Darkness (Florence Waverley, Book 3)

Note from the author

The world of Niemela is a strange, complex creature. If you ever get lost amid the curiosities, please check out the helpful glossary at the end of this book. It contains a detailed list of all the terms, items, and animals mentioned in the first two books (Florence and Luminaire).

Enjoy the dive!

The Darkness

In a dark cavern, I found myself standing in a cage. All around me, the water was cold and murky. Hands were trying to reach through the cage bars, and at the same time, some of them were pushing the cage forward.

Up ahead was a swirling shape.

Sea fyre.

Shrill voices filled the water and began taunting me. Into the fyre! they cheered. Put the human into the fyre. See her burn in a flame so dire.

Those words filled the dark like a nursery rhyme. I looked around me, trying hard to find a way out of my cage. But what I saw was terrifying: The hands around me didn’t belong to merfolk.

Instead, they were attached to monsters.

I screamed as they pushed me into the fyre…

The Wave Rider

(Several days earlier)

Harmony was everything in Niemela. To the mer, harmony was the force that kept things in order. The shared belief that linked everyone. And of course, above all that, harmony showed every being where he or she belonged.

Well, almost everyone. For you see, if you looked deeper, you could always see things that didn’t quite fit in.

Things like me.

In a dark tunnel, I held on to a stingray’s back and used my thoughts to guide the animal straight ahead. The tunnel walls had moss which flickered like starlight. And I started to muse about how different my life had become.

A few months ago, I was living a quiet life on Hamilton Island. Lost in my own world. But now, I was the only human in a world of merfolk. An outsider in a world of beauty, wonder, and danger.

A world that I chose to stay in.

The stingray and I entered a huge cavern. The walls here were covered in glowing white corals, and I saw a dozen tunnel holes.

But that was not all.

This place wasn’t just full of water. It also had streams that were rushing through the cavern. Shiny streams that were made of water and bubbles.

These were the flooms.

My stingray halted, and I stared around me at the ‘floom nexus.’ Here, in this hidden place, each floom had a different entry and exit hole in the walls. There were so many flooms that they reminded me of tangled ribbons. Each one never stopped moving, and they all traveled through Niemela’s secret caves and tunnels.

Yet, there was more to the flooms than met the eye—they were like the veins of a living creature, and just like veins, these flooms carried nutrients throughout Niemela.

Wow, I whispered.

Each stream never stopped roaring.

No one knew much about the flooms, or how they were formed. Yet, after Rolan learned about the nexus, he ordered the thinkers to explore the flooms. Something that they were still doing.

I peered to the right, and saw a trio of mermen on stingrays. They each had pink armbands, which marked them as thinkers. One by one, they all entered a floom and were carried away.

I took in a deep breath, then sent a thought command to my stingray. Closer, I told her. The animal shivered, so I stroked her velvety hide. It’s all right, my friend.

The animal did as I asked.

Together, we headed for the same floom used by the trio. And as we got nearer, I knew I had to be careful. Inside a floom, a single misstep could be lethal.

Okay. Stay focused.

I told my ray to swim parallel to the floom, and we moved closer and closer to it. A second later we pushed our way into the stream, and the floom whisked us away.

The stream was rushing ahead, and the sound of roaring bubbles filled my ears. I held on to my ray and tried to adjust to the volume.

I should’ve been frightened. The floom was traveling at high speed and pushing us with it. The water was pressing in around me, and it was hard to see anything. But soon, I had only one goal: I had to ride this floom.

I had to stay centered in the floom and follow it wherever it went. With this in mind, I stared ahead and focused on the water. Focused on its curves and bends and shifting movements. All the while, I tried to be one with the floom.

Left… right… up and down…

Where it went so did I.

Or rather, so did we. Me and the ray. Beneath me, the stingray followed my commands and turned in every direction I asked her to.

Together, we followed the stream through several caves and tunnels: hidden places deep inside Niemela. And just like that, I rode the floom like a mer.

