by Orchid Leigh
I sat for a few moments, quiet and alone. Tears brimmed and poured salty streams down my face. I wiped them away and got up.
I pulled on my jeans and threw the sweatpants Peter had given me on the bed, then bundled my soaked shirt in my arms and left the room, still wearing his hoodie.
I stopped on the bottom step. Peter and his mom were talking in the kitchen. I took a deep breath and walked in.
“I’m really sorry, Mrs. Evans, but my dad wants me home,” I lied.
“Oh, well, that’s okay,” she said with an understanding smile. “We’ll do it another time.”
“See you later, Peter,” I said, bowing my head as I crossed the kitchen.
“Wait. Hold up,” he shouted after me.
I didn’t stop. Tears were building in my eyes again, and I didn’t want him to see how pathetic I looked.
I ran outside as fast as I could, but he caught up to me in the driveway.
“Ellie, wait! I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have stormed out like that.”
I stopped for him but didn’t turn. A drizzle of rain fell around us, working to saturate my clothes all over again.
“You don’t have to go,” said Peter. He was right behind me.
With my back still to him, I stifled my cries. “It’s probably better if I did. We can talk tomorrow. Meet me at Carle’s after school.”
“Yeah, okay,” he said.
There was a soft tap on my arm. I looked down to see the umbrella. Peter hooked it over my wrist, pulling it slightly. “Take it,” he muttered.
I grabbed the umbrella and started to cry again. “Bye, Peter,” I said, and without looking back, I walked off.
26
“Ugh,” I groaned. I fumbled for my cell phone in the dark. My eyes were puffy and stuck, and there was a dull pressure in my forehead from my stuffy sinuses. I smacked my hand across the floor, finding the smooth plastic of my phone. I squinted at the bright light as I turned it on—12:17, and no missed calls from Peter.
With a sigh, I fell back to the mattress. I was lying fully dressed on top of my blankets. After coming back from Peter’s, I had gone straight to my room and cried a blubbery mess into my pillow. And now, as I woke, the memory of our fight was rushing back, and a thick sinister ocean began to rise and crash awful in my stomach. Oh God. I was going to puke.
I pulled the pillow out from under my head and covered my face, trying to stop the sludge of regret from rising and spewing from my mouth.
What was my problem? Why was I being so “stubborn”? I wasn’t trying to be. “I’m not,” I mumbled into my pillow, still arguing with Peter, who couldn’t hear me right now.
The weight, the burden, the feeling of responsibility that had come over me—it was relentless. It pulled. It pressed on my heart, and I was reaching the breaking point. This was it. I couldn’t go on feeling like this. It was too much.
I pulled the pillow down, staring into my quiet room with the only answer that felt even slightly right.
I would help. I had to. I wouldn’t sacrifice my life. I wouldn’t leave Dad or Peter, but I would help. I would try, at least. And if I was going to help, it would need to be soon. It would need to be now.
I opened my door at the bottom of the stairs and crept down the hall. The house was silent. Dad and Millie were asleep. I quietly made my way to the kitchen and slid on my boots.
The back door creaked as I opened it. “No, no, no,” I whispered. I stopped for a second to listen for footsteps upstairs. It was quiet. I stepped outside and carefully closed the door behind me, praying desperately it would be silent. It was kind and creaked just a little.
Once outside, I dashed across the yard, toward the trails. With my adrenaline in high doses, I ran the distance between my house and the lake swiftly. It wasn’t long before I was standing at the water’s edge. Small waves splashed now, and there was little ice.
I couldn’t delay. I stepped in.
The icy water hit my skin like tiny blades, piercing deep and numbing my bones. I had my eye on the boulder, just a few more feet out. The water stiffened me cold, removing my breath as it reached my stomach, then my chest. Then a few more steps and I was there. I took a moment to breathe, then lowered, dipping the point of the heart into the water.
In an instant, a circle of light sprung forth, and I descended.
