She glances up. “Turn out the lights,” she instructs.
In the candlelight, the girls’ faces flicker back at her, and for a moment she remembers what it was like to be with them, the sound of their laughter, the smell of them as she kissed them at night. it was pleasant enough, being a mother, but it wasn’t sufficient, not for her.
The candle chases away the stench in the room. She wonders if the others can smell it, the cloying odor of organs putrefying inside their host.
“When these girls were young, I couldn’t offer them what they needed,” she says. “It wasn’t in me. I’d look at them and their father and feel love, yes, but mostly I just felt trapped. Eventually I realized I couldn’t stay, it was killing me. They wanted me back, at first, after I left. They cried and told me they missed me, told me they loved me. And when that didn’t work they learned to hate me, that’s how they healed themselves, scabbing over the memories of me with hate.”
Peter kneels beside the bed and tries to take her hand while Sara whispers something reassuring, but Tethys waves them both off. They have all endured similar losses—she isn’t looking for pity. “Just hear me,” she says.
The room grows so quiet they can hear the guttering of the candle. Light dances with shadows on the walls, and it strikes Tethys as a kind of noise, a special pitch too high for human ears, like a dog’s whistle only infinitely more subtle. And more musical.
She gathers up the photographs. presses her lips gently against each one, and feels nothing but paper. “You will not be open to explanations from me, will you, my daughters? You think you know the answers. You need to believe that, it’s important to you. I won’t seek to change your minds—I don’t crave your approval. Permitting you your hatred, your comforting misconceptions. this is my final gift to you.”
Carefully, she rips each photograph in half, then shreds the halves two at a time. “No, Peter. I will not be writing any letters,” she says, scooping up the scraps and handing them to him. “Burn these.”
He pockets them and promises he will. A lightness comes over her. There was no need to worry: this part of the past holds no sway over her anymore; these particular ghosts have long since gone. There is only one lingering spirit that still troubles her: the ghost of the girl. and now even she will be dealt with. Atlantis—forgiving Atlantis!—will welcome them both with open arms and the old debts will finally be settled.
“You still have the tape?” she asks Sara.
“Of course.” her lieutenant assures her. “In a safe place.”
“Good. That will be legacy enough for me.”
She catches the quizzical look on Peter’s face. He doesn’t know about the tape. She probably should have told him, she realizes. But recording it was difficult enough with just Sara in the room. This is something she could entrust only to the strongest of her ranks, and Peter, for all his loyalty, is not that; Sara is. She isn’t worried, though. Peter will get over it. He always does.
* * *
Inside the darkened van, Selena, clutching a tattered blanket that has lost its color but looks as though it once was pink, sleeps curled up in Peter’s lap. He cradles her head in one arm while wrestling a map with the other. “I think we’re almost there,” he says, trying to ignore the butterflies flitting about in his stomach.
Sara, concentrating on the road and the van ahead of them, grunts. “Tethys told us it would be about this long.”
Behind them, on the floor of the cargo area, the nine others who have been assigned to ride with them converse in muted tones. Peter listens for any hint of trouble, any last-minute changes of heart. Fear can do that, make people lose their convictions. Tethys specifically warned them to watch for that, to be prepared.
He checks the glove box for the weapon she gave him. A last resort, she said. In case there’s no other way.
“Hope we don’t have to use this,” he mutters.
Sara glances over and scowls. “We will if we have to. That’s our job.” There’s not a trace of uncertainty in her voice.
And rightly so, he supposes. it’s something they all agreed on in advance: the good of the group comes first. No one can be allowed to sacrifice the others on the selfish altar of their own doubts.
They are all, every one of them, well beyond the time for second thoughts.
Selena, her sleep disrupted by the weak light inside the glove box, rolls over and peers at him through weepy, half open eyes. Closing the glove box with his knee, he smiles and gently runs a hand through her hair. “Go to sleep, little one,” he whispers. “You’re with me now.”
