The Potion Diaries (10 page)

‘Yes, Arjun, keep going,’ whispers Kirsty encouragingly. Arjun clearly spots the mermaid too, and focuses his voice on her, trying to make it sound like he’s singing to her alone. Her tail flicks, a graceful motion like a petal in a breeze. Her long, mauve-coloured fingers caress the pearl around her neck as she listens. Kirsty nudges me. ‘Arjun’s doing well. See that pearl? That will be perfect. And there should be enough essence there for both teams.’

Teams. She’s said it, now, and I didn’t even think of it before. I am a team against Arjun and Anita. Although we will help each other out along the way, only one team can win the Hunt.

Arjun’s mermaid is moving towards us. We’re riveted by the action, so engrossed that we don’t notice the super-yacht
ZA
creeping in front of us. Kirsty, the sharpest of the four of us, yells, and immediately pulls at the oars to get us out of the yacht’s path. While Damian sings to Aphroditas, the yacht is going to block our path to the Rising.

‘Hey!’ Kirsty drops the oars, stands up in the boat and screams. The action rocks the boat severely, and water sloshes into our hull. ‘That’s illegal! Get out of our way!’

The yacht keeps on coming. I almost laugh. Who are we going to complain to if they prevent us from accessing a pearl? No one will care. This is a Wilde Hunt. All rules except the Hunt rules are out the window.

It’s a lot darker out here, outside of the circle. We stare in dismay as the waves rock our boat further from the action, further from the gathering of mermaids.

Arjun’s voice breaks.

‘Don’t stop singing,’ Kirsty says, her voice grim. Her gaze is focused away from the boats, at a seemingly dark patch of the ocean. I follow her eyeline and struggle to see anything but the gentle rise and fall of the waves until – wait! – there’s the tiniest ripple on the surface.

‘There’s another,’ whispers Anita beside me. Another mermaid? I’m at once hopeful and afraid. A mermaid outside the ring of the Rising is almost unheard of. But there are other creatures in the ocean, ones that would be much less delightful to meet. A fin appears out of the water, and although I only glance at it for a second, my fear is eased: she’s definitely a mermaid. But the fin has a deep gouge out of it, as if she’s recently been attacked, and I hope she’s strong enough to produce a pearl.

A few feet away from the boat, she re-emerges. I have to stop myself from recoiling – her face is full of wrinkles, the thick bands of her hair in tatters – she must be ancient but, if she’s like any other mermaid, she’s also vain. If she sees surprise or disgust on any of our faces, she will surely bolt.

She approaches the boat, her lips widening into a grin. But that grin is a horror . . . teeth sharpened to a point, more shark than human. Worse still is the stench – rot, decay and mouldering fish. Anita and I both have to hold our breath, but luckily her attention is fixed on Arjun. He’s white as a sheet but holding his nerve well, and Kirsty’s hand on his shoulder is lending him reassurance and encouragement.

He sings and his voice barely wavers. I never even knew Arjun had it in him, but as I look into his eyes I see he is locked in a kind of trance with the mermaid.

Kirsty’s fingers dig a little deeper into his shoulder.

‘Can you do anything to help him?’ I ask Kirsty.

‘He’s doing everything right. He just needs to hold on a little longer . . .’

The other boats are leaving now, their engines rumbling, and if their wake interrupts the trance – or more likely, if they continue to play dirty and deliberately try to break it – we will lose the pearl for ever. The fact that we haven’t even seen the pearl yet is a bad enough sign.

Arjun’s voice takes on a more urgent quality, but the mer . . . mermaid hardly seems like the right term, mer
crone
seems more accurate, will not be rushed. Slowly, ever so slowly, she reaches down into her shell and brings out the tiniest pearl I have ever seen, barely a seed.

Arjun extends his hand out and she reaches to meet his. But then the
ZA
yacht blasts its horn, attempting to scatter any remaining mermaids.

Including ours. But there’s a glint of cunning in her eye as she spooks . . . and snatches at Arjun’s arm in the process.

All at once the boat tips, the trance breaks and the mercrone dives. Anita and I leap for Arjun, grabbing him by one leg each.

‘Keep hold of him!’ Kirsty cries as she fumbles through her bag. Between us, we are stronger than the sea creature and she surfaces again, hissing and spitting through her teeth.

Then with a powerful flick of her tail she bends forward and bites his upper arm. Arjun’s screams fill my ears and I beat at her with my fist while still maintaining my fierce grip on Arjun.

‘Sam, pull him back!’

I throw my other arm around Arjun as Kirsty tosses a handful of powder in the mercrone’s face. Now it is her turn to scream and she releases Arjun, her hands clawing at her face. She dives. With a final tug we pull him into the middle of the rowing boat, collapsing on top of one another in a big pile.

‘Alkali,’ Kirsty says. ‘It reacts with the salt in their skin and burns them.’

‘Serves her right,’ says Arjun, wincing as Anita wipes his bite wound with a natural anaesthetic.
Aelgi, for wounds of the sea – to help the blood clot, to prevent scarring.

‘As does this . . .’ He opens his palm, and in the centre of it is a little pearl.

Anita and I let out a
whoop!
of joy. The first ingredient is ours!

I catch Kirsty’s eye as she pulls the first stroke back towards shore. She shakes her head at me.

‘Hey, Arjun, can I take a look?’ I ask.

He places the pearl in my hand. I roll it between my fingers, and it disappears into the pads of my fingertips as I press down. I pass it back over to Anita.

