Neptune's Tears

by Susan Waggoner

  Zee thought for a moment, then smiled. ‘I know just the thing.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Oh no, I’m not telling – you have to learn to be surprised and take things as they come,’ she’d told him. ‘That’s part of the deal. Meet me at Victoria station Saturday morning at ten by the Southern line ticket booth.’

  What Zee hadn’t anticipated was the crowds. After being trapped in London for a few weeks, people were eager to get away. The vactrain to Brighton took less than fifteen minutes, but the queue was the longest she’d ever seen. Zee had begun to wonder how she and David would find each other, when she saw him in the crowd. He seemed to be talking to a tall girl with a waterfall of shining black hair, but as Zee approached, she was relieved to see the girl nudge the young man beside her and then disappear into the crowd. Zee felt a surge of relief. Even without seeing the girl’s face, Zee knew she was beautiful.

  ‘Is this what you meant by taking things as they come?’ David asked lightly. ‘A lesson in crowd tolerance?’

  ‘Sorry about that. Let’s hope the queue moves fast, and they’ve put extra trains on.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ He smiled. ‘I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be in line with.’ He put his hand lightly on her back to draw her closer to him and she knew that any fears about awkward moments were unfounded.

  It was Zee who came up with the idea of imagining how every couple in line had met, but David who said they should also predict their future. Zee did the first three couples, coming up with meetings that made David laugh. He got into the spirit and told her the wealthy-looking retired couple had met years ago when the husband was a burglar and the wife, a police officer, arrested him and inspired him to go straight. He said she’d been on the lookout for a good-looking thief to reform for some time.

  Zee used the story of how her parents had met, which David found fascinating. ‘Love at first sight – is that something that runs in families?’ He looked at her intently, suddenly serious. ‘Are you an early decider too?’

  Zee felt the warmth of a blush creep into her cheeks. ‘I don’t know,’ she said at last. ‘I’ve never decided before.’

  David took her hand. ‘Me neither,’ he said, and Zee felt a little throb of happiness.

  Zee didn’t notice how they’d moved up in the queue until she realised the crowd in front of them was so small they were sure to get on the next train. Then she noticed the girl with ink-black hair, the one she’d thought David had spoken to earlier, was just ahead of them, with a young man. Now that the girl’s face was visible, Zee realised she’d been right in thinking she was beautiful. The girl was tall, with high, broad cheekbones that made her face almost round. Yet there was something willowy and delicate about her.

  David followed her gaze and Zee was sure she saw a look of recognition when he saw the girl. He brought his attention swiftly back to Zee.

  ‘Your turn,’ she said. ‘Tell me how that couple met.’ She nodded at the girl and her companion.

  David held his hands up in surrender. ‘I’m out of stories, Zee. You win. Besides, it’s almost our turn to board.’

  She gazed at him firmly. ‘Do you know that girl?’

  ‘The girl with long black hair?’ he asked in a way that suggested he did know her. Confused, Zee decided to forget the girl for the moment and not let her day be ruined.

  The sun was high when they got out at Brighton and they were plunged instantly into the bright, swirling throng. Zee fought against the crowd to keep them from being pulled towards the beach.

  ‘Aren’t we going to the pier?’ David asked.

  ‘Not yet,’ Zee said. She felt excited to be there with him, and when they finally struggled free of the masses around the station she led them quickly inland, until they arrived at what looked like a vast green meadow. Above the meadow, people balanced on surfboards and coasted about five metres in the air. Some seemed to glide up an invisible curving wall, do a complete loop, and go on their way. Others lost their balance and fell onto the green of the meadow, which turned out to be as soft and yielding as marshmallows, swallowing them up for a few seconds, then popping them back up to the surface where they would reclaim their boards, lay flat on their stomachs, touch the board in a certain place, and rise slowly into the air again. Then they would get to their feet and go shooting off through the air as if nothing had ever happened.

  ‘I hope you’re up for this,’ Zee said, her cheeks flushed with anticipation. ‘I haven’t been airboarding for years, but I used to love it. My dad taught me.’

