Girl at the Bottom of the Sea (26 page)

“A computer,” Sophie said. “I took it from the submarine. They wanted me to.”

“Whatever for?” the mermaid asked, taking it from her arms. She began to tug at the plastic. “You need to check your—how is it?—Facebook from underwater? You want to Tweet Laeso Island?”

“Don't!” Sophie grabbed it back. “It's waterproofed. I can't open it down here. It will have to wait till Poland.”

“It's heavy!” Syrena said. “You think to carry all the way to Vistula River? To swim with it?”

Sophie shrugged. “I guess so. I don't know how else to open it. I can't open it down here, right?”

“No, not a computer,” Bloo nodded. “Or paper. It will disintegrate.”

“Well, I not carrying it all the way home,” Syrena said. “So don't ask me.”

“I didn't!” Sophie said. “I'll take care of it.”

“Why do you want?”

“I don't know,” Sophie admitted. “I think it will tell us what the scientists were doing down here. It was—I heard their thoughts. I think it's important. The submarine was on its way to the Ogresses'. To the Invisible, maybe.”

“Scientists don't understand the Invisible,” Syrena scoffed. “That why they going there.”

“Well, whatever they know, I want to know,” Sophie insisted. “I heard their thoughts as they were dying. They were thinking of the universe, and of darkness and energy.”

“You make plan based on last thoughts of dying person?” Syrena asked. “Maybe not person's best moment.”

“I could tell what was fear, I took it away. This was something else.”

“She did,” Ran said, coming up behind the girl and placing her large, elegant hands upon her shoulders. “We all could see it. We could
feel
it.”

“The Dola said I was meant to be there. To see something. Is the Dola still here?”

“No.” Bloo shook her head. “The dolphin is still here, but it's just a dolphin now.”

Sophie gazed out at the pod, playing as they waited for Sophie and
Syrena. She spotted the one the Dola had inhabited. It was back with its fellows, leaping and nosing around. Sophie felt a tug of longing. She wished she'd gotten to say good-bye to the stupid Dola. She wished she could have shown the Dola her package and asked,
This? Is this what I am meant to have?
But the simple fact that the Dola wasn't there perhaps confirmed it. It was her destiny.

“Well, we learn everything in Poland,” Syrena nodded. “But your arms be sore, carrying that so far!”

“In Poland I come out of the water, right?”

“Right,” Syrena nodded. Sophie brightened at the thought. Sunshine, fresh air, regular movement. Syrena looked skeptical. “Do not be so happy. Will be hard. Should know that.”

“Okay,” Sophie said. “But then I get sunshine back, right?”

“Ya. You get your sun. I do, too. I river mermaid now. Much used to sunshine myself.”

AS SYRENA AND
Sophie prepared to leave Laeso Island, Kolga swooshed up to Sophie in her current of chilly water.

“Sorry about that,” the maiden said sheepishly to Sophie, watching her shiver. “I can't help it.”

“It's quite all right,” Sophie said. Kolga reached out and touched her, running her hand up and down Sophie's arms, rolling with goose bumps.

“So interesting,” Kolga said. “I myself don't really feel the cold. I just
am
it.”

She held out a backpack. It was roomy, canvas, army-issue. The buttons had started to rust, but Sophie could make out the mark of an anchor stamped upon the metal. There were handsome striped patches decorating it. She offered the pack to Sophie.

“I thought you could put your thing in this, while you travel. I think the straps go over your shoulders—”

“Yes, it's a backpack,” Sophie said. “I have one at home.” Of course, the one back at home was small, fit for her own body, not a man's. Sophie tugged the straps tight, but the bag still sagged down her back. Still, she supposed it was better than nothing. And she liked the rugged look of it. She slid her package inside and, after a thought, removed the heap of gold and jewels she'd rebelliously looped around her neck. There were so many strands she could not hold them all in her hands, and some slid loose, falling into the sand like bejeweled eels.

“I'm sorry I was so rude,” she apologized to Kolga. Sophie didn't need to go inside the Billow Maiden to understand that Kolga's coldness was no more personal than the coldness of snow, the sharpness of icicles. She might not have a heart as Sophie had come to understand such a thing, but she had what she needed, and the same forces that had created everything else had created her.

Kolga bent and snatched up the fallen jewels, slid them into Sophie's backpack. “You can have all of them. I want you to, please. Enjoy them. Trade them for food, whatever you need them for. I am lacking in certain intelligence,” she confessed without shame. “I have a
very strong mind, strong instincts. But without a heart there are many things I can't comprehend. Human things, especially.”

Sophie dropped the mound of necklaces into her backpack. It weighed her down, but she couldn't resist the treasure. She wanted to show the jewels to Ella, to give her some, to give some to Andrea, to Angel. Angel wouldn't wear such things, Sophie imagined, but she could sell them and have more money for her and her mother.

“What about the crown?” Kolga asked. “Should I help you with it?”

Sophie's hand rose up to her head, where she felt the chalky toughness of the coral and the ridges of the seashells, the smooth chunks of gems and the heavy golden links. She gave the little octopus a pat and was startled to feel how it had grown.
It's a baby,
she thought.
Not a teacup octopus. Not a miniature. It will grow.

“No,” she told Kolga. “I think I'd like to wear it.”

“It suits you,” the maiden nodded. “You look more regal than when you arrived, more…” She searched for the words, then gave up. “You look more the way I expected you to look. Having heard so much about you for so long.”

