Imploringly, I met each set of eyes at the table. “I think that no matter how improbable it is, that we have to try to find the entity and free it. If it knew someone searched for it knowing that it was out there somewhere, wouldn’t it be better for the creature? At least it would know it hadn’t been abandoned and that someone knew it was trapped and alone. I think it will be able to sense me if I can get near enough.”
Mr. Finn squeezed Gregory’s shoulder. “Well, son, take this with you.” Gregory stared at the box his father gave to him and then looked up at him. “The Goddess works in her own ways. Was it coincidence that had me win a deep fish finder this morning at the boat supply store?”
“Be safe out there,” Mrs. Finn said.
“Do you have emergency suits and plenty of rations?” Mr. Finn asked Cosmo.
“Yes, sir.”
Cosmo and I rode to the Sea Harpy. The Finns met us there in their boat. While pulling up their traps, the Finns had discovered tears in several of them and had come to Scorpius to get materials for repairs. I wondered if Palena had been behind that, too. She could be a pesky ocean spirit. Mr. Finn followed Gregory onboard and inspected the Sea Harpy with erudite expediency.
“May Palena, Goddess of the Ocean Waves, watch over all of you. Gregory, your mother and I will be scanning the horizon for your return.”
With it being too cold to sit out on deck, Gregory and I joined Cosmo up in the wheelhouse. Cosmo closed the door behind us. I pulled the bag from inside of my jacket and brought the tile out to hold in my hand. Again, solitude overwhelmed me. It was as though my blood had weakly connected us in some way. Other than a few fish and the sound of the ocean, there was nothing not even birds. Thoughtfully, I asked, “Are there any places that are always avoided even by fishermen?”
Cosmo said, “Broken Shell Reef.”
“Is it far away?”
“Yes,” Cosmo said as he set our course for it. The sun had begun to peek out at us from over the horizon. However, as the hours passed, the tile grew dimmer.
“Cosmo, this is wrong. We aren’t going the right way. I can feel it. Is there another forgotten place where no one goes?”
Gregory got a frightened look on his face and had a silent exchange with Cosmo. Cosmo got angry and shook his head.
“Oh, hell no. There is no way I’m taking you out there, Clue.”
“Where?”
Cosmo got all stubborn and didn’t answer. Instead, he got a really stern look on his face.
Gregory said, “No one ever goes out to Siren’s Shelf, not anyone who comes back.”
“What is that?”
Gregory’s deep blue eyes met mine. “Far out to sea, there are the vestiges of a volcano that erupted so forcefully that it blew itself apart. Jagged volcanic rock and cooled lava flows are scattered beneath the water’s surface. There are areas deep enough for boats that suddenly become shallow depressions. Beneath the surface there are shipwrecks, unexplained vortexes in the ocean, and no one nearby to help if a ship begins to sink.”
I stared at Gregory and Cosmo for a while. “Cosmo, do birds go there?”
My question surprised him. “No, nothing is out there but death. Birds aren’t even stupid enough to go there,” he said angrily.
“Cosmo?”
“No, Clue. Absolutely not!”
I could feel helpless anguish through the strange shingle I held. I stood and moved to stand beside Cosmo so that I could stare up into his eyes. “You’re right, Cosmo. I won’t risk you, Gregory, or the Sea Harpy. You can take us back.”
Cosmo looked relieved. Then, he thought about my words. “What exactly do you mean by that?” I squeezed his arm and sat watching the glow as it continued to fade. It was like holding a small helpless life in my hands as it died. It hurt me deep in my heart.
“It means that she will find a way to go there all on her own without us,” Gregory answered in his calm deep voice.
“Like hell you will! Between me, Yago, and Lord Tanaka, we can keep you on land,” he said with conviction.
“I can’t sit by and do nothing. Letting this entity or whatever it is continue to suffer alone is wrong. Please, don’t expect me to let this go. I have to try. I do. You and Gregory have nothing to do with this, so take us back. I’ll deal with it.” I felt my eyes swell up and quickly blinked them so they wouldn’t see.
