"You can say that again," Shona breathed. "What are they doing, though?"
As if to answer her, the birds formed themselves into a tight, perfect cone. Pointed and sharp at its base, it twisted and whirled toward the rocks, around and around like an electric drill. Hovering over a bunch of rocks right at the water"s edge, the cone spun as though boring into the ground. As it did, the ring burned on my finger, heating my hand, filling my body with warmth, seeping into me with emotion. And in that moment, I knew.
I turned to Shona. "They"re helping us," I said. "They want us to find the ring."
They must have done it every year. They were connected to the rings somehow, and Aaron"s great-grandfather had figured out that much too. But we had more on our side than he"d had. We had the diamond ring. And we had the moon. I glanced up. Higher and higher it climbed.
Suddenly I wasn"t tired any longer. "The starlings!" I screamed into the air, jumping to life as though I"d been struck by lightning. "Aaron! Follow the starlings!" That"s what the paintings had been telling us. I had no doubts at all now. I pointed at the sky, jabbing my fingers again and again at the birds.
Aaron stared at the black swarm above his head. Then, as though the same flash of lightning had struck him too, he jumped into action. Clambering down the rock, he raced to the edge of the water and fell to his knees, scrabbling in the sand and around the rocks.
The moon edged up another notch, shining so strongly that the sky lightened as it rose. It was almost like daylight. It was nearly there, nearly at the center of the sky. Please, Aaron, find it, find it. I watched him sc.r.a.pe at the water"s edge, stopping to look up at the starlings, then back to the ground, a new spot, a different position, lifting rocks, tossing them aside, digging into the stony ground. Every time, his hands came back empty.
As Shona and I swam on, the water seemed to turn against us. Waves came from nowhere, splashing our faces, ducking me under. Eddies broke out around us, small whirlpools, bubbles cracking and popping like lava. What was happening?
Shona caught my eye. "It"s Neptune," she said, her face white and thin. "He must be on his way."
"Emily!" Aaron screamed to us. He was waving his hands in the air. "Look!" He pointed just below the base of the starlings" cone. It was too far away to see exactly what he was pointing at, but as the moon edged even higher, I saw something glint and gleam just below the rocks he was standing on. As the sea withdrew even farther, it shone brighter. The pearl ring.
We"d found the other ring! We"d really done it! The starlings swarmed around the rocks, their wings purple and green in the bright moonlight, before they separated, the line thinning out as they started to move away. Their job was done.
A spurt of energy drove me on. I had to get there before Neptune. Before the moon reached its peak. Before the curse was complete and it was all too late. Urgent thoughts whipped at my mind like the waves whipped across my face, lashing me, crashing against one another like cymbals. No, they won"t beat me. They won"t. We"ve got the rings. We can do it. Over and over I repeated the same words.
"Hurry, Emily!" Aaron called as he stepped toward the ring.
And then an enormous wave came from nowhere, washing over me, hurling me down into the sea, where I could no longer swim. I pounded back up to the surface, gasping for air.
As soon as I caught my breath, I scanned the rocks. Huge, frothy waves engulfed the spot where Aaron had been standing only moments earlier.
There was no sign of him.
Where was he? What had happened to him?
"Emily!" Shona called me. She"d been thrown even farther away from me. "Hang on! I"ll get you," she cried.
Another set of waves threw me under almost immediately, dunking me again and again, only giving me time to catch the smallest breath in between.
I couldn"t keep fighting it. I wasn"t going to get there. So near, so near. But it was impossible. I wasn"t going to make it.
I cried with all the energy I had left, my tears adding the smallest salty drops into the raging ocean. I stopped trying to swim, stopped trying to fight. "You win!" I screamed at the sky, the moon, at the sea. "I give up!"
It was all over. I"d lost everything. My one chance to keep my parents together and go on living with them both. My life as a semi-mer a" all of it, gone, taking Aaron"s future with it too.
As I cried, I looked hopelessly out at the sea all around me. We"d never get out of this alive. I couldn"t see Aaron anywhere. Shona had drifted farther away. She was still calling me. "I"ll get to you. Just hang on!" she cried.
But I could hardly keep my head above the water. When the waves weren"t crashing over my head, I was sinking into huge swells, rising up only to be thrown under again.
Then I slipped down into the biggest swell yet. All I could see on every side of me was a deep blue wall of water. It was like a well, with me at the bottom. Surely this was it. I opened my mouth to pray for my life.
But the wave above me didn"t break. As it washed past me, I rose onto another crest. I searched the skyline for Aaron and Shona. Nothing. Where were they? I craned my neck, squinting into the distance.
I scrutinized every wave all the way to the castle, searched every rock. And then I saw it. A boat. A small, green abandoned rowboat, paint peeling from it everywhere, its wood rotting and half burnt.
The thought crashed into my head as hard as the waves: the boat could save us. If only Shona could somehow get it to me. Where was she? I searched the horizon. There! I saw her head! We could do this!
