Inside Bloo’s chamber Sophie was splayed on her back, and it felt like one of the boulders she’d imagined was crushing her chest. She saw the unicorn, noble and stoic in the tapestry above her, and then Bloo, gripping her, her claws tearing holes in Sophie’s linen garment.
“Sophie!” the maiden hissed. “Sophie! Are you okay? What do you need?”
“Salt,” Sophie creaked, finding her throat so dry—parched—that it seemed to cling to itself. She could barely speak.
“All around you,” Bloo gestured. “We are in the ocean.”
“More,” Sophie managed. Then, “Please.”
Bloo vanished in a cloud of pink water, and was back swiftly, the Dola in tow.
“Help her,” Bloo demanded.
“Yesssss,” Sophie squeaked at the sight of the Ogresses’ salt, worn as a bead around the dolphin’s neck. It was smaller than it had been at the start of their journey, but there was enough. “That,” she lifted her hand weakly, pointing at the rock. Bloo used her fingernails to slice the rope that knotted it to the dolphin’s body and handed the salt to Sophie, who began to gnaw.
Oh, salt! It zinged her like a wonderful shock, like a battery charged. It quenched a thirst deeper than water, brought wetness back to her body. She broke off a piece with her back molars and sucked it, let the juice of it fall back down her throat. She crunched a great mouthful, straining it through her teeth.
Bloo laughed at the sight of her, clapping her hands joyfully. “You are happy!” she cried. “I have not seen you happy since you arrived at Laeso Island! Had anyone known all it took was some salt, well, we would have brought you bricks of it!”
“It helps me,” Sophie said simply, noting that Bloo, too, seemed happier than she had been. “When I do that stuff.”
“What did you do to me?” The maiden ruffled her robes, touching herself, as if what had happened could be felt upon her body.
“I did what you asked,” Sophie said. “I looked in on your heart.”
“And?”
“Jottnar have such complicated hearts!” Sophie marveled. “So much more complicated than humans.”
“Well, that would make sense,” Bloo nodded. “All things considered.” She looked proud.
“It’s like, you have a heart inside your heart. And the heart that does the, the—”
“It sort of protects the rest of the heart from it. And you’re sad about it all. And some sadness I took away—”
“I can feel it!” the Billow Maiden cried.
“—but most of it had to stay.”
“Of course,” Bloo nodded solemnly.
“Your sadness is so important,” Sophie mused. “It’s actually stopping your heart of hearts from feeding on hate. Your heart of hearts—it’s very scary, it’s sort of like a monster.”
“Yes,” Bloo nodded. “It feels like a monster.”
“But it’s not a bad monster. It wants it all to stop—the war, the blood.”
“I can’t make it stop,” Bloo whispered.
“No,” Sophie affirmed. “You can’t.”
Bloo was silent for a moment, and then she took Sophie’s hand again. “But you can,” she said. “And that’s why you’re here.”
BACK IN THE great hall, Ran and her daughters were whooping and ululating, making strange, wild cries flow from their throats. Aegir stood behind them, stirring a large cauldron of ale, watching silently. His eyes above his great beard seemed full of pride and awe.
“What’s going on?” Sophie asked Bloo. She had become accustomed to the little stabs of the maiden’s fingernails. It was worth it, she’d decided, to have such friendship with the creature.
“It’s time to go,” Bloo said, her eyes on her family. “They’ve been summoned.”
“You’re not needed,” said the Dola to Blooughadda. “It’s not a battle.”
“Well, that is sweet news,” Bloo nodded.
“What is it?” Sophie asked. “Are they going to—are they—sinking?”
“There is a submarine,” the Dola said simply. “A research vessel. It is headed to the waters near the Ogresses’ cave, into the depths.”
“And I guess it won’t make it,” Sophie said, a chilly dread coursing down her spine.
“It is not meant to,” said the Dola. “But it is not an accident that you are here, Sophia. You are meant to be. You are meant to join the Jottnar. There is something for you to see.”
Sophie looked anxiously at Bloo, as if for help, but Bloo just looked at the Dola.
“But—I would rather not. I don’t think I’m ready to see something so awful.”
“You must,” the Dola stated. “Gather yourself.”
Sophie had no clue as to how to prepare to sink a submarine with a bunch of nonhuman ocean goddesses. Angel and the pigeons had maybe forgotten to prep her for this one. Syrena, too. Sophie scanned the great hall for the mermaid, but she didn’t see her.
“Where is Syrena?” she asked the Dola, a tad desperately. “She’ll come, too, right?”
“No,” said the Dola. “There is no need for her to be there. Syrena is resting.”
“Bloo?” Sophie squeezed the maiden’s hand so hard that her own chewed-up fingernails cut into her skin. The maiden shook her head.
“I only go when I must, and that is bad enough. I will stay behind with Syrena. But if the Dola says you must go, then of course you must. There is no argument.”
Sophie nodded. She had engaged in arguments with the Dola before.
