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Pippa runs for the nets. She hurls one out. It sails overhead and splashes into the water. The nymphs scream in rage. The net has frightened them, but only temporarily. They renew their efforts. This time, Pippa's net lands on four of the nymphs. There's a horrible scream as the net burns their skin. They bubble and blister until they are nothing more than sea foam. The others fall behind, afraid to go farther. Felicity and Pippa lug us from the water onto the sharp shoals.

Miss Moore helps me to my feet. "Are you all right?"

Ann vomits onto the shoals. She is weak but alive.

We've cheated them of their prize. I can't help myself. I shout with glee and satisfaction. "Take our skin, will you? Ha! Take that!"

"Gemma," Miss Moore advises, pulling me back from the water. "Do not taunt them."

Indeed, the nymphs do not take kindly to my celebration. They open their mouths and begin to sing. The lure of it is like a net drawing me toward the water. Oh, that sound, like a promise that there need be no worry or want ever again. I could grow drunk on that tune.

Miss Moore places her fingers in her ears. "Don't listen!"

Felicity wades into the warm water to her ankles, then her knees, drawn by the song. Pippa runs to the edge, screaming her name. "Fee! Fee!"

Ann's begun to sing along. For a moment, I'm distracted by her voice. What am I doing in the water? I step out. Ann stops singing, and the nymphs flood me with their sweet promises again.

I'm vaguely aware of Miss Moore screaming, "Ann! Sing! You've got to sing!"

Ann finds her song again. It pulls me away from the water and the nymphs enough to see what is happening. Felicity's swimming farther out.

"Sing, Ann!" I shout. My hands find the faint throb at her throat. "Sing as if your life depends on it."

Ann's song, thin at first, is no match for the temptation in Felicity's ears. But her voice gains strength. She sings more loudly and more powerfully than I have ever heard her sing, until she is the song itself. She stares at those creatures like a warrior warning of the battle to come. In the water, Felicity stops. Pippa rushes in after her.

'Tee, come back with me." She reaches out her hand and Felicity takes it.

"Come on," Pippa says softly, luring her from the water.

"Come on."

Felicity follows Ann's voice and Pippa's hand until she is back on solid ground.

"Pippa?" Felicity says.

Pippa embraces her, and Felicity holds so tightly I fear she will break Pippa.

The nymphs, realizing they have lost, screech in rage.

"Let's not wait around, shall we?" Miss Moore says. She gathers the rope onto her shoulder. I am so grateful for Miss Moore at this moment I could cry.

"Thank you, Hester," I say.

"It is I who should thank you, Gemma."

"For what?" I ask.

But there is no answer to that question. For the girls in white have returned. And they are not alone. They've brought the fearsome creature I've seen in my vision, the one who followed us back from the Caves of Sighs--a tracker. It emerges from behind them in the darkness, rising, spreading out till we are forced to look up at the vast, roiling expanse of it. The girls step inside it like children clinging to a mother's skirts.

"At last . . . ," it says.

Run. Get away. Can't move. The fear. Such fear. The wings unfurl revealing the horrible faces within. The hate. The terror.

Miss Moore pushes me out of the way, her voice strong. "Run!"

We tumble down the black rock. The slide is rough. It cuts my hands, but we reach the ground quickly.

"Get to the gorgon," Felicity shouts. She is in the lead, Pippa just behind. I'm pulling Ann, who can barely run. But where is Miss Moore? I see her! She appears in the sulfur green mist. The beast and the girls are close on her heels.

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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