Water

by Hardy, Natasha

  He climbed back onto the tree trunk. I followed, going to sit opposite him again. He shook his head and motioned for me to go to his end of the log, indicating I should sit with my back to him. Once I was settled, he shuffled in closer to me, dangling his legs over the side of the trunk on each side of me, and leaning forwards slightly so that I was almost touching him.

  “Close your eyes,” he whispered, his breath blowing strands of hair across my face.

  I obeyed, my stomach rippling with a strange excitement.

  “Now I want you to focus on just listening.” I nodded a little, blocking out all other senses and concentrating.

  At first I could hear the background noises better, the call of the birds, the rustle of the lizards and insects as they moved over stones. It was nothing special though, nothing out of the ordinary.

  I opened my eyes and twisted round a bit so that I could see his face.

  “I didn’t hear anything out of the ordinary.”

  He shook his head and smiled at me. “You are in such a hurry, be patient with yourself.”

  He placed his hands on either side of my head and turned me around again.

  “Close your eyes,” he instructed, his voice hushed as he spoke in my ear.

  I tried again, focusing on sound and sound alone.

  “Now breathe in, and as you do so, listen to the sound of the air moving into your lungs.”

  I breathed in, concentrating on the sound, finding strangely that it had a silvery feeling to it. As I concentrated on that single sound, all the others faded out around me. With each breath I could hear the air moving towards me, and then moving away from me again.

  The sound intensified each time, and I felt as if I was listening to something very far away, like a whispered conversation in another room, where you’re sure you heard something but can’t quite work out what it is.

  Merrick rested his hand lightly on my shoulder, and my eyes sprang open in shock, every muscle in my body locking down.

  “What is it?” he asked, alarmed, leaping lightly to his feet and crouching over me protectively.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know, I just heard…” I struggled to articulate what I’d heard in that split second. It must have been, although I was sure it couldn’t have been, my heart beating. But not just the lub dub noise I’d heard before, this had been the blood moving in a thick liquidy type of noise between each ventricle.

  It wasn’t just that either, I’d heard the air moving in and out of his lungs, the beating of his heart, and all of it had been overlaid by a cacophony of sounds – scratching and twittering, and burying and little animal snorts – all of it vying for my attention at once.

  I looked at Merrick, bewildered. “There was so much.” I told him about each sound.

  “That’s amazing!” he congratulated me, before pulling me into his chest and squeezing me enthusiastically, and then quickly settling opposite me again.

  “Let’s try again,” he enthused, watching as I breathed slowly, eagerly this time, anticipating the amazing experience of really hearing for the first time.

  Half an hour later, nothing had happened.

  “Let’s try sight,” he suggested, a puzzled expression on his face. “Start by focusing on the tree trunk,” he suggested, pointing at a space just in front of me.

  I did, working to block out all other senses and just stare at the tree trunk, breathing evenly as I did so.

  I began to see different shades in the brown: a warm nutty colour where the wood was exposed to the light, equally balanced with a dark, almost black brown in the furrows that made up the patterns on the rough bark. Again the more I stared the closer it felt I came to seeing just beyond what normal human eye would see.

  Another half an hour of staring at the wood, without any development, had me frowning in frustration.

  “Anything?” Merrick asked eventually.

  I shook my head. “Nothing specifically interesting,” I told him, glaring at the piece of bark, “I feel as though there’s like a veil in front of my eyes, like I know there’s more, but I just can’t see it.”

  He smiled and stretched.

  “Let’s try another one.”

  The same thing happened with touch. While I became more aware of the pressure and texture of things on my skin, it was in no way superhuman.

  Scent was no better, with only the faintest waft of apple and mint to note as anything different than normal.