It’s too small for two teams to share. Less than twenty-four hours into the Hunt, and the Kemi family are already out.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Samantha

K
IRSTY DROPS ME OFF IN SILENCE. WE’VE been silent most of the way home. Anita and Arjun offered me a lift back in their car, but I couldn’t face the excited talk. Plus, I didn’t want them to have to feel sorry for me – they have more important things to worry about, like figuring out the next ingredient.

Oblivion, or permanent amnesia: mix four strands of jellyfish stingers with two cups of Lethe water. Heat until warm and then drink from favourite mug.

That’s what I need right now. Anything to forget that I disappointed Kirsty, disgraced my parents, disobeyed my grandad and failed at the first hurdle.

I stand in the alleyway for a moment, my back up against the wall. I close my eyes and breathe – anything not to cry. The first signs of light are creeping onto the horizon, the dawn of a new day. It was stupid to try. Who do I think I am, going out into the Wilds with Kirsty without a plan? My first taste of adventure, and it’s bitter.

At least I can get out of my wet shoes.

I pluck up the courage to walk through the side door and into the kitchen. The whole family – except Grandad – is sitting at the table, waiting for me. They don’t immediately look up, and for a split second I wonder if they don’t know the news yet. Except that Mum gets up and takes a plate out of the oven, a plate piled high with a stack of pancakes – my favourite. There’s real maple syrup out on the table, the expensive kind. And that’s when I realise, they know. Of course they know.

Suddenly I can’t help but let the tears well up in my eyes. Mum is over to me in a flash, and I fall into her open arms. ‘It’s okay, sweetie,’ she says, brushing her hand over my hair, like I was Molly’s age all over again. ‘You tried.’

I nod into her shoulder, then finally extricate myself from her embrace. ‘I just thought . . .’

Dad and Molly are behind her. Dad looks at me with a mixture of concern and I-told-you-so, whereas Molly is distraught that her big sister is in tears. I really thought we had a chance to change things here. Now I have to put my hopes back on the shelf.

I wipe my cheeks and Mum walks me over to the table, sitting me firmly down with her hands on my shoulders. ‘Eat, young lady. You’ve had a long night . . .’

I pour the red-gold maple syrup over my pancakes (
maple – for comfort and lethargy, to warm the blood
) and slice my knife through the entire stack.

But then I notice something unusual. Apart from the scrape of cutlery on plates, there’s no background noise. The screen above the kitchen countertop is blank.

Mum and Dad always watch the casts in the morning, even if it’s early. It’s a daily ritual: whoever’s in the kitchen first turns on the casts and checks the weather, news and traffic for the day. I try to keep my voice casual. ‘So can we turn on the TV already?’

My parents hesitate. I grab the remote, and my worst fear materialises on the screen.

It’s our old family crest. The only reminder that the Kemis were once a great family now has a giant red X slashed over the top of it. A voiceover begins.

After the shock announcement about Princess Evelyn’s condition, a Wilde Hunt was called late last night. Of the twelve alchemists to participate, first out of the Hunt is Samantha Kemi, representing the formerly eminent Kemi family, who was unable to procure the first ingredient. For the rest of the teams, the Hunt is still on as the race for the Princess’s cure becomes ever more urgent . . .

Mum places her finger over mine, pressing the power button on the remote. The screen goes blank. ‘Why don’t you get some rest and then you can come with us to Molly’s gifting ceremony this afternoon?’

And just like that, my day has gone from crazy to normal. ‘I will. I just have to do one thing first.’

I stand up and reluctantly push the heavy wooden door that leads from the kitchen to the lab, ready to apologise and face my grandad’s wrath.

The lab exists in semi-permanent darkness, the old glass windows too streaked with the smoke of old experiments to ever truly be clean. The smell of kerosene lights, boiling plant matter and preserving fluid invades my nostrils, a smell both comforting and revolting. It takes a few moments for me to spot him, but that’s because he’s hunched over the table and so still he might not even be breathing.

As I walk towards him, his image distorts through the glass of a great round beaker – his bulbous nose made more prominent by the bending light, one eye suddenly becoming huge and green in the convex.

‘Sam, come. Tell me what I am brewing.’ His voice is kind, without a trace of anger.

I draw closer and am bowled over by the noxious fumes emanating from the bubbling mixture. The substance is a rich magenta. I swallow the nausea rising in my throat and place both hands on the ancient, knot-riddled, oak table. It’s the small details that Grandad reminds me are the most important. Like mixing potions on an organic surface so that the natural ingredients remain potent. We try to stick to natural materials, though it isn’t always possible or practical. From the other end of the table, Grandad pours two drops of a bright gold liquid from a small vial. The liquid is pumped through a maze of delicate glass tubing, looping around and around, each time having a little air added to it, before it finally drops in the potion in the beaker.

I hold my breath and bend closer for another look. ‘Um, it looks like . . . some kind of headache potion?’

Grandad tuts at me. ‘Why would I add goldenrod to a headache potion?’

Goldenrod – for sore throats and empty wallets.
Grandad’s right, of course. Not for headaches at all.

‘Concentrate, Sam!’

But the remedy won’t come. I’ve been up all night, and I’m almost asleep on my feet.

Grandad sighs. ‘The Hunt is a fool’s errand, Sam. You can’t hope to revive the fortunes of alchemists just because of some quest. While synthetic ingredients still dominate, there’s no place for us.’

It’s this kind of talk that makes an old frustration wring my stomach. ‘Why though, Grandad? If we update some of the store systems, replace some of the empty ingredients, maybe do a bit of advertising . . . there are people who remember the Kemi name. People who would shop here again if they knew we were back in action.’