Emily Windsnap and the Monster from the Deep Part 14

"Then what?" Shona cried.

"Just do it! Face it together and be silent. Wait till it turns this way. I'll tell you what to do then. Quick!"

Shona turned to me.

"Come on," I said. "It'll be okay."

I grabbed her hand and we turned to face the kraken together, waiting in silence for the awful moment when it would turn that long, hard, horrible face toward us.

And then it did.

Nothing else moved. The sea swells stopped. The crashing waves leading down into blackness, the chasm - everything was still, held in a freeze frame. The kraken stood like a terrifying statue, motionless like iron, a giant tentacle poised over the ship, its bulging, weeping eyes locked with ours.

"It's working," Dad whispered into the stillness. "It's working!"

In the distance, a chariot was gliding over the water, pulled by dolphins. Neptune was on his way.

Archie glanced across at the chariot. "You have to do it now!" he urged. "Bring the kraken here, calm it down. Now!"

"What do we do?"

"Think."

"Think?"

"In your minds, try to communicate with it."

"Communicate with it?"

"Try to hold it in your power, bring it out of its rage so it can return to Neptune. You have to move fast."

"Okay." I pulled at my hair, twirling it around as I flicked my tail. I glanced at Shona. She nodded quickly. OK. I just have to calm the kraken's rage. Think thoughts.

OK.

Calm down, nice kraken. I forced the words into my mind, my face squirming up with disgust and horror. A tentacle twitched, lashing out into thin air.

"You have to really feel it," Archie said. "It's no use pretending. It'll know."

Neptune was coming closer. I had to do something before he got here, prove that I wasn't completely and utterly useless, that I hadn't ruined absolutely everything. Shona's eyes were closed, her face calm and focused. OK, I could do this.

Please, I thought. Please don't destroy anything. There's no need. Take it calmly, listen to us, trust us, it's all okay. No one's going to hurt you.

Random thoughts raced through my head, anything I could think of that might have some effect.

And it did - it started to. The kraken's tentacles were softening, flopping back down onto the water, one by one. The swell of the sea had started shifting slowly, rising and falling steadily, the huge choppy waves with their sharp crests smoothing into deep swells. The chasm closed over, lying shiny and smooth like an oil slick.

"Good!" Mr. Beeston called. "Keep doing it!"

Don't be angry. Everything will be all right. Just be calm, calm, calm.

Beside me, I could almost feel Shona's thoughts, the same as mine, weaving in between my own words. The kraken was calming down. Its tentacles lay still and quiet, spread out across the ocean's surface.

The chariot was coming closer. I could see Neptune, rising out of his seat, holding his trident in the air.

"We've done it," he cried as the dolphins brought him to my side. "Bring it here. Bring it to me now. Only when it is right in front of you can you bring it fully back into my power."

I swallowed. Here? Right in front of us?

"Now!" Neptune repeated.

I cleared my throat as I glanced at Shona again. Her face was white, her eyes wide and terrified.

I closed my eyes. Come to us, I thought, half of me praying it wouldn't work, the other half knowing that if it didn't we were all lost.

Nothing happened.

"You have to mean it!" Archie said. "I've told you that."

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Then, forcing myself to concentrate totally on my thoughts, I let the words come into my mind. Come to us, now. We can end this. No more rage, just calm . . . come to us now.

Something was happening in the water. Movement. I could sense it. I kept my eyes closed. It's all right, I said in my mind. No one's going to hurt you. Just come to us now and we can work it out. Calm. Stay calm.

"You're doing well," Neptune said. His voice sounded as though he was talking right into my ear. "Now, open your eyes. You have to come face to face with it, both of you. You need to hold it with your minds until the rage has completely gone."

"How will we know when the rage has gone?" I asked.

"It will come back to me."

I counted slowly to three, and then opened my eyes. It was all I could do not to scream at the top of my lungs. It was there! In front of me! A face as tall as an apartment building: lumpy and dark and pocked with holes and warts, tapering toward huge white eyes streaked with blood-red veins. Enormous craggy tusks pointed up, disappearing into the clouds, it seemed. Tentacles lay still all around it, like a deflated parachute.

I could hear cheering coming from the ship! The danger had pa.s.sed. We'd done it. We'd really done it! I grabbed Shona's arm. She was laughing.

"We're not finished!" Neptune barked. "Beeston, get ready. Archie, ready?"

"Yes, Your Majesty," Archie replied, swimming away from me.

"Ready for what?" I asked. No one answered. Mr. Beeston and Archie were swimming toward the ship. I grabbed Dad. "Ready for what?" I asked again. "What's going on?"

Dad shook his head. "I don't -"

"What do you think?" Neptune growled. "It's time to put it back to work."

A queasy feeling stirred inside me. Something wasn't right.

"You don't think this is all merely to save your lives, do you?" Neptune asked. "Don't you think there is more to my kingdom than that?"

"I - I don't know. I don't under -"

"The kraken is getting back to work, as I've told you. It's been nearly a hundred years, and now it will return to what it knows best: relieving humans of what they do not need. It will bring me riches in quant.i.ties I haven't known for many years."

