y dream of The Seabeagle was not the only vision to come to fruition within the next several days.
I currently found myself sitting on the plastic patio furniture I’d recently seen flashing through my head. Having ridden Ashlyn’s boat to shore, we were now at her house and sitting on her front porch. The chairs and round table were white with yellowed edges. I sat in one facing the ocean. It was a beautiful backdrop of blueish green that deeply contrasted the cream color of sand just before it.
Upon the table rested a platter of sandwiches (also from my dreams). They were ham, cheese, and turkey. Like the fresh pitcher of strawberry lemonade beside them, they’d all been made by Ashlyn and her husband Donnie (the man from the boat).
If you haven’t caught up yet, Ashlyn was the daughter of the Little Mermaid, and the woman we believed would fulfill the next item on Emma’s In and Out Spell list—“The Heart of the Lost Princess,” also known as our “Something Pure.”
The specifics of how were not clear to us yet, but for the meantime another question occupied our thoughts, a question Blue no longer seemed able to leave unspoken.
“Why are you so old?” she asked Ashlyn.
“Blue!” SJ gasped.
“What, you know a better way to phrase the question? Come on, we’re all thinkin’ it.”
She was right. It had been boggling my mind that Ashlyn looked so much older than she should’ve been. We’d been in search of an eighteen-year-old. And this woman was definitely not eighteen.
“I suppose I should’ve expected that question,” our hostess replied. “I forget that in Book-time it really hasn’t been that long since I left. What’s it been, about a year?”
“Uh, like a year and half,” Jason answered.
“Wow.” Ashlyn shook her head. “It really is crazy the time difference between our two realms. For me, here on Earth, it has been almost thirty years.”
“I thought we were in Bermuda?” Jason replied.
“Yes, dear,” Ashlyn responded. “But Bermuda is not a realm, it is an island on Earth. And the time here moves about twenty times faster than it does in Book.”
“Hang on.” Blue held up her hand. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but did you just say you left Book? As in, you ditched your home world by choice not some freak accident or kidnapping or shark attack like everyone else there thinks?”
“It’s a long story,” Ashlyn responded forlornly.
“Well, if you’re willing to tell it, we’d like to hear it,” Blue said. “Can’t feel like that long of a story to us since this place moves twenty times faster than we’re used to, am I right?”
SJ shot Blue a disapproving look as Ashlyn sighed and took a sip of her lemonade. Then, with Donnie affectionately holding her hand, she told us her story. Unlike the kind we were used to in Book, however, this one was not so much the stuff of fairytales.
It started romantically enough. The story began after the events of the Little Mermaid we all knew (Mer princess meets human prince; they fall in love; they break a ton of rules; she turns human; shenanigans and magical complications ensue; happily ever after).
Married, the former mermaid and her husband had a daughter named Ashlyn. The princess was born and raised by the sea, the likes of which she grew up longing for just as much as her mother had desired to be amongst humans. Alas, the Sea Silence Laws prevented Ashlyn from being a part of that world.
These strict regulations forbade contact between the Mer people and the majority of the realm. They limited ocean access to “government” approved (a.k.a., Fairy Godmother approved) personnel for fishing purposes and separated the ocean into Mer-only and human-only areas. So despite her aquatic heritage, Ashlyn was forbidden from the deep ocean and its mysteries.
Of course that didn’t stop her from going after it. Her aquatically-altered genetics designed for underwater breathing and fast swimming abilities were not the only things she’d inherited from her parentage. Like her former Little Mermaid mother, Ashlyn was willing to break the rules to get what she wanted. So, whenever she was home from Lady Agnue’s, Ashlyn would sneak out of Adelaide Castle at night and make her way to the ocean.
During her early childhood the princess had discovered a secret route in the cliffside that wormed its way through an assortment of underwater caves and rock formations. It was by this escape route that Ashlyn was able to live out her dream of aquatic independence.
However, like in most fairytales, there was a twist in her story.
The incident took place during her senior year at Lady Agnue’s. Ashlyn was home from school for spring break. Initially she was content to return to the tranquil privacy of her typical late night swims. But that first night proved to be anything but tranquil or typical. While exploring the depths of the ocean miles from the shore, Ashlyn stumbled upon something new.
