by Dan Glover
He'd been wrong.
Everyone had a crappy life... he was just a tiny part of the human tragedy that had once blanketed the world in suffering and sorrow... no more than a speck, a grain of sand on an endless beach of torment. Had he the strength he though how he might remake humanity into a magnanimous menagerie of love rather than the conglomeration of hate that it was and had always been.
He'd been observing the Ladies and the other descendants of the Lake... how they treated one another with a rare kind of respect that both baffled him and made his simple heart sing.
He was proud that Nate asked him along.
Now that his buddy was thinking clearly once again, Kirk feared their friendship would fade. He knew he was not on an intellectual par with Nate, not even close. During the trip home from old America, Nate didn’t speak to him at all other than to shout instructions.
Delilah was pregnant.
Kirk was excited to be a father yet he was apprehensive as well. His own father taught him to hate the world and everything in it. Kirk wanted more for his child. The old man died a hundred years ago yet his grizzled face still haunted Kirk's every thought.
"What's it like to be a father, Mr. Nate?"
"It's the most satisfying feeling in the world. You'll see. A child is a part of you and yet a completely different being. You have to be with Delilah when she gives birth, Kirk. Watching Maon being born was the greatest memory of my entire life."
"I worry I won't be a good father. My dad was an asshole. He beat my mother. He beat me. He drank all the time. The thing is, I still loved him though. Even now I think of ways to try and impress him."
"I never had a father. I suppose even if my father had been a first class asshole like yours it'd be better than not having one at all."
"I never thought of it that way, Mr. Nate. The one thing about my dad was he never left us. I know other kids who grew up without their fathers and to tell the truth, I sort of envied them."
"You'll make a good father, Kirk. Just think of your child as your best friend. Treat them like you'd like to be, and not like your father treated you. Love them. That's all there is to it. I see how attached you've gotten to Chester. You're a good man."
"Slow down a minute, Mr. Nate... I think I see something over there. Is that Chester?"
"Where?"
"Can you back up? We passed something sitting off the road. I swear it's Chester."
"Oh... he's probably filling his belly with gnu meat by now... but sure, I can back up. Tell me when to stop."
The rear end of the big truck made a whining noise as Nate stopped and shifted it into reverse. As he turned the wheel to avoid a tree growing in the middle of what used to be a road, Kirk caught a glimpse of chrome metal shining in the undergrowth.
"Stop! There's Alpin's motorcycle, Mr. Nate. I see it lying in the weeds over there. He's got to be close."
Stepping from the cab of the truck, Kirk was enveloped in the noise of the mountains. Shadows danced in the corners of his eyes yet when he looked there was nothing to see. The more he listened, the greater the diversity of the sounds that reached his ears.
"Can you imagine being stuck out here all alone, Mr. Nate? I believe I'd die of fright before anything could find me."
"What on earth is that?"
Nate stopped in his tracks. Ahead of them the figure of an enormous creature lurked. Its eyes reflected the slivers of moonlight piercing the branches but otherwise it was completely black under the canopy of trees.
"That's Chester. I knew it was him."
"Wait a minute, Kirk... it might not be Chester. Why would he just be sitting there like that?"
Kirk stepped ahead of Nate shrugging off the hand on his shoulder. In a couple of seconds the big cat was lolling on his back with his belly in the air.
"Oh... look here Mr. Nate... it's Alpin. He's hurt. Chester's protecting him. That's why he's sitting here. Look in the tree line over there."
Kirk pointed south. More than a dozen sets of eyes moved up and down, right and left, as if tasting the air and liking what they smelt.
"If it wasn’t for Chester, we'd of never found Alpin. Those things over there would have dragged him off and eaten him by now, Mr. Nate."
"Come on... let's make a stretcher, Kirk. I have a tarp. We'll roll him onto it and carry Alpin to the bed of the truck. He needs medical attention. He's lost a lot of blood. Look at his arms... someone put splints on them. I wonder if he did it himself."
Chapter 80—Lake Baikal
Diving head-first into the Lake chilled her to the marrow.
The waters tasted of life and of love. The Ladies were dancing a hundred and fifty meters beneath the surface twirling around one another in concentric circles that grew ever smaller until they melded into one being. As always, Natalia longed to be with them yet must remain on the surface.
With each trip to the Lake the group grew ever smaller.
Ena stayed back at Orchardton Hall to help nurse Alpin back to health. His injuries were severe although not life-threatening. Karen and Amanda remained behind to help Ena as did Maon and Sileas.
Natalia was not disappointed. She preferred privacy to crowds.
The People were represented only by Kirk and Delilah. The bus was still needed for transport as Chester insisted upon coming along. He rarely left Kirk's side unless he was feeding.
"Do you think he'll ever take a mate, Lady Natalia?"
"As handsome as Chester is, I am sure he will find a tigress, darling Delilah. I just hope she has his temperament."
After emerging from the Lake, Natalia sat wrapped in a towel by a campfire Nate and Kirk built before they went hunting with Chester. The early summer days were cool late in the afternoon as the sun lowered itself into the dusky horizon and the Siberian night winds began to pick up. The new red prairie grasses danced and swayed as quick-winged bats began their nocturnal sojourns in search of recalcitrant insects still dotting the thickening sky.
"Do you miss everyone, Lady Natalia?"
"I miss them in a good way, sweet Delilah. I dearly love all our companions back at Orchardton Hall and Edinburgh Castle but I find it extremely pleasant to enjoy our Lake trip without the burden of the multitudes."
"I like it better this way too. Will Lady Lily and Lady Lauren stay under the Lake for a long time?"
"They will surface soon, my precious Delilah. They never stay in the Lake after dark. They say the monsters come out during the night."