  Taste was the only one we made any progress on, but it too was fleeting. Merrick had come to straddle the tree behind me again, and had rested his hands on my shoulders. They were broad enough that his fingers spanned out across my collar bones. I was trying very, very hard to concentrate on the flavour in my mouth as I breathed, but was struggling to disengage the sensation of heat where his hands touched my skin. I closed my eyes and breathed in, and suddenly my mouth was filled with the freshest most delicious flavour I’d ever tasted.

  My eyes sprang open as I clamped my mouth shut over the air that held the flavour, twisting toward Merrick and pointing excitedly at my mouth. He leapt off the tree and darted to stand in front of me. But the flavour dissipated almost instantly leaving me with nothing but the sweetest aftertaste, a faint reminder on the back of my tongue of something delicious that had once been there.

  I sighed and shook my head, watching as disappointment clouded his features momentarily.

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, fed up and frustrated. I hated disappointing him, but more than that I knew that I’d almost experienced something amazing. It was like the excitement of going to the fair, only to find that it was a science fair, with no candy floss, no popcorn and no Ferris wheel.

  “Let’s try something different,” he said, leaping off the log and leading me back up the side of the valley.

  Chapter 24

  Weight

  Towards the top of the valley, hidden by bushes, appeared a cave entranceway. It was relatively high, allowing us to walk easily inside.

  A few metres in, Merrick paused and ran his hands over his flowing trousers, before turning to me and running his hands slowly across my ribcage to mid-thigh where I’d twisted the fabric around my legs into the shorts ensemble.

  My stomach flipped excitedly as my breath caught.

  He was grinning at me naughtily, moving as if to run his hands down the middle of my body too. I caught his wrist before he could do so, grinning back at him.

  “I think I can manage,” I told him, quickly copying him before he could run his hands down the length of my body.

  He chuckled and muttered something in their language.

  A few seconds later our clothing began to let off a soft luminescent light, just enough to see a few steps in front us.

  The cave wasn’t as dark as I’d expected it to be though, and when I looked forwards I could see shafts of sunlight beaming into the darkness, bouncing at strange angles.

  I gasped as we drew closer to them, my brain struggling to believe what my eyes were telling it.

  Splits in the cave ceiling were the cause of the natural spotlights which illuminated the most exquisite stalactites. They extended from the ceiling in a fringe of spikes, some of them pinkie-finger thin and others thicker than my waist, all of them reflected in a glass-still pool of turquoise water.

  I walked forward in a daze, each blink of my eyelids revealing another snapshot-like-view of the natural wonder of the cave.

  Merrick led me to the edge of the pool before stepping into the water.

  I watched in fascination as the mostly unremarkable flowing trousers he wore seemed to come alive in the water.

  The fabric swirled and flowed, as if it were desperate to float away in the current only it had found. It changed colour too, from the dark navy it had been in the light of day, to a rich royal blue with flecks of turquoise and sliver and navy in it.

  I’d been so distracted by my surroundings I’d ignored Merrick’s outstretched hand until he cleared his throat, grinning a
t me.

  “Oh. You want me to swim with you?”

  He smiled and nodded as I took his hand and walked into the ice-cold water.

  Once he was in the water, he let go of my hand and slipped beneath the surface, swimming with incredible speed across the breadth of the cave.

  He surfaced behind a screen of stalactites that had made their way into the water, making it look like he was in the mouth of some giant dinosaur.

  “Come on,” he called, “you have to see what’s behind here.”

  I swam with my head determinedly out of the water until I reached the stalactites. I circled them, looking for a way in.

  “Come on under,” he called me.

  The thought of being underwater still frightened me, but I was less afraid than I’d been in years. Merrick had saved me from drowning twice now, I was pretty sure he wasn’t about to let me drown here.

  I took a deep breath and dived beneath the surface, searching for the bottom of the stalactite formations.

  The water was so clear that I struggled with depth perception. It didn’t get darker or murkier as it got deeper. I could see every detail of the slowly growing rocks as they reached deep into the water, their colours glowing slightly in pale ochres and oranges.

