Midnight Pearls (16 page)

James pulled away from her to go check on the injured man. Her thoughts turned to Kale. She didn’t know where he was, but she hoped Pearl was with him. She was safe, but her brother’s time was running out.

Behind the church, Pearl found the bodies of the soldiers who had dragged Kale from the chapel. Kale lay to the side. He groaned slightly and sat up, rubbing at his head.

She dropped down next to him and touched his face.

He stiffened. “Who is it?”

“Someone you love,” she whispered.

“Pearl! What happened?”

“I don’t know, but this does not look good. Can you walk?”

He nodded. She helped him stand and led him quickly from the scene, heading for the ocean where they would be safe from prying eyes.

“Did you marry him?”

“No, I didn’t love him ”

A look of relief flooded his face.

When they had put some distance between them and the church, she asked him the one question she needed answered.“Tell me about the Sea Witch.”

“Do you remember anything?”

“Not really All I know is that I—I’m a … mermaid” It was both odd and something of a relief to say it aloud.

He stopped short and turned to her. “Well, that is a start.”

“Yes,” she laughed. “Now, the Witch?”

“She was banished years ago by our people. She lives in a cave. She’s trapped there, unable to leave. A strand of pearls around her neck is the source of her power.”

She fingered the pearl around her own neck. Could it have some connection with the Witch’s pearls?

“Although her caves are forbidden, from time to time a mermaid or merman seeks her out for magical help.”

“To become human?” Pearl guessed.

He nodded. “But her help always comes with a price. For me, it was my sight. For Faye, her voice.”

“You both must have wanted very much to be human”

“Yes, Faye paid an even higher price than that.”

“How so?”

“If the prince agrees to marry her, by sunset on the seventh day she will remain human forever.”

“And if she doesn’t?”

“She will die.”

Chills danced up Pearl’s spine. “Then that means …”

“She only has a little time left.”

“Come on,” Pearl cried, grabbing his hand.

“Where are we going?”

“To save Faye.”

Faye hurried toward the church. Her heart was filled to overflowing with love for James. He had asked her to marry him! She would be human now forever, and they would spend their lives together. She had bet the Sea Witch and had won.

Her thoughts turned toward her brother. Kale, on the other hand, only had a short while left before he would die. She had to find a way to bring him and Pearl together.

She circled around the church and nearly tripped over the body of a dead guardsman. Stunned, she stared. He had been one of the men who had dragged Kale from the church. Where was her brother, though?

“Looking for someone?” a voice hissed in her ear.

She jumped, but Robert grabbed her around the waist and pressed a dagger against her ribs. “You’re my revenge. I can hurt the prince through you. You’re coming with me.”

If she had had her voice, she would have screamed, but without it, she had no choice but to go along.

T
here was only about half an hour left until sunset. Pearl stood inches from the water. She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself.

“I love you, Pearl,” Kale whispered.

“I love you, too.”

She looked at him. He looked so vulnerable as he stood there in the light of the waning sun. She kissed him and he kissed her back, sending shivers down her body. She pulled back and looked at him, brushing a lock of hair out of his face.

He had said that the prince must agree to marry Faye by sunset or she would die. He hadn’t told her what bargain he had made with the Sea Witch, but she guessed it was something similar.

“When this is all over, Kale, I will marry you,” she promised him.

A mingled look of joy and despair crossed his face, and he kissed her again. She was puzzled at his expression, but did not have time to question him about it.

“I wish I could go with you.”

“I know, but this is something I have to do by myself.”

He nodded. “Just remember, the pearls are the key to the Witch’s power. Without them, she is nothing.”

She moved away from him and took a step toward the ocean. She stood at the water’s edge, with fear wrapping around her heart. She clasped the pearl in her hand. The water lapped at her toes.
I was playing with Kale by a sunken boat
, she recalled. She took a step into the water.
He was my best friend.
She took another step, the water lapping against both her ankles.
It was almost dinnertime, and I left to go home.
Another step and the waves lapped at her calves.
A shadow darkened the water, and I turned to see what it was.
The water was swirling around her knees.

