Invisible World (5 page)

B
Y SHIFTING MY WEIGHT FORWARD AND BACK SEVERAL TIMES
, I was able to rock the barrel back onto its side. After that I could lie down and let the waves push me along on their rolling surf. When seaweed drifted by, I grabbed it, devouring the slippery green leaves as though they were a great treat.

Despite the rounded hardness of my bed, I easily fell asleep in the evenings as the sun set, lulled as peacefully as a baby in a rocking cradle.

On the first night, I dreamt of Bronwyn flying through a sky of deep blue dotted by purple clouds. I climbed onto the outside of my barrel and called to her, waving my arms. She swooped down and sat beside me.

I was overjoyed and hugged her, squeezing hard.

“There's my brave girl,” Bronwyn soothed, stroking my hair. “How thankful I am that I taught you to swim.”

“Have you seen Kate? Father?” I asked.

“Not yet. You're the first I've found. Are you frightened, pet?”

“Terribly frightened,” I admitted.

“Hmmm, you must be,” Bronwyn said, rubbing my back. “Here's a song that my mother taught me when I was little. It's got a bright tune. It's called ‘The Water Is Wide.'”

“That's surely true,” I said, sweeping my arms out over the expanse of ocean. “It's wide as wide can be.”

“Exactly.” Bronwyn tossed back her snowy hair and lifted her face to the moon as she sang in the low, lovely, melodic voice I'd heard so often.

Bronwyn sang it again, and this time I joined her, both of us singing loudly. For the time, it was as though nothing at all was wrong. It was just Bronwyn and me sailing the open sea on a barrel, off on a great adventure.

“Did you ever have a true love, Bronwyn?” I asked.

Her face grew soft with memory. “Indeed I did. It was a long time ago, but I can see him still.”

“What happened?”

“We married.”

“You were married, Bronwyn? Why have you never told us?”

“He was conscripted to go fight the Spanish under the rule of Oliver Cromwell. He was killed. I never wanted another. He was the greatest love of my life. When I think of him, I try to be happy for the time we spent together.”

“I wonder if I'll ever have a great love?”

“Ah, you will, Bethy. I have no doubt. You have a great heart, and it will draw great love to it.”

I wasn't as sure, but I hoped she was right.

We sat quietly side by side as the barrel was pushed by the waves. After a while, an awful idea struck cold chills down my spine. “Bronwyn, are you … alive and traveling … or are you … are you …”

“Dead?” Bronwyn supplied the word I couldn't bring myself to utter. “To tell you the truth, pet, I'm not quite sure myself. I was traveling when the storm hit, which was why you couldn't wake me at first. Then when I returned to my body and fell from the netting, I struck my head hard on the side of a rowboat. In the next instant I was traveling again.”

“Could you see your own body below?” I asked.

“No. I wonder if it fell into the water or if someone pulled me into the boat. If I find my way back to my body, I don't know if I will be dead or alive.”

“Are you frightened?” I asked.

“Not yet,” Bronwyn answered serenely. “I have been busy so far looking for you, Kate, and your father. I will find my body. The astral self has the ability to do so, much like certain birds can always find their way home.”

“And what if you're not alive?” I dared to ask.

“I don't know yet, pet. I haven't figured it out. Perhaps I'm not dead or alive.” A faraway expression came to her face, which struck me as very beautiful there, illuminated by the moon. “Maybe I'm a ghost, or perhaps I'm only a dream.”

“A dream?!” I cried, alarmed. “No, not a dream!”

My eyes snapped open and I was once more inside my barrel. A huge full moon threw a line of silver along the ocean and shone directly on me. The distant lines of surf dazzled with their rolling light.

Sitting up, I searched the sky for my beloved governess. “Bronwyn,” I murmured aloud. I had felt comfort from her presence.

A dream? Or perhaps it had been real. I couldn't tell.

I
N THE NEXT DAYS I SANG “THE WATER IS WIDE” OVER AND OVER
just to keep my mind occupied, and it did brighten my mood a bit and distract me from my hunger and thirst. I napped a great deal and kept a look out for more seaweed, though none came. I tried to keep track of day and night and how long I floated, but my hunger, exhaustion, and thirst made my mind hazy and I lost count.

One night, I dreamt of Van Leeuwenhoek. He and I were gazing through a microscope down at a dish of his animalcules. I realized that I could hear them chattering. Leaning down close, I could make out sentences: “Don't say that. God is always listening. God will hear.”

I awoke, distressed by such an odd dream. Had the animalcules mistaken me for God? Was I the one they worried was listening?

