Body of Water

by Stuart Wakefield

  Phosphorescence?

  I looked at Dom, confused. “Have you seen this before?”

  “No.” He handed me the sheet and shimmied down the side of the tank, reached out to hook his fingers behind the upper half of it and tilted the tank forwards. Judging by the grinding of his teeth it was heavy and awkward. Still, I reasoned, he’d lifted a millstone only nights before.

  Seeing nothing, I held up the lamp and took a step towards the glass. Still nothing. Finally, I leaned in so close that my brow met the glass as it tilted towards me. Something in the water reacted to me. I saw a movement and the glow pulsed.

  I stepped back. The core of the tank remained dark. Squinting my eyes to dampen the glow I made out the rough shape of a figure suspended in the verdigris sludge.

  Dom grunted and pulled harder. The figure drifted forwards slowly, its arms coming up slightly as if to embrace me.

  A body thunked gently against the glass, the face eye-to-eye with me.

  I fell against the boxes behind me. Now my own core turned dark. Dread surfaced and I pulled the sheet to my chest as if to smother it.

  I knew the face opposite me. I saw it every day.

  It was my own.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Family

  The sound of my vomiting reverberated off the wall just as the vomit itself splashed across my boots. As soon as my guts emptied I gasped for air, catching sight of Dom appearing beside me. He breathed heavily and I guessed he’d set the tank back upright instead of just letting it go.

  “What did ye see?”

  I couldn’t form the words. My hand unconsciously went to my chest and my fingers touched skin. Confused, I looked down and saw that the energy discharge from my chest had burnt away the layers of fabric. My skin was intact and the blue stone pulsed in time with the phosphorescent liquid in the tank.

  Without looking up I pointed to the tank. “It’s me.”

  Dom made a sound in the back of his throat but said nothing. I could hear his boots creak as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. Was he unsure whether to stay by my side or investigate?

  I grabbed hold of his closest thigh and hauled myself to my feet before making my way to the tank. Dom joined me and sucked in a breath over his teeth when he saw the face.

  I looked at my twin. I couldn’t think of him as anything else. “I think he’s my brother. Maggs found my mother on the beach. She was weak. Maybe she’d already had one child and Teran took him?”

  I tried to imagine what his life had been like. He’d had at least one of his parents. I wondered what Teran was like, even a monster could be a good father, and then I remembered Gerald. That monster was certainly not a good father. Shaun seemed a lifetime away now. My anger towards him had drifted away with all my other negative emotions.

  My brother and I already shared one history; we had both been secrets. My own mother had hidden me away from Teran. I had been kept a secret by Shaun’s parents so that Shaun wouldn’t spoil their name and reputation. And I had hidden myself away from the world after Mum died. The Sea Mither had kept my brother a secret from Maggs. In turn, Teran had kept him from the world. Assuming Mackay had known about him he’d also kept him concealed here.

  Mackay was right. I was discovering the truth here.

  I heard movement behind me and looked over my shoulder to see Dom opening, one by one, the vast number of boxes in the room. He worked feverishly and I knew he was looking for his skin.

  I wondered how it must have felt to remember your family and then lose them. At least he had known their love. But I had known Ruth’s love and I was thankful for that, no matter how short-lived it had seemed. Alex was another matter and I knew I had some work to do to salvage our relationship assuming I made it out of here alive.

  When I noticed Dom’s sudden stillness, I turned in his direction, distracted from the tank. He held a bundle in his hands and I saw him trembling from the other side of the room.

  “Is that…?”

  Dom nodded mutely.

  I ran to him and stared down at the bundle. The skin was covered in a loosely-woven fabric, tossed into a pile of filthy rags like an old garment.

  “Had you searched here before?”

  Dom looked at me, his eyes wide and liquid. He seemed completely distraught.

  I caught his jacket and tugged it hard. “We have to get it out of here and somewhere safe. That pulse could have been a beacon. Teran could arrive at any moment. Come on.”

