by Jane Keehn
Kendra - Chapter 31
Kendra worried about the amount of time she would have to spend in her water form, fighting for her survival like the other marine animals.
Was this how her Mothers felt when they were trapped in the black water?
She threw the crutches against the concrete wall when she reached the old dolphin enclosure.
Some of the cracked white paint flaked off and floated to the floor like scattered feathers.
Kendra wrapped her clothes in a plastic bag and edged her naked body along the concrete ledge into the old seal display pool.
She rolled herself to the bottom of the empty pool into a shallow puddle of stagnant rain water.
The muddy droplets dripped down her limbs following the red pattern of her scars, ending their journey at her ankles as Kendra got down onto her hands and knees, crawling inside the drainage pipe leading to an underwater holding-cage.
Her land-body immersed with the cold salt and floated slowly out into the open waters.
Kendra gritted her teeth with the familiar pain.
Her feet pointed out at right angles; her groin fused under the sudden growth of grey membrane.
Kendra surfaced for a huge gulp of air as her lower body bubbled with trans-activity.
Fine streams of blood pulsed alongside the current spinning around her writhing water form.
Her grey eyes looked for the constellation that would show her the way.
If her body needed sleep, she would find an inlet or small island to rest.
For now, the luxury of the safety cave was as far away as her childhood and as remote as Emily's last kiss.
Gliding past the skeleton of the Mandalay wreck, Kendra swam in the direction of the abandoned oil rig platform.
She could still feel the suffocating oily patches in the remaining black water, sticking to her skin like plastic.
She swam on the surface keeping watch on the stars.
If she stared out onto the black horizon she could imagine her Mothers’ bodies smothered by the burning oil; pores clogged and drowned by the blackness.
If she wished hard enough, could they still be out there beyond Mandalay Bay, past Moorditj Island and out beyond the currents running under the Seven Sisters?
Kendra gripped the carved tooth hanging at chest.
The markings might make sense if she fine-tuned her homing instinct and kept aim towards the constellation.
It would be worth everything, if Kendra found some remnant of whatever became of her Mothers.
Emily - Chapter 32
Emily drove as close to Kendra's hideout as she could without getting the tyres bogged.
A tree hung over the ute shading it from the waning Sun.
Leo bounded out of the passenger seat sniffing along a path that only he could sense while Emily threw her coat and back pack over her shoulder as she locked the car. Although she didn't know why she bothered, out here where locals feared to go.
She listened for Leo's panting and the sounds of his paws crunching on the dead foliage decaying under Green Wood's canopies.
Instead of heading for the coast, Emily could hear Leo scurrying to the North, towards the pandanus palms and Bullanock trees.
The ground cover grew denser, the sand faded underneath the growth.
Fallen gum nuts pressed hard under Emily's shoes, making her unsteady and she worried about snakes.
Leo barked ahead and she heard the melodic exclamation of a bronze-wing dove flapping their escape from her dog's curiosity.
Emily had to get down on her hands and knees to push her way through a vine growing tightly between two Tuart trees.
Leo dashed around a bend in the scrubby path as she lowered herself further and pushed herself under a fallen tree, her t-shirt scuffed brown where her stomach scraped the forest floor.
Following her instincts, Emily came across a light trail, a slight break in the foliage that twisted behind Kendra's family home.
Leo sniffed around the path leading to the shack's front door where he scratched, urging Emily to turn the handle and let them inside.
The darkness revealed more of Kendra's found-object art and jewellery lying on the thick wooden table.
She took a torch out of her back pack and shone its beam into the corners of the room.
Nothing.
Puffs of ash looked like smoke in the beam as her feet brushed over the dirt floor.
A screech of Black Cockatoos gathering in the Cape Lilac branches gave way to a magpie's song.
Emily sat on the edge of the small bed in the combined room’s corner.
- Leo, come here.
Leo jumped up beside her and rested his chin on her ankle.
Emily listened to their combined breathing.
She heard every rustle of branches in the night air, every scratch of a bush rat wanting to come in from the cold night air.
Emily lay with her hands linked over her forehead, tuning in to Kendra's world.
The wind filling the trees with sound. Insects signalled to one another in the fading light as the Sun set over the horizon.
Emily switched off the torch light. The darkness filled the whole house and she felt its presence like an unwanted ghost.
This was how Kendra lived.
- We’re staying the night, Leo.
Emily stretched the heavy blanket firmly over Leo and herself as the night air crept in.
Once they found sleep, Emily dreamt of a snake creeping through the bush. Leo attacked it to protect her but he was bitten.
She awoke suddenly from the dream and he was still lying at the end of the bed, stretched out as though he was home, safe and unharmed.
Emily left him under the blanket, twitching in his own dreams.
Some pages of paper rested near the fireplace.
Emily grabbed a small cube of charcoal from the grate and scratched a quick note.
- Come back to me.
She rolled up her message into one of the bottles that were stacked up against the wall.
