“Now, then,” Aunt Julia said, turning her attention back to the observation book. “Tell me more about this fish.”
Fidelia spent the rest of her day in the library, drawing maps and making plans for a spring trip to the tropics. Aunt Julia promised they could leave as soon as the Undertow ran its course, and so Fidelia wrote a to-do checklist (fix the Platypus, replicate the Water-Eater, reorder a few essential supplies) while Aunt Julia hunted through the archives for any mention of shark-migration patterns.
It almost felt like a normal day — a day from before, before her journey with the pirates, and before losing her parents. Fidelia ran her fingers along the outline of Grizzle’s powerful tail and the old fizzle and whisper of adventure charged down her back like a current.
This was really going to happen — she was finally going to put a tag in Grizzle’s fin and give him his scientific name.
“So it’s settled.” Aunt Julia closed her ledger at five o’clock, an ink smudge on her forehead. “The day after the Undertow blows out of town, so do we.”
“And we don’t stop until we find that shark,” Fidelia said, her insides full of shooting stars.
Aunt Julia blew a gust of air out of her mouth and grinned at her niece. “I’m famished! What do you think about going out for dinner? Maybe at La Fruits de Mer?”
“La Fruits de Mer?” Fidelia repeated. It was the fanciest restaurant in Arborley. Fidelia had been there only a handful of times with her parents, usually to celebrate a university grant or a major research breakthrough.
Aunt Julia took their empty teacups to the sink and rinsed them out. “I think we deserve a gourmet meal. Salmon cakes to start, I think. And lobster bisque, and the lemongrass mussels …”
Fidelia’s stomach growled. “Sounds perfect.” She glanced down at her plain blue frock, brown tea dribbled on the collar. “I’ll go change.”
“Oh!” Aunt Julia dashed into her bedroom; Fidelia followed. Her aunt dug around in the very back of her closet. “Ah. Here it is.”
She turned, holding out a lovely pale-lilac high-necked sheath dress, with a sheer lace bib, ivory lace trim, and ribbon on the cap sleeves. A pair of lilac, lace fingerless gloves were draped over the hanger, as well as an ivory sash.
“Was it Mom’s?” Fidelia breathed, gliding her fingers along the fabric.
“No,” Aunt Julia said. “I wore this. To your parents’ wedding.” Fidelia was shocked — her aunt Julia had once worn this? This dress that barely had sleeves? She couldn’t picture her aunt in anything so stylish.
She let Aunt Julia fasten her into the dress, and together they looked in the full-length mirror.
It was like looking at Ida Quail herself. Was it the evening light, softening Fidelia’s usually angular nose and jawline? Was it the way the dress lengthened her neck, making it elegant instead of scrawny and pencil-like? Even her hair seemed less scraggly once Aunt Julia pinned it back over her right ear.
“You look so much like her,” Aunt Julia whispered.
“So do you,” Fidelia said, and meant it — Julia was ten years younger than her big sister but shared the same gray eyes, the same closemouthed smile, the slight gap in her front teeth. “Now, what about you? Are you going to get ready?”
Aunt Julia looked down at her clothing. “I am ready.”
Fidelia stared. Aunt Julia was in her typical librarian uniform: a modest, ankle-length gray skirt, sensible flats, and a starched-and-pressed button-up cream shirt. A gray chiffon scarf was tied around her neck, to cover the last remaining inch of skin.
“Oh, all right,” Aunt Julia said. “I suppose I could change things up.” She removed her scarf and reached for a slightly different scarf, chartreuse green, hanging from a hook in her closet.
“Wait!” Fidelia caught a glimpse of something on her aunt’s neck and leaned over to inspect it. It was a violet scar, prominently dark against the rest of Julia’s porcelain-smooth skin.
“A jellyfish scar,” Fidelia whispered. If she hadn’t already recognized the scar from her childhood with marine biologist parents, she could have matched her aunt’s scar with the one on her shin. Fidelia’s was fresh and still raw, yes, but they were otherwise identical.
“From — from when I was younger.” The green scarf went around Aunt Julia’s neck, tied with an extra knot. “Shall we?”
Fidelia nodded, and was still nodding when Aunt Julia slipped down the stairs, the impression of the scar’s outline etched in her mind like a lightning strike.