  But Dom just stood there.

  “Come on!” I pleaded, panic rising in my chest.

  “Moppy,” Dom started. “Do ye love-”

  But he didn’t get to finish. A bright light filled the room as the door exploded inwards and a monster rose from the wreckage.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Teran

  The creature stood taller than Dom, covered in black armour that reflected the light like a beetle’s shell.

  Flattened by the blast, I shook my head to recover my senses and looked for the source of the light. It streamed through the doorway. The shattered Odin Stone was shining brightly and I realised that the humming in my ears wasn’t the result of the explosion but a wall of sound emanating from its core.

  When the monster started to move I saw that its armour comprised of a series of interlocked chitinous plates and its back and head was shielded by a menacing carapace.

  It was humanoid.

  “Fin-man.” It was all Dom said as he darted forwards and pulled me back to where he was huddled under one of the benches.

  Dom had called me that yesterday after I regained consciousness on the beach. If he recognised that in me then it meant that one of these things had fathered me.

  I felt both revulsion and fascination. The Fin-man looked dangerous but it radiated a magnetic power that held my attention as I watched it move around the room. It stopped when it reached the tank and made a sound like disgust before moving on. The parallel benches gave it little option but to weave up and down each aisle. It would be upon us soon and I knew it would notice us.

  I tensed, ready to run, but Dom’s hold on me tightened. “Ah’m not letting ye go,” he hissed into my neck.

  Damn him, I thought. I had offensive power. I’d killed the Nuck. Even though I hadn’t used it consciously I did have it in me. Maybe if I was threatened it would manifest, take over and destroy the Fin-man itself.

  I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to conjure my fear and anger but I felt the stone in my chest begin to work against me. Its soothing energies gathered in my thorax and I felt them expand outwards. No, I had to push them back and access the chaos that I’d inherited from Teran.

  Gritting my teeth I focused on my anger at Shaun, at Mum’s death, Mackay’s, and Maggs’ interference. I recalled my fear seeing the Nuck pummel Dom against the cliff and then how enraged I had become.

  The blue energy faltered within me and I drove my anger into it. As it collapsed in on itself I tore myself free from Dom’s grasp and stood up.

  The Fin-man froze when it saw me. Its vaguely human face, just eyes and a mouth, looked startled.

  Now the anger took me for itself. I raised my hands towards the Fin-man and prepared to unleash death upon it but I stopped when I saw my hands. They were covered in the same plating as the Fin-man but shot through with veins of blue crystal. I hadn’t even felt my transformation but it didn’t scare me.

  “Who are you?”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised that the monster spoke; it had a mouth and looked as much like a man as anything else.

  “I’m Leven.” My voice sounded different, a deeper register. Even the mechanics of my throat felt different. I couldn’t feel my tongue but somehow I’d managed to say my name.

  The Fin-man sniffed the air and stared at me in shock. “I sense her in you.”

  I knew exactly who he meant so I knew who he must be; Teran, my real father. The Sea Mither was his enemy as well as his obsession. She’d defeated him
in an endless cycle of seasons so she had the power to subdue him. If I had her power as well as his I might be able to kill him.

  Unexpectedly, his shoulders dropped and he loped away from me towards the tank. When he reached it he put one hand on the glass, his fingers splayed outwards as if to calm the figure within. “I thought there was only one.”

  His height allowed him to rest his armoured head on top of the tank. He stood motionless then, without warning, drew his arm back and punched his way through the front of the tank. “I needed you both!”

  He grabbed the body as it lurched towards him and threw it against the opposite wall. So that had been my brother. My anger rose again just as it had when Dom had been thrown against the cliff but this time there was no opportunity to charge Teran for he had launched himself at me.

  “Run!”

  It was all I had time to yell at Dom before Teran’s roar drowned out the Odin Stone itself.

  “I needed you both!”