Watching the moonlit sea a while longer, I fell back to sleep and dreamt again.

This time I dreamt that I rolled over in my barrel and opened my eyes. Bronwyn was staring in at me. She reached her hand out and I took it. Instantly, I was up in the sky with her, flying across the full moon. It was a rousing romp over waves and ocean.

“Are you a witch, Bronwyn?” I asked her.

“I mean no evil, so I am not a witch,” she replied. “Power is not witchcraft.”

 

The next day, when I opened my eyes, I felt refreshed and happy from the dream. As I came fully awake, I realized that there was a new sound outside the barrel. It was no longer the monotonous roll and crash of distant waves. This was the splash of pounding surf.

Sitting up, I peered out and took in the wondrous sight of a glistening sand beach. Behind it was a forest of ferns and tropical-looking foliage. The water here sparkled with bluer hues than out in the dark ocean.

Sliding from the barrel, I tried to swim hand over hand but discovered that I was too weak. Instead, I lay on my back, stroking as best I could and letting the current carry me forward.

Near the shore, the surf crashed, throwing white spray into the air and rolling me off my back. As I came to my feet, I let the breakers push and knock me under without caring; I was so filled with elation at seeing solid ground.

When I finally emerged from the pounding surf and staggered forward, my legs buckled beneath me, dropping me to my knees.

I knelt in the shallows of the surf between ocean and land. A warm breeze wafted around me as I absorbed the reality of my new situation.

I was alive and I was on land!

But I was alone and scared. What would happen to me?

Where was Kate? Father? Were they even alive?

Had I really seen Bronwyn? Had she been just a dream?

And then the odd, floaty, mental limbo I was in broke. Everything became vivid. I was in a world of bright color and sound: Waves crashed, birds squawked, the leaves whispered in the ocean breeze. I was famished, weak, exhausted. My muscles ached, my throat was sore, my lips were cracked.

Unbridled tears flooded from my eyes. All the fears I couldn't afford to think about those days in my lonely, wet barrel overpowered me now. Loud, racked shouts of despair emanated from deep within me.

I knelt there in the surf of this strange land, engulfed in my own vast sorrow.

 

I don't remember crawling up onto the beach, or even falling asleep, but I must have done so, because I awoke encrusted in sand, with my back against a boulder.

The gentle lavender-gray of pre-dawn revealed a calm ocean pulsing against a sublime beach dotted with large pieces of gnarled, sundried wood. Despite the earliness of the hour, the heat was already tangible, as though it was a blanket wrapping itself around my body.

In this paradise I felt myself to be a sand-coated barnacle, a seabird with broken bones tossed on the shore, a crab with a cracked shell. It was as if sand had found its way into my very joints. My physical complaints were too numerous to count — jagged fingernails, blistered lips, splinters, and cuts, to name only a few.

The most awful hurt by far was the roar in my belly. The twist and churn of my stomach was like no pain I'd ever endured. Its agony reached into my brain, filling me with a furious rage at one moment and deathlike despair at the next. Yet I didn't have the strength required to get up and search for food. I didn't even have the stamina to sit up from my prone position.

Though the weather was hot, my teeth chattered. And that's when — through the blur of my rising tears — I saw the miracle.

A mere arm's reach from me was a green basket woven from some sort of reed. The shinier, more vivid green showing on top seemed to be a lining made from some sort of big leaf. Reaching as quickly as my aching arms could manage, I pulled the woven basket toward me. Inside was a hand-carved wooden bowl filled to the top with brown rice.

Was this a dream? If it was, I didn't care.

With trembling hands, I shoveled the sticky grains into my mouth, barely chewing or tasting, only consuming. In a few more minutes, the nutty goodness spread through my body, wrapping me in bliss. Never had any other food given me such complete pleasure.

But who had left this bowl of rice?

Of course I hoped that the rice meant that there were people nearby who could help me. Why had they not shown themselves?

The only thing to do was to set out in search of these people. To keep cool, I walked at the edges of the water — splashing through, the ocean breeze whipping my nightgown, tossing my hair. My muscles still ached, but the rice and the beauty of my surroundings had gone far to revive my body and spirit.

My travels took me along marshland bordered by tall grass. Birds called back and forth to one another, and insects buzzed and chirped in a nonstop cacophony. I jumped back, startled, when a pair of whitish-blue wings with the same expanse as my own outspread arms rose up from out of the grass.

An angel? It was a fantastical thought, but it was the first thing that came to my mind.

