Water (7 page)

“Just teasing Alex about her clumsiness today,” Josh replied easily.

The rest of the evening was lovely. One of the last uncomplicated evenings I remember. The night sky, so far from any manmade light, was crowded with billions of stars, the summer air warm and gentle on our exercise-weary bodies.

The boys had decided to go back to the pool I’d fallen into the next day. As it was only a short distance from the cave, I was given the option to join them or stay at base camp.

I shuddered at the thought of going anywhere near that pool again, remembering the icy water closing over my head as my lungs fought for air and black spots danced in front of my eyes. It wasn’t just the water that made me edgy,
he
might be there, or was the right pronoun
it
?

After dinner, we climbed into our sleeping bags around the fire and chatted until the moon rose brilliant and full, eclipsing the stars.

I don’t remember falling asleep, but I do remember waking up!

The firelight had faded and the crackling and popping of burning wood had subsided to a smoky hush. My eyes opened heavily my mind trying to sort through what had woken me.

I was just drifting back to sleep when I heard it again. The soft pad of footsteps as someone walked past my head.

My heart began to pound.

I opened my eyes to tiny slits searching for Luke and Josh’s sleeping forms, hoping against hope to find one of their sleeping bags wrinkled and empty. They were both sound asleep, their faces a warm orange from the dying fire.

A sigh to the left of Josh and on the edge of the cave had my heart pounding, freezing my muscles in place as I twisted my head to see who or what had made the sound.

He was sitting with his legs dangling over the edge of the small cliff below the cave, outlined by the moonlight.

I felt a scream building in my throat as panic gripped me.

I must have moved, or he felt my eyes on him, because he swung around into a crouch very suddenly, his long hair swinging out behind him, his muscles bunched and poised for flight.

I sat up very slowly trying to make out who it was. Moonlight glinted off his skin and he turned his head fractionally, the silvery light revealing clearly that it was the same person who’d rescued me earlier.

Fear and curiosity tugged at me. This time curiosity won.

“Please don’t go,” I whispered.

He was motionless for what seemed like an age and then stretched out his hand to me.

I took a deep breath, pushing the fear that almost incapacitated me away, as I untangled myself from my sleeping bag and crept toward him. Sitting down a few paces from him I wrapped my arms around my legs and stared in fascination. His profile in the moonlight reaffirmed my initial impressions from the afternoon. Strong features countered by youthful softness.

“Hello, Alexandra,” he said quietly, his voice rich and warm.

“How do you know my name?”

His full lips curled into a smile.

“Am… am I dreaming?”

This made the most sense to me. Somehow, I must have sleepwalked to the edge of the cave and this was a dream created by my sub-conscious mind as it wrestled with my miraculous survival of the fall into the pool.

He slowly shifted closer, watching me the whole time as if I were a bird that would take flight if he moved too quickly, and took my hand in both of his.

They were rough and warm.

I looked down, fascinated and afraid, at where my hand disappeared into his.

He grinned at me, his white teeth flashing in the moonlight, his smile lighting up his eyes, his features somehow clearer than they’d been a few moments before.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“I’ve been following you for a while,” he replied, ignoring my question and watching my face carefully.

“Um… why?” I asked, a slither of fear at his admission popping goose bumps on my skin.

He laughed quietly. “Do you always ask so many questions of a stranger?” he asked. Then he dropped one of his hands from mine and shook my hand formally with the other. “Hi.” He smiled at me.

“Hi,” I replied.

Half of his face was in shadow, but the half I could see revealed a large lash-fringed almond-shaped eye in an open friendly face. He was dressed in a pair of flared trousers, the moonlight glinting off his bare chest.

He was still holding my hand and smiling in obvious amusement at my appraisal. I slowly pulled my hand from his and wrapped it safely around my knees again.

“Err…” My mind scrabbled to remember the questions I wanted answered. “Why have you been following us?” I asked again.

“You,” he clarified. “I’ve been following you.”

“Um… why?”

“I’m a guardian, Alexandra.” He smiled at me as if I should know what he was talking about.

“I’m sorry,” I managed, “I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about.”

He sighed and shook his head.

“Honestly, Alexandra, I thought your father would have ensured you were better informed before sending you here.”

I went cold.

“Um, well, he didn’t, so could you fill me in?” I whispered, my voice wavering with shock. Perhaps this was why Dad had been so afraid of me leaving the farm. I scrambled for the reason anyone would be interested in following me, coming to the hurried conclusion that it must have something to do with Dad’s work in Namibia.

