by Ken Brosky
“I don’t know,” I said, pulling my hair out of my face. “Maybe it knows the captain won’t stop until he’s dead.”
“What are you doing?” Briar asked, turning his head and watching me tie the other end of the rope to a hitch at the front of the boat. He had his back to me so he could paddle in the direction of the whale.
“It’s complicated,” I answered. “Just … try not to worry!”
“Oh, like that’s going to happen,” the rabbit muttered.
Ahead of us, the whale thrashed around again, surfacing and clearing water from the blowhole. Its white skin had begun to change color: it was grayer now, and long black lines had begun to appear across its slick surface. It looked as if it was breaking apart.
“What’s happening?” I asked Briar.
“It’s the Corruption!” Briar called out as the whale breached the surface again, landing just a few feet away from Ahab’s boat. The boat rocked and nearly capsized in the resulting waves, sending both sailors scrambling to one side to keep it balanced. “The creature is still changing!”
“Changing into what?” I asked.
The waves reached us, splashing against the boat. Briar spit out water and shook his head. “No way to say! Most likely something bigger and meaner!”
“How?”
“It’s complicated!” he answered. “Just try not to worry!”
The whale slipped underneath the water, but before it did I could see the spear sticking in its back. The burning blackness had only spread a bit, barely visible. It would need more. A lot more.
“What’s happening?” Briar asked over his shoulder. “Why is it so quiet all of a sudden?”
“I don’t know.” I narrowed my eyes. We were only twenty yards away from the captain and his boat now. He didn’t acknowledge me; he was more interested in searching the water for his prey. More and more rope was slipping out of his boat and into the water. Wherever the whale had gone, it wasn’t far. The ropes attached to the boat were still slack.
“I have a bad feeling,” Briar said.
“Yeah.” I clutched the first spear. “Me too.”
Suddenly, the rope at the bow of the captain’s boat went taut. His boat lurched forward, nearly knocking him over. It began to move through the water, pulled downward by the whale far below. “Hold her steady!” Ahab ordered his shadowy crew. “Steady, now! It’ll surface. And when it does, I’ll tear my spear from its back and stab it through the heart!”
“Briar, stop,” I ordered. “Back us up just a bit. Holy crud, back us up quick!”
I heard the oars splash in the water. I felt us move backward a few feet. Deep down in the dark water just ahead, I could see the faint glowing form of the whale. The glowing shape was growing bigger and bigger. My heart began racing.
“Faster, Briar!”
“I’m trying!” he called out. “These oars aren’t designed for paws, you know!”
The glowing figure swam closer to the surface. I could see its tail moving up and down furiously. I dropped my harpoon, clutching the side of the boat. “Hold on to something, Briar!”
The whale breached the surface directly in front of us, arcing its back. It seemed to hang there in the sky, cresting in slow-motion, the harpoon firmly lodged between two ribs.
Its shadow seemed to loom over the captain’s boat. His crewmen tossed the oars, diving into the water. Ahab stood at the stern, staring up at the massive creature and baring his rotten teeth. The whale’s body choked off the moonlight, casting Ahab in a dark shadow. When it landed, Ahab disappeared. The boat disappeared. The creature’s body sent up massive waves of water littered with the splintered remains of the boat. The two shadowy sailors swam past us, obviously not all that interested in searching for their captain.
“The whale is getting bigger,” I whispered.
“Say what?” Briar asked. “What’s happening? Should I row?”
I reached down, grabbing the spear. “No. Not yet.”
The waves settled. After a moment, a body came splashing up. It was Ahab! He thrashed in the water, waving his arms in the air. “Save me!” he shouted to us. “Don’t let it get me! Don’t let it take me!”
But it was too late. Beneath him, I could see the soft glow of the whale as it surged to the surface once more with its mouth opened wide. It swallowed Ahab whole as it breached the surface once again. I held my breath and threw the harpoon as hard as I could. The barbed tip caught in the whale’s side and a burning blackness consumed the area around the harpoon. It was burning away quicker now.
