Mutante: Chapter 22
Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Frerichs
Rosie wrapped a lock of her hair around her finger meditatively. “What if we just shrink it? After Grandma is free, of course. It would be a lot less dangerous if we could just stick it in a jar or something.”
Robert chuckled. “Can you imagine showing a mini sea monster to people? They’d never believe it.”
“Well, what do you think, Thomas?”
“I had not considered that, but yes, it should be possible to shrink the monster if you can just get it outside the magical blackout spell.”
“How large is the spell?”
“Only in the house itself. Lady Rina tied the block into the structure.”
Rosie smiled at Robert. “Looks like you’ll have a chance to antagonize Ranulf after all.”
Time passed. Without her timekeeper, Rosie never would have known exactly how long it was. Kelp whispered up against the sides of the “tunnel” all around them, blocking out the light and preventing her from seeing, even with her new eyesight. Finally, finally! the ground began to slope upward.
“I suppose it makes sense that the different colored kelp would live up here, near the largest concentration of magic,” Rosie said with a tired sigh. “I wish it didn’t though. The thought of having to go back to the cave after this is a lot.”
“Too right!” Robert said. “At least getting the kelp shouldn’t be terribly difficult.”
“Don’t say things like that,” Rosie nearly whined.
“Why?”
Rosie huffed. “Now it’s going to be nearly impossible.”
He laughed. “I doubt that.” He winked at her. “First one to find the turquoise kelp wins.”
Rosie smiled, appreciating his attempt to lighten the mood. “Then prepare to lose.”
He scoffed and began ostentatiously studying the path ahead of them. Before long, it came to an end with no kelp. Presumably because the kelp was dangerous. Hopefully, only if they ingested it, but . . . .
“Thomas, did Grandma discover what would happen if you touch the turquoise kelp?”
Thomas’s expression grew pensive. “I believe that was the one that she said caused painful welts on one’s skin. She did the experiments on a table out of my sight, and I’m afraid her mutters were not particularly intelligible. I only remember the vomiting because she tested it on a porpoise she summoned. Let’s just say it was a day I’m quite glad I cannot smell.”
Robert hissed. “So, no touching the kelp.”
Rosie suppressed an “I told you so” and then took out the gloves they would need. “Anything else we should know before we try to harvest it?” she asked the mirror.
Thomas shook his head. “Not that I can recall.”
“All right. Well, Sir Knight, prepare for defeat,” she said, smacking the extra set of gloves into his chest and rushing to examine the foliage pressed up against the tunnel wall. Hopefully, they could find the plant and be done with it. Quickly.
“No fair!” Robert complained, following hard on her tail fin.
Rosie merely sent him a wide smile and continued examining the portion of the tunnel she had chosen. Nothing stood out to her.
“You know, this would have been much easier if you would have just let me harvest it earlier,” Robert commented as he studied his own section of “wall.”
Rosie rolled her eyes. “While that may be true, you didn’t exactly make a good case.”
“Profit appeals to most people.”
“Not to me.”
Robert shook his head, but continued the search.
Rosie allowed the conversation to drop, unwilling to refer to his very poignant reasons for wanting to harvest further kelp—reasons that had nothing to do with profit.
“Ha!” he cried after several minutes. “I found it!”
Rosie turned to see him spinning in place gleefully.
“I won.” Robert pointed at her. “You lost.”
Rosie snorted, watching him cavort about like a small child. “I don’t know—watching you celebrate feels like winning. I can hold this over you for a loooong time.”
He immediately stilled. “You wouldn’t.”
She mimicked his exuberant dancing. “Remember the time you showed me your victory dance?” She smiled, ensuring he knew there was no sting to her words. “Well, shall we try the old hook and sword method?”
He sighed in mock exasperation, but agreed.
Two leaves harvested with difficulty, but without injuries, left Rosie feeling quite optimistic.
Thump! Thump! Thump! Rosie nearly jumped out of her skin, only barely avoiding touching the dangerous kelp. A legion of hammerhead sharks surrounded the tunnel on all sides, throwing themselves against it.
“Sharks,” Robert said tensely, swimming closer to her. “I’ve never seen them this big.”
The sharks were difficult to make out through the ever-present kelp leaves, but when they came close to the tunnel, their pointed teeth gleamed. She shivered, reminding herself that the path had kept her safe for years.
As though responding to some unseen signal, they barreled into the walls, again and again, trying to reach the merfolk. Rosie squinted at the sharks as a brief green glow appeared. The path shook with the impacts, jittering as though it was trying to avoid the sharks.
