Water: The Mermaid Legacy Book One. Natasha Hardy

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ standing outside the front door, my feet wet with dew, and deep beneath the anguish and fear I knew there was something wrong. That there was something else that I just couldn’t put my finger on, something frighteningly alluring just at the very edge of my conscious thought that always slipped away from me when my eyes sprang open in fright.

      I pushed at the despair that had clouded my thoughts, prodding it sullenly back into the prison I’d created for it, and refocusing on the potential for a normal teenage friendship that still lurked in the days ahead. The friendship I’d hoped to nurture with Luke hadn’t been helped by the almost claustrophobic tightening of parental supervision that my presence had caused. Luke was usually allowed to explore the farm and some of the surrounding bush freely, but my Dad had pushed Allan to keep us close to the house.

      The conversation had been so odd. We’d been sitting around the fire after dinner, the adults reminiscing about past holidays they’d had on the farm…

      “Do you remember that one trip we did up Injisuthi when we found those pools?” Dad had asked Allan.

      “Yeah, we spent hours shooting down that rock slide into that big moss-covered one,” Allan had joined in.

      “The jade pools,” Maryka had murmured, her eyes glazing over.

      “I’ve never come across anything like them again,” Allan had commented, “they were so deep, almost black in the centre.”

      Maryka had shivered slightly in the warm evening air.

      “I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been up there looking for them again,” Allan had continued, his face wistful and slightly puzzled at the same time, as he relived some long-ago memory.

      “How old were we?” Dad had asked.

      “Sixteen,” Allan had said with certainty.

      “It was the year you dated…” Maryka’d paused, her expression anxious, as if she’d started a sentence she didn’t want to finish. “Talita,” she concluded awkwardly.

      Allan had whispered something under his breath to her and she’d looked away from the group into the night, her face taut.

      “Oh yes, I remember now,” Dad had muttered as he’d become suddenly preoccupied by the bones and scraps of bedraggled salad leaves on his plate.

      “I’m not surprised you couldn’t remember how to get back,” said Maryka, her voice falsely cheerful as she changed the subject, directing her comment at Allan. “You boys spent more time sampling the local’s homemade beer than you did mapping out the routes.”

      Dad and Allan had laughed, the tension fading like the afterglow of a dying fire.

      Although the adults had done their very best to brush over the tension that’d encapsulated them in those few moments, the one kilometre “adventure zone” as they’d called it – as if giving it an adventurous name made the restriction less harsh – had belied their casual dismissal of their adventure.

      I sighed, stretching and struggling to shake the frustration of my current circumstances, as I swung my legs out of bed and pulled the curtains aside, squinting as excitable South African sunshine glinted off the dew-bejewelled rolling lawns of the Van Heerdens’ garden.

      The garden extended luxuriously from the house, edged by fields of waving crops on the left, and lusciously green grazing fields on centre and right. The whole tranquil country view was eclipsed however by the dramatic mountains that encroached on the farm.

      The Injisuthi mountain range ran in a deeply contrasted gash of soaring rock capped emerald-green peaks and darkly treed valleys.

      I stared at the mountains, willing the unexplained adults’ reactions to make sense. They’d seemed – I struggled to understand it – afraid…

      I continued to search the mountains, willing them to provide some clue, because Dad’s reaction in particular had been aggressively protective when he was usually so relaxed and carefree. I’d been surprised by the conversation I’d overheard him having with Allan just before he left.

      “Allan, I’m trusting you with my reason for living,” he’d told his friend in a quiet but intense tone. “ Please, my friend, look after her.”

      Allan had promised him he’d keep me close to the house and out of harm’s way. He’d reassured Dad that Luke was a responsible kid and would make sure I was safe.

      Leaning against the dividing wall between the lounge and the kitchen where I’d been eavesdropping, I only just managed to slip out of the wide-flung sliding doors and settle into a camp chair by the dying fire before Dad came outside to say goodbye.

      I’d been given a severe lecture before he left. The normal “listen and be helpful” script had been hurriedly brushed aside as Dad warned me to stay on the farm.

      “Please, Alex –” his face had been creased in worry, his blue eyes intense “– be very careful.”

      “Sure, Dad,” I’d replied, pasting a smile on my face and hiding my confusion. The farm posed very little threat to me, surely he should be more worried about what could happen to me in Johannesburg, my home for most of the year. The worst that could happen here was I might fall off a horse, should I choose to ride one, or be bitten by an irritable goose.

      I’d brushed his worry aside, assigning it to the parental guilt I’d seen both my parents war with since they’d split.

      “Nothing is going to happen to me,” I told him, hugging him a little awkwardly.

      He’d kissed the top of my head and held my face in his hands for a few moments, worry still pulling his shaggy eyebrows together.

      “I love you,” he’d told me seriously.

      “Love you too, Dad.”

      He’d pulled me into another brief hug before getting into his truck and driving away in a plume of moonlit dust and exhaust fumes.

      I refocused on the mountains, confusion at Dad’s odd behaviour still tugging at me and wondered if Luke knew anything about the story I felt sure was lurking in the folds of Injisuthi.

      He’d been busy with Matt and helping Allan out on the farm for most of the week, but I was sure I’d be able to corner him after breakfast.

      Matt was leaving for Hockey camp this morning, and Allan and Maryka had planned to take him there at about ten o clock, leaving Luke and me alone for the day. A quick glance at my clock had me rushing to the bathroom in an attempt to get ready before Matt and his parents left.

      Feigning nonchalance that belied the last twenty minutes of frantic grooming, I was sitting at the large oak dining-room table eating breakfast in the sun-drenched kitchen, listening to Matt and Maryka chatting, when Luke came in.

      He flopped into the chair next to me, pouring some cereal into a bowl and joining in the conversation.

      I loved the way Luke’s family got on. So different to the strained formality I’d become used to before my parents split. This family’s interaction was as natural as breathing, their affection and easy conversation a balm to my warped perception of “normal” family life.

      I СКАЧАТЬ