Girl at the Bottom of the Sea (15 page)

“We are so glad you enjoy it,” said Fenja or Menja. The two Ogresses gazed down at Sophie, their hazel eyes catching the luminescence of the creatures swimming in the jar. “We have been waiting, like so many others, for you to come and stop the Invisible. We have watched humans descend in their submarines, trying to understand it. They are not able to stay long, and any equipment they leave gets destroyed. But they are just humans, anyway. They could only study the Invisible. They could not stop it. Only magic can stop it.”

“Um… yeah,” Sophie nodded, stifling a burp. She knew that in some cultures a burp was a compliment to the chef. She didn't know if this was true here, in the culture of the Sea-Ogresses. But then again, she hadn't been aware that she had a job to do here at the Ogresses'. What was this about the Invisible? She looked at Syrena, but the mermaid was busy stuffing her face, so Sophie tried to look attentive and hide her confusion.

“We have been tending the salt mill for so many years,” said Menja, or Fenja. “Perhaps you can see our calluses?” She turned her palm
down to Sophie, spreading her fingers. It was like looking at a topographic map, the tough hills and tender valleys running down the giant's hand.

“We're making more salt than ever now,” said the other sister. “And it's not good for the ocean. The coral doesn't like it; many of the creatures don't. But the salt absorbs some of the Invisible, so we must keep making it.”

The other giantess nodded, the end of her braid brushing the table and scattering fish bones onto the floor. “In fact, though we have been so excited to visit with you, it makes me nervous how long the mill has been left unattended. We get it going very quickly so that we're able to leave it for a bit as it slows down, but we always need to return. Perhaps Syrena can take you to the Invisible.”

“That would be great,” Sophie said, scrambling to her feet. She pretended she was not in extreme discomfort from her gorging, and she pretended she knew anything about what the giants were talking about. “I've been, like, dying to see the Invisible.”

The giants exchanged looks across the table. Sophie could see the flicker of their eyelashes, wide as palm leaves. “Please, don't try to do anything heroic,” said Fenja or Menja. “We know of all you've done, even the latest, when you shape-shifted into a shark! But the Invisible is far too powerful, and you still have much to learn.”

“You've been a hero before and you will be a hero again, the hero of us all,” smiled the other sister. “But please, keep your distance from the Invisible for now. Today you are to relax. Observe, and relax.”

“Go only as close as Syrena allows,” said the other Ogress. “We will see you after.”

And with that, the Ogresses pushed back their chairs, stirring up clouds of sea mud that billowed all the way up to the tabletop and settled back down in a layer of sediment. When they stood up tall inside the cathedral of the cave, their heads became lost in the darkness of the ceiling, and all Sophie could see of them were their long white togas, billowing around them like undersea sails. Their footprints left huge craters in the floor as they left, and Sophie watched as a school of blobular fishes, their bodies like mounds of pale pudding, began flitting back and forth across the ground, refilling the craters. They had giant lumpy noses that slid down their faces, and mouths that pulled down in a permanent grimace. Their bodies looked like they were being squashed by some unseen foot, their bottom halves deflating into the seafloor, and their small, black eyes set like buttons in their chubby cheeks. They looked profoundly upset.

“Syrena,” Sophie breathed. “What are those things?”

“Blobfish, your people call them,” the mermaid said. “Blobfish be down here billions of years, before humans, before mermaids. They born so far down the pressure crush any bone out of them till they just blobs. Good fish, blobs. How you say, ‘salt of the earth.'”

“We're really deep down here, aren't we?” Sophie asked the mermaid.

“Oh, ya,” the mermaid replied. “So deep, it would normally make us very, how you say, depressed, but for the good salt all around. Not good to go so deep. Must be big like Ogress to handle it. Otherwise,
pressure get you. Make you cuckoo.” Syrena twirled a long, elegant finger near her temple. “Now we must go to Invisible. Is big reason why I take you here.”

SOPHIE FOLLOWED SYRENA
through the labyrinth of caves that was the Ogresses' home until they were spit out into the open sea. It was darker than anything Sophie had ever seen, darker even than the dark of the mountains that rose up in the center of the Atlantic, spitting fire and birthing islands. This dark was so heavy it weighed on Sophie's eyelids. It hurt her eyes like a bright light. She squinted against it and felt a current of doom enter her heart. “Syrena,” she said, “I don't like it here.”

As her eyes adjusted, Sophie could begin to make out the faint glow of creatures that had been forced though the millennia to create their own light down in the depths. The gaping anglerfish, lamps growing out of their heads. The lantern fish, lit from within as if they'd all
swallowed light bulbs. A grisly-jawed thing with the long body of an eel slunk by, sparks of light running across its skin like an electrical storm. A fish with a mouth like an open umbrella pulsed by, staring at Sophie with glowing red eyes. And everywhere were jellyfish, their tentacles like glowing ghosts trailing behind them. Soon it didn't seem quite as dark, not with all these creatures lighting the place up like a disco. But the other darkness, the one that had dug inside her heart, didn't go away.

