Kira's Secret

by Orysia Dawydiak

  “You are not a princess!” he retorted. “Our parents are the king and queen, not yours.”

  “My parents may be lost, but they are still the rightful king and queen.” Angry at Borin’s outburst, she decided to take a risk. “After all, I have the royal gold and pink, and you are common silver.”

  Borin, his face red, sputtered, “How dare you insult us! My parents will hear of this!” He turned and dashed away. Amelie had a stunned look on her face and looked like she was about to cry. She also turned and swam after her brother.

  Kira started to worry: perhaps she had gone too far. She was their guest, after all. But they had been so mean and full of themselves. She decided she should leave Merhaven and return home right away. She swam back down and tried to find the doors and hallways that would lead to the palace entrance. But she was lost. All the rooms looked the same, yet different. When she asked the servant merrows directions to the entrance, they looked frightened and swam away. Finally, by accident, she found herself back in the kitchen.

  An elderly mermaid, her hair white and her scales tarnished, beckoned Kira to follow her into a smaller room off the kitchen.

  “Come here, little one, and listen carefully,” she said, putting a finger to Kira’s lips to silence her. “You must leave Merhaven and return to where you came from, Your Highness. You are in danger here.”

  Kira was shocked. She had been called “Your Highness,” a term reserved for only true royalty.

  “I knew your parents, King Currin and Queen Calista. You are the image of your wonderful mother,” she said and sniffled. “King Nim is only a half-brother of your father’s. And Queen Shree…” She shook her head. “They should not be on the throne, but we don’t know what became of your parents. You must leave. I am afraid they will do you harm. Do not trust them. Leave at once!”

  “But I can’t find my way to the entrance,” Kira said.

  “There is a way out through the back. I will show you. Follow me.” She swam out a different door with Kira close behind. Her heart raced as they sped through a complex series of halls and rooms. Finally they reached an outside door in a dark part of the palace.

  “Through here. Quick!” The elderly mermaid opened the door and shooed her out. Kira looked around for guards, but saw none. With one glance back at the anxious old face of the maid, she sped away into the dark sea.

  Chapter Fifteen—

  Finfolk

  Kira did not let down her guard as she swam away from the palace. She scanned the waters continually, hoping no one had noticed her leave. Long after Merhaven had disappeared from view, she pushed on. A new worry had replaced her fear of being caught: was she going in the right direction? All she wanted was to be back inside her terrestrial home, safe with her human parents. Princess or not, she was not keen to live in a palace filled with nasty merrows like those she had met. Except, perhaps, for the elderly maid, who still revered her royal parents.

  Kira then remembered what Steen had told her. She slowed down and pursed her lips to make the dolphin distress call when she noticed something moving toward her from the left. There were two of them, swimming fast. Within seconds she recognized them—her cousins!

  Before she could take off again, Borin called out, “Wait, Kira! We have important news. We know where your parents are!”

  Kira froze in place. The old maid had told her not to trust the king and queen. Did she also mean her cousins? Was this just a trick to bring her back, or to capture her? Why else would her cousins want her to stop? They didn’t seem to like her much.

  Amelie swung her tail down and halted in front of Kira. “It’s true,” she insisted, her face earnest, her arms fluttering with excitement. “We found out what happened to them. They’re prisoners on Hildaland!”

  Kira beat her tail and moved well out of their reach. “And why should I believe you?” she asked, still alert for any guards who might sneak up on her.

  “Look, we’re sorry we tricked you in the play court” Borin said. “When we told our parents what you said, they just laughed and said to forget it. So that made us mad because no one is ever allowed to talk to us like you did.”

  “Yeah,” Amelie cut in. “So we stayed just outside the chamber, and we heard old Chance talking to them. It was about the time your parents were fooled into some kind of meeting. The finfolk ambushed them, and put them in prison.”

  Borin shook his head. “What she means is, the finfolk never meant to have a peace conference. It was a trap. And you were supposed to be captured, too, but you got away.”