Cosmo turned red in the face and said a series of expletives unlike any I had ever heard. Gregory chuckled at my shocked expression. I didn’t know what a stonefish was but having a scrotum made of one didn’t sound good. Also, I decided to look up what “fellatio by a shark-toothed whore” was the next time I was at the Community Center. Cosmo changed our course. The sea was rough.
“How about some coffee?” Cosmo asked me with a scowl.
I went down to the cabin and made each of us a cup but brought Cosmo his first. “Cosmo, I don’t expect you to risk….”
“Shut up, Clue. Just shut up. I’ll take you near the Siren’s Shelf. Near it. You better understand this. I’m in charge. If I tell you to go to the cabin, you go. If I tell you to put on an emergency suit, you do it. Any order I give to you, you will obey immediately. Is that clear? I couldn’t live with myself if anything happened to you.”
Gregory narrowed his eyes at Cosmo. I went down for the other two cups. My return interrupted a snide conversation between the men who had asked my father’s permission to court me.
“Oh,” I said with a frown. “I totally forgot about my job. Do you think Mr. Tavora will fire me?”
Cosmo shrugged. “You can always allow your husband to support you. I can always find work,” Cosmo said.
“Cosmo is right,” Gregory said. We both turned to him in surprise. “You could easily allow either Cosmo or Tadashi to support you. However, I think the two of us would be happier working alongside each other on our own fishing boat.”
Cosmo snorted. “You can work if you want, but I’ll never expect you to lift a finger unless it’s to point at something you want me to get you.”
“Right, Cosmo does plenty of lifting. Doesn’t he?” Gregory asked suspiciously.
“Are we there, yet?” I asked. The Siren’s Shelf wasn’t anywhere near as far away as I had expected, but to get to the area required traversing rough seas devoid of other ships. “There haven’t been any other boats out on the water for hours.”
With a smile, Cosmo said, “Oh, there are other ships out here. They’re just far below us at rest on the ocean floor.”
It seemed as if the tile was giving off a faint vibration. I pulled it from my pocket and saw the glow had returned. After a few minutes, it dimmed. “Oh, Cosmo!” He chuckled, and I rolled my eyes. “Be serious. Slow down a little more and look. It was brighter, but then you steered us to the right and it faded. Do you think it’s trying to play a game of Hot and Cold with us?” Cosmo stopped the boat and peered into a screen that gave a bumpy view of the ocean floor from which the ship was either closer to or farther away with each wave. “What is all of that stuff? Is that a reef?”
“That is all the result of a submarine volcano. It erupted long ago and left all of this behind. There are active volcanoes scattered around, and we don’t want to sail over one,” Cosmo answered.
“Why?”
Gregory said, “The submarine volcanoes release gases. The gases float up to the surface, and when they do they lower the water’s density. If a small ship like the Sea Harpy is above those gas bubbles, she can lose buoyancy and sink. Therefore, we need to avoid the volcanoes and the lava rock.”
“Maybe this would be a good time to try out that fish finder. We also need to avoid all of the whirlpools. Those are problematic. Rumor has it most of the shipwrecks occur after being spun off course to crash into jagged rocks and then being crushed against them by the waves.” Cosmo spoke as he concentrated on his course-plotting.
Nervously, I ran my thumbs over the tile as they set up the machine. “Will an entombed creature even show up on that
thing?”
The looks my two suitors gave me were not hopeful.
“Turning to port,” Cosmo said as he started the Sea Harpy forward. “Gregory, I’ll watch for rocks. You watch for bubbles and whirlpools.”
“Aye, aye, Captain.”
My thoughts returned to the beach. Sitting out of their way, I took the fishhook from the Big Bubba’s bag, poked my left thumb, and pressed it to the tile. Rather than helpless anguish, I felt surprise. An underwater cave flashed before my eyes. I thought as hard as I could, “We are trying to find you to rescue you. Where are you?” Hope from the creature washed over me like a giant wave.
“What the heck, Clue?”
Opening my eyes, I saw both the tile and my ring of blue sea glass glowing. “If you can sense us getting closer, make it brighter. If we move away, dim it.” Awhile later and after some creative steering on Cosmo’s part, he anchored the Sea Harpy at a safe distance. The tile filled the cabin with yellow light. “What now? There’s nothing out here but water. What do we do?”
