The Twilight Swimmer (25 page)

Brandi turned to face Spider, melancholy in both their eyes. She pressed her hands against both his cheeks and drew him close, then gave him a soft kiss on the lips. When she released him, his eyes were once again closed as if he were dreaming and didn’t want it to end.

“You’ve never had one of those before. Not from me.”

“Felt like a kiss goodbye,” he said, opening his eyes.

“Goodbye,” she said.

Brandi scurried down the oak with reckless abandon and left him clinging to the chimney. He watched her sprint across the back yard to the waiting Swimmer, then lost sight of them both as they stepped deeper into woven shadows. Alone and suddenly chilled to the bone, Spider began to consider the complex problem of getting his lanky body down from the roof without waking the sheriff.

“I still have that balky ankle,” he muttered under his breath.

The Swimmer hadn’t said a word to her when she approached him at the dock. He merely backed into the water beside her kayak and waited, patiently but expectantly, for her to follow. She assumed that he didn’t mean for her to climb into the water, and so she had stepped into the kayak instead. He dropped below the surface, disappearing for a moment, and the kayak was already moving by the time she spotted his hand on the lip and his head emerging from the water.

Brandi had kicked off her heels to climb the roof with Spider, and was still barefoot as she tapped the curved floor of the kayak with her painted toes. Her prom dress was bunched up beneath her, providing a frilly cushion that was comfortable but disconcerting. She felt so out of place, dressed up but on the water. She felt foolish. She hoped that none of her neighbors were performing a feat of late night gardening, or searching for thick nightcrawlers to take fishing at dawn. Not only would they see her wearing her dress, they would notice that her kayak was cutting through the water very quickly despite the fact that her paddle was balanced uselessly in her lap. Even if a neighbor somehow managed not to recognize Brandi, the improbable sight might be just confusing enough, just
concerning
enough, to warrant a call to the police station, a call that would be forwarded to Sally, then forwarded to the sheriff.

             
No matter what, if anyone saw her, her father would hear about it.

             
To push the thought from her mind, she leaned forward to peer over the front peak of the kayak at the water below, where the Swimmer was once again towing her. He had latched onto the rim of the kayak just as he did the first time, but this time he kept his head above the water as he swam. It slowed him down considerably, but he still kept the vessel moving at such a rapid pace that Brandi feared he would strike a submerged tree stump, or an abnormal rock shelf if he wasn’t more careful. But she quickly chided herself for the foolish concern. He was as adept at navigating the murky water as any fish, and not once in her life had she worried about a fish bumping into anything.

Still, his head above the water was unnerving. She suspected he was stealing glances at her from the corner of one gray eye. More than glances, maybe. She couldn’t be certain in the low light, but he seemed able to stare at her despite the awkward angle. Nervously, she set aside her paddle and smoothed her dress across her thighs. One hand rose to her hair as if to make sure each strand was in place, but when she realized what she was doing she quickly lowered the hand and let her hair blow in the wind.

              By the time they reached the mouth of the channel, the wind was coming in directly from the ocean. It was stronger and colder, churning up short, chunky waves that bounced the kayak. The Swimmer did his best to smooth out the ride for Brandi, and his powerful shoulder strained with the effort as he guided the vessel past the lip of the shore and into deeper water.

“I don’t want to be rude, but where are we going?” Brandi leaned over the bow and waved at the Swimmer to get his attention, just in case he couldn’t hear her over the slapping waves. “I’d love to see Greenland someday, but not tonight.”

The Swimmer glanced back at her, locking his steely eyes on hers for a moment, then released the kayak and dropped below the surface, out of sight.

“Oh god, what are you doing, Brandi? What are you thinking?” muttered Brandi as she reached for her paddle. “What did you expect? That he’d respond to sarcasm? Probably doesn’t hear too many wry jokes
down there
.” She was suddenly aware of how cold it was, the season, the hour and the ocean air conspiring to send a chill deep into her bones. Why hadn’t she felt it until now, until the Swimmer disappeared?