"Emily!" Shona called again.
"The boat! Get the boat!" I cried. My voice was hoa.r.s.e, screaming over thunderous waves.
"I can"t hear you!" Shona yelled back. She was swimming back to me. A wave engulfed me before I could reply.
Gasping, pulling hair off my forehead and choking back seawater in my throat, I called to her. "The boat!" I cried. "There"s a boat! Find Aaron. Get him in the boat!" Another wave hit me. I choked as I swallowed a mouthful of salty water.
Shona searched the rocky beach. "That?" she asked, pointing to the abandoned rowboat. It was half filled with water.
I nodded. "Just do it. It"s our only hope."
When Shona reached me she gripped my hand for a second. "Stay here, Emily. Just stay here. You"ll be fine. I"ll come back for you, OK?" Her voice broke as she looked at me.
"Go," I said. "Hurry."
Shona turned and swam away from me, zooming off at full speed toward the rocky beach, the abandoned boat, the boy I hoped with all my heart was still there somewhere.
I watched the moon climb ever higher. How much time did we have? Minutes? Seconds? Would she find him? Did he have the ring? My head was ready to burst with questions.
I squinted across at the castle, the rocky beach. She"d made it! Shona was at the water"s edge, dragging the boat into the water and pulling it along. Please find Aaron. Please find him.
"Emily!"
Someone was calling me. Near the rocks.
"Someone! Help me!"
Aaron! I could just see his head bobbing on the waves, his hand high in the air, curled into a fist. "I"ve got it! I"ve got it!" he shouted. "Someone help me!"
"Shona!" I yelled with every bit of energy I could muster. She was edging the boat from the sh.o.r.e. I pointed desperately to Aaron. As she turned to look, he waved his fist again. Instantly, Shona pushed the boat out, swimming across toward him. As she pulled alongside him, he clambered over the side, practically falling into the boat.
Come on, come on. All I could do now was wait here and hope with all my might that they got here before the moon had reached its peak. I looked up. Surely it was nearly there. Hurry!
Shona was behind the boat, pushing it along, her tail spinning furiously as the boat dipped and rolled with the waves. It kept disappearing as huge swells moved under it, rolling toward me. Each time it happened, I held my breath, closed my eyes, and prayed that it would appear over the top of the next crest. And each time, thank goodness, it did.
Closer and closer the boat edged toward me, Shona swimming, propelling it along, her tail its only engine, Aaron sitting up in the boat, slipping the ring onto his finger. Please! I begged silently for them to reach me soon; my body was weakening with every second. My tail had all but disappeared now. My legs felt as though they were glued together and numb. Only my feet were replaced by the tip of my tail.
My breathing scratched and tore at my lungs. I couldn"t hold on much longer like this.
"Emily!" Shona called as I flailed about, desperately trying to stay afloat. They were here!
"You were right!" Aaron called as they edged closer. "The starlings, they pointed right at it. All these years I"ve seen them. I never knew. We never knew." He leaned out of the boat as they glided toward me. "Grab my hand."
I swam toward them as fast as I could, reaching up with my hand, holding it as high out of the water as I could. We were really going to do it! I smiled as my eyes met Aaron"s. His fingers were inches from mine.
And then it hit me. The biggest wave of all. Smashing over my head, almost knocking me out, throwing me down deep under the water, flipping the boat into the air. All I could see was a fountain of froth and bubbles, and sand swirling all around me. I swallowed about a gallon of water; my lungs were on fire.
Pushing with all the strength I had left, I kicked with what remained of my tail, clutching at water with my hands as though I could claw my way through it. Eventually I made it back to the surface. Coughing and spluttering, I knew that was the last time I could do that. Next time I would have no strength left to pull myself up.
"Aaron," I gasped. "Shona!"
They were nowhere to be seen.
And then the sea really erupted, shaking and rocking like the biggest whirlpool in the world. I knew it could mean only one thing: Neptune had arrived.
I saw him in the distance, his chariot pulled swiftly along by about twenty dolphins. They charged toward us. I felt like a prisoner on death row, ready to give up completely.
"Emily!" a voice called behind me. I swiveled around. Aaron! One hand still held high in the air, he was paddling toward me on a piece of driftwood. "The boat collapsed," he gasped. "This is all that"s left."
I swam frantically toward him, willing my tail to hold out for just a few more moments.
"The moon," Aaron panted. "We"ve only got a minute."
A wave washed over my head, but I shook it off. Paddling furiously, I made it to the makeshift raft and grabbed hold of it, gasping for breath. One more minute and then I"d lose the ring forever. Everything that mattered to me would slip down to the bottom of the sea with it, never to be seen again.
I could hear Neptune roaring instructions at the dolphins, waving his trident in the air.
"Now!" I said, holding out my hand. Aaron was wearing the other ring. He held his hand out to mine. The pearl glowed white. The diamond burst with brightness. It was almost blinding. The sea bubbled and boiled all around us as we fumbled to try and bring the two rings together. Come on, come on!
