I needed to lie there and breathe, but there was no time. Shelley lay across me, lifeless and limp. I pushed myself up and cradled her in my lap. In the harsh lights her face was ashen, her lips blue. I found myself suddenly wishing that I had done a first aid course or at least knew something medically useful. Wasn't there a position for recovery or a German manoeuvre I could do? Or was that choking? Surely the boat would have a medical kit, but looking down at her I couldn't help wondering if she was beyond that.
I rolled her on to her back and pulled apart her blouse, popping buttons with a bodice-ripping tug. I half-hoped she would open her eyes and slap my face for being so presumptuous, but she lay inert while I pressed my ear to her chest, listening for a heartbeat. Whatever faint pulse might be there, it was obscured by the rumble of diesel from the idling engines. I sat across her hips and pressed my hands, one on top of the other, on to her breast bone, gently at first, then harder. A gout of water spurted from her mouth. I quickly rolled her on to her side while she spasmed and coughed, retching. She subsided but did not stir, lying as flaccid and limp as she had before. I pressed my ear to her chest again, but could still hear nothing over the engine.
Leaving her momentarily I ran back to the cabin and switched off everything, plunging the boat into darkness and silence as the engine sputtered to a halt. I returned to Shelley and listened to her chest again. The heartbeat that sounded loudest was my own. I put my ear to her mouth, hoping for a breath, feeling only the water chilling on my skin.
I tried pumping her chest again, but nothing more came up. I desperately needed help. Even assuming I could pilot the boat back to shore, it would take too long when Shelley needed aid now. Would the men in the water know what to do? Would they help her if they could? Or would they be more interested in covering their tracks than saving their victim? They had brought three girls out here, trying to invoke a half-understood folktale. Two of the girls were already dead. I could not let that happen to the third.
At that moment, I suddenly saw the whole thing. I knew what they were trying to do. They had it all wrong, as I'd had it all wrong. My own failure to see what had been in front of me almost led me to under stand their actions – not to forgive – but at least to understand. Of course there were maidens of the deep, I had seen them.
The spirit of the sea shall rise and claim his bride, taking her to him for life and love, so that the town may thrive once more.
I had seen them in the museum, the faces of the maidens captured in sepia, the Sea Queens of Ravensby. What had the man said? His grandmother lived till her nineties and beyond, was related to half the town through children and grandchildren. But there had been no mention of a father. The picture was alone, unaccompanied. Where was the husband?
A maiden shall walk among them, a queen, crowned of the deep, and she shall live long and happy and have many children to follow in his line.
And when that life was over, when the Sea Queens of Ravensby finally succumbed to age and ultimately death, their skulls would find their way to a cave on the beach where they would be honoured for long years to come. I had seen them, met them, all of them. I knew who the father was.
Even Greg Makepeace – I had wondered at that pulse of power when we first shook hands. I knew he had fey blood, but never asked where it came from. He told me anyway, when I asked him whether he had been called to work here.
Not sure you'd call it that. I was born here. Maybe I just came home.
A local lad with local blood and fey power running through his veins.
I found warm drops running down my cheeks. Brushing them away, I realised they were tears – hot tears of frustration. All the anger at having my daughter stolen from me, of having her life destroyed, just as this young girl's life was being destroyed, welled up in me. All the frustration at how people wreaked havoc upon each other's lives with half-understood ideas and wrong conclusions formed like a hard knot in my throat. Cradling her limp form in my arms, I stood and staggered forward with her to the bow. Shelley draped between my arms, her long hair dripping on to the deck. I lifted my face and screamed to the silent stars.
"No!"
The well of power within me pulsed in answer, responding to my need. It opened into a dark vortex, a whirling spiral inside me, sucking power from the air, the water, the boat, the waves, the wind. Everything chilled to bone-numbing cold. Frost rimed the rails of the boat, forming white and luminous on every surface. Ice crystals sparkled in Shelley's hair and eyebrows. Energy collapsed into me, faster and stronger, answering that single word of denial.
There was a single crack and the whole sky flashed white. A huge cloud formed visibly over me, a massive thunderhead built from the frozen air. Another flash, the answering boom only a second behind. For a microsecond I could see the whole coast outlined in stark contrast. Raffmir's words came back to me. Yo u can go there if you can see it. You can step behind the curtain of reality and push through.
I fed my core with energy, pouring heat and warmth into it until my bones creaked and my joints ached. Waiting for the flash, I hugged Shelley tight to me, holding her cold wet form against my skin. I could feel the static building, a thread of tingling connection between the boat and the cloud above us. When the flash came, I kept my eyes open, letting the image of the coast and the beach burn into my retina. Then I stepped forward beyond the curtain of reality into my own flash.
The sea washed against the shingle beach, the soft hush and draw of the water on the stones telling me where we were, while my eyes still blinked luminous dots. I staggered forward as the rumble and boom of the thunder followed after me, echoing down the shore. Collapsing to my knees, I began to lower Shelley gently to the ground.
"Come!" I shouted, my voice cracking from salt and exhaustion. "I have brought her to you."
I could no longer support her weight and we sagged to the sand.
"Come," I repeated.
My eyes were closed but I felt his approach. The tingling that spread across my skin was no natural chill. Whether he came from the cave or the beach or somewhere else, I could not have said, but I knew he was there.
"You must help her," I said. "She needs you. You know the sea. You know its ways. She's been sorely used."
"This is not the way." His voice was wary, but did not hold the warning of our first meeting.
"You said… you said it must be soon. It's tonight, on a moon-dark solstice. It has to be tonight, doesn't it?"
"She must come willingly. She is not even conscious. Look at her."
"She will be willing. She will… once she knows. She wants to live. She wants it so badly. You must see that."
The lightning flashed out in the bay, the dark thunder rumbling behind only a second later. He waited until it had subsided.
"She's fading, give her to me."
He knelt in the sand opposite me, offering his arms. I lifted her, easing her into his embrace.
"How is she called?" He looked down into her pallid face, lit only by starlight.
"Her name's Shelley. It may be short for something. I don't know what."
He leaned down, his lips almost brushing hers, and spoke her name.
"Shelley."
Then he pressed his lips to hers in a slow gentle kiss, withdrawing slowly as he watched her face. She remained inert for a long moment and then jerked suddenly, coughing and retching in his embrace, spewing dark water over him from her mouth and nose, drawing great heaving raw breaths, struggling to be free while he held her gently, unconcerned with her wretched state.