Recruits (Keeper of the Water Book 2) (28 page)

I stop for a moment and listen for any sign of Percy or Jack Fawcett. My recruits and I have checked in on them a few times over the years, often finding them entrenched in an argument about whether they should leave. I side with Jack every time and try to convince the father and son to go back to their own lives. But Percy always refuses. Now I hear no sound from their camp and wonder if Jack – or
both
– have finally given up and left.

I become increasingly nervous the deeper into the jungle that I travel. It seems very strange that Cassie wandered so far away. At least she had the common sense to stay well clear of Man-Eater territory. I know most of the nearby jungle like the back of my hand but this area is completely unknown to me so I proceed much slower. Still, I nearly trip over a bunch of rocks scattered unnaturally on the ground. When my mind registers what I’m looking at, I stop dead in my tracks.

The rocks are grouped together in the formation of a cross. I’ve seen much stranger things in nature but this isn’t the first time I’ve seen
this
particular pattern of rocks. And the last time involved Cassie, too. Back in my first days with the Amazons, I found her kneeling by a river in the mountains, shuffling the rocks into this cross-shaped pattern. I thought it seemed suspicious then but I was too new to the tribe to question Cassie’s motives.

That’s not a mistake I’ll make again. I quietly move forward and it’s not long before I hear whispers up ahead. One voice is too deep for me to make out any words being spoken but the other is much more distinct.

“I
knew
we would see each other again,” Cassie says. “Look at how
old
you’ve gotten – this should help with that.”

It’s definitely her voice but several octaves higher; she doesn’t sound nearly as miserable as usual. Could that even be excitement I hear from her?

“It’s been so long and I’ve been so worried that you wouldn’t be able to survive in this
awful
environment. Ever since we reached this hellhole, I’ve been trying to convince the old witch to move us farther away.”

Whoever she’s with does not seem to match her level of giddiness. I can only make out a low mumble in response, no matter how hard I try to listen.

“I know, I’ve missed you, too. Here, take this: I’ve been saving it for years for the moment you found me again,” Cassie says. “I was worried that you lost the trail of rocks I’ve been leaving.”

My heart begins to beat so quickly that the muffled sound of the other voice becomes even harder to pick up. I want nothing more than to charge in – to break up whatever secret meeting Cassie is having – but I remember the Keeper’s request to make peace with my biggest enemy. If I storm ahead and accuse her of something without hearing the other side, I could cause irreparable damage to our already-strained relationship.

“I know we’ve been waiting years – and there are many more ahead – but our ultimate plans are in sight,” Cassie says. “One day I’ll finally be put in charge and then we can – ”

I step on a twig and the voices stop right away. How could I be so clumsy at the worst possible moment? I silently curse my foolishness but don’t have long to dwell on my mistake. I see a quick blur speeding toward me and dive aside just as an arrow zips by my head. Had I hesitated a split second longer, I would have ended up like those poor buffalo I used to hunt on the plains.

I roll on the ground and use the momentum to propel myself upright. I should run
away
from danger but instead I run
toward
it.

“Don’t shoot, it’s me!” I call out to Cassie, hoping that she mistook me for a hostile native. For all I know, identifying myself might make it
more
likely that she shoots another arrow.

Just ahead, I hear the sound of rushing footsteps fading in the distance. Curious, I run after them but only make it through a small thicket of trees when I screech to a halt. Cassie stands there, holding a bow with an arrow pulled back and ready to fire directly into my chest. Despite the immediate threat to my life, I glance beyond the former queen and see a blur of movement disappearing into the jungle.

“What are you doing here?” Cassie asks with an eerie calmness, her bow still at the ready.

I look at her face but she does not wear her usual sneer of contempt. Her eyes are red and puffy, as though she’s been crying recently. Her sudden change in demeanor makes me feel less confident that I’m going to walk away from here with my life.

“The Keeper sent me to find you,” I tell her. “Who were you just talking to?”