She quietly let herself out into the morning mist and followed the slim path that Kendra and her relatives had used to access the beach.
At the foreshore Emily took off her t-shirt and pants and let the cool air flow over her bare shoulders, legs and breasts.
Her feet curled against the brisk cold water at first but soon longed to be weightless, away from the soft sand.
She walked to the deeper water and allowed her body be covered, holding out the bottle.
Her nakedness floated when she took the weight from her legs and Emily felt the clean salt water holding her up.
Her arms stroked the surface and she threw the bottle as far as she could.
A wave edged it along for a moment but water dribbled inside and sank it.
Emily laughed at the dire, dramatic gesture.
She gently dived and swam some laps of the small contained bay.
Her skin prickled with life and yet after treading water and floating around for about quarter of an hour, Emily started to worry if the water was too deep; about what was lurking beneath the surface; she shivered with a fresh fear she'd never felt before and quickly left the water.
The sun wasn't yet strong enough to dry her skin so she used the t-shirt as a towel, sponging off excess water.
Even though she knew no one would be close by, she felt like something was witnessing her nakedness.
She lay on the sand letting the slight breeze curve around her legs.
Could she even begin to feel like Kendra?
A forced nakedness at the mercy of the elements.
Alone and perhaps, frightened?
Kendra – Chapter 33
Kendra’s eyes pierced through the water’s dark depths to see shadows and movement ahead.
Her muscles ached from the journey, fighting against currents and crashing waves.
The horizon revealed a small island coastline so she let the tide suck her towards the reef.
The
Seven Sisters shone from above guiding her, pulling her towards something, and she felt sadness pouring through her, knowing that Emily wouldn’t be there.
She surfaced as the jut of land came into focus, resting her head back against her shoulders, stretching her neck and relaxing her waist so her tail floated up.
She closed her eyes, breathing deeply against the dull ache of pain in her lower abdomen from three days of swimming.
Light broke slowly through the night sky hurrying away the Seven Sisters constellation.
Kendra looked towards the reef for an entrance point where she would be least likely to cut herself open on the rocks.
A small wave broke over her head. A larger splash than she imagined crashed behind her as a black fin cut through the water.
She felt the rough edge of a moving creature scrape against her thigh.
The fin cut down and disappeared.
She shuddered away from where it had been and slipped under the wave it had created.
A shark’s immense body moved away from her towards something in the water.
She heard a moaning, rise in magnitude, punch through the flow.
There was a redness to the water and a half-human body writhed between the shark’s jaw.
Kendra’s water-drowned scream opened her mouth and it filled with bitter water.
Her tail kicked. Her arms flailed. Her instincts took her far below and she watched through the red and pink foam.
The shark held a Giluri.
It was someone very much like herself. The dead prey had a human half and a marine tail.
Her skin was darker than Kendra’s. The tattoo that curled around her bleeding torso was angular. Kendra couldn’t make out the details as her body bristled with fear.
Just as she decided to aim to her right and explore the inlet, she started scooping the water, but something gripped her wrist.
It stung.
As she rubbed her arm, something grabbed her around her waist and pushed her to the side.
With great strength she pulled herself around expecting to see the mouth of the Great White but it was something else.
A Giluri - but different from Acacia's and her own grey tail.
This Giluri was darker, a tan leather colour whose arms were gripped tightly around Kendra's waist.
She pulled her hand away but it was caught, captured in a tight hold by the Giluri, an androgynous marine animal who pulled her with him towards a rocky inlet and a hidden sand shelf, far away from the shark’s attack.
The underwater sand bar had rocky shelves that had entrances small enough for their half human bodies to fit through but not larger enough for the Great White to follow.
A shiver of trust enervated her body from the physical contact of a fellow marine half.
She let herself be guided through an underwater tunnel beneath the reef and into a large rock pool amongst the limestone, this tribe's version of her Mothers' safety cave.
Her companion put a hand over his heart.
- Calagh.
Kendra mimicked the gesture.
- Kendra.
- What tribe?
Kendra had never had to articulate this to anyone else before, only her Mothers and very briefly with Emily, it gave her strength to say the name out loud.
- Giluri.
The tribal member spoke.
- We are Yawk-Yawk.
Kendra looked into the caves furthest corners.
Groups of the Yawk-Yawk huddled together.
Kendra grabbed at the scrimshaw pendant at her neck, twisting the markings so that Calagh could see them.
- My Mothers gave me this. I followed the "Seven Sisters" to find them but I found you. Do you know them? Did they come here after the black water?
Calagh recognised the inked markings but knew nothing of two Mothers getting lost from their child.
He’d heard of the black water from nearly two decades ago and his tribal stories also told of the black water from the ship wreck one hundred years ago from which the Yawk-Yawk fled.
- You may never find them. Some of my ancestors were lost during the first black water. You need to eat and sleep, in any case. Stay with us until you decide what to do.