Rosie blinked, trying to focus on what she was seeing. Her vision wavered, and the sharks glowed grey-green again just before hitting the path. “They’re magic sharks.”
“Probably eaten too many things that eat kelp,” Robert said. “It’s changed a lot of creatures in here.”
“Precisely,” Thomas said. “Their magic seems to protect them from the path’s magic. Otherwise, they would have already left.”
“Then—what do you suggest? I can’t exactly change the path’s destination while they’re so close.”
“Let us go down the path a way. Perhaps they will not follow,” Thomas suggested.
Robert repacked his hook, but left his sword unsheathed. “C’mon, Waterdancer.”
Waterdancer neighed nervously, his eyes rolling, but obeyed Robert’s instructions. “How far away do you think we need to get?” Robert asked Rosie.
Rosie clenched the harness. “I don’t know. Far enough that they can’t slip in when the path changes direction? Or maybe it would be fine since we’re together. I just don’t know enough about the spell to know.”
“Thomas?” Robert prodded.
“I, too, am unfamiliar with the spell,” the mirror said.
Robert nodded, his eyes surveying the tunnel walls around them as Waterdancer pulled them forward. They couldn’t go full speed because of the path’s twists and turns. It was infuriating.
Every minute or two, another wave of sharks crashed into the tunnel.
“It doesn’t make any sense,” Robert murmured. “Sharks don’t care about merfolk. Maybe Waterdancer, but why go to all this trouble? And hammerheads don’t school like this.”
Cold trickled up Rosie’s spine. “Magic. Probably Aunt Rina trying to keep anyone from getting too close to Grandma. I’m surprised we didn’t run into more problems trying to get to the house yesterday.”
“That doesn’t exactly inspire me with confidence for tomorrow,” Robert said.
Rosie nodded, her chest growing tight. If the path failed . . . . a horde of angry, magically-driven, magically-enhanced sharks would show little mercy.
The shaking intensified, the walls beginning to close in around them.
“Wh-what’s happening?” Roise cried out.
“You must not be afraid, Miss Rose,” Thomas called back. “Magic is sensitive to fear.”
“But the path is fading!” she choked out.
Robert gave her a worried look. “It’ll be ok, Rosie. Just—deep breaths. We can’t let them get to us. Maybe that’s what Rina’s trying to do: make you so afraid that you defeat yourself. Come on, you can do this. You fought a siren-plant—you can definitely handle the noise from a shiver of sharks.”
Rosie’s throat grew tight, and her stomach clenched. She tried to breathe through it, but her gills fluttered faster than Waterdancer’s fins and she couldn’t seem to calm herself down. “I—I’m not sure I can handle it.” One of the sharks eyed her and then rammed into the wall closest to her head, as though promising that he would come after her first.
Rosie jumped, and the tunnel shrank, now only barely keeping the sharks at bay.
“Miss Rose, you must calm down.”
“I can’t! There’s too many of them!”
“Close your eyes,” Thomas commanded, his voice cracking like the snap of a crab’s claws.
Rosie hesitated.
“Please,” Robert whispered, fear edging his tone.
Her teeth beginning to chatter, Rosie forced her eyes closed.
“Imagine the path expanding all around you,” Thomas said, his tone firm.
“I can’t. It’s—there’s too many of them. The path can’t push them back.”
Robert gave a forced chuckle. “It pushed back a siren-plant. I think it can handle some sharks.”
“Indeed. The path is more than capable of managing the sharks,” Thomas agreed. “Now, imagine it growing larger all around us.”
Rosie’s head ached as she tried to comply, but all she could think about was the sharks.
“Rosie!” Robert shouted, pulling her across Waterdancer.
Rosie’s eyes flew open. The path had almost melted away now. Robert had forced her between him and Waterdancer and was even now fending off a shark snout that was poking through a thin place in the path. If something didn’t change—
No! She couldn’t lose Robert.
Rosie flung her hands wide, imagining a path with opaque walls, hiding them away from sharks and any other unfriendly eyes, wrapped around them and stretching all the way back to the cave.
The water grew thick and a sparkling darkness surrounded them. Between one breath and the next, the sharks were gone, and darkness engulfed them. Robert held up the glow lantern. The tunnel had returned, but the outside was now shut away. Thuds still shook the roof, which was now nearly ten tail-lengths above them.
Rosie shuddered, but held her arms out, willing the spell to hold. She refused to let Robert, Waterdancer, or Thomas suffer just because she was scared of some sharks.
A wave of weariness crashed over her and she sank to the tunnel floor, her shaking arms still raised.
