The Secret of the Oceans E-Book

Tanya Stewner

• Herausgeber: Arctis US
• Kategorie: Für Kinder und Jugendliche
• Serie: Alea Aquarius
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 441

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025

Beschreibung

A powerful tingling sensation spread through her whole body, flooding from her head to her toes like a raging tsunami. She wished more than anything that the world beneath the waves would awaken to new life. Could she be the one to make this dream reality? Alea has a dream: she wants to bring all the mer-children scattered around the world back to the ocean. But how is she supposed to bring the extinct underwater world back to life if no one besides her and Lennox else can survive in the contaminated water? The Alpha Cru sets course for Iceland, where they have heard that there are still surviving merpeople living in the hot springs. There Alea wants to finally find her father – and the answers to all her pressing questions. Can Alea's father help her make her dream come true? Answers await in the third volume of the great Mer-girl Saga from bestselling author Tanya Stewner.

Leseprobe

Tanya Stewner

Alea Aquarius

The Secret of the Oceans

Translated from the German by Matthew O. Anderson

W1-Media, Inc.

Arctis Books USA

Stamford, CT, USA

Copyright © 2025 by W1-Media Inc. for this edition

First published in German under the title “Alea Aquarius 3. Das Geheimnis der Ozeane” by Tanya Stewner, with cover illustration and vignettes by Claudia Carls © Verlag Friedrich Oetinger, Hamburg 2017

Published by agreement with Verlag Friedrich Oetinger, Hamburg, Germany.

First English edition published by W1-Media Inc./Arctis Books USA 2025

The Library of Congress Control Number: 2025930051

English translation of the lyrics to the song To You in the chapter "Whale Ride" copyright © Tanya Stewner

English translation copyright © Matthew O. Anderson 2025

This work is protected by copyright, any use requires the authorisation of the publisher.

All rights reserved. The publisher prohibits the use of this work for text and data mining without express written consent. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher and copyright owner.

ISBN978-1-64690-052-7

www.arctis-books.com

When she had finally recognized the danger, it was too late.

From one moment to the next, the dense field of plastic waste surrounded her on all sides, brushing and scratching her arms and legs, hampering her swimming strokes, and obscuring everything else from view.

She fought her way up toward the surface, flailing her arms wildly in all directions, but the plastic and the current dragged her back into the depths.

With a shudder, she realized she was trapped in the garbage. She could feel the panic in her rising. Could a mer-person really die in an ocean landfill?

As she tried again to free herself from the swirl of waste, a plastic bag draped over her head and—to her terror—covered her gills.

And suddenly, she understood this really was a matter of life and death . . .

St. Elmo’s Fire

Alea awoke. She lay in a comfortable, warm cabin. Caught somewhere between dream and reality, she wondered for a moment why she wasn’t lying on the cold ground in a sleeping bag somewhere out in the Scottish Highlands. Then, the memories flooded back to her. She and Lennox were back aboard the Crucis, their crew’s sailing ship. The Alpha Cru had been reunited. A smile spread across Alea’s face, and she lay still for a moment, basking in the feeling that all was well. She was home.

The quaint old boat creaked and groaned softly, but before the gentle rocking of the waves could lull Alea back to sleep, she sat up in bed and peered curiously out of the porthole. Green hills and a wild coastline passed by in the evening twilight. They were still in the Highlands, only this time, Alea traversed the space by ship—not on foot. The Crucis sailed through the Caledonian Canal, which cut straight across Scotland from east to west. As soon as they reached the open sea again, Alea and the Alpha Cru would set course for Iceland.

Alea’s heart leaped at the thought. Iceland! Would she meet her father there? The message he had left for her in Rach Turana’s ancient library gave her hope. Her father had said he had been spared from the terrible virus that had nearly wiped out the mer-people. That was eleven years ago now. Keblarr could still be alive, and Alea might be able to find him!

She glanced up at the cloudy evening sky. Apparently, she had slept through the entire day. Had she and Lennox only returned from the underwater city to the surface just this morning? Had the Crucis only sailed into Loch Ness this morning too? It was hard to believe that had only been a few hours ago! Yet, as Alea reflected, she could still sense the weight of those revelations reverberating throughout her body with a gentle vibration.

A loud, squeaking sound interrupted her thoughts. The cabin door opened, and a second later, a freckly, mischievous face appeared. “Ahoy, Snow White!” Sammy said as he leaped into the room. “You’re awake!” Before Alea could say anything, the nine-year-old had already climbed onto the bunk and was snuggled under the covers with her. “You’re finally back! I have had major cuddling withdrawal!” he said as he nestled against her arm.

Alea laughed. “Didn’t you cuddle with Ben when I was away?” Ben was Sammy’s older brother, and the little cuddle-king was draped all over him at every opportunity.

“Nah, Ben was pretty quiet over the past few days.” Sammy squeezed his bare feet underneath Alea’s warm calves. “He was awfully worried about you and Scorpio. Mostly, he stared grimly off into the distance.” Ben was eighteen years old and the skipper of the ship. This meant he wasn’t just responsible for the Crucis, but also everyone on board. Since no one else on board was of age, Ben was much more worried about his crew than other captains.

“Well, we’re back now,” Alea said, and noticed how happy she sounded. She loved being a part of this crew and sailing across the sea, free and unburdened. Still, tramping with Lennox across the Highlands to Loch Ness had been quite something too.

“What’s wrong?” Sammy raised his head. “Your heart just started beating like crazy!”

Alea blushed.

Sammy looked up at her in alarm, then his expression brightened. “Were you just thinking about Scorpio?”

Alea had to laugh. “Guilty!”

“What is going on between you two?” Sammy asked, brimming with curiosity. “This morning, you told us all about the virus in the oceans but nothing at all about the two of you.”