  I had no idea what his plan had been but its failure enraged him. His impact dwarfed that of the Nuck’s and we tumbled across the room as he battered his fists against me. I covered my head instinctively and waited for the world to stop spinning.

  His assault continued after we struck the far wall but his frustration scattered his blows randomly across my armoured body. It hurt but it wasn’t injuring me as far as I could tell. This new body was going to take some getting used to.

  As quickly as he had attacked so he disengaged and I felt the disturbance in the air as he leapt away from me. I couldn’t see Dom anywhere but Teran was heading back towards the tank, one arm extended.

  The spilt green water that once imprisoned my brother rose up at his unspoken command and lurched towards me. I had no time to evade it but no fear of it either. It was just water. But when it struck me I imagined I had been stabbed. The water had crystallised and the shards had penetrated the gaps between my armour plating.

  I cried out with pain and fell to my knees, gasping for breath through my distorted mouth.

  Teran’s gurgling laugh heralded a second attack as he drew the crystal shards from my body and dug them back into me. I thought that my brain would shut down from sensory overload. Surely this much pain would make a man faint? But I wasn’t a man now. I was the son of the Sea Mither and a Fin-man and I had powers of my own.

  Now I had to surrender my anger and fear to the blue energy that marbled my new body.

  It was harder than I’d expected. Teran’s proximity seemed to fuel the power I’d inherited from him. As hard as I’d fought to suppress the blue energy, now I had to fight to draw it back out.

  Teran sneered at me and raised his hands again, mouthing silent words.

  Immediately the room began to shake. Objects fell from the benches, boxes toppled and the room filled with dust. I heard Dom coughing but I couldn’t see him through the thick air.

  I accessed my chaotic power and lashed out in Teran’s direction. I could feel the water in my invisible grasp and wrestled to keep it in shape as I flung it back at him.

  The water cleared the air between us but Teran reflected it back at me with a wave of his hand. The crystallised slab hit me square in the face and pain shot through my skull. Blood blurred my vision, stinging my eyes.

  I gathered my strength and tried to drag myself onto my knees. What I wouldn’t have given for some training but I could feel the raw power surging back through my body. I might have been battered and bloody but it fuelled me, as did my hatred.

  This thing had single-handedly caused all the pain and hurt in my life to bring me to this moment. If he’d been human, and I had no power, I’d gladly have cut the fucker’s balls off with a rusty razor blade. Slice, slice, plop. I’d happily watch the bastard writhe in pain as I worked.

  Fuck him. Fuck every useless family that had fostered me. Fuck the cancer for killing Mum. Fuck Shaun for being weak. Fuck Teran for seducing my mother and killing my brother. Fuck everything.

  “Time to die, you cunt.”

  I drew a deep breath and concentrated hard, feeling the moisture in the room around me; the damp in the floorboards, beneath the footings, in the crumbling plaster on the walls, and the brick behind it.

  I sensed the water in Dom’s body, the blood pumping through it. I had to shield him from what I was about to do.

  A mist formed around me, the collected droplets drawing towards me from everything I’d sensed apart from Dom.

  Dom appeared beside me, looking around us as noises of cracking a splintering sounded all around us.

  “Leven?” Dom said, his voice quavering.

  “Now might be a good time to get out.”

  The blue energy crackled around me, illuminating the mist cloud from within. Teran backed away towards the doorway but stopped suddenly, gripped by my invisible hand. I directed the cloud towards him and forced it into his mouth and eyes.

  “What are ye doing? He can breathe water.”

  “He’s not keeping it.”

  Teran writhed and twisted in place. His legs buckled beneath him but he didn’t fall. I held him in place.

  “Ye’re killing him.”

  Teran grasped at his throat and tried to speak. I was certain that he had killed Mackay in front of us but Mackay’s lungs were filled with water from his own body. I was pumping Teran full of additional fluid that his body shouldn’t be able to contain. He stopped struggling but I continued to focus all is energy on him.

