Chapter 351 Chapter 351
Konner watched Terah stop and lift her face to the sky, letting the rain splash against her face. It was something a child would do in a rainstorm, and it caused his chest to tighten with emotion knowing that she’d been denied the simplest things in life. She looked back at him and smiled, a pure genuine one of joy. He had no choice but to smile back at her. It was the first time he’d seen her without that guarded, watchful look in her eyes. He caught up to her quickly, “be careful, the ground is going to get slick with this much rain.”
She nodded and turned her attention to where she was walking. “I like the rain.” She said quietly, “I watched it before from a window, but I’ve never felt it on my face.” Glancing up, she gave him a small smile. “It smells,” she frowned, “fresh,” motioning to the ground, “it is giving all life a drink.”
Konner smirked, “I’ve never thought of it that way.”
“I’ve had a lot of time to think.” The words were tinged with bitterness. “I would watch and listen and think.”
He caught her arm when she slid sideways on the uneven ground. “Listen?”
Moving with caution to check her balance, she only nodded her head, while keeping her eyes on the ground. “When I was not in the water, listening is hard to do.” She waved her hand beside her head, “the pains and uneasy feeling of my body make it hard to stop and just listen,” she used a smaller tree to help get her footing up the lift in the ground, “but when I am in the water, in the glass tank,” she said the word with a venomous tone, “They didn’t know I could hear them like that.”
Konner looked down to see her shoes were soaked and only going to get worse. The rain was pelting off them with such a force it would sting. She didn’t seem to notice or care. “So, they talked freely around you.”
Nodding, she paused and looked up at him, “if they knew I could hear, I don’t think they would have changed.” she shrugged one shoulder, “who would I tell what I heard?” Her eyes no longer held the joy from her first rain, they were now filled with the pain of memories.
He waited until they were on level ground to continue. “What are some of the things you heard?”
“Most of it,” she slipped and grabbed onto his arm to right herself, “I didn’t understand.” She shook her head, “they talked about the strangest things, money and moving things?” She lifted her shoulders and let them drop again, “I only listened to learn words.” Stopping, she touched his arm again and he could see the indecision in her eyes as she debated on saying something. “They would call me a mermaid.” Her blue eyes searched his face, “is that what we are?”
Konner had this talk with young ones, more often than he cared to admit, especially with the movies that were out there now. The younger ones were often convinced that Raelyn, with her long red hair, proved the movie and mermaids were real. “Perhaps it was how we were referred to a millennium ago.” He steadied her as they moved up the slope covered in thick roots no longer in the ground. “Once we were many,” he paused thinking his Auntie would be thrilled to hear him tell the story that the elders had been telling for centuries, the stories of their people, “we filled the oceans and waters, across the globe.”
Terah looked at him with wonder in her eyes, again reminding him of how much she had missed out on in life.
“As man or one-forms, that’s what we call them now.”
Turning her head quickly, she gave him a questioning look.
“Those that don’t change into another form, we call one-forms.”
She considered what he said and then nodded and continued walking.
“As the one-forms, took to the water for travel and hunting the creatures in the water, our kind moved from the salty bodies of water.” He was trying to remember how the story went and hoped he didn’t screw it up, lest his great aunt would smack him across the back of his head for it. “We moved inland, to the smaller lakes, with many shores.” He pictured when he was a child, gathered with the other children of his clan as they listened to the animated tale their elders told them. “Over time, we learned to walk on land, to shed our bodies of the sea and be like man.”
She watched him intently, slowing her steps so she wouldn’t slip again.
“After a time, all things evolve.” He said as he looked behind them and scanned the area. He trusted Raymond to find their base of operation, but that didn’t mean there weren’t more out there somewhere. “It’s said that we once had no legs and only one long tail and fin to move through the depths of the oceans with great speed, but we no longer needed those to swim the lakes around the globe.”
She stopped and looked up at him, hope clearly visible on her face, “are we still many?”
He’d hoped she wouldn’t want to know that. Shaking his head slowly, he motioned for her to keep moving. “No. With hunting, and pollution, our numbers dropped to mere thousands over the centuries.” Catching her elbow, he helped her right her footing before they continued. “Those numbers dropped more still over the years.”
She stopped so suddenly, he almost walked into her, she turned to look up at him, “are the ones at your sanctuary the last?”
Konner blew out a breath slowly, he wanted to be honest but didn’t want to fill her with the dread that haunted his every moment. “No. I don’t believe so.” He took her hand, needing to offer her some form of comfort as she digested this information, “with the way the world is now, with fast boats, sonars to look in the water, I believe our kind have learned to hide.”
“Even from you?” She made no move to release his hand.
Konner smirked, remembering how hard it was when he found Olanna. “Yes, even from me.” He motioned down his body, “we’ve adapted so well, we blend in and appear like the one-forms that have hunted our kind endlessly.” He paused to look at how her skin glowed from the moisture of the rain. Most of his kind didn’t do that unless they were completely immersed in the water, was it because she couldn’t control the change? He watched her hands as she moved, she still had fingers, no webs. He had to find out her lineage because anything that surprised him, was something he had to look into.