Cosmo said, “Gregory and I are going for a dive to find your trapped creature. I’ve got a supply of blasting charges used in underwater mining operations. Don’t ask me why. In addition, you are staying here.” I opened my mouth to ask more questions. Cosmo surprised me with a gentle kiss. “Stay here, Clue. Stay out of my stuff.”
Cosmo and Gregory went into the cabin. When they emerged, they were wearing black dive suits. Around their waists were belts supplied with explosive devices. Each of them held a spear.
“Why do you have those? You aren’t going to hurt it. Are you?”
“These are to protect us from hungry predators,” Gregory said as he met and held my eyes for a moment before sealing his helmet and falling backwards from where he had sat on the railing into the freezing water.
Cosmo followed. Rushing to the side, I grabbed a hold of the cold railing and watched as their heads bobbed out of sight. Then, I nervously waited. After I didn’t know how many minutes, I saw a series of bubbles surface. Not knowing if the bubbles were the result of the charges Cosmo and Gregory had taken down or of one of the dangerous submarine volcanoes, my anxiety forced me to pace the deck while constantly scanning the choppy waves.
When Cosmo and Gregory surfaced and climbed onboard, my relief was shadowed by the grim news they delivered to me. Cosmo said, “We found a small spot of light, but there is no way to be certain if it is your mysterious friend or an active volcano. Our charges made the hole a little wider, but it’s too small for anything other than a fish or an octopus to squeeze through. Whatever is in there is trapped in a cave by a wall of hardened lava and rock possibly from a past eruption.”
From the tile, feelings of gratitude mixed with resignation reached me like a soft whisper. “How do we free it then?” Gregory gazed down at his flippers and shook his head. “But it can’t die! It’s immortal,” I said horrified. “It can’t escape life or the cave. How long has it already been in there?”
They were removing their suits. The cold wind made chill bumps appear on their skin. “Clue, we’ll return to Scorpius and do some research. We’ll come back with better equipment.” Cosmo didn’t sound convinced that anything we did would work.
“So, that’s it? We’re just going to leave it?” I felt sick inside and clutched the strange tile until it hurt.
“Clue, it’s pointless to stay. We have no other charges to place. Perhaps, in widening that hole, more fish will enter,” Gregory said.
I could tell by their faces that they had done all they were able and that disappointing me was the last thing they wanted to do. In my gut, I knew I couldn’t leave. I was connected to this creature now through more than simple empathy. The plan that formed in my mind was one of which neither Cosmo nor Gregory would approve. If they knew what I was thinking, they would stop me. The men had gone to change and grab something to eat.
Chapter Four
Quickly, before they could stop me, I tore out of everything but my bra and panties. The frigid wind raised my flesh as I changed into the diving suit Cosmo had worn. Having grown up on Eris Space Station, I had been drilled repeatedly on emergency protocols including how to dress in a space suit. The dive suit was much simpler. I secured the tile against my skin, over my heart, and under my bra strap. I closed the suit and attached the helmet activating life support functions.
As I concentrated on what I needed, I saw Cosmo exit the cabin and the “No!” his mouth formed just before I slipped from reality. The familiar “whomp” and lift and fall I felt when slipping had a disorienting intensity under water as I was pulled along an invisible line. I concentrated fiercely on both the tile and my need to rescue the poor, lonely, sentient creature.
I teleported myself into a cave the size of the living room at 888 Honjo Street. My relief that I hadn’t ended up in an active volcano was tempered by my current reality. The light of my helmet allowed me a view of the dark cave. Large slit-pupiled eyes were looking at me in what I assumed to be reptilian shock. It was around fourteen feet long. Its flesh hung loosely about it. The earlier mantra of “Please, don’t eat me,” began playing in my mind. I stood in the pair of too big for me flippers, chest deep in water, on a small ledge of lava that was shaped like a large pillow. I wasn’t sure how much oxygen was in the top of the cave.
A deep clear pool of water separated the two of us. Now, I realized it wasn’t a tile or a shingle, but a scale that I had placed over my heart. Weakly, the creature raised its head to look at me. It blinked slowly. Through my helmet, I said, “Please, don’t eat me or my friends. We came here to rescue you.”
