Water (25 page)

The pod seemed to accept Talita’s idea as the proper way of doing things, dissipating into clumps of muttered opinion as they discussed the evening’s events.

I gaped at her. “Close your mouth, my dear,” she muttered as she took my elbow and led me away.

I obeyed, whispering to her, “Talita, I know what my strategy is. Peace, it always has and always will be peace.”

Talita smiled, bobbing at a group of Oceanids as we passed them before leading me into her aven.

It was only slightly bigger than Merrick’s and Sabrina’s but it included a couple of chairs, one of which Talita sank into as soon as we were in the room.

“That was close,” she whispered to Merrick who was standing near the doorway.

He nodded once, his posture angrily defensive.

“What are you talking about?” I asked.

Talita hushed me and invited me to sit.

“The war-oriented Oceanids came very close to claiming you as a resource,” she whispered, all of the authority she’d been wearing slipping away into worry. “I’ve managed to buy you a day but most importantly a night so that the pod can calm down a bit and Undine can show them the horror of war in their dreams tonight. Tomorrow night, you will have to do a better job of convincing them that peace is the best option. You cannot show any hesitance in your belief that your plan will work,” she instructed me.

Merrick cleared his throat and Talita laughed before standing quickly and loudly pronouncing her pleasure at the work I’d done with the sick Oceanids.

“I will help you tomorrow,” she whispered as she ushered me out of her cave.

Merrick hurried me as politely as he could to his aven, insisting I go straight to bed while he stood at the entrance, greeting the various Oceanids that passed him on their way to their avens.

I lay in his hammock, my eyes wide as I stared at the ceiling, replaying the day’s events over and over again in my head, trying to see where I could have done things better.

I must have fallen asleep eventually because I woke in the dark, desperately thirsty. I lay there listening to the quiet. There was no sound except for Merrick’s soft deep breathing. I tried to push the thirst away, but the more I ignored it, the more pressing it became.

I turned over in my hammock and focused on the dark, willing it to lighten a little. The effort made me tired though and even more thirsty. I leaned over and touched a little mushroom, using its pale blue light to see if there was any water in the room.

Merrick was settled near the doorway, his back propped against the wall, and his head resting on a roll of cloth.

There was no water anywhere.

The smell and sound of the waterfall running down the side of the cliff intensified and made my throat sandy with thirst.

I sat up, the hammock swinging crazily as I slipped out of it quietly as I didn’t want to wake him. It must have taken him ages to fall asleep in that position and he looked so tired, even in sleep.

As quietly as possible I stood and carefully picked my way to the doorway. Inching slowly past him I crept from his aven, and ran lightly past the tree, not wanting to wake anyone else.

The cave was very quiet as I slipped into the bathroom and cupped some of the waterfall’s icy water in my hand. Thirst sated and feeling sleepy again, I edged my way around the semi-circle of rock that encapsulated the central meeting space, carefully approaching each aven’s doorway and creeping across as silently as possible.

I’d almost made it safely back to Merrick’s aven, when my muscles froze at my name being hissed from between someone’s teeth.

“Alexandra?”

I froze, terrified, the voice taking on sinister shapes, creeping at once menacingly close and then drifting away in confusion.

“No,” continued another voice, “she is too valuable to remove from the equation now, better to use her.”

Silence echoed loudly around me as I strained to hear the rest of the conversation, horrified by the sinister implications., and trying to peer into the aven to see who it was that was talking about me. I thought I recognised the cadence in the first voice’s speech, but full recognition kept skipping just out of my reach.

“I disagree,” said the first voice.

“So what are you suggesting?” asked the other voice quietly.

“Get rid of her now. She has already realised some of her power, what do you think she will do when she realises the rest? There are too many willing to follow her to risk allowing her to remain.”

“Do you honestly think she is able to lead them? I mean did you hear how weak her conviction was tonight?” asked the second mockingly.

“I did hear it, but unlike you I was watching how the others responded to her, and they did. I don’t know if she is able to lead them, but I don’t want to find out,” the first voice replied.

“I suppose you have a point.”

“So you plan to get rid of her? How are you going to get that right?” the other voice whispered. “Merrick is too close to her, he never lets her out of his sight.”

