by Gwyneth Rees
They swam back over the top of the long table and looked in between all the dishes but they couldn’t see the necklace.
Rani felt like crying.
“Don’t worry. You can share my necklace,” Kai said, putting her arm round her sister. “Or maybe Grandma has another one you can have.”
But Rani knew that the amber pendant was far too special to be replaced.
“I’ve got to find it,” she told Kai.
And together, the two sisters started to search again.
Chapter Five
It was getting late and Rani was starting to feel sleepy. She still hadn’t found her pendant although she and Kai had searched the whole room. She kept checking to make sure that the little shell containing the sea-spell was still fastened to her belt.
Flora seemed to have disappeared from the party. Rani was just giving up all hope of speaking to her again when she heard an unmistakable jangling sound right behind her.
“Flora,” Rani gasped. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere!”
“I’ve been avoiding Octavius,” Flora confided. “He’s just so bossy. It’s just as well I don’t live in Tingle Reef or he’d drive me mad!”
“He drives us mad too sometimes,” Rani grinned. “But we know he always means well!”
The party had livened up even more since Octavius had suggested they dance a few reels. The mermaids were swishing their tails as fast as they could in time to the music as they held hands and swung each other round. Octavius was dancing with eight mermaids at once and looking very pleased with himself.
“It’s getting very noisy,” Flora said. “I hope we don’t upset our neighbours.”
“What neighbours?” asked Rani.
Suddenly, as if in answer to her question, an incredible bellow sounded.
“Oh dear,” Flora said, looking out into the Deep Blue with a worried frown on her face.
“What is it?” asked Rani anxiously.
Flora pointed out into the dark water which had suddenly become very choppy, and Rani saw an enormous black-and-white whale charging towards them.
“Whales have got very sensitive hearing,” Flora whispered. “She’s probably come to complain about the noise.”
The furious whale banged against the side of the wreck and everyone stopped dancing.
The other mermaids made way for Rani’s grandmother as she swam to the edge of the room so that she was looking out at the whale through a gap in the side of the wreck. “We’re terribly sorry for disturbing you,” she began, politely. “Can we make up for it by offering you some refreshments?” She looked across to the table where Octavius was helping himself to the last of the trifle. “We have lots of mer-wine and sea-fruits and—”
“I only eat plankton!” barked the whale rudely. “And I’ve had a bellyful of that on the way here!” She belched loudly.
“Of course, we’ll stop the music—” Rani’s grandmother tried again, but the whale interrupted her.
“You shouldn’t have started it in the first place! I’m sick of you mermaids and your silly parties! You never think about anyone else but yourselves!” And she rammed her whole body against the side of the wreck again, in protest.
“The ceiling!” somebody yelled, as a loud ripping noise came from above their heads and splinters of driftwood and barnacles started to fall from above.
The mermaids looked up and screamed. The huge wooden beams that made up the ceiling were splitting down the middle.
“What are we going to do?” gasped Flora, as everyone tried to swim away at once. “The roof garden will cave in on us.”
Rani knew that there was no time to lose. She had to use the sea-spell. She took the golden shell from her belt and clasped it tightly in her hand, concentrating as hard as she could on starting up the magic. Gold dust began to trickle out from inside the shell – the spell was being released! Rani closed her eyes to help her focus better. When she opened them again, the water in the room was sparkling.
“What’s happening?” someone cried out.
The whole room and its contents – except for the mermaids themselves – seemed to have frozen. A huge piece of ceiling had stopped in mid-water as it fell. A heavy rock from the roof garden, which had been about to fall on top of the band, was suspended in the water, not moving.
“Quick!” shouted Rani. “Everyone must swim out. Now!”
It took several minutes to clear the whole room so that only Rani was left. A layer of sparkling water surrounded her as she closed her eyes again. Now, all she had to do was fix the ceiling and the roof garden would be saved. She remembered everything Morva had taught her and concentrated very hard on the spell.
