Traveler

My thanks as always go to my two special friends for their technical advice, get well soon my friend. To my Beta reader dustybin63 for his help and his ability to always point and laugh. Also my good friend, who did the final edit for me. It's these people that lend me something so precious, their time. Thank you all.

~~~~~~~~~~

As the day drew to a close and the sky's color changed, I managed to buy us some time, when I said. "Victoria, as you reminded us, you're only eight years old. The calling wouldn't pick you, it's way too early. So go to school, enjoy yourself and learn. You will need to learn water language so we will start that in a few days, nothing much just a few words per day. Eventually you and I, maybe your aunt Cindy or uncle Jason will get your knowledge to the point we will speak to you in water language for a full day a week."

Victoria smiled.

"I would hold off on that thought for now Victoria, there is more."

Her smile quickly dissipated and worry crossed her ever so young eyes.

"When I think you're good enough with our language I'm sending you away for a week to a friend of mine. She will only speak to you in water language through the whole week and you will learn one song that is very important to us all."

I adjusted my seating so I could hold her little hands in mine. She instantly knew I was being deadly serious.

"Only when my friend thinks you can sing that song to her satisfaction will we all come back here and you will stand at this very spot and sing Cal-un-den."

This time I stood, grabbed my daughter and lifted her into my arms, Robert followed us the few paces to the lock gates. I felt sad for my husband since he couldn't see Brenda Cooper. I could because technically, I had died here. Victoria could see her because of her youth. It was Brenda I walked us to. She had been listening to our entire conversation with a keen interest.

Adjusting my hold on my daughter I pointed to the lock gate and said. "You will stand on this very spot and sing Cal-un-den to her."

Brenda Cooper smiled, her hand came up and waved at Victoria. My daughter's smile was something that would put a dawn to shame right then. She even waved back at Brenda and nodded her head at both of us. I let her down once again and she almost skipped over to the lock gate and sat next to Brenda. I once again sat and leant into my husband, grabbing his hand.

After a few moments of watching them both talk to each other, we walked back into the house. Robert was smart enough, he knew what had just happened.

~Two Years Later~

While I was piping water into the storage tank of my boat, I paused to think. Not much else you can do in moments like these. Two things were a cast iron guarantee, if you walk away from the hose, the tank will magically fill up in seconds and then overflow, causing the deck to soak. Thus earning you half an hours work with a mop and bucket. Don't walk away and it feels like you're here until next Christmas waiting for it to fill to the top of the storage tank.

Stark choices, so I sat next to the hose and let my mind wander.

Even after all this time, Victoria's question still resonated in my thoughts. "Mom, will you teach me how to be Traveler?"

Two years ago I was happy, content even, and had a daughter that was enjoying being nothing more than an eight-year-old.

But that was two years ago.

I also found a stubbornness in my daughter that evening that I never knew she had. Yet when you take into consideration that she's the flesh of my flesh, she sure adopted a lot of my personality. Every word of appeasement on my part became stored in her head. Every word that passed my lips that strange and carefree evening, two years ago, became lodged in her thoughts. She could even recite them to me verbatim.

Even as I recount those thoughts, I still notice just how often in these last two years that she had indeed recited those very words to me so many times. She never expanded on those words, just looked directly at me and nailed my ass to the wall, using my very own words to do it.

The learning of our water language began the next day, when she walked up to me with a notebook and pencil in her hand. I told her to put them back in her school bag. It had started out as a couple of words a day. Within a couple of months, we were talking whole sentences, throw in a school summer holiday and then Christmas holidays, we were now up to speaking half the day before her head hurt from all the concentration she was giving it.

Even her own brother got in on the language act as well. It turned out that as quick as I was teaching Victoria, she would teach him as well. If anything, her age now was about the right time to learn a language. Young enough to absorb information and hungry enough for that information to retain it and go seeking more. By eighteen months of learning, she was just about holding her own between Cindy, Jason and me.

