Changing the Prophecy Chapter 19

 

Chapter 19 The Coral Caves

“What did Clover say?” Jasper asked.

“She told us how to stop the oil spill from destroying Faracadar,” Denzel answered.

“She said we have to get the Emerald Crystal,” Maia told him.

“Then I have to put the Emerald Crystal into the herbal and put the herbal in the ocean at the North Coast where the oil well exploded,” Doshmisi explained.

“So far, so good,” Jasper said. “Do we know where to find the Emerald Crystal?”

“About that,” Sonjay said. “According to the Prophet of the Khoum, my dad, the Emerald Crystal is in the Coral Caves at the bottom of the ocean under Whale Island.”

“How did the Emerald Crystal wind up under Whale Island?” Jasper asked in exasperation. He didn’t expect to receive an answer, but Cardamom gave him one.

“Because,” Cardamom replied, “the whales placed the Emerald Crystal in the Coral Caves over a hundred years ago for safekeeping. It has such powerful energy that they feared what could happen if it fell into the wrong hands. No one knows if it’s still down there.”

“We be needin’ an underwater motorized vehicle,” Mole said. He had showered and changed into clean clothes and he looked no worse for having made a long and dusty journey that had culminated in his sitting in a platter of potato salad.      

“You mean a submarine? Do they have those here?” Elena asked incredulously.

“A submarine?” Mole repeated, bewildered.

“A vehicle that can go underwater with people in it,” Denzel explained. “We call them submarines.”

“Well, yes,” Mole replied, “we be havin’ somethin’ like that. I’ll talk to the battery makers to find out what they be keepin’ in the battery barn on Whale Island.”    

“I’ll go with you,” Denzel offered.

“Now?” Mole asked.

“No time to waste. Let’s go find the battery makers and see if they have something we can use. While we stand here talking, the oil spill continues to spread.”

“Yah, mon,” Mole replied.

“Later,” Denzel called over his shoulder as he and Mole headed for the door.

“I’ll go too,” Sonjay said quickly as he caught up with them and matched his stride to theirs.

“Do you know where I can find a map of the ocean floor?” Jasper asked Cardamom.

“Probably in the library,” Cardamom answered. “Come with me and we’ll have a look.”

“Do you mind if I tag along?” Reggie asked.

“Not at all,” Cardamom said.

“I have a book that outlines specifically how to get to the site where the whales purportedly stored the Emerald Crystal. Hold on and I’ll get it.” Reggie went to his bag and pulled out a worn, little book, which he passed to Jasper as they went out the door in the direction of the library.

“Come with me,” Elena ordered Guhblorin, and the two of them headed to the kitchen, where they proceeded to clean up the dinner dishes for Iris, who had remained by Clover’s side in the bedroom.

“Can I see what it does?” Maia asked her sister.

“What it does?” Doshmisi echoed.

“Can I see what the herbal does when you try to use it?”

Doshmisi unsnapped the herbal from the carry case and the two girls sat next to each other on Clover’s sea-green couch. “I’m not even sure it will open,” Doshmisi warned. But it did open and Doshmisi laid the book gently across her legs so that Maia could see it too.

The page read:  “Oil accumulated deep within, millions of years ago, as the remains of a previous species that once walked. An endless supply does not exist. just as the previous species was finite, so too the oil that remains behind. And one day it will also disappear. Only those species with transformative ability will remain. Ingenuity. Imagination. Wind and water. Sunshine.”

“When it first started acting strange, it scared me and I didn’t understand,” Doshmisi told Maia. “But now, after all that has happened, it sort of makes sense in a weird way. The Corportons came here looking for oil, which seems as scarce in their world as it is becoming in the world we left behind when we came to Faracadar. I think the herbal is trying to say something about how the Corportons didn’t adapt to the changing resources in their world.”

Maia chewed her lip. Then she speculated, “What if the Corportons came from our world somehow? From the Farland?”

“Creepy,” Doshmisi answered. “How could they get here?”

