“This has been quite a difficult stop for you,” said Fenja from the edge of the Swilkie. It was morning, and Sophie and Syrena had feasted one last time at the giantesses’ giant table. It was time to move on.
The Swilkie’s eye was narrow at the mill, the gargantuan contraption the Ogresses cranked and spun, bringing salt into the sea. It was little more than a dust devil in the water. Sophie and Syrena would swim up alongside it and, as it widened, enter the tunnel easily, swimming through its center to the surface.
“We knew it could be hard, just entering the Swilkie, and beholding the Invisible. But we didn’t expect there would be so much hard learning,” said Menja sadly.
“Is no problem,” Syrena said. “Is even good. Lesson must be learned, what better than here, in Ogresses’ cave? You take good care of us both.”
“Yes,” Sophie chimed in. “Thank you so much. It has been an honor to meet you.”
“The honor is ours,” said Fenja. “We hope you enjoy the Jottnars’ party. We so wish we could join, but—the milling.” Fenja sighed an ogress sigh, a blast of air that rose to the surface, creating a rogue wave somewhere in the middle of the ocean.
“Party?” Sophie gasped. “We’re going to a party?”
“Oh, ya,” Syrena nodded. “And I truly need one at this point, ya? Don’t you?”
Sophie hadn’t really thought about it. The last party she’d gone to had been Ella’s birthday, back in the spring. Ella’s whole family had been there, and they sang a birthday song to her in Spanish. One of her uncles had a drum that looked like a tambourine, and he smacked it to keep the beat. They ate mofongo and tostones and flan. And Ella got a million presents, a big jumble on her kitchen table, a pile of shiny paper trash and ribbon on the floor. Sophie had bummed money off her mother for a month leading up to the party, slowly collecting enough to buy Ella a T-shirt at the decal shop at the mall. BEST FRIENDS read the decal Sophie selected, with two glittery butterflies flying off together. She got her best friend’s name on the back in velvety pink letters. ELLA. Sophie had hoped that when her birthday rolled around, Ella would buy the same shirt for her, with her own name, SOPHIE, spelled across the back. But by the time Sophie’s birthday rolled around, who knew where she’d even be? Were she and Ella even friends anymore? She thought about the image of her friend crying in the Vulcan’s bubble. Pregnant. If Ella ever needed her best friend, it was now. And where was Sophie? A million miles beneath the sea, hanging out with blobfish and giants.
“Oh, I should know you be, how you call it, party-pooper,” Syrena grumbled, giving Sophie a poke.
“When you exit the Swilkie, you’ll find a dolphin pod waiting for you,” Fenja said. “We’ve arranged for them to ferry you to Laeso Island. That’s where you’re headed to, yes?”
“That’s where the party is,” Syrena said in what sounded like a chirp. Sophie had never seen her so buoyant.
“The dolphins have some things for you,” Menja said. “Some gifts from us.”
“You’ve already done so much,” Syrena said, smiling.
“Yeah, really,” Sophie chimed in.
“What you are doing for us, both of you, is beyond anything we could do for you,” Menja said. “Sophia, we have been tending this mill since we were children. Just kidnapped slaves. The king had mistaken us for grown women, but we were just babies. And we worked his mill, slowly growing into our Ogress selves. Eventually we grew large enough to banish the king, but then we understood how close to the Invisible we were. It’s probably what made the king so terrible! And so we continue to mill the salt. Perhaps after you’re done with your duties, perhaps my sister and I can take a break! Or mill something else. Who knows?”
“It’s nice to think about,” Fenja said dreamily.
“I would hug you and kiss you,” Syrena said, “but would be awkward. You both so big.”
“Sending you big, crushing giant hugs!” Menja boomed.
And Sophie and Syrena swam up along the Swilkie, and as it widened, swam easily into the eye.
“Getting in is easy,” Syrena said. “Leaving is hard.”
“Am I going to get caught in the whirlpool again?” Sophie worried aloud. After all she had been through, her resolve to not be a whiny teenager, to behave in a way more fitting to a half-Odmieńce, was forgotten in the face of the Swilkie.
“Not unless you screw it up,” Syrena said. “Must leap out! Like dolphin. Or like mermaid.”
“Leap out?”
“Ya,” Syrena nodded. “Come up to the surface fast and strong. Explode from surface! Like rocket, ya? Leap into the air! Leap away from the Swilkie. No problem.”
