When Water Burns

by Lani Wendt Young

  The minutes ticked by. Five and then ten, then twenty. I dropped to my knees in the shallow water, numbed beyond belief. Daniel was gone. The afternoon was fading. The last crimson rays of sunset threw their bronze spider web across the ocean. It was the most perfect of days. And I felt nothing for it. I knew with dreadful certainty that there was no way he could have held his breath for that long. Even if the shark hadn’t finished him off, the water would have. Not even a splash or red water to mark his last dive. In a haze I thought dimly – how inconsiderate of that shark, it didn’t even leave me a piece of Daniel’s finger to remember him by. Then I knew I was approaching hysteria. A finger? My Daniel was gone and I wanted a bloody piece of his flesh to remember him with? I was cold. So cold. I could not believe that here I was again, sitting on a lonely beach looking out at an ocean that had taken Daniel from me. This was beyond unfair.

  And then there was a splash and Daniel surged up and out of the sea several feet away from me. He was a glorious sight. With his arms stretched wide, raven red head thrown back, silver droplets on gleaming skin in the approaching dusk, he was a water god. A silver dolphin. He shook his head, sending diamond spray scattering. His eyes caught mine and his face lit up in a joyous smile. Again he dove into the water and power stroked his way swiftly to my side. In less time than it took to exhale, I was in his arms.

  And he was warm. And real. And solid flesh and muscle against me. And his kiss was hot and salty. I drowned in it. And the waves lapped us in their embrace. I felt a peaceful calm sweep over me as once again the sea felt like a friend. Safe.

  Effortlessly, Daniel lifted me and carried me out of the water, setting me down beside our picnic gear under the trees. He wiped wet strands of hair away from my face and wrapped a thick towel around my shoulders, rubbing my arms in response to my shivering.For several minutes neither of us spoke. Just breathed. I ran myfingers over his face, through his hair, along his tattoo, glorying in his perfection. My eyes drank him in, unwilling to believe that he was alive. Complete. Unhurt. Well, almost unhurt.There was a welt of matted red along the side of his bronzed chest.

  “Daniel, you’re bleeding. We’ve got to get you to the hospital.”

  “Nah, it’s nothing. He didn’t bite me, I got this from his skin, the impact when we collided. Agh, did you know that sharks have skin like toxic sandpaper?” He shook his head with a faint grimace as he gingerly felt his wound.

  I jerked out of his embrace and leapt to my feet. What was I thinking, sitting here lapping up his hug when he’d been injured? I grabbed the first aid kit from the car and applied a dressing to his cut,ignoring his assurances that he was fine. Not until he was bandaged and we were both dressed in dry clothing – not until I was really sure that he was alright – did I ask him the questions that had been bubbling underneath the surface.

  “Daniel, what happened out there?”

  He sat beside me, staring out at the fast sinking sun and his voice was carefully neutral. “I’m not sure.”

  “I mean, what was that? You knew that shark was there? How? And when we were out there hanging on to the tire, you talked about it, like you could read its mind or something.” Saying it out loud only made it sound all the more implausible. I laughed weakly, waiting for him to dispel what were surely just fanciful notions.

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense. One minute I was half-asleep and then the next I could feel this thing, this presence and I just knew right away that you were in danger. Once I got into the water, the thought came so clearly to me – a shark. A big one.”

  He stopped and looked away, out over the waves crashing on a faraway reef. I prompted him. “Yeah, and then?”

  “Then what?”

  “Then you were talking about its thoughts. You were freaking me out, what was going on out there?”

  He said nothing. Shrugged. I persisted. “Daniel, say something. What just happened? Those waves that came out of nowhere, pushing me to shore? Did those come from you? And then when that shark attacked you, how did you get away from it? With only that ‘sandpaper scratch’? This is crazy, you were gone for over twenty minutes, I thought you were dead. It was just like…”

  His anger halted my tirade. “Like what, Leila? What?” Roughly he stood and walked away from me, down towards the ocean, throwing curt words over his shoulder at me. “Just leave it, okay? Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk about this. Just leave it.”

