Chapter 9 Tamira
TAMIRA
The pounding on the door pierced through Tamira's dream like a spear through water, creating a ripple but not disturbing it for long.
She was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of a house, a baby sleeping fitfully in her arms. It was somewhere nice, somewhere green but not hot or humid.
It was actually a little chilly, so she tucked her shawl around the baby, making sure that he was warm, and kept rocking.
It was such a peaceful and pleasant dream, and the damn knocking didn't belong in it.
"Open up or I'm coming in!" A woman's voice called out from somewhere beyond the veil separating dreams from reality.
Tamira knew that voice, but her brain was too sluggish to come up with a name.
"Wake up, Tamira," a familiar male voice said, and then the mattress shifted.
She forced her eyes open. "What's happening?" she murmured.
Eluheed was already on the move, pulling out the knife he kept beneath his pillow and positioning himself between her and the door.
"Stay behind me," he said quietly, calmly, but every line of his body was coiled for violence.
"I'm coming in!" The door burst open, and Tula rushed into the room.
Tamira's brain struggled to process what she was seeing.
Tula was wearing a black swimsuit, and water was still dripping from her wet hair, her feet were bare and leaving dirty prints on the floor.
Behind her loomed the tallest man Tamira had ever seen.
He was close to seven feet tall, and he too was dripping water all over.
He wore a black diving suit that gleamed in the fake moonlight filtering through the curtains, and his very long braid swayed as he walked, but it was his eyes that made her breath catch.
They were pale blue, eerie looking, almost silver.
"Don't take another step." Eluheed shifted his stance and raised the knife he'd fashioned from a gardening tool.
The guy was utterly calm, even amused, judging by the slight upward tilt of his lips, and as he slowly raised both hands, palms out, his face split into an incongruously cheerful grin full of very white teeth.
"I'm here to rescue you, not harm you. Let Tula explain.
" His voice had a sing-song quality as if he was a professional singer and couldn't help but infuse tonality into his speech.
It had an oddly calming effect.
"We're leaving," Tula said breathlessly, her chest heaving as if she'd been running. "Get dressed and get moving. You can't take anything with you except for jewelry you can wear on your body."
"Tula, what—" Tamira started, but Tula lifted her hands and shook her head.
"I don't have time to explain to each one of you individually what's happening.
All you need to know for now is that we're getting off this island.
All of us." She was already heading toward the door, the tall male right behind her.
"Wear pants," Tula said on her way out. "No dresses. You are going diving."
"Diving?" Tamira choked out. "Tula, have you lost your mind? I don't know how to do that!"
"They'll teach you. Head to the cliff's edge as soon as you're ready." Tula left the door open. "I have to get the others."
And then she was gone, the wet slap of her feet fading down the corridor, leaving Tamira and Eluheed staring at each other in stunned silence.
"The cliff's edge?" Tamira's words came out in a squawk. "That's suicide. No one can survive that jump."
Eluheed lowered the knife. "She was wet and wearing a swimsuit."
Tamira's mind raced, trying to piece together the impossible clues. "That man was wearing diving gear."
"It still makes no sense." Eluheed moved to the door, peering down the hallway where Tula had disappeared. "How would she have access to—where would she even—"
"She said we're all going to be free." The words tasted strange in Tamira's mouth, too sweet to be real, too dangerous to hope for. "All of us."
"It could be a trap," Eluheed said quietly, but he was already turning toward the wardrobe.
"Set by whom? For what purpose?" Tamira followed him and grabbed a pair of stretchy pants and a long-sleeved shirt that would protect her arms. "If Navuh wanted us dead, he wouldn't need elaborate schemes involving diving equipment."
"True." Eluheed put on a shirt. "And he wouldn't send Tula in a swimming suit with a stranger in diving gear. An immortal for sure, but not one of Navuh's soldiers."
Tamira frowned. "There are no other immortals left in the world."