The Sea Witch was there, more terrible than Father had said she was.
Her skirts slogged around her legs as the water crept up her legs.
She grabbed me and I couldn’t fight her, she was too strong. She clamped her hand over my mouth so I could not scream.
The water was at her waist and growing deeper.
She took me back to her cave.
The water was chest-deep and warm, so very warm.
She cursed me. She turned me into a human.
She looked down, and her legs were disappearing, merging into a shimmering tail covered with scales.
She told me I was nobody, nothing. She wasn’t interested in me, she just wanted to hurt my family.
Her hair was floating on top of the water and it began to glow.
She sent me to the surface to either drown or live upon the land, I snatched this pearl from her necklace before the seas tossed me upward.
Her clothes fell from her, the beautiful blue wedding dress drifting away with the current….
She said that if I returned to the ocean I would die.
She took in her mermaid body noticing the way her skin shone under the water.
She was wrong about that. She said I was nothing, that I could not harm her.
She clutched the pearl around her neck.
The Witch was wrong about that, too.

With a flick of her tail, she dove beneath the surface. She breathed the water as naturally as though she had never forgotten how. She was the princess, Adriana, child of the mer-kin.

She remembered.

She remembered everything, including where to find the Witch.

Kale heard the splash as she dove beneath the surface of the water. It had worked. She had broken the spell binding her. He sank to a seat on the beach, overcome with emotion. She had agreed to marry him. In that one moment she had both saved him and doomed him. She had saved his life while yet cursing him to live out his days as a human. Now that she was once again a mermaid, they were again of two separate worlds. He had lost her a second time.

He sat and waited, counting out the minutes in his head and feeling the retreating rays of the sun upon his skin. The minutes of Faye’s life were slipping away, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Just as he judged that time was nearly up, pain ripped through him. He screamed and fell backward, writhing on the sand.

Pearl dove farther down into the darkness, the light from her hair all she needed to see her way. Her people had defeated the Sea Witch, Kale had said, but they had been unable to kill hen They had locked her instead in a set of underwater caves from which she should not have been able to escape.

She had, though. She had harnessed the magic from an ancient strand of midnight pearls to enable her to come and go as she pleased. She had left the cave and kidnapped Pearl. Her father had warned her never to go near the caves where the Witch lived, not dreaming that it would make no difference where she was.

She swam swiftly, her tail working better than her legs ever had. She thought about Faye when she had led her through the castle to see Kale. Within a couple of days the young woman was moving with more grace on land than Pearl had managed to achieve in thirteen years. She shook her head, astounded.

The water rushed by her skin, cool and comforting, welcoming her home. She wondered if her parents had ever had another child; she had been their firstborn. She remembered her mother’s gentle touch, her father’s strong embrace. She longed to see them again, to be with them. First, though, she had business with the Sea Witch.

A dolphin came close to her, whistling a greeting. He approached so close that she was able to reach out and touch him. She thrilled at the contact, and at the memory of riding upon one as a child. Mer-kin could communicate with the creatures of the sea, she remembered. Together, they spiraled downward until he finally broke off to return to the surface. She continued onward.

At last she was close to the Witch’s lair. She could feel it in the water around her, in the way the cold suddenly began to seep into her bones. Her heart trembled for a moment, but she pressed on. She was no longer a child, helpless to defend herself against the Witch. She was a woman, and she, too, had magic.

At the entrance to the caves she stopped and hovered in the water, tail flipping slowly back and forth.

“Come in,” a voice called out to her. It washed over her, slippery as a serpent.

“Why don’t you come out?” Pearl taunted.

There was silence for a moment, and then the Witch appeared just inside the entrance to the cave. “Come in, my child, and I can help you with whatever you desire”

“Can’t you come out to me?” Pearl asked, all innocence. “I’m afraid of the dark”

“Unfortunately, my dear, I cannot leave these caves. They are my home”

“I can leave my home, why can’t you leave yours?”

“I was cursed, child, cursed to live my life in these caves never to step outside.”

“I thought I saw you outside the cave before”

“You must be mistaken. Now come inside and we can discuss you and what you came here to ask for,” the Witch said, sounding irritated.

“So, you are unable to ever leave?”

The Witch stroked her pearls, “Apparently Now, what is it you are here for? Are you looking for love, fame, or perhaps are you searching for something you have lost?”

“Actually, I’m here to discuss something you have lost,” Pearl said. She held out the necklace with the pearl on it.

