Free Emily Windsnap and the Land of the Midnight Sun by Liz Kessler Page B

should have been seeing eyes. The blackness grew, sending the water spinning as it did so. Soon it had taken over my whole face, then my body, then it joined with the blackness coming from Aaron’s reflection, too. Within a couple of minutes, we were staring into a spinning, fizzing black whirlpool that had stolen both our reflections.
    Neptune’s words were ringing in my ears.
You must meet your eyes and jump.
    “You know what we have to do, don’t you?” Aaron asked.
    I nodded. “Ready?”
    “Don’t let go of my hand,” Aaron said.
    “I won’t,” I replied reluctantly.
    Aaron took a breath. “OK, one, two, three . . . go!”
    Still holding hands, and with no idea what we were getting ourselves into, we took a breath — and jumped.

    For the first few seconds, the water was so cold I wondered if Neptune’s potion had worn off, but as my tail formed, my body warmed.
    In the shock of the cold, I’d dropped Aaron’s hand. But now that we were actually in the lake it didn’t seem to matter. Maybe once we’d jumped in, we’d broken the spell.
    The water was so clear I could see the mountains through the surface of the lake.
    Aaron was looking around. “Now what?”
    I shook my head. “No idea. Should we look around?”
    We swam through the lake, looking for anything that might give us a clue to our next move. But apart from an occasional fish, long see-through tubes of seaweed, and tiny bits of ice dotted around like tiny crystals, there was nothing.
    “Look at this,” Aaron said. In front of us, the water looked as if it were swirling around in a whirlpool. But as I got closer, I could see it wasn’t a whirlpool at all; it was hundreds of bubbles.
    That’s when I realized — they were everywhere. Tiny little bubbles the size of raindrops; bigger ones that looked like those Mom and I used to make by squeezing the soap bottle while we were doing the dishes; bigger ones still, the size of soccer balls, beach balls, even the big balls they have in gyms.
    “Do you think we can touch them?” I asked.
    In reply, Aaron swam toward a medium-size bubble and held his hand against it. “Yuk! It feels like slime. Gooey, sticky slime.”
    I swam over and joined him. “Here,” I said, holding out my hand. “Take it.”
    Aaron smiled broadly and grabbed hold of my hand.
    “And before you get any ideas, no, I haven’t forgiven you,” I said.
    His smile dropped, but he held firmly on to my hand.
    Together, we swam toward one of the bubbles. Still holding hands, we each placed our other hand on the bubble. Aaron was right about it feeling weird. It felt a bit like putting my hand on cold pudding. But I didn’t get to spend very long thinking about how it felt. The bubble shimmered and glistened for a second, and then something started to form inside it: pictures, people.
    Aaron and I stared into the bubble. A middle-aged couple was standing in a room together, a sofa along one side, a television in the corner. The television was on, but they weren’t watching it. It looked as though they were arguing.
    “They’re speaking,” Aaron said. “Listen.”
    Still pressing my hand against the bubble, I moved closer and tried to tune in to the sounds.
    “I’m telling you, I saw it with my own eyes! Ask Mr. Barrett if you don’t believe me,” the man was saying. His face was bright red, his voice raised and high-pitched.
    His wife stood shaking her head, her arms folded across her chest. “And exactly how long did you and Mr. Barrett spend in the Ship Inn before your fishing trip?” she asked through tightly pursed lips.
    The man sighed. “I’ve told you. We had half a pint, that’s all. It was nothing to do with that. It was real. We both saw it — a mermaid.”
    I jumped away. I felt as if the words had leaped out of the bubble and touched me, snapping electric shocks into my skin. A mermaid? They were talking about mermaids! What
was
this?
    “Let’s try another one,” I said.
    We held hands again and