It was large and black and surrounded by sparks—and she had to know what it was. Curiosity getting the better of her as it so often does in protagonists, Ashlyn swam toward it and became the first human in Book to cross from one realm to another through a hole in the In and Out Spell.
This hole, like the one we’d just found, deposited Ashlyn in the waters of Bermuda. And that’s when Ashlyn met Donnie. And everything changed.
She said that the moment they’d laid eyes on each other it was like a thunderbolt struck their hearts and made them realize that until that moment neither of them had ever really been alive.
Overdramatic much? I thought as I drank from my own glass of flavored lemon beverage. Ugh, stuff like that makes my teeth hurt from the sweetness. I mean the romantic nonsense that is, not the lemonade. The lemonade, actually, could use a bit more sugar.
With an hour in Book equivalent to nearly a day on Earth, Ashlyn was able to spend a great deal of time getting to know the handsome young man fate had introduced her to without anyone back home being the wiser. Each of her afterhours swims converted to almost a week of time with Donnie. And once she discovered a consistency with which certain wormholes appeared in that part of the ocean, she was able to flawlessly regulate her transitions and spend even more time with the boy she loved.
Unfortunately, soon everything changed again—this time with far less desirable results.
It seemed that Ashlyn and I had a common enemy: a certain Lena Lenore, a.k.a. Book’s resident Fairy Godmother Supreme and all-powerful micromanager.
When the holes had started forming in our realm several decades ago, Ashlyn explained, Lenore had apparently been the first to notice. However, instead of sharing that information with the general public, the Godmother Supreme insisted on keeping the discovery quiet. She succeeded in doing so for a while, using her Godmother task force’s magical intervention to conceal the inconvenient wormholes as they appeared.
Alas, as the years passed and the number of inter-dimensional tears increased in number and unpredictability, Lenore realized something else had to be done. Which, evidently, was why she’d been the core person to push the passing of the Sea Silence Laws.
Yup. That’s right. You heard me.
Holes in the Forbidden Forest and northern mountains were easy to keep secret because, as Harry had pointed out, they were hard to get to. But Mer was not like that, at least not to Mer-people.
Lenore knew that her Godmother task force wasn’t going to be able to keep Mer-people from finding out about the holes forever, and that once they knew there would be nothing stopping them from telling humans about the holes’ existence. And so she had instituted the Sea Silence Laws to keep the truth from reaching the rest of the realm.
Regrettably, one thing she hadn’t been prepared for was a half-human, half-mermaid teenager finding some of these holes, figuring out the pattern with which they appeared, and then using them to come and go between worlds as she pleased. That was most certainly not a part of the Godmother Supreme’s plans. And once she learned of this disruption in her tightly regulated system of secrets, she had to put an end to it.
During the third week of Ashlyn’s spring recess, Lenore appeared to our princess before she could slip through the wormhole for her usual rendezvous with Donnie.
At their confrontation, Lenore cast a spell on Ashlyn. The effects of the magic would take hold in five minutes, Lenore said. Once they did, Ashlyn would no longer be able to swim. The water of the ocean would paralyze her and cause her to sink like an anchor.
Thus, if she did not wish this to be her fate, she had to choose: Book or Earth. Choose Book and Lenore would wipe the princess’s memory, remove the aquatic-death enchantment, and then poof her back to home. Once there, Ashlyn would wake up and never recall anything about the hole, her underwater ventures, or Donnie.
Or Ashlyn could choose Earth and swim through the hole a final time, with any luck making it to the Bermuda shoreline before the magic kicked in and completely immobilized her.
Blue, SJ, Jason, Daniel, and I sat in complete silence as Ashlyn told this part of the story. Her eyes turned glassy and bloodshot as painful memories surfaced from wherever they’d been hiding like a dormant virus. I saw her knuckles begin to whiten as she squeezed Donnie’s hand for the strength that she needed to get through the retelling.
Ashlyn explained that she couldn’t bear the thought of leaving her home, her friends, and her family. She knew that if she left right at that moment then no one was ever going to know what happened to her. Her mother, her father, her sister . . . no one.
