by HMC
The Water Seer
First Edition
Copyright © 2015 by H.M.C
First published in 2015 by the author www.hmcwriter.com
© Cover Design – KILA Designs www.kiladesigns.com.au
Formatting by Country Mouse Design www.countrymousedesign.com
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.
To Pam Daly
whose friendship, inspiration,
and humour I am truly grateful for.
Thank you to my partner in crime, Keith, for watching YouTube videos on how to build stuff so I could spend precious time writing this book.
To the lovely Ana Saiz García for helping me with my Spanish at all hours of the day and night (Google Translate can only do ‘so much’). Gracias¡
Thank you to David Pacheco for putting your surfing experiences into words for me, and introducing me to the Soul Surfer.
Nicky, Yoda, Sensei, thank you for being my alpha reader, and taking The Water Seer to the next level. Also, to Joe Martin, thank you for taking the time to read my work, and for guiding me to new places. A dad’s perspective is always needed!
Once again, to my editor, Carson Buckingham, thank you for your support and genuine care.
Ariel Hudnall, my proofreader, book-formatter, and go-to-lady, you’re a superwoman. Are there too many hyphens in this sentence?
Thank you to Kim at KILA Designs. Your book covers are wonderful, and you’re such a pleasure to work with – even when I’m a gigantic pain in the butt.
Lastly, a huge thank you to my readers. Your love and support over the past two years, since I first published my work, has given me the inspiration and backbone to continue writing. So, without further ado, please enjoy my third novel, The Water Seer.
Scale of dragon, tooth of wolf,
Witches’ mummy, maw and gulf
Of the ravin’d salt-sea shark,
Root of hemlock digg’d i’ the dark,
Liver of blaspheming Jew,
Gall of goat, and slips of yew
Silver’d in the moon’s eclipse,
Nose of Turk and Tartar’s lips,
Finger of birth-strangled babe
Ditch-deliver’d by a drab,
Make the gruel thick and slab:
Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,
For the ingredients of our cauldron.
Double, Double, Toil and Trouble:
Annotations for “The Witches’ Chants”
from Macbeth, Shakespeare.
Saturdays in Burleigh: fresh coffee brewing on James Street, blue skies and golden sand, sand so hot you danced on it, Sadie calling out orders for fish and chips – yes this early in the morning, too – and the sea-salty air obliterating any aggravation from the work week.
Those were my favourite mornings, a time where I could forget death and just surf instead. Surfing was my temporary distraction, a way to calm my mind. It was my creative outlet. An artist painted, a writer wrote, and a surfer surfed. There’s the thrill of waiting for the lump, gauging the size and direction of the wave, readying my body – apprehension and adrenaline combined – and the wave lifting my feet. I block out the world. It’s just me and the wave. The board catches, the world falls away, and I stand. Gravity takes me. The wave knows what to do. It has a mighty energy of its own. For a moment, we dance. I don’t thrash and slash the water, I move with it. It’s the purest form of surfing, soul surfing, riding the rail with my longboard. It’s important to treat the wave with respect.
The other surfers stick their middle finger up if you drop in, but for some reason, I cop it more than most. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a girl, because I ride a long board, or both. Maybe it’s because I surf better than they do. But no one owns the waves. They own you.
It’s not easy to describe the feeling you get after you’ve just finished an amazing set, unless you’re talking to someone with the same passion in spades. I felt that elated, yet peaceful feeling as I made my way home from the beach with my board under one arm, wax sticky and warm from the sun.
I took a left down Elder Entrance. My street was lined with old Queenslanders. Big timber homes, some from the 1800s, built on stumps for wind-flow. Most of those dinosaurs were fitted with air-conditioners. A few had been torn down and replaced with two-bedroom apartments, but my eyes were always drawn to the old houses.
Mine was the last place on the right, two storeys of cream, maroon, and white, complete with an enormous storage basement. The first storey housed one Toyota and eight years’ worth of stuff (including some of my Aunty Catalina’s belongings we couldn’t get rid of), as well as a giant downstairs laundry and shower – perfect for a surfer with a clean-freak for a mum. Our house might’ve been old, but it was well-kept.
