The Water Nymphs

Second Chances

Two years later……

She looks helpless to those who don’t know her – slight, pale skin, big doe eyes. She likes it that way, embraces it, even. A  bright pink backpack is slung across her shoulder, plaited blonde hair bouncing against her back. She has the motherly types smiling at her as they stroll with their children and husbands.

What they don’t know is that, beneath the sweet, girly appearance lies the mind of a hunter.

The debris of nature crunches and shifts under her feet. She walks with the carelessness of a little girl, arms swinging by her sides. The smell of must and nature never leaves her nose, though she waits for the horrid sulphur of death she is familiar with to alert her.

Trunks of old oaks with thickly gnarled roots plunging deep into the earth arch over the leaf-littered pathway, a light breeze teasing her senses. Her eyes widen as she picks up on an unrecognisable scent. She glances to her left, where the setting sun has cast its reflection on the lightly rippling silver surface of the water. She finds odd the birds that scurry away from the lake, interrupting the stream of people as they hobble across the pathway. Her gaze, once again, swings to the water, where relaxed circles mar the golden wash of evening light.

“Someone’s under! There’s someone under the water!” a girl’s voice cuts through the gentle silence.

Abruptly, her body is tense. Her heart pounds, but not with fright – with excitement; knowing it is  that time again thrills her.

Her muscles spring. Without so much as a thought, she sheds her backpack and fleece and darts through the throngs of terrified people, heading towards the voice. “Don’t panic!” she assures them as she runs.

The girl’s voice finds her in a clearing, facing the water with narrowed eyes, though her body is exhilarated.   She is surrounded by those wearing expressions of horror.

“Someone help him,” a little boy cries in angst. “It’s my brother!” His face is contorted in worry as she turns to him, squatting down in front of him, hands on his shoulders.

“Did you see what happened?” she asks in a crisp, business-like manner, whilst still trying to comfort him.

“My brother – I told him, I told him it was too dangerous to swim, but he didn’t listen to me!”

“Okay. Okay, I’m going to go under. Just – don’t worry,” she says, giving him a tight smile, readying herself for what she is about to do. A part of her muses that it might be too later, but she ignores it. This is what she is meant to do.

Just as she is removing her clothes, a snide voice remarks, “What is a little girl stripping off and jumping in gonna do to save him?”

She freezes, spinning on her heel to face to speaker. She has to suppress a smile when she sees the familiar pink blossom on the boy's cheeks, as he takes in her scarcely-dressed form. “More than you ever could,” she says drily.

And then she jumps.

The cold doesn’t touch her. She has done this so many times that the slimy, murky water  and strain on her lungs doesn’t bother her. It should do, she knows, but when someone’s life is at stake, she must do everything she can.

The first thing she thinks is, This is the work of an amateur. There is no way any smart water nymph would take someone while there are people around. Her legs carry her through the water,  and she urges that her eyes stay open wide while she swims. Hardly any time passes before she sees the luminous green-toned glimmer of scales through the swaying vegetation. She pushes on, until she can finally decipher the form of a young boy being towed by only his torso to where the nymphs dwell.

She has to think quickly how exactly she will do this. Never has she done this before; her retrievals had always been easy. Once she would alert the nymph, its wrath would be set on her. It would completely forget its meal. The boy is alive, she is sure of it. But if she does not act soon, he will be living no longer.

She decides to linger closely behind. These creatures will never anticipate an attack, she thinks. They believe us to be too stupid to fight back.

A group of them swim to join the lone nymph. She notices their toothless smiles as they greet each other. Those smiles are what inspired her to train to fight them. She remembered the way the one who had taken her friend smiled when she gave up, as if daring her to follow it. That’s why she is here, doing this.

Her lungs are used to her swimming underwater for long periods of time, but she can feel the pressure on her lungs, beating at them to be released.

At last, the nymphs seem to come to a stop. The others watch, satisfied, as the green-tailed creature secures the boy to the floor with long, rope-like weeds. They turn away, and that is when she chooses to release him.

It is a great risk. Even her nimble fingers  fumble on the elaborate knots the creature has used on the boy, but after a couple of tries, they come undone.

She slaps him awake, sure that he is gone. That is not the case, though. When her palm makes contact with his face – however delayed in the water – he regains consciousness,  makinga funny, panicked noise.

Knowing he has the nymphs’ attentions, she grapples for the packet she keeps hidden away in her bra. She rips it open hurriedly, watching as the milky substance leaks out, into the water, comforted by the fact that, when it reaches them, they will all be dead.

Thankful that she will not have to carry boy, the two struggle through the water, up, up, until they reach the surface.

It takes everything she has not to have déjà vu. She breathes in the air, relieved that she saved the boy and that she herself is still alive. They wade through the shallow water, both drenched and exhausted. She ignores the people suddenly rushing around them, too drained to think properly.

It is when she accidentally flops into the boy’s arms that she realises that he is not the young boy she thought he was. He is, in fact, older than her and very, very muscled. But she can’t think about this now.  

“You can thank me later,” he huffs, his words those of a self-involved man, but he is too tired to speak them in this manner.

“And you can thank me later,” she says, straightening. “What’s your name?”

He smiles at her, smoothing his matted hair back from his forehead. “Michael.”

She almost chokes. She remembers. “Stop it, Michael, it isn’t funny,” she’d said.

“Is there….something wrong?” he asks, a baffled smile on his face.

“No. No, of course not.” She avoids his eyes, turning instead to the people, with their amazed expressions. “It’s just a……..a very common name.”

This time, when she walks down the pathway, it is with sopping clothes. The mothers don’t give her smiles because she no longer looks like a child. Her face is memory-ravaged, her eyes holding the tiredness of someone on death’s doorstep.

She no longer cares.