Girl at the Bottom of the Sea (18 page)

But maybe Ella wasn't even hurting like that anymore. Maybe her dumb new boyfriend had helped her stop; maybe the need to be pretty for him was bigger even than her need to feel clean. Maybe she was crying because he'd hurt her, in her heart or, Sophie thought, her body.
What if Ella rose to reveal a black eye, a cut lip? Sophie's heart curled into a fist at the thought of it. She would turn into a shark again. She would swim back to Massachusetts and find the boy at Revere Beach; in the scummy froth she'd swallow him whole.

But when Ella rose up, her face was the same lovely face she'd always had. No imagined germs had been sanded off her cheeks, and no harm had come to her eyes, muddied with eyeliner and tears. Her lips were not split, though they trembled. Sophie spied a crumple of pink upon her best friend's lap; she'd been folded over it, lying upon it. A dented cardboard box and a sheet of unfolded paper. Sophie could see instructions, diagrams. Illustration of ladies' fingers holding some sort of stick. And there was the stick itself, pink and white plastic on Ella's pink bedspread, bright pink strips in the tiny plastic window. Sophie suddenly understood what was wrong. Ella was pregnant.

The bubble whooshed away before Sophie could call out.

She turned to the Vulcan. If she hadn't been so afraid of the claw-like curve of its mighty beak she might have pressed her hand against it, made him swallow whatever was coming next. “No more,” Sophie told the creature, covering her eyes. The Vulcan's many tentacles rubbed her head, relaxing her, and eventually she took a deep breath and wearily opened her eyes. In the bubble wobbling before her was Angel. Her heart leapt with love and fear—what would Angel be doing? Was she okay? She was bent over, her strong arms in motion, her longish-shortish hair swaying at her chin. Angel was… doing dishes. Sophie laughed a large, joyous laugh—to see something so boring!
Angel wasn't fighting Kishka or crying or stuck somewhere she didn't want to be. She was finishing the last of the dinner dishes, there in the home where she lived with her mother, the
Curandera
. She was tucking a knitted afghan around her mother, who was watching a Spanish soap opera in front of a flickering television. She was walking into her bedroom and pulling from her dresser the clothes she'd wear tomorrow, a button-up shirt and a pair of jeans. She was placing them on a chair in her bedroom, getting ready for bed. Oh, it was all so mundane, Sophie's pent-up tears sprung with joy. Imagine! Just to be home, washing milk from a cereal bowl in the sink. Settling into the tired couch to watch reruns with her mom. The sort of comfort Sophie hadn't recognized as comfort when she was just a normal girl. Maybe it had even bored her. From her new position on the ocean floor, a psychic octopus's tentacles wrapped around her head, boredom suddenly seemed nice to Sophie.

The Vulcan was done. It removed its arms and brought them low around its body and they undulated close to the floor, levitating the creature slightly. Sophie's head tingled and her heart felt full. Battered, but hopeful. At least Angel was okay. And Ella, she hadn't hurt herself. Her mother—it was impossible to find a silver lining in what she had seen her mother going through. The memory made her blood chill. And her sister. She had seen her sister, and her sister had seen her. She had learned her name—Belinda. She yearned to see her again. Even though it hurt and frightened her, to see this strange, twisted version of herself, she longed to speak to her again. Belinda needed her help.

Such a strong mix of fear and sadness and love swirled through Sophie, and she thought,
This is what I took from Syrena.
How terrible it would feel to have these emotions taken from her! Would she rather not have her love at all? Of course not. Sophie realized how wise and magic the Vulcan truly was. As much as it had shown her, it had revealed so much more: the makeup of her own heavy heart. Sophie reached out and clasped two of its curling tentacles and brought them to her face, kissed them.

“Thank you,” she said quietly. She could already feel it pulling away, beginning its weird ghostly swim back into the depths. It patted her cheek briefly with one slender tentacle, then drifted deep into the cave and away.

