by A. L. Knorr
"What is it, Targa? We're alone. Come see." She opened the door and went out into the suite. I trailed after her. Our rooms were empty. We went into my bedroom and she closed the door behind us.
"I'm..." Where did I start? I just blurted it out. "I died today, Mom. I died, and then I changed. I came back to life. Now, I'm..." I couldn't bring myself to say the name, just in case this was a dream and it fractured if I spoke the word. "...I'm like you," I finished.
Several emotions crossed her face in rapid succession. Shock, understanding, then disbelief. "How can that be?" she said, more to herself than to me. "That can't be. That's impossible." Then she put a hand to her heart in a rare gesture of dismay, "What do you mean, you died?"
"I drowned! It has to be possible, because it just happened. I guess, I..." I searched for the words but she got there first.
"Had to die to change," she finished. We looked at each other. Wonder and amazement lit both our faces. "You had to pull the sea into your lungs. You have had the gene all along, it just never expressed until it had the right conditions." She spoke slowly, digesting these new thoughts as they came up. My mother usually said everything quickly, but this was too big. "Your body wanted to survive, so it found a way." She put a hand over her mouth, looking almost like she was stifling a laugh or a cry, or both.
I nodded. I started to laugh, and felt on the edge of tears too.
She put her arms around me again as I stood there in my damp towel. "Shhhh. It's all right. You're ok. I'm so sorry I wasn't there."
"Don't be sorry, Mom. If you'd been there, this wouldn't have happened. You would have saved me."
She steered me toward the bed. "Can you tell me what happened? Do you remember everything?"
I gave her the short version as we sat on the edge of my bed. She listened intently, digesting every word and asking a few questions about how I felt, how I managed to use my new body, and about Antoni.
I told her what I remembered but I didn't get into all the emotional details, I knew that the doctor was coming so we didn't have the luxury of time.
Mom looked at the bedside clock. "Get into your pj's. I'll see what I can do about the doctor. We'll talk more later." She made for the door.
"Mom," I stopped her. "Antoni. Can you find out where he is? I had to leave him down at the boathouse. I saved his life." I hiccoughed.
She smiled. "Of course you did. It's what we do. Into bed with you, please." She vanished.
I pulled my pyjamas from the dresser and put them on. As I squeezed the water out of my hair, relief and laughter swirled around each other like otters at play. I really needed to rest; I'd been running on adrenalin at full dose for several hours. I also needed to know that Antoni was ok. I needed to know how much he remembered and what he thought.
I had barely pulled the covers over me when my mother, Edit, and the doctor came in. He spoke no English, which is why Edit was there. I gave my mom several anxious looks throughout the brief exam and she finally mouthed, 'It's ok,' at me. I tried to relax.
He took my pulse and listened to my heart, his fuzzy white eyebrows shooting up in surprise at how slow it was. I now had the heartbeat of an extreme athlete. He examined my head, and listened to my lungs. He said a few things to Edit but all she conveyed to me and mom was, "All ok". The doctor gave me an ice pack for the lump on my head and spoke to Edit some more. The two of them conversed, taking turns shooting me looks I couldn't define - concern, disbelief, awe?
"Are you hungry?" asked Edit. I shook my head. Perhaps I should have been, but I was so distracted by everything that had happened that food was the last thing on my mind. She patted my hand awkwardly and said, "Just rest, now." Then she and the doctor left.
I waited until the door was closed to speak. "Did you find out about Antoni?"
She nodded. "Yes, he's here. He's resting in his suite. The doctor has already seen him. He has a hairline fracture in two of his ribs. He's in the early stages of hypothermia, but he'll be ok."
I breathed a sigh of relief.
"What's concerning everyone, though," she continued, "is that he seems really confused. When people ask him what happened, he just keeps saying he doesn't know. He remembers the laser tipping over and being blown away from you. He tried to call for help with his radio but the batteries were dead. The young men who work at the boathouse are beside themselves. They said that they didn't have any time to prepare for you properly. They even tried to radio you after you left when they saw how fast the weather was changing."