Cassie pulls back the arrow even farther, her bowstring so taut that she might snap it right off.

“I wasn’t talking to anyone,” she says. “Do you see someone else here?”

Though I’m afraid to take my eyes off her weapon, I again look in the direction of the jungle where I saw someone running away. Whoever it was has escaped but I spot a clear indentation in the nearby dirt. I have no doubt I could follow the trail but that’s obviously not the answer Cassie wants to hear and she
is
the one holding the weapon ready to fire.

Besides, something
else
catches my eye. I slowly point to the leaf of a large fern just beside Cassie. A drop of bright blue water hangs on the tip of the leaf, water that could’ve only come from one place. Cassie looks at it and her eyes go wide. But she doesn’t acknowledge the bright blue drop and kicks the leafy fern, causing the dot of water to fall to the ground. Unfortunately for her, the drop splashes onto a trampled fern, which immediately springs back to life.

“What are you doing all the way out here? Really? Why did you bring some of our water here?” I ask.

Cassie’s lips purse and her jaw clenches, eyes narrowing as she considers what to do. I’m ready to dive aside if she decides to attack but she eventually lowers her bow.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she says. “I was out here on patrol, like normal.”

“Was it the explorer? Or his son?” I ask. “You don’t have to be ashamed that you wanted to talk to someone else.”

There’s a glint of affirmation in her eyes and I have a feeling I’m right about her talking to one of the men – at least I
think
I’m right. But an expression of disgust returns to her face and she shakes her head vehemently.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” she snaps. “And if you start spreading false tales about me to the Keeper or other Amazons, I assure you that you’ll pay dearly.”

Cassie lowers her shoulder and bumps into me as she walks by, though I’m much bigger and she’s the one momentarily knocked off balance. She sighs, though it sounds more like a guttural growl. For a moment, I stand in place, trying to decide whether to follow the trail left by whoever Cassie met in this distant part of the jungle. My curiosity implores me to head deeper into the jungle but I don’t know how long it would take me to track down the mystery person –
if
he or she even exists. Instead I turn back toward our camp and rush to catch up with Cassie.

“What do you
want
?” she snaps upon hearing my approach.

“The Keeper sent me to find you,” I tell her.

Her jaw clenches again and she stops so suddenly that I nearly bump into her.

“You’re lying,” she says, staring into my eyes in search of any hint of dishonesty. I think she’s angrier that I’m telling the truth. “Why would she possibly talk to someone like
you
?”

Yeah, this whole diplomacy thing is going to be tougher than I imagined. I catch myself before snapping back at her but that doesn’t mean I’m simply going to take her insults.

“She wants to tell you that she’ll be teaching us
both
about the responsibilities of being Keeper,” I say. “She wants more than a single possible candidate to take her place and she sees plenty of unique qualities in me.”

Speaking highly of myself is
not
something I normally do; it’s harder for me to praise myself than to accept compliments from others. But I would do just about anything to piss off Cassie and she’s too self-involved to notice me blushing. She begins to storm back toward camp.

“I’ve been here far too long and have too much to lose for some prairie peasant to take it all away,” she says. I’m not sure if she’s talking to me or herself.

“The Keeper
hasn’t
chosen you yet. If you were smart, you’d embrace this opportunity for us to learn from each other,” I say.

“
Me
learn something from
you?
Ha!” she cackles. “I was leading an empire centuries before you were even born. Technically, the country you come from should still belong to
me
since we first laid claim to it.”

“Just because nobody from across the Atlantic Ocean didn’t see America doesn’t mean my people weren’t there first,” I yell, finally losing my cool. She’s finally gotten the better of my emotions so I take a deep breath and try to remain on subject, try to think and respond to her the way a Keeper would. “Besides, our pasts no longer matter –
countries
no longer matter to us. Even the idea of having power is not what the Amazons are all about.”

“Now you’re lecturing me?” she asks, shaking her head in disbelief.

