The Shifting Pools

by The Shifting Pools (epub)

  “I’ve been waiting for you to come back and embrace me again. I am always here. And you have always been here.”

  It was a kindness, a warmth, an acceptance, a welcome home. A sense of something infinite and permanent, just waiting for me to be ready. I felt choked with emotion – it was so incredibly intimate. As the sun stroked my skin, I was a little girl in the stark heat of the desert again. The little girl was still there, always there, being carried onwards in the vessel of my changed body. Still innocent, still unviolated, still completely accepted and loved. And the sun understood why I had hidden away. Its gentle stroking fingers carried no blame, just a blissful recognition of ME, me inside me – the most perfect recognition. It would always know me, however I hid, and would silently watch me through my journey from childhood to old age. Letting me know that, decades on, I was still there. I was in the world.

  The emotional impact was overwhelming. It had a sense of the sacred to it. I felt so deeply grateful for that moment, that gift, that sense of understanding – given and received.

  I also had the strangest, urgent sense that this wasn’t where I needed to be. As I lay in the bath, my eyes caught the little pouch on the chair next to me, along with my discarded clothes. My sea glass. I loved the little pouch that Marni had made for me; stitched lovingly in the softest leather, it felt creamy to the touch. I usually wore it around my neck, but tried to take it off for baths.

  I reached out my arm and quickly dried my hands on the towel, before I picked it up. As I slipped the sea glass out into my waiting palm, something followed it out. A little piece of paper, folded over and over. A tiny scrap that made my heart race. My fingers shook as I unfolded the scrap, knowing even as I did it what I would find in the centre. I hadn’t dreamed it. I hadn’t been going mad.

  I sat there in the water for a long while, staring at Sula’s precious note. So much flooded through me, and I let it come. My mind was full; I wanted to go back. I felt no fear – I knew now that I could come back here at any time. But somehow, by being here, I had forgotten about Enanti, and I was suddenly aware that I needed to see that through. I thought of Raul’s hand, trying to hold me safe. I had pulled away from him, had thought he was trying to control me, but I realised now that I could have let go at any time – as indeed I had – and that he had simply been doing what he had said he would: giving me a safe way back if I had wanted it. I hadn’t at the time; I had wanted to run away, and now I didn’t really know how to get back. I knew that there must be a way, and I knew that it would have something to do with water.

  I still didn’t know how I would face Raul – not just because I hadn’t trusted him, but mainly because I would find it hard to look him in the eye. Whether that first world I had nearly entered in the Shifting Pool had been my own subconscious or his, I didn’t want to examine too closely. I just wanted to throw myself into saving Alette. Raul and I could just get along; we didn’t need anything more. I had Lara there, and others to help me. I didn’t need Raul.

  I wondered whether anything could be used as a Shifting Pool? I remembered back to all the times I had felt an odd tingling when I had been in the water. What was the variable, though? What had caused me to Shift those times and not others? I had a thought, and I wanted to try it out. But I also wanted to be prepared, just in case it actually worked. So I quickly leaped out of the bath, pulled on some clothes, and grabbed my pouch with its precious contents. Then I climbed back into the water, took a deep breath, and slowly lowered myself full-length under the water. I knew the second the water closed over my head that I was right; I felt the grasping pull from beneath me, and I was sucked down.

  Enanti: the present

  Connection

  I was slammed back into another reality; I was back in Enanti. All the breath had been pushed from my body as the swirl of water had spat me out. And I knew something important then: I wanted to be here. All parts of me had conspired to bring me here this time – I hadn’t even seen any other worlds through the water; this was all I could think of.

  I was face down, sodden, by the edge of the same Shifting Pool I had stepped into just a few days ago. God! Was it a few days ago here, though? I hadn’t even thought about that in my desire to get back here. I didn’t fully understand how time worked between these places. Time had become a far more elastic concept to me. I pushed myself up on my hands and knees, exhausted by the shift of worlds. I watched as drips from the Pool travelled down my hair, which hung in front of me like a patchy curtain. The drips bulged at the tips of my hair, desperately trying to hang on, but being pushed from behind. And then they fell, so suddenly, and sank back into the earth.

