The Water Queens (Keeper of the Water) (22 page)

I say nothing; my silence speaks volumes.

“She’ll never rest until you’re dead…
and
your little girl,” Mary says, cruelty back in her voice.

Whether pretending to be part of Cassie’s group or not, my recruit has obviously learned to sound evil like the queens. I don’t have time to be disappointed in her. My heart goes cold yet my blood is boiling. I try to keep walking away but Mary follows and continues to talk.

“I spoke with Isabella a few hours ago, after she saw what your daughter was capable of,” she says. “She ordered me to kill you
both
once I found you.”

This time it’s Janey’s hand that tightens its grip in mine; if I were a regular person, she probably would’ve snapped the bones in my hand. Feeling Janey worry makes it hard for me to keep my cool.

“I’d like to see you
try
to hurt either of us,” I growl.

Mary sighs. “I told you, I’m not hear for that. But Isabella
will
send others that won’t hesitate to hurt you… or worse. Even if you somehow manage to destroy every known member of the Queen Clan, Isabella is training other girls who’ll one day fight for her cause. Once she becomes queen, she’ll make herself an Army of Amazons and they won’t be as easy for you to spot as me or Catherine.”

“Hopefully we won’t have to worry about that much longer,” I say. “I just had another vision and her fake assassination attempt seemed to go terribly wrong. She might not survive her wounds.”

Mary looks concerned but shakes her head.

“We put our best shooter on the job; not as good as my mentor, mind you. But the water will cure her and she’ll come out of this as a hero… and eventually as the queen who survived for her country.”

It’s my turn to shake my head.

“I saw Cassie near death;
her
water wasn’t as bright as our spring glowed. She might not make it.”

I keep pulling Janey down the side of the mountain but Mary hurries to stay behind us. I don’t exactly want her near my house but if she found us up by the water, it’s safe to assume she knows where we live.

“Won’t the water be broken if she dies?” Janey asks.

“We’re not completely certain but that’s what the oral history of the Amazons claims,” I tell her. “But I’ve seen some things recently that I’ve never heard foretold by my former Keeper.”

“What could’ve happened to Isabella? What could’ve went wrong with the water?” Mary asks.

As Amazons, it’s been pounded into our brains that the Keeper’s safety is our top priority. Still, I don’t trust the way Mary suddenly sounds so concerned.

“Apparently Cassie doesn’t control the water as much as she thinks,” I say with great satisfaction. “Maybe it has to do with her stealing the Keeper role instead of properly earning it. Either way, the water didn’t seem nearly as bright when Catherine gave it to her to heal.”

“But why?” Mary asks.

I don’t know the answers for certain but my eyes instinctively turn toward the tiny girl whose hand is now in mine.

“I didn’t do anything,” Janey says.

“I know that, baby,” I tell her. “But I have a feeling that Cassie’s water became weaker when you touched the water in our spring.”

“How can that be?”

I shrug. “I don’t think anybody can know for sure but it’s pretty obvious you are
very
special.”

“I
am
?” she asks in awe.

I give her hand an extra squeeze. “Of course, maybe more than I ever imagined. You were born of two parents who drank a
lot
of special water, probably the first such child since men were never allowed the water of life before. If you can manipulate former water sources like you did tonight, your powers go well beyond any Amazon I’ve ever known.”

“Whoa,” Janey says. “That’s
so
cool.”

“So you plan on doing nothing to make sure Isabella lives?” Mary asks behind us.

I shake my head. “Nature will takes its course if she’s meant to die.”

“No Keeper is meant to die; no Keeper is meant to be murdered. You know what will happen to every living thing on this planet if that happens,” Mary says desperately.

“Do we know? Really?” I ask, as much to myself as her. “I’m not sure what to believe anymore.”

“I
do
know what I believe, I
do
know what you taught me for so many years and I’m not ready to give up on it because I saw a second water source glowing brightly,” Mary argues. “We must save Isabella and your daughter is obviously the key to that happening.”

