Chapter 12

Shadows in the Water

AFTER a week of travelling through the mountains, Eachtra reached a series of lakes and its wheels morphed into rudders. In the mountains, Eachtra’s umbrella-fans had used the winds to keep it moving when the horses got tired. Now that Eachtra was acting more like a real ship, the Wrens needed to practise Water Magic to help it run. While Air Magic involved learning a lot of equations and memorising the right words to say, Water Magic relied more on their eyes.

‘Your gaze is very important,’ Cliodhna, a druid with eyes like whirlpools, told them in a dusty room at the bottom of Eachtra.

She concentrated very hard on the jars of water in front of her and swished her hands around quickly. One by one, the jars started to hum a haunting melody. It wasn’t just beautiful. The sound-waves set a series of cogs in motion, propelling Eachtra through the lake. Unfortunately, Oisín wasn’t very good at magical music (he’d already smashed several jars by looking at them too hard) so he allowed his mind to wander as Cliodhna showed them the magical scale.

Oisín had decided that magic was just like electricity. He remembered one time when he flicked a light switch in his bedroom back in Dublin. It was just like the other umpteen times when he had done this everyday action, but for some reason it made him wonder how electricity worked. He had understood the basic idea, but he hadn’t been sure what all the wires in his house did or how a pale white bulb suddenly burst full of colour when one switch moved. He was pretty certain that he wouldn’t have been able to make a new Internet system or even an electric kettle if people suddenly forgot how those things worked. And then it had hit him, most of the things he did every day – getting in a car, watching television, Googling something – were mysteries. It was as if the rug underneath his life had slipped and all the furniture was slowly rearranging itself.

‘That’s just how it works.’

That was what Oisín’s mother had said when he had pestered her about electricity. It was exactly the same phrase that Tom used whenever Oisín asked about magic.

‘That’s just how it works.’

Tom shrugged when Oisín asked how lights popped on magically when they walked into cabins. Magic was just like electricity for the Tuatha Dé Danann. It was all around them, but they never really thought about it unless they had to.

‘You have to concentrate! If your gaze is strong enough, you can use a wave to push you all the way to the other side of the world. But if you keep looking out the porthole, for example, none of us will ever leave this lake.’

Tom gave Oisín a sharp nudge. He’d hadn’t been paying any attention to whatever Cliodhna was saying about magical scales and Cliodhna’s intense eyes were currently focused on him.

Oisín tried to look equally focused and Cliodhna returned her attention to the jars of water humming in perfect pitch. Oisín managed to smash another couple of jars before the morning was through, making him especially glad when they broke for lunch.

As usual, Oisín went to the library to visit the Book of Magic after he’d wolfed down some surprisingly tasty algae curry. He wasn’t surprised to see Stephen on the ground floor. Despite his suspicions about magic, Stephen worked hard every day, turning red as he attempted to transform into a puffer fish, nearly drowning as he wrestled an octopus. He spent all his free time in the library, looking through stacks of dark books. Currently, one of the books had turned into a mosquito and was doing its best to torment Stephen.

Lysander Quicksilver walked by with the Washington twins and laughed. ‘Not a magical bone in his body.’

Oisín was glad Stephen couldn’t hear Lysander (Stephen definitely had punching bones in his body) but he couldn’t help agreeing with the statement. The truth was that Stephen didn’t seem to be very good at magic.

And Oisín was. Not at everything – his head still hurt when he tried to master magical equations and he wasn’t much better than Stephen at wrestling an octopus – but every now and then something clicked. A feather sprouted out of his fingers when he concentrated very hard on transforming. A drop of water froze when he looked at it correctly. More and more, magic began to feel like electricity, like something that was part of his world.

‘Of course you can do magic,’ the Keeper of Books said to him when he reached her floor. ‘You’d hardly be a Keeper if you couldn’t!’

‘I suppose,’ Oisín said, taking a polite sip of her twigleaf tea and gazing out the small window as Eachtra sailed through a long ribbon-lake.

‘And you have green eyes,’ the Keeper said, as if that clinched it.

‘You don’t have to have green eyes to do magic,’ Oisín said, thinking of the Quints.

‘Ah, but the best druids all have emerald eyes!’ the Keeper said, patting her white hair. Her own green eyes looked enormous in her giant glasses.

‘Don’t tell Madame Q that.’

‘I won’t get a chance,’ the Keeper said in a rather icy tone. ‘She wouldn’t be bothered coming to check in on boring old books.’ The Keeper shuddered, the way she always did when she imagined people treating books poorly. ‘Though I suppose at least that keeps her away from your book.’

