by B. J. Smash
So, this would be my outcome. I supposed I deserved it. Karma had a way with doing a circle and coming back on you. What you do comes back to haunt you. I had caused so many problems for my family, creating a big storm and almost killing off the elven. No matter if Rodinand forced me to do it. I still shouldn’t have done it. But this had to be a fitting punishment for a person such as me.
Why did it have to be this, though—a penance from Hades itself? This was ruthless.
I pulled myself together, grabbed the rocky entrance, and hauled myself inside, swimming slowly at first until my eyes adjusted to the darkness. Then, remembering that I could still be seen, I called up the invisibility spell in my mind, scanned it within a few seconds, and cast it upon myself.
I had about an hour to find the pearl.
About fifty feet inside the cavern, I saw some muted light ahead. And I heard someone singing an old sailors’ tune. He had a terrible voice. Even if he was underwater, it was still no excuse. He sounded like a cow in labor.
Creeping along the wall, I saw him ahead. Seaweed hung down from the ceiling like a curtain, and I swam through to his living quarters. He was in a wooden chair at a big oak table, and his big, thick merman’s tail hung to the side. I cringed when I got a good look at him. He had warts all over his face, chest, and back. Blistery warts that would probably ooze liquid if he were on land. He had long brown hair that went down his back in a single braid, and a handlebar moustache that swooped up on the ends. And did I mention yet that he was huge? He was a big, big merman. He was long and had an extra tire around his waist. But the weird part about him was he wore a black leather belt underneath his roll of fat. Why would a merman bother to wear a belt?
He lowered his singing to a hum. This wasn’t a good sign because I think he sensed that I was there. Leaving the table, he swam to an open area, his kitchen, where he opened a cabinet to reveal dozens of jars. This had to be where he kept the souls. But as I swam closer, I realized there were shelves carved into the rock wall and they were also filled with jars. Inside the jars were yellow balls of light. Some were fading, and some of them floated around inside while others just lay at the bottom. Those souls had probably given up on ever attaining any freedom.
He left then, to enter into another chamber that I couldn’t see. His tail was massive, and as he swam off I could see the currents left behind by this mighty tail. This would be my time to try and find the pearl. I recited the finding spell that Magella had taught me, and an area near the jars of souls lit up with a blue aura. I hurriedly swam toward this light. When I arrived, I could see inside the other chamber he’d gone into. He had taken a big book down from a shelf and was paging through it. I watched for a moment and observed the chamber. It was some sort of library, and shelves lined the walls. The shelves were filled with dozens of books. The only other items in the chamber were a couch and small table. One would think the books would deteriorate being underwater, but he must have had a spell cast over them to help them remain intact, because they all looked to be in good condition. What caught my attention were the skeletons that he had sitting in various chairs, as if they were visitors that had just stopped by for a sip of tea and scones.
This guy was a quack.
I turned to the spot where the pearl should be. There was a closed oyster shell colored in pastels between two jars of souls. I reached for it, but my attention was pulled to the jar to the left. My hand in midair, I stopped to observe this soul. In the center of the yellow light, I swore I could see a small face, and it was frowning. I didn’t freak out easily, but this made my skin crawl.
The soul face was just an average young man who had been killed by the monster in the other room. His lips sagged on the sides, as he was very sad. I turned to look at the other jars. All the balls of light were floating next to the glass sides now, even the ones that had been laying on the bottom of their jars. Somehow, I had given them hope—hope that I had come to rescue them. I sighed then, and out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw Jonesby the Jinxer take pause and look my way.
He knew something was awry. How could he not? All the souls were smashed up to the sides of their jars! I scanned the row of them before me, and most of them tried to form into faces, some of them too weak. I willed them to go about their own business, but they couldn’t possibly know what I was thinking.
Jonesby the Jinxer shut the book he held in his hands and placed it on a shelf. He then started to swim toward me. I was frozen with fear, but I managed to snap out of it and grab the oyster shell from the shelf. Turning, I fled with as much speed as I could muster, sailing right through the seaweed curtain and toward the exit. But it was not meant to be.