That night, alone in the Ogresses' cave, her head snug on a firm pillow of kelp, Sophie thought of her people, far away in Chelsea. How could she help them from so far away? She felt happiness at the thought of healthy Laurie LeClair, of baby Alize gurgling on Hennie's lap. She took comfort in
their
comfort, as if it were she mundanely studying for a test under the supportive eyes of her aunt. She wished! Her sister, Belinda, was still a mystery. Her mother was trapped, but there seemed to be little Sophie could do to help her. Maybe she could send in Angel to help, but that would be basically feeding Angel to Kishka. Maybe she could handle it, but Sophie wouldn't risk it. She had to trust that Andrea was Kishka's daughter, had been dealing with her evil since before Sophie was even born, and would be okay.

But Ella. Sophie remembered the vision of her friend, alone in her
room, crying. Ella, Angel could help. With Sophie gone, Ella needed someone, anyone to tell her problem to. She'd never tell her mother or any of her aunts. Poor Ella, surrounded by people but feeling so horribly alone. If Sophie were there she would do anything her friend wanted, anything to help her. Ella needed someone like that, not just a friend but a
best
friend, someone to listen to her and hug her and light her cigarettes and help her do whatever she wanted to do.

Sophie grew quiet inside herself, became still and went very, very deep. She sunk into herself like she had sunk into the ocean around her. She could feel the support of the salt in the water, the hum of it coming off the walls of the room. In the thin shaft of light her talisman created she watched as the tiniest motes of salt streamed around her. She reached out for Livia's feather and stroked it gently. And then she sought Angel.

THOUSANDS OF MILES
above her and thousands more across the land, Sophie sought her friend's heart, and she found it, bursting into the familiar space with too much speed, too much gusto, too much excitement. She could feel Angel's gasp rush up around her, Angel's instinctive push to raise her walls, but Sophie had already breached them, and she was strong enough to keep them down. She filled Angel's heart with her essence, and Angel, back in Chelsea, her back against a bench in Bellingham Square, became filled with wonder.

Sophie?

Yes!
Sophie's energy raised, was pure yes, and Angel was filled with laughter, her hands held to her heart as if she could feel her friend there, her eyes wide with delight. “Oh my god, oh my god!” She said aloud, joyful laughter spilling from her mouth, attracting the attention of some elderly ladies sitting nearby as well as a cluster of teenagers hanging on the corner—“Angel be
tripping
.”

Angel collected herself. The bus with its bold yellow stripe slid up to the curb, accordioned its doors open with a hiss to welcome the ladies and the teens, then crinkled shut. Momentarily alone in the busy square, Angel whispered, “Sophie?”

Sophie buzzed a scolding
Sssssshhh!
into Angel's heart. They didn't need to use real words, and Angel didn't need to call attention to herself. She could just sit there on the bench and feel what Sophie had to tell her.

Oh, it felt so good to be in Angel's heart again! She couldn't help but peek around a bit. She saw her friend hard at work, taking tests, talking to people, and she felt how these people recognized Angel's goodness. She saw Angel at a desk, talking to teenagers not much younger then she was. She felt the way Angel held them in her heart as they cried. Sophie was impressed. She couldn't do that. Those teens were the ones who had shouted to her on the streets, forced her to take different routes home, sped by on dirt bikes, hurling catcalls in their wake. Sophie didn't have room for them in her heart, but Angel did.

She tried to talk to Angel but found that the words didn't work, not in long sentences. They got lost, fizzled out, or arrived in Angel's
heart slightly off, like a psychic version of the telephone game. She picked big, strong words, and sent them one at a time, like flares.
Ella. Pregnant. Help.
She conjured the image she'd seen in the bubble, of her friend hunched over the pregnancy test, sobbing. She made sure Angel saw the little plastic strip with the terrible pink lines, Ella's face swollen and pink with tears. She felt Angel wrap her heart around the scene, as if giving it a hug. Sophie felt the squeeze in her own heart, and it brought tears to her eyes. Angel understood. Sophie was filled with gratitude. Her link to Angel was so strong, and Angel's own powers so excellent, that they could communicate like this, across worlds.

