Aaron and I swam out to Rainbow Rocks. Swimming along with him, with my tail swishing through the silky sea and groups of fish darting purposefully this way and that all around us, I let myself get distracted by staring at Aaron a bit.
I think he might have caught me staring at him, because he turned a little red and said, "Race you to the farthest rock!" as he dove deep into the water. Then he spun around and darted back up and through the surface with a huge splash. A moment later, he"d gone.
"How come whenever we race anywhere, you always seem to have a head start?" I asked when I finally caught up with him at the rocks.
He grinned and flicked water at me in reply.
"Hey!" I flicked water back at him.
He laughed and flipped over on his back. "Let"s keep swimming," he said, spinning like a dolphin and diving with another loud splash.
I followed him around to the other side of the rocks and out to sea. We talked as we swam, trying to figure everything out - but we kept coming up with blanks.
Suddenly Aaron stopped. "Wow!" he said.
"What?" I stopped next to him. Up ahead, a wavy line of rocks blocked our way. There was a gap in the middle of them - but the water in the gap was different from the rest of the sea. It looked like a cauldron, bubbling and frothing. As we got closer, I could see that it was spinning furiously.
"A whirlpool," I said. I turned to head back.
"Let"s go across it," Aaron said, his eyes shining like dots of sunlight on the sea.
"You can"t get across a whirlpool!"
"Why not?"
"I"ve heard about these in school. This is one of Neptune"s pools." I pointed to one of the rocks lining the whirlpool. There was something etched on its side. "Look."
Aaron squinted at the rock. "A trident?"
I nodded. "That means he created it. He must have been in a rage at something - or someone." I shuddered as I remembered getting caught in a whirlwind created by one of Neptune"s furies. We had enough trouble already. I wasn"t about to swim into more if I could help it. "Come on, let"s go back."
But Aaron was insistent. "Look over there." Beyond the rocks, the sea looked clearer than ever. The sun shone brightly down, bouncing and catching the surface of the water as though an invisible giant in the sky were sprinkling diamonds across it.
The whirlpool was the only way to get there. On either side of it, jagged rocks spread out as far as we could see.
"Take my hand," Aaron said. "We"ll go across it together. I"ll look after you."
I"d been wondering if we"d get to hold hands again, wondering if he wanted to, or if earlier had just been to make me feel better, wondering if he"d felt the same tingling feelings that I had.
I held my hand out.
Aaron smiled and gripped my hand in his. "Ready?"
I nodded, and we swam together toward the pool. The water frothed and swirled angrily. What were we doing? Aaron"s ability to hurl himself headlong into crazy situations was starting to feel like a match for mine.
Aaron turned to me. "Let"s go."
I held tightly to his hand and we dived together over the low layer of rocks on our side of the whirlpool. Instantly, we were sucked under the water, flung apart, and hurled around and around so fast that I didn"t know which way was up. I felt like a ragged piece of clothing in a spin dryer.
"Emily!"
Aaron was calling out to me through the whirling, crashing water. I tried to find him, but all I could see was froth and foam. Then I felt him careen into me and we started to spin together, banging against each other.
"Take my hand!" he shouted. "It"ll keep us from getting separated."
I fumbled and flailed around, and eventually found his hand. I took hold of it, gripping hard and wondering how long we could survive, and why I"d agreed to this ridiculous idea in the first place.
And then something really weird happened.
It stopped.
Just like that.
The whirlpool suddenly wasn"t a whirlpool anymore. It was the stillest, calmest pool you"ve ever seen in your life, so smooth and gentle you"d think it had been lying empty and undiscovered for years.
We bobbed up to the surface, still holding hands, both bedraggled and breathless.
"What - what happened?" I asked.
Aaron shook his head. "It stopped," he said, pointing out the obvious.
"Neptune"s whirlpools don"t just stop," I said, looking around to see if there was someone nearby. Maybe even Neptune himself was here, watching us, ready to tell us off for going where we shouldn"t and then start the whirlpool spinning again.
Then Aaron started swimming to the edge of the pool, his grip loosening on my hand.
That was when everything suddenly clicked into place.
"No!" I held tightly on to his hand.
He stopped and turned to look at me. "What is it?"
"Wait! Don"t let go of my hand." Could it be? Could I be right?
Aaron smiled again. "OK," he said, turning slightly pink. He seemed to do that quite a bit lately.
"I just had a thought," I said. "I know it"s crazy, but - well, you and I both had curses on us, didn"t we?"
"Had, yes. Not anymore."
"No, I know. But how did we overturn Neptune"s curse on us?"
"We found the rings he and his wife had given to each other. What are you -"
"We didn"t just find them," I went on. "We wore them, and then what did we do?"
"We brought the rings together," Aaron said. "Emily, I don"t see what this -"
"Our hands! We held hands! We brought our hands together and overturned Neptune"s power!"
Aaron"s eyes opened wider. I could see that he was starting to catch up with my thinking. I struggled to remember what Mr. Beeston had told me. What was it exactly? "*Only the hand that is mightier than my own,"" I began.
