Watcher's Web (13 page)

In contrast,
the human woman was her own height. Jessica let her fingers glide
over the carved folds of her dress and stopped at the woman’s
chest. It was flat, like her own. Her heart skipped a beat

There was
another woman, but she stood behind a child. A third woman also had
that masculine, triangular body shape, and so did a fourth. She
moved along the frieze, studying every woman. Broad shoulders, tall
figures. Narrow faces with high cheekbones, strong lips and
pronounced chins.

To her left,
another frieze depicted a city of low, graceful buildings
surrounded by airy verandas and topped with steeply thatched
roofs.

People in the
streets gathered in knots, pointing at the sky. Faces showed mouths
open in expressions of horror. In the sky hung a bright star whose
rays outshone those of the two more muted suns.

In an open
space lined by large buildings stood the same craft amongst more
people. A man hung a pendant on a chain around the neck of a woman.
A young man clutched an older man, his face contorted with grief. A
few people stood inside the craft, looking out the door. Others
around the edge of the carving were being held back by armed
guards.

Tears pricked
in Jessica’s eyes as she understood the horrific history told in
these two pictures. That bright star was a celestial object, a
meteorite or rogue planet, that was going to hit the home of these
people. They had fled the disaster and come here, a long, long time
ago. They had carved this room to preserve their story for the
future and because she resembled these tall people more than the
Pengali, Ikay thought—

She
shivered.

These images
were so life-like. To her left, a line of workers laboured to carry
supplies on board the space craft. Broad-shouldered men wearing no
shirts. Shadows pooled in v-shapes across the centre of their
backs, formed by the pull of muscles which ran from both shoulder
blades diagonally to his spine. Jessica’s mouth went dry.

So often had
she stood in front of the mirror and flexed those muscles, watching
them alternately push up the skin and relax. She had hated them as
much as she hated her white skin which never tanned or burned, and
her flat, boyish chest. None of her friends had funny muscles
across their backs like that.

And these
people . . .

In the middle
of the frieze was a flat panel with carved text, curved loops and
characters that looked like a small letter n or u. She knew those
shapes. They still burned in her mind like pink fire: the
characters on her arm.

God.

Could it
be?

She
staggered back. Thousands of questions shot through her mind. What?
Who? Where? Why? But most importantly:
who am I?
Threads of glowing mist leaked from her skin unbidden, and
spread around the chamber.

*     *     *

Someone
clutched her in a blanket and carried her. The person’s panting
breaths sounded loud in the stifled silence of a stone staircase.
Sandals slapped on stone steps. Down, down, down.

A door
creaked, footsteps shuffled. The door shut with a soft thud. The
person who held her heaved something aside with the grating of
stone on stone. A deep reverberating thud. Jessica wrestled in the
constriction of the blanket. She was very young and didn’t
understand what was going on around her, only that something bad
had happened. A small light flickered into life above her. Wan and
eerie, it lit the face of a woman she felt she should know. The
woman’s straight nose and long eyelashes threw ghostly shadows over
her face. Her skin was pale; she had high cheekbones and hollow
cheeks. Deep black eyes stared down at Jessica, unblinking. A
single tear tracked across dust-stained skin. Jessica reached for
the woman’s hair. The woman bent over and planted a soft kiss on
Jessica’s forehead, enveloping her in a scent so familiar, so much
like home.

A deep rumble
shook the ground. The woman stumbled; the light flickered. Her eyes
widened. She tightened the blanket around Jessica with one hand,
while lifting her chain and pendant over her head with the other.
The earth rumbled again.

Cold
metal touched Jessica’s skin when the woman put the chain around
her neck. Her lips moved.
“Am taali isverian.”

*     *     *

Jessica
whispered those words, “Am taali isverian. I am equal.” Her fingers
traced the characters carved in stone.

*     *     *

The woman bent
further down and lowered Jessica into a basin. Water ran over her
belly, her chest, rose up to her chin and then covered her face.
The blanket floated around her like some slimy sea creature.

