I haven’t mentioned Sea Boy again, to either Iona or Beti. I need to prove to them he is real. Because – I can’t even get my head around it. I felt like he wanted to help me, but then underneath the jellyfish he tried pretty hard to drown me. And then there’s Callum and the mystery of what killed him. Could Sea Boy have done that to him? I can’t make myself believe that. Sometimes I imagine Sea Boy as friendly, he could swim to the other island, see if Poppy is there, maybe even take me there on his manta ray. It sounds crazy even thinking it, but I know it is possible. And if he isn’t friendly, then Iona and Beti should know.
I fix the image of his chest in my mind, the fine furrows of his gills, falling between his ribs. I’d never hallucinate something so precise, so realistic. Would I?
What Iona said – that it’s a way to cope with Callum’s death – it can’t be true. The wounds on his chest and neck must be a coincidence. It’s hard to think of Callum. I didn’t really know him so I don’t know if what I’m feeling is real grief. The strangled anger I feel when I think of him is real enough though. He’d already been through enough. He trusted in Iona’s treatment, her haven. But he swam after me, to help me. Beti starts down the sand towards me and I stop walking and wait for her. She holds up two snorkels and in her other hand shows me a couple of nose clips.
‘Where did you get those?’ I say.
‘Bottom of the back pocket of the life jacket. Iona showed me,’ says Beti. She raises her eyebrows in a question, nodding towards the lagoon. Her eyes are red-rimmed. Callum.
My skin is still healing from the stings and feels tight in the sun’s glare. The water would be cooling, but the last time I swam was beneath the jellyfish, terrified my lungs were about to fill with water. I haven’t swum properly since.
I shake my head, ‘Sorry Beti, I can’t. Not yet.’
‘We’re stuck on a tropical island in case you hadn’t noticed,’ she says, pointing around us. ‘You can’t avoid the sea for ever.’
I feel a burn of anger, she’s asking too much from me. But my shoulders slump, because she’s right.
I wade in and find the salt doesn’t hurt my stings; the lagoon is warm, but cooler than my hot skin, and soothing. I position the nose clip, adjust the goggles and bite down on the rubber of the snorkel. Beti does the same and then grins around the mouthpiece and says ‘ready’ in a garbled voice through the snorkel tube. I find myself smiling, despite my sadness.
I give her the OK sign and we push off into the turquoise water.
The first day we arrived I couldn’t appreciate the lagoon properly. It really is beautiful. I remember how to hold my breath when diving under with the snorkel and then blow out the water when I surface. After Beti has a coughing fit, I show her and she gets the hang of it too. As I swim, I scan around and realize that rather than looking for Poppy, I’m checking for Sea Boy. My gut tells me he won’t appear now, but I’m now sure he was the shadow I saw through the gap in the reef, on the first day. He is curious about us, that was clear in the way he behaved.
I’ve always been able to think more clearly in the water. I feel calm, and grateful to Beti.
We explore the corals and a huge shoal of striped yellow and silvery-blue fish enclose us for a moment before swimming on alongside the reef. They stop and start to peck at the coral, making a loud ticking sound. I remember Poppy’s glee when she found out fish that ate coral pooped sand. When the fish disperse I see something larger in the blue distance ahead. Beti grips my arm and I remember the shark. Would it come into the lagoon? We both freeze, then the shape materializes into a turtle. It sweeps directly towards us and seems to give us a beady glare, only swerving at the last moment as it heads out of the gap in the reef beyond us.
Beti and I surface and spit out the snorkels as we tread water. The lagoon is around three metres deep at this end. ‘Did you see the look on his face?’ she says. ‘Like he was annoyed we were in his way.’
I nod. ‘It’s really beautiful here.’
I meet Beti’s eyes, and have to look away, my chest tight. Her eyes are full of Callum, and the girl with me here should be Poppy. Please let her be safe. I dive back under.