The next moment revealed the creature to be a most beautiful bird with a long graceful neck and elongated legs. I'd seen it in a book once — a blue heron. The bird landed in the marsh waters, dipping its neck to fish for its supper. Rising again, with a smallish fish in its beak, it once more spread its majestic wings and flew away.

It wasn't all perfection, though. I began swatting high-whining mosquitoes as I walked. I also cut my heel, just a little, on a sharp stick.

The marsh seemed to end at the foot of a shadowy wooded area. Immense, wide-spreading oaks with thick branches emanating from a single thick trunk grew close together. Each oak was draped in fat strands of Spanish moss that fell straight down from its branches. The giant trees were so tightly packed that I had the impression that I would be entering an interior rather than an outdoor space if I were to step under the canopy of their leaves.

I considered exploring this area, but feared going in where there might be unfamiliar wildlife and where hazards would be less easily seen. After I knew my way around a little better, I would venture into the tangled forest.

Heading back the same way I had come, I followed the marshland and then the shoreline back to the spot at which I'd begun. I could recognize the place easily because I'd left the woven basket atop the boulder beside which I'd slept.

By the time I got back to the boulder, the sun was well past its highest point — I guessed it to be between three and four o'clock. I was once again famished … and very thirsty.

And I also had the strongest sensation that someone was watching me.

Mus tek cyear a de root fa heal de tree.

The voice was inside my head and I heard it clearly.

Father had taught us Spanish, French, and some Latin. I recognized a few English words in the sentence but I had no idea what it meant.

“Hello?” I called, aiming my voice toward the boulder where I most strongly sensed the presence. “Are you there? Can you help me?”

No one answered, and a nervous fear slowly crept through me. What if this person wasn't friendly? It might not be the same individual who had left the rice earlier.

Udat tittuh? Ibidio?

I heard the voice again in my head. This time I could tell it was a male voice. From the inflection, I realized he was asking a question. Was he wondering who I was and why I was there?

I waved my arm widely. “Hello! Can you help me?”

Njoso?

What sort of language was this? Where exactly was I? Could I have blown so far off course that I was in China, or Egypt, or Africa? I hadn't been at sea more than three days. Was it possible?

Anxious but eager to discover who this could be, I began walking toward the boulder. Almost at once there was a rustling in a bush behind it. “Don't go!” I shouted. “Please don't go! I won't hurt you!”

A branch snapped farther off. The person was leaving. I broke into a run, desperate to catch whoever it was. Beyond the boulder was thick foliage that I tore through, leaping over tangled vines and fallen trees. I stopped, though, when I came to more of the moss-strewn trees. Again, I was not willing to enter that realm of dim, dappled half-light.

My mind was on this strange encounter as I returned to my boulder. As soon as I got there, I checked the basket to see if my visitor had left me anything new. There was more rice, and this time it was dotted with some kind of vegetable I'd never seen before — a green oblong cone about as long as my fingers. It was warm, as was the rice.

Somewhere nearby, someone was cooking.

Beside the bowl was a metal container loosely covered with another piece of metal. When I opened it, I cried out with pleasure.

Three pieces of hot coal glowed at the bottom of the can.

Forgetting my food for the moment, I raced out onto the beach with my container of coals. Setting it down with the utmost care, I pulled together a pile of the bleached-white branches that were all over the beach and carried them back to the boulder. There I built them into a tower and tipped the burning coals on top. I smiled broadly as it burst into flame.

After a hot supper, I searched the beach for every piece of wood I could find so that my wonderful conflagration wouldn't die down. Luckily, deadwood was plentiful on the beach.

That night, I lay beside my fire, listening to the thundering waves. A crescent was missing from the side of the waning full moon, but it still threw silver ribbons on the restless sea.

Something black flew across the moon and I guessed it was a bat. It made me think of Bronwyn. Was she still flying around out there or had she found her way back to her body? I thought she must be back in her body — otherwise why didn't she come to find me as she had on those other nights out at sea? And then I recalled that she might not have really come at all. Those late-night visits might have been — probably were — a dream. Still, I hoped they'd been real.

Sitting back on my elbows, I gazed up at the expanse of stars twinkling against the velvety deep blue night. What was out there? The mysteries of the world seemed so vast and unknowable.

A brilliant light twinkled across the night. A shooting star! I made a wish —
Let Father, Kate, and Bronwyn be safe!

The steadily pounding surf lulled me and I curled up on the sand, my knees pulled to my chest, my hands tucked under my head for a pillow.

I wondered what would happen to me. It was no good for me to just stay here on the beach.

Tomorrow I would not let the mysterious trees frighten me, I decided. When the sun came up, I would enter the forest and try to discover who else was living here.