The girls’ conversation ended abruptly when Iris emerged from Clover’s bedroom. Tears coursed down her cheeks. “She’s gone,” Iris said in a quavering voice. “She slipped away peacefully a moment ago.”

Doshmisi and Maia returned to the bedroom with Iris and they sat on either side of their grandmomma and held her hands. Clover wore a delicate smile on her face.

“When she said she loved us all,” Iris said, between sobs, “those were her last words.”

News of Clover’s passing spread swiftly through the household and the surrounding community. The family gathered by Cover’s bed and each in turn had a chance to place a kiss on Clover’s still-warm cheek before the body was taken away. They stayed up late into the night, remembering together the many things they loved about Clover and sharing stories. Reggie had a wealth of stories from when Clover had lived a different life as a much younger woman. Iris hung on his every word, comforted to learn more about the life her friend had lived long before settling in Faracadar.

Before she finally went to bed, Doshmisi checked on Dagobaz. She buried her face in his neck and wept while he nuzzled her cheek.

In the morning, Clover’s library compound buzzed with activity. Elena and Guhblorin made Spanish omelets, home fries, and banana muffins for breakfast, taking over the cooking so that Iris could devote her full attention to making the arrangements for Clover’s memorial service. The family and their traveling companions assembled at the long table in the courtyard to eat.

Wearing a little white apron with a ruffle around the edge, Guhblorin zoomed around the table offering to pour either fresh-squeezed orange juice or apple cider into each person’s glass.

“I’ll have the orange juice,” Cardamom told Guhblorin. And then, “You’re taking this cooking business seriously, geebaching.”

Guhblorin flapped his ears and grinned broadly. “Elena says I show promise.”

“Cardamom and I found a map of the ocean floor in the library,” Jasper informed the others between mouthfuls of muffin. “But we’ll need some light to see when we get that far down in the ocean.”

“We’ve got a sub,” Denzel informed, as he stuffed a forkful of potatoes into his mouth.

“But there be some restrictions,” Mole warned.

“Like what?” Doshmisi asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It runs on a battery and the battery can only hold a charge for five hours,” Denzel told them. “So we have to get down there and back before we lose the charge.”

“The sub has no light on it yet, but Denzel and I will figure something out for that, no problem,” Mole promised.

“Yeah, don’t worry about the light,” Denzel said between bites. “We have bigger things to worry us. They have only one sub in the Island Settlement. Mole has one at the Passage Circle, but it would take a couple of days to go there to get it and we can’t squander that much time. We need to do this today.”

“Why do we need two subs?” Maia asked.

“In case something happens and we get stranded down there. As it stands, if that happens, we won’t have any help. No one can come down after us. And we have to get down and back in five hours,” Denzel explained. Then he called to Elena, “Hey, Elena, these are the best fries ever.”

“I washed the potatoes for her,” Guhblorin informed Denzel with pride. “And I cut up the onions.”

“Gracias,” Elena thanked Denzel. The others added their compliments to his and she modestly accepted the praise.

Iris entered the courtyard wearing a flowing green tunic over beige pants and a round green woven hat (just like the one Doshmisi always wore) on her close-cropped hair. Grief cast an added beauty to her expressive, brown eyes. The instant she appeared, Mole jumped up and stretched out his hand toward her, managing, in the process, to topple his glass of juice so that it spilled on the table. While he mopped up the juice with his napkin, he asked Iris, “Are you wantin’ to sit down? Would you like my chair? Can I fix you a plate?”

“No thanks,” Iris replied. “I already ate.”

Mole attempted to right his chair and seat himself; but he missed the chair by a good six inches when he tried to sit down and he landed with a thud on the ground.

Iris peered over the edge of the table at him anxiously. “Are you OK?” she asked.

“I’m good. I’m going to just sit here for a minute,” Mole’s voice rose from the ground where he sat halfway under the table.

Maia and Elena exchanged an amused, knowing glance. They had shared their thoughts about Mole the night before and they agreed that he had a crazy-bad crush on Iris.

“I came to tell you that we’ll hold the memorial tomorrow morning,” Iris said. “That way you can go for the Emerald Crystal today and then leave tomorrow for the North Coast right after the memorial.”