“It’s okay, Mommy,” Janey says. “If I’m as important as you, I want to help save the Amazons. I don’t want it to be my fault if everything in the world dies.”

I stop and pick Janey up, hold her just inches from my face. It might be dark out but I want her to look into my eyes to hear what I have to say next.

“I’m not putting you in danger, not to save Cassie or anyone else in this world,” I say. “Trust me, the world will be fine, even if that horrible woman dies.”

It’s the first lie I’ve told her all night but she nods in acceptance. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to convince Mary. We reach our porch farther down the mountain and my recruit still follows. I won’t be able to keep her appearance a secret from John forever but I’m still glad when he’s not standing there waiting for us.

“What if we use your little girl as leverage against Isabella,” Mary suggests. “We can force her to give up being Keeper in exchange for saving her life, for letting your daughter touch the other water source and turn it powerful again.”

“Cassie would rather die than give up her power; we both know that,” I say. “Besides, the other queens would strike us down the moment we refused to help.”

“But we can’t do
nothing,
Mommy,” Janey pleads.

Apparently, her thirst for adventure is starting much sooner than I feared. I shake my head.

“The only place
you’re
going, missy, is inside to bed,” I tell her when we reach the front door. “You should’ve been asleep hours ago.”

Janey looks around me toward Mary though I try to block her view. She sighs deeply before putting on her clean necklace and stomping into the house. I close the door so she can’t hear more of the conversation with my recruit.

“Even if I find your other recruits – and even if I convince them I’m not a traitor before they kill me – we can’t stop Isabella without you. And if they die trying, I’ll be the only one left; I can’t be a spy forever,” Mary pleads. “One of the Amazons already died trying to save the king’s brother but all it did was delay the inevitable for a few days. She ended up dying for nothing.”

My heart feels a familiar twinge of dread, beating so fast that I have to take a deep breath before I can ask the one question whose answer I’m most afraid of.

“Who was killed?” I ask, steeling myself for the response.

Mary frowns. “Babe. The entire scene was very chaotic, the queens intercepted the armored car in the middle of a busy intersection. I always volunteered for the role of lookout to avoid causing any violence myself; I know it doesn’t alleviate my guilt but at least I never killed anyone. I was completely shocked when I spotted Harriet, Amelia and Babe approaching; if I had more than a second to think, I might’ve joined them and tried to eliminate Catherine and the other queens. But they were on us so quick that there was no time for plans. Instead I looked the other way and let them attack without warning ‘my’ people.

“The queens already eliminated several guards at that point and almost got to the king’s brother when Babe reached him first. She died protecting him, which gave Harriet and Amelia enough time to attack the others. If the queens had more time, they probably would’ve overwhelmed Harriet and Amelia but we all had to escape before too big a crowd could form.”

It saddens me to learn about Babe – I especially feel bad for Amelia, who lost her only recruit – but selfishly I’m glad that neither of my recruits had been killed, at least not yet.

“Maybe you could bring your information to Harriet and Amelia,” I say. “Join forces with your fellow recruits.”

“If it’s been this hard convincing you – my
mentor
– that I’m not a traitor, it will be impossible to get them to believe me, especially Harriet,” Mary says. “Besides, stopping Isabella is a moot point now if she dies. Only you and your daughter can help save her, can stop the
Keeper
from being killed and destroying the water of life.”

“And if she lives and creates her Army, the world is screwed anyway,” I argue. “I’m
not
leaving here to help her; I’m especially not letting my daughter near her. Cassie’s already taken away everyone else I love. I’m not making that same mistake again.”

Mary sighs. She’s clearly growing frustrated. But the moonlight hits her face the right away and I see something in her eye that I haven’t noticed before. I don’t know how I can tell – call it a mentor’s intuition – but I
know
she’s hiding something from me, not giving me the entire story. It suddenly seems so obvious.

“What part of the world did Cassie promise you?” I ask.

