Finally he looks back at me. He reaches out and although I flinch, touches the material of my swimsuit at the shoulder. He points to me, to himself, and then to the island, and narrows his eyes as if calculating.
I don’t have a clue what he means, so I shrug.
Still cringing as though the light is painful, he holds up the seaweed and indicates my wound again. I think he wants to help me and I don’t know what else to do. When I edge back along the branch to the rocks, he follows, head on one side, unfolding from his crouch enough to stagger.
My heart pounds. I should talk to him instead of gawping like an idiot.
‘My name’s Aster.’
His mouth is a tight line, but his head juts forward. He tilts his chin back to survey me.
‘Can you hear me? Do you speak English?’
He nods, once for each question.
I blink. ‘Can you talk?’
A nod for yes, a shake for no. He points to me then back to himself, pressing his lips together so tightly they are colourless. Raising his eyebrows, he shakes his head as though weary, then scrambles back across the roots and dives into the sea.
While the boy is back underwater, presumably breathing, I crouch for a few moments, trying to process what I’ve seen. He understands me, but doesn’t speak. His lungs are full of water and air needs to pass through your vocal chords to make a sound, so he can’t speak. The shadowy figure I saw yesterday – underwater, beyond the reef – could have been this boy.
A cold feeling creeps across my skin again. What if he is the reason the other students aren’t on the island?
I shouldn’t let myself believe he wants to help me. Just because he hasn’t hurt me, doesn’t mean he won’t, so I draw my knife again, and watch my knuckles whiten around the hilt. When I hear him splash back out of the water, my heart thumps. He stumbles along the roots towards me like a drunk person, and I scoot backwards a little when he collapses into a crouch next to me, dripping. He shifts his feet around until he is able to keep his balance. His frown casts his eyes in shade, his lips press tightly together.
I speak slowly, clearly, ‘Have you seen others like me? Without . . . your . . .’ I indicate his gills and then my chest. A rushing sound fills my ears as I brace myself for him to communicate something devastating about Poppy.
His eyes widen and his nostrils flare as his neck thrusts forward. I raise my hands, palms up. Clearly I said something wrong. He shakes his head then holds up two fingers and points to our island, then adds another finger and jabs it at me.
‘Only the two on the island and me? Are you sure? I’m looking for my sister.’
He shakes his head, frowning, then makes a cutting movement with his hand and I get the strong impression he doesn’t want to answer any more questions. At least, I hope that’s what he’s trying to say. I frown back at him and square my shoulders.
‘My sister is only eleven. I need to find her.’
The boy looks away and gives another smaller shake of his head, then he gestures abruptly for me to sit. He points at my knee, his jaw clenching.
He can’t do a worse job of it. The wound hasn’t stopped throbbing. He lifts the seaweed from where it is clumped on the rocks and raises his eyebrows.
‘Is that going to help my wound? Will it stop the shark scenting me?’ I say.
A nod.
I can’t get back to the island chased by sharks. I also can’t see how that piece of seaweed is going to make any difference, but he seems at home in the water and hasn’t been eaten by sharks himself, so he’s probably my best shot. I sit and under the boy’s direction, unwind the strips of swimsuit fabric, wincing as I peel the wadded material from the cut and it wells with fresh blood. He folds himself almost in half to scrutinize the cut up close then shakes his head as if he doesn’t approve.
I want to tell him it wasn’t exactly deliberate, but keep quiet.
He strides back across to the sea and fills a black pouch with water then pours it over the wound, cleaning it. It smarts and I take a sharp intake of breath. He reaches into another pouch tied to a strap across his chest, and brings out fingers coated in transparent greenish gel.
The boy pauses as if weighing me up. His face twists into a grimace; eyebrows arched upwards, a flash of teeth. I don’t know what he means.
