Emily Windsnap and the Siren's Secret (25 page)

“Our power?” Aaron asked. “You mean . . .” He took hold of my hand. Curling his fingers around mine, he held our hands up in front of us. “This?”

Neptune clutched his trident. “No one should have the ability to undermine my power,” he said. “It is not right; it is not how things should be; it is not what I intended with that verse. But once it is done, the nature of the magic you have claimed means that I cannot undo it.”

“You can’t undo it?” I repeated. “How is it undone then?”

“You must relinquish it,” he said starkly. “You must agree to give it back to me. On this, and this alone, I need your agreement.” He held his trident over our hands. “You must willingly give it up. If you both agree to do this, the power can be returned to me.” He held tightly on to his trident. “Do I have your agreement?”

I looked at Aaron. He didn’t have to worry about his best friend being trapped in an underwater cave with a bunch of evil sirens. He might not want to give up such a cool power.

He didn’t look back at me. Without blinking, Aaron tightened his grip on my hand. “We agree,” he said firmly.

As soon as he’d spoken, I wanted to leap up and hug him. I wanted to throw my arms around him and — and — my face burned when I realized what I wanted to do, and for once I hoped he couldn’t read my mind. I wanted to kiss him.

Before I had a chance to worry too much about what I wanted and whether he wanted it too, and whether it was ever going to happen, Neptune was speaking again. “Now, you must keep your side of the bargain. Do not forget the first condition. I will give you and your families
one week
to show me you are serious about your task. If I do not see evidence by then . . .”

He didn’t even need to finish his sentence. I knew what it was like to be on the receiving end of Neptune’s threats. He didn’t make them lightly, and he didn’t hold back in carrying them through.

“We’ll do it, Your Majesty,” I said. “We promise.”

“Very well. As long as we understand each other,” he said.

Oh yes, we certainly understood each other. The shiver that ran menacingly through my body, carrying with it memories of monsters and curses and storms unleashed by Neptune’s temper, reminded me precisely how well I understood him.

“Now, hold your hands still,” Neptune instructed us. We did what he said, and he held the trident over our outstretched hands.

“Power that should never have been set free,

Now you shall return to me,”
he intoned.

A millisecond later, my hand burned and itched and tingled. Aaron gripped it harder and I held on to his hand as tightly as I could while flashes of power and light surged through me. It felt as though someone had shot a massive bolt of electricity into me. The volts ran up my fingers, through my hands, along my arms, danced their way through my whole body — and stopped.

Nothing.

Neptune removed his trident. “It is done,” he said. “Thank you. Now, we must return to the caves, and I shall complete my side of the bargain. Come, you shall travel with me.”

And with that, we turned and followed him out of his grand chamber, out of the palace, and into the chariot that was waiting, with its gold-adorned dolphins, to take us back to the caves.

It took moments. Neptune held his trident over the waterfall and muttered something in a low rumble. Then, with a brief nod at us, he said, “It is done,” and left.

As I watched him ride away, I let out a breath so big it was as though I’d been holding it since we were in his palace. Then, as the chariot became a dot in the distance, I turned toward the well, now still and calm — thanks to his side of the promise.

One by one, the sirens swam shakily up the well and out into the open depths of the ocean. Each one nodded a silent “thank you” to me. None of them actually came over to talk to me. Maybe they were too embarrassed after the way they’d treated us.

Then Melody came out. She swam straight over to me. She took hold of my hands. “Emily, you have no idea what you have done for me today,” she said, her voice husky, her eyes shining with tears. “I am in your debt — for always. If there’s anything you need, come to me and I will help you. Remember that.”

“I will,” I said, twiddling a finger through my hair.

Melody touched my cheek with her finger. “I mean it,” she said. “Anything. OK?”

I held her eyes for a moment. “OK,” I said. “Thank you.”

Melody laughed. “You have nothing to thank me for,” she said. “Nothing at all. And I have
everything
to thank you for.”

I nodded toward the other sirens. “What’s going to happen to them?” I asked.

Melody smiled. “They’ll go back to the lives they had, and hopefully in time, they will forgive me. They’ll be fine,” she said with another smile. “We all will.”

A moment later, Shona’s head appeared at the top of the well and I swam straight over to her.

“Emily!” She threw her arms around me. “You did it!” she breathed. “You got us out! It’s over!”

“It is,” I said, hugging her back. I didn’t want her to see my face. If she did, she might see the worry on it, and realize it wasn’t over at all. We had a week to come up with an incredible world-changing idea, or I would face the terror of Neptune’s rage — again.

