Waterworks (H2O Just Add Water) 🌊

6. Ida's Secret (An Original Chapter)

"Yes, Zoey. Just too many memories of Ida came back to me," she replied.

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Later, as we finished for the day, I took a picture of the locket with my phone and sent a group photo to Cleo, Emma, and Rikki telling them about it.

After some fiddling with the locket, I got it open after recalling how Emma did when she held on to it before giving it to Cleo. Inside was a small bronze key and a black and white photo of four teenage girls with mermaid tails. I'd wait until we got back to the Gold Coast to further find out some answers.

I wondered what the key unlocked. Since it was kept inside the locket, it must've been of huge importance. Grandma and Ebony had emptied the whole closet. I recalled noticing a glossy wooden box with hints of mother of pearl and a mermaid design on it. So I found the box among the items to be donated and carried it back into the bedroom and set it on the bed and slid the key into the lock and turned it in suspense.

There was a click that indicated that it was unlocked. I lifted the lid carefully and looked inside the box. There were some more drawings but nothing like the portraits. One of them was a drawing of the moon pool. Plus, there was a small jar of beach sand, like the sand on Mako Island, and orange glimmering pebbles that looked like fish scales.

What had Great Aunt Ida been hiding? I wondered to myself, getting a gut feeling she knew that mermaids existed.

"You'll right Zo?" Dad asked as he entered the room, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Yep," I nodded trying to act normal.

"Crickey! You got Ida's secret box open! Eb and I've been trying to figure it out for years."

"She kept a key hidden."

"I believe it. Aunt Ida used to leave all these strange riddles for us to try and solve whenever we visited her."

"What were these riddles like?"

"Hard complex questions that even a rocket scientist couldn't solve. Guess it was to keep Eb and me from poking around in her things."

Dad let me keep the mermaid box since I had found the key. Thankfully, he didn't get a look inside. I had a hunch that there were some answers about the events of Mako Island.

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After picking up dinner from one of the nearest restaurants, Rikki called me in complaint. I learned that Elliot had developed a huge crush on her after saving him from a riptide while surfing. It worried me that he might've seen her tail, but he didn't see anything. The only advice I could give Rikki was to try and be nice to Elliot and be a friend to him since he was a few years younger than us.

Plus, Cleo and Emma called me about the locket. I sent them a pic of Ida's mermaid box, which surprised them, and wondered if Ida knew something about Mako Island and if she knew about mermaids being real. We decided to wait until I got back to try and find out soon.

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The next day, I went out for a walk, deciding to check out Sydney Harbour. Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, and Ebony let me go as they were caught up in trying to contact a real estate company to sell Ida's apartment since she was no longer alive and it was pointless to hold on to it. 

I had my small digital camera Ebony gave me as a gift. I wound up taking a ton of pics with it to show to the girls, wishing they were with me. I took several pics of the Opera House, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and a couple of Aboriginal street performers and a didgeridoo player.