“A valley not too far from here,” he whispered into my ear as we flew through the pitch dark. The whirring of the zip line mechanism echoed in the oppressive stillness, my ears popping as we descended very rapidly.
The movement slowed slightly and he leapt with me onto a ledge before taking my hand and pulling me against his warm body and springing lightly into frigid water.
My breath whooshed out of my lungs as the cold stung my nose giving me an instant headache.
He led me through the waterway which had a myriad of twists and turns in it. We spiralled violently, the colours blurring around us as he outlined his plan to confront the angry Oceanids.
My stomach flipped uneasily at the idea of him facing them alone. When I voiced my opinion though, he merely kissed me and told me not to worry, that he knew them better than most others did and he was convinced he could get them to see the sense in my plan for peace.
“When you take your place as our leader, and announce your intention for peace, they will have had time to get used to it and will accept it more easily.”
He led me into a pale pink passageway still swimming very quickly, his arms wrapped around me as we moved.
“Are you sure they won’t just get angry with you?”
“Have I led you wrong once so far?” he asked, self-assurance lightening his tone.
“No,” I admitted, “you’ve been wonderful. It’s just that I can’t imagine how I would cope if something happened to you.”
He slowed, pausing in the pale shimmering water so that he could look into my eyes.
“I promise you that it will be fine,” he said, kissing me firmly. “You are my first priority and I want to help you with this.”
“But they’re so angry about this, Merrick, if you get in their way…” I argued, wanting more than anything for him to stay with me.
He shook his head and smiled at me. “I’m not going to get in their way,” he promised me, “I’m just going to help them see how your plan is the best one for them.”
He smiled at me gently, swirling my hair away from my face. “Don’t worry about me. I will be there tonight to escort you to your rightful place as our leader, OK?”
I nodded, allowing him to soothe the panic that kept trying to overtake me.
The water had warmed as we swam and when we eventually emerged the air was warmer too.
The sparkling honey-coloured stalactites that grew in ancient slow motion from the roof, in a profusion of reed-like spikes, in the cave we surfaced in, were spectacular. Light filtered warmly from the entrance to this cave.
I turned to him, not wanting to leave him.
He laughed at my expression, hugging me and then tilting my face up to his so that he could kiss me, his mouth softly insistent, all hesitance and vulnerability gone as his tongue explored mine.
He pulled away slightly, steadying me on my feet as I gazed at him dreamily, brushing a wayward strand of my hair away from my face and kissing me once more very softly.
“I’ll see you later,” he whispered, smiling.
I sighed and nodded, watching as he dove back into the pool, leaving it rippling softly, before turning towards the sunlight that glinted through the curtain of slowly growing rock.
Chapter 38
Identity
Walking through the opening I was momentarily blinded by the brilliant light that seemed to refract off every surface. Once my eyes had adjusted, I wondered briefly if I was perhaps dead and had, through no belief of my own, found my way into heaven.
I walked forward holding my breath, afraid that it would all disappear like a wisp of vapour the next time I blinked.
I was at the highest point of entry into a sunken valley. The rock directly above me curled in on itself and curved away from me in a smooth arc that eventually joined on the opposite sides of the valley. Jade green, pale blue and white pink stalactites dripped from the roof of the overhang above my head creating a slowly moving rock curtain which almost obscured the entrance to the pool I’d just come from.
I moved slowly between the amazing formations, and as I did so glimpses of the rest of the valley tantalized me. Infant waterfalls trickled down three sides of the valley, finally splashing quietly into pools of turquoise water enswathed in lush vegetation.
Another step to the left revealed a section of the valley floor bejewelled with wild flowers stretching hungrily for the sun. I wandered through the natural paradise shaped by rock, water and plants, each step revealing another layer of beauty.
Talita stepped out from behind an enormous boulder. She was dressed in a flowing white fabric that hugged her perfect body and floated as she moved.
“Alexandra.” She walked over to me and tucked a strand of my still wet hair behind my ear.
“Hi,” I said, smiling at her a little warily, not easily forgetting how she’d so casually dropped Luke and Josh into the water in her attempt to get me to swim on my own.
“I owe you a proper apology for using Luke and Josh to motivate you to swim as I did,” she murmured, leading the way along a narrow pathway as she spoke. “We were running out of time and I needed to provide you with enough motive to really try, but it was callous and must have been terribly distressing for you, so I do apologise.” She turned to me, her sincerity making it difficult to stay mad with her.
I nodded once which she took as acceptance and continued to walk through the long grass towards the other side of the valley.
I followed her, noticing the beauty of the valley as we moved through it, images of a grove of leafy trees carpeted beneath with violets, the scent of honeysuckle wafting on the warm breeze, and the bright yellow splash of weaver birds flitting among the trees, were a strange, contrasting backdrop to the worry that bubbled just beneath the surface.
We came to a turquoise blue pool, surrounded with pale green lichen-covered rocks and speckled with emerald moss. Talita sat on one of the rocks and indicated for me to sit opposite her.
