Madly (5 page)

Chapter Eleven

Samantha

“AT LEAST WE DIDN'T WAIT until tomorrow.” Kirsty looks down at the scroll. “I guess anyone who has to think too hard about whether to join the hunt is going to be out without a hope. This stuff is impossible to buy.”

“Are we too late?”

Her watch is a complicated device with several different interlocking faces showing time zones and moon phases and tides. “We should just make it. If we leave now.”

“What's going on here?” Mum stands in my bedroom doorway in her purple dressing gown. Dad is behind her, a beat-up paperback in his hand. I wasn't exactly discreet, running upstairs from the shop floor. I would have woken the Sphinx with my stomping.

As they stare at Kirsty and me, I know they've figured it out. But to my relief, they don't look mad. Only tired.

“Oh, honey,” says Mum.

“I'm sorry. But I want to do this. I need to do this. This is my chance to . . .” I run out of words.

Dad reaches out to me. “It's your choice, Sam. But we can't pay to help you get any of these things. Kirsty's fees, your transport out into the Wilds, anything you might need along the way . . . Any of it.”

“Kirsty will help me out. Help us out.”

Thankfully, they seem to come to a mutual agreement. “You'll have to break it to Granddad tomorrow morning.”

“I might not have time for that.” I hand over the scroll.

Dad reads the name of the ingredient and draws in a sharp breath. “My goodness.”

“What is it?” asks Mum.

“Full moon oyster merpearl. Crushed. Thirty grams,” I recite, already having it memorized.

“Do we have it in the stockroom?” Dad asks.

I shake my head. “I just checked before coming upstairs.” The jars had skipped straight from an empty jar of Merlin's beard to merrimack plant. No merpearl in stock—I'm not that lucky.

“But the next Rising is tonight!” Mum says. “I saw it on the news.”

“I know.” I knew it as soon as I read the ingredient.

“You don't have any time to lose, then,” says Dad. He hands back the scroll. “Kirsty—you keep her safe.”

“I will, John.” She chucks me my backpack from the floor. “Meet me outside in five.”

I nod, grinning and darting around my bedroom, throwing anything I can find into the bag, barely stopping to think about where I might be going. What do you pack to go fishing for merpearls? I change into my most Finder-like gear: cargo trousers, a black T-shirt, and warm hoodie. I throw in my waterproof jacket and a torch. Then I pack my most important item: my potions diary. It's a thick string-bound notebook with a sturdy brown leather cover. It's by far my most prized possession. In here are all my recipes, all my notes about ingredients, all my dreams of new and different mixes. It's my brain in paper form.

In our library we have potion diaries belonging to almost every Kemi going back nearly five hundred years. There are a few key ones missing: my great-grandmother Cleo's, for example, and the journal of Thomas Kemi, the founder of the store. But the remaining journals form the great archive of Kemi knowledge, and it is by far our biggest asset.

I slot mine in the front pocket of my backpack.

I kiss Mum and Dad good-bye and race downstairs and out the side door. I swing my backpack up onto the floor of Kirsty's 4×4 and climb into the front.

“Ready?” she says.

I bite my lip and nod. We have two hours to do a two-
and-a-half-hour drive, plus find a boat willing to take us out to the Rising at the last minute. I sense that our chances aren't good, but what else can we do?

Before another thought can enter my brain, Kirsty slams down her foot on the accelerator, her fingers reaching out and flicking a switch on the dashboard that sends a surge of heavy metal music into the night air. If anyone opened a window to complain, we wouldn't know it—already we're around the corner and bombing down the twisted side streets, aiming straight for the highway heading south: to the Wilds of Nova.

I chew at the edges of my fingers, the buzz of Kirsty's subwoofer not helping my nerves.

Some parts of the Wilds are more accessible than others, like where we're going—Syrene Beach. It's the closest Rising to Kingstown and the only one in Nova. No one will have time to get anywhere else. You have to have a pass to get in, but it's one of the easiest to acquire. Syrene Beach is always featured in any guidebook or tourism advert for Nova: “Come witness the only Rising visible from the shore!” “See the beauty of Aphroditas and her mermaid clan!” “Go wild in the Wilds: the hottest party beach in Nova!”

No one is quite sure why the mermaids rise in the middle of the night during the full moon. They might bear many physical similarities to humans, but researchers haven't been able to communicate with them in
any meaningful way, at least not enough to give us any insight into their traditions. They're exhibitionists though, that's for sure. They rise up out of the sea and show off the beautiful pearls they've cultivated during the past month. They're competitive too, spending the month preparing for the occasion, which has all the pageantry of a beauty contest, and performing for all the people who crowd on the beach to watch them.

