Deep Betrayal

Heaviness. Relax, relax, relax . I was doing a pretty good job. A few minutes more, and I might actually fall asleep. I had just enough energy for one last projection: Serenity .
    I don’t know how long I was down there, but it must have been too long because there was a jolt from above. Calder’s arm plunged into the water and yanked me into the boat.
    “Very good,” he said, laughing, “but your friends are going to freak out if you stay under too long. God, that’s impressive. Weird. But impressive.”
    I gasped at the air. “They’re all okay? Everyone’s still with us?”
    “Of course they are. I told you to trust me.”
    I nodded. “So are we done?”
    “One more. This should do it. But it’s the hardest one.”
    “Great.”
    “Laughter.”
    “I have to laugh underwater?”
    “No. It’s not the sound you’re going for. It’s the feel. That’s why it’s hard. The thought of laughter is associated with the sound of it. You need to dig deeper. It’s the pain in the belly I want you to go for.”
    “Pain? That doesn’t make sense.”
    “It’s a good kind of pain. You need to conjure that laugh-till-you-cry feeling.”
    “I know what you mean, but there’s nothing funny about this situation.”
    Calder looked up to the sky. “I’m not going to be any help with this one, Lily. I haven’t done much roll-on-the-floor laughing in my life, so you’ll—Oh, man, here they come.” He grabbed me by the shoulders and pulled me down low in the boat. We peered over the starboard rail toward Bear Island. Two heads emerged from the water. Two pairs of eyes were focused on my friends.
    “What are they waiting for?” I asked. Jules and Colleen squealed and splashed water at Scott and Rob.
    “I don’t know, but they won’t be waiting for long. You did an amazing job, Lily. They’ve got to be salivating.”
    “Then we should get out to them now.”
    “We need them to get a little bit closer still.”
    “No! That’s far enough!”
    “We need to maximize our time away from the boat without being gone so long your friends get worried. We can’t waste time traveling. We need it for talking.”
    I counted in my head: One Mississippi. Two Mississippi . The heads disappeared and then came up again, four seconds later. “How close are they?” I asked.
    “About a hundred and fifty yards,” Calder said. “Let’s go, but don’t dive. I don’t want your friends to notice us leaving.”
    “Is it time for a more specific message?”
    “Nope. We’re back to the clean slate. Blank canvas, Lily. Got it? You need to hear them, without letting them know how close we’re getting.”
    I inhaled as deeply as I could, filling my lungs to capacity, and we slid noiselessly into the water. Calder swam with me, like a human, for twenty yards before he pushed me awayand wriggled out of his bathing suit and kept it clutched in his hand. I swam next to him as he arched and bowed his body, swimming like a dolphin, until he exploded into merman form, the silver tail bright and flashing and reflecting filtered sunlight across my face.
    He wrapped his arm around me and we swam at a speed I could not manage on my own. He circled around, coming at Maris and Pavati from behind. They had stopped to consult. I could hear them, or rather, feel their thoughts, which came in flashes like a slide show.
    Hunger
    Fear
    Hunger
    Death
    The last one was so intense it almost made me gasp with pain. Blank canvas, blank canvas . I squeezed Calder’s hand, and he brought me up for air.
    “What is it?”
    “We need to stop them,” I said. “Now!”
    We dove and raced toward the two figures who were facing each other, their fingers laced together. Calder hadn’t told me to send any other messages, but I couldn’t manage the blank slate anymore. My first thought sprang through the water like a shout.
    Stop!
    Maris and Pavati pulled away from each other and whirled around to confront us, their faces sunken and gaunt, their mouths gaping, like ghoulish eels. The change in their appearance was horrifying to behold.
    Calder held his hands palms up. He kept his eyes lockedon his sisters and tilted his head in their direction, as if he wanted me to speak to them. Problem was, he hadn’t told me what to say.
    “Um, we’d like to talk,” I said.
    “What is this?” Maris asked, her voice echoing in my head as if shouted through a tunnel. “What kind of creature are you?”
    Calder pulled me behind him, but I slipped around