by Julia Ember
A slow grin spread over Kara’s face. “We need a stakeout,” she said. “Like they do in the military. Twenty-four-hour surveillance on the site.”
I raised my eyebrows. None of my clients had ever requested to spend a night in the savanna before. Most of them thought sleeping in our huts was rough camping, never mind spending the night in a tent on the ground. I’d done it a handful of times with Tumelo, when Bi Trembla’s snoring kept the entire camp awake. “Will your father let you do that?”
Kara shrugged, shuffling a few of the papers into a neat pile and folding them away in her pocket. “He’s bedbound for another few days. We don’t have to tell him, right?”
BI TREMBLA chased after me, her ostrich feather duster raised like a weapon. “You can’t bring that white girl into the wilderness for the night! Are you crazy? She can’t stay in a tent with the wild animals around! Does her father know?”
“Of course he knows,” I lied, but Bi Trembla sniffed out my deception as keenly as a hydra smells fresh blood in the water.
She put her hands on her wide hips and smirked. “What if I tell him?”
“By the time you tell him, we’ll be away. So you’ll just make your patient all nervous,” I said as we entered the stable block. “Do you want a nervous patient? Ringing his bell for you every five minutes, asking if his daughter has returned yet? Besides, Tumelo’s okay with it.”
“You think I care what Tumelo will allow? That boy is even less responsible than you are!”
“Well, technically he is in charge of this camp. Technically.”
Bi Trembla scowled, frown lines thickening above her brow. We glared at each other, waiting to see who would back down first. “Fine,” she said, jabbing her finger at my chest. “I will not tell him. But no harm better come to that girl. One night. And no sleep for you. You stay awake. And watch to make sure nothing tries to get into her tent. There are wild creatures out there… and wild men.”
I waved her off, rolling my eyes. “Yeah, yeah. We’ll be careful.”
Tumelo had already packed the things we’d need overnight, as neither of us had planned to tell Bi Trembla at all. The woman had eyes all over the camp. Sometimes I suspected one of her parents was a troglodyte. I gathered the gear and began strapping the bags to the placid mules. As I finished, Kara tiptoed into the stable block, dressed from head to toe in black, as if trying to blend in to the dawn. She even wore a black-net covering over her hair.
I giggled. “You know camouflage won’t help us escape, right? Bi Trembla is already on to us.”
She put her hand to her mouth. “My father doesn’t know, right? I thought if I wore black, he might not recognize me so easily when we ride off because he couldn’t see my hair. His eyesight isn’t what it used to be. He’ll worry and I don’t want him to be concerned when he’s so sick.” She pulled the net off her hair. “Stupid, right?”
“Bi Trembla’s agreed to keep our secret for the time being. She doesn’t want the extra work of caring for a nervous patient.”
I finished saddling the horses, allocating her the black gelding again, as she seemed to enjoy a feistier ride. As I worked, I glanced over to the stall next to me to talk to her, and then hurriedly turned back to the horse, feeling heat rise to my face. Kara had stripped off her black shirt. Her face was hidden by the fresh tunic she tugged over her head, but her back was bare and her hair hung down, kissing the places beneath her shoulder blades.
I fished an apple I’d stolen from Tumelo’s fruit basket out of my pocket, biting into its succulent sweetness. That way if she said something to me now, I’d have an excuse for mumbling back. Juice squirted down my chin and across my cheeks. Why couldn’t I ever keep clean while eating?
From the next stall, Kara reached out and brushed it away with her fingertip, chuckling. Was she flirting? “You reminded me of my grandmother, so I had to wipe it away fast. She always drools when she eats.”
“Thanks,” I said, passing the gelding’s reins to her and frowning. Couldn’t be flirting if she was making comparisons like that. “I’m happy I remind you of your drooling grandmother.”
She blushed and led her horse outside.
I tied the pack mules’ leads to a ring on my saddle and mounted up. Kara climbed aboard and settled into the saddle with expert gentleness. I nudged Elikia, and we snuck out around the paddocks, careful not to ride past the hut where Kara’s father slept.