“That makes sense,” Reggie approved.

“So who will go to the Coral Caves in the sub?” Denzel asked.

“You’ve finally found somewhere to go where I won’t follow you,” Elena announced. “You couldn’t pay me to step foot in that submarine. Claustrophobia. Plus, I can’t swim, so no way I’m going under the ocean.”

Relief washed over Denzel when Elena said she didn’t want to go; however, to his surprise, he realized it was not because he wanted to be rid of her but rather because she would be safer if left behind. In the privacy of his own thoughts, he admitted that he had grown fond of Elena.

“I’m all in,” Doshmisi said.

“Bring it on,” Sonjay said.

“Me too, of course,” Maia said. “It will probably take all four of us to do this.”

“If Mole ever gets up from under the table, he will certainly go,” Denzel noted, as he lifted the tablecloth and peeked at Mole, who still sat miserably on the cobblestones under the table. “She left,” Denzel told Mole. “You can come out now.”

“Me too,” Jasper chimed in. “I have to go. You need a guide.”

“Looks like we’re getting the band back together,” Sonjay joked.

Reggie cleared his throat before speaking. “Except that this time you’ve got your old man with you. I will not let you go by yourselves. We’re family and that’s how we roll.”

“I think I should stay up here with the Staff of Shakabaz,” Cardamom suggested. “If something goes wrong, perhaps I can rescue you with the Staff from the shore. I’d like to have that option.”

“Nothing will go wrong,” Denzel insisted with determination.

“Just the same, I’ll leave the herbal with you, Cardamom. Maybe you’ll find a way to use it even without me or the Emerald Crystal if the need arises.” Doshmisi unstrapped the herbal from her waist and passed it to Cardamom.

“I’ll take good care of it,” Cardamom promised.

“I know you will.”

“So it’s settled,” Denzel said. “Let’s help Elena and Guhblorin clean up the breakfast dishes and then Mole and I will rig a light for the sub. After that we’re outta here.”

Denzel stood up and reached for a couple of empty plates, but before he could pick them up, Elena unexpectedly flung her arms around his waist and gave him a hug.

“What’s up with that?” Denzel mumbled self-consciously. He quietly explained, “You cooked, we should help clean up.”

“Nada,” Elena responded as she flashed him a smile. “De nada.”

“If we’re getting the band back together, then I need my sax,” Maia said, giggling. “I’ll meet you guys down at the dock. I have to go see a ferry man about a horn. You never know when you might run into an ill-tempered sea serpent.”

“Good idea.” Sonjay nodded approvingly.

“Horn?” Mole asked. “What’s up with that?”

Denzel explained that the previous year Maia defeated a nasty sea serpent by playing a horn kept on the ferries to drive them away. He concluded by telling Mole, “So we need to set up a microphone and amplifier that will project from a speaker on the outside of the sub, just in case we run into any sea serpents.”

“I’m on the job, mon,” Mole assured Denzel, as he emerged from under the table and hurried off.

Soon after, when they reassembled at the dock in the harbor, the underwater expedition team could see no more of the sub than the topmost part and the open gray metal hatch through which they would soon climb inside. They stared at that hatch as the reality of the voyage that lay before them sunk in.

Maia embraced Elena in farewell. She turned to Guhblorin and instructed him, “Look after her. She’s my best friend.” Guhblorin nodded solemnly, appearing more serious than Maia had ever seen him appear, as he replied, “Mine too.” Elena squeezed Guhblorin’s arm in appreciation.

Mole stepped forward and descended down the ladder into the depths of the sub. Reggie went next. Then Jasper. Elena stepped up and gave Denzel a kiss on the cheek. “When you find yourself under thousands of tons of water, remember that I’m up here cooking dinner and I expect you to return safe and sound to eat it,” Elena told him. “I plan to make chocolate flan especially for you. I’ll get angry if you don’t show up. You don’t want to see a Latina girl angry, trust me.”