Coming to a stop at the bottom, the elevator opened into a dark, cavernous foyer. It was quiet. The bright lights from the elevator had left me blind, and I was unprepared for the darkness as the door solidified closed. I waited anxiously for my eyes to adjust.
A dull lavender light emitted from the mass of pools scattered on the ground around me. It was just enough for shapes to form, and with my adjusted eyes, I now looked upon an empty cavern. There were no mermaids or unicorns in sight.
Something was wrong. Throughout the room, chunks of crystal had been knocked from the walls. There was an enormous boulder that had been cut from the ceiling above, and it now lay haphazardly in the middle of a stone path. A bridge in the center of the room was missing a rail, with the sunken remains in the water below.
I navigated through the lobby and toward the archway in the back, being careful not to trip on any debris. As I crossed under the waterfall, I thought I heard the swirling whoosh of the elevator.
I stopped and stared into the darkness. “Who’s there?” I called. My voice rebounded, echoing a chorus in the empty room. The waterfall behind me crashed loudly on the stone floor, and I couldn’t be sure if anyone answered. My nerves electrified and danced on the surface of my skin as I waited in the shadows, but no one appeared.
With shaky knees, I continued through the archway. There was no source of light in the long corridor, and the dim glow of the pools didn’t reach far. Soon, all light faded, and the darkness was complete.
I ran my hands along the edge of the wall, letting it guide me. I felt an opening and turned down a connecting corridor. A faint line of light glowed dimly in the distance, drawing me forward. As I moved closer, the walls came into focus and the silhouettes of my hands in front of me sharpened.
I stopped at an exceptionally large door, big and grand and made of dark, unpolished wood. It reminded me of the doors from the barn outside my house. It split down the middle the same way, with one side left ajar. A dull blue light escaped from within.
I peered inside.
“Whoa,” I marveled quietly, stepping back in awe. I took a steadying breath and stepped inside.
The room, from wall to wall, was a vast expanse of green meadow that stretched for several acres all around. Though it felt like I had walked outside, I could clearly see stone walls rising high in the distance. There was a forest of big pine trees along the perimeter of the wall, creating a woodsy enclosure where hundreds of unicorns grazed and slept. The ground all around was lush grass and the sky above was sparkling with stars. How is this possible? I stared in wonderment at the spectacle in front of me.
There was a slosh, and I looked over to see a unicorn drinking from a babbling brook. I recognized his silver mane and horn. It was Midnight.
I walked over to the magical creature. He lifted his sparkling blue eyes to me.
“Hey, boy,” I said, extending my hand to him.
Midnight nudged his big nose into my shoulder, and I put my arms around his strong neck. “I missed you, too,” I said softly to him. His warmth immediately comforted me, and I felt safe by his side.
“Midnight,” I whispered, “do you know how I can find Levvi? I really need to talk to him.”
The unicorn lowered his horn with a bow, and the tip emitted a low light that briefly buzzed, then shut off. He then nuzzled his nose around my neck, and I waited, understanding that Levvi was on his way.
A few moments later, someone called my name. “Ellie?” I turned toward the door and saw Levvi walking to meet me.
“Levvi!” I shouted. I ran to him and wrapped my arms tightly around him.
“You came back,” he said,
surprised.
“Yeah, I did, huh?”
We held on for another moment, then let go.
I studied Levvi with a weary heart. He was older. His hair was longer, and his jaw and cheekbones were more defined. And though his smooth skin would still be considered young, his once youthful eyes had hardened and aged, and they held the heaviness of life’s burdens behind them now. “How long has it been?” I asked.
“Last I saw you, my princess”—he paused to think—“was twenty-seven years ago.”
I gulped. “I’m sorry it took me so long. I wasn’t sure what to do.” I lowered my head, ashamed.
“You need not be sorry, my princess.” He smiled kindly. “I did not expect to see you here at all. Are you sure of your decision to come?”
“No,” I said. “I’m not sure. I want to help, but I can’t stay.”
Levvi’s eyes dropped, and a broken and distraught merman was in front of me. All the uncertainty and confusion I had been feeling over the past few weeks surged in my soul and I began to cry.