Chapter 20

I
t took forever for Syrena to extricate herself from the endless round of hugs the Jottnar heaped upon her. Sophie watched as the mermaid lifted Hronn's hands off her, holding them in the air.

“Take her!” she cried. “Someone take her, or I will never get home to my river!”

Ran stepped up and grabbed her daughter, redirecting her embrace. Hronn hung on her mother so that their two robes flowed together as one. “Travel safe to your home,” she said, “and please remember that this is your home as well. You too, Sophie.” She smiled at the girl. “You are always welcome at Laeso Island.”

“Thank you, “Sophie said. “I really hope to see you all again.”

“You will,” Bloo said with a smile. “The Dola told us.”

Ran stared in amazement at Blooughadda's face. “A smile,” she said. “I haven't seen this one smile since she was a wavelette. Your magic is evident, dear Sophie!”

“It was my pleasure,” Sophie said humbly, almost shyly. She had entered the Jottnar home so confused by them, so overwhelmed and condemning. She was happy her departure was different. They were in her heart now, even cold Kolga, even and especially bloodthirsty Blooughadda. “It was an honor,” she addressed the maiden, “to visit your complicated heart.”

“It was an honor to host you,” Bloo replied, bowing her head. They were like two queens regarding one another. With her crown on her brow and her backpack heavy on her back, Sophie commanded the waters and, alongside Syrena, she left Laeso Island, a chorus of love at their backs.

IT WAS THE
Dola who had evicted the mermaid from her home on Laeso Island, back when she was a young mermaid who had just lost her sister. In the form of a seal, the Dola had glided into the golden chambers where Syrena was tending the Billow Maidens. The maidens all trilled with glee at the sight of the slick, whiskered animal, but Syrena rose quickly and put herself before them, considering the creature, then the girls. They were no longer babies, or toddlers either. They were big enough to fend off a hungry seal, and there were many of them, nine in total. Plus there was Syrena, her narwhal tusk never far from her grasp. And just one seal, plump, well fed. The mermaid relaxed.

“May they pet you?” she asked the seal, holding back the tide of maidens who swirled around her legs, in love with the sweet-faced creature. And the seal answered not in the seal squeals she'd learned
to understand, but in the language of mermaids—though spoken in the chilling voice of the soulless.

“They may pet the seal, but it is you I have come for, Syrena.”

The mermaid's tail went numb and her heart grew sore at the sound of the being's voice. The Billow Maidens backed away, and the more sensitive among them began to cry. “Shush,” Syrena scolded them, fighting back her own sob. “Go to your
Moder
. Go now—tell her the Dola has come.” The myth Syrena had been raised with was that one would always know the Dola if the creature came for you, and now she found the myth was true. Syrena's spine was cold, as if formed from vertebrae of ice. The maidens scuttled back into the cave.

“What is it?” Syrena said to the Dola. “You have already taken my sister and destroyed my village. You have made us barren creatures and sent us scattered through the seas. What more do you want to take from me? Go on. Take it.” The being's coldness had infected her heart, and the mermaid supposed it was for the best. She wanted to face her destiny with dignity, and if the coldness of her heart could freeze her tears of hurt and fear before they slid down her cheeks, then all the better.

“You are mistaken,” the Dola said. “You are confusing me for your destiny, and I am not. Your destiny is quite separate from me. I am but its messenger.”

“Never mind,” Syrena said coolly. “You are here to tell me I am to die, or to hurt someone I love. I've heard your legend my whole life. I'm to eat those babies I just was caring for, or I'm to fling myself into a shiver of sharks. Well, go on then. Deliver your message.”

The seal's whiskers twitched on its soft black nose. Syrena bristled at the insult of it, that she would have such terrible news delivered from the snout of this adorable creature. There was no end to life's humiliations, the mermaid thought morosely.

“My more spectacular jobs tend to precede me,” the Dola said, shrugging its slender seal shoulders. “No one ever talks about the time I make someone eat a meal they thought they were too full to eat. To take a different path to the green grocer. Such minutia makes the bulk of my work, you know, and it would bore you to tears. A thrill-seeking mermaid like you couldn't bear the reality of my job. And what about the nice things I do? When I rescue a lover from the grip of war and return them unscathed to their beloved, who has been
faithful
. No one discusses those jobs. Only the ones where the gladiator succumbs to the hippo. Where the midwife arrives sick from drink to deliver the child.”

“So what will it be?” Syrena snapped. “Am I to be speared by pirates and have my tail nailed to the side of their ship? Or am I to fall in love with a giant squid? Make it snappy, please.”

“You are to leave Laeso Island,” the Dola said, and with that the seal spun and headed out the way it came.

“What?” Syrena dashed after the creature, snagging its stubby tail in the hands. “I need more than that! What else? What for?”

The Dola gazed at the mermaid, its stare hitting her like an icicle in the heart. “You have overstayed your time here, and I think you are aware of this. You took refuge, but now you hide. You must return to the waters.”

“I was going to!” Syrena snapped, insulted. “I'm not
hiding
. I'm
caring for the Billow Maidens. I'm helping Ran. I fully intend to return to the waters.”

“You will return now. Your time here is ended. You know this to be true.”

“I will leave as I please.”

“I will inhabit the babies,” the Dola said simply. “I will hop inside them and drive you mad. First Ran will be driven mad, and she will be overtaken by anger at you for not obeying, for leaving her daughters vulnerable to me. Then you will go mad, from the love you found here being ruined by your own stubbornness.”