“Got it,” Denzel replied; and he saluted Elena. “Chocolate flan. Tonight.” Then he and the others followed Jasper into the sub.

Inside, the sub seemed larger than they had expected. Denzel had rigged a bright light they could shine through the large viewing window and into the water so that when they descended to the pitch darkness of the ocean floor, the light would enable them to see. Mole had rigged a microphone and amplifier inside with a speaker on the outside so that after the sub disappeared under the water, Denzel’s amplified voice emerged in final farewell to those who stood at the dock. “Chocolate flan,” the voice said from under the water. “And whipped cream. Lots of whipped cream, please.”

“Chocolate,” Bayard said in his best imitation of Denzel’s voice. He perched on Elena’s shoulder as Guhblorin flapped his enormous ears beside them.

The instant that Denzel closed the hatch on the sub and secured the seal, Mole pressed a button on a clock that began to tick off the time, counting down from five hours. The voyagers clustered around the viewing window as the sub angled downward and cut through the water.

“Mole, do you have any window cleaner?” Maia asked as she shook her head in disgust. “This window is filthy. We can’t see anything.”

Mole pointed to a cupboard and replied, sheepishly, “You’ll find cleaning supplies in there. Sorry. I didn’t have time to tidy up.”

Maia retrieved a spray bottle of window cleaner and a rag. She pulled a chair over to the window and methodically cleaned the glass from top to bottom. Denzel and Sonjay complained about the vinegary smell of the window cleaner, but they quickly changed their tune when they enjoyed the view through the clear window after Maia finished. They could see out as if nothing stood between them and the ocean.

At first they didn’t turn on the bright light, since the sun penetrated the water. They passed brilliant tropical fish of all shapes and sizes, some of them glowing iridescent. They saw round, flat, yellow-and-black striped fish shaped like hearts; tiny, long, thin, glowing electric-blue fish with red-tipped tails; seahorses in all different sizes, some as tiny as a toothpick and others as large as a crocodile; square stingrays; parachute-like jellyfish; large fish; small fish; fish in every imaginable color; fish with big floppy fins; fish with tiny fins. All manner of sea plants also passed in front of the window; algae and seaweeds of golden-yellow, chalk-green, deep-maroon, amber, forest-green, and other colors. They saw velvety sea plants, shiny ones, and others as delicate as lace.

“Some of the sea plants look so fragile,” Maia commented. “Imagine what a coating of oil would do to them.”

“That coating of oil is on its way,” Doshmisi responded grimly. “We can’t fail.”

As they continued to descend, the clock continued to tick away their precious minutes. Everyone on the expedition team found it impossible not to watch it while they each calculated in their head how long it was taking them to reach the ocean floor. Jasper spread the map that he and Cardamom had borrowed from the library out on a table in the middle of the cabin and he, Denzel, and Reggie remained glued to it throughout the descent. Reggie kept flipping back and forth between several pages in a little book, frequently calling out directions to Mole, who steered the sub.

Doshmisi, Maia, and Sonjay watched the sea creatures drift past the window in the glow of the sub’s bright light, glancing anxiously at the clock now and then.

After they had traveled for more than an hour, they reached the ocean floor and Reggie directed Mole to the entrance to the Coral Caves, which looked like the enormous yawning-open mouth of a whale. It was as gray as the ocean floor around the edges, but inside the caves the colors went to pale-pink, chalk-green, beige, and the faint-blue of early morning light. Protruding pointed stalagmites and jagged stalactites resembling teeth covered the top and bottom of the caves. Entering seemed like sailing into the throat of a huge beast. The sub fit through the entrance easily. Reggie calculated the opening to be at least eighty feet across.

Jasper switched over to a map of the inside of the Coral Caves, which he and Reggie followed closely, guiding the sub through the subterranean tunnels. Meanwhile, the others gazed in awe at the dazzlingly colorful coral formations inside the caves. The vivid coral took the shape of poetic abstract forms. Curvaceous coral resembled bones while other coral tapered out into feathery wisps. Maia imagined that a sculptor had thoughtfully and precisely carved the coral in the caves over thousands of years. She and Doshmisi forgot to watch the clock, awestruck by the beauty revealed in the bright light emanating from the sub.

