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The words sound hollow and disingenuous.
Doubt makes its home with regret, and I sit up, shaking the sand and water from my hair. I’m a mess after taking a dive in the ocean. I run my fingers through my hair to get the knots out, evaluating the far horizon that goes black before I can find its end.
I have to find a way to pave my own path.
I can’t rely on a sea monster to do it for me, nor can I trust the dark elves. There are things I can only trust myself with, and my life is one of them, no matter how my heart may prefer to wander.
I have to remain steady on the path of liberation.
16
LAIKEN
SHE’S NOT HERE.
The thought occurs to me long before I’m certain that it’s the case. There are plenty of chambers and corridors in the temple. She could be hiding in any one of them. Maybe she’s walking around outside the various buildings. It makes perfect sense for her to go exploring. Just because she isn’t in any of the places I’d expect her to be, it doesn’t mean she’s not here at all.
But this time, it does,that voice in me whispers.She was scared and agitated. She wanted to leave. You gave her the gills that would let her swim her way to the surface. Why are you even surprised she decided to try?
“No, she must still be here. She’s too weak to have gone out on her own. She doesn’t know any of the creatures here. She doesn’t know how to protect herself. What if something decided to eat her?” I ask out loud.
What if she made it? And she’s on land right now, and I’ll never see her again?
“Penny!” I call out, my voice as loud as I can make it. “Where are you?”
My voice echoes off the stone wall of the cave, but there’s no movement, no response.
Maybe she’s hiding,I try to tell myself. But why would she hide?
“If she didn’t want me to find her, she wouldn’t stay in the temple and not say anything when I called for her. She’d run away. She’d swim for it.”
And that’s just what she did,the voice tells me.
“Penny, don’t ignore me!” I cry. “I need to talk with you! Now!”
Immediately, I regret the anger. If she is hiding from me, that won’t make her come out any sooner.
But she isn’t hiding. I can’t hide it from myself anymore. She’s not in the temple. She’s in the ocean somewhere.
“I’m sorry, Penny,” I say. “I’m not angry with you. I’m just scared. Please come out. I’m sorry if I frightened you.”
But I’m not talking to anyone. The temple is lonely. And anyway, I am angry with her. I saved her life and brought her all the way here, and the first thing she does is run away.
If she gets eaten by some creature in the ocean, it’s what she deserves. I told her she wasn’t strong enough. All she had to do was be smart enough to listen to me.
But the moment I think that I’m already headed towards the water.
Is this the right thing to do? Should I follow her? What will happen if I do find her again? Will I really drag her back here, kicking and screaming? I can’t take back the gift I’ve given her, and I can’t watch her every moment of every day. Eventually, she’ll have another opportunity to go back to the surface. And in the meantime, what kind of company will she be? Do I really want to be around a human who doesn’t want to be around me?
But I don’t think it’s quite so simple. I don’t believe she simply hates me. I can’t believe that. I’ve seen the way she looks at me. She’s let me touch her body in intimate ways. Can there really be no affection at all?
I don’t believe it. It isn’t just the feelings I have for her, though those are burning in me with all the strength of a fire. If she runs away from me again, then I’ll know. But I don’t buy it. Not yet. I have to believe that what we shared meant more than that.
I sink into the water, and immediately, I detect her smell. It’s easy to pick out. She is, after all, a creature of the land. An outsider here. Yes, she did go into the water. And she did swim away.
Just having her scent hanging in the water is more of a relief than I could have expected. She isn’t simply gone. Traces of her still remain, and I can follow those traces.
She feels solid again, real. Our time together was real.
