Chapter Five
For a time there was only blackness, the dark void into which she had fallen. For a time she whirled dizzily in that limbo where fire bit at her and the thick darkness left her limbs scored and battered as she was torn asunder by the shrieking winds.
Then for a time all was quiet, the empty silence broken only by the unheard, sensed pulse of her heart as it slowed and slowed. Years passed, silent years filled only with the surge and swirl of the dark seas whose merciless waters grated upon the sand. Silently she mourned as the hungry waves washed away those few tatters of soul which had held together the bones which had once been hers. The last threads snagged; held; were wrenched free; and the lifeless bones sank inevitably into the hissing waters. The gnashing pebbles broke them down into shards, fragments, into a sad pale dust which frothed to a scum amongst the lightless surf, and was dissipated. Even the dome of the skull rolled, crunching, under the sibilant swells and was lost.
The heart sounded one final sonorous beat from the measureless deeps which gaped below the black foam, and then it, too, drowned. The last anguished wisp of awareness which had seen and mourned faded.
Then at the last there was only ceaseless water and stinging bone-sand, and the bitter wind keening...
Mickel was gripped by a cold fury. Looking at the two bodies huddled in the beds, he went to the smaller first. Mary; no longer the gold and white vision he had seen before, but a vision of a different kind entirely. He washed away the worst of the blood with a gentle hand. It wasn’t her own blood that she was bathed in; presumably her sister’s.
“How bad is it?” asked Madam in a low voice.
“Bad enough.” He put the cloth down by the bowl of bloody water and picked up one rapidly purpling arm. “She’ll find it very hard to get comfortable for a while.”
“Is anything broken?”
“Hard to say yet.” Mickel felt carefully along her arm, then put it down and took the other. Madam watched as his fingers explored the line of the child’s bones. Finally he sat back with a grunt. “Not obviously, but I don’t expect we’ll be able to tell until some of her other hurts have eased.”
“What can I do to help?”
“There’s a jar of arnica.” Mickel retrieved it from his medicine chest and handed it to the woman. “It’ll help the bruising, but we’re going to need quite a lot more of it. Smooth it on wherever she’s colouring.”
“I’ll send one of the girls for more.”
Taking a last look at the child, Mickel laid a hand on Mary’s swollen face. “Nothing that won’t mend here, child; so you hurry and get better. Your sister’s going to need you.” Then, leaving her in Madam’s capable hands, he turned with a sinking heart to the other bed.
Niccolo sat dully in his boat. His nets were empty of fish. He had not taken his boat out with the fleet. There was only one thing he had pulled from the water that morning, and when the stories reached him, he knew with utter certainty that he was the link.
Emma had spoken to him. He had seen Bet. The two girls she had been with were the ones they had been looking for, it seemed. And now, there was a pallid corpse laid dripping in his boat; Old Emma, or what was left of her. A movement caught his eye. Lifting his foot, he flicked a feasting crab from the gaping eye-socket in utter revulsion. Emma had spoken up and Emma was dead. They’d left Bet for dead, by all accounts. And the two girls had been found… His mind shied away from what their fate might have been.
If he had not seen Bet, if he had not told Emma, none of it would have happened and the girls might be far away by now.
Niccolo stood up so abruptly that the boat rocked. There was nothing that he could do now but go to the Black Cat and ask Madam what to do with Emma’s corpse. Perhaps he could find out how Bet was, too. He pulled an old canvas over the featureless face in front of him, climbed out of the boat and set off up the hill. He owed them, all three of those girls. There must be some way he could help.
It hadn’t taken long for the rumours to spread and they were not pretty stories, the ones being exchanged in the lowest of whispers in corners and alleyways. Each version differed slightly, but by that afternoon all Scarlock knew that this time it had been Copeland, not Blakey; and that whatever he had done to the girls, no-one was sure if they were alive or if they would still be alive by nightfall. As the story solidified into the few known facts, the feeble spark of hope which had flickered briefly in each heart at the news of the escape finally went out, leaving in its place the first small, burning embers of resentment.
There was no sign that Nereia was conscious but still Mickel worked with the lightest of touches.
There was a knock at the door and one of the girls poked her head into the room. “Mickel, there’s a man downstairs wanting to talk to you.”
“Tell him to come back another time.”
“He’s very persistent. He asked me to give you a message.”
“Well?”