Somehow, the strange reptile sent feelings of being too weak with cold and hunger to eat us along with a complete conviction against ever causing harm to those who had shown it compassion. It had weakened itself further by using its spirit energy to guide us through its scale. Sadly, it lowered its head unable to swim to me but content to gaze upon another being.
It was okay. In the diving suit, I could walk across the bottom of the pool to it. Stepping from the ledge, I submerged myself and found it to be fascinating. It was like exploring another world. I wondered what it would be like if there were things other than rocks and a couple of starfish at which to look. Feeling I had nothing to lose by trying, I began kicking my feet and moving my hands surprised when I propelled myself forward. The flippers made climbing from the rocky pool difficult.
Cautiously, I gazed through my helmet and into the ancient eyes of the creature whose torment I had felt. It lowered its massive head and blinked at me. A set of sharp ridge-like fins went from above each of its eyes and down its back to the tip of its sinewy tail. Sharp claws were at the ends of each of its feet. Yellow eyes glowed at me in the dark cave.
Through my helmet, I said, “I’ll have to touch you to try to slip us both out.”
The creature remained perfectly still and continued to blink slowly at me. Cautiously, I crawled closer to it using my hands and knees. Removing a glove and pushing it through a loop on the utility belt, I placed my bare hand against the creature’s scaled flesh. The sound it made reverberated through my entire being overwhelming for a moment my body and emotions with its intensity. Long ago, it had given up hope of feeling the touch of another living creature.
Taking its front leg, I wrapped my arms around it being sure to keep my bare hand pressed firmly against the smaller scales there. “I’m going to try to teleport the both of us to the deck of my friend’s ship. If I miss, I’m sorry. I can’t swim. I’ll be okay in this suit, but I won’t be able to help you in the open water.”
From it, I felt it didn’t care. Being freed from the confines of the lonely cave would be more than it had dared to dream.
Closing my eyes, I concentrated on the deck of the Sea Harpy, on Cosmo, and on my need to be with him there. I could feel the creature boosting my spirit energy with what little remained to it. Then, I felt the lift, fall, and pull along the line. With another whomp, lift, and fall, color
and sound returned as I released my hold on the spirit realm. My huge lizard friend and I were on the deck of the Sea Harpy.
Both of us were too exhausted to move, but through my visor, I saw tears of gratitude leaking from the creature’s eyes. Through the deck, I felt the vibrations of running feet and then saw the relieved but stunned faces of Cosmo and Gregory as they looked down at me. Gregory began removing my helmet. Cosmo had a blaster aimed at the creature.
“Don’t you dare shoot it, Cosmo. You have no idea how fucking pissed I’d be at you if you shot it. Instead, catch it some fish. If you feed it, maybe it won’t eat us when it’s strong enough to lift its head.”
Gregory had moved from my head to my feet. I was glad to get the annoying flippers off.
“Damn it, Clue Taylor. You are the most irritating, reckless, selfish female I have ever met!” Cosmo yelled. His face was red with anger. “Don’t you give a shit about your family? We love you.” I had scared him.
“Clue is the opposite of all of those things. She is brave and selfless,” Gregory said in my defense as he scowled up at Cosmo but then cast a wary glance over at the huge reptilian creature beside me.
“Cosmo, I know you’re pissed, but I had to try. I had to. I have this ability to slip for a reason, and it’s not to steal.” I tilted my head to look at him from a better angle. With wide eyes as sad as I could make them, I asked, “Is there any way that you can ever forgive me?”
His face softened. Then, Cosmo put the blaster in an underarm holster, turned, and started cussing. Gregory helped me sit up and remove the suit. I shivered in the cold air and noticed that Gregory’s attention had shifted to the cold hard pebbles my nipples had become within my bra.
“I’ll get you a blanket,” he said as he rushed to the cabin.
I dragged my clothes over to myself and pulled them on as quickly as I could. Then, I scooted over to the creature who looked at me in what I imagined to be an appreciative manner. Sea water puddled around it on the deck. Placing my hand on its front leg, I said to Gregory, “I think our new friend needs the blanket more than I do.”
Clue and the Sea Dragon (The Clue Taylor Series Book 2) Page 3