Chapter 17
Prism
He pushed me.
That bug-brained jerk pushed me into the well.
Oh, I was going to let him have it. The moment my feet touched solid earth again…
I didn’t know what I’d do, but I’d do something.
Would Fuzz come with us? Oh, I wanted that little fallope by my side.
The whole journey here it had been him. How long had he waited for me in the snow?
I remembered so vividly the day, as a little child, that I found him.
Crying, terrified, and dying. Rumor had no qualms with killing him.
Even Matri said it was the most humane thing to do.
I begged for us to take him to Mother to save him.
“If I were a witch, I would save him,” baby me had cried.
My sister Rumor answered. “And risk the rapture? Prism, grow up. It’s a good thing you’re not a witch like us.”
As it turns out, I was a witch. And somehow when I’d guided this fallope’s soul to death, promising him strawberries and bumblebees, that’s exactly where he’d gone.
How strange… how extraordinary. What did it mean?
How I wished for a crone, or even my sister, to ask.
But now, all I had was a sneaky butterfly man whom I wasn’t sure if he were more my friend or my foe.
Viceroy was clearly a tricky sort of fellow, and I couldn’t be sure what he was after.
Though, as long as he helped me get closer to Vore and didn’t get in my way, I supposed it didn’t really matter.
I spun down the well for what seemed like hours.
Maybe it was hours, or days, or even years.
Eventually, I settled into a soft, right-side-up float, as if I were swinging on an invisible children’s swing.
We’d had one in our backyard. Rumor and I would play for hours on it.
Pulling it up the hill and jumping off of it, pretending we could fly.
This felt a little like that.
So much of this place felt like those moments in my childhood. Moments I scarcely remembered or thought of anymore.
Why was that?
Why did a bakery serve my mother’s lemon cake?
Why did the fallope of my childhood wait here for me?
So many questions. If I weren’t going to get a direct answer from my winged companion, it was time for me to start sorting through the clues myself.
I vowed to do just that.
Yes, as soon as I was back on solid ground…
Suddenly, the atmosphere changed, and instead of floating, I was falling.
Wind whipped through my hair as I fell. My heart jumped into my throat, and I muffled a scream as I braced for impact—and then impact struck.
With a disorienting wave, I splashed into water.
Sinking for long moments, the momentum of my drop finally subsided and I kicked, flailing my arms, fighting to reach the surface.
Despite my shock, I took a moment to note which way the bubbles were floating.
Matri had taught me well, and I knew that bubbles would rise, showing me my pathway to oxygen.
My lungs burned from lack of air, and my movements were frantic amidst the bitter surprise to my system.
Luckily, Matri had taught Rumor and I to swim when we were young.
After big summer rains, the watering hole in Willowspire grew deep amongst its rocky basin.
Being a sea witch, our matri would wake us up at dawn the first day after a big rainstorm, knowing the swimming hole was finally deep enough to play in.
She taught us how to hold our breath, how to sink to the bottom, and how to follow air bubbles and propel to the surface. We all knew our matri missed the ocean… and we all knew that our matri loved our mother more than she missed the ocean.
I never thought I’d live to behold the sea.
Well, I suppose I didn’t.
Though here, in the Underworld, I found myself tossed in its dark tides.
Matri had explained this darkness to us before.
“Like swimming through the night sky itself,” she’d said.
I’d never knew what she meant until that moment.
When I broke the surface, all that existed in every direction was dark rippling waves.
The water’s folds caught on the moonlight, shining slivers of light all around the expanse of blackness.
I waded in place, my legs, arms, and abs already weakening from the exertion.
Something neared, only highlights exposing its shape atop the ocean’s tide. A long-stemmed, giant-bowled leaf stopped next to me. Viceroy reached out a hand. Fuzz curiously watched on as Viceroy pulled me into the vessel.
I coughed, tasting salt in my mouth. “Does everything here continue to get weirder and weirder?”
Viceroy picked up his stick paddle and rowed. “I’d say you get used to it, but, there’s much that still surprises me. Though, it’s been a long while since I’ve left my quarter.”
“Why did you want to leave?”
“I have my reasons.”
I twisted my long hair, ringing out as much water as I could, and settled back into the curved wall of the leaf.
Shivering under the chill of the cold night and my wet dress, Fuzz bounded over to me.