We would make sure, that the answers to the questions put to her couldn't be shortened to a simple yes or no. We would ask her what she had done at school, even what television programs she would be watching that night got thrown into the mix. Although she may have stumbled a little in the beginning but soon grasped that mantle and stood up to all three of us. Cindy had even mentioned that when I was away on Traveler business, Victoria would often call her and have at least an hour's conversation with her in water language.

By the end of year two, my cousin Cindy had asked me when I was going to be talking to the choir leader. It was also then that I looked closely at the calendar on the wall. Two years had come and gone.

*******

"Mom, you're sitting in a puddle. That had better be the water overflow or I'm telling daddy you took a shortcut to the bathroom."

I jumped at her words, such were my thoughts being on other things. Then looked down and giggled, my thoughts had me so far away I hadn't even felt my wet ass telling me the tank was full.

It was also then that I looked towards my daughter and said, "You're a mean spirited young lady and I disown you for trying to get me into trouble with your father."

We were both still laughing our asses off as I pulled my shorts down, thankful that I had my bikini bottoms on, I twisted the water out of them and hurled them at my daughter. She caught them and giggled as she dropped them into the boat. We cast off a few minutes later. We still had a day's journey before Victoria was to spend the week with the Choir Leader. It would have been a more direct route via car, but I was just hanging onto my daughter for as long as I could.

Victoria was looking forward to her week away, it would be her first week separated from her immediate family in her ever so short life and I was shitting myself with the 'what if's' in all of this. Every word I spoke on that bench two years ago had, through time, come back to haunt me. For a now ten-year-old, my daughter was doing her level best to be considered as the next Traveler and she still won't give any of us a straight answer as to why. At times like these, I understood what my own father went through during my own lead up to taking on the mantle of Traveler from him, when his own fight with life finally became too much for him.

We never got a definitive answer from the doctors regarding my father's death, who could blame them really. Lawsuits sometimes tend to hang on the edge of a throw away comment from a doctor or surgeon. Thus, no one ever managed to tell us, did my father bring his cancer back with him from Vietnam as many did, or was it the cigarettes that got a hold and killed him.

I stayed for an hour, albeit it wasn't necessary. Maranda Osterman, or to us all, the Choir Leader, gave my daughter a fierce hug and were the best of friends after that. True to my words two years ago, neither spoke anything but water language from the time they first laid eyes on each other. I left them as a proud mom, untied my boat and headed for Cinder Creek, the worries of a proud mother not all that far from my reach.

*******

Beth and I were still talking the logistics of the celebration of Halloween, both at Cinder Creek and the lock. The whole village had included Brenda Cooper, ever since they realized she was there. The call from Maranda came four days after I left my daughter with her. The pride in her voice traveled over the phone when she talked, my daughter was doing so well she wanted to include her in the Halloween celebrations at the lock.

It's not often I'm at a loss for words, Maranda sure proved that point wrong when she suggested that Victoria take the lead when singing Cal-un-den that Halloween evening. I phoned Robert and told him the conversation I had just had with Maranda, he ever so subtly reminded me of the conversation I had with our daughter two years earlier.

Beth had also been talking to Maddie Cooper over the late summer and the run up to Halloween. The Cooper family would be at Cinder Creek for the celebrations. After talking with my husband we both thought it best not to heap any more pressure on Victoria by adding that bit of news into any conversation we had with her. Cindy and Jason were also coming for the evening; they had arranged a baby sitter since her second baby was only a few months old. We are still a superstitious bunch and new life and the dead should never be in close proximity.

Especially at Halloween.

Flowers from the people of the village had been arriving under the plaque and along the wall, most of the week. The choir arrived by coach, courtesy of Robert and I. Brenda's folks turned up mid-afternoon, the day before Halloween, mom and dad Cooper stayed with Beth and we looked after Maddie.

The choir got changed at our cottage, the people of Cinder Creek made their way up to the lock and held lit candles in lanterns in their hands and at a designated time the door to my cottage opened and the choir came out, the whole choir wore red that evening, once again in respect for the Red Lady.