“His name is Virgil - no sorry, Vansel-”
“Hell and damnation!” Mickel left the bedside and followed the girl downstairs to where Vansel stood.
“In here, and dressed, Mickel?” Vansel enquired affectionately. “There are still things they need to explain to you about these places, I see. How’ve you been?”
“Vansel! What in Hell’s teeth are you doing here?” Mickel pulled the younger man over to a more discreet corner.
“I’m here with Jack; his new valet, don’t you know?” Vansel fixed his friend with a sardonic eye. “Copeland bumped into him in The Mermaid and suggested you may stock the most passable brandy in these parts. A girl at your warehouse sent me here and I find you in your shirtsleeves, looking particularly grim. Care to explain?”
“Damn it, Captain, your timing is none of the best. Suffice it to say that Copeland’s handiwork has taken a turn for the worse, and let me get on with my job!”
Vansel raised an eyebrow, this time genuinely surprised. “Your job? Mickel, have you-”
“Yes, yes, I’m doctoring again,” Mickel admitted with mild asperity. “It’s necessary.”
“That’s not what you’re here to do.”
“I know that, Vansel. But this-” He shook his head. “How long are you in Scarlock for?”
“Three days; why?”
“Because I’m in the middle of tending to them right now but if you can come back when they’re out of bed, I think you should see them.”
“Why?”
“These two are sisters who tried to leave. All they wanted to do was to get away.”
“And?”
“This time Copeland took it upon himself to punish them; and from the look of it, Blakey’s about to find himself out of a job. At least Blakey only uses his fists.”
Vansel looked away. “Even fists can be enough, sometimes.”
“Yes; I know. I’m sorry, I hadn’t forgotten. But you should see these girls before you go,” Mickel persisted.
“Very well, if you think it’s really necessary. I need to take brandy back. Where’s your good stuff?”
“Where it usually is. Help yourself.”
“I need a dozen bottles - but this time you’re getting paid for it.”
“There’s a first time for everything, it would seem!” A ghost of a smile crossed Mickel’s face. He unhooked the bunch of keys from his belt and handed them to his friend. “Leave them in the usual place when you’ve finished. I know just what’s in there, mind, and when I get back I don’t expect to find you’ve taken all my best cigars!”
“When will you get back? I can drop by later on.”
The twinkle went out of Mickel’s eye. “I don’t know yet, but it won’t be any time soon. Better not to wait for me tonight, but tomorrow you could come.”
“Very well; tomorrow then.” Vansel dropped the keys into his pocket. “I’d better be on my way, or even
a dullard like Copeland might start to wonder what’s taking me so long.”
“Tell him I wanted to haggle.”
“Some things never change, it seems!” Vansel laughed, as the two embraced briefly. “It’s good to see you again, Mickel.”
“Likewise, lad. Now be off with you! I have to get back to work.” He watched as Vansel strode out of the door, and then limped back up the stairs again, half-smiling to himself. Such a magnificent boy, and so like his father! It took an effort to remember that the lad had passed his quarter-century some years past and was no more a child than Mickel.
He returned to the room to find Madam there.
“Neither of them has woken up yet,” she told him. “Is that bad?”
He sat on his stool between the beds and looked at one, and then the other. “I don’t think so. Mary is quite simply asleep, and that’s the best that we could wish for her. It means that she can get on with healing, mind and body. The young ones are often surprisingly resilient and when all’s said and done, at least her body doesn’t seem to be too seriously injured.”
“And Nereia?”
“It’s too soon to tell. I don’t think she’s asleep; she’s unconscious. She’ll wake up in her own good time and not before. But the longer she’s out, the more her hurts will have healed when she wakes, and that can only be a good thing. Will you help me turn her?”
It was not easy, but the two of them managed to turn the thief onto her front. The back of her dress was torn, stuck solidly to her with the stiffness of blackened blood.
Madam caught her breath. “I think we’re going to have to soak this off her.” She went to the door and called for more hot water, then returned. “She was lying on the floor. It could be just that her dress soaked it up while she was lying there, couldn’t it?”
“Perhaps,” Mickel conceded. “Only what’s been worrying me is where the blood came from. Mary’s not bleeding. Copeland and Blakey were untouched. There was a lot of blood in that room. I think we’ve just found why.”
“But he had no whip or cane on him, and there was none in the room; only-”
“Only?”
