Mermaid in a Bottle

Chapter 9 ~ A Lost Friend

(Will's P.O.V. cont.)

After closing the door behind me, I faced the woman, who was standing upright behind her desk. She must have moved while I was closing the door or something. For looking a bit older, she really could move fast. I swam closer towards her and took a seat in one of the chairs in front of her desk.

"So you're MerLissa's boss, huh?" The woman nodded. "I'm Robert," I reached out my arm and we shook hands.

"Well hello Robert. You can call me Mrs. Silver. So you say MerLissa is missing? Has it been confirmed or is this just a hunch?" She turned around quickly to grab a tiny cup before fixing herself some tea. She offered me some with a hand gesture, but I politely declined.

"She hasn't returned from her last job yet and it honestly doesn't seem like it would take her that long just to pick up some humans. You get my drift?"

Mrs. Silver slowly nodded. "I guess I can understand that more than anyone. I''ve been running this place for thirteen years. MerLissa always manages to pick everyone up at least eight hours later. It's already been way longer than that. I just fear that if I go to the chief executive director, he won't let me send out a search party. The area that she went to is quite dangerous. I probably shouldn't have sent her there at all." She continued sipping on her tea."

"If I may, could you please show me the route plan that she was supposed to take? I may not look the type, but I travel a lot in between the MerCities searching for...stuff."

"A collector, huh?" she asked.

I gulped and nodded along with her, pretending that she was right and I was a collector of nonliving objects. In truth, I had to travel to other MerCities to collect Darkness, which is created when there is a murder. I was supposed to collect all of the Darkness and bring it to my home.

Mrs. Silver stood from her chair and swam over to a large wooden chest. She took out a big rolled up sheet of paper and spread it out on her desk in front of us. I leaned over to have a closer look.

As soon as they touched my hands, I inspected them thoroughly. I looked at every bit of the map upside down and then flipped it around to see it right side up. One landmark struck me familiar in particular. It was a cave that was pretty close to a purple dotted line.

"Is this the route she's supposed to be following?" I asked and pointed to the purple line.

"Yes that's it."

It looked like the cave had a fork about fifteen miles in. It was even marked. Everything else though, was a mystery. My eyes widened. It couldn't be. This was the entrance to Darkville. Her route wasn't even supposed to go inside of it, but maybe she strayed off of the road and got captured!

I closed my eyes and inhaled deeply. Now I knew it wasn't any mistake that she hadn't come home yet. If she didn't usually take this long and now suddenly, she hadn't been home in about fifteen hours, there was something up, especially with that cave being so nearby. I had to rescue her immediately before they brainwashed her. I wasn't going to let my sister suffer by my father's hands.

"Do you mind if I take these papers with me?" I already knew that route by heart, but Otto and Nemo didn't, and if we got separated, I wanted to make sure that they could find their way home to get help.

"Yes of course. Just please make sure not to tell anyone. You can tell the two gentlemen outside, but make them swear that they won't tell anyone else. I don't want to get fired for sending an unofficial search party."

"Yes ma'am."

I immediately coiled up the map again and began making my way out.

"Thank you for everything Mrs. Silver."