by Nic Saint
Sam showed him the trinket and he shrugged, then pointed at the hole in the floor. There had to be something more than this measly little box.
But as much as they looked, the small box was all the captain’s cabin yielded, and finally Sam shook his head and held up his hands like the traffic cop he no doubt once had been. Nothing to see here, folks! Move along!
That’s it? he thought, greatly dismayed. All this fuss for an oversized snuffbox? And he was just about to swim back out of this claustrophobic space, when he saw him: first he thought the figure looked like a dead captain, hovering in the water, lit up by the spectacle of shadow and light the flashlights of the other team members produced inside the cabin.
He could see a captain’s uniform, a captain’s two-pointed hat, even the man’s black, wavy hair as it shifted in the brine. And he was about to open his mouth and yell out in horror and shock, when the man’s eyes snapped open, and hit him with a scowl so dark he reeled back. There was a vicious grin on the gaunt face, and as the captain opened his lips, a whoosh of what felt like a pressure wave suddenly hit him amidships, and flung him back against the wall, almost hitting Sam in the process.
What the hell?! And then the terrifying figure was upon him, and suddenly all he could think of was that the captain’s eyes were… pure rage. Red, searing rage… and then he suddenly felt his limbs go limp…
Chapter 24
Sam looked up when something like a wave hit him, and a sudden, searing heat along his back. And when he saw Jerry being flung from one side of the cabin to the other, as if picked up by a gigantic hand, he wondered what the guy was up to.
He hadn’t trusted him from the first, and had told Pierre to keep a close eye on both him and his sidekick Johnny Carew. Those two were career criminals, and would try to steal that treasure at any given opportunity.
And as he turned to face Jerry now, he saw that the guy was holding something in his hand. Something glittery and shiny… and razor sharp. And as his mind was trying to compute what the heck was happening, he saw it was some kind of ancient hatchet. And even as he was scrabbling back in the direction of the window, Jerry raised his arm, and then brought the hatchet down on Sam’s skull with all the power he could muster.
Luckily underwater it’s a little harder to brain people, as water provides a certain resistance. So before the hatchet reached his noggin, Sam managed to dodge the strike and Jerry was flung forward by the movement. He gave him a good kick in the behind, but Jerry quickly turned, proving more agile than expected, and came after him again. Through the mask, Sam could see the man’s eyes burning feverishly, as if with pure hatred and rage, and he wondered what he’d ever done to him to deserve this. Then again, criminals don’t need probable cause to attack a cop. They simply hate the foul breed.
Sam quickly swam to the exit, Jerry right behind him, swinging the hatchet like a madman, and as he swam out he saw that Spear was attacking Pierre, also with a hatchet. And before he knew what hit him, in his own hand a hatchet manifested itself and along with it a powerful surge of emotion hit his limbic system, like a bunch of hormones and chemicals flooding his brain. He felt a strong hatred, rage even, and an overpowering urge to kill!
And then he was going after the nearest potential victim he could find: Skip Brown. He now knew he’d always hated the baker! And not just this baker—any baker! With all the power of his being he detested bakers, and felt they shouldn’t even exist. The horrible species should be exterminated!
Death to all bakers! he would have screamed if he hadn’t been wearing this silly mouthpiece, and then he want after Skip, like Mel Gibson going after the English in Braveheart. Only Sam wasn’t painted with war paint.
From the corner of his eye he could see Jerry attacking Johnny, Spear attacking Pierre, and even though a small part of him knew something was wrong with this picture, he couldn’t stop himself from swimming after Skip, who was now also armed with a sizable hatchet, prepared to fight for his life.
And even as the war raged beneath the waves, three more men came diving down, disappeared inside the wreck of the Albion, and as Sam and the others were now engaged in open warfare, picked up the small treasure Sam had dropped and then swam away with it, back to the surface.
Chapter 25
I didn’t know what was going on, but I knew it was bad. The men had been down there for too long already, and judging from the stony expression on Captain Dale’s face, something was amiss. Ernestine and Edelie could sense it too, as worry was etched on their features as well.