One of her girls had come up the stairs with water, so Madam passed the jug to Mickel and sent the girl back for bandages. “Mickel, what are we going to find?”
Mickel poured hot water into the cold to bring it to blood-heat; paused in the act of soaking his cloth. “What do you mean?”
“He must have used his knife. There was nothing else.”
Mickel’s face grew very still for a moment; then he laid the sodden cloth onto the black-crusted expanse of material. They soon had the material soaked and Mickel eased the edge of the dress away from Nereia’s skin. He started at her neck, taking one side of the material along the rip which ran ragged right down her back to her waist. Madam set to work on the other side.
“Well, there’s one thing to be thankful for. At least she’s not awake for this,” the merchant muttered.
Vansel left Mickel’s warehouse some time later, his face stormy. He had returned from the Black Cat and let himself in, but at the sound of keys in the door, a girl ran downstairs.
“Mickel, is that you? I need you to come and have a look at Bet - oh! I’m sorry, I thought it was Mickel,” she faltered, seeing him. “Did you find him?”
“Yes, I did, but he was busy acting the doctor.”
“Are Nereia and Mary still alive?”
“Yes, as far as I know. Was it in doubt?”
The girl stared at him. “Where were you, not to know about it? I’ll tell you about it, only do you know about sick people? Because I don’t and Bet’s in a real old state.”
“A little.” Vansel followed the girl up the stairs to where Bet lay. Surely she was no more than a child? He laid his hand against her forehead for a moment, and took a good look at the bandage which masked her face. She tossed and turned on the pillows, muttering; he leant closer to listen.
“No, Nereia, you mustn’t let him catch you... He’ll cut your face right off like Emma’s... Nereia, why are you here? You can’t save me, you’re a hundred miles away...”
“What should I do?” asked the other girl. “She keeps talking. Sometimes she shouts and pleads, but she can’t see me or hear me when I talk to her.”
“Mickel’s the doctor,” Vansel returned shortly. “He knows better than I, but I think she knows you’re here even if she doesn’t seem to. Talk to her. Tell her it’s all right now. You could bathe her head with a cool cloth or something.”
“She won’t die, will she?”
“Of course not! She just needs looking after.” In truth, he didn’t know, but no-one had ever got better by being told they were going to die. He hadn’t intended to stop but it was obvious that the girl needed to talk and he wasn’t in so much of a hurry that he couldn’t stay for a few minutes, so he sat down with her and let her tell him about it. Her name was Amy, and she was one of Madam’s girls. As he listened in disbelief, she explained everything she knew about the events of the previous day.
Now he strode along the waterside with his brandy. It was early in the afternoon yet, but the thick clouds were growing more and more oppressive. The drizzle had stopped but the light was failing across the restless sea; the smoothed steel swells were growing wind-tipped and wild with hissing spray.
Vansel was quietly furious. Mickel was supposed to be finding out who supported Copeland and who could be turned if necessary. He most emphatically was not supposed to take sides. This could ruin everything, the work of years! And yet... Somewhere deep down, he knew that his friend had no choice and that, if it came to it, Vansel would have done the same.
In all truth, Vansel admitted to himself, that was the reason that he was angry; because despite all his years of planning, events were overtaking him in ways that he had not even considered. And as yet he could not think of a way to turn them to his own advantage.
Copeland sat back, bewildered by the flow of inconsequential chatter from his aristocratic companion. Stories of all the latest scandals of high society threatened to drown him in a sea of names of the first rank, gaucheries of fashions he hadn’t heard of and points of conduct which he didn’t understand. However, his toddy warmed him through the more quickly as his stomach was empty and he soon fell into a pleasantly relaxed state, letting the flow of words wash over him as the fire’s warmth teased the dampness from his clothes.
“...so in the end, when he discovered that it was the maid and not his wife that was hidden in the closet, he couldn’t hold his sword for laughing. He wished Falconroy an enjoyable evening, left him standing there in nothing but his britches, and went on to the theatre as he’d originally planned. Naturally his wife was worried sick so he had to apologise to her for being a silly ass. Roddy and I had told him, of course, but he’s never been one to take a hint so he does make a bit of a spectacle of himself from time to time.” Westford chuckled. “To think; all that fuss over a lady’s brooch, and in the end it turned out to be a paste imitation anyway!”
