Song of the Deep (5 page)

I navigate up through the tunnel, pedaling so fast that my legs
are burning. I see the blue water at the end of the passage up ahead as I hear
another torpedo launch behind me.

8

SWISH

I
race up
out of the tunnel and lean into a roll, spinning the sub upside down and out of
the way as the torpedo flies past me toward the distant surface of the water.
Now I just need to find a place to hide before the sentinel emerges from the
tunnel.

Sailing up out of the fissure, I turn toward the west and follow
the seafloor, looking for a cluster of rocks, or a coral shelf, or anything at
all that might conceal me. I speed across the flat sandy ground, listening for
the sound of a torpedo launching behind me. The sentinel can surely outrun me
in open water. My only advantage is the small head start I got when I exited
the fissure.

Suddenly the seafloor disappears below me and I find myself sailing
over a black bottomless trench. The darkness seems to reach up all around me,
trying to swallow me whole.

I have only seconds to choose between the certain death that lies
behind me and the possible death that lies beneath me.

I dive down into the depths.

Gliding deeper into the murky void, I can no longer see the mouth
of the trench above me. My sunstar’s light shines into the blackness of the
trench, revealing nothing but empty water in all directions. But as long as I
can’t see the top of the trench, the sentinel shouldn’t be able to see me.

I sail back and forth in a tiny pattern, just keeping the air
flowing while I wait. I wonder how long I should stay down here. For all I
know, the sentinel is just waiting for me up there.

Then I see something rising up from below me, a deeper darkness
within the darkness. It’s so big that I can’t see where it starts and where it
stops. The water swells up, knocking me back in the wake of the massive moving
shadow.

I catch a glimpse of what look like giant green scales before I am
knocked back again by another swell of water. The immense shadow disappears
back into the trench, leaving me all alone, staring wide-eyed into the
darkness.

Whatever that was, I don’t want to wait for it to come back. I
sail back up to the top of the trench. There is no sign of the sentinel in any
direction. Checking my compass, I turn back to the west in search of Skeleton
Reef.

I sail through the endless open sea, the sunstar casting a cone of
light in front of me.

The seabed is sandy and featureless, and I feel as if I have been
pedaling for hours. I check my compass to make sure I am still traveling west
and not merely going in circles.

Up ahead a faint twinkling light appears in the darkness. As I
sail closer, more and more tiny lights come into view. Soon there are hundreds
of them, spread across the darkness like stars in the night sky.

The lights are lavender-colored, bobbing gently up and down. I can
see long flowing tendrils waving beneath them.
Lantern jellies!
My
father told me about them once. They are the most beautiful creatures in the
sea—but they are deadly to the touch.

The bloom of jellies heads toward me. It’s too late to turn
around, so I hold perfectly still and let them glide by. The flickering lights
cast patterns on the inner walls of the sub as they pass. Their glowing bodies
are so densely packed together, I can no longer see the water at all; but they
part in front of me, avoiding the light of the sunstar. I hold my breath as the
long tentacles of an especially large jelly sweep over the glass in front of my
face.

The jellies are becoming sparser now. The last of the glowing
lights passes by me. The lavender glow recedes and I am once again sailing into
the empty midnight blue.

I’m checking my compass again when I hear a sudden
whoosh
of bubbles from behind me. My mind races. The sentinel is back!
There’s
nowhere to hide . . . I have to outmaneuver it.

I pull back hard on the handlebars, turning sharply to the right
as I accelerate to spin into a corkscrew loop. I’m about to turn into the next
loop when I feel a bump from behind me and I go spinning around again in the
darkness, losing my grip on the handlebars. As I struggle to regain my balance,
I see two giant yellow eyes staring at me through the window.

It’s not the sentinel. It’s a serpent—
a baby leviathan
.

Its long green snake-like body flows gracefully as it watches me.
My father’s stories of leviathans used to give me nightmares, but this one
doesn’t look
too
terrifying. I wonder . . . could that giant shadowy creature
I saw in the trench have been a full-grown leviathan?