But not quick enough.
“Get ready,” I said to Briar as the whale’s body hit the water again. “Hang on to something!”
Briar let go of the oars. “I do believe I’ll sit the rest of this one out,” he said, ducking underneath the bench and clutching it tightly with both arms.
I groaned, watching the line of coiled rope slip out of the boat and into the water. Attached to one end of the rope was the harpoon. Attached to the other end was our boat. A terrible sinking feeling told me maybe I should have thought about coming up with a better plan. “Boy, I wish I could join you under there,” I told him.
Briar’s whiskers twitched. “That is not your destiny, friend.”
He was right. My destiny was resting on the bench beside me: the second harpoon. And as the rope grew taut and the boat dipped down, creaking and groaning under the pressure, I felt a strange calm rush over me, steeling my nerves. This spear would do it. All I needed was a true shot. All I needed was to take the offensive, just like Chase had taught me.
“Oh dear,” Briar said with a burp. “I do believe I’m growing seasick.”
The boat surged through the water, cutting massive waves in its wake. It tipped to the starboard side as the whale tried diving deeper, nearly capsizing us. I clutched the port side of the boat, using my arm to wipe the water away from my eyes.
“We’re going to tip!” Briar said.
“I know!”
“What are we going to do!”
“Jump!” I ordered.
We jumped into the cold water. My clothes soaked through, weighing me down. I splashed with my free hand, keeping the spear clutched tightly with the other. The weight of the magic boots plunged me down and I inhaled at the wrong time, taking a good snort of water up through my nostrils. I coughed, kicking violently with my feet while clutching the harpoon with both hands. It was no use. It was either the harpoon or the boots. I pressed the toe of my right boot against the heel of my left, pulling it off and taking my sock with. I kicked away the other boot. With my feet free, treading water became infinitely easier.
Briar emerged beside me, spitting out water between his front teeth in a long stream. “What the devil do we do now?”
“Stay near the boat,” I said, kicking away from him. My eyes scanned the water, searching for that familiar soft glow far underneath the surface that would tell me exactly where the whale was. I spotted it … coming right toward me.
“What are you planning to do?” Briar asked as he crawled on top of the capsized boat. He shook his fur.
“I have a really, really bad idea!” The strain in my legs grew and I felt myself dip into the water. My mouth opened and water flooded in. I kicked harder pull myself back up, searching the water again. The massive glowing form of the whale was almost directly below me now. It wasn’t changing course.
It was going to swallow me too.
A cold shiver ran down my spine. I swallowed, fighting the urge to look down into the black water. It was coming. I could feel it swimming beneath me, churning the water. My heart raced. Here it comes, I thought, kicking the water to keep myself floating. I flipped the harpoon, dipping the barbed tip into the water. My hands clutched the slippery wood.
Suddenly, the water all around me seemed to sink, like I was caught in some kind of whirlpool. I saw the massive mouth emerge from the water all around me, so close that I could see the lightning-like Corruption lines around its mo
uth fighting against the burning blackness that was still slowly spreading. I took a last, desperate gulp of air.
And then darkness consumed me.
Time slowed down. I slipped down the whale’s slimy gullet, my toenails scraping against its tongue. I could feel the heat of the creature, and when it groaned I could feel the vibration inside its throat. I lifted the spear and held it out, running it along the soft fleshy walls. My breath held in my mouth. My eyes remained glued shut.
The whale groaned again. I felt its body begin to thrash. Through closed eyelids I could see a dull flickering light from the whale burning around me. I could hear the magic barb of the harpoon as it tore and scraped its way through the creature’s insides.
I heard something else, too. A song. The words were soft but they were there, tickling my eardrums:
Laid them beneath the Juniper Tree …
That music … I’d heard it once before, back when I’d first found the magic fish. I’d passed it off as something in my head but now, here, it sounded so much louder.
