His heart skips a beat. Yes! The phone has an SD card tucked above the battery. His first ever phone had one of these little storage cards to back up photos before everyone used the cloud. He slides out the card with the edge of his stubby thumbnail. His laptop is a few years old and has a selection of slots on the side.
The SD card fits in one of the slots. Sweet. Sam opens the folder and sure enough there’s two folders, one labelled Photos, one Camera Uploads. He hovers the cursor over a yellow folder icon and his stomach churns. This is the girl’s private stuff, but surely she won’t mind if it helps him get her phone back to her? There could be photos on here that aren’t backed up. He clicks the photos folder open and starts scrolling through the photo roll. It’s a shock to see the older girl again. Aster, with the deep-bronze skin and curls the same colour. She looks even sadder than he remembers.
Sam skips through the shots. Some selfies. Aster with two other girls outside a cinema, her smile is close-lipped, and they are laughing, hugging her. He wonders if that was when her mum was still alive. Further back there are more, definitely of her mum, some are in the hospital and the woman wears a headscarf and has an oxygen tube beneath her nose. She looks too young to be so ill. Sam can’t imagine how grim it would be to see his own mum like that. Granda is bad enough. He doesn’t search any further back, closes the folder. He clicks open the camera uploads.
Sam is startled by his own face. In the selfie he is above the girls, leaning over their headrests, and tucking his tangled blond hair behind his ear. Poppy is pouting as she drags Aster into the shot.
The next photo is of the sign for Tokomaru Bay that Poppy sent him.
The following shot causes Sam to reel back from the screen. It’s slightly out of focus.
The ecovillage did exist.
Groups of young people, sitting cross-legged on mats. They seem to be crafting things, woodwork and weaving. The back of a girl’s head blocks half the screen, there are flowers in her hair. Behind her is a large shelter of some kind, with wooden joists holding it up. In the far background there’s the edge of what looks like a wooden cabin and trees.
The next photo is blurry again and he guesses it was snapped very quickly. A girl and a boy holding a one-handed plank pose. Another photo seems to be the interior of a hut, but all he can see is the window, everything else is too dark. The last shot is of a man talking to a woman who has her back to the camera, which is focused on the man’s face. Sam stares.
It’s him.
Doctor Nygard was the man at the fire site and he’d been at the ecovillage. So why had he acted like he didn’t know it existed, scraping around in those ashes?
Sam swings back on his desk chair, scrubs his fingertips into his hair and flattens it again.
He clicks open his emails and copies in the email address of the hospital where Granda is staying and writes a header: FAO Dr Nygard, Genetics Clinic. What should he say?
Dear Dr Nygard,
I saw you at the hospital today and would appreciate your help. Fraser Banks is my grandfather and
Sam pauses, unsure how to continue. Keep it brief.
he speaks highly of you. I wonder if we could talk?
Thanks so much for your time,
Sam Banks
Sam reads the message back, hovering his cursor over the send button. He remembers the way the older girl’s eyes had met his as he waved goodbye at the airport. When he’d looked up their names, he found out Aster was a purple daisy. Named for a flower, like her sister.
Aster said their mum died of lung cancer. Granda’s cough fills his head.
Why was a doctor of genetics at a fire site near to the place where Poppy had left her phone?
Sam shakes his head because it is all so . . . strange. He could be making connections where there are only coincidences. He unwraps the piece of glass from the tissue. He didn’t know what it was the last time he’d looked at it, but now he recognizes it from Chemistry class. It is the broken base end of a test tube. The outside is blackened by the fire, but inside there is a dark-brown residue. It flakes off on the tip of his finger.
Could it be blood?
He quickly brushes off his finger in disgust and drops the glass fragment back on the tissue. He stares at it, then back at the email, and clicks send.
Iscramble back across the roots and find a shady spot beneath them to perch, watching the shark fin trace lazy lines back and forth across the surface. It’s already after midday. I’m really thirsty now and sweating, even in the shade. I don’t dare think about how bad my situation really is. I can’t panic, not now.
