Water Song (Once Upon a Time (Simon Pulse))

by Suzanne Weyn

Her hand clapped over her mouth to stop herself from crying out in alarm.

  Flames roared out from her parents’ bedroom window. The library below it and the kitchen, too, were also engulfed in flames. The rain wasn’t even enough to quench the inferno that roared out the window and shot up from the roof.

  Her first thought was the lantern. She’d left it burning inside the wall. If it had fallen and set the sheet rope on fire, it would have traveled past the library and right down to the kitchen. It probably burned behind there until it was so hot that the walls burst into flames.

  The realization that she might have destroyed the family’s ancient manor sent a chill through her. She couldn’t think of it now. It might be bombed to the ground soon, anyway. Who could tell anymore? Anything might happen. At least this way it would help her to escape.

  Soldiers poured out of the house into the rain. She recognized Colonel Schiller’s voice yelling, ordering his men to carry away the crates and burlap bags of munitions stacked against the outside wall of the estate.

  Emma didn’t wait to see what would happen next. Climbing out of the well, she ran across the wet grass toward the forest.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Mud

  At least the rain’s finally stopped, Jack noticed as he reached the edge of the dripping forest. Out on the farm road, just beyond the trees, muddy water several inches deep gushed along like a river.

  He ducked back under the cover of the trees when two headlights appeared on the road. Someone inside the car was sweeping a light from side to side, searching. In the light he saw that they were German soldiers.

  Where they looking for him?

  It was certainly possible.

  The road would not be safe. He was clearly still behind enemy lines. It might be wiser to stay to the fields. The night was so dark, he could cut right across. With this black night to cover him, he could probably cover miles before dawn.

  Until being gassed with the French troops, he’d been stationed with the British Fourth Army somewhere northwest of here. They might still be around there. He’d head west before turning north later.

  Of course, it wouldn’t be easy crossing these fields in their current condition. He’d have to look for rocky sections and elevated patches as much as he could. “Ah, what’s a little mud to a frog like me,” he said, covering his anxiety as he stepped out of the forest and into the field.

  His foot instantly sank up to his calf into the soggy earth. He was forced to use both hands to yank it out and was nervous about his next step.

  He saw a line of rocks. That’s it! he thought, elated. He leaped to the closest one, and then to the next. Hopping from rock to rock would allow him to get across the field without sinking into the mud.

  He kept going, trying not to worry too much about what he would do if the trail of rocks ended. In that case he could go back the same way he had come and hope to pick up another trail of rocks, but it would cost him precious time.

  But what other choice did he have?

  Even if he wasn’t moving in the most efficient way, at least he was making a distance between himself and the estate.

  And Emma.

  As he moved deftly from rock to rock, he wondered what she was doing. If they were in fact looking for him, it meant they had already discovered he was gone. What would that mean for her?

  A strange light was coming from somewhere. Was a battle going on somewhere? Boy, the minute the rain stops, they start right to it again, he thought, shaking his head bitterly.

  He realized, after a moment more, that the glow was coming from The Ridge.

  And then he heard an explosion up there, and the light grew even brighter.

  What was going on?

  Was Emma in danger?

  He had to go back for her! There was no other choice.

  It would take too long to go back the way he’d come. Frantically he searched the black mud for another trail of rocks to move along.

  He’d gone several yards when he saw a figure emerge from the forest. Normally he wouldn’t have been able to see the advancing person but the glow from The Ridge had cast an eerie, dancing illumination over the field.

  And he saw, incredibly, Emma coming toward him!

  She’d spotted him and was waving.

  No! She couldn’t come out here! What was she thinking? “Stay put, Em!” he shouted. “I’ll come to you!”

  It seemed she couldn’t hear him, because she kept coming forward.

  “You crazy girl! What are you doing out here?” he muttered, leaping as quickly as he could from rock to rock.

  Then he realized why she kept coming forward. She saw him standing and thought it was safe. She couldn’t tell that he was standing on a rock!