Copeland dutifully echoed his laugh, wondering vaguely if all the aristocracy were obsessed with such minutiae as Lord Westford’s stories suggested. It seemed that high society was a minefield for the uninitiated. His musings were interrupted as Vansel entered. He set his tray down on the little table at Westford’s elbow, poured a little brandy, then offered it to him.
“Ah, finally!” exclaimed Westford as he took the glass. “Thank goodness you’re back, Vansel. I was beginning to think that you and the brandy had disappeared into the sea for good!”
Copeland watched his companion hold the glass up to the light, noted how the Lord nodded to himself, warming the bowl of the glass in his hand and swirling the brandy around with practised ease before sniffing at its aroma. His eyebrows rose approvingly and he took a careful sip. Shutting his eyes, he let the brandy linger on his tongue for a long moment before swallowing. He remained utterly still, savour
ing the aftertaste; and then he opened his eyes and beamed at Vansel.
“Good choice, old boy, good choice! I imagine you have the full dozen bottles of this nectar?”
“Yes sir.” Only the tiniest quirk at the corner of Vansel’s mouth betrayed his amusement.
“Well, Mr Copeland, it appears that my sojourn in Scarlock is not to be by any means as desolate as I had expected. The excellence of your brandy here is almost enough to console me for the lack of my cook.” Westford turned back to Vansel. “Alas, how true it is that one does not appreciate what one has until it has gone. When I get back to Mardon, remind me to double Frison’s salary, and never travel without him again.”
“Very well sir.” There was a knock at the door; Vansel went to open it. “Mr Copeland, there’s someone wanting to speak to you, a Mr Blakey.”
“Ah! Blakey, yes,” Copeland edged past Vansel who stood aside with the tiniest inclination of his head. He stepped outside the room to speak to Blakey, shutting the door behind him. “Well?”
“Mr Copeland, I’ve had someone clear the room for you. The floor’s scrubbed and the desk too but I thought I should ask about your papers. We can try to soak them apart if you want, but the ink might run. Otherwise, I don’t think there’s anything we can do but throw them away.”
“Burn them, man, burn them!” In his pleasant haze of alcohol and firelight, considering all the riches that would be lying about in the houses of the aristocracy, Copeland had forgotten why he was in the Mermaid rather than his office. “Now, go get me a change of clothes - my best, mind you - and make it quick! Run! Tell the landlord that I’ll need one of his best rooms as well, preferably near to Lord Westford’s.”
“Lord-”
“Westford, man, aren’t you listening?” Copeland spat. “I’m not letting this opportunity slip by when it could make the difference between stealing a few bits of furniture from merchants and getting my hands on the riches of the aristocracy!”
Inside the room Vansel was talking to Westford quietly. “Tomorrow we’ll go down to see the brandy merchant. There are some things he wants me to see and you should see them too - if you’re determined to be in on all this?”
“Good heavens, yes!” Westford replied lightly. “You know I like a bit of adventure as much as the next man!”
“Jack, this is not an adventure! This is dark and dirty and grim and it will affect the lives of everyone in this town, one way or the other. It’s not some lark that you’re getting up to with your dandified friends, you know.”
“That is immediately apparent…” Westford sniffed with great affectation, then let his society façade fade. “I know it’s a serious business, Vansel. I don’t mean to belittle it; you know it’s just my way.”
Vansel had to smile. “Yes, and that’s the worst of it! Your sister would kill me if she found out I’d let you get mixed up in this sort of thing.”
“My sister thinks I’m just a boy! I keep telling her I’m gone eighteen now, but you know what older sisters are like.”
“I know what yours is like! A most formidable woman, Kathleen!” Vansel rolled his eyes expressively.
“That’s Lady Brydon to you, I’ll have you know! I’m sorry to say that as valets go, you’re lacking polish.”
“Enough! He’s coming!” Vansel melted into the background, becoming the discreet valet once again. Jack sat back in his chair and assumed a bored manner. Copeland re-entered to find Westford was regarding the buckle on his shoe.
“-the boots with the tassels tomorrow, I think, and make sure no-one else lays a hand upon them. I remember the disaster we had last time. It pains me to appear dressed thus for dinner, Mr Copeland, but they assure me that my baggage has yet to follow me from the ship. If it had not been for the extreme delicacy of my constitution and the provocation caused to it by the ship’s motion, I can assure you that I would never have dreamed of presenting myself at the dinner table in this attire.” He flicked one white hand at the cascade of creamy lace which spilled from his neck. “Entirely unsuitable.”
