Some of these giant boulders were shiny volcanic black. They were round and flat and smooth from centuries of rising and declining water levels washing over them. Others were white, limestone or marble, and also flat and smooth.
Ethan took my hand again as we leapt from one to another, like we were playing a game of giant checkers, to reach the deep main emerald pool beneath the tall and writhing and thundering white-water stream that fed it from high above.
In the smaller pools, the water was as still and smooth and reflective as a mirror. I peered down at my reflection. I’d like to say that what I saw was the face of a gypsy wanderer. Someone with the heart of an adventurer and the spirit of a mermaid. But what I actually saw was a middle-aged woman with a happy face, sparkling bright eyes, and long and messy and dirty wild hair. I decided I liked what I saw. This was Lori, the world explorer.
Not Lorraine, the ex-housewife from London.
Lori was a happier and more fun person than the anxious always unsure version of herself.
And then suddenly the mirror became a window into what lay beneath. Large translucent fish suddenly appeared as if by magic. They’d been completely invisible until the sharp rays of filtered sunlight revealed them. ‘Look—’ I called out to Ethan.
He was suddenly beside me and when our eyes met, my thoughts of love were clearly reflected in his eyes too. Our lips crashed together. Our breath quickened between our hasty kisses as we tugged and pulled at each other’s clothing. Not that there was much in the way of our bare skin. I dipped my fingers into the waistband of his shorts, flipping open the button fastening with one hand and boldly pulling down his zipper with the other and soon they were discarded, flicked away onto a nearby rock. In response, with a practiced dexterity, he lifted my vest top over my head and pulled down my shorts in one swift move. My bikini soon went the same way. Then we were together as one, turning and twirling, in the cool emerald pool.
At one with nature and with each other in what appeared to be a paradise.
Happily, after making love, we lay back in the wonderfully cool rippling water, listening to the rhythmic background of the cascading falls and gazing up at the small patch of blue sky that could be seen high above the walls of tall verdant vines that reflected in the pools of water.
It looked unreal. It was like being wrapped up in swirling northern lights. Like in a dream.
‘This place is magical. This island is incredible. Look at all these butterflies!’ I gasped.
I lifted a hand out of the water, sending tiny droplets of rainbow glazed water into the air.
I splayed my fingers wide apart under the wings of a hovering and shimmering and glimmering green butterfly. To my astonishment it settled itself down onto the tip of my thumb.
‘Oh look. It’s tame. I’ve never seen anything quite like this!’
‘Many years ago, this island was a butterfly sanctuary.’ Ethan told me, as he also lay back relaxing in the water. ‘One of my heroes, Alfred Russel Wallace, who was a 19th Century Scottish biologist and explorer and a direct descendent of William Wallace, discovered a unique species of giant butterfly right here on this little island.’
‘Do you mean William Wallace of Braveheart fame?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Alfred reported that the butterflies here were as large as dinner plates. At that time, the Victorians were keen collectors of tropical butterflies and so The Green Morpho butterfly of Waterfall Cay soon became highly sought after and so incredibly valuable that it was prized above all others. Eventually, Wallace came back to this island to find that his special discovery, one of the largest butterflies in the known world, had been almost wiped out. That’s when he established the sanctuary. To try and protect and save them. But, over the years, the island continued to attract butterfly poachers and so The Green Morpho is now sadly extinct.’
‘And that’s what led to its extinction? People collecting them?’
I couldn’t take my eyes of this tiny butterfly as it settled onto my hand, undulating slowly, showing off how it could magically change its wings from green to gold in an instant.
‘And these little fellows, although very pretty, aren’t so rare.’ Ethan told me knowledgably.
‘But maybe this island could be a protected sanctuary for butterflies again?’ I suggested.
‘Perhaps. Only, to apply for the protected status from the government, we’d need to find an indigenous species here or at the very least an endangered one.’
‘Indigenous? That means a native species?’
‘That’s right. Like the Green Morpho.’ Ethan leaned forward to kiss my bare shoulder.
As if offended at not being deemed special enough, the little butterfly fluttered away.
‘There’s only one problem. ‘I adore butterflies, but I really can’t abide caterpillars.’
Ethan laughed in surprise. ‘Why ever not? I mean, it’s not like they can hurt you.’
‘Because I think I had a traumatic experience involving caterpillars when I was a little girl,’ I confessed. If I closed my eyes, I could recall a misty memory of myself as a child, standing at a big leafy shrub in the garden. ‘I was picking caterpillars off a plant and collecting them into a plastic bucket. I have no idea why.’
Back then, like today, there’s hot sunshine on the top of my head and the earthy scent of damp soil and vegetation all around me. I remember the simple childish pleasure I felt at collecting dozens – if not hundreds – of tiny new creepy crawly friends.
‘I suppose it was some kind of a childhood game.’ I continued. ‘Except, I’m still not entirely sure if it was something that really happened to me, or if it was just a horrible nightmare. When I heard my mother calling me, I left my bucket of caterpillars on a workbench inside our garden shed for safekeeping.’ I paused and shuddered at the thought of retelling it.
‘So how is that traumatic?’ Ethan scoffed, not seeing anything offensive in my story at all.
‘Because, when I returned to the shed to play with my caterpillar friends, I remember the wooden door slamming behind me and finding my bucket almost empty, except for just a few green caterpillars and some leaves. I can remember looking around to see only one or two caterpillars crawling along the bucket rim and wondering where they’d all gone?’
‘That doesn’t sound anywhere near as bad as the time I found my ant farm unexpectedly empty.’ Ethan interrupted me to say. ‘Except it wasn’t kept in a shed. It was in my bedroom!’
He laughed at the memory. I ignored him to continue with my own story of icky trauma.
‘I then suddenly realised that there were hundreds of caterpillars covering the walls and the glass windows. They were also crawling on the wooden beams and ceiling. When they started to drop onto me, I began to scream. They didn’t look cute to me anymore. They didn’t look like tiny friendly toys that wriggled. They looked like tiny bloated chomping hairy monsters and I screamed and screamed. I remember feeling the pitter patter of them falling onto my head and getting caught up in my hair and sticking to my dress and my bare arms. I remember trying to flee. Only to find the door handle and my escape route covered in caterpillars. I was trapped. They all looked like tiny wriggly