I unlatched the side gate, entered the laundry, and jumped straight in the shower with my wetsuit to wash the sand and salt water off of me and my surfboard. I dried myself and threw on a sundress.
I skipped every second step to the back door. ‘Zat you, Modesta?’ Mum, known to others as Ms Castro, or Connie, curled her Spanish tongue around my name. She was the only one who could say it properly. Most people just called me Mouse instead of Modesta. One, because it was easier. Two, because My Aunty’s name was Cat. Cat and Mouse – very funny, huh?
Ha de har.
‘Good morning.’ Mum was in a cheery mood often, despite all she’d been through.
‘Buenos días¡’ I said.
‘You having a good surf?’ Mum grinned, as she chopped tomatoes and threw them into a bowl. She never really had lost her accent. She had come to Australia a little later than Cat.
‘Amazing. Thanks. Whatcha makin’?’ I pulled myself up on the bench and peered over at the ingredients.
‘Modesta, you no sit on this. I cook here. Get down!’
‘Mum, please … I help pay the mortgage. I’ll sit where I want.’
‘Modesta Castro.’ She looked at me like I’d lose a limb if I wasn’t careful.
‘Okay, okay.’ I jumped down off the bench. I put my chin on her shoulder as she chopped. ‘Sooo, whatcha makin’?’
She finally laughed. ‘Gazpacho. Hey. Hop offa me. I cannot choop this.’
‘Smells so good. Make lots.’ I painted on a smile, but underneath I was feeling terrible. The surf had helped eliminate some of the stress I was feeling. It returned, though, like a cork being held under the water. It always bobbed back up again.
‘You all right?’ Mum sensed my anguish.
‘Fine. Just stressed about my internship,’ I lied, but only partly.
‘You be fine. The little children, they love you.’ She smiled.
‘Thanks, Mum.’ I kissed her on the forehead and made my way to my bedroom.
I opened the door and looked at the papers all over my room. So much work to do. Where to start? I pulled out my laptop and made myself comfortable at my desk. I opened a file named ‘lesson plans.’ My internship teacher would want to see them on my first day of prac, so I read them over. I was happy to be teaching grade one; I did well with the little ones.
How do we know it’s o’clock? What do you do at
7 o’clock in the morning?
I stopped reading.
The tap dripped in my en-suite. Loudly.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
It echoed in my ear.
There was a short, sharp huff on my neck. ‘Catalina?’ I whispered. ‘Are you there?’ I waited for a response. ‘What is it?’ I heard nothing. I closed my eyes. I breathed deeply. I waited for Jon Bon Jovi to sing ‘Wanted Dead or Alive’ in my ear, to smell the lilac oils Cat wore, or to feel her with me. Hoping, praying it was her come to see me. A visit fro
m my dead Aunt Catalina I could handle; anything else might have tipped me over the edge.
I listened to the water drip.
Agua.
Water brought me closer to the dead – so close, they could tell me their stories, show me their memories, let me see their pain.
There was a sound. I shut my eyes tight. The sound was soft at first. It grew louder. A whistling – a whistling though the teeth to the tune of ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.’
Hands reached over the top of mine and lifted me into a standing position. They were smooth. I felt light and warm. I opened my eyes and a woman stood before me. Her brown eyes held my gaze. I saw a tinge of red in them, much like her hair – autumn-coloured and fascinating. She smiled at me. I could smell the salty ocean mist and it soothed me. This woman soothed me. ‘Who are you?’ I said. No response. ‘Where are you? Are you all right?’ Still nothing. ‘Do you need help? Tell me where you are.’ I swallowed. If she didn’t give me a clue as to where she was, I wouldn’t be able to save her from dying.
My job was to see the future and put a stop to death before it happened, to cheat the Grim Reaper, to save those that Chalchiuhtlicue wanted saving. This woman seemed too far gone, like her soul left long ago, and only a whisper of her body remained.