“My Lord, it seems to be most beautifully tailored.” Copeland fished for a compliment that would not show how entirely ignorant he was of why the amazing apricot suit had fallen from favour.
“Beautifully tailored? My dear sir, that goes without saying; no man in his right mind would accept anything less. But whereas this is exquisitely appropriate for a day spent on a pleasure cruise, it is by no means appropriate dinner-wear; and as for spending time here-” He shuddered. “No, it is devoutly to be hoped that by tomorrow morning my luggage will have caught up with me so that I may change into something more suitable.” He refilled his glass. “Will you take a brandy with me, sir? It’s good, I assure you.”
“Certainly, my Lord, I’d appreciate that,” Copeland stammered. He was not used to being made to feel distinctly lacking, but Westford was part of a level of society whose rules Copeland had no means of understanding. He hoped Blakey would hurry back and that his clothes, expensive as he thought them, would draw no censure. He meant to keep up his acquaintance with Westford. After all, if Nereia could lure him into marriage there wasn’t a family in the country that would not welcome the Lady Westford, and where she went, Copeland’s men would follow. Copeland took the glass of brandy and did his best to imitate Westford’s actions, warming it, sniffing it, tasting it and swallowing.
“Vansel, go and order dinner for us, would you? You will dine with me, Mr Copeland?”
“Yes, thank you my Lord.”
“See what you can do, Vansel.”
“I fancy the seafood might be acceptable, my Lord, if basic,” Vansel noted colourlessly.
“I leave it in your capable hands.” Westford waved him on dismissively. “So, Mr Copeland, tell me about this place; such a grim little town must have a fascinating history.”
Vansel smiled to himself with dark satisfaction. Answer that, Copeland! he thought, shutting the door silently behind him.
Mickel took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. The material of the dress had been obstinately attached to Nereia’s back. It had taken hours, but he and Madam had eventually teased it away from her flesh. They had washed off the last of the solidified blood which masked her back, and then they had seen what lay underneath.
Madam shook her head. “What’s it supposed to be?”
“Wings, I think,” Mickel replied with growing anger. “Wings to fly away with...”
Madam took a pair of scissors from the dressing table and began to cut along the arms of the dress, so they could remove it. “How bad is it?”
“Bad enough to scar.”
“Can you stitch it up?”
“I think it’s going to show anyway, and I’d rather not put her through any more than she’s already been through.”
Madam nodded. Mickel went to his medicine chest and began to sort through it, looking for ingredients for the dressing he would need to make.
Madam lifted Nereia’s arm out of the rags of the dress. “Mickel - these are burns, burns from a candle flame! The man’s a damned animal!” she exclaimed, then froze as she realised what she had said. There was a moment of sheer stillness. Was she trying to catch him out? Mickel wondered. The tension did not go out of Madam’s posture as he held her gaze for a long moment; then he looked back to those burns.
“I think we’re going to need more bandages.”
It was late before Mickel left, limping along dark streets. The angry clouds masked the moon and the sea thundered under the wind’s scourging. Gratefully, Mickel reached his own door and closed it on the rising storm. He went upstairs, almost staggering with fatigue, to find Bet still feverish but asleep. Amy was still sitting with her. He thanked the girl and sent her home before sagging into his chair. It had been a momentous day. He was too tired to think about it all just now. Copeland revolted him, set every fibre of his being alight with revulsion; and as a man of honour - even such di
minished honour as his own - Mickel resolved that one day soon the moneylender would get his just desserts.
He was so tired. In a moment he would find himself something to eat, but he would just rest for a moment first... His head fell back, his eyes closed and within minutes he was asleep, dead to the world.
Equally weary, Madam sat in her parlour sipping a glass of Mickel’s finer brandy. Afternoon had faded into an unnatural darkness while they worked, as if night had come before its time. Now, in the gathering storm, fires all across town were banked down with turves to keep them burning till dawn. Doors were locked and lights were put out, and in every house they listened to the wind banging on the windows and rattling at the slates until sleep came at last.
Madam and a couple of her girls carefully eased Nereia into a loose shift by way of a night-dress, and then did the same for Mary. Mary stirred and muttered and they had to move carefully to avoid waking her; but Nereia remained as limp as if she were dead.
