In the castle there was seaweed arranged in spiral shells. Hermit crabs chased each other around a giant clamshell, and conch shells filled with another type of strange seaweed gave off a pink glow.
Voona—a mermaid with wild orange hair—caught sight of them. She swam to Oola and stared at Rani. Her yellow eyes widened. "What is that? Where did you find it? It's so tiny!"
"My name is Rani," Rani snapped.
Voona shrieked. "It talks!"
"She's a faerie," Oola explained.
"She is? Where's her wand?" Voona demanded. "Look what we found! Look what we found!" she waved over a group of mermaids, which surrounded Oola.
They laughed, and touched Rani with their fingers.
"Does it bite?"
"Eww! It's bloody, and dirty!"
"Can I pet it?"
"It scares me," one of the mermaids swam a few yards away. Rani blushed.
"Look—it's turning red," Voona said.
"Stop!" Oola yelled. "She's my fairy. Look. She cut off her wings to swim with the mermaids." Oola touched the place where Rani's wings used to be. It seared Rani with pain.
"Well, I don't want it, anyway," Voona said. "She looks like a mess, and she's probably full of germs."
Rani blushed even harder. Oola took her to the wind room to clean her, and find her something to use for a new dress. Rani used the opportunity to make more bubbles for her necklace.
"Oola!" Mara yelled after Oola had dressed Rani in fresh sea-silk. "Can I use your fairy to get something for me that I dropped into Starfish Gap? My golden ring," she explained. "If a fairy can't reach it, I'll never see it again!"
Rani stared in horror, at the mermaids. "What... is Starfish Gap?" she asked.
"Oh, would you?" Oola exclaimed. "That would be wonderful! See if you can find anything else we've dropped into it, please. We're always losing our jewellery in there."
"I don't know if I want to," Rani took a step backwards on Oola's hand.
"Please!" Oola begged. "It won't be too dark, because the sun always shines down through the water. I don't think it goes very deep. I'll take you there now," she squeezed her fist around Rani, and swam rapidly out of the castle.
"Good idea, Mara," Oola said. "We can use the faerie to get into places we can't!"
Rani bit Oola's hand, but she didn't feel it.
RANI STUDIED THE deep, narrow crack in the ocean floor. Sunlight certainly did not shine into it. She couldn't see more than two feet down.
"We'll hold up this light for you," Mara held glowing pink seaweed. Starfish Gap was lined with plants and corals. Rani plucked a particularly large bubble from her necklace and popped it into her mouth. The mermaids forced her down the crack with their long, pointy fingers.
Rani reached out her arms to touch both sides of the rough walls with her fingertips. The light from the seaweed didn't reach her as she sunk down. She looked up, and could barely see the glint of a mermaid eye staring at her through the crack. Something at the bottom rushed upward, tearing a scream from Rani's throat as it touched her. There was no way to see what it was in the darkness.
Rani tried to call for help, but had to use up most of the bubbles on her necklace to catch her breath. There might be predators in the crack with her, although whatever had swam past her seemed to be gone.
She looked down. She could see nothing. It was cold, and hundreds of little air bubbles brushed her skin on their way upwards. A pink glow illuminated the atmosphere. The mermaids had finally pressed the seaweed through the top of the crack, but it blocked the outside world from view. Rani was too scared to shout to the mermaids, not wanting to use more air bubbles. Her feet hit a ledge of stone, and she had to squeeze past it to reach the bottom.
There she could make out seaweed, broken shell pieces, stones, and something else circular near a fish skeleton. Slowly, Rani swam to it, and saw it was a ring. There were two other rings behind it. They looked old and dirty, as if they'd been lying in the sand for a long time, but each had a gem of a different color: green, blue, and one which was a mix of both. Rani slipped them over her good arm. She posed to swim upwards again.
It was quiet. Rani's heart thudded. "Oona?" she used one of her last air bubbles to call. Rani listened for a voice or a giggle. She kicked her legs, the journey to the top taking longer because of the extra weight, but especially because she was unable to use either of her arms.
The walls around her had turned a dark, shadowy gray. The seaweed was going out. Rani kicked her legs harder until she reached the top of the gap. She had to push the seaweed out of the way with her head, which took an extra five minutes in the suffocating blackness. She was afraid it would twist around her neck and choke her. The passage had turned completely dark, and she had to let one of the rings fall.
Rani's head poked into the dim light above Starfish Gap. The mermaids weren't there.