  Now it was Kira’s turn to shake her head. This was a lot to take in. “Are you saying that my parents are still alive?”

  “Yes, they’re alive! That’s what Chance, you know, the chancellor, was saying.” Borin looked at Kira with an earnest expression.

  “We had no idea before this,” he continued. “Honestly, if we hadn’t eavesdropped, we would never have known.”

  “Yeah, so we decided to tell you,” Amelie added. “You still want to find them, don’t you?”

  “Do you know where this Hildaland is?” Kira asked.

  Borin scratched his head, covered in the same ropes of hair as his mother and sister. “We’ve never been there, we’re not allowed. But our finfolk friends, the younger lot, they talk about Hildaland all the time. It’s a famous, magical place. They said they’d take us there anytime we liked.”

  Kira pondered this. Those horrid finfolk stories came back to her and she shuddered. If indeed her parents were prisoners of the finfolk, she had a duty to find them and maybe even try to rescue them. But what if it was another trap?

  “Okay. I’d like to see this island, but I wouldn’t go alone. It sounds dangerous. And why should I trust you or your finfolk friends?”

  Borin and Amelie exchanged glances. “We’d go with you,” Borin said. “We want to see it, too. That would be a real adventure and our parents wouldn’t even know.” Borin smiled with great pleasure and rubbed his hands together. “Anyway, if they weren’t our friends, the finfolk could have taken us prisoner anytime they wanted to. We can trust them. And we just want to see this place, especially since our parents have lied to us.”

  “We never get to go on adventures,” Amelie piped in. She bobbed up and down with glee. “It will be thrilling!” she squeaked.

  Kira appraised the two merrowlings. They appeared to be sincere. “But you’re already on an adventure. How did you find me? You’re not allowed outside the palace without guards, are you?”

  Amelie snickered. “We were at the top of the play court when we saw you leave. Hardly any guards at that end of the palace. So we followed you, and here we are on a grand adventure.” She rubbed her hands together, mimicking her brother.

  Kira had to choose. Go with these two slippery fish and trust they weren’t taking her into danger, or call her dolphin friends to help find her way back home. She was running out of time. But she had come on a quest to find her real parents, the true king and queen of the merrows. And now she had a chance to do it.

  “I have an idea,” she said “Why don’t you ask your friends how far it is, and maybe they can tell us how to find the island. I don’t have time to make a long trip right now. I need to get back home.”

  Borin waved his hands in agitation. “But don’t you want to find your real parents?”

  “Sure I do. But I’ll come back another time. I don’t want my human parents to worry.”

  “Look, I’ll just ask our friends. They said Hildaland is not that far away,” he looked at Kira hopefully.

  “I don’t know,” she started.

  “I’ll ask them and they’ll tell us. I’m telling you we can trust them. They’re not all the same, you know,” Borin said. “Let me call them.”

  “Okay, but I’m won’t go very far. I still have a long trip home.”

  “Great!” said
Borin. He dove to the sea floor where he picked up a large empty shell and a fist-sized rock. Then he banged them together in a pattern. Tap, tap, pause, tap-tap-tap, pause, tap, tap. He repeated the pattern two more times. “Now we just wait. They’ll come soon.”

  Once again, Kira shuddered. She was about to meet the treacherous dolphin-eaters.

  When they finally appeared, Kira was surprised at how closely they resembled merrows. At a distance the only noticeable difference was their darker colour. Borin rushed off to greet them and explain what the three merrowlings wished to do. The finfolklings nodded and smiled, staring at Kira and Amelie. Kira felt goosebumps rise up all over her head and back, but Amelie waved and smiled back. She swam up to the smallest ones and they all tumbled around in the water, reminding Kira of a pod of young dolphins.

  Borin waved at Kira to follow as he and a few others headed off in a new direction. She was annoyed that he didn’t consult with her first, but found herself the centre of the pack, surrounded by finfolk who appeared to be about the same size as she and her cousins. She wondered how they could wander the sea without any adult supervision.

