Free Madly and Wolfhardt by M. Leighton

my eyes as the water began to lift me.  Higher and higher I rose until I could look down and see a whirlpool beneath me, a twirling cyclone of water around the funnel that held me at its tip, towering far above.
    Drops of moisture peppered my face as the clouds of heaven spilled forth the answers of the ocean.  In the fine sheets of rain, a face appeared.  It was the face of Dustin Hyden.
    I saw him as he mixed and stirred things in beakers and tubes inside a chemistry lab.  The scene dripped away with the rain and a new one formed in its place.  It was Dustin as he typed line after line of characters onto a computer screen, bypassing passwords and internet security. 
    When I saw him looking through virtual pages of expensive shoes and handbags, jewelry and perfume, I knew what the ocean was showing me.  She was showing me the real Dustin, that he was a chemistry nerd and computer hacker who thought to buy his way into the heart of a girl he liked.
    The images in the fine shower dripped away a second time, only this time they were not replaced.  I saw nothing more than the rain as it fell lightly from the sky over my head.
    I looked back toward the shore and saw three pairs of eyes trained on me.  I couldn’t help but smile when I met Kellina’s wide, awe-struck gaze.  I doubted I would have to say another word to convince her that what I claimed was true.
    As the funnel of water that held me aloft began to melt back into the ocean, I sank lower and lower until I was once again at sea level.  I looked toward shore again and, with a smile, turned to swim back. 
    Just as I dove beneath the surface, I felt cold fingers curl around my legs and begin to drag me away, away from shore and away from the light, down toward the bottom of the sea.
    I glanced below me and saw that three Seers had surrounded me.  They looked like ink spreading through the water, their diaphanous black forms nothing more than shifting gossamer threads waving in the current.
    I could see the filamentous fingers of one as he held my ankles just above my tail.  The long arms of the other two were held away from their strange bodies, forming a gauzy cocoon around me.  They had no need to lend their strength to the one tugging me lower.  His touch had somehow paralyzed me from the waist down.  I could not bend or move at all.
    I thought to question the one to my left, but as I looked into the dark and hollow places where his eyes should have been, my tongue froze, becoming as useless as my lower half.  I had to look away for fear that I would become forever lost in the cold, empty depths.
    My mind began to whirl and race as my predicament really set in.  I was helpless against the Seers and there was no one around to lend a hand.  Though they were chained to the Mer race, to my knowledge they only responded to the commands of the ruler of Atlas.  And I was not yet the ruler of Atlas.
    Cool fingers of a different kind assaulted me next.  They were the clammy digits of fear and they’d begun to work their way around my heart. 
    I couldn’t help but wonder if the allegiance of the Seers had changed since Atlas was under siege.  It had never happened before, so there would be no way for anyone to know how the Seers would react to such a situation.
    Frightening thoughts began to flit through my mind, panicky thoughts about how they might’ve gone rogue and started working for the traitors, about how they might’ve been dispatched to kill me since I had the only bracelet outside Atlas.
    Before true terror set in, however, something warm and familiar began to penetrate the cold, dark prison of the Seers.  My soul hummed in recognition and something like a blossom of awareness bloomed in my stomach.
    I looked through the filmy shroud of the Seers and saw a small shape rocketing toward us.  I didn’t need to see him more clearly or feel him more closely to know that it was Jackson.  I knew without a shadow of a doubt that’s who it