Authors: Traci Harding
‘We are one.’ Blue gazed mysteriously around him before looking at Kyle once more. ‘You cannot hide anything from us.’
Curious, Kyle wanted to approach the blue being, but Kyron held him back.
‘He is an undine, a water spirit,’ the huge beast warned.
What Kyron means to say
, Book added,
is don’t take anything Blue has to say too lightly … it’s easy to drown in your own emotions.
‘It’s cool.’ Kyle passed Book to Kyron. ‘I’ve never been a very emotional kind of person.’ Kyle confidently strode towards Blue, until the being motioned with his hand for Kyle to halt and Kyle obliged the little fellow. Blue held out his large webbed fingers towards Kyle and concentrated very intently upon him. ‘So what is on your mind, young warrior?’
Kyle wondered what the being was playing at, but was not given time to ask.
‘Aahh …!’ Blue announced, enlightened, whereupon he turned his focus from Kyle to an area beside the young man.
Kyle looked where Blue directed, to see a glowing white image manifesting. Soon the vision took a female form and the spirit of Zoe stood silently beside him wearing a welcoming smile. Kyle was confused and perturbed by the appearance.
‘Ooh! It’s her.’ Kyron, sounding lovestruck, ventured closer. ‘We like her.’
‘No, we don’t!’ Kyle protested strongly, looking to Blue for an explanation. ‘What’s she doing here? Little Miss Privileged has nothing to do with me.’
Blue folded his arms, appearing smug, and somewhat insulted. ‘Shows what you know. Think you know everything, do you? Well, I could show you a truth or two …
young
warrior. Come and look into my pool.’ Blue stepped off the water on to the rocks. He bowed to Kyle and motioned him towards the pool with a large cheesy smile. ‘If you dare.’
Kyle was apprehensive, but with all this talk of him being a warrior, he was not about to turn down the challenge. He gazed back at Kyron, who looked worried, then to Zoe, who only smiled, and then to Blue still grinning broadly in invitation.
Kyle stepped up to the edge of the pool and gazed into it. ‘So what’s in here?’
‘I told you — the truth,’ Blue replied. ‘But you must stand in the middle of the pool if you wish to see it.’
Kyle did not trust this character. Still, if Blue was his water elemental, as Crystaleyes was his earth aspect, then not trusting Blue was the same as not trusting his own emotions. Kyle thrust his hand into the pocket containing the crystal ball his earth element had given him and recalled the counsel of Crystaleyes. ‘Anything is possible here, right? No fear.’
Kyle stepped slowly on to the water, and shifted his weight gradually to discover that his feet did not break the surface. ‘Wow,’ he exclaimed, completely stoked with himself as he took another step towards the middle. ‘Hey, check this out, I’m doing it,’ he commented to the others, before looking down into the water below his feet. As his gaze fixed on the glowing surface of the pool, it gave beneath him and with a yell Kyle was swallowed up by the watery hole.
Blue slapped his knee and burst into hysterical laughter. ‘
Humans
, they’re so gullible.’
Kyron was not amused and let out a growl of objection.
‘He’s okay.’ Blue attempted to catch his breath, and he motioned for the huge beast to relax. ‘I’m not going to drown him … not physically anyway. He’ll be back presently.’
Kyron, still disenchanted by the trick, backed down when Zoe laid a hand on his shoulder in quiet reassurance and they sat together to await Kyle’s return.
Despite trying hard to surface, Kyle just sank deeper and deeper into the undine’s underwater realm. He was panicking; although he’d always been a strong swimmer, he knew that he was soon going to run out of breath. When at last he was forced to release the stale air in his lungs, fully expecting them to fill with water with his next inhalation, Kyle was shocked to find they did not. He had no difficulty breathing, yet there were no bubbles as he did. He did not even feel wet, although he was definitely underwater.
Could it be that the body I left behind on the lounge is doing the breathing for me? And that these experiences are more or less a dream?
The title of the book he’d left himself reading suddenly took on a new meaning.
Kyle stopped fighting his predicament and began to float calmly, enjoying the weightlessness of his descent. The pool had widened into a vast space and Kyle heard distant voices united in a chant.