And with that, the water around Sophie became filled with currents and fluctuating temperatures as the Billow Maidens, led by Ran, rushed toward her.
“Come!” Hefrig shouted to Sophie, reaching out and yanking her into the throng of them with a short but powerful wave.
“Bloo!” Sophie hollered, and the maiden waved her on.
“I will see you when you return.”
And with that Sophie was caught up in the advancing waves of the Jottnar. They propelled themselves out into the sea, down, down, down. Dufa swam up above them, creating small dust devils of water as she went. As the ocean darkened and they left behind the honeyed glow of the Jottnar cave, Sophie lost sight of her. They traveled far and fast.
They came upon a deep place jagged with rock and the bones of ships that the Jottnar must have wrecked long ago. There was already something creepy about the place—like it was meant to be a place of death alone. Insectlike creatures skittered here and there, dining on dead things, looking to Sophie like giant underwater cockroaches. She shuddered. Schools of cod circled like ghosts, their eyes spooky, empty. Spiny urchins clustered at the base of the shipwreck like a tiny, menacing army. Seaweed slapped heavily in the currents.
And then the submarine appeared. It came down in the wake of Dufa’s spinning, an underwater tornado, the vessel caught in the midst of it being flung this way and that, all of its alarm lights flashing in the deep—red and white and blue. Sophie’s heart tightened, her throat too, so that she felt like she couldn’t breathe. She swam away as it crashed down into the rocks, trying hard to swallow, to take a slow, shallow breath. Sophie could hear the alarm systems, shrill and urgent. There were humans inside that submarine. And they were going to die here.
Kolga swam in circles around the impact zone, chilling the waters. Unnr and Bara rocked the submarine with waves punctuated by Hefrig’s stronger punches, knocking the people inside the vessel off their feet as they tried to understand what was happening.
The Billow Maidens moved so swiftly in the water that the men inside the submarine could not see them. They were in their element, they were the element. They were the ocean, spinning and lapping and pounding.
But Sophie. Had she thought to, she could have hollered a zawolanie and become anything at all. But she was frozen with horror by the scene—an Odmieńce, but also a girl. A human girl. And through their windows the scientists in the submarine could see her.
Behind the curving glass of the submarine’s window, a man stared into Sophie’s eyes, his mouth hanging open in shock. Sophie took a quick inventory of her appearance—her neat braids and shining crown and strange outfit of linen and leather and weeds, a pile of jewels around her neck. She must look like a kid playing dress-up in a toy treasure chest. From inside herself Sophie moved close to the man, close enough to hear his thoughts: This is the beginning, I am hallucinating, losing oxygen, already dreaming. And as if the thoughts were an invitation, Sophie hurled herself into him.
The fear, the stark terror of death was a roar, a reflex, the strain of every cell in the man’s body deciding to fight or flee. His mind was sharp and orderly as a computer, working to make sense of what was happening, and she understood that he was a scientist, that this was the way he thought of the world—submarine suddenly sucked down, a vortex of sorts, had heard of such things, the girl, the girl, there seems to be oxygen, I’m still breathing. And his heart, plummeting faster than his vessel as it ran through every earthly thing he loved, people, places, things. Sophie saw flashes of smiling faces and a cozy cabin roofed with seaweed that looked out onto calm waters, she saw a dog, she saw the man’s happy life above the waves. And as Hefrig delivered the blow that shattered the glass, as Hronn rushed toward the man and wrapped herself around him, Sophie reached deep into his heart and removed all the fear, all the pain, so that the love the man had for his life surged through him. She felt his head go light and he began to cry for how beautiful it had been, his existence, and how grateful he was for it. How he had loved his work. Sophie could hear pieces of it, words and phrases she did not understand, but some that resonated, dark matter, dark energy, universe, expansion—and, as she looked into his eyes, the computer, the computer, the computer, please take the computer.
All this transpired in a few seconds, but it was the long, long moment of the dying, the slowed-down time at the bottom of the ocean. Then the man was gone, and Ran was laying him gently in a patch of sand. Sophie looked down at him, dazed, heartbroken. Tears spilled from her eyes and merged into the great sea that surrounded them all. Ran looked up at her.
“I never—” Sophie sputtered. “I’ve never seen a person die before.” She heaved with sobs, trying to catch her breath. She couldn’t get the taste of his fear out of her mouth. To have seen his death, to have been witness, would have been awful enough. But to have been inside his heart at his last moment—Sophie shuddered, felt her own heart heavy inside her like a hunk of lead.
“No time for mourning, Sophie,” Ran said, gentle but firm. “There are others. And you can help them. You must.”
Sophie turned back to the submarine and saw the other scientists struggling against the water. Without hesitating, she leapt into them, quelling their fear and illuminating the love in their hearts, giving them peace. She worked with the Jottnar, and as each scientist passed she heard some of the same words in their minds that she had heard in the first man—dark energy, source, universe, dark matter, the computer, the computer.