Water Steps (13 page)

“Shh,” Tylo warned. “Listen.”

We stopped mid-wobble and listened. Laughter, far out, then
splash, fwap
like a fin on water.

“That's them,” he said.

Looking out at the rocky point, I froze, and not just because the rock I stood on started to tilt like the deck of a sinking ship. No, I recognized that point.

Mem and Pep had stood just there to wave at me the night I couldn't find them right away. The very point they stood on in my dreams just before they dove in and swam away forever.

Seeing it froze me to the spot.

“Let's go find them!” he shouted, running off.

“Tylo!” I grabbed for his collar, but went tipping toward the beach as he scrambled onto the rocks.

I regained my balance, then ran after him, thinking,
Oh, please let him see nothing but bobbing heads. Please.

Climbing a rock, Tylo stood up and stared. “Oh whoa-whoa-whoa. No way.”

He whispered, not the
look what I see
kind of whisper, but a
you can't believe this beautiful church
kind of whisper. “There's so many of them.”

No way. Mem and Pep had spent their whole life protecting me and in one night I'd revealed their big secret. I climbed the rock, hoping I could turn things around—Tylo and all his ideas about silkies. But how?

As I stood on the shoulder-high rock, staring at that cove and the piles of clothes along the point like linen lichen, I sighed with relief. I had a way out of this one.

Tylo started hitting me. “Take a picture. Take a picture.”

“Of clothes?”

“It proves it.” Tylo hit me again. “They're silkies.”

“No, they're not. They're hippies.”

“Hippies?” Tylo stared at me, looking surly.

“Yeah, commune-living, nature-loving, swim-with-no-clothes-on hippies!”

“No way.”

“Yes way.”

I expected him to be grossed out and ready to go home.

But not Tylo. No, he said, “This I've got to see!” Then he ran off down the point before I could stop him. So much for my great cover-up.

“
H
ippies?” Tylo stopped. He stared at the clothes. “Those aren't hippies,” he panted, “they're the people from my house. Look—the same skirts and sweaters!”

I could see my hippie story dissolving faster than salt in tea.

Tylo spun to face me, “They are silkies! They're Irish. They love the water.” He started hopping up and down and pointing, “So are your parents!”

Jeez, he's met them what, twice, and he already knows. Took me seven years. What a genius.

“Let's go back.” I grabbed Tylo and gave him a tug. If I couldn't trick him into going home, maybe I could pull him.

“No way. I'm going out on the point to take a picture.” He yanked the camera off my neck and started running.

I couldn't let him take a picture. My parents would be front page news on every weirdo newspaper in the country. That's what I got for wishing our family's picture could be front page news.

Waves or no waves, all I could see was Tylo's back as he ran down the point, my camera knocking against his side.

“Wait,” I yelled.

Reaching the last flat rock, he slid to a stop, me slamming into him. “Shh!” He fumbled to get his binoculars. He scanned the horizon. I prayed he'd find nothing.

“Where are they?” He scanned again. “They have to be here. Look at those clouds.” He pointed toward Vermont. Dark clouds hung over the lake like steel wool.

A storm. Those clouds woke me up. I stood on rock. Not a rock on a beach, but a stone dropped in the water, surrounded by waves. Tide-crazy, wind-frenzied waves, with a storm lurking. My lungs locked up. My joints filled with lead. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I just wanted to scream.

“They've got to see the boats to safety.”

Safety. I needed safety. Dry land.

“Wait, I see one.” He backtracked toward the shore to get a better look, with me rushing along behind him. I could hear Tylo, but I didn't care what he said. I just wanted off those rocks and back in my bed. My safe bed.

“Another.” He said, shuffling sideways, craning to look. Made me nauseous just to see him teetering so close to the water, but he kept right on talking. “They say silkies swim in pairs. Mates for life. Like wolves.” He turned to face me, saying, “Want to see?” But seeing me, he said, “Are you okay?”

“I . . . I . . .”

“You don't look right. Are you going to hurl?”