As it was above the water, everything below the surface radiated a blue energy that enhanced the natural colour of the fish, coral and rocks to the point of luminescence.
Watching several schools of brightly coloured fish swim by him, Kyle realised this was the most blissful experience he’d ever had, until he noticed that a dolphin, a shark, a stingray and a killer whale were coming straight towards him from the glowing blue depths. The four of them were swimming in a perfect diamond formation.
Fear besieged Kyle’s being, even though common sense told him that there could be no such creatures in the pool he’d fallen into, and that this particular selection of sea creatures did not usually engage together in formation swimming.
He had to be dreaming; this whole adventure was a dream.
As the sea creatures came close enough to be threatening, they began to transform into four breathtakingly beautiful mermaids, who swam around blowing him kisses as they admired his form.
Kyle couldn’t help but smile broadly at this development.
It’s confirmed. I’m definitely dreaming!
The mermaids spun Kyle around to face the shark nymph with her long ash-blonde hair and eyes like dead, dark pools. Of the four, she had the smallest breasts, for nurture was not her first calling. She drew Kyle’s body in close to her and kissed him hard and long.
Naturally, Kyle was not about to complain, but the attack on his senses was suffocating him. His head started spinning and he felt that he might black out. He struggled to free himself from the shark spirit, but she held him fast and seemed to be tearing along through the water with him. He couldn’t open his eyes as the speed prevented it.
Suddenly the pressure ebbed. Kyle opened his eyes to find he was flying — soaring beneath a clear night sky filled with stars. His focus drifted downward to a large and very grand house. Two people, a man and a woman, were exiting the front door, and Kyle swooped down to gain a closer perspective.
They looked like nice people … and rich! The kind of parents Kyle had always dreamed of having. They were dressed up for a formal engagement and were in good cheer.
His perspective drifted backwards and upwards for a broader perspective of the couple as they strolled arm in arm into the separate dwelling that housed their cars.
Soon, the automatic door on the garage opened. The luxury car within exploded upon ignition, blowing the garage door halfway across the property, ahead of much flying debris and a fireball that engulfed Kyle’s consciousness.
Kyle was only momentarily alarmed at being consumed by fire; the only heat he felt was the flush in his cheeks as he was released by the shark spirit and spun around to face the sandy-blonde, blue-eyed dolphin nymph.
After his last experience of being kissed, Kyle attempted to back away, but the other three nymphs had a good hold on him.
The dolphin spirit’s smile was very enchanting, however. Ever so gently she took his face in both her hands and drew his mouth to hers.
Her kiss felt like cruising through the water and diving over waves on a warm sunny day. His heart was doing backflips as his mind and senses were drawn into her dreaming, and his sight became shrouded by darkness for a time. The chant that Kyle had been hearing from afar since he’d fallen in the pool, suddenly became much louder.
Sight restored, Kyle found himself soaring through a clear night sky, full moon glowing. Below was a bonfire, around which a gathering of Indigenous Australian people danced and chanted. The moon’s reflection glimmered brightly in a large body of water, fed by a waterfall, in close proximity to where the ritual was being held.
One young couple standing on the outskirts of the gathering captured Kyle’s interest. The woman might have been part-Indigenous and was heavy with child. The man with his arms around her swollen belly was the only white person present, so the pair seemed out of place. Just like the couple Kyle had seen during his shark dreaming, they appeared to be young and in love, and he hoped that he wasn’t about to witness another grisly disaster.
This fear made Kyle turn away to look over the whole gathering. He felt strangely aroused by the chant and the music of the rhythm sticks and the didgeridoo. He’d never met an Indigenous Australian in his life, nor wondered about their beliefs.
Your people,
Kyron had said. Had he been referring to the Indigenous people of Australia?
From within the huge bonfire a strange mist began to rise and dance over the gathering. Like a snake being charmed it wound its way across the gathering until it came to hover over the pregnant woman.
Two helicopters rose above a nearby hill and headed towards the gathering, searchlights blazing, and a voice on loudspeaker warned the crowd to disperse, because they were trespassing on private property. On the ground, police began to emerge from the bush surrounding the clearing to converge on the crowd.