Dinner at La Fruits de Mer was delectable. Flaking, buttery cheese biscuits, fizzing white grape juice, and the seafood smorgasbord — Fidelia had never seen her aunt put away so much food.
“Shall we order another serving of clams?” Aunt Julia asked after Fidelia had taken what she swore was her final, final bite of baked octopus.
“Are there any left on the island?” Fidelia groaned.
Aunt Julia laughed but put in another order. They ate every morsel.
When the two of them were stuffed to the gills, they left the restaurant and found an abalone sunset battling the Undertow’s gray clouds for supremacy of the sky — the pink was winning at the moment.
Aunt Julia put her hand over her heart. “Sometimes I think the darkness almost makes it … more beautiful.”
Fidelia tilted her head. Yes, the Undertow did make the brights brighter, the gasps of sunlight louder. A dramatic display, this skirmish between light and dark, life and death.
For a split second, Merrick’s mismatched eyes flashed through her mind — a dazzling, deep-blue eye, spilling over with vitality, and the gruesome blackness of the dead one.
“Darling?” Aunt Julia touched Fidelia’s shoulder. “Are you all right?”
Fidelia nodded.
“You have that look on your face,” Aunt Julia pressed. “I’ve seen it a few times today.”
Fidelia sighed. “It’s nothing.” Then she met Aunt Julia’s bespectacled eyes. “Actually,” she retracted, “there is something, but I’d rather not talk about it. Not here. Not tonight.” Not after today, the closest thing to a perfect day she’d had in months.
Aunt Julia, gratefully, accepted this, squeezing Fidelia’s shoulder briefly. “There’s something I would like to talk to you about. Regarding our move to the mainland.”
Fidelia waited, looking at her aunt.
“Well, would you be terribly disappointed … if we didn’t ?” Her mouth twitched in the hint of a smile.
Fidelia’s heart leaped, like a whale breaching the surface. “Really?”
“Darling, I can’t take you away from here. This is your home. It’s in your blood — your memories live here, and —” She took a deep breath. “It’s my home, too. It’s where my own memories are. The good ones, and the less-than-good.”
“We’ll make plenty of new ones,” Fidelia said. “Wherever we decide to be.” She meant it. Home wasn’t a place — she’d learned that these last few weeks. It was a feeling, a state of being.
It was a person.
“Wherever we decide,” Aunt Julia echoed, and offered the crook of her arm.
Fidelia linked elbows with her aunt, and they walked down the boardwalk.
She was having such a good time, she wasn’t prepared when they turned the corner and she spotted the mint green door of BonBon Voyage Sweets Shop.
Fidelia stopped cold. A tidal wave of memories hit her: the taste of choco-glomps as the moon rose over a water-warped main deck; a kaleidorainbow fig munched down between high-rising waves; astrobloomers washed down with a gulp of cold water from a blackjack.
“What’s wrong?” Aunt Julia searched her niece’s face. “What is it?”
Fidelia gestured to the door. “Do you think we could pop in for a minute?” she asked.
Aunt Julia was unreadable, her expression murky. “You know I don’t care much for sweets.”
“Please, Aunt Julia,” Fidelia implored.
Aunt Julia pursed her lips. “Oh, all right.”
Fidelia thought of Merrick’s reaction when Cheapshot Charlie pulled out that knapsack of stolen sweets. Back in the Quail house, when Fidelia was first taken captive by them — back when she was still terrified of Merrick the Monstrous. Back before she knew he had a soft center, deep under the layers of stone, a softness that was reached only with a junky metal brooch.
When Aunt Julia opened the front door, a string of bells sounded, jarring Fidelia out of her nostalgia and back into reality.
One step into BonBon Voyage Sweets Shop, and they were transported into an alternate world, one made of cotton-candy clouds and chocolate thunderstorms. The walls were soft pastel pink, textured like spun sugar. Yellow sconces gave the store a lemony glow. Black and white tiles checkered the floor, and as Fidelia walked through the store, a different scent seemed to inhabit each tile: coconut, marzipan, hazelnut …
Crystal jars of rainbow-colored candies were in rows along the counters. Fidelia read the labels, remembering every flavor: apple crantruffles, peach creme fizzers, apricot popcorn.
“Choco-glomps, and crack-o-mallow bars, and butter turtles, and jelly-jellied jigglers,” Aunt Julia read. “I haven’t had these in ages.”
“Get one of each,” Fidelia suggested.