“Well, that would have been a bit embarrassing to share with the whole crew.”

“But you’ll tell me everything now, right?” Sammy made his most irresistible please-please-pretty-please puppy dog eyes. “I promise I will be as silent as the grave!”

Alea swept a strand of her dark hair behind her ear and smiled. Before joining the Alpha Cru, she had always used her hair to cover as much of her face and ears as possible so that no one could see the nubs behind her ears. They may transform into valuable gills underwater, but they were just plain ugly when dry. With her fellow Alpha Cru members, she no longer felt ashamed of them. “All right, I’ll tell you everything.”

“Yay!” Sammy was getting antsy. “This is going to be a bestest-best friend moment—I can feel it!” He plucked something from Alea’s green-plaid wool blanket. “This fuzz will always remind me of this unforgettable moment,” he whispered as he held the little green woolen pill up and regarded it lovingly.

Alea shook her head with a smirk. She would never understand Sammy’s fascination with fluff, fuzz, and lint.

Sammy carefully tucked the fuzz into his breast pocket and bowed his head sagely. “There. And now I am ready.”

“Lennox and I, we . . .”

Before Alea could continue, they heard Ben’s voice from up on the deck. “A storm is coming!” he yelled loudly. “Alpha Cru! Bring in the sails!” He stamped his foot emphatically to signal to the team below that he needed them all up on deck.

“Now of all times!” Sammy said, exasperated.

Alea pushed him gently off the bedside and leaped down after him. As they slipped on their jackets, Sammy muttered disappointedly, “Then let us at least say something unforgettable so that all the excitement doesn’t just go poof!”

Alea giggled.

“At least I plucked a bestest-best friend moment fuzz!”

“Samuel Draco, you are simply unforgettable,” Alea said, ruffing his wild red hair.

Sammy beamed and flashed his gap-toothed grin. “You too, Snow White!”

Then he tore off, and Alea’s long strides followed through the narrow corridor into the heart of the ship: the cozy saloon. This was her favorite place on the ship, perhaps because it was also where Lennox slept.

As they burst through the door, Lennox awoke with a start. “What is it?” he called as he tried to tame his unkempt hair.

“A storm’s approaching!” Alea answered as she hurried past. “All hands on deck!” Before she climbed the stairs to the deck, she turned and smiled back at him. “Hello,” she added softly.

Lennox’s face mirrored her smile. “Hi,” he replied. There was so much warmth in his azure-blue eyes that Alea nearly sighed aloud. When she realized she had stopped and was staring at him as though daydreaming, she turned on the spot and followed Sammy up to the deck.

A cool wind whistled as she stepped on deck, and heavy clouds rolled across the sky menacingly, like an army on the march. Benjamin Libra stood at the helm in the deckhouse. His tousled, rockstar hairdo, firm and confident posture, and focused expression reminded Alea more than ever of a modern pirate captain.

Alea glanced around, quickly assessing the situation. They were sailing across one of the smaller lochs, the small lakes interspersed along the canal route. The dense undergrowth on the banks swayed and groaned in the wind.

“Samuel Draco! Alea Aquarius!” She heard an impatient voice with a French accent call out. “Don’t dawdle!” Tess Taurus, the fifth member of the Alpha Cru, already had one hand on the rope and was waiting for the others to help her take in the foresail. The wind pulled at Tess’s long, black dreadlocks and blew them into her face, but she seemed completely unfazed. Tess was an excellent sailor, and Ben called her his most valuable Cru member. When it came to wind and weather, Tess was as tough as nails. Feelings and seagulls, though, could shake her to her core.

As Alea and Sammy rushed to the bow of the ship, Lennox emerged from belowdecks.

“Lennox Scorpio, finally!” Sammy said. “Did you comb your hair before joining us?”

Lennox grinned sheepishly as he rushed to join them. Everyone took their positions. Ben, who was still at the helm, gave the command to take in the sails. Tess and Sammy let out the line slowly as Alea and Lennox pulled on the foresail. The wind caught and filled it again, and they needed every ounce of strength to tame and bind it to the ship once more. Once the foresail was stowed, they took in the main sail. Each knew exactly what was expected of them, and they worked together like clockwork.

Ben pointed at the sky. “I can already see flashes of lightning up there. We need to weigh anchor. Draco! Taurus!” He made the Alpha-Cru sign for you two—now.

Sammy and Tess ran back to the front of the ship, where the anchor chain was located. As it rattled down into the depths a few moments later, Ben emerged from the deckhouse and assayed the stormy sky with the observant eye of a seasoned mariner.

Suddenly, Alea noticed a strange light above her. She recoiled in terror. Something was flickering at the tip of the mast, something that looked like little tongues of flame! “It’s burning!” she screamed. “The mast is burning!”

All heads turned. “Fire!” Lennox yelled before he ran to Alea and pulled her away from the mast.

The others rushed over and looked up. Ben’s eyes narrowed. “No, it’s not burning,” he said.

“But . . .” Alea pointed at the strange, blue-colored lights. “What is that?” The air around them seemed to crackle with energy!

“It’s St. Elmo’s fire,” Ben replied.

“St. Elmo’s fire?”

“Electrical discharge during a storm,” he explained. Then he added with a bewildered expression, “It’s quite rare.”

Their mouths agape, they stared at the remarkable, coolly flickering flames that had begun to trail down the lines from the mast. It looked like thousands of tiny lamps had been draped over the ship, twinkling and radiating like a festive Christmas tree.

“This is so . . . uncanny,” muttered Tess.

“Seafarers used to think that St. Elmo’s fire was a bad omen. But, of course, that’s all just superstition.” Ben’s gaze wandered from the St. Elmo’s fire to the oncoming storm clouds. “We had better get below deck,” he said. “The storm is about to start in earnest.”