The most beautiful mermaid is called Aphroditas. If my guess is right and other teams from the hunt will be at the Rising, whoever gets the pearl from her will instantly have the most potent ingredient. That's the gamble the teams are going to have to take: compete for the attention of Aphroditas and potentially gain the most powerful pearl, or lose out and risk not getting a pearl at all.

Merpearls are the most popular engagement ring stone, even more so than diamonds or sapphires. In fact, Princess Evelyn has a merpearl tiara, the ultimate in extravagance. A vision of her picking her tiara apart to get one of the ingredients for the love potion plays out in my mind.

“Maybe we should have dragged my dad along.”

“What do you mean?” asks Kirsty.

“Don't mermaids respond best to male voices?”

“How do you know that?”

“I read . . . a lot.”

“Nerd.”

I punch her on the arm and she laughs. “Don't worry, we'll figure it out. If necessary, I can teach you a few tricks to change the timbre of your voice.”

“And that works?”

She nods. “Rule number one of being a Finder: you work with what you've got. Never count yourself out.”

Kirsty barely takes her foot off the gas, and since the highway is deserted—and there are no signs of any police—we make good time. With a few minutes to spare, we pull up to the Wilds border, little pillbox sheds standing like sentries on guard in the middle of the road. I wonder how busy the beach will be. Packed for the Rising, most likely.

I stare down at the paper in my hand, the neat line of printed text.
FULL MOON OYSTER MERPEARL. CRUSHED. 30 G.

The guard checks over our papers and flicks my shiny new pass with his fingers. Kirsty's pass is old and battered, even though she has to get it renewed every year she continues as a Finder. “You're late,” he says with a smirk.

“Then stop stalling us,” says Kirsty.

“Maybe I should take a closer look at these.”

Kirsty leans out the window, grabs at the guard's shirt, and yanks him down toward the window. “Let us through.”

I swallow down a dense ball of alarm at Kirsty's brazenness, but the guard laughs and tosses the passes back through the window and onto my lap.

His “see ya” disappears on the wind as Kirsty stomps on the accelerator again and we whip away into the night.

“That's Duke. We used to date,” Kirsty explains. “But then I realized he was a loser and we split.”

I've never seen Kirsty like this before. In her element. Her eyes are filled with determination, her jaw set. She catches me looking and grins wide. “Having fun yet?” She shifts gear and speeds up even faster. I grip the edge of the seat, my knuckles white.

A huge illuminated sign wings toward us:
SYRENE BEACH, 5 KM
. You wouldn't need a sign to know you were getting close, though. White lights reach and dance in the night sky. Occasionally one changes color, into brilliant magenta or electric blue, and tints the stars an unnatural shade.

A shiver runs through me. The Wilds always do this to me. I tilt my head to look out the window. Someone down by the beach turns a beam into the night sky, projecting out the massive snarling face of a bear. The University of Kingstown mascot: the Ursa Major.

Kirsty swings onto the exit ramp and slows as the paved road leading up to the beach becomes rutted and pot-holed. The car thrums with the deep reverberations of speakers blasting dance music to happy revelers. Far in the darkness, the horizon lifts and sways, and then the smell hits me—sharp and salty and fresh. The sea. We've arrived.

We grab one of the furthest parking spots from the sea—not by choice, of course. The lot is absolutely packed, mostly with party buses covered with graffiti like someone vomited color all over them. I start unpacking my backpack, but Kirsty shakes her head. “No time,” she says. She grabs a torch from the inside of her car door.

We hurry past students drinking pale gold fizzy beers in meter-long flagons, the cheapest they can get their hands on. More impressive are their glamours, glow-in-the-dark inks tattooed over tanned skin, and the Talenteds with lights embedded in their hair and down the lengths of their arms so that when they dance on the sand it looks like the stars are dancing with them.

“Gawk later,” says Kirsty, pulling me along. Her eyes turn toward the sea. Following her gaze, I can see we're already late. Out of the darkness, rising and falling with the waves, is a flotilla of lights, huddled together like seals in a storm. All of a sudden the sky around the boats lights up. There's a massive floodlight pointed down at the waves, and it's coming from one of the boats out in the middle of the ocean. “Boat” isn't really the right word for this particular object—“yacht” might be closer, perhaps “floating palace” even better. It's no surprise to see the huge letters that adorn the front of it: ZA. ZoroAster are already here.

The floodlight illuminates the other boats that are
crowded into the same area—other yachts, but also smaller fishing vessels and even, I think, a Jet Ski.