“What about tracking? That’s something you could learn from me,” I offer. “You might have strong leadership skills but you aren’t very good at hiding your trail through the – ”

“Save it,” Cassie interrupts. “It’s not like I’ll need to find my way around a bunch of trees once I’m put in charge.”

“You plan on taking us away from this
hellhole
?” I ask, repeating the same word I overheard earlier. She glares at me but continues walking even faster, obviously hoping I’ll take the message and leave her alone. I don’t. I refuse to let her ignore me when I still have so many questions. “I’ve seen you steal water before, sneak some of it when the Keeper is focused elsewhere. What are you doing with it?”

Cassie spins and raises her bow again but she’s not fast enough this time. I immediately recognize what she’s doing and ready my own weapon. In the blink of an eye, we find ourselves in a showdown, the Keeper’s two possible replacements on the verge of destroying one another. I know how wrong this is but my actions are purely self-defense, which isn’t something the former queen can say.

“I’m
not
going to tell you again: whatever you
think
you saw,
forget about it
,” she hisses.

We stare at each other for several long seconds before Cassie makes the first move. She lowers her bow and runs back toward the camp. This time, I don’t follow so closely.

“I trained to be a possible replacement for the Keeper… for Celeste,” I tell Amelia hurriedly.

Just telling her what I remembered helps more memories flood back to my mind. Unfortunately, we don’t have much time to talk. Mom needed a restroom stop and John is hitting up the vending machines so my time to talk to Amelia in private is limited. The rest stop is crowded this time of the day, hungry travelers and weary truck drivers streaming into the big parking lot.

I’ve had hours to think and remember more of the past but telling my recruit about it – even though she already knows it all – helps my memory clear quicker.

Amelia nods. “And Cassie certainly wasn’t happy about having competition. From that point on, she doubled her efforts to remain near the water and the Keeper. She even acted nicer to the rest of the Amazons – well, not
us
exactly – but everyone saw right through that charade.”

I remember keeping what I saw in the jungle to myself, not telling anyone my suspicions about Cassie meeting a man. In fact, I even backed away from training with the Keeper and focused on teaching my own recruits about how to become better Amazons. I was gone from camp so much on recruiting trips over the years that I never properly trained Mary, Florence and Harriet. I wanted to make them better and stronger, which could only strengthen the entire group. Not only did I turn my recruits into great trackers but also great bow shooters.

“I’ll never forget what you used to tell Harriet, Mary and me while training us on the bow,” Amelia says, a gleam of reminiscence in her eye.

“You always have to be careful because you never know when your next shot can be your last,” I say. It’s the same line I’ve given tourists dozens of times while teaching my shooting class for the ‘Adventure Guides’; apparently, it’s advice I’ve given in the past as well.

I smile but it doesn’t last long. As a stream of cars zip by on the interstate, I know we still have a long way to go; the same can be said for my memory. When I first started remembering my past, it was thrilling – though confusing – to get a glimpse into an unknown life. But with each moment from the past that returns to my mind now, I grow increasingly frustrated. I just want to know what happened to get me here. It’s like I’ve read an entire book but the last chapter has been ripped out. But the parts of the past I
do
remember lead me to believe that only one ending was possible for my life with the Amazons.

“I was made Keeper, wasn’t I?” I ask.

The smile also disappears from Amelia’s face and she turns away from me. I don’t know how but I
feel
as though I’m right. Now if only
that
memory would come back…

“Do you remember?” Amelia asks.

Should I lie? Pretend to remember and see if I can trick her into giving me the answers I want to know? I sigh. This is certainly one of those situations where it’s annoying that I have such high morals. I shake my head.

“I just can’t think of any other outcome,” I say.

“Let’s just say that your plan to keep the past a secret from Cassie – from the Cassie of
today
who remembers nothing – is unraveling before our very eyes,” my recruit says. “I’m afraid the truth won’t stay hidden from her forever – and I’m sure you
do
remember enough of
Queen Cassie
to realize that’s a scary thought.”