“No!” Sammy whined. “I’m not going below if St. Elmo’s fire is flittering about up here!” He loved seeing strange natural phenomena in action, and this was definitely one of those things that you don’t see every day.

Alea could hardly turn away either. Little flashes of lightning sparked from the flames and crackled toward the wooden deck. They almost seemed alive, like tiny magic lanterns lit upon the Crucis to make it shine.

And the crackling sound . . . Alea listened closely. It almost sounded like a kind of . . . whisper.

She stepped closer to the mast.

Lennox gasped in alarm. “What are you doing?”

“Don’t get closer to it,” Tess added. The St. Elmo’s fire seemed to have unsettled her deeply.

“These lights, they . . .” Alea took a close look at one of the flames flittering lower down on the mast.

As she squinted, the flame began revolving in the air . . . and turned its face toward her! It had a glimmering, blazing, blue-colored face!

Alea gasped.

Lennox was by her side in a second. “What is it?” he asked, but soon he noticed it too. His eyes widened. With a start, he leaped between Alea and the flame.

“They . . . they’re alive!” Alea cried. “The flames are alive!”

“What?” Ben sounded amused, but then he joined them and saw for himself.

“Careful!” Tess warned.

Ben gasped. He stared at the flame, dumbstruck.

Sammy elbowed his way to the front. “Holy cow!” he exclaimed.

Alea peered around Lennox. The flame was still facing them. Its body looked like pure, burning electric light, and an earnest, expectant expression emanated from its tiny face as it sized up the humans before it.

A sudden rumbling of thunder made Alea start, but nothing in the world could make her go below deck now. “Hello,” she said to the flame cautiously as she stepped around Lennox. She had met several magical creatures before and was unafraid. “I’m Alea.”

Tess gasped. “You’re speaking water speech again!”

“I was?” Alea hadn’t noticed at all. Like so many times before, she must have automatically switched to the language of the sea—Hajara—that all magical creatures understood.

The blue flame hung motionless from the mast, observing them. Suddenly, a host of other flames flickered and flowed down toward them from atop the mast.

“Good heavens!” Ben exclaimed.

“I can’t believe it,” Sammy groaned. “They all have faces!”

He was right. Alea and the others could see that each flame had a similar form and figure. They had flickering arms and legs and something atop their heads that looked like glowing helmets, sparking blue-colored flashes of lightning again and again

Nearly all the figures had descended to the bottom of the mast. It was so bright that Alea had to squint. The blue flame that had first shown itself flittered above the rest. It paused when it reached eye level with Alea and the Alpha Cru. Then it spoke. “You are a mer-person,” it crackled at Alea. It wasn’t much more than a fizzling, crackling whisper, but Alea understood it immediately. “And you too,” it said as it turned to Lennox.

He appeared to understand just as well as Alea. “I’m Lennox,” he replied. “And who are you?”

Sammy’s eyes widened. “You’re speaking water speech too, Scorpio!” he realized in amazement.

Tess whispered to Ben, “I think they are actually talking to these things!”

“We are Helms,” crackled the flame. “Know you nothing of us?”

“No,” Lennox replied. “Sadly, no.”

“What are you?” Alea asked.

“We are storm guardians,” the Helms replied. “For many years, the surface dwellers deemed us mere fantastic natural phenomena. But we, like other magical beings, belong to the world beneath the waves. We guard the seas from lightning strikes during storms. With our flames, we create an opposing charge that acts as a protective shell for the dwellings of other magical beings—including those of the mer-people.”

Sammy’s head tilted as he strained to understand the conversation, and Alea suspected that he and the others only heard rustling, crackling sounds. “What are these blue helmets fizzling on about?” he asked. “Are they just decoration, or does their flittering and glittering about have a purpose?”

Alea nearly laughed, but Ben’s grim expression kept her silent. Squinting, he looked out over the loch and the canal. In the distant Highlands, lightning flashed again and again, and each time, the roll of thunder followed closer.

“People, this is all very exciting, but you need to get below deck now!” the captain demanded of his crew. A lightning bolt could be deadly to a wooden ship like the Crucis, and the storm seemed to be heading straight toward them.

“Wait!” Lennox said as Tess turned to leave. “Can you protect ships as well?” he asked the Helms quickly.

Alea turned from him to the Helms. “That would be . . . fantastic!”

The Helm shook its head. “We have come to protect the two of you—the mer-people—but not this surface ship,” it replied. “We avoid surface dwellers when possible.” Its gaze intensified. “We know you two can enter the water safely—the Isibelles told us so. Come then, dive beneath the waves! In the water, you will be safe.”

Alea and Lennox exchanged fearful glances. Leaving the Crucis was out of the question.

“What is it now?” Ben demanded.

“Maybe the Helms can help us!” Alea replied hastily before turning back to them. “These surface dwellers are our friends, and this ship is our home! I beg you, protect all of us together!”

The Helms remained silent.

“Our captain has the heart of a true mariner!” Alea added as she pointed to Ben.

Ben looked at her quizzically, and the Helms examined him closely. “Is his love for the sea greater than his surface-dwelling motives?”

“Yes!” Alea and Lennox reassured it in unison.

“Tess and Sammy love the sea too,” Alea explained. “All three of them are worthy of your help and protection!”

The Helms turned to the other flames, and they seemed to hold a quiet council.

Ben’s patience was at an end. “Everyone put on your life vests, now!” he commanded his crewmates. “And then go below deck.” The storm was nearly upon them. Though it hadn’t started to rain yet, lightning and thunder followed one another in rapid succession, and the Cru members flinched anew with each ear-splitting crack.