Everyone cheered as the ceiling slipped back into place and the roof garden was restored.
Rani’s grandmother leaned closer to Miriam as they waited for Rani to join them outside. She spoke very quietly so that no one else could hear. “I understand now what you mean about Rani,” she whispered. “She is very special.”
Miriam nodded. “I know.”
“She may want to go and find her true home one day,” the old mermaid added gently. “You realize that, don’t you, my dear?”
Rani’s mother didn’t reply.
When she was sure that the spell had really worked, Rani swam outside to join the others. She knew that her mother and grandmother had been watching her very carefully, and now Miriam seemed quiet. “Mother, is something wrong?” she asked, swimming up to her. “You look sad.”
“I’m fine, Rani,” Miriam replied. “We all are ...Thanks to you.” And she pulled Rani close and gave her a very tight hug.
Suddenly, there was a big shout behind them. It was Octavius, still clutching his bowl of trifle. “You mermaids really aren’t very good at cooking,” he muttered, fishing something hard and shiny out of it. And Rani saw that what Octavius was holding up – half covered in gooey trifle – was her amber pendant!
Chapter Six
“Octopuses are very emotional, aren’t they?” Kai said the following morning, as they waited for Octavius to finish saying goodbye to Flora. Having argued for most of the visit, the brother and sister were now embracing each other and getting horribly tangled up.
Rani had finally got the chance to speak to Flora on her own but she hadn’t really discovered anything more about the mysterious red-haired mermaid. Flora was certain that her amber pendant had been the same kind as Rani’s, though, and she had added that the young mermaid had been very sweet-natured. But apart from that Flora couldn’t tell her anything else. She didn’t know what had happened to the mermaid after she had left her – or to her baby.
Murdoch gently reminded everybody that they needed to set off.
“I can’t wait to see Pearl again!” Kai said, as she waved goodbye to her grandmother.
“Me too,” said Rani. “And Morva!” Rani was longing to tell Morva everything that had happened.
But the journey home seemed to take for ever. Roscoe was so tired that he kept falling asleep holding on to Miriam’s hair.
“We’re probably tired out from all that dancing,” Murdoch said. “That’s why it seems like it’s taking longer. We’ll stop and rest soon.”
Rani turned to her mother and noticed something.
“Where’s Roscoe?” she asked.
Roscoe was no longer attached to Miriam’s hair – he had definitely been there the last time she’d looked – and he wasn’t swimming along beside them either. In fact, he was nowhere in sight.
Everybody stopped swimming and started to call out Roscoe’s name.
“He must have got lost,” Murdoch said, frowning. “Come on. We’d better go back and look for him.”
“I just hope he hasn’t got himself eaten,” Octavius said. “There was an extremely large fish back there. Did you see it?”
“Octavius, please,” Miriam said.
“Sorry, sorry,” muttered Octavius. “Of course, sea horses are very difficult to digest. That fish will pr
obably just spit him straight out again if it’s got any sense. Of course, fish don’t have a lot of sense—”
“Octavius, be quiet!” Murdoch hissed. “I think I can hear something.”
When the others listened they could hear the noise too. It sounded like someone shouting from a long way away.
“Come on,” said Murdoch. “Stay close to me.”
They swam off in the direction of the sound. As they got nearer they could tell that it was definitely Roscoe.
“HELP!” Roscoe was shouting. “GET ME OUT OF HERE!”
“I hope he’s not shouting from inside that fish’s stomach,” Octavius said gloomily.
“OCTAVIUS! “Miriam and Murdoch snapped at him together.
They swam on a little further and then they saw him.
“Oh no!” gasped Rani. The little sea horse was stuck in the middle of a gigantic silver web.
“Keep back, all of you!” Murdoch called out, sharply. “That’s a Giant Sea-Spider’s web. That silver stuff is spider glue. If you touch it, you’ll get stuck too.”