“Ya,” Sophie said, in an unfriendly mockery of the mermaid’s voice. “Just ‘leap.’ No big deal.”
“Do not do that, Sophie,” Syrena snapped. “Too cheap for magic girl.”
“Sorry,” Sophie mumbled. She had mocked Syrena, but really she had only envy and respect for the mermaid. They had grown even closer down here in the Ogresses’ world, and all Sophie wanted was to be as confident as Syrena, as worldly—or underworldly. Ocean-y? She wanted to believe she could leap out from the Swilkie, easy and elegant as a flying fish skimming the ocean surface. Even a giant, cumbersome whale could break the surface with grace.
That thought gave Sophie an idea. She had morphed into a shark to defeat her grandmother, so why couldn’t she morph into a sea creature to dive out from the Swilkie? Why couldn’t she become a whale? Or even a mermaid?
I could! Sophie thought, a marvelous thought. I could become a mermaid! Her powers intimidated her, and some of them truly scared her. She didn’t quite understand how she had become the shark, but she knew it had to do with desperation, and fear and anger, powerful emotions that fused with her magic. She wasn’t angry at the Swilkie, and she wasn’t terrified, not like she was of her grandmother. But she was definitely scared.
Swimming behind the mermaid, the water under her command, Sophie watched the way Syrena’s tail writhed and kicked. It undulated elegantly, but with the force of something shot from a cannon. Sophie imagined her lower body moving in such a way. She mimicked the mermaid’s motions, as much as she could in her human body. Above them the sea’s surface was a sheet of glittering blue, framed by the dense froth of the Swilkie. Like jumping through a hoop, Sophie thought. A flaming hoop. What if she missed it and belly flopped into the Swilkie? Well, the water would seize her and spin her and make her its puppet. She’d twirl for days, weeks, months, until Syrena broke the spell or grew bored and went on to her party. No, she couldn’t let it get her again. Sophie kicked her legs like pistons, watching as Syrena burst through the surface, her body arcing in the air above her, casting a sparkling shadow above the water. And then it was Sophie’s turn.
The zawolanie that left her mouth created its own miniature storm inside the whirlpool. Sophie saw the water change as the sound hit it, creating a path for her to follow out and over the Swilkie. The sound of the zawolanie as she broke the surface was an unearthly siren; it rang in Sophie’s own ears, briefly, and then she was up and over, plunging back into the sea. She had done it. She had made it out.
ABOVE THE WAVES, Syrena’s mouth hung open as if ready to sing her own curse. Around them bobbed a pool of dolphins, some wearing packs, like burros, some outfitted with reins of seaweed and linen. All of them were decorated with large chunks of salt, and all of them were looking directly at Sophie.
Eeeeeee iiieeee eieieie, one sounded to Syrena. The mermaid looked confused and a little offended at the noise, and turned back and forth between the creature and Sophie.
“Well, you were correct, there is only one mermaid!” Syrena barked at the dolphin. “And it is I!”
The pod looked at Syrena, and then returned their gaze to Sophie. Where she once had legs, she now had tails—two solid fishtails covered in a mosaic of scales, ending in flukes where her feet had been. Sophie’s own eyes widened at the sight of herself. She lifted her new tails and gathered them in her arms, laughter pouring from her mouth. She inspected her scales, glinting like a chain mail of new jewels. She gazed at her twin flukes, the delicate webbing at the scalloped tips, and rubbed them against her face.
“Oh, come now!” Syrena hollered. “What is this, love festival? That nice, you help yourself out of Swilkie with magic, very smart. Now—” the mermaid clapped her hands together—“back to girl, please. We must go to party.”
“But Syrena—look!” Sophie swam toward the mermaid—swam! Like a mermaid! She tilted her hips and her tails gently propelled her through the water. “Check it out! I’m a mermaid!” She brought her hands, full of tail, up to Syrena’s furrowed brow.
“No, you not mermaid. You Odmieńce making magic. Now, come on. Back to normal.”
Sophie could not believe she’d just been coasting through the sea—for how long? It felt like ages! Coasting through the sea on a boring current of water when she could have been mermaiding through the water with her twin tails! She gathered her hair behind her and did a triple flip, rolling over and over, her tails muscular and gleaming. When she came to a stop she was dizzy and giggling. Suddenly it wasn’t a big deal to have a head full of tangles. She was not an unkempt girl—she was a mermaid.