The dark triangle dips and disappears and I hold my breath, praying for it to be gone. But it surfaces again a few seconds later, orbiting more slowly, as if it knows it is only a matter of time before I’m forced into the water.
I’m not going to waste my energy yelling for help, the island’s way too far away, but I scan the horizon anyway, and my eyes catch on something tiny, dark, moving. When I blink there is nothing there but more sea. No one is coming, no one knows where I am. The sun is bright and my eyes water, blurred. I must have imagined I saw something.
I’ve no idea what I’m going to do. I can’t swim leaking blood, because the shark – or another one like it – will soon be back.
Think. Problem solve. My blood brought it here.
I need to block the scent of my blood. Cover the wound. I gather some fallen palm fronds draped over the mangrove roots, trying to pick ones that aren’t seriously rotten. I could pack the wound with these, then wrap it? I shudder at the idea, but can’t come up with anything better.
I’ll have to make do with what I’ve got to bind it up. I look at the mouldering glove tied at my belt and grimace. My knife. The only other thing I have is my swimsuit, I’ll have to make it work. I stand out of view of the beach, behind a tree and check I’m alone – stupidly, as I’ve never felt more alone in my life – then pull down the high-necked swimsuit and hack strips from the back. The bottom half of the swimsuit is designed like cycling shorts and I saw the top of the legs off all the way around, so I have two stretchy loops. I pull it back up. It now gapes at the back, but just about covers me.
The blood is already congealing in the cut. I wad one of the softer leaves into a kind of pad and take a deep breath. Here goes. I mash it right into the cut, gritting my teeth with a moan. I wrap the fabric strips around to hold it in place and after a few tries my knee is firmly bandaged in grey swimsuit material. I feel a rush of hope. It throbs but the swimsuit material is stretchy and thick, this could work.
I follow my dried blood smears down to the place I last saw the shark and peer down into the water. No sign of the shark. But how will I know if it has really gone? I wait in the glaring sun, wiping the sweat from my hairline, feeling more trickle down my spine. If only I knew more about sharks, like how persistent they are.
I could tread water here and wait to see if it reappears. I’ll stick close to the branches so I can haul myself out really quickly if it comes. If it is still around, I’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning.
Staying the night on the mangrove island feels like a terrible plan.
I need to try this.
I edge out on to a sturdy root that leads right into the water, snap on my goggles, and dip in my toes. Nothing comes. I sit on the root and sway my legs in the water, easing lower until the water covers the wound, my heart racing in my throat. I cling to the root, until the water is up to my armpits. I’m panting, and start to count my breaths.
One two three in . . .
I don’t know how big that thing is, or how fast.
One two three four five six out . . .
It could bite me in half before I even see it.
Come on. Breathe.
Reach. Kick. Breathe.
I draw a deep breath and duck under.
A dark shape speeds towards me from the blue.
I haul myself up, the root bouncing. My arms strain as I swing myself up an
d over, folding my body over the root. I scramble one leg up, then the other – I’m out. I lie on my belly along the root, panting, dripping, coughing and gasping. Out. Alive. Not trusting myself to move, I press my cheek to the bark and wait for my heart to slow. The shark can’t get me here. I’m safe. I’m safe. That was not a good plan. Far too close.
Raising my head, I scan the water, frowning. No fin.
I look directly down and glimpse something moving in the blue below, I can’t make it out. I peer closer.
It’s gone. But it looked like a . . . face. Can’t be. Must have been a fish or something.
I squeeze my eyes shut tight and then open them and scan the water again. This time I am unable to tear my eyes away.
A boy’s face, underwater. Wide eyes stare up at me. Dark hair sways. A purple mark passes through his eyebrow and down his cheek.
Not a fish.
I cling to the root, blinking. His face hovers a few centimetres below the surface. He is really there, but where the hell did he come from? Is he from the camp too?
He’s so still, and his eyes look strange, pale. A horrible thought hits me. Is he . . . dead ?
Lifting on to my hands and knees, my whole body trembles.
His hand bursts from the water. I almost tip sideways from the root. His fingers make a shooing gesture and I twist into a crouch and scuttle back.