I was frozen, unable to move forwards, pressed against the cave wall between the two avens, sure that at any moment one of them would walk out and find me there.

“We’ll have to take him by surprise, act quickly,” came the thoughtful answer.

“So when do we make the move?” asked the second voice.

“Tomorrow. You are the last person I needed to speak to, with you on board we can put our plan into action,” replied the first.

“And Talita?” the second asked again.

A low sinister chuckle was the answer.

Taking a deep breath and gathering my courage, I dashed across the cave entrance, throwing myself across the space as I sprinted across the last two entrances before slipping into Merrick’s cave. I stumbled my way through the darkness to the hammock, careful not to touch the cave wall in case I awakened the little mushrooms and lit up our cave like a beacon.

A whisper of stirred air and a faint shadow as someone crossed our cave entrance were the only signs that I’d raised any suspicion.

I lay in the hammock for what felt like an age, waiting to ensure they weren’t going to find me before shaking Merrick awake in panic.

He was instantly alert, listening carefully as I outlined what I’d heard.

“We need to leave now!” he whispered, as he quickly gathered a few meagre possessions. He waited at the doorway to his aven, his back to me as my unco-operative fingers struggled to wind the deep purple robe Sabrina had set aside for me around my body.

“Talita wants to meet you for breakfast away from the other Oceanids and you’ll be safe there for now, while I come back and sort everything out here,” he whispered over his shoulder as I dressed.

Finally finished I walked forwards and wrapping my arms around his waist and I rested my cheek on his back, hating the idea of being away from him even for only a moment.

He twisted back into his aven, pressing me against the wall and shielding me with his body as he listened to the soft pad of footsteps as people went by just outside the doorway.

I stayed there cocooned in the heat of his body until he was sure we were alone.

He bent to kiss me briefly but passionately, before we slipped into the shadows at the side of his aven.

The cave was still dark, the fires in the little pots around the perimeter of the communal area had reduced to glowing embers, their soft wood fire fragrance dissipating the menace of the whispered words.

We hurried across the clearing to the edge of the cliff.

“Where are we going?” I whispered as he pulled a T bar attached to a rope by a pulley towards us, clamping my hands onto the handle, before covering them with his and taking a running leap into space.

“A valley not too far from here,” he whispered into my ear as we flew through the pitch dark. The whirring of the zip line mechanism echoed in the oppressive stillness, my ears popping as we descended very rapidly.

The movement slowed slightly and he leapt with me onto a ledge before taking my hand and pulling me against his warm body and springing lightly into frigid water.

My breath whooshed out of my lungs as the cold stung my nose giving me an instant headache.

He led me through the waterway which had a myriad of twists and turns in it. We spiralled violently, the colours blurring around us as he outlined his plan to confront the angry Oceanids.

My stomach flipped uneasily at the idea of him facing them alone. When I voiced my opinion though, he merely kissed me and told me not to worry, that he knew them better than most others did and he was convinced he could get them to see the sense in my plan for peace.

“When you take your place as our leader, and announce your intention for peace, they will have had time to get used to it and will accept it more easily.”

He led me into a pale pink passageway still swimming very quickly, his arms wrapped around me as we moved.

“Are you sure they won’t just get angry with you?”

“Have I led you wrong once so far?” he asked, self-assurance lightening his tone.

“No,” I admitted, “you’ve been wonderful. It’s just that I can’t imagine how I would cope if something happened to you.”

He slowed, pausing in the pale shimmering water so that he could look into my eyes.

“I promise you that it will be fine,” he said, kissing me firmly. “You are my first priority and I want to help you with this.”

“But they’re so angry about this, Merrick, if you get in their way…” I argued, wanting more than anything for him to stay with me.

He shook his head and smiled at me. “I’m not going to get in their way,” he promised me, “I’m just going to help them see how your plan is the best one for them.”

He smiled at me gently, swirling my hair away from my face. “Don’t worry about me. I will be there tonight to escort you to your rightful place as our leader, OK?”

I nodded, allowing him to soothe the panic that kept trying to overtake me.

The water had warmed as we swam and when we eventually emerged the air was warmer too.