“Bold,” Aunt Julia said. “But I think I’ll just take a sliver of this dark chocolate —”
Glass shattered behind them. Someone tumbled through the storefront window, knocking over a table of canary cobblers and rolling onto the tiles.
Amid the shrieks from the customers and staff, a familiar cough burst from the man as he clambered to his feet.
Fidelia’s heart stopped.
It was Merrick.
For a crazy moment, she thought he was a ghost. He looked like he’d dragged himself from the grave. A river of red spittle trailed onto his bare chest — he wore his peacoat over his naked torso. His network of veins was now black, crisscrossing his body like spilled ink.
Fidelia waited to feel Aunt Julia’s hands digging into her arm, holding her back. But her aunt was frozen to the rack of chocolate bricks, staring at the pirate as if he had crawled out of her nightmares.
“H-how?” Aunt Julia whispered, her voice trembling. “How is it possible?”
“You know … the saying,” Merrick wheezed. “Anything … can happen … in the Undertow.” He stumbled forward, strain in every step.
A pit opened in Fidelia’s stomach. “Why?” she whispered, her teeth chattering. Why did you come here, of all places, to die? Why are you going to make me watch, after all the death I’ve already seen? After I already mourned you?
Merrick came toward her. Between coughs, he murmured something, a single word, repeating it louder and louder until finally Fidelia could hear it: “Jewel … Jewel … Jewel …”
Walking around Fidelia, he stood close enough to Aunt Julia that the flaps of his greasy peacoat skimmed her crisp white blouse. “Jewel,” he whispered, lifting one bony hand to her cheek, and Aunt Julia flinched.
Before Fidelia could register what she was seeing, the front door blasted open, kicked clean off its hinges.
“Merrick, you demon! Why won’t you die?”
Admiral Bridgewater stumbled into the sweets shop, aimed his blunderbuss at Merrick, and fired.
The bullet missed, ricocheting off the back wall.
“No!” Fidelia shouted. Aunt Julia screamed. The shopkeeper ducked behind the counter, and the remaining customers escaped through the shattered window, disappearing down the street.
Someone else ran through the broken door, pistols blazing — Bloody Elle.
Without skipping a beat, she shot at the admiral, who dove behind a stand of astrobloomers. Blueberry sprinkles flew everywhere.
Cheapshot Charlie hobbled into the sweets shop behind her, dragging his right leg as if it were a tagalong — the leg Merrick had put a bullet into, back when they were ambushed by the admiral in the tropics.
Charlie and Elle! They had made it! They were alive! Joy shot through Fidelia — only an instant of relief before the admiral fired a shot that nearly hit Cheapshot Charlie’s neck.
Cheapshot Charlie shot back, missing the admiral. “Captain! The streets are swarming with silver-buttons. You have to get out —”
“Not until … it’s done!” Merrick gasped.
The next shot from Admiral Bridgewater nearly grazed Cheapshot Charlie’s shoulder — he rolled out of the way, knocking into Bloody Elle. Both their guns skittered across the checkered floor.
Fidelia felt as if she were watching everything in slow motion, underwater. Bridgewater’s mustache, curling up in a smile as he leveled his blunderbuss at Merrick. Cheapshot Charlie and Bloody Elle struggling to their feet, grappling for their weapons.
Then suddenly, Fidelia was moving. Free from the range of Aunt Julia’s desperate grasp, past the candy aisles, and directly in front of Admiral Bridgewater’s gun.
“Out of my way, girl!” Admiral Bridgewater tried to shove her aside with the flare of his gun, but her boots gripped the tile, and she didn’t budge.
“Fidelia, no!” Aunt Julia cried.
“Quail —!” Merrick immediately doubled over, coughing horribly.
“I won’t!” Fidelia’s nerves hummed, her chest full of fire. “I won’t let you die like this. Not when — not when —” Not when you’re so close, she finished in her mind. Not when it’s already over for you.
“Accomplice!” Admiral Bridgewater jutted a sausage finger at Fidelia, his blunderbuss shaking with his rage. “I warned you, didn’t I? I told you anyone who aided Merrick the Monstrous would dangle beside him at the gallows.”
“You already got his treasure,” Fidelia said. “Now leave him be!”
The admiral let out one short laugh, almost a bark. “He is the treasure,” he said. And with jubilation glowing in his eyes, the admiral raised his gun and pointed it at the center of her chest.
