He stepped up to the railing and propped his elbows on the edge. A cloud floated in front of the sun, relieving the brightness of the light for a moment.
“So do you have other jobs going on other than here at Halcyon?” She leaned back against the railing and shot a glance at him. His eyes were on the water. “I assume you’re not just hanging out at the beach all day.” Heat crept up her cheeks and she closed her eyes for a second. Since the very first night at the dining hall, something about his swagger brought out a defense mechanism in her. She needed to be more careful. She didn’t know this man well enough to be sarcastic.
“I’m not sunbathing, that’s for sure. I’m a working photographer. Magazines, journals, some textbooks. I go where the job takes me. Which is why I’ve been a little absent these last few days.” He cut his eyes to her. “I’ve been told I’m not always the most attentive mentor.” If she expected an apology—which she halfway did—she didn’t get it. “Anyway, right now I’m working on something I’m hoping National Geographic will pick up. It’s on forgotten places in Florida. Unseen angles and views. This mentor gig at Halcyon is perfect because I needed to be down here anyway. Kill two birds, you know?”
“What kind of forgotten places? This preserve doesn’t seem too forgotten to me. It’s crawling with artists.”
He nodded. “You’re partly right. But the cool thing about places like this is that you can be in a populated area, but two or three hundred yards away is a little slice of swamp that’s true wilderness. Untouched. In fact . . .” He pointed to their right, in the deeper woods behind the creek. “That’s where I’m headed. I found something last week on the rare occasion I didn’t have my camera on me. You can come with me, if you want. I’ll show you what I’m talking about.”
At the end of the bridge, they stepped off the wood onto a sand and dirt path just wide enough for one person. The shade deepened the farther they walked into the trees.
“This is like another world,” Jenna said. Limbs stretched overhead, making a canopy that dimmed the light. All around them were sounds and stirrings of unseen animals and birds. “Not like the Deep South I know, that’s for sure.”
“Geographically, we’re in the Deep South, but that’s about it. It almost feels prehistoric, doesn’t it? Like maybe this was how it looked billions of years ago. Dark and wet. Strange noises. Creatures around every bend.”
“Okay, you’re creeping me out a little bit.”
Gregory laughed. “Sorry. I get a little excited when I’m in places like this. That’s why I love my job. The world is my office.”
As they walked he pointed out various trees and plants. Black gum and coastal plain willows. Pond and bald cypresses. Leggy banyans. And the birds: egrets and night herons. White pelicans and roseate spoonbills. Even a mangrove cuckoo, which apparently was a rare find. He seemed to know a little about everything.
“This cypress here—judging by its size, it’s at least a couple hundred years old. The forest has probably looked just like this for all those years. No real change other than everything getting bigger and fuller.”
She thought of that proud cypress, growing year after year toward the sunlight, unconcerned with the pace of anything around it.
“Okay, we’re close. Look here.” He guided her off the trail to the left, into a dense thicket of tall grass and hanging vines.
From somewhere came the sound of running water. With the sun behind clouds and the thick trees overhead, everything was dim, blues and greens fading into each other, until the tangle of foliage opened into a hidden cove of clear water surrounded by boulders. Water trickled down the face of the rocks, creating a waterfall ten feet high that splashed into the pool below. A thin creek—narrow enough to step over—ran away from the pool, winding off through the trees.
“It’s not Niagara, but it’s a rare find in Florida.” Gregory set his tripod and camera down on a bed of dry leaves. “Not much elevation change anywhere, but there’s just enough here to create this little pocket of water.”
“Where does it come from?” Jenna knelt and peered into the water. It was so clear, she could see straight to the bottom. It tapered from the shallow edges to deeper waters in the center. “Everything else around here is murky and still. I’ve yet to come across water that’s moving. Nothing like this creek.”
“Singer Creek, to be exact. Legend says an Indian woman who stayed behind when her people were run out would sit here and sing to her lost children. She was known as ‘the singer.’ I guess someone thought it had a nice ring to it, and they named the creek and the preserve after her.”
Jenna dipped her fingers in the water. It was crisp and cold. Gregory leaned over and did the same thing.
“Some say this comes from an underground spring straight from the Appalachians,” he said. “I have my doubts, of course. The closest Appalachian foothill is up in Alabama, a long way from the Florida marshes. But who knows? Maybe this water has traveled underground all that way. Just to spit out in these rocks.”
He sat on a dry patch of rock and pushed a smattering of leaves away to make room for Jenna. With her camera still hanging around her neck—no way was she going to trust it sitting alone near all this water—she sat next to him. After pulling her shoes off, she dunked her feet in the cool water.
“Nice, huh?”
“Very.” She leaned over and cupped her hand and poured water over her calves, up to her knees. Sweat on the back of her neck evaporated, leaving her with a chill.
They sat in silence a moment,
