Then we went down the stairs. As we walked down, the air grew damp and cool, and I heard a plink-plink of water dripping. I would swear we were walking into a cave.
“Ohh…,” I breathed. I was hoping for bedrooms down here. Instead, I got an indoor pool, in an artificial rock grotto. It was lit gently with pink and blue lights. A strong sense of magic filled the room. There was also a second kitchen with no oven but a big fireplace, so this must be where Sam had worked on spells.
“This explains everything,” I said. “Upstairs is normal, downstairs is all about the magic. I like it. I wish I could get another bedroom in here, but…”
“I think making it a two bedroom is fine,” Jake said. “I’m going to make a bet right now that we sell this to a gay male couple over sixty. If they had kids, they’ll be grown. This whole space can work as an office, so one guest room is fine.”
“Only two bedrooms with a house this big?” Jasper said. “Are you nuts?”
“Hmm, he might be right,” I said. “I follow Kiersten and Caleb on social media and their market is so different from ours. The northeastern wizards are so stodgy that openly gay couples usually move to California. And since this is an expensive house with extremely old neighbors, I doubt a younger couple would buy it. So no kids to worry about. I feel like having a really large, upscale master suite will be more of a selling point than three bedrooms.”
Graham clearly had no opinion on housing markets so he was crouching at the edge of the pool. “Looks deep…” He touched the water.
“The map must be here somewhere,” I said.
A figure flew out of the water, grabbed him by the collar, and pulled him under clouded blue-green waters that even had plants growing within. The pool needed some work.
“Graham!” I shrieked. “Byron! Was that Maya?”
“That’s right,” Byron said. “I was just about to warn you that she’s been very lonely.”
“Where the hell is Graham?” I ran to the edge of the water but they had both disappeared. “Tell me about Maya now!”
“She’s an undine Sam summoned a long time ago to enchant the waters and keep the pool clean and the fountain running,” Byron said. “She’s usually harmless, but…”
“But?”
Byron glowered into the still blue-green water. “Well. she has the ability to kidnap men and drag them to her magical lair. I just haven’t seen her do it in a long time. However, in Sam’s later years he was getting senile. He didn’t remember her and he stopped visiting her, so she grew very sad and the fountain stopped running and the pool got murky.”
“Maybe you should have mentioned that before we came down here!”
“You probably need to release her from her bond to this body of water. But you’ll have to be gentle with her. She’s sensitive.”
“How do I get Graham back?”
“Might have to use one of the Sullivans as bait to get her to come back out. But you’ll need ear plugs. Her song is what enchants you.”
“I don’t want to be drowned by an undine…,” Jasper said dubiously.
“She doesn’t want to drown you,” Byron said. “She would want to seduce you in the hopes that you would marry her so she can gain a soul.”
“I’ll take one for the team. Jasper, get the ear plugs out of the van,” Jake said, taking off his shirt.
“Wait, waaait. Are we sure this is a good idea? I don’t want to lose any of you to a water spirit.”
“We know where your heart lies,” Jake said. “Despite all the embarrassment. If we never come back, you’ll still have Jasper.”
“Fuck,” Jasper said. “I should have volunteered to go. If I’d known you were going to make me your ear plug fetch boy while you make yourself into a hero…”
Jake shrugged. “It’s a risk, but if I die, you definitely seem like the smart brother.”
The water rippled.
“Jake, you’re standing too close to the—“
The watery female spirit leapt out of the water and wrapped her arms around Jake’s knees, pulling him into the water with her. She looked at me and gave me a fanged hiss as she dragged him down. Despite the fangs, I couldn’t help but notice that she was a very beautiful spirit with rippling waves of hair, huge blue eyes and pale blue skin that seemed to melt into the water farther