“I wonder if anyone has ever seen this place,” Maia marveled.

“Well, they must have,” Sonjay speculated, “because someone put the Emerald Crystal down here.”

“No they didn’t,” Maia corrected him. “The whales put it down here.”

“Oh yeah,” Sonjay conceded. “Right.”

“There, up ahead,” Reggie pointed out the window. Everyone peered into the distance as a small structure that turned out to be a pedestal came into view. It looked like a stone birdbath, standing about five feet tall with a basin on top. Fragile strands of seaweed entwined around it and drifted in the water above the outside rim of the basin. In the center of the basin a crystalline stone, about an inch across in size, glowed green.

“It looks like the crystal that hangs in my window at Manzanita Ranch,” Doshmisi noted. “Only green.”

“It seems lit from inside,” Maia observed.

Mole slowly and carefully maneuvered the sub as close as he could without disturbing the pedestal on which the Emerald Crystal rested.

Jasper glanced at the clock. “Two hours and seven minutes,” he said.

“We have plenty of time,” Denzel reassured him.

“This seems too easy,” Sonjay warned. The words had barely dropped from his lips when a large yellow-green eye appeared in the viewing window and rolled around in a chartreuse eye socket. The sub bounced around like crazy and a set of white-green scales flashed across the viewing window.

“You had to open your mouth and jinx it,” Denzel accused his brother, although they both knew Sonjay’s words had not caused the arrival of the sea serpent.

“Just saying,” Sonjay replied.

“It’s my biggest fan,” Maia called out. “I had a feeling he’d show up so I brought his favorite:  the horn that repels sea serpents!” She opened a large horn case that she had stashed in a storage bin when they entered the sub and removed the horn she had retrieved from the ferry captain before embarking on the undersea expedition. Her amulet began to glow with a strong blue light. As she took the horn out of the case, and grabbed the sheet music that went with it, she told Denzel to turn on the sound system.

Maia had sent a sea serpent scurrying away from a ferry full of passengers the year before by playing a haunting tune on the special horn made to ward off sea serpents. Through the viewing window, the expedition team saw the sea serpent glide away from the sub, turn around, and prepare to head back for a strike. It emitted a disgusting stream of slime from its mouth, shook its head, roared, displayed its rotten teeth, and then launched forward. Meanwhile, Doshmisi held up the sheet music for Maia, Denzel positioned a microphone at the mouth of the horn, and Maia blew for all she was worth, causing a haunting note to emerge from the instrument and echo into the outside cavern.

The sea serpent howled loudly and they could hear its cry inside the sub. It shook its monstrous head and squirmed in agony. The beast’s tail whipped around and smacked the pedestal. The basin on the top of the pedestal snapped off and turned upside down, dropping to the ocean floor with a dull thud. The crystal disappeared in a swirl of silt thrown up from the bottom of the cave. The sea serpent fled as Maia continued to play the haunting tune on the horn. It left in its wake a murky wash of mud, silt, rocks, and shells flung up from the thrash of its tail.

As he studied the scene outside the viewing window, Reggie commented in frustration, “Nothing is easy, is it?”

“Like I was saying,” Sonjay agreed.

The sea serpent had turned tail and run away. The last note from the horn faded. The expedition team assembled silently at the viewing window and surveyed the damage. The sub had a robotic claw that they had planned to use to collect the Emerald Crystal. It didn’t seem likely that the claw would work in their present situation, with the Emerald Crystal under a basin or buried in silt. “Someone has to go out there,” Sonjay said grimly. “Is that possible?”

“Yeah, mon,” Mole replied. “It be possible. There be two diving suits on board and the sub has a decompression chamber for exit and entry underwater.”

Sonjay turned from the window and instructed, “Then suit me up.”

“Sorry, Sonjay, it can’t be you,” Mole told him.

“What do you mean?” Sonjay demanded.

“You’re too small. The suits be adult size. A bad fit. You wouldn’t be able to move in it or use the breathing tube,” Mole informed him.