  They checked in their belongings and rented boards. Zee showed David how to read the symbol-coded signs around the park. Beginner air currents were in the front nearest the sea. The farther from the sea you went, the stronger the currents became.

  Zee pointed out an area far from them, at the very back, where the green foam of the meadow was marked with black diamonds. ‘Don’t go there unless you want to get rag-dolled. Wicked air.’

  She showed him the pressure points built into the board, and how to get the board aloft and stand on it. He wiped out twice before he could do it, but laughed each time and tried again. He was, she saw, a quick learner, and within an hour they were riding the advanced beginners waves together. They tried riding in holding hands but tumbled off their boards each time, falling together into the softness of the meadow. Neither of them seemed to mind, and neither was quick to let go of the other’s hand.

  By the time they turned in their boards, they were tired and breathless and leaning on each other. ‘That was great,’ David said, slinging his arm around her. ‘And now I’m so hungry I could eat a horse.’

  The sun was starting to dip and they headed for the pier. There were all sorts of shops along the way – old-fashioned shops that sold things no one needed but everyone seemed to want. Candles. Charms. Books printed on paper. Clothes that had gone out of style a hundred years ago. Badges with pictures of all three Queen Elizabeths on them – sixteenth, twentieth and twenty-third century. Some poses were serious, other showed them with pink glitter crowns on their heads.

  ‘Why do people buy all this stuff?’ David asked.

  Zee shrugged. ‘For a bit of a laugh, I guess. For fun. To take home to friends as gifts and make them feel remembered.’

  ‘That’s crazy,’ David said, shaking his head but smiling at the same time. ‘Will I ever understand Earthlings?’

  Zee surprised herself by taking his hand. ‘You just need to get to know us better.’

  They walked on, holding hands and smiling at each other and at other couples, who smiled right back at them, as if they were all in on a happy secret. If anyone noticed that David was an alien, no one seemed to care.

  While Zee was gazing at a window that contained a complete and highly detailed replica of Buckingham Palace in chocolate, David suddenly broke away from her, promising to be back in a minute. Zee watched him disappear into Ye Olde Book Shoppe, glad he’d left her in front of the chocolate shop.

  ‘Sorry I took so long,’ he said when he came back twenty minutes later. ‘I got a little carried away.’

  ‘Over books?’ Zee wrinkled her nose.

  ‘Yeah, of course over books. Especially old-style ones like that shop sells. Printed on paper, with covers, nothing digital.’

  ‘I haven’t read much, I guess,’ Zee said. ‘Empaths are discouraged from reading novels and poetry. In training they taught us that thoughts and feelings in books can interfere with our perceptions.’

  She felt a little sad to realise something so important to him was an unknown world to her, and for a moment she felt a little jealous of the books he was so passionate about.

  ‘I’d like to read more, though. I’m pretty good at divesting, and now that I have more experience, the risk wouldn’t be as great.’

  ‘Good thing I got you this, then.’ He held out a small, book-shaped square tied in paper with a sea-coloured silk ribbon. ‘For you,’ he said. ‘To remember today.’

&
nbsp; She didn’t want to open it. Not right away. She wanted to have the little package with the blue ribbon to look forward to, so the day wouldn’t be over.

  They looked at each other for a long moment. The silence lengthened and neither of them seemed to know what to say.

  David seemed to read her thoughts and smiled. ‘It’s for you to open at home. Right now, I’m starving. Let’s get some fish and chips.’

  They bought food at a stall on the pier and ate as slowly as possible, finding one excuse after another to stay just a little longer. The last thing they did was stroll along the beach. It wasn’t really dark, with so many lights from the pier and the shops, and it certainly wasn’t private. But it felt both dark and private when he put his arms around her and kissed her.

  It was the first real kiss of Zee’s life and it felt like a current of mercury gliding through her body, smooth and silver and full of a sweet, heavy weight all its own. After all the years of feeling immune, of being convinced this drawing, drowning feeling would never happen to her, she realised it was happening, had happened, and would never unhappen. Without a moment’s hesitation she kissed him back, hoping she was kissing him the same way he’d kissed her, making him feel the delicious slow sliding of magic though his bones, but not knowing, because it was something she’d never done before.