“Rosie!” Robert cried, rushing to her side. “Here, let’s—I’ll just hold you. We’ll get down the path a bit and then you can relax.” Tenderly, he gathered her in his arms and pulled her to Waterdancer. He set her on Waterdancer’s back and held onto the harness on either side of her. “Go, Waterdancer!” he said, craning his neck to see around her.
Though the path twisted and turned, the tunnel was now so wide that they could swim forward at full speed and still have time to alter course.
Rosie’s whole body began to shake with the effort of keeping her arms up.
“Rest your arms on my shoulders,” Robert said.
Awkwardly, Rosie nearly embraced him, leaning her arms on his shoulders and laying her head to one side. The relief was worth the discomfort of the added closeness. “Thanks.”
“Anytime,” he said, a smile in his voice.
After a few minutes of hard riding, they left the thumps far behind. Unfortunately, Rosie’s weariness had doubled in size and she was now only barely managing to stay awake. Every so often, her arms would start to slide down and she would jerk back to wakefulness, pulling the aching limbs into place.
“Rosie’s been holding her arms up since she did—whatever she did to change the path,” Robert told Thomas, his words sounding as though they were floating towards her from leagues away. “Can she put them down now?”
“If she believes she can, yes,” Thomas said regretfully.
Robert slowed Waterdancer. “Rosie,” he called.
She started. “Right. Sorry, I was falling asleep. What were you saying?”
“You don’t have to hold up the path anymore. You did the spell already.”
“Didn’t say the rhyme,” she muttered, her thoughts as sluggish as tired sea snails.
He gave her a little shake as she began collapsing into him again. “I don’t think you need to say it this time. You already changed the path.”
Rosie shook her head. “Don’t know how to turn this into a rhyme.”
“Do you have to? You’ve already magicked it where it needs to be. We’re safe now. You don’t have to hold off the sharks.”
Rosie’s eyes slid closed. Safe. Robert would protect her.
“She’s falling asleep,” Robert murmured.
“You should get her some food first,” Thomas urged.
Robert pulled Waterdancer to a stop, holding Rosie for a moment. “Can you give me the bag? You need another snack.”
“‘m not five years old,” Rosie said crossly, her eyes still closed and the floaty feeling becoming more pronounced. “I don’t need snacks.”
Robert chuckled. “You do though. Remember, you’re supposed to eat something after you do big magic?”
“Mmm.”
He shook her a little. “Rosie, I need you to wake up and give me the bag. You can go to sleep after you eat something.”
She opened one eye. “Promise?”
He nodded.
“All right.” With aching arms, heavy hands, and fumbling fingers, she managed to detach the bag from her belt after a few tries and gave it to him. “Here.”
“Thanks. Can you sit here by yourself for a minute while I find a snack?”
Rosie glared at him, though she feared the effect was lost in her half-asleep state. “Perfectly capable of sitting.”
“Very capable,” he agreed, laughter rippling through his voice. He gently disengaged himself from her, pulling one of her hands down to grab hold of the harness.
Rosie took the harness. Wasn’t there some reason she shouldn’t be holding onto it? Something to do with Robert. Maybe he didn’t like her holding onto it? Or no, it was something about protecting him. What was it? She sighed. If only her thoughts felt less sluggish. Thinking was like trying to swim upstream against a riptide.
“Here,” he said, after some minutes. “Eat this.”
She took the reef apple and ate it, wishing he had given her something that required a bit less chewing. Afterwards, he handed her a seaweed roll, and she ate that too. She felt less woozy now, but still tired and confused. There was something she was supposed to be doing, she was sure of it.
“Can I let her sleep now?” Robert asked Thomas.
The mirror hesitated for a moment before agreeing, provided they ate again when they reached the cave.
Sleep sounded glorious, and so, when Robert handed her back the enchanted bag, she gladly clipped it onto her belt, and then—something that she would never have imagined yesterday morning—cheerfully curled up in his arms as he held her on Waterdancer, her head pressed against his shoulder and her arms lax in her lap.
“Sleep,” Robert instructed. “You’re safe now.”
“Mhm. Wake me up if—” She frowned. “If—if you need me to—” She yawned. “—to do—something.”
He laughed, and Rosie snuggled closer, enjoying the sound of his laugh in his chest. “Of course.”
Before she could ask about his laughter, sleep dragged her down.
A/N: I so love the contrast between the first time they harvest kelp and this time. Robert & Rosie’s relationship has grown so much! and I love the concept that fear makes us defeat ourselves. Something I need reminded of all the time. Plus, I also love that makes us powerful. Just a nice chapter all around-so nice when characters pull out all the stops, eh? 😉
Thanks for reading! See you on Thursday!
