Moonfin (13 page)

SCHWAACK!

A green ball with a hard shell swiftly rammed into the eel, stunning his slimy trunk. The eel roiled sideways, hissing and spewing in pain. He lost hold of Lizzy's leg and she tumbled backward. Through fluttering eyelids, she could see the attacker was a giant sea turtle!

Without strength left to breathe from a conch, even if she could find one close by, her body floated listlessly toward the murky floor. Unexpectedly, the sea turtle whipped around and came under her, offering its shell. Then she realized: it was the eel he was trying to strike, not her.

“Hold tight! I will take you safely back to shore,” a boyish voice cried out.

Her fingers stretched long, and with her last ounce of strength, she curled them around the shell's soft corners, right behind his head.

The eel recovered from the blow and came at them from behind.

Big mistake.

The sea turtle paused to take strategic aim, using his pointed tail for precision sight, and blasted a massive air bubble from under his posterior shell—a deafening foghorn to say the least. It smacked the eel square in the gob, knocking him back against the sharp coral, scraping up his fleshy belly.

Threat definitely neutralized.

The turtle rose up from the ocean depths carrying Lizzy on his back. She saw a little blood trickling from his front leg and felt the urge to place her hand over the cut. A warm, golden glow washed over the jagged wound and something astonishing happened—
it stopped bleeding
. He brought her back to shore, to the rock where she had been sitting before her wild ride with the eel, and waited patiently as she climbed from his shell.

Lizzy turned and knelt down to touch his dappled head. “Thank you,” she said shakily, but he quickly submerged and swam out to sea before her hand made contact.

“Oh, I did want to speak to you,” she whispered miserably.

With eyes burning anew, she crumpled onto the rock and cradled her head in her hands.

The water moved again.

It swirled and churned below the rock, swishing faster and faster, and before Lizzy realized what was happening, three fountains shot up into the air. The likeness of people now appeared before her. However, they weren't the flesh-and-blood kind, but water-flowing-through-and-around-them kind of people. At one moment an arm and leg would appear and disappear, or a nose and ear would form on a head, then sink back into the constantly moving fountain, dripping and streaming into and out of their watery bodies. They spoke to each other in a strange language for several moments, not paying any attention to her. But to Lizzy's surprise, she understood some of the words coming through their drippy mouths.

“She is young.”

“She is weak.”

“She hurts,” said the last. “Be kind.”

Lizzy recognized the last who spoke.

“Xili.”

“Yes, Lizzy, I am here.”

The first one spoke.

“Zshe-ma mogo hida zhen fremp! She's lucky Corky was able to free her. No telling what would have happened!”

“Yes, this will not do. She must be strong,” trilled the second. “Martufa bel kapix a harambu and all will be lost!”

“Please, you are being rude,” said Xili. She turned to the other two, drippy arms outstretched. “Speak slowly so she can understand.”

“Humph—she
should
understand. It hasn't been that long—not in our understanding of things.”

Xili moved her flowing water-body closer to Lizzy, who, entranced by what she saw, reached up to touch her. Xili met Lizzy's hand with her own and let the warm fountain fall over Lizzy's arm.

“Do not be afraid,” she said, and Lizzy wasn't anymore. The water-arm was warm and friendly and
alive
.

Xili pointed to the first water-being to the left and said, “This is Rhizoo,” then motioned to the other being on her right, “and this is Cheroo. We live here with many others in the waters of Blowing Prawn.”

Lizzy was shocked. “You—you live here
in
the water?”

“We are keepers of the sea,” said Rhizoo, in a twittery feminine tone.

“We help the fishermen and nurture the sea bed,” said Cheroo, in a proud masculine tone.

Lizzy thought about the mutated fish beneath the aquarium, and, somehow, Xili knew her thoughts.

“Yes, it is cruel. When we find them, we feed and comfort, but they always die. This is why we need your help.”

“It is why you are here,” said Cheroo impatiently.

That familiar feeling of smallness crept over Lizzy.

“Me? What can I do?”