The woman shook her head. She smiled even wider. I looked to her surroundings to try to figure out where she was, but there was only blackness. Her hands suddenly grew cold, but she held on tight … too tight.
I swallowed.
Her face became grey and translucent, and her hair slick with oil. Scars and sores popped up all over her skin. Her eyes sank into her head, and her teeth transformed into broken and rotten stumps before my eyes. Her tongue slithered out through them. The stench! She squeezed my hands. She was hurting me. ‘Let go!’ I screamed.
She opened her mouth. Her tongue, gigantic now, flew out and licked my face. It searched for my ear and poked itself inside, searching, searching...
She was inside my head!
Her nails dug into my hands. Her eyes were so red.
Her hair was on fire.
Think, Mouse, think.
I closed my eyes. ‘Chalchiuhtlicue’s light surround. A golden egg. A gate shut tight. With love and light, I protect. Dark witch, bruja, I banish you from sight!’ I repeated the words over and over, I don’t know how many times. Ten? A hundred? Like an auctioneer’s litany. A sizzling sound filled the air, followed by a single roll of thunder.
Then, it was over.
I fell down on my bed, breathless. My hands were still bleeding from her nails. I’d never been hurt in Visita before, and I didn’t think it was possible to be injured by a spirit. My heart pounded in rhythm with a killer sudden onset headache. Every minute I’d spent lying awake at night worrying about the visions taking over my life lately, every fear I had been trying to push away in the hopes my problems would disappear like a ghost in a nightmare, were made real by this one experience. Something had come and cut my hands. They stung. And now, not only did I have to worry about zoning out in front of the kids during my internship, I had to worry about having a damned stigmata in front of them, too.
‘Mum!’ I was finally able to scream. My throat burned. On top of everything else, I was maddeningly thirsty. ‘¡Mamá!’
I felt like I might pass out.
Mum came through my door. ‘Modesta.’ Her voice never sounded so sweet. She was beside me. ‘What happened? A Visita? You all right, Modesta!’
I reached up and embraced her. ‘No. No, I’m not.’
Mouse’s Journal
My ninth Visita—20th June 2014 at 1:14 PM. Miami High School, Soccer Field.
I was on the Gold Coast Highway, near Sadie’s Fish and Chips. A young woman with fluoro-green tights was riding her bike across the intersection, just as a taxi sped through a red light. It hit the bike, swerved, smashed into another vehicle and flipped into the air, killing the bike rider, taxi-driver, and his two passengers. Green Pants got up off the road. Her helmet fell into two pieces, and half her face was missing. She walked over to me. I stuck to the spot, legs like jelly, unable to move. She took off her watch and passed it over. 5:24:35 PM, it said. Although the watch has disappeared with the rest of the vision, I remember every number.
And those pants.
I stood on the corner of Sadie’s Fish and Shop for an hour and half that day (not long after the grand-final soccer game I lost because of the Visita that made me stand there like a noob). I went early just in case the watch was set to daylight savings or something, and sure enough, a woman on a bike rode along at exactly the right time. It was her. Green Pants. I stepped out in front of her. She tried to swerve. I ‘accidentally’ fell onto the road and she stopped her bike to help me up. A speeding taxi drove through the red light at the intersection before us; horns blared, cars slammed on their brakes, people shouted profanities out the window and extended middle fingers. There was no collision. No one was hurt.
Green Pants stared at the intersection, then back down at me, a kind of fear and knowing in her grey eyes. Goose bumps rippled up and down my arms.
‘Are you okay?’ she finally asked.
‘I’m so sorry,’ I breathed. ‘I didn’t even see you.’ How could I not see you? I would everyday thereafter, too, you and that green. Green bubble gum tape, GAK, the slime from Ghost Busters, and then those CROCS that Chany – the little Samson girl I used to babysit – wore, would all remind me of you.
I never saw her again, though. Not really. Not after she helped me up, apologised and rode off through the intersection.
I’d always thought of Visitas as messages from angels or God intervening, with me as an instrument – like a telephone receiver or something. Well, whatever they are, certain people, apparently important to the master plan up there in some way, are kept alive. A greater good is being fulfilled – at least, I hope so ... I really do.
