The storm has her. It bounces the little green boat back and forth on the waves. It snatched the oars a while ago and all Lampie can do is cling to the bench, feeling sick and trying not to fall into the sea.
Feeble child, storms the wind. Hey! Fight back a bit. Don’t just sit there!
But Lampie is tired. Tired of pushing against the world; she cannot keep it up. She can no longer see the land; she is already too far away. She looks at the waves, hoping to see Fish somewhere, but all she can see is the sea.
There is no storm beneath the waves, just the silence singing in his ears. He dived a little so that he could swim more swiftly, but now the darkness is drawing him down, deeper and deeper. The water stretches out in every direction, so far, so far, so far, with him in the middle. How deep can he go? What is down there, and beyond, and what lies beneath all that?
Shoals of fish with bulging eyes come past in the darkness; he sees thousands of sparkling lights, one per fish, turning all at once as they swim around him. Above him float shadows of large fish with fins like wings, and there: a crowd of giant jellyfish, almost transparent, almost not there, and yet suddenly they appear all around him. He recognizes them from the pictures in his book about sea life; he knows not to touch the long tentacles, because they can sting you to death. But he swims so smoothly between them that he does not even feel their sting. Or maybe they do not sting you to death if you are a mermaid… no, a merman. His heart is beating very calmly, he feels brave enough to go anywhere, deeper and deeper, to where the water is pitch black, where monsters with devil’s eyes lurk, with big white teeth to chase you away and, dangling in front of their mouths, little lights, little yellow lamps to…
Lampie, he suddenly thinks.
Lampie is lying on her back in the cold water at the bottom of the boat. It has not sunk yet, but it will not be long. As the waves pitch her from side to side, she looks up at the clouds that the wind is chasing across the sky. The wind has found other things to play with now: clumps of seagrass fly past, followed by an old piece of sail from a ship that once ran aground here. And look, there is a basket blowing past. Isn’t that her basket from before, with a box of Swallow Brand Top Quality Matches in it? But no, that’s impossible, she thinks. There is no way it could be hers.
Inside the pocket of her soaked dress, her fingers find the shard of glass. Yes, it’s still there.
Mother, she thinks. This is as far as I can go. I’ll see you soon.
A wave lifts up the boat and smashes it against the big rock in the middle of the bay. It breaks into pieces and Lampie falls into the sea.
She comes sinking towards him, and Fish races to reach her. He is just in time. Isn’t he? Of course he is, he can swim so fast. Just in the nick of time, he grabs the hem of her dress and drags her upwards, lifts her head above the waves so that she can gasp for air. But she does not gasp and she does not move, just looks as pale as a corpse.
“Breathe, you stupid child! Breathe!” hisses Fish, shaking her. But she simply will not do as he tells her.
So he bites her, that is all he can think of to do, and when that does not help, he pulls her through the water to the rock, where he can lay her down and pause to think. He scrapes her knees and her elbows as he drags her over the rough stone, but if she is dead, then that no longer matters, of course.
“Lampie!” he screams into her ear. “Lampie! Lampie, wake up! Please, please wake up!”
He looks around to see if there is anyone who can do something, who can help him, who can help her, but there is no one, not in this whole wide ocean.
Luckily, the storm has finally blown over. The sun shines brightly, just one last blast, before it sets. The pirates are scanning the sea, but they can’t see any sign of a boat with a child inside. Probably sunk – what do you expect when landlubbers go sailing? But still, it is a shame.
Crow, who is at the top of the mast, has almost given up. He can’t see anyone or anything. Or can he? Is that someone swimming out there?
“Hey?” he says. And then he shouts it: “Hey!” And then: “Hey! Captain!”
“Can you see her?” Buck himself is standing on the lookout on the other side of the ship, shielding his eyes from the sun.
“No, not her. But I thought for a moment that…”
“Keep looking, man. It’s getting so dark.”
“I… I thought I saw a mermaid. Could that be?”
“No, they never come around here. So no, it’s not a mermaid. Keep looking!”
“But I really did think that I… Yes, there it is again. I think it’s a young one. Look, captain, over there! Look! She’s waving!”