Madam passed a hand over her eyes. At some point the wind had picked up, and now it was howling round the house like the ghouls that haunted deep waters according to the tales of her people. She looked out into the darkness. Though she was not by nature superstitious, there was something about that wind that made her shudder. It was a hungry wind, she thought, and found herself hoping that there would be nothing to feed it that night.
It had taken Niccolo all afternoon to dig a grave on the hill leading up to the cliffs. This stretch of hill was the graveyard for all the poorer end of Scarlock. Not for them fancy stone memorials like those further along the cliff where the merchants buried their dead; here the graves were marked with little cairns, stones brought up from the pebbled beach below by the bereaved to mark the place where their loved ones lay. And over near the cliff’s edge, a series of cairns which protected no bodies; the grieving places for those who had died at sea.
He wiped one mud-begrimed hand across his face. It was not raining yet but as soon as the storm broke in earnest there would be a deluge. He longed to be back in his own home, but he had promised to bury Emma. It was the only thing he could do for her now.
Madam, dozing in her chair, was abruptly woken by a scream, followed by another and another. Taking her lamp, she dashed upstairs to find Mary sitting bolt upright in her bed, staring with unseeing eyes.
“Mary? Are you all right?” Madam put her arms around the child who clung to her with desperate strength.
“It was the dark... The dark came back and they left me, Nereia left me and I was all alone...” Mary, nearly incoherent, was crying so hard that she could barely breathe.
Madam rocked her, murmuring to the child until she calmed down slightly. “It’s all right, child; it’s over. You’re safe. No-one can harm you. We’re all here.” She gestured to the concerned faces peering in at the door. “We won’t leave you alone.”
“Reia? Where is Reia?” Mary sobbed. “Why doesn’t she come?”
Madam threw a glance at the other bed. Nereia’s face was a mess but the sheets hid her bandages. “She’s just there, child; she’s asleep. Shhh, you’ll waken her!”
Mary saw only the silhouette of her sister in the flickering light, but it was enough. Sleepily she subsided into a quiet sobbing and allowed herself to be laid back on the pillows. Quietly Madam got up to leave.
“Wait…” Mary was on the verge of sleep. “Do I know you?”
“No, dear, not yet; but you can call me Madam.”
“Thank you, Madam,” she mumbled drowsily. “But please - don’t take the lights.”
Madam waited until she was sleeping soundly, then stole round the bed to lean over Nereia. There was no change. Even with Mary screaming she had not woken. It made Madam uneasy. She would wake when she was good and ready, Mickel said, but what if she had given up? After what had happened to her, it wasn’t beyond the realms of probability. Madam had seen it happen before. If a person decided to die, they generally did. She whispered into Nereia’s ear, “Wake up, Nereia. You have to wake up. Mary needs you.” She waited a moment, just in case, then returned to her parlour, leaving the light in the room and the door slightly ajar.
The winds howled along the streets and the rain battered impotently on the brothel windows. Madam’s girls slept uneasily, but in one room it had no effect. Mary was comforted in her sleep by the knowledge that her sister was near; but though Nereia’s form lay in the bed, the tempest echoed emptily through her because Nereia was not there. Far away, in that place of bitter water and pale sand, the storm was raging.
For a time, a countless time, there had been nothing more than ceaseless water, stinging bone-sand and the wind, keening; but suddenly the wind died and the grinding waves smoothed down to uneasy swells. Sounds whispered over the unquiet waters like a chanting of spells. At first they held no more meaning than the mourning wind or the hissing sea-spume, but then came a sound that caught and held like the anchor of a ship.
...mary...Mary...Mary!
The echoes faded and eventually fell silent, but this silence was of a different quality; a thread of anticipation ran through it.
That would be deep enough, Niccolo thought. Besides, the rain was making his hands ache. He was wet through but at least he had nearly finished. As he climbed out of the hole, there was a crack of lightning. He knelt to check that Old Emma was sewn up securely in the canvas hammock. It was sturdily done. All that was left was to lower her into the grave and fill it in. He dragged the shrouded figure nearer to the open grave, but it didn’t seem right to just roll her in. Again, lightning cracked the sky, and Niccolo shuddered. He didn’t like being here at the best of times and being here at night in a storm next to the open grave in which he was about to bury a corpse - well, a lesser man might have been frightened, that was all.
