Chapter 3 Hope
Hope
Nyree strode to her room without running into another person. After consideration, she left the briny-scented and faintly green gargoyle in her bathroom.
“I’ll be back to clean you,” she told the gargoyle. “Then, after that, I’ll find you a new home.”
She paused and waited for the gargoyle to reply. It said nothing, and she laughed, shaking her head at herself. After the stress of the last months, she was losing her marbles. Perhaps Ari had been right when he’d told her she was stupid and best suited to a stay-at-home mother position.
“No,” Nyree snapped, mentally slapping herself for buying into Ari’s hurtful words. “I am woman. Hear me roar.”
She promised herself she’d either run or go through her exercise program while playing her power ballad playlist. She was not the woman too frozen to act, the one too fearful of ejecting Ari from her life and striving for a future she deserved.
Her imagination had utu or revenge on the brain since the petty part of her wanted payback for the months of emotional damage and fear she’d faced at Ari’s hands.
And that was more than enough time and thoughts wasted on Ari. Nyree washed her hands and dried them before finding Keith and Carolyn and reporting for duty.
Carolyn gave her a tour of the museum and the various exhibits featuring life—both past and present—in South Georgia.
Her new boss shared the highlights and told her she’d have homework since the visitors asked questions.
Nyree needed to answer them or point the tourists in the right direction to discover the information for themselves.
Next was a visit to the cleaning supply room since part of her duties was to keep the public toilets clean and dust the exhibits.
Hints of lemon and astringent cleaners wafted from the open door where Nyree noted buckets and mops, boxes of loo roll, and shelves filled with various bottles and tins.
“I know it’s a lot, and once Rose arrives, you’ll take turns. Are you interested in taking the tours around the old whaling station?”
“I’d like to learn as much as I can. Until my friend suggested I apply for the job here, I’d never heard of the South Georgia and Sandwich Islands. I enjoy learning and would love to help anywhere I can.”
Carolyn beamed. “Perfect answer. Some helpers we get for the season avoid anything that smacks of too much work. Your attitude is perfect because it can be lonely here for the younger people.” Her gaze was penetrating. “You’re a pretty girl. The scientists will be eager to meet you.”
Nyree understood Carolyn without her needing to say more. “Remember, I’m out of a nasty breakup, and the last thing I want is another man. I’m interested in the wildlife rather than the nightlife. What’s next on your tour?”
“Keith is wheeling up boxes of new stock. It’s my job to unpack everything and refill the gaps in our shop.”
“I’d love to help,” Nyree said. “I’m curious to see what type of things we sell.”
“We do a brisk trade in stamps and postcards, and we sell T-shirts. Visitors like to post their letters and cards here. They can take months to get home, but no one seems to mind.”
“Do we take credit cards or just cash?”
“Both, but the connection for the cards is temperamental and depends on the weather,” Carolyn said.
Nyree kept busy until the sun dipped low and the shadows deepened.
“You’ve worked hard. Come and share dinner with us,” Carolyn said.
“That sounds great. What normally happens for meals?”
“Last year, we’d eat separately for dinner, but I like to have company sometimes. The girls who worked here last year kept cereal and bread in their kitchen. Neither was particularly interested in cooking.”
“Sounds perfect. I enjoy cooking,” Nyree said. “I’m happy to take a turn and share meals sometimes. You and Keith need private time away from me!”
“Bless you, dear.” Carolyn patted Nyree’s arm. “I can tell I’ll enjoy this season much more than the last.”
It was late by the time Nyree returned to her prefab house, the squabble of penguins and grunt of seals accompanying her journey along with the slap of waves against the jetty. Her steps dragged, her muscles fatigued from her flight and her afternoon’s work, yet despite this, happiness filled her.
A shower should aid her sleep. In the bathroom, she stripped off her clothes and reached into the shower cubicle to turn on the hot water.
On impulse, she picked up the green gargoyle from the bathtub and set it on the shower tiles.
The heat eased the aches in her shoulders and lower back, and she noted with satisfaction the gargoyle appeared marginally cleaner and less green once she’d finished.
Tomorrow, she’d apply her scrubbing brush and clean off the last of the embedded mud and slime.
After a rapid towel down, she padded to her bedroom and slid between the sheets naked.
She’d save her nightwear for when she had to share the house with her fellow workers or female scientists who visited during summer.
Nyree issued a happy sigh. This was how life should be—hard work and the satisfaction of a job well done.
Friendship without fear and the acquisition of knowledge and experiences.
Freedom.
The start of a new life without fear and trouble.
Tāwera sat inside the tiny room where the woman had left him. He stared in the only direction available to him—forward—peering through the transparent wall, which was clear apart from the water droplets studding its surface. Acute shock had his mind spinning.
The dragon had responded to him.
A woman.
No one had reacted to him before, no matter how hard he’d tried to communicate.
It had been a brief window where he’d been able to focus on sending her his thoughts, and he’d ended up with a hell of a headache, but still—this was a tremendous victory.
She’d carried him to this settlement and brought him into the interior of a building.
This unknown world comprised strange things he’d never encountered before, and he wished to investigate the marvels that both astounded and left him stunned.
The water that had poured out on command and still dribbled on his head.
Drip. Drip. Drip. Hot water that warmed him through and chased the chill from his bones.
Then there was the dragon-woman. She might be a taniwha since her skin, while in a two-legged form, was a honey-brown like his. Her hair was long and black like her sooty dragon, and her eyes were a golden brown.
A taniwha from his home country of Aotearoa, New Zealand.
A flutter started in his belly and spread outward until his entire body tingled. Hope, he realized. That he might touch and speak and smell the world around him again.
While the black dragon had been sleek and elegant, even a fraction haughty, the woman was slender as the Māori maidens of his youth.
That was where the similarities ended because the clothes she wore were those of the European arrivals.
Even stranger, she wore attire more suitable for a male, which left nothing to the imagination.
In contrast, her underclothes were unusual and revealed rather than concealed.
She’d seemed comfortable with her nakedness, unlike the prudish white women who’d sneered at him and his friends when they’d spotted them in town.
Those ladies had wrinkled their noses at his flax piupiu and feather cloak and whisked up their skirts as if an accidental touch might harm them.
He wished he knew this woman’s name and more about her. Could he trust her for one? Would she help him further now that she had removed him from the distant cove where he’d spent countless years? Was communication with her possible again?
He’d tried while she was washing, but she’d ignored his pleas for aid.
For hundreds of years, the stone had trapped him. He’d prayed for help. Railed and cried, yet until the dragon’s appearance, nothing had worked.
He’d never communicated with anyone else.
The only difference was the dragon. Was that the answer? It was possible to transmit messages from taniwha to taniwha, but not while the curse kept him a prisoner, and she was in her two-legged form?
He’d need to exercise patience. Experiment. Listen and learn to understand where he was and how to return home. He eagerly anticipated confronting his brother and accusing him to his face.
He’d never imagined a family member acting with such treachery.
A soft curse escaped him, and it seemed to echo, rebounding back to him.
Patience.
After all this time, waiting should be second nature, but he found himself restive and eager to see more of the woman who had spoken with him like a friend. His savior.
If only he could escape this rock prison…
A vision of his brother’s face when Tāwera challenged him had kept him sane during the endless years.
Revenge would be his, and he felt confident the woman’s curiosity and kindness in rescuing him from the sea was the impetus for the start of his journey to utu.