As a child I'd felt a burning envy of the ghost birds, as my father's eyes had seen them. Of course, dad had never called them that -- he knew the cormorants before they became memory. I never saw them, even in their waning time, the brief moments when we both existed together -- I was too young. Being a child who could imagine such things, they became ghosts to me instead, flying in spectral skies above an unfathomable ocean.
In the same way, I couldn't remember dad's eyes, in the time long before they were enfolded by wrinkles, made milky with age and regrets. I'd never known the man who'd written about those ghosts. He'd looked at them with a vastly different gaze than the one he later set on his daughter.
They are one of a reckless, fading few that can claim the dagger cut of sky above a calm sea, riding low in a cloud-heavy sky, Nina my girl -- a fluid, winged black bullet shadowing the water.
It began when I received the research station's transmission -- what was left of it. I played it back over and over, listening with rapt attention to the crackly, age and distance-distorted recording. The deep, guttural voice of my old ghost bird had found its way out of the past and invaded my waking hours, its plaintive cries echoing incessantly in my head. I didn't know then what I was listening for. There were the little girls, one long dead, the other waiting. There was my father's ghost, and of course, the cormorants.
The hologram of Rory Maxwell's lanky frame blinked at me from the makeshift communications terminal. "I thought you must've been joking, Nina -- what in God's name you doing in Brazil?" His face scrunched up in a rather unattractive -- at least through the holo-vid -- expression of disbelief.
"Got something that might interest you." I ignored his question and paced in front of the portable terminal. "How's your ornithology, kid?"
"Not that good." The holo-Rory swiveled on a protesting metal stool, and the view of him changed, expanding suddenly to include a small, cluttered office cubicle and a double-set of computer monitors, their screens patiently blank and silent.
"Cormorant, -- Great Cormorant to be specific -- sometime resident of the Atlantic coast of the United States."
The sound of fingers flying across a keypad reached me through the connection between us, and Rory's monitors sprang to electric life. "Extinct--that the end of the story?"
"Yes and no. The species relocated along the Brazilian coast for a time before that happened," I replied, reading down a page of scrawling notes, so small they made my head ache. "They formed communal nesting grounds with various other seabird species-- "
" -- Resulting in them hanging on for about a decade more, then vanishing almost overnight," Rory summarized. More clicking and tapping, until finally Rory's vid-image swiveled back to face her, more questions brimming. "What happened to them?"
"It isn't clear," I said. "Survival rate of cormorant offspring decreased dramatically, but there was definitely more to it. A private party set up a research station down here to try to find out."
"Your father's private party?" he asked, grinning.
"Uh-huh -- on protected land. Its purpose was the independent collection of data on the local wildlife. It was hoped they could get an idea as to what happened to the cormorant in the process. The station was built in a cave system near the nesting colonies. It was a stand-alone unit that could operate with no outside contact, and it could be monitored from a personal terminal as small as mine."
Rory looked suitably impressed. "Great, so what happened?"
"Nothing. No conclusive data was ever collected. But three days ago I got a call from one of the government offices here on the island. It seems someone down here still remembers the project and its intention, even thirty years later." I shook my head, still not quite able to believe what I'd been told. "They picked up a signal from the research station about a week ago." I punched in a code and jacked up the volume on the audio transmission until the electric hum of the terminal could be heard buzzing loudly in the quiet room. "They sent me a sample of what they could sort out. Listen…"
After a few painful seconds of ear-splitting static and whine, the first strains of the strangest birdsong Rory had likely ever heard came across the connection. It was deep, like the grunt of a contented sow, but stretched thin and pitched slightly higher, as if from an elongated throat.
The kid's eyes widened. "You're shitting me -- that's your baby?"
"It could be, so that's why I'm down here. I'm going after the unit, Rory, and whatever's making this noise, so I need you to send over your camera."
"No problem there, but you know, the data transmission itself could be a ghost thirty or more years old. Just because cormorants were there then doesn't mean they'll still be."
"You are so right, kid," I agreed, but an odd sort of shadow must have passed over my face -- the one that always betrayed me when I wanted to keep something hidden -- because he paused to regard me closer. "It's a kind of family matter now," I said after considering a moment. "You know what those are like, don't you, kid?"
