More than Magic: Semester Aboard (17 page)

"Yeah, Michigan has a rich, unique
culture."

Mariana growled in frustration. "I cannot win
with you!"

"I'm sure you will someday." He started
messing up Mariana's hair. "I've spent a long time perfecting how
to be a jerk, little calf."

"I've told you not to call me that!"

"I've spent a long time perfecting how to be
a jerk, little calf." Dani used the exact same inflection he had
before.

The word calf, which had never struck me as
endearing, made more sense as a nickname now that I knew they
weren't married. For the first time their bickering sounded playful
and didn't make me worry about how their honeymoon was going.
Mariana ducked out from under his hand and stomped away. Dani
whistled something at her and she turned and whistled back, still
looking annoyed. I noticed that the stars seemed to be getting
brighter. No, everything else was getting darker.

"Oh no," I groaned. "My spell is wearing
off!" Even though I was disappointed, I almost smiled at how insane
the words I was saying sounded.

Dani gave me a friendly elbow jab in the
side. "Practice makes perfect."

More confident this time, I aimed my wand at
my eyes. "
Mar
!" Once again everything got a bit easier to
see. I couldn't hold back a triumphant grin.

"Come on," Dani said.

I followed him out of the water and up onto
the beach. When we stopped I looked around the island. Even with my
night vision I could tell that it was incredibly dark. The moon was
just a tiny, thin sliver and we were miles from any man-made source
of light. I shivered; now that I was out of the water I was cold.
Then I felt something odd and looked over at Dani. He had his hand
just above my shoulder and a small ball of water was gathering in
his palm. I realized that he was drying me off.

"Whoa," I breathed. He chuckled and in a
moment I was completely dry and a bit warmer.

"Better?"

"Yeah, thanks!"

Mariana walked over to us. Her hair looked
blonde again and she looked rather cold too. Dani dried her off and
we stood on the beach for a moment. It was completely silent except
for the sound of the waves gently lapping on the sand. It was
almost magical. I tightened my grip on my wand and giggled.

"What's so funny?" Mariana whispered.

I blushed. "I was...I was just thinking how
the island seems magical, but then I realized..."

She and Dani laughed. Dani gently tousled my
hair.

"Enjoying your newfound worldview, then?" he
asked.

"Yeah."

Dani smiled. "There is, in fact, a magical
reason we're here."

"What?" I asked.

"Listen."

We fell silent again. At first, I couldn't
hear anything but the water. After a moment I realized there was
another sound, but I couldn't quite identify it. We listened for
another minute and I realized that sounded like singing.

"What is that?" I whispered.

"Let's find out," Dani said. I could tell
from his smirk that he knew exactly what it was, but followed him
up the beach nonetheless.

We found a small path and followed it between
low bushes and small trees.

"Ow," Dani said suddenly. He bent and
examined his leg. "Watch it, these bushes have thorns."

"Are you ok?" I asked.

"Yeah, it's just a scratch." Dani raked his
fingers though his wet hair and gathered a small ball of water. He
knelt down and held it against his leg where the thorn had
scratched him. After a few seconds he tossed the water away and
stood. "All better."

"All better?" I echoed. "Like, it stopped
hurting or it's gone?"

"Gone." Dani started walking again.
Incredulous, I followed.

Even though I was dry, I was still getting a
bit cold. I glanced behind me at Mariana as we walked. She was
human now, right?

"Aren't you cold?" I asked her.

"It's a bit chilly," she said. "But I'm
fine."

"You're human though, aren't you?"

"Yeah, but I'm from New York," she giggled.
"This is like a nice spring evening. Are you cold?"

"A bit." Even as I spoke I remembered that
Thomas had said a fire wand could make heat. "Hang on!" I was
feeling pretty good after having successfully cast two spells on
myself. I wasn't sure where to point it, so I just aimed my wand at
my chest and concentrated on feeling warm. I started to picture
sitting in front of a fire, but decided that I might end up making
fire that way, so instead I just imagined being by a heater. When I
was fairly sure that I wouldn't end up setting myself on fire, I
cast what I hoped would be my very first heat spell. "
Mar
!"
A faint warmth started to spread from my chest to the rest of my
body. It was a weak spell, but just strong enough to take the edge
off of the chilly night air.