RANI SWAM OVER yellow rocks. Pink seaweed lay scattered on the floor.
"I found the ring!" Rani called. Her voice was too small to reach far, especially since she was only willing to risk the tiniest air bubble she needed to speak.
There was no answer. Rani dropped both of the rings, and swam as hard as she could. She looked up. Something large and silver was heading toward her. With a quick kick, she swam to the side. Her arm, and the gashes on her back burned. The silver thing dropped past her.
A green shape darted by, like a ribbon. Oola chased the silver thing. "Look what Peter Pan brought us," she screeched. "He stole it from the pirates. Hahaha!" She caught the mirror, and looked in it.
Voona and Mara reached them from behind. "Stop hogging all Peter's presents for yourself," Voona cried.
"Give us the mirror!" Mara reached for it, but Oola swam out of reach.
"You already get to have a fairy," Voola pulled Oola's hair.
The mermaids began hitting each other, and calling each other names. Rani swam away, as a tail almost crushed her into the dirt. She pushed the last of her air bubbles into her mouth.
"Halfwits!" she yelled.
"Oh! My ring!" Mara shouted, swooping to pick it up from the ground.
"This one was mine!" Voona said, and the mermaids plunged into a fresh fight.
"You made me get my tail stuck in the gap, you fools!" Oola yelled. Her face turned a deep shade of green. Stretching, she yanked the ring from Mara's finger, and threw it into the distance. It landed on a purple rock, where it bounced off, and dropped back down into Starfish Gap. In the fist fight that followed, the mirror went after it.
If Rani had more air bubbles she'd have let out a noise of disgust. She swam to the surface to make more for her necklace. A slow brown turtle swam past. Rani grabbed onto its shell, and used it as a surface. The turtle kicked his flippers. He dipped under water just as she finished.
Rani sank back down into a tangle of blue seaweed, which was strangely shaking back and forth. A snout popped out and batted her leg as she darted away from it. The seaweed parted and revealed a thrashing gremlin. It reared its head and whipped its tail.
"Fool, did you get too close to the stream and get swept away?" Rani asked in the harsh tone of voice fairies used when they talked to gremlins at the markets. "Maybe I could help you, if you would stop moving!"
She stuck her working arm passed the rough surface of the gremlin's body. The creature went rigid as she tore the seaweed that had ensnared it. Gremlins could hold their breath for a long time, but she wasn't sure how long it had been stuck there.
Soon it was free. The gremlin raced away. Rani seized its leg, and clung to it. It was like flying with Brother Dove, but more exciting. They whipped past golden fish and orange anemones. Then the world became a blur of purple, blue, and green. In her dizziness there appeared spots, stripes and patterns.
Rani knew the gremlin would head toward the market. She thought this was the best place to go. The other faeries couldn't make her stay out of her own home forever. She would defend herself against them, or, at least, they would have to kill her as she tried.
The gremlin went to the base of a sunken mountain. When they were a little closer, Rani could see the mountain was a ship. The wreck was larger than the mermaids' castle. The gremlin swam through an opening, and out the other side. Coins scattered the ground near the side of a ship, like a wound bleeding gold. A needle-sharp knife was resting in a pile of sapphires.
The gremlin had slowed enough for her to let go of it quickly and reach the hilt with her working arm. She wedged the blade into the scales of the gremlin's back, far enough from its flesh not to harm it, and tightly enough to remain secure. She hurriedly wrapped her arm around its leg again, as it sped up. Perhaps it had deliberately taken her to the treasure for a reward, or perhaps it was just good fortune. The motivation of gremlins isn't to be deciphered.
They headed through a forest of coral, then a cluster of seaweed. Rani and the gremlin floated with the current.
Something floated down from the top of the lagoon. It was silver, and for a moment Rani thought it might be Peter Pan's mirror. They got closer, and Rani recognized a bubble message, made the same way as the sea snake she'd formed to impress the mermaids.
"Rani, wherever you are, don't come back," it warned. "We have killed Brother Dove. You destroyed our fountain, and caused much pain and suffering. Do not come back. You will be killed. —Tink."
Tink must have asked another water-talent fairy to help her make the bubble message.
"Poor Brother Dove!" Rani cried. "He would have been searching all over for me. What have I done?"
Fish swam past Rani as her tears mixed with the water. She traced the hilt of the knife with her finger. "I think it's time for me to go home, for certain. I will avenge my friend."