I landed in the stomach. My lungs desperately wanted to breathe. My throat convulsed. I swept the spear across the soft flesh and the stomach seemed to melt away.
I heard the music again, louder this time:
My mother, she killed me …
My hand brushed against something hard and I reached out instinctively, my imagination expecting it to be the captain’s hook. My eyes opened. The burning blackness was spreading quickly now, and in the soft red light I could see the insides of the whale. I could see the object in my hand and knew immediately what it was.
The Juniper seed. It had been inside the fish all along. That’s why the stepmother had always heard the music everywhere she dug.
I stuffed it in my pocket and traveled deeper inside the beast, more of its insides burning away as my magic barb tore through its slimy entrails. Where was the captain? Had the stomach acid killed him? Was it possible? Would it have done the same to me had I not snuck in a contraband harpoon?
There was no time to think about it. The burning blackness was spreading faster than my harpoon could cut. I had to be near the tail now—nowhere to go but out, and I’d rather make my own exit than use the one provided to me by the whale’s digestive system! I was growing dizzy. The stale air felt like fire in my lungs, and I silently begged them to hold out for just one more moment. I reached out with the harpoon, weakly stabbing at the surrounding flesh in hope of a way out.
The pressure changed. I closed my eyes. Cold water crashed in all around me, forcing the harpoon out of my hands.
I kicked my way to the surface, emerging just in time to take the biggest, sweetest breath of my entire life. Briar was sitting on the capsized boat, shivering as his soaking wet vest and pants clung to his fur.
“That was incredibly … daring,” he said. “Downright heroic.”
I grabbed the boat, holding myself up and giving the muscles in my sore legs a much-needed reprieve. “I’m a heroic type of gal, I guess.”
“Look.” He pointed over my shoulder. I turned—the ship was approaching us, cutting slowly through the water with only a single sail catching wind. Ishmael was standing at the starboard bulwark, staring at us.
Smiling.
The shadows on his face were gone.
Chapter 8
It took a full hour to get back to Milwaukee’s docks. Two of the sails had been damaged when the whale crashed into the ship. The hull had sprung more than a few leaks, too. As for the crew? Well, they were about as happy as a bunch of formerly cursed sailors could get. I was pretty happy, too, after watching the shadows slip from my own skin.
“We’ll fix the ship well enough,” Ishmael said cheerfully, helping me carry Chase onto the pier. Chase was coming to slowly, groaning about the magic fish.
“What will you do?” I asked.
Ishmael shrugged. His fingers found the deep lines on his face. “It’s been years. Most of us are from the east coast, so we’ll start there. Try to piece together what we can of our lives. No more fishing. We’ve done enough damage.” He sighed. “We’re all just so glad to be free.”
“Good luck,” I told him, giving his calloused hand a firm shake. When he pulled his hand away, there was something in my hand: a gold coin.
“How?” I asked, staring at the golden dragon etching.
“I lifted it from the captain’s pocket,” Ishmael said. He shrugged, smiling. Now I realized why he had such pronounced wrinkles around his mouth—his natural “curse-free” smile fit his face perfectly. “It’s the captain’s own fault for being so preoccupied with the fish.”
“Whale.”
“Whatever.” He returned to the ship, giving me one more nod as the sailors—now quite normal looking—pulled the plank away from the pier.
“All hands!” Ishmael called out. “Blood and thunder, boys!”
I watched the ship slowly pull out of the harbor. The sailors ran with purpose across the deck, throwing ropes and setting as many sails as the damaged masts would allow.
Briar reappeared beside Chase.
“Do you think the captain is dead?” I asked.
The rabbit tapped his head with his paw, one eye narrowed as he scanned the surface of Lake Michigan. “Strangely enough, it would appear that way, although it’s extremely rare for a Corrupted to kill another Corrupted, given their, um, unique qualities. Extremely rare. Unless, of course, it was written in the Grimms’ story.”