I started thinking of why I was here.

So much had happened recently. It was only a month ago that I entered the life path maze, and what I went through had tested me in every way. Changed me too. And now, everything seemed uncertain in Niemela: the battle with the Darkness, the secrets of the guardians, and of course, my own place in Niemela.

I had no life path. No purpose.

For the first time, I had no idea what I was supposed to do. But amid my uncertainty, the flooms had begun to fascinate me. I found myself wondering, What would it be like to ride a floom? Wouldn’t that be something special? Something only mer are supposed to do?

One night, I asked Mara to teach me how to ride a floom. And surprisingly, she actually agreed.

Rolan wasn’t happy when he found out. He said it was a bad idea for me to ride in the flooms—which took me aback. After all, he himself had once carried me through a floom. But then again, I guess the idea of me riding solo was something quite different.

Nonetheless, I didn’t back down. I told him this was something I had to do.

I thought of what Mara had taught me: stay centered in the floom, pretend you’re aiming for a target in the middle of the stream, and above all else, follow this stream as it winds about.

I was stirred from my thoughts when my stingray trembled. I looked ahead and saw that the floom was about to veer right. I had to shift immediately, or else I’d be hurled outside the floom.

The stingray and I twisted to the right, and we followed the stream.

I stared ahead and saw the mer trio. The thinkers from before. They slowed down, then pushed their way through the floom’s side. They vanished.

I took in a deep breath and did the same. Me and my ray pushed beyond the floom and found ourselves in a cavern. The trio was up ahead.

After Rolan learned about the nexus, he’d summoned all the guardians to the royal dome. He’d demanded to know why they had kept the flooms a secret. The guardians, however, denied any such agenda. They claimed that they merely wished to study the flooms before telling him.

Rolan didn’t believe them. At all. So he assigned a team of thinkers to the flooms, and their job was to learn as much as they could.

Hey Florry! a voice called out.

I turned to see Wynn riding on a stingray. Finally! he said. I know swimming isn’t your thing. But seriously, you’re slower than a worker snail.

I smiled. Is that so?

I was about to use my thoughts to startle his ray, but motion caught my eye. To the right, a pair of older guardians emerged.

Provonox had insisted that Rolan include several guardians in the ‘floom team.’ And these guardians were helping to guide the thinkers through the nexus. But they were not the only additions to the team: without a life path, I too had decided to join in.

To say that Rolan was unhappy with my decision was an understatement. Yet, I always traveled with the team, and I never entered the bigger flooms.

Wynn stared at the guardians and sighed. Yes, the guardians still act as if they own the flooms. Bah!

I raised an eyebrow. Yeah, the guardians are a rotten bunch, aren’t they? My gaze strayed to his brown armband.

He shrugged. "There are exceptions to everything. You of all people should know that, my human friend."

We smiled, and I ended up staring at his hair. Most guardians had gelled hair or long plaits, but Wynn had both. His mint-green hair was covered in gel and tied in a short plait. That was Wynn for you—too many things all at once.

I laughed. You look ridiculous.

Ahead of us, the new thinker master waved forward the thinkers, then turned to look at the guardians. Come forth, guardians. We must continue with the exploration.

The thinkers headed forward, and the guardians turned to look at Wynn. The most senior guardian called out to him, Hurry up, Wynn. Keep the pace, lest we regret keeping you in the team.

Yes, Master Kalo, said Wynn. He turned his head to the side and rolled his eyes at me. "Guardians…"

He rushed off to join them. The other guardians looked at me, but did not say a word before heading off.

Oh, well, I muttered as I followed them.

The team and I ventured into another floom, and then a new chamber. Here, we got off our rays and entered a place full of flowers. Glowing ones with silver petals.

I saw the thinkers spread out, and they opened their packs to release some jellyfish. The animals started drifting about, and I saw them recording views of the chamber. At the same time, each thinker was busy describing the room.

I froze. It seemed as though they were filming a documentary. And in fact, one of the mer sounded just like David Attenborough.

