Perilous Waters (31 page)

The violent energy used up her body’s final stores of oxygen. Her struggling motions slowed. Dimly she realized that in a moment she would take in a breath of water, choking off any hope of survival.

Her body sank like a piece of coral, drifting down at the whim of the inky sea’s merciless current. She slowly blinked, her eyes adjusting to a bright glow that made no sense in the total blackness of the underwater abyss. Maybe she was already drowned. Maybe there was a God after all, and the glow was the eternal light she was supposed to follow into the afterlife. A childhood prayer surfaced from the recesses of her mind.

Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee...

She felt so calm. So sure of herself. Her hand reached out for the soft, golden glow beneath the water, her black-painted fingernails gleaming against the light emanating from a seashell that lay at the bottom of the cave floor.

Seashell.

Her eyes widened.

This was why she no longer felt panic. She didn’t need to breathe. The pressure from the water’s depth didn’t bother her. She snatched the shell and pushed off from the rocky bottom, swimming with ridiculous ease now that she held the seashell in her hand. Where was Julia? She shut her eyes and built her magic within her, waiting for the mark on her arm to burn hot before thrusting out her palm. “Illuminate,” she cried, the word nothing but watery bubbles and gurgles beneath the waves, but the force behind the spell was no less powerful. A sphere of light appeared in the center of the underwater world, casting brightness throughout the reaches of the undersea cave. And near the far wall, she saw a body.

With the seashell’s powerful glow surrounding her, she darted quickly to the small, lifeless form. Julia didn’t have much stamina, and with how forcefully the current stormed through this cave, it was no wonder—

But the body was smaller than Julia’s.

Oh no
…
she realized, gathering Angie in her arms. Angie was so strong. If anyone could have made it through the cave okay, it was her. But here she was, unconscious and nearly drowned.

Kaitlyn pressed the seashell against the smaller girl’s chest, her gaze intent on the golden light that would send oxygen to her limp body. Angie made no movement and Kaitlyn quickly began kicking for the surface. “Angie,” she cried when she broke through the water. “Angie, you’re going to be okay, do you hear me?”

Angie didn’t respond, but with the seashell pushed against her chest, she
had
to be receiving oxygen. With a hard swallow, Kaitlyn built up what little magic she had left and sent it to her in an effort to give the girl her strength. How many times had Angie saved her from drowning? Kaitlyn could hardly count them all. And now Angie had been in the water too long, the violent waves within the cavern sloshing her tiny body so forcefully she hadn’t been able to hang on.

She tried to form a spell, but her throat burned as hot streams of fluid spilled down her cheeks. “Restore,” she finally managed. Weak bursts of healing magic trickled to Angie’s lifeless body. “Restore,” she repeated hoarsely.

They needed to find dry land. She looked around in the newly illuminated cave. The rising tide slapped viciously against her, but with the seashell in her hand it hardly mattered. She could tread water as easily as walking across a room now. She absorbed oxygen through the water itself, no longer a prisoner to the air.

In the increasing roar of the advancing tide, she heard a high-pitched yell followed by a harsh splash, one that was out of sync with the rest of the cave’s sounds. She spun around. “Julia?”

“Over here,” Julia wailed, her voice sounding small as it echoed against the walls and the water.

Kaitlyn reached her quickly, and as soon as the seashell’s glow touched her, Julia’s features smoothed. “You found it,” she said, treading water easily despite her gown. “And Angie, too.”

Julia reached out, touching both Kaitlyn and Angie’s arms as her eyes slid closed. In the same instant, the rising tide came to a stop, and Kaitlyn realized she had frozen time. Everything grew silent, except for their breaths. Kaitlyn watched Julia in the silvery light of her illumination spell. Her lips and lashes glistened with drops of water. When her eyes opened, she looked directly at Kaitlyn and her eyes shone with something she didn’t recognize.

“You found it,” Julia repeated, her voice trembling. “You saved us all.”

Julia’s hug was so unexpected, Kaitlyn almost dropped the precious seashell. She blinked against the rush of heat spilling from her chest and eyes.

“Thank you,” Julia whispered, letting her go.

Kaitlyn swallowed tightly, wishing she had thought to hug Julia back. “You would have done the same for me,” she managed, unsure why her voice seemed so raspy and quiet.

