EELS DOESN’T NOTICE Violet coming, doesn’t see her swim round behind the malamander’s nest. He is still gazing in rapture at the egg in his hands, oblivious to the water that is spraying in through the hull of the ship as the tide continues to rise. There’s a slow boom as the first big wave hits the wreck. But then why would the man worry about that? Sebastian Eels has the awesome power of the malamander egg. He also has full scuba gear. I can’t see how anything can stop him now.
But there’s still Violet.
I watch as she struggles up the mound of seaweed, where Eels hasn’t yet seen her. But she must make a noise doing this, because his head jerks up, and he starts to spin round.
So Violet shoves him.
It’s a desperate shove, and it causes Violet to lose her footing, but Eels is caught unprepared, and he slips too. Violet grabs for the egg in his hand.
“No!” shouts Eels, raising the egg menacingly. But Violet somehow manages to break her slide down into the water, and – with her mother’s boots on – lands a kick in the man’s face.
Sebastian Eels falls, dazed, back into the pool, the egg falling from his fingers.
Violet snatches it up.
She closes her eyes to concentrate, and I still have enough energy in my freezing brain to think, What now? Surely Vi isn’t still trying to see her parents. Doesn’t she know we’re as good as drowned already? None of that matters now.
The sea mist boils once more, red and strange in the submerging cavern, as Violet calls on the magic one more time.
“No!” Eels shouts again, splashing upright in the pool, grabbing his harpoon gun. He aims it at Violet, at point-blank range.
Fut! Fut!
Since he didn’t bother to reload the gun, the mechanism spits nothing but compressed air.
In desperation, Eels starts climbing the mound, but by now Violet is wreathed in a maelstrom of power, and the man slips back and cringes in terror as the light of the malamander egg grows brighter and brighter …
… but then dims.
Violet lowers her hands, looking suddenly small and defeated. The storm ceases its roar, dying down again, and the mist rolls away.
Now all we can hear is the rush of water as the tide continues to rise. The magic is ended, and whatever it was Violet wished for hasn’t appeared.
“Nothing?” rages Sebastian Eels, as he struggles back to his feet. “You wretched, unimaginative child. Is that it? You don’t deserve the power. You are as weak and pathetic as your father. Give me the egg! Give it to me, now!”
“Are you sure you want it?” says Violet, quietly. “Really sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.” Eels rises up out of the sea towards her, pulling his knife from its sheath. “Give it to me!”
“Then take it!” Violet shouts, and she tosses the malamander egg over the man’s head.
Eels jumps, throwing himself up in a frantic bid to catch the egg before it hits the water.
And he succeeds.
He bobs back down, holding the egg above him in triumph.
“Ha!” he cries.
And his cry is answered by a sound I thought I would never hear again: a screeching, shrieking roar of reptilian fury. The malamander, miraculously whole again, glistening with iridescent scales and bristling with spines, leaps from the shadows and lands on Sebastian Eels. Its gaping mouth, lined as before with tooth needles, closes with a sickening crunch over the hand that holds the egg.
Then both monster and man are gone, crashing beneath the inky surface in a storm of water.
Which subsides.
There’s a ripple or two, and a snaking, finned tail twists to the surface of the water for a moment. Then there’s nothing.
Sebastian Eels is gone.
Now all there is to worry about is the spraying of the invading sea, and the boom of the waves, and the creaking of the wreck as the tide rises to engulf us.
The water is up to my neck now. I make another attempt to free my ankle, but it’s wedged fast, and only hurts when I try.
I look over to the nest.
Violet isn’t there.
“No, I’m here,” she says, suddenly close.
I turn my head, and she’s right beside me, treading water.
“You can still g-g-get out,” I say, suddenly realizing it’s true. “Just go, Vi.”
“I can’t leave without you,” she says, and she dives down beneath the water. But she’s up again in a moment, gasping. There’s no time left now, and no light in this ink-black sea. She needs to stop trying to free me if she’s going to save herself.
“They’ll be n-n-needing a new Lost-and-Founder at the G-g-grand Nautilus Hotel,” I say, pulling the remains of my cap from my head and pushing it through the water to Violet. “You should do it, Vi.”
“Herbie, no!”
The water laps over my face for the first time. When it dips again, I grab a quick breath.
“Please go, Vi,” I say. “T-tell Lady Kraken…”
The water again.
Cough!
“Tell Lady Kraken…”
Then the water closes over me for good.