  Now they were near her, Kira studied them closely, noticing their different shapes and colours. Their scales ranged from green-grey to bluish silver; their tail tips were black. Skin tones varied a great deal, from ghostly pale to grey to almost cocoa. Most had dark brown or black hair, but a few had grey-blue hair and one was seaweed green. They reminded her of a gang of children at Hallowe’en, dressed up as witches, super heroes, and monsters. But these young ones were not wearing costumes.

  When Kira swam still closer to one of them, she noticed that his hands were like claws with yellow-brown nails. Suddenly he turned his head and stared into her eyes. Kira nearly stopped swimming. His eyes were small and dark and intense, darting back and forth in his grey face. He grinned at her, barely opening his mouth, but she was almost certain she saw the gleam of metal between his thin lips. Did he have braces like Cody? Could they make metal under the sea?

  Ahead of her it appeared that Borin was having an animated conversation with his companions. Kira wished she could hear what they were saying. She still wanted to know how long they would be. She sped up to close the gap, but found that everyone else swam faster as well. How odd, she thought. Was she setting the pace for them?

  Kira figured they had been swimming for half an hour when she realized she was hungry. As if they read her mind, the group slowed down and several finfolk scattered and swam off in all directions. Before long, they returned with handfuls of fish and clams. These were tossed around, everyone grabbing at them and gobbling the fish whole, or ripping open the clams and scraping them out with their claws. Kira watched as Amelie licked out a clamshell. She hoped that there were no seahorses in the vicinity for her cousin to crunch on. Her own appetite had vanished while observing the feasting frenzy.

  Borin appeared at her side, holding a sliver of fish fillet and a clump of seaweed. He wrapped the seaweed around the fish and offered it to Kira. “Here, you’ll need this to keep up. We still have a distance to go. But it isn’t too, too far, because Amelie and I have to return before we’re missed at home.”

  “So do I,” Kira said, accepting the sashimi-like bundle and taking a nibble. It was surprisingly tasty. Salty and tangy, it melted in her mouth. By the time she’d swallowed the last piece, they were on the move again. This time, as they swam, Kira tried to concentrate on the sea floor, noting landmarks they passed by. She might have to return this way, she thought, and she had no other way of marking directions if their escort decided not to return with them.

  The finfolklings turned out to be tight-lipped; they did not show their teeth and they did not speak much. When they did speak, they only addressed her cousins. At first she felt left out and a little hurt. But she reasoned that they were not the most pleasant creatures she’d ever met, and likely she wouldn’t enjoy them as friends. Anyway, she was used to being excluded by human kids her age, so it was nothing new to her.

  They slowed down to eat once again, just as Kira felt she couldn’t go any farther. This time she watched the finfolk fish, and managed to catch her own supper. As she was chewing on her seaweed sandwich, she noticed a few seahorses dancing by. She shooed them away before the others saw the tiny creatures.

  “How much farther, Borin?” she asked her cousin as they prepared to speed up again.

  “They told me it wasn’t very far now, much less than a meal’s swim away.”

  “Okay, but I don’t want to swim right up to this island prison, because they’re sure to have some nasty guards, maybe with weapons. I want to come up to the surface to have a look from way off. Then I need to get back home. Can you make sure they know that?”

  “Of course,” Borin assured her, and he zoomed off.

  Kira nodded, thankful, but still a little apprehensive. She watched Borin ahead of her, conversing with the finfolklings. A meal-to-meal swim was a good way to measure distance underwater, she supposed. No one had watches and there was no sun or moon to gauge the time of day or night.

  They swam for about half an hour when Kira noticed the entire group waver and shudder. She slowed down and tried to attune her ears to any new sounds. Then she picked it up—the distant crashing surf on land ahead.

  Kira stopped and the finfolklings around her scowled, waving their arms at her to continue. She shook her head, and before they could react she shot straight up to the surface. She figured she’d only have a few seconds to look around before they caught up to her if they decided to follow.

