I managed to choke out his name once before the sea swallowed me, churning me like a washing machine. Just when I thought I couldn’t hold my breath a moment more, I was right side up and gasping for air. All thoughts of the shark fled as I battled the current just to stay afloat, splashing and kicking, sucking in air and water in huge mouthfuls. My grasping hands met with the runaway tyre. I clutched it gratefully, my lifeline. Hanging on tightly, I took several breaths of air before wiping the hair out of my face.
I cleared my vision in time to see Daniel begin swimming towards me. Midway he stopped and shouted, “No! Get away from her! You can’t have her!”
He reached out in my direction again, yelling “Go Leila! Get out of here!” As he did so, another impossible wave seemed to issue from his outstretched fingers. It rushed at me, carrying me with it. I turned my head to look back at him, in time to see a dark shape close in on him. From far away I heard myself screaming. I saw Daniel spin around in the water, then he dived and the water was still. And eerily silent. No Daniel. No shark. No nothing. Just me. Hanging on to a tire. That was now scraping me along in shallow water, coral nicking at my feet. And still the current wouldn’t let me go. Not until it had deposited my stunned self on the shore.
“Dammnit!” Viciously I kicked the tire away from me, ignoring the sting of salt on the cuts on my feet. I dived back into the water and began swimming out to where I had seen Daniel disappear. But again, a determined wave appeared from nowhere and shoved me back to shore. I battled it uselessly. Frustration at war with fear. “Dammnit, dammnit, dammnit! What’s going on?!” I screamed at an impassive ocean. “Why are you doing this to me?!”
I stood in the shallows, hoping. “Daniel! Daniel?” my scream died away to a whimper. “Daniel? Please…come back.”
I knew I should be running back to the car. Driving to town. Going to get help. But I couldn’t make myself move. I had left him behind once. I would not leave him behind again. Irrationally I thought that as long as I kept my eyes on the ocean, there would be hope for him.
The minutes ticked by. Five and then ten, then twenty. I dropped to the sand, numbed beyond belief. Daniel was gone. The afternoon was fading.The last crimson rays of sunset threw their bronze spiderweb arcoss the ocean. It was the most perfect of days. And I felt nothing for it. I knew with dreadful certainty that there was no way he could have held his breath for that long. Even if the shark hadn’t finished him off, the water would have. In that instant, all the color and wonder drained from the world..
Not even a splash or red water to mark his last dive. In a haze I thought dimly – how inconsiderate of that shark, it didn’t even leave me a piece of Daniels finger to remember him by. Then I knew I was approaching hysteria. A finger? My Daniel was gone and I wanted a bloody piece of his flesh to remember him with? I was cold. So cold. I could not believe that here I was again, sitting on a lonely beach looking out at an ocean that had taken Daniel from me. This was beyond unfair.
And then there was a splash and Daniel surged up and out of the sea several feet away from me.
He was the most glorious thing I had ever seen. With his arms stretched wide, raven red head thrown back, silver droplets on gleaming skin in the approaching dusk he was a water god. A silver dolphin.He shook his head sending diamond spray scattering. His eyes caught mine and his face lit up in a joyous smile. Again he dove in to the water and power stroked his way swiftly to my side. In less time than it took to exhale, I was in his arms. And he was warm. And real. And solid flesh and muscle against me. And his kiss was hot and salty. I drowned in it. And the waves lapped us in their embrace. I felt a peaceful calm sweep over me as once again the sea felt like a friend. Safe.
Effortlessly, Daniel lifted me and carried me out of the water gently setting me down beside our picnic gear under the trees. He wiped wet strands of hair away from my face and wrapped a thick towel around my shoulders, rubbing my arms in response to my shivering.For several minutes neither of us spoke. Just breathed. I ran myfingers over his face, through his hair, along his tattoo, glorying in his perfection. My eyes drank him in, unwilling to believe that he was alive. Complete. Unhurt. Well, almost unhurt. There was a welt of matted red along the side of his bronzed chest.
“Daniel you’re bleeding. We’ve got to get you to the hospital.”
“Nah, it’s nothing. He didn’t bite me, I got this from his skin, the impact when we collided. Agh, did you know that sharks have skin like toxic sandpaper?” He shook his head with a faint grimace as he gingerly felt his wound.
I jerked out of his embrace and leapt to my feet. What was I thinking sitting here lapping up his hug when he’d been injured? I grabbed the First Aid kit from the car and applied a dressing to his cut, ignoring his assurances that he was fine. Not until he was bandaged and we were both dressed in dry clothing, not until I was really sure that he was alright – did I ask him the questions that had been bubbling underneath the surface.
“Daniel, what happened out there?”
He sat beside me, staring out at the fast sinking sun and his voice was carefully neutral. “I’m not sure.”
“I mean, what was that? You knew that shark was there? How? And when we were out there hanging on to the tire, you talked about it, like you could read its mind or something.” Saying it out loud only made it sound all the more implausible. I laughed weakly, waiting for him to dispel what were surely just fanciful notions.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense. One minute I was half-asleep and then the next I could feel this thing, this presence and I just knew right away that you were in danger. Once I got into the water, the thought came so clearly to me – a shark. A big one.”
He stopped and looked away, out over the waves crashing on a faraway reef. I prompted him. “Yeah, and then?”
“Then what?”
“Then you were talking about its thoughts. You were freaking me out, what was going on out there?”