Her lips curl up into what might be mistaken for a slight smile. Her eyes close and her breathing becomes heavy again. “Precious cargo,” he says softly.
“Doesn’t get more precious than that” Sara replies, not fondly, just a statement of fact. “I thought you gave her something?”
“A partial dose,” he answers. “Enough for a kid. Don’t want to kill her.”
Outside, the road, bordered by walls of trees, slips by in velvety darkness.
* * *
In the van ahead, Tethys scans the dark roadside as it sweeps past. “This is it slow down.”
Roger does as he is told, and a few seconds later Tethys spots the place where the trees on the right break ranks, leaving a space just wide enough for an old service road to pass through. “Turn here.”
The narrow dirt lane is rutted and littered with fallen branches and other debris, and the van bounces hard over an exposed root as they make the turn. “Take it slow,” she instructs, “but not so slow you get stuck.”
In the side mirror, a pair of headlights swings into the lane behind them. Sara and Peter, exactly where they should be. They have so much power together: Sara with her fierce devotion, her unquestioning loyalty, her stubborn drive; Peter with his warmth. his gentle strength, his more generous sense of the sacred.
Of all of them, it was Peter she wanted by her side for the crossing. But he and Sara have more important responsibilities right now than tending to her. Either one of them could handle the task they have been given, but together, there’s no doubt. No doubt at all.
They will deliver everyone to Atlantis.
The already hushed conversations in the cargo area cease. The sedatives have worked their magic, but the human mind is endlessly creative about finding ways to be nervous. The tension around her is understated but real—they want the journey to be over.
The van pulls clear of the trees and jostles across a wide swath of grass before pulling onto a smooth surface and coming to a gentle stop. Roger douses the headlights. Stretching away in the white glow of the nearly full moon is a concrete ramp, their launching pad, sloping down into the black waters that will take them home.
In the mirror, Tethys watches as the van driven by Sara, its lights also extinguished, stops a yard or two behind them. Everything is in place. Finally.
“We’re here,” she says with wonder.
The lake. Their lake, their portal. It’s not especially vast. but she can sense its potency. Water, real water, the wild kind you find in nature, seethes with life and the rhythms of life. Most people hear it only at the seashore, in the pounding of the surf, the cry of the gulls, the relentless murmuring of the breeze; but if you listen closely enough, it’s everywhere, even inland, by the side of a lake like this. Its tiny waves lapping against humble pebbles, echoes of an ancient power. Land masses take hundreds of years to migrate mere inches, but water is constantly moving, circulating through an endless cycle of separation and renewal. Life writ large in a single global organism.
The ocean feeds the rain. The rain nourishes the lake. The lake flows into the sea. The sea is where they belong, the alpha and omega of creation.
Roger helps her up out of her seat and supports her as she moves back to sit with the others. The metal floor is cold and uneven, but while she notices it, the sensation doesn’t bother her. Cold, hot, old, young, sick, healthy, none of it seems important anymore
.
“We’ve done it.” Her voice cracks with emotion as she speaks. ‘‘I’m so proud, so very proud. Of all of you, everyone.”
The moonlight falters as it travels into the windowless cargo area. The others are cloaked in darkness, a gathering of shadows. but they cry when she says it, cry and thank her and a couple even laugh. Joy and relief and lingering nervousness and suddenly they’re all laughing, even her, because this is it, their moment. The fear of being stopped mashes up against the fear of going forward and it seems so sublimely silly, all this fear, so utterly stupid and hysterical.
When the laughter dies down, Tethys wipes the tears from her cheeks and says it’s time. There’s a shuffling on her left and a large figure takes its place kneeling in front of her. She reaches out, touches the contours of the face, the coarseness of the hair. Benny.
“Are you ready, Benny?” she asks.
“Yes, Tethys,” he answers affectionately. “I’m ready.”
He was so depressed when they met, even though he had it all, the American dream: fancy car, house, wife, kids. What he didn’t have was a destination. Now he does, he’s almost reached it and she can read the joy in his voice.