I can’t
breathe.

Jessica
struggled. The world had gone hazy green.

I can’t
breathe.

Fluid filled
her mouth with an acrid taste. Green and black mingled before her
eyes. She kicked and kicked, but the firm grip of the hands that
held her did not fail. Blackness closed in.

*     *     *

In the cave,
Jessica fell to her knees.

Chapter
11

“A
NMI
,
ANMI
.”
Ikay’s whisper sounded like a roar in the
silence in the chamber.

Jessica stared
at the frieze, the carvings lit in sharp relief by Ikay’s light.
She didn’t know when she had started crying, but her cheeks were
wet with tears.

With trembling
hands, she ran her fingertips over the shapes of the woman taking
the bowl from the Pengali man. Her ancestors? Her mother?

“Am taali
isverian; I am equal.”

Her hand
caressed the skin on her own upper left arm where the characters of
the tattoo had faded—the same script as on these walls. A clue to
her past she he had carried with her all her life.

She had
questions—thousands of them. How old was this frieze? Who were
these people? Where had they come from? Were any of them still
here? If they were not, could she find them? How had she ended up
an abandoned baby in a derelict building in a small town in
Australia? Did that—could it possibly—mean her real parents were
still alive? That woman who had carried her down the stairs was her
mother? What was with the water, and why would a mother drown a
child?

“Anmi.” The
light hovered just above Ikay’s head, highlighting her hollow eyes,
the pupils wide. Grooves on her face showed black like deep
canyons. Her light looked faded, strangely weak. She pulled
Jessica’s arm with her tail.

But Jessica
couldn’t leave. Not now, not while there was still so much to see.
A whole room full of carvings to study. If only she had a camera,
or a paper and a pencil even.

She gestured
to Ikay. “No, I’m not coming. I’ve got to know. Who are these
people? Where can I find them? What does all this say?”

The echo in
the chamber repeated the “s” sounds in her speech.

“Look, this is
you—Pengali.” She pointed at the man with the bowl. “This is me.”
She pointed at the tall woman. “What is she? Where did she come
from? Where are her people?”

Ikay’s mouth
fell open, but it was not a look of surprise or misunderstanding.
Her huge eyes went empty like holes. The light, now hovering a mere
handwidth over her forehead, faded to eerie green.

Jessica
grabbed Ikay’s rough-skinned arm. “Ikay. What’s wrong?”

Ikay’s skin
felt cold. For a second or so, a pulling sensation tugged at the
warmth in Jessica’s hand, as if Ikay’s body was trying to draw
reserves.

“Ikay, say
something.”

Ikay’s eyes
glazed over. She swayed on her feet and staggered. Her skinny arm
slipped from Jessica’s grip and her body crumpled to the floor. The
light faltered and failed. Pitch darkness.

Oh,
shit.

Jessica fell
to her knees and groped around in the dark.

“Ikay! Ikay!”
The echoes of her voice laughed at her. The stony smell of the room
became suffocating. Visions spun through her mind. Her breathing
sounded ragged just like the woman’s breathing in that vision of
her young self. Any moment now, she would hear a thudding door and
the earth would shake, and this cave would fill up with water.

Don’t be
bloody ridiculous. We’re way above the water.

She crawled
over the stone floor, feeling her way. Her hand found Ikay’s arm,
relaxed and limp.

Jessica forced
herself to calm down. “Panicked people are dead people,” was her
father’s mantra. He had explained it so well, sitting in front of
her class in primary school, talking about emergency evacuation
procedures, in case of a flood or fire or some such. Her father
knew everything so well, but reality was so different. How would he
like to be in a cave on an alien world in the pitch dark?

Come on,
Jess, you’re bigger than this. If those people escaped the blowing
up of their planet, then you can get out of this bloody
cave.

She heaved
herself to her feet, pulling up Ikay with her. Just as well Pengali
were so small.

She shuffled
sideways, waving her hand in front of her until it touched stone.
Then she followed the wall to where it opened into the archway. One
hand on the rock, one arm supporting Ikay, she inched down the
slope.