He said nothing. Shrugged. I persisted. “Daniel, say something! What just happened? Those waves that came out of nowhere, pushing me to shore? Did those come from you? And then when that shark attacked you, how did you get away from it? With only that ‘sandpaper scratch’? This is crazy, you were gone for over twenty minutes, I thought you were dead. It was just like…”
His anger halted my tirade. “Like what Leila?! What?” Roughly he stood and walked away from me, down towards the ocean, throwing curt words over his shoulder at me. “Just leave it okay? Leave me alone. I don’t want to talk about this. Just leave it.”
There was barely controlled rage in his voice and it stunned me. I let him go, watching him stand at the water’s edge while a dying sun bled with orange-red light. I didn’t know what had happened with him as that shark had tried to attack us, but of one thing I was sure – whatever was going on with Daniel – it had everything to do with his crested wave shaped birthmark.
“The mark of Vasa Loloa…all water telesa have them.”
WHEN WATER BURNS. To be continued in March 2012.
Daniel.
About the Model.
Ezra Taylor is a rugby union player who was born in Brisbane, Australia and grew up in West Auckland, NZ. He is Samoan with Kiwi, Scottish and English ancestry. He represented New Zealand at the U-19 and schoolboy levels in rugby union and made his professional debut for Otago in the 2006 Air New Zealand Cup. He then played rugby for the Highlanders in the 2007 Super 14 season. After an extended injury break in 2008, Taylor signed with the Queensland Reds for the 2009 Super 14 season. He then moved on to European club Connacht of the Magners League for the 2010 – 2011 rugby season.Taylor made himself available to play for Samoa in the buildup to the 2011 Rugby World Cup and made his international debut playing for Samoa against Japan in July 2011.
Ezra Taylor is married to NZ Tall Ferns basketball player, Natalie Purcell.
I would like to thank Ezra Taylor for his willingness to be the ‘face’ of Daniel and model for the TEL
ESA book cover. Why Ezra?
I have taught English literature in secondary schools in Samoa for ten years and know there is a gaping chasm in the Young Adult market for fiction with Pacific Island themes, characters, places and values.Our youth need books that they can see themselves in, that they can relate to, that will assist in lighting the fires of creativity and a love for reading.Ezra was an ideal choice to represent Daniel because he is a dedicated, successful Samoan athlete who values his family above all else – making him an excellent role model for Pacific Island youth everywhere.
Acknowledgements
Every book is borne from the creative fire of the writer who dared to envision it and represents the love, sweat and tears of many people. I am only able to write because of the patient support of my husband, Darren Young. He wields blue fire to fashion majestic, beautiful structures (and gets paid a lot) thus making it possible for me to sit at my laptop and tap out fiery things of my own. My five fabulous children were the first ones to read snippets of TELESA and fuel my writing with their enthusiastic enjoyment of it. I am especially grateful to my daughter Sade Aroha who gave so willingly of her ideas so that TELESA could take flight. I look forward to the books that Sade will write one day – they will surely eclipse mine in every way.
As a self-confessed hermit, I would never have left my cave for the release of my first book ‘Pacific Tsunami Galu Afi’ - if not for the gentle, yet firm insistence of my very wise and very talented publicist, Pele Wendt. She introduced me to the Kindle and the world of electronic books. She dragged me kicking and screaming onto Facebook, forced me to join the social media party on Twitter and gave me many lectures about how to build a ‘writer’s platform.’ If not for her creative vision, it is doubtful that anyone would be reading this book right now. (Or know of it’s existence.) Thank you Pele.
I thought that because I was an English teacher that I had written an error free book but copy editor Anna Thomson very generously showed me how wrong I was. Elizabeth Macdonald also lent her perceptive editing to the book. Thanks to their expertise, TELESA is a much better book than it started off as.
Launching a book successfully requires the energy, expertise and enthusiasm of a passionate team. Thank you to marketing and media consultants, Henry Tunupopo and Nydia Chiu Ling.
To all those who believed in my writing choices – I give my gratitude. Thank you for not looking horrified or disdainful when I shared my book ideas with you. I continue to be grateful to Mr Hans Joe Keil for his ongoing support and encouragement of my writing. If not for him, I would have taken far longer to discover that - yes, I am capable of writing and finishing a book.
I thank my parents for their love and encouragement and my siblings for all their support. A special thank you to my big brother Cam Wendt who’s addiction to X-Men comics gave me almost limitless options for my imagination to take flight. (Even if I had to be that annoying kid sister who took his comics without permission!)
It is an exciting time to be a writer and I am thankful to have the opportunity to be living my dream.
About the Author
Lani Wendt was born and raised in Samoa. She received her tertiary education in the USA (Georgetown Univ.) and New Zealand (Victoria Univ.) before returning home to work as a secondary school English teacher and writer. Her short fiction has been published in collections in Samoa, NZ, Australia and the United Kingdom. Her children’s fiction is a regular feature in the NZ School Journal series. She won the National University of Samoa Writing Competition in 2002 with ‘A Sister’s Story.’ Her short story ‘The Beast that came from the Sea.’ was a Commendation prize winner in the 2010 Commonwealth Short Story Competition. Her first book
‘Pacific Tsunami- Galu Afi’
published in Oct 2010, weaves together the stories of survivors, rescuers, medical and aid workers is a non-fiction account of the 29/09 disaster that devastated Samoa, American Samoa and Northern Tonga. Lani is married to Darren Young and they have five children. Lani writes about life as a (slightly demented) Domestic Goddess at: Sleepless in Samoa
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