She takes a thermos from Roger and pours Benny a cup of juice with more of the sedative in it, a stronger dose, to prepare him for the passage. The blood of Christ, she thinks, vestige of ancient rituals, but what she says is: “You are not your body. Free yourself, and follow us.”
He lifts the cup to his mouth and she can see the glint of white teeth. He slurps the cup empty, places it back on her lap and embraces her, a warm bear hug. “Thank you,” he whispers into her ear, so softly she has to strain to hear.
“Thank you so much.”
She kisses him gently on the neck. “You’re welcome.”
He slides back into his place, and there’s the raw clanking of metal on metal as he positions the handcuff and clicks it shut around his wrist. Yes, Benny is ready.
And so it goes, around the circle, until it’s Alima’s turn. She starts to slide forward from the recesses in the back, but then she stops and the van is filled with the sound of her sobbing. It’s quiet at first but it seems to be building, and Tethys knows what’s coming, something she can’t allow. “Alima.” she says kindly. “Child.”
“Yes?” comes the weak reply.
Tethys reaches out into the dark until her fingers touch a woman’s damp face. The contact draws Alima forward. Tethys caresses her face lovingly until the crying subsides, then wraps her arms around her. “What is it?”
Alima shakes her head. not wanting to confess, but a second later the words tumble out of her. ‘‘I’m just not sure,” she blurts.
Roger twists in his seat and snorts. “Too late for that.”
“Shush!” Tethys snaps. Then, more tenderly, she asks, “It’s Bret isn’t it?”
Alima sobs and nods. Of course it is. They came to the group as a pair, but Bret had doubts, and two months ago he pulled out, begging Alima to come with him. It took Tethys two weeks to convince her to stay. “He says he wants to marry me,” Alima cries.
“Men say those things.” Tethys answers. “Alima, listen to me. He doesn’t love you the way I do, the way we do. Don’t let him hold you back. if he really loved you, he would have stayed. He wouldn’t have left you.”
“But he wanted me to go with him!”
“And when you didn’t he left anyway.” There’s no reply, so Tethys presses ahead. “If he really loved you, he would want you to be happy. That’s what love is. And you’re happy here with us, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” Alima sobbed, “but—”
“And is there any place happier than where we’re going?”
“No.”
“We want you to be happy, Alima. We love you. These are your friends, this is where you belong.” The others murmur their agreement and Tethys can feel reassuring hands brushing against Alima’s hair and back.
“You love us, don’t you?” she asks.
“Yes,” Alima whimpers.
“And you don’t want to leave us, do you? You don’t want to be left behind?”
“No.” There’s panic in the girl’s voice, and Tethys knows the crisis is past.
“Then you’ll come with us?” There’s no objection. “You’re ready now, aren’t you, to come with your friends?”
“Yes.’’
* * *
Tethys is back in her seat. The others are all locked in, quiet and ready to go. She swallows a cup of the juice and holds the thermos out to Roger, who shakes his head no. ‘‘I’m driving, remember?” he says wryly.
He bends forward and handcuffs himself to a metal bar under his seat so that he has to lean over the steering wheel. “I want to get there quickly,” he explains.
She smiles and sets down the thermos. There’s no accounting for the bravado of men. Outside, the moon seems to light a pathway across the lake, as if inviting them in, a shimmering welcome. She wonders if this moonbeam will travel with them to the sea, lighting their way, and what the slivery moon looks like from underneath the waves.
Her body is unlikely to put up much of a fuss, but she handcuffs herself anyway to the handle over the door. It’s only fair. If the others have to do it, so does she.
“Safe journey, children,” she says. “See you on the other side.”
A jagged cough tears at her lungs. When it subsides, Tethys waves a finger at Roger, and he eagerly shifts the van into drive and accelerates down the ramp. They seem to float at first. following the moonbeam, just as she hoped. Then the van pitches slightly to the left and the lake comes gushing in, steadily pushing its way up her ankles and legs. The water takes her breath away. It’s cold, horribly so, and black like nothing she’s ever seen before, a gurgling
darkness.
