Chapter 13
Emily
As soon as my head breaches the water I can hear voices on the ship telling each other to lower the life boats. I begin to panic and start swimming as fast as I can with the four pieces of buoyant wood that were attached to my wrists and ankles. Why did this have to be so hard? I am a distance away from the ship when the first life boat is in the water, hoping for a miracle I start to panic. I was not going to get back on that ship, no matter what. I knew their intentions and I was not about to have my life end just because I was apparently royal blood. When the boat was close enough for them to try and grab me, a great white shark jumped and took out most of the men on the boat. I couldn't move, I was paralyzed by the sudden appearance of a silent killer of the sea. Just as the one reentered the water, three more started to circle me. I am thinking to myself, "Well I'm screwed. But hey at least these guys are actually hungry instead of just wanting to kill me." I just stare at the moving grey bodies as they continue to circle around me. Then one of them stops, its coal black eye staring at me as I watch it shift. The ten foot long shark slowly transforms into a five foot nine girl, "Hello there. I think you could use our help. Am I wrong?" Her accent was Australian, and her skin was sun kissed. I stare at her, unable to find my voice. She just laughs, "Well I think I surprised you there. Don't worry, we don't bite those in trouble. We try to help them, but sometimes things go wrong. And that's what is in the news all the time, all the wrong things that have happened." I finally find my voice, "I am sorry, its just I have never seen a shifter, shift into a shark. This is all new to me." With a smile she gives a warm laugh, "Well if that's the case, let's get you back to our place, and lets have a little chat. Phillip come help this poor little lady out." The shark named Phillip came next to me, and the girl nodded to his dorsal fin. I grab it lightly and Phillip takes off towards a distant peice of land. I look at the sky and see that the first lights of dawn had turned into late morning, meaning that hours had passed since I had taken my dive off of the ship.
We travel all day until Phillip begins to shift, I let go of his dorsal fin and stand on the soft sand of the west coast of Australia. Then the girl comes up to me, "Welcome to Australia. I am Gema, and I hope you don't mind, but you will be staying with me until we can get this all straitened out." I look at her, "Of course I mind, but seeing as I have no choice I have to go along with it. I am Emily by the way." Gema smiled, "Well aren't you a sassy little welp. I think we will get along just fine."
Once all the sharks were shifted, and clothed we all walked down the beach until we came to four large houses, Gema led me to her house which was decorated with light colored furniture and had sea shells everywhere. She sat down on a large couch and gestured for me to sit, I do as I am told, my wet clothes sloshing as I walk across the room. She smiles and gives me a warm look, "So tell me about yourself Emily." I look at my hands, "Where do I start?" Gema places a hand on mine, "Just start with where your from." I watch her intently for a minute before I draw in a deep breath, "Well I am from the Pennsylvania, where I go to highschool." Gema rolls her eyes, "I need details girl. Where in Pennsylvania? What school? You know, give me your story. I want to know who you are." With a wry look I continue, "I am from Irwin Pennsylvania, where I go to Norwin Highschool. I don't know my parents, I am part of a foster family though. I just lost my foster father the night I found out I was a shifter. And everything has been spiraling out of control ever since then."
Gema began to nod, "If you don't mind me asking, what kind of shifter are you?" I shift nervously where I am sitting. Seeing my discomfort Gema smiles, "You don't want to tell me do you?" I quickly look up, "It's not you. It's just that everyone I tell seems to turn on me, and I have the big three after me. I just want to lay low for a while, and let my hands and feet heal." Holding up my hands Gema sees blood stained bandages and the handcuffs still on my wrists. She gently places a hand on my shoulder, "Well let me show you that I am not one of their spies." She grips the handcuffs and slowly bends the metal with unseen strength. The metal bends into submission to Gema's strength and she gently slides my hand free. She does the same to the other three sets of handcuffs and then slouches on the couch as if nothing had happened. She just smiles at me, "Is that enough proof for you? Or do you need more?" Swallowing hard I take a deep breath, "Snow leopard. I shift into a snow leopard." Her pearly white teeth seem to sparkle in the late evening sun, "There was that so hard Emily?" Then her smile fades, "Wait, you shift into a snow leopard and your from Pennsylvania?" She gets up from her place on the couch and goes to a book case, "It can't be. That was just a legend." I get up as well, "A legend that was bound with truth." With a book in her hands she quickly looks at me, as I smile meekly she grabs my hands and pulls me into a windowless room, "Show me, I don't believe you." I flinch at the harsh tone in her voice, but I do as I am told. Shifting quickly into the snow leopard I watch her gaze go from hard to amazed as Gema places a hand over her mouth. I shift back and go for the door, only to have her place a hand on my shoulder. "You can't go out there. The big three are probably out there right now looking for you. Do you know what you can do?" "I can over throw them. And they want me dead because of it, but I need to get them off my tail."