Tess and Sammy ran to the life vest box, but Lennox and Alea stayed and waited for an answer from the magical Helms.

Then the Helm turned to them and spoke. “We shall trust your word that these surface dwellers share deep bonds to the sea.”

Alea’s eyebrows raised. “Does that mean—”

“That means we will protect your ship.”

She let out a triumphant cry.

“Thank you!” Lennox said, relieved.

“What now?” Ben asked. “Are they helping us?” An urgent note lay in his voice as the Crucis rocked and lurched in the waves.

“Yes, they’ll do it!” Lennox replied.

Tess and Sammy rejoined them with the life vests.

The Helm turned to face them and said, “We do not usually show ourselves to surface dwellers. They see in us nothing more than St. Elmo’s fire. But you, boy, you may compel them to forget what they have seen once we are finished.”

“I, well . . .” Lennox said. The Helms could tell from the color of his eyes which tribe he belonged to. As an Oblivion, he could erase the memories of any surface dweller. But he most certainly didn’t want to use his power on the other Cru members. He and Alea had shared with Tess, Ben, and Sammy everything they had learned about the fallen world beneath the waves and kept no secrets.

The Helm continued. “We must take our positions, and quickly,” it crackled. For the other Helms, this was the signal to spread out. In a few seconds, they had all flickered up the main mast. “The power of this storm is exceptionally strong,” the Helm explained before it followed its fellow flames up to the tip of the mast.

It seemed as though the Helms had waited too long, for at that very moment, lightning flashed directly above and struck the mast of the Crucis.

Tess screamed, and Sammy clutched Ben tightly.

Then the mast began to glow bright blue. The Helms seemed to absorb the lightning’s energy, and a moment later, the dazzling light pulsed within their midst and shot back into the sky. The Helms had sent the lightning back into the sky!

Alea’s jaw dropped.

“This is just . . . crazy,” Sammy whispered.

“It hit!” Ben cried in disbelief. “It hit the mast, and they deflected it!”

“I don’t believe it,” Tess muttered.

At that moment, it began to rain. Thick, heavy drops splashed on the deck, and Tess, Ben, and Lennox pulled hoods over their heads.

Sammy, though, appeared so excited by what he had witnessed that he raised his arms to the sky.

Alea sighed. The stress and her fear for the Crucis eased from one second to the next, and she smiled. She raised her head slowly and let the gathering rain fall directly on her face. She loved the rain—its feel, its taste, its sound. And this rain pattered on the deck in its own unique way. It sounded like a wild dance, like a series of steps tapping the rhythm of the storm.

Beneath the magical light of the Helms, Alea stood and stretched herself toward the sky. The golden-blue rain brought intense feelings within her: immense freedom, endless expanses, and happiness.

Alea spread her arms wide and began to dance. Slowly at first, but then faster and faster. She felt a bit dizzy but continued, diving into the glittering spectrum of the rain’s colors—from golden-blue to violet and silver. With broad, sweeping gestures, she spun this way and that, revolving around herself before jumping into the puddles on deck and sending water spraying to all sides in a kaleidoscopic explosion of color.

Lennox appeared by her side. “What are you doing?”

“A rain dance!” Alea took Lennox’s hand and pulled him to her. When she sent him a spirited smile, his lips quirked into a smile too.

“Come on!” Alea called out to the others. “Come and dance with me!”

Sammy didn’t need to be asked twice. With a great leap, he jumped into the biggest puddle. “Goody gumdrops!” he exclaimed and began dancing in his unpredictable manner—with uncontrolled, flailing arms that made it seem like he was trying to shoo away a wasp.

Alea laughed. “Ben! Tess! You too!”

Ben smiled, pulled back his hood, and closed his eyes as he tilted his face up to embrace the rain. He preferred to take in the water in tranquil silence.

Tess crossed her arms.

Alea grabbed Sammy’s hand, and she and the two boys stamped and spun around together in a circle.

A few moments later, the ring grew larger as Ben joined them. They all laughed as they spun faster and faster toward Tess, hoping to overcome her reluctance in the most direct manner possible. All five of them careened about the deck, and after a short time, even Tess couldn’t resist the joy that had captured them all. The Helms had prevented their ship from going up in flames, and the clearer this became to them, the more effervescent their mood became.

Lightning flashed above them again, and they all looked up in fright. Had another bolt struck the Crucis? No, it was a blue electric light flitting through the air. Alea could hardly believe her eyes: The Helms were leaping from one rope to another, gushing fountains of sparks from their helmets! It was almost like . . .

“Fireworks!” Alea blurted. “The Helms are making fireworks for us!”

“I think I’m losing it!” Sammy gasped.

Alea heard a crackle of laughter. “They want to celebrate too.”

“I guess they like us now, huh?” Tess noted.

Ben replied with a shrug. “Well, we are something special, after all.”

“What are we?” Lennox asked.

Ben grinned. “We’re strange birds!”

“And proud of it!” cried the other four in unison and laughed.

Ben held out his hand in the middle of the circle. The others immediately followed his lead, and in the light of the magical fireworks, their five voices resounded as one: “Alpha Cru!”

Morning Star

Later that evening, after the storm had passed and the radiance of the Helms had begun to fade, Alea and Ben hoisted the anchor. Alea wanted to take the night watch at the helm since she had slept most of the day. Ben helped her adjust a few of the knobs and handles, and together they restarted the Crucis’s motor.

“You haven’t maneuvered the ship through a canal by yourself before,” Ben noted. “Do you really think you’re up to it?”

Alea nodded confidently. “In the past few weeks, I have done things I never could have imagined. Steering the ship—”

“—is a walk in the park,” Ben said with a grin. “Okay, I believe you can do it too—I just wanted to hear you say it,” he said. “Besides, I’ll be awake by the time we arrive at the next lock.”