She dipped her paddle into the water and started pulling hard to turn the kayak around, but she soon felt it spinning more quickly than she could possibly be causing it to spin. A moment later, the kayak was facing due north, pointed up the jigsaw coastline. The Swimmer’s broad hand latched onto the lip of the kayak again, and his long form came into view alongside. He kept his head below the water to better fight the current and kicked hard, hauling the boat up the awkward angle of minor swells and down into the temporary shelter of subtle troughs. The water smashed against the side of the kayak, which wasn’t built to take force anywhere but its nose. Brandi felt sure it would capsize at any moment, sending her and her dress to the bottom. But the Swimmer somehow managed to keep the vessel upright as they plowed along, parallel to the shore.

The moon drew silver highlights on the landscape, mapping out rock formations that started low but steadily rose to greater and greater heights. Before long, the kayak was in the nighttime shadow of an imposing cliff face, barren and inhospitable, free of vegetation and untouched by human hands or feet. The black rock was heavily pocked, full of crevices and gouges where, for centuries, the ocean had worn it away.

Brandi was so entranced by her view of the cliff that she did not notice, at first, that the kayak was no longer moving north. She leaned over the edge of the kayak to see if the Swimmer was still beside her, but couldn’t see him.

“Come in,” he said, and she followed the sound of his voice to the other side of the kayak. He was effortlessly treading water between her and the cliff, his bald head and shoulders rising and falling on the low swells. His gray eyes were almost luminescent in the darkness, and unblinking.

“You must know I can’t get in. The current is too strong and the water is too cold. I won’t last two minutes,” said Brandi, clutching her torso as a wave of shivers overtook her. “Oh, and I’m wearing a dress! It’s kind of expensive. Salt water would probably wreak havoc…” But she trailed off. Something about those penetrating gray eyes made it seem impossible to sway him with words. And, more important, it was impossible to refuse his invitation.

“I won’t hurt you,” he said, softly, as he extended a hand toward her and beckoned her forward.

“I know you won’t. But the cold—“

The Swimmer shook his head ‘no’. She didn’t have to worry about the cold.

She believed him.

She rose unsteadily to her bare feet, one hand on the lip of the kayak to keep her from tumbling over the edge. A silly precaution if she was really about to do what she was really about to do. Instinctively, she reached up with her other hand and plugged her nose, then pursed her lips tightly and pushed off of the kayak seat to vault over the edge.

The water was so cold, so unimaginably cold, she thought for a moment that her skin was on fire. And she didn’t feel the expected numbness. Instead, the icy fire seemed to work its way through her body, from the outside in, tracing every muscle, every tendon, every nerve and every blood vessel as if with the tip of a blade. It was excruciating, the cold. Her only comfort, somewhere in the back of her mind, hidden behind the curtain of pain, was the knowledge that her suffering could not last long. In seconds, she would be beyond hypothermic. She would be dead.

But then she felt his body pressed against hers. And at his touch, the flaming cold gave way to a more familiar cold. Still uncomfortable, but not painful. More like the numbing sensation she had expected. How curious, that his body could change the way she felt so immediately and so definitively. She had only a moment to dwell on this thought, however, before the numbness also faded and she felt warmth. Real warmth. All around her. It was emanating from the Swimmer. From his long, powerful legs swishing effortlessly beside her own, to keep them afloat. From his muscled arms, wrapped around her in a sturdy grip that didn’t crush her but gave her no room to wiggle free. And most of all, from his chest, pressed against the ruffles at the neck of her dress, behind which she could feel – actually
feel
– the furious beating of his heart.

“You are warm,” he said, directly into her ear.

“Yes,” she answered, as the chattering of her teeth slowed to a gentle tapping.

“Take my air,” he whispered.

Before she could respond, he opened his mouth and placed his lips over hers. She recoiled at the sudden kiss, until she realized it wasn’t a kiss at all. It was a seal, a vacuum tight seal around her mouth that prevented any water from entering. It also prevented any air from entering, but her nose was uncovered and she drew hurried breaths through flared nostrils, one frightened eye locked on his, mere centimeters away. In that eye, in that gray expanse, she sensed some sort of message. A warning perhaps. Something more was about to happen. Something
more
.