“Sophie, no,” Syrena said. “Is not good. Can’t stay in shifted shape for so long. Is moment-magic.” She cleared her throat, and soberly swam over to Sophie’s tails, running her fingers along scales. “Very nice job, though.” She relented. “Very nice, the double tail. Make sense for human girl.”
“Odmieńce girl,” Sophie said proudly, conjuring a haughty confidence.
“Oh, please,” Syrena scoffed. “Odmieńce girl. Enough, now. Dolphins await. Expecting girl and mermaid. You confuse them.”
“I’m going to stay like this,” Sophie declared.
Syrena shook her head sternly. “Over my dead mermaid body.”
“You’re not the boss of me, Syrena,” Sophie said. Jeez, weren’t they just in love with each other down at the Ogress cave? Now they were back to their bickering. Maybe if Sophie were Syrena’s equal, a mermaid too, things would be smoother between them.
“I sort of boss of you,” Syrena said, her eyes glinting. “This my world, down here. You my charge.”
“But if I’m a mermaid it’s my world, too. We can both be the boss.”
Syrena snorted with frustration, tiny glinting bubbles trailing out from her nostrils like a sea-bull. “Sophie! You not mermaid. You in your magic now, and I tell you, not good. Not good to be in magic for so long.”
“Which way to the party?” Sophie asked Syrena.
“We go when you girl again.”
Sophie turned to the pod of dolphins. “Which way to Laeso Island?”
The dolphins answered in a peal of unintelligible squeaks.
“God! Well, I guess I’ll just figure it out on my own!” And Sophie took off.
Her speed took her own breath away. With her two tails, how fast she could cut through the waters! She turned only to make sure the rest of her party had not been blown away by her powerful wake, but there was Syrena just behind her, followed by the pod of dolphins, frolicking as they traveled, as dolphins will.
“Wrong way,” Syrena said grimly, pulling up alongside Sophie and grabbing her by a fin. “This way.” The mermaid made a sharp turn, practically slapping Sophie with her tail. Sophie, too, made a quick swerve and was soon on the path to Laeso.
Syrena swam just ahead of the girl-mermaid, and no matter how hard Sophie worked the waters she could not catch up with her. Fine, she thought. Show off. Syrena’s been in the water for hundreds of years. I think I’m doing pretty awesome for my first day as a mermaid.
Breaking from the pod, a single dolphin shot ahead to swim beside Sophie. Its head was covered in an intricately braided harness fashioned from seaweed, and giant chunks of salt were threaded through the headdress like beads. Sophie slowed for a moment and gave the creature a warm smile, reaching out to pet its flank. It was smooth, smooth like Syrena’s skin. The creature was darker gray on top, fading to white at the front of its body and to a dusky light gray at the back. In the center, the colors met in a dip like an hourglass. Sophie traced the pattern lightly, smiling. The creature’s dark eye met hers and its chittering beak opened.
“Hello, Sophie.” It was not the undecipherable trill of a dolphin. It was the flat monotone of the Dola.
“No!” Sophie wailed, in exactly the voice she kept trying not to use. She used it again. “No!” She kicked her tails like a baby mermaid having a tantrum. Up ahead, Syrena turned around to see what was the matter. A glimpse at the dolphin told her everything. She broke out into a smile so big you could see her baleen.
“Dola! Tak dobre cie widziec!” The mermaid waved her hand above her head in a happy hello.
“This isn’t fair,” Sophie said, the fight already half gone from her. She had debated with the Dola before, when she had turned her back on the wisdom and kindness of her Aunt Hennie, when she had used her magic in the service of her own stubborn self, instead of what it was meant to serve. But what was that, even? Humanity? The world?
“Nie ma problemu.” The Dola spoke Polish through the dolphin’s mouth, the flat, monotonous sound of its voice giving Sophie instant creeps.
“Give me a break!” Sophie pleaded with the dolphin Dola “I have to do all this horrible, hard work, and I get all these amazing powers and I can’t even have a little fun with them? This is totally not fair.”
The Dola shrugged its dorsal fin. “No such thing as ‘fair.’ Only what is, and what is not. You are not to use your shape-shifting like this. Not for such prolonged period of time. It’s not good for your body. You are not meant to do it.”
“And yet here I am, doing it!” Sophie yelled. “God, don’t you get tired of these arguments?”
“Yes, always,” the Dola replied calmly. Even the calm and acquiescent timbre of its voice made Sophie want to die. It was like nails on the chalkboard of her soul.