“Father, what are we going to do?” Rani asked, starting to panic. Giant Sea-Spiders caught other creatures in their webs in order to eat them. Everyone knew that. And any spider with a web as big as this one had to have a very large appetite indeed.
“Find some rocks to throw at the web and we’ll try to break it that way,” Rani’s father said. But he sounded very worried.
As the others began to collect rocks, Rani hovered beside the web. If only she hadn’t used up the sea-spell. Surely there was something she could do. After all, she knew how to do a mending spell, didn’t she? Surely a breaking spell couldn’t be that different?
She closed her eyes and concentrated, holding out her hands so that they were just above the edge of the web. She focused as hard as she could on conjuring up a picture in her mind of the web breaking. Her belly button started to tingle and the tingling quickly spread up over the rest of her body and down her arms. Her fingertips felt hot. She opened her eyes and saw that golden sparks were jumping from her fingers to the web.
“Look at Rani!” Kai shouted.
For an instant the whole web sparkled. Then there was a sudden burst of golden light, the web broke with a ping and Roscoe was hurled straight into Rani’s arms.
“It’s OK, Roscoe. You’re safe now,” Rani cried, hugging the trembling sea horse.
The others were amazed. They knew that Rani was learning to do magic but none of them had ever seen her use it on her own before.
“You’re just like Morva!” Kai stammered, looking at her sister in awe.
“Not quite,” Rani laughed, pulling sticky bits of web out of her hair. “But I hope I will be, one day.”
Just then, a large sea snake slithered over Rani’s tail, followed by several babies. “Don’t worry,” the mother snake hissed. “We’re not poisonous. But she is!” She flicked out her tongue to point at the huge, hairy, eight-legged creature crawling along the seabed towards them. “I’d get out of here if I was you!”
“SWIM!” commanded Murdoch, grabbing Kai and Rani and using his large, powerful tail to propel them at top speed through the water.
“Come back,” shouted the sea-spider. “I won’t eat you! I only put that web up because it looks pretty!”
“Do you think that’s true?” Rani gasped, as they kept swimming.
“Somehow,” Murdoch said, slowing down as they reached a safe distance away, “I didn’t feel like taking her word for it.”
“I have always thought that there is something quite unnatural about a creature with hairy legs,” Octavius shuddered, waving his arms about in disgust.
“Come on,” laughed Murdoch. “Let’s go home.”
Chapter Seven
Morva was trying to sing Pearl to sleep when they got home. She had tied some shells to some seaweed ribbons and made a beautiful shell-mobile which was dangling from the ceiling above Pearl’s cradle. Pearl shrieked with excitement when she saw her parents and sisters again, and stretched out her chubby arms to be picked up by Miriam.
After everyone had hugged each other, Rani took Morva to one side.
“Morva, I’ve got so much to tell you!” Rani began excitedly, but she stopped when she saw the look on her friend’s face.
“Where did you get that?” Morva was staring at the amber pendant around Rani’s neck as if she had just seen a ghost.
“My grandmother gave it to me. It was in her treasure chest. She gave a necklace to Kai too. Look.” She pointed to her sister who was swinging Pearl round and round, making her giggle. But Morva kept her eyes fixed on Rani.
“Rani, that is no ordinary stone—” Morva started to explain but, at that moment, Rani’s mother called over to them.
“Morva, thank you so much for looking after Pearl. Would you like to stay and have supper with us?”
Morva shook her head, still looking dazed. “I must be getting back to my lobsters and my starfish. The poor things will be wondering where I am.”
“But, Morva ...” Rani began. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
“There’s nothing wrong, Rani,” Morva said, as she swam towards the door. “You’ve just given me a bit of a shock, that’s all. Come and see me tomorrow. I’ll explain everything then!”
As soon as she woke up the following morning, Rani set off for Morva’s cave. Her mother made her have some breakfast first, but she was too nervous to eat more than a few mouthfuls.