The frustrated desperation disappears from her face, momentarily replaced with surprise. She opens her mouth, undoubtedly to make a denial, but decides the better of it. She smiles coyly, which makes me trust her even less.

“Did you hear her talking about that in your vision?”

I shake my head. “Not specifically. I know she promised that her queens would rule alongside her once she gained complete power so it only makes sense that she’d promise you something, too. I want to know what.”

“The American South would be my territory,” she admits. “It’s where I was born, the land where I returned and risked my life to help set free my people. Apparently Isabella doesn’t place much importance in that part of the world but I think that’s a mistake.”

The more she talks, the less apt I am to believe that she actually wants Cassie to fail.

“But that’ll never happen since you’ll be long gone from the Queen Clan by then, right?” I ask.

“Of course,” Mary answers a bit too quickly. “But it’s interesting to consider the irony of me one day ruling over the lands that once made me a slave.”

I frown; I don’t know what’s left to be said.

“Thank you for bringing me the warning about Cassie, I’ll be sure to do a better job keeping my family hidden. Anything you could do in the future to keep Catherine the Great off my trail would be greatly appreciated,” I say. “But now I have to rest; I’ve got plenty of traveling in my near future.”

“That’s it?” she asks incredulously. “That’s all you have to say?”

I sigh, wondering how many times I have to say it before she believes me.

“I’m sorry, Mary, but I have to keep my little girl safe, even if it means the Keeper dies along with the water and how we once knew the Amazon way of life.”

“I can’t believe I’m hearing this; Jane Austen would
never
believe these words would come from you,” she says, a low blow that does it’s job by making my insides swirl with anger.

“I think you’d better go,
Recruit
,” I say, the first time I’ve ever used that word as anything but a term of endearment.

For the second time today, I wish my bow wasn’t stored in the shed. I brace for a physical confrontation but Mary knows I’m stronger than her, even if I’ve been out of practice for a while…

“By not helping save Isabella, you’re becoming just as bad as her,” Mary says as she steps off the porch and heads for the darkness of night. “In fact, you’re worse because you
will
succeed in destroying the world.”

I can’t help trying to get in the last word.

“Right now I need to worry about
my
world,” I call out.

But Mary is gone and I don’t know if she heard me. I’m upset enough to want to slam the door but I can’t risk Janey hearing, though I’m sure there’s no chance she’s gone back to sleep yet.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE              

Even if Cassie dies, I can’t risk staying on Andros longer than we must. It was a big mistake settling here in the first place, one I plan to correct as soon as possible. One day I’ll be able to look back on this place with fondness, think of it as the place my daughter was born, but there’s no time for sentimentality now.

When I walk into the house, I’m glad Janey isn’t waiting to question me. She’s very astute and must know how upset I am because she’s already in bed. Her light is on and I stick my head in her room, where she’s back to reading Jane Austen. No need to tell her now that we’re leaving here tomorrow.

“It’s way passed your bedtime,” I tell her. “One more page and then lights out.”

Janey nods and closes the book right away. I’m not even out of her room before she turns her light off. It’s not like her to be so quiet, to do exactly what I say without trying to make a deal. I can tell she’s upset.

“Don’t worry about the Amazons or the water,” I tell her. “Everything will take care of itself; I chose great recruits to handle this.”

I expect her to disagree, to insist that we help, but she doesn’t.

“Daddy is going to be sad to leave his garden, isn’t he?” she asks, her voice cracking. “He’s worked so hard on it and now we have to leave here because I touched that water.”

“This isn’t your fault, Janey, it’s mine,” I say. “I was foolish to think we could stay here undetected. I hope you can forgive him.”

In the dark, I see the outline of her head nodding.

“Do you want to talk about this more?” I ask.

This time she shakes her head. I wish there was something I could say to make her all better; it makes me long for the times when she was just a baby and rocking her in my arms was all she needed to calm her. Those days had been so much easier and I know things are only going to get harder, especially for her.