“That’s OK,” Reggie said immediately. “I’ll go.”

“You can’t go, Daddy,” Doshmisi said firmly. “You’re the only one who understands the information in that book about how to navigate out of here and get back up to the surface.”

“Maia has to stay to play the horn if the sea serpent comes back, and we need Mole to operate the sub,” Sonjay added.

“That leaves me, Jasper, and Denzel,” Doshmisi pointed out, even though they had all realized it already.

Jasper turned to Denzel and said, “Looks like it’s you and me.”

“Excuse me?” Doshmisi said as she rolled her neck. “How do you figure that?”

Jasper blushed, but persisted. “You should stay inside where it’s safe.”

“And when have I ever done the safe thing when it was necessary to take a risk? Are you calling me a coward?” Doshmisi demanded.

“No, no, that’s not it at all.” Jasper looked to the others for backup but no one was willing to cross Doshmisi, who clearly believed that she had just as much duty and right to go after the Emerald Crystal as either of the boys.

Maia closed her fist around the ends of three of her long braids and held her fist out to Jasper, Denzel, and Doshmisi. “Pick a braid,” she instructed. “The two who pick the longest braids get to go and whoever picks the shortest one stays behind.” The three each selected a braid and Maia opened her fist. The candidates moved their fingers down to the end of the braid they had chosen. Jasper’s braid was more than an inch shorter than the other two. He stared at it in disbelief.   

“Dosh, please let me go. It’s not right for you to go. What if something happens to you?” Jasper pleaded.

“What if it does?” Doshmisi fired back, exasperated. “Something could happen to you too. You’re no safer out there than I am. Unless you think that because you’re a boy you can defend yourself better.”

“N-no,” Jasper stammered. “It’s not because I’m a boy and you’re a girl. It’s because I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to you.”

“Then it is exactly because you are a boy and I’m a girl. You think it’s your duty to protect and defend me. Well I’m perfectly capable of doing that for myself. And if my choice gets me killed, well then it was my choice, not yours.” Doshmisi’s anger bubbled over and she couldn’t contain it; she waved a hand in the direction of her father. “Look at what happened to Daddy, trying to protect our mother! Did he save her life? No. Instead he wound up locked in a dungeon and he missed the last few years our family could have had together.”

Reggie immediately defended himself. “That’s not fair, Dosh. I tried to do more than just save your mother. I thought I could change the deep enchantment somehow, change the fate that she had chosen for herself and retrieve the Staff of Shakabaz from Sissrath. And I failed. During those years that I spent locked in that dungeon, I lost hope. But I’ve found hope again now that my children have returned to me; and I’m throwing my weight behind Sonjay, trying once again to change a prophecy, hoping that’s possible, because what else can we do? Just sit around and watch the end of Faracadar? We have to try, to put up a struggle against the unfolding events, against the deep enchantment and the prophecy. Perhaps the end really is fated and we can do nothing to prevent that outcome. But we can’t know for sure if something we do will tip the scales one way or another.” Reggie put a hand on Jasper’s shoulder and spoke to him. “I know that your heart will break if something happens to Dosh out there, something you think you could have prevented. I know because mine broke when I lost my wife. But nothing will ever change her decision to go. You have to accept that. I could not accept Debbie’s decision, and Dosh is right, my failure robbed me of the last years I could have had with Debbie.”

“I’m sorry, Daddy,” Doshmisi apologized, as she put her hand on her father’s arm. “I didn’t mean to criticize you. You did what you had to do.”

Tears ran down Maia’s cheeks and Denzel rubbed her back in a comforting way.

Sonjay’s voice trembled as he said, “Just because you failed to change the prophecy for Momma doesn’t mean that it’s not possible. This is a different prophecy. A different time. And we have a lot of help we can rely on.”

“I know it, son,” Reggie replied. “Like I said, I’m hopeful.”

“We be wasting valuable minutes,” Mole interjected urgently. “Dosh and Denzel need to move out.”