“Give that to me!” the Witch shrieked, flinging herself forward. The pearls around her neck were glowing bright. At the very lip of the cave she slammed into some sort of invisible wall and was thrown backward.

“So, without the entire set of pearls, you really are powerless to leave here,” Pearl noted as the Witch gathered herself up, glowering.

“The only way you can harm mer-kin is to get them to come inside to you. Without this one tiny pearl, you can no longer come out to them” She slipped the necklace back on. “It’s ironic, don’t you think, that in kidnapping me, you doomed yourself? I was able to live a full life on the land, while you were trapped here in your caves. I guess you could say that you lost more than I did, especially since I had no memory of the life I left behind.”

Power surged through Pearl, and she drifted to within a half inch of the barrier, daring the Witch to try to snatch the pearl from around her neck The foul creature tried, flinging herself again against the barrier only to be repulsed once more.

“I had thought of killing you,” Pearl answered. “But death would be far too kind for you. Instead, I’m going to let you live out your days here, alone. And mark my words, I shall see to it that no mer-kin ever enters your lair again.”

“Who are you?” the Witch whispered, her face contorted in a snarl.

She laughed and floated backward in the water. “I am Adriana, princess of the mer-kin, kidnapped by you and sent to live among humans.” She smiled slyly. “But you can call me Pearl.”

She stroked the pearl around her neck, and a low rumble filled the water. “I renounce your magic. I restore those whom you have cursed. And you, you are nothing more than a bad dream.”

A slab of rock from higher up on the mountain slid down and covered the entrance to the caves, sealing the Witch in and keeping all others out. As the stone settled into place, even the scream of the Sea Witch was lost, sealed in for eternity.

Pearl turned and shot back toward the surface, swimming as fast as she could. The magic binding the Witch to the caves had been strong, and only the strength of all the pearls together could break it. Each individual pearl was powerful, but it needed all of them to overcome the other magic that had been used to banish the Witch, Without the one pearl that she had taken from the Witch, the Witch had been unable to overcome the magic binding her to the cave. There was a lot of power in that one little pearl, enough to allow Pearl to do what she needed.

His vision returned in a sudden, crippling blow. He saw the last ray of the setting sun disappear beneath the horizon. What was happening? He tried to sit up but could not. He glanced downward and saw his legs growing back into a tail. He began to gasp, the air searing his lungs. He flipped over on his stomach and dug his hands into the sand, propelling himself toward the water.

When the pain stopped and his head cleared, he realized that Pearl had done it. She had defeated the Sea Witch and in the process had reversed all of her spells. He turned to search the waves for Pearl, eager to see her. Suddenly, fear knifed through him, Faye! Faye would be transformed back into a mermaid, too, and she was still in the middle of the village.

Faye screamed as the transformation began. She recognized it for what it was and wailed in anguish.
Not now!
James had asked her to marry him. She couldn’t go back.

Robert clutched her tighter, “Stop struggling,” he hissed in her ear.

She couldn’t help it. As the pain overtook her, she writhed in agony. He cursed at her, but she was beyond caring about him and his schemes.
No!
her mind screamed even as her body changed. Fear ripped through her as she began to gasp for breath.

Robert screamed as her scales rose up from her back and pierced his body. Then he collapsed onto the ground and she fell atop him. He gasped once, and then lay still. She knew that he was dead.

Villagers came running and when they saw her tail and the dead marquis, they began to shout. Many hands grabbed at her, and she didn’t have the strength to fight them off.

“Witch!” someone yelled, and others took up the shout. Her head swam as she continued to gasp for breath. Suddenly she was lifted into the air. They placed her against a post and lashed her to it, the ropes cutting into her skin until her blood flowed freely.

She stared blankly from face to face; they all began to blur in her vision. At last her sight faded, and everything went black.

Mary was worried. She and Finneas had left the church in search of Pearl but had been unable to find her. They couldn’t even find Faye or the prince. Frustrated, they began walking through the village, looking for familiar faces.

“Do you think she would have gone to the ocean?”

“It seems to me that’s where she goes whenever she’s upset,” Finneas answered.

Together, they turned and began walking toward the water. Mary just hoped Pearl was all right. She sighed. The last few days had not been easy on anyone, but who could have anticipated all this?

Suddenly, she stopped, listening. “Do you hear that?” she asked.

Finneas stopped and listened too. “Sounds like someone shouting.”