Girl at the Bottom of the Sea (19 page)

“The dolphins have some things for you,” Menja said. “Some gifts from us.”

“You've already done so much,” Syrena said, smiling.

“Yeah, really,” Sophie chimed in.

“What you are doing for us, both of you, is beyond anything we could do for you,” Menja said. “Sophia, we have been tending this mill since we were children. Just kidnapped slaves. The king had mistaken us for grown women, but we were just babies. And we worked his mill, slowly growing into our Ogress selves. Eventually we grew large enough to banish the king, but then we understood how close to the Invisible we were. It's probably what made the king so terrible! And so we continue to mill the salt. Perhaps after you're done with your duties, perhaps my sister and I can take a break! Or mill something else. Who knows?”

“It's nice to think about,” Fenja said dreamily.

“I would hug you and kiss you,” Syrena said, “but would be awkward. You both so big.”

“Sending you big, crushing giant hugs!” Menja boomed.

And Sophie and Syrena swam up along the Swilkie, and as it widened, swam easily into the eye.

“Getting in is easy,” Syrena said. “Leaving is hard.”

“Am I going to get caught in the whirlpool again?” Sophie worried aloud. After all she had been through, her resolve to not be a whiny teenager, to behave in a way more fitting to a half-Odmieńce, was forgotten in the face of the Swilkie.

“Not unless you screw it up,” Syrena said. “Must leap out! Like dolphin. Or like mermaid.”

“Leap out?”

“Ya,” Syrena nodded. “Come up to the surface fast and strong. Explode from surface! Like rocket, ya? Leap into the air! Leap away from the Swilkie. No problem.”

“Ya,” Sophie said, in an unfriendly mockery of the mermaid's voice. “Just ‘leap.' No big deal.”

“Do not do that, Sophie,” Syrena snapped. “Too cheap for magic girl.”

“Sorry,” Sophie mumbled. She had mocked Syrena, but really she had only envy and respect for the mermaid. They had grown even closer down here in the Ogresses' world, and all Sophie wanted was to be as confident as Syrena, as worldly—or underworldly. Ocean-y? She wanted to believe she could leap out from the Swilkie, easy and elegant as a flying fish skimming the ocean surface. Even a giant, cumbersome
whale could break the surface with grace.

That thought gave Sophie an idea. She had morphed into a shark to defeat her grandmother, so why couldn't she morph into a sea creature to dive out from the Swilkie? Why couldn't she become a whale? Or even a mermaid?

I could!
Sophie thought, a marvelous thought.
I could become a mermaid!
Her powers intimidated her, and some of them truly scared her. She didn't quite understand how she had become the shark, but she knew it had to do with desperation, and fear and anger, powerful emotions that fused with her magic. She wasn't angry at the Swilkie, and she wasn't terrified, not like she was of her grandmother. But she was definitely scared.

Swimming behind the mermaid, the water under her command, Sophie watched the way Syrena's tail writhed and kicked. It undulated elegantly, but with the force of something shot from a cannon. Sophie imagined her lower body moving in such a way. She mimicked the mermaid's motions, as much as she could in her human body. Above them the sea's surface was a sheet of glittering blue, framed by the dense froth of the Swilkie.
Like jumping through a hoop,
Sophie thought. A flaming hoop. What if she missed it and belly flopped into the Swilkie? Well, the water would seize her and spin her and make her its puppet. She'd twirl for days, weeks, months, until Syrena broke the spell or grew bored and went on to her party. No, she couldn't let it get her again. Sophie kicked her legs like pistons, watching as Syrena burst through the surface, her body arcing in the air above her, casting
a sparkling shadow above the water. And then it was Sophie's turn.

The zawolanie that left her mouth created its own miniature storm inside the whirlpool. Sophie saw the water change as the sound hit it, creating a path for her to follow out and over the Swilkie. The sound of the zawolanie as she broke the surface was an unearthly siren; it rang in Sophie's own ears, briefly, and then she was up and over, plunging back into the sea. She had done it. She had made it out.

ABOVE THE WAVES
, Syrena's mouth hung open as if ready to sing her own curse. Around them bobbed a pool of dolphins, some wearing packs, like burros, some outfitted with reins of seaweed and linen. All of them were decorated with large chunks of salt, and all of them were looking directly at Sophie.

Eeeeeee iiieeee eieieie,
one sounded to Syrena. The mermaid looked confused and a little offended at the noise, and turned back and forth between the creature and Sophie.

“Well, you were correct, there is only one mermaid!” Syrena barked at the dolphin. “And it is I!”

The pod looked at Syrena, and then returned their gaze to Sophie. Where she once had legs, she now had tails—two solid fishtails covered in a mosaic of scales, ending in flukes where her feet had been. Sophie's own eyes widened at the sight of herself. She lifted her new tails and gathered them in her arms, laughter pouring from her mouth. She inspected her scales, glinting like a chain mail of new jewels. She
gazed at her twin flukes, the delicate webbing at the scalloped tips, and rubbed them against her face.

“Oh, come now!” Syrena hollered. “What is this, love festival? That nice, you help yourself out of Swilkie with magic, very smart. Now—” the mermaid clapped her hands together—“back to girl, please. We must go to party.”

“But Syrena—
look
!” Sophie swam toward the mermaid—swam! Like a mermaid! She tilted her hips and her tails gently propelled her through the water. “Check it
out
! I'm a mermaid!” She brought her hands, full of tail, up to Syrena's furrowed brow.

“No, you
not
mermaid. You Odmieńce making magic. Now, come on. Back to normal.”

