Page 91 of Bride Under Contract

He also saw the spot where he’d fallen.

He recalled the taste of blood, and remembered he’d known he had to stem it...

Some were his own memories, some were Bashir’s tales, but nothing helped.

Yet as he got closer his pace picked up.

He was following the line of the river, but well back from the mangroves.

And he’d been right, Carter decided, when he saw the silvery striped mangroves. Even if he’d done his best to avoid this spot, he knew it exactly. Yet there were no answers to be had here.

This place that had tormented him for a lifetime was not the stuff of nightmares.

Birds flashed like red jewels, and where the dense canopy of trees thinned there were glimpses of cloudy blue skies.

As Carter drank the last of the water he’d brought, he decided it had been a mistake to come.

Hunger gnawed. He picked up a mangosteen and stared at it, then tossed it away, deciding he would never be that hungry again.

Yet he bent to retrieve it, and as he held the rough waxy orb the desperation he’d felt as a child was revived...the fatigue and hunger as he’d bashed it on a stone, the purple wax seeping in, the usually sweet white parcels stained and rotten, bitter on his tongue.

Yet he’d eaten them.

No wonder he couldn’t stand them now.

He took one and peeled it open, saw the pretty white parcels like the ones he’d opened for Grace that beautiful morning. He thought of that cocktail, and how she’d simply put it down when he told her.

She’d brushed her teeth before she’d kissed him—and that memory felt like her smile.

He tasted the fruit and it was sweet...like peaches.

He tossed it away.

The heat and the low-hanging branches made it a fight at times to move even a few steps further. His shirt was torn, a heavy branch swung back, and he felt the tear of the flesh on his cheek. He reached for his water bottle, but of course it was long empty, and he knew he was on his own with the elements. But still he was not concerned. This had been his and Arif’s playground. The boys had often gone further than his grandfather would have permitted, and it had been a regular outing throughout the summer, with overnight treks a frequent adventure. Even a couple of nights at times.

They’d always stopped here, though.

Arif would put out his arm and halt them, telling Carter they should go no further.

‘But the river is just through there...’ Carter would protest, for it was just a couple of miles ahead, and he’d known someone there might give them a ride back, or take them to their home for a meal.

But Arif had always pointed to the still, shallow stretch of water, sometimes high from recent rain. ‘Mortal danger.’

Even at eight years old, Carter had known what that meant.

‘Idiot!’ he muttered, his lip curling on the word.

For how the hell had his father thought it safe to bring his family here? To watch as his wife carried his infant into infested waters?

He came to the edge of the mangroves, their silver branches like bony arms stretching skywards, beyond the river. They looked eerie, yet beautiful in the pale moonlight, and he scanned the water for the glint of eyes or any movement. But it was peaceful. And there was a rope over the river that hadn’t been there when he was a child, put there for the orangutans.

It had been dusk when his mother had said she wanted to take the perfect photo—to capture the setting sun and the little kingfisher perched over the water.

‘Sophie!’

He could hear his father warning her to stay back, telling her that the water in the mangroves was deep from a week of torrential rain.

It was comparatively dry now, but he looked at the water and knew the dangers that lurked beneath. He stood there numb, refusing to feel, but it was as if he was witnessing again the stealth of the beast approaching.

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