“You have a tremendous gift, this ability to shape-shift. And it is tremendously taxing on your body, on your magic.”
“But I feel great,” Sophie insisted, and did a mermaid leap to prove her point, breaking the water’s surface and gracefully returning, slapping at the waves with her lush flukes for effect.
“Yes, you are doing very well here in the ocean. But you’re getting a constant salt infusion. Being with the Ogresses healed you, and the salt at Laeso Island is particularly replenishing. But you will not be down here forever. You must conserve your energy. There will be a time of recovery, and it will be hard on you. Don’t make it harder.”
“And what if I don’t?” Sophie sulked, but she already knew the answer.
“I will stay beside you until you obey me or become mad from my presence,” the dolphin Dola said.
“I bet I can outswim you.”
“I will hop into whatever vessel I need to. Shark, fish, octopus. Dolphin. Syrena.”
“You wouldn’t take over Syrena!”
“I will do whatever I must. And Syrena understands. She would let me occupy her. She cares about you. She does not want you doing this.”
“She just wants to be the only mermaid,” Sophie said. “She’s just mad that I can become like her in a snap.”
“She thinks you act like a child,” the Dola said, “and you do. It is her job to protect you, and she takes it seriously. Now become yourself again and I will carry you to Laeso.”
“I’d rather you just go away,” Sophie said. “I’ll make my own way to the island.”
“I am traveling there, too,” the Dola explained. “I have a meeting with Ran about a ship.”
“Who is Ran?”
If a dolphin or a Dola could make an expression of surprise, the dolphin Dola would have shot such a look at Sophie.
“You do not know Ran? You are going to her island.”
“I don’t know anything,” Sophie said. “Because Syrena doesn’t tell me anything.”
“Yes. Because you act like a child. It is hard for her to level with you. To treat you as equal. You should act different.”
“I know,” Sophie said. “I keep trying and it doesn’t work.”
“It will,” said the Dola. “It is your destiny to grow up. To become mature.”
“And it’s not my destiny to be a mermaid for a while?” the girl asked, with just a little bit of begging at the edge of her voice.
“Nope. So, become a girl again and hop on the dolphin’s back, please.”
With a zawolanie that sounded like the loudest, worst, most annoyed and petulant sigh ever uttered by a teenager, Sophie sulked her tails away and was a girl again. Her legs felt bare and naked in the cold water, ungainly and ungraceful. Their kicks were goofy, as if she were trying to find the pedals to an invisible bike.
Syrena was beside her. “Ride the dolphin.”
“It’s not a dolphin, it’s the Dola.”
“Either way. Will take you. Relax. Fun to ride dolphin!”
“More fun to be a mermaid.”
“And you were.” Syrena looked deeply at Sophie. “You were a mermaid for a moment. How magic for you. How many girl want to be mermaid, huh? And for moment, you feel it.”
“My legs feel dumb now.”
“Ya. No help down here.” Syrena reached out and slapped Sophie’s legs good-naturedly. “It almost sweet,” she said, “to have another to swim with. Not swim with another mermaid since Griet. I wish it could be allowed, Sophie. But law is law, is bigger than me.”
“Is it bigger than you, Dola?” Sophie kicked her heels into the dolphin’s flank, like a cowgirl on an ornery horse.
“Of course. I don’t write destiny. I only enforce it.”
“Don’t you enjoy the Dola?” Syrena smiled.
“No, not at all! Doesn’t its voice just go right through you?”
The mermaid shrugged. “Not so much. I think it worse if it you she come for.”
“How do you two even know each other? Do you just end up meeting everyone if you live for hundreds of years?”
“Dola very close with Ran, who run island we going to. And Ran take me in when I was young. After losing Griet. I had nowhere to go, and Ran and her daughters very kind to me. Dola come often to sink ships.”
“Figures. You’re like the Grim Reaper or something.”
“Actually, Ran is more of the Grim Reaper,” the Dola interjected. “I just tell her what needs to happen. She carries it out.”
“So we’re on our way to a party at the home of some lady who sinks ships?”
“It sounds awful when you say it like that,” Syrena said. “You just no understand all.”
“Do you?” Sophie asked. “Do you understand it all?”
“I understand my part,” the mermaid said. “And you should make more effort to understand yours.”
“She will,” the dolphin Dola predicted, the words escaping its smiling beak in a trail of tiny bubbles that shimmered like silver sequins.