He grips my leg firmly below the knee and I gasp at the sudden skin contact but am immediately distracted because when he slathers the cold gel into the wound it’s as if thousands of wasps are stinging me in unison. The wave of pain shoots up my leg, I screech, and when I kick out at him, he restrains my ankle with his other hand. My back arches, sweat prickles my scalp. I lunge forward and grip his forearm with both my hands, squeezing tight and grinding my teeth. As suddenly as it begun, the torment is replaced by a cool tingling, and the squawk in the back of my throat strangles off. I wipe tears from the corners of my eyes with a trembling hand and look down.
The boy’s fingers pinch the wound closed.
He holds my gaze as my breath slows and when a smile curls the edge of his closed lips, I glare at him.
‘That really really hurt!’
He tentatively moves his fingers aside and I lean forward, amazed. The wound holds, all that is left is a slim dark line. As the boy turns back to the sea I stare at my leg, then at his back in amazement. He dives.
When the boy returns, he crouches by my side again and slicks the translucent seaweed he first offered me over the wound. Immediately it tightens, like one of those peel-off face masks, as it dries to my skin. With the side of his thumb, he smoothes the surface of the weed, easing out any air bubbles from underneath. Now he isn’t causing me intense agony, I notice that his movements are gentle, his fingers long. He’s very close, the top of his head below my chin. From this angle, he’s just a boy. His hair stands up in glossy black tufts, shorter at the front and sides, but thick and long at the back, wet clumps clinging to his shoulders. Not a style many guys could get away with since the 1970s, but he pulls it off and I guess it keeps the hair out of his eyes when swimming. There are three more furrows in the skin on his neck, curving behind his ear. Gills.
He smells salty and boyish but not unpleasant; wet skin drying in the breeze. Normal.
So not normal. A boy who breathes underwater. Sea Boy.
‘I guess I should thank you,’ I say, ‘despite the agony.’
He raises his eyebrows and shrugs as if to say, ‘That would be nice,’ and I find myself smiling.
‘Can I – safely swim back now?’
He leans back and screws up his nose, as if dubious I can do it.
I don’t appreciate the look.
‘I swam here fine, and I need to swim back,’ I say.
I stand. He reaches out towards my neck, tipping his head to one side, and I duck back. He taps behind his ear and I get it. My hair is still in the high, messy bun I knotted before I swam, but a lot of strands have come free and I move them aside to show him my neck.
‘I don’t have . . . them,’ I say. ‘Are they . . . gills?’
He meets my gaze. The storm-cloud grey of his eyes is striking against his skin colour, but they don’t look so strange now, above the surface.
His expression is guarded, thoughtful, and I feel like he’s torn about something. The light beyond the island’s shadow is a rich late-afternoon orange. I do not want to swim back in the dark. He taps his chest, points at me, then indicates the island in the distance. He dives. I don’t have a lot of choice but to follow this Sea Boy. After one last glance down at my knee, I shake my head, and plunge into the ripples he has left.
Isurface to snap my goggles into place. Sea Boy drifts below me. He makes a clicking sound, and by the way his jaw moves, I guess it comes from his back teeth.
A massive fish sweeps in front of us, triangular wings blasting me with turbulence. I blow out all my bubbles at once and dart behind Sea Boy, my mind screaming shark even as I realize he isn’t fazed at all. I steady myself with a hand on his sho
ulder and peer around him. A manta ray. I recognize it from nature documentaries. The fish is three times my size, and with a huge toothless cavern of a mouth probably capable of swallowing me whole. Strange prominences curve out below its wide-spaced eyes, it is black with white patches on top and fully white underneath, and has a tapered, black tail. It nudges the boy’s stomach with its flat head and he strokes its gills, chattering his back teeth together.
Brown seaweed threads around the fish’s head and the back of its wings, like a harness.
Oh no.
Sea Boy grips the rein above the manta ray’s head and slips his feet beneath a strap under its long spiked tail.
He intends us to ride it?
I give him a wide-eyed look. Seriously?
