Fairy Lies (15 page)

The river ran across level ground and emptied into the ocean in a wide, spreading delta. A sailing ship was returning upriver, its cargo piled on an enormous dock attached to a huge wooden building. Ogres clambered over the dock and the ships tied up alongside, carrying cargo from one to the other. Tamisin was glad the mermaids didn’t try to go any closer, especially after she saw curved fins heading toward the shallower water. She’d seen enough television specials on sharks to recognize them, and had no desire to learn how mermaids and sharks got along.

After a time, Kryllus passed a long stretch of white sand beach. Patches of fog drifted over the sand, obscuring some spots while leaving others clear. Kryllus had begun to angle toward the beach when another of the sharp, piercing sounds made the mermaid turn her head. Opening her mouth, she replied with an identical sound. The other mermaids drew closer as they began to argue in shrieks and whistles, gesturing wildly as their expressions ranged from fear to sorrow to vehemence. When it was over, Kryllus shrugged and turned away from the beach to swim along the shoreline again while Squall and Pacifica raced ahead.

“What was that all about?” Tamisin asked.

“Squall and her twin sister, Tempest, grew up with a pod of porpoises. One of the porpoises is trapped on a beach near here. Tempest is taking care of him, but she just contacted Squall. Apparently the porpoise isn’t doing well, so Squall wants to go straight there.”

“The poor thing!” exclaimed Tamisin. “We should all be there helping him!”

Kryllus turned her head and gave Tamisin a curious look. “You’re an odd one, aren’t you? Fairies don’t usually care about helping anyone.”

“I’ve been noticing that I’m not like most fairies,” Tamisin replied. “How far away did you say this beach was?”

“Not too far,” Kryllus told her, and began to pick up speed.

They were going fast now, and the water hitting Tamisin hurt her face. Closing her eyes, she tucked her head down so that it was behind Kryllus. When she looked up again, the mermaid had turned toward an ordinary-looking beach where Squall, Pacifica, and another mermaid were already sitting well back from the water’s edge.

“Hold on,” said Kryllus as the water carried them to shore. When they landed next to Squall, the little bit of their wave fell to the sand in a cascade of droplets. Squall turned toward them, her long face looking even more mournful than before. Just past the mermaids, a porpoise rested in a pool of water, watching them with dark, limpid eyes.

“What’s
she
doing here?” asked the mermaid who looked very much like Squall but with black hair.

“This is Tempest,” Pacifica said to Tamisin. “Tempest, the princess is our guest and we must be polite.”

“Why?” the mermaid snapped. “We don’t need nosy-bodies coming around to see Swift die.”

“He’s not going to die!” wailed Squall, who threw herself into the pool so she could wrap her arms around the porpoise.

Tamisin knelt beside the pool. “How did he get trapped so far from the water?” She turned toward the mermaids in time to see Kryllus and Pacifica exchange a look.

“We don’t know,” said Tempest. “We found him like this a few hours ago.”

“We can get water to him, but we can’t get him out,” Pacifica said.

Tamisin glanced at Kryllus. “Have you tried carrying him out to sea the way you carried me? That trick you did with the water should do it.”

“That was the first thing we did,” said the mermaid.

“If you all tried it together . . .”

“We did!” declared Tempest. “But we weren’t strong enough. The water was just a drizzle by the time we got it this far.”

Tamisin nodded. “Then what you need is more water.”

“And how do you suggest we get it, Miss Know-It-All—haul it here in seashells?” said Tempest. “We need a
lot
of water to get him back in the ocean our way.” The
mermaid was so upset that she was shaking and bright spots of pink had appeared on her pale cheeks.

“Actually, I was thinking about a storm,” Tamisin said, getting to her feet. Although she had called up storms involuntarily more than once, the only time she’d been able to do it when she wanted to had been when she was in real danger. It seemed worth a try.