  He shouted to her, “Em, hold up! It’s not safe! I’m on a rock! Find a rock!”

  Then she disappeared from sight, completely vanished!

  “Emma!” he yelled as panic swept over him. She’d dropped into a mud-drenched bog and it had swallowed her whole.

  He could no longer afford to search for rocks. He leaped into the mud, sinking instantly up to his knees. Pushing forward with all his strength, he waded through the thick sludge.

  As he came closer he heard screaming, and new hope surged in him. She wasn’t completely under! Her two arms flailed. “Hold still, Em,” he called to her. “The more you struggle, the faster you’ll sink.”

  Pulling his shirt over his head, he twirled it quickly into a line. Then he dropped to his stomach, inching forward on his elbows. When he thought he was close enough, he swung the shirt to her, holding tight to his end.

  She grabbed it on the first throw.

  He wrapped his end of the shirt tightly in his clenched fist. “Okay now, sug. Whatever happens, I’ve got my end and I won’t let go no matter what. You don’t let go either, hear me?”

  He pulled on the shirt but he couldn’t bring her straight up. Every time she rose a little, the mud sucked her back down.

  Maybe this was similar to a riptide, he considered. When a riptide swept a person out to sea, it was best to swim from side to side instead of trying to head directly into shore. “Listen, Em, we’re goin’ to move sideways, just like crabs do. Stay cool and don’t drop that line. We’ll get you out.”

  She nodded as he began crawling to the side still clutching the shirt. He could see her neck, and soon her shoulders began to appear. “Hey, we’re makin’ progress,” he cheered. “Ya, you right, it’s workin’!”

  The direction they were headed in was taking them closer to the road, but he didn’t dare veer off. The bog she had sunken into was rising, and he couldn’t risk taking her off its upward path.

  Then she stopped moving. As much as he tugged, she was stuck.

  “My skirt snagged!” she shouted.

  “Can you slip it off?”

  She shook her head. “I can’t move my arms.”

  “Don’t let go of the shirt,” he said as he slipped into the mud beside her. “I’ll unsnag you.”

  “Don’t go!” she cried in a panic-filled voice.

  “I’m a frog, remember? I love mud.”

  He filled his lungs until they felt full to bursting and then ducked his head under into the black world of ooze. He used her body as his guide, working his way down until he reached the end of her skirt. It was wrapped on a branch of some kind.

  Moving in the mud was maddeningly slow. It closed in around him, seeping into his ears, his nose, pushing its way into his mouth. His breath was running out. What if he couldn’t make his way up in time?

  Her fingers began to clutch at him. Was she sinking? With a tug, the branch broke, setting her skirt free.

  But how could he fight his way up without pulling her down?

  He found footing on a ledge of stone beneath him and pushed against it. Grabbing her around the waist, he pushed up, hoping to keep her head above the muddy surface.

  The rocky ledge continued, and he was able to keep on it and bring his
nose and then his mouth above the mud.

  With a whoosh, he breathed out and then sucked in fresh air.

  He continued to hold her as they trudged out of the bog, heading for the road. He was shoulder high in mud, with Emma in his arms, when a brilliant light swept out of the darkness, blinding him.

  He had no choice but to keep going toward it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  The Treasure

  When Emma’s eyes opened, she was no longer out in the dark night. Instead, she lay on a cot in a dimly lit hut. Her skin had become unnaturally tight and she could feel something gritty in her mouth.

  Holding up her arm to the light, she saw it was completely caked with dried mud. Her entire body, from her hair to her boots, was covered in muck! She felt for her locket and discovered that it was, amazingly, still around her neck, though even it was also encrusted in the dry, flaking earth.

  And then she remembered everything.

  The fire. Her escape. Feeling overjoyed to see Jack in the fire’s glow, moving out there on the field just when she’d given up on ever seeing him again. Feeling such a great need to get to him that she’d run out despite all she knew about the muddiness of the fields, all she’d come to warn him of; thinking that if he was standing, it must be safe.