As I rubbed his ear, he climbed into my lap and curled into a little white fluffball of warmth.
I continued to stroke his fur as my thoughts stringed together.
“How is Fuzz the same fallope I met when I was a child?’
“How indeed?” Viceroy answered, continuing to row.
“Why won’t you answer anything directly? It’s maddening.”
“Perhaps it is not my place to say,” Viceroy answered carefully. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
“Where are we going?”
“We’re going where you asked to go. I promised to help, and I am a papilio of my word.”
I shook my head, exasperated with the butterfly man. With no place to run and nothing to do but wait, the ocean waves soon rocked me to sleep.
I awoke with a jolt as the leaf shook. “Get away!” Viceroy shouted. “Go on, now!”
Something in the water splashed, and the dark, chilly night had morphed into a bright, warm day.
Disoriented, I rubbed my eyes and yawned, reaching for the furball in my lap.
Fuzz had left his napping spot and instead was leaning over the leaf’s edge to watch the commotion.
“But we like your silly little wings,” a melodic woman’s voice crooned. “Won’t you let us have a better look?”
Viceroy flung his oar forward, hitting at something with a splash.
I tried to stand but toppled over as the boat rocked.
Instead, I crawled to the curved edge next to the curious fallope and gazed over.
The ocean glittered a majestic turquoise all around us.
The sheer expanse of it made me feel so small and insignificant.
I wished Vore was there to see it with me.
I wished I could tell my matri I finally visited the sea. Or at least, an Underworld version.
Fuzz let out a screech that pulled my gaze from the horizon. “What is it?” I asked the fallope.
“Oh, my,” a woman’s voice awed.
Another woman’s voice answered, “Why, isn’t she lovely?”
“You stay away from her!” Viceroy flung his oar, trying to hit something in the water. “Prism, go back towards the stem! Stay away from the edge—”
But it was too late to heed his frazzled command.
Two women appeared, emerging effortlessly from the water below me.
A gasp shocked through my throat at the sight of them.
One with long, light blue-colored hair that pooled around her in the water.
Her eyes were solid black, and the blue freckles on her face shimmered in the sunlight.
When she fluttered her hands over the sea’s surface, I noted the aqua-hued webbing between her fingers.
“Hello, pretty one.” She smiled, shocking me with her row of sharp teeth.
“How’d you get to be so far away from home? ”
“Don’t answer it!” Viceroy shouted. “They are nothing more than horrid, flesh-eating, lying, siren!—” There was a splash, and I covered my mouth in a gasp as a woman with peachy-pink colored hair leapt from the water, revealing a long, thick, glistening pink tail.
In a majestic swoop, she grabbed Viceroy by the wing and pulled him over the side of the leaf, beneath the tide.
“Viceroy!” I called into the water. My gaze flitted to the blue woman still swimming next to me as she watched me with fascination. “He’s my guide,” I pleaded with her. “I need him to find… I have to find…”
“Everyone within the waves looks for something,” she replied sanguinely. “Tell me, do you search for riches? Perhaps treasure or gold?”
“No.” I shook my head. “I’m journeying to find my lost love’s soul. The winged fellow your friend just pulled under is helping me. Well, at least I think he’s helping me.”
“Trusting males is never a wise idea.” She tightened her lips.
“He will be okay. Merose shall release him unharmed.” She looked over her scaled shoulder.
“Most likely. You see, his species of male does not taste very good.” She rose on the ocean’s wave as if she could control the tide, meeting me nose to nose.
I swallowed down my fear and gripped the edge of the leaf tightly.
“Your species… human… we like human men. Their organs are delectable to us.”
“I see.” I fought to control my tone so as not to screech and back away. There was no escape. If this siren wanted me, she could feast on my bones in an instant. My gaze flitted to her sharp teeth.
She noticed and smiled wide. “Prism is your name? You’re very beautiful, Prism.” Her webbed fingers reached towards my face and I winced, only to then feel her touch my hair. “May I?”
“Um… sure?”
The siren then twisted my hair into a braid similar to how Rumor used to but more complex, with all the strands looking as if they were cascading inward.
She reached into the water and pulled out a white and pink shell, tucking it behind my ear.
“There you are. You shine as brightly as the heavens upon the sea foam. Now you will look even lovelier when you find your lost soul.”