The sides of the whirlpool began collapsing. It was going to fold in on itself, like a hole dug in wet beach sand. With Finn at the bottom. He needed a way out. Now!
He rose up onto the board, first to knees, then—tentatively—to standing. He spread his feet, his left out in front, his right perpendicular to him and behind. He leaned left. The board’s nose caught the spinning vortex and jerked hard. Finn danced to keep his balance. With the board aimed against the clockwise spinning motion, it screwed up higher, lifting off the churning floor of the whirlpool and rising with the board half inside the current, half outside. The water dropped out from under him, dumping him back to the bottom, and Finn started again, slowly getting the hang of how much board to allow in the wall. He began to rise from the depths.
“Leave or be removed!” Triton bellowed at Ursula.
“What’s a matter? Can’t a girl have some fun? Besides, it was you who called me, don’t forget.”
“The summons was unintentional and ill-advised. You are not needed, as it turns out.”
“Maybe I should determine that?” she said.
“Be gone or I will be rid of you.”
“Oh…I’m just shaking all over!” With that, she threw her hips around, disturbing the pool and disrupting the integrity of the whirlpool. Finn tumbled to the bottom, spun like a top, and then managed to scramble back aboard. He rose to his knees and started surfing again.
“I’m feeling a little…dry,” Ursula said. “How ’bout you, Tri-Tones? Could you use a refresher?” She chortled evilly. “Be my guest!”
“Do not dare!”
“All for now,” she said. “And now for all!” She laughed again.
Finn saw through the wall of the whirlpool the strange squid creatures surrounding Ursula’s slowly sinking body, obscuring it. In a burst of bubbles, everything was gone and the water was clear again.
He caught the edge of the board just right and it grabbed and spun like a top, riding up in a spiral and popping to the surface, but the whirlpool collapsed beneath him. It would have drowned him. Killed him. Triton towered above him, but his back was to Finn as he faced the wall of the dam.
“Go! I will do what I can!” Triton held the trident out before him as the dam gurgled and the wall bulged. At the same time, the thousands of gallons of water already in the pool moved in an undertow toward the dam. Finn and the board crashed into Triton’s back. It made no sense: the water moved from the dam’s wave generator to the beach, not vice versa. But Finn was clearly caught in a reverse flood of epic proportions. He slid down a mountain of water toward the suddenly dry beach.
Triton’s effort was formidable. He held the staff before him, and miraculously a kind of hole in the water formed around him. It bent and churned, not touching him above the knees. Had Finn been able to hold himself next to the king, he too would have been protected. But having been carried away he was now lying on the damp concrete of what a moment earlier had been pool bottom. He scrambled and stood, but was mesmerized by the height of the wave crest about to crush him. His legs wouldn’t move. Finally, the wave peaked.
Triton held his ground; the wave formed around him like he was standing inside a jar. He glanced back at Finn and shook his head. He was noticeably paler. Weaker.
“I must go,” he said.
Finn nodded.
The wave formed majestically—beautifully. A work of nature’s art. Blue and mighty and perfect. A mouth opening wider and wider. Finn turned to run.
Amanda stood at what would have been the edge of the beach. She had been following him. She had been protecting him.
“Hurry!” she said. “Grab hold of my waist!”
Finn knew the power she contained in her arms. He’d watched as she levitated both creatures and people. He didn’t understand where such things came from—wouldn’t have believed them real if he hadn’t seen them with his own eyes. He knew there were skeptics. It wasn’t his mission to convert them. The Fairlies were real. Amanda and Jess were Fairlies. They couldn’t change themselves. Nor should they want to. He grabbed her around the waist and held tightly, knowing what she had in mind.
Triton was gone.
The wave rushed toward them.
Amanda threw out her arms. He felt her body go rigid, felt a kind of pulse flowing from her feet to his arms. He’d never held her like this before. Never this tightly. Never with so much determination and appreciation and confidence in her.
The wave formed, sucking water up into its crest that rolled out like a tuft of white hair. The floor of the pool was now only a few inches deep as every drop of water was summoned into the thirty-foot wave. It grew so high, so quickly, that it once again jumped the walls of the pool, contained now by the towering rock walls of the dam. Two tiny figures stood facing it, one with her arms stretched out.