A long eel swam by, seemingly made of living saltwater taffy. The strange shape of its body called to mind the concept of peppermint sharks and turtles with jawbreaker shells, of fish like gumdrops and jellybeans, a whole ecosystem made of living sugar, thriving in a place where the rules were different, where the rules had no concern for how things worked elsewhere. Elsewhere was a legend and a lie, until it came looking for you.

Down, down, down into the strawberry rhubarb sea Cora dove, until she saw something falling slowly through the sea. It looked too solid to be made of candy, and too dark to be prepared for a children’s goodie bag. She swam harder, instinctively pressing her legs together and dolphin-kicking her way downward. Even in the absence of fin and scale, she had been the hero of the Trenches, the mermaid who swam as though the Devil himself were behind her. Quickly, she was at Christopher’s side, gathering him out of the soda.

His eyes were closed. No bubbles trickled from his nose or mouth. But he was holding his bone flute tightly in one hand. Cora hoped that meant he was still alive. Wouldn’t he have let go, if he were already gone?

He wasn’t going to let go of the flute. Normally, she would have hooked her hands under his arms, using his armpits to drag him with her, but if that caused him to lose his grip, he was going to insist on going back down to try to find his last piece of home. She could understand that. So she held him to her chest in a parody of a bridal carry, or of the Creature from the Black Lagoon carrying his beautiful victim out of the water. Christopher didn’t stir.

Cora kicked.

Sometimes she thought she had always been a mermaid: that her time among the two-legged people had been the fluke, and that her reality was her, well, flukes. She was meant to live a wet and watery existence, free from the tyranny of gravity—which had been trying to ruin her day even more than usual, starting with Rini’s fall into the turtle pond. She kicked, and the sea responded, propelling her ever upward, turning effort into momentum.

This, right here, this was what life was supposed to be. Just her, and an environment where her size was an asset, not an impediment. Her lungs were large. Her legs were strong. She was flying, and even having Christopher clutched in her arms did nothing to slow her down.

They broke the surface of the sea in a spray of soda and bubbles. Rini and Kade were still bobbing there, waiting, as was Sumi’s skeleton, which floated like a bath toy for the world’s most morbid child.