“Ah! Sokofameshira pamx bestima! This girl does not even know who she is!” said a quaking Rhizoo. “There is nothing left for us to do!”

“Patience. Time will sort her out,” Xili said to them both.

“Or mix her up some more! It will be too late by then!” Cheroo snipped bitterly.

Xili glided a little closer.

“Lizzy, do you understand that all of the animals on the earth have their special purposes and jobs?”

“Yes, mostly. I mean, I don't get why flies exist,” she said in a small voice, “or mosquitoes for that matter … or crocodiles even. But dogs are man's best friend, and in the sea, dolphins frolic and protect other animals, even people.”

“And polyps build the coral bed to make a home for other animals,” said Cheroo.

“Sharks are like the collectors of the sea,” Rhizoo chimed in. “Sometimes man runs into them, and there are problems, but on the whole they are helpful scavengers, and without them the ocean would be quite messy, indeed!”

Lizzy nodded her head in understanding. Her parents told her all about the important jobs the animals do.

“You understand! Well, you see, Dr. Krell is hurting the balance that was established in the ocean from the beginning,” said Xili, notes of suffering in her voice. “His experimenting has hurt many creatures—you saw the animals in the underground cavern where you found Iddo—but this is not the worst.”

“No, no. He has found the
Ancient One
,” said Rhizoo

“The
Fierce One
,” echoed Cheroo.

“She was created with a heart of stone,” continued Rhizoo, along with many other descriptions she and Cheroo chorused together in succession.

“She seems frightening,” said Lizzy after they finished. She was getting used to their language and even found it very comforting to listen to. It wasn't like anything she'd ever heard before—and lots of foreign tourists came through Blowing Prawn in the summer. It was like ripples and bubbles and the sounds of a stormy sea.

“Mhmhmhmhm, Iddo showed you at the aquarium, I believe?” said Xili.

Lizzy thought back to the vision she saw. “Her scales are like a metal armor, her eyes are like the sunrise …” She felt a tingle in her mind when they spoke about her.

“Nothing on earth is her equal, a creature without fear,” continued Rhizoo.

“Smoke from her nostrils, merciless, beware!” finished Cheroo, both reciting the words as if from an old poem they had memorized.

Lizzy wasn't happy talking about this sea monster after being nearly drowned by one only moments before.

“But—what does Dr. Krell want with this creature? I mean, couldn't she just swim off, or fight in some way?”

“He discovered her out near Otter Island where she hunts for food on her migration from the south and north poles,” explained Xili. “We are not sure how, but he found a way to track her whereabouts around the globe. Preparations were made to trap her in a hidden place somewhere beneath one of the seven islands where she feeds.”

“Disagreeable.”

“Abominable.”

“And let me be clear, Lizzy, whatever Dr. Krell has done, has never been done before”—Xili paused to choose her words carefully—“because it is not
humanly possible
.”

“But you keep saying ‘she.' How do you know whether the animal is male or female?”

Rhizoo spun in dizzying circles as she spoke.

“It has always been known she is a female. There is only one for all time!”

“
One
? You mean there isn't another anywhere?”

“For the ocean. She is one of three. When the earth was in the Yawning Void, they roamed freely. But when the time of man began, three were brought through: a swimmer, a walker, and a flier. She is one with the waters since the beginning of earth, and she will be until the end of time. If there were more than one, the ocean would be destroyed, along with all the fish and men who travel in and on it. That would be a disaster!”

“And yet, that is what is happening now and why you must stop it,” said Xili earnestly.

“Me? What can I do?” said Lizzy. “I still don't get why anything so dangerous would be created in the first place.”

Cheroo seemed to explode. His watery form expanded outwardly and upwardly to twice its original size. “You humans cannot control all that exists! She leaves well enough alone,” he said sternly.

“We believe Dr. Krell is trying to create another like her, and that is why he experiments so much on the sea animals beneath the aquarium,” said Xili. “We need you to find her and set her free, before he can do the unthinkable!”

“If he succeeds, do you know what that would mean?” said Rhizoo, spinning into a blur.