The phoenixes always sang at dawn. As we rode along the path, their ephemeral voices rang out in harmony, almost like a greeting. Today we had a breeze and the humidity wasn’t as stifling. For once, my skin felt dry. Kara closed her eyes to absorb the sound, smiling as the early morning sun bathed her face. She released the reins and let the gelding follow me. I noticed that Bi Trembla had given her a paste made of flour and baking soda to put on the bug bites to stop the itching. They looked less swollen today, and on her pale skin, the paste helped conceal the redness. After we pitched the tents, I’d search for some citronella roots to keep the bugs off her for good.
Instead of taking us straight to the cliffside where I’d planned to make camp, I led Kara through the woods to a little clearing along the river. Tumelo always thought we should feed each guest and ourselves for two, so the mules carted breakfast for four. Although I’d had the apple, my stomach rumbled. I was looking forward to digging out whatever my cousin had decided to pack. I held up my hand and pointed to the riverside, pulling Elikia to a halt.
We dismounted, hobbling the horses to let them graze. Kara took a seat on a rock by the river, dangling her fingers in the current and looking across the narrow body to the jagged cliffs that lined the other side. A waterfall slithered down between the rocks. I’d always loved this spot.
I pulled the packs off the nearest mule and searched through them. The first thing I found was a jar labeled “Maziwa—Kara, tea.” I rolled my eyes. Tumelo had teased me about my appetite since I was a child and here he was, a decade later, still making sure I’d remember not to drink all the milk so Kara could have tea.
Before I had time to get all the breakfast things out of the pack, Kara had started unlacing her boots. She grinned wickedly at me over her shoulder as she pulled off her socks and tossed them onto the ground. “The water looks clean. You don’t have leeches in Nazwimbe, do you?”
No, just morgawrs, hippos, and crocodiles…. The thought died as she unbuttoned her trousers. The stiff khaki slipped lightly to the ground. Her linen shirt fell to midthigh. Unwillingly, my gaze traveled down her legs, to the alabaster thighs with just a trace of dimpling above her knees.
“I need to check the area,” I said too late, as she waded into the river.
“I’m all sweaty from the ride. I want to cool down before we eat,” she called back, floating on her belly.
I scrambled to the shore. The river was clear and quiet. I couldn’t see any trace of crocodiles basking in the sun. Sighing, I undid my boots and pulled off my own pants, following her knee-deep into the cold water, wondering how she could stand to swim when it was so cold. My teeth chattered and goose bumps prickled my arms. She edged her way over to the waterfall and leaned up against the cliff behind it, letting the water run down through her hair. White fabric melded to her ample curves like a second skin.
“Come on!” Kara said, leaning down to splash a fistful of water at me. “This is way better than the baths at the camp. I think the water is fresher here too. Farther upstream.”
I stared at the pebbles rolling under my toes, too afraid to look back up. Warmth rose up my neck. Try as I might to focus on the brown and gray stones, I couldn’t get the image of her form beneath the wet, clinging fabric out of my mind.
“Come out,” I said, beckoning and chancing a glance up. “It’s not really safe here to go in the water.”
“I’m keeping my eyes peeled,” she said and winked. Her teasing eyes looked into mine.
Something slippery brushed my ankle. I looked down but couldn’t see the cause. A ri
ver fish, probably, or an eel. Maybe I’d try to catch a few for dinner later. A few feet away, something rippled in the water. From her position under the waterfall, Kara suddenly pointed. “Look, over there, a mermaid.”
I whirled around. Sitting placidly halfway up the bank, a brunette mermaid sunned her hominoid half in the open air. She hummed a soft tune, something imitated from one of the birds.
Banishing all thoughts of Kara’s magnificent body, I raced forward and grabbed her by the arm. I pointed to the nearest part of the shore. “Go, run! Now!”
She blinked at me in confusion, struggling as I pulled her toward the bank. “It’s a mermaid. They’re harmless. I know they can’t actually converse like people, but they’re still pretty to look at.”