Hurl!
No, don't hurl me in the water!
I grabbed Tylo's arm so he couldn't push me.

“Chill,” he laughed. “We're safe with so many silkies here. They'll save you. And I need that picture.” He pulled forward, dragging me. Even with me gripping for dear life, he got the camera to his face, then started searching the waves.

I closed my eyes, ready to cry. I couldn't look. Couldn't imagine what those waves would do if I fell in. But Mem and Pep. I had to protect them.

Ca-ree, ca-ree.
A squeaky melodic call went out over the waves from the west.

“Hear that? They're calling to each other.”

Ca-ree, car-ee.
This time from the east. Such a sound. So clear. It drifted into me, comforted me.
Ca-ree. Car-ee.

“Wish I could call back and lure them closer.”

Felt the desire of it in my chest, the longing to call back.

Click. Tylo took the shot. “Got one!”

The longing grew, stretching down my arms, into my hands. I had to see them. Touch them if only with my eyes. I took the camera, used it like a set of binoculars to search the waves. Nothing more than water, dipping and swooning. Nothing more than waves.

Ca-ree, ca-ree.
A brown head crested the water, a seal, then another. Click. Click. Two more farther out. Click. They patrolled. Swimming. Searching for anyone who needed them.

“We've got their pictures!” Tylo shouted, running ahead. “We'll be famous!”

He jumped in the air, but slipped as he came down, his foot going out from under him, his body pitching forward.

“Tylo!”

He fell so fast, he couldn't catch himself. He hit ear-first on the rocks, sliding toward the water. No. Not the water.

His arms didn't go out as he slid into the waves. He'd been knocked out. Unable to save himself even in shallow water.

I had to go in. Had to save him. But I couldn't move, the fear of it pressing me thin, drilling me into that rock. I felt the water that swallowed him filling my own lungs.

Then, in the call of a seal, I heard Pep say,
“You can't let your fears grow bigger than you, Kyna. They'll swallow you up.”

Just as the waves swallowed Tylo.

I
threw myself in. The water broke like glass over my skin. Only darkness surrounded me as I spun and fought to find Tylo. Weeds and rocks and eye-stinging water, nose-biting, lung-filling water.
Don't panic. It'll drown us both.

I could do this. See what I wanted. Do what I wanted. Fear would not make me leave my friend. I promise, Mom. I promise.

Kicking, I thrashed through the water, my hands out, my eyes searching. Only dark and darker showed up in that water. No light reached a black-hole dark spot just a few feet ahead. I kicked again, pulling with my hands, then dove. Wet cloth. A boot. Tylo. I pulled.
I yanked. I pushed off the bottom with my feet and dragged him up and inland at the same time.

Breaking the surface of the water, I screamed for air. A need that stretched all the way back to that cold night when the sea took my family. I needed that breath to break free of my fears.

Pulling Tylo's face out of the water, I dug my heels in to backpedal to shore, yelling for him, “Wake up! Wake up!”

Dropping him on the beach, he fell like so much wet laundry. Taking CPR and first aid lessons like some kids learned to swim, I dropped to my knees and set to work.
Check for response.
“Tylo! Tylo !”
Open the airway. Give rescue breaths. Pump and blow. Pump and blow.

He coughed. Forcing out the water. I turned him on his side to rescue position as he gasped for air.

Catching my own breath, I realized I'd started to cry. I sat on the beach. Wet to the bone. Staring at the water.

Eyes stared back at me.

Black, blinking eyes surrounded by gray hair, the smiling teeth so white, the chin just beneath the water. I knew those eyes. That gray, gray hair, like a mare in the meadow. Mem? Bobbing behind her, a larger face, eyes that made me feel safe. Could it be
Pep? Two more faces, then six. All of them watching. All of them waiting.

Tylo coughed, then sat himself up as I stared like I'd been frozen in place. “Wha . . . What happened?” He shook his head, then turned to face the same way I did and came nearly face to face with the whole pod. The whole clan of Terin. Or his descendants anyway.

