by Dan Glover
"It is so much quieter here, you see. We are far from the engines. Will this be satisfactory, my dear Lily? Perhaps we might get to know one another a little better."
"I am all yours, precious Natalia. Teach me the way, my darling."
The cabin was private. Natalia gently peeled off Lily's gloves as she stroked her webbed fingers with such a gentle touch that she nearly swooned.
"Allow me to remove your shoes so you will be more comfortable, my darling."
Lily raised her feet to lay in Natalia's lap allowing the beautiful creature to unlace her shoes before pulling them off one by one.
"Oh! Your feet, my darling Lily! They are made for swimming, no?"
"Yes, my love. You're discovering my secrets, aren’t you?"
"And do I possess any secrets you wish to discover, my pretty Lily?"
"Oh but you tempt me so, darling Natalia. Tell me of your home and family."
"My childhood in Ukraine was a hard life... my mother and father were simple wanderers who both grew old before their time. When they passed away I was still but a teenager so I journeyed to the city of Moscow. There I discovered for the first time that I was allowed to go to school. I was nearly sixteen years old and yet I couldn't read nor write.
"Within just a few months I was able to not only catch up with the other students but I surpassed them all in skill and knowledge. My professors said I was a natural born leader. I stayed in that school for three years during which time I learned many things both good and evil.
"One day a large ugly man with an enormous moustache and bush sideburns arrived at the school. I learned he was from a large corporation that hired several students each year. This time he came to offer me a job. I was surprised by this turn of events. I have always thought I would be like my parents, always traveling and never finding a home.
"I said yes to this man though I am still not sure why. Perhaps I had a desire to belong somewhere and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. The man wore fine suits made of silk which were obviously tailor-made to fit him. I can blame it on my youth that I was impressed but in fact I was simply a weak girl.
"I went to work in the city for that man. I got up early each day and labored deep into the night. That was all I did for ten years... I worked nonstop. I earned many praises from the man who had hired me. I learned later that he was the one who had started the business that I worked for.
"At first I thought he had designs upon me. Later, however, I discovered my benefactor preferred other men rather than women. I had heard of such things but had never witnessed it. In time, I realized I was much like that man... I preferred women over men. Yet I had no time to explore those feelings.
"Though I made a lot of money and lived in a fine apartment I could never enjoy any of it. I had to keep working otherwise this man declared I would be fired and a younger and fresher woman would take my place.
"One day I was taking a shower before going to work when I found a small lump under the skin in my armpit. I wondered if I had ever felt it before. I thought not. I tried to ignore the lump but soon it began to hurt... just once in a while at first, and then all the time.
"I finally went to a doctor who after sticking me with a needle and running many tests that took days and days said I must be admitted to the hospital immediately. I had cancer.
"I told this doctor I was too busy. I could not be sick like that. I would lose my job. He said I would lose my life if I did not do as he ordered. That scared me into doing what he said.
"I underwent many more tests and treatments which made me ill and my hair began to fall out. After six months of enduring these horrible actions the doctor told me I was even worse than before.
"The doctor said that I had waited too long before coming to him... that my disease was too far advanced. He said they could do surgery upon me but it would not help... the tumors growing all over my body were too invasive to remove.
"He seemed to be blaming me for getting sick, as if I had somehow called the cancer upon myself. Perhaps I did. Looking back, I was living a lie. I couldn’t remember the last time I had done something just for me.
"I had spent years inside a building without windows working for a man who did not care if I was there or not. I was just another cog in an enormous wheel that kept spinning round and round and I had grown dizzy.
"Now, I am dying. My hair is falling out, I am so weak I cannot eat, and I hurt all the time. I wonder sometimes if perhaps I am already in Hell. Is that possible, my sweet Lily?"
Lily caressed Natalia as she spoke her fingers finding their way to her shoulders and her collar bone. Natalia sighed under her touch.
"Oh, my marvelous Lily... you have such magic fingers. I feel stronger than I have in months. I am actually hungry. What are you doing to me, my love?"
"I am known as a healer among my kind, lovely Natalia. My touch heals all ills and yet once I have touched you, you are mine forever. Does that frighten you?"
"Never make promises you cannot keep, my darling Lily."
Natalia giggled as she wriggled closer to Lily. She seemed to revel in being touched as much as touching as she massaged Lily's feet while being caressed in turn. The movement of the train made Lily sleepy... she did not sleep well the night before. As she drifted into gentle slumbers she dreamed of a gigantic castle made of sand and filled with many lovers both male and female.
"Webbed fingers and webbed toes... are you a mermaid, pretty Lily?"
Natalia's words startled Lily out of her dream. She feared discovery and though she sensed this woman meant her no harm she couldn't be sure if anyone else might be listening.
"Shhh. You must never tell anyone what I am, my lovely Natalia. Promise me?"
"I am honored to be a keeper of your secret, lovely Lily. Of course I promise to never tell. This I will take to my grave. Now... you must tell me why such a beautiful girl is riding a train to Moscow all by herself."