We're racing down the beach now, toward the jetty. The light from the crowd of boats doesn't quite reach the end of the dock, but I can see a commotion is building. A girl yelps in frustration and my heart leaps—I'd recognize that sound anywhere.

“Anita!” I shout at her. Kirsty and I have reached the dock, sand making way for rough planks of wood haphazardly nailed together.

“Arjun, look who's here!” Anita shouts over her shoulder, and her brother's head pops up from the end of the dock. His face is scrunched into a frown, but it softens when he sees me. Foam from the crashing waves fringes his dark brown hair with a white crown.

Arjun is sitting in a rickety-looking rowing boat that I'm convinced is taking on water from the way it dips at one end. Also in the boat is an old man dressed in a ragged white shirt, waterproof trousers, and a black jacket. A jagged scar runs across his face and I wonder what Wilds animal gave him that injury. He's a fisherman. Licences to fish the Wild waters are rare, so he's most likely a poacher. That means he's dangerous.

The boat rocks against the dock as a wave crashes beneath us, and seawater seeps through the eyelets of my laces.

Kirsty's boots pull up next to mine with a firm, confi­
dent step. I bet her shoes are waterproof—there's no telltale sound of squelching toes from her.

“Edgar,” she says, addressing the old man with her hands on hips. “What's going on here?”

The old man fidgets with the collar of his salt-stained coat. “Well, Miss Donovan, I've been trying to negotiate me a fair deal with these young pups to get out to the Rising.”

“Negotiate?!” Arjun explodes. “Cheat, steal, swindle, maybe.”

A small smirk appears on the old man's face. “I heard the rumors too, ain't I? This ain't no normal voyager out to see the clamwhackers.”

Anita, Arjun, and I reel back. I've never heard anything as offensive as the man's blatant insult to the mercreatures, but it just spurs Kirsty on. She reaches down into the boat and grabs Edgar under the armpit. She pulls him upward and—as if the sea is momentarily on our side—a wave rises up beneath them to push him up even higher. She drags him onto the dock, then drops him like a stone.

Anita and I dash into the boat before Edgar can regain his footing. “I know for a fact that you don't own this boat, Ed. You lost your license to sail when you tried to snare that narwhal. So find some other Finder to ­swindle.” While Kirsty talks, she unravels the length of rope attaching the boat to the dock. With a firm shove
from her boot she pushes the boat away and jumps in before it floats too far.

“Get the oars!” she yells. Anita and I scramble to grab them, and I shove one toward a slack-jawed Arjun. Kirsty takes the other one from Anita and roars out, “Stroke! Stroke!” until she and Arjun fall into a fast rhythm.

And still those lights look a long, long way out to sea.

“We're not going to make it,” Anita mutters beside me.

“What do you mean?” I ask.

“Listen! Can't you hear it? The Rising is beginning.”

Chapter Twelve

Samantha

AT FIRST I CAN'T HEAR anything but the rise and fall of the oars in the water, but then the first few notes reach me. It's coming from where the other boats are huddled. There's a loud snap, and the floodlight from the massive yacht blinks out.

All the other boats turn their lights off too, and my eyes have trouble adjusting to the midlight. The full moon seems obscenely large without the halo of other lights diminishing its brightness.

It's then that the first shell rises. At first it looks like another wave cresting far out at sea, but then I realize it's the scalloped edge of a mermaid's clam shell, as wide as our rowing boat is long. All other sounds have quieted down and the sea is as still as glass. This makes it easier for Kirsty and Arjun to propel us through the water, but Anita and I are frozen at the bow of the rowboat, paralyzed by the thought that we might have
made it this close but yet still be too far.

The moonlight glints off the pearlescent lip of the clam shell, disappearing into its numerous ridges and sparkling again on the swells. Another shell rises a few feet away, this one a more blushing pink than the first. They seem to multiply then, every shade of a dusky rainbow—from deep-bruise purple to silvery gray to almost bronze. The numerous remedies that can be made from the delicate inner lining of the shells rise in my mind:

Oyster Shell: for rosacea reduction—to soothe reddened skin. Also for bone strengthening—can help with early onset osteoporosis.

Anita stares through wide-angled binoculars, chewing at her bottom lip.

“Has Aphroditas risen yet?” Kirsty asks over her shoulder, her voice straining with the effort of rowing.

Anita shakes her head. “I don't think so . . . wait . . .”

I squint my eyes to try to get a better look, and then I squeal with excitement as I follow where Anita is looking. A shell is rising; white, a brilliant, pure white that is brighter than any of the others. And it's larger than the others too: the moon itself lifting up out of the sea. Although the water stays calm, the boats spread out and away from this shell, offering the respect that it deserves.