Yet, when I looked to the side, the old guardians seemed unfazed. Over the last few days, the team and I had seen many different caverns, but the old guardians never seemed surprised.

What did the guardians know about the flooms, and how much of the nexus had they already explored? What were they trying to hide? I had a feeling that the guardians were merely shepherding us.

But then again, the caverns we’d found were far from exciting.

Wynn swam over and said, Not the secrets we’d hoped to find, are they?

I don’t know what I expected to find here, I said. But all these places…

…they all blur into one, don’t they?

I sighed. Nonetheless, it helped to know that Wynn was also in the dark. At least I wasn’t alone.

Right then, some of the mer started arguing. The thinkers wanted to clear a section of a wall, but the guardians refused to help them. Yet, before I could hear more, Wynn grabbed my hand.

Come on.

He snuck us past the older mer, then pulled me outside the chamber.

Wynn, I called out. Where are you going?

Oh come on, Florry, said Wynn. "These caverns all look the same. There has to be more to the flooms."

Wynn, we should get back to the others.

He gazed over at a giant floom. One of the few streams that neither the guardians nor the thinkers dared to enter. A floom that was faster and thicker.

Wynn swam toward it.

Hey. Wait up! I shouted.

Why? said Wynn.

By the time I reached him, we were both right beside the floom. Wynn! I called out, and the roaring stream nearly drowned out my voice.

He turned to smile at me. There and then, he seemed like a new person. Now that he was a guardian, he was no longer goofy and uncertain.

You’re really fearless, aren’t you? I laughed.

What’s there to fear, Florry? This here is an adventure.

He turned around and shot off into the floom.

Wynn! I called out.

I had no idea where the floom was headed, and dark thoughts filled my head. What would happen if Wynn got lost? What if he couldn’t break free?

Without thinking it over, I rushed after Wynn. I burst into the floom, and the giant stream hurled me forward. The water was icy, and bubbles pressed in all around me. Here, each bubble was more like a tennis ball than a shape of air—and these shapes pummeled my torso.

The world outside faded away, lost behind the bubbles.

I could barely see anything.

Ohmygod, ohmygod, ohmygod…

I stared ahead to see Wynn. He stretched out his arms and slowed himself down. I ended up right beside him and I saw him smile.

Enjoying the ride? he called out.

You’re crazy! This is just nuts! I replied.

Yet, as the moments passed, I managed to center myself in the stream. And even though we had no stingrays, Wynn and I didn’t need to do much. The floom was carrying us forward, and somehow, I started to enjoy the ride.

We should find a way out, I shouted.

Come on, Florry. There’s no harm in a short ride.

Well—

Aren’t you ready for excitement? Isn’t this why you joined the floom team?

I paused. Back when I joined the team, I told Rolan that I needed some focus. Something to do. But in fact, part of me had a secret reason for joining:

I wanted to find Niemela’s hidden heart—and I had a feeling that the flooms could help me. After all, if flooms were like veins, then surely one of them led to the heart.

I had to find it…

For Rolan, who rarely believed in things he couldn’t see. And for me, who still had so much to learn about Niemela—and my own heart.

Gahh! said Wynn.

Ahead of us was a rock wall, and like the other walls, this one was covered in floom holes. But these holes were smaller than the ones before. So small that Wynn and I would never fit through them.

The word ‘sieve’ flashed through my mind.

At the same time, the entire floom was rushing through the holes.

Oh no, I hissed.

Wynn and I tried to leave the floom, but the bubbles around us were too solid. We were trapped. The roaring sounds got louder as we headed toward the ‘sieve.’ This was it. We were going to smash into a wall!

Wynn!

He grabbed my hand, and said, Push to the right at the same time as me. Come on, one… two… three!

We swung to the right and combined our momentum. In a rush, we crashed into the floom’s side and bubbles smashed around us. I cried out. Each bubble might as well have been a stone.

Then, just like that, it was all over.

