Water (30 page)
I focused on filling my body with elements that worked with me, not against me. The water helped but it wasn’t enough. I increased the amount of candle leaves I ingested. It was a fine line to walk. After picking out leaf bits, I had to mold the candles back together with small flickers of heat. I was frantically attempting this one day, knowing Shawn to be due back soon. I finished reforming the last candle, examining it with a critical eye. It wasn’t nearly as pretty as the rest, but it would pass as long as I kept it in an inconspicuous spot. I cleaned up my mess and got back in bed just before Shawn arrived back at the camp.
He threw new clothes and two pairs of handcuffs at me. "Get dressed. We are going on a field trip."
As I put one pair on my hands and the other on my ankles, I grumbled about having to bear the extra weight. It was hard enough to drag my own ass anywhere on this island; even clothes seemed to weigh ten times what they should. What I needed was one of Micah's miraculous apples.
A cough from the doorway drew our attention.
"Oh, good. You remember Juan, don't you, Princess?" Shawn asked.
It was my buddy, the wrist holder, from my surgery. I saluted him and he flinched at whatever bad mojo he thought I was sending his way. Shawn and I both laughed. I felt somewhat sorry for the guy; he was already breaking out in a nervous sweat.
"Juan, I think you and I are going to be great friends," I said.
He shook his head, indicating he didn't understand.
I spoke louder, annunciating each word. "
Muchachos
. Me. And. You." When I pointed to him he dodged my 'magic' once again.
I gave up. "Boo!" I shouted.
He actually ducked. I sighed.
No friends for Kaitlyn today.
"Ok. Let's go. I'll explain on the way." Shawn picked me up and threw me over his shoulder. "Don't move anything, for both our sakes. It is about a three mile hike and you won't have any elemental protection."
"What about the wildlife?" The penguin was right at Shawn's heels squawking at me as we walked away.
Shawn produced a pistol. "Got it covered."
"My hero."
He bounced, hard, sending his shoulder square into my gut.
I shut up. As we walked I peered through strands of hair hanging over my eyes. We were headed in the opposite direction of the surf. I hadn't realized before how comforted I was hearing it. The sound reminded me of Susan, like she was close by, helping me through this.
Juan walked behind us, but kept his distance. He was still sweating bullets. The guy was going to dehydrate soon if he didn't cut it out.
"Why is Juan here?" I asked.
"He’s another Nerina – has powers with the water, though not nearly as strong as Susan's. In fact, his strength is almost non-existent compared to hers."
"So, why bother bringing him?"
"His ability is what I need. His strength doesn't matter – not as long as I have you."
"What do you mean?" I already knew. He was going to funnel energy straight from me into Juan, to give Juan the power to do whatever Shawn wanted.
"Come on, Kaitlyn. We all know how this works."
"I bet Juan doesn't."
"He'll find out soon enough."
Poor Juan.
But there wasn't anything I could do, short of enticing the island to react to me, killing us all. That was plan B.
A couple of hours and several bruised ribs later, I began to hear another, more gentle surf. Reaching the beach, Shawn dumped me unceremoniously in the sand.
I sat still, willing my blood to return to my body after being upside down for so long. I looked around, only moving my eyes. "Where are we exactly?"
"On the flank of Vulcan Ecuador. The only non-active volcano on the island. I'm trying to play it safe."
An ant crawling around my hand, tickled me. Flicking it away, I focused on the water. It felt different. Not Susan-like at all. It almost felt tainted. "What is wrong with the water?"
"Part of the volcano collapsed into the ocean here," he said. "Now down to business. This is a popular tourist spot. We can’t risk being seen." He began issuing orders to Juan in Spanish. Juan grimaced more and more after every sentence, but didn't say a word. I took the opportunity to look around, hoping to spot a boatload of tourists at sea, or even a group hiking toward us. The hills behind us were barren. I turned back to my partners in crime and saw that at Shawn's encouragement, Juan had made his way knee-deep into the tide.
Once satisfied with Juan's position, Shawn came and knelt directly behind me. "Let's begin."
"Begin what?" I asked.
"We are going to simulate El Niño. Then, once nature starts to take its own course, we are going to stop it, so we know how to do so in the future."
"El Niño is a natural occurrence," I said. "Why would you want to stop it?"
"Because every five to seven years it costs some clients of mine a lot of money."
"This can't be a good idea."
He shrugged. "They pay the bills. Not my money, not my call."
"But it is your powers – and therefore your responsibility."
"Please, spare me the Spiderman speech." He put his hand on my shoulder and gripped it tightly.
I looked around wildly for some help, something, anything to distract him. Nothing. I silently cursed the Galapagos tourism industry.
A jolt of tainted energy filled my body. Shawn poured himself into me, leaving no space unexplored. I froze with dread. Once he was satisfied he had a grasp on every inch of me, I felt him retract, taking my energy with him. He was draining my power and I could almost see the stream when Shawn sent it out to Juan. The energy took Juan by surprise. Unprepared to receive it, he was pushed forward and immediately taken under by a large wave.
"Whoops." Shawn laughed. "Maybe a little too much to start." Shawn reversed the flow and I felt some of it being returned to my body. Juan recovered his footing. The flow was reversed and once again, I felt power leaving me, only a little slower this time. Feeling sea-sick, I slumped over. Shawn lowered me the rest of the way to the sand. "Good. That is good, Princess. All you need to do is lie there."