What did he mean? He couldn't possibly - "And that"- he pointed to the ship -"is where we start."

"But you can't!" I yelled. The kraken stirred as I shouted, a tentacle hitting the water with a splash that covered us all. "You tricked us! You made us do all this, just so you can destroy everything!"

Mr. Beeston turned in the water. "We're not going to destroy everything. That's what the kraken would have done without you. We want to regain the control that is rightfully ours."

"And the riches," Neptune added, stroking a gold sash around his chest.

"Exactly, Your Majesty," Mr. Beeston added with a creepy smile.

"Why didn't you just let it sink the ship, then?" Shona asked.

"It will sink it for me! When I am ready. Otherwise, it is wanton destruction."

"Wanton destruction?" I spluttered. "And this isn't?"

Neptune's face bulged red. "Without me, the kraken will destroy everything in its sight, losing it forever into the chasm. I will not suffer that waste!" He waved his trident in the air. "Now go to it! I want every jewel from that ship!"

"But you'll kill them all!" I screamed, tears streaming down my face. "My mom's on that ship!"

"Did we ASK her to be there?" Neptune boomed. "Did we ASK you to start this?"

"But you can't just kill her! And Millie - all of them!"

Mr. Beeston looked at Neptune, then me. "Your mother's on the ship? What the -"

"I want my mom!" Mandy was crying next to me. "I want to go home."

"You can't!" I screamed at Neptune. "Make it not happen - it can't be happening."

The kraken twitched in the water, lifting a tentacle, tipping its head to the side.

"DO NOT lose it!" Neptune bellowed at Mr. Beeston. "We're too close. It's getting confused. We mustn't lose it now. Beeston, we need to sort this out."

"Please don't do it!" I cried uselessly.

Mr. Beeston wouldn't look at me as he set off toward the ship. "I'm sorry, Emily," he said.

Dad lunged after him, grabbing his arm. "My WIFE is on that boat!" he screamed.

Mr. Beeston's left eye twitched. "That - it's not our concern," he stammered.

"Not your concern? Don't you care that people are going to die when you sink their boat?"

"Tough tails!" Mr. Beeston suddenly exploded. "They shouldn't stray into Neptune's kingdom. He is the ruler; everything in the ocean is his. He is only regaining what he's owed. Humans have stolen from him for centuries, poaching his seas for their own needs. We're just redressing the balance."

He was crazy. They all were.

Something was happening in the water. The kraken's tentacles were twitching, batting the water, spraying us all.

"OBEY ME!" Neptune screamed. "It's caught between your control and mine. We have to combine them or it will go insane."

"We won't!" I yelled back. "We WON'T obey you!"

I grabbed Shona and Mandy. "Come on!"

Mandy pulled away from me. "Look what you're doing!" she shouted. "You're making it worse!"

She was right; the kraken was coming back to life, tentacles rising to smash against the water.

"It's going to kill everyone!" Mandy yelled. "You have to stop it!"

"Then what? If we obey Neptune, it'll go back into his power again, and he'll make it sink the ship anyway!" I cried. "What can we do?"

It was ahead of us. Mr. Beeston was calling it to the ship. No!

The kraken lashed forward, tearing a hole through the sea as it spun toward the ship. The Triangle's surface was opening up again!

And then. And then.

I saw it in slow motion.

A tentacle, rising into the air, water spiraling off around it in an arc of color and light. It came crashing down onto the water, hitting out, thwacking at the surface, swiping at the ship. The ship! It was so close. I could see people lined up along the decks, running madly, but there was nowhere to run. The tentacles rained down. It had the ship! It knocked at it, hungry for destruction. The ship was tilting, people tossed from the deck - hundreds of people in the water, screaming for their lives.

"MOM!"

I whirled toward the kraken, edging toward the chasm; I could feel it pulling me - something holding us together; I couldn't fight it.

For a split second, everything stopped. The calm came back. The kraken had disappeared under the water. In silence, I watched the chasm close up, covered over again with the gla.s.sy surface of the sea.

Just one brief moment of calm, before a screeching wail split the air around us. Lights flared. The gla.s.sy surface splintered and cracked. The whirling sea raged below. And the kraken rose. It burst through the water, screaming up from deep below the surface, its long face stretched wide by angry, gaping jaws exposing daggerlike teeth as its tentacles scrambled madly like a ma.s.s of giant maggots, smashing the still surface of the sea. As we watched, the water fell away, pouring like a waterfall, leaving just the kraken, surrounded in its fury by utter, black emptiness.

"We've lost our power," I said feebly to no one. "It's not listening."

I was being dragged toward the kraken. I could feel its mind pulling me toward it. Nothing I could do.

I couldn't save anyone. This force pulling me was too strong. No energy, no power to do anything.

I let myself slip toward the chasm.

And it closed behind me.

Down, down, into complete darkness. Nothing to see. No water, no land. Nothing. Falling through nothingness. Spiraling down, whisked around in a vacuum of whirling blackness, twisting me, throwing me around and around.

It grabbed me.

Lashing at me, scorching my face, my hands, my body, the kraken's tentacles screamed across me, again and again. I writhed and struggled, but it was impossible. I couldn't keep out of its clutches.