Clive had arrived with his dad and uncle and, without even a glimpse at us, dived in and disappeared beneath the surface of the Atlantic Ocean.
“What do we do?” I asked, starting to panic.
“I think we should go with your initial idea,” said Ernestine now.
“What idea is that?” I asked.
“Remember you suggested to raise the ship with witchcraft?”
I nodded. “I remember, but you didn’t seem to like it.”
“Well, I’m starting to like it a lot more now that we’ve got six men down there who may be in a lot of trouble right now.”
“So you also think they’re in trouble, huh?”
She bit her lower lip. “I don’t know why, but I’ve got a very bad feeling.”
“They should have been back by now,” Edelie confirmed. “I think something happened. Something bad.”
And of course, in our hour of need, Captain Hayes Suggur was nowhere to be found. The guy had a hard time staying put, apparently.
I darted a quick glance at Captain Dale. If we raised the Albion, he would know we were witches, or at least suspect we had certain powers regular folks don’t have. But if we didn’t do something, Sam and Spear and Skip and Pierre would perish. And so would those two crooks we got on loan from my cousin’s future father-in-law. I don’t know why I thought this, but for some reason I was sure it was happening. They were all going to die if we didn’t do something. Like, right now!
“All right,” I said, trying to stay calm. “Let’s raise the Albion.”
If we couldn’t get down there, through lack of training and equipment and because we weren’t outfitted with gills like Patrick Duffy, the ship had to come to us.
“But let’s do it without Captain Dale seeing us,” I suggested, so we turned our backs to the captain, raised out hands, and gave each other a knowing nod. And that’s when I realized I had no idea what spell to use to raise a ship.
“Um… do you know how to raise a boat?” I asked the others.
Ernestine and Edie both stared at me. “No, of course not,” said Edie. “Why would I know how to raise a boat? I’ve never raised a boat before!”
“Well, me neither!” I cried.
“I thought you knew,” said Stien.
“How should I know how to raise a boat? I never raise boats!”
“Well, it was your idea. Didn’t you look it up in Fallon’s Book of Spells?”
“No, I did not!” I said. “Because you didn’t like the idea so I dropped it!”
“Oh, God,” groaned Edelie. “Well, let’s think of something.”
“Yeah, there must be something we can use,” said Stien.
“Um, what’s that spell for returning lost items again, Stien?” asked Edie.
“How should I know?” asked Stien defensively. “I never lose anything.”
“You lose your glasses all the time.”
“I do not!” she cried, pushing her glasses up her nose.
“Yeah, you do, Stien,” I said.
Ernestine frowned at this. “Yeah, I do, don’t I?”
“How did that spell go again?” asked Edelie, tapping her foot nervously.
I snapped my fingers. “I’ve got it! Tornarioh!”
“That’s the one,” said Edie happily.
“I don’t know if it’s powerful enough to return a boat, though,” said Ernestine cautiously.
“It is,” assured Edie. “But watch o
ut. It’s got quite a kick to it.”
“Oh, and make sure you don’t turn yourself into a bird, Edie,” I told her. Last time she’d tried this spell, she’d sent herself flying.
We all raised our hands and small sparks flew from our fingers. Mine were yellow, Edie’s red and Stien’s blue. Together they formed a golden stream that now plunged into the ocean. And then we bellowed, “Tornarioh!”
Without warning, suddenly the Albion whipped up out of the water, like a plastic duck popping up in the bathtub, dislodging about a ton of seawater and dousing the Merry Mary with it. The deck was soaked and so were we, and as we spluttered and wiped the brine from our eyes, Edie cried, “See what I mean about this spell having a nasty kick?!”
As I was scanning the wreck that now bobbed on the surface, just the way it had once done, only looking a little less glorious after having spent the better part of a few centuries beneath the waves, the bodies of six men were plastered on the ship’s deck. Oddly enough, they all had hatchets grasped in their hands. And as my eyes moved across the boat, I saw that Clive and his dad and uncle were also lying on the ship, and they were also carrying hatchets!