  I had kicked down a good couple of metres and still found no bottom when I began to run out of oxygen. Abandoning the idea, I raced back to the surface, bursting out of the water at the top and gasping for air.

  “It’s too far,” I told him.

  He shook his head. “I promise you, you can do this,” he said. “I’ll be waiting for you at the bottom, and I promise I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “I don’t know, Merrick,” I argued.

  “Alexandra, I have watched you be defeated by your fear of water for years now. Isn’t it time to stop being afraid?”

  His statement revealed just how well he knew me. I had once loved water, more than land, more than air. It had once been my haven, my playground, my sphere of excellence. In recent years it had become my enemy, and I missed it. I missed the comfort of it, the quiet.

  “I’ll give it one more shot,” I told him, pushing the fear that edged my thoughts in black angry negativity away from me.

  I was tired of being afraid. I wanted the adventure of swimming deeper than was strictly sensible, just as I had as a young child.

  This time I swam with all my might, pushing the water up and away from me, and blowing a continuous stream of bubbles out of my nose.

  I could see Merrick slip from beneath the formations far below me.

  I watched as he waved to me enthusiastically. And thought I heard his voice from a great distance away as black spots blotched my vision and my body began to go limp, the searing pain up the sides of my head incapacitating as I no longer swam but sank deep into the clear water.

  His mouth over mine, filling my lungs with oxygen and his body warming mine as he raced to the surface, seemed surreal.

  He pulled me quickly onto the rock and then ran with me out of the cave and into the sunlight, cradling me in his arms and whispering comforting words to me.

  I sat in his lap, my head against his chest as the late afternoon sun warmed through my chilled skin.

  “I… I’m sorry.” My teeth chattered together with convulsive shivers.

  He shook his head angrily. “No, I’m sorry, Alexandra. I should have stayed with you all the way. It’s just…” He trailed off, hugging me tighter and resting his cheek on my hair.

  “J-j-just what?” I chattered at him.

  “You were doing amazingly for a moment,” he told me. “The way you were moving was incredible.”

  “And then I flaked out again.” I finished his sentence.

  He shook his head and rocked me a little bit. “We will figure this out, Alexandra, don’t worry about it.”

  I nodded, clambering out of his lap and bouncing a little to keep warm.

  “Can we go back now?” I asked, feeling exhausted, and suddenly longing to see Josh and Luke. In all the excitement I hadn’t seen them at all today, and was suddenly homesick for their decidedly human conversations.

  He nodded, looking glum and led me back the way we’d come.

  He was quiet for the first part of the hike back to the cave, his shoulders slightly slumped and his expression decidedly unhappy.

  “Are all parts of the ocean uninhabitable?” I asked him, hoping the question wouldn’t upset him even more.

  He shook his head. “No, there are still some areas unaffected. Some humans have tried to protect the ocean by setting up sanctuaries. Most of them are being affected by the rest of the water though. That’s the tricky thing about water, it never stops flowing. Take your navy for instance, they spend more time chasing whalers from your waters than they do protecting your shores from any sort of attack on humans.”

  “I didn’t realise it was still such a problem,” I breathed, horrified that whaling still happened.

  He shook his head as he walked

  “I know it’s not your fault but you and ignorant people like you are exactly the reason it continues,” he told me firmly. “I bet you’ve never bothered to find out about whaling because it doesn’t directly affect you, so the question is, what are you going to do about it now that you know?”

  “Me?” I asked, surprised. I felt as though he was laying the whole all of the injustices humans had committed to the planet on my shoulders, even if I didn’t like what had been done, even if I didn’t know about it.

  “Yes you, Alexandra, you have been quite happily contributing to the problem for years, what are you going to do about it now that ignorance is no longer a valid excuse?” He was definitely angry now, his back straighter, the muscles taunt as he walked in front of me, throwing accusations over his back.

  “I don’t know!” I replied, my temper flaring. I found it more and more difficult to squash it back the longer I was with the Oceanids, they threw such ridiculous expectations at me.