“Hi there,” I say. He just stares at me, his long body undulating
behind him. “Are you lost? Your mother is probably worried about you. Maybe you
should go find her.” He touches his nose against the window. He’s actually kind
of cute, in a weird sort of way.

“Really, I mean it. If she sees you here, she’s going to be mad at
me.” I turn and try to sail around him, but he just swims alongside me and gets
in front of me again. This time he swishes his tail back and forth as if he
wants to play.

“Listen, I wish I could play, but I’m in a hurry.” He just swishes
his tail again.

He taps my front window with a fin and then turns and swims off
ahead of me, stopping to turn his head back to see if I’m following. Is he
trying to play tag?

Well, he’s going in the same direction I am . . . I guess it
doesn’t hurt to have a fierce-looking traveling companion.

When he sees that I’m following him, he swishes his tail even
faster and darts forward into the darkness. I guess we’re playing tag after
all. I don’t know why, but I suddenly feel happier. For the first time since I
started out, I feel like I’m not alone on my journey.

The little leviathan does a looping corkscrew turn in front of me.
Is he imitating what I was trying to do earlier? I can’t help laughing. He’s
such a little show-off. He turns back toward me as if he wants my approval. He
swishes his tail playfully, waiting for me to catch up.

Swish. I’m going to call him Swish.

******

W
ith Swish
swimming along at my side, I sail past the steep rocky edge of the trench. It
feels good to see sand below me again. Swish suddenly races off, chasing
something. He disappears into the darkness for a moment, then races back toward
me. Only then do I realize what he’s chasing. It’s a fifteen-foot-long thresher
shark.

I turn to get out of their path and the long-tailed shark speeds
past me. Swish stops chasing him and returns to swimming alongside me. Until
now I hadn’t realized just how big Swish is. The shark was barely half his
size.

“I’m glad you’re on my side,” I say to Swish. The thresher shark
probably wouldn’t have tried to attack the sub, but it feels good knowing that
Swish is trying to protect me.

Swish swims down along the seafloor, wriggling his long body back
and forth in the sand and making a snaking pattern behind him. He turns around
and looks at his creation, then at me. I think he wants me to do the same
thing.

I glide downward, letting the sub graze against the sand, and
zigzag back and forth, trying to make a trail. Swish slides along beside me as
I go. I turn back around to look at the patterns. My trail looks like a creek
alongside a huge riverbed, but Swish wags his tail excitedly as he races around
in circles above our art display.

“Come on, now,” I tell him, laughing at his antics. “We have
important responsibilities.” We turn back to the west and he swims alongside me
again. I think he understands that we’re going somewhere.

Swish alternates between swimming by my side and scouting ahead of
me, looking for dangers to protect me from. In front of me, he stops suddenly,
staring straight ahead.

“What is it this time, a deadly puffer fish?” I joke.

Then I see what he’s looking at. There are thirteen tall
rectangular stones sticking up out of the sand, forming the shape of a circle.
Each stone must be at least twelve feet high. This couldn’t have been a natural
formation. I get a strange eerie feeling as I look at the circle of stones. I
wonder if this is an old merrow graveyard.

Swish is staring into the center of the circle. He slowly backs
away from the stones as if he is scared of something.

“They’re just rocks,” I say to him, as I sail between two stones
and into the center of the circle. He makes a yelping noise and thrashes his
tail. “It’s okay; I’m fine!” I say to him as he swims around the outside of the
circle anxiously.

And then I hear it. There is
music
all around me.

It sounds like the voices of men and women singing together. There
are no words, just a low and sad melody. I look around to see where the sound
is coming from, but it seems to be all around me. Without thinking, I hum along
to the tune. It feels strangely familiar. Was this one of my father’s
lullabies?

Swish is getting more and more anxious, but I can’t leave the
circle. I can feel that there’s something here. This is where I need to be.

The music moves through me. It becomes a part of me. The song
feels so familiar, but I can’t place it. I don’t think it’s one of my father’s
lullabies. Wait . . . I remember now . . .

This was the same song my mother sang to me on the day she died
.