Closing her eyes, Tamisin pictured a storm. She imagined roiling clouds and booming thunder and bolts of lightning heralding a deluge that would fill the little pool where the porpoise lay and wash him back out to sea. A shadow passed overhead and Tamisin looked up. The high, puffy clouds were lower now and getting thicker.

“What does she think she’s doing?” Tempest said in a surly voice.

“Give her a minute,” said Pacifica. “She’s said to be Titania’s daughter.”

“And that’s supposed to mean something?” said Tempest.

“Leave her alone, Tempest,” Kryllus told her. “At least the fairy’s trying.”

“Please do something!” pleaded Squall.

Tamisin closed her eyes again. She thought about black clouds and thunder shaking the air while rain lashed the ground below.

“Would you look at that!” said Pacifica.

Tamisin opened her eyes and held up her hand. A light breeze was actually stirring the sand. Dark clouds hung overhead, and a few fat drops plopped onto her
palm. She shook her head. At this rate they would all die of old age before there was enough water to move the porpoise. The only time this had worked, the storm had come hard and fast. It had been during a battle between fairies and goblins, when her own life had been at risk. She thought about how she’d felt during the battle when she wanted the storm to come—how she’d been frightened and angry, the sense of urgency . . . Storms came when she was angry, there was no way around it. If she wanted a storm now, she’d have to get mad at someone or something.

The few clouds were dissipating when Tamisin opened her eyes and tilted her face toward the sky. She thought about the trapped porpoise and the frantic mermaids. She thought about how she’d feel if someone she loved was in danger. And then she remembered when someone she loved
had
been in danger. She had gone to rescue him from a cave and together they had flown out and . . .

It was right there at the edge of her mind. She did love someone, and it wasn’t Dasras. It was someone back home in the human world. Someone who loved her, too. He was the one whose name she couldn’t remember, whose face she couldn’t quite picture. Now Tamisin was mad at whoever had taken her memories from her.

Dark clouds scudded overhead as thunder rumbled and rain began to pelt her face and clothes. She
had
to get that life back! The air around her seemed to crackle, and she felt a tingling the length of her body, rippling along her arms and legs until her fingers and toes felt as if they
were on fire. Squall squealed with delight when the rain became a deluge, just as Tamisin had pictured it. Tamisin willed the wind to grow stronger and it did, driving the rain before it so that the water engulfed the porpoise and lifted him from the pool, hurling him toward the ocean, where he plunged into the waves with a slap of his tail.

As the electric feeling coursed through her, Tamisin grew tense and the sensation seemed to build until it was almost painful. She twitched her fingers, and electricity crackled off the tips. Trying to ease the discomfort, she relaxed her muscles and was surprised when the tingling seemed to dribble from her fingers and toes. When she felt normal again, she glanced down at her hands, then up at the sky. The storm was over. The clouds had thinned, the wind calmed to a gentle breeze, and the rain turned to mist. In less than a minute the storm was gone and the only evidence of Tamisin’s efforts was the storm-wracked beach, the stunned looks on the mermaids’ faces, and Tamisin’s knowledge that someone had tampered with her memory and her life.

“That was amazing!” breathed Squall. “I didn’t know fairies could do that!”

“Most of them can’t,” said Kryllus, giving Tamisin an appraising look.

Tempest leaned forward to slap Tamisin on the back. “Thank you. I’m sorry I doubted you before, but you’re the first fairy who’s actually done something good for us. They usually act superior and make fun of mermaids.”

“I can’t imagine why,” said Tamisin as the water began
carrying them back to the ocean. “Where I come from, mermaids are considered exotic and exciting. Some people spend their entire lives wishing they could get even the tiniest glimpse of a mermaid.”

“Really? I thought you lived with Titania,” said Kryllus. “I know she doesn’t live anywhere near the ocean, but still . . .”

Tamisin shook her head as the water gently deposited her in the top of a swell. “Titania is my mother, but I only just met her. I grew up in the human world.”

“Really?” said Squall. “I’d love to go there!”

Tempest gave her sister an exasperated glance before turning back to Tamisin. “So how did you end up at Oberon’s court?”

