"No!" I shouted. "It"s not worth the risk. If you come down and we can"t stop it, we"ll both be stuck here."
"OK, listen," Aaron called, all the hesitancy gone now. "Edge as high up as you can get, and stretch your hand as far as you can reach." This sounded hopeful, and my spirits lifted again.
I tried to swim up through the invisible waterfall. The weight above me was so huge, I had to look down. Come on, fight it, get through it.
I swished and splashed my tail as hard as I could, trying desperately to gain some ground. I clung to the rocky sides, gripping tightly as I tried to heave myself upward - but it was useless. I wasn"t getting anywhere. The sirens knew what they were talking about; there was no getting out of here.
"It"s impossible," I called.
"No - it"s not. Don"t say that."
"I can"t do it. I can just about drag myself up into the current, but only for about a second before I"m thrown back down again," I said. "It"s no use."
"A second might be all we need," Aaron called. "Stay there - don"t go anywhere."
I would have laughed if I"d had the energy. Where exactly was I likely to go? That was the whole point, wasn"t it?
"I"ll be right back, OK?"
I slumped back on the seafloor, bedraggled, exhausted, and out of ideas.
Ten minutes later, Aaron"s face reappeared at the top of the well.
"I"ve got it!" he said. "I"ve tied a long trail of seaweed around my waist and secured it to a rock at the top here. I"m going to lower myself slowly. When I say *now," drag yourself as high up as you can. If we both reach out at the right time, maybe it"ll work."
It sounded like a slim chance to me. But then a slim chance was better than anything I"d managed to come up with. "OK," I called up.
I watched as Aaron lowered himself into the well. Instantly, he shot down in a rush, whirling about in the water, banging against the sides. But then he stopped going any lower. Dangling halfway down the well and bouncing around in the current, he grabbed the seaweed around his middle, letting it out bit by bit. Then he gave me a thumbs-up sign. I whirled my tail around, preparing to swim the hardest I"d ever swum. I felt around the rocky walls, searching for the best grip to pull myself up.
Aaron edged closer and closer, gradually letting himself drop down toward me. I gripped the wall, digging my fingers hard into the rock.
"Now!" he yelled.
Spinning my tail so fast it felt like a propeller, I heaved myself up as hard as I could with one hand, reaching upward with my other arm. I couldn"t see anything - the force pushed my head down. Nothing, nothing. Just whirling, crashing water. I gripped the rock harder, dragging myself a tiny bit higher, flailing around with my arm, searching blindly for Aaron"s hand. Come on, Aaron, where are you?
And then I felt it! His hand touched mine. Just a flicker - just for a fraction of a second as our hands brushed past each other. Not long enough. The waterfall still raged.
Come on - I can"t fight it much longer.
I was slipping down. We didn"t have long. Aaron"s hand brushed mine again. This time, I grabbed hold of it as though my life depended on it. Maybe it did.
His hand was warm against mine. He held on just as tightly - but nothing was happening. Please stop, I said silently to the waterfall. Please calm down.
And then, exhausted and empty, I closed my eyes. I"d run out of energy. My hand slipped from the wall, my tail flapped lifelessly. It was all over.
When I opened my eyes again, Aaron was in front of me, grinning widely. I was dreaming. I must have blacked out. Well, it was a nice dream. I hoped no one was going to wake me up any time soon.
"We did it!" he said, untying the seaweed from around his waist.
"Huh? You mean I"m awake?"
Aaron let go of the seaweed. It floated slowly downward, swaying gently as it fell. "Look around you," he said.
That was when I realized there was no ground underneath me. We were floating freely - inside the well!
"We did it!" I said.
Aaron laughed. "I"m sure someone around here has already pointed that out!" He took my hand and started swimming upward. "Come on, let"s get out of here."
I s.n.a.t.c.hed my hand away. "We can"t. Not without Shona."
"She"s down here, too?"
I nodded. "I"m not leaving her."
"No. Of course you"re not," Aaron replied. He flipped over and swam downward. "Come on, then. What are we waiting for?"
We swam down to the bottom of the well - and then I remembered. "Aaron, we can"t get out. They put something in front of the door."
Aaron swam over to the rock. Grunting and grimacing, he pushed hard against it. The rock tilted slightly. "We can do it between us," he said. "Push it with me. If we work together, we can get it out."
I joined Aaron, and we pushed and heaved and propelled ourselves forward with our tails. Eventually, the rock budged. Only a bit, but enough for us both to slither through, one behind the other.
I led the way through the opening. "Come on," I said. "Let"s go find Shona."
We swam down a tunnel that sloped lower and lower as it grew narrower and narrower, twisting and turning all the way. Its ceiling was jagged and gray, its sides pockmarked with tiny holes.
The tunnel led us to a tall archway. We swam through it into an opening and looked around. Empty. High up, a row of k.n.o.bbly rocks were squeezed tightly together like a village on a hill. Above us, the stone looked like sheets of paper, folded and rolled and hung from the ceiling. A pillar over to the left was like a giant finger pointing upward.
Aaron swam to a deep recess, high on one side. "Emily, look!"
I swam up to join him. It was another tunnel.
"Come on, let"s try it," I said.
We swam into the tunnel, and, after a moment in the pitch darkness, we were out the other side. I rubbed my eyes. "We"ve found it!" I said. The opening where I"d last seen Shona.
"Now all we have to do is work out where they"ve taken her," Aaron said.
We swam along the snaking pathways that led all around the inside of the caves, peering into each cavern we pa.s.sed and calling out her name as loud as we dared. She was nowhere. The whole place felt deserted.
