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Edgar under the armpit. She pulls him upwards and – as if the sea is momentarily on our side – a wave rises up beneath them to push him up even higher. She drags him onto the dock, then drops him like a stone.
    Anita and I dash into the boat before Edgar can regain his footing. ‘I know for a fact that you don’t own this boat, Ed. You lost your licence to sail when you tried to snare that narwhal. So find some other Finder to swindle.’ While Kirsty talks, she unravels the length of rope attaching the boat to the dock. With a firm shove from her boot she pushes the boat away and jumps in before it floats too far.
    ‘Get the oars!’ she yells. Anita and I scramble to grab them, and I shove one towards a slack-jawed Arjun. Kirsty takes the other one from Anita and roars out, ‘Stroke! Stroke!’ until she and Arjun fall into a fast rhythm.
    And still those lights look a long, long way out to sea.
    ‘We’re not going to make it,’ Anita mutters beside me.
    ‘What do you mean?’ I ask.
    ‘Listen! Can’t you hear it? The Rising is beginning.’

CHAPTER TWELVE
    Samantha
    A T FIRST I CAN’T HEAR ANYTHING BUT the rise and fall of the oars in the water, but then the first few notes reach me. It’s coming from where the other boats are huddled. There’s a loud snap, and the floodlight from the massive yacht blinks out.
    All the other boats turn their lights off too, and my eyes have trouble adjusting to the mid-light. The full moon seems obscenely large, without the halo of other lights diminishing its brightness.
    It’s then that the first shell rises. At first it looks like another wave cresting far out at sea, but then I realise it’s the scalloped edge of a mermaid’s clam shell, as wide as our rowing boat is long. All other sounds have quietened down and the sea is as still as glass. This makes it easier for Kirsty and Arjun to propel us through the water, but Anita and I are frozen at the bow of the rowboat, paralysed by the thought that we might have made it this close but yet still be too far.
    The moonlight glints off the pearlescent lip of the clam shell, disappearing into its numerous ridges and sparkling again on the swells. Another shell rises a few feet away, this one a more blushing pink than the first. They seem to multiply then, every shade of a dusky rainbow – from deep-bruise-purple to silvery-grey to almost-bronze. The numerous remedies that can be made from the delicate inner lining of the shells rise in my mind:
    Oyster Shell: for rosacea reduction – to soothe reddened skin. Also for bone strengthening – can help with early onset osteoporosis.
    Anita stares through wide-angled binoculars, chewing at her bottom lip.
    ‘Has Aphroditas risen yet?’ Kirsty asks over her shoulder, her voice straining with the effort of rowing.
    Anita shakes her head. ‘I don’t think so . . . wait . . .’
    I squint my eyes to try to get a better look, and then I squeal with excitement as I follow where Anita is looking. A shell is rising; white, a brilliant, pure white that is brighter than any of the others. And it’s larger than the others too: the moon itself lifting up out of the sea. Although the water stays calm, the boats spread out and away from this shell, offering the respect that it deserves.
    And then the shell starts to open.
    Her hand is ghostly white and it shimmers too, as if her skin is radiating the light from the full moon. Her fingers are too long, more like twigs than flesh, and fine, translucent webs join each one to its neighbour. In one swift movement she flings open the lid of her shell and she is revealed in all her glory. Her hair would make even the most beautiful supermodel in Nova green with envy – it moves with a life of its own, as if it’s still underwater, floating and undulating through unseen currents. The pink-white strands appear to glow in the moonlight, tumbling around her naked upper body and wrapping around her waist, where skin meets scale. Her beauty