“My father had me brought here,” Tamisin told her, then thought about what she’d said. Something didn’t feel quite right, although she couldn’t say what.

“Where do you want to go now?” asked Pacifica. “We can take you to see those pearls in the oyster bed. It’s just a little farther south.”

“No, thanks,” said Tamisin. She’d begun to feel a chill in the air, and noticed that the sun was lower in the sky. “I think it’s time I get back to the beach where you found me.”

“Then let me take you,” said Tempest.

“No!” Squall said. “I get to do it!”

“We could all take turns,” suggested Pacifica.

“Forget it!” said Kryllus as she swam to where Tamisin was treading water. “It’s my job.”

The other mermaids glowered at Kryllus as Tamisin wrapped her arms around the mermaid’s shoulders.

Squall pouted for a moment, then announced, “Well, I’m going to check on Swift. I’ll see you around, Tamisin!”

“I’m going, too,” Tempest said with a wave of her hand, and the two sisters swam off.

Pacifica sighed. “I might as well go, since you don’t need me.” She gave Kryllus a hopeful look, but when her friend didn’t disagree, she swam away.

“I thought they’d never leave,” Kryllus said, and with a swish of her tail, started swimming west along the shoreline. They traveled in silence for a few minutes before the mermaid began to angle closer to the shore. “There’s something I wanted to tell you, but I couldn’t before,” she said over her shoulder. “Do you see that beach?”

The fog-shrouded beach lay just ahead. As Tamisin watched, a man and a woman appeared out of the fog. Their faces were sad and oddly familiar, yet somehow Tamisin was certain that she’d never met them. Then the fog swirled again and they were gone.

“What about it?” Tamisin asked.

“That white sand is the sand of time. You set foot on that beach and time no longer has any meaning for you. It doesn’t actually stand still, but it passes so slowly that it might as well. I was supposed to bring you to that beach and leave you there.”

“Why?” Tamisin asked.

“A fairy messenger brought me a note this morning. It said that a dolphin was stranded on a certain beach, and
if we did as the author of the note said, he would free the dolphin before midnight tonight. If we didn’t do what he wanted, the dolphin would stay there until it died. Pacifica was with me when I got the note, so the two of us told Squall and Tempest, and they helped us find the dolphin. He was a good friend of theirs, which made it worse.”

Tamisin was incredulous. “And the author of the note wanted you to leave me on the sands of time?”

“That’s right,” said Kryllus. “I’m sorry, but I didn’t know what else to do. Whoever wrote the note had me send you the necklace so you’d come to the beach.”

“And you don’t know who wrote it?”

“I have no idea,” Kryllus said, shaking her head.

“I suppose we could ask the messenger,” said Tamisin. “Do you remember who brought the note?”

“Are you kidding?” said Kryllus. “There are more than a hundred fairy messengers, and they all look alike to me. I wouldn’t recognize that one if he bit me on the nose.”

“What should I do?” Tamisin said, mostly to herself, although she already knew the answer. Oberon’s forest was no longer safe for her, and her mind felt clearer than it had in days. Someone had made her think she loved Dasras, and blocked her memories—memories that were starting to come back. It was time that she went home.

“If I were you, I’d watch my back,” said the mermaid. “Somebody at Oberon’s court really doesn’t like you.”

Chapter 12

They arrived at the Great Ditch a few hours after dawn. “We’re supposed to climb down this?” Jak said, peering over the edge of a sheer cliff. It was a lot bigger than he’d expected.

Lamia Lou nodded. “You have to if you want to get to the other thide. There’th a path over there you can uthe.”

Jak eyed the path. It was only a foot or so wide in places, but he’d climbed worse. “I think I can handle it. Thanks for helping us get this far.”

“I’m glad we could help,” said Lamia Lou. “Thay hello to Tamithin for uth and come vithit ath thoon ath you can.”

“We should head back now,” Herbert told Lamia Lou. “If we hurry, we can reach the Sograssy Sea by dinnertime tomorrow.”