"Sure." He nodded, not really understanding anything, but the look on my face must have convinced him, because he sobered up quick. "Whatever you say, Nina. Which camera?"
"The big one. I'm going to invite Cale, as well, if he's available."
"No kidding?" the kid chuckled. "A psychic for a spelunking search and rescue expedition -- that should be fun. Have you spoken to him lately, or is he still stinging from the last time you two worked together?"
I shrugged, irritated that Rory of all people had chosen to remind me of that time. "We'll see, I suppose. I do appreciate this, kid, and I'll talk to you soon."
The holo-Rory disappeared, cutting off the static-laden connection and the bleached light, leaving me to be swallowed by the sudden silence of the bedroom.
The pousada -- one of the many Brazilian beds and breakfasts on the island -- was small, with hardwood floors, worn slick under my socks, and ornamented only by sunlit, billowy white curtains at the long windows.
I turned back to the blank monitors on the desk -- staring at them for a long, uncomfortable moment, until I couldn't wait any longer.
How like him to make me bridge the gap. Hell, I guess I deserved it.
"Did you hear all of that, Cale?" I asked the empty air quietly, feeling slightly foolish.
The reply, when it came, was entirely textual, and did nothing to fill the silence in the room. The message flowed across my monitor screen with the same unhurried grace and precision exemplified by the person on the other end.
He was right…you don't really need me…and you're angry--why?
He could probably feel it, even from there. I wasn't surprised, really--he'd always been good at reading me. On the other hand, the anger was always there, bubbling just beneath the surface.
All because of him.
I wasn't sure whether I had thought it, or whether he had thought it at me. I almost asked him if he meant my father or the cormorant, but refrained, realizing I had no desire to examine either possibility.
"I uncovered a few details about the transmission after tinkering with it a bit," I admitted. Now was as good a time as any to tell him, especially if it would convince him to help me. "There's the birdsong you and Rory heard, and some unremarkable static near the end, but in between the two -- I'm pretty sure it's a verbal recording, Cale."
You think the station might have been tampered with.
"It probably has been. The whole thing is probably nothing, but I have to be sure. It was the better part of a life, Cale," I said defensively. "You know that."
"I do."
He understood -- of course he did, but that didn't mean he would help me. There wasn't much more in the way of understanding between us.
"If I could find even a clue, a trace of them, it would be something."
"Yes. But would it be enough?"
It would never be enough, I thought. But he already knew that. "Cale?"
Yes?
"Are you?"
Am I what?
" -- Still stinging…from the last time?"
No, Nina.
"Will you come, then?"
There was a lengthy pause. Yes, I'll come along if it will help. I can be down there in a few days, as soon as I finish some business here.
I realized I hadn't even asked what he had been doing, or how things were going in his work. Guilt pulled at me. I struggled for a moment, trying to think of a safe place to begin, but all I could manage in the end was: "Thank you. I'll see you soon, then." I turned away, knowing there would be no further inquiries or replies, and predictably, when I turned back, the screens remained dark.
"Almost there, miss." I followed the captain's line of sight forward and up, craning my neck as the cliffs of the island's westernmost point emerged, fortress-like, from the mist. Rising up directly before us was a particularly imposing crag -- home of the Corridors, according to the captain -- riddled with deep-slashed fissures and stony pockmarks.
I glanced to the starboard side to see how Cale was holding up. He'd come, as promised, and stood now, leaned against the rail, staring at nothing and seemingly unaffected by the motion or the strong stench of fish and sea in the air. His head dipped, goateed chin brushing the collar of his shirt; he raised his hands to his mouth and blew on them for warmth.
The boat kept its distance from the rocky coastline, mooring at a private dock not far away, and the captain pointed to a sliver of glimmering tideland that disappeared into a small cove. The entrance was narrow, but I was still surprised I had missed seeing it on approach.
"Low tide now, so you shouldn't have any trouble," the captain explained. "But stick to higher ground once it starts to rise. You'll be safe enough if you do."
I nodded and thanked him as we set off on our trek across the beach. The waves kicked up spray in choked, sporadic bursts against the rocks at the entrance to the cove. In the thick shade of the cliff face, the air still held a chill, and the water was cool, much cooler than I expected.