The sparkling honey-coloured stalactites that grew in ancient slow motion from the roof, in a profusion of reed-like spikes, in the cave we surfaced in, were spectacular. Light filtered warmly from the entrance to this cave.

I turned to him, not wanting to leave him.

He laughed at my expression, hugging me and then tilting my face up to his so that he could kiss me, his mouth softly insistent, all hesitance and vulnerability gone as his tongue explored mine.

He pulled away slightly, steadying me on my feet as I gazed at him dreamily, brushing a wayward strand of my hair away from my face and kissing me once more very softly.

“I’ll see you later,” he whispered, smiling.

I sighed and nodded, watching as he dove back into the pool, leaving it rippling softly, before turning towards the sunlight that glinted through the curtain of slowly growing rock.

Walking through the opening I was momentarily blinded by the brilliant light that seemed to refract off every surface. Once my eyes had adjusted, I wondered briefly if I was perhaps dead and had, through no belief of my own, found my way into heaven.

I walked forward holding my breath, afraid that it would all disappear like a wisp of vapour the next time I blinked.

I was at the highest point of entry into a sunken valley. The rock directly above me curled in on itself and curved away from me in a smooth arc that eventually joined on the opposite sides of the valley. Jade green, pale blue and white pink stalactites dripped from the roof of the overhang above my head creating a slowly moving rock curtain which almost obscured the entrance to the pool I’d just come from.

I moved slowly between the amazing formations, and as I did so glimpses of the rest of the valley tantalized me. Infant waterfalls trickled down three sides of the valley, finally splashing quietly into pools of turquoise water enswathed in lush vegetation.

Another step to the left revealed a section of the valley floor bejewelled with wild flowers stretching hungrily for the sun. I wandered through the natural paradise shaped by rock, water and plants, each step revealing another layer of beauty.

Talita stepped out from behind an enormous boulder. She was dressed in a flowing white fabric that hugged her perfect body and floated as she moved.

“Alexandra.” She walked over to me and tucked a strand of my still wet hair behind my ear.

“Hi,” I said, smiling at her a little warily, not easily forgetting how she’d so casually dropped Luke and Josh into the water in her attempt to get me to swim on my own.

“I owe you a proper apology for using Luke and Josh to motivate you to swim as I did,” she murmured, leading the way along a narrow pathway as she spoke. “We were running out of time and I needed to provide you with enough motive to really try, but it was callous and must have been terribly distressing for you, so I do apologise.” She turned to me, her sincerity making it difficult to stay mad with her.

I nodded once which she took as acceptance and continued to walk through the long grass towards the other side of the valley.

I followed her, noticing the beauty of the valley as we moved through it, images of a grove of leafy trees carpeted beneath with violets, the scent of honeysuckle wafting on the warm breeze, and the bright yellow splash of weaver birds flitting among the trees, were a strange, contrasting backdrop to the worry that bubbled just beneath the surface.

We came to a turquoise blue pool, surrounded with pale green lichen-covered rocks and speckled with emerald moss. Talita sat on one of the rocks and indicated for me to sit opposite her.

She watched me, a slight smile playing across her face.

“We both have busy days ahead of us, so I’ll get right to the point,” she began. “Merrick told us of your amazing gifting last night in the hospital but also with Nereus.” She smiled at me. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you about it in person and I’d like to know what you think of the talents you’ve developed?”

“Well, it’s pretty cool. I just get really tired after using them, except when I’m with the right grouping, like in the hospital last night? Then it’s awesome because every time I use a talent I actually feel stronger, more energised.”

She nodded. “Yes, it is pretty cool.” She imitated my inelegant speech. “As long as you’re with Oceanids like Merrick and the others who help you.”

“What do you mean?” I asked blankly.

“Well, you trust Merrick?”

“Emphatically,” I said, immediately defensive.

“Good,” she replied, taking the wind out of my argument. “You should, he’s a wonderful young man and a really good match for you.”

“But?” I asked, knowing there was more to what she had to say.

She smiled at me a little sadly. “But, not all Oceanids are as trustworthy as he is,” she replied solemnly. “The argument you were at the epicentre of last night is just a taste of how heated things can become with these people. They are fiercely intelligent and very proud of who they are and where they come from. I asked Merrick to help you understand both sides of the story at play here. From what I can tell, he’s protected you from the side that now most pertains to you.”

