The Water Queens (Keeper of the Water) (12 page)

“You should take my warning serious,” she says.

I can see how concerned Harriet is about the warning. She’s mentioned in the past how God talks to her in her sleep. It seems a crazy thing for her to claim but she’s always used this communication with the Almighty to do good for other people. I’ve never voiced my opinion to her but I assume these Godly messages might be the result of a serious head injury she suffered in her youth. For all I know, this warning she received had something to do with the fact that her head was once sawed open by a doctor while still awake. I don’t put much stock in her warning or premonition or whatever it is but I know spirituality is important to her.

“Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll be able to deal with any betrayal together,” I say.

Harriet frowns. “Everythin’ seem so simple when you young. Hope I feel that way when I become your age again. But this betrayal gonna come when we at our lowest time, when all seem most lost. We gonna be tested in a way we never thought possible.”

Harriet seems certain of this trouble but has no more answers to offer. Sure there was
some
strife between my dead Mentor and the royal women of the tribe but I never considered the possibility of Amazons turning on one another. I wait for Harriet to continue the warning but she has no further specifics; she holds out her hand.

“Hurry up and gimme that water,” she says, snatching the vial from me. “Don’t know if all these stories you been tellin’ are real but I’m ‘bout to find out.”

Her shaky hands suddenly steady as she takes off the vial’s lid and downs the water in a single gulp…

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“I should’ve paid more attention to you when you warned me about the betrayal,” I tell Harriet.

This comment eases some of the tension in her shoulders. The squint in her eye softens and she lowers her weapon, though just a bit.

“The foolishness of youth,” Harriet says. “Same thing happened to
me
after I warned
you
‘bout it.”

“But it’s
my
fault Cassie turned against us,” I say. “That she’s caused so much havoc… so much death…”

I can’t help glancing back at Jane’s hanging body, the sight of which drags a rusty nail along the fresh wound in my heart. I hear the tiniest of gasps escape Harriet’s lips. I look over to see her staring at Jane as well; it’s the first time I’ve ever heard any sign of weakness from her.

“It’s not your fault Isabella of Castille is – and always
has been
– completely insane,” John says.

Harriet looks at John, the first time she does so without wearing an expression of utter contempt. She ponders what he says and nods once before turning back to me.

“That man is right,” she says.

“But it was
my
duty to stop her remembering the past, to stop her rejoining the queens,” I say, lamenting on my failures.

“Ain’t no time for feelin’ bad for yourself,” Harriet says. “You ain’t the only one this happened to and at least you seen your betrayal comin’.”

“
My
betrayal? Are you saying yours was different?” I ask.

“You see anybody else standin’ here with me?” she asks.

With Jane and Marilyn both dead, Harriet
is
the only Amazon left near camp. I was so happy to see her alive and well that I didn’t think about where the others could’ve possibly gone. The best possibility is that the other Amazons ran off and are hiding safely in the nearby jungle; the worst is that more dead bodies litter the ground nearby. But one Amazon in particular suddenly comes to mind; I can’t believe I haven’t thought of her sooner. Somehow, I realize she hasn’t fallen into either category of the two possibilities for the Amazons. Only one option remains for the betrayal she mentions, though it seems inconceivable.

“No,” I say. “It can’t be.”

But Harriet nods. Next to me, I hear a sharp intake of breath from Amelia, who’s also figured out what this means. I don’t realize I’m shaking my head in disbelief until I see the same reaction from the pilot. John looks at us with confusion; it’s little moments like these that annoy me about him, that remind me how he’s not one of us – that he’ll
never
be one of us.

“Tell me everything that happened,” I say. “Everything I missed, from the beginning.”

“Once you and Isabella was taken from camp after turnin’ young,
Catherine
and the queens stuck to themselves while Jane was left in charge. They spent more time away from camp but with Cassie gone, didn’t seem so willin’ to fight when they
did
come back for water,” Harriet says, similar so far to Amelia’s account of my absence. “But ya’ll two wasn’t gone more than a few month when Jane started havin’ premonitions ‘bout bad things that’ll happen in the real world. I turned to the Lord for guidance and He allowed me to see that Jane was right to be worried.”

