Race to the Bottom of the Sea

by Lindsay Eagar

  Bloody Elle’s iron eyes went soft and misty as she immersed herself in the memory. “See, the lines around my wrist were from the bostiel. Chains. Black reminders of a black life. But the bird is because I flew away.” She traced a finger along the swallow’s outspread wings. “Captain helped me fly away. As soon as we hit open water, he inked this himself.”

  Fidelia frowned. “And what about your family?”

  “Captain was true to his word,” Bloody Elle said. “He saw that they were taken care of. Whenever we sail past the Canquillian coast, I can see my family’s manor on the cliffs. They have gardens now, and servants.” Finally she looked right at Fidelia, her face once again hardening into sun-scorched cheeks and wind-weathered lines. “When Captain says he’ll do something, he means it — so when he tells you he’ll kill you if you don’t find his treasure, you’d better believe him.”

  She patted Fidelia’s knee as she stood, then left Fidelia alone to study her Water-Eater yet again — her only tool against Merrick the Monstrous’s cruelty, and suddenly she could see it the way the pirates saw it: a bunch of garbage glued together, tarred and punctured, now with a piece of seaweed stuck in the middle of the mess.

  Her last hope.

  Just when Fidelia recognized the looks on everyone’s faces — about to topple from mere boredom into stir-crazy — Merrick suddenly pointed. “I see our stretch.”

  Cheapshot Charlie and Bloody Elle hurried to slack the sails. Fidelia shot from her seat like a firecracker.

  The Jewel approached a sandbar, a spot in the sea where the water became shallow — turquoise, glassy clear, still as a mirror. Fidelia guessed it was about thirty feet deep. Nearby, maybe another mile’s sail, a tropical island’s mangrove trees lined the white shores, the roots dipping down into the sea like legs, testing the water for warmth. Mangroves. They were hubs for all sorts of hot-water species: mud lobsters, sponges, brown pelicans, hawksbill turtles. Oh, how her parents would have loved to see this. A feast for the fish lover’s eyes.

  She watched the multicolored fish darting through a coral reef, bodies glittering like jewels through the water, until a cough brought her back to the grim reality of her situation.

  “Quail,” Merrick said, “time to prove your salt.”

  Fidelia took a deep breath and joined the pirate captain at the stern of the ship. Cheapshot Charlie and Bloody Elle had dropped anchor and flanked Merrick with faces like stone gargoyles, no gratitude for Fidelia helping them escape from the Molvanian pirates, or helping them tie down loose lines, or helping them remove the barnacles from their ship. They were there to intervene, should she cause any trouble for this, the big moment. This was it — the reason they had taken her.

  “I’ll be blunt.” Merrick’s blue eye burned bright against the clear sea. “The cave is filled to the brim with treasure. Everything I’ve collected for nearly a decade.” He coughed. “It is the result of sweaty, bloody work, both my own and my crew’s —”

  “You said — you said …” Fidelia’s voice threatened to crumble, her entire body seizing up in fear. “You said you weren’t sending me into the cave.” Her Water-Eater was supposed to separate oxygen from water; she had no idea if it would work as a death-pollen filter.

  “I’m not.” Merrick’s nostrils flared as he coughed — his patience was as thin as the lining of his lungs. “You are not to go inside the cave.” He paused, wiping the speckles of blood from around his mouth.

  “You will bring up one thing, and one thing only: a brooch.”

  “A brooch?”

  “A small pewter brooch.”

  Fidelia frowned. “But pewter is junk metal,” she said. “It’s probably been eaten away by the salt water. It isn’t worth anything —”

  “It’s worth everything,” Merrick growled.

  Fidelia blinked at him, waiting for the bottom line. But Merrick was silent. “That’s it? You want me to dive down and find a pewter brooch?”

  “Easier said than done,” Merrick said. “It’s lost somewhere in the seabed.”

  “Lost?” Fidelia asked. “Lost how?”

  “I pulled it out of the cave, but I dropped it in the algae when —” He ended his sentence with a cough. “It’s down there,” he growled, “but it’s up to you to find it.”

