Fable: An Unfortunate Fairy Tale Book 3 (20 page)

Whoa!
she thought. So this is what a nixie looked like.

Nix looked at her again, and this time stood
up and moved even farther away from her, then sat closer to a
water-filled hole in the ground. He sat on the edge and put both of
his feet into the water, and stared at her from a distance.

Mina sat up, and one hand went to her rib
cage in pain. She must have been passed out for a while, because
all of her clothes were dry. She looked around at her prison. She
was in a cave, and the walls were covered with glowing crystals
that created the luminescent light. There was a small bed, which
she was lying in, a blanket, a cup, and a small pack of items by a
far wall, but no obvious exit.

“
What did you do to her?”
he asked warily.

“
You mean the girl who
tried to kill me?” Mina answered.

He nodded.

“
I’m not sure. I stabbed
her with a piece of golden glass, and she changed,” Mina replied,
trying to sound nonchalant.

He looked at her, and she felt herself
shiver under his dark stare. And then she realized the difference
between Nix and the woman. Where the sea witch’s eyes were an
intense black, Nix’s cat-shaped eyes were bright green and still
very human-looking.

“
You’re different. You and
her.” Mina pointed to his eyes. “Her eyes were filled with
evil.”

Nix’s green skin turned an odd shade as he
paled and refused to meet her gaze. He leaned forward and ran his
fingers through the water as if he took comfort from its touch.

“
Yes. She was seduced by
our own blood.” He sighed and pulled his leg from the water, and
leaned his chin on his knee. “Water witch, sea witch, nixies…we are
all one and the same. Cursed by our own desires, so most think of
us as evil. But I tell you, we are not born that way. We are gentle
creatures. Once we reach a certain age, our power over water fades
and we become desperate, thirsty for that power again. And then we
have to make a choice: to eventually lose our connection with
water, grow old, and die, or begin drowning and killing innocents
to feed on and live forever.”

Fear raked through her body. Her eyes
searched the cave again, looking for another way out, until it
dawned on her. The water-filled hole. The only way out was through
the water, and Nix was blocking the way.

Nix could see her fear and raised his voice.
“Yes, but not all of us are like that! Look at me! Look at my eyes.
I’m not like her. I’ve not become seduced by lust for power. Raina
wasn’t always like that, either.” Nix looked so heartbroken and
alone that she couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.

“
What happened between
you?”

“
We were in love once. We
made a promise to each other to grow old and die together. To not
give in to the curse of our race. We thought we were stronger than
the temptation, which usually surfaces once we reach adulthood. But
then one day last year, I found her crying in the shallows of the
water. She could no longer hear the fishes’ thoughts, or speak to
the tadpoles. No matter how much she sang to them, they never
answered. I told her it was okay, she could still speak to me. She
was older than I am, so it affected her first. It’s scary, to see a
curse affect someone you love and knowing that it would be my fate
as well.”

“
Yes, it is,” Mina said,
thinking of her own troubles.

Nix nodded; he was lost deep in thought. She
thought he was done, but he turned his head, and she could see that
there was a tear sliding down his delicately scaled cheek.

“
I told her we would
suffer together, that I would always be there for her until our
very end. Then I awoke one morning to a song—her song, and I knew.
I knew she had made her choice, and I didn’t stop her. I could
have. I knew what she was doing, but I refused to watch. I was
scared. I was scared that I would join her and turn, too.” He
sniffed and then looked up proudly into Mina’s eyes. His deep green
eyes filled with tears. “But I haven’t.”

Mina couldn’t help but feel sorry for Nix
and Raina’s lost love, and wiped at the corner of her eye as a tear
began to manifest.

“
She is no longer the
Raina I knew and loved. She is a monster, a true sea witch, and I
am cursed to die alone.”

“
And I’m cursed to die
during a fairy tale, so we won’t go out alone.” Mina laughed
softly.

Nix leapt up from the water’s edge and
stumbled away from her. “You’re a Grimm! Here on the Fae
plane.”