He considered the corpse, and uneasily let himself down into the grave again. The mud was slippery, but he staggered to the side and gingerly grasped the corpse to him. The rain was cold enough that his fingers had gone numb but even if he couldn’t feel the cold flesh under the canvas, he felt his own flesh creeping at its nearness. The feet flopped down into the grave, and he was just bending to lay the corpse straight when something under his hand moved. He jerked back in terror, lost his balance, and sat down heavily in the seeping mud of the grave, with the corpse on top of him. With a yell he scrabbled to get upright in the slippery mud and kicked the corpse away from him. He threw himself at the sides of the grave but fell back in, and frantically backed away from the huddled figure, now filthy with mud.
“Help! Help me!” he yelled, though he knew that no-one would be around at this time of night. “Somebody get me out!” He tried again to wriggle out of the grave, but the grass was too wet to grip and the sides crumbled under him. It was lower at the other end, but the corpse was heaped at that end and he had lost the nerve to touch it. The thunder echoed across the horizon like a ship’s timbers splitting open to let the sea in, and the cold rain stung his face as he fell to his knees in the freezing mud of the grave.
Mary woke, suddenly and completely. She opened her eyes and looked around her. This room - it wasn’t familiar, but she’d seen it before. Perhaps she had dreamed it? There was the lamp on the table, and the door, and-
“Reia!” she exclaimed. Painfully she extricated herself from the blankets and went to kneel by her sister. Somewhere at the back of her mind the knowledge of what had happened hammered on locked doors, but she refused to think about it now; not in the dark, not in the night. “Reia? Are you awake?” There was no response. “Reia, wake up! I have to know that you’re all right. Don’t leave me. You promised you wouldn’t leave me. If you do I’ll be all alone. I need you. Come back.”
Still nothing. Mary began to cry softly. She pulled back the covers and climbed into the bed next to her sister. Nereia didn’t move or ret
urn Mary’s fierce hug, but eventually the girl fell asleep.
The black swells rose and fell, gliding to the shore and surging over the murmuring pebbles. The sounds began again. This time they were not meaningless whisperings, but words which echoed over the restless deeps with a quiet clarity more effective than any clarion call. The swells began to heave and boil.
“...Nereia!”
It was a summons of a kind which ran deeper than blood and bone. It could not be denied. In the dark depths at the bottom of some unknown abyss there was a sudden boom, as a drowned heart was jolted back into life. There was a deathly pause; then the double beat sounded a second time and the reverberations rolled round the empty horizon. Suddenly the wind sprang up again, screaming its defiance, and inky waves rose like great walls, crashing onto the sand; but still that beat continued. Far out, a pale object bobbed to the surface and was drawn inexorably towards the shore. The lightning scarred the sky with fire, but the thunder rolled with the heart’s double boom. The waves littered the sand with debris. The pale object was flung to the waves’ far reach; a battered skull, its dome overgrown with dark fine strands of seaweed. Other fragments were brought in one by one: a string of chipped vertebrae, an arm, a shoulder-blade.
A dark wave surged in over the sands, washing across the collection of bones which the storm waters had piled up, and when the water receded there was movement. The skull rolled to one side. An arm with no hand pushed against the sand and the skeleton, such as it was, sat up. It surveyed itself with empty eye sockets and turned back to the waters. It was not enough.
The wave thundered in again, carrying bleached sticks of driftwood and debris from the wrecks of sunken ships. It washed over the skeleton and receded to show two or three crooked wooden ribs in place, and part of a thigh bone. Still, it was not enough. The gnawing sea had crunched the rest of the bones to dust and washed them away, but this was a calling deeper and darker than that, calling like to unlike. It thrummed through blood and bone and all the tattered fragments that had once been part of this body, though diluted and dispersed across a thousand miles of lightless sea...
The waves roared in and, despite the wind’s raging, another pale dome was washed in, another partial skeleton thrown onto the beach. The skeleton picked up the second skull, so worn as to barely be recognisable as such. The vertebrae fell and rolled like beads from a string. Whatever awareness had once inhabited it had long dissolved away but there was still just the faintest feeling of need, of a purpose unfulfilled and a desire left unsatisfied.
