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Stay true north. Milo’s words came to mind seemingly from nowhere. Three simple words that reminded me to stay my course. To hold onto the next right step. Focusing on the past wasn’t going to save anyone. It wasn’t going to change things as they were. And it certainly wasn’t going to matter now. All I could do was focus on the next battle in front of me—and keep going.
I studied the water around me, looking for some remnant of a clue that might lead me in the right direction. Down here, it was nearly impossible to tell left from right or north from south. But as a mermaid, I had keen senses that worked in ways I couldn’t fathom. For instance, I could feel every bubble, temperature change, and switch of current direction against my skin.
So, when I paid close attention, falling fully in tune with the oceanic void surrounding me, I found I could sense an unusual pattern in the way the water flowed against the nearly translucent fins of my tail. I watched the water swirling around it. One current circulated in a way that pulled my caudal fin in one direction so subtly I might’ve missed it if I had been moving any faster.
The current funneled slowly into the ocean floor, twisting like a ghostly rope and the further down it went, the stronger it became. It flowed backward, against the motion of the rest of the sea, in a way that assured me it was created by something outside of nature. Where the ocean’s natural undertow traveled and where this other stream led eventually met, merging like two ribbons swirling around each other, like twisting tides forming a path beyond what I could see.
I followed them, straining my eyes. Despite my siren sight, eventually the ocean’s darkness became strong enough to hinder me. This was a depth far too deep for even mermaids. I could only imagine how difficult of a time Cordelia’s divers would have getting down this far. This is why she wanted my help. But I knew she would find a way to do it with or without them or me. I just hoped she hadn’t found it already back in the present. So, I kept on, fueled by urgency, following the gentle twisting currents that swept me along calmly as if time wasn’t of the essence.
But time didn’t matter here. It was a concept that didn’t exist in this place. I could’ve been swimming for hours or minutes, God only knows. And when the spiraling currents suddenly split into three streams dancing and unraveling across each other, I knew some source of magic must be near. I swam on slowly, listening, feeling, hoping.
When my hand brushed up against something cold and solid. I yanked it away in reaction. But I quickly regained the courage to reach forward again. My fingertips met a metallic prong, and I worked my hand along the rest of it, feeling the nearly identical shape of two more on either side of it. I couldn’t see it, but it was clear to me what was pulling these waters together, binding them within life, time, and space—the three prongs. I gasped in disbelief—if that’s even possible underwater.
It was real. The trident was real.
I reached to grab it, feeling around blindly as I wrapped my hands around its metal rod base. It wasn’t easy to uproot from its buried place in the sand beneath. With a grunt that sent bubbles bursting from my mouth, I thrashed my tail upward with all the strength I could manage and dislodged the trident from its ancient hold in the dense sand. It was all I could do to silently pray that removing it wouldn’t summon some monstrous tsunami or disaster from the gods.
But nothing disastrous happened that I could tell. I smiled and swam upward, lugging the heavy scepter in both hands as I flicked my tail up and down to send me back to the surface. I wondered what awaited me there. Would the ships still be afloat? Were my friends still alive? I was almost afraid to discover what I would find waiting for me above the sea.
As I swam back toward the light, the shadow of the ships above came into focus, and the distant sound of cannon fire resumed as if I’d never left. I rushed to the surface, the water cascading over me as I broke through the barrier of sky and sea. I did my best to keep the trident hidden under the water, and I shouted for help over the sound of pistols firing and men fighting.
It was a bloody and bruised Noah who rushed to the railing of the sinking ship. He motioned for me to wait, and without much of a choice, I did. He disappeared for a moment, leaving me confused, before the sound of a boat smacking the water made me look over at the side of the tilted hull. He’d cut the ropes holding the skiff so that it dropped down over the side.
I swam to it with haste. McKenzie rushed to join Noah, and he helped her climb down into the skiff, grimacing from the strain on his sore muscles no doubt. It wasn’t a far leap, as the ship was almost underwater, so it only took some careful footwork down the part of the hull that wasn’t yet submerged.
“Here!” I reached over the side of the skiff and placed the trident inside. “Keep it safe.”
Noah and McKenzie offered their assistance to pull me up into the boat. I gripped their arms, pushing up with my tail as best I could as they pulled me into the skiff with them. The wood scraping along my tail hurt, but not as much as the pain of transforming back once my scales began to dry. Before my fish parts became human again, I quickly reached down and plucked a scale from my own tail, wincing from the pain. It felt like ripping off a fingernail.
“Damn.” Noah shook his head. “You really are a mermaid.”
“Is that the hardest thing for you to believe after all this?” I asked. “Where’s Milo?”
Noah glanced back up at the ship. “He should be coming.”
I gripped the section of my tail that would become my thighs as it transformed back into legs. I was thankful for the long tunic I’d kept on that covered enough of me to keep from revealing everything between my legs as I lay on the boat waiting to be human again. McKenzie tossed me the pants I’d taken off earlier.
“And you were worried about not doing anything important.” I smirked, taking the pants and sliding them on, relieved that I wouldn’t have to continue on with a naked lower half. “I can’t think of anything I’d be more grateful for right now than this.”
There was a large cannon boom, and the sound of silence for just a moment. Then suddenly the clanging of swords picked up again. Milo took a running leap from the half-submerged schooner and just barely made it into the skiff as we began to drift outward. Dried blood and sweat clung to him, and all he could do was press his knuckles against his other palm as he stared at the floor of the boat in a way that worried me.
“Better late than never. We’re not leaving you this time.” Noah nudged Milo with his elbow as he caught his breath and settled into the boat beside him. Milo offered a smile that was genuine, but also riddled with a worn and tired fearfulness I couldn’t help but notice.
“Are they coming after us?” I looked overhead at the ships bobbing there. Bellamy’s ship, the Widow, was comparable to the size of the Spanish frigate. But judging by the battered appearance of the Spanish ship, it had been the one that had taken a beating.
“Bellamy’s crew is holding them off as long as they can, but both crews are dwindling, so it shouldn’t go on much longer.” Milo explained, eyeing the silver trident lying across the length of the skiff.
“Now how do we make this thing take us back?” McKenzie was the one who piped up.
“Cordelia said only a siren can use it. But to do that she has to give up something so she can take control of its power.” I fiddled with the scale in my hand, admiring its satin silver sheen before continuing. “I’m going to give it this. To show I’m willing to give up my powers if it means we get to go home. Besides, I never wanted to be a mermaid anyway.” My heart raced with the thought of returning us all home back together, and the more I thought about it the faster my blood raced through my veins.
“How do you ‘give’ it anything exactly?” Noah picked up the trident, studying it with cold, focused eyes. It was at least a foot taller than him.
“I don’t know,” I said, standing in the wobbly skiff. Once I found my balance, I reached forward and gripped the trident at its base. It began to glow with an unearthly white haze, pulsing with the light concentrated mostly around my hand.
I held out my scale to it, not knowing what I expected, but trying to earn its acceptance one way or another. I pressed the scale against the base where the rod melded into the prongs. When that didn’t work, I tried touching it to each of the prong tips, my hope shrinking a little bit with each failed attempt. But no matter what, the pulsing white light stayed, glowing rhythmically like the constant beats of a waltz.
Once I’d tried everything I could possibly think of, I looked at the others around me through eyes confounded and hopeless. The schooner was almost entirely underwater now, and Bellamy’s men were retreating back to their ship. We had mere minutes before the only barrier between us and the pirate hunters was at the bottom of the sea. Though I had no idea if they’d bother coming after us, that would still leave us stuck on the open ocean in a rowboat barely big enough for the four of us with no food or water.