The Helms’s gentle humming suddenly intensified and swelled into a buzzing.

“The Helms are breaking off!” Alea pointed to the mast. One blue flame after another detached itself from the mast and was carried off by the wind.

Alea felt a twinge of melancholy as she watched them drift away. She had secretly hoped to speak with them again once things had settled down, but all she could do was wave and bid them farewell with a shadow of a smile.

Ben’s jaw had dropped once more as he watched the Helms depart the Crucis. “Unbelievable,” he muttered in amazement as the last few disappeared on the horizon.

“You’ll have to get used to things like that,” Alea teased. “We could encounter many more magical beings in the future. If we do, you can’t just stand around gaping at them the whole time.”

Ben punched her gently on the shoulder. “You’re getting sassier all the time!”

Alea laughed. “Yeah, it’s great, isn’t it?”

“Absolutely. I barely recognize that shy girl who joined the crew in Hamburg, Germany. Take good care of the ship, sailor,” he said, smiling, and he left Alea to her watch.

“Aye, aye, Captain!” Alea called after him. “And good night!” She sat down on one of the deckhouse stools and made herself comfortable.

The night passed without any further incident, which gave Alea the necessary peace and quiet to gather her thoughts and review the previous day’s events.

At around four thirty in the morning, Lennox emerged onto the deck. He moved with the grace and agility of a cat, and Alea was certain that no surface dweller could have noticed him in the dusky light. Lennox could not only compel people to forget things, but he was also overlooked and unobserved by most.

With a quizzical smile, he made his way directly to Alea. She leaped up and opened the deckhouse door to let him in.

“Hi,” he said, sitting on the stool beside her.

“Hi,” she replied. She was so happy to see him that her voice sounded a bit hoarse. Since leaving Loch Ness, they had not yet had the opportunity to talk privately about how their experiences in Rach Turana had changed everything between them.

Lennox cleared his throat. “After the long trek through the Highlands, it’ll be nice to have a few quiet days at sea, huh?” he said awkwardly.

Alea was relieved that he was just as nervous as she was. “Yeah, a little break from all the adventures might not be a bad thing,” she replied. “But . . . even though our trip was super stressful, it was also good . . . and important.”

Lennox smiled. With a thoughtful expression, he glanced down at something in his hand. It was the photo stone with his mother’s portrait, the memento that the Gilph Reburius had made for him in the old library in Rach Turana. Xenia’s lovely face and azure-blue eyes gazed back at them. “Both of our mothers are dead,” Lennox said softly, with a sadness that took Alea aback and touched her deeply. “This cursed virus . . .” He lowered his head. “I can’t keep dreaming I’ll find her again someday.”

Alea could see how deeply this realization affected him. And she understood. Lennox’s situation was bleaker than ever. His father was a surface dweller, an alcoholic who had abandoned his own son after a fight. Lennox couldn’t and wouldn’t ever go back to him. But his mother was dead, and there was no place, no home left for him to dream of. There was no Iceland for him. Alea felt even more grateful to Lennox that he still supported her and the rest of the crew as they sailed west in search of her father.

As though he had read her thoughts, Lennox said, “Instead of our mothers, we will find your father.”

“Yeah, I hope so,” she replied. “I was flipping through that Iceland guidebook a while ago and looked up a few things.” Through her father’s message, Alea had learned that the water-borne virus was harmless at temperatures above ninety-five degrees Fahrenheit. That was why Keblarr and a few other survivors had fled to Iceland. “There are quite a lot of hot springs on the island,” she continued, “and the mer-people who found refuge there probably don’t want to be discovered. How are we supposed to find them?”

Lennox gathered himself and managed a momentary smile. “With a Finder-Finya, of course.”

Alea smiled back at him. “Yeah. We’ll try that.”

Lennox slid back into a brooding silence. After a long pause, he asked Alea, “And what if we really do find your father?”

“What do you mean?”

“Would you want to . . . stay with him?”

Alea’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “I would like to meet him, but I haven’t really thought about what happens after that.”

Lennox seemed to be doing exactly that. “If you want to stay with him . . .” he began, but he faltered, and his words hung in the air.

And suddenly, Alea realized what he had been pondering.

“If you want to stay with him,” Lennox continued, “I can’t come with you.” He seemed to struggle to get these few words out. “Your father and his friends probably live inside the hot springs, deep underwater.”

And you can’t breathe underwater . . . Alea finished the thought in her head. Lennox was only half Oblivion and had neither gills nor webbed hands and feet. She shook her head. “I don’t think they live deep underwater,” she said. She had thought a lot about this during her night watch. “The guidebook says that parts of the hot springs can reach temperatures of up to four hundred degrees Fahrenheit. They would be boiled alive! Besides, I’m not sure if the webbing and gills even come out in the hot water.”

Lennox frowned. “Why not?”

“When I take a shower or a hot bath, my nubs stay the same.” She glanced down at the ugly, crusted forms between each of her fingers that she no longer kept concealed from her friends. “They don’t transform in warm water.”

Lennox looked at her, perplexed. He must not have considered that before.

“If the webbing came out in a warm bath, then I would have found out I was a mer-girl a long time ago,” she explained. “The rain doesn’t even cause it, even though it’s cold. To transform, I have to submerge myself in cold water completely. To sum it up: warm water is great for mer-people because there’s no virus and they don’t transform. The gills and webbing only emerge in cold water. I wonder why my father wanted to go to the hot springs anyway.”

Lennox reflected on this for a moment. “A bathtub is filled with fresh water,” he said. “Have you ever swum in warm salt water? Maybe the webbing comes out in warm saltwater.”