The boy’s hand sinks back below.
I stare at the water where he was. Silence aside from my ragged breaths. The ripples dissipate.
Where is he now? I scan the water all around. He didn’t have scuba gear, or a snorkel. The sea is flat. My heart thumps so wildly, I’m sure I have no sense of time, but he has definitely been down there longer than a breath.
I can’t make sense of it, I scratch around for a reasonable explanation.
The shark. The shark must have . . . oh God. I should have warned him about the shark.
I lean forward again, peering down, terrified of what I might see, and then stumble back as the boy’s head and shoulders break the surface. He shakes his head like a dog with water in its ears, a deep vertical crease between his brows. He blinks repeatedly and seems to have trouble focusing on me.
‘You need to get out of the water, there’s a sh-shark,’ I say.
The root I’m balancing on sways. The boy studies me, head to one side, eyes raking over my face and body, as I gaze at him, open-mouthed. His skin is darker brown than mine, with a cool, sallow tone.
When I meet his grey eyes, he dips his chin. His brows are as thick and black as his hair and they arch expectantly, but his mouth is closed, silent.
I edge forward. He shakes his head.
He ducks and disappears.
I wait. He’s gone again.
Only one explanation. This boy is a hallucination.
I’ve been gassed in a boat, marooned on an island, swum far too far, and been hunted by a shark. I’ve probably got sunstroke, I’m definitely dehydrated, and I might have lost a lot of blood. Oh – and I’m grieving my mum, have an anxiety disorder, and just recovered from a fever. It would be weirder if I weren’t hallucinating.
But I wait. The sun has now passed over the island so I’m in shade. There’s barely any afternoon left. I watch the water.
No shark. No boy.
Stupid mind. It’s been a long time since I saw the shark now and the sun set quickly last night – I don’t have time for imaginary sea boys. Checking my knee, I find no sign of blood and tell myself to forget the waking daydreams and get back to the plan. I ping my goggles back into place and lower myself into the water more quickly this time. I scan below.
The boy speeds up to me from the deep and hangs motionless, around two metres below me.
I fight the urge to whip out my knife as I float on the surface staring down at him.
He seemed boyish when I could only see his head above the water, but now it’s clear he’s powerfully built and his expression isn’t exactly friendly. There’s something familiar about him, the way he tilts his head and holds my gaze, but I can’t have seen him before, he’s impossible.
He’s not wearing goggles.
And he’s a lot better-armed than I am.
The boy grips a jagged dark blade in one hand, there’s a longer blade strapped to his thigh, and a spear juts over his shoulder. Plaited straps cross his chest and tied at each shoulder is a translucent globe – around the size of a tennis ball – that flickers faintly violet against the darker water below.
His chest is bare. And the top half is slashed with fine lines. I frown, confused. Three lines on each side, sloping up diagonally from the centre, between well-defined pecs. Are they tattoos? As I stare, they gently shift open a fraction, then close. In a rhythm.
I can’t look away.
That rhythm, that ripple of movement in his chest, is the boy breathing.
Breathing . . . water.
Gills. The word springs to mind. He is breathing water. Through gills.
The boy tilts his head and drifts up towards me, and I know I’m right even though this is so very very wrong. There’s no other way he could be underwater for so long.
I thrust my knife out in front of me; aware I have no real idea what to do with it. My metal blade glitters as I bob in the surface swell, bubbles slipping from the corner of my mouth. The edge is sharp but the weapon stupidly small, only the length of my palm. His gaze traces a triangle between my knife, my eyes, and my neck and chest. The boy’s grey eyes are lighter beneath the water, but the pupils are tiny and jet-black. My goggles are fogging. I want to climb out, but don’t want to turn my back on him.
I tilt my head and gulp the air, keeping the knife out in front of me. When I turn back, the boy is still there in the same position a metre or so below me. His eyes rest on my blade then track back to my face, and he raises his eyebrows.
He drifts up, towards me, hands raised as if approaching an injured animal likely to bite. Pointing at my injured knee, he bares his teeth, widens his eyes and makes a fist, which he thrusts towards the open sea. Then he indicates my leg again, shakes his head, and points up at the surface.
