Gertrude and Jackie, still crying, headed towards the school where they would get some peace and quiet; no one went there if they could help it. They walked slowly while Gertrude waited for Jackie to stop crying.
Being silent the whole time, Jackie sniffled occasionally, drying the tears trailing down her cheek. Halfway to the school, Jackie suddenly burst out laughing, Gertrude stared at her worried.
"What's the matter?" Gertrude exclaimed.
Jackie laughed again and pointed in the direction of the school, "I see something big and blue in the school, it looks like my whale."
Gertrude shook her head both amused and confused, they continued walking to the school quickening their pace. Once they arrived on the school grounds however, they saw a trickle of water heading towards them.
Jackie laughed again and said, "I wonder where this came from. "
They continued towards the school and then Jackie saw something off in the distance near the back of the school. She realized that it was Stella and Kaitlin. She was about to walk away when she saw Kaitlin shooting something up into the sky, the words 'HELP US' appeared.
"JACKIE! LOOK OUT!" Gertrude shouted, pointing at the tall waves that were heading right towards them. They screamed and took off, running towards the place where Jackie had seen Stella and Kaitlin.
As they ran across to where the water began rising, they stepped in and Jackie felt a rush of cold water rushing over her and also something else, she couldn't quite place it but it felt like magic.
Jackie glanced over to see that Gertrude had also felt the magic. By then, the cold magic water had rose to be higher than either Jackie or Gertrude, Gertrude changed into a mermaid, followed by Jackie and they flashed away.
Jackie, a faster swimmer than Gertrude, swam past Gertrude and against the tide. She reached the platform following her senses of rather than seeing where Stella and Kaitlin were.
She glanced around; Jackie spotted Gertrude with her mermaid sight through the dirty water about half a mile away. She smirked and used her powers to levitate herself up; she rose out of the water in the matter of seconds and right in front of where Stella and Kaitlin were, floating on the air.
"Jackie!" Kaitlyn called out.
Jackie grinned at her and jumped out of the air onto the ice platform, the wind whipped her hair about wildly, she twisted her body in the air and transformed into a human. She succeeded in changing but landed badly, hitting her feet in the ice hard and fell over.
Stella reached over and held her out her hand, meaning to help Jackie up. Jackie grudgingly took her hand and Stella pulled her up.
"Thanks," Jackie muttered, quickly letting go of Stella's hand and looking away, dusted herself off.
Stella didn't have the time to say 'you're welcome' because at that exact moment, Gertrude burst out of the water and landed gracefully on the platform next to them.
"You could've waited for me Jackie," Gertrude grumbled, she swept her hands over herself and changed back into her human form.
Jackie quickly sat down and asked, "What did you guys do? How did you even cause this?"
Stella looked at Kaitlin and said, "Kaitlin why don't you tell them what you had done to cause all of this trouble?" She laughed.
"Well," Kaitlin began, looking guilty, "Me and Stella were splashing the water at each other with magic, we were just playing around. And then I have no idea what I did but a lot of water just started to gush out and it's not stopping. Look, it's flooding the school."
All of them looked at the school and saw with astonishment that the water was halfway up on the second floor already and was steadily increasing.
"The best idea would be to use a disappearing spell," Stella said, her voice shaking. "But none of us had ever managed to make something this much disappear."
Gertrude laughed and they all stared at her. "I have once, but it took a lot of power and it drained me so that I almost died."
"We could combine all of our power and do it," suggested Jackie.
"Sure, let's do that quickly though, the water already reached the third floor" Kaitlin said.
Suddenly, Gertrude jumped up and said hurriedly, "Why aren't any of the places near us flooded?"
"It's because I cast a containment spell," Stella hurriedly said.
Gertrude nodded, "First, we must join hands and think of the power forming a ball of enchantments in the middle."
They did so, and after thinking about the power, a small aqua ball formed in front of each one of them, radiating its power. Stella's ball enlarged slowly but surely as she a closed her eyes.
Jackie did so too follow by Kaitlin, but Gertrude kept her eyes open. "Now think of pushing all of that energy forward, towards the center." Gertrude whispered.
The rushing water started pooling at their feet now. Jackie squeezed Gertrude and Stella's hand as her magic started moving towards the middle of the group. The other magic balls also started inching forward like magnets.
As Kaitlin's ball reached the center, so did Jackie's, and at that moment, both exploded. The outer shell fell away and a dark blue ball of light and water appeared, radiating energy in waves.
"I can't hold it anymore!" Shrieked Kaitlin as her arms trembled slightly. The water had reached their waist by then and Jackie opened her eyes to look at the pool, which was unrecognizable. She was barely able to see it through the waves of bubbly water.
Gertrude's ball also reached the center and as the dark blue ball and her aqua ball connected, it exploded again, growing bigger and brighter, turning a shade of dark indigo.
All four of them held each other's hands tighter and concentrated, but Stella's magic sphere was still not yet at the center.
Jackie clenched her teeth and half whispered, "Come on Stella!"
Stella grunted and nodded her head, her magic sphere suddenly shot forward and collided with the dark indigo sphere. A blinding white light shot out and eloped them
"Think of making the water disappearing!" Gertrude shouted as the water height reached their chin. "And don't let go!"
Then all of a sudden, a dark shape took form in the center of the ring, it was a Mid-ridge India Turtle, a rare species. They all gasped as the turtle swam up, through the air.
The water rose with surprising height and submerged all of them, Jackie choked and tried not to let go of Stella and Gertrude's hands. They were all struggling to swim above the water.
Suddenly, Kaitlin slumped and slowly sank down, she had stopped struggling.
* * *
"Where should we go to find Tiffany?" asked Natalie, her eyes gleaming brightly as she turned towards Delia.
Delia turned her head to check that no one was around and lifted a delicate finger to her lips. "Shh!"
She took a silver dagger from her backpack and murmured a spell, the dagger pointing upward.
Natalie, her eyes filled with fear and curiosity, swam back a little and looked on.
The dagger had started to glow, a dark shade of blue and strands of something branched out from it. The strands were silky and moved soundlessly in the water, a lavender color, easily spotted in this particular spot of the ocean.
The strands had now grown to be about 5 feet long and tugged at the dagger in Delia's hand. Delia glanced at Natalie and beckoned for her to follow as she swam after the mysterious strands.
Natalie followed close behind and they swam past colorful reefs, schools of fish, and a few ridge-back turtles. Then, the strands of hair, that's what it seemed to be to Natalie, turned left sharply and entered a small cave.
Delia swam in without hesitation but Natalie drew back, she had a bad feeling about what might happen.
She peered into the cave and saw a long tunnel, not able to see the end of the tunnel or Delia, she quickly swam in.