Wynn and I tumbled back into still water, and we ended up floating beyond the floom. We stayed silent for a while and I felt dazed. Too close. That was way, way too close.

Wynn started laughing.

That wasn’t funny! I called out as I shoved him. We could have been crushed.

But we weren’t, said Wynn.

I was about to reply, until my gaze strayed around me. What I saw was weird: this cavern had no corals or moss, only bits of glowing rock. Rock that was a shiny, bright gold.

Wynn hushed.

This cavern had a dozen holes, but only two of them were floom ones. I stared around me, and my eyes settled on the largest hole. I found myself swimming over to it.

Wynn followed.

We entered this hole and stumbled into a dark chamber. I wondered if this could be it: the Hidden Heart. Could it really exist?

Wynn reached into his pack and pulled out a jellyfish.

The jelly glowed, and I saw a chamber without corals. The walls here were covered in dead moss, and I got the impression that no one had been here for quite some time.

I lowered my feet to the ground, and the moss around me started to ripple. It rose up in a cloud, and I saw that waves were carved on the floor.

Huh? said Wynn.

We went toward a wall, and the motion of our bodies sent ripples through the chamber. Abruptly, all the moss on each wall fell away, and black clouds appeared everywhere.

Wynn and I swam to the ceiling and held our breath. When the moss settled, what we saw was unexpected.

The walls were covered in words.

English words. Or rather, Meridian words.

Harmony. Unity. Equilibrium. Serenity.

Balance…

By the All-tide, said Wynn. What is this place?

I swam to a wall, then laid my hands on the edge of a giant ‘H.’ All the words were carved in Roman-style letters. Something so different from the mer scrolls.

It all seemed so human.

Who made this room? I whispered. What does it all mean?

Horns echoed from afar, and Wynn shook his head. Ah, questions for another time, I guess.

He grabbed my hand and pulled me to the exit.

Hold up. Don’t you want to know more? I asked, surprised that he was eager to leave.

Not now, he said. It’s time.

The horns of midmeal continued to ring, and I frowned. Look, we can just eat later. This chamber—

The horns went silent.

Wynn said, This chamber will have to wait. Right now you have somewhere else to be.

He guided me outside at top speed. Once we were back in the gold cavern, Wynn closed his eyes for a moment.

Wynn?

Two stingrays burst out from a floom. Our rides from earlier.

I smiled as my ray swam over to me. I’d known her for only a few weeks, but she clung to me like a shadow. She nuzzled against my arm, and her gray skin was velvety.

I’d named her Grayling.

Wynn mounted his ray, so I boarded mine. That was when he patted his animal and said, Okay my friend, bring us back to the start.

His stingray zoomed ahead and Grayling followed suit. Together, we traveled through smaller flooms, and relied solely on our rays’ sense of direction.

Minutes later we were back in the Oceanarium. Yet, before I could dismount my ray, Wynn headed over to a small opening that was new to me. I thought he would enter it, but he merely gestured for me to go inside.

What’s going on? I asked.

Wynn smiled. You’ll see.

I got off Grayling’s back and told her to wait outside. I swam into the opening and wound up in a dim chamber. I tried to feel my way around, but couldn’t see anything of interest. Finally, I went back outside.

Wynn was gone.

I saw a merman enter the cavern. His skin and tail were orange and his hair was a coppery-gold. He sailed above a crowd of workers, and his scales gave out a faint, sunny glow. The mer below him stopped working and stared up. Children pointed at him. Mermaids gazed in his direction, and I saw them bobbing, as if they wanted to get closer.

Corals glowed brighter as he passed by, and sea ferns began stretching out, as if they wanted to touch him. All around him, tiny neon-colored fish rushed around his tail.

Rolan had a special kind of magic.

On the surface, he was gruff and serious. Somber even. Yet, spend enough time around him, and the things he did had a way of drawing you to him. That was how it had been to the Niemelans.

And me.