Shawn alternately encouraged my obedience with soothing words and barked terse orders at Juan, his commands laced with Spanish profanity. My senses were slowly leaving. I tried moving my head from side to side in order to regain some semblance of control. I felt tickling on my hand again. I looked down; there must have been more than a dozen ants on it now. I twitched my arm. Some ants flew off but they were almost immediately replaced by more.
"Shawn – "
"Shh, shh, shh."
The sounds of the world were slowly turning themselves off. I could no longer detect the surf and barely heard the wind picking up. The clouds in the sky moved in and grew much darker. Rain pelted my face, but I couldn’t be concerned. Not even the thunder that shook my body caused a reaction. It was all so far away from me – much too far to matter. Soon there would be nothing left anyway, just a shell of a human to rot and feed the surrounding vegetation. Maybe the ants could finish me off.
The ants. My legs now buzzed with their presence. They were quickly gaining ground as I felt the first tickles on my stomach and my neck.
"Shawn – ants!" Forming the two words had to have been the most difficult thing I have ever done in my life.
"What?" Shawn glanced down at me. His eyes widened in shock. "Holy shit." He took out his pistol and aimed it at the sand next to me, where the insects were emerging from several holes in the beach.
What was he going to do? Shoot all of them? They were starting to bite. Tickles were replaced by small stinging sensations all over my body.
They were also swarming Shawn now. He pulled the trigger, aiming at the sand around his feet. A few ants went flying, but the cleared space on the sand created by the bullet quickly filled in with tiny, scurrying black bodies.
I watched Shawn looming over me, his shirt whipping off his back. What was that look on his face?
Uncertainty? Yes. No. Fear!
I felt the water, several degrees warmer than it should have been, lapping at my feet and enveloping the beach.
Shawn spun, called out to Juan, waving him in frantically. I doubt Juan could hear him.
Wind gusts blew in so hard Shawn was having trouble keeping his footing. He looked down at me as I tried to keep my mouth closed tight against the ants. I could see the wheels turning as he tried to calculate my fate. He looked out at sea. His eyes hopped around frantically. They did not stop to focus on where Juan should have been. Juan was gone. Shawn turned to me again and for a split second, I saw the grimace as he decided to leave me.
He turned to go just as an especially strong gust of wind nearly picked him up off the ground.
"Damn it!" The words formed on his lips though I didn’t hear them. He bent down to throw me over his shoulder – purely a tactical move. My extra weight would anchor him.
Silly Shawn. Can't finish what he started.
His experiment was a wash. One man MIA. Ants in pursuit. Storm gone amuck and I was in the middle of it all. I didn't care.
Triumph
I had a vague awareness of floating. Scenes from the island came to me in flashes. The beach retreating in the distance, then ants dropping off my twitching arm. There was a short fall. My body hit the ground but was picked up again. The next thing I knew, I was floating into camp amidst hostile stares of the natives. Three left, two returned. One of their own missing. Who to blame? Not the boss. Blame the witch.
I floated into bed and the warm blankets surrounded me. I felt someone get in bed behind me. I didn't care. The damage had been done, nothing else could hurt me anymore. Instead of being groped, I was cradled. A protective arm snaked around my waist.
Shawn laid his head on mine and whispered something barely audible, "
I’m sorry, Sarah
."
I felt something unexpected – a tear dropping from his cheek and onto mine.
"Go away, Shawn." My voice cracked with exhaustion. He was more delusional than I was. He laid there for a second more, then obeyed and left the room without protest. Before I drifted off to sleep, one tiny glimmer of feeling sparked in me. Triumph.
Fate of a Gaia
Warm, bright rays crossed my eyelids, enticing them to open. I wasn’t sure how long I was out – very well could have been days. There was no evidence of the rogue storm in the sky. Just another day in paradise. I was out maybe two days? I reached for a candle I kept hidden under the pillow and made two small scratches in the wax. Very prison-esque. All I needed now was for that damn penguin to carry around a ring of keys that were always just out of my reach. I counted the scratches in the candle and sighed heavily. Almost two months now.
"Me, too." Shawn sympathized with my misery, observing from just inside the doorway. His ankle was wrapped in a brace.
"What happened?" I asked, pulling myself to a sitting position.
He shrugged, "Sprained my ankle carrying you back."
"Juan?" I asked. Maybe they found him, after the storm passed.
He looked down at his hands, "No sign of him."
I narrowed my eyes. "You killed him."
"No. The storm took him."
"The storm wasn’t natural; it was man-made.
Shawn
-made." I rubbed at some of the more severe ant bites on my arm.
"We created storm-like interference in the water, but the atmospheric storm took shape by itself. It mimicked the water." He came and sat down on the bed, hopping on one foot and wincing as his ankle jerked. He continued with his thought process. "It was like nature knew we were fucking with it, and it took care of itself. The planet got rid of the problem."
"What problem, you mean Juan?"
He nodded his head enthusiastically. "Yes. Don't you see? Earth is telling us what to do. Juan was one less. He was chosen by nature to make the ultimate sacrifice, thus bettering the planet for everyone else."
I raised my eyebrows. "One less?" That was a dangerous line of thinking. Where would it stop? Just how many are killed before the planet is deemed adequate for the remaining? It was a slippery slope that no one, especially someone as unstable as Shawn, had the right to pursue.
His was smiling now. "And this is only the beginning. Just wait until you see what I have in store for the world."
It was already too late, then. He had taken a leap and there was no return.
"Who is Sarah?" I asked.
The question caught me by surprise just as much as him. After the initial shock of hearing the name, he said, "That is a long story."