I expected Harriet’s messages from God to go away once the water’s healing effects turned her young but her spirituality and closeness with the Lord only seemed to strengthen over the years.

“Amelia and me wanted to protect you and Cassie but then Catherine demanded the queens should be allowed to go, too. Early on, Jane always worried ‘bout the water, worried it would be in real danger without a proper Keeper nearby to move it in case danger approached. One of the few orders she ever gave was for all Amazons to remain near the water at all times. Amelia and me took it upon ourselves to go to the explorer we saved, who still lived downriver. The father was old and near death but was excited to finally help. We gave him water to turn young and sent him off to look after you.”

“And you just blamed
me
for involving a man in Amazonian affairs?” I ask.

I’ll be forever grateful that Harriet sent Percy Fawcett – the man I’d come to know as my father – into my life but it still seems a strange decision considering the way she glares at John.

“Trust me, giving water to a
man
was the toughest decision of my life,” Harriet says. She still seems to regret it even though her choice worked out so well, at least in my personal life.

“I had to convince her,” Amelia intercedes. “With the water missing a true Keeper and therefore vulnerable, I told Harriet it was best to make sure no men were close enough to cause trouble.”

“Over the years, an unspoken truce settled between us and the queens,” Harriet continues. “They avoided us and we avoided them but we figured they was plannin’ somethin’. Catherine never approached Jane or me or your Recruits but we often saw the queens trying to talk in secret with some of the
other
Amazons. When they talked to Marilyn and asked her to join them – asked her to respect Isabella as the
true
Keeper, their words, not mine – my Recruit came back and told me everything. I wanted to stomp them out once and for all, or at least Catherine since she was their ring leader with Isabella gone. But Jane had total faith in your plan and didn’t think Cassie would ever remember who she really was.

“That wasn’t good enough for us. Amelia and me waited till the queens headed back into the forest after one particular water break and then we rushed off without Jane’s permission. We refused to let our Mentor face possible danger without trying to help. Amelia’s plane-
borrowing
skills came in handy for fast travelin’ and I’m the best tracker the tribe ever had.”

“The best?” I ask with a smile.

Harriet raises an eyebrow and cocks her head to the side. Though I consider myself the best shooter in the tribe, my first life was spent tracking across the heart of America. I’m still an expert tracker to this day but I have to admit when someone has superior skills to me. I was originally drawn to Harriet as an Amazonian candidate due to her exploits on America’s Underground Railroad. We were
both
highly skilled though her tracking was of a different sort.

“By the time we located you at one of your schools, it was just after the attack of them soldiers at your sports match. Cleopatra was smart and got ya’ll away from that part of the country. We wanted to search for your attackers but they was gone, too. It took a few months searchin’ the country for you before we found the name of Cleopatra’s business in the Pocono Mountains. That was the first time I seen America since you gave me the water and we left Alabama a hundred years earlier. Lotta things sure did change, they did.

“When we found you livin’ your new life in Pennsylvania, Cleoptra seemed to have everythin’ under control. Me and Amelia was already gone a longer time than we planned and I was startin’ to get bad feelings ‘bout the sisters we left behind. Amelia stayed to watch you and went to Cleopatra to tell her she was nearby while I headed back to South America.”

For the first time since Harriet started talking, I have a question about another part of the story. I turn to Amelia.

“How come I don’t remember seeing you with Celeste?” I ask, though that name seems to confuse Harriet. I remember everything about my Keeper but it’s still hard for me to think of her as history’s most famous queen and not Cassie’s mother. “That’s what we called Cleopatra.”

Harriet nods in understanding before Amelia answers.

“I only spoke to her once,” the pilot says. “A part of her was glad someone else was out there; the attack during your field hockey game worried her. But she also warned me to keep plenty of distance from you and Cassie. She didn’t want the sight of me to jog your memory from the past. She told me to stay away unless she gave the signal that she needed help.”

“The firework,” I say. “But if that’s the case, why did
she
stay so close to me and Cassie? Why did she allow my father… err, Percy to stay so close even though I knew
them
from the past? Was there a chance we wouldn’t have remembered being Amazons if they dropped us off at an orphanage when we were babies instead of raising us?”