He raised his head and looked at me with compassion. “I am sorry for this hefty burden we have placed upon you, my princess. Please know it is not your duty to save us.”
“Is it not?” I asked, taken aback.
“No. Contrary to what some here might think, it is not.” He paused, averting his eyes shamefully. “We merfolk here in Glacia only have ourselves to blame for our current state. We alone are the makers and keepers of our problems. It was unfair of us to ask what we did. I see that now, and I am truly sorry.” He slumped into an apologetic bow.
“But I want to help.” I moved my hand to his shoulder to pull him up. “Please tell me. What’s happened to this place? Why is it destroyed?”
“It was Razora. She has remained a relentless force. Though she continues to hide, she appears as she wills, making her presence known.”
“Is there nothing you can do?”
“We are trying. We have sought the help of other queens, but they are reluctant to come against her.”
“And another queen would be able to fight her?”
Levvi sighed. “Well, we are not entirely sure. Glacia’s queen holds a lot of power, and Razora is in fact Glacia’s queen. The other merqueens, however, are our best bet. But so far, no one has been willing to try, so we do not know.”
“What about them?” I gestured around the room to the unicorns.
“The unicorns have agreed to help us, for they have their own cause with Razora.”
“And what is that?” I asked, worried and scared for the kind creatures sleeping under the starlight.
“It is believed she holds captive some dear unicorn friends and is using their magic to slow her time. We think it is how she has managed such a long life.”
I shook my head at the terrible thought. “But isn’t this enough?” I asked, scanning the vast space. “There’s so many of them.”
Levvi followed my gaze around the pasture. “Their magic is meant to protect and heal. It cannot kill Razora. She does not like it, though, and with so many here by our side, they have lessened her strikes against us.”
I turned to Levvi. The hole in my heart was starting to bleed. I swallowed a sour lump. “You need me, huh?” I asked, suddenly feeling sick.
“No,” said Levvi with a warm smile. “We do not.”
I nodded reluctantly. “Yeah, you do.” I exhaled a shaky breath. “This isn’t fair,” I cried. “How is it fair? How are you not able to fight against such evil? She is not even the real queen. It isn’t right!”
“No, it is not fair, but it is the way it is.”
“I don’t believe that,” I said, shaking my head. “There’s got to be another way.”
“What do you propose, my princess?”
I thought of Peter. “Levvi, we think there’s another answer you guys aren’t seeing. Is the law written somewhere? Someplace we can read it? Maybe the answer’s in there.”
“Yes, there is the Tablet Law,” he said. He shook his head. “I am sorry to tell you, my princess, but it will do you no good. I have pored over those words countless times. I assure you, you will find nothing new.”
“There has to be, though,” I said, unwilling to accept this. “Surely this can’t be the end for this beautiful city just because one evil queen decides so. How does she have the right to make that decision? How does she have the power?”
He shook his head doubtfully.
“Please!” I pleaded.
“I suppose it could not hurt,” he consented. “Come. I will show you the way.”
Levvi led the way down a path of meandering stone corridors. The glowing lavender vial around his neck lit the dark passages just enough so I could see. We walked, twisting and turning in a knot of mazes until at last we came to an end and stopped in front of a stone door, large and grand and intricately carved—a splendid marvel just on its own. Levvi pushed it open.
The room glowed blue. A dim moonlight shimmer flooded the space. But if it was moonlight, it was more sparkly and more magical and so much bluer than the light of any full moon I’d ever witnessed.
I blinked twice at the sight before me, then stood wide-eyed and gaping.
The space was circular, not very big around, but when I looked up, I saw it stretched high like an elevator shaft, extending up for hundreds of feet until at the very top it narrowed and faded into a pinpoint of light.
Covering the walls of the room, all up and down the long length of it, were rows and rows of stone tablets neatly and orderly arranged like library books. Yet unlike library books, the tablets sat floating on invisible shelves.