“Hmm.” She was pensive. That could be the critical difference. Maybe the mer-people could breathe underwater and survive inside the hot springs, even though they could not in colder water. Of the few mer-people they had encountered so far, no one had been able to swim out in open water, and it seemed as though Lennox and Alea were the only ones who could survive in the ocean. Since Lennox had so much surface-dweller blood in him, he only needed a small bite of an aquatic herb—red fern—to protect him from the virus. For some reason, Alea appeared to be completely immune to the deadly virus that had wiped out thousands of others.

“But even if my father and the others did live in the hot springs,” Alea said, picking up the previous thread, “I can’t imagine staying in one place for very long anymore.”

“No?” A glimmer of hope flickered across Lennox’s face. “The Whale-Wanderer in you never wants to settle down, huh?”

“Yeah, I think I was made to roam! I want to be free,” she explained. “And out here, I am.” She paused for a moment and gathered her courage before she added: “With you, I feel free too,” she said and blushed. It was true. She had never felt as free as she did with Lennox. Everything was possible with him by her side. He would follow her anywhere. At least as far as he could.

Lennox ran his hands through his hair. The happiness and joy he felt at Alea’s words lay etched in his expression, but he was at a loss for words. Alea wished he would put his arm around her. She wanted to be close to him very much. Should she lean in and cuddle up to him? Or should she say something about the morning star—the last of the fading stars still twinkling in the sky? Or would that be too cliché?

Lennox cleared his throat. “What do you think about, uh . . .” He considered for a moment. “What do you think about the idea of having a twin sister?”

Alea felt her body tremble at the question.

Anthea.

Alea had spent most of the night wondering if her sister was alive and what she might be doing, how she might be doing. “I still can’t wrap my head around that she’s out there somewhere,” she replied. “It’s so . . . strange. We might even be identical twins, looking exactly the same!” The thought was both eerie and electrifying at the same time. “Maybe she is immune to the virus too—that’s probably not too unlikely with twins, right? In any case, she’s definitely a Whale-Wanderer like our parents . . . and me. If I ever find Anthea, we could go on a whale trosk together!” Alea had learned that word from Artama, the chronicler in Rach Turana. Going on a trosk meant accompanying whales on their voyages through the ocean. Saying it out loud evoked an incredible feeling of longing in Alea. She gazed pensively into the dawn. “Maybe Anthea does live somewhere in Holland,” she said, summarizing her nighttime conclusions. “After all, our mother gave us to two different surface dwellers on the same beach in Holland.” Alea had found no further clues about Anthea or her mother in Renesse, but it was still highly likely that Anthea had been entrusted to a Dutch family.

Until recently, Alea had thought that Lennox was the second child that her mother had given away in Renesse. But Artama had assured them that their different eye colors meant that he and Alea couldn’t possibly be related. They were certain that Anthea had been the second child given away.

Artama had told them that many desperate mer-parents—like Nelani, Alea’s mother—had brought their sons and daughters to the coasts back then. They left their children to surface dwellers and lied to them about the lethal effects of cold water urticaria—cold water allergy. That was the only sure way they could protect their children from any contact with the deadly virus in cold seawater.

“What are you thinking about?” Lennox asked, interrupting the flow of Alea’s thoughts.

Alea sighed. “Since Artama told us that other mer-children might have survived, I have been thinking about her constantly.”

“Yeah?”

“The idea that these children are living on land and most likely have no idea who they really are—it’s driving me crazy!” she said sullenly. “It wasn’t any different for us until a few weeks ago. But now we know who we are, and that . . . that’s so important! Everyone should know where they came from.” As Alea said the words aloud, she realized for the first time just how impactful they were for her own life. “I think these other children deserve to know the truth about themselves too.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Lennox agreed.

A silence arose between them, and Alea stared blankly before her, lost in thought. “You know . . .” she said after a while. “Once these children have been found and told who they really are . . .”

Lennox looked at her closely. “Then what?”

“Oh, it’s probably just a pipe dream, but . . .” His attentive gaze encouraged her to continue. “Could someone bring these children together somehow?”

Lennox’s eyes narrowed, surprised.

“Could they band together and become a mer-people again?” Alea added. She had thought about this for hours and hours—even though she knew the idea was total nonsense. It was an impossibly big dream that she was weaving. She had spent well over half the night imagining herself finding the lost children and uniting them as a new mer-people once more. Alea grimaced at her delusions of grandeur. It was all pure fantasy. Besides, there was a glaring problem: with the virus still in the water, the children would probably all die in the ocean. Alea sighed again. “I should have asked Artama so many more questions about the other children.” The wise merwoman would undoubtedly have been insightful. “But our conversation had moved so fast.”

Lennox nodded. “In hindsight, there are a lot of other questions I would have asked Artama. There’s still so much we don’t know about the mer-people.”

“Yeah. For example, I would like to know more about day-to-day life in an underwater city,” Alea said, happy to turn her thoughts away from the missing mer-children. Her grand ideas and ambitions were starting to make her head spin. “Did they have hospitals and schools and stuff?”

“Definitely. We know for sure that they had libraries!”

Alea smiled. She could have stayed in the library in Rach Turana for weeks. “I would like to read through all the shells we saw there.”

Lennox pondered this. “Didn’t Artama say that every mer-person household had book shells? That means every shell we find could be a book.”

“That’s right!” Alea’s excitement blazed at the thought. “The next time we find a shell, we have to check if there’s a book hidden inside!”

Lennox grinned. “Yes, we will.”

Alea grinned in turn. They looked into one another’s eyes, and one moment stretched into an eternity full of questions and possibilities. Alea felt a twinge of excitement. Should she reach out and hold his hand? Before, they had held hands so often, but everything aboard the Crucis was far more complicated than it had been out in the Highlands. This was the start of a new chapter in their journey together.