  ‘I wish,’ he said after a while, ‘I wish things were different, Zee.’

  ‘So do I,’ she said. His kiss and the bright lights cartwheeling around her left her feeling intoxicated. ‘I wish I had a place we could go back to. We can’t have visitors at Fordham Square.’

  ‘Zee . . .’

  ‘But you have an apartment,’ she whispered. ‘My time off lasts until tomorrow night. I don’t have to go back to the residence hall. If I call Rani, she’ll cover for me. Rani is great at things like that.’

  David was gently disentangling himself from her. ‘I can’t, Zee. We can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’ A look of pain crossed his face. Suddenly, all her doubts and insecurities flew back into her head. ‘Is it me? Did I do something wrong?’

  He was probably used to more sophisticated girls. Cooler girls who did not wear their heart on their sleeve. She thought of the suggestion she’d just made and began to feel horribly embarrassed. What had she been thinking? Had that one comment ruined everything between them? She felt a tear spill down her cheek. He must have seen it in the moonlight because he checked it with his thumb and kissed the top of her head.

  ‘It’s not you, Zee. It’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Then tell me what’s wrong.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he whispered. ‘It’s too complicated and too dangerous. Things you shouldn’t know about Omura.’

  Every fibre of her being wanted to keep probing, keep asking, until he told her the truth, but she kept silent. For now, she’d just have to trust him. She tried to let her feelings of trust flow out to him, but his mood was dark and distant. It didn’t help that on the vactrain going home she again saw the girl with the black waterfall hair, or that once more she was sure she saw a glance of recognition pass between the girl and David.

  CHAPTER 6

  SECOND WAVE

  The minute Mrs Hart opened the door, Zee felt brightness. It wasn’t just the elegant bracelet she wore, the false version of one of the Neptune’s Tears pieces. It was something that streamed through the open door, as if the air inside were lighter than the air outside.

  ‘Come in, Zee, dear. It’s so good to see you again.’ There was no way Mrs Hart could possibly know how glad Zee was to be there at all. For almost a week she’d been on tenterhooks, not knowing whether she’d be allowed to come or not. Mrs Hart had specifically asked for Zee to work with her at home during the last phase of her illness. A significant honour to come so early in an empath’s career, her adviser pointed out, but also a significant responsibility. It was more than a question of helping the patient with physical pain; it was helping them meet the end of life, a task that required not only skill and rapport with the patient but the maturity to sublimate all of one’s own beliefs to the beliefs of the patient. Empaths often heard things – anger and grievances, confessions and guilts – that the patient could tell no one else. The empath’s natural tendency was to ease the patient’s way by trying to fix the situation or urging the patient to a different point of view, but this was exactly what the empath must not do. As Zee’s adviser put it, ‘This is one river you must let flow by itself, and find its own way to the sea.’

  Zee’s youth and inexperience alone were cause for concern, but there had also been the matter of the patient known as David Sutton, where Zee had lost the barrier between self and empath and failed to connect with – or help – the patient. Zee’s adviser had read Zee’s report of the incident. Zee had decided not to mention seeing David in her own time unless she absolutely had to, but did point out that he had helped as a volunteer after the shock bomb, and the two of them had worked effectively together, hoping this would lessen the importance of her initial failure.

  ‘Yes, we’ve already been told about his assistance with the shock bomb victims,’ her adviser had said. ‘He took quite a lot of risks that day.’

  Zee had been caught by surprise. Who else had told her adviser about David’s help that day? She’d known it hadn’t come from Rani, who’d spent most of that frantic afternoon helping triage patients in the car park. ‘Who —?’

  ‘We were also told that David Sutton wasn’t supposed to be your patient in the A&E, that you’d prepped for another case and were switched without time to prepare. Is that right?’

  Zee nodded. Piper! She had to be the source for both stories. But what was in it for Piper? Zee was so baffled she almost missed hearing her adviser say that in view of her overall excellent record and Mrs Hart’s insistence, the request was approved.