Someone in the back starts sobbing uncontrollably, she can’t make out who. Handcuffs rattle and bodies shift, trying to stay upright, reacting to the cold, she imagines.
The water reaches Roger’s chest, and she realizes he’s straining upward. His eyes have widened into huge, white spheres that remind her, curiously, of those floaters that fishermen use. He’s regretting handcuffing himself to the floor, she can tell, and paying the price of not having drunk the sedative. But she loves him for wanting to impress her that way, and if the flesh has now grown weak, she can forgive that.
“It’s all right, Roger,” she says. “Don’t be frightened. Almost there.”
But there’s a dreamy quality to the words, and they float away from her so wistfully she can’t even be sure she spoke them. Already she feels disconnected from her body, ready to swim out of it and away into the depths.
The thermos floats over and bumps Roger in the ear, and he thrashes at it with his free hand. They made a mistake, not tying everything down. There are things floating on the water. the thermos, the cup, a suitcase, someone’s shoe.
She glances away at the moon and just then something grabs her shoulder and yanks her violently down into the water. Her eyes fill with black, and her mouth tastes silt before instinct snaps it shut. She can’t breathe, can’t move, can’t break free. Pain shoots into her neck and along her arm—whatever has her is crushing the fragile bones in her shoulder, pulling her down.
Her left hand claws at whatever it is and finds a forearm, its stringy sinew taut and stronger than she could ever hope to be right now. Her right hand wants to fight, but the handcuff holds it in place above her, up where there’s still air. This isn’t how she wants it to happen, not this way. With her free hand she claws frantically up the forearm until she finds the fingers that are wrapped, talon-like, around her shoulder. She grabs one and pulls on it with all her strength. It’s like bending metal. but slowly it budges and curves back. When there’s enough room she wraps her fingers completely around it and jerks down. She can feel the snap, and suddenly the hand releases its grip and her shoulder is free.
She pulls herself up by the handcuff until her head breaks free of the
water and her lungs suck at the air in a panicky gasp. Next to her, Roger is twisted around so he’s looking back up at her over his forehead. His fishing lure eyes bounce just above the water line, his mouth no more than a pair of lips, opening and shutting like a goldfish’s at feeding time.
The hand with the broken finger reaches up out of the water toward her face, and she shrinks back. “No!” he screams wetly, water spouting up on his cry. And then he’s gagging, swallowing it, feeling it trickle into his windpipe, his lungs.
Another spout his last. “Selena!”
She knows what he means, that he’s changed his mind, that he wants the girl to go free. But that’s just panic talking. it’s why they had to be separated, why Roger couldn’t be trusted traveling with her. Selena’s fate is out of both their hands now. “Hush. child,” she says.
And then he’s gone. His face disappears but continues thrashing around just beneath the surface. And then there’s nothing. just the murkiness swirling around Tethys’ neck.
Poor Roger. He’ll feel like such a fool when they reach the other side. She’ll try to make a joke of it, not to embarrass him. He lacked strength, but she knew that.
That’s when she notices the screams from behind her, the pain in her shoulder. Suddenly she’s too much in her body again, trapped inside its fears and weaknesses. Perhaps she won’t be so lenient on Roger after all.
As the water closes in above her, she wonders what Atlantis will really be like and realizes. sadly, that the moon doesn’t look like much of anything from beneath the waves. in fact she can’t see it at all.
5
Night-night, Bright Light
The younger children squeal and giggle as they hide. Natalie, her eyes shut, smiles and continues counting: “Nine, ten, eleven . . .” A sudden elation comes over her. For just a moment she feels free, and she can sense that the others do, too. It’s a shame playtime has to be so short. But then they’re lucky to have been given a time for games at all. The adults were reluctant to let them go, afraid that something might happen while they were apart, but Father insisted. “Children need to play,” he said. “Especially now.”
Ring of Years Page 4