“Have you seen a way out?” Julia asked, her voice strangely dense and without echo in the time-frozen cave.

“No, but the water rushes into the cave from this side here,” she said, swimming backward to the spot where the water had been the most ruthless.

Julia followed, staying within the domain of the seashell’s light. “I’ll dive down and check,” she said, slipping beneath the surface before Kaitlyn could respond.

A moment later she reappeared. “There’s a huge passageway down there. It goes deeper and I couldn’t follow it without getting too far from the seashell, but it’s the only opening I saw.

“All this water has to come from that passageway, then,” Kaitlyn murmured. “As long as we have the seashell we should be okay, right?”

Julia nodded, taking her arm. “Illuminate,” she said, creating her own sphere of light to replace Kaitlyn’s fading one.

They dove down together, Kaitlyn holding the seashell right against Angie’s chest the whole time. The passageway went much farther down before it finally curved up, but she and Julia didn’t stop swimming until the water grew pale and clear.

When they surfaced, Kaitlyn smiled, not caring about how her scar must be twisting her face. She couldn’t remember a time when her heart had felt so… joyful. She laughed at the thought. Joyful heart, it sounded so cheesy. Something Angie would say.

The object of her thoughts moved feebly in her arms, coughing and turning her head. Her lids remained shut.

“She’s breathing,” Kaitlyn said, crushing the limp girl against her chest. “She’ll be okay.”

“Let’s get her onto the sand,” Julia said.

“Unfreeze time first?” Kaitlyn suggested. It was easier to swim without the current, but the last thing they needed was a demonic onslaught.

“Not yet,” Julia said, her brow creasing as she helped Kaitlyn bring Angie onto dry land. “The crown is still inside. With the pirates frozen, I can go right back around to the entrance of the cave and find it.”

“Bad idea.”

“But—”

“Just listen to me for once. I want the crown as much as you do, but if we leave time frozen, the creatures
will
find us.” She glanced down at the still-unconscious Angie. “I’ll be alone here, you’ll be alone in there.” Kaitlyn schooled her voice, trying to get rid of the condescending tone she recognized creeping into her words. “Do you really think that’s a good plan?”

“Brian is going to turn Scylla without our help. You saw it happen.” Julia’s brown eyes, normally a little spacey, turned decisively toward the cave. “I need that crown. If we don’t get it now, we never will.”

“No one’s saying that you don’t get the crown. I’m just saying unfreeze time so creatures don’t come after us. I’ll make us all invisible. Angie and I will be safe, and you can maneuver around the pirates without being seen—”

“Are you out of your mind? They almost killed us.” Her eyes lost their determined edge beneath increasingly peaked brows. “What about the vision you saw. We died on a beach. We died from
pirates
. Not creatures.”

“Or creatures disguised as pirates. Plus, we weren’t invisible.”

Julia fell silent. Kaitlyn lowered Angie onto the sand before glancing along the dark, tree-lined island. The beach seemed deserted, but the vision she had seen of them being killed on the beach slithered through her mind. Had the world been frozen, or unfrozen? She couldn’t remember now. “If we leave time frozen, creatures might kill us… but if we unfreeze time, pirates might kill us.”

Julia’s gaze fixed on Angie. “I wish she were awake to tell us what to do. Angie would know what was best.”

Kaitlyn smoothed back the damp, blond hair of their fearless leader. She couldn’t disagree with Julia this time. Angie really did know best. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to figure out what Angie would do.

“I think,” Julia began, pausing mid-sentence to gnaw on her lower lip, “okay, we never saw a vision of us dying by the creatures. But you did see one about us dying from pirates. Even if they were creatures in disguise, they wouldn’t bother with disguises if the world was frozen, so…”

“So, by leaving time frozen, we take pirates out of the equation altogether,” Kaitlyn finished, realizing Julia had a point.

Julia nodded. “I’ll head back around to the cave entrance to reach the treasure.”

There wasn’t much else she could say. She couldn’t go with Julia and leave Angie alone on the beach. “Go as fast as you can, and—”
be careful. Don’t get hurt
.
Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, her heart constricting as she handed Julia the seashell. “Just… don’t do anything dumb. Okay?”