He glanced over at the boys again and then seemed to sweep the night sky looking for something. Eventually he sighed and shrugged his broad shoulders.

“Well, I don’t see the harm in filling you in. It is after all your destiny.”

I gawked at him, my mouth falling open.

“I’m already in a heap of trouble for saving you earlier,” he continued. “Although I can’t see that she would’ve been very pleased if I’d let you drown; although…” he continued the conversation with himself “… she will probably argue that had I left you a minute or so longer your genes would have done the rest.” He smiled. “You would have been really, really confused if that had happened.”

I shook my head trying to clear it. I was obviously dreaming because in the entire time we’d been talking, “Hi” was all I’d really understood.

“My genes?” I managed.

“Perhaps I should start from the beginning?” he suggested.

I nodded. “That would help.”

“Alex?” Luke’s sleep-drenched voice drifted in the night air. I whipped around to see him propping himself up on his elbow, hair sticking up everywhere, rubbing his face.

“Who’re you talking to?”

“This is, er…” I turned back to where he’d been, my arm outstretched in introduction. A slight breeze and the hint of a chuckle were the only evidence that he’d ever been there.

I woke the next morning groggy and stiff from my fall. Luke was already up making coffee which I accepted gratefully, before walking to the lip of the cave and sitting with my legs dangling over the edge, awed at the beauty of the view, running the previous day’s event over and over in my mind. I sighed, rubbing my arms against the suddenly cool air as Luke came to stand next to me.

“So you’re sure you’re OK to stay here while we go to the pool?” he asked.

“Yup.” I was so sure, particularly after last night’s visitor. I was even more curious about my saviour after the visit, but if I was being honest with myself, I was frightened that he seemed to know who I was too.I did not want to have to explain what was going on if he appeared while the three of us were exploring the pool. It would be better for Luke and Josh to meet him there – if he showed up at all – on their own.

The boys packed some food and water, and headed off half an hour later. I quickly tidied the “cave”, rolling up sleeping bags and putting bits and pieces of equipment at the back of the overhang.

I was crouched on a rocky ledge washing the morning’s dishes in the river below the cave when the soft plop of a pebble to my right brought me up short.

“Good morning, Alexandra.” His rich musical voice startled me, making me lose my balance, rocking forward into the stream.

“Uh, hi,” I managed, struggling to think coherently as my mind swung from terror to fascination and back again while I pushed myself awkwardly out of the water.

He sat diagonally opposite from me and he was breathtaking.

My partial impressions of him from the first two encounters had been mere shadows. I took in the warm butterscotch of his skin, stretched over a strong lean frame. His torso was bare while his legs were covered in an iridescent fabric that pooled around his feet as he crouched. His waist-length hair shone in the sunlight framing a strong jaw, high cheekbones and a refined nose. He was younger than I’d first thought, probably just a year or two older than me.

Heat rushed into my cheeks as my gaze settled briefly on his full lips, as the memory of them covering mine and breathing into my oxygen-starved lungs snapped into focus.

He was smiling encouragingly, almost as if he were afraid I would run from him, his eyes sparkling as he watched me.

“What’re you doing?” he asked casually.

I looked down at the forgotten pan in my hand.

“Dishes,” I offered lamely, holding up the pan and sponge I’d been using, and feeling utterly stupid. “The uh… the boys have gone to the pool.”

“I know,” he said.

I nodded dumbly, mulling over how I felt about that.

I sat back feeling dazed as he watched me quietly.

“What’s your name?” I asked eventually as the silence stretched uncomfortably.

“Well, the closest translation in your language would be Merrick.”

Merrick. I rolled the name around in my head. It suited him, this golden boy shrouded in mystery.

“You rescued me yesterday.” It was a statement not a question, but he nodded all the same. “Where did you come from?”

He stood suddenly and gestured to the rock I was sitting on. “May I?” he asked.

I nodded.

He leapt gracefully across the narrow piece of stream separating us and settled next to me.

“I was in the cave below the pool when I heard the gun shots and then a splash.”

“There’s a cave below the pool?” He nodded. “How deep is it?”

“Pretty deep”

I thought for a few moments, trying to work out the logistics of what he was telling me.

“So the rock forms a shelf under the overhang and you were there?”

