Emily Windsnap and the Siren's Secret - Liz Kessler [39]
I swam around Morvena’s room, looking out to the larger caves beyond the entrance. What was this place?
Rocky ledges and walls sprawled out all around, lined with crazy shapes. A church steeple at the top of a hill, a giant upside-down jellyfish, a wedding cake, an elephant’s trunk — all of them and more lay scattered everywhere, as though the caves had stolen a hundred random objects and turned them to stone.
I saw a tail farther down the murky darkness of the ledge and darted quickly away from the entrance. Someone was coming.
I hid in the darkness, peering out while I waited for them to pass.
And then they did. Just one of them. I watched as she swished past me.
Wait a minute! That wasn’t one of the sirens; that was —
“Shona!” I darted out from the darkness and joined her on the ledge.
“Emily!”
“You found me!” I said. Then I remembered about the sirens going to look for her. I grabbed her and pulled her inside. “Oh — or they found you!”
Shona tilted her head to stare at me. “Who found me?” she asked. “What are you talking about?”
“They haven’t found you, then?”
“Who haven’t found me? Em, you’re being really weird. I’ve just —”
“How did you get here?”
Shona’s eyes widened as they always do when she’s on an adventure of some sort. “Well, that’s the weird thing,” she said. “I didn’t even try. I just felt this really strong current pulling me along. It was swishy! Next thing I knew, I was whizzing downward, water gushing all around me.”
“Like an underwater waterfall?” I said. “Inside a well.”
“That’s it exactly! I was pretty scared at first, but then when I got to the bottom, I looked up and it had disappeared. I figure as long as I can find that spot again, we could swim out whenever we want to go.”
“Did you try it?” I asked glumly.
Shona shook her head. I was about to explain that it wasn’t going to be as simple as she thought when there was a noise outside the room. Someone was coming.
I grabbed Shona and swam over to the purple ferns in the corner. “Quick! Get behind here,” I said as the swishing noise came closer.
“Why?” Shona asked. “Em, what’s going on?”
“I’ll tell you in a minute,” I said. “Just —”
But it was too late. The sirens turned a corner and came into the room. It was Amara and Lorelei.
They spotted me instantly and swam over to me. “No luck so far,” Amara snarled. “What shall we do with this one in the meantime?”
Then Lorelei glanced sideways and spotted Shona. “Wait!” she said. “What’s this?”
Amara looked across and saw her, too. In a flash, the snarl was gone, and she smiled with the warmth they’d turned on me earlier. It’s an act, Shona, I said in my mind, hoping she’d somehow hear my thoughts and trust me. Don’t be taken in.
Amara swam over to Shona and stopped beside her, flicking her tail gently in the water below her. She looked Shona up and down. “Hello there, pretty one,” she said, her voice oozing with sweetness. “You must be Shona.”
Shona smiled at Amara, her big round eyes full of innocence and excitement. “How do you know?” she asked.
Amara tilted her head toward me. “From your friend,” she said.
Lorelei swam beside Amara and held out a hand to Shona. “We’ve heard so much about you,” she said, sounding as much like Shona’s long-lost best friend as Amara.
Shona reached out awkwardly to shake Lorelei’s hand, but Lorelei took hold of it instead and turned it over to examine the back. “Oh, just look at those dainty fingers,” she said. “I think you’ve got the prettiest nails I’ve ever seen on a siren!”
Shona blushed. “We did nail decorating in B. and D. this week,” she said. Turning even deeper red, she added, “I got the best score, actually.”
“Beauty and Deportment — oh, that was my favorite subject at school,” Lorelei said with what sounded to me like a bitter cackle heavily disguised as a wistful sigh.
“Mine too!” Shona exclaimed. “And my best.”
“Well, fancy that; so much in common already. Now, singing — that was my other favorite thing in school.” Lorelei licked her lips, as though sizing Shona up for her dinner plate.
“Oh, singing is my favor —”
“Shona!” I