“Celeste is with her, she’ll make sure Cassie doesn’t remember anything,” I say weakly, not sure who I’m trying to convince. “And Cassie never remembered anything when we were growing up…”

“And now John
and
Jack have both shown up,” Amelia says suspiciously. “That can’t be coincidence. Exactly what
do
you know about your boyfriend?”

I look over toward John, who shakes a vending machine so roughly that it’s on the verge of tipping over. My heart still yells at me to accept him but that pesky itch of doubt begins to tickle my mind again.

“He hasn’t lied to me about the past,” I tell Amelia, though the truth is that he’s never told me the
entire
story. She raises an eyebrow. “John is a lot different than who he used to be. He told me who he really is and about some of the… questionable things he’s done.”

“So who
is
he? What
has
he told you?” she asks.

I’m hesitant to give her any details about John. I know how Celeste thinks of him and I wonder if
any
Amazon could ever accept that he’s changed. But Amelia is my recruit and one of my closest allies so I proceed to tell her everything I know about him, from his true identity as a Spanish explorer to his discovery of the Amazons in Greece to his attack on the island where the Keeper once protected the water. I don’t blame her for the disgust that shows up on her face but it’s still frustrating to have someone else judge John when she doesn’t know the kind of person he is
now
.

“That’s how he’s still alive today? After so many years?” Amelia asks. “By fighting Amazons? Our kind? Did he kill anyone? I’ve never heard of a man stealing water from us before. I know some have tried but never lived long enough to tell the tale.”

“I… I don’t know what happened,” I say.

“Well he obviously got the water from somewhere,” Amelia says. “Or some
one
.”

The answer hits me like a ton of bricks and a wave of nausea crashes into my stomach. Tears well in my eyes as I look toward John, though I grind my teeth and push the tears away. He turns toward me and waves from across the lot. I quickly look away, unable to wave back or force a fake smile. But I’m not as mad at him as I am with myself. Somewhere in the back of my mind, the answer to my biggest question has been there from the moment I learned about John and the water. I allowed my feelings for him to cloud the truth and now I feel like a complete fool for not answering the question sooner.

Why does Cassie have such a hold on John when he doesn’t even seem to like her?

I think about the memory of finding Cassie deep in the jungle, about how I heard another voice – a
deep
voice – that I hadn’t recognized back then but I certainly know now. And another moment earlier in that memory makes things even clearer. I keep thinking of Celeste’s daughter as ‘Cassie’ even though there’s no Queen Cassie that I ever heard of. The Keeper pointed out that I should refer to her by her real name – Isabella.

Queen Isabella of Castille. Castille – Cassie. If I remember my history lessons – and I always do – then Queen Isabella ruled Spain during Ponce de Leon’s lifetime.

“I’ll be right back,” I tell Amelia.

I don’t know Jack’s intentions with Celeste and Cassie, I don’t know if he’s really looking out for our best interests or not, but I don’t care at the moment. I need answers to the past before I can begin worrying about questions for the future. If there’s any chance that I can believe John loves me – that he really
has
changed from who he once was – I’ll need to hear the whole truth from him now.

“Hey, thirsty?” he asks when he sees me approach. He holds more bottles of water than he can handle. “The machine tried to eat my dollar – guess I was too rough trying to get my money back.”

“What happened once you reached the Keeper at the spring?” I ask.

The smile vanishes from his face. To anyone else, the question might seem like it came from left field. But John nods his head, knowing exactly what I’m talking about. I have a feeling he knew this question would be coming one day, that he’ll dread giving the answer as much as I’ll dread hearing it.

“I was hoping that after everything that’s happened to
both
of us, we wouldn’t have to keep going with that story,” John says, referring to how an arrow to my chest interrupted us the first time he tried telling me his past. “I was hoping we could go off on our own and forget about all of this craziness. But I know who you are – who you once were – not that I pretend to understand everything about the Amazons.”