Mandy stared at us, wide-eyed and speechless, while we caught her up with everything on Monday evening over at her house. “Wow!” she said eventually.

“Wow? That’s it?” I laughed.

Mandy shook her head. “What else can I say? It’s amazing. You’re heroes.”

“Yeah, I guess,” I said.

Aaron nudged me. “Hey, what’s up? You should be happy.”

“I know, it’s just . . .”

“The task,” Mandy said. “You’ve got a week to show Neptune you can really make a difference and figure this situation out.”

“Exactly. We’ll
never
manage to make a difference in that time. And you haven’t seen what he’s like when he’s disobeyed,” I said with a shudder. “I
can’t
be on the receiving end of that again. I just can’t!”

Aaron patted my arm. “Hey, we’ll think of something,” he said with a weak smile. He sounded as though he believed it about as much as I did. “Look, you got all the sirens out from that cave where —”

“
We
got them out,” I reminded him.

“OK,
we
got them out. But what an amazing achievement, right? They’d been in there for
years
! You saw how grateful Melody was that we rescued her. Remember the look on her face the next time you need something to remind you how swishy you are!”

I smiled. Aaron seemed to have picked up Shona’s knack of saying just the right thing at just the right time to make me feel better. “Thank you,” I said.

Just then, a door behind us opened, and Mandy’s parents came in, laughing and chatting with a man I’d never seen before.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

Mandy glanced over her shoulder. “Oh, him. That’s Mr. Beckett, the editor of the
Brightport Times
. He and my parents have been best buddies ever since they all made thousands of dollars from Mom and Dad’s sea monster photos.”

“Hi, kids!” they called, and disappeared into the sitting room.

“Anyway, it’s not just that,” I went on. “It’s Mom. If she knew we had a week to prove to Neptune that we can do this task, I don’t know what she’d do. She already feels terrible that we haven’t managed to achieve much so far.”

“Not managed to achieve much?” Mandy spluttered. “After what you’ve just done?”

I shook my head. “I know, but — well, she’s still upset about the other thing.”

“What other thing?” asked Aaron.

“My grandparents,” I said. “We still haven’t found them. Now that she’s seen them once, she’s been thinking about them more than ever. If only we could get them back here somehow. I can’t help feeling the same way as she does. How can we bring two worlds together if we can’t even bring our own family together?”

“Have you tried to get in touch with them?” Mandy asked.

“Millie has. She’s called them over and over again but they won’t answer. With the memory drug in place, all they’ll remember is that she’s the one who told them they’d won a competition, and then they got here and found it was all a setup. They’re not likely to listen to her again.”

“Why can’t your mom just call them?” Mandy insisted.

“She won’t. She’s too proud — or too stubborn. And after what happened when they came here, she’s not going to put herself up for another rejection.”

“Why don’t you call?” Aaron suggested.

“And say what? ‘Hey, you don’t know I exist, but I’m your granddaughter and if you could just come over to Brightport, you’ll suddenly remember me, honest’? I don’t think so!”

Mandy looked over to the sitting-room door with a strange expression on her face. A sparkle appeared in her eyes. “Hang on a minute,” she said. “I might have an idea. Listen up.”

Mandy’s idea was a good one, and we left her to try it. But any hope it might have given me that we were on our way to getting this whole thing sorted out was obliterated when I got home.

Mom and Dad were outside together, Dad in the sea, Mom’s dress trailing in the water as she sat with her legs dangling over the side of the boat.

“Hey, sausage,” Mom said flatly.

Dad gave me a weak smile.

“Mom, Dad, what’s up?” I asked.

Dad shook his head and didn’t reply.

“We’ve just found out the council met this afternoon,” Mom said.

“And?”

“Well, Mr. Beeston had been trying to get them to drop their development plans,” she went on. “But they’ve just voted unanimously in favor.”

“So what does that mean?” I asked.

“It means they’re still going to go ahead with one of the original schemes,” Dad said. “Both of which spell disaster for Shiprock.”

And for any hope of us miraculously doing something to please Neptune. Shiprock was doomed — and so was I.

“They’re going to decide which one at their next planning meeting,” Mom said.

“Which is when?”

“A week from today.”

Brilliant. The day I was due to tell Neptune we’d changed the world was the day my world would officially come crashing down around me. Just perfect. Why did everything I did
always
have to turn to disaster?

Well, OK, maybe not absolutely everything. We had rescued Shona and Melody and . . .

Wait! Melody!

What had she said?
If there is anything you need, come to me and I will help you.

I allowed myself a brief smile as an idea took shape in my head. Maybe all wasn’t completely lost — yet.