  I knew the way. I wasn’t sure how, but I was aware that I knew. After less than an hour I walked straight back into camp. It was just the same. I felt a wave of relief that I had been holding at bay until now. Familiar faces were walking past. Most of them smiled and seemed pleased to see me, but a few looked concerned, and hurried on their way. It was unsettling; I wasn’t sure what had been going on while I’d been gone. I couldn’t have been gone for long; everything looked so familiar, and I knew that Raul would have ordered the camp to move on as normal if I’d been gone more than a week or so.

  I looked around for him, his friends, Lara, Sula, but I couldn’t see them anywhere.

  “I’m amazed you decided to show your face again,” someone ground out behind me. I didn’t need to turn around to know it was Silas.

  “Why wouldn’t I?” I countered, already weary that we were falling back into the same patterns.

  “After what you did? You really need to ask?”

  I felt an unease creep over me. What had I done? I sensed that Silas really meant it; something was seriously wrong.

  “What is it? What’s happened?”

  “You really don’t know! He asked you to do one simple thing. He even asked for your word on it, which you gave. Which you broke. Which he is paying for. I for one am not glad to see you back here.”

  “Where is Raul?” I managed to say through a mouth that had seized up on me. Something was very very wrong here. “What do you mean about him paying for something?”

  I hardly dared ask. My mind was working furiously as my body shut down, trying to think what all this meant. And then I got it. Raul had asked me not only to be quick, but to promise not to let go. Was that it? I thought that had just been his way of exerting control over me, and I hadn’t given it much thought. And anyway, if he was just single-mindedly obsessed about having me here to help save Alette, then I was back; no harm done.

  “I came back, didn’t I? That’s all Raul wanted; and here I am.” I spoke more confidently now, annoyed that I was somehow in trouble for something that just seemed like a bit of lost pride.

  “You have no idea. Do you think that is all? Do you think it was just about keeping you here? That he linked to you just for his benefit?” Silas was really angry now. I could see the colour rising in his face, and the vein on his right temple starting to protrude as he glared at me.

  “What, then? No – I don’t really understand. But that’s not surprising given that none of you really tells me anything. I’m apparently meant to work it all out for myself. So, no, I don’t know what’s going on, or really what I’ve done. Where is he? Where is Raul? I need to talk to him.”

  I hadn’t planned to talk to Raul, in fact I had a sketchy plan before coming here that I would keep some distance between us. I felt awkward and embarrassed, and wondered how much he had seen of the world I had seen. But now my senses were on alert. Something was wrong, and I needed to see him. I repeated myself: “I need to talk to him.”

  “You’re not going anywhere near him. I think you’ve done enough damage.”

  “What! What is going on? Where is he?”

  “He is in there with Lara, in her bed. Where else would he be?”

  “Oh.” It made perfect sense, but I st
ill felt like a blade had been pushed into me. Why? I tried to shake the feeling off. They were both my friends; why should this bother me in any way?

  “Well, I’ll talk to him when they’ve, well…you know…after…when they’ve finished – not busy, I mean,” I said in a rush, and turned sharply and walked off, leaving Silas looking after me, shaking his head.

  I sat alone on the very edge of the camp, resting on a low branch. My elation from the morning, from finding my way back, had dissipated. I felt resentful at Silas’s welcome, confused about what I had done wrong, but more than anything, thrown off balance completely about the idea of Raul and Lara being together. I was bewildered by the storm of dark feelings that it had unleashed inside me. I didn’t feel as if any of them belonged to me. I didn’t want anything to happen between me and Raul – I knew that even the possibility of that, seen in the Shifting Pool, had sent me running for cover; literally tearing our hands apart. So what was it, then? Was I jealous? Of whom? Was I jealous because Raul was my friend, or because Lara was? I really didn’t know, and the more I tried to untangle the knots swirling inside me, the more distracted I felt.

