feel a sudden, powerful tug and the world around me becomes a blur.

  10

  THE DEEPLIGHT

  The wreckage of Skeleton Reef flies by me on either side as the current pulls me down past the twisted remains of ships and along a winding sandy riverbed. It’s useless to pedal. The current is too powerful for me to break free. Wherever it’s taking me, I’m now at its mercy.

  I pass beyond Skeleton Reef, back into open water. In the distance, across a long stretch of rolling sand, I see the shadow of a tall tower. A powerful beam of light shines from the top of the tower. It’s the undersea lighthouse.

  As we near the tower, the current speeds up, and I’m pulled into the darkness as it yanks me down into a tunnel below the sandy floor. Then, just as abruptly, I feel myself being tugged upward. At last there is a lurching jolt and my submarine comes to rest.

  I’m bobbing in the water. Half my window is light and half is dark.

  I lift open the hatch, scarcely believing what I’m seeing. The sub is floating above the water. I’m inside the tower, in a wide circular pool at the center of a huge stone room. Tall gray walls of stone rise up, forming a cold cylindrical prison. I jump out of the hatch and splash down in the water.

  A moment later, Swish pops his head up right next to me. He must have followed me in the current.

  I swim to the edge of the pool and lift myself out onto the stone floor. My legs feel unsteady. This is the first time I have been able to stand up in hours.

  “I’m going to go look around,” I call to Swish. “I’ll be right back, okay?” He wags his tail in the water as if to say yes, but I can tell from his eyes that he’s worried about me.

  I look around the big round room. A narrow stone staircase curves along the interior wall of the huge cylindrical tower, disappearing through a hole in the ceiling high above me.

  As I walk over to the base of the steps, I see something black lying on the floor. It’s a glove. Not just any glove, but a heavy rubber fishing glove with a faded picture of a dandelion painted on the back. It’s my father’s glove.

  My father was here. Maybe he still is here, somewhere in this tower. He must have followed the current, just like the merrow said. I pick up the glove. It has a large tear in it that runs from the front of the wrist to the middle of the hand. Did it snag on something in the fast journey through the current? Or was he attacked by something? Despite my new fears, this is the first evidence I’ve found to suggest my father might still be alive.

  I feel a rush of happiness and hope as I race up the stairs and through a hole in the ceiling. I emerge onto the floor above and find twelve beds, each with neatly folded white sheets, arranged in a ring around the perimeter of the circular room. In the middle of the room are three square wooden tables, each with four chairs. At the very center of the room, in between the tables, is a glass column that runs all the way up into the ceiling. The circular stone wall that surrounds the room is embedded with four glass hemispheres, all taller than doors and reinforced with strips of rusted iron. They each face one of the cardinal directions: north, east, south, and west. Three of the glass cases are empty, but inside the fourth is a ball-shaped submersible, the top half made of glass and the bottom made of gold. It’s just big enough for a person to fit inside. Attached to the wall adjacent to the glass hemisphere, there is a lever. Is this how they transport people in and out of the tower?

  I look inside at the last remaining submersible. The front of its glass top has been smashed, as if the vessel met with some violent collision. Behind the broken glass, I can’t see any form of steering controls or navigation. Each of the submersibles must be designed to go to a specific location all on its own.

  I return to the center of the room and study the tall glass tube that rises to the ceiling. On one side there is an oval opening big enough for me to step into an oblong golden capsule. Judging from what I’ve seen of the Fomori’s creations so far, this must be some means of transportation. But where is it going to go? I step in, nervously, and immediately a flap seals the tube shut and I hear a rush of air as I am yanked upward. I zip through the ceiling and into darkness. For a moment I feel weightless, and then the capsule bounces slightly and I come to a stop. I step into a tall round room with windows that go from the floor to the ceiling.

  Beyond the walls of glass, the sea stretches out below me in all directions. I must be in the top of the tower. At the center of the room, near the ceiling, there is a powerful white light housed in a hemisphere of gleaming gold. It rotates slowly, sweeping its beam out through the windows and deep into the sea. Below it is a contraption made of heavy gears and exposed levers, all steadily turning, keeping the light in constant motion. I watch the sweeping white beam piercing through the empty blue water outside.

  As I follow the light with my eyes, I hear my mother’s voice. A long-forgotten memory is suddenly vivid in my mind. I can see myself lying in my bed under a patchwork blanket. The distant sound of crashing waves rises up through my window. My mother is sitting at the edge of my bed, telling me a story.

  “Deep beneath the sea, in the darkest depths, there is a tall tower, made of stone. And atop the tower is a shining beacon of light,” she says. She looks down sadly as she speaks. “They call this t
ower the Deeplight.”

  “Is it a lighthouse?” I ask.

  “Yes, in a way it is.”

  “But how can there be ships under the sea?”

  “The light isn’t there to help guide ships. It’s there to search for things.”

  “Like what?”

  She is quiet for a moment. “You know how some of the things under the sea are scary?”

  “Like leviathans?”

  “Yes, like leviathans. The tower was built to keep people safe against the scary things,” she explains. “But sometimes . . .” She stops, as if the rest is hard for her to say.

  “Sometimes what?”

  “Sometimes things don’t work out the way they were supposed to. Sometimes people are scared of things . . . even though they shouldn’t be.” Her eyes appear to look far away. I wonder what she’s thinking.

  “Did something bad happen at the lighthouse?”

  “Yes, I’m afraid so. But that part of the story will have to wait.”

  “Until tomorrow?”

  “Until you are this tall,” she says, smiling now as she holds her hand a few inches above my head.

  “Promise?” I ask.

  “Promise.” She kisses my forehead.

  I shiver as the memory fades away and I am back in the cold stone room. The Deeplight. It’s strange to think that I am actually standing inside it. I wonder what could have happened here that was so terrible. Why did my mother not want to tell me?

  I look around at the windows that surround the circular room. Chairs are mounted into the floor, facing toward the windows, and in front of each chair are what look like metal handlebars, except the handles are pointed upward. Peering out the window, I can see a ballista poking out from the tower below the window. Its heavy barbed-iron spear is aimed and ready to launch out into the water. And that’s when I realize: This isn’t a lighthouse at all. These are turrets. This is a fortress.