Amelia shrugs. “We’ll never know. I was your Recruit; you knew me better than anyone else in the world. She may have thought that bond was too strong to simply forget.”

“But she was my Keeper; she chose
me
to replace her,” I counter. “I remember the importance of the bond between Mentor and Recruit but I spent
years
training with her.”

“As did Cassie,” Amelia says. “But Cleopatra as Keeper was much different as Cleopatra the woman. She looked different, acted different, spoke different. You only saw her a few minutes after she turned young; Cassie never saw her like that at all. And though you saved Percy’s life, you really only saw him a few times over the course of decades so nobody thought you’d recognize him, either.”

“Ya’ll done reminiscin’?” Harriet asks bluntly.

Under different circumstances – maybe even just minutes earlier – her bluntness would’ve made me smile; it’s one of my favorite characteristics about her. But hearing about the crumbling of the Amazons – as well as my life – doesn’t exactly give me much to smile about. I nod as Harriet continues her tale.

“My return trip to the jungle took several weeks; altogether I was gone near half a year,” she says. “When I got back, it was total chaos here. I no sooner stepped foot in camp when Catherine charged me; thought I was finally gonna get my chance to fight that bi… that queen. The rest of her group held her back but they started accusin’ me of sneakin’ off, complainin’ that those sorta decisions should be made as a tribe since we didn’t have no real Keeper. Obviously the queens sided with Catherine but some of the other women agreed that I shouldn’t have gone without askin’ first. I took total responsibility for my actions but just as I got the others to calm down, Catherine started yellin’ again.

“But this time, she wasn’t yellin’ at me no more; she started yellin’ at Jane, poor sweet Jane who ain’t never made one person mad in her whole life. Catherine accused her of tryin’ to steal the Keeper job from Cassie though Jane didn’t do nothin’ but hand out water sometimes and try to keep the peace. Of course we all loved Jane so much that them accusin’ her made
us
madder and that didn’t help calm nobody down. The Queen Clan demanded to know where to find Isabella – their
one and only true
Keeper – but I refused to tell them and Jane agreed with me keepin’ quiet since no good coulda come of that.

“Except no good came anyway. Catherine the
Great
and the others didn’t even pretend like they was part of the group no more. She vowed to find Cassie and make sure she’d remember who she really was. I laughed in her face, reminded her that only me and my mentor was talented enough trackers to find her. Lookin’ back now I s’pose it was foolish of me to think so highly of myself and lowly of her. Catherine said she might not be able to find Cassie but she
could
go and wait by the former water source where Cassie was made a Amazon, since that’s where she was most likely to end up if she remembered the past.

“Jane begged them not to go, tried to make peace, even promised to find some sort of compromise to bring the tribe back together as one. But the queens said Jane only sided with Sacajawea’s recruits since she was your Mentor and all. Jane tried tellin’ them that as temporary Keeper she was doin’ what was best for the whole group
and
the water. But Catherine did all the talkin’ for her queens, said they had to do what was best for they part of the group, and that was by gettin’ back the leader who wasn’t ‘fraid to use the water for they benefit ‘stead of sittin’ around and hidin’.

“Lines were drawn and too many years a bad blood finally boiled over. Catherine and the others took some water though we tried to stop them. Then, they was gone. I wanted to go after them but wasn’t much of us left to protect the water. Cocky part of me thought Catherine was crazy, that they’d go off and get lost and come runnin’ back to camp with tails between they legs. But they plans for usin’ the water all evil sent chills through me and the few women left. Jane was worried the queens was tryin’ to split us up so they could circle ‘round and attack us from behind. If only that was the case…

“We thought worst case would be Catherine and the others stumblin’ upon ya’ll out in the real world. We was all sure that you and Cleopatra would hold off them prissy queens.”

I slowly shake my head, feeling worse than ever about my failure.

“They took us by surprise,” I say, a lame excuse. “We were too busy focusing on
other
problems – problems with men – and didn’t realize we had bigger enemies lurking out there. Cassie tricked us all; we never knew how much of the past she remembered until it was too late.”

Harriet frowns and nods; she doesn’t hide her disappointment, for which I’m actually grateful. The last thing I want now is for someone to
pretend
like they forgive my colossal screw-ups.