“No, I was underwater,” he replied.

“You were diving?” I asked.

He shook his head, smiling.

“So there’s like a bubble of air down there?” I asked.

He shook his head again, his grin growing.

My mind twisted like a worm on a hook trying to find the logical explanation I knew should be there.

“There’s a cave below the pool that you were in but there’s no air?” I asked.

He nodded, grinning.

“So it’s an underwater cave?” I repeated.

He nodded again.

“You were in the cave when I fell. Did you have a scuba kit?” He looked at me blankly. “You know, one of those oxygen tanks and mouth pieces…” I trailed off, taking his blank expression as a no.

“Err… Merrick, I’m really confused,” I told him, hoping I didn’t sound as dumb as I felt.

He laughed, a full-bellied warm sound, one I liked very much and wanted to hear again.

I wasn’t getting anywhere with the cave line of questioning, and he wasn’t offering any information, so I decided to try another tactic.

“You said last night that you’d tell me the story from the beginning,” I prompted.

He nodded. “Yes, the beginning is a good place for you to start,” he replied, “but get comfortable, it’s a long story.”

I squirmed around, eventually crossing my legs, my head propped up on one elbow shading my eyes with my hand.

“Hmmmm, where to begin?” He flashed me an impish grin. “Maybe the cave at the sapphire pool you were at two nights ago? Or perhaps Josh’s grandfather’s stories?”

My muscles locked down as I realised that he really had been watching me for at least the last three days. Anxiety squirmed uncomfortably in my stomach. I nodded, hoping he hadn’t noticed my fear.

He sat cross-legged, leaning against a boulder, the sun playing across his beautiful face, his voice growing enigmatic as he spoke.

“Her name was Sabine,” he started. “The female leader you saw in the cave?” I nodded. “She and a small band of women and children from her tribe had fled to the valley to escape slave traders. When they got there, they joined a much larger group of women and children who had gathered for the same reason. The men of the villages formed a sort of cork at the front of the valley to protect the women and children.”

I closed my eyes, picturing the beautiful valley choked with frightened people. Merrick took my hand and rested it gently in the palm of his hand. My eyes sprang open at the contact, he’d moved soundlessly to sit beside me.

“Close your eyes and feel the story,” he encouraged me.

I watched for a few moments, trying to gauge whether his suggestion was a good idea. He nodded, still smiling. “Go on, you’re safe with me.”

I closed my eyes. Terror and anxiety rose in my throat as my senses came alive to the story. I could hear the rustle and mutter of frightened people mixed with the stench of sweat, sewage and fear. Their fear was my fear as I pictured the waiting.

“They camped there for days and days hiding from the slave traders. Eventually, though, hunger drove a small party of men to leave the safety of the valley in search of food. Did you know that Injisuthi means the full dog?” he asked. I opened my eyes at his question and shook my head. “They say that this area was so full of eland and impala that even the stray dogs were always full from the scraps left over from the meals people had.”

His expression grew sad as he continued.

“The hunting party left to find food, and instead they found the slave traders who tortured them in the most disgusting and horrific ways until eventually in desperation one of them told them where the women and children were.”

I shuddered, imagining what type of torture would break a man to the point where he would give up the most precious secret he held – the whereabouts of his family.

“The slave traders waited another week until they were sure the remaining men would be weak and the women pliable from hunger, and then they attacked.” Merrick’s voice was bleak, his eyes on some faraway memory. “They slaughtered the men without mercy, leaving no one alive, and then attacked the braver women with sticks, beating them to submission.”

I closed my eyes again. Panic rose sour and all-consuming as I heard the screams of the dying and felt the press of people desperately pushing back from the bloodshed. Tears prickled behind my eyelids as I remembered the tenderness of the paintings on the cave walls.

“Sabine’s partner had been part of the hunting party,” Merrick continued, “and when he didn’t return she moved the women and children from her village right to the back of the valley as close to the waterfall as she could get, and started to look for a way out or at the very least a place to hide. She had been searching for a few days unsuccessfully when she finally decided to see if there was any room behind the waterfall. It was then that she found the cave.”

Merrick paused, and the emotions changed to anger and frustration.

“As you can imagine, with so many women in one place everyone was vying for authority, and old tribal rifts began to show under the strain of the wait. So Sabine didn’t tell anyone about the cave until the slave traders attack. When she heard the screams of the dying men, she quickly rallied her tribe and a few of the other women who had befriended them and led them into the cave. Some of the women from the other tribes refused to follow, and Sabine watched from the cave opening as they were brutalised, raped and led away to a life of slavery.”