“
Yes, and you’re a nixie.
So what?”

“
But—but there are too
many tales involving us and Grimms, and we are the ones who end up
dead. I don’t want to be a part of that.”

Mina sighed loudly. “I think it’s already
too late. If you didn’t want to get involved, you should have let
me drown.”

He stood there, silent, before he nodded in
agreement. “Yes. You’re right. I should have let you drown.” He
dove into the water, and like a fish shot through the murky depths
and disappeared. Mina went to the water’s edge and looked into the
darkness, and knew that he’d abandoned her to die.

Chapter 21

Mina picked up the cup that Nix had been
trying to coerce her to drink from and dropped it into the watery
abyss, counting how many seconds it took before she could no longer
see it. It disappeared into the blackness after three. Who knew if
there even was a bottom? She sat back on her heels and tried to not
panic. They were probably in an underwater cavern that was only
accessible from, well, under the water. But what if there was a
maze of caverns. If she could hold her breath long enough, she
might be able explore or find a way out. Or she might drown in her
attempts.

What to do? She chewed on her bottom lip as
she looked around the small cave and contemplated her options. This
was not the time to break down and cry. This was the time to be
smart. Mina went to Nix’s pack and dug through the items he had
left behind. He had a few small sacks with shells in them, some
twine, a knife, and a lidded jar with some blue liquid in it.

A plan began to form in her mind, and she
took the knife, went to the cavern wall, and began to dig out one
of the glowing stones. Again and again she scraped, hit, and pried
at only the red and green stones, being careful to separate them
into two piles.

When she had what she thought was a
sufficient amount, she dumped out the bag filled with shells and
replaced them with the stones. She washed out the jar, phoenix
feather inside it, resealing it with the wax and twine. When fully
dry and protected from the water, the feather created a warm
glowing light inside the jar. She had gotten the idea from Jared’s
Coke bottle. When the feather became wet, the fiery light burned
down to almost nothing until it was fully dry again.

Mina then went to work on making a weapon
out of the shard of the Stiltskin’s glass. She found a piece of
wood and attached the glass shard to it by wrapping it with more
twine, creating a small knife. She made a sheath out of seaweed,
and attached the knife and sheath to her thigh with twine. Mina was
pretty proud of her ingenuity and was ready to test out her
plan.

She took off her shoes and jacket. After
tying her hair back with a piece of string she found and using more
of the string, she attached the two sacks and the jar with the
phoenix feather to her shorts. She then took her first plunge and
gasped at how cold the water was against her skin. The water could
only be this cold if the cavern was really deep. Mina took a couple
of dunks and started to practice deep breathing and counting how
long she could hold her breath. She refused to die in an
underground cave on the Fae plane alone. She had to save her
brother.

Confident that she could hold her breath for
at least a minute, she took one last look around the cave before
taking a breath and beginning her escape. It was dark, and the jar
with the feather created a beautiful warm glow against the shadows.
She could see at least two paths, and who knew how many more after
that. She was going to have to leave a breadcrumb trail back to
this cave if she got lost.

Mina dropped the first glowing green stone
under the opening to the cave and was surprised that there was an
actual bottom. It stopped there and continued to glow. She swam a
few yards down the tunnel to her left and dropped another green
stone. She swam a few more yards before deciding to retrace her
path back up into the cavern again for another breath. This was
going to take awhile, and she was tiring quickly. Mina repeated the
actions, breathing, following the same tunnel until it came to a
dead end, and then replacing the green stones with red ones to mark
the lack of exits.

She had started down the right tunnel,
following her same pattern of dropping green stones, when she found
another hole in the ceiling of the tunnel. Could it be an exit?
Could it be another cavern with air? She kicked her legs and swam
hard for the opening, and broke the surface with a huge gasp. There
was air. Yes!

But this cavern was the same as the other,
filled with glowing stones and completely empty. She didn’t want to
spend too much time dawdling, so she took another breath and kept
swimming. She swam to another fork in the tunnels and another dead
end. Mina needed air and more stones, so she retreated to the
second cavern and refilled her bag of red and green stones. She
could do this, she thought to herself. If there were caverns with
air all around down here, she might just make it out…alive.