She watched me, a slight smile playing across her face.
“We both have busy days ahead of us, so I’ll get right to the point,” she began. “Merrick told us of your amazing gifting last night in the hospital but also with Nereus.” She smiled at me. “I didn’t get a chance to talk to you about it in person and I’d like to know what you think of the talents you’ve developed?”
“Well, it’s pretty cool. I just get really tired after using them, except when I’m with the right grouping, like in the hospital last night? Then it’s awesome because every time I use a talent I actually feel stronger, more energised.”
She nodded. “Yes, it is pretty cool.” She imitated my inelegant speech. “As long as you’re with Oceanids like Merrick and the others who help you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked blankly.
“Well, you trust Merrick?”
“Emphatically,” I said, immediately defensive.
“Good,” she replied, taking the wind out of my argument. “You should, he’s a wonderful young man and a really good match for you.”
“But?” I asked, knowing there was more to what she had to say.
She smiled at me a little sadly. “But, not all Oceanids are as trustworthy as he is,” she replied solemnly. “The argument you were at the epicentre of last night is just a taste of how heated things can become with these people. They are fiercely intelligent and very proud of who they are and where they come from. I asked Merrick to help you understand both sides of the story at play here. From what I can tell, he’s protected you from the side that now most pertains to you.”
I cocked my head to one side, trying to understand what she was talking about.
“In the twenty years that I’ve been here I have seen the numbers of sick and dying Oceanids increase from a few dozen a year to thousands.”
“We didn’t treat that many last night, are there more of them here?”
She shook her head. “No, I sent the healthier ones away when you joined the pod.”
&
nbsp; “Why would you do that?”
“Many of them are very bitter towards humans and I didn’t want their anger harming you in any way or pushing you beyond where you should go.”
“Why is everyone so worried about my health?” I growled, frustrated. “I’m fine.”
“It’s not you we were worried about,” she replied, before moving forwards and taking my hand out of my lap. “What I need to tell you now is going to be very difficult,” she said quietly, her face full of compassion, “but as you grow in strength, which I have no doubt you will, you need to be aware of this.”
My stomach twisted in anxiety as I waited for her to continue.
“When you are pushed too hard, Alexandra, when your body feels under threat, you produce a massive electric pulse. It is a self-defence mechanism and one you can’t control.”
“Are you saying I’m dangerous?” I asked her, feeling like I was talking about someone else.
She nodded. “Yes, very dangerous, as it turns out.”
“But I don’t remember anything like that.”
“When you found Taika sampling the other Oceanids what happened?” she asked me.
I explained the whole thing ending with the jolt and then opening my eyes to find all of the Oceanids unconscious. Even as I spoke the trickle of realisation made my skin crawl.
“That was me?” I whispered, horrified.
She nodded, her eyes full of sympathy. “Marinus recognised it and came and explained it to me.He had met another Gurrer, which is your line of heritage, who could do a similar thing but not nearly as powerfully as you did it.”
“But then I was the reason Merrick wouldn’t wake up?” I gasped, horrified.
“He was holding your hand at the time and it very nearly killed him,” she told me. “That is why Maya grew so weak trying to heal him.”
“But then…” My mind shut down as the last time that jolt had shaken me leapt into focus.
I was gasping for air, unable to think, unable to move past the image of Brent’s face wide-eyed in death as he floated above me.
Her voice came at me from a very long way away, until I was snapped back into reality when her palm struck my cheek.
“Sorry,” she said, rubbing the bruised skin as relief filled her eyes. “You disappeared there for a moment.”
“Brent,” I managed to whisper.
She took me in her arms and hugged my tightly.
“I think your father suspected it from the moment it happened,” she whispered into my hair, releasing me and wiping the tears I hadn’t known were cascading down my cheeks away with her thumbs. “Poor child,” she murmured, pulling me back into her arms. “Your father was one of the greatest Gurrer’s ever known. I think he kept you from us in the hopes that by doing so you’d have a happy ordinary life. And then Brent pushed you too hard and your instincts took over.”
She let me go, keeping a tight hold of my hand.
“I’ve always known it was my fault,” I whispered, the realisation and admission finally releasing the guilt I’d been holding onto for the three years.
I closed my eyes and examined it, turning it this way and that. There was no absolution for what I’d done. Consciously or not Brent was dead because of me.
“Does Merrick know?” I murmured, tears still slipping down my cheeks.
“Yes,” she replied, “he’d just started guarding you when it happened.”
My eyes sprang open. “Then why…”
“He wants to be with you, because he sees you for who you truly are, Alexandra, he sees you in spite of the violence you’re capable of. And he loves all of it.”
“But I nearly killed him!” I gasped, the stark reality of what I was capable of settling into my identity.
She smiled kindly at me. “But you didn’t and now control has to become your greatest talent, Alexandra, because even without this incredible talent you are very powerful.”