Inside the cove it was darker. The lapping of the waves against the slip of shore was magnified by the towering rock, but the sound was not nearly so deafening as the rumble of the sea outside.
"He was right about the high ground," Cale spoke up when we could hear each other clearly. He pointed to the curving rock encasing us in its stony pocket. It was alive with encrusted barnacles and skittering water insects, and the surf lapping around his booted ankles was dark with swaying kelp. "This whole area will flood by high tide, then there won't be a cove at all -- not above water."
"That's why we need to go up," I said, pointing. "The large one should take us where we need to go." From the ground up, the rock was honeycombed with tunnels, like the empty sockets of a once many-eyed creature. Most were only shallow depressions, but the largest of them disappeared deep into the rock, beyond the beam of my flashlight. On hands and knees, I started crawling cautiously forward into the blackness. Cale followed behind me.
Unexpectedly, the passage did not rise as we made our way forward. We remained on level ground at ten meters, and the passage took a steep downward slope, spilling out eventually into a sandy-floored, circular grotto, roughly ten feet from stone to stone.
Daylight filtered into the tunnel -- the cavern lay open to the sky at least thirty above us, giving it the look of a deep, natural well. Tilting my head back to take in the view, I couldn't help but be impressed at the bizarre effect. It was as if the cave had been punctured by a giant knife, leaving a crooked slash in the rock that refused to heal. I followed the slice of cobalt blue, cloudless and framed in rough-hewn limestone.
Cale pointed behind and above me, where a second, larger tunnel in the cavern wall disappeared into the darkness -- yet another corridor in the dark.
But in this tunnel we could stand, and, following the passage on level ground, it wasn't long before it emptied out into another cavern, this one enclosed by a low rock ceiling. In a jagged recess in the far wall, the research console sat patiently waiting for us.
Now, when I was so close to the source of what had been plaguing my dreams for so many nights, I was suddenly hesitant even to touch it. "Cale?" I asked uncertainly.
But he was already moving toward the console, hands in his pockets, moving as casually as if he were out for a stroll. He turned a half-circle, then another, until he faced the console again. Finally he shook his head without turning around.
"It's clean," he said. "There are faint impressions, like fingerprints in chalk dust, but they're too old to hold any substance. If anyone has been here, it wasn't recently."
"I see." So no one had tampered with the equipment, had even been in the cavern for years…maybe not since dad had last been there. I released the breath I hadn't realized I was holding. "Thank you, Cale."
He nodded and busied himself setting up a rough camp, leaving me space and relative privacy to explore the station database. I set to work, leaving my own invisible trail of fingerprints on the cold metal, warming and coaxing it gradually from its thirty-year sleep as I went.
"The signal is one drawn-out loop," I said, after three hours of searching, scanning the endless streams of data. "It begins transmitting with a data recording, which includes the birdsong, and terminates with the verbal recording I told you about. There's a break of approximately twenty-three and a half hours, then the signal begins transmitting again. According to these logs, it's the same exact signal every time, though."
"There's no new data being recorded, then," Cale mused as he studied the logs. "Something might have happened at the end of the original transmission to make it repeat itself --a system error, maybe."
I nodded. "There's one other thing. According to the pattern, there should have been another transmission approximately two hours ago. There hasn't been. It's as if the loop was suddenly broken." I began punching in codes on the console, retracing the loop to its beginning and setting the playback.
Almost immediately, cormorant cries filled the echoing spaces of the cavern. The sounds were louder, clearer now that they did not have to travel through tons of rock to reach us. The gentle grunts were at one moment a mating call and a sharply issued warning to competitors the next. This went on for several minutes, finally dissolving into what sounded like a flurry of wings and rushing air, birds startled into flight.
Then, in the wake of the audio transmission came another voice, high-pitched and hollowed thin by the caverns, but its sound was clear and easily identifiable, as if it had come from right beside the unit. It jolted me from my study of the data logs.
I looked quickly at Cale and saw a similar reaction. I froze the recording and backed it up--restarted--with the same result. I did it a third time anyway.
"Laughter--" Cale said, "--very young, almost like a child." He reached over my shoulder and restarted the recording to hear more.