At the far end of the lagoon is a meadow of waving seagrass and we swim towards it. I hold out a hand and the fronds tickle my fingers. I catch a glimpse of almost luminous-yellow and dive down to get a closer look. I part the grass and reveal a family of tiny bright yellow seahorses, their curling tails wound around the blades of seagrass. I beckon to Beti above, and when I turn back, one of the tiniest seahorses has lost hold of its anchor and is floating away from its family in the slight current. When I scoop the water around the tiny creature it twirls its tail around my little finger. It is so delicate and so very bright, it doesn’t seem real. I’m running out of breath. I gently detach it and guide it back the others where it finds a frond to grip on to. I take one last glance at the miniature family before swimming back to the surface.
I feel ready to go back to camp. I indicate to Beti beneath the surface and we turn for shore. Then I spot something on the seabed, at the deepest part of the lagoon. A raised pattern in the sand, about two metres across, an intricate design of concentric circles made from peaks and troughs.
I rise to the surface, being careful not to damage the delicate structure beneath us with the turbulence from my feet.
I shrug at Beti but it’s clear she doesn’t know what it is either.
Back at the camp, Beti tells Iona about the turtle and the fish we saw.
‘How are your stings feeling?’ says Iona to me.
‘Better,’ I say. We are all acting a part, dodging the big hole in the centre of camp where Callum should be, where Iona gassed us and lost my little sister.
I feel calmer after my swim. Being reliant on Iona to get us to Poppy makes me so angry, but it’s an emotion I can’t afford.
I slip back into the same sawdust-stained shorts and T-shirt. Iona has explained there are more supplies on the West Island – clothes, medical equipment – in a trunk she set up some time ago. She told us how she found the atoll on maps of the South Pacific, how it was once in a nuclear testing zone that had never been used and was now decommissioned, far away from shipping lanes.
Iona gathers more firewood and Beti suggests we collect water.
The water carriers are cylinders of foil-like material that roll up really small. I’m struck again by how carefully Iona prepared for all this. We take one each.
Beti chats as we walk, telling me about a new fruit bush she’s found. We already have mangoes, pineapple and giant grapefruit things called pomelos.
‘Iona says we need to start rationing the fruit as the trees are so young. So I hope you like coconut and fish,’ she says, crouching to fill the water pouch in the stream, up where it flows over rocks at the tree line.
‘Luckily,’ I say.
‘And seaweed?’ she says.
‘Around the outside of sushi? Then yes,’ I say, copying her as I fill my pouch with water.
Beti stops. ‘That is exactly what Callum said.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I say, without looking at her. Callum was Beti’s friend, part of her family at Wildhaven. I’ve wanted to say this but haven’t found the words until now. ‘It’s my fault. He went in after me.’
‘I told him not to go,’ she says. ‘It was his choice. Sad thing was, he always wanted to prove that he was useful, strong. But he didn’t need to change. Everyone liked him as he was.’
We fall into stride.
On the way back Beti describes how on the other island, there will be equipment to set up something called mariculture; an underwater farm with baskets suspended from ropes for growing shellfish, like the one I saw on the beach back in New Zealand.
‘Don’t you ever miss normal stuff ?’ I say. ‘I mean you’re used to it now, but when you first came to Wildhaven.’
As the words leave my mouth, I remember that before Wildhaven, Beti was living in a refugee camp with her dying mother. I fee
l embarrassed by my insensitivity, but Beti doesn’t seem to notice.
‘Not really,’ she says. ‘I missed music at first, but nothing from before seems that important to me now. Do you?’
I miss my phone and music, my hairdryer. Toast and marmite. I would give my right arm for a can of cold Coke or a fluffy towel. But none of it matters, not really, not compared to how much I miss Mum and now Poppy, every day.
‘Just my family,’ I say.
She gives me a rueful smile and nods, then slips her arm through mine, and we walk on.
Later we share a meal at the makeshift table, the fire warm at my back.
Beti asks Iona about the design we saw in the sand on the seabed, demonstrating how large it was by walking a circle around the fire.
‘I’d have to see it, but it sounds like a pufferfish nest. They are made by a fish about this big,’ says Iona, holding her hands about ten centimetres apart.
‘But it was so detailed,’ says Beti. ‘How was it made by one little fish?’
‘The pufferfish builds it bit by tiny bit and eventually creates something unique, miraculous really.’