Ikay moaned
and stirred. “Anmi.” She grabbed Jessica’s hands, clasped them and
held them to her chest.

“Yes, I’m
here, I’ve got you.” Here in the passage, her whisper sounded quite
normal, even a bit muffled. “Come on, let’s go.”

Ikay held both
her hands in a tight grip.

Jessica tugged
gently. “Let go, don’t be afraid, I’m trying to get us out of
here.”

Ikay moved her
hands up Jessica’s arms until their forearms touched in a firm
grip, like trapeze artists. What on earth was she—

The skin on
her arms warmed. Then she knew what Ikay wanted: to borrow some of
her internal energy to make a light.

Jessica
hesitated.
I have no
control over it. When I let go, people get hurt.

A prick of
heat stung her skin, an impatient prodding.

Ikay pulled
herself closer, her breath warm against Jessica’s chest. A minty
smell rose from her hair, homely, trusting. The soft tip of Ikay’s
tail stroked her cheek, and pushed her eyes shut.

Oh, all
right, if you insist. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Jessica
breathed out, trembling from head to foot. In her mind, she
imagined herself, her being, her essence, flowing out through her
breath. At first, the mist fought her will, dispersing in all
directions like it usually did. Then it wove into a web, and it
came to her that maybe this was necessary to get it to work
properly. This ability was not some sort of weird trick—it was a
form of communication. She concentrated on her arms. The skin
flushed with a burst of heat. Ikay gasped and tensed. Jessica
opened her eyes. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt—”

Soft light lit
Ikay’s face from below.

Both their
arms glowed with a blue aura.

“Holy shit.”
She lost concentration.

Again, total
darkness enveloped them.

“Wait,”
Jessica whispered, flushed with excitement and purpose. “I’ll do it
again.”

That, however,
was not necessary. A moment later, the passage once more lit up
with the steady glow of Ikay’s light.

Ikay
said a single word,
“Ikim.”

Jessica was
sure it meant “thanks.”

Ikay’s eyes
met hers and her wrinkled face creased into a smile. Just like a
teacher would smile at a bright pupil.

Arms clasped
around each other, they continued down to the water.

*     *     *

When Jessica
and Ikay stumbled out of the cave, the waiting Amazons greeted them
with anxious shouts. The boat already lay in the water. High above
them, the patch of sky visible between the rock walls had turned
orange; bushes up there glowed with early sunlight.

Jessica helped
Ikay into the boat. Dora in the bow pushed off, back through the
narrow entrance and into the marshlands.

A bluish haze
hung over the marsh, merging water and sky at the horizon. Sunlight
was no more than a pink tinge on the tops of the trees poking
through the mist, their branches drooping and perfectly still.

No one
said much. With relentless monotony, Dora moved the stick—up, down,
up, down.
Splash,
splash, splash.
Alla
leaned over the side, knife poised over the water, tail held high
and twitching for balance. Every now and then, she plunged her hand
in and tossed a wriggling animal into the basket behind her.
Jessica couldn’t see what she caught, and couldn’t get up to look,
because Ikay had fallen asleep, using her knee as a
cushion.

Jessica
stroked the old female’s shoulder in mechanical movements, without
really seeing anything.

Instead, she
was six years old again and saw her father’s face as he had sat her
down on the couch, and began his confession with the words, “I
would have liked to have told you when you were a bit
older . . .”

He showed the
folder with newspaper clippings, of an abandoned baby girl and
pleas for her parents to come forward. Pictures of a baby with
piercing black eyes. There was a bandage on her right shin. A burn,
doctors said, from which she still bore the scar. He showed her
advertisements in magazines, and posters hung at supermarkets,
police stations and hospitals.

He told her no
one ever came, so he and her mother had applied to adopt her.

Then, she had
told her father she didn’t care and at the time that was true. She
remembered his bear-hug and how he had said he would always love
her. But the unknown gnawed at her. She wanted to know where she
came from—wasn’t that natural?