  Then the terrifying moment the mud sucked her down; the earth itself seemed to have become a hideous monster determined to consume her whole.

  And then there he was beside her.

  When everyone else had let her down, had gone away, had not come to get her, when the world itself had lost its mind—there he was.

  He had gone down to the bottom of the muddy bog with only one purpose: to push her up.

  What an idiot she’d been not to have seen him more clearly right away; how much he loved her, what a brave, large spirit he had. He’d never stopped trying to help the Allies, through his pain, his isolation, his capture; he’d never stopped trying. And all along he’d hidden these things from her; hidden them to keep her safe.

  Truthfully, she knew she had seen it, but she’d fought against it. He seemed too strange to her, not the picture she had in mind of the person she would love.

  A rueful laugh escaped her lips. Lloyd had been her image of the suitor she should have: status-minded, snobbish, two-faced Lloyd. So classically handsome and socially acceptable! How could she have been so wrong?

  But where was Jack now?

  Sitting up, she looked around the room. It was a simply furnished field office of some kind, with maps on the white walls—and a picture of Kaiser Wilhelm the Second. She recognized the German leader instantly from his photos in the newspapers.

  Where was Jack?

  Scrambling from the cot, she went to the window. There he was, outside, standing in front of a German soldier who was holding a pistol on him.

  The soldier was going to shoot him!

  Emma yanked the door open and ran to him, throwing her arms around his neck. Holding him tight, she kissed his mud-smeared lips with her own.

  “Halt!” the soldier cried. “Stop that!”

  “I love you,” she whispered.

  “I love you too, Em,” he answered quietly.

  “Stop or I will shoot you both right now!” the soldier insisted angrily.

  Emma turned to him. As she did, she saw that her locket had slipped from her neck and fallen at her feet, its two halves sprung open. The locked compartment was finally open! Picking it up, she looked inside. Two deep red rubies lay nestled in the golden half sphere.

  She stepped toward the soldier and thrust them at him. “Take these. They’re very valuable. In exchange, just turn your back a moment and let us escape.”

  He laughed. “I don’t need to bargain. I’ll shoot you and then take them.”

  In a flash, she had them out of the locket and in her mouth. “I’ll swallow them first.” Slowly she walked backward to Jack. “Turn around and I’ll leave them on this tree stump behind me,” she said.

  The soldier studied them with narrowed, suspicious eyes. “Put them down now.”

  Jack reached out for her hand and she took it. Together they backed up to the tree stump. Emma took the rubies from her mouth and set them down, keeping her hand on them until the soldier turned.

  Together they raced down the hillside. The moon had come out, and they could see a river at the bottom of the hill; it was rushing fast, its wild current glistening silver.

  Gunshots fired from on top of the hill. The soldier had come after them. A bullet rushed past Emma’s face.

  “Stay low. Keep running,” Jack said, gripping her hand even tighter as they continued down the hill.

  Another bullet whistled past.

  Then, from atop the hill, came the clatter of machine gun fire.

  Emma screamed just as they came to the riverbank. Something had hit her arm. Blood poured out. The searing pain was awful.

  Guided by her scream, the next bullet grazed her forehead.

  “Breathe deep,” Jack said. Grabbing her beneath her armpit, he threw them both into the river.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Water Song

  Jack swam in a river of silver ribbons that carried him along on their flowing strands, singing to him all along. The breezes skirting the shimmering whitecaps carried music to his ears.

  You belong to the river. You are prince of the water. You have won the heart of the one you love. Prince of the river. Prince of the water. Swim on. Swim on. Until you carry your love ashore. Swim on.

  Obstructions filled the water, branches and clumps of matted leaves that had risen off the riverbank because the water was so high. It didn’t matter to him. He pushed them aside easily. He felt light and strong, able to swim for miles, if he needed to.