Everything was blurry and distorted to my eyes because I was looking through a tubular-shaped form of water that filled the center of the room and continued to follow it up as far as I could see. The water floated freely with no walls to contain it, and Levvi crossed under the door and stepped into the liquid sparkles.
He stretched his arms up and kicked. Immediately, his legs became a shimmering silver tail, and he swam up the watery tube, coming to a stop a couple of stories high. I craned my neck to watch as he pulled a tablet from a shelf, stopped the flutter of his tail, and descended back down to the ground. He splashed out of the water and his fins were feet again.
He handed me the dripping tablet. “I hope you find something in here,” he said. “For these laws are quite literally set in stone and cannot be changed.”
“I hope so, too. Thank you, Levvi.” I ran my fingers along the tiny etched script that covered the front and back of the stone. My hope evaporated. The writing was in a strange language I didn’t recognize. “It looks like I won’t be able to read it after all,” I said, handing it back to him.
He pushed the tablet toward me. “Try again,” he said. “You might be surprised that you can.”
I questioned Levvi with dubious eyes.
He nudged the tablet toward me again. “Try,” he repeated.
I looked down at the tablet and once again stared at scroll letters I did not recognize. Then, suddenly, I was connecting their shapes with sounds, and words I understood began to form on the stone. Their meaning became clear. Their sounds I now knew. And in another moment, I was holding a manuscript in a foreign language that was, somehow, that of my own.
“How is this possible?” I asked.
“You are one of us,” said Levvi with no falsehood. “And languages tend to come very easily to us.”
“My Spanish teacher might disagree with that,” I said, astonished, staring at the tablet in my hands.
“This language here,” said Levvi, pointing at the pretty etched writing, “it is a part of you. The magic is in you, Ellie.”
I paused, thinking about that for a moment.
“So, Levvi?”
“Yes?”
“What would it mean if I were to stay here? Would I never be able to go back?”
He shook his head. “No, I do not ask that of you anymore, Ellie.”
“I know
,” I said. “I’m just . . . I’m just curious if I did decide to stay.”
“Yes, it would mean sacrificing much of your life above. As you can see, just a few weeks up in your world, and Glacia has gone on to see decades. Trying to balance the two would be very complicated, to say the least.”
“I see,” I said. “I still want to help, though. I’m going to be back soon with a plan. I prom—”
A loud crash echoed through the hall. I turned to Levvi. “What was that?”
27
We dashed out of the room and ran through a maze of corridors to the sound.
There were footsteps ahead of us and the voice of someone shouting Levvi’s name. Starla came around the corner in a sprint. The pretty mermaid ran up to Levvi, embracing him in a hug.
“She’s here,” cried Starla. “In the entrance hall. I have called on Midnight and the others. We do not know what she wants.” Starla then turned to me. “Oh, Ellie! I am very happy to see you.” She smiled, but it quickly faded. Her worried gaze lingered on me for a long moment before turning back to Levvi. “What do we do, Levvi? Should we hide her?”
I shook my head at that idea. “No, I’m not hiding. I’m coming.”
An anxious breath fluttered over Levvi’s lips before he spoke. “She cannot hurt Ellie. Let us go see what she wants.”
~
We crossed under the archway and came into the entrance hall. A large merwoman was standing in a shallow pool in the center of the dark, cavernous room. The lavender light from the glowing water reached up, casting her sharp features in an eerie glow.
As we entered, she turned our way and locked eyes with me.
Razora was unusually tall with long legs that stuck out like sticks behind a high-slitted black dress, wet and slick and clinging tightly to her ribs and over her towering frame. The sleek fabric stopped at her chest to reveal bare, pale-skinned shoulders. Her hair was pulled up into a long braid that fell to her ankles, and long violet tendrils fell from the sides, framing an old but pretty powder-white face. A kiss of crimson colored her lips, and the black that lined the top of her big, dark eyes was sharp and bold against the white canvas. She was strikingly beautiful, but her sharp, penetrating eyes revealed a darkness that was mean and ugly, and it sent shivers down my spine.