  I let him go, watching him walk the water’s edge while a dying sun bled with orange-red light. I didn’t know what had happened with him as that shark had tried to attack us, but of one thing I was sure – whatever was going on with Daniel, it had everything to do with his crested wave-shaped birthmark.

  The drive home was an uneasy one, with neither of us breaking the silence that divided us. My unasked questions screamed, and Bob Marley on the radio was a mocking reminder of how happy we had been that morning when we had first set out on our picnic. I stole a look at Daniel sitting across from me in the darkness, hoping for some sort of sign that he was ready to talk about what had happened. Nothing. He looked like a stranger. Why was he so angry? What was happening with him and, more importantly, why was he so unwilling to share it with me?

  At the house, he helped carry my gear to the front door. I stood and watched him walk back to the truck and then stopped him. “Daniel, wait up.”

  He turned with an impatient frown, but I refused to be daunted. Ignoring the certainty that Matile was watching us from inside the living room, I ran down the steps and took him in a fierce hug. For a moment he just stood there unmoving and then relented slightly to pat me on the back. Awkward and hesitant.

  “I love you. Thank you for today. For saving me.” I whispered in his ear, wishing on every star that glimmered far above us that he would kiss me. Hold me. Love me. Do something, anything to bridge the distance between us and once again be my Daniel.

  For a moment it seemed the stars had heard me. He hugged me back. Bent his head slightly to kiss my still-damp hair. A whisper. “I love you too.” And then he released me and firmly held me away from him. “You better go in. I need to get home.”

  I looked up at him, trying to decipher those green depths but he wasn’t letting me in. An edge of frustration crept into my voice. “I don’t understand why you won’t talk to me about this. We should discuss what’s happening to you so that together we can figure it all out. You keep shutting me out. This is killing me.”

  His whole body tensed and he took a step away from me, shaking his head in disbelief. His words knifed through me, severing our tenuous connection. “Not everything is about you. Just for once, can’t you get that? I told you that I don’t want to talk about what happened at your sisterhood showdown and I don’t want to talk about what happened today either. Can’t you respect that?”

  “You’re right. I’m sorry.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  He didn’t look back at me as he got in his truck and drove away. I watched the night swallow him as shame curled inside me. Not everything is about you, Leila…Being accused of selfishness wasn’t exactly new for me.

  FOUR

  Daniel didn’t call me the next day. But a lawyer called Thompson did.

  “Leila Folger? I’m Phillip Thompson of the law firm Betham and Thompson here in town. Your Aunt Matile gave us your number. Can we arrange a good time for you to come in to our office please?”

  “Why?” I wasn’t in the mood to be polite. Daniel was mad at me and I needed to think of ways to fix the current situation. “Why do you want to see me?”

  “We were – are – your mother’s lawyers and have some urgent matters to discuss with you. We’ve been waiting for your return, and the situation with your mother’s sister is getting rather urgent. Can you come in today at eleven?”

  My mother’s sister? That could only be one person. Sarona. She was alive. She was here. From a faraway place, I heard myself answer, “Yes, I’ll be there.”


  I thought about her on the drive into town. Sarona. The only woman in the Covenant who registered higher on the psycho scale than my mother. The woman who had tortured me, and Daniel, and issued the death order for the boy who was my reason for living. And then tried to kill me and my mother. Okay, so Nafanua had been a flawed mother figure, but still, to give her credit, in the end she had given her life for me.

  Yes, my ‘Aunt Sarona’ had a great deal to answer for. And I had spent many hours thinking of some of those answers.

  I used to think I knew what hate was. What anger felt like. Even what vengeance tasted like on the tongue. I’d had more than my fair share of schoolyard bullying. The children who chanted ‘owl face’ at my deep-set eyes. The high school coven that had appointed the surly brown thug girl as their entertainment. I had tasted revenge. The warm thrill of satisfaction when you get to wreak a little payback with your fists, lash out at a jeering face. I had heard bone and cartilage give way as my fist connected with their nose. And blood. I knew what it looked like. What it felt like, warm and salty on bruised knuckles.The way it pulsed and gushed from a broken nose.

  Yes, I used to think that I had tasted anger and hate.