Lizzy pictured the fierce beast in her mind, the razor-sharp teeth and fiery eyes …

“Yes, but can he do it? Can he make another?”

“No, no, no!” exclaimed Rhizoo.

“No, no, no! The seal, the seal!” echoed Cheroo. If Rhizoo and Cheroo weren't a shaking spout of water before, they certainly were a frenetic mess now.

“He tries to clone her using this world's technology but fails to keep any of them alive—because there is a seal upon her,” answered Xili.

“What do you mean—what's a
seal
?” asked Lizzy, confused.

“The cells in her body have a lock, and the key is hidden away. Except—”

“That cannot be!” said Rhizoo.

Xili continued, “There is a legend that says the dragon's helix is hidden in the heart of the Blood Star … but it is more tale than truth.”

“The helix, the star,” repeated Cheroo solemnly.

“
Henricia leviuscula
,” whispered Lizzy.

“Yes, the Blood Starfish. We think that is what it means too.”

“Then Dr. Krell will never be able to clone her. The Blood Star is extinct—it hasn't been seen around these waters for many decades,” said Lizzy, shivering. She started to bob up and down like a yo-yo to keep warm.

“Let us hope so. Even if the legend is true, it will be an impossible task for him to replicate a complete double helix.”

Lizzy considered what she knew about helixes—that they were shaped like the rail of a spiral staircase; and in science, a helix is one-half of the DNA strand, the genetic coding for all life. It made sense that Dr. Krell would need both helix codes to replicate this sea monster. Without them, it wouldn't be possible—it'd be like having the spiral staircase without one set of rails and half the stairs.

“You are exhausted and cold,” said Xili. “We must go as well, for we cannot keep this form for much longer.”

Rhizoo and Cheroo went about chitting and chatting their way back down into the sea. They spoke rapidly so that their words sounded like rushing water to Lizzy's ears. Xili lingered a little longer.

“Please, what was that
thing
that almost killed me?”

Xili breathed in a watery breath and smiled a sad, watery smile. “He is called a Snircher. I have never had to feel his painful inflictions, but I imagine it isn't pleasant for any living thing.”

“Painful inflictions?”

“He is not an ordinary eel, but has the ability to send out a low-level, hypnotic current that causes flesh-beings to become dizzy and disoriented.”

“It was more than that,” said Lizzy, rubbing her temple. “He seemed to be able to make me feel things … like an angry
gloom
.”

“No, he cannot
make
you feel anything. He can only amplify what is already there.”

“So he can take a feeling and make it worse?”

“Correct—certain feelings, and only the unpleasant ones, I am afraid. His job is to keep mankind from knowing.”

“Knowing what?”

“Who they are. If he can make you believe the worst about yourself, then he can keep you from becoming the best of who you should be. I have only heard rumors. We are immune to his powers.”

“I don't understand. Why come after me?”

“Because he must know—” She stopped short, a sudden look of realization crossing her face before she twisted toward the open sea. “I-I wonder where Corky got off to.”

Lizzy guessed that Corky was the sea turtle who saved her. “That's a funny name for a turtle.”

“He is a bit of a toot-bum, as you witnessed. Another peculiar talent not many humans know about in sea turtles.”

Xili started to descend into the sea. “I cannot hold these molecules any longer.”

“But—when will I see you again?”

“Mhmhmhmhm,” she melodically fluttered, “we have never been far from you.”

She melted into the sea and was gone.

Lizzy could feel her words garble up again, as they did the last time she spoke with Xili. She shook her head a few times, waiting for clear language to come to her mind before climbing off her rock. Then she made her way over the stone outcropping and onto the main shore where crowds of people were still frolicking in the tides. The cheerful sight lifted her spirits, and she sauntered slowly in the wet sand, wondering who Xili, Rhizoo, and Cheroo were, and what she should call them.

“
Waterpeople
?” she said softly into the breezy air, trying the name on for size.

The fire pit where Sugar and the others were camped was a flurry of activity. She noticed Lee had finally showed up too. He was helping Jade scoop something out of the surf.