I’d heard people say that before. Foreigners and their ridiculous myths. Some of them believed mermaids were actually part human, with whole societies built under the oceans. Ocean mermaids were more solitary. Alone, no mermaid could submerge a human. But the river mermaids of Nazwimbe were amphibians that roamed in schools like fish. Where there was one, there would be more. A school of piranha had nothing on a group of mermaids. I’d seen them strip a water buffalo down to the skeleton in under a minute.
“Stop, Mnemba. You’re hurting me,” Kara protested, trying to yank her arm out of my grip. “It’s all the way over there. You’re being dramatic. Stop it.”
“They’re dangerous. We have to get out. There will be more around here somewhere.” Strong as she was, fear helped me win. I tugged her up onto the riverbank.
“Look, I appreciate you’re being a good guide and all, but the sailors up by us have seen mermaids as well. You think I don’t know anything and that all the research we did is worthless, so you’re trying to show me up. Do you think that I’m some vapid idiot from the North who can’t defend herself? You can’t just manhandle me out of the river with no explanation.” Her hands went to her wet hips and she glared.
Annoyance and fear made me turn mean. “All you do is study things in books from a thousand miles away, so whatever you think you know—forget it. In Nazwimbe things you can’t see can kill you. And sometimes we don’t have the luxury of sitting around at a table batting questions back and forth.”
“Thanks for reminding me that I’ll never get a chance like this again. I already know that. Books from a thousand miles away are all I’m going to get,” she snapped back, sitting down on the river’s bank.
Angrily, I squelched, still sopping, across the grass to the mules and took my rifle down. A wild hare sniffed at the grass in the clearing. Without thinking further, I shot it. The shot was clean and the hare dropped. I stalked over, seized the dead animal, and tossed it into the river. Kara’s face drained as its blood spread through the crystal water.
A tiny ripple appeared, and the hare’s foot twitched as if nibbled by a small fish. Then, in a flurry of aquamarine tails, the mermaids pounced. Their slippery bodies twisted around each other as they snapped flesh from bone with razor sharp teeth. With a toss of her hair, the brunette from the banks dove into the blood-crazed fray.
NEEDLESS TO say, we skipped breakfast on the riverbank. Kara dried herself and changed into a fresh shirt. She mounted without speaking to me. I couldn’t decide if she was angrier I’d shot the hare to make a point or that I’d been right about the mermaids. Whatever her reasons, the silence hurt.
We rode on without speaking to each other—all the way to my planned campsite behind a ridge overlooking the Olafrango Lake and the fields below. From the higher vantage point, we’d be able to see everything that happened at the baobab tree without getting in the way of a frenzied unicorn orgy or risk being surprised by their hunters. I pitched the tents while Kara made a show of petting and speaking to the horses, ignoring me. She cooed over them, feeding them bits of grass and handfuls of dried fruit from one of the packs.
When I finished setting up the tents, I found a seat on a rock as far away from her as possible and took my binoculars out to study the fields below. We were here to find answers, not play with the horses. They probably would have been happier left to graze on their own anyway.
A herd of wildebeest browsed the grass below us in the open field, with zebra and abada dotted amongst them. Watching the two-horned abada peacefully munch grass alongside the other animals, I was suddenly curious what made Kara and her father think that they were another species of unicorn. True, they had an equine-style body, with horns and hairy legs, but zebra stripes wound up their hind legs and their tails were tufted like a great cat’s. Their behavior was nothing like the unicorns: living in massive herds, grazing out in the open with little regard for humans or predators. Unicorns had a presence, a sense of majesty that the abada lacked. Since they wandered alongside the herds of wildebeest and zebra, I’d always assumed the abada was some sort of hybrid of the two.
I stole a glance over at Kara. She had stopped petting the horses and taken a seat herself, looking down the tunnel of her binoculars. Her head followed the herd, and I could guess what she focused on. A small foal trailed one of the abadas, head-butting his mother’s side with his blunt baby horns. His gangly legs twisted, and he toppled forward onto his muzzle, whinnying until his mother nosed him back onto his feet. Kara’s lips curved into a smile. I chuckled.
She looked up and scowled when she saw me watching her. Setting her mouth in a tight frown, she looked straight ahead again.