The world seems to fall away beneath me.

I’m in a rowboat with my mother. I see our house in the distance,
across the water. My father is on the beach waving to us. My mother is wearing
a green dress and a necklace of wild orchids. She is humming a beautiful sweet
melody.

“What’s that song?” I ask.

“It’s something my mother used to sing to me,” she answers.

“Why are there no words in that one?”

“Good question. Maybe its meaning is different for every person.”

“What does it mean to you?”

“To me, it means to always cherish and remember those who you
love.”

I look down at my own wild orchid necklace, then back up at my
mother’s dark brown hair shining in the sun. Her beautiful green eyes twinkle
as she smiles at me.

“Do you think we’ll see a whale today?” I ask.

“I’m sure we will. They love
the scent of wild orchids. They come up to the surface just to smell them.”

“Whoa . . .” I say, peering over the side, looking for a whale.
“Do you think I can ride one?”

“Of course,” she says with a laugh. “It’s Sunday, so they
shouldn’t be too busy.”

“I think I see one!” I shout, leaning farther over the edge.
There’s a dark shadow moving deep beneath the surface.

“Careful,” she says, as she reaches for my hand. But it’s too
late.

As I lean out to touch the water, I tumble down into the sea. My
arms and legs are flailing as I sink below the surface. I kick at the water,
helplessly trying to reach for the boat edge. The shadow of the boat shrinks
against the sunlit water. Strands of kelp reach up around me as my feet are
pulled down to the ground.

There is a splash above me. My mother comes toward me, her arm
reaching out.

I feel the kelp tighten around my legs. She swims down and pulls
my arm, trying to free me from the grip of the kelp. I can’t keep my mouth
closed anymore.

I see that my mother’s eyes are filled with fear. She frantically
pulls the kelp away from my legs and lifts me up. She pushes me up toward the
sunlight above us.

I flail my arms.

I kick as hard as I can.

My mother’s hand lets go of me. She reaches out, trying to push me
toward the surface. But now the kelp has grabbed hold of her.

I can’t hold my breath any longer. My mouth opens up and the water
flows in. The water is in my lungs. I’m sinking again. I close my eyes.
Everything feels cold.

Then something grabs me and pulls me up. I’m coughing. I can’t
stop coughing. I’m on the boat. I’m breathing again. My father is staring at
me, anxiously.

There’s a splash again, and he’s back in the water. He’s gone a long
time. When he comes back, he has my mother in his arms. She’s in the boat. He’s
trying to make her breathe.

I reach for her hand. Her eyes
are open, but she’s not looking at me. Her orchid necklace has come off. I want
to tell her I’ll make her a new one. I want to tell her I’m sorry. My father
keeps trying to make her breathe. But she’s not breathing. I squeeze her hand
as tight as I can. And the world falls away from me again.

I’m back in the middle of the circle of stones. The sad melody is
all around me.
It was my fault
.

She died trying to save me. That’s why I had forgotten that day.
That’s why my father never talks about it. Does he blame me for it too? Does he
feel guilty that he saved me and couldn’t save her? I shudder as I think of how
my father would feel if he ever learned that I died while trying to save him.

I sit and listen to the sweet peaceful sound of the notes. My
eyelids start to feel heavy.

The air is hard to breathe, but I don’t have the energy to move
anymore. I see Swish, still swimming around outside the circle. He’ll be okay.
He can go back to his mother. I just want to stay here. All I want is to listen
to the sad lullaby of the stones, just a little while longer . . .

I feel my whole body getting heavy. I’m just going to lie down for
a little while. I curl up on the cold metal floor of my sub and listen to the
song all around me as everything starts to go dark.

A sudden jolt startles me, as the sub is yanked backward. I look
up out the window to see a cloud of sand, then the stones retreating in the
distance.

The music is gone. I feel as if I’m waking up. Instinctively, I
start to pedal. Swish’s face pops up in front of me, his eyes wide with worry.
He must have pulled me out of the circle. He saved my life.

The air is coming back again. I look out at Swish swimming beside
me.