Iona stares intently into the flames.
‘Are there any animals here on the island? I haven’t seen any,’ says Beti.
I decide it’s time I prove to Iona I’m fine. I don’t want her watching my every move, sending Beti to supervise me. I can trust myself to keep calm now and I need to talk.
‘An atoll is the remains of a sea volcano, the volcano has sunk down and the ring of islands are the ancient reef that formed around it. It was never joined to other land. So unless humans brought them, the only animals would have come by wind, water or flown here from the mainland,’ I say.
Iona grins. ‘A scientist after my own heart! I couldn’t have said it better. And we are so far from the mainland, there is very little here. Probably not even birds.’
Yet there is a boy underwater. Sea Boy seems more unreal by the second.
Beti is staring at me, open-mouthed. ‘How do you know this?’ she says.
‘I liked Science at school,’ I say with a shrug.
‘Are there sandflies?’ says Beti.
This time Iona and I start speaking at the same time: ‘Not without any mammals . . .’
We break off and Iona smiles at me. I manage a small smile back.
Beti wrinkles her nose. ‘This is good news,’ she says, and I wonder if she means Iona and me talking to each other or the lack of biting insects. ‘At Wildhaven they even ate my eyelids.’
We laugh but it’s a hollow sound. Three of us. So different to the bustle at Wildhaven. I imagine Poppy with all the others, surrounded by chat, maybe under a larger shelter like the one in the centre of Wildhaven. She’s a lot better at making friends than I am. She’ll be safe until I get to her. I force myself to believe it.
By the time we climb into our hammocks I’ve decided I have to go back to the lagoon alone. To the gap in the reef, to see if I can somehow signal to Sea Boy. He could be dangerous, but I have to know if he’s real.
I tell myself that if he wanted to kill me, he’d have already done it.
I sleep with my swimsuit on beneath my T-shirt, certain I’ll wake before dawn; I always do.
Iwake earlier than ever and watch for the first hint of the sky becoming lighter through the gaps in the bamboo hut, before I tip silently out of the hammock and edge open the door. I turn and check Iona and Beti; their breathing is heavy and rhythmic. Six a.m. swim training made me a master at sneaking out without waking Mum and Poppy. Mum never liked it; she preferred to hear me leave, but she worked long shifts as a nurse and didn’t need to wake extra early just to see me off. I feel a blast of familiar fury. She was sick to gone, so quickly.
This morning I’m locking my fear for Poppy and my grief for Mum in the darkest part of my heart. I need to concentrate on the here and now.
Sea Boy held me down beneath the jellyfish. But I tell myself again that if he intended to actually kill me, he could so easily have done it then, or earlier, with his knife or his spear, or simply by leaving me on the mangrove island with the choice of thirst, or shark.
So with the dawn breeze in my hair and cool sand beneath my toes, I set off to look for the boy who either tried to drown me or to save my life. To see what he knows about Callum, if he has seen Poppy. To find out if I can trust my own eyes and mind.
I lift my chin. I don’t know how I am going to signal to him and feel exposed in only my swimsuit. I’m choosing to believe he didn’t want to kill me, but being armed seems a good idea. I already have my knife and I tiptoe towards the tree line, retrieving my machete from where I hid it last night. I attach it to my belt.
I half jog down the beach, all the while expecting Iona to notice I’m gone and call out. But she doesn’t.
I hesitate at the water’s edge. Last time I went off on my own, I swam to the mangrove island and Callum followed me – and died. But I need to do this. This time I’m armed and I don’t intend to leave the lagoon. This is a calculated risk. I slide into the lagoon, surprised at how warm the water is. Clouds build like silver-topped mountains along the horizon. For now the moon is brighter than the blue smudge of sunrise and penetrates the water with rays of gunmetal grey. I lower the goggles, clasp on the nose clip, and bite down on the snorkel.
The lagoon is dark, eerie. Less fish around, but other things move on the reef. An eel darts in and out of a hollow, and I catch sight of a sleek body that looks shark-shaped, but is only the length of my arm.
I shudder, strike out towards the gap in the reef, and then dive and hover at the brink of the murkier water beyond. I stare around me through the goggles as goosebumps rise along my arms.