“The curse is gone, too,” I said. “You know what? Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it. We have more pressing matters.”
“What do we do now?”
“His parents will need to get his car some other time.” I leaned over, wiping Chase’s sweaty hair away from his face. “He’s … this isn’t going to be easy.”
“And what about the seed?” Briar asked.
My hand instinctively went to my pocket. The moment my fingers touched the seed, I could hear the same song again. “I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe the stepmother found the magic fish in an underground waterway, and that was why she thought the seed would be underground, too.”
“A reasonable deduction,” Briar said proudly. “Hold on to it. My intuition tells me it has some important part to play yet.”
I rolled my eyes. “Rabbit sense tingling. Got it.”
We went to Chase’s car and used his phone to call Seth.
“You know,” Briar said, “if you had a driver’s license, you could drive us.”
“I’ll file that away,” I murmured, putting Chase’s phone in my pocket.
When Seth arrived, he helped us get Chase into the backseat of his car. I let invisible Briar take the front seat, buckling Chase in and clutching his cool hand. He was wide awake now, not saying anything, staring at the back of Seth’s seat.
“Do I … ah, even want to know what happened?” Seth asked. He made a U-turn, heading away from the port and toward downtown Milwaukee.
“No,” I said. “At least, not yet. Let’s just get Chase home.” I squeezed his hand. “Chase? Chase, are you there?”
He swallowed. His eyes lowered. He took a deep breath.
“Does anyone need a sports drink?” Seth asked. He reached over, near invisible Briar’s feet. “I don’t know what kind you guys like, so I bought a couple different ones. I prefer the purple myself.”
He handed me a bottle of the lemon-lime stuff. I took it and mumbled a “thanks” before downing half the bottle. It was perfect. Nothing better than a little electrolyte replenishment following a battle with a Corrupted whale.
“Chase?” Seth asked. “I got a few more.”
“I don’t know,” Chase whispered.
“Suit yourself.” Seth sped up as we hit the freeway, heading back toward our suburb. “So what was it? Giant monster? Big bad wolf? Demon prince?”
“Ixnay,” I said, running my hand across my throat. Zip it, Seth.
“Oh. Got it. I just figured … you know.”
I took one more look at Chase, then closed my eyes and rested my head against the window. My hand went to my pocket, checking for the fountain pen and finding something else as well.
The coin. I pulled it out, staring at the terrifying creature taking up most of its surface. Definitely a little more imposing than, say, George Washington’s head on a quarter. What was the Order of the Golden Dragon?
“Um …”
There had to be a connection. The orphanage, the fish, the captain …
“Hey, Alice …”
I put the coin back in my pocket. “I’m sorry, what?”
Seth glanced in the rear-view mirror, then took the exit for Mooreland Road. “OK. Not to sound like a total lunatic or anything … but I’m pretty sure the same car has been following us since we got on the freeway.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s been changing lanes every time I do. It just got off the freeway with us.”
“Go around the next block,” I said. Seth put on his blinker, then turned right just past the neighborhood pizza place that my parents loved so much. “Now make a left,” I said.
He turned left at the next street. We passed a bunch of small houses. I knew where we were. We could double around the next two blocks with ease and not have to worry about any of the dead end cul-de-sacs.
“My house is over here,” Chase murmured. “It’s another ten blocks away.”
“Make a right,” I ordered.
We turned right. The music on Seth’s radio went in and out, like we were traveling through a valley. The streetlights were out and the car’s headlights only cut through the darkness right in front of us, illuminating the old yellow lines on the street. Seth was breathing quickly, eyes wide and searching the darkness beyond the headlights.
“Well?”
His eyes glanced at the mirror again. “Still following. Crap, dudes. Crap.”
“OK.” I reached into my pocket, grabbing the fountain pen. We passed an alley and something caught my eye—multiple somethings. Garbage cans. Big, green ones full of garbage. Tomorrow was garbage day, so they were all rolled out next to each garage.
Perfect.