Mutante: Chapter 3
Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Frerichs
For a moment, the path split, one side appearing faint and fuzzy and the other as clear as it always had been before. She frowned. Nothing like this had ever happened to the path. Rosie took a deep breath and tried to decide which path to take. The fuzzy one looked as though it went nowhere, so she followed the solid one. Between one breath and the next, the faint path disappeared. Hopefully, she had made the right choice.
Rosie’s hands shook, the shadows from her lantern shivering, as eyes glowed at her from amongst the kelp. “Ok, I can do this. Nothing to worry about, Rosie,” she said. Another pair of eyes swam closer, this one watching her from right at the edge of the path. Staying quiet might be best.
If this were a story, how would the hero respond? she asked herself. Be the hero.
Straightening up, she put on a brave smile and increased her speed. Cautious, but determined. Courageous, but careful not to attract unwanted attention. Between one beat of her gills and the next, the path ahead jumped, now curving sharply to the left. Rosie’s smile faltered. Were there dangers the path couldn’t simply push aside or go around? Or had something else gone wrong with the path? She shuddered and then pasted the smile back on as she swam onward.
For the first hour, nothing else happened.
Gradually, though, cold currents began sweeping down and across the winding path, buffeting her from side to side. Rosie shivered and wished she had brought a cloak or something with her. Actually, wasn’t there an old blanket in her emergency kit? After her first few misadventures, she had learned to be prepared for lots of eventualities and had created an emergency kit, which she had managed to secrete into the enchanted bag without her mother realizing. Rosie stopped, clipping her glow-lantern to a woven kelp belt she habitually wore, and dug through the enchanted bag. Aha! It was the work of a moment to wrap-up in the worn red blanket Grandma Essie had given her and secure it with a bit of cord.
She had just repacked the enchanted bag and secured it to her belt when a positive whirlwind of cold water shoved her into the kelp, knocking her end over end. Rosie tried frantically to regain her balance and return to the center of the path. Grandmother’s path was the only safety to be had here in the forest. If she left it . . . .
Kelp tendrils snaked out of the forest, climbing up her left tailfin and slithering around her wrists. Rosie struggled wildly and let out an involuntary shriek.
Crashing sounded from her right and she snapped her mouth closed, desperate not to worsen her situation by attracting some other enchanted sea creature.
“Ho, there!” a male voice bellowed. “Do you need help?”
“Yes! I’m over here!”
A giant brown seahorse parted the kelp next to her path and then a rider nearly flew to her side, drawing a sword as he came. Immediately, he hacked at the besieging kelp, lopping off tendrils left and right.
Rosie rushed to pull the broken pieces off of her, flinging them back into the forest. Eventually, she was free, and the kelp no longer encroached upon the path. Various leaf tips shuddered from time to time, trying to reach them but not coming within reach of the merman’s sword.
Her breathing still labored, Rosie turned to the merman. He was tall, with chestnut hair and dreamy green eyes. His tail was an attractive shade of sea green. If she hadn’t already been muddled from the kelp attack, the force of his gaze alone would have flustered her.
“Are you all right?” he asked earnestly.
She nodded and cleared her throat. “Thanks to you, yes. I appreciate the rescue. I didn’t even have time to think of what I ought to have done—”
“Stay out of the dangerous kelp forest?” he suggested.
Rosie glared at him. “It isn’t usually this dangerous. Might I ask what you are doing this far into the forest if it’s so dangerous?”
He faltered, apparently abashed by her glare. “Well, I was harvesting magical kelp.” He pointed to a bulging saddlebag on his seahorse. “But then we ran into a crab demon, and Waterdancer got a bit spooked, and well, my safety line broke.” He patted the seahorse. “He’s all right now, though. Aren’t you, boy?”
The seahorse butted the merman’s shoulder.
“I suppose that’s plausible.”
A low growl sounded to the left of them, and Waterdancer snorted.
“We’d better get out of here.” He gave her an apologetic look. “You were being awfully loud with all that crashing around. It’s a good thing,” he hurried to add. “If you hadn’t, then we would never have found you, but, well, how do I say this diplomatically? Everything within about a thousand tail-lengths will be after us now.”