Sophie could not
believe
she'd just been coasting through the sea—for how long? It felt like ages! Coasting through the sea on a boring current of water when she could have been
mermaiding
through the water with her twin tails! She gathered her hair behind her and did a triple flip, rolling over and over, her tails muscular and gleaming. When she came to a stop she was dizzy and giggling. Suddenly it wasn't a big deal to have a head full of tangles. She was not an unkempt girl—she was a
mermaid
.

“Sophie, no,” Syrena said. “Is not good. Can't stay in shifted shape for so long. Is moment-magic.” She cleared her throat, and soberly swam over to Sophie's tails, running her fingers along scales. “Very nice job, though.” She relented. “Very nice, the double tail. Make sense for human girl.”

“
Odmieńce
girl,” Sophie said proudly, conjuring a haughty confidence.

“Oh, please,” Syrena scoffed. “Odmieńce girl. Enough, now. Dolphins await. Expecting girl and mermaid. You confuse them.”

“I'm going to stay like this,” Sophie declared.

Syrena shook her head sternly. “Over my dead mermaid body.”

“You're not the boss of me, Syrena,” Sophie said. Jeez, weren't they just
in love
with each other down at the Ogress cave? Now they were back to their bickering. Maybe if Sophie were Syrena's equal, a mermaid too, things would be smoother between them.

“I sort of boss of you,” Syrena said, her eyes glinting. “This my world, down here. You my charge.”

“But if I'm a mermaid it's my world, too. We can both be the boss.”

Syrena snorted with frustration, tiny glinting bubbles trailing out from her nostrils like a sea-bull. “Sophie! You not mermaid. You in your magic now, and I tell you, not good. Not good to be in magic for so long.”

“Which way to the party?” Sophie asked Syrena.

“We go when you girl again.”

Sophie turned to the pod of dolphins. “Which way to Laeso Island?”

The dolphins answered in a peal of unintelligible squeaks.

“God! Well, I guess I'll just figure it out on my own!” And Sophie took off.

Her speed took her own breath away. With her two tails, how fast she could cut through the waters! She turned only to make sure the rest of her party had not been blown away by her powerful wake, but
there was Syrena just behind her, followed by the pod of dolphins, frolicking as they traveled, as dolphins will.

“Wrong way,” Syrena said grimly, pulling up alongside Sophie and grabbing her by a fin. “This way.” The mermaid made a sharp turn, practically slapping Sophie with her tail. Sophie, too, made a quick swerve and was soon on the path to Laeso.

Syrena swam just ahead of the girl-mermaid, and no matter how hard Sophie worked the waters she could not catch up with her.
Fine
, she thought.
Show off. Syrena's been in the water for hundreds of years. I think I'm doing pretty awesome for my first day as a mermaid.

Breaking from the pod, a single dolphin shot ahead to swim beside Sophie. Its head was covered in an intricately braided harness fashioned from seaweed, and giant chunks of salt were threaded through the headdress like beads. Sophie slowed for a moment and gave the creature a warm smile, reaching out to pet its flank. It was smooth, smooth like Syrena's skin. The creature was darker gray on top, fading to white at the front of its body and to a dusky light gray at the back. In the center, the colors met in a dip like an hourglass. Sophie traced the pattern lightly, smiling. The creature's dark eye met hers and its chittering beak opened.

“Hello, Sophie.” It was not the undecipherable trill of a dolphin. It was the flat monotone of the Dola.

“No!” Sophie wailed, in exactly the voice she kept trying not to use. She used it again. “No!” She kicked her tails like a baby mermaid having a tantrum. Up ahead, Syrena turned around to see what was
the matter. A glimpse at the dolphin told her everything. She broke out into a smile so big you could see her baleen.

“Dola!
Tak dobre cie widziec!
” The mermaid waved her hand above her head in a happy hello.

“This isn't fair,” Sophie said, the fight already half gone from her. She had debated with the Dola before, when she had turned her back on the wisdom and kindness of her Aunt Hennie, when she had used her magic in the service of her own stubborn self, instead of what it was meant to serve. But what was that, even?
Humanity
? The
world
?

“
Nie ma problemu.
” The Dola spoke Polish through the dolphin's mouth, the flat, monotonous sound of its voice giving Sophie instant creeps.

“Give me a break!” Sophie pleaded with the dolphin Dola “I have to do all this horrible, hard work, and I get all these amazing powers
and I can't even have a little
fun
with them? This is totally not fair.”

The Dola shrugged its dorsal fin. “No such thing as ‘fair.' Only what is, and what is not. You are not to use your shape-shifting like this. Not for such prolonged period of time. It's not good for your body. You are not meant to do it.”

“And yet here I am, doing it!” Sophie yelled. “God, don't you get tired of these arguments?”

“Yes, always,” the Dola replied calmly. Even the calm and acquiescent timbre of its voice made Sophie want to die. It was like nails on the chalkboard of her soul.

“You have a tremendous gift, this ability to shape-shift. And it is tremendously taxing on your body, on your magic.”

“But I feel
great
,” Sophie insisted, and did a mermaid leap to prove her point, breaking the water's surface and gracefully returning, slapping at the waves with her lush flukes for effect.

“Yes, you are doing very well here in the ocean. But you're getting a constant salt infusion. Being with the Ogresses healed you, and the salt at Laeso Island is particularly replenishing. But you will not be down here forever. You must conserve your energy. There will be a time of recovery, and it will be hard on you. Don't make it harder.”

“And what if I don't?” Sophie sulked, but she already knew the answer.

“I will stay beside you until you obey me or become mad from my presence,” the dolphin Dola said.