Victoria was at the back of the choir; Robert looked at me confused until I winked at him, then he just shrugged his shoulders and waited to see what was going on. The Choir Leader led the choir over to the lock and across the canal, they turned and now faced the lock gate. Victoria was standing in the designated spot I had told her to be in, two years ago. The choir leader took one look at both angles and took two steps back so she could be clearly seen by both Victoria and the main body of the choir.

Between the combinations of lights streaming through the windows of the cottage and the lanterns in the crowd, it cast and eerie and yet pleasant lighting for Halloween. The Choir Leader held up her hands and an instance hush came over the crowed. The choir sang six songs all peaceful themed music that you would expect at gatherings like these, as Victoria stood patiently staring at the lock gate. Her face took on a look of total concentration, it looked as if she so desperately wanted to get this right.

I could understand why, this was Cal-un-den. A song so wrapped up in the ways of the water people that it held such a significance to us all. It was also the reason why there was or never will be and English translation. Over time our language had taken a hit, the younger ones wanted to speak in English. It was only over time that even they understood a need for our language to move forward and survive once they themselves reach maturity and see the need for it among our people.

Then came a pause. The people of Cinder Creek expected that pause, it gave notice to them all and an even greater anticipation came over those standing at the lock. With a nod of her head the choir leader's hands came into motion once again and my daughter sang Cal-un-den, with backing vocals from the choir. Her youthful voice hung on every note; she matched the adults' when the song brought them all together and the solo parts took every soul standing at the lock and carried them with her on her journey to welcome the dead to this celebration.

Some of the people of Cinder Creek had heard Cal-un-den so often from the recording Beth had made that you could see their lips move. Even though the song had no English translation, but the crowd still sang the song to themselves as Victoria poured her heart and soul into the bridge between the dead and the living. The bass from the adults of the choir tempered her youthful voice and matched Victoria in perfect harmony.

Prying my eyes away from the wonder of my daughter, the people of Cinder Creek didn't have a dry eye between them. Between Victoria and the choir, they knocked it out of the park. My chest swelled with pride when the song ended and the people of Cinder Creek almost took the roof off my house, clapping, whistling and praising every member of the choir.

Victoria took a bow at the place Brenda was sitting, then turned to both the choir and the choir leader and took an even deeper bow towards them. Her smile as she once again stood up straight was the brightest I had ever seen from my daughter. The look the Choir Leader gave me let me know that my daughter had a slot in the choir anytime she wanted to sing with them.

The choir came back across the canal and mingled with the folks of Cinder Creek. My daughter and I met halfway and hugged the hell out of each other. At this moment, I couldn't have been more proud of Victoria, other than the moment I held her in my arms after giving birth to her.

Moments like these are to be treasured, to be placed in that special part of your memories that provide easy access, so that you can pull them from your thoughts at a moments notice and use them to lift your spirits, to ponder when you feel a little down and just need one of life's pick me ups.

It was also then that I felt someone tap me on the shoulder, one of those pointy finger taps to get your attention on the person doing it. With my 'huggie' mood now dropped into the toilet, I placed Victoria back on her feet and turned around to look at mister pointy finger.

Slick tried to shove a business card into my chest. Twice, since I refused to take it the first time of him sticking his card into my chest. I may have been in the middle of half the population of Cinder Creek and I just hoped that and the other half would forgive me for ruining their evening when I grabbed slick's wrist before he tried for the third time to shove his business card into my chest yet again. I was twisting it as I also pulled his wrist down and took that half step into him adjusting my stance as I did.

Slick actually managed to pull his head out of his ass, more so when I twisted his wrist a little more to get his full attention I reiterated, "I don't know you mister, so that clearly means you don't know me. So let me help you here, get the hell out of my personal space, keep your damn hands off my chest and when I let go of your wrist, take a step back and keep taking a step back until I don't have you near me ever again."

I let go of slick as those around me realized something was happening and paused in their own conversation to catch up.