"I have no one, my precious Natalia. I am from a small tribe who once lived along the shores of Lake Baikal. My people have vanished, all my friends are dead, and there are those who wish to capture me and cut me up into little pieces. I know they are following me even now.
"These horrible people caught me a few years ago when I went back to Lake Baikal for a visit. I must touch its waters every few years to renew myself. When I immersed my body the poisons that the farmers and the factories were dumping into the water caused me to become dizzy, however. I fainted.
"When I awoke I discovered that I was imprisoned in a cage. Though I asked them to set me free they refused. Instead they took me back to England where they locked me up to study me, as if I was some kind of monster.
"Two days ago I escaped. I allowed a guard to have his way with me, quite a handsome gentleman who had fallen in love with me. He quite enjoyed himself. I didn’t mind it so much either. He fell asleep afterwards. I took his clothes and his wallet. I put on his uniform, pulled back my hair and walked right out of that prison. I know they are looking for me, however, so I must be careful."
"Tell me this, my Lily, my love: if you know they are looking for you, why do you want to go back to Lake Baikal? Will that not be the first place these people search?"
"I have to go back, my darling Natalia. The Lake is where my people draw our energy from. We renew our bodies once every seven years and only in those waters. It is my time. So I must get back. I have no choice."
"Then I must go with you, my beautiful Lily."
"You would do this for me, precious Natalia?"
"Hush now, child. Let Natalia do something else for you now. We'll play games."
"What sort of games, sweet Natalia?"
Rather than saying, she began showing Lily what she had in mind.
Natalia's touch was one of innocence. Her kisses were timidly shy, as if seeking to lend Lily a sense of reassurance even if none was needed. She gave herself over to Natalia's caresses in a way she had never surrendered to anyone before. She was always
the one in charge; even when faced with the dominant males of her species, Lily made sure they knew their place.
With Natalia, none of that mattered. A feeling began to blossom like a kernel of love planted inside of Lily's hearts... not so much a reaction to the caresses she was enjoying but rather a deep knowing how she and Natalia would never again be separated unless death itself should cleave them in two.
Lily liked these games.
Chapter 12—Half Measures
At first Lauren was against Lily's plans for Natalia to birth a child, though now she embraced the idea.
She spent all her waking moments tending to Natalia making sure her needs were met. Though the gestation period for her own kind was a mere six months Lauren didn’t know if the same would hold true for Natalia.
It did, however.
"You have a boy, Natalia! Oh, but he is so beautiful... he has your eyes, my love, and your temperament. What will you name him?"
"I wish to call him Nathaniel, Nate for short. Is it a good name, my sweet Lauren? Do you approve? He is your son too."
"It is a gorgeous name, darling Natalia. He will grow to be a leader of the People. This I have seen in my dreams."
Lauren was a tad envious of the few remaining human beings knowing they had the ability to repopulate the planet whereas her own kind was destined for extinction. Watching Natalia as she evolved and grew into a being unlike the humans and yet dissimilar to her own kind filled her with a sense of purpose she had never before realized.
With the passing of years and the gradual shrinking of her species Lauren became used to thinking of only herself. She used the human beings with whom she came into contact as much as they used her. When they left her—as they always did—she did not grieve their passing. On the day Lily returned and Natalia came into her life, however, all that changed.
Natalia's pregnancy was remarkably simple. She complained of no pain during the birthing process. Once the boy Nate was born Natalia regained her old self in a matter of days. With Lauren's own kind, once a female had a child they couldn't give birth again. A quirk of physiology meant their reproductive organs had shut down. But with Natalia, it was clear she could give birth multiple times without affecting her own health in the process.
"Rather than giving birth to a creature of mixed blood, perhaps Natalia will one day with God's help deliver a human child. That would be a blessing for us all, especially if it was another boy."
She couldn’t help but notice that when Marilyn remarked on the curiosity of Nate's birth she spoke of a god who had manifested itself in ways unforeseen. Lauren didn't share that opinion, nor had she ever befriended Lily's old captors. She had no love for them but neither did she hate them. She simply abided their being with them as if it had indeed been preordained since the beginning by whatever music oversaw such happenings in the commencement of the universe.
The People seemed to revel in the need to invent a god upon which all their faults could be heaped. She wasn’t sure why Marilyn had become such a devout believer of late wondering if it was something to be watched. From what Lauren understood, Marilyn's god was a stern master and one not to be trifled with.
It seemed a shame. Marilyn was not an unkind person, or perhaps she was... maybe she simply hid the meanness under a cloak of normalcy and used her god to excuse her vicious behavior.
Lauren found the children of the People to be mordacious, officious, and morose. They took forever to grow into adults and once that occurred they were disrespectful and rude not only to their mothers and to the Ladies but to their fellow humans as well. They quarreled endlessly, refusing to listen to any voice of reason. From time to time they were given to disappearing despite the many warnings they received. Of course they were always discovered dead in just a few days their naked bones brought back to feed the ossuary deep under the castle.
Nate was a joy to them all, however. He grew quickly and his mind was sharp. He was respectful to all life he encountered. The boy taught himself to read at a young age and consequently found a library awaiting him in the castle where he devoured books by the thousands. Though he was full of knowledge the boy never showed off in front of his peers.