And then the shell starts to open.

Her hand is ghostly white and it shimmers too, as if her skin is radiating the light from the full moon. Her
fingers are too long, more like twigs than flesh, and fine, translucent webs join each one to its neighbor. In one swift movement she flings open the lid of her shell and she is revealed in all her glory. Her hair would make even the most beautiful supermodel in Nova green with envy—it moves with a life of its own, as if it's still underwater, floating and undulating through unseen currents. The pink-white strands appear to glow in the moonlight, tumbling around her naked upper body and wrapping around her waist, where skin meets scale. Her beauty astounds me, takes my breath away. Yet it's the strangeness of her that is most stunning—she is so close to human, and yet not. Her eyes are milky pale, as if she is blind, but she stares out at the crowd of boats, examining us all. If anything can draw attention away from her, it's the jewel around her neck—a pearl of such perfect roundness and sheen that it puts other stones to shame.

“Aphroditas,” Anita whispers, as gobsmacked as I am. Aphroditas is queen of the mermaids, and like tonight's full moon, however many times you see her, she's always captivating.

We're drifting now. Both Arjun and Kirsty have stopped rowing, although the momentum of the water is still carrying us toward the circle of boats. There is a gap, ready-made for us. We might make it after all.

And just as well, for the next few seconds are a ­scramble. Shells open everywhere, following Aphroditas's
lead, and there are mermaids and pearls appearing faster than we can keep up with. They fill the circle with their laughter, splashing each other and giggling and generally ignoring us.

Immediately, the other teams attempt to grab the mermaids' attention. Right across from us, with the prime spot in front of Aphroditas, is the ZA ship, with someone standing on the prow, their arms outstretched. Recognition flicks through my mind, and I grab Anita's hand.

“What is it?” she asks.

“Quick, can you lend me your binoculars a sec?”

“Sure.” She lifts them from around her neck and passes them over to me.

I point them toward the yacht and adjust the focus. A man in a sharp three-piece suit comes into view, his hair slicked back with gel in the latest style. He's holding a wand that is studded with sparkling diamonds, and he touches the tip of the wand to his throat. Then he opens his mouth and starts to sing.

It's Anita's turn to grab at the binoculars. “Oh my god,” she says, unable to keep the awe from her voice. “Is that who I think it is? Have they really got Damian out here?”

“Trust Zol to pull out all the stops,” mutters Kirsty in the back. “That's Aphroditas secured, then.”

I can see what she means. Aphroditas drifts toward the
ship, intrigued by the mellow richness of Damian's voice. Damian is the hottest pop star in Nova at the moment, and this is about to be his most captivated audience. This is the biggest stage Damian could wish for.

“Okay, it's our turn. Arjun, are you ready?”

Arjun nods grimly. “I'm not quite in his league, guys. And if I hear so much as a giggle out of any of you, you're going overboard.”

Anita and I shuffle out of the way to give him space at the front of our little rowing boat. He opens his mouth, but at first, nothing comes out. He turns and looks at Kirsty, a sheen of sweat on his brow. “What should I sing?”

“Start small,” she replies. “A nursery rhyme or something.”

He turns back to the water and at the small group of mermaids whose attentions haven't yet been secured. Finally he chokes out the first few notes of a children's song about the sea:

From the beach, to the waves, on the sand.

Mermaid's tails, sandcastle pails, hand-in-hand.

His voice is sweet, lilting even, but it doesn't compare to Damian—who has enchanted his own deep, honey-smooth voice to project across the water. The three of us wait with bated breath as Arjun sings.
Finally, after Arjun switches to an old folk song with a slightly more prominent beat, one of the mermaids tilts her ear in our direction.

“Yes, Arjun, keep going,” whispers Kirsty encouragingly. Arjun clearly spots the mermaid too, and focuses his voice on her, trying to make it sound like he's singing to her alone. Her tail flicks, a graceful motion like a petal in a breeze. Her long, mauve-colored fingers caress the pearl around her neck as she listens. Kirsty nudges me. “Arjun's doing well. See that pearl? That will be perfect. And there should be enough essence there for both teams.”

Teams. She's said it, now, and I didn't even think of it before. I am a team against Arjun and Anita. Although we will help each other out along the way, only one team can win the hunt.

Arjun's mermaid is moving toward us. We're riveted by the action, so engrossed that we don't notice the superyacht ZA creeping in front of us. Kirsty, the sharpest of the four of us, yells, and immediately pulls at the oars to get us out of the yacht's path. While Damian sings to Aphroditas, the yacht is going to block our path to the Rising.