  As she broke into the air she saw an island in the distance. It appeared to have a mountain in the middle, with a band of green at its base. The shore was rocky, with a few narrow lighter-coloured strips, sandy beaches perhaps. But what was even more remarkable was the fog—a thick wall of fog surrounded the entire island, and she was just on the inside of it. Nothing was visible on the other side of that soupy grey mist.

  A head popped up beside her, then another and another. She heard snapping, growling noises and noticed that the heads had developed dark scaly snouts and long, gleaming teeth. Kira felt herself being tugged back under the water, but she didn’t resist. In fact, she twisted herself so she was diving back down, head first, using all her strength to propel herself as fast and far as she could.

  The tactic worked. Clawed hands broke free from her tail as she lashed it against the finfolklings who tried to restrain her. Kira screamed as she beat her tail, “Swim away, it’s a trap!” She had no idea if Borin and Amelie were in on it, or also surprised. She didn’t plan to wait around to find out. She was certain that if the finfolk wanted her to go to the island, it was a bad idea. She was not going to prison!

  Chapter Sixteen—

  Flight

  Kira did not look back, not for a long time. She swam fast, with a clear head and focus. She remembered her first dream of swimming underwater, escaping the giant dog and predatory fish. This time she kept a different image in mind, that of the medusa in pursuit. Only this version was not a beautiful woman with snaky hair, but a scaly head with a pointed, greenish snout and sharp, metallic teeth. Meanwhile, her eyes scanned the seabed for landmarks she’d noted on their way to the island. She dare not get lost.

  When she finally did turn her head, there was no one, nothing behind her. Though fatigued, she did not slow her pace. The finfolk could still be tracking her, expecting her to tire, prepared to pounce if they caught up. She filled her mind with all the information she could remember about them and other hazards in the sea.

  The stories about finfolk included the island of slaves, shrouded in fog. They lured and captured humans to work for them on Hildaland. Cody had looked up the word when Kira wondered if it had been named for someone called Hilda. It meant hidden land, he said. Or perhaps it came from the ancient word hilder, the place on the horizon where sky and sea meet. No one knew for certain, at lea
st not among the human historians of mythology.

  The island was indeed hidden, and small wonder no one had ever discovered it. Perhaps it had magical qualities as Borin had suggested. If her parents really were on Hildaland, Kira still wanted to find them. For now she needed to get home, and get help.

  At this very moment Kira was completely drained. She would have to rest before she could make it all the way home. After looking around to make sure there was nothing dangerous nearby, Kira drifted to a stop. Resting on the sandy bottom, she decided that taking a nap was out of the question. This time she had to make the call.

  “EEE-U-EEE-U-EEE!” she whistled. Kira swam to a nearby clump of tall seaweed and tried to hide herself in the middle. She wished merrows had the camouflage ability of the octopus that, like a chameleon, could change skin colours to match its background. Kira pulled a few strands of sea grass over her head, and peered out, wondering if her disguise would fool any finfolk or large shark that happened by. If the dolphins did not hear her call, she was literally sunk. She waited, her eyelids drooping, struggling to remain awake and as still as possible. She was not aware when sleep claimed her.

  “There she is,” one whispered.

  “Do we wake her now?” said the other.

  “Yes, but how? Should we surprise her, or do it nicely?”

  “I like surprises.”

  “Me, too. But maybe not this time. Merrows don’t always like our tricks, and this one is special,” Cass said, hovering over the sleeping mermaid. “Kira, wake up, Kira.”

  Kira snapped her eyes open and tensed her body, ready to launch. But Cass’s beak grinned at her, inches from her face, and she relaxed. “Oh, thank you for coming! I was afraid you’d be too far to hear.” She stretched herself and rose from her sea floor bed.

  “We were too far to pick up your call,” he said.

  “But we have a relay system,” the other dolphin explained. “Each pod has its own distress call, so we know how to find other pods to pass messages on.”