“Is it time to go to the whales yet?” Zerafina asked, almost bouncing in her eagerness.
I roused myself from my memories. I didn’t often think of Aidan, for five years had passed since I had last seen him, but I tried to keep the memory fresh.
“Almost, sweetheart,” I replied. “Give me a moment.”
I closed my eyes and wished the young doctor a healthy and happy life, the least he deserved for kindling a fire that would never go out. When fire and water mix, they create something extraordinary and new, but they cannot survive together.
“Come on, Mummy! I see one!” Zerafina squealed, as a thick curly lock of red hair blew into her mouth in the strong winds. She spat it out again, before darting off in front of me, toward the approaching whales. Her fiery tail glinted in the morning sun, as she flicked it furiously to increase her speed.
I sighed and dove through the water after her, my golden tail rippling in a more leisurely fashion, with far more power than my daughter’s. I resolved to venture on land in the near future, to drink a glass of whiskey and toast the health of her father, whose fire could never survive beneath the ocean’s surface as my people did.
After all, Aidan couldn’t swim.
YOU ARE READING
Water and Fire - A Short Story
ChickLitWorking as a student midwife in an Australian country hospital is never easy, but Belinda finds more trouble than most. There's the intern doctor who follows her around like an overgrown puppy, the dangerous local wildlife and her own secrets she m...