"Are there really monsters in Lake Baikal, Lady Natalia?"
"I have never seen a monster. Lady Lily once told me a terrifying tale of how one of her kind was taken by such a creature. In her fright, she surfaced for the first time and realized she could breathe the air as well as the waters of the Lake."
"Kirk says that Lady Lily is a thousand years old. Is that correct?"
"The Ladies do not count their years as we human beings do. She tells me she has no idea how old she is, but I get the impression she is primeval. A thousand years might be a mere moment to Lady Lily."
"If they live for so long, what happened to all her people? And if we live forever, how come all the other human beings in the world died?"
"The Ladies can be killed just as we can, sweet Delilah. From what I gather, there were never a great many people of the Lake. For most of their history, they lived in the depths. Great sheets of ice covered the surface of the Lake for thousands of years.
"When human beings began dumping their waste into the waters, it drove the people of the Lake to the surface. They were slaughtered by the villagers who mistook them for demons from the deep. The poisons in the waters drove the monsters up from the depths and they added to the decimation as well. Caught between two evils, the people of the Lake nearly went extinct.
"Lady Lily and Lady Lauren left their home. They traveled amongst human beings making lives away from the Lake. Yet they still felt the pull to renew their bodies in its waters every seven years. Over the centuries, the peo
ple of the Lake dwindled until there was only the two of them.
"During a visit, Lady Lauren succumbed to the pollution the old paper mill dumped into the Lake. She sank into the depths. Lady Lily attempted to rescue her but she too passed out from the filth.
"Waking, the Ladies each thought the other dead. Lady Lily was taken to England by a group of scientists seeking to learn her secrets and held there against her will. Lady Lauren traveled to far off countries where she married a human male despite the hatred she espoused toward that species. It was the only way for her to survive.
"The scientists discovered Lady Lily carried in her blood a kind of parasite harmful to human beings. At the same time, however, if she remained in close proximity to those infected, her presence protected them from the harmful effects of the parasite. In fact, their lives were greatly extended. Those people knew no illness or disease and what's more they healed from sickness quickly and easily.
"When the Great Dying broke out, the plague swept the world in just a few days. Every human being exposed to the parasite died in agony with a quickness unknown until that time. The human population of the earth shrank from six billion people to six people in less than a week.
"I witnessed the kiss that started it all... just a single kiss. Lady Lauren merely sought to save her lover Lady Lily from the grasp of those same scientists who kidnapped her years before. I doubted she intended to set off a plague yet by chance or circumstance that was exactly what happened."
"Were you scared when you realized everyone was dying, Lady Natalia?"
"No, sweet Delilah... I knew I would be safe if I stayed with the Ladies. I had no family; I had no friends in the world but for the Ladies. I was a dead woman when I met my darling Lily. I was on my way home to complete my dying. She healed my sickness; she gave me the strength to live again.
"The Ladies brought me home with them to Orchardton Hall. We were happy there. I had no desire for anyone other than Lily and Lauren. I was complete. Yet now I understand by giving myself so freely to the Ladies I had lost compassion for my own people.
"When your mother appeared at our doorstep that day with a group of five other human beings, I told Lady Lauren to send them away. I hated them for what they did to the Ladies and to the People of the Lake. But Lady Lily stepped in and counseled Lady Lauren to allow them to stay.
"Despite my better judgment, I said nothing. Now, I rejoice that I kept silent. Watching the birth of the People is a delight. This new world we are building will be filled with love and laughter, not war and hate."
"I'm sorry for what we human beings did to your friends and lovers, Lady Natalia. But you are human too. Don’t you ever feel guilty?"
"For many years I lived with a dread for what my kind did to these gentle folk of Lake Baikal. Now, having lived with the Ladies for a century, I no longer consider myself human. I am evolving into another species all together."
"I am not terribly intelligent, Lady Natalia, but I thought species evolve and not individuals."
"Ah... you are correct in your assumption, my sweet Delilah. Yet with the advent of this symbiosis between humans and the Lake people, we are becoming more than individuals.
"Think of it this way: once we humans led short, brutal lives. We killed one another with a passion. We fought endless wars. We pillaged the planet killing off all other forms of life that threatened our survival.
"Now, we are no longer threatened with death and disease. Standing alongside the People of the Lake we are immortals too. Our chromosomes are subtlety shifting. We are slowly transforming into that which has never existed before.
"The old world of brutality and hate is gone. In its place we build a world of compassion and love. This is the dream of the Ladies. We are blessed to share in that dream, sweet Delilah. We are not only evolving as a species but as individuals as well.
"Now... tell me something my sweet Delilah... do I detect a slight swelling of your belly?"
If you enjoyed Mermaid Spring, please take the time to leave a review. I read each and every one as they help me to improve my writing. Thank you.
Books by Dan Glover
The Mermaid series
Winter's Mermaid
Mermaid Spring
Summer's Mermaid
Mermaid Autumn
Liza McNairy Series
Peppermint Soul
Baja Blues
Deadhead
Philosophy
Lila’s Child: An Inquiry Into Quality
The Art of Caring: Zen Stories
The Mystery: Zen Stories
Apache Nation
The Gathering of Lovers series
Billy Austin
Lisa
Allison Johns
Tom Three Deer
Justine
Yelena
Short Stories
Thoughts on the 5:58
Streets
There Come a Bad Cloud: Tangled up Matter and Ghosts
Mi Vida Dinámica
About the Author:
Dan Glover weaves a world of fantasy while abiding with a tribe of mystic cats somewhere in the great state of Illinois. You may connect with him on Twitter @DanGlover1 or via email [email protected] or at his website http://www.danglover.com.
