by B. J. Smash
I had to lean into the rock wall and wait for them to pass. If I didn’t move, they might not pay any attention to me. I slowed my breathing, and only the smallest amount of bubbles escaped my lips. I might be able to outswim one or two, but not a group. They could swim short bursts up to thirty miles per hour.
It took some time, but eventually they were out of sight, and I slowly made my way toward the black and white skull and crossbones flag that marked Jonesby’s lair. I slid my hands over the slimy black algae that grew on the rocks, and peered inside.
It was eerily quiet as I made my way down the dark tunnel and to the curtain of seaweed that floated up from the ocean floor. I cloaked myself with an invisibility spell. The first thing I saw was Jonesby floating in front of Byron. Byron was shackled with long chains that were attached to the walls, and Jonesby held a wand in his hand. It was the same black wand that I’d seen the last time I was here, and it appeared that Jonesby was about to start some type of dark arts ceremony.
Somehow, he had candles burning underwater. Several long, tapered candles in crystal candlesticks were on either side of Byron, and they formed a path up to Byron’s body. Creepy.
I didn’t think it was possible to sweat underwater, but I think I was.
Holding the dagger close to my body, I swam through the seaweed. I was ever so careful not to disturb anything, and I ignored the soul jars. They were probably watching me right now, but I didn’t dare to peek, as I might lose my nerve.
Byron’s head hung down low and he appeared to be dead, but then I saw tiny bubbles escaping his lips. This relieved me. I couldn’t imagine telling Stella that her brother died. From what I could gather, she was a sweetheart.
When I got closer, the rest of the gang could be seen. I could see where the bars had been bent for Stella to pass, but I couldn’t fathom how she escaped through that narrow gap. Eadgar slumped over on the bars, his arms escaping through. Harleena was clasping the rocks behind him, her head resting on her hands and her eyes shut. I could see the top of Jina’s head. She apparently was low to the ocean floor. It is possible that they’d been drugged. Either that, or they were so tired from trying to escape. But…where was Nicoli?
Going deeper into Jonesby’s lair, my eyes scanned the room. Slowly I crept closer to Jonesby, who was now humming a boisterous melody. I witnessed him creating another magic air bubble on the oak table, and he leaned his big upper body inside. His arms flew about him as he took out things from different jars that were displayed on the table. He was thoroughly enjoying himself, no doubt thinking of his permanent future merman self.
But again, where was Nicoli? Had Jonesby already stolen his soul? Would I find him dead in the adjoining room?
As I was pondering these questions, he stopped humming and looked around him. My body froze, and I didn’t dare move a centimeter. After scrutinizing his surroundings, he went about his business. He continued to hum, and I backed out through the seaweed curtain. I had to think for a moment. I needed a plan to get my friends out of this place alive.
Jonesby hummed louder and louder, until he finally broke out into a dramatic operatic solo. His voice boomed off the cave walls and reverberated throughout the tunnel. I could feel the vibration in my chest. He laughed at himself.
This caused my friends to stir—well, everyone except Byron. I feared the worst for him. I couldn’t see Jina from where I floated, but I heard her say, “Jonesby, really? Do you have to sing like that? You almost made my head explode.”
“Oh, my pretty little mermaid. I only sing for you,” Jonesby cooed. “Only…I wish I had that other girl, too. Oh! I loved her. She was to be my bride.” He tilted his head back for dramatic effect and gave a lengthy sigh. The man should be in Broadway with his theatrics. And back to singing he went. I could see his big black leather belt strapped around his waist, his belly overflowing the top.
Gripping the wall, I closed my eyes to think. Think, think, think, I told myself. Dozens of ideas ran before my eyes; none of them were highlighted. Unexpectedly, when I opened my eyes, I realized the cloaking spell was wearing off! My hand was already visible. It wouldn’t be long until my whole body would be seen.
Oh, this is just great! I tried to re-cloak myself, but to no avail. In fact, after about ten minutes I was back to normal. The only thing I could think of was Jonesby must have had a fail-safe spell over his quarters. If someone dropped by cloaked, the spell would wear off quickly. And he must have done this regarding my last visit. He’d play it safe from now on—no more surprises. I closed my eyes to concentrate on a solution.