Kendra agreed and welcomed the chance to stay and learn about the Yawk-Yawk.
She learned that they had remnants of their old language; their flukes were a different shape to hers; some couples were the same gender and others were made up of both.
If only her Mothers had discovered these ancient relatives.
For the first time since she stayed with Emily, Kendra slept feeling safe; just one more Giluri among many.
Emily - Chapter 34
Emily ran her finger over the newly-healed tattoo on the inside of her wrist.
Tracing the tiny stars and lines of the Seven Sisters, she imagined Kendra touching it.
She took her Grandfather’s diving watch from the computer table and wrapped it over the tattoo, fastening the clasp, cool and tight against her skin.
The Ocean seemed to sparkle this night and Emily climbed up to the viewing platform to wonder about where Kendra had gone.
Had she found her tribe? Was she safe?
The shell wind-chimes dangling from the balcony railing tinkled in a light breeze.
The wind fanned her hair from her face and blew with it a strange noise bleating from the far cresting waves.
A cry cut through the wind.
A stark, soft wailing, like an animal signalling danger...or an alert of arrival.
Emily gripped the railing with both hands and stared out to sea.
She looked down to see Leo sniffing at the breeze, circling and wagging his tail.
He whimpered quietly to himself.
Emily whispered to the horizon, - Kendra?
She rushed to the ladder while still looking out to the black rolling waves.
As the sun set over the water, the pink reflection faded into the horizon.
Emily quickly tumbled down the stairs, flinging off her tracksuit jacket, throwing it to the ground as she ran across the road.
Her sandals flipped off her feet landing on the lawn below and she ran onto the soft white sand.
Bouncing over the shoreline to the fishing jetty, she could make out a “V” shaped wave pattern appearing closer, cutting through the bobbing pink water.
Emily ran over the old jetty, her heart pounding in her chest in time with her feet bumping over the wooden planks.
- Kendra!
Near the end of the platform, Emily could see the ash, grey of Kendra’s hair emerging from the pinkish tinge of the water.
With her next foot fall, she leapt off the edge of the jetty, managing to run a step mid-air before plunging into the water.
Sinking down and down, until she opened her eyes to see Kendra’s face framed by a crown of her short, soft hair floating above her.
Her dark tail was whipping behind her, driving her towards Emily.
Arms outstretched, Kendra wrapped herself around Emily as Emily’s legs firmly wrapped around Kendra’s powerful tail, hanging on so that they might never lose one another again.
The tail pushed up, beating out an upsurge of current, as Kendra kissed Emily’s mouth, breathing air into Emily until their bodies burst through the surface, kissing and laughing.
The cold water made Emily shiver; the excitement jolted through her and she laughed out loud.
Once again, Kendra’s lips pushed against hers, slippery and wet with salt water.
She clasped her body against Kendra’s and returned the kiss.
Emily forced a gasp for air.
- Did you find anyone?
- Yes.
Kendra’s arms wound around Emily’s neck.
- But I found you first.
Kendra pulled Emily’s face to hers and their lips met again.
The forceful tail splashed against the waves keeping them afloat as they wrapped themselves around one another.
Kendra
’s sea-body balanced them just above the waves that clung to their skin then retreated out to sea.
Emily held on around Kendra’s neck.
- What are we going to do?
Kendra navigated them towards Emily’s home.
- Nothing special and we’ll do it together. From my observations of earth- dwellers, nobody else knows the rules. People just make them up as they go along.
Emily rode on Kendra’s back until the shallows where they hid under the jetty to be sure they couldn’t be seen.
This would be Kendra’s last trans-mutation for a long while.
They hid inside shadows as they walked quickly, back to Meg’s old house.
Leo greeted them, but they only had time for each other.
- I missed my land body.
Emily kissed Kendra’s fingers, arms and neck.
- So did I.
Kendra lay back on Emily’s soft bed enjoying the breeze and Emily’s breath on her thigh; the tickle of Emily’s fingers tracing the diamond shapes of her pink scars over her legs, brushing off the pink salt wherever they touched.
She had lived in the ocean as a Giluri but with Emily lying with her, she would always feel the ocean living in her.
Leo scratched at the door demanding attention but Emily was oblivious to the noise.
Kendra’s long-forgotten crutches lost their balance behind the door and fell onto the floor.
Kendra and Emily heard only the sounds and breaths of their own bodies, when another item fell.
It was something Emily had looked at almost every day from a distance.
Not as many times as she looked at his diving watch, but this object had sat alone behind the door since Meg’s death - her Grandfather’s walking stick.
It got tangled up in Kendra’s crutches and slipped to the floor.
The cylindrical, ivory handle struck the ground and fell loose.
The lines and dots of the Seven Sisters, etched into the ivory tip, cracked off the top of the cane and rolled over the floor, resting against the foot of the bed, waiting to be found.
Meg - Epilogue
Young Meg escaped from her parents’ cabin, up to the deck of The Mandalay, the Dutch coal ship.