Denzel picked up one of the diving suits and pulled it on over his long legs. Jasper reluctantly handed the other suit to Doshmisi. Her lips curved in a slight smile and she said, “You know you love it that I’m willing to walk into danger when necessary.”

“Not as much as you think I do,” Jasper said drily. “It has its down side.”

“You have fifteen minutes to find the Emerald Crystal and get back into the sub in order for us to make it up to the surface before the power pack on the sub runs out of energy,” Reggie told his son and daughter. “We’ll flash the light on the sub at two minutes before the time is up. You have to come back then. We can return tomorrow with the sub recharged if we need to. But you have to come back when we flash the light. Promise?” They both nodded in agreement.

After they suited up and Mole showed them how to breathe through the apparatus that connected to their oxygen tanks, Doshmisi and Denzel stepped into the decompression chamber. Denzel saluted the others as the door slid closed. Mole turned a large wheel to seal the door.

As the two stepped out onto the floor of the Coral Caves, Maia glanced back at the clock. Then she watched anxiously out the viewing window as Denzel and Doshmisi walked to the pedestal, dropped to their knees, lifted the basin, and began searching in the silt. Their movements kicked up debris from the floor of the cave, making the water murky. The bright light glinted off millions of floating particles so that those who had stayed inside the sub strained to see through a fog of drifting matter.

Outside in the caves, Doshmisi tried to disturb as little debris as possible as she felt around in the fluffy silt for the hard edges of the crystal. Her gloves were thick and difficult to maneuver. Denzel placed the basin back on the stand. He saw no crystal inside it. Doshmisi stood still for a long moment while she studied her surroundings. She remembered that the crystal had glowed with a greenish light similar to the light emitted by the herbal whenever she used it to heal someone. She strained to see a green glow anywhere on the ground around her, but she saw nothing. She wished that Denzel would quit moving around so much. He made more debris lift from beneath their feet with every step.

Doshmisi sat down carefully in the spot where the basin had landed and felt around her carefully in a circle. Then she had an idea. She had not seen any dolphins or whales in the ocean during her entire time in Faracadar this year. Perhaps that had something to do with the oil well. The previous year, the whales had told her what she needed to know to defeat Sissrath, even though it took her a long time to decipher the poetic message they delivered to her. She wondered if the whales would come to her aid now if she asked them for help. She closed her eyes and sent a mental message to the whales. “Send help,” she thought. “It’s your world as well as ours. We’re trying to save it for all of us. But we need the Emerald Crystal to do it.”

Denzel glanced at Doshmisi in annoyance. They had hardly any time to look and his sister had plunked herself down and stopped even trying. She had even closed her eyes and given up searching. Girls! He would never understand how a girl’s brain worked. He found himself wishing that Jasper had prevailed and managed to come with him instead of his sister.

As she sent her thoughts out to the whales, Doshmisi pictured them swimming gracefully in the ocean, despite their enormous size, lightweight in the water, their home. She emptied her mind of extraneous thoughts, meditated on sending love to the whales, and imagined herself as an empty bottle waiting for the whales to fill it. Slowly the empty bottle of her self began to fill with an indescribable warmth and power. In her mind she heard the sound of whale voices, which she had only heard once before in her life. A high-pitched singsong voice and a deep rumbling voice intertwined. At first she could not make out what the voices sang, and then she understood. They sang follow the silver.

Doshmisi felt pressure on her arm and opened her eyes to find Denzel urgently attempting to rouse her from her meditation. The Amulet of the Trees, which she wore around her neck, glowed so brightly green that the light burst from the waterproof zipper on the front of her diving suit and from around the seam at the neck. The instant that happened, Denzel stepped back. He knew that if her amulet glowed then she had figured something out. Suddenly hundreds of tiny silver fish emerged out of nowhere and swarmed in the light from Doshmisi’s glowing amulet. She could still hear the whale voices in her head singing follow the silver and she knew exactly what they meant.

