The Infernal Devices Reimagined

Secrets Underwater

Will arranged for himself to wake up early the next morning by drinking a strategic amount of water before bed the night before, but for some reason, Jem had not followed his lead. It was quarter past four in the morning, grey sunlight was only beginning to peak out of the horizon, and for some unfathomable reason, Jem was still asleep. Knowing that Jem would be furious if he left without him, Will trudged up to his room and shook Jem awake. To make things even more confusing, Jem was annoyed at Will for having woken him "before the bloody sun!"

"Do you not remember what I told you yesterday night, James?"

Jem put his head in his hands, "I think you're the one who doesn't remember, William. I distinctly recall telling you that we do not have to wake up at fishing hours to speak with Arabella."

"But she's a fish!"

"She's a Seelie, Will. Neither human nor fish."

"Well then, Jem, since you know everything apparently, how do you suggest we contact Arabella?"

"I don't know!" Jem threw up his hands, "Some other, saner way, ideally."

"Aha! You haven't a clue. Therefore, my idea is the best lead we've got, and we are going to the Thames."

"I regret agreeing to be your parabatai more every day."

"No, you don't," Will lightly slapped Jem's arm, "You love me more every day!"

Jem shook his head, faintly smiling, and got out of bed.

After arriving at the slimy bank of the Thames, Jem and Will were struck by the fact that they hadn't planned much further than that moment. It was difficult to see more than two centimeters into the river, being as it was a toxic sludge of factory, human, and agricultural waste. The pungent odor was unbearable, a noxious soup of rotted meat, phosphorus from matchstick factories, and filthy clothes. Will nearly gagged. He was certain that one of the masses floating past was a cadaver.

Jem actually tried to call on Arabella by shouting into the river but stopped when a young urchin girl and her young brother gave him strange looks. Neither one of them particularly wanted to dive into the water, so they resorted to throwing rocks into the Thames and hoping the ripples they left behind would alert the merpeople of their presence.

There was a resounding cry in the gloom of early morning. In the distance, the urchin girl haplessly kicked against the current that had her in its grasp, her screaming mouth filling with poisoned water. Jem was saying that they should get a rope to pull her out, but before he finished his sentence Will had already shed his hat and overcoat and dove into the river. Shaking his head, Jem went in after him.

It was the strangest thing. Though the girl appeared to be caught in the tide, her body hadn't once moved since Will dove into the Thames. In fact, she wasn't even drowning. Will didn't stop swimming toward her, because his eyes could be deceiving him, but there was something off. He could tell Jem though the same. When Will swam up to her, his parabatai right beside him, the girl reached out her arms to a length someone her age wouldn't be able to, gripped Jem and Will, and pulled them under the water.

As Will lung's filled with water, the girl took in a breath so vast her rib cage expanded, and blew a bubble around Will and Jem. All the water inside of Will's lungs cleared away, and he floated within a kind of oxygen chamber. He and Jem exchanged looks. It appeared that screaming into the Thames worked after all.

The girl who was not an urchin kicked her tail and dove deep in into the river. Will and Jem's bubble followed closely after her. They went past shoes and hats, flowers and vegetables and other miscellaneous junk discarded by mundanes, toward a spot at the bottom of the Thames that shone with a pale blue light. When they passed into that region, beyond what mundanes knew as the river's bed, the water suddenly cleared.