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Chapter 15
The yet-unnamed water dog bounced through the water ahead of us. The entire day passed by as we ignored the wonders around us, focused only on getting Kaga home and hopefully healed.
Kaga swam up next to me, slipping his hand into mine and tugging it. I turned to look at him. “What?”
He grasped my shoulders and swung me around. There, ahead of where I was now staring, was a giant, colossal squid lying on the ocean floor. It was unusually gray.
“Come on.” We swam toward the squid, and when we were closer, I saw a slash across its side. I wasn’t particularly good at healing animals, but had enough skill so the poor thing would be able to swim away. I placed my hand on its head. My magic flowed through my arms, a prickling sensation as if crabs crawled up them.
The squid rumbled, then floated up off the sea floor. “Thank you, mermaid. I had no energy to travel any closer to the sea witch to be healed.”
I gaped. “That awful creature? She’d eat you alive! Then use the rest of you for her strange curses.”
It rumbled again. “Not that one, the other one.”
It sucked in water, preparing to shoot off into the sea. “Wait,” I said. “Where does she live?”
“In the south, by the volcano.” Its voice was incredulous, as if I should have known already. The squid pushed, its long limbs flattening, zipping away from us. I waited for the current to settle, then angled toward Kaga.
“I forgot about her,” I said, chagrined. “She’s the sea witch’s sister. Ever since the evil one turned, well evil, they’ve been at odds. I remember some people calling her the ‘good witch.’ She might have a way to get your voice back. Should we go?”
Kaga contemplated it for a moment. Then his face split into a grin and he nodded, adding in a shrug. “Why not?” I guessed.
He nodded again, and I laughed. “All right, let’s get moving. I know the volcano he was talking about.”
Kaga put his hands to his head, as if laying down to sleep. “Sleep?”
He gave me a thumbs up and I glanced around. It was getting dark already. We might as well stop now. A few feet from us were stones jutting out of the ground, forming a nice little ridge. The space underneath provided a perfect spot for resting tonight. I pointed it out to Kaga, and we swam toward it. Thankfully, only a few fish lived under it, and they were happy to share the space. We gathered up seaweed and made our hammocks.
“At this rate, we should just carry these around,” I said.
Kaga grinned and hung up his hammock, using the stone as anchors. By the time I hung mine next to his, he had fallen asleep. I crawled in mine, exhaustion suddenly washing over my body.
I awoke, and Kaga was nowhere near me. In a panic, I flew out of my hammock, falling into the arms of the sea. “Kaga?” I called, swimming away from our ledge, whipping around frantically. He couldn’t have gone too far. There was no way he would have been eaten without me meeting the same fate.
Finally, I spotted him above me, closer to the surface. I swam up to meet him, calling his name again. He glanced down at me, flashing me a brilliant smile, before turning his head up toward the sun again. He must be missing it. I swam past him, further up toward the surface. He swam next to me, and soon we broke the surface, our heads popping up above the water. The sun warmed the sky, oranges and reds slashed across the clouds.
I grinned at the sight. It’s been a long time since I saw a sunrise. Historically, it hadn’t been safe coming to the surface. Kaga closed his eyes, and the light warm his face. Water droplets dripped down his face, across his strong jaw. He had such a contented smile on his face, as if he was totally at peace.
My hands itched to touch him. I reached forward, hesitant at first, wondering if it was okay. I wanted to feel his jaw. Run my fingers through his thick black hair. In the end, I just I patted his shoulder. “We’ll make it home and get your voice back. Then you can return to your nasty human home.”
The words sounded harsh, but my tone was joking, and thankfully, Kaga picked up on that. His mouth opened in a silent laugh and my smile widened.
“Come on, let’s get to this volcano.”
The day passed languidly as we sped through the water to the volcano. As fast as we were going, we should arrive there by nightfall. I cut through the sea, Kaga on my tail, my mind singularly focused on the tasks ahead of me. Get to the volcano, heal Kaga, return home. All before that dreadful sea witch found out what we were doing. If she knew finding her pearl was at the bottom of the list… Well. It wouldn’t happen. She couldn’t leave the cave anyway.
At lunch time, we stopped, and I found a few fish for us to eat. I sliced one into bits before cooking it this time; the blood rising. Grimacing, I quickly encapsulated it in a bubble. Blood had a tendency to attract predators, and that was the last thing we needed.
The bubble floated up while I cooked the fish, handing Kaga his portion. We ate in silence, and I caught myself glancing around, bored. It had started being fun talking with Kaga, and now we could barely communicate. “Do you want to hear a story?” I asked him. I might as well entertain someone instead of sitting here, bored out of my mind.
He nodded enthusiastically, adding two thumbs up.
I squinted my eyes at him, folding my arms. “This is a long-lost mermaid secret. Do you promise not to tell anyone?”
It wasn’t. Everybody down here knew the story. He nodded, and I squelched the desire to grin, which would undoubtedly give me away. I continue to study him, as if making sure, and he wriggled both eyebrows with a wide grin, nodding at the same time.
“Okay, I believe you.” I inhaled a long breath and started my story. “Once upon a time, as the best stories start, there was a city at the edge of the island.”