"You catch on quick," Dani said. He ruffled
my hair yet again and I didn't understand why it seemed to bother
Mariana, I didn't mind it at all.

We resumed our hike across the island. When
everything started to get dark again I didn't get discouraged.
Instead, I paused, aimed my wand at my eyes again, and cast another
night vision spell. I couldn't keep a smile off my face as it
worked once again. It was probably wishful thinking, but it almost
looked like things were just a bit brighter this time.

The island wasn't very big at all and by the
time my spells started to wear off again we had reached the other
side. I cast them both again. I didn't notice a difference in heat,
but this time I was positive that my night vision spell was
brighter. The beach on this side of the island was rocky and there
were large boulders in the water. Some of them had animals on top
of them. I could see the same animals swimming in the water. They
looked sort of like the sea lions we kept seeing. The faint sound
we had heard had been getting louder and louder; now it was loud
and clear. It sounded like whales, but it was a happy, playful
sound.

I started to edge closer to the beach, but
Dani flung out his arm and stopped me. "Wait. They'll run from
humans, even a witch."

"What are they?"

"Water sprites."

I watched the water sprites curiously as they
dove off of the rocks and splashed around. The music was clearly
coming from them. "Are they singing?"

"Yes," Mariana said. "Happy, isn't it?"

"Yeah." I felt content just listening to it.
"Are there words?"

"Who knows," Dani chuckled. "It's not Panth,
if that's what you mean. These guys are magical creatures, but
they're just animals."

We watched them for what seemed like ages.
They dove and then came back up and did flips above the water like
dolphins. Some sat happily on rocks, others just floated around.
One swam right up to where the low waves were crashing and let the
tide roll him around the beach. All the while their joyful music
filled the air.

When I recast my spells for a second time,
Dani nudged me. "We should get you back to your yacht, you're going
to be really tired from all this spell casting."

"Ok."

We turned and slowly hiked away from the
beach and back across the island. We waded down into the water.
Mariana dove right in and when she surfaced her hair was already
green. It seemed like she didn't have to wait before turning into a
mermaid, it happened the moment she entered the water. While I
tried to get used to the water temperature, she swam out ahead,
dove down, and did a flip like the sprites. I looked past her to
the wide open, empty stretch of water. I turned to Dani.

"How are we going to find the yacht?"

"We'll find it," he said confidently. "Let's
go." He moved so that I could climb onto his back again. "Hold on
tight, I'm going to swim a lot faster this time."

"Ok."

Dani dropped his head under the water and
took off. I almost let go in surprise; we were practically flying.
I bent down closer to the surface and tightened my grip on his
shoulders. The water almost stung as it broke against my shoulders
and the wind was as cold as ice on my face. I turned my head a bit
to keep the wind out of my eyes and saw that we were actually
leaving a wake behind us. I felt him slow down and his head popped
up.

"I want to close the distance a bit faster,"
he said. "Hold your breath and just tap my shoulder when you need
air, ok?"

"Ok," I said nervously.

"Ready?"

I took a deep breath and held it. "Mm
hmm."

I squeezed my eyes shut just as we went
totally underwater. I thought we were going fast before, but it
felt like we were shooting through the water like a bullet. My eyes
felt like they were being forced open from the pressure of the
water and I had to press my face against his back. I held on to his
shoulders for dear life. My legs couldn't even keep their grip on
his waist and were just trailing out uselessly behind me. I held my
breath for as long as I could, and then tapped his shoulder. Dani
slowed immediately and rose back above the water. I glanced behind
us and saw the outline of a tiny island in the distance.

"There's your yacht," he said, nodding his
head ahead of us. I could just see faint lights in the distance. "I
think anyway. It's the only one around."