  Gripping Emma firmly across her chest and beneath her one arm, he kept her head above the water as he pulled with one arm and snapped his legs together in powerful scissor-kicks going forward. The bullet that had grazed her head had knocked her unconscious. If he lost his grip on her, she would drown. But nothing would ever force him to let her go now.

  She loved him. She had said it. She’d kissed him.

  With one kiss she had turned him into a prince among men. Nothing else mattered now—not the Waifs’ Home, not the hard days working on the docks, not the blistering afternoons mopping a deck, not the rat-infested trenches, not the burning gas in his eyes. None of it mattered anymore.

  Her love had released him.

  More than a kiss, she’d given him her tears. By trusting him, she’d made him realize how worthy of trust he had always been.

  More than the kiss, she’d given him her vision of him. By seeing him clearly, she revealed all that he was inside—revealed it to him as well as to her. Her view of him became his view of himself, and he realized that the man she now saw was the one who had been there all along.

  More than the kiss, her sacrifice made him see the essential beauty of her, the depth below the surface shine. When the locket split, it was as though her heart had opened to him.

  But the kiss had been the magic token, the gesture of love, the mixing of energies that sealed the bond.

  He was suddenly full of optimism about the future—their future together.

  She loved him. She had said it. She’d kissed him.

  The ribbons of silver that were sweeping him along slowly turned into strands of gold. Was he in Allied territory yet? It would be important to know, because the sun was rising and they would be easy to see, there in the water.

  The golden, sun-flecked water began to sing him a new song. Be gone from the river. Be gone, you prince of the water. The one you love needs magic from the land. Prince of the river. Prince of the water. Be gone. Be gone. Now carry your love ashore. Be gone.

  He knew this song was right. Emma needed to be out of the cold water. He had to see how bad her wounds were, how much blood she’d lost.

  Just ahead, they came to a swirling eddy in the river. A tree had fallen into the water. Reaching
out, he was able to grab hold of it to keep from moving with the rushing current.

  Still holding tight to Emma, he dragged them both along the tree until he was able to sit in the shallow water. He pulled her up so that she was half on land and half in the shallow, watery banks because right then it was the best he could do; he needed a moment to recover.

  He shivered in the cool morning air. Untying his shoes, he emptied the water from them, tied the laces together, and slung them around his neck. Pulling off his undershirt, he rang out the water from it before putting it back on. As much as he longed to collapse there awhile, he couldn’t leave Emma in the bracingly cold river water.

  He lifted her, carrying her to a dry patch of long grass and carefully laying her on it. Her blouse was torn and blood-soaked, exposing the place where the bullet had gashed her arm. He hoped it wasn’t lodged inside the skin. He didn’t think it was.

  The river had washed them of mud and it had washed her wounds out too.

  She’d been knocked out a long time.

  Why wasn’t she waking up?

  Suddenly cold with fear, he put his thumb on her jugular vein.

  He didn’t feel a pulse. He put his hand on her heart.

  “Aw, c’mon, Em, give me something,” he urged, fighting panic.

  Nothing.

  He checked her mouth to make sure she hadn’t swallowed anything in the river that was stopping her from breathing. No. “Em, wake up!” he shouted, shaking her.

  Kneeling beside her, he thumped her heart hard with his fist. He thought he heard the sound of bone cracking. He drew back, horrified by what he’d done, but then forced himself to keep on with it, remembering the training he’d received in the army.

  He threw all his weight onto her, pressing with both his palms, pumping them, trying to force her heart to start beating once again.

  She couldn’t leave him now. She loved him. She’d said it. She’d kissed him.

  Throwing his head back, he began to sing a healing song his mother had taught him. She’d learned it from her great-grandmother, a Natchez medicine woman. He’d heard her sing it, asking the Great Spirit for help. He threw his head back and sang the song in a plaintive, heartfelt wail as he pumped at Emma’s heart.