“Hey!” Kirsty drops the oars, stands up in the boat and screams. The action rocks the boat severely, and water sloshes into our hull. “That's illegal! Get out of our way!”

The yacht keeps on coming. I almost laugh. Who are we going to complain to if they prevent us from accessing a pearl? No one will care. This is a Wilde Hunt. All rules except the hunt rules are out the window.

It's a lot darker out here, outside of the circle. We stare in dismay as the waves rock our boat further from the action, further from the gathering of mermaids.

Arjun's voice breaks.

“Don't stop singing,” Kirsty says, her voice grim. Her gaze is focused away from the boats, at a seemingly dark patch of the ocean. I follow her eyeline and struggle to see anything but the gentle rise and fall of the waves until—wait!—there's the tiniest ripple on the surface.

“There's another,” whispers Anita beside me. Another mermaid? I'm at once hopeful and afraid. A mermaid outside the ring of the Rising is almost unheard of. But there are other creatures in the ocean, ones that would be much less delightful to meet. A fin appears out of the water, and although I only glance at it for a second, my fear is eased: she's definitely a mermaid. But the fin has a deep gouge out of it, as if she's recently been attacked, and I hope she's strong enough to produce a pearl.

A few feet away from the boat, she reemerges. I have to stop myself from recoiling—her face is full of ­wrinkles, the thick bands of her hair in tatters—she must be ancient, but, if she's like any other mermaid, she's also
vain. If she sees surprise or disgust on any of our faces, she will surely bolt.

She approaches the boat, her lips widening into a grin. But that grin is a horror . . . teeth sharpened to a point, more shark than human. Worse still is the stench—rot, decay and mouldering fish. Anita and I both have to hold our breath, but luckily her attention is fixed on Arjun. He's white as a sheet but holding his nerve well, and Kirsty's hand on his shoulder is lending him reassurance and encouragement.

He sings and his voice barely wavers. I never even knew Arjun had it in him, but as I look into his eyes I see he is locked in a kind of trance with the mermaid.

Kirsty's fingers dig a little deeper into his shoulder.

“Can you do anything to help him?” I ask Kirsty.

“He's doing everything right. He just needs to hold on a little longer . . .”

The other boats are leaving now, their engines rumbling, and if their wake interrupts the trance—or more likely, if they continue to play dirty and deliberately try to break it—we will lose the pearl forever. The fact that we haven't even seen the pearl yet is a bad enough sign.

Arjun's voice takes on a more urgent quality, but the mer . . . “mermaid” hardly seems like the right term, “mercrone” seems more accurate, will not be rushed. Slowly, ever so slowly, she reaches down into her shell and brings
out the tiniest pearl I have ever seen, barely a seed.

Arjun extends his hand out and she reaches to meet his. But then the ZA yacht blasts its horn, attempting to scatter any remaining mermaids.

Including ours. But there's a glint of cunning in her eye as she spooks . . . and snatches at Arjun's arm in the process.

All at once the boat tips, the trance breaks, and the mercrone dives. Anita and I leap for Arjun, grabbing him by one leg each.

“Keep hold of him!” Kirsty cries as she fumbles through her bag. Between us, we are stronger than the sea creature and she surfaces again, hissing and spitting through her teeth.

Then with a powerful flick of her tail she bends forward and bites his upper arm. Arjun's screams fill my ears and I beat at her with my fist while still maintaining my fierce grip on Arjun.

“Sam, pull him back!”

I throw my other arm around Arjun as Kirsty tosses a handful of powder in the mercrone's face. Now it is her turn to scream and she releases Arjun, her hands clawing at her face. She dives. With a final tug we pull him into the middle of the rowing boat, collapsing on top of one another in a big pile.

“Alkali,” Kirsty says. “It reacts with the salt in their skin and burns them.”

“Serves her right,” say Arjun, wincing as Anita wipes his bite wound with a natural anaesthetic. Aelgi, for wounds of the sea—to help the blood clot, to prevent scarring.

“As does this . . .” He opens his palm, and in the center of it is a little pearl.

Anita and I let out a whoop of joy. The first ingredient is ours!

I catch Kirsty's eye as she pulls the first stroke back toward shore. She shakes her head at me.

“Hey, Arjun, can I take a look?” I ask.

He places the pearl in my hand. I roll it between my fingers, and it disappears into the pads of my fingertips as I press down. I pass it back over to Anita.

It's too small for two teams to share. Less than twenty-four hours into the hunt, and the Kemi family is already out.