Chapter 13

“C
ome with me.” Syrena said, and held out her hand to Sophie, who was glad to take it. Together they swam, the colorful creatures becoming sparser and sparser until again they were in blackness. Sophie knew that somewhere above her, pods of smiling minke whales glided through the water, slapping their tails joyfully. Chubby seals honked and slid their bodies onto rocks while puffins stuck their neon-orange beaks into the sea. But not down here. Though she tried to hold back her tears, Sophie couldn't help it. She let go of the mermaid's hand and started to cry.

“I'm sorry, Syrena.” She faced the mermaid with embarrassment. “I just—this place is terrible.”

Syrena, too, looked pained, her face taut above the dim glow of her talisman. “Is too much to be down here, outside the salt cave,” she agreed. Sophie clutched her own glowing necklace, grateful that the darkness hid her crying. She was trying to be more heroic, but this
horrible feeling of the deep was like nothing she'd experienced.

“Partly it is the deep, ya? It takes very long time to make light down here. Girl like you would be down here for a billion years, having baby after baby, until maybe one of them come out with a light on their head, ya? A bit of happiness.”

“They're happy, the creatures?” Sophie asked. “They're not sad down here?”

“Is all they know,” the mermaid shrugged. “They do okay. Making light helps. But is not just the deep, the darkness and the pressure.” Syrena took a deep breath, the gills behind her ears quivering, her expression serious. “Is also the Invisible we feeling. We here now.”

Sophie could barely make out the mermaid pointing into the darkness. She tried to look where Syrena was pointing, but it just looked like more nothing.

“I can't see anything,” Sophie said. “Am I looking for something invisible?”

“You just wait. You be patient and watch. Is invisible, but it shows itself, too.”

They hung in the dark of the deep, deep sea, an unfathomable amount of water pressing down on top of them. Sophie's mind returned to the strange shape of the blobfish, and she could feel a bit of a headache throbbing behind her eyes. What if she got crushed down here? It felt as if her spirit was already being flattened, but what about her body, her bones and her muscles? What if she turned back into the beanbag girl Syrena had had to rescue from the Boston Harbor?

As if her eyes were playing tricks on her, Sophie saw a flicker in the distance. She lifted her talisman from her chest and aimed it outward as if it were a flashlight.

“You see?” Syrena asked.

“I think I saw something,” Sophie said. “Or maybe it's just my eyes getting weird in the dark.” But as she kept staring, a patch of the darkness seemed to shimmer, flickering in and out of her vision. It was like a piece of glass in the blackness, but alive. Sophie could detect its upward movement.

“Is it a spring?” Sophie asked. “Is it more water, coming up from the earth?”

The mermaid shook her head, her eyes searching.

“Not is water,” Syrena said. “Is something more. Feel it. Water does not feel like that.”

And Sophie could feel it; when she concentrated, she could feel it hurting her heart. “Syrena,” she gulped, “why are you showing this to me?”

“It is part of it, part of the bigger mystery,” the mermaid said. “It have to do with Kishka. It attracted to her, the Invisible. There is legend of her down here, all the animals know her name. But recently humans start to come here, too. Scientists.”

“People come all the way
down
here?” Sophie marveled.

“No, no. They send what you call, robot? Metal, thinking thing. It make picture of the Invisible. The Ogresses find one, take it apart to find out what it did. Is some kind of human tool.” Syrena paused,
turned to Sophie. “So you know what this is?”

“The Invisible?” Sophie shook her head, and she could feel tears coursing down her cheeks. She didn't bother to try to wipe them away. “No. I'm sorry. Maybe this means I'm not the right girl, but I don't know anything about this place.”

Sophie turned her back, looking away from that creepy fountain of nothingness. She had no idea what it was, but she knew she hated it. And she knew she couldn't stay there another second. She paddled back toward the glowing creatures, feeling a wallop of gratitude at their shifting, neon colors. Syrena followed her, and in the new light, Sophie was surprised to see that the mermaid, too, was crying.

“Syrena!” Sophie gasped. She wished she could hide her surprise, but she felt so raw that she couldn't. She hadn't known the mermaid
could
cry. Like, maybe she had when she was a baby, but it seemed like whatever made tears had long since dried up like seaweed on a rock, or perhaps became calcified, coated in hardness like a pearl. A pearl. Griet. Now Sophie knew why Syrena had broken down. She reached out toward the mermaid to try to comfort her.