On the other hand, if she agreed to stay she would never see Donnie again. She wouldn’t even remember him. And that notion would’ve broken her on the spot in a much more visceral, instantaneous way than Lenore’s magic ever could.
So she made a choice.
She picked Earth. She picked Donnie.
The instant she made her decision, Ashlyn dove through the hole and swam like mad before her clock ran out and the magic took hold. And, thankfully, she made it.
“We were married a year later and have been together ever since,” Ashlyn said as she finally wrapped up her story. “We settled right here in Bermuda because of Donnie’s tourism business, and so we could keep an eye on the holes in the In and Out Spell like his family always has. Holes open up regularly around this island, forming portals to a hockshaw of other lands, not just Book. We have the timetables down pretty thoroughly now, so we’re able to steer most people away. But over the years, residents, tourists, even the occasional boat or plane have been susceptible to getting sucked through.”
“So people on Earth know about In and Out Spell holes?” Daniel asked.
Ashlyn shook her head in amusement. “Nah. Earth people like fantastical stories almost as much as Book people do. For decades they’ve blamed the disappearances that used to happen around this region on a supernatural thing they made up called the Bermuda Triangle. Donnie and my efforts have severely minimized the number of boats and aircraft affected by the wormholes, but the legend of the triangle remains. It’s silly, but it’s good for business so we don’t mind.”
“Wow,” Blue commented. “That’s nuts.”
“Yeah. But hey, that’s life isn’t it? Our version of happily ever after might have more tropical storm warnings and hurricane advisories than most, but it’s ours and we love it.”
“No.” Blue shook her head. “I meant how you got here. You left everything behind just like that to be with him.” She gestured toward Donnie. “No offense, but that’s crazy.”
“Love makes you do crazy things,” Ashlyn said. “And I love Donnie more than anything. So while I miss Book and my family and the feel of the ocean against my skin every day, I’ve never regretted the decision. Lenore asked me to choose between worlds and at the end of the day I knew that the one that mattered most was the one that had him in it. He was my world, you see. Even after thirty years I still feel that way. He and our four children are where my heart is.”
Ashlyn’s hand went to her neck and her fingers grasped hold of a delicate, silver chain that had been tucked inside her blouse. She pulled it out and I saw a metallic, heart-shaped locket edged in lime green crystals. Ashlyn proceeded to open the locket and take out a small picture of her, Donnie, three young girls, and a small boy.
The Heart of the Lost Princess . . .
That had to be it! That was what we’d come here for—the second object that we needed to break the In and Out Spell around the Indexlands was the locket around Ashlyn’s neck. Not just because it made sense, but because I’d seen that exact same locket in my dreams several times already.
The others and I exchanged a quick glance that our hosts didn’t notice. Even without the knowledge of my visions, it seemed they knew this locket was what we needed to continue our mission.
“The kids are inside right now if you want to meet them,” Ashlyn said—unaware of our epic realization as she closed her locket. “Donnie can introduce you once he’s shown you the guest rooms.”
“We appreciate the hospitality, Ms. Ashlyn,” SJ interceded. “But we are just here to collect . . .”
Blue elbowed her.
“A few spell ingredients,” SJ finished. “We cannot stay very long.”
“Believe me, you won’t be,” Ashlyn said. “At least not in terms of Book-time. You will have to stay for a few days of Earth-time, though. I may not have used them for a few decades now, but I know perfectly well that the next hole in the In and Out Spell back to Book isn’t due to open until three o’clock Monday. So the five of you will have to bunk here until then.”
“We could not impose,” SJ said.
“You are not imposing; I am insisting,” Ashlyn stated happily. “Over dinner you can all tell me your own stories about what brought you here. For now, go and get settled. And say hi to the kids on your way. They’ll be thrilled to meet you. I think they’re in the family room watching TV.”
Ashlyn and Donnie began to direct us inside. I grabbed my soggy satchel and an extra sandwich while Blue loaded a plate with several more. Then, as an afterthought, she looked up at Ashlyn with a hint of curiosity in her brow.
“What’s TV?”