Mermaid Magic (2 page)

“Look. There are the baby ones,” Kai whispered to Rani, pointing at the tiny fish who had just hatched out of their eggs and were now swimming along beside their mothers. “Aren’t they sweet?”

They watched happily until all the fish had swum by.

Then Rani noticed that the rock where they had stopped to watch the fish was now far behind them. “We’ve drifted with the current,” she said. “We’re near the edge of the reef. We’d better swim back.”

Kai and Rani were not allowed beyond the edge of the reef, where the sea dropped away suddenly to form the darker waters of the Deep Blue. It was easy to get lost in the strong sea currents, and fierce creatures lurked in the darkness beyond the reef. But this part of the reef was also scary for another reason. It was close to the Secret Cave.

The Secret Cave was somewhere on the edge of the Deep Blue. Long ago a strange mermaid called Morva had been banished to the cave after she had done something terrible using bad magic. Morva was known as the sea-witch. None of the mermaids liked to swim too near her cave, even though no one had seen her in years.

No other mermaid had ever been inside Morva’s Secret Cave but Rani had heard stories about it since she was tiny. Its entrance was hidden by a magic bush that would catch you in its branches if you tried to swim through. The sea-witch used starfish as spies, so if anyone swam near her cave she would know they were coming. When the water at the edge of the reef got rough and murky, the mermaids said that Morva must be practising her sea-spells. Morva was said to be capable of changing the colour of the sea from turquoise to inky black if she lost her temper.

The more Rani thought about Morva, the more she wanted to leave quickly. “Come on,” she urged her sister.

But before there was time for Kai to reply there was a terrible splashing and churning of water behind her and a crackly voice screeched, “What are you doing outside
my
cave?”

Chapter Two

R
ani screamed. So did Kai.

Then came the sound of laughing and Rani saw that it was only the twins talking in cackly voices and hiding their faces behind some clumps of black seaweed.

“I am the sea-witch! I’m going to take you to my cave and turn you into a sea-frog!” Marissa hissed, as Marina rolled about in the water clutching her side from laughing so much.

“You should see your faces!” Marina gasped.

Rani and Kai glared at the twins.

“What are
you
doing here?” Kai snapped.

“Look who’s talking!” Marissa and Marina answered together. “What are
you
doing missing school?”

“We thought we’d follow you and see—” Marissa said.

“— what you were up to,” Marina finished for her.

“You thought you’d spy on us, you mean,” Kai retorted crossly. “You’re worse than Morva’s starfish, the way you spy on everyone!”

As the girls argued, Rani felt as though her body was filling up with pins and needles. The feeling seemed to start in her belly button and run up across her chest to her shoulders, then down her arms and into her hands. It was as though her fingers had an electric current in them as she held them out in front of her. She stared down at them but they didn’t look any different. Then she was sure she heard a whispery voice calling her name. She closed her eyes tightly and shook her head.

“What’s wrong with
you
?” the twins sniggered, staring at Rani.

Rani quickly opened her eyes. “Nothing,” she said. “I thought I heard a strange voice, that’s all.”

“A
strange voice
?” Marina scoffed.

“Yes,” said Kai, sounding scared. “I heard it too!”

Rani looked in amazement at her sister. “You did?”

“Of course. You don’t think ...” Kai looked frightened. “You don’t think it really
could
be the sea-witch this time, do you?”

Marissa and Marina looked at each other, clearly having one of their private conversations just by thinking. Mermaid twins are able to read each others’ thoughts, something which Marissa and Marina used to full advantage when they wanted to play tricks on people. Without saying another word, they swam off at high speed in the direction of home.

Rani turned to her sister to suggest they do the same, but Kai no longer looked scared. Instead she was laughing.

“Good one, Rani!” she said. “They really believed us!”

“But, Kai ...” Rani stopped, starting to get a sick feeling in her stomach as she realized that Kai had only been trying to get her own back on the twins.

Her sister hadn’t really heard the strange whispery voice at all.

*

The following day there was no school. Rani was washing out shell-dishes outside their cave while Kai was inside helping their mother cook lunch. Their father had gone to a special meeting of the community leaders earlier that morning and he had been gone for a very long time.

“Ouch!” Rani complained as she accidentally grazed her hand against the rocky wall of the cave.

Roscoe was bobbing about, peering into each shell to check for plankton. Plankton gets into everything, including all your shell-dishes, if you don’t watch out.

He came over and had a look at Rani’s hand. “Yuck!” he said. Roscoe

was always squeamish at the sight of blood. Being a sea horse, he was lucky enough not to have any himself. “You’ve missed some sand in that one.” He clanked his tail against the dish then ducked away from her and headed off in the direction of the shell-garden, which was his favourite place to relax.

“Mother, how come mermaid twins can read each others’ thoughts?” Rani asked, as she carried the clean shell-dishes back into their cave. She made sure she hid her injured hand from her mother because she didn’t want her to fuss.

Her mother stopped spreading plankton paste on to flat-weed cakes, turning so that her long golden hair swirled around her head. Rani’s mother had the thickest, shiniest hair of all the mermaids, the most elegantly tapered tail, and her eyes were deep turquoise just like the sea out by the coral reef.

“You mean Marissa and Marina?”

Rani nodded.

“Well, we don’t really know. Some identical twins are better at it than others.”

“Are identical twins the only ones who can read minds?” Rani asked.

“As far as we know, yes. Except ...” Her mother paused. “There are stories about mermaids long ago who could read the minds of all the other sea-creatures. Nobody knows if they really existed or whether people just made them up.”

She reached out and smoothed down Rani’s hair which had got tangled. Then she swam across the cave to check on Rani’s baby sister, Pearl, who was fast asleep in her cradle, which was suspended from the ceiling. Their father had made the cradle out of one half of the Giant Clam-Shell that had brought Rani to them all those years ago.

Just then the seaweed door of their cave flapped open and their father swam in, followed by Kai. Murdoch’s big powerful tail made the water in the cave churn so badly that Pearl’s cradle rocked precariously.

“For goodness’ sake, Murdoch! Please remember that this isn’t the Deep Blue you’re swimming in!” their mother said crossly.

“Sorry, Sweetheart!” Their father sat himself down on his favourite rock and wriggled until he got the end of his tail comfortably wedged into the sandy floor. Then he held out his arms for Rani and Kai to come and balance on his tail.

“Well, there haven’t been any other sightings but we’re going to send out a patrol this afternoon anyway,” he told their mother, cheerfully.

“Sightings of
what
?” Kai asked.

“Someone
thought
they saw a Yellow-back jelly fish this morning inside the reef,” he replied.

Yellow-back jellyfish lived in the Deep Blue and they were very dangerous indeed. They were so poisonous that no one had ever survived one of their stings. If anyone saw one inside the reef, the community always took it very seriously.

“It’s probably a false alarm,” Murdoch attempted to reassure them.

Rani frowned. “I don’t think it is ...” she said slowly.

Her mother looked at her sharply. “What do you mean?”

Rani shook her head. “I’m not sure. I just have this
feeling
...” She couldn’t explain it any better than that. She stared down at her hands. They were starting to tingle again. And – as if by magic – the graze where she had bumped her hand against the rock had completely disappeared.

Chapter Three