He was right. The odd, playful sound poured clearly out of the speakers -- eventually mixing with the scuffle of feet and the scrape of stone on stone.
"Male or female?" I asked.
"Female." He gestured for me to be silent, but the transmission had already dissolved into loud, hissing static. I cut the playback.
"What do you think it was?" asked Cale.
"I don't know." I turned back to the console, determined to dissect it if I had to, to find any clues as to the source of the audio. Cale laid a hand on my arm.
"It's late. You should rest awhile first."
I shrugged off the gentle pressure and stared at the monitor screen. His faint sigh irritated me.
I wasn't sure when I finally surrendered to sleep, but sometime in the night, I dreamed. I never dreamed when sleeping in strange places. My sleep was always too light, and I would wake at the smallest sound.
Tonight was different. Cormorants flew into a storm wind, through thickening clouds and rain. I watched them until they were specks of shadow, indistinguishable from the dark sky.
I knew as soon as I awoke that something was very wrong. My head throbbed dully against the cold metal of the console where I'd rested it. The portable lights were still glowing faintly, but it was cold, and everything felt foreign. My tongue tasted salt when I licked dry lips, and the corners of my eyes were gritty and stinging.
Cale's sleeping bag was empty next to my own in the far corner of the cave. It took me only a moment to find him, standing with his back to me a few yards away. Before I could call out to him, he half-turned, making a swift and subtle gesture to silence me. When he moved again, I saw the girl.
She was standing just beyond reach of Cale, taking in the both of us with a curious gaze. I opened my mouth, but words refused to come. As if in response to the scrutiny, the child stepped further into the light so that I could see her fully.
She couldn't have been older than eight. She was dressed in a simple, worn sundress, and her hair was tied back, dark, but in such an odd shade that it appeared almost blue. Her feet were bare and candied with a light dusting of sand. I recalled my first day on the island, when the small chapel in town was concluding its morning service and the children scattered like frocked and ribboned mice to play in the sunshine and accumulate as much dirt and grime as possible on their clothes.
But this child's face resembled none of those. Her eyes were far too large for her small, pallid face, with only a hint of white visible around the dark irises. The fingers of her hands were elongated, smooth like a grown woman's and with no sign of nails.
"Who are you?" Cale asked tentatively.
The child looked at him but said nothing. She brushed a hand lightly against her dress, and suddenly the expression on her pale face melted into a look of pure misery, one that only a child could have worn when confronted with something upsetting. It took me a moment to realize that she was shivering and wet from almost the waist down.
Without thinking, Cale automatically held out his hands to offer her some kind of aid, realizing too late that the gesture would likely frighten her.
Instead, the child hurried forward into the circle of his arms, waiting impatiently for him to pick her up off the cold cavern floor. Hesitating only a second or two, he did so, lifting her slight form easily, but with such great care that she might have been formed of crystal.
"Cale," I whispered, "You're not--"
"No," came the terse reply. "I haven't tried probing her."
"Don't." I swallowed. "Is it her?"
"There's only one way to know for sure."
"I didn't mean--oh damn it, don't--put her down, Cale."
They turned their heads as one to look at me: the man and the child. The strangely serene picture they made together sent a shudder coursing through my body.
Cale looked at me for a moment, trying with his eyes to tell me that it was all right, when I knew damn well it wasn't. He must have heard me, because a shadow of a smile crossed his face as he closed his eyes, turning his full attention to the girl and her thoughts.
It went on for long, terrible minutes. There was nothing but silence as I waited, feeling helpless. Content in her current surroundings, the girl had curled herself into the warmth of Cale's chest and rested there, as if sleeping. If she felt any part of the psychic's intrusion, she showed no sign of it.
In the end, however, it was the child who severed the connection. Cale's eyes snapped open suddenly, bulging, but it was too late. She simply vanished, faded from sight with Cale's arms still encircling her slender body. There was nothing left behind to indicate she'd been there at all, except for a few damp patches on Cale's clothing.
My hand trembled against my mouth, while Cale -- white-faced and as visibly shaken as I'd ever seen him -- slowly lowered his arms to his sides.
"Something wasn't right. I knew, as soon as I woke up," I said.
"I know. I felt the same."
"What happened?"
"Nothing. When I woke, she was just there, watching you sleep at the terminal."
