𐌙/𐌍 Ᏽ𐌵𐌀𐌋𐌄 & 𐌕𐋅𐌄 Ᏽ𐌐𐌄𐌀𐌕 𐌌𐌙𐌕𐋅𐌔 ¹

Chapter 8

Eight
𖧷

I Make A Dangerous Choice

  I trained a little with Percy in the end of last summer, I learned how to actually breathe underwater without fear of drowning. I didn't know if there was a limit, but I didn't want to try it out.

  So here I was, diving into the water, and going down to the waving Percy that was swimming in front of a downed boat on the sand under a bunch of water and fish.

  As I got closer to the bottom, I saw three hippocampi—fish-tailed horses—swimming in a circle around the overturned boat. The hippocampi were beautiful to watch. Their fish tails shimmered in rainbow colors, glowing phosphorescent. Their manes were white, and they were galloping through the water the way nervous horses do in a thunderstorm. Something was upsetting them.

  I got closer and saw the problem. A dark shape—some kind of animal—was wedged halfway under the boat and tangled in a fishing net, one of those big nets they use on trawlers to catch everything at once. I hated those things. It was bad enough they drowned porpoises and dolphins, but they also occasionally caught mythological animals. When the nets got tangled, some lazy fishermen would just cut them loose and let the trapped animals die.

  Apparently this poor creature had been mucking around on the bottom of Long Island Sound and had somehow gotten itself tangled in the net of this sunken fishing boat. It had tried to get out and managed to get even more hopelessly stuck, shifting the boat in the process. Now the wreckage of the hull, which was resting against a big rock, was teetering and threatening to collapse on top of the tangled animal.

  The hippocampi were swimming around frantically, wanting to help but not sure how. One was trying to chew the net, but hippocampi teeth just aren't meant for cutting rope. Hippocampi are really strong, but they don't have hands, and they're not (shhh) all that smart.

  "My Liege!" one of the Hippocampi wailed as he saw me. "Please help! Lord could only scare it half to death!"

  I swam in for a closer look at the tangled creature. At first I thought it was a young hippocampus. We'd rescued several of them before. But then I heard a strange sound, something that usually did not belong underwater:

  "Mooooooo!"

  I frowned in confusion. I got next to the thing and saw that it was a cow. I mean… I'd heard of sea cows, like manatees and stuff, but this really was a cow with the back end of a serpent. The front half was a calf—a baby, with black fur and big, sad brown eyes and a white muzzle—and its back half was a black-and-brown snaky tail with fins running down the top and bottom, like an enormous eel.

  Percy got near me and the creature flinched away by his mere presence. "Can you understand it? I only speak horse."

  "Maybe?"

  "My Liege! You came!" the cow said happily. It seemed like it was already waiting for me.

"Who are you?" I asked. "What are you?"

  "I'm Bessie," the cow–Bessie–introduced itself.

  "We don't know what it is, My Liege," one of the hippocampi said. "Many strange things are stirring."

  "Yeah," I murmured. "So I've heard."

  "I can't get out!" Bessie cried. "And this man keeps trying to cut me!"