He swooped around me at breakneck speed and guarded the way to freedom. He huffed and puffed, his wart-filled chest heaving up and down. He had a lot of hair on his chest too that went down to his big, fat stomach. His long arms went from one side of the exit to the other, and his hands grasped the edges. Beneath his moustache, his top lip went up into a snarl and he said, “I cannot see you, but I know that you are there.” He had a booming voice, and it vibrated and echoed throughout the cavern.
I gripped the shell in my hand so that he couldn’t see it. If I was invisible, so was it.
“I can stay here all night and wait for you to answer. Or you can just tell me who you are, and I might let you pass.”
The chances of that were slim to none, and so I held my tongue. Instead, I slowly shifted my body and opened my bag. I dropped the oyster shell in and shut it. Then I held out my pinky, the one with the cone on it, and pointed it at him.
“Whippersnapper,” I said. The cone flew off my finger and expanded to his height. It wasn’t solid, but rays of light would encompass him and hold him until I could pass. As it flew to him, he held up his hand and somehow rebuked it. If only my luck had been better.
It reversed and turned on me. Soon, I was inside the light cone, unable to penetrate it. It surrounded me on all sides and held me tight. “Dammit!” I yelled.
To this he laughed. Hysterically. “Whoever you are, you are no match for the great Jonesby. I will now wait for your invisibility spell to burn out. I can see that it weakens, and it won’t be long. And then we will see just who you are. But by the sounds of it, you’re a woman. Probably a feisty mermaid! And now you will be my prisoner.” And then he laughed a boisterous, thundering laugh.
He continued to block the exit until the invisibility spell wore off. There was nothing that I could do about it. The light cone enveloped me like a cocoon, and I had just royally failed my mission. When he could see me, his eyes lit up. One eyebrow went up and he said, “You aren’t a mermaid at all. But wow! You are a beauty beyond words.”
Oh great! He thought I was beautiful. This wasn’t going to end well for me at all.
He tapped the light cone that encased me and said some words, and it dissipated. “Magella must have sent you, am I correct?”
“Yes.” There was no sense in lying.
He went to grab my arm, but I fought him and tried to escape. This only made him happy that I was struggling. He hauled me in with one arm and kissed my cheek.
It was so gross that I wanted to just die. His breath was horrible, even underwater.
He hauled me to the back of the cave, by the shelves of souls. He pulled out a knife and cut the strap on my bag and pulled it from my body, tossing it to the table. He then opened a gate in the wall, and pushed me into the small chamber. The gate clanked closed, and he bolted it up.
“I’ve always wanted a pretty mermaid to keep me company. But they are so hard to catch. You will have to do. And there might be something that I can do to your limbs, perhaps a spell that will turn them into a fish’s tail. Hmmm, yes, I could do that. I managed to do that to my own legs, so why not yours?”
“Magellaaaaa!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. It sounded loud to my own ears, but I fear that that was the extent of it. The word came out in a bubble, floated out between the steel
bars, and hit the top of the ceiling.
“Ha! Don’t worry. She won’t be able to save you.” He snorted when he laughed, sounding like a pig.
The souls were all now watching me, still pushed up to the sides of their glass containers. I know they didn’t know any better and I wished that I could save us all, but it didn’t look too promising.
I turned to find that my prison was relatively small, and I would only have just enough room to move around and stretch my limbs. The rock had been broken and scooped out of the wall. It was a very small space. I laid down on a group of slimy, algae-covered rocks and watched this monster as he went about preparing a spell. You’d think that you couldn’t prepare things below the ocean. Not so. He was a warlock, after all. He pulled a black wand down from a shelf and stood before his big oak table, and he made a wide circle with it. It formed a bubble. He picked up a rusty cauldron and put it in the bubble. He dumped out the salt water that was inside and it splashed all over the table, the cauldron was now empty. He gathered some things from around the room. When he was done, he leaned the top half of his body inside the bubble. He coughed and spat out the water in his lungs, and he could breathe the air. When he had to exit his top half from the bubble, he’d hold his breath and gather more things, and then return his top half inside the bubble. My guess is he didn’t want to have to keep adjusting his lungs to the water, and then the air, and then the water again.