“I’ll be in my room if you need anything,” I say. “
Anything
. I love you, sweetheart.”

“You too, Mommy.”

But there’s no way I can rest so I don’t waste my time trying. Instead, I begin to scurry around our house and find our most important stuff that I’ll have to take. I’ve moved plenty of times during my life but it doesn’t take long to realize this will be the hardest one. Mountain life might’ve been uneventful – and downright boring at times – but this is where John and I married, this is where I gave birth to Janey and raised her. We don’t have a lot of stuff – and even fewer things that won’t get left behind – but the four walls around me will be the toughest part about leaving. I’ve had plenty of houses in my life but this place felt like my first real home.

To leave faster and travel lighter, we can’t be bogged down by sentimentality – we must only bring the essentials. But I no sooner come across our first memento – a photo album – that I become lost looking at picture after picture of Janey as a baby. Needless to say she was very beautiful with her big dark eyes, plump cheeks, constant smile and the single lock of long hair that always seemed to hang in front of her face since the day she was born. I hadn’t thought about that lock of hair for so long…

Tears begin to well in my eyes until the front door suddenly swings open. Any emotions I may have felt are suddenly replaced by survival instinct; I leap toward the door, ready to attack if Mary – or
worse
– has come back for a fight. John nearly jumps out of his skin as I soar toward him. He stumbles back but remains on his feet. Apparently he didn’t get suckered into drinking as much tonight.

“Jumpy much?” he asks with a chuckle. “I know I should’ve been home sooner but… Is everything okay?”

I don’t know whether he can tell there’s a problem because of the look on my face or because I’ve started tearing apart the house, setting aside our most valuable belongings. I don’t know where to begin telling him. He sees that I’m upset and pulls me toward him.

“Is it because of what happened on the beach today?” he asks.

I pull away from him, surprised. I didn’t even tell
Janey
that I thought I spotted Mary Bowser high atop the cliff. There’s no way he could’ve possibly known about that, at least not from me. I take another few steps back from him, wondering with horror if he could’ve found out from another source about someone from the Queen Clan being here…

“How do you know that?” I ask defensively. “
Who
told you?”

“Calm down, baby, it’s not a big deal,” he says.

“Not a big deal? Not a
big deal
?” I snap, finding it hard to keep my composure.

“Okay, okay, relax,” he says, holding his hands up in confusion. “Niko told me about it.”

Now
I’m
the one confused. John doesn’t appear to be joking again but I don’t know how he can be serious.

“Niko? How the hell does
he
know anything about it?”

“His wife told him,” John says.

“His
wife
?”

“Yeah, she was at the beach today and saw everything that happened,” he explains. “When Christos found out his son was one of the boys teasing Janey, he made the boy come all the way to Niko’s house to apologize to me personally. I was ready to kill the little punk until he showed up but then I actually felt bad for him; when he talked about Janey, he looked absolutely terrified. What exactly happened? The kid spoke too fast for me to understand much.”

I shake my head and step closer to him, ashamed for doubting his loyalty yet again.

“That doesn’t matter right now,” I say. “I have something else I need to tell you, something you aren’t going to like.”

“Did he hurt her worse than he admitted?” John growls, his eyes suddenly burning with rage.

I shake my head and proceed to tell him everything, from my visions about Cassie to the unexpected arrival of Mary to my observations about Janey’s special abilities. He doesn’t interrupt me once but occasionally nods. By the time I’m done, he looks at a loss for words.

“Well of
course
Janey is special if she takes after her mother,” he says, obviously trying to calm me. It doesn’t work.

“Stop trying to make me feel better,” I say. “From what I’ve seen of Janey today, she’s way beyond
just
special. The way she climbed the cliff and fought of those boys – ”

“Wait a second,
fought
off the boys? Niko’s wife said the kids ran off when you yelled at them. She didn’t say anything about – ”

“Are you listening to me? It would take a lot more than three teenagers to be a threat to her. Three
queens
might do the trick, though,” I say. “I think when she touched the water and made it glow as bright as I’ve ever seen, it took away from the power of Cassie’s water.”

