wrath of the Sea Queen (28 page)

N
ot finding any other major injuries,
C
a
eli
reached up to take
Apela's
offered hand
when he returned his attention to her
.  After a few m
oments
of s
tumbling
and a woozy start, C
a
eli g
o
t
to
her feet.  She experienced a brief, sharp cramp in her stomach, but managed to st
e
a
dy
herself.  C
a
eli thanked
Apela
for his much needed assistance
and left him to look after his son. 

She made her way carefully to Salma
,
who
still had not moved
.  C
a
eli gently
and slowly
leaned her
aunt
backward in her seat
,
being
careful to
en
sure that moving her would
not cause a
ny harm.  As C
a
eli tried to
determine
if Salma
had
sustained
any serious injuries, Salma woke a bit disoriented. 

"
Are you hurting anywhere?
"
  C
a
eli asked.

Salma indicated a pain in her left leg.  After taking a look
at the
wound
, C
a
eli helped
Salma
clean
the
large gash using supplies from Salma's
medical kit in her
carryon bag. 
Salma never went anywhere without it. 
As in the hospital on Friday,
Salma once again
thought she
sensed
a flow of energy from C
a
eli's hand into her
leg
, but she didn't say anything
to C
a
eli
this time. 
She made a mental note to mention it later
when their situation was a little less stressful
. 
Other
than the cut
on her leg
, which
,
amazingly
, had
already
started
healing
, Salma was
only
a little sore.  C
a
eli
shared
what she
knew about their predicament
,
forgetting to mention her own injury
. 

"
Obviously, w
e crashed, but the plane appears to be relatively intact and
bouncing precariously
on the waves.  As long as we don't spring a
nother
leak
,
like the one that drenched me,
or get pulled down by
these
enormous wave
s
, I think we should be ok
for a while.
"
 

Both ladies looked around at the
other passengers
who were slowly beginning to assess their own situations.  Salma wanted to get up and see if she could offer medical
aid
to
any of them
.

"
Now that you
a
re done fussing over me, I
woul
d like to check on everyone else
;
See if anyone needs real medical attention.
"
 

C
a
eli refused to let Salma get
out of her seat
. 

"
You should not be walking around on that leg
," C
a
eli insisted.

"Oh, it's nothing.  I'm fine."  Salma tried to
convince
her
niece.  After all, she was the doctor
in the family, not C
a
eli
.

"No.  That's a nasty cut. 
I
wi
ll go talk to
people
, and if I find someone that you can help, I will let you know.
"
 
C
a
eli
refused
to let Salma risk further injury by
stumbling
around in
the
dark cabin.

As she
moved down
the short aisle, C
a
eli
noticed
the redhead leaning forward in his seat
, directly behind Salma
.  He appeared to be stretching, but the movement
looked
awkward.  C
a
eli didn't know why, but she
got an uneasy
feeling a
round
the man.  Nonetheless, she still offered him assistance.  Somehow,
it did
not surprise
her that he gave a
less than polite
refusal
when she offered
to let Salma look at the cut on his forearm.  C
a
eli was grateful, though amazed, that in such a forceful crash, the injuries were comparatively minor. 

When she
reached
the back of the plane, C
a
eli could see that one of the businessmen
did
not fare so well. 
A sense of sadness nearly
overwhelmed
her
.  This man
would never wake. 
C
a
eli
's
stomach
began to
churn at the sight, and it was all she could do to keep herself from being sick.  C
a
eli quickly spoke with
another
businessman and then turned away.

Finding no s
erious injuries for Salma to tend
, C
a
eli took a few minutes to look at the plane's damaged wing.  She could barely see the charred engine as waves continually
sloshed
over it, tugging it
repeatedly
below the surface.  She noticed a dark line about halfway up the wing.  It ran diagonally from the front of the wing to its rear side.  It looked like a large crack.  If the force of the water kept pulling against it, the wing might break off and disturb the small plane's precarious balance on the
water's
surface.  Pushing that thought to the back of her mind, C
a
eli headed back to her original seat.

As she returned up the aisle, C
a
eli noticed the wetness on the floor and
suddenly
remembered Rika's words. 
T
he
y had a problem
.  The plane
was
leak
ing
. 
C
a
eli
sat
down,
thinking about Rika's assertion that
she
had the ability to
stop the w
ater
.  For some reason, C
a
eli believed
this unknown counselor
.  She supposed
it wasn't a huge leap to believe that
she might have a
gift
, and that it had been
unconsciously present throughout
her life.  C
a
eli
had
always
been
fond
of
water and water-related activit
ies
.  She even swam competitively for several years.  Her coaches always
marveled
that someone of her petite height could prevail over swimmers
of
much taller stature
s
. 

Now that she intentionally recalled
specific
details
from
her
childhood
, C
a
eli remembered that when
ever
she was sick or hurt, she craved water.  Unlike most people who preferred
to be soothed by
juice or warm
soup
, water
always
seemed to have a
more
positive effect on C
a
eli; and
then there was
the rain
. 
W
hen
ever
C
a
eli experienced a strong feeling of sadness, fear, or anger, the rain always seemed to match her mood. 
It
was
a private comfort to her
, and she now realized she had been aware of
it
for many years
. 
Sure, it rained at other times
having
absolutely nothing to do with her
;
but, C
a
eli
always maintained a secret belief
that
there were
a few
special
times
when
it rained
solely
for her.  Finally, C
a
eli revisited the incident with Kent.  He
had
drugged her, and she might have died
if
Salma had
not
stumbled across the solution
.  She
used water to help flush the drug from C
a
eli's system.  In retrospect, it made perfect sense that C
a
eli's
special bloodline granted her access to the elemental
gift
of
water.