We had already caught up to it? I looked at
the far away island again. "How fast can you swim?" I gasped.

"I can hit around 120 if I'm trying."

"Miles per hour?" No way!

"Knots." I had no idea how fast a knot was,
but I assumed it meant he could really move if he wanted to. "One
more deep breath. Ready?"

Once again we went flying through the water,
just under the surface. This time he surfaced before I tapped him.
We were right alongside the yacht!

"How fast is a knot?" I demanded. This was
impossible.

"One nautical mile per hour," he said with a
smirk. I decided not to give him the satisfaction of asking how far
a nautical mile was.

"How do I get back on?" I asked instead. Dani
had stopped swimming and the yacht was slowly moving away from
us.

"The same way I get back on the ship, since I
never answered you about that." He started swimming again, a bit
faster than the yacht, and then kept pace right along the bow.
"This will be a bit trickier than the ship, since I've got less
space to work with. I don't want any crewmembers up there to see
us. Anyway, when I let go, start treading water. You might want to
brace yourself too."

He let go and dove underwater before I could
say anything. I started treading water as the yacht slowly slid
past me. Suddenly, something hit me.
Hard
. It nearly knocked
the wind out of me. I had just enough time to realize that I was
completely out of the water and flying through the air, when I was
jolted to a stop. I took a moment to catch my breath and get my
bearings. Dani had an arm around my waist and one hand on the
railing of the yacht. He was balancing on a small ledge that jutted
out from the second deck. The door to my cabin was right there in
front of us. I grabbed for the railing and Dani helped me climb
over.

"How did you do that?"

Dani grinned. "I dove down, jumped out of the
water, and grabbed you on the way up."

I couldn't believe he could get that high out
of the water. No, he could get up to the fourth deck of our ship.
"You can jump high enough to get back on the ship?" I gasped.

"You get propelled out of the water going
over a hundred knots and you're going to get a lot of air. Question
answered?"

"Yeah," I said in awe.

"Sorry if that hurt, by the way. I'm told
that if you're expecting to be grabbed it hurts more."

"It's fine, I was just startled."

Dani smiled. "Well, I hope you had fun. Enjoy
the rest of your trip."

"I did have fun. Thank you."

"Sure thing, kiddo," he said. "See you back
on the ship, sweet dreams." He ruffled my hair and when he took his
hand away I saw that he had dried me off again. He flipped backward
off of the yacht and vanished under the water.

I stayed out on the deck until my spells wore
off again, smiling the entire time. I had never imagined a night
like this, even after finding out about magic. I wondered if
experiences like this were common for magical people. The fact that
Dani and Mariana had gone out of their way to get me had touched
me. I was glad they seemed to consider me a friend. I was starting
to really like Mariana, even though she seemed sort of shy. Now
that I knew they weren't married it seemed like Dani treated
Mariana like a younger sister and he'd started doing the same to
me. Somewhere along the way tonight I had started thinking of Dani
like a big brother, even though he wasn't much older than I
was.

At last, the effect of casting all of those
spells caught up to me. I yawned, and then quietly crept back into
my room. Whitney was sound asleep and I carefully climbed into bed.
As I drifted off to sleep I could swear that the sound of the water
sprites happy song still hung in the air.

Chapter 11

Before I knew it the four days in Ecuador
were over. I was standing in the port, waiting to get on the ship,
when I remembered the vampire. My time in the Galapagos had been so
action-packed and had gone by so fast that I hadn't had a spare
second to think about the threat lurking on the ship. A chill went
though me as I stood in line by the gangway. I wondered if getting
on the ship by myself was a bad idea. There were still a couple
more hours before we had to be on board, so I slipped out of the
line and moved back so that I could scan the people in it. The line
was full of familiar faces, but not any of the five I was looking
for. At last, I spotted someone with vivid red hair, too bright to
be natural. Unless, of course, that person wasn't human. I hurried
over and Charlie stepped out of the line and met me partway.