“Then you
have
known all along that I was an Amazon,” I say. He nods. “I’ve just remembered, too. At least I’ve just started to understand, though there are still big gaps in my memory. I feel like something major will happen soon but maybe if I know more about you or me or Cassie or… I don’t know.”

My mind is racing, searching for answers to questions I haven’t even thought of yet. The truth is, I can’t figure out
why
I’m going after Cassie,
why
I should still care about my past life. It seems like every choice I’ve made – every life-threatening decision I’ve faced – has been based upon a
feeling
of what I should do instead of actually
knowing
the facts. I haven’t even had time to come to grips with the fact that I’m not a normal eighteen-year-old kid.

“As much as I don’t
want
you to know the truth, I
will
tell you anything you want to know,” John says. “But first, I need you to understand how much I love you and how I hope this won’t affect the way you’ve ever felt about me.”

I can tell John wants me to say that nothing will be different, that I can forgive him for anything that happened in the past, but that’s not something I can promise. I just
know
that I’m about to hear of his past with Cassie and that thought makes me sick. I barely muster the slightest nod of the head, which leaves him looking even more disappointed. I’m ashamed to admit that his saddened expression is the first thing that’s made me feel
slightly
better. Maybe I’m not so unlike Cassie after all…

John gestures to a nearby bench. He struggles to carry the armful of water bottles but I don’t help him when a few drop. It takes all of my emotional control just to follow him. He sits first so I sit as far from him as possible. I shake my head when he offers me a bottle. He opens one for himself and chugs the entire thing, during which time I contemplate whether I
really
want to hear this. John’s motorcycle is parked nearby; we could get on and drive far away and never look back again. If only I could shake the feeling that I have a greater purpose in life than my own happiness…

-
- - - - - - - - - - -

“So, where were we?” he asks nervously, though I’m certain we both know where the story abruptly ended last time. “While the rest of my troops were being slaughtered during the frontal assault on the Amazons, the three of us sneaked around from the back of camp. There we found the Keeper and the injured Amazon, who was shockingly still alive. We stepped forward and demanded that they hand over some of the water.”

“Three armed men threatening an old woman and an Amazon that was greatly weakened?”

“I told you before, the Keeper was not an old woman at that time. Celeste looked the same as she does now – well, at least the same age. She wasn’t nearly as angry then. Still, it wasn’t exactly my finest hour,” John admits. “Even though the women were defenseless, they still refused to hand over any water. My soldiers became very angry by their refusal and suggested we kill the women and take what we wanted. I was a different person back then and normally would’ve given the okay for such brutality. But I could sense there was something about the Keeper that was special, not to mention that the injured woman stood in front of her, willing to die to protect the lady by the water.

“I ordered my troops to stand down, the first time they ever perceived weakness from me. I tried to warn the women but they still refused. One of my soldiers finally ignored my command and stepped forward, ready to slaughter the two. No sooner did he take a single step when a spear pierced the ground just inches in front of him. The rest of the warrior women had dispatched my other troops so quickly that they were back within minutes. Not only were we outnumbered but the Amazons were far deadlier than any foe we ever faced. We turned to retreat but they were too fast and had us surrounded before we could run ten meters.”

I smile at the thought. Except for Celeste, none of the Amazons from back then were part of the tribe by the time I was recruited. But I think of those women as ancestors and feel proud that they repelled such a large group of armed men.

“I thought we were dead. If that had happened against another army, we would’ve been executed on the spot. And trust me, there were quite a few Amazons who wanted us to suffer the same fate as the rest of my troops. But the Keeper showed us mercy and spoke to the others about the importance of avoiding unnecessary bloodshed. For the second time, we were led back to our ship, but this time by a larger group of women. My two troops and I didn’t even
consider
resisting, especially since we were fairly certain the Amazons would ignore their leader’s request and kill us anyway. The most frightening part of our long walk back to the ship was seeing the areas of bloodstained mountainside, yet there were no bodies in sight. I was never so relieved to see a ship in my entire life.