Dangerous Depths (The Sea Monster Memoirs) by Karen Amanda Hooper Page A

couple.” Pango clapped his hands. “Let’s celebrate all these good tidings with baked goods. I’ve been whipping up all kinds of deliciousness.”
    Treygan stepped into the pool and sat beside Koraline. “The Violets tell us you’re healing better than they expected.”
    “I’m feeling so much better.” Koraline rubbed the scales around her hips. “Anything is an improvement from a coma, right?”
    She shouldered Treygan, and they both smiled. I wasn’t ready to joke about the disabling injuries I had caused her, so I offered to help Pango in the kitchen.
    “Need any help?” He was shoveling cookies from a pan onto a plate.
    “Thank you, but I have everything under control.”
    I lowered my voice so Koraline wouldn’t overhear me. “Is Koraline upset with me for what happened to her?”
    “Why would she be? You didn’t tell those heathen sharks to eat her tail.”
    I cringed at the memory of their gnashing teeth and all that blood in the water. “But she was attacked because of me.”
    “Sweet potato, stop it. All of us are alive and back home because of you. She came out of her coma because she returned to the strong energy of our world. Did you consider that?” He wiped his hands on his apron and hugged me. “We can split hairs all you’d like, but we’re all victorious because we are home, alive, and well.”
    “Do you honestly think Koraline will ever be able to swim again?”
    With his huge hands that smelled like cookies, Pango lifted my chin. “Yara, that’s like asking if the sun will ever shine again.”
    Half a smile broke through my tense lips.
    “Yes! That’s what I want to see. Smiles all around. Now, come on, we have cookies to consume!”
    Koraline and Treygan were talking quietly, but they stopped as soon as Pango and I entered the room. An awkward indication they had been talking about me.
    Koraline motioned to the empty seat beside her. “Yara, sit with me. We have lots to catch up on.”
    I sat down in the pool, almost letting my legs transform into my tail, but then I realized how inconsiderate that would be. “How deep is this thing?”
    “Deep. It has a couple of rooms down there.”
    I figured. Treygan’s house had the same kind of set-up. I just didn’t know what else to talk about.
    Koraline shifted so she was facing me. “When you died, what happened?”
    “Koraline!” Pango almost choked on his cookie. “Have manners somehow escaped you?”
    “It’s okay,” I said. “I don’t mind discussing it.”
    Koraline splashed water at Pango, but didn’t take her eyes off me. “Treygan said you met Medusa and Poseidon.”
    “I did. It was the most incredible thing I’ve ever experienced.”
    Her sea-green eyes were wide and sparkling. “And you talked to them?”
    “Yup.”
    “Holy mackerel. What was that like?”
    “Very intimidating.”
    “I can imagine!” She threw her head back. “You were shooting the breeze with our makers! A god and goddess. Do you realize how epic that is? You’re my hero, you know that? Seriously, I want to hear every detail from start to finish. I might even take notes.”
    “Later.” Pango held out the plate of cookies. “Right now it’s time for treats, and you need to reassure our worry wart here that you’re going to recover and that all is well in the land of Koraline.”
    Koraline grabbed two cookies, practically inhaling the first one. “I’m fine .” She waved her hand, sending crumbs dropping into the pool. Pango tsked her and tried scooping them out of the water while Koraline kept talking. “At least tell me what you said to convince them to send you back. I mean, you were dead!”
    “I told Medusa I was her only shot at filling her place in the gorgon trinity. That I couldn’t die. I demanded she send me back.”
    “And she just agreed?”
    “At first she said no, but my uncle and—” I didn’t want to get into a long explanation about how Liora was a ghost that still communicated with Uncle Lloyd.