Oisín wasn’t so sure. Every now and then, he thought he saw a flash of silver in the bookshelves. Yet whenever he checked, the corridors of books were as long and empty as ever.

‘You should get going,’ the Keeper said, looking at him indulgently, understanding how hard it was to part from a book. ‘Unless you want some more tea?’

‘No,’ Oisín spluttered, putting down his mug of steaming, undrinkable liquid. ‘Thanks. We’ve got to get through the Underwater Caves today.’

‘Ohhhh,’ the Keeper said, as if remembering something. ‘I have a book on underwater algae somewhere, but I can’t remember if it’s shelved under D for “Don’t eat” or Z for “Zoospores and their homes”.’

With that, she was off into the stacks again, and Oisín had a rare moment of peace with the Book of Magic, the delicious feeling when the door closes and an empty house is all yours. Oisín told himself he’d just stay a minute, but as he looked at the Book of Magic, he couldn’t help staying longer. The more he understood magic, the more pages of the Book made sense. He now knew that several of the diagrams were plots for magical rooms and that some of the faint blue notes were special song-spells. The Book seemed to sense that he understood it better, and snuggled into his hands affectionately.

After what seemed like far too little time, Oisín put it back in its drawer and raced through Eachtra’s corridors towards its southern exit. He jumped out and found Tom waiting at the archway to the Underwater Caves.

‘That book,’ Tom said, shaking his head.

Tom was perhaps the only person on Eachtra who didn’t understand the appeal of the Book of Magic.

‘Where is everybody else?’ Oisín asked.

‘They’ve all gone in,’ Tom said.

Oisín must have been in the library longer than he thought. The Book of Magic had a way of swallowing time, so a whole afternoon could vanish just looking at it.

‘Not to worry, at least we don’t have to listen to Medb Gaultney talking about how her dad would never allow Wrens into filthy caves,’ Tom said as he clambered into the archway, his usual smile returning.

Oisín followed, and they sloshed their way through the winding Underwater Caves, which were lit by patches of phosphorescent moss. Eachtra would sail across to the other side of the caves, but the Wrens had to find their own way through. The water was only up to their ankles in most of the narrow caves, but some chambers were deeper. A giant wave rushed down one of the corridors and Oisín remembered the hand motions to change the path of water just in time. Another chamber had a huge organ made out of shell pipes and a door which would only open when you hummed the right scale. Thankfully, Tom had been paying more attention to Cliodhna than Oisín.

They could have got through the caves faster if Tom, who missed Giant terribly, didn’t stop whenever they passed any magical animal. Tom already spent his mornings looking after the merry-go-round horses (who didn’t like it when Eachtra behaved like a real ship and seaweed got in their manes). Now he insisted on befriending every scuttling creature they met, several of whom left ‘affectionate’ bite marks on his arm.

Tom had turned towards a snapping turtle when Antimony strode over to them, dripping water and irritation in equal measure.

‘I need to talk to you,’ she said to Oisín.

‘OK.’

‘Privately.’

Tom smiled good-naturedly. ‘You guys go on. I’ll stay and help this fellow.’

Antimony pulled Oisín into a side corridor before he could protest.

‘The Morrígan is after the Book of Magic,’ she said as soon as she was sure they were alone.

‘Um, I already know that.’

‘No. Here. The Morrígan is in disguise on board Eachtra.’

‘She can’t be.’

‘She is. And somebody else is helping her, one of the other Wrens, I think.’

Oisín had a terrible feeling that maybe Antimony could be right. He shivered, feeling something brush against his feet. When he looked down, though, nothing was there except water flowing along innocently.

‘Why are you telling me this? Is this about that bird?’

Antimony had been looking for a raven for the past few days, muttering darkly that something must have happened to him.

‘The Book of Magic needs to be protected,’ Antimony said, as if she wasn’t sure she could trust Oisín to do that. ‘We need to find out who’s working with her. I bet it’s one of the Quints –’

‘Oooh, sorry. Having a special moment, are we?’

It was Medb Gaultney, followed by Nuala and Noreen.

‘Get lost,’ Antimony said.

‘Careful not to get too wet – you might spoil your lovely hair,’ Medb said, her green eyes fixing on Antimony’s dreadlocks with malice.

‘We’re going this way,’ Oisín said, grabbing Antimony’s arm and pushing past Medb and her friends, who departed in a chorus of giggles.

‘Just because I don’t want to swim,’ Antimony said. Anybody can swim. Just wait until we get to the firefields, I’ll scorch that smile off her –’

‘Stop! Can you feel the water moving?’

