Turn it down! I screamed inside my head.

The sound went up, reached a pitch that sizzled my neurons, and then, just when I thought I was about to have an aneurism, it abruptly ceased. The undine who held my hand smiled. The cacophony inside my head evolved into something like music – a cross between Enya and The Pixies. It was the song I’d heard before above the water, the “Who will we love?” song, only it had acquired another verse.

We’ll go if you’ll go, we’ll go if you go, the undines sang.

Go where? I asked.

To Faerie, Faerie, Faerie. We don’t want to go alone.

But you’ve got each other.

At this they returned to their first line:

We’ll go if you’ll go, we’ll go if you go.

I had a feeling that they could keep up this argument a lot longer than I could – certainly longer than I had breath, which, come to think of it, I should have run out of already. At the frantic thought that I should already have drowned, my undine companion squeezed me close and pressed her cold lips against mine. I was so startled I let her force my lips apart. Her breath tasted like watercress and tunafish … and something improbably fruity and sweet – as if she’d applied raspberry lip gloss after lunch.

Razzzberry? A voice inside my head inquired. Lip gloss?

An image of a hand holding out a red berry bloomed in my head. A misty blue sky beyond … no, not misty … I was seeing the hand through a film of water, and then the film shattered and I felt sunlight warm on my cold skin. A nearly unbearable sweetness swelled on my tongue.

Mmmm … razzzberry, the voice cooed inside my head. The sweetness was on both our tongues, filling my mouth, my throat, my lungs … then her lips, no longer cold, left mine and I was staring once again into those cold green eyes … only now I thought I saw a spark of humanity or individuality among the mica chips and gold veins.

We’ll go if you go, she said as clearly as if the words had been spoken instead of sung inside my brain. Her eyes shifted and I followed her gaze to the bottom of the pool where the chink of gold light lay like sunken treasure. It was the passage to Faerie. I had only to will it open. I had only to need it to open. Just looking at the light now was making it grow. I felt myself being pulled toward it. The undines, seeing the growing light, had begun to swim toward it, as if attracted by a shiny bauble. I was pulled in their wake, all the while feeling undiluted desire thrumming through the swarm.

To Faerie, faerie, faerie,

We’ll go if you go.

They urged me on, excited at the prospect of bringing a prize to show their sisters when they arrived.