  The next time Zee saw Piper, she thanked her.

  ‘I never meant for anything to happen. I was just . . .’ Piper paused, as if choosing her words carefully. ‘Just tired of you being everyone’s Golden Girl. I just wanted to take your leg bud patient and rattle you. A mild piercing, that was all. I didn’t mean for anything else to happen.’ Her voice faded to a whisper. ‘After all, if anyone knows how distracting love can be, it’s me.’

  That was how Zee knew her feelings for David weren’t exactly a secret any more. It was as if Piper had guessed the truth of David’s effect on her. And, for some reason, taken pity.

  On the outside, Mrs Hart’s house had looked very much like all the other Hampstead terraced houses. Inside, it was very much like Mrs Hart: elegant and irreverent. The walls were a soft butternut colour, with white woodwork and crown mouldings. Against this were bright splashes – a pillow the colour of peacock feathers, a chair in bright red silk, a bowl of clear green glass with rippling edges like an ocean wave. Zee had never been in a room quite like it, yet she felt instantly at home.

  ‘I brought some things to read from the hospital,’ she began, suddenly feeling the weight of her task. ‘Different experts suggest different approaches to take.’ Zee laid the loaded reader on the coffee table.

  Mrs Hart set it aside. ‘Oh, experts! I don’t think we’ll need those. I’m not much for experts. I did have some pain the other night, but I’d rather not take the pills. Why don’t we just talk about some things I can do for it? And I could use advice about talking to my daughters. The younger one especially – just turned seventy – seems to feel I can live forever if I just put my mind to it. How can I tell her I don’t want to put my mind to it? Wouldn’t do it if I could. I’ve had a good life and I’m tired. I want to see John again.’ Her eyes flicked towards a photo, the old-fashioned flat kind, not a hologram.

  ‘Your husband?’ Zee asked, following her glance. ‘Wow, he was gorgeous.’

  ‘You better believe it. You see, I’ve been without him all these years, and I’m tired of waiting. I don’t exactly know what comes next, but I know John will be there.’ She fell silent fo
r a moment. ‘Someone once said that life is either a daring risk or nothing. I guess that’s true of death too.’

  A shiver went up Zee’s spine. She’d heard the same quote for the very first time just the other day, from David. ‘Helen Keller.’

  ‘What dear?’

  ‘Helen Keller said that. She lived about two hundred years ago. She was blind and deaf and —’

  ‘I know who Helen Keller was, dear. I’m glad you do too. Well, let’s get started. Do you have some suggestions for me? My daughter really can be exhausting, and takes on so.’

  When she’d first sat down, Zee had felt a moment of panic, overwhelmed by the situation, but Mrs Hart’s questions were focused and somehow ordinary. Over the next hour, Zee explained various ways of meeting the pain, and helped Mrs Hart develop several personalised exercises. They discussed Mrs Hart’s daughter as well, Zee listening more than talking and feeling they’d made progress when Mrs Hart concluded that she needed to give her daughter time to accept things in her own way.

  ‘That’s all I can manage for today,’ the older woman said suddenly, ‘but I hope you don’t have to go rushing off. I’d love a cup of tea and a chat, and maybe we can make a dent in the cakes people keep bringing me.’

  Zee was halfway through her lemon-curd tart when Mrs Hart surprised her by asking, ‘Now, if it isn’t prying, what’s troubling my favourite empath?’

  Zee finished chewing and swallowed. ‘Does it show?’

  Mrs Hart said nothing, waiting for Zee to go on, but Zee remained quiet. ‘Ah. Silence. That usually means a man.’

  ‘Mrs Hart —’

  ‘Ellie. We can’t be having a cosy chat if you’re still calling me Mrs Hart.’

  ‘Ellie. I’m not sure I should go into it all. I’m supposed to be here helping you with pain management techniques.’

  ‘No, you’re supposed to be helping me manage pain effectively. Nothing would be a more effective distraction than hearing someone else’s troubles for a change. Although I respect your privacy if you don’t want to talk about it.’