  Raul was not someone I would ever get involved with. I had very strict rules surrounding relationships and sex, and he didn’t fit any of them. The rules were there to protect me, and they worked. I had never wanted real intimacy with a man – on some level, I suppose I feared them all, where they could put me. I would never be put on my knees by a man again.

  I hated the idea of a man protecting me, controlling me, feeling I was his. So I made sure it never happened. Sex was empty – a quick fix – meaningless. The few brief relationships I had had were just more of the same, each of us finding a use in the other temporarily: a date for a big function, a trophy for an important work do, or simply a body to fulfil sexual needs as and when. It wasn’t the healthiest approach, but it worked for me.

  And Raul didn’t fit this type. He was too aware, too observant of me for me ever to feel comfortable with him in that realm. Silas, possibly – he didn’t care one bit about me; had no curiosity beyond the needs of one night. (Silas! Where had that thought come from! But I could see it. He had such a low opinion of me that I knew sex would work with him. It would be so easy to hate him.) But not Raul. I wanted him firmly in the friend box, the androgynous box, and I couldn’t understand why the lid wouldn’t close properly.

  Or was it Lara? Did I feel less safe, knowing that my confidences with her may be shared with another, someone closer to her?

  I was pulled from my thoughts by the sight of Lara hurrying off into the forest, a basket under her arm. She startled when she caught sight of me, then rushed over to give me a hug.

  “Oh Eve, thank goodness. I was so worried about you. I’m so glad you are back!”

  ‘You seem to be the only one!” I replied.

  “Oh, I’m sorry! Have you seen some of the others already? I didn’t know you were back; I’ve been so busy. Silas is in a particularly black mood.”

  “Yes. But I don’t understand why. Umm…um…well, he told me about you and Raul. Is that why?”

  “What did he tell you?” Lara asked, surprised. “I’m surprised that Silas was forthcoming; I thought he’d just enjoy torturing you.”

  “He um, he just told me that you and Raul were…er…busy…you know, together in your tent. That’s why I didn’t come looking for you. I didn’t want to walk in on anything!” I tried to sound lighthearted and jokey, but failed abysmally.

  Lara shook her head, took a deep breath and sighed. “How about you come with me, and we can talk as we go?”

  I nodded, and slipped down from my branch, which bobbed up and down a few times, pleased to be free of my weight once more.

  “Where are you off to?” I asked.

  “I need certain plants – medicine.”

  “Is someone ill?”

  “Oh Eve, it’s probably best coming from me, but yes: Raul.”

  I felt the blood in my veins run icy cold.

  “He’s not doing too well.” Lara spoke gently, looking at my face carefully the whole time. “That’s why he is in my tent. The only reason,” she said carefully. “So I see that Silas was actually torturing you after all,” she added, under her breath.

  “What happened?” I whispered.

  “Oh damn. You’re going to feel worse once I’ve told you, but you should know. You could probably see that the rest of us weren’t thrilled by Raul’s idea to link with you in the Shifting Pool.”

  ‘I just thought you all wanted him to let me be free to come and go as I wished – to respect my choices. wasn’t that it?”

  “No, Eve. He did that for you, not himself. He was worried that you would end up somewhere you weren’t ready for, that could do you harm. Yes, he wants to keep you here – but he would never have forced it.

  “He did it to keep you safe - so he could get you out. But any form of linking in the Pools has a cost. That’s why we didn’t like the plan. The longer you stayed in there, linked to him here, the higher the cost. It literally sucks away your strength. It can only be done for a short time. The energy needed to keep him rooted here, while you Shifted, is enormous. Part of him was between worlds, fighting to remain in this one. We knew it would wipe him out.”

  I could feel the blood leaving my face, awareness circling close by, ready to land.