  But I was wrong. Because when I thought of Sarona and how close she had come to taking away the one person who knew me in all my demented telesā fury and still loved me – only then did I understand what a thirst for vengeance tasted like.

  The air-conditioned interior of the lawyer’s office was a welcome change from the sweltering humidity of a crowded morning in Apia. The receptionist showed me into a sterile conference room where a harried-looking man greeted me.

  “Miss Leila Folger? Yes, of course it must be, I see the likeness.” He shook my hand in a damp grip. “It’s a pleasure to finally meet you. Take a seat please. We have much to get through. As the sole heir to Nafanua’s estate, there are many matters that need your attention, your signature, now where shall we begin…” his voice trailed away while I reeled at his words.

  “Excuse me? What did you say? I’m the what?”

  Mr. Thompson paused in his paper shuffling and looked up at me in thin surprise. “You are Nafanua’s chief heir. I assumed you knew that? Didn’t she discuss it with you?”

  A minor wrecking ball had ploughed into me, leaving me numb. I sank into a fake leather chair and tried to focus on the ANZ bank sign visible outside the window. “No. She didn’t.” But then, there’s a lot that my mother never discussed with me.

  Against my will, the past tore at my thoughts. Bitter and sour like biting into an unripe mango. Nafanua. Leila, my daughter, at long last I have found you!Welcoming me into her home. Standing in a jasmine-fragranced darkness as she handed me a whale bone carving. Here, the women in my family make carvings for their daughters. A gift for when she becomes a woman. I hope it’s not too late, Leila. For us to be family. To be sisters. To be friends, she had asked me, smiling that regal smile. The one that spoke of strength. Determination. Resolve. The one that said ‘no one defies me.’The same triumphant smile she had given me when I had summoned fire and it came gently, a flame nestled in the palm of my hand. When she had rejoiced, Yes! Nafanua. Teaching me how to dance the siva. Laughing at my clumsy efforts. Gently bending my fingers to do her bidding, follow in hers. Nafanua. Impassive as the sisterhood had tortured Daniel. Stabbed him. Nafanua. Turning to smile softly at me, I may never have loved your father, Leila, but always remember that I loved you. Stepping into the line of white fire that seared me. Turning against her sisterhood. Breaking the covenant that bound them all. Attacking her sisters of several lifetimes. Again and again. Until finally, Sarona had killed her.

  No. I had worked so hard for so long to subdue these memories. I had successfully buried them in the weeks of dealing with Grandmother Folger’s funeral and reacquainting myself with my Folger family. I had avoided dealing with the reality that my mother had been the leader of a psychotic group of environmental terrorists intent on wiping out thousands of people all in the name of ‘a return to the old ways’ … ‘cleansing and healing the earth.’ A mother who had tried to manipulate her own daughter into using her elemental powers to summon a volcano to wipe out all of Apia. A mother who finally, at the last minute, had given her life for me. Leaving me truly parentless. Alone. No, Daniel was not the only one working hard on suppressing painful memories.

  Thompson was staring at me. “Miss Folger, are you alright?”

  No, I’m not alright. Do I look alright to you? “Yes, thank you. I’m fine. Let’s get this over and done with.”

  The man looked relieved. Coping with a semi-hysterical grieving girl was obviously not on his schedule for the day. “Right, well, as I said, Nafanua named you as the sole heir of her estate, apart from a few minor bequests.”

  “So what does that mean?”

  “It means you are now the administrator of various organizations and companies that Nafanua established. They each have their own Board of Trustees so you don’t need to worry about their day-to-day operations. Not unless you want to. There’s a list that includes a pharmaceutical research company, a Women’s Refuge Center, an animal shelter, the largest organic food supplier in the country, a cosmetics exporter, four private nature reserves and parks, not to forget the patents for thirty-seven plant-derived drugs …”

  The lawyer’s voice droned on and on, listing too many things to actually bother retaining. I felt the walls closing in around me. Would he ever stop?

  “… several fixed deposits and investments plus a petty cash account of 1.2 million tala, giving an estimated total value of fifty-six million tala or thereabouts.” An apologetic smile. “It’s not easy to calculate an exact value of the estate.”