“A thousand tail-lengths?” She crossed her arms. “Isn’t that a bit far?”
A flock of eyes appeared to their right and crept to the very edge of the path. A giant snout nosed onto the path, the rest of the creature obscured by the kelp.
The merman grabbed Rosie’s hand, took hold of a handle on Waterdancer’s harness, and wrapped his tail around the seahorse. “Let’s discuss this later. Come on, Waterdancer! We might as well stick to this open area for a bit!”
Waterdancer was off like a geyser, so fast that Rosie nearly lost her grip on the handsome merman’s hand. She gritted her teeth, reminding herself that she was grateful for his rescue. Had he not taken the initiative, she would have remained on the path, hoping that the apparently strained magic would hold. Rosie glanced behind them. The glow-lantern remained hooked to her belt, shadows careening along beside and behind them, but where the light hit the path behind them—she gripped the merman’s hand a little tighter, her stomach lurching as though she had just floated off a cliff.
A boiling mass of shapes obscured the path, and it was gaining on them.
What had happened to the magic? Why had the path stopped being safe?
“Now, Waterdancer!” the man yelled, leaning sharply to the left.
The seahorse careened to the left, straight into the kelp forest. A kind of quiet swallowed them up as the hissing of passing kelp filled her ears. The merman heaved her up closer, shifted to the other side of Waterdancer where he grasped the opposite harness handle, and then gestured for her to grab the original harness handle.
“Where are we going?” she called over the murmur of disturbed kelp.
He shook his head and gestured behind them.
So Rosie shut her mouth and allowed Waterdancer to drag her along on this wild ride, the seawater sluicing over her back and tail at speeds she had never imagined.
After nearly half an hour of breakneck pace, the merman guided his seahorse towards a dark shape. A cave. Not a very nice one, from the smell of it. But it was perfectly regular and big enough for them and the seahorse. They slid in.
“We can talk as long as we stay quiet,” he murmured.
“Why did you leave the path?” Rosie demanded, carefully shielding her glow lantern so it wouldn’t lead the mob of creatures right to them. Now that they weren’t running for their lives, she couldn’t believe she had allowed him to drag her away from her only means of getting out of the forest unscathed.
“You’re very welcome,” the merman said dryly.
Rosie took a deep breath. He didn’t know how stupid it had been to leave the path, she told herself. “It was a magical path. It protects travelers from harm.”
He crossed his arms. “Clearly it wasn’t doing a great job. Anyway, staying on the path would have been suicide—it gave every single creature on it a clear route to reach us.”
“Be that as it may, how do you intend to navigate the forest now?”
He cleared his throat uncomfortably, then brightened. “Say, we haven’t introduced ourselves. I’m Robert and this is my horse, Waterdancer.” He held out a hand and grinned widely.
“Rosie,” she said shortly, giving his hand a single shake.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Robert said, bowing over her hand. “What are you doing in the forest, Rosie? I’ve rescued several damsels in distress, but most of the time, they aren’t putting themselves in dangerous situations.”
“The forest isn’t usually dangerous,” Rosie said with a frown. “I wasn’t being reckless—unlike some people who brave the forest for mere commercial reasons, without even the protection of a magical path.”
His lips twitched up. “You mean people like me? Well, Rosie, considering your choice of belt, I assume you use magical kelp regularly. I ask you, where would our society be without brave entrepreneurs who risk their lives to ensure good merpeople have access to it?”
Rosie flushed. They did use magical kelp regularly at home, but most of it was kelp she gathered on her way home from Grandma’s house. But admitting her regular visits to the forest would lead to questions about Grandma, and she wasn’t sure she trusted this stranger with the knowledge of who she was, nor did she know him well enough to predict how he would react.
“Nothing to say to that, hm?” Robert prodded.
“People got by without magical kelp before the forest—and I imagine that they could have continued to do so.”
He shrugged. “Probably. But why suffer when magical kelp is nearby and easily obtained?”
She raised one eyebrow. “Easily obtained?”