I cocked my head to one side, trying to understand what she was talking about.

“In the twenty years that I’ve been here I have seen the numbers of sick and dying Oceanids increase from a few dozen a year to thousands.”

“We didn’t treat that many last night, are there more of them here?”

She shook her head. “No, I sent the healthier ones away when you joined the pod.”

“Why would you do that?”

“Many of them are very bitter towards humans and I didn’t want their anger harming you in any way or pushing you beyond where you should go.”

“Why is everyone so worried about my health?” I growled, frustrated. “I’m fine.”

“It’s not you we were worried about,” she replied, before moving forwards and taking my hand out of my lap. “What I need to tell you now is going to be very difficult,” she said quietly, her face full of compassion, “but as you grow in strength, which I have no doubt you will, you need to be aware of this.”

My stomach twisted in anxiety as I waited for her to continue.

“When you are pushed too hard, Alexandra, when your body feels under threat, you produce a massive electric pulse. It is a self-defence mechanism and one you can’t control.”

“Are you saying I’m dangerous?” I asked her, feeling like I was talking about someone else.

She nodded. “Yes, very dangerous, as it turns out.”

“But I don’t remember anything like that.”

“When you found Taika sampling the other Oceanids what happened?” she asked me.

I explained the whole thing ending with the jolt and then opening my eyes to find all of the Oceanids unconscious. Even as I spoke the trickle of realisation made my skin crawl.

“That was me?” I whispered, horrified.

She nodded, her eyes full of sympathy. “Marinus recognised it and came and explained it to me.He had met another Gurrer, which is your line of heritage, who could do a similar thing but not nearly as powerfully as you did it.”

“But then I was the reason Merrick wouldn’t wake up?” I gasped, horrified.

“He was holding your hand at the time and it very nearly killed him,” she told me. “That is why Maya grew so weak trying to heal him.”

“But then…” My mind shut down as the last time that jolt had shaken me leapt into focus.

I was gasping for air, unable to think, unable to move past the image of Brent’s face wide-eyed in death as he floated above me.

Her voice came at me from a very long way away, until I was snapped back into reality when her palm struck my cheek.

“Sorry,” she said, rubbing the bruised skin as relief filled her eyes. “You disappeared there for a moment.”

“Brent,” I managed to whisper.

She took me in her arms and hugged my tightly.

“I think your father suspected it from the moment it happened,” she whispered into my hair, releasing me and wiping the tears I hadn’t known were cascading down my cheeks away with her thumbs. “Poor child,” she murmured, pulling me back into her arms. “Your father was one of the greatest Gurrer’s ever known. I think he kept you from us in the hopes that by doing so you’d have a happy ordinary life. And then Brent pushed you too hard and your instincts took over.”

She let me go, keeping a tight hold of my hand.

“I’ve always known it was my fault,” I whispered, the realisation and admission finally releasing the guilt I’d been holding onto for the three years.

I closed my eyes and examined it, turning it this way and that. There was no absolution for what I’d done. Consciously or not Brent was dead because of me.

“Does Merrick know?” I murmured, tears still slipping down my cheeks.

“Yes,” she replied, “he’d just started guarding you when it happened.”

My eyes sprang open. “Then why…”

“He wants to be with you, because he sees you for who you truly are, Alexandra, he sees you in spite of the violence you’re capable of. And he loves all of it.”

“But I nearly killed him!” I gasped, the stark reality of what I was capable of settling into my identity.

She smiled kindly at me. “But you didn’t and now control has to become your greatest talent, Alexandra, because even without this incredible talent you are very powerful.”

“Merrick has already explained to me what could happen if I work with the warrior Oceanids, but it’s not a problem because I’m not going to.”

She nodded, smiling at me. “I think the strategy you and Merrick have designed has a very good chance of working with just one small flaw.”

I raised my eyebrow in question.

“As much as you are able to see what motivates humans, you also need to see what motivates Oceanids.”

“I was using the human argument last night wasn’t I?” I asked her.