Reach. Kick. Breathe.
I tell my mum’s voice that now is not a good time.
There’s nothing. The darkness below and beyond is limitless, bewildering.
The sound of my breath through the snorkel tube breaks the silence and I take a deep inhalation and hold it. I hear a ticking sound and look down to see one lone fish pecking at the coral.
Sea Boy made a noise with his teeth to call the manta ray, a clicking sound that travelled through the water. I open my jaw, ready to try it. But what if the clicking calls a manta ray? I don’t know if I want one of those giant fish sweeping up to me.
What else could make a noise that will carry?
I draw my knife and machete and rap the metal blades together as hard as I can against the resistance of the water.
I take a deep breath through the snorkel and hold it again, listening. I make the noise again, over and over. It’s useless. Sea Boy could travel miles on that giant fish, he could be anywhere in the entire ocean.
Or buried back within my hallucinating subconscious where he belongs.
I turn and kick back into the safety of the lagoon. Swimming slowly towards the beach, I pause above the circular design in the sand that Iona said was made by a single pufferfish.
I take a breath and dive down. It somehow looks even more impressive and detailed in the heavy shadows of the dim light. And then I spot the creator. A boxy, spotted fish with wide-spaced eyes swims along the troughs, his body tilted sideways, so he can plough the circular shape with a tiny, vibrating fin. I remember the faraway look in Iona’s eyes as she’d told us about this fish. It occurs to me that Wildhaven, her cure, getting us to this atoll, is Iona’s pattern in the sand – impossible to believe, but here all the same. And yet I could wreck this fish’s heroic work with just one sweep of my foot. I shiver, then surface and turn back to the gap in the reef.
One last try at calling Sea Boy. One last shot of faith in my own eyes, my own sanity.
I tap the machete and knife together over and over. The staccato, metallic beats echo across the ocean and I feel like I’m shouting in a church, but I carry on even when my arms ache.
A mass streams beneath me and before I can move, it swoops up in front and I spin in Sea Boy’s wake, my heart beating in my thro
at. He grasps my forearm to hold me still, and faces me, his eyebrows arched. The bioluminescent globes attached to his shoulders flicker violet-blue, clearer now in the darker water. They illuminate his face from below as the pre-dawn light dapples him from above. He seems carved from marble.
Sea Boy is real.
What the hell was I thinking summoning him here?
Now we’re face to face, the fact he tried to drown me feels very important.
I shake myself free of his grip and flail backwards, breathing raggedly through the snorkel, realizing my self-doubt had grown so big, I hadn’t believed Sea Boy existed, let alone that I would be able call him to the lagoon.
I hold out both the machete and knife like a little kid who wants to play swords. His gills are slim lines across his chest and his dark hair billows. He surveys me over the top of my weapons, one eyebrow raised. He’s holding a black spine, like the ones from those spiky sea urchins. With the other hand he points to my arms and legs and makes a wriggling movement with his fingers followed by the same cutting gesture across his neck that he made before we first saw the jellyfish.
My heart races. I don’t know what he’s trying to say, can’t make out his expression. Something about the jellyfish?
Slowing my juddering breaths through the snorkel, I give an exaggerated shrug.
I need to keep him here, find a way to show Iona and Beti that he’s real.
I need to find out more about him, about Callum, about Poppy and the others.
Or I need to escape now before he makes a second attempt at drowning me.
My eyes flick to his wrist. It is wrapped in the same seaweed he used on my leg. I bit him. Hard.
What’s his reason for coming back? I kick gently; still holding up the knife and machete, trying to drift backwards and increase the distance between us.
I need to talk to Sea Boy like I did on the mangrove island, so I point to the surface and raise my eyebrows. The first rays of sunrise shaft sideways though the surface, dappling him. He shakes his head, face serious, and points upwards as he repeats the cutting-throat signal. The surface is dangerous? He makes clawing movements over his chest and my heart races as an image of Callum flashes into my mind. I shake my head and scull backwards. His lips pinch together, jaw tight and frustrated. He jabs a finger at me, then out into the blue.
Secret Deep Page 12