Mutante: Chapter 9
Copyright 2023 Elizabeth Frerichs
Inside seemed safer than out in the open, so she knocked roughly on the door. It swung open, apparently unlatched. Rosie bit her lip.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Robert said in a hushed voice.
“So do I,” she agreed. “But what else can we do? I have to find my grandmother. If you’d prefer to stay out here—”
Robert shook his head vehemently. “Are you kidding? I will not leave you out here! There could be something inside.” He drew his sword. “Let’s go find your grandmother.”
The door creaked as they pushed it open the rest of the way, and, by common consent, they avoided touching the walls. Rosie pulled at Robert’s arm, directing him past the living room and down the hallway to Grandma’s work room. In her experience, Grandma spent most of her time there.
Rosie took a second and nerved herself to flip the switch that would turn on the lamp nearest the door. Shadows shifted in front of her. A blaze of light burst forth, illuminating a monstrous creature—half glass jellyfish and half something else.
And inside its clear stomach, Grandma Essie was clearly visible. Rosie’s stomach rebelled at the sight. Her grandmother looked quite peaceful—in fact, the way the wrinkles had smoothed out made her look more like the kindly grandmother she had been so many years ago.
The monster gluped to one side, and what looked like a bag of eyes attached to the glass jelly suddenly all fixed them with a beady stare. Rosie shuddered.
“Let’s get out of here!” Robert yelled.
The eyes zeroed in on him, and he pulled her away from the doorway, slamming the door shut. Before they could move more than a tail’s length away, though, tentacles slid under all the edges of the door and then it suddenly imploded, sending splinters flying.
Rosie gasped as a jagged piece of wood slashed her cheek, and then threw herself back down the hall, Robert just in front of her.
“Where’s the front door?” he asked, turning in the opposite direction from the door.
Tentacles brushed against her tail, and Rosie put on a burst of speed. “We’ll never make it,” she said. “This way!” She made a sharp left and pulled him down a tunnel towards the lower level. There was a hidden entrance to the workroom down here. If they returned to the workroom without being caught, they could avoid the creature and sneak back out the front door.
The tunnel was too small for the creature to come down all at once, but it began ooching its way down, tentacles sliding first, body shifting to accommodate the space. The sound of something solid bumping up against the tunnel walls nearly made Rosie retch. Grandma Essie’s body was . . . .
She pulled Robert into the workroom and locked the door behind them. Now they just had to swim up a level, and then—
“Miss Rose!” a man’s voice called.
Rosie came to an abrupt halt.
“Over here,” the voice continued.
Robert drew her behind himself, his sword in one hand and the other cautioning her to stay put.
Rosie scanned the room, trying to find the source of the voice. Shelves and nooks that overflowed with bottles of unknown substances lined the walls of the two-story workroom. One wall had a long work table running the length of it and above the center of the table, on yet another shelf, hung a medium-sized mirror. Said mirror held the ghostly outline of an older man’s face, despite the fact that they were alone in the workroom.
“Miss Rose,” the mirror-man called again. “I have a message from Madam Essie, if you would be so good as to listen to it.”
Rosie grimaced. “I don’t exactly have a lot of time.” She glanced down at the lower level’s door. A single tentacle had begun to seep through the bottom crack.
“Just grab the mirror, and let’s get out of here!” Robert called.
The face glared at him. “I am Thomas—not ‘the mirror,’ and I would recommend you bring the basket to my left with you.”
“Fine! I’ll bring Thomas,” Robert snapped. “You bring the basket.”
Rosie grabbed the old woven-kelp basket sitting next to the mirror, hoping it didn’t have any sort of anti-theft spells on it.
“Quick! Quick!” she hissed at Robert as he worked out how to remove Thomas from the wall. Four tentacles were through the door now, and ominous creaking was coming from the lower level.
He glared at her. “You try getting this thing free!”
“If I may, Miss Rose needs merely to request my help. It would be much faster than whatever it is that you are attempting to do.”
Robert gestured at her. “Be my guest.”
Rosie handed him the basket and placed her hands on the mirror. “Thomas, will you please help me?”
With a snick, the mirror came off the wall. She stumbled for a moment with its weight. Though the mirror wasn’t large, it still felt unwieldy.
“I’ll take it,” Robert said.
After they traded mirror and basket, they swam as quickly as possible out the destroyed door. Rosie led this time and, with a final mad scramble, they rushed out of the house and back onto the path with Waterdancer.
“Phew.” Robert said with a grimace. “Do you think that—that thing will follow us onto the path?”
“I have no idea,” Rosie said with bewilderment. “My grandmother—well, I don’t know if any of her spells will hold.”
“She didn’t look very—well, very alive,” Robert said.
Thomas cleared his throat. “If Miss Rose is amenable, I will now give her the message.”
“Is it safe to do that right now, Thomas?” Rosie asked.
The image nodded. “Ranulf is confined to the house.”
Rosie hesitated, hating the thought of trusting that the front door would hold when the workroom door had so easily splintered. “What’s the message?”
“Your grandmother wished to pass along that she is not dead and that she would appreciate some assistance as soon as convenient.”
Rosie snorted. “That doesn’t sound like her at all.”
“Well,” Thomas began, and she fancied that his cheeks turned a bit more opaque. “That was not precisely how she phrased it. However, the substance of the message remains intact.”