“Merrick has already explained to me what could happen if I work with the warrior Oceanids, but it’s not a problem because I’m not going to.”
She nodded, smiling at me. “I think the strategy you and Merrick have designed has a very good chance of working with just one small flaw.”
I raised my eyebrow in question.
“As much as you are able to see what motivates humans, you also need to see what motivates Oceanids.”
“I was using the human argument last night wasn’t I?” I asked her.
She nodded. “I know you’ve been brought up as a human, Alexandra, but if you are going to lead them properly you have to acknowledge your Oceanid roots too. You have to feel for them as you do for the humans, and you have to articulate that passion to them.”
“How do I do that?”
“You are already doing it most of the time,” she replied, surprising me. “When you are with Maya or Sabrina or Merrick, you even move like them, the way you’ve begun holding your body and the lilt in your speech is very similar to theirs too.”
“I hadn’t realised I’d changed so much.”
She nodded, smiling sadly. “They do this to you, these wonderful alien creatures who are so much more compassionate than many of the humans I’ve met.”
“You love them.” It was a statement not a question.
She nodded.
“Then why don’t you continue to lead them?” I asked her.
“Because I have and always will be merely a place keeper,” she told me, smiling. “I’ve always known my role with them was finite because I am so limited. I can’t swim, so leading them back to the ocean is an impossibility, and I have no talents, compared to theirs.” She shook her head. “No, I have educated them, and tried my very best to show them that not all humans deserve annihilation. They are ready to follow you in your pursuit of a peaceful resolution between the two species.”
“Any tips?” I asked her, smiling as a sense of purpose and determined excitement settled over me. I was going to help my people – I liked the idea of that phrase – to survive and then, with the right help, thrive.
She smiled back. “Yes, never act in panic.”
I laughed. “Is that it?”
She nodded, smiling too.
“What will you do?” I asked her, sensing that the handover had already taken place and my people were waiting for me.
“I will be here,” she replied, smiling, “available to help you in any way you need me to.”
We walked toward the entrance to the valley I had come through earlier. Tiny droplets of dew bent the gently waving grasses in worshipful obedience as the water began to sparkle, jewel-like, in the still early morning sun.
We couldn’t have been in the valley for longer than half an hour, but so much had happened in that time that it felt like whole days should have passed instead of just minutes.
I was surprised when instead of going back to the cave, Talita led the way up a steep well hidden path winding between the rocks that formed the beginning of the cliff face.
Standing on the flat grassy plane at the top of the path I recognised almost immediately the field of aloe trees Josh, Luke and I had crossed a few days earlier in the distance, with the mouth of the mysterious valley and Sabine’s pool spilling dark-shadowed shade into the harshly lit field.
I barely noticed the majestic beauty of the mountains as we made our way across a gently rolling indentation in the earth and then progressively up the other side, as Talita and I discussed the finer details of the plan for peace. She rattled off a series of difficult questions, but I managed to think through and answer each one well as the plan, and the authority to execute it, settled within me.
“You’ll have to go with them into the ocean,” she told me as she led me towards a gash of cliffs.
I stopped short because she was, of course, right and that meant I’d come face to face with the decision I’d known would have to be made sooner or later.
She stopped a few paces on, turning to me with a questioning expression.
> “I can’t leave my mother without saying goodbye, Talita,” I told her. Her smile faded on her lips.
“You don’t understand,” I hurried to explain, “she needs me so much still, and I know you’ve said you can remove my memory from hers, but I know she’ll still be sad so alone.”
Talita said nothing, which was far worse than if she’d shouted or ranted at me.
“I’m not asking for long, a month at the most,” I suggested, my mind scrambling at the idea. “I could tell her I’d applied for an international scholarship and they’d accepted me. That way, when this is over I can go back to her, and she’ll still have me. Not with her physically, but she will have a living child.”
Talita looked uncertain so I hurried to reinforce my argument.
“That way I can practise the control, and get stronger at it too, it will also help me convince more Oceanids of the peaceful plan’s validity.”
Excitement at the idea made me a little giddy as I began to imagine it. I could have both worlds: I could be there for my mother and help save my people.
“A month is a long time, Alexandra,” Talita told me doubtfully, as she began to walk again.
“Not in the grander scheme of things,” I argued, hurrying to keep up with her as she reached the bottom of the cliff face and began to pick her way up it. “Once I’ve told Mom, I’ll be able to put the first part of the plan into action right away. I can do all of the internet research of the humans we need to be targeting from home and…” My excited planning was cut short by a resounding boom followed by a great gust of furnace-hot wind that threw both of us backwards off the cliff.
Chapter 39
Taken
The sun was too bright when I opened my eyes a few short moments later, my ears ringing with the explosion. Talita lay a few paces from me, her dress tattered.
I crawled over to her, turning her to face me and trying to understand why she didn’t answer me, even though her eyes were open. It took a few more moments of watching dark red blossom across the white fabric that covered her chest and midriff to realise that she would never answer me again.
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