  “All of this for a pewter brooch.” Fidelia was incredulous.

  “All of this, and much more.” Merrick coughed his horrible cough, and his meaning couldn’t have been clearer. “Now, put on your wonder-gills and go get my treasure.”

  She untied her boots. “Follow the reef down, about twenty feet,” Merrick said as she held up the Water-Eater for one more inspection, her hands shaking.

  The Water-Eater … This time, if it didn’t work —

  No. Best not dwell on the negative. Arthur and Ida would never have allowed such pessimistic what-ifs. Just pretend it’s another test run, she coached herself. Pretend Mom and Dad are here, and you’re just doing one more analysis before you send the blueprints off to the patent office.

  She tried to rub the fog off the mask, then spat into the visor.

  “That’s vile,” Merrick wheezed.

  “But effective.” She secured the mask over her glasses and sat on the edge of the Jewel, glancing at the pirate captain. “Did you or did you not kidnap me because of my diving expertise?”

  “I did not,” Merrick said, and broke into coughs. “I kidnapped you because of your shark expertise.”

  Before Fidelia could fully process what he had said, Merrick pushed her backward off the ship and into the water.

  Underwater, the world was quiet.

  Fidelia gently eased her eyes open. A trace amount of seawater leaked into her mask — typical of even the best diving equipment. It made her head feel like a pitcher, sloshing with every movement.

  After a moment, her eyes adjusted to the dimness of life beneath the surface. She glanced up, where the Jewel floated like a giant lily pad. The water blurred and distorted the dry world above. Bloody Elle and Cheapshot Charlie peeked over the Jewel’s railing, their faces stretched long and bulbous as though they were looking through funhouse mirrors.

  Merrick stared at her, too, blue eye narrowed in concentration. His black-and-red eye hung dead, magnified through the sea.

  Her lungs felt wrenched. All the oxygen she’d taken in at the surface was gone. It was time to take a breath.

  She steadied herself in the water, made sure her lips were fully sealed around the mouthpiece, and inhaled.

  Oxygen seeped into her mouth, just as it had in the grotto. So she didn’t celebrate yet.

  Another inhale — and more oxygen!

  A third inhale, filling her lungs to capacity, and she knew it was working.

  The parrot-feather leaf ! It filtered the oxygen at just the right rate. Leave it to the ocean to grow the perfect substitute for gills.

  If only her father were here to see this.

  She kicked her feet, propelling forward. Downward.

  The light shifted. The oranges of the sun flowed down to the sandy pink ocean floor, swirling with the turquoise water in a river of color. Fidelia had seen many shoals before, and sandbars, and continental shelves — but none as rich or vivid as this.

  The scientist in her kicked in. She analyzed the area and took mental notes. Water depth, from surface to seabed? Approximately twenty feet, at the shoal’s highest peak. Climate? Subtropical. To her right, the coral reef; to her left, the sea-grass meadow, swaying in the current.

  Here and there, piles of blackened wood splinters were half-buried in the sand — remnants of ships that had run aground or wrecked along this very stretch. Schools of fish darted around the ships as if they were gauntlets to be bested. Where were the rocks responsible for these shipwrecks? She noticed tatters on the seabed: the navy’s flags, there and there, and an old shredded skull and crossbones leering up at her from the sand. These vessels had been sunk by man, not by nature — by one man. By Merrick.

  Th
e reef reached to the surface, deep purple, and braided, and beautiful. Reefs always attracted the most bizarre of creatures, as if nature used this habitat to experiment with every possible design. A red frilled dancer bent and gyrated past Fidelia’s nose. Dainty garden eels popped their heads out from the coral’s many pockets, sensing a visitor. Down on the carpet of algae along the reef’s base, a row of giant purple clams pursed their lips.

  Fidelia arced her body down in the water, swimming around the reef. The water brightened, and the row of clams twitched their lips, kissing the sunlight streaming from above. Everything on the seabed glittered and shone as Fidelia swam down.

  The cave. She spotted the opening at the base of the reef. That gaping black mouth — the cave where the red daisies grew. The source of the legends.