Sea Boy clicks his teeth again and the manta ray speeds off, with him pressed tight against its back, weaving from side to side then shooting into the distant blue before banking sideways and streaming back towards me. I choke as it carves right by me, spinning me in its wake, and I surface, spluttering. The sun is sinking, the sea glitters amber and I know the island is too far to reach alone before dark. Above water I’m in deep trouble. Below, a boy is breathing seawater and riding a giant manta ray. I inhale deeply, then dive again.
Sea Boy guides the giant fish lazily back and forth. He gestures for me to come closer.
I swim over and he drifts so I am floating above him. What the hell am I doing? He adjusts the spear at his back so it rests to the side, and when he indicates for me to hold on to him, I wonder if I catch a glimpse of shyness in his expression. I shake my head in disbelief at what I am doing then scull down, breathing out some bubbles to decrease my buoyancy. I rest against the boy, my stomach to his spine, and before I can register the closeness as awkward, the manta ray flaps its wings and I am forced to hug tight around Sea Boy’s waist or be left behind. Hooking my legs around his, I glue my cheek between his shoulder blades as the huge fish accelerates through the water. It is exhilarating, and terrifying.
When my lungs beg for air I raise my face, tap Sea Boy’s stomach with my fingers, and he directs the manta ray to skim along the surface just long enough for me to splutter a breath, before swooping back below. We continue like this, and he soon anticipates the length of time between breaths before I have to tell him. Finally we slow down and I unlock my muscles, relieved. At the speed we’ve been travelling, we must already be at the island. But when I raise my head, I’m faced with a cloud of pale balloons and spiralling tentacles. I snort out a few bubbles in dismay.
Jellyfish.
The swarm stretches in both directions as far as I can see, blocking our way. Only the two metres directly above the sea floor is clear of them.
Sea Boy gestures with an open palm for me to wait. Well, obviously. I shoot to the surface for a breath and scan around. The island is now so near I can see individual rocks. I spin in the water and my gaze catches on a dark blotch behind me, in the direction we just came. Up on the surface the waves are choppy. I remember I also saw something when I was at the mangrove island too. A boat? A swimmer?
I tread water more rapidly, trying to raise myself higher out of the water to get a better look, but there’s nothing to see. I imagined it, or it was a piece of driftwood. I duck under and stare in that direction, but the visibility distance is shorter below and there is nothing but that dizzying blue. Sea Boy sweeps out from underneath the jellyfish and towards me, indicating a short distance between his two hands, then points to the surface. He thinks I can make it on one breath?
I look into Sea Boy’s eyes. Their grey has a milky sheen underwater, where the surface of the eye seems to reflect the light strangely. He helped me with my leg and he’s learnt how long I need between breaths. I want to trust him.
How poisonous are these things? I point to the jellyfish and make a cutting motion across my throat, questioning with my eyebrows. He nods, eyes wide. He points to the purple mark on his cheek, then copies my mime adding a face, with his eyes shut and tongue out. It seems to be an impression of someone dead.
Great. Quite poisonous then.
I rise to the surface and breathe extra deeply, emptying my lungs and filling them three times. If I can go a length and a half underwater on one breath in the pool, I can do this. I dive down and circle my arms back around Sea Boy tightly. As soon as I’ve hooked my feet around his ankles, we stream through the water to the base of the jellyfish mass, and curve beneath. The tips of the manta ray’s huge wings kick up puffs of sediment from the seabed. My ears pop and the pressure squeezes my skull. I sense the mass of jellyfish, a whitish thundercloud above us, even though I can’t see them at this speed.
My chest is too tight already. With that thought, panic crushes me without warning and I do the worst thing. I gasp.
Blurting out my air, I lose my grip on Sea Boy’s waist. He and the manta ray speed on for a few beats and I flounder, buffeted in their wake towards the pulsing tentacles above. Sea Boy swims free of the manta ray, circles back and hauls me down by my waist. My eyes dart frantically. The jellyfish stretch above us in every direction, a toxic ceiling. But the tightness in my chest is now unbearable. I have to breathe.