The tragedy is when you want to see the future, you can’t. I later found out that, according to folklore, people with precognitive abilities are unable to tap into their own futures, and that’s probably a good thing. When Cat was alive, every now and then, she’d get upset about Nan and Pop – even my dad. Mum had to soothe her. ‘I should’ve seen it coming,’ Cat would say. ‘What use am I if I can’t save the ones I love?’ This self-pity never lasted too long. Cat felt deeply, then moved on.
My problem was that I wasn’t good at moving on. Now that I had seen this horrible hag-woman’s face, I was hard pressed letting it go.
Mum and I were on our way to Anna’s. If there was anyone in the world that could help me – contactable in this time-space reality – it was Anna.
The mid-morning traffic wasn’t too bad for a Saturday. Mum let me drive her fifteen-year-old, dark brown Toyota to the Esplanade. A few minutes later we were standing before a multi-coloured set of apartment buildings built by an architect trying to think outside the box, with sharp angles and strange shapes. The building looked as if it were straight from the set of a sci-fi flick – an eyesore on such a beautiful beach. But, though it was ugly, I loved it because it was Anna’s place. Formerly Anna and Cat’s. A safe house, a friend’s home, a place filled with memories of my late Aunty. Mum took my arm and we made our way to the intercom. Anna buzzed us up.
When you met Anna out of work, she was relaxed, daggy, and bare-footed. When she spoke about her healing crystals and powders, you expected her to live above some mystical shop, like the occult store in Gremlins, where Randall buys a Mogwai for his son’s birthday; the same son who ends up accidently breeding the little monsters that take over the city.
When you met Anna on a workday, she was another person entirely. Anna opened the door in a neatly-pressed pencil skirt and had on a white, long-sleeved shirt. Her platinum-blonde hair was pulled back into a perfect pony tail and she had a lightly made-up face. A school principal often worked weekends. Teachers, too, in fact. Anna had told me all of this before I started uni. ‘Are you sure you want to be
a teacher, Mouse?’ she’d said. ‘It’s long hours. You’ll just get average pay. You really have to love your job.’
I’d smiled at her. ‘You know me better than most people, Anna. What do you think?’
She had smiled back. ‘I think you’ll make a great teacher.’
‘Connie, Mouse! It’s so good to see you. It’s been weeks.’ Anna threw her arms around the both of us. She studied me, looked at my bandaged hands, then guided us in. ‘Mouse, what happened?’
‘I’ll tell you all about it. But first, may I please get a glass of water?’
Mum looked at me funny.
‘You know where the glasses are. I’ll put the kettle on. We’ll have chai. Don’t worry, I’ve already been into work. I have the rest of the day for you.’
Anna’s apartment was small (and neater than a Myer’s store) with her kitchen, lounge, and dining all in one spot – or ‘open-planned,’ as the real estate agents say. She and Cat had paid it off together pretty quickly, and Anna had tried to give us money for it on several occasions. Mum had said we might take some one day if Anna ever sold it, but probably not. Catalina gave us money when she passed. Mum said it was enough. I’d once asked what Cat had done for a living – I’d never remembered her working. Mum had explained the inheritance from her parents was plenty for both sisters. A great deal of her share had gone into my dad’s business and when he died, Mum had sold it for a small fortune.
Carpentry. My dad had been a carpenter. I imagined him with calloused hands, working at a bench, with wood shavings on the ground. He smelled of oil. Whether it was a real memory, I’m not so sure, but I held it dear.
We opened the sliding glass door and made our way out to the balcony. Anna excused herself to get changed while Mum and I took in the view. The sun made the ocean sparkle; the sounds of people calling out to each other and the smell of BBQ put me at ease. I was safe here.
‘All right you lovely creatures, what’s going on?’ Anna brought out the tea. She was in purple shorts and a burnt orange top. She’d put her hair up in a loose bun. This was after-hours Anna. Mogwai Anna. We sipped our tea. It might’ve been hotter than seven hells out, but we drank tea year round.