Even with her message delivered, Sophie didn't want to leave the familiar space of Angel's heart. She could feel her friend wanting to know everything. But where could Sophie begin? She could send the words
Ogress, Cave, Deep Sea,
and hope for the best. But maybe such words would alarm Angel? They
did
sound kind of scary, if you didn't know better. And Angel didn't. She didn't know anything. Sophie was overwhelmed by the weight of her story.

There was no way to tell it like this. So instead she opened up her heart in a bubble of love.
I'm good.
She hoped the phrase would land in Angel's heart with all the happy vibes she'd packed it with. She could feel Angel's response, one of relief and gratitude and an itch to know more, but Sophie had no more to give. The time spent traversing space and time to leap into Angel had exhausted her, even in this room of salt. She blew a kiss, and like a rubber band she shot out from Angel and back into herself.

Back in Chelsea, Angel felt the vacancy with the same shock as the girl's arrival, and was glad she was sitting down.
Whoa.
She touched her heart again, and it was empty of all but herself. Her grin as the bus pulled up was big enough to eat the whole city. Sophie was okay! She was keeping tabs on all of them, somehow. And she needed a favor. Angel was happy to oblige. She strode onto the bus and took her seat, gazing out the scratched and spotted window, watching the city pass by. The world was amazing, bigger than she could ever fully know. She would find Sophie's friend and see what she could do to help.

Thousands of miles beneath the sea, in the Ogresses' ancient castle, Sophie slept hard, soaking in salt through the night.

Chapter 15

“T
his has been quite a difficult stop for you,” said Fenja from the edge of the Swilkie. It was morning, and Sophie and Syrena had feasted one last time at the giantesses' giant table. It was time to move on.

The Swilkie's eye was narrow at the mill, the gargantuan contraption the Ogresses cranked and spun, bringing salt into the sea. It was little more than a dust devil in the water. Sophie and Syrena would swim up alongside it and, as it widened, enter the tunnel easily, swimming through its center to the surface.

“We knew it could be hard, just entering the Swilkie, and beholding the Invisible. But we didn't expect there would be so much hard learning,” said Menja sadly.

“Is no problem,” Syrena said. “Is even good. Lesson must be learned, what better than here, in Ogresses' cave? You take good care of us both.”

“Yes,” Sophie chimed in. “Thank you so much. It has been an honor to meet you.”

“The honor is ours,” said Fenja. “We hope you enjoy the
Jottnars
' party. We so wish we could join, but—the milling.” Fenja sighed an ogress sigh, a blast of air that rose to the surface, creating a rogue wave somewhere in the middle of the ocean.

“Party?” Sophie gasped. “We're going to a party?”

“Oh, ya,” Syrena nodded. “And I truly need one at this point, ya? Don't you?”

Sophie hadn't really thought about it. The last party she'd gone to had been Ella's birthday, back in the spring. Ella's whole family had been there, and they sang a birthday song to her in Spanish. One of her uncles had a drum that looked like a tambourine, and he smacked it to keep the beat. They ate
mofongo
and
tostones
and
flan
. And Ella got a million presents, a big jumble on her kitchen table, a pile of shiny paper trash and ribbon on the floor. Sophie had bummed money off her mother for a month leading up to the party, slowly collecting enough to buy Ella a T-shirt at the decal shop at the mall.
BEST FRIENDS
read the decal Sophie selected, with two glittery butterflies flying off together. She got her best friend's name on the back in velvety pink letters.
ELLA
. Sophie had hoped that when her birthday rolled around, Ella would buy the same shirt for her, with her own name,
SOPHIE
, spelled across the back. But by the time Sophie's birthday rolled around, who knew where she'd even be? Were she and Ella even friends anymore? She thought about the image of her friend crying in the Vulcan's bubble.
Pregnant.
If Ella ever needed her best friend, it was now. And where was Sophie? A million miles beneath the sea, hanging out with blobfish and giants.

“Oh, I should know you be, how you call it, party-pooper,” Syrena grumbled, giving Sophie a poke.

“When you exit the Swilkie, you'll find a dolphin pod waiting for you,” Fenja said. “We've arranged for them to ferry you to Laeso Island. That's where you're headed to, yes?”

“That's where the party is,” Syrena said in what sounded like a chirp. Sophie had never seen her so buoyant.