Slick was either deaf or he wasn't into people giving him advice.

"I'm Marlon Harrison, owner of the 'Cherish of Las Vegas' talent agency. Your daughter does have a smidgeon of talent in her voice, although she will have to concentrate on American songs rather than the Russian stuff she just sang," the slick continued his babble.

Those now listening to our one sided conversation not only took a collective step back, but also gasped at his so little knowledge of the purpose of this gathering.

Well if nothing else, this idiot had peaked my interest, a 'smidgeon'.

"Just out of curiosity, who the hell are you and while we're at it, why are you even up here?"

The guy rolled his eyes, he actually rolled his eyes and sighed, he looked almost disgusted with me that when he originally told me his name, I hadn't swooned and dropped to my knees in faint.

"As I told you before Miss, my name is Marlon Harrison."

He then tried once again to stab me in the chest with his card, again. When his arm came out towards me, my own self defense mechanism overrode the 'caution we are in company' mode and I grabbed his wrist 'once again' turned and placed my hip into his body and in the next second he was sailing over my body and bounced once on the lock floor. My knee followed the idiot to the ground and pulled the air out of him. Unfortunately, I hadn't thought that move through, with no air in him I couldn't ask him once again why he was even in Cinder Creek, let alone up here with the rest of the villagers.

I felt a hand on my shoulder, my body stiffened ready to move when I heard a voice that has always calmed me. That damn lilt of his penetrated my thoughts and my heart beat just that little faster.

"You can let him up now, Cassie."

Beth was standing right next to my husband. Beth was holding onto Victoria and both her little hands were closed into fists. I instantly stood scooping my daughter into my arms as I did. She may be ten now and I doubt she would allow me to hug her in this fashion for much longer, but I would take all I could get at the moment. Victoria wrapped her arms and legs around me and I felt her body deflate, just a little.

The evening was shot to hell now. An evening to celebrate the dead was shot dead by an arrogant man and me. The Wilson's picked up Marlon Harrison, it turns out he is a cousin of Howard Wilson, they own one of the posh houses at the edge of town and had only been there three months, they were both cussing Marlon up and down for embarrassing them in front of the whole village.

Marlon was too busy shouting threats of legal action for assault on him by some woman, so he wasn't listening to his cousin. We could still hear him screaming lawsuits as he was almost frog marched down the hill and into town.

Marcy Wilson came over and nodded to Beth, then looked at me. "My apologies Traveler, enough cell phones were going through the whole event to prove you were provoked. If he is still stupid enough to think he can win a lawsuit, he will find me and my husband on your side of the witness queue."

Marcy then took a step to my side and knelt in front of Victoria who was standing next to me by now, then Marcy shocked us all when she reverted to water language. "You have a beautiful singing voice. My husband's idiot cousin doesn't even know you absolutely aced Cal-un-den. I promise, my husband and I will return in the morning and apologies to the red lady as well, and lay fresh flowers."

When she stood, she turned to look at me, her arms came slowly from her body and we embraced.

Her voice was but a whisper since it was so close to my ear. "I am water by birth and university educated thanks to the contingency funds given by your father to mine. I've never forgotten who I am and it's also why we live here now."

We both had water in our eyes when we parted.

We waved the ladies of the choir away a half an hour later, each and every one of them promised to return whenever the invite appeared. The Cooper family hung around for late evening coffees, I went to apologies once again when Brenda's mother wrapped her arms around me and told me to shush.

"My husband and I were two paces behind you remember? That is one very rude man. I certainly won't be sending Maddie to his agency."

Maddie spat her coffee back into her cup.

"Drink your coffee slowly dear."

The rest of the room didn't hear Maddie's reply; we were all laughing our asses off. Although I still felt guilty over what I had done, even though they all looked on the event as me being provoked.

As the evening wound down Maddie's folks left with Beth, Maddie went to bed and I looked at Victoria, she held out her hand and we both went back outside while Robert and our son were asleep on the couch together.