Merrick stretched and yawned, the vision fading as he let go of my hand. He crouched at the water’s edge to drink some water from the river. The picture he’d painted with his story twisted around in my head, demanding a conclusion.

“What happened next?” I asked when he settled beside me again. “Why didn’t Sabine and the other women go home?”

“You’re sharp,” he grinned at me. “Most people assume they did.” I thought about that for a moment and then shook my head. The last painting in the cave was evidence that something out of the ordinary had taken place.

He took my hand again.

“Well, the reason Sabine and her little tribe couldn’t leave was because the slave traders had been expecting more of a catch, and the reason they’d been expecting more of a catch was because the chief of Sabine’s village had ‘sold’ the women and children from his village for land, cattle and power.” I gasped, horrified, experiencing the betrayal as if they were my own emotions.

“Sabine watched as the chief inspected every slave marched past him and then discussed with the slave traders the whereabouts of the women and children from his village. Sabine was a very beautiful woman, and the slave traders had promised the chief a high price for her in particular. He was a motivated man and set up sentries at the entrance to the valley, knowing she must still somehow be there. And so they hid for days on end growing weaker and weaker. Sabine realised that eventually they would have one of two choices: either die in the cave or be sold into slavery. One night one of the children became very ill. She was four years old and Sabine’s niece. She grew weaker and weaker.”

I felt the burning skin of the child on the palm of the hand Merrick was holding. Grief and despair swept through me, knocking aside all motives except those that would save the little girl.

“On that night the tribe decided that slavery was better than death. They had decided to give themselves up the next day. On that night, a massive storm shook Injisuthi, the pool you swam in flooded and forced them further and further back into the cave.” His eyes burned into mine. “Sabine was leading the way when she slipped and fell into a deep black pool at the very back of the cave, a pool they hadn’t known existed.”

I felt once again the ice-cold waters close over my head and drew in a deep jagged breath.

“She sank like a stone, deeper and deeper into the pool, the water closing over her,” he continued, “and then –”

“Someone or something was pulling her back to the surface and breathing air into her lungs,” I whispered, finishing his sentence for him.

He chuckled darkly and nodded, removing his hand from mine, releasing me from the intensity of the vision.

“Sabine’s rescuer offered the ragged refugees a third option to death or slavery. His name was Pelagius. He was the leader and he invited them to become part of his ‘tribe’. Pelagius was an Oceanid, and he and his people lived deep in the mountains using the caves for shelter and pools for travel. Pelagius assured them of safety and plentiful food and most of all medicine for the dying child.”

Merrick paused and looked at me intensely, his eyes locking on mine.

“Pelagius took the sick child first, went to the pool and jumped into its centre. He returned with others from his tribe, and each of them took a woman or a child through the pool and into their Kingdom. Sabine was the last to leave, but not before she had drawn the last picture you saw in the cave. A record of what happened to her and the remnants of her tribe.”

The stillness that followed the end of the story was uncanny. Even the insects seemed frozen for a few moments.

“Would you like to hear the rest of the story?” Merrick asked, his expression gentle.

I nodded, my mind still reeling with the discovery that Josh’s grandfather’s story was true, a tiny sparkle of excitement overriding the confusion and cautiousness I felt.

“Sabine and her tribeswomen were treated very kindly by Pelagius and the Oceanids. They were given homes, and welcomed into the pod – that’s what we call a grouping of Oceanids, by the way.”

I hadn’t missed his reference to “we”. I’d already made peace with the fact that something inexplicable by modern science had happened yesterday in the pool. There was no way I would still be alive any other way, but to be talking to one of Josh’s “fish-people” — even if he did look more like a demi-god than anything else — was incredible.

“The pod was relatively small back then. Only a few Oceanids had made the journey upriver.”

“May I ask why they were so far from the ocean?” I asked, cautiously curious.

Almost immediately his open expression closed a little. “The industrial age, even in its infancy, had already had a profound effect on the ocean, and Pelagius and a few other Oceanids had moved inland to escape the difficulties they were having in the sea.”

“How did they get there?” I asked, feeling more and more excited to be having my questions answered, and adapting far quicker than I thought possible to the idea that I was talking to someone who wasn’t human as I knew humans.