I nodded, "Yes, it was a last minute decision. Poor guys, they shouldn't blame themselves."
"Antoni says that he doesn't remember anything more until he woke up in the boathouse," she finished.
"That's because he died too," I said, marveling. "We both died today. The only thing that saved us was the fact that I changed and somehow, I knew what to do for him. I actually heard the water in his lungs. Can you believe that?"
"Yes, I can. I know exactly what that sounds like." She combed my damp hair back from my face. "Why don't you get some rest and we'll talk about this tomorrow?"
"But... it's still early." It was all too exciting.
"You need to rest, darling," she insisted. "You'll need more hours than usual after what you've been through." She pulled the drapes to shut out the pounding rain, kissed my forehead one last time and then closed the door behind her, leaving me in darkness.
I was tired, but I was afraid to fall asleep. What if I didn't wake up? What if it wasn't real? What if I was still dead and this was some kind of limbo? Irrational thoughts elbowed each other my brain.
I grabbed a pillow and hugged it to my chest, curling my body around it. I took deep breaths and tried to remember what it was like to be in the ocean with the gentle tug of the currents swirling around me. It occurred to me that my eyes had stopped hurting sometime after leaving the water, and that was my last conscious thought.
Eighteen
I didn't wake until early the following morning. My first thought was a question. Had it all been real? I reached up and touched the top of my head and was answered by the tender spot under my fingers. Yes, it had been real.
I checked the clock. 5:15 am. Most of the house would still be asleep. My stomach growled ravenously. I pulled on a pair of jeans and a cotton sweater. I looked out the window at a grey morning, still more dark than light. It was no longer raining and the wind had died down, but everything looked very wet and ruffled up.
I went into our sitting area and opened our mini-fridge. It was filled with drinks but no food. My stomach groaned again. Mom's door was still closed so I ventured out of our suite and went down to see if there might be something happening in the kitchen, if I could even find the kitchen.
The house was an abandoned maze of hallways and closed doors. Occasionally, a door would be open but there would be no light or sign of life. I came to a hallway lined with windows on one side. The windows showed the courtyard in the centre of the house.
Through a window across the square, I spotted a girl in a white jacket go in through a swinging door. I followed the hallway around the courtyard and pushed open the door I'd seen her go through. The smell of freshly baked bread just about floored me. Two girls in white aprons kneaded dough on a long wooden island. They looked up at me with surprise. One of them said something to me in Polish.
"It smells good," I said, putting a hand over my stomach.
"Hungry?" one of the girls asked me, and I nodded. She smiled and beckoned me in. I followed her to a baker's rack and she pulled out a sheet of freshly baked biscuits.
"Oh my God, you're amazing," I said, taking one. She grabbed a paper towel and wrapped up three more biscuits, putting the warm package in my hands. I thanked her repeatedly and she dimpled at me and ushered me towards the door. I went through, taking a bite of my prize and ran smack into Antoni.
"Targa!" he said, grabbing my shoulders. Then he pulled me into a fierce hug. "My God. You can't imagine... Ow." He pulled
back and put a hand on his chest just below his sternum.
I caught myself before I apologized. He didn't know that I was responsible for his cracked rib. "Are you ok?" I asked, around my bite of biscuit. "You should be in bed, what are you doing up?" I said, vaguely aware that I was talking with my mouth full, but also that I didn't care.
"Pacing," he said, fiercely. "I've been doing laps, waiting until a decent hour to knock on your door."
He scanned my face with a look of agony. He was pale and drawn and there were dark circles under his eyes. "And, I'm not ok. I've been going out of my mind!" He hugged me again in spite of his rib. I was pretty sure the doc would have disapproved.
I swallowed my bite of biscuit and inhaled deeply. The heady smell of him suddenly registered. I could smell his soap, but I could also smell him; his skin, his scent – the smell that was Antoni alone. My head spun. He was a tower of warmth surrounding me, his arms felt like hot iron, his chest felt like a solid wall of heat and muscle. My senses were full of him.