She nodded. “I know you’ve been brought up as a human, Alexandra, but if you are going to lead them properly you have to acknowledge your Oceanid roots too. You have to feel for them as you do for the humans, and you have to articulate that passion to them.”

“How do I do that?”

“You are already doing it most of the time,” she replied, surprising me. “When you are with Maya or Sabrina or Merrick, you even move like them, the way you’ve begun holding your body and the lilt in your speech is very similar to theirs too.”

“I hadn’t realised I’d changed so much.”

She nodded, smiling sadly. “They do this to you, these wonderful alien creatures who are so much more compassionate than many of the humans I’ve met.”

“You love them.” It was a statement not a question.

She nodded.

“Then why don’t you continue to lead them?” I asked her.

“Because I have and always will be merely a place keeper,” she told me, smiling. “I’ve always known my role with them was finite because I am so limited. I can’t swim, so leading them back to the ocean is an impossibility, and I have no talents, compared to theirs.” She shook her head. “No, I have educated them, and tried my very best to show them that not all humans deserve annihilation. They are ready to follow you in your pursuit of a peaceful resolution between the two species.”

“Any tips?” I asked her, smiling as a sense of purpose and determined excitement settled over me. I was going to help my people – I liked the idea of that phrase – to survive and then, with the right help, thrive.

She smiled back. “Yes, never act in panic.”

I laughed. “Is that it?”

She nodded, smiling too.

“What will you do?” I asked her, sensing that the handover had already taken place and my people were waiting for me.

“I will be here,” she replied, smiling, “available to help you in any way you need me to.”

We walked toward the entrance to the valley I had come through earlier. Tiny droplets of dew bent the gently waving grasses in worshipful obedience as the water began to sparkle, jewel-like, in the still early morning sun.

We couldn’t have been in the valley for longer than half an hour, but so much had happened in that time that it felt like whole days should have passed instead of just minutes.

I was surprised when instead of going back to the cave, Talita led the way up a steep well hidden path winding between the rocks that formed the beginning of the cliff face.

Standing on the flat grassy plane at the top of the path I recognised almost immediately the field of aloe trees Josh, Luke and I had crossed a few days earlier in the distance, with the mouth of the mysterious valley and Sabine’s pool spilling dark-shadowed shade into the harshly lit field.

I barely noticed the majestic beauty of the mountains as we made our way across a gently rolling indentation in the earth and then progressively up the other side, as Talita and I discussed the finer details of the plan for peace. She rattled off a series of difficult questions, but I managed to think through and answer each one well as the plan, and the authority to execute it, settled within me.

“You’ll have to go with them into the ocean,” she told me as she led me towards a gash of cliffs.

I stopped short because she was, of course, right and that meant I’d come face to face with the decision I’d known would have to be made sooner or later.

She stopped a few paces on, turning to me with a questioning expression.

“I can’t leave my mother without saying goodbye, Talita,” I told her. Her smile faded on her lips.

“You don’t understand,” I hurried to explain, “she needs me so much still, and I know you’ve said you can remove my memory from hers, but I know she’ll still be sad so alone.”

Talita said nothing, which was far worse than if she’d shouted or ranted at me.

“I’m not asking for long, a month at the most,” I suggested, my mind scrambling at the idea. “I could tell her I’d applied for an international scholarship and they’d accepted me. That way, when this is over I can go back to her, and she’ll still have me. Not with her physically, but she will have a living child.”

Talita looked uncertain so I hurried to reinforce my argument.

“That way I can practise the control, and get stronger at it too, it will also help me convince more Oceanids of the peaceful plan’s validity.”

Excitement at the idea made me a little giddy as I began to imagine it. I could have both worlds: I could be there for my mother and help save my people.

“A month is a long time, Alexandra,” Talita told me doubtfully, as she began to walk again.

“Not in the grander scheme of things,” I argued, hurrying to keep up with her as she reached the bottom of the cliff face and began to pick her way up it. “Once I’ve told Mom, I’ll be able to put the first part of the plan into action right away. I can do all of the internet research of the humans we need to be targeting from home and…” My excited planning was cut short by a resounding boom followed by a great gust of furnace-hot wind that threw both of us backwards off the cliff.