“Provided one is as daring as myself,” he said with another courtly bow.
“Ah. I see.” Rosie’s tail twitched, knocking her into the cave wall. Ugh! It was slimy. “What kind of cave is this?” she hissed. “It’s disgusting.”
“Well, don’t touch it then. And, if you would rather fight that horde of monsters by yourself, feel free to leave.”
Cold water rushed past her, pulling her towards the back of the cave. She shifted again, tightening her grip on Waterdancer’s harness as the back of her neck prickled. Eyes straining, she peered through the dark. Carefully, she unshielded her glow lantern and held it up.
“Are you trying to light a beacon for every monster in sight?” Robert demanded in a harsh whisper.
“Something about this cave feels wrong. Can’t you tell?” she asked, the tingle of warning across her scalp increasing.
Robert shook his head. “The only thing that feels wrong is having you directing. the. monsters. towards. us.”
Suddenly, the floor heaved and a wave of outside water rushed past them.
Rosie swallowed hard as her stomach roiled with her head’s conclusions. “I don’t think this is a cave.”
“What?” he nearly shouted.
She pointed to the ridges along the pathway further back. “Doesn’t that look like a throat?”
Robert hesitated, turning his head from one side to the other. “I suppose if you look at it the right way.” He shook himself. “No, there are no creatures that large!”
“Just like there were no merperson-sized seahorses a generation ago?” Rosie shot back. “Is it getting darker in here?”
The light, which had been only a glimmer coming from the open mouth of the cave, appeared to be dimming. Rosie swung back around the front and discovered the cave was closing ponderously.
“Waterdancer, take us out of here!” she commanded.
The seahorse remained stationary, and Robert gave her a withering glare. “He’s not your horse.”
“Robert, get us out of here!” she said, turning his body around to look at the rapidly dwindling opening.
“Waterdancer, go!” Robert commanded.
The seahorse shot forward, and they slipped through the tiny opening just before it crashed shut. Two enormous eyes glared at them balefully, and Rosie shuddered as the creature shot a stream of some sort of filament after them. Fortunately, Waterdancer evaded it. Unfortunately, the commotion once more attracted unwanted attention. Hanging on for dear life, Rosie prayed to every water deity she could think of that they would escape. Waterdancer swam on, flying through the clinging kelp and narrowly avoiding running into anything. They couldn’t keep up this mad dash!
“What about Fairy Island?” she yelled over at Robert.
“You want to leave the ocean?” he demanded incredulously.
“It’s not that kind of an island—oh, for heaven’s sake! Just get us up above the kelp for a minute—”
Robert’s eyebrows shot up. “Are you insane? We’ll be lost forever!”
“No, we won’t. I have a compass, but I can’t get it out when we’re riding at breakneck speed.”
Robert eyed her. “Are you sure?”
“Would I have suggested it if I weren’t? I’m no more keen on dying than you are!”
“How do I know you’re not a siren or some other creature just pretending to be a mermaid? Maybe you want to get me lost forever.”
Rosie rolled her eyes. “You wouldn’t still be alive if I were a siren, would you? Besides, I don’t even look like a siren!”
“I’ve never met a siren! I wouldn’t know!” His gaze flicked to her tail. “Maybe you do!”
She sighed. “Do you have any choice but to trust me?” The sound of the mob grew closer. “How long can your seahorse keep up this pace? You’ll have to stop eventually and unless you know of some other safe place . . . .”
Robert glanced down at his seahorse’s heaving gills worriedly. “All right. But only because it’s what’s best for Waterdancer—not because I trust you.” He shifted his grip and pulled up on the harness. “Up, Waterdancer.”
The seahorse responded instantly, swimming with all its might towards the tips of the kelp that towered above them. More trailing leaf-tentacles reached for them and Robert continued weaving in and out, always upwards. Eventually, they burst from the top of the kelp trees and into a void of darkness.
A/N: Thanks for reading and commenting! Let me know if you notice anything that you think can be made better 🙂 I’m still looking for a beta, so if you’re interested, please PM me.
See you on Tuesday!
