“A wishing ring. Like Aladdin before the lamp?” Barnaby frowned.
“Of a sort.” The rat stroked the glass of the fish tank, murmuring low. “The instrument in that tale exhibited a power beyond that which this ring is capable. It will grant your daughter one wish and one wish only.”
“How? How is that possible?”
“Mr. Harris, you ask this of me? Do you see what I am?” Chuckling, Mr. Mince shook his head in a benevolent rebuke. “No, you have come this far by your own senses. Take the leap of faith. It will grant a wish for your daughter.”
Barnaby thought back to the price tag on the Fabrege egg. He considered the rat with a hard look, mind blinking back to the fairy tales he read when he was Elizabeth’s age, and of the wise old women who offered aid to hapless heroes. And to the deceptive witches who surrendered the Sword of Conquerors with a caveat. “How much?” he asked at last.
“You merely have to retrieve it.” Mr. Mince’s rubbery lips parted in a smile. A small twitch flickered at the corner of one beady eye. “That is the difficult part.” Drawing a claw down the side of the glass, he tapped toward a patch of shadow near the ring. A curling tendril of darkness lashed out toward the noise and placked against the barrier. “The leviathan will not give it up so easily.”
“The ‘leviathan’?”
“Your Norse ancestors would call it ‘krake.’” Mr. Mince laughed again, a clearly unpleasant tone in the guttural sound. “So, do we have a deal?”
Taking off his hat, Barnaby ran a hand through his hair. Am I considering this? Am I really considering this? I am in an antique shop, talking with a giant rat in a top hat and waistcoat, bartering for Aladdin’s wishing ring. Yet, he yearned for it to be true. It was not entirely to please Elizabeth when he read to her tales of the fantastical and arcane. All right, if this was real, could I actually retrieve the ring? He frowned and considered the facts as well as his skills. The patch of darkness Mr. Mince had indicated covered perhaps five feet square. Whatever lay within could not be so large beyond that concealment. Barnaby was an excellent swimmer – the only part of summer camps he enjoyed was their proximity to some body of water. The heat exuding from the surface of the water promised a temperature conducive to avoiding hypothermia. And he had, as Barnaby turned his wrist to check his watch, half of his parking meter time remaining. “All right, then.” Barnaby nodded.
“Excellent!” Mr Mince clapped his paws and spoke a sharp word. A blue spark flickered from between his teeth and Barnaby was falling, falling, the rat shopkeeper rising and growing larger, and the shop along with it. Reaching down to pick up Barnaby’s reduced form, Mr. Mince brought him up to the edge of the tank. A rushing wind of hot air around him and Barnaby was falling once more to land in warm water and beroiling foam. “Swim for it, Barnaby Harris! Your treasure awaits,” the rat’s voice issued from a massive head poking over the horizon of the sea.
Instinct took over. The initial shock of the waves melted before Barnaby’s two evenings every week at the YMCA pool. Wriggling out of his heavy coat and hat, he managed to pry his boots from his feet. He took a deep breath and dove. The glo-gloing of the water pressing around him eclipsed the rasp and rise upon the surface. He kicked and carved with his feet and hands, squinting. Around him, the light from the shop illuminated enough for him to see. What fish and creatures he had seen, they now swam and ducked around, away, beyond him, the same size and larger and slightly smaller than him now. Bubbles rose and wavered and streamed and still he dove. The silver fish flickered and circled. Light glanced and gleamed from it and he blinked hard, pausing to shoo it away. Taking a moment to study his surroundings, he identified the patch of green and yellow coral which had tried to spear the multiplying fish before. He swam to give it a wide berth and spotted the dark patch near the gleam Mr. Mince had pointed out.
Barnaby hesitated. Whatever was in there, he would have felt better for a weapon of some sort. He patted frantically at his pockets, hoping for something which would serve as a weapon. Then he remembered the tie-pin.
A present from Eliza last Christmas, the tie-pin was often the subject of backhanded compliment from George and eventually his other superiors at work. Reaching up, Barnaby pulled it from the sour blue folds of his linen tie. On the front, a crude trident was depicted in worked aluminum. A long pin served to pierce the cloth and fix it in place, and Barnaby supposed it would be better than nothing.
But before Barnaby could wrest the tiny shaft of metal from the back, the tie pin grew heavy in his palm. The weight increased more and more, and he closed his fingers tight around it, allowing it to drag him down and down, deeper and deeper. Wriggling, he turned himself to land feet-first on the rock and sand of the bottom. Before he could open his hand, a blur out of the corner of his eye drew his gaze up.
A familiar slash of darkness lashed out at him and he ducked. The roil of bubbles and water at its passage swayed him and he stumbled. The pressure of the depths pounded at his head and his lungs burned. He wondered how long he had been swimming and grimly set himself. The heaviness in his palm pressed at his fingers and he opened them in wonder to see the trident tie pin glow a searing blue and grow until it fit his hand as a long three-pronged spear.
Tendrils reared back at the sudden light. Barnaby took his chance. Squinting beyond the gleaming weapon, he spotted the glint amidst the boulders and launched himself toward it. The water seemed to part and lighten around the points of the trident, allowing him to swim more easily. His heart and temples pulsed under the skin. Bubbles seeped from the corner of his mouth. He forced himself down, down again, eyes fixed upon the spark of light twinkling through the darkness. The tendrils lashed out, curved and pocked, and he could now see they were indeed tentacles. Both hands gripping the trident shaft, Barnaby made a poke toward the nearest one, the water dragging at his limbs. Nevertheless, it flinched away. Another tentacle swatted toward his shoulder. A heavy, porous weight battered him, spun him around. A second wrapped around his leg and tugged. He flailed, mouth opening to shout in protest. His breath escaped and he shut his mouth in a futile attempt to retain it.
“Come now,” rumbled a familiar voice from all around him. Mr. Mince called through the water, his words echoing and strange. “You’re not giving up so easily, are you? Whatever will your little girl think?”
To Barnaby’s tongue came the taste of Hormingway’s Best Raspberry Jam. He clamped his teeth and lips tight together. To his ears came Eliza’s laughter. The tentacle pulled him into the darkness. To his nose wafted the scent of hot and fresh scones. The light scattered the darkness, the tentacles revealed as mottled grey-brown appendages. They lashed and writhed, attached to a bulbous, fat body. One baleful eye as big as his torso twitched to regard him with anger. Barnaby raised the trident and heaved it in a last desperate effort.
Chapter Four: A Wish Granted—>
Author’s Note: Photo by Masaaki Komori on Unsplash
Elk Writer 