Out of nowhere, I felt something swim up to me. It happened so fast that all I had time to do was open my eyes!
“Agh!” I cried rather loudly as his hand covered my mouth.
Nicoli held me close and said, “Shhhh.” We both looked to Jonesby, and to our relief he hadn’t noticed.
Nicoli slowly brought me back to the entryway, where we could whisper without alerting Jonesby.
“What’s going on? How did you get out?” I asked.
“He brought me out before Byron, but he bent down to pick up something from the ocean floor, and I lambasted him with my tail and escaped. He came for me, but Jonesby swimming against me? Forget about it. I am too fast. I planned to go get some other merpeople, but Byron does not have long to live.”
“Well, how did he catch you all in the first place?” I asked, knowing that this really wasn’t the time for questions.
“He barricaded us one morning while we were waiting for you. We thought we’d go into a cavern to find the seahorse—you know, just to have some fun, go for a fast ride. He blocked the exit and cast a binding spell over us before we even knew he was there. He was hoping to find you—that is who he was initially looking for,” Nicoli explained. “Normally we can outwit Jonesby, but he truly caught us off guard.”
“I see,” I said, noting that the merpeople's word for seahorse was “hippocampus.” “How long have you been here?”
“One month. He needed to wait until the full moon in order to complete the spell. The full moon is tonight. He’s already poisoned Byron. He won’t have long to live. We need to hurry.”
They had been taken around the time I had fallen sick with pneumonia. I couldn’t believe they’d been prisoner for this long. How miserable they must have been this whole time.
“So, what do we do?” I asked.
“Ahhh. Now that is a great question, and I think I have the answer for you.” Nicoli smirked, and he went about explaining his plan.
I was not happy with his plan when he finished explaining it, but it seemed to be the only way. I handed the dagger over to Nicoli, and he stayed back by the entryway. I focused on the task at hand and made my way past the curtain and swam right into Jonesby’s lair.
He noticed me right away, and his mouth fell open. “Zinnia! My love!” He moved fast, as if he were coming for me, but I held out my hands for him to stop.
“Jonesby, stop! I come on my own accord. I wish to leave Magella’s boat and join you down here, under the sea, in the deep depths of your lovely home.” I put on my most enchanting smile and batted my eyelashes several times. “You are a much mightier warlock and know more about magic than Magella ever could.”
“Oh my! I have hit the jackpot today! I knew you’d return to me. Women cannot stay away from me. They cover me up!” he said. “I have so many pretty women trying to dive down to my cave, I had to make a deeper one just to get some peace.”
This had to be a lie. Still, he played the part of a ladies’ man, warts and all.
“Of course, Jonesby,” I said, beaming him a smile. Looking toward the prison cell, Eadgar, Jina, and Harleena all had their faces smashed up to the bars, watching me make a fool of myself. I could see the worry in Eadgar’s eyes.
“Come then, let’s prepare to take Byron’s soul. You need to learn how to do this,” he said.
I kept myself from grimacing and forced the smile to remain on my face. My e
yes focused in on his belt. The buckle in front was gold, and it was inlaid with four pearls. I could only figure that the mermaid maidens’ souls were inside these pearls. He caught me looking but I just winked at him, causing his eyes to light up.
“You are sick of Magella, you say? She does not treat you kindly, I hear. But I will treat you as a queen. Come closer.” He waved me on. “Lean into the bubble with me, and we shall finish preparing the mixture.”
I did as he said, looping my arm through his. I could feel the raised warts on his arm and the blubber of his belly on my side as he hauled me into the bubble. On the inside, my lungs did the switch, and I was soon breathing oxygen.
The table was filled with many different colored powders of purple, green, black, and yellow, and flasks filled with orange and black liquids. There were also dried sea plants and a few herbs, such as rosemary and marjoram. A book sat open on the table. It was written in Latin, but I could easily read it. Long ago, I’d memorized enough of the Latin language to get by. I read over the pages, and when I came to a certain part, my heart almost stopped.