He took my hand and pulled me away from the kitchens. "Come on. We need to talk."
Oh boy. "Can I eat something first? I'm famished." I was hungry, but I was also stalling for time because I was distracted by how attracted to him I felt. Where had that come from? My mind felt numb, it scrambled to try to make sense of this new feeling.
He looked down and noticed the baking in my hands. "That smells amazing. Yes, yes. Come on, we can eat in my suite. I have breakfast coming. 5:30 is the earliest I can have it delivered, and that's," he looked down at his watch. "Oops, that's now."
Half of me wanted to say "Shouldn't you be resting? Surely you don't have to work today?" But the other half could only register the intense impact he was having on me. So I followed him in silence, muted by my own confusion.
His suite was up one floor and to the rear of the manor, away from the courtyard. Shen we entered the tidy room it was obvious that he was not like most young men I knew. The place was virtually spotless. We had walked into his sitting area. I saw a kitchenette and a laptop open on the table. An open doorway lead into a bedroom and I guessed that the closed door was the bathroom. The furnishings were navy with white piping, Novak colours. There was white wainscoting on the walls. It was all very nautical. Even the carpet was a plush navy, reminiscent of deep water. He had a bookshelf loaded with Polish titles and a few English ones. Everything looked like it was either business related or historical.
The smell of him was everywhere. I realized as soon as I inhaled that coming into his suite was a mistake. I had stalled for time so I could try to think properly, and now I could barely think at all. Was this part of the deal? A heightened sense of smell? The baking had smelled great but I didn't think it smelled any differently than it had to my human nose. But Antoni was a different story.
In his living room, there was a couch and a chair. He sat on the chair and gestured that I should take the couch. I sat, obediently. I tried not to stare at him but even my eyes felt hungry for him, he was by far the most interesting thing in the room. I mutely offered him a biscuit, moving in a daze, and he took it, probably more as a reaction than because he was hungry. I bit into one and that helped refocus me. I stifled a groan at the pleasure of how it melted in my mouth.
Almost immediately, there was a knock at the door. Antoni went to open it and accepted a trolley with his breakfast on it. He thanked whoever had delivered it, and wheeled the trolley in.
Now that I'd started eating, the floodgates of my hunger had opened. My eyes followed the trolley as it rolled in. Whatever it was, it smelled incredible. My mouth watered.
"Help yourself. I think you need it more than me," he said, eyeing the way I was now wolfing down a second biscuit.
I took the cover off the plate and was rewarded with a serving of scrambled eggs, toast, sausage, sautéed whitefish, and broiled tomatoes. It occurred to me that it would be polite to ask him if he was sure he wanted to share his breakfast, but a louder voice told me to eat. So I did.
Antoni sat across from me and watched. I was being rude, but I couldn't bring myself to care. Was this how my mom felt? She had always put away a lot of food, and quickly. I was so used to it I barely noticed anymore.
"Did they not feed you last night?" he asked, cocking an eyebrow.
I shook my head. "I fell asleep right away," I said around a mouthful of toast.
"Ah."
When I had finished everything on the trolley including the fruit salad, the pat of butter, and the little cup of jam, my manners returned. I thanked him. I also apologized, sheepishly. He brushed it off.
"Targa," he began, leaning forward on the chair.
"Are you ok?" I gestured to the way his hand was against his chest. He dropped his hand like he hadn't realized he'd been holding his rib. "I'm fine. Doc says I have a couple hairline fractures. He taped me up. That's not what I wanted to... it's not important." He stopped and took a breath.
He opened his mouth again, but nothing came out. He clasped his hands together, interlacing his fingers very slowly and deliberately. I had never noticed his hands before; they were beautiful. Square and strong, his fingernails neatly trimmed.
"I am so sorry," he said, finally. "It's completely my fault. I was so eager to show you the laser that I didn't take proper precautions. I didn't check the weather. I didn't... plan. I.... We could have died. I could have killed you!" He stood up and said the last bit very loudly. He ran his fingers through his short hair, distressed.