The little silver fish converged on a spot not far from where Doshmisi sat and circled above it as if caught whirlpooling in a miniature tornado. At the bottom tip of the tornado-whirlpool, something glowed green under the debris and silt. She pointed to it and Denzel walked to the spot, plunged his hand down beneath the circling fish, and triumphantly raised the Emerald Crystal above his head.

The bright light on the sub began to flash the two-minute warning. Denzel carefully handed the Emerald Crystal to Doshmisi, who clutched it to her chest, as they quickly returned to the hatch and entered the decompression chamber. In a few short moments, they reentered the sub. As they emerged from the decompression chamber the others cheered. When she removed her diving suit, Doshmisi’s amulet glowed brilliantly before fading swiftly to dark.

“Put the pedal to the metal,” Denzel called to Mole, who cast him a puzzled glance.

“He means to put the sub in high gear,” Reggie explained.

“Already done, mon,” Mole replied, as he turned the sub around to head for the surface.

“How did you call those fish?” Maia asked her sister, for she felt sure that the fish had come at her sister’s bidding.

“I sent a message to the whales,” Doshmisi replied. “They must have sent the little silver fish because they told me to follow the silver.”

“Well-played,” Maia complimented her sister.

Jasper felt so relieved to have Doshmisi safely back inside the sub that he hugged her to him, not caring who saw him do it. “I’m sorry I tried to hold you back,” Jasper apologized.

“And I’m sorry I lost my temper,” Doshmisi replied. She then opened her hand to reveal the Emerald Crystal, the most purely beautiful stone any of them had ever seen.

Reggie broke the spell cast by the beauty of the Emerald Crystal when he turned his eyes anxiously to the clock. Denzel alerted them that the return would take them longer than the descent, because the sub had to fight against gravity and the pressure of the water. They had just barely enough charge left in the power pack to return to the surface. Reggie broke a sweat as he directed Mole out of the Coral Caves and up through the levels of ocean toward the surface.

 “Twenty-two left,” Jasper counted, unnecessarily, since all eyes remained glued to the clock. They had not expected to cut it this close. Sonjay felt a small measure of comfort in the knowledge that Cardamom had remained behind on the dock with the Staff of Shakabaz, prepared to attempt enchantment to assist if needed.

Maia pointed to the viewing window. “Um, what’s that stuff?” she asked. “I don’t remember seeing that on the way down.” Reggie and Mole continued to concentrate on steering the sub back to the dock at Whale Island, but the rest of the expedition team followed Maia’s gaze out the viewing window where a large tentacle swished in the water.

“Squid,” Jasper said in horror. “It looks like a giant squid.” More tentacles appeared and then a squid eye slid past the window, watching the voyagers as if studying a cluster of odd sea creatures in an aquarium. All of a sudden the sub jolted and jerked wildly, throwing them every which way against the viewing window and the floor. Mole clung to the controls and struggled to remain upright.

“We must seem like a toy to that thing,” Doshmisi speculated.

“Or a dinner,” Sonjay suggested.

“Sonjay!” Maia exclaimed in alarm.

“Just saying,” Sonjay answered.

The sub stopped jerking around just as suddenly as it had started.

“Maybe we be in luck,” Mole said hopefully. “It maybe went away.”

“Perhaps we weren’t as exciting as all that to a squid,” Doshmisi said with relief. They stood at the viewing window and searched the water for any sign of the giant squid.

“Wait, look there.” Maia pointed, and in the bright light from the sub, they could see dark black puffs billowing around them. “I think that’s squid ink.”

“That can’t be good,” Jasper commented.

“Yah mon,” Mole agreed. “Not good. It’s clogging the thrusters.” A deep grinding noise rose from underneath the sub and it began to sink downward. The water had just begun to show signs of sunlight penetrating, but that disappeared quickly as the sub dropped toward the ocean floor.

“We be needin’ to clear that ink out of the thrusters,” Mole said urgently.

“How?” Doshmisi asked.

“I don’t know,” Mole replied with a helpless expression.

“We’re running out of time,” Jasper spoke aloud the words that were in everyone’s mind.

“We’re sinking,” Reggie stated the obvious. “Don’t panic. Think.”