Lennox took a deep breath and prepared to say something. The way he looked at her made Alea lean forward in anticipation.

“Bonjour,” they heard a voice say behind them.

Tess stood at the deckhouse door.

When the Water Calls

“Oh, hello, Tess,” Alea said, surprised.

“I’m taking the next watch.” Tess glanced from Alea to Lennox. “Am I interrupting something?”

Alea was about to say yes! when Lennox stood and cast her a knowing look. “You wanted to talk to Tess about something, right?”

“That’s right,” Alea admitted. A few things remained unsettled between her and Tess. For example, why Tess had told her that Lennox was not in love with her—even though Tess was sure the opposite was true. Why had she wanted to stop Alea and Lennox from becoming a couple?

Lennox disappeared through the saloon door. Tess stood indecisively outside the deckhouse. “Maybe I should make breakfast first,” she grumbled and turned to leave. Lennox’s parting comment seemed to have activated an acute flight impulse.

“Tess!” Alea called her back.

Tess stopped but had already turned her back to Alea. It was clear how uncomfortable she felt.

Alea wanted to ask Tess what was going on, but at that moment, a lock gate appeared ahead in the canal. “Darn!” she cursed in surprise. “Ben was certain there weren’t any locks for a while!” Passing through a lock and being transferred from one water level to another was no easy maneuver. “Should we wake him?”

Tess turned to face her. “Non,” she said and came to Alea in the deckhouse. “We don’t need Ben for that. The two of us can manage just fine.”

Alea admired the decisiveness in her tone. “Good,” she replied and relaxed her shoulders.

Tess stepped up to the helm. “I’ll take over the rudder,” she said. “You go out front and use hand signals to guide me through.”

“Aye, aye!” Alea ran ahead to the prow and waved to the lockmaster. The lock gate opened, and the Crucis slowly entered the lock chamber. Alea hurried back and forth, tying the ship to the iron rings on the inside of the chamber. Her hands grew sweaty in excitement. As the water level was lowered, they would have to gradually release the slack in the lines at just the right speed so the ship would lower with the water around it. If she and Tess were too slow, the Crucis would be left hanging in the air.

A loud rumble sounded, and the water level began to sink. Tess and Alea exchanged determined nods. Slowly, they released the slack as the ship began to sink deeper within the lock chamber.

Beads of sweat appeared on Tess’s forehead, and Alea’s hands gripped the rope so tightly that they ached—but they were doing well! The Crucis continued to sink lower and lower, and they had nearly made it. Alea turned to Tess triumphantly, and a fine smile broke Tess’s poker face.

A few minutes later, the gate ahead of them opened. Alea untied the lines, and with a steady hand, Tess steered the ship out of the lock chamber. Then they resumed their journey along the canal.

As soon as the lockmaster had disappeared from sight, Alea shouted for joy. “We did it!” She ran back to Tess in the deckhouse to give her a big high-five.

There they stood, grinning broadly, two Amazons of nautical parking. Confident in their abilities, they sailed onward. Alea savored their success and the feeling that she could overcome any obstacle, on sea or land. After a while, the afterglow began to fade, and she remembered that things between her and Tess still needed to be addressed. It seemed like Tess wasn’t open to discussing them right now, but Alea thought her friend owed it to her. “Lennox and I . . . we’re together now,” she said.

Tess stared through the window at the canal, motionless. After a moment, she seemed to realize she could no longer avoid this conversation. “And you’re sure he doesn’t see you as a job to be done?” she asked. “You did think that he was only interested in you because he was kind of born to be your bodyguard.”

“Yes, it’s in Oblivions’ blood to protect other mer-people. But I’m pretty sure now that he really does like me,” Alea answered as objectively as she could. She preferred not to tell Tess just how in love she was with Lennox. Besides, it was possible that Tess was in love with him too. A while back, Alea recognized the emotion of love in a water bottle that Tess had drunk from. Alea had the very useful Whale-Wanderer ability to read the feelings and emotions of others from the colors in the water. Back then, shimmering, pinkish-red sparks had danced around in Tess’s bottle—sure signs of romantic infatuation. She must feel something for Lennox. Why else would she have behaved as she did? It made Alea sad that Tess felt heartsick over Lennox, but how could they possibly navigate these difficult waters if they weren’t ready to be honest with each other?

Tess continued to stare straight ahead. “You two fit well together.”

Enough beating around the bush, Alea thought. “The last time we talked, right before Lennox and I left the Crucis . . . ,” she started. “You said there was something important that you had to tell me. What was it?”

“It doesn’t matter anymore.”

“Are you in love with Lennox?”

“No!” Tess replied gruffly. She finally turned to face Alea. “I’m really not. He is not at all my type.”

Alea and Tess looked at one another. Tess seemed sincere. All the same, Alea wished they were in the water or that Tess would take a sip from her water bottle so that Alea could read the colors of her emotions. For the moment, she would simply have to trust her heart. And her heart told her that Tess was telling the truth.

How strange, thought Alea. Tess had to be in love with someone—her colors had been unmistakable. “So why didn’t you tell me the truth back then?” Alea probed. “First, you said he had no interest in me at all. Then you said it was obvious he was in love with me. Why did you lie the first time?”

Tess shifted her weight from one foot to the other, uneasy. “Please, let’s not talk about it anymore.”

“But—”

“I was just being stupid!” Tess laughed pitifully. “I’m really sorry.”

A tense silence grew between them. Alea sensed she wouldn’t get anything more out of Tess. Still, she didn’t want this to remain a wedge between them. “All right,” she said. “Whatever it was—let’s forget it. Yeah?”