Julia smiled and nodded. As her hand covered the seashell in Kaitlyn’s palm, she noticed the scar on the girl’s hand. It shimmered in the frozen sunlight, and for a moment the matching scar on Kaitlyn’s cheek felt strangely warm.

Julia frowned down at her hand before glancing sharply up at Kaitlyn. Her lips parted, but Kaitlyn cut her off with a gentle shove.

“Go,” she said. “Before creatures come.”

~ Chapter 27 ~

Julia

Julia
crept back around to the cave’s entrance. Her shoulders ached from the weight of her soaked dress. Her lungs burned with each breath from having breathed in so much gun smoke and seawater. All she needed was the crown. All three Jewels of Time in one… she remembered how it felt to wear only one of the jewels. The power had almost overwhelmed her. With all three, they would surely be able to help Brian.

The rocks angled sharply as she entered the gaping cave. The sight of time-frozen pirates startled her. Even knowing they couldn’t come to life, her heart remained lodged in her throat as she maneuvered past them. What if one of them was a creature?

Icy sweat broke out on the back of her neck. She didn’t have enough magic to blast anything. But, if any of them had been creatures, they would have followed after them into the water. They would have gotten to Angie before Kaitlyn had saved her.

She slipped on a slimy piece of rock, clumsy in her heavy gown. Her entire body tensed as she collided with a time-frozen pirate. He tipped onto her like a mannequin. For a second she stood still, her eyes squeezed shut.
He’s frozen. He can’t come to life. He’s not a creature.

Telling herself this didn’t make it any less scary. She shoved him away. “Oh, gross,” she whispered, not bothering to try and save him from falling face-forward onto the rocky ground. He had tried to kill her, after all. If Kaitlyn were here, these pirates would be lucky to be left alive.

“Illuminate,” she said, flicking her hand to create a small, glowing orb. Eerie light cast itself upon the pirate’s faces. She swallowed tightly and kept her eyes on the path. “All right, crown. Where are you?”

Her voice echoed, high-pitched and ghost-like.
Where are you… where are you… where are you…

Goosebumps spread along her back and arms. She hurried, careful not to trip into any other pirates. The pulse of magic began throbbing in her chest. A familiar ache built inside of her, one she recognized as the power of the jewels.

All she had to do was relax and let the jewels guide her. She closed her eyes for a moment, her breathing slowing down as the sweet promise of power reached out to her.

Without meaning to, she took a step toward one of the pirates nearby. Her eyes opened. “You have it,” she whispered. She reached him and frowned, not seeing any sign of the crown. He had a bag, and the moment she touched it the mark on her arm grew warm. She tugged it off his arm and pried open the drawstrings.

There it was, along with gold coins and pearls. Even through the bag’s fabric it emanated power. Julia traced the curve of the gleaming metal with one fingertip.

She exhaled in a rush. The crown’s power was too intense. If she kept looking at it, she had the feeling she would do what it wanted instead of the other way around. The thought confused her, but she didn’t have time for deep thoughts about the magic of the jewels.

No longer afraid, she dashed back toward the mouth of the cave, tugging the strings of the bag tight and slinging it over her shoulder. Her feet splashed through shallow water as she ran around the outside of the cave and into the bright blue world of island sea and sky. She had done it! She had gotten the crown! She didn’t even mind running in her epically heavy gown, knowing soon everything would finally work out.

She rounded the rocks where she had left Angie and Kaitlyn. “Guys,” she called. “I have it. I have the crown!”

But the beach was empty.

Julia’s heart became a stone in her chest. Her head whipped from one side to the other. What the heck?

No trace of them. Not even footprints in the sand. She dragged her hands through her hair, gasping for breath in her mounting panic. Where were they?

The tide lapped against her ankles and she took an unconscious step away from shore, scanning the tree line. Had Angie woken up? Maybe they were looking for food… but why not leave her some kind of sign?

And…

...why was water lapping against her feet when the world was supposedly frozen?

She spun around. “No,” she said, watching the water ripple.

Piercing eyes rose above the surface, motionless for the time being. Julia remained still. They had seen her, there was no way they hadn’t. She needed to put on the crown.