Satchel bouncing at her side and sketchbook clutched tight against her chest, she dashed to the main room, where she knew she could shoot up through the old oak tree that had given her so many safe passages in and out of this quaint home.
Entire eternal childhoods had been spent in this home, and Gwen had enjoyed countless nights of her own in it. Memories flooded her in such abundance, they morphed into a uniform nostalgia. She would never see the underground home again, no one would.
But worlds were made and unmade all the time. She drew a great breath deep into her lungs, and shot up the hollow oak tree.
Chapter 39
Gwen took her momentum and continued with it, soaring out of the oak tree and bounding into the sky. On any other occasion she would have dropped into the jungle and continued closer to ground level, but the jungle had turned treacherous and she didn't dare risk losing time. She couldn't afford to stumble onto a stray adventure. Over the treetops, she flew toward the mermaid's lagoon, hoping to find Peter and avoid trekking to the rendezvous point by herself.
The wind neither blew with nor against her course. The day had gone so still it startled Gwen. Devoid of its usual playfulness, the air seemed emptied of its magic. Still, she stayed afloat in it and managed to make it down to the lagoon just as fast as the tunnels would have served her, had they not begun to cave in. She didn't see Peter, but the mermaids were not alone.
One of the black coats' beach landers sat on the pebbled shore, and the sole black coat who'd stayed behind to guard it now stood knee-jeep in the water, his gun drawn and aimed at the mermaids. Gwen didn't bother with the stone steps down the cliff face. Confident in her flying, she dropped the fatal distance down in a controlled and slow descent. Facing the mermaids, the black coat didn't see her land behind him. He continued to shout at the sirens.
“Put your hands up!” he demanded, his gun aimed at Eglantine.
“You heard him, Nepeta,” Eglantine replied. “We've got to put our hands up.”
Both girls lifted their arms out of the water, and sank beneath the surface laughing.
The solider shifted his aim to Cynara. “Hold still. By order of the CAO, you need to comply with my instructions or face termination.”
“What are your instructions?” Cynara asked, her eyes sparkling with interest. Her two sisters surfaced in new positions, closer to the black coat. Their reappearance startled him and he yelped as he fired a poorly aimed shot at Nepeta. It would have missed her, even if she hadn't dodged it and dove underwater.
“We can help you,” Malva told him. “You're looking for heart of the ocean's magic, aren't you? We can show it to you.”
“Come closer,” Nepeta told him as she halfway surfaced.
“We promise we'll take you there if you come with us,” Eglantine cooed. Another two mermaids surfaced in the lagoon. “Isn't that right, Cattleya? Liatris?”
“Of course.”
“Cross our fins and hope to die.”
He took another step toward their promises, and the tide rocked tiny, alluring waves against his knees. “I'm here to help transport the Never Tree back to our research facility. Where is the Never Tree?”
The mermaids erupted into a chorus of aquatic laughter.
“He wants to find the Never Tree!”
“Oh, he doesn't know!”
“What?” the solider insisted. As the mermaids lolled about their lagoon and swam with languid strokes, he could not make up his mind which of them he should put in his gun's sights. None of them seemed threatened. He knew his ammo would kill them, and he thought they understood that, too. He couldn't make sense of why they didn't respect the danger he posed them. He didn't know he was the one in danger. He didn't know not to threaten mermaids.
“The Never Tree? That's nothing,” Nepeta scoffed, running her coral-painted nails through her long strawberry-blond hair. “Not compared to what lies at the heart of the ocean's magic.”
“If you had the heart of the sea,” Liatris suggested, “you could win such favor with your CAO. You could give him so much more than he hopes to gain from a single tree.”
“If you gave it to him,” Eglantine added, splashing happily. “With the heart of the sea, you could displace him. All he has, all he dreams of, could be yours as sure as the stars burn.”
“Come.”
“Swim with us.”
“We promise to take you there.”
Enchanted but wary of the offer, he took another hesitant step into the water. Before he could say anything in response, Nepeta dipped under the water. She'd edged ever closer to him on the tide. The second after she vanished, the black coat screamed and splashed down into the salty water, submerged as soon as Nepeta grabbed him. The other mermaids descended. Malva and Cattleya bolted for the solider and added their fins to the splashing fray. Gwen watched as the frantic thrashing and clouds of air bubbles moved deeper into the water. Not so much as a hand resurfaced as the mermaids retreated from the lagoon, carrying him away to the secret heart of the ocean.
“Look what the catfish dragged to shore,” Eglantine remarked, at last looking at Gwen. “The sea witch's promised week is nearly out—have you come to tell us what's become of our little sister?”
Nepeta, Liatris, and Cynara all approached, clustering back into the shallows beside Eglantine as Gwen neared, but stayed out of their reach. She stood on the shore, still clutching Jay's sketchbook.
“I'm just looking for Peter,” Gwen replied, feeling no obligation to these vicious, beautiful creatures. “If he's not here, I'll be on my way.”
She started to walk away, down the coastline, when Liatris quipped, “He's not on the weastern shore.”
Gwen stopped. “Where is he?”
“What of our sister, landmaid?” Cynara countered.
“Tell us what you know of her, and we'll tell you all we said and saw of