“You’ve been hiding so many things from me?” he asks, hurt.

“Everything happened so quickly; I haven’t had the chance to tell you. And until tonight, I wasn’t totally convinced that my visions were anything more than vivid dreams,” I say. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more forthcoming but there’s no time to argue about that now. We have to pack the things we can’t leave behind and get ready to leave on the first ferry off Andros in the morning. Even if Cassie dies, we have to make sure Mary doesn’t tell the other queens about where to find us… where to find Janey.”

“Did Mary tell you where we could find Isabella?” he asks.

Hearing him say her real name is worse than the sound of nails scraping against a chalkboard.

“Why would you care where she’s at?”

“If Janey is as special as you claim, don’t we need to bring her to Isabella to heal her?”

“Now you want to help
Isabella
?”

“Don’t start with this jealousy thing again,” he snaps at me, catching me off-guard. “I know how much you hate her – and trust me, I do, too – but what about your duty to help the Keeper stay alive? Or to ensure the Amazon ways? Or for that matter, to protect the water and the entire
world
?”

I snort. “Sounds like the same argument Mary made.”

“Because it’s
true
,” John says.

I shake my head; I can’t believe he’d suggest helping her, at least voicing that opinion aloud to me.

“This isn’t open for discussion. I’m not letting Janey within a hundred miles of
them
. I don’t care what happens to
anything
. We never should’ve settled this close to Spain in the first place,” I say. “It made me think of what you said about Australia or maybe even your plans in the past of buying a yacht and sailing across – ”

John holds up a hand and shakes his head.

“I know your emotions are running high right now; the thought of Janey in trouble makes me want to go crazy, too,” he says. “But you need to sleep on the decision to run and hide, think about what it means for the world our daughter will grow up in. The first ferry doesn’t leave for hours so you should rest before we make any final decisions.”

John heads toward the bedroom. I want to yell at him to make him understand the seriousness of the situation but in my mind I know he’s not as foolish as my heart is telling me. I let him go to bed without further argument. After packing a few more photo albums and realizing there’s not much else I’ll be taking, I peek in on Janey, who’s nestled under her covers.

I walk outside one final time; this is the last nighttime view of the valley I’ll ever have. But I’m less interested in views and more interested in watching and listening for any unexplained sign of movement, any noises that might indicate someone approaching. Nearly an hour of silence passes before I’m convinced – at least for the moment – that our mountain is safe. Still, I dig through our small shed and take out my bow – holding it for the first time in several years – before heading back inside.

I yawn. Mental and emotional fatigue finally catches up to me so I check on Janey one more time before crawling into bed. John snores loudly next to me; it bothers me that he can sleep so soundly though I wonder if I’m just jealous. It’s difficult for me to slow my pounding heart with Mary so close out there. I want to trust my first recruit but can’t stop wondering if she really means us harm, if she’s telling the Queen Clan where we are at this very moment.

With the first ferry not arriving for hours, I know there’s no place to go but sleep still refuses to come. Every tiny noise in the night sounds like doom; seconds on the clock tick slowly – too slowly – and seems to give the queens more time to reach our valley. Every ten minutes, I sneak out of bed and creep into Janey’s room, finding her snug under the covers each time. Finally, I can take the suspense no longer; I have to find out if Cassie has been told of our whereabouts – or if she’s even still alive.

I lay down in my bed and close my eyes. I try to calm my mind and focus on connecting with Cassie but nothing happens. Then it dawns on me that relaxing is the worst thing I can possibly do to open the emotional connection. Instead, I allow every fear and worry and concern to flood my mind and when I reach out to Cassie again, I feel something this time, a pulling sensation. The blackness of the back of my eyelids fades away and I expect to see what Cassie does. But instead, there’s only a different kind of darkness in front of my eyes and my attempts to escape it quickly fail…