Strangely, I totally get what he is saying. Danger, my wound, he wants me to surface. And then what?
I look down at my leg and shake my head. I tap my chest and point in the direction of the island we arrived on.
He bares his teeth again. I scull back. He could be indicating I’m in his territory or something, and he wants me out. Maybe this boy is the danger. He can’t be anything to do with the camp. He’s— I don’t know what he is.
When he darts away, I am buffeted in his wake, and watch his underwater stroke in amazement. Hands palm-up at the base of his back, he holds his legs tightly together and pumps them up and down in a double kick, his body undulating, streamlined through the water. I’ve never seen a human swim underwater as fast or as fluently. Even my swim coach would be impressed. He disappears into the turquoise blue ahead of me, gone.
I’m questioning what to do next, when the boy streams back like an arrow, right up to me. He holds out a swathe of green seaweed, translucent as tissue paper, swaying in the current, and swims so close that I kick away from him. He jabs a pointing finger at my knee, then at the seaweed, then back to the surface.
Shakily, I ease the knife back into the sheath strapped at my waist, my eyes never leaving his. I start to point to the island again but he falls still, his head flicks and then he darts towards me, grasps my upper arms, and propels me upwards. I shoot through the surface, outraged by the sudden contact, and shocked by his strength.
I drag myself back on to the branches again, then scoot back, and the boy reaches up with powerful arms to grasp the root above him. I see his chest gills fully displayed as dark slashes across his pecs, streaming water for a few seconds before closing flat. Then he heaves up his muscular body and clings to the branch with his legs, hanging upside down. The root bends beneath his weight and rocks wildly. It could be funny – in completely
different circumstances.
I scan the water. I don’t see a fin but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a shark down there.
The boy hauls himself up with some difficulty and wobbles, legs bent and bowed, head tucked low into his shoulders. He’s as ungainly here as he was graceful in the water. For a few moments he stays hunched over, eyes screwed tight, both hands covering the slits across his chest.
Uncurling a little, he rises into a crouch and removes one hand from his chest to balance on the mangrove root. He peers down at his chest, his – gills – with his jaw clenched and twitching. The slits are now closed and much less noticeable, narrow dents in his skin. He runs his fingers across them, fear etched on his face.
I clear my throat.
‘Are you – OK?’ I say.
The boy untucks his chin from his chest and blinks rapidly.
He glances towards the sun, loses his balance and pitches backwards. Without thinking, I reach out and grab his hand. He grips tight, his skin surprisingly warm. He waves at the sky and shields his eyes. He’s dazzled by the sun. How long has he been underwater?
His large hand still encloses mine, as if I’m anchoring him in a gale-force storm.
This is so surreal. Beyond surreal.
My eyes flick to his hands and feet. No webbing. His body is normal.
Apart from his gills.
A drip escapes from the corner of one of the dents on his chest and tracks down his tight stomach, and I realize that just like I held air in my lungs underwater, he seems to be holding water in his lungs. If he even has lungs.
A human. Who can’t breathe on land. Maybe he’s never been above the surface.
His grip on my hand remains tight as he stares about him, and then checks his chest again.
His outfit doesn’t help me get a fix on where he came from. He’s wearing sort of cut-off cargo trousers in faded blue, and one leg ends mid-thigh and has been repaired with thick, dark twine. A red-handled hunting knife is strapped above his knee with the same twine. The other trouser leg finishes at the knee and still has two thigh pockets that bulge, the buttons have been replaced with shells with holes through the middle. The band he’s using as a belt seems to be a purple luggage strap with pale letters running around it, tied in a knot at his waist. A few black pouches hang from the plaited leathery straps that cross his chest. The glowing globes that floated at his shoulders underwater now flop forward, like deflated balloons, and I can see where they are tied on. They must be filled with bioluminescent algae or plankton or something. I remember Iona’s ruse to get us on board her gassing boat, and shake my head, wanting to dislodge the memory.
Secret Deep Page 8