  He shook his head and picked up his pace, muttering, “Maybe the other plan is the better one.”

  “What did you say?” I asked him, getting angrier by the moment.

  He stopped and half turned towards me. “Maybe the plan where we declare all-out war on humans and simply utilise your abilities as a catalyst is a better one than trying to get you or them to change,” he spat, his eyes flashing angrily.

  “So it’s OK to kill humans but not whales?” I ground out, trying desperately to hold onto the human side of this story.

  “Let’s reverse that question shall we?” he replied hotly. “Is it OK to kill other species so that humans can have turtleskin handbags and shoes, or eat fish for dinner, or just for the sport of it?”

  He was towering over me, every muscle in his body tensed and angry.

  “Fishing is controlled now,” I replied, determined to at least try and reason with him.

  “Controlled?” he hissed, really angry now. “How can you control something you don’t understand, you arrogant fools!”

  “I am not the one doing all of this stuff, Merrick.” I managed to control the anger bubbling just beneath the surface, my voice clipped.

  “Really?” he tossed over his shoulder. “You really believe that?”

  “What do you want from me?” I yelled, abandoning all semblance of control as the unfairness of his accusations bubbled over. “I can’t go back to living in the Stone Age and walking to school, and even if I recycle and I stop eating fish,” I swatted at the annoying tears, “I’’m just one person, Merrick, it’s not going to make a difference.”

  “Where does that ridiculous notion come from?” He wheeled as he spoke. “The idea that you are helpless to change the world you live in? That you have no power, no influence?”

  “Because I don’t,” I yelled back at him, taking a step forward so that I was inches from him.

  “How can you condemn us to death so easily?” His voice was venomously quite as he began circling me, his gaz
e flickering over me as he did so.

  I followed his movements, reeling at the question. “What do you mean condemn you to death? “I know your people are in trouble but death? You’re being over-dramatic surely?”

  “Do you think all of this is just for show?” he asked me. “Alexandra, we have no home. In the next year, two at the most, all Oceanids will have to leave the ocean, that is how desperate our situation is.” His shoulders slumped as he came to stand in front of me. “Do you remember what I told you about Oceanids being able to breathe on land once they mature?”

  I nodded.

  “There is a whole generation of Oceanids who will die in the sea if we don’t come up with a way to clean it up, if we don’t stop humans from polluting it.”

  I couldn’t breathe. “You mean only adult Oceanids can leave?”

  He nodded.

  “How many children are left?”

  “Thousands,” he replied simply.

  Chapter 25

  Light

  I’d fled to the hospital when Merrick laid the weight of his entire species on my shoulders, and was listening to a woman who had told me she was ready to join the main pod in a few days. Her name was Maya, and while she still lacked the vibrancy that the other Oceanids exuded, she was inhumanly beautiful nonetheless. Her recovery had been much quicker than the others because her gifting was that of healing. She could impart health to any Oceanid, but only to the degree of health she held.

  Surprisingly she’d known about this pod and informed me that word had spread in the ocean, about this pod and their ability to help the wounded. “I can’t wait to get back to the ocean to tell them about you.” She smiled at me.

  I nodded absently.

  “Would you tell me what is worrying you so much?” she asked gently, surprising me with her perceptiveness.

  I pushed away the tears that threatened to embarrass me in front of this woman who was almost a complete stranger.

  “I really want to help your people,” I whispered around the tears, “but I don’t know how to. I’ve spent the whole day trying to grasp these wispy pieces of talents that I can feel are just beneath the surface, but every time I get close, they fade away…” The tears I’d been trying to avoid spilt down my cheeks. “And Merrick is so angry with me for not being able to do anything tangible, and the whole pod is waiting for a report back on my progress today, but most of all, most of all I don’t know how to help you save the Oceanid children… and I can’t, Maya.” I began to sob. “I can’t bear the idea of them being abandoned in the ocean to die.”