Maybe they needed those to hack their way to the treasure? But where had they come from? Was there a small boutique hatchet store located on the bottom of the Atlantic that we didn’t know about?
And then, before our very eyes, the men all got up, threw down their goggles, mouthpieces and oxygen tanks, and started chasing each other, hatchets high, obviously intent on hacking each other to pieces! And that wasn’t even the worst part. The moment Clive caught sight of me, he came running over, heaving a very large hatchet over his head, hollering a battle cry that sounded very much like, “Death to Estrella Flummox!”
Whatever affection he’d once harbored toward me was definitely gone, and the only sentiment he now had was the wish that I were dead!
“It’s happening again!” a hoarse voice exclaimed behind us, and when I turned I saw that Captain Dale was looking as if he’d just seen a ghost. Or a group of murderous hatchet-wielding maniacs trying to get us all killed.
“Again?” I cried. “What do you mean?”
“This happened before! The wreck!” he cried, pointing a shaking finger at the Albion. “It is doomed!”
But then Clive was upon us, so I was momentarily indisposed.
I quickly raised my hands and bellowed, “Tirlario!”
Unfortunately for Clive it was the only spell I could think of—I never function well under pressure. I used to use it as a kid to make my Barbie dolls dance, and occasionally to make Ken do a funky boogie as well. As a consequence, Clive was now suddenly lifted up into the air and started spinning like a whirligig, twisting around his axis ever faster until he was a blur. A blurry version of Zac Efron, six-pack and all, whirling like crazy.
“Um, what’s going on?” asked Edelie, staring at the battlefield that was developing in front of us. It was like the War of Independence all over again.
“I have no idea!” I shouted when I saw that Spear had caught sight of us and was now approaching, taking a firmer grip on his hatchet. “But I don’t think I like it!”
“Me neither,” Edie said, watching Spear take a running leap and landing on the Merry Mary, his face very much contorted into that of a mass murderer. It was obviously not his jury face but that of one of his clients.
And as Spear was taking a leap of terror, I shouted, “Tirlariooooh!”
As a consequence, he joined Clive in his very ungraceful dance.
“We have to do something!” cried Edie. “This is getting out of hand.”
“Why are they all so vicious?! So murderous?!” asked Ernestine.
And then, as if in answer to her question, suddenly Hayes Suggur himself manifested on the Albion. Only he didn’t look like the nice captain we’d come to know and pity. This Captain Suggur was a fearsome sight, with skeletal face, red eyes, and a menacing glare replacing the placid calm.
“I see I’ve met my match!” he growled, scowling menacingly. “What are you? Witches? I should have known!”
“What are you?” I countered. “A siren?”
He laughed a booming laugh. “Do I look like a siren to you?!”
I was starting to see we’d been had by this guy. He wasn’t the poor victim he’d professed to be, but an evil being, tricking innocent and perfectly nice people like me and my sisters into some kind of horrible trap.
He seemed angry at us, for some reason, for he now snarled, “Why don’t you join the fun?! Why don’t you… kill for me?! Or even… die for me?!”
All the while, he was twisting his hands just so, and suddenly I knew what he was. A merman! And a very evil one at that. Definitely not the Disney version.
“You’re not Hayes Suggur at all!” I cried. “You’re a merman!”
“Good guess! Poor Captain Suggur is long gone, I’m afraid.”
“Dead because of the storm that took the Albion. The storm that you unleashed!” Ernestine cried.
The man took a slight curtsy. “It was my honor and privilege to divest the Albion of its captain and its crew, you are certainly right about that.”
I’d read about mermen. Some of them were perfectly nice, but others could be downright nasty, luring seamen to their deaths, and creating storms that swallowed up entire ships and sent them plummeting to the icy depths.