  The cave that killed Merrick.

  Just inside its dark entry, she could see treasure piled everywhere. A wooden chest overflowed with strands of pearls in all sizes. Expensive-looking silvery rope coiled on a golden bed frame. A ritzy crystal chandelier was now home to a family of sea horses. She spotted bowls of emeralds, and ruby rings, and gilded goblets with engravings around the sides, and blue-and-white china dishes in stacks. Starfish rested atop mountains of doubloons; piles and piles of gold coins cascaded into the algae lining the floor of the cave.

  Fidelia scanned this litter of treasure. Merrick could be living like a king, she realized, instead of hiding as an outlaw. This was the kind of wealth that allowed a person to relocate. Live as someone else. Disappear forever. Why hadn’t Merrick done that?

  Why had he risked everything for some junky brooch?

  She shook the mystery from her head. The brooch — the thing she was here to find. She would find it, and then she would go home.

  She searched with both hands, her fingers melting through the slippery algae that coated the base of the coral. Finding this brooch was like hunting for a pewter needle in a haystack. She’d never be able to find it this way, one square foot at a time — it would take her days.

  No, she had to do this logically. Like a scientist.

  No. Not like a scientist.

  Like a librarian.

  She darted up to the surface and removed the Water-Eater, breathing deeply. “Merrick!” she called. “Get the book out of my bag!”

  “Which book?”

  “Exploring an Underwater Fairyland,” she called, treading water. “I saved it from your bonfire.”

  “You mean you stole it.” Merrick found the book and flipped through its pages. “Should I toss it down to you? See if knowledge floats or sinks?”

  “No!” Fidelia said. “Find the section on spring gales, and tell me which wind blows the Undertow clear.”

  If she knew exactly which direction the tides pushed come springtime, then she would know whether the sand and algae had come from the west, bringing residue from the nearby island’s mangrove roots, or from the east, bringing the bulkier, brinier sands of the mainland.

  Merrick tore through the pages. “West,” he finally said. “‘Mid-oceanic islands near the continental margin experience a shift in currents semiannually, both with the arrival of the Undertow and the dispersal of the Undertow, when western winds and showers bring in the springtime and chase the Undertow offshore.’”

  Softer, siltier residue, then.

  She took another breath, replaced the Water-Eater, and dove back under.

  As she plunged back to the bottom of the sea, she plotted out the brooch’s drop into the water, refiguring where it could be with the westerly shift in the currents.

  The water’s pull wouldn’t have brought it toward the cave; it would have brought it …

  The clouds shifted again, darkening Fidelia’s view momentarily. She tried to find the light, but the shadow moved with her.

  A torpedo-shaped shadow, circling above her. She looked up — and froze.

  Shark!

  She swam to the other side of the reef, legs tingling with nerves, and peeked through the coral at the beast.

  Her Water-Eater nearly fell out of her mouth.

  Grizzle!

  She could never forget that bone-white scar wrapping around his dorsal fin. Or that mouth, as big around as Arborley Library’s double doors, teeth hanging down like icicles.

  She felt like she might explode in her own skin. Of all the reefs in all the seas, Grizzle was here!

  But this isn’t a field study, she reminded herself. She couldn’t hide behind the reef and observe this glorious creature until daylight faded — no, her very life depended on finding Merrick’s brooch — a task that had just become even trickier.

  A shark’s tail was a metric for reading its emotions, just like a dog’s. Grizzle’s tail was relaxed, straight as an arrow; he was still only curious about the underwater visitor hiding behind the reef.

  If his tail flicked in small, annoyed movements, that meant aggression — which meant trouble.

  Keep calm … The voices of the Drs. Quail echoed in Fidelia’s mind. Find the brooch. Get back in the ship. Grizzle doesn’t have to be a dangerous factor. Just focus.

  Westerly winds. A spring gale, pushing tides west. Look for the mangrove root residue.

  That patch of algae, there, dusted with a fine layer of silt. Nestled right where the coral sprung from the ocean floor. That’s where the brooch would be.

