The Great Barrier

Chapter

: Deep Dive

After getting away from General Richards, Owen and Ophelia looked for a place to rent scuba diving outfits. The only way to test Ophelia’s paintbrush was to see it in action. The Great Barrier Reef was quite shallow in some sections, and so they were confident in their ability to test the brush on some bleached coral. Besides, Ophelia reassured Owen that she was an excellent swimmer. After about half an hour on a small motorboat, the coral was only a couple of meters below the surface. Perfect , Owen thought. With the paintbrush in hand and eyes set on a goal, Owen and Ophelia fell backwards into the water and dove deep down. The sky and ocean were completely clear, and the ocean was a beautiful bright blue colour. The golden sun rays shone into the illuminated world below the waterline. Only an arm’s reach away from the bleached coral, Ophelia brandished the thin paintbrush and swept the soft bristles against the coarse reef. Owen watched with a hopeful expression. This soon turned into amazement; with each stroke of the brush, colour returned to the reef! It was working! After about two minutes, Ophelia had managed to bring colour back to the whole branch. Owen was left speechless; a solution to the problem he cared so much for had been found! He was exuberant, over the moon! He did an underwater somersault out of excitement! And another! And anoth-… What was that? While upside down, Owen noticed something behind him. He touched Ophelia on the arm and, together, they turned around slowly, fearful for what might fall in front of their eyes. Ophelia almost screamed at the sight - she’d never seen a person more beautiful, but then again, this wasn’t a person. She wasn’t sure whether she wanted to scream with fear or excitement, Ophelia had spent hours poring over fantasy books with dragons and fairies, and to see a real-life mermaid. She might have passed out over a hundred feet underwater, but she felt her hand brush against the mermaid’s silky tail. Thick, crimson hair swirled around her and her tail was the most vibrant violet she had ever seen. Her eyes were wide and she looked terrified, but for some reason she wasn’t swimming away. Ophelia followed her eyeline and saw her looking at the paintbrush she was holding. She carefully held the brush out in front of her and watched as the mermaid reached into her hair and brought back another gold paintbrush, identical to theirs. Her face softened and she held out her hand. Ophelia looked back to Owen and saw he wasn’t moving and shoved him. She signed for him to move and they both grabbed the hands of the mermaid. Ophelia felt bubbly with joy. After some travel through the ocean, Ophelia was half convinced she was hallucinating. She was looking at a civilisation of mermaids and other sea creatures alike, small goblin-like creatures with wings and stubby fingers chittered and swam in circles and merpeople travelled to and from the towering buildings. Ophelia let go of the mermaid’s hand and swam towards a crop of sea flowers and laughed as one of the goblins peaked his head out. She silently named him Gill-bert and laughed to herself. She realised she wasn’t meant to be exploring as the mermaid and Owen swam over to her and grabbed onto her again. The mermaid turned to them and gurgled something incoherent and Ophelia looked to Owen to see if he could grasp what was happening. The mermaid shook her head and dragged them with her to one of the houses.