I meet the boy’s eyes through my goggles, his hands grip my waist tight. He’s holding me still, moving his lips, his eyes desperate for my understanding – but what is there to understand? I know the jellyfish are poisonous, but I also need air or I’ll die.
My lungs shudder and I jerk up my knee, connecting with his thigh. In a swift movement Sea Boy encircles me from behind, one arm around my shoulders, the other pinning my arms to my sides.
No. His heart thumps against my spine, my chest is bursting. I buck and arch my back, summoning all my strength to jab my elbows into him and kick frantically with my heels.
Let me go!
I throw my head back and pound it against his collarbone. I contort my hands and scratch at any skin I can reach. Black blotches spread across my vision like spilt ink, broken by flashes of light. The urge to breathe is almost overwhelming but I must get free, get to the surface.
You are drowning me!
Time slows.
The hiss of the oxygen tank. Mum’s voice.
Reach.
Kick.
Breathe.
In a burst of strength I jerk both knees up and plunge forward. The boy’s arm is within reach of my mouth. Aster is gone, only animal instinct is left. I champ my teeth down on Sea Boy’s forearm, tearing my head from side to side, flooding my mouth with his molten metal blood. His hold on me releases a little.
Just enough.
I twist from Sea Boy’s grip and kick upwards. His hand catches at my ankle and I kick savagely, my heel connecting. As I shoot through the white, pulsating cloud of jellyfish all I can think of is air. I feel the fleshy bodies, the tickle of tentacles brushing past me. No pain. The jellyfish aren’t poisonous after all. It’s bright, I must be near the surface—
Agony hits. I judder just below the surface, paralyzed and convulsing as the jellyfish stings set the entire surface of my skin aflame.
Sam looks up at the sky and pedals harder. His route home from his weekend job at the bike shop takes him along the river path, and the low-slung clouds make it darker than it usually is. Should have brought his bike lights; Granda would have something to say about him not being prepared. He sighs at the thought of Granda. He’s still in hospital, and doesn’t seem to be getting any better.
Sam sees no one on the last kilometre to his house so when the figure on the bench in front of him stands and says his name, he skids, almost losing balance, righting himself just in time, his back wheel overhanging the canal by a couple of centimetres.
‘Hey, what the—?’
‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.’ The man reaches out as if to help, but then meets Sam’s eyes and raises his hands. Sam glares at him, still straddling the cross bar of his bike, feet firmly on the ground.
Sam takes in the broad, open face and blue-green ey
es, the eyebrows rising in the centre giving the man a surprised or concerned look. At first Sam thinks it can’t actually be him. He’s thought about the doctor so much, he’s seeing things.
The man steps forward, smiling. ‘I’m Doctor Nygard; we met briefly at the hospital. You emailed me. I hope you don’t mind, I thought it better we speak in person.’
‘How did you know I’d be here?’ says Sam. He asked to chat to the guy, not for him to stalk him.
‘Your grandfather told me where you work. He’s incredibly fond of you.’
Sam frowns and raises his eyebrows at the same time, and Doctor Nygard continues.
‘I understand why you have questions. My association with your grandfather is through a medical trial that unfortunately finished early.’
‘So why did the trial stop? It seemed to be working for Granda.’
‘There were – circumstances – beyond my control.’
A woman has appeared on the path in the distance. The doctor startled him, but his tone is friendly enough. Sam tries to relax and starts to walk towards home. The doctor strides beside him in silence and Sam wonders if the guy really doesn’t recognize him from the fire site. It’s possible, he supposes. He decides to just say it.
‘We also met at that fire site in the bush near Tokomaru. I don’t know if you remember.’
Sam watches the doctor’s jaw tighten and his Adam’s apple move as he swallows. He feels a flush of adrenaline, because whatever the doctor says next, Sam knows for sure now that this is the same man.
Secret Deep Page 9