Why had Morva looked so shocked yesterday when she saw the pendant? And what did she mean about it being no ordinary stone?
When she arrived at the floating cave, Morva was cooking breakfast on her hot-rock stove. “So, Rani ...” Morva turned and smiled at her. “You have found your message-stone. Or it has found you! It gave me quite a start yesterday, to see you with it.” She swam over and touched Rani’s amber pendant.
“Message-stone? “Rani frowned. She had never heard of such a thing.
Morva motioned for Rani to take off the necklace. As she took it from her, she said, “Look how it stops glowing when it leaves your skin. It is yours for certain!”
“Morva, what is a message-stone?” Rani demanded, getting impatient.
“A message-stone ...” Morva explained slowly, “is a special stone that magic mermaids wear when they are separated from their families. That way they can always be sure that their loved ones are safe.”
“I don’t understand,” Rani said. “How can a stone tell you that? And anyway, my family is safe. I’ve only just left them.”
“I’m not talking about your family here,” said Morva. “I mean your true family – the family you were separated from as a baby. If this is your message-stone... if you open it... you will see your true family inside.”
“But how—” Rani gasped.
“A message-stone will always open for its true owner,” Morva said, as she dropped it back into Rani’s hand. “You must blow on it.”
Rani lifted the amber stone up so that it was level with her face. She filled out her cheeks with air and blew.
“That’s it,” Morva said.
As they watched, the stone seemed to be glowing even brighter in Rani’s hand. Gradually, its surface changed. Instead of being hard, it was becoming soft, like jelly.
“Look inside now,” Morva urged her gently. “Go on. Don’t be frightened.”
Slowly, Rani lifted the stone up again and looked inside. It was like looking in through a window. Inside, she could see a merman, a mermaid and two babies. They all had red hair. The mermaid was young and beautiful and looked a bit like Rani. The merman was broad-shouldered and handsome.
“Is this ... Are they ...?” Rani stammered, unable to say any more.
“This must be your family at the time you were separated from them,” Morva whispered.
“But ... but there are two babies!” Rani said hoarsely.
“I know. Watch carefully and see what happens next.”
As she watched,
Rani saw the two babies slowly changing before her eyes. “That’s me,” Rani gasped, as one of the babies grew into a little girl. At the same time, the other baby changed into a little boy with short red hair and twinkling goldy-brown eyes like Rani’s.
“You must have a twin brother,” Morva said.
Only the man and the woman didn’t change. As Rani watched, they slowly faded away until they had completely disappeared.
“Where have they gone? What does it mean?” Rani cried out.
“It means,” explained Morva gently, “that your real parents must have died when you were a baby. I’m sorry, Rani.”
Rani swallowed. She had known for a long time that her true parents might be dead. But somehow actually seeing them and then watching them disappear like that made the fact that they were gone for ever seem a lot more real. She would never meet them now. She felt a tear roll down her cheek.
“Did you know them?” she asked Morva.
“I didn’t recognize them, no,” Morva said. “But remember how old I am, Rani.I left my home a long, long time before you were born ... probably before your parents were born too.”
Rani was silent.
“Your brother is still alive though,” Morva added, trying to cheer her up. “Imagine that! A twin brother!”
“He probably doesn’t even know he has a sister,” said Rani sadly.
Morva smiled. “I wouldn’t be so sure. How do you know that he hasn’t got his own message-stone, with you inside it?”
“Do you really think so?” That thought made Rani feel better. She looked up at Morva. “I want you to take me to the place you come from – the magic place – so that I can find him.”
“I will take you,” Morva said. “But you must be patient, Rani. Your magic is not yet strong enough for you to make the journey.”
“When will it be strong enough?” Rani demanded impatiently.
“Soon,” Morva replied, smiling. “Very soon – I promise! And until then you can watch your brother growing up inside your pendant. Now, come on. It’s time we practised another spell. How about I teach you how to turn my breakfast into enough to eat for two?”