Girl at the Bottom of the Sea (25 page)

“Where is Syrena?” she asked the Dola, a tad desperately. “She'll come, too, right?”

“No,” said the Dola. “There is no need for her to be there. Syrena is resting.”

“Bloo?” Sophie squeezed the maiden's hand so hard that her own chewed-up fingernails cut into her skin. The maiden shook her head.

“I only go when I must, and that is bad enough. I will stay behind with Syrena. But if the Dola says you must go, then of course you must. There is no argument.”

Sophie nodded. She had engaged in arguments with the Dola before.

And with that, the water around Sophie became filled with currents and fluctuating temperatures as the Billow Maidens, led by Ran, rushed toward her.

“Come!” Hefrig shouted to Sophie, reaching out and yanking her into the throng of them with a short but powerful wave.

“Bloo!” Sophie hollered, and the maiden waved her on.

“I will see you when you return.”

And with that Sophie was caught up in the advancing waves of the Jottnar. They propelled themselves out into the sea, down, down, down. Dufa swam up above them, creating small dust devils of water as she went. As the ocean darkened and they left behind the honeyed glow of the Jottnar cave, Sophie lost sight of her. They traveled far and fast.

They came upon a deep place jagged with rock and the bones of ships that the Jottnar must have wrecked long ago. There was already something creepy about the place—like it was meant to be a place of death alone. Insectlike creatures skittered here and there, dining on dead things, looking to Sophie like giant underwater cockroaches. She shuddered. Schools of cod circled like ghosts, their eyes spooky, empty. Spiny urchins clustered at the base of the shipwreck like a tiny, menacing army. Seaweed slapped heavily in the currents.

And then the submarine appeared. It came down in the wake of Dufa's spinning, an underwater tornado, the vessel caught in the midst of it being flung this way and that, all of its alarm lights flashing in the deep—red and white and blue. Sophie's heart tightened, her throat too, so that she felt like she couldn't breathe. She swam away as it crashed down into the rocks, trying hard to swallow, to take a slow, shallow breath. Sophie could hear the alarm systems, shrill and urgent. There were humans inside that submarine. And they were going to die here.

Kolga swam in circles around the impact zone, chilling the waters. Unnr and Bara rocked the submarine with waves punctuated by Hefrig's stronger punches, knocking the people inside the vessel off their feet as they tried to understand what was happening.

The Billow Maidens moved so swiftly in the water that the men inside the submarine could not see them. They were in their element, they were the element. They were the ocean, spinning and lapping and pounding.

But Sophie. Had she thought to, she could have hollered a zawolanie and become anything at all. But she was frozen with horror by the scene—an Odmieńce, but also a girl. A human girl. And through their windows the scientists in the submarine could see her.

Behind the curving glass of the submarine's window, a man stared into Sophie's eyes, his mouth hanging open in shock. Sophie took a quick inventory of her appearance—her neat braids and shining crown
and strange outfit of linen and leather and weeds, a pile of jewels around her neck. She must look like a kid playing dress-up in a toy treasure chest. From inside herself Sophie moved close to the man, close enough to hear his thoughts:
This is the beginning, I am hallucinating, losing oxygen, already dreaming.
And as if the thoughts were an invitation, Sophie hurled herself into him.

The fear, the stark terror of death was a roar, a reflex, the strain of every cell in the man's body deciding to fight or flee. His mind was sharp and orderly as a computer, working to make sense of what was happening, and she understood that he was a scientist, that this was the way he thought of the world—
submarine suddenly sucked down, a vortex of sorts, had heard of such things, the girl, the girl, there seems to be oxygen, I'm still breathing.
And his heart, plummeting faster than his vessel as it ran through every earthly thing he loved, people, places, things. Sophie saw flashes of smiling faces and a cozy cabin roofed with seaweed that looked out onto calm waters, she saw a dog, she saw the man's happy life above the waves. And as Hefrig delivered the blow that shattered the glass, as Hronn rushed toward the man and wrapped herself around him, Sophie reached deep into his heart and removed all the fear, all the pain, so that the love the man had for his life surged through him. She felt his head go light and he began to cry for how beautiful it had been, his existence, and how grateful he was for it. How he had loved his work. Sophie could hear pieces of it, words and phrases she did not understand, but some that resonated,
dark matter, dark energy, universe, expansion
—and, as she looked into his
eyes,
the computer, the computer, the computer, please take the computer.

All this transpired in a few seconds, but it was the long, long moment of the dying, the slowed-down time at the bottom of the ocean. Then the man was gone, and Ran was laying him gently in a patch of sand. Sophie looked down at him, dazed, heartbroken. Tears spilled from her eyes and merged into the great sea that surrounded them all. Ran looked up at her.

“I never—” Sophie sputtered. “I've never seen a person die before.” She heaved with sobs, trying to catch her breath. She couldn't get the taste of his fear out of her mouth. To have seen his death, to have been witness, would have been awful enough. But to have been inside his heart at his last moment—Sophie shuddered, felt her own heart heavy inside her like a hunk of lead.

“No time for mourning, Sophie,” Ran said, gentle but firm. “There are others. And you can help them. You must.”

Sophie turned back to the submarine and saw the other scientists struggling against the water. Without hesitating, she leapt into them, quelling their fear and illuminating the love in their hearts, giving them peace. She worked with the Jottnar, and as each scientist passed she heard some of the same words in their minds that she had heard in the first man—
dark energy, source, universe, dark matter, the computer, the computer.

