Tracy Buchanan - My Sister’s Secret

‘I’m stuck on the colour of the sea.’ A frown puckered her pale skin as she turned to look back out towards the sea. ‘It’s such a strange colour today, not blue or grey or green.’

‘Ribbons,’ Charity lazily murmured without opening her eyes. ‘Blue, grey and green ribbons.’

Faith smiled as she sat down next to Charity, pebbles warm beneath her bare calves.

‘Ribbons. I like that. You’re not so useless after all, Charity,’ Hope declared, scribbling in her notepad as Charity stuck her tongue out at her.

‘I’ve got something to show you both,’ Faith said.

Charity opened one eye, squinting up at her sister. ‘Please not another type of snorkel? Because honestly, they all look the same to me.’

Faith laughed. ‘I promise it’s not.’ She looked over at Hope, impatient. ‘Come on, I want to show you both together.’

Hope put her hand up. ‘Wait, I have one more line to write.’ She finished scribbling then snapped her notepad shut, shouting, ‘Finished!’ Then she jogged over to them, pulling her swimming cap off and raking her fingers through her wavy red hair as it fell around her thin shoulders.

‘So,’ Faith said as Hope joined them. ‘You know we’re going to travel the world when we’re old enough?’

Charity and Hope exchanged a smile. Faith always came up with fun adventures.

‘As Daddy pointed out, we can’t visit every single country in the world,’ Faith continued. ‘That would take us a lifetime. We need a focus .’

‘I quite agree,’ Hope said as Charity nodded.

‘Well, I’ve decided what our focus will be.’ She took a deep breath, looking at each of her sisters in turn, drawing out the drama.

‘Oh come on, Faith, don’t torture us,’ Charity said, bouncing up and down on her toes in anticipation.

‘We should focus on visiting submerged forests!’ Faith declared. ‘I was looking through the photos from Mum’s field trip last week in Austria, they’re beautiful!’

Charity went still. ‘Submerged what?’

‘You never listen when Mum tells us about her trips,’ Hope said, rolling her eyes.

‘They’re forests that disappear beneath the sea over time,’ Faith explained.

‘Mrs Tate read a poem in class about a whole town that got flooded in Wales after I told her where Mum was going,’ Hope said. ‘You can still see the remains of its forests when the tide goes out.’ She flicked through her notepad then tapped her finger on a page. ‘Here it is. “When waves crashed on the sea-shore / with thunder in its wake / The bells of Cantre’r Gwaelod / are silent ’neath the wave.”’

‘So these forests are a bit like Atlantis?’ Charity asked.

‘Kind of,’ Faith said. ‘But minus the buildings. And they’re not just beneath the sea. You can find them in lakes and rivers too. There’s one in Austria that only appears in the summer when the snow melts. The water floods the trees, and even a park bench. I found a book in the library about them, and drew a map of all the forests I could find in it.’

Faith pulled out what she’d been hiding behind her back and laid it on the towel. It was a large and rather beautiful drawing of the world map, tiny illustrated trees dotted in different locations. At the top, in Faith’s pretty looped handwriting, was: ‘World Tour of Submerged Forests.’

The three sisters bent over the map, hair trailing across it, dark, red and blonde. They traced their fingers over the trees then all peered up at one another.

Charity smiled. ‘This is so cool, Faith.’

Faith’s pretty face lit up. ‘Isn’t it? I can collect samples from the trees as we travel. I’ll be a marine biologist by then anyway.’ She looked at Hope. ‘And you can write poems about them.’ Hope nodded, grey eyes sparkling. ‘And Charity, you can—’

‘Sunbathe after each dive?’ Charity suggested.

The three girls laughed.

There was the sound of crunching pebbles. They all looked up to see their friend Niall approaching. The top half of his wetsuit was around his waist, exposing the tanned skin of his chest. His face was very tanned too, his blue eyes even more vivid as a result. He looked like he’d grown up in the weeks since they’d seen him last. Faith supposed he wasn’t the annoying little boy they’d first met on this beach four years before. He was fifteen, after all, nearly a man.

She noticed Charity staring shyly at him, her cheeks flushing. Clearly Charity had noticed the change in Niall too. Hope on the other hand was oblivious, rolling her eyes as she always did when Niall appeared.

‘Come join us, Niall,’ Faith said, beckoning him over. ‘We’ve decided to do a world tour of submerged forests.’

Niall crouched down and looked at the map. ‘There’s a submerged forest off Busby’s coast, apparently.’

Hope looked at him cynically.

‘Seriously. A fisherman saw the branches of a tree during a storm.’

‘That’s hardly proof,’ Hope said.

‘But it’s something,’ Charity said, jumping up and shading her eyes as she looked out to sea. ‘I’d love to see it.’

Niall smiled at Charity. She bit her lip, looking away. Hope shot her a warning glance, but Faith smiled. It was nice, watching the way they were together. Niall was a good kid, despite his troubled background. It wasn’t his fault his parents drank too much and lived on the grim estate at the other end of Busby, was it?

He pulled a pencil from the small blue rucksack Faith always carried around with her and quickly drew a little tree over Busby-on-Sea on the map.

‘If we find it, it can be the first forest we visit,’ he said.

‘We?’ Hope replied.

‘Yeah, who else will teach you all to dive properly?’

The three sisters looked out to sea, the waves crashing and receding before them. Then Niall picked Charity up, throwing her over his shoulder and running into the sea with her as Faith laughed.

The happy memory dissipated. A tear slid down Faith’s cheek. She was so cold, so frightened. Her sisters would find her though. They’d see her bed was empty and they’d come looking for her. Then she’d tell them every little thing that had happened during the past few weeks and they’d figure it all out together, because that was what they always did.

No more secrets, she thought to herself.

She closed her eyes.

Willow

In the middle of the Aegean Sea, Greece

August 2016

My friend Ajay reckons the Aegean Sea is named after Aegea, queen of the Amazons. My aunt Hope disagrees. She says it’s named after a famous sea goat.

I know which one I prefer.

In fact, I feel like I’m channelling a female warrior when I do dives like this, all swaddled up in my diving ‘armour’, ready to do battle with the sea and unearth its treasures. I feel it now as the dive boat we’re on bounces over the waves, the sea spreading out around us, the island of Rhodes just a shimmer of land behind us.

‘Nearly there,’ Ajay says, smiling at me. Without him, I’d have never got on to this wreck dive. I smile back, grateful.

One of the other divers who’s with us – an Australian called Guy, all blond hair and muscles – paces the boat, frustrated. ‘I might just jump off this boat and swim there myself if it doesn’t get a move on.’

The rest of the crew laugh.

I haven’t worked with Guy before but I’ve worked with divers like him, all bravado and testosterone. I can guarantee that by tonight he’ll be telling me stories of all the times he’s nearly died diving wrecks. Usually that’s a sign of someone who puts their ego above competence.

I throw Ajay a ‘where’d you find this one?’ look. He mouths back, ‘He’s good.’