So, he didn't know that he had actually died. That was good. "It's ok, Antoni. Everything turned out ok," I said. It was hard to see him looking so upset but I wasn't sure what else to say to him.
"No." He was shaking his head. "You don't understand. I don't do things like that. I'm not irresponsible, especially with your... someone else's life. I don't know what I was thinking. My God this is a nightmare." He covered his face with his hands.
I stood up, took his hands and squeezed. "Hey. Please don't beat yourself up. Can't you see? I'm ok. I'm more than ok. I just ate enough food to feed two men, I feel great. You're fine. Other than being out a laser, everything turned out fine."
"Well, actually..." He squeezed my hands back. "We got the laser back. Erik and Maarten were able to find it early this morning with The Zodiac once the storm had cleared. But that's not the point. I just..."
He startled me by putting his warm palm against my cheek. He'd never been so familiar with me before, the intimate touch jumpstarted a hunger of another kind. His scent broke over me again like waves smashing against rocks. My hearing fuzzed out.
Sounding far away he said, "I couldn't live with myself if something had happened to you. I will never forgive myself for taking you out yesterday. It was foolish. I was so foolish."
He was saying nice things, I thought to myself. I needed to respond, to comfort him. To kiss him. I was shaking my head but I couldn't tell if it was because I was disagreeing with the confession that he was foolish, or disagreeing with my own desire to kiss him.
I opened my mouth to comfort him but no words came. He dropped his hand from my face. He sat on the couch and put his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. He let out a breath that sounded like he was in pain, which he probably was.
He spoke through his fingers, "And the worst part is that I can't remember anything. It's so frustrating. I don't know how we got out of that mess. I remember losing control of the laser and trying to flip it upright. I tried calling for help on that useless two-way. I was so angry when it didn't work that I threw it into the sea, another dick move. All I remember after throwing the radio is blackness, and then your face, but I think it was just a dream because we couldn't have been together. I must have hallucinated it." This was coming out in a stream of consciousness, his accent thicker than usual. It sounded musical to my ears. Everything about him had suddenly become so wonderful and beautiful.
I sat down beside him and put a hand on his back. Another mistake as I was distract
ed by the feeling of his flesh under my palm. And that scent. What was I going to say? Shit. No, not shit. Something comforting. Focus. Tell him something that will make sense to him, something that will explain all the confusion away.
All I was coming up with were more questions. Would he believe me if I told him that I was able to swim to him and pull him to shore? It was beyond a superhuman feat. Should I try to pass it off as a miracle? Maybe say that I couldn't remember anything either?
He turned to me, his hazel eyes searching my face. "What happened to you? What happened to me? How did I wake up in the boathouse?"
I opened my mouth to respond but I still had no words to utter. No explanation. The beauty of his face filled my eyes. His lips were so soft looking, so inviting. And that shadow of a beard that I wanted to feel scraping against my palm, against my face. My mind stretched in two directions, wanting him and struggling for something to say. He was waiting. Time was ticking by.
His eyes dropped from my eyes to my mouth and that was all the invitation I needed. I leaned forward and kissed him.
Immediately, he responded. We stood up together and suddenly he was crushing me to him with one arm, the other hand curling around the back of my neck, fingers weaving in the hair at the base of my skull. I heard a soft moan with my fuzzy hearing; sounding so far away. Was that me in pleasure, or him in pain?
He kissed me like it was more important than breathing, like a starving man, and I gave back as good as I got. A thread of electricity zinged through my body. It was a startling new sensation. Warmth flushed through me from deep in my belly, traveling outward through all of my limbs and up the back of my neck.
I had kissed and been kissed before but it had never felt like this. The kisses of my past had all felt foreign, alien. They'd happened because I had allowed myself to be kissed, not because I'd sought the kiss out or wanted it. At the time, I thought that's what girls my age were supposed to want so I let myself be kissed. Only deep down I hadn't been that interested. Until now.