"Look at that," Aaron said as we pa.s.sed a flat ledge with a tall, thin column stretching upward, like a tower that someone in a fairy tale would be locked away in and forgotten forever.
I shuddered and swam on.
"Wait! Look!"
Aaron swam back to join me. It was one of the caverns - but it had a door. A real one, not just a curtain of rocks like the others. It looked as if it was made from a ship"s timber - and it had a rusty bolt across it.
I grabbed the bolt. "It"s stiff," I said. "Help me."
Between us, we worked at the bolt, pulling and levering it gradually along - until finally it came loose. I pushed the door and swam in.
My eyes took a moment to grow accustomed to the darkness. Once they did, I saw something huddled in the far corner. I swam straight over.
She was curled up with her head in her arms, shoulders hunched, tail flat and lifeless.
"Shona!" I cried.
She turned her tearstained face up toward me. "Emily," she said, instantly getting up and brushing her tail down. "You found me!"
We fell into a hug. "Of course I found you," I said. "What was I going to do? Abandon you?" I pulled her over to the door. "Come on."
That was when she noticed Aaron. "Aaron! How did you -?"
"We"ll explain everything later," Aaron said. "Let"s get out of here first."
Shona stopped. "Wait - I need to say something first."
I sighed. "Please, Shona. I know you think these sirens are the whale"s whiskers but I"m telling you, they"re not. You have to believe me. They -"
"Emily, stop," she said firmly. "I don"t think anything of the sort. That"s what I wanted to say." She lowered her head. "I was a silly shark-head," she said quietly. "I should have listened to you. I should have trusted you. You"ve never let me down, and you never would. I"m sorry."
"What happened?" I asked. "How did you end up in here?"
Shona"s eyes filled with tears, glistening in the darkness. "They made me sing," she said. "But they said it wasn"t good enough."
"That"s what they said to me," I said. "In my case, they were right, though." I laughed and Shona half smiled. "But you"re a brilliant singer. They don"t know what they"re talking about!"
Shona wiped the back of her hand across her eyes. "They told me their story."
Aaron swam across the room and hovered beside me. "What story?" he asked.
"How they got down here. They said they"d been trapped here for years and years. They"d been friends all their lives. One of them - Melody - had been the best singer anyone had ever heard."
"She"s the one Miss Merlin told you about?" I asked.
Shona nodded. "But then something happened. She went away for a long time, and when she came back, she couldn"t sing. When she tried, terrible sounds came out. Melody said she had to leave her home immediately. They didn"t know why, but because they were all such good friends, they said they"d come with her."
"And they came here?" Aaron asked.
"Yes. She said they"d only need to stay a little while. But then all the other sirens lost their singing voices too. And the waterfall is the only way into the place, and it"s impossible to get back out."
I wanted to tell Shona that she was wrong - we were going to get out any minute now! But I wanted to hear the rest of the story first.
"Melody told them the only thing that could break the waterfall was the beautiful sound of a siren"s song. She said if they could get their voices back, they would be able to get out."
Suddenly it all fit. "So that"s why they were so desperate for us to sing," I said.
"They all looked so happy when I started to sing. But then one of them went out to watch the waterfall." Shona looked down. "She saw you there, huddled on the floor. She told the others . . ." Her voice trailed off.
"She told them what?"
"She said you looked really scared and miserable. They all had a good laugh."
I was just glad she hadn"t come at the point where we"d made it stop! Let them poke fun at me if they wanted to. We were going to have the last laugh.
"When she came back and said nothing had happened to the water, they changed completely. They turned on me, hissed in my face, said my singing was - was -" Shona broke off.
I swam toward her. "What did they say?" I asked softly.
Shona turned her big, sad eyes up toward me. "They said my singing wasn"t beautiful enough. They said it couldn"t be, or it would have worked."
"And then they threw you in here?" Aaron said.
Shona nodded.
I took hold of her hand. "It"s OK," I said. "I think your singing"s beautiful, no matter what a bunch of silly old sirens say. And more to the point, so does your singing teacher!"
Shona sniffed. "But they"re real sirens! They"d know best, wouldn"t they?"
I put a finger under Shona"s chin and lifted her face, just like Mom does with me when she wants to make sure I"m listening. "Their opinion doesn"t matter at all. They don"t know what they"re talking about. They"re bitter, twisted, nasty sirens who can"t sing anymore themselves and wouldn"t recognize a beautiful siren song if it swam right up to them and kicked them in the gills! Right?"
Shona managed a half smile. "Right," she said unenthusiastically.
"And anyway," I went on, "guess what? We"re getting out of here!"
"But we can"t! The sirens said the singing would be the only way to get out."
"Well, that"s even more proof that they don"t know what they"re talking about, because we"ve found a way to stop the waterfall!" I swam back toward the door.
"Really? How?"
I stuck my head through the door to check that the coast was clear. "Well, we have!" I said. "We"ll tell you everything on the way." I swam back out onto the dark ledge and beckoned to the others to follow. "Come on," I said. "Let"s get out of this place!"
"Try again," I called down. "There must be something wrong."
Aaron and I were halfway up the well, but Shona was still right down at the bottom, splashing around uselessly on the seafloor.
"I can"t," she called up. "It"s still too powerful."
"Wait. I"ll help you."
Aaron and I swam back down and took Shona"s hand. Swimming back up into the well again, I tried to pull her up, but it was no use. I could swim through the water with Aaron, but I couldn"t pull her with us.
"It"s as though the waterfall is still there, beating me down. I can"t swim through it," Shona said.
Our magic must only work on Aaron and me, I thought. It wasn"t strong enough to work for Shona, too.