“What do you mean she isn’t dead?” Robert asked, trying to peer around to the front of the mirror he was holding. Glancing around, he moved to fasten Thomas to Waterdancer’s saddle, and shifted to hover next to Rosie in front of the mirror.
“Ten days ago, Lady Rina overpowered one of your grandmother’s wards and fooled Ranulf, Madam Essie’s most recent guard-monster, into believing that Madam Essie was Lady Rina, come to attack his mistress. Upon realizing that she could not escape the monster, Madam Essie repaired the hole in the wards and swallowed the suspended animation potion she always keeps on her person.”
“Suspended animation? What kind of person keeps something like that in their pockets?” Robert demanded. “I guess the same kind of crazy that keeps a monster like Ranulf around,” he muttered.
Thomas gave him a withering glare. “A prudent witch utilizes every means at her disposal to protect herself—including things such as monsters and suspended animation potion. The potion is a last resort, capable of giving others time to devise a cure, and can halt even the most dangerous poison or curse, including a monster’s stomach acid. However, it cannot be used indefinitely and the side effects are disastrous.” The austere man turned his attention to Rosie. “If she is not given the antidote by noon the day after tomorrow, she will die.”
“What? Why would she leave that message for me?” Rosie spluttered.
Thomas looked down his nose at her. “Presumably because you are the only person other than Lady Rina who is able, and likely, to enter the house. Fortunately, the restorative potion is not difficult to brew. If it weren’t for the fact that some of the ingredients must be fresh, your grandmother would have had one on hand in her workshop. Well, you need only obtain the ingredients, all of which are in the forest, and then brew it.”
“Obtain the ingredients?” she squeaked. Actually brew a potion—do something with magic intentionally? Not only did she want nothing to do with magic, but brewing a life or death potion would just give her more opportunity to screw up with higher stakes.
Thomas nodded portentously, and then one of Grandma Essie’s journals appeared on the screen with a recipe clearly visible. “One only needs the hair of a fireworm, the seed from a blue siren-plant, one vial of fairy’s breath, one vial of black sand, one cup of chopped magenta kelp, one cup of chopped cerulean kelp, and one vial of your blood,” he finished, his face replacing the recipe.
“Rosie’s blood?” Robert exclaimed. He crossed his arms. “Rosie, this sounds like a terrible idea. How are we even going to find a blue siren-flower? Not to mention how dangerous the forest is right now.” He slashed both hands downward. “No. I think we should just go home now. Look, you said your grandmother is cursed. She might not have even left this message. Or maybe she did, but only to play a trick on you.”
Rosie bit her lip, her tail twitching. He might be right. But . . . . She turned to Thomas. “Is there any way you can prove that this isn’t a trick?”
“I am afraid not. I can show you the message, but—” His expression grew disapproving. “It is not fit for a lady’s ears.”
“Please,” she said.
The surface of the mirror wavered for a moment before turning into a clear picture of her grandmother’s workshop, her grandmother encased in clear tentacles, swearing up a storm, her face nearly puce. After a moment, she looked into the mirror. “Wake up, you old bag! Tell that fool of a granddaughter of mine to make a restorative potion and do it soon. If the nincompoop can manage it, I’ll eat my hat, but I refuse to let Rina win like this!”
Rosie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In the end, she let out a chuckle. “That’s my Grandma Essie.”
“She just sees you as a pawn in her battle with your aunt!” Robert burst out. “You don’t need to risk your life for someone like that!”
“Maybe not,” Rosie said. “But—”
“There’s no but about it! Let’s go home. Now. While we still can. Before the forest gets any more dangerous.”
Rosie imagined going home, admitting to her mother that she had failed and that they needed to enlist specialists for the job. More than that, what if her grandmother died and Aunt Rina turned her attention to the merpeople of Aquaria? Her neighbors . . . Mr. Grunion with his crotchety complaints about how loud the city had become, Mrs. Pleione with her seven daughters, little Lila Fisher and her dolphins—everyone she knew would be in danger. Including her parents. Her tail stilled. She might not be the best person for the job, but it looked like she was the only person close enough to do it.
“Thomas, why does the potion need my blood?”
“It has to be someone related to your grandmother.”
Rosie nodded. Her grandmother, trapped inside that clear sack of eyes and organs, flitted through her mind. It wasn’t a fate she would wish on her worst enemy. “I have to do this,” she said, holding Robert’s gaze. “I can’t let Aunt Rina take over the reef, and without Grandma to keep her in check . . . .” She took a shuddering breath. “This is my—” She swallowed hard, the truth she had known for so long refusing to come out. “I’m the only one who can fix this in time. The path will take you home. You and Waterdancer should get out while it’s still safe. If I succeed, well, I still don’t know if the forest will be safe. But if I don’t succeed, I would hate to think that you’d be stuck in here.”
“A knight must not leave his fair lady in danger,” he declared in ringing tones.
She raised one eyebrow.
He gave her a sheepish look. “Give up an adventure like this one? Not likely.” He squeezed her hand and smiled. “You’re stuck with me. I’ve been waiting for something like this my whole life.”
“All right.” She shifted her attention to the mirror. “How do we start?”
A/N: Thanks for reading! I hope you guys enjoyed my version of the wolf 😉
I’m still looking for a beta! Please PM me if you’re interested. Also, if you notice something amiss or something that can be strengthened, please pass it along!
See you guys on Tuesday!