“Really?” Tess asked in disbelief. “You’re willing to forgive me?”

Alea nodded. “I believe that you regret it—”

“Definitely!” Tess assured her. “I would never do that again. Really, I wouldn’t! It was totally stupid!”

“All right. Then let’s not talk about it anymore.”

The tension in the air dissipated, and it felt like a great weight had been lifted from Tess. “Thank you,” she whispered through pressed lips. “Thank you.”

Alea shook herself like a dog shaking off the rain. Then, she asked, “How did it go with your parents when they came aboard the Crucis?”

“Oh, I was so terrified!” Tess eagerly launched into the story. “I thought that I would hear . . . oh, how do you say . . . a thunderstorm. And I thought that they would take me back to France. Well, I guess there was a thunderstorm, but I deserved that.” Tess’s parents were getting divorced and hadn’t spoken to one another in a long time. Because of this, they hadn’t noticed when Tess had told each of them she was staying with the other parent. Tess had sailed with the Alpha Cru undetected for weeks until her web of lies had finally collapsed. Both her parents had flown to Edinburgh on the same day to get her. “Maman and Papafinally spoke to each other again. It was actually very nice to see them again.” Tess smiled. “They agreed to let me stay with the Alpha Cru until school starts again in the fall because they saw how well I’m doing here,” she continued. “By the way, Ben, Sammy, and I played a song for them. I think that helped my parents realize how special this experience has been for me and how happy I am aboard the Crucis.”

Alea felt tired, and she stifled a yawn so Tess wouldn’t think she was bored by her story. She wasn’t! It felt good to hear Tess speak about it so openly. It seemed like she had missed Alea’s friendship and conversation.

Tess continued. “For me, the most important thing on the Crucis is our band. Our music.” Alea noted an undertone of longing in Tess’s voice. “We are really good—more than good. We are . . . spectacularly unique. Do you realize how unique we are?”

Alea brushed a strand of hair from her face. The Cru members were exceptionally talented. Especially Tess. “You are spectacular,” she said. “And Lennox too.”

“Yeah, he’s incredible on the guitar,” Tess agreed. “And you with your wineglasses—it’s magical. But only together—all five of us—are we truly something special. Something unlike anything that has ever been.”

Alea smiled. Seeing how much the band meant to Tess and how deeply she believed in them together helped Alea see the whole thing in a new, serious light. Until now, she had thought of it as a fun pastime more than anything else. That, and a source of income.

“I wrote a song yesterday,” Tess said.

“What? You write your own songs?”

“Now and then.” Tess seemed embarrassed to admit it. “Should I play it for you?”

“Yes, please!”

Tess left Alea to take over the helm, hurried off to the saloon, and returned with her accordion a few moments later. Even though she had sung in front of Alea many times before, she looked a bit nervous. Performing her own song must feel different. “So it’s called ‘When the Water Calls,’” Tess explained. She sat up straight and composed herself. Like always, Alea felt goose bumps as Tess began to play. And then she started to sing. Tess had such an expressive, raw power in her voice that it left every listener spellbound. Her voice sounded beautiful as always, but the song was incredible. It was a true-blue rock anthem to freedom and the sea.

As the last notes faded into silence, Alea burst out in spontaneous jubilation. “The song is amazing! And you wrote it all by yourself? How does that even work?”

“Well, you try a few things and . . . then you just do it,” Tess explained with a laugh. “We could try writing something together if you want.”

“Seriously? You want to write a song with me?” Alea asked. “I wouldn’t even know where to start!”

“But you’re so musical, and the tones you create from your wineglasses are just . . . out of the norm.”

“You mean, out of the ordinary?”

“Out of this world!” Tess laughed. Her German was quite good, and she rarely struggled to find the right word. “Ah, whatever! I just wanted to say that we could give it a try sometime. Maybe we could write a song about our band names.”

Alea was taken aback. “Why?”

“Well, they’re all so . . . uh . . . pregnant with meaning.”

Alea grinned. Pregnant with meaning was an expression that she wouldn’t have come up with so easily.

“I mean the mythological meanings,” Tess added. “Take your name, for example: Aquarius, the Water Carrier. In ancient myths, the Water Carrier survived the flood and became the patriarch of all humankind. That’s great lyrical material for a bombastic power ballad!”

A powerful itching sensation spread throughout Alea’s insides, and she couldn’t concentrate on what Tess was saying. The feeling started in her toes and flowed upward through her body like a roaring tsunami. For the first time, it dawned on her that her band name might have a deeper meaning than she had previously thought. She had survived a kind of biblical flood or, at least, the greatest catastrophe that had ever befallen the mer-people. She wished, more than anything else, that mer-people could return to the oceans and that the world beneath the waves would reawaken to life. Yes—as she followed these thoughts to their logical conclusions, it became clear that she had been dreaming this dream in secret from the first moment they had discovered traces of mer-culture on the seafloor. Was it possible that the mer-people could return, and that she could be the one to lead them back?

There it was again, the delusion of grandeur. But her band name pointed to precisely that! Or were the similarities between the myths and her own life mere coincidence, and she had simply heard Sammy use the word destiny too often?

Alea shook her head. She had to abandon the dream that the mer-people would return. The virus wouldn’t just disappear, and the missing mer-children were most likely scattered all over the world. Finding them all, rebuilding the fallen civilization of the mer-people with their help, and becoming the matriarch of a new world was utter nonsense!

“Hey! You’re not even listening to me!” Tess was shouting.

Alea blinked and returned to the here and now. “Sammy’s band name is a lot more interesting than mine,” she said absently as she tried to drive the name Aquarius from her thoughts. “Draco the Dragon. Isn’t the constellation Draco