  Fifty-six million tala. This seemed to be the worst betrayal of all. How dare she? How dare she off-load all her crap on me? Did I ask for it? Did I want it? Hell no. I wanted nothing from her. Nothing. All I had wanted was for her to be my mother and instead she had deceived me. Used me. And if all the pieces of the puzzle were to be believed, it was highly probable that she had infected my father with some kind of telesā cancer. She had murdered my father. All the money in the world couldn’t bring my dad back. Or buy my forgiveness.

  But the lawyer wasn’t finished. “However, Nafanua was very specific. You are to have complete ownership and control of all her assets but there are two conditional clauses. Legally binding, but rather unusual. But then your mother was always a breathtakingly unusual woman.”

  Unusual? You have no idea. The man had a foolish faraway look on his face. Clearly Nafanua had held him in the palm of her hand. Men are fools. Out of nowhere, Sarona’s voice leapt to mind. Great. Would I be haunted forever by her as well as Nafanua? Just what I wanted. To walk around with a sisterhood of crazy telesā women always in my head.

  “What conditions?” Not that it mattered. There’s no way in a tangled telesā hell I was going to accept anything that had belonged to that woman. But, still, before I chucked it all and walked out of there, I was curious. What wacked-up conditions had Nafanua put on her final gift to me?

  Thompson hesitated. Embarrassed. “If you were ever to marry, then ownership of the entire estate would revert to an alternate heir, Nafanua’s sister, Sarona Fruean.”

  Nice one ‘mom’. Actually that one shouldn’t be a surprise. The rule we telesā live by. We can take a lover but we can never love a man. We must never share our gifts with them. They are not our equals. Men would try to control our powers, wrest them from us. No, telesā do not love the ungifted sex. A telesā’s covenant sisterhood must come above all others.

  I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. “And the second clause?”

  Mr. Thompson shifted in his seat uneasily. “You must understand, Miss Folger, that a client can sometimes insist on strange things and we as their lawyers can only advise them.”

  Like you could have stopped the woman from doing what she wanted. A lawyer giving legal counsel to a telesā Covenant Keeper? Laughable. You’
d have better luck climbing a coconut tree upside down. “Yes I understand. What is the second clause?”

  “If, at any time, you are to give birth to a live male child who reaches his first birthday – then your ownership will end and the estate will revert to Nafanua’s sister, Sarona Fruean.”

  This time, pain was a bush knife that hacked at pieces of my insides, impossible to ignore. I was born a twin. I used to have a brother. But a short while after our birth, Nafanua had killed him. Smothered him. Taken him out with the trash, so to speak. Why? Because telesā are forbidden to have male descendants. No man must be allowed to share in our gifts, wield our powers. Telesā are protectors of the earth and man is our mother earth’s greatest abuser. No male child can be allowed to live.So my mother had killed my brother, and my dad had found out her awful secret. That’s when he had run away with me, taking me back to the US with him. I had grown up with a father who loved me, a grandmother who was forever irritated with me, and a housekeeper who was forever patient with me. But missing that other piece of the family puzzle.

  The lawyer was still talking. “You should know that Sarona Fruean has been to see me and is threatening to lodge a caveat against the will if it goes against her. She was under the impression that she was the chief heir and was very upset when I informed her we would not be inviting her to a reading of the will.” He pausedwith a flustered expression. I can imagine how his visit with my ‘Aunt Sarona’ had gone for him. No wonder the man looked like he wanted to throw up.

  “The air conditioning must be faulty. It’s like a furnace in here.” Thompson took a handkerchief to wipe the sweat from his forehead. Jolting me back to the present. To this moment. “I apologize for the heat, Miss Folger.”

  Oops. My bad. The temperature in the room had leapt several degrees thanks to my somewhat violent reminiscing, and poor Thompson looked like he was about to pass out. Control, Leila. Cool it. I fought to rein in the heat that was pouring off me in waves. It’s a wonder I wasn’t smoking at the edges. Now that would really unsettle Thompson’s lawyer day … It took a few minutes, but I did it. Calmed down. Called back the energy that had set the air molecules around me into a frenzy.