Water: The Mermaid Legacy Book One. Natasha Hardy

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СКАЧАТЬ the gossamer-thin lines bobbing gently on the glassy surface.

      I stole a glance at Josh before broaching the subject that had been nagging incessantly for an explanation.

      “So, um, Luke and I heard our parents speaking about a camping trip they went on, looking for the jade pools, and Luke said you might know more about it, and what the local tribe has to do with it?” I blurted out in a rush.

      His eyebrows shot up as he turned to Luke, accusation burning in his eyes.

      Luke shrugged, looking a little guilty. “I know we’re not supposed to talk about it, Josh, but, well… I’ve been wondering about it too. And I thought…” He trailed off, looking sheepish at Josh’s furious expression.

      “Why aren’t you allowed to talk about it?” I asked.

      Josh shook his head, his mouth tightening into a flat angry line.

      “Aw come on, Josh,” Luke complained “you can trust her. They’re just stories anyway.”

      “Stories?!” Josh snorted an angry laugh. “The problem is that those stories have caused a lot of trouble for my people, Luke!”

      “She ran away, Josh,” Luke interrupted him, rolling his eyes.

      “Wait… who ran away?” I interrupted them.

      “Talita.”

      I stared at Luke in confusion.

      “Your Dad’s long ago girlfriend.”

      “Oh, why?”

      Luke turned to Josh and waited.

      He sighed, an unfamiliar frown creasing his forehead. “You have to promise me that you will keep everything I’m telling you a secret.”

      “Why?” I asked, bewildered.

      “Because the explanation that the town has accepted for Talita’s disappearance has resulted in my grandfather and most of the tribe being ostracised and I don’t want to be the one to start up vicious rumours again,” he replied angrily.

      “OK, Josh, I won’t mention it to anyone else, but why has the town turned on your tribe?”

      Josh took a deep breath, staring at his fishing line as he spoke. “At the time your parents went on their fated camping trip, our people lived on a very valuable piece of land. Some people from outside had identified a possible gold vein that ran beneath it. The government had granted them mining rights but under the condition that the land was uninhabited. We’d been there for generations and, despite the threats and then the promises of the people who wanted us to leave the land, we refused to go.” He shook his head angrily.

      “And then Talita –” he spat her name out “– disappeared, and our tribe was blamed. They said –” he used his fingers to make quotation marks “– the ‘mootie man’ of our tribe had murdered her and used her for his witchdoctor medicine.” He let out a short disbelieving bark of cynical laughter.

      “But didn’t our parents tell them what really happened?” I asked.

      Josh shook his head. “They tried, but they were just kids and their story was so far-fetched…” Josh trailed off.

      I glanced at Luke, who was staring at his fishing line too, his mouth turned down at the corners and a frown entrenched on his forehead.

      “So what happened?”

      “Our tribe was removed by force and relocated to the barren wasteland on the other side of the river where they live now,” Josh replied quietly.

      “But didn’t they fight it?” I asked incredulous, and horrified at how his people had been treated. “Didn’t the other townspeople fight it?”

      Josh shook his head. “It was the middle of Apartheid, Alex, you know how violent the secret police were. The few that knew about it and did speak up either shut up when the police went to visit them, or disappeared.”

      “It’s horrible, Josh,” I told him quietly, putting my hand on his arm, “but why are you afraid of the real story now? I mean, it happened years ago and things have changed…”

      “For us maybe,” he agreed, smiling at me sadly and covering my hand briefly with his. “For the older folk…” He shook his head. “They can’t forget, Alex, and I don’t want to be the one to open old wounds.”

      I didn’t know what to say to that, because the ugly scar on our country’s history still pulsed with the memories of the hateful crimes that had been committed all those years ago.

      “Promise, Alexandra,” Josh said quietly, “promise me you’ll keep all of this a secret.”

      I nodded. “Sure, Josh,” I replied.

      He gazed at me a moment longer before nodding slightly to himself, as if satisfied that he believed me.

      He examined his toes, wriggling them into the mud and clouding the water.

      “This story goes far beyond Talita’s disappearance. Although that is the most recent interaction this town has had with the magic within Injisuthi, these mountains have been shrouded in mystery for decades,” he said, looking at me intently. “The first record we have of them is from my grandfather’s tribal stories which were passed down from his grandfather. Our tribe lived a good one hundred kilometres from the Injisuthi, where the town is situated now.”

      I nodded my encouragement.

      “They were very friendly with another tribe that lived much closer to Injisuthi, in her skirt folds, over there.”

      He pointed to a sweep of mountains that rose aggressively into rock-capped peaks. I imagined for a moment living in their shadow, Josh’s story taking shape in my mind’s eye.

      “Because of their knowledge of the forests and mountains, the mountain tribes that inhabited the foothills of Injisuthi had managed to accumulate much wealth helping various groups of travellers to cross the mountain range. In those days, this area was wild bush veld, lions and especially leopard were everywhere.”

      He paused, his eyes drifting to the same plains I’d been looking at.

      “One day they were betrayed by their own chief to slavers who had heard of their women’s extraordinary beauty. After many weeks of killing, the slavers cornered the mountain tribe in a deep valley, where they found themselves trapped between their enemies and a cliff face with a mighty waterfall and a deep pool. A great battle began, as the men of the mountain tribe and the other tribes they’d managed to get to help them fought off the slavers. Days and nights passed and still the fighting continued, but with no food and inferior weapons the mountain tribe began to fall. One night when almost all of their warriors had been killed and with their enemies prepared to strike, the mountain people disappeared.”

      I was staring at Josh, holding my breath, completely enthralled.

      “What happened to them?”

      Josh’s expression was intensely serious.

      “Some СКАЧАТЬ