The Irish Sea Caves | H2O

Chapter VI: Trustworthy

I could hear Will calling my name from the trees, he was waiting for me to "use the lady's room". All I could do was ignore him unless I wanted him to know my secret. He continued calling my name as I hid behind the rocks and the rapids, praying he wouldn't find me. He sounded worried but I couldn't do anything to get out of this.

"I'm coming back, okay?"

I watch him creep closer from behind the rocks, what have I done? I should never of come out here with him. I should've just stayed home, I should've never talked to Rikki and Cleo and kept to myself, look what it's gotten me.

With so many regrets, the only thing that made me feel the tiniest bit better was seeing how much Will cared about me. We'd only just met and he was frantically searching for me with a worried tone in his voice.

"Bella, where are you?"

I duck below the rock as Will comes closer, hoping he won't see me. I hear a sound on the rock behind me and take my eyes off Will for a second. It was Rikki, scaling the rocks, with a stern look.

"What are you doing here?" I whisper, angry that she followed me.
"I don't know, saving your tail."
"Bella?" Will shouts again.
I creep closer to Rikki, "You don't trust me, do you?"

She says nothing but raises her hand over my tail and begins steam drying it. I forgot she had the handy power to heat and evaporate water. I warn her to be careful as steam starts to rise all around us.

Once I'm dry, Rikki insists on staying with me incase another incident happens. I don't really want her to stay, I was enjoying my time with Will alone and Rikki didn't like me much but she was right, I was clumsy and her power was really useful.

We find Will on the bank of the stream. "Hey," I smile innocently, as if nothing happened.
"What are you doing here?" he stares at Rikki.
"I asked her to come," I continue smiling.
"Why?"
"Hey!" she says, "Any excuse to come and hang out in a bug infested jungle."

Will gives her a questioning look but forgets about it, one of things I like about him. He's so forgiving. And he was kind and gentle and ambitious and he enjoyed diving, one of the only things I'm good at.

He turns to me, "Where did you go to before?"
I hesitate, "I got a bit wet, so I went to dry off."
"So why didn't you answer when I called?"
"Oh, were you calling me? I was like way back in the jungle."

He raises his eyebrows and looks like he's about to say something more but thankfully doesn't. I didn't want to have to lie to him anymore.

"So that's that solved then, so what's next?" Rikki asked when we both go silent.
"I'm still looking for that cave entrance," he says,
"Which is this way," Rikki points.
"Bella said it was on the other side of the island. And-and that's this way, right?"
"Absolutely," I smile.
"No, I don't think so," Rikki looks at me harshly.

Great, now we have to think of another lie. I must of started leading him towards the cave, exactly where I was supposed to be putting him off. Now I'm going to look like I don't know where I'm going and Will won't trust my navigating.

"You said you could remember where it was, you coming?"

He ignores Rikki's evil looks and continues the way I'd pointed him, the way to the moon pool. Will's heavy, wet backpack was still on the ground, Rikki already hated me so I might as well get her back a little bit.

"Could you take the backpack, Rikki?" I ask, politely and chase after Will.

We continue through the thick jungle, neither of us knowing where we're going. We talk about the basic subjects; where are you from and all that. It turns out Will and I have a lot in common. He's lived on a yacht his whole life and hasn't had the chance to stay anywhere long enough to make friends, maybe it'll be different this time.

After a while, we come closer to the volcano cone on a set of boulders. Rikki keeps on pointing out weird paths and things we should follow but Will's not listening, we must be getting closer to the moon pool.

"What exactly are we looking for?" Will asks.
"Um- some kind of opening in the ground, it was pretty dark when we found it, I-"

I was walking along the boulder when suddenly I fell down a hole. I tumble down the long tunnel until I'm in a small cave. The floor is covered in sand and I can't see much. Great, I must of found it.

"Down here," I call, probably not my best move, I need to keep Will away from here.
"Are you okay?" he calls.
"Yeah."
"What's it like down there?"
"It's too dark to tell," I say, maybe he'll think it's the wrong cave. "It's big though."
"She must of found it," I hear Will tell Rikki.
"Great," she sarcastically replies. "Don't worry Bella, we'll get you out."
"Forget that I'm going in," he says.

Oh no. Cleo and Lewis are down here, what if Cleo has a tail, what do I do? What do I do? For the second time today, I, regretting everything. I stand up to go find Cleo but I'm knocked back down by Will sliding down the tunnel. I thank him for helping me up and he thanks me for finding the cave.

"Look out below!" Rikki calls, Will and I step out of the way. "Thank you, for not breaking my fall," she says, standing up and wiping sand off her bum.
"Okay, pool outta be behind there," Will walks towards the moon pool.
"Yep, that's right."

Maybe it won't be so bad if he find the pool, we'll find out exactly what he knows about the place. Besides, we all made enough noise to let Cleo know she needs to get out of there and Will doesn't even know Lewis.

"Is this amazing or what?"

Surely enough, Cleo and Lewis are still here. Luckily, Cleo isn't a mermaid. The two of them are just standing awkwardly as if they'd be participating in suspicious activities. Cleo turns and smiles with her hands behind her back.

"Hey guys!"

Lewis waves and Will begins to explore, finding nothing out of the ordinary. Lewis starts going off about how Cleo had found the cave and he wanted to check it out but it was completely boring, I'd noticed Lewis was good at talking too much. Will and Lewis begin bonding over a hammer, while we discuss the waterfall that appears to have formed overnight.

"So is this what it looked like?" Rikki called.
"I don't know, it's not what was in my mind."
"What is in your mind exactly?" I ask.
"Well, I only saw it for a moment," he says and begins going on about how the walls were alive and there was energy coming from the wall, which is probably half-crazy but I didn't have a clue with this place.

"You know what I think, I think you hit your head and had a cray dream."
"Rikki, I should-" I start.
"You're delirious, you don't know what you saw!"
"You think I imagined it?"
"Show me one thing in here that would make me think otherwise."
"Rikki," I defended.
"So show me," she shouted.
"That's enough!" I yell.
"I-I don't know, I need some fresh air."

She was really protective of the secret, she didn't care who she hurt to hide it. But I wanted to stand up for Will, he didn't deserve this much hell, he was telling the truth. Just because he saw some crazy stuff, that's not going to make him figure out mermaids exists.

"Are you happy now?" I was sick of fighting with Rikki, she was so stubborn.
"Look, it had to be done."
"Using him like that felt awful," I admit.
"Guys! Behind you!" Lewis shouts.

We all turn to discover a small tentacle from within the waterfall reaching out, I step back just before it splashes all over us. It was just like the one from my shower drain on the night of the full moon.

"I'm guessing that's not normal."