"Oh God." I felt sick and sank to my knees on the cavern floor, letting the cold stone clear my head. "Cale, do you know…it was the girl, wasn't it -- the one on the recording? I know it's crazy, but it has to be, doesn't it -- I mean, if it's not then I'm losing my mind, or maybe this cave is just full of old ghosts, dad's and mine…" My hands were shaking.
"She's the one," Cale said.
"What did she say to you?"
"A lot -- nothing maybe -- I don't know. She didn't think in any language I've ever heard, but the voice, at least, was familiar." He shifted restlessly and turned away from where the child had stood.
"Where are you going?" I demanded as he headed toward the dark tunnel that led to the grotto.
"I'll be back," he assured me. The dark tunnel swallowed him up, and I was left alone.
I removed my father's journal from my pack, flipping aimlessly through the pages of entries, and maps of the caverns, looking for the few parts he had written just for me –well, me and the cormorants.
You know they were water-hunters, Nina. What does that tell you about their vision? It reflects that. It holds steady in what would be a dizzying and vast flight for you and I, and remains keen as any raptors' as they descend to a glide. They watch, see, for that one flash of iridescence to reveal the prey. When they see it, their vision slips -- sinks almost, as their bodies do -- adapting to the underwater as they dive. They have to. Pursue the prey or starve. It's a matter of survival.
I snapped the book shut and rose, grabbing my flashlight as I headed for the tunnel.
He hadn't gone far, just to the ledge overlooking the expanse of the grotto. As I approached, I could hear the rumble of thunder from the exposed sky. Rain had already started falling in needle-like streaks past the mouth of the tunnel, glittering silver with moonlight.
The grotto had changed its face; Lightning played across the stone-bound ceiling, a purple-black dance that filled the visible slash of sky completely with its flashes. The tide was high, submerging the cavern floor in several feet of dark, rippling water.
He knew I was there, made no move to either acknowledge my presence or send me away. "I need to apologize to you," I began hesitantly, watching his rigid back as he gazed up at the dance of lightning.
"So do I. I thought we'd come to that later."
"Come away from there." I touched his shoulder. "It isn't safe with the tide and storm. You could fall."
He turned to me, and I couldn't help flinching at the briefly empty look he gave me. The veins at his temples stood out in sickly bluish relief, and dark circles ringed his eyes. There had clearly been more to his encounter with the child than he had told me -- would ever tell me.
"Come on." I slipped my hand into his and he allowed me to guide him back down the tunnel.
We didn't speak as we prepared for the rest of the night. As he had done for me, I allowed Cale the time and space to regain some of his composure. I busied myself setting up fresh lights to banish the shadows from the corners of the cavern. When we finally did settle in, I drew him to me, our chilled hands and bodies touching everywhere they could, and warming.
It wasn't until much later that he spoke, when I thought he'd fallen asleep.
"You have the passion for life he must have lacked."
"What?" I whispered. His face was turned away from me, resting in shadow so that I couldn't see his expression.
"It's not so easily buried."
I didn't want to talk about this, about my father or his cormorants -- wouldn't have, if I didn't think Cale needed it somehow. "He had it too, once. He adored my mother, before she died. He loved his work, and the cormorants, before they both went away. But it was all spent by the time I came fully into his life. I would have given anything for him to have saved just a little bit of it back."
"I know. I've often wished the same of you," Cale said, very softly.
My breath caught painfully and unwanted tears stung my eyes. "I'm sorry, Cale. I wanted to be like that--like you. I couldn't."
"It isn't enough to survive."
"You're probing now," I said.
"I am -- I'm sorry." He sounded so tired.
"It's all right -- stay awhile yet." I lifted his face between splayed fingertips and kissed him, warming instantly from the touch. When I would have pulled away, he caught me and drew me back. Moments later, we could think of nothing at all to say or think. We fell asleep in the time just before the storm began.
When I awoke, Cale was gone again. I felt the chill of his empty sleeping bag next to mine. He'd been gone for some time.
I sat up, realizing with a jolt of panic that all the lights in the cavern had gone out. The only source of illumination came from the flickering computer screens on the research terminal.
I looked, and saw her standing in front of them, haloed by their spectral glow.