"Why do you pretend not to know the answers to the questions those children ask of you, my precocious Nate?"
"I don’t want them to feel badly that I know things they do not. They are older than I am, mother Lauren."
"Yes but they are not as adept, my sweet son. They never will be. They'll need your input to help guide their lives. Promise me you'll help them whenever possible. In time others will come to depend upon your skill and knowledge."
"Why am I different than the other children, mother Lauren? My fingers and my toes are webbed, and I have gills where they have ears. Am I deformed like they say I am?"
"Your blood mingles with mother Natalia's and with my own, my darling. Consequently you are more human than I am in that regard. You are something new to this world. If you so choose, you have a great destiny before you."
"Is that why are you and Lady Lily so dissimilar to the other women here? Even my own mother is different than we are."
"I am from the Lake, my son, along with Lady Lily. Our species diverges from the People many millions of years ago when Lake Baikal came into being. My ancestors are of the waters while the People's are of the trees."
"So you are not goddesses, mother Lauren? Many of the People say you are."
"No we are not goddesses although to some not so advanced we may seem as such, my precious Nate. To a dog, humans may seem like gods."
"Mother Lauren... may I ask you something?"
"You may question me about anything, darling Nate."
"Who is my father?"
"Ah, now that is a question worth considering, my darling son. But perhaps mother Natalia should be the one to inform you of this."
"She says I'm not old enough to know who he is. But I'm ten years old. I'm nearly a man."
"I believe we should abide by your mother Natalia's wishes on this. When the time is ripe for you to know about your father, perhaps the three of us shall explain this to you."
"But you know who he is, don't you, mother Lauren."
"Yes, lovely Nate, I know."
"Why won't you tell me who he is then?"
"I know many things I hesitate to divulge to you and there are as many different reasons for that as for this. Although you are right—you are fast becoming a man—you have much growing to do physically, mentally, and spiritually. When the stars are right for you to know these things, never fear, for they will be revealed to you."
"Someone told me that Miss Marilyn said I am an unholy creature. She said I am a monster. What does she mean by that, mother Lauren?"
"I wouldn’t pay any attention to that kind of gossip, sweet Nate. You will find that many of the People are easily swayed by talk. This is their way. Before the Great Dying the People fought endless wars with each other over trivial matters made large by chatter."
"Some of the kids call me hell boy, and others call my guppy and names not nearly as nice as that."
"They are cruel, darling Nate. Leave them to their meddlesome ways."
Lauren watched the boy walk away. If he was disappointed he did not show it. Until now, she was of the habit of looking down on the People, seeing them as inferior beings incapable of ever fathoming the true nature of things. With the birth of Nate, however, she recognized that the path wrought by evolution was not yet complete and one day the descendants of the People might rival and even surpass her own knowledge.
The boy communicated in ways he had yet to master, that much she was sure of. Just now, she felt him plucking about her psyche when she refused to answer his question, as if he knew instinctively he was capable of so much more without really knowing it intellectually.
Marilyn was a worry on her mind of late. The woman seemed to have fallen into a gloomy brooding, always yelping about a god that was demanding and spiteful, throwing out quotes fr
om the bible she constantly carried about with her tucked under her arm like a talisman. Lauren's own kind never saw the need to invent gods. She wondered if this was an infirmity to be guarded against, especially with the boy Nate who was at an impressionable age.
Lauren pondered on whether or not she was wrong about Marilyn... if the woman was capable of more violence than she gave her credit for. She had caught glimpses of a sordid past that often troubled Marilyn... perhaps her god soothed those troubles. Lauren had hopes that was all there was to it.
Their society was matriarchal in nature. The Ladies of the Lake, Lauren and Lily, were not elected leaders but assumed the mantel due to the natural order of things. Natalia was accorded the same respect as the Ladies for the most part.
Often times the three of them talked of Karen and Marilyn and whether the doctors should be brought into the inner circle. Although Natalia was in favor of it, Lauren had grave reservations, especially about Marilyn. There was something disturbing in the woman's nature that she couldn't quite put a finger upon.
Lauren recalled the days of being married to a man who made demands and expected them to be carried out to the letter. It was easy to become dependent upon men. She sensed Marilyn suffered from the same syndrome and yet it seemed as if the woman missed being treated as a second class citizen. So Marilyn tended to distance herself from the Ladies by touting a god none of them recognized.
Lauren knew enough of the bible to understand it belonged to the old patriarchal world that had passed away. Why Marilyn insisted upon holding to those old beliefs baffled Lauren and caused an uneasy feeling each time the woman was around.
It was troubling in the extreme to think of the woman planting seeds of destruction even as the small group was flourishing.
Chapter 13—Clues
"There's been a report of another mysterious death in London, Hector."
It was early yet—the sun not yet raising its shining face to the world—but she thought her boss would want to hear the news. They got drunk on their first night in Paris, Hector had his quick way with her, and now a reminder of why they were here in the first place had surfaced on her iPhone.