Neptune was in front of us, his face as angry as the darkest thunderstorm, his trident high above his head, his eyes burning with rage. And then a"
The sea stopped moving.
The mist cleared.
Neptune opened his mouth to yell at us. Our hands met.
And the rings came together.
We"d done it! We"d really, truly, done it.
We held hands with the rings together, each gripping the raft with the other hand. Light fizzed out from them like an exploding box of fireworks: white lights rocketing into the sky, bright blue b.a.l.l.s of energy whizzing around and around, orange bubbles exploding all around us. I laughed with relief, tears rolling down my cheeks.
With every spark, I felt the life return to my broken body. My tail burst into action with the light, filling up, flicking the water. My tail had come back! I was still a semi-mer! We"d beaten the curse!
"Look!" Aaron arched his body; something flipped onto the water behind him. A tail! Sleek and black, it shone and glowed as it batted the surface of the sea. "My tail," he said, staring at it in wonder. "I"ve got a tail!"
"We did it!" I cried, clenching his hand tight as we held the two rings together.
And then Neptune rose in his chariot, his figure blocking out the moon itself.
He opened his mouth to speak, to roar, to do all the things Neptune does. I squeezed my eyes shut in antic.i.p.ation. What would he say? What would he do now? Surely he wasn"t going to leave it like this. How could we have thought for the tiniest second that we could get away with it?
But no sound came. Eventually I opened my eyes again, to see Neptune in the same position, his hand in the air, his body taut and tense, the sea around him motionless. He was staring in our direction, but not at us.
I turned to see what he was looking at. At first I thought it was just the mist, hovering around the castle as it always did, bunching up into a ball. But there was something inside the mist. A person. A woman. She had the most beautiful face I"d ever seen. Eyes as green as the brightest emeralds, framed by thick black lashes. Hair jet-black, stretching down her back. She reached out a hand to Neptune, holding his eyes with hers.
"Aurora?" he said eventually. "Is that really you?"
Aurora? Aaron"s ancestor? The woman who broke Neptune"s heart?
As she smiled back at him, her eyes brightened even more. Her smile seemed to illuminate the whole ocean. "It"s really me."
"How? How are you here?" Neptune"s voice grew hard. "Is it magic? A trick of the light? What is it? How do you come before me like this?"
"Every year at the spring equinox, I wait for you. I try to find you. I have never seen you until this time. . . ." She swept a hand in front of us, smiling down at me and Aaron as she did so. It felt like the sun coming out. "This time, the rings have come back together, and they have brought me to you, and you to me."
"But you left me," Neptune replied, his voice even harder. "You broke my heart. You cannot mend it. You can never undo the suffering you caused me!"
Aurora held a slender finger to her mouth. "Don"t say this. Never say such a thing. I would never leave you."
"Liar! You did. You left me!"
"I was a mortal. I wished with all my heart not to be. I even tried. For you. And I drowned trying to swim to you. . . ." Her voice was fading.
"But you still left me alone," Neptune called. "Still without you."
The mist swirled around her face, wrapping around her like a scarf. "You must forgive me," she whispered.
"Aurora!" Neptune called. Waving his trident at the sky, he cried, "Don"t go! I ORDER you to stay! Do NOT leave me!"
The mist had all but swept her away. Her image. Her spirit. Whatever it was, it had almost faded completely.
"It"s after midnight. The moon has pa.s.sed its peak. We are moving into day, toward the light, the spring, new life. I cannot stay. Forgive me," she said, her voice as gentle as a breeze. "Forgive me. I beg you, forgive me." Again and again she repeated the same words, until there was no more voice, no vision, only the wind, and the moon, and the night.
In the silence, we watched the mist that continued to swirl around the castle, wrapping it in fog. Neptune stared the hardest. His eyes didn"t flicker.
Aaron let go of my hand. "Look," he whispered. Under the moon"s power, the pull of the rings had loosened. Aaron slipped his from his finger. After putting it carefully on the raft, he held his hands up. In the moonlight, I suddenly realized what he was looking at. The webbing. It was gone.
Gently placing my ring next to his, I examined my own hands. They"d gone back to normal too! I laughed with pleasure, grinning at Aaron, at Shona, at a"
"Gotcha!" A hand snapped up out of nowhere, s.n.a.t.c.hing the rings from the raft.
"No!" I lunged forward to grab them back, but it was too late. I dived down into the water. Fueled with new energy, my mermaid self intact, I swam as hard as I could to catch whoever it was who had stolen the rings. But he was too fast for me. He bolted away, swimming like a lightning streak toward Neptune"s chariot.
When I came back up to the surface, I saw who it was, smiling his smarmy, creepy, nasty smile, holding out the rings for Neptune to take. Who else?
Mr. Beeston.
"Neptune won"t fall for any of that sentimental garbage!" he snarled. "Oh no, he knows what is important in life. What really matters, what a""
"Beeston!" Neptune growled.