Gema shook her head, "You can't while they are alive. You have to over throw them and take control of what is rightfully yours." I gave her a confused look, "What are you talking about?" Gema smiles and leads me back to the book case, "Read this, it is all about your ancestor the chief." There was a short story about the original chief of the American shifters.
Once upon a time there was a family of snow leopards that ruled the shifting world. But everything changed when the lions, cheetahs and jaguars attacked their home in the heartland of Russia. Taking control of the shifting world. The family was thought to have been killed, but one son was seen unaccounted for. The maids of the family had taken the young heir on the commands of his mother to a ship of shifters heading for the New World. There the royal blood line would live on, and the snow leopards would live as they once did. The heir would grow to be big and strong, taking his place as the chief of the tribe, and having a family. But knowing that his family would be forever in danger, and keeping a watchful eye on his blood line, making sure they were safe.
I just stare at the page, hands shaking as the truth sets in, "The big three killed the snow leopards? We were the original rulers. But how can I take them all out if I can't speak the divine language or even fight. I am outside my territory." Gema laughs, "Now I have something to show you, here in this little 'village' of ours we have a strange statue in the center. I think you should come and see it." She leads me to the center of the 'village' and swipes an arm to show me the statue. I walk around to see a stone cat, but not just any cat. A snow leopard stared at me with green eyes, just like the one in Natalia's village. Gema comes to my side, "The reason this is hear is because the world is your play ground. Not to quote the lion king and all but 'Everything the light touches' is yours. These statues span across the entire continent of Australia and are placed all over the world. These are to show that a snow leopard has claimed this area. But the green eyes mean that a royal has set foot in the area, making it their own. And the ones who live in the area, will follow her power." I look at her, "You will follow me?" Gema nodded at me, "All of us will. And we will help you get more followers. There is a tribe of kangaroos in the outback. As well as some wallabies, those little buggers are tough. Oh and watch out for emus, they are very friendly to humans." I nod, stifling a giggle. Then the others come out, "Don't forget about the whales, and the others." Phillip hits the one that just spoke, "Dan just say it. What he meant to say was dolphins. But he hates the word." I begin to giggle at Dan's reaction to the words. He literally cringed as Phillip spoke the word. "All of you will help me? You aren't afraid of the big three?" Phillip looked at me, "On land, yeah. But in the sea, we are the kings, and queens. Stealth is our middle name and we will help you in any way we can." As if to make a point he bowed to me. "That is not necessary Phillip." He rises and smiles, "Well it is the right thing to do."
Gema pats my shoulder, "But like you said, we need to heal your paws first. So why don't we head back to my place and see how those wounds are healing up." We walk back to Gema's house and she places me on the couch once again. She leaves and grabs a first aid kit from the bathroom. She unravels my feet first, "Emily, your feet look fine. But that doesn't make sense." She unravels the bandages from my hands and gasps, "They are perfectly fine. How did you heal so fast?" I shrug and look at my hands and feet, feeling like the little mermaid when she first got her feet. I wiggled my toes and remembered the strips of flesh hanging off of them the night I made my escape. The thought sent a chill up my spine as I thought of that whole night. The hate in those cats eyes all pointed at me as their hot breath gently caressed my skin. Gema looked at me, "What's wrong?" "Nothing just thinking about how I hurt my hands and feet." She looked at me, "Would you like to share?" I look at her dark brown eyes, "I was in Russia, learning about how to be a snow leopard from a snow leopard. When the big three found me, and pulled me from the home of the snow leopard. They tore my clothes and made me mad enough to shift. Once that happened I ran for the forest, and eventually making it to a river. I was almost to the other bank of the river when the lion came running toward me, cracking the ice. Only I fell in and he stayed perfectly dry. But I tried to stop myself and ended up shredding my paws on the underlying ice of the river." Gema placed a hand over her mouth once again, "And I though being a shark was bad. You have it a lot worse than us." Well it was nice to know that a shark had it better than me, but I still felt like I should just make an effort to try this out. "I never told you about what happened in the United states." Gema took the hand off her mouth and smiled, "I know one things for sure." "What's that?" She began to smile, "You have a mate. I can see you are still on cloud nine about it. And I can tell you want him to be here with you now." I smile, because she was right. With a laugh she pushed my shoulder, "I may be a fish out of water, but you are a love sick kitten. You need to find him before you fall completely head over heals." I laugh and we continue to talk like this for the rest of the night.