He did this for several hours. I eventually stood up and held onto the bars and peered through. The bars were spaced about four inches apart. I could never fit through.
My stomach growled.
I couldn’t help but wonder what everyone back in Merribay was doing. Probably eating lasagna, salad, and garlic bread, and then perhaps cherry pie for dessert. Or beef Wellingtons and then chocolate soufflés. Or actually, they were probably all eating chicken soup. But still, I wished I was there. I sighed, and several tiny bubbles escaped my mouth.
“Don’t worry. I’m almost done,” he said. His upper half was inside the big bubble right now, and when he talked he sounded like he was talking through a paper towel tube.
“You know…I have some very powerful friends on land. They would not appreciate you kidnapping me,” I said.
“Well, too bad they are on land then. And I didn’t kidnap you—you came to me. How lucky I am!” he exclaimed.
He had a point. They were on land, and I had come to his lair. Still, he was detaining me, and he had no right to. What was I going to do? Think, Zinnia, think! He had all of my belongings on the table. I only knew two spells, thanks to Izadora. She had stolen them all with that last forgetting tea at Granddad’s birthday party. She had told me I was being punished, and those that are punished cannot have access to any spells. It was a rule. And with that last tea (which was potent), I was unable to hold onto any spells at all.
The only spells I knew now were the finding spell and an invisibility spell. Well, with the rules of cloaking and invisibility spells, you can only use them every so often while the magic regenerates. It is better to use a long-lasting spell than to have to reuse a short spell. However, if I was still here tomorrow, I’d be using it again. Although, what good would it do me? I don’t know.
I watched the shiny yellow balls of light in their jars, and pitied them. But my thoughts drifted to Ivy and Lucian. This must have been how they felt when Rodinand and I had put them in a cave and blocked the door with a boulder. It hurt to think about. But I realized that this was how karma worked, and now it was me being locked away, in a dark dungeon under the sea.
I felt sorry, more than ever, for what I had done to them. And as I thought about it, I fell asleep with my forearms hanging out between two bars, my forehead positioned where it was almost able to fit through, but not quite. My last thoughts were: How did you get yourself into this mess, Zinnia? And how the heck are you going to get out of here?!
Chapter Nine
If I had to guess, it was around nine hours later when he came to my prison bars. I awoke to him grabbing my hand and kissing it. Ewww.
“You can be my bride after you are a full-fledged mermaid,” he said, undoing the latch.
The repulsion probably showed on my face, because he laughed. I was going to have to figure something out, and fast. The problem was, he had a tight grip on my wrists, and with a few words the rope that was sitting on one of his shelves flew up and bound me. He then forced me into a chair and told me not to move. This also was a spell. It forced me to sit tight, not being able to move my limbs. I once knew a spell like this. It was so easy to do, but again, it had been flushed from memory.
I was still allowed to talk though, and I decided to start threatening him. “My friends may be on shore now—but you wait, mister! You just wait until they catch wind of this.”
He didn’t just laugh, he buckled over and laughed. His giant tail swooshed around, and the current blew my hair back from my face. “Oh dear, you are a funny one. By the time they get here, you’ll already be mine.”
Grrr! He was impossible.
Without the use of magic, I was as good as gone. The only thing I had to use was my brain. And the only thing I could think of to do with that was bluff. I was good at bluffing. I used to do it to my sister all the time. She called it lying, but to me it had been kind of like…an art. It was like the “criminal’s mind” theory.
I let my mind relax, and about twenty possible solutions flowed out. Three were highlighted. The possible ways to escape were extremely limited at this point and time.