The skeleton set it back on the sand and waited impassively. The crashing waves brought more bits of bone which made up a larger figure, also incomplete. This skull was as worn as the first and it shared the other’s aura of desperate need. Another of the dark waves washed over all three, leaving a tangle of bones and driftwood on the sand. The two skulls started to roll back down the beach but were stopped by the skeleton, which set them aside and stood to survey itself once more. It was lopsided but complete. It raised one hand and turned it, regarding front and back. Still, it was not enough.
“It’s only Old Emma,” Niccolo whispered to himself. “I’ve known her forever. She wouldn’t hurt me.” Gingerly he took hold of the corpse by the end of its canvas covering, dragged it straight in the grave, and stepped shuddering over it to the far end. And then, while he kicked at the wall to make a step, Niccolo looked up. Haloed by the rain, a light hovered over the graves of the sea-lost, tiny at the far edge of the cliff. He froze. It bobbed a little and slowly came nearer.
“Emma?” he asked. “Is it you?” The hairs on the back of his neck rose as the light continued to move steadily towards him. There was nothing to say that Emma would feel well-disposed towards him. After all, her death and the manner of it had come about because of him; but perhaps it wasn’t Emma, he consoled himself. It didn’t work. If whatever that was wasn’t Emma, then he had no desire to meet with it in an open grave. He was gripped with sheer terror. He’d heard the tales and of course no-one really believed them, but there was no denying that every so often someone just disappeared... If he didn’t move, he’d be the next! Panic sent Niccolo scrabbling out of the grave, and he ran back down to the town as if all the ghouls of the graveyard were on his heels.
The skeleton faced the crashing waves which had crunched its bones and drunk its blood. Mustering its purpose it strode back into them, fighting against the banshee wind as it ducked under the inky water. The wind shrilled to a shriek; and was gone. The crashing waves fell still with eerie suddenness. And when the figure straightened up again, the skeletal frame was muscled over with flesh of bone-sand, and skinned with the ebony water. It glided back up onto the sand with the same sinuous grace as the hissing swells.
Once on the beach, it made a final survey of itself. The brittle bones had been clothed in flesh which did not tire and could not be damaged, sealed with a dark covering of bitter water. The sea and the wind did not rage at it now because it was one with them. The figure bent to pick up the two skulls. It carried them to the foot of a sand dune and placed them carefully side by side, out of the water’s reach. Their feeling of need reached it more urgently. It found a voice to respond.
“By bone of father, bone of mother and the sea’s wrack I shall be remade...” it murmured. “It will suffice. Go to your rest knowing that I will look after her. I will be Nereia, and I shall see her safe before I return.”
There was a release, a breath in the air, no more than a sigh. Abruptly the skulls were empty, dead of any kind of presence. The figure stood and walked back to face the waves.
“Nereia,” she mused, raising one hand to the long growth of dark seaweed that hung heavy from her skull like hair. “Yes; I am Nereia.”
She closed her eyes and concentrated.
The light approached the grave and, as it drew nearer, was revealed to be Vansel, wearing a great oilskin and holding a ship’s lantern. He looked at the open grave and the shrouded body inside. He saw the torn grass where Niccolo had scrambled out. And then he shook his head, laughing silently to himself.
“Well, we can’t leave you uncovered,” he said to the body, “but it will worry them in the morning!” Setting down his lantern, he took up the shovel and began to fill in the grave, unmindful of the small crab that had found its way out of Emma’s shroud. Finally he dug the shovel’s blade into the turf at the grave’s head. “Rest quietly, whoever you are, and don’t frighten anyone else!”
Then wiping his hands clean on the rain-soaked grass, he picked up his lantern and set off in the direction of fire, beer and bed, unheeding of the unceasing rain.
By morning, the storm had abated slightly. The wind grumbled rather than howled, and the night’s deluge softened to a normal squall. The clouds began to break up and ran ragged before the freshening breeze of daybreak. The sun rose on a tired and battered town; but it rose nonetheless, and the pale rays bathed the town in watery brilliance.
“...and the sea’s wrack...”
The lamp had burned out but the first glimmers of sunshine slanted high through the unshuttered window. Lying stiffly in her bed, Nereia’s swollen eyes flickered open, as far as was possible. Her voice cracked, husky; little more than a whisper. It hurt to speak.
Painfully she raised her arm to pull the covers over herself and Mary more closely. Then while Mary slept, Nereia lay watching the sunlight on the wall, the only sound their breath’s slow rise and fall like black waves on silver sand.