This one, it was obvious, wasn’t one of the nice cuddly ones, and his weapon of choice appeared to be the hatchet. He set men up to kill other men, as Sam and Pierre and Johnny and Jerry were now doing their darndest to destroy each other, probably under the nefarious influence of this monster.
At least Sam wasn’t having any luck catching Skip, who was skipping all across the Albion, easily evading the murderous cop. Pierre was being chased by Clive’s kin, and Johnny was being chased by Jerry, both panting and cursing. If we didn’t stop this, someone was going to die. Or all of them!
“I’ve quite a track record of luring treasure hunters to their deaths,” said the merman now, as if proud of the fact. “Hundreds, to be exact!”
I felt hurt by this comment. “So all this talk about me being the first honorable person you approached in two hundred years was nonsense?!”
“Of course it was!” he cried, holding up his hands and cackling loudly.
“And what about the treasure?” asked Edie.
“I’ll bet there is no treasure,” I said.
“Yeah, he tricked us and he tricked us good,” said Ernestine.
“Oh, the Albion does hold a treasure in its innards,” said Hayes. “Only it’s not what you think it is.”
And at this, he spirited hatchets in both his hands, and attacked us.
Chapter 26
“Oh, I’m so sick and tired of this nonsense,” I said when that big, nasty bully came charging at us, hatchets raised. So instead of simply standing there and waiting for this horrible freak to terrorize us some more and perhaps even send us to an untimely death, I decided to fight back.
“Come on, we can do this!” I told my sisters, and so we raised our hands just as the merman was homing in, and I led the chorus in crying “Tirlario!”
Sparks shot from the tips of our fingers, like tiny dancing Christmas lights, and mixed and mingled into a golden stream as always happens when we combine our magical energies and focus on a common project. Unfortunately we hadn’t focused nearly well enough, for the sparkling stream shot straight past the merman and hit the Albion instead.
Aboard the ancient vessel, Sam was still screaming how much he hated bakers, trying to catch one so he could kill him. And Jerry was still shouting how much he hated fat morons while trying to murder his longtime associate.
The ship rose into the air, and then slowly started spinning around its axis, and the next thing we knew, things were really getting out of control as the ship started whirling ever faster and faster. The old boat shook and shimmied vigorously, ridding itself of all of those pesky humans in the
process, sending them splashing into the ocean. And as it gave a provocative and very Kardashian shake of its sizable stern, it hit the merman right where it hurt, and consequently dropkicked the nasty evildoer into the drink.
The merman sailed right past us, cleared the deck of the Merry Mary, flying over a very surprised looking Captain Dale, who’d probably never seen anything like this in his life, and crashed into the ocean on the other side.
“Great work, you guys!” I cried, exchanging high fives with my sisters.
Only, that wasn’t the end of it, of course. Not by a long shot. It takes more to defeat an evil merman than kicking him in the rear with a shipwreck.
The Albion was still whirling around its axis, gaining speed. But two hundred and forty years at the bottom of the Atlantic hadn’t done miracles for its sturdiness, and it was now starting to lose body parts at an astonishing rate, effectively falling apart before our very eyes. More and more parts of the ship were dropping into the ocean, and soon the entire ship simply disintegrated, turning from a proud shipwreck into a collection of planks.
“I think this is the end of the Albion,” I said as I watched the sad spectacle unfold. And as I glanced down, I saw that Sam was swimming after Skip, still shouting that bakers were the root cause of all evil in the world and that they all deserved to die! And Clive’s dad and uncle were swimming after Pierre, and Jerry after Johnny, the men now all circling the Merry Mary, swimming round and round. It’s hard to swim with hatchets in your hands, though, so they’d momentarily taken those between their teeth. This, I imagined, was what the Norman invasion of England must have looked like.
And then, suddenly, the merman rose again, his expression triumphant.
You can’t keep a good merman down! he seemed to feel as he rose up, his hands gripping his weapons of choice: two hefty hatchets, still adamant to use them to split our heads open. He was now approaching menacingly.