Seven Tides

12 The In-Between

 Muala murmurs as we hike further down the shore on the other side of the breaker. "This is my special place," she says, pulling me along by the hand. An almost invisible trail cuts through the jungle, where countless kinds of birds wing their way across the path, swooping over and under the branches. A great rushing sound grows louder as we approach. The water cascades over several large stone steps and down into a deep pool at the bottom. Moss and hanging vines with a multitude of flowers cover the entire rock face in greens, blues, pinks, and oranges. Several tiny rainbows dance in the rising mist and dappled rays above.

"Boontoo, let's race!" she shouts, but before I can start, she trips me and pushes me down, running and laughing to the pool. She spins around, raises her arms and falls backward into the sparkling water, floating there, glistening in the filtered light. We swim to the steps and beneath the cascade. The force of the water pounds on our heads, drums on our shoulders, and splatters on our upturned faces. All I know is the sound and feel of water falling, and Muala held close. Time pours into the pool and disappears. Our world becomes so very small, and yet it is all that there needs to be. We are at that place where it is impossible to know where one sense begins and the other ends. We are somewhere in between now and here.

We gather ourselves on the shore out of the spray and mist, and breathe together, my face tangled in her hair. The day stretches ahead into the late afternoon.

"We must go," Muala says, and rises lazily.

My vision blurs and when it clears, she is sitting in the boat's bow fidgeting with a rope, turning it over, studying the knot. She briefly glances up at me, but quickly returns to the line in her hand. I can only watch her, remembering our last time together.

Not far from the shipwreck, we drag the boat ashore on a bit of a sandbar in the mangrove.

"If there were survivors, we couldn't have saved them," Silva reasons.

"You saved Ibrahim and me from the depths of that ghost ship. That's enough."

"I owe you an eternal debt of gratitude, Silva." I offer in thanks.

"This is what we do; otherwise, none of us will survive."

"The other dinghy is here!" Dante calls from the mangrove.

Sylva and the two young Manyan men wade into the roots and muck to help pull it out. It is completely intact with the sail and oars, but there is no sign of any crew. When the tide comes in and reclaims the bit of sand we are on, we take both dinghies and sail further up the coast. At night, we take one boat out to scout the Ganayac. Their campfires are usually about a day's journey from us. This becomes our nightly ritual.

The beach where we first made landfall comes into view after a week. The secret lookout above the boulder lays completely open with the roots and vines covering it completely ripped away. Several deer lay slaughtered on the beach, and the jungle is little more than charred trees facing the beach. We sail on for another day just inside the treacherous reef. The white sand beach becomes a dense mangrove again, and the jungle beyond the ridge spreads out in a broad green canopy with familiar white-capped mountains in the distance.

"Go there," Yanca guides us in through the thick tangled roots of the watery forest to a large pillared rock engraved with unusual symbols. We drag the boats into the undergrowth.

"Now we go road to Mountain People."

"How far is it?" Silva asks.

"Not far, maybe by dark, we there."

"And the Ganayac?"

"They at ancient city where road begin."

"Ancient city?" Dante asks.