Kendra. Jane Keehn
Kendra’s Prologue
Rain softly fell against the cold window of the house.
A naked flame burned inside as the young woman set aside the candle’s light and scratched a note onto a blue striped page of paper.
I need you to come back to me. I need to know what to do next. She’s getting closer – the one you told me about - the grand-daughter. I’ve seen her near the catacomb caves in her kayak, with her dog. You told me the story of how her grandmother was saved by one of our tribe. I don’t remember her – I was too young. I wish you were here to tell me more. There’s so much I don’t remember. I’m still here, waiting for you. If you are out there on the far side of the black water, somehow, find your way back. I love you both. Please come back. Kendra.
She folded the paper into a square then rolled it tightly enough that it fit into the neck of the brown bottle and closed it with a cork. She lit a match and held it to the wick of a white candle.
As the flame grew longer she tilted the candle so a stream of molten wax ran over the lip of the bottle, seeping into the gap between it and the cork. A whoosh of oxygen burnt up and expelled as the gap sealed, blowing a few strands of her ash white hair away from her face...the flame lighting up her opal eyes.
She thought about what she needed to do – when the seal was dry, she would take it from the thick wooden table, smelling of the many fish that had been gutted on it - out of the shack and stumble it down to the water’s edge.
She wouldn’t hold it in her hands, they would be busy clutching the metal poles she used to steady herself. Crutches to help her walk and hold up her body on her weak legs.
The bottle would swing in a plastic bag from her wrist, banging against the pole in time with her odd, shuffled steps.
She would shuffle down a trail behind the limestone caves and out onto the sand. For months she had studied the tides, their rise and fall with the pull of the moon.
Tonight the waves would be pulled further out than any other. The rip so strong that fish would avoid it, staying out past the lure of fishermen’s nets. Her bottled message would be pulled away from Mandalay. It would hit itself on the broken limestone lips at the edge of the reef. But the glass wouldn’t break.
The thick brown glass would get sucked under the surface and suctioned out past the skeleton wreck of the ship that named this town, far beyond Mandalay’s tides and rips. It would not be drowned and melted in the black lava of the off-shore oil rig’s spillage. It might come to rest on a shore of an island; an island with an underwater cave that protected its inhabitants from the world. It would be found at last by the two that it was intended for.
Swimming beneath the brown glass, one would catch it on her land-dwelling half then propel herself with her ocean-dwelling half into their protected shelter. They would crack open the bottle together and it would give them hope their daughter was still alive.
One woman dwelt half on land and half in water - from the Giluri tribe.
The other was from land, learning to adapt to a life half-submerged, dependent on the one she loved.
Kendra corrected her thoughts - No, Loves.
She wanted to believe the two of them were still out there – not ruined by the black water.
Not drowned and lost, just lost and waiting to navigate their way back to Mandalay to be reunited with her. When they found the bottled message, they would know their daughter was still home, living on land, by herself for five long years.
They would swim oceans and inlets and rivers and streams and at last walk together over the sand to find her again. To ensure the bottle had a chance of sailing on Kendra’s imagined journey, she rested her crutches against a low limestone rock pool. The brown glass floated in the shallow pool while she unzipped her overcoat, draping it over the metal poles. Soon her dark trousers fell to her ankles to be left on the beach. Without the balance of the crutches, her feet sank unevenly into the sand. Her arms hovered in the cool morning air to keep her from falling.
As Kendra’s ankles disappeared into the shallows a shot of pain seared up her legs as the sea soaked into her changing skin. Their human lightness, scratched with red mottled scars, sank to a bluish grey hue.
As she walked deeper into an emerging wave Kendra’s lower half was black under the sinking moon and when her body sank into the oncoming waves something dark and triangular slapped against the sand where her feet once were.
She propelled herself out into the deep in her changed form and joined the currents she knew so well.
Kendra raised her arm to the moon’s light and flung the bottle far into the surf. As her body turned with the force of the throw, she kept herself afloat with a steady rhythm of her lower, animal form.
Each new moon she would send out her bottles, not knowing if her Mothers were still alive or if she would ever see them again. The sadness and anger she had kept to herself over the five years she had been without her Mothers, churned inside her and Kendra's mouth opened to let out an animal roar of longing.
They might recognize her tribal call one day.
Emily’s Prologue
Emily pummelled the paddle into the shallow water as she positioned her kayak against the waves.
Beyond her reach, a grey greenish shimmer disappeared under a wave. Even if she dug her paddle into the sea with all her might she could not keep up with it or see it clearly. A fish? A seal? A dugong?
Emily stopped her paddle for a second – A Shark?
The coastline was only a few metres away from her craft.
She looked for channels between the limestone where she hadn’t yet explored. The catacomb caves were one of Mandalay’s natural formations and Emily had been into several of their hidden entrances. No one had mapped its entirety because of the dangerous quick high tides and unpredictable rips as the ocean pulled out.
She looked beyond the breakers and once again what appeared to be a dull greyish fin flipped close to the water’s surface before disappearing under its dark cover. Desperate to see what the creature could be, Emily grabbed the paddle and began scooping at the water with percussive strokes. Her lean arms and muscular shoulders rolled under her compact life jacket as she attempted to get the nose of the kayak closer to the unknown object.
The blue plastic of the kayak tipped quickly through the water edging easily over the small waves making their way towards shore.
Drips of ocean fell onto her arms and face as the paddles circled the water. Emily kept watching with her peripheral vision for the cream coloured rocks lurking beneath the surface. Twice her right paddle banged against a sharp limestone crater edge and Emily managed to jut the craft along without scratching its underbelly or getting stuck.
Her breath caught at the back of her throat as the kayak thrust towards where the grey fin had splashed. A plastic grocery bag swayed in the current then sunk under the ocean’s weight. Sweat caught behind the neck of her T-shirt and the life jacket collar.
She twisted her head around and arched herself and her craft forward with one heavy deep scoop of the paddle but the dull object submerged and disappeared once again behind the crashing line of waves. Emily released a breath and lifted the paddles end out of the water, coasting along in her own current.
- Damn.
She ran a hand behind her neck allowing a cool breath of breeze to ease its way down the hollow of her back as it momentarily parted a little way from the stickiness of the jacket heat.
The mystery sea-dweller disappeared. If it was a turtle it was way off course, since they weren’t found this far down the Western Coast. Razor fish had been found washed up dead on some beaches, but they were famous for being the brightest of shimmering silver and were four metres long and never found swimming near the surface.
Emily