The last set of instructions indicated that the sorcerer would need a vial of blood from a willing participant. And that was the last key ingredient. He noticed my displeasure and quickly grabbed my wrist to prevent me from escaping.
“That’s right. You came to me willingly. I knew you would. You see, I’ve been watching you with this Eadgar fellow. You were cheating on me! And yes, I know you are not here for me. But it is too late. You willingly came here, and just in time too! Now I will get the much-needed vial of blood from your arm, and we will proceed with the spell.”
“No!” I yelled. “I am not willing to help you.”
“Too late. You came here on your own accord. That’s good enough.”
He continued to hold my wrist firmly, and he was far too strong for me to get away. He grabbed a needle from the table and jabbed it into a vein in my arm. It stung. I squirmed and tried to thrash my tail, but he bent my arm the wrong way, sending jolting pains throughout my whole upper body. I screamed out in agony.
Eadgar was shaking the prison bars, and the girls were squeaking and eeking and squealing at the top of their lungs.
“Jonesby! When I get hand on your throat!” Eadgar screamed.
During all the commotion, no one saw Nicoli approaching. Jonesby still leaned in the bubble with me. He continued to enjoy removing blood from my body, but it was too late for Jonesby. Nicoli slipped in closely and in one quick movement slid the dagger under the leather belt, trying to slice through it. He almost succeeded, but the belt held on by a few shreds of leather.
By the time Jonesby realized what was happening, his fist sailed out of the bubble and into Nicoli’s face. Nicoli flew back into the wall of souls, blood escaping his mouth. He didn’t move, and I think Jonesby had knocked him out cold. The dagger dropped from his hands, and he floated back into the room with all the books, his arms falling to the sides.
Jonesby laughed loudly, and my mer-friends screamed out empty threats at him. Eadgar tried to bend the bars further, but they couldn’t be moved. I did something gross then; I bent my head down and bit Jonesby’s wart-filled shoulder as hard as I possibly could, removing flesh from his body. I wanted to vomit but didn’t have the chance. He shoved me out of the magic bubble so hard and flung me up to the wall. My head hit something hard—a jar.
We both took pause to watch as a soul jar fell to the ocean floor, falling closer and closer toward a pointed rock. The jar just barely hit the edge of the rock…and broke.
What happened next was incredible…
When the jar split open, the yellow ball of light slowly crept out like a crab in the sand. It realized it was free. And freedom always gives you strength. It flew up and smacked Jonesby right in the face, like a baseball. His nose began to bleed, and he released me. His hands flew to his face. The soul flew in a circle and then right into Jonesby’s stomach.
Jonesby made an unnatural noise as he buckled over in pain. The soul then whipped about the room, knocking other jars to the ground. I joined in, taking a couple from the shelf and busting them on the pointed rock.
Not all the jars that fell broke, but there was enough to finish off Jonesby. They continued to attack him, sailing through the waters at brisk speeds and pummeling into his body. They were tormenting him now, and he screamed bloody murder.
“Open the prison doors!” I demanded. I knew there wasn’t a key; he had bound the doors shut by magic.
“Never!” he wailed.
That was the wrong answer. The souls picked up speed. At one point they reminded me of those punch-ball balloons that Ivy and I had as kids. Bop, bop, bop, over and over. Well, this happened to Jonesby’s face over and over until he screamed out, “Okay, okay! Get my wand and touch it to the bars. They will open!”
Hurriedly, I did so. I grasped the slippery wand from the oak table and swiftly swam to the prison cell, and tapped the bars. Voilà! They opened right up, and soon my mer-friends were on me, giving me hugs.
“Oh, thank goodness you okay.” Eadgar kissed me fiercely right on the lips.
“Enough already.” Jina poked me in the ribs. “We have to get Byron and Nicoli.”