  Keeping an eye on Grizzle, she moved as gracefully as she could — water resistance was draining, and she needed to conserve her energy. Breathing slowly through the Water-Eater, she kicked farther down, stretching to the seafloor.

  Grizzle passed her again, giving her a bit of a nudge with his blunt nose. Her brain fizzed and smoked with warnings — the shark’s attitude had changed. He dropped his pectoral fins and swam from side to side in an exaggerated pattern.

  This was predatory behavior.

  Fidelia reached the sea bottom and dipped her hands into the soft, slippery algae. It had to be here. Where was it? Where was it?

  The shark nudged her again, harder, throwing her off-balance. Desperate, she searched faster, her fingers sliding in and out of the algae. The brooch, the brooch, the brooch …

  Grizzle bumped her again, and this time it knocked her mask clean off. She squeezed her eyes shut and fumbled for it, panicking as she felt it float out of her grasp. Prying her eyes open, she swallowed a gasp when the salt stung. It was uncomfortable, yes, and everything was blurry, even with her glasses — but she had to find that brooch and get out of the water. Grizzle’s patience wouldn’t last much longer, and then she’d be at the receiving end of one of his bolder moves. A bite, perhaps.

  She sucked in air, trying to calm her heart, and strained for air.

  Her Water-Eater! The oxygen was thin, barely enough for a mouthful.

  What had happened to the parrot-feather leaf ? Why wasn’t it working?

  Searching the algae in a frenzy, she glanced over her shoulder for the shark — as if it would help when she could barely see two feet in front of her. Her brain was practically shouting instructions at her: You can’t see! You need air! Go tell Merrick the brooch is lost forever! Do it before Grizzle loses his temper!

  But then her fingers touched something small and hard.

  The brooch!

  A pewter brooch with scalloped, lacelike edges, any other detail rotted away by the seawater. She pulled it from the algae just as the massive dark shape jetted right toward her.

  She kicked off the seafloor, brooch in hand, and Grizzle cruised underneath her feet. A deliberate miss — a shark Grizzle’s size never missed his prey. She knew it would be her last warning.

  Fidelia scrambled for the surface, her lungs burning and her legs tingling, expecting at any moment to receive a chomp — but the shark didn’t follow her. He swam in circles around the base of the coral, his tail flicking.

  She had to get air. Now. Every fiber of her body was screaming for her to break the surface and breathe.

  But why didn’t the shark follow her
? He’d exhibited all the signs of predatory behavior, and had clearly viewed her as a threat. Why was he still hovering by the reef ?

  She paused and peeked back into the depths.

  Her view was fuzzy, but she saw why Grizzle wasn’t coming after her — he was guarding his own precious treasure.

  Three shark pups darted out of the algae on the seafloor, each about a foot in length. They snapped their jaws at each other, sibling rivalry ingrained even at this early age.

  Baby Grizzles — Grizzlings!

  Fidelia’s heart twittered, her entire body itching with joy. She wished she could stay and watch. So little was known about larger sharks and their parenting behaviors — particularly the males. But her primal instincts took over, and her legs kicked until her head broke through the water as if she had shattered a window.

  When she spat out the Water-Eater and her lips finally found air, she drank it greedily, her body convulsing with relief. She was too tired to swim, to tread water, to kick to the boat …

  Her head bobbed back under the water.

  For the third time in as many days, Cheapshot Charlie grabbed under her arms and lifted her into the Jewel. Seawater drained from her nose.

  “So your super-gills worked,” Merrick said.

  Fidelia hacked until her throat was clear. “So … it seems,” she retorted, and Merrick grinned at her cheek.

  Bloody Elle draped a dry tunic around her shoulders, and Fidelia pulled apart her Water-Eater to examine the filtration system — the parrot-feather leaf was shredded, only fibers. Of course! After a certain number of breaths, the harsh salt water had dissolved the leaf past the usage point. Even though it had nearly killed her, she smiled, because she had figured it out. Her next prototype would allow for easy removal of the leaves so a diver could replace the filter when the oxygen slowed.