I watched him glide toward me, and I stopped treading water. It seemed impossible to move and watch him. But suddenly, he was right before me and he pulled me in close.

I realized I was holding my breath.

He looked at me with those bright green eyes that rarely blinked. He wasn’t smiling, but somehow it seemed as if he was. The neon fish rushed around his head in a halo, and he whispered to me, Fair tides, Florence.

Fair tides, Rolan.

I smiled and he carried me into the opening behind us.

We entered the dimness, and I couldn’t see where we were going. But I didn’t care. Where he went, so would I.

Celebration

I saw something lying on the ground. Rolan let go of me, and I knelt down before a kelapiri cake. It was shaped like a disc and covered with tiny sea snails.

Before I could touch the cake, the shells of each snail started glowing. I gasped. The colors were gorgeous—pinks, emeralds, and sapphires—but that wasn’t what took me aback. For you see, the entire thing resembled a birthday cake.

What was going on?

Rolan knelt beside me and said, Today is a special day. According to Wynn’s calculations, today is the day of your hatch day. Or rather, as the humans seem to call it, your ‘Birth day.’

Birthday? I didn’t remember telling Wynn about it, and I had no idea how anyone here tracked the days in Niemela. I myself wasn’t even sure what day it was on the surface. But yet, as I saw Rolan smiling faintly, all these questions faded away.

I smiled back.

My eyes lowered to the cake, and I chuckled. I don’t know what to say.

He stroked my cheek.

Rolan said, You’ve been here for a few months, but sometimes… it seems like you’ve always been here… almost like the pulsing of Niemela’s heartbeat. He frowned slightly, as if his words sounded odd to him. I don’t know if that makes any sense.

His words conjured up memories in my mind. Memories of all the things that we had gone through.

I said, It makes perfect sense.

He smiled wider, that strange, alien smile of his. At the same time, the neon fish rushed around me and tickled my neck. I laughed.

I turned to Rolan, and he was still kneeling before me. Not a dream and not a fantasy, but a part of my reality. My heart felt as if it would burst.

He looked at the ‘cake’ and said, I believe it is a human custom to make a wish.

So I did: I wished to stay in Niemela. I wished to stay here forever and ever with Rolan. And after that, I blew upon the snails and all the shells went dark.

What did you wish for? he asked.

You’re not supposed to say what you wished for, I replied.

Really?

He put his arms around my waist, then carried me through a hole in the ceiling. Up we went, until we emerged inside a new chamber.

The walls here were covered in sea grass, and the strands were like pale-gold ribbons. I saw flowers tangled amid the grass, and each one was a delicate, pale-pink blossom. High above me, krill drifted about in a weightless shimmer.

I let go of Rolan and stared around me.

In the room’s center, two ropes of grass dangled from the ceiling. They were holding up a seat made of carved coral, and my eyes widened.

The structure looked like an outdoor swing.

I stepped toward it, and saw hundreds of petals stuck to the ropes. Well, at least, that’s what I thought at first. But when I got close enough, I realized that the petals were actually the fins of seahorses. These animals were huddled around the swing’s ropes, and their bodies were all transparent, save for pastel-colored fins.

I turned to Rolan and said, This… is gorgeous.

He swam over and said, I asked Wynn for some advice on human hatchdays. He said that humans celebrate them with gifts, and he suggested a thing called a ‘swoong.’

I didn’t know what to say, but turned to look at the swing.

I sat down and heard seahorse fins rustling. It sounded like the animals were trying to whisper to me. I leaned in and my hair brushed one of the animals. The seahorses rushed away in a burst of color.

It’s incredi—

My hands held the ropes and the swing eased into motion. I went quiet as the grass came alive to swing me and back and forth. A smile spread across my face.

Rolan floated behind me and grabbed on to the swing ropes. The swing moved us both, and I turned to look at him.

Do you like it? he asked.

I smiled. It’s wonderful. Thank you.

My gaze lowered to the seat. The carved coral was full of swirls and spirals, and