Chapter 19

W
hen they were done, the Billow Maidens slowed their work until they appeared again not as the ocean itself but as women, and they looked upon Sophie with widened eyes.

“My dear,” Ran began, draping her elegant arm around Sophie. “That was positively magnificent. That was the most elegant, peaceful, truly lovely death we have ever delivered.” Her daughters nodded furiously, their eyes stuck on Sophie, wordless. Sophie could not be sure in the hazy deep, but she thought she saw an icy blue tear slide down Kolga's blue-gray cheek.

Hronn rushed to her and strangled the girl in a suffocating embrace. “Oh, could you teach me how to do that?” she begged. “My work would be so improved! What is our magic?”

“No, it is for Sophia only,” Ran told her daughter. “It is her magic alone. The magic of half-Odmieńce, half-human girl.”

Sophie startled a bit at that. “It's Odmieńce,” she said to Ran. “My
magic. Humans aren't magic.”

Ran smiled. “Everything has its magic. Humans can't see their own. But your ability, this—thing you do. It is so particular. It is the powers of the Odmieńce, of course, but it those powers mixed with the magic of the human heart. It is a particularly human magic, Sophia. Which is good, because it is the humans you are meant to help.”

Sophie looked down at the scientists in the wet sand around them. Hronn had closed their eyes with kisses as she took them down. They looked peaceful sleeping, but the dread Sophie had lifted from them had gathered into her heart and stuck there, throbbing. Her tears swirled in the water before her face.

“I don't feel like I helped,” she said.

“Oh, but you did!” Kolga shouted. “Even I could feel it.” The maiden touched the spot on her chest where the feeling had occurred, the place where hearts beat inside the creatures that have them.

“It is why the Dola brought you,” Dufa hiccupped.

“I guess so,” Sophie said, uncertain. She was glad that she had been there to make their last moments more peaceful, but what was so special about these humans that the Dola would want Sophie to help them? Weren't there people dying everywhere, all the time? Why was it her destiny to be here?

Sophie swam toward the crashed submarine and squeezed inside through a smashed-out window. It was still lit up; soon the lights would dim, but for a while they would remain bright, flashing, the ship sounding its useless alarm to no one.

Sophie was surprised at how large the thing was. There were many rooms, and so many instruments and machines. Sophie realized what it must take to keep such a thing running so far down here, and she thought about where it had been headed with all these scientists aboard, into the deep, deep sea where the Ogresses lived. Sophie remembered when she had stood before the Invisible in the waters outside the cavern, how Syrena had told her about the scientists that had dropped equipment there to study it. What had they been hoping to find?

In one of the submarine's chambers, what seemed to be an office, Sophie came upon a package. It was bundled in a thick, waterproof plastic casing, and through it Sophie could make out a laptop. She lifted it and noted its weight, feeling the shifting thump of papers inside. The dying thoughts of the scientist were still haunting her heart.
The computer, the computer, the computer.
There were probably lots of computers in the submarine; really, the machine itself was like one huge computer. Sophie wished the man still lived, so she could enter his heart and ask him,
This one?
She didn't want to let him down. But Sophie was the only creature breathing inside the crashed submarine. Any other computer in the submarine was already water-logged. She swam back out of the vessel, the package gathered in her arms.

Ran and the Billow Maidens were arranged outside the submarine, waiting for her. Ran nodded when she saw what Sophie held in her arms.

“Bounty,” she said. “It is fair to take it. No insult to anything or anyone.”

“It's not that,” Sophie shook her head. “It's not a treasure or anything. It's a computer. And some papers, I think.”

“Then why do you want it?” asked Kolga.

“I think I'm meant to have it,” Sophie said. “Maybe it will explain what they were doing. Why I'm here. The scientist—when he died, he was thinking about it.”

Ran nodded. “Well, the Dola will let you know if you're wrong.”

“That's for sure,” snorted Hronn.

Sophie didn't need to harness the water, she simply rode upon the Billow Maidens as one would body surf a current, hugging the plastic package to her chest. She felt her spirits lift when the amber glow of Laeso Island came into view, faint at first and quickly becoming a glowing path that drew them in. Sophie understood now why Syrena held this place so close to her heart. It was truly a special place, and the Jottnar a special people.

IN THE GREAT
hall Aegir had fixed a mighty stew and Sophie found herself as hungry as a Billow Maiden, devouring deep seashells full of the salty, umami goodness. She heard Ran bragging about her as she slurped and slurped.

“It was incredible. Like nothing we've seen. Just—this peace. A peace and a love for life. She brought it to them.”

“No,” Sophie corrected, swallowing a scallop. “They had it inside them. I just… brought it out. I took away everything that was covering it up.”

“But how do you feel, Sophie?” Syrena swam up to her, touched her shoulders and looked deeply into her eyes. “I know it must have been shock to you, to see that. Have you recovered?”

“I'm fine,” Sophie shrugged. Deep in her heart she knew the answer was more complicated, but it was also for her alone, the one human in the room. “I don't need salt. Though this”—she shook her shell at the chef, hoping to change the subject—“is the best, saltiest stew I've ever had.” Aegir smiled and held his own shell out to her in a toast.

“She bounced right back,” Ran said proudly. “I saw her.”

“And what is this?” Syrena seemed to sense that Sophie didn't want to dwell on the topic, and she touched the package in Sophie's arms.