Mem laughed, then tilted her head back to call out, “
Ca-ree!
” Her family answered, turning once again to sea. As they swam out, I saw the bottom of their feet come out of the water, once, twice, then fins. Tails splashing out of the water.

Who needed pelts? They just dissolved into their silkie selves right there in the water.

I ran. Ran right over those rocks.

Tired, Tylo called out, “I'll wait here!”

Ran through the thoughts. Realized things running from rock to rock. Mem and Pep had rescued me. Not from a cave on the shore, but the ocean. Silkies come to rescue the fools who've stayed out too long in a storm. They'd come to dry land for me. Raised me on two feet, leaving their pelts and their seal lives behind. Only knowing the freedom of the water when they could get away and swim in pools and waters polluted with chemicals. They'd done this
for me. For me. Given up half their lives to make me feel safe.

Reaching the end of the point, I jumped down onto the rocks and put my hand out in the water. From the grayness of her pelt, I knew Mem swam to me first. I stroked her back, as smooth and gray as her long hair. I laughed. Pep came too, doing tricks, arching up in the water to swim backward, clap his fins, and bark. His brown hair looked almost red in the moonlight.

Silkies. My parents were silkies.

I stood up and did what any good daughter would do. I stepped in.

N
ot that I'd wish a concussion on any friend, especially not one as good as Tylo, but with his blurry vision and swimmy memory, I could convince him that we'd only seen an old sail rumpled on the rocks and my Aunt Rosien's pet seals at play. With my camera rock-smashed and waterlogged, he had no picture to prove me wrong.

As we trudged through the underbrush with my new camera in tow and a plan to photograph something on dry land like an owl, he said, “Hey, at least I really saw seals.”

“Not everybody sees that on their summer vacation,” I said, leading the way up into my tree
house, a good roost for owl watching at dusk when they first come out.

“Yeah. Think you can win at the fair with this picture?” Tylo asked, pouring a cup of cocoa from his thermos.

“If we catch one in flight before winter.” We'd been up there three nights in a row with no luck.

“And we're out of marshmallows.”

“Greg?”

“You guessed it.”

Guessed it. I would have never guessed that the whole reason Mem and Pep had dragged me all the way up to Lake Champlain was to reveal their big secret. Get me to finally face my fear of water so they could tell me the truth. The whole truth. And sometimes when I thought about Mem and Pep as shape-shifters who could go from being as human as me to seals as barky and spry as the ones I saw on the field trip to the zoo, the idea of it got so big I felt like floating. Some people find out their grandparents used to be hippies and got arrested for protesting, or that their mother once entered a beauty contest and wore a bikini in front of the whole town. Real mindbenders that make you see your family in a whole new way. But finding out your parents are mythical
creatures, well, that one sets your mind on spin.

Had me so distracted, Tylo had to tap me with his cocoa cup and point when an owl set down in the high branches of a tree about a hundred feet away.

Put that camera his parents bought me for saving their son right up to my eye, complete with a zoom lens Pep paid for because I'd taken my biggest water step ever. As I watched that owl, its lantern eyes scanning for mice, I started remembering Mem's tale of the owl bride, a poor girl trapped in an owl's body by an evil witch, and it set me to wondering just how many of Mem and Pep's fairy stories had been real. Were fairies really pony-riding, baby-stealing little fiends?

The idea of it nearly turned me away from that owl, but when it screeched, Tylo took in a howl of a breath and I snapped shot after shot—those wings spreading out into the air like a glider launching from a cliff.
Snap. Snap.
I caught it tilting toward us, mid-dive. Could see the photo in my mind's eye . . . wings out, one tipped up, one down, wide-open eyes lantern yellow, talons down, ready to snatch up the mouse from the ground and fly away with it.

“You got it! You got it!” Tylo shouted, hitting me in the arm and tossing cocoa all over us both.

I sure did. I got a photo that could earn me a blue ribbon. And I finally understood all of Mem and Pep's stories and
you'll see when you're ready
secrets. And boy, did I feel ready. Giving Tylo a “catch you later,” I raced down the ladder.