A shot fired, and Fidelia panted, her heart slamming into her ribs. She waited for the pain, the sear of a bullet in her chest, the acrid smell of gunpowder. The blood.
But Admiral Bridgewater hadn’t shot her. His blunderbuss was still pointed at her, his cheeks still red as snappers. The smoke wafting in the candy store wasn’t coming from his weapon. It was coming from —
The doorway, where Niccu and the other Molvanian pirates stood clumped together. Niccu’s antique silver flintlock pistol was pointed at the ceiling, smoke curling from the end; he lowered it and aimed right at Admiral Bridgewater’s head.
“Drop your weapon, Admiral.”
Fidelia’s blood was ice, her muscles stone. She had been so concerned with the Molvanians’ survival when Merrick left them bobbing in the ocean, but she felt no satisfaction seeing them here. Niccu’s guns may have been pointed at the admiral, but she couldn’t imagine the Molvanians would leave unpunished the pirate captain who tossed them overboard like rotten fish heads.
Admiral Bridgewater sneered at Niccu’s gun, dropping his own blunderbuss with a clatter. “My men will be here any minute,” he said. His tricorne hat had fallen off his head; Fidelia thought his head looked very small and sweaty without the three corners of black felt to fill it out.
“How perfect; this will only take a minute,” Niccu said. He turned one of his pistols onto Merrick, who clung to the closest candy rack for support, like a bivalve on a rocky shore. “I’ll ask you only once,” the Rasculat captain said. “Where is the treasure?”
Merrick coughed. “Ask …” He gestured to the admiral; the effort to speak was too much.
Niccu turned his full attention back to Admiral Bridgewater, whose face drained of all color like a pierced vegetable.
“Confiscated,” the admiral said, untucking his chin and trying very hard to look the part of the dignified royal soldier. “It’s all in Her Majesty’s possession, being accounted for —”
“Razat,” Niccu said, stepping closer to the admiral. “Mule’s razat. Where is it?”
Outside,
the rain began to fall in heavy sheets.
“It’s hidden,” Admiral Bridgewater said. “Hidden from the likes of you or any of your black-hearted cohorts. And there’s nothing you can do —”
“I will give you Merrick.” Thunder rolled above BonBon Voyage Sweets Shop; the sound of crashing waves echoed along the boardwalk.
“‘Give me Merrick?’” Admiral Bridgewater said.
“I will let you finish him,” Niccu answered. “You will tell us where the treasure is, and we will leave him to die at your hands. If he is, indeed, such a great prize to you, then this is an easy bargain.”
Merrick coughed.
Fidelia’s forehead was damp with sweat; she watched the pirate captain bend in half, searching for his next breath, searching, searching …
Niccu tensed. “Quickly, Admiral, quickly. You don’t have much time.” He bowed his head slightly toward Merrick. “It could happen any second.”
Admiral Bridgewater twitched his mustache, confused. “What the blazes does that mean?”
Niccu studied the admiral’s blank, flobby face. “You mean you don’t know?” He tipped his head back and laughed. “Listen to Merrick’s cough. Listen to his inhales. Look at his hands. He’s finished, do you understand? He’s rub on a wooden leg.”
Admiral Bridgewater cocked his head, staring at Merrick as the pirate captain wheezed and hacked. Like a slow submersion in cold water, Fidelia watched the realization hit the admiral.
“The pollen of the red daisies.” Admiral Bridgewater’s jowls shimmied as his jaw dropped. “Then …”
“Yes,” Niccu said. “He’s dying.”
The Molvanian pirate twirled his gun. “So now you will make your choice. Tell me where the treasure is, and Merrick is yours to end. Or I blow his head off now and we still take your treasure.”
Admiral Bridgewater’s top lip quivered in pure madness. He studied Merrick, his face darkening. Through clenched teeth, he finally said, “In the hold beneath the lower deck of the flagship. A special chamber, just below the bilges.”
Niccu bowed and tucked his revolvers into his belt. “Thank you, pralipe. And to you,” he addressed Merrick, “the stars are calling. We will watch for you in the skies.” He stepped backward until he was out of BonBon Voyage Sweets Shop, then he and the other Molvanian pirates headed down the cobbled street, straight for the Mother Dog.
Race to the Bottom of the Sea Page 23