Harleena was already in the library room, pulling on Nicoli, and before they reached us, he was awake and rubbing his jaw. Eadgar went up to Byron to fiddle with the shackles and chains, but he couldn’t be released. Byron was still unconscious and in dire need of some medical attention, or whatever the merpeople did—maybe magic healings?
A soul saw that Eadgar struggled with the shackles, and it disappeared inside the contraption for a few seconds, and then back out. The shackles released, and the soul did the same thing to the other side. And soon, Eadgar had Byron, and we were about to make our exit. But before we proceeded to leave, Eadgar swam down, picked up the dagger, and grabbed Jonesby by the arm. He slid the dagger behind the last remaining threads of leather on Jonesby’s belt, and with one swift upright movement, the dagger cut the belt from his waist. Jina picked up the belt, and Eadgar grabbed Byron by the arm and turned to leave.
“Noooooo!” Jonesby yelled between punches to the face. The souls were relentless.
“Wait!” I called out. I noticed a big burlap sack in the corner of the room. I swam for it and picked it up. I emptied the sack, dumping a bunch of potatoes onto the ocean floor. Then, I went about picking up the unbroken soul jars and tossing them in the bag. Jina helped me do this, and when we were finished we all swam through the seaweed curtain. I turned once to look at Jonesby. His hands were up in the air, swatting at the souls. But he was quite weak at this point. The souls pushed him down and retreated. They followed us out of the tunnel and into the open water. Freedom.
I can only guess that they didn’t finish Jonesby off because they didn’t want to go into the afterlife with a murder on their hands, be it through the pearly gates of heaven or out into the universe.
The souls zipped around like little balls of fire, and then up and out of the water they flew. We could see them from below as they spiraled up and disappeared in the clouds. They had helped us more than they could possibly know, and I wished them well on their journey into the afterlife.
***
Byron received a healing from his grandmother, who just happened to be a mer-healer. Harleena had gone after her while we all waited on an island far away from Jonesby’s lair. She came quickly with a bag of potions all made from sea life. Byron was healed with something that resembled a starfish, and it sucked out the poisons that Jonesby had put into his body. She was a kind, old mermaid, with long, flowing white hair, and amazingly enough, she had few wrinkles.
That night we stood on the beach of the island, each holding a soul jar. The dark sky was filled with brilliant stars that twinkled like polished diamonds.
“On the count of three, let’s break the jars,” I said.
“Why are we counting to three?” Jina asked.
“So that we can all
break the jars simultaneously,” I replied. Apparently the merpeople didn’t do things that way.
“Oh yes, of course. I see. Humans do this?” she asked.
“Sometimes,” I replied.
“Okay, they like to do things on one, two, and three.” She had a puzzled look on her face but nodded her head to show that she understood.
We all stooped down, positioning our jars over a designated rock. “One, two, three,” I said.
And together as one, we all cracked our jars over the hard surfaces. Each soul swept out of his or her prison and flew around us as if to say “thank you,” and then floated up to the sky. Sparks trailed as they fled, and we had our own personal fireworks show as they showered down into the ocean. The bright sparks didn’t disappear but after falling some distance returned to their sources. It made for quite a show and we repeated this, emptying every soul jar. When the last jars were broken, we all stood in silence, enjoying our regained freedom.
Then there was Jonesby’s mermaid belt to contend with. Eadgar tried prying the pearls out of the gold buckle with a pointy shell, but they wouldn’t budge. “We are going to have to use magic to reverse this somehow.”
“I don’t know of any spell right offhand,” Nicoli said. “We will have to ask the elders.”
“I don’t know, either,” Harleena said.
“Maybe I can ask someone from my family,” I added. I was ashamed, in a way; a few months ago, I would have been able to reverse this spell with a few words and a nod of my head.
“Ah, wait minute. I know how to do this. We, all of us, have to chant, ‘Eeeek ek ekkk eeeee.’” And then he did three clicks with his throat.
“And…what does that mean?” I asked. It sounded more like high-pitched squealing than anything.
“In human language, it is actually very long and hard to explain. But what I say basically release the bound souls in willing harmony,” Eadgar explained.