  “Stop it. He’s gone.”

  But my focus was unbroken. “Not yet.”

  I lifted my hands, palms up flat and then pulled back. Teran’s armour cracked and turned wet as blood sprayed from his wounds.

  “Enough, Michael. Enough.”

  My power died within me and I realised that the voice that had been instructing me was not Dom’s.

  A gentle voice made a placatory sound and a hand touched my forehead. Only Ruth calmed me like this but a cascade of blonde hair and a pair of sparkling blue eyes gazed up at me.

  “I am your mother.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Summer

  I watched her as she turned away and walked across the room to the doorway. At some deep level I recognised her but the feelings I imagined at our first meeting didn’t surface. Not yet, anyway.

  She was beautiful but she was cool, detached. I reminded myself that she was not human.

  I had no strong feelings towards her and questioned if this was the part of her I’d inherited. It must be inhuman to be so calm you felt almost nothing.

  Alex had tried to cut off his feelings but they still bled through. Mum had worn her heart on her sleeve for the world to see. And then there was Dom, a torrent of emotion. He was as wild as the Orkney winds themselves.

  That was how I’d felt after accessing my powers and defeating Teran; a surge of emotion amplified my power and in turn it elevated my emotional state. They fed off each other, my emotions and my power.

  We followed the Sea Mither into the tower and she began to speak, her voice soft as if she was unfamiliar with forming words.

  “Teran’s Fin-folk covet these islands more so than any other creatures in these waters.”

  I cringed at the thought of anything else apart from the Fin-folk, Selkies and the Nuck being in these waters. Dom wasn’t the last of the Selkie, I knew that. How many other creatures lurked out there?

  “Teran now knows of your presence here. You could replace Lorcan in his plans.”

  “Lorcan?”

  “Your brother.”

  So he had a name. “Teran said he needed us both.”

  She paused, her face passive.

  Dom’s voice broke the silence. “Ye must protect him, Mither!”

  The Sea Mither glanced at him briefly before returning her full attention to me. “May I speak with you alone?”

  Before I could respond, Dom left my side. “Ah’ll keep an eye on Teran.”

  She looked after him as he left and then took my
hand. It was an awkward gesture, as if she had seen someone do it once and thought it the right thing to do. “My sojourn into the human realm was an attempt to gather my strength to defeat Teran for all time. I did not realise that it would be my downfall, that he would exploit this human’s weakness against me and have me sire his children.”

  I drew my hand away from her light hold. “This human?”

  “This is not my body. I am only spirit.”

  “So that thing I was killing-”

  “Is a Fin-man possessed by Teran’s spirit.”

  I had achieved nothing. I’d destroyed something that Teran only controlled. There could be thousands of Fin-men for him to send after me.

  The Sea Mither continued. “I knew human love. I loved you both as I carried you and for the short time I held you in my arms. Letting you go was the only option I had to protect the islands.”

  “I’m trying to understand, but-”

  She held up a hand. “But that is a memory now. I recognise only one side of you, the spirit side. I am not human. Since my return to the eternal struggle my human feelings have gone. I do not say this to hurt you.”

  Her words didn’t hurt me. Although she appeared human I sensed her alien attitude towards me. She was not the mother I had fantasised about.

  “I had a human mother who loved me very much.”

  “Can you forgive me?”

  “For giving me up?”

  “Yes,” she paused again. “And for what I am about to ask of you. Teran’s only weakness may be you yourself. When Teran took Lorcan for his own he raised him to take his place but as he grew his powers proved to be weak. Teran tortured him in a bid to twist his mind against me and sent him to kill me. It was a foolish plan and I killed Lorcan before he could attack. I sent his body back to Teran as a warning.”

  “How could you kill your own son?”

  “He was no longer the child I gave birth to. Would you have let him destroy you?”

  I knew she was right but her attitude still seemed brutal. There was no remorse in either her expression or voice.