"*May undo the magic from my throne!"" Aaron finished.
"That"s it!" I stared down at our hands, locked tightly together. "We broke the curse when we held hands."
"In other words, our hands together were mightier than his," Aaron said.
"Exactly! Which means that maybe we can undo his magic power."
"As long as we hold hands."
It fit with what had happened with Mandy and my grandparents. Except - well, it seemed so incredible! We could overturn Neptune"s power?
"Aaron - it"s crazy," I said. "Surely it"s not possible!"
We both looked down at our hands, and then at each other.
"We can really do it," I said in a whisper. If I said it too loud, maybe it wouldn"t be true. "We really can overturn Neptune"s power."
"Which means . . ."
"Which means perhaps all"s not lost with my grandparents," I said.
"Or with the peacemaking mission!"
We locked eyes, making a silent deal with each other.
"Come on," Aaron said.
We swam back to Brightport as fast as we could. We both knew what we had to do.
Sunday morning I woke up early with the biggest smile on my face. I couldn"t think why I was in such a good mood at first. Then I remembered. We"d overturned the memory drug! Mandy and I were friends again! And I thought I could even break the spell on my grandparents.
Surely that was a start! For the first time, I really believed we could do what Neptune had ordered us to do. We"d create a new world, just like he"d said. One where humans and merfolk would live together in harmony, side by side. And it was all going to start in Brightport! We would pa.s.s Neptune"s test!
I jumped out of bed. It was still early, and I could hear Mom"s snores coming from her bedroom. I decided to go up to the shop and get her a newspaper and some fresh bread as a treat.
I crept quietly out of the boat. Dad had already gone off to Shiprock. He and Mr. Beeston had a meeting with the mer-mayor today. They were going to explain what was going on and see how they could work together to deal with the situation. I smiled to myself. The "situation" wouldn"t be a problem much longer. I just knew it. We were going to mend fences, join the worlds together. Things were going to be great.
I was still smiling to myself as I headed down the pier.
I was still smiling as I walked into the store and picked out the bread.
I was even still smiling as I walked over to the newspaper stand.
And that was the point at which I stopped smiling.
"I - can I have a -" I pointed to the pile of Sunday newspapers stacked on the counter, feeling like someone in a foreign country with a vocabulary of about five words and lots of hand gestures.
"You want a Brightport Times, hon?" the woman behind the counter asked.
I nodded.
"Going like hot cakes today, these are," she said. "Not often you get something like this on the front page."
I tried to reply. I opened my mouth; I even moved it a bit, opened and closed it a couple more times, but nothing came out. Eventually I just nodded.
The woman gave me a sympathetic look and handed me a paper with my bread. "Two fifty-three," she said loudly, as though I were a bit slow or stupid. I handed her some money, grabbed my things, and bolted.
I couldn"t go straight home. Not yet. I had to read the whole story; I had to prepare myself; I had to be alone.
I sat down on a bench and opened up the paper. The front page had a big banner headline running across it that made me feel sick.
MERMAID HUNT!.
Under the headline, a few paragraphs filled in the story.
In the last twenty-four hours, the Brightport Times office has been inundated with phone calls from local residents claiming to have seen mermaids!
The claims reveal a remarkable consistency about the sightings, suggesting that they are indeed genuine.
Oddly, many of the sightings are reported as having taken place weeks and even months ago. The sighters seem to have forgotten about the incidents until just recently. Why that is the case remains a mystery.
Daniel Sykes is one of those who called our office. "I don"t know why I"ve just remembered," he told the Brightport Times. "But I"m telling you, I can see her now, as clear as day. A mermaid in the sea, with a shiny blue tail."
Mr. Sykes is just one of more than twenty people to have called our office so far. In every case, the caller only recalled the sighting since around lunchtime yesterday.
Join our mermaid hunt! Get in touch now and tell us your mermaid story! Rewards paid for all mermaid stories and pictures. Catch a mermaid and be a local hero! Turn to page 2 for more information.
I sat back on the bench, staring out across the bay. I really thought I was going to be sick this time. Catch a mermaid and be a local hero? I thought straight back to Allpoints Island - and me in a net while Mr. Rushton bragged to Mandy and her mom about how they would make a fortune displaying me to the world.
This was it. My nightmare was finally coming true.
My fingers curled up so hard I felt my fingernails dig into my palms. Mandy! She"d pretended to be my friend so she could play her cruelest trick yet!
But it didn"t make sense! How could she get all those people to phone in? She might have a nasty streak, but surely she wasn"t that powerful - was she?
I looked back at the paper, turning the page as though in a trance.
And that was when I saw it.
A photograph. It was very blurred and hazy. You could only really see an outline, but it was obvious what the outline was.
A mermaid.
I looked closer, and my heart sank so low I could have sworn I heard it hit the floor. The photograph - yes, it was blurred; yes, it was hazy; yes, it probably looked like little more than a silhouette to most people. But I could see clearly what it was. The tail. The hair, even the expression on the face. To me it was so obvious they might as well have printed the name above it in capital letters.
It was a photograph of me.