When Kyle’s attention was drawn back to the anomalous mist, it was gone. The young woman was gripping her belly in pain and as she pushed her partner away, Kyle willed himself closer.
‘Go,’ she urged. ‘If they get their hands on you, they will lock you up and throw away the key … never mind if you’re guilty or not.’
‘Not like this, Alex. Not now!’ he argued, referring to her contractions. ‘You need me at the birth. I’m getting you to a hospital.’
Alex, suppressing her own pain, grabbed hold of his shirt to insist. ‘We need you free! You’re no good to anyone rotting in jail.’ She kissed him and thrust him away. ‘Now go!’
A couple of the men grabbed the reluctant male and hurried him off towards the water, gagging the fellow to silence his protests.
Others of the group gathered around the pregnant woman to comfort and aid her, until they were all overpowered by the police and carted away.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ the policeman wondered of the heavily pregnant woman, who did not really look as though she belonged to the clan. ‘A woman in your condition would be far better off at home.’
‘This
is
my home,’ she told him defiantly.
‘Well, Nivok Industries disagrees with you.’ He dragged her to her feet. ‘Save it for the judge.’
Kyle had never, in living memory, so strongly wanted to accompany someone, and yet he felt himself being drawn back to his dream weavers. He resisted their summons, straining with all his will, but it was no use: Kyle was forced to turn.
It was a beautiful black-haired, dark-skinned nymph in front of Kyle now. Her blazing green eyes glared at him sternly as she gripped his jaw firmly in one hand. What sea creature had this mermaid been associated with? He couldn’t recall.
Her kiss was paralysing, and Kyle completely lost control over his body. Darkness descended as he drifted to the sea floor and buried himself in the sand.
The stingray,
Kyle concluded, as he warily awaited her vision.
What kind of tragedy can she conjure up for my viewing horror?
James Nivok’s office was not exactly where Kyle had expected to find himself.
He was alarmed to see Zoe being confronted by her uncle, who was very angry with her.
‘Why was he in here?’ Nivok demanded to know. ‘You’ve got an apartment if you want to play with your boyfriends.’ He cocked an eyebrow in suspicion. ‘Are you covering for him?’
‘Please, uncle … I told you,’ she appealed to him, obviously unaccustomed to seeing her uncle so riled. ‘He said he had to clean —’
Nivok’s patience snapped. He cut her explanation short with a sharp slap to her cheek, which was hard enough to tip Zoe off balance.
Kyle wanted to intervene, but he was rooted to the spot, forced to witness the consequences of the trouble he’d caused.
Your uncle isn’t going to punish you for tonight’s little episode. You don’t even know the meaning of the word punishment.
His cruel words to Zoe came back to haunt him and his heart began to ache. He’d never before felt deep remorse for his actions, and it hurt … a lot.
Zoe held her hand to her face, shocked. She turned her eyes, now full of contempt, back to her uncle and regarded him as if he were a stranger.
It seemed that even James Nivok was surprised by his harsh reaction and apparently stricken with guilt. His anger fled and he moved to reassure his niece. ‘I’ve been under so much stress and now I’m taking it out on you.’ He placed an arm about her shoulder and gave her a squeeze. ‘I’ve never before struck you. Please forgive me.’
Zoe was in shock for a moment. The only person she had ever really trusted, the one mainstay in her life, had just turned on her. Now she’d seen a side of her uncle that she’d never imagined existed and that lifetime of trust had been shattered. ‘I never wanted this job.’ Zoe pulled away from her uncle.
‘I had to know for sure if you were interested in the business,’ Nivok explained. ‘After all, your parents have left you two-thirds of it and I don’t want you to sell unless you’re sure —’
‘Nothing you could say or do is going to keep me in this place.’ Zoe walked over to the lounge to retrieve her handbag. ‘I’ve got my own plans.’
As Zoe stormed from the office, Nivok smiled broadly.
The feeling returned to his limbs and the heavy, buried sensation lifted, but Kyle felt as if he’d been battered to a pulp, emotionally. Guilt, confusion, distress and many questions warred in his mind, not the least of which was: What’s next?