“Come on,” I said, a little nervous now that she might not speak to me at all for the rest of the stakeout. And what would Tumelo do if she told him about my outburst? The camp couldn’t afford to get a reputation for hiring rude guides with a temper. Maybe he’d finally do what my mama kept begging and send me home. “I had to drag you out. Those mermaids would have killed you. I’m sorry I shot the rabbit like that and didn’t explain things to you, though.”
Kara glared out across the field for a moment before sighing. She turned to face me. “I guess I’m not really angry with you.”
I let out a slow breath in relief.
“I’m just angry that there is so much I don’t know. There’s so much that’s not part of our literature at all. Most of our naturalists and scientists are away studying Zanchen and other places so far to the west. Nazwimbe is hard to get to. The only way is by ship and then by horse over land. The scientists that do come here, they all want to look at the griffins, hydras, leopards… killers.” Her shoulders sagged. “I just wish I had more time to study and have a life.”
I stood up and sat down on the rock beside her. “Can’t you just turn him down? Or delay it? Is there a timeline?”
“I have two years. Since I’m younger than him, when I turn eighteen, we have to get married. It’s the law.”
“Some birthday present.”
She laughed, but it was hollow.
I pointed out a group of baboons stooping by the edge of the lake to drink, hoping to distract her. She peered down at them, watching the babies dunk each other in the shallows. Slowly, she lost her thoughts in Nazwimbe.
The tourists who visited us always talked about how backward we were here, discussing the shortcomings of my country in front of me as if I were invisible. Our huts were too simple, our technology unrefined, our food too bland. We didn’t have buggies, and the potholes in our dirt roads made them sick to their stomachs. No streetlamps replaced the stars as our midnight guides. Sometimes, when I listened to them talk about their libraries full of books, their jewelry, and big, multilevel houses, I envied all the things they had. But we didn’t have a law that forced us to marry a person we didn’t want. Men could take more than one bride in Nazwimbe, a practice Echalenders found barbaric, but only if all the girls were willing. They all had to want him. In Nazwimbe, our General horsewhipped those who forced a girl to marry outside her will, and bride prices were illegal. I valued that little bit of freedom more than oil lamps.
A cloud of dust appeared on the horizon, growing larger on the edge of the savanna. I picked up my binocu
lars again and focused in on it. I expected more wildebeest or maybe the water buffalo herd. They liked to come down for an afternoon soak in the lake’s muddy banks. Instead I saw riders. A group of more than two dozen men cantered toward the ancient baobab tree.
Most of the men looked like highway robbers or beggars. They wore shirts strewn with reddish dirt and trousers so full of holes it was a mystery how they stayed on. Their bodies were lean, skin tough and ashy from days spent working in the sun. Pelvis bones and ribs jutted under their mounts’ rain-rotted coats. But at the front of the vagabond cavalcade, an elegant businessman rode a foreign chestnut stallion. The stallion’s coat was polished like a brass plate, and his body was fleshed with muscle. The man wore a top hat, black pants, and a red vest, the style many of the Echalenders favored, but his skin was dark.
“Kara!” I hissed. They were too far away to hear us, but the look of the gang made me nervous. We were not supposed to be here, I was sure of it. We were not supposed to see whatever it was they were about to do. If they saw us, who knew what they would do to make sure we couldn’t give information away.
There were hundreds of baobab trees in Nazwimbe, but this one was especially remote with nothing but our camp for over fifteen miles. Their leader had picked it with care. The cliff sloped upward at the top, so our position concealed our stakeout camp, but while we sat up like this, gazing below, the men would easily see us once they drew closer.
Kara still sat angled toward the lake, watching the baboons chase each other and scoop algae out of the shallow water. She turned to me, her binoculars still held midair. I pointed toward the group. She looked down the lens and froze. We crouched low, looking over the ridge.
The men lined up, forming a crescent shape around the back of the huge tree. They dismounted, and one of them pulled a black box from his saddlebag. He scurried forward, bowing as he handed it to the man in the top hat. The leader opened the box and pulled out a semi-opaque stone the size of a watermelon. My jaw slackened. It was the biggest moonstone I’d ever seen.