They plunged beneath the surface.

Brandi had a fraction of a second to realize what was happening and expel the last air from her nose. She was holding her breath now, an awkward feat with his mouth sealed over her lips. She hadn’t inhaled enough air before the plunge to hold her breath for long, and as they sank farther below the surface she began to panic. She struggled to free herself from his arms, twisting and turning as the water turned blacker on all sides. She kicked at his legs, tried to knee his thighs, anything to force him to release her. But he was far too strong and seemed hardly to feel her efforts at all.

She drew a breath. She had to.

And warm air rushed into her lungs as if she were still above the water. As if she were standing on a hilltop, in a field of flowers, on a bright summer day. It was air more clear, more pure, than any she had ever tasted. And it satisfied her need to breath so fully that her frantic heartbeats slowed and her body relaxed in his arms. She exhaled normally and drew a second breath, as full and satisfying as the first.

He was giving her his air.

Impossible as it sounded, impossible as it felt to Brandi, she could not deny the truth of her rising chest as she drew breath after breath in a normal rhythm. She had closed her eyes sometime during the descent, but she opened them again now and saw that he was still looking directly at her, intensely calm, focused on her anxiety level above all else. She understood, now, that she was safe. She nodded to communicate as much to the Swimmer. In answer, he gave her arm a gentle squeeze with one broad hand.

And then he dove backwards through the water, taking Brandi with him, until they were horizontal. She couldn’t tell which way was up or down, whether she was above him or beneath him. The water was black on all sides and the moonlight nothing more than a memory. They seemed to levitate in the water for an interminable moment, and then the Swimmer pressed his legs together and began flexing them at the hips and knees as one unit. It was impossible for Brandi to judge the speed at which they were sliding through the water.

Suddenly the water filled with pale blue light that brought the rocky wall into clear, ethereal view. Brandi was baffled by the sudden brightness. She scanned the water for its source, finally realizing that it was coming from the extended arm of the Swimmer, whose flattened palm was glowing.

Bioluminescence. Hauntingly beautiful.

She could see, now, that they were moving toward the cliff wall, closing in fast.

She felt certain the Swimmer was going to plow them directly into the rocks, but at the last moment he adjusted their course, diving deeper, and propelled them through an opening in the solid mass. It was a tunnel, wide at the base and arcing overhead like the inverted silhouette of a soup bowl. He gently rolled left and right to avoid obstructions as they traveled deeper and deeper.

When they finally broke the surface, the Swimmer kept his mouth sealed over Brandi’s. He slowly brought his lips together over her skin, until they were pressed gently against her own. Only then did he pull away and release her from his warm embrace.

They were inside a cave. Had they traveled up into the cliff, above sea level, or was this pocket of air somehow sealed off from the encroaching water? Brandi couldn’t be sure. The Swimmer took hold of her hand and gently swam her the last few feet across the still water until they reached a rock shelf, which he helped her ascend. Her dress was soaked through and heavy, clinging to her body as she climbed out of the water and onto the hard, limestone floor of the cave. The cave interior would have been pitch black so far from any natural light source, but the Swimmer’s hand continued to emit its ethereal blue glow. As he climbed out of the water to join her on the rock, the glow intensified, as if he had turned a dial to a higher setting.

“How do you do that? How do you make the light?” asked Brandi, hypnotized.

He stood beside her and turned his hand over to show her his glowing palm. It was etched with lines in no discernible pattern, much like her own hand. The familiar swirl of fingerprints extending from his finger tips to his sinewy wrist. But each shallow groove in the flesh was intensely drawn, so blue the lines were white, so white the lines were blue. She couldn’t quite decide which color they threw off so magically. It gave his hand the appearance of a jigsaw puzzle, illuminated from within like a paper lantern.