Oisín stood still, trying to figure out what was happening. They had walked into another side corridor, where the water seemed to be flowing a lot faster. Oisín definitely felt something brushing against his feet this time. He looked down and squinted at the water in the dim mosslight.

‘Shadow-fish,’ Antimony said after a moment.

Oisín looked closer and saw with horror that it wasn’t the water that was moving fast, but a series of tiny fish, as dark as shadows.

‘We need to turn back,’ Antimony said.

‘I can’t turn around! They’re moving too fast.’

Antimony couldn’t either. It seemed like there was an endless stream of shadow-fish brushing against their ankles and pulling them along with the current.

Antimony tried to send some smoke from her nostrils but she couldn’t.

‘I can’t do Fire Magic here,’ she said in a panic. ‘The Water Magic is too strong.’

‘Just walk slowly. We can get out.’

But even though her brain told her that she should walk very slowly, Antimony’s body had other ideas. Her legs felt the slithery shadows slipping past them and they tried to shake them off. Her arms felt as if the shadows were all around, and waved about frantically. After a moment, her hands thought it would be a good idea to cling to the slippery sides of the cave for support.

‘Antimony!’

It was too late. Antimony toppled over with a crash and was carried down with the shadow-fish current in seconds. Oisín hesitated. More and more shadow-fish were streaming past him, whooshing in the direction that Antimony had gone in. He couldn’t leave her alone.

Surrendering to the flow, Oisín dived into the water and let the current of shadow-fish pull him along. The passage got narrower and narrower, until Oisín felt as if he was in a water slide at a funfair. Except this slide was more terrifying than fun. Oisín felt the strange shadow-fish slip around his arms and had the horrible feeling they wanted him to drown. After a couple more twists and turns, the passage turned into a proper chute and plummeted towards an opening. Oisín closed his eyes and braced himself.

For a moment, he was thrown into the air, his limbs flapping about like crazy. Then, just as suddenly, he landed in a dark pool with a hard splash. His head bobbed under water and he saw hundreds of tiny shadows, glinting at him with small green eyes. He pushed his head back to the surface and spluttered. They had been expelled into a huge cavern. It was almost completely dark, except for a strange orange glow that came from the wall. Magic was in this place like a current, deeper than any Oisín had ever felt. He called out Antimony’s name but only heard his echo in return.

Then he heard a thrashing sound, the noise of somebody slapping shadows. Oisín swam over quickly.

‘Hold on to me,’ he said.

‘There’s no way out,’ Antimony gasped, gripping Oisín’s hoodie.

‘Breathe, breathe!’ Oisín said, feeling himself being pulled under by the shadow-fish. ‘You can do this,’ he spluttered, feeling his head bob into the dark water. More and more shadow-fish were streaming into the cavern and the water was getting deeper and deeper. ‘Just kick your legs and move your arms like you’re making a big circle. Don’t worry about your dreadlocks! Breathe with me!’

The shadow-fish made it much harder to stay afloat than usual. Every time one of his legs slowed down, Oisín could feel the shadow-fish latch on and try to drag them under. After a couple of very long minutes, during which Oisín was sure they would both drown, Antimony was able to tread water on her own.

‘OK,’ Oisín said, feeling his legs tire as he pushed against the shadow-fish. ‘Now we have to get out of here.’

The already cold water had just dropped several degrees and he was worried that the flapping wings he had heard above belonged to ravens.

‘Is that an opening?’ Antimony said, peering towards the other end of the cavern. ‘Yes, look, there’s a ledge and an archway and –’

Oisín understood why Antimony had stopped. Far away, at the other end of the cavern, Oisín could just make out a creature unlike any he’d ever seen. It was sort of like a stingray, with a flat black body like a long slippery rug. Several long tentacles emerged from its sides like snakes. What worried Oisín, though, were the green eyes on its head, which gleamed like glittering emeralds and seemed to be looking right at him.

Oisín felt the shadow-fish pulse with energy as the creature slithered into the water. Soon all Oisín could see were its two green eyes, gleaming terribly in the darkness. They floated on top of the water, moving closer and closer. Oisín felt the water rise around him. He could hear Antimony panicking, forgetting again how to tread water. Oisín barely noticed. He was hypnotised by those eyes, remembering Granny Keane’s words: She’s a shape-shifter. No matter what she changes to, you can always recognise her by three things: the ravens that follow her, a terrible chill in the air around her and those green eyes of hers that will drown you in sadness.

Oisín swallowed a gulp of cold water as the shadow-fish gripped his legs. He knew before Antimony whispered in his ear: he was looking into the eyes of the Morrígan.