Mina was on her fourth tunnel when she began
to start feeling lightheaded and dizzy. This was becoming too much
for her. She was about to swim back to another cavern air pocket
when she saw a bigger opening and more light coming from above. Was
it a way out? She pushed off the ground and swam hard for the
beacon of light above her. It looked different, so she prayed for
it to be an exit.

Her head broke through the water, and she
felt a cool breeze against her face. She smiled in relief. Treading
water, she wiped her eyes, only to see that she hadn’t exactly
escaped. It was just another larger cavern filled with even more
glowing stones. Her heart plummeted. She was still trapped.

Something moved in the corner, and Mina’s
intrusion startled it. At first she thought it was a snake, or a
pile of leaves because of the way it rustled and moved, but a head
slowly raised itself off the floor and turned to look at her. There
was no mistaking the black cat-like eyes of a sea witch. It hissed
at her and began to crawl across the floor in her direction. Mina
screamed in fright and dove under the water to try to swim away
from it.

It was a terrible choice. She didn’t get a
great breath, and her fear and adrenaline were making her escape
clumsy. Mina took off down a tunnel that she hadn’t marked with
stones. She looked back behind her and saw something green plummet
through the water on her tail. It was fast—faster than she could
swim. She knew it. There was no way she could out-swim it; she was
going to have to fight it.

She turned and pulled out the knife off her
thigh and waited for the witch to come to her. The witch’s black
eyes filled her with terror, but Mina held the blade in front of
her and continued to tread water. The monster barreled straight at
her, its long claw-like hands reaching for her, when something shot
out of the darkness and smashed the witch into the wall.

Mina had never heard a scream like the one
she heard under the water. It was awful as the two beings fought
against each other. It was Nix. He was smashing the witch against a
cavern wall, using his full weight to keep her pinned. He was
physically bigger than the sea witch, but it was obvious that since
he didn’t feed on innocents, he wasn’t as strong as she was.

His voice pounded into her
head.
The tunnel to the left.
Hurry.

She grasped her head in pain, but she didn’t
waste the time Nix was buying her. Mina swam as hard as she could
to the tunnel, and, sure enough, she could see it: the exit. It was
an opening twenty feet across and ten feet high. But it seemed so
far away. Her lungs burned for air, but she focused on her goal and
kept swimming. Her legs felt like lead weights and her arms like
Jell-o. But she continued swimming until she passed through the
opening and headed upward. She could see it. The sky. It danced
across the water through a sea of glass. Her heart sank when she
realized it was farther than she could hold her breath. Even now,
bubbles were escaping from her lips, and she was out of
strength.

Her body’s lack of oxygen was causing her to
hallucinate, and all of a sudden she could see Brody’s smiling face
floating in front of her. She reached out to touch it, and it
disappeared, to be replaced by Jared’s angry one, yelling at
her.

Swim, Mina! Fight—don’t give up!

“
I’m tired, Jared. I
can’t. I’m so tired,” she mentally called back before her body
betrayed her and her muscles cramped underwater, and she felt
herself sinking lower and lower.

NOO!
She heard a scream and was unsure if it was her own
hallucination of Jared or someone else. Something hard and rough
grabbed her around the waist, and she was being propelled through
the water faster than she had ever gone in her life, straight for
the light. But Mina knew she wouldn’t make it. Her body went limp,
and her eyes had closed on their own when something warm pressed
against her lips.

She didn’t have the energy to fight, and was
surprised when her mouth was forced open and life-saving oxygen
passed into her mouth. She opened her eyes in surprise to find
Nix’s lips pressed to hers, kissing her. No, breathing for her as
he continued to swim upward. Her hands reached up to grab his face
and hold it to her mouth hungrily as if her life depended on his
kiss—which it did. His kiss fought off the darkness of death, and
her mind began to function again. She was kissing a monster!