"Get away from there!" The words ripped out of me before I could stop them, and the feeling of panic intensified.
The child turned and looked at me with calm, unblinking eyes, her face expressionless.
"Where is Cale?" I demanded, rising slowly and moving toward her.
"Hurry," she whispered, her voice sounding thick and unnatural around the word. Still watching me with those calm, alien eyes, the child backed slowly away from the terminal. In the pale glow, her body seemed almost transparent, made of light and water. "Gate closes," she murmured, and a crease marred her smooth forehead. Then she turned away from me, toward the tunnel.
"Wait!" I cried. Foregoing caution, I sprang up and managed to take three long strides across the length of the cavern before the child vanished completely. "Cale!" I screamed, tripping and dropping to my knees as pain shot through my leg. My scream was tossed carelessly back to me in the empty cavern. I touched my leg and felt a trickle of warm blood running down my ankle.
A rumble sounded dully in my ears. It built and burst in an explosion that shook the entire cavern. I was thrown flat against the stone by the force. The rumbling continued, leaving me in its wake like a careless wave.
Crawling on hands and knees, I made my way to the flashing screens of the terminal. Tremors vibrated the loose stone beneath my palms. The station hummed with activity in spite of it all. I could see by the scrolling data that the unit was running various diagnostic checks on itself. When they concluded, it sat silent again, waiting for a command.
Gate closes. A wild mixture of hope and fear started to build in my chest.
Another tremor shook the ground beneath me. Gripping the console for support, I punched in the code to restart he unit, watching as the command began to execute. By the light of the dancing screens, I turned and sprinted painfully to the tunnel entrance, groping my way along its slick surface.
The grotto was alive. Rain poured now into the huge well, and the water was deep and foaming. I looked up; storm clouds chased each other across the black strip of exposed sky.
Finding a foothold on the stones, I clawed with my fingers for purchase on the glittering, wet protrusions of rock next to the tunnel. Once I found a grip strong enough, I hauled my body up towards the stormy hole.
The rain plastered my hair to my face; I couldn't look up into the downpour to see where I was going, but the lightning flashes were getting steadily brighter, even through my closed eyelids.
Finally, my hand slapped solid ground. Hooking my arm around the ledge, I turned my face upward and looked through rain-tearing eyes.
What I saw made me laugh. It was a wild sound, lost in the roaring wind and the flight of cormorants soaring into the storm.
A second explosion rocked the cavern, but this time, it came from above me, in the form of a brilliant flash that left the air singing with heat.
The sky slice dropped away slowly as I fell, hitting the water with a splash only distantly felt.
I awoke to the pounding rain, drenching me from above, splashing up from the water of the grotto well.
Cale was shaking me, shouting, asking me if I was all right. He was somehow holding us both above water, treading it steadily while keeping his hand slung round my waist.
"What -- " I choked on seawater, gagging painfully. He held me steady while I coughed it up. My body ached all over. "Where were you -- I looked -- "
"I heard you calling," he said, breathing heavily from the strain of keeping us both afloat. "The storm was getting bad; I was looking for a path out." He took hold of one of my limp hands and curled it around his shoulders, then reached for the other one.
I pulled away from him, remembering the sky and my climb. Cale cursed in frustration and mounting fear. He was afraid he was going to lose his grip on me. The chill waters made it difficult for hands and fingers to work properly. It didn't matter. I had to make him see.
Raising my hand up out of the churning water, I managed to point weakly at the sky. He looked, and I saw the moment he glimpsed it, the second moon shining amidst the lightning and rain. "Gate closes," I whispered, not sure whether I wanted to laugh again or cry. "We're not going to make it."
That jarred him. "Hold your breath," he commanded, giving me only a second to comply before jerking me underwater with him.
Lit from above by the twin moons and the lightning, the water quivered with dancing shadows that revealed themselves as swaying plants and other clinging vegetation.
The tunnel was a different matter entirely, black and choked with kelp that brushed our bare skin as we passed by. We were sightless, like deep-dwelling fish, but were buoyed upward in the angled passage to the now-underwater cove.
We swam out of it to find light near the surface, past rocks and darting fish. When our gasping heads broke the surface, we sucked in the cool, mist-laden air of morning, newly come to the island.