"Perhaps there are." He smiled. "And they came for us. Perhaps that was what Areana was referring to when she said there was another way. She knew about these other immortals and had a way of contacting them."
It sounded like a fantasy, but right now, it was the only rational explanation.
Tamira pulled her shirt over her head, her mind still spinning. "I hope they brought parachutes. Otherwise, I don't see a way for us to dive off that cliff and survive."
"Maybe they can beam us up into their spaceship like in the movies." Eluheed sat on the bed to pull on his boots. "But then we wouldn't be diving."
She wondered if it was possible to dive wearing shoes and whether they would need to discard them.
"We just have to wait and see what this is all about.
" Tamira grabbed her small jewelry box, dumping its contents on the bed.
Most of it was of little worth, but she put on everything that had any value.
If they were heading out into the world with nothing but their wits, anything that could be traded for money could make a difference.
"We need to go." Eluheed offered her his hand.
She nodded, putting on her rings and draping a golden chain around her neck.
Everything else, all the books she'd painstakingly collected, the manuscripts she'd been translating, the comfortable life she'd built within her cage, none of it mattered if there was even a slightest chance of freedom.
"The cliff," she said as they walked out the door. "It's a three-hundred-foot drop onto rocks. Even if there's water beyond the rocks, the fall will most likely be deadly."
"We're obviously missing something." Eluheed paused, looking down the corridor and listening. She could hear voices—confused, excited, frightened. Tula was waking everyone.
"That man with her," Eluheed said. "The one in the diving gear. He's the key. I don't even care what and who he is." He took her hand. "If there's even a chance at freedom, I'll take it and kiss his huge bare feet in gratitude."
"I know." She squeezed his hand.
Beulah emerged from her room, wearing a similar attire to Tamira's, her eyes wild. "I can't believe she did it. She must have jumped and survived."
"There must be people down there," Eluheed said quietly, piecing it together. "In the water. With equipment. That's why the guy is wearing a diving suit."
"But how did they get there? No one can get near the island without Navuh knowing about it. And Tula couldn't have jumped. She somehow got down without getting hurt."
"Ladies!" Raviki's voice cut through the chaos, and Tamira turned to see her trying to organize the others. "If Tula says we're leaving, then we're leaving. Stop dithering and get going. Liliat, put pants on. Sturdy shoes if you have them."
"But my books—" Beulah protested.
"Who cares?" Raviki sounded on the verge of hysteria. "We've lived among pages for far too long. It's time for us to live for real as free people."
Free.
"This is insane," Sarah muttered, running her hands through her hair. "We can't jump off the cliff. We will die!"
"Tula is getting us out," Tamira said with more confidence than she felt. "We need to trust her."
"But the cliff—"
"We'll find out when we get there." She looked at Eluheed. "Right?"
He nodded, though she could see the uncertainty in his eyes. He was just as scared and as hopeful as the rest of them, but he was willing to leap into the unknown if it meant a chance at something better.
"What do you think is really happening?" she whispered to Eluheed as they walked toward the stairs.
"I think that someone has finally come for us. Someone with resources and a plan." He paused, frowning. "That man said that he came to rescue us, not harm us."
"Rescuers don't usually come wearing diving suits."
Eluheed's lips quirked in a smile. "Maybe they do when they're saving people from an island."
The logic of it was starting to come together in Tamira's mind. An island surrounded by water. A cliff that dropped to the sea. Rescuers approaching from the water at the cliff, where Navuh's security was the weakest. It was audacious, reportedly impossible, but it might actually work.
"I wonder why there are no servants or guards anywhere." Sarah fell into step with them. "They must have heard the commotion."
Dread pooled deep in Tamira's stomach. "Maybe our rescuers killed them all."
"Or put a sleeping draught into the water supply," Beulah said. "This is unnatural."
She was right about that.
Hopefully, Tula would explain everything once they got to the cliff.
"I love you," she whispered to Eluheed, just in case she wouldn't have a chance to tell him again.
His hand tightened on hers. "I love you too."