One, I could make him believe that I liked him, and coax him into thinking we could be partners. And then do some heavy convincing that he didn’t have to lock me back up. I quickly marked that idea with a capital “F” for failure and tossed it aside.
Two, I could convince him that Magella had something that he wanted, and I could go and get it for him. Nah, he’d probably want to marry me first. So, it was number three that appealed to me the most. It would be a long shot, but I had to try.
I put a half smile on my face and gave him my “I know something that you don’t know” look. I knew he had a huge ego, just by observing the way he moved.
“What are you grinning about? You getting used to the idea that you’re about to be a mermaid?” He used two fingers to curl his handlebar moustache.
“Sure. I suppose.” This was the truth. I was going to let him change me into a mermaid. My reasoning with this was I already had to swim under the ocean all the time. If I were a real mermaid, I could do it better. Let him change me. What did I care?
He reached his arm into the air bubble where the cauldron sat on the table, and stirred the contents. He’d already packed a pill capsule with some weird contents, and now it sat on the table next to the cauldron. He picked it up with some prongs and dipped it into the bubbling liquid. When he pulled it out, the capsule was a deep orange. He let it air-dry for a few moments and then took it out of the air bubble and into the water with us, and handed it to me.
“Good then. Take this pill.” The pill was the size of an almond.
“I can’t. You placed a ‘don’t move’ spell on me,” I stated.
“Oh! Yes, you’re right. Okay, you can move now.” He paused for a moment and scratched his moustache. “You’re being awful cooperative. This isn’t as much fun as I thought it would be,” he said as he untied my hands.
I took the pill from him and popped it in my mouth, and after a few tries, I swallowed it—a hard task to do when you’re underwater. After I accomplished this, he kept a close watch on me.
“So, tell me. Why do you like to live down here in a cavern, by yourself?” I started my ploy. “I mean, it’s not just so you can do whatever you want. There has to be another reason.”
He looked at me, and at first I thought he wouldn’t answer, but his expression melted to something like sadness. “Oh. It’s my sister’s fault. She cursed me with these warts. I’ve lived here for a very long time.”
“Oh y
es, your sister. I’ve heard about her,” I bluffed.
Confused he said, “What did you hear?”
“Magella informed me that she was much grander than you. Smarter, too,” I lied. She’d said no such thing.
“Did she now?”
“Mmm-hmm. She did.”
“I despise my sister,” he said with an empty stare. I knew he was remembering something from the past.
“I know. I have one too. They can be a pain,” I said. “She, uh…Magella said something about your sister has…” And I stopped to let him fill in the blanks. I had no idea where this conversation was headed, but I was going to lead it. That was my third plan. And everything I was about to say was made up. I was winging it.
“Yes! She stole my compass. She won’t give it back, either. She denies even having it.” He flailed his arms around him, swooshing the water. He continued to rant. “It was my father’s compass, too. Oh! I can’t stand my sister. I never liked her. And my brother too. He is a weasel if I ever did know one.”
I’d hit a nerve, and he was picking up things and throwing them. He picked up a jar with an imprisoned soul and then slammed it back down on the shelf. While he was doing this, I grabbed my bag and held it beneath the table. I fidgeted around for the herb-thorn. The soul jars were watching me.
“I can’t believe it. My sister always tries to outwit me and outplay me. I never let her get away with it. You know, you shouldn’t let your sister get away with stuff, either. I would…uh…” Again, I stopped to let him fill in the blanks.
“You’re right. I’m going to go confront her. You get back in the cell. I’m going to see her right now. By the time I get back, you should be changed into a mermaid. And, oh, it’s going to hurt a little. Actually, a lot. A whole lot,” he said, nodding his head up and down.
He swam closer to me and grabbed my arm. I had just dropped my bag to the floor, but I held tight to the herb-thorn. If I could just stick him with it before he threw me in the cell, he would lose his sight for twenty minutes and I could make my escape.