  “He knew that would happen...? And he did it..?” I wasn’t really asking. Lara nodded.

  “We thought he had judged it right. We weren’t happy with the idea, but it was his choice. And we knew he’d be careful. Get the parameters somewhere he knew he could handle. That’s why he made you promise to keep linked to him at all costs...”

  “No!” My mind shot back to the moment that I had tried to get my hand loose from his. I had felt it then, the strength leaving his grip, and I had revelled in it, as I had twisted my way free of his hold. I hadn’t known. I hadn’t known!

  “What have I done to him?” My voice was thin, reedy, someone else’s.

  “He is really weak, Eve.” Lara placed her hand on my arm as she spoke. “But we are doing everything we can.”

  “Tell me.” I whispered, desperate to know.

  “He collapsed by the Shifting Pool when you broke your hand free from his. He could feel you trying to, and he fought hard to keep hold, but he was already weak by then, and he couldn’t contend with both you and the Pool trying to separate you. We carried him back here – it was about a week ago. He wasn’t conscious, but he is now coming to the surface every so often, and I am hopeful. He keeps asking for you, and every time we’ve had to tell him that you haven’t come back, he has retreated again, back into darkness. He blames himself. He thought you were stranded somewhere, suffering.”

  I felt sick. I couldn’t comprehend what this man had done for me, and what I had done to him. I felt as if I had stabbed him in the back.

  “I’m afraid that that’s how Silas sees it,” Lara said quietly. She had the same unnerving way as Raul of reading the direction of my thoughts.

  “Will he be OK? He’s got to be OK...I...”

  “I’m doing everything I can, Eve. And it may help him to know that you are back. I’m so glad that you are back!” She threw her arms around me, half crying now. “It’s not your fault. You weren’t to know; someone should have told you.”

  “But I promised him, and then I broke it.”

  “Yes. But you did that without knowing the cost. And that makes a difference.”

  She pulled me along with her now, keen to find the plants she needed from the forest. She explaining the purpose of each, as we filled her basket with white willow, meadowsweet, black elder and yarrow.

  The light was starting to fail now, and we had no caught-beams on us. The animals of the twilight were starting to stir, making the forest come alive with different sounds.

  We
headed straight for Lara’s tent as we entered camp. I saw immediately that Esker, Koni and Silas were standing guard outside, and I assumed that Arno and the others would be inside, or nearby. They moved out of the way automatically to allow Lara to enter, but as I tried to follow, Silas put his body between the tent and me, forcing me to smack into him.

  “You are going nowhere near him!” he growled, looking down at me.

  “This is ridiculous!” Lara exclaimed as she came back out of the tent. “She is coming in with me. This is my tent.”

  “And you have our man in there, vulnerable. She’s not going in,” Silas countered.

  Lara turned in appeal to the others.

  “This is crazy! Eve isn’t the one to blame here! She had no idea what the linking would do!

  “Wait!… Or any idea what breaking her promise would lead to,” she said directly to Silas, to halt his interruption.

  “She still broke it though,” Silas said, refusing to remove his bulk from my path.

  “Yes, I did.” I said. “I broke it, and I’m so sorry. If I could go back and undo that, I would. But I can’t. I had no idea what could happen. I thought he was just trying to keep me here, by making me promise.”

  “Then you don’t know Raul at all.” Silas shot back. “Were you always planning to break free of his grip then, as soon as you were in the Pool? Were you lying as soon as the promise crossed your lips?”

  “No! Really, I wasn’t. I was going to hold on, but…I saw…No. Look – I just panicked. OK?”

  Lara gave me a thoughtful look, and I hoped fervently that she couldn’t read this one from me right now. I didn’t want her knowing what reality I had been taken to first. I didn’t even want to think about it myself. If it had been a nameless man in that reality, I would have used Raul’s hand to pull me back. But how could I have used this hand as an anchor, when it was the same man I was running from? Lara was still looking at me curiously, so I forced my mind to stop the run of images through my head.