Body of Water

by Stuart Wakefield

“You have great power,” she continued. “Was this always so?”

  “No but it appears when I am scared or angry. When I was young-”

  “Then it comes when you need it most.” She seemed satisfied by this. “I wished for a sign or a prophecy that foretold your arrival but there was none. Now I see you my hope returns.”

  “What do you think Teran wants?”

  “He wishes to possess me and he wishes for greater power. How he plans to achieve this I do not know.”

  “Why do you think he needs the Odin Stone?”

  “The Stone o’ Odin was used for many years to bind promises. The island folk swore oaths upon it and believed it granted them protection from disease but its true purpose is to bring balance.”

  “But if Teran becomes more powerful than you won’t the stone restore balance by increasing your power to match his?”

  Dom strode back into the room, dragging the semi-conscious Fin-man behind him. “Sea Mither! Teran meant to transfer your powers to Leven and his brother!”

  He dropped the Fin-man and gathered me up in his arms as the Sea Mither examined the broken body he had discarded behind him.

  “Teran has left this body to perish,” she announced.

  The Fin-man’s blood seeped from his wounds and soaked the wooden floorboards that strained under his weight. I knelt beside him and cradled his head. “I’m sorry.”

  His deep green eyes rolled upwards in their sockets and his mouth dropped open. In my half-remembered dream I had enjoyed killing the dog but now I felt nothing but anguish. I had taken a life that on its own may not have wished me harm. This poor creature had been used by an evil spirit and I had shattered its body with a power inherited from the same foul thing. I felt disgusted with myself.

  Dom crouched next to me and put his arm around me. I tried to shake him off but he pulled me closer still. “Ye had no choice, moppy.”

  “I’m sick of death.”

  He didn’t speak but put his face into my hair and wrapped his other arm around me. It occurred to me then that my head was no longer covered by my carapace. When had I changed back to my human form? I clung to Dom and wished that he would transport us out of here and back to London but, before I could ask if that was even possible, the entire tower shook.

  Dom and I sprang to our feet to see the Odin Stone shift sideways, the floating chunks threatening to break free and crush us all, before the central core pulled the pieces back into place.

  The Sea Mither’s face turned heavenwards. “Teran approaches.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Sacrifice

  The tower shook again and I heard a thunderous crash outside. The ice was breaking up and falling down around the building. Another crash sounded in the room attached to the tower and a cloud of dust billowed through the doorway as shards of ice scattered across the floor.

  The Sea Mither darted up the spiral staircase that jutted out of the tower’s internal wall. It didn’t seem like a good idea to me. If the tower was going to collapse was being at the top a wise choice? Then again, being at the bottom when it collapsed seemed even more stupid.

  Before I could decide for myself I felt Dom’s hands on my back, pushing me after her.

  The staircase proved to be as unsafe as it looked. No sooner were we high enough that a fall might prove fatal than a step gave way under Dom’s weight.

  He dropped quickly but my new reflexes were faster. I caught the wrist of his up-stretched arm and held him fast. The step beneath me groaned under the weight but held just long enough for me to haul him up and move forward.

  The Sea Mither had no such problem and leapt from step to step with ease. I watched her ascent towards the top of the tower where the lamp was housed. But before she could reach the top of the staircase and climb into the lantern room the entire structure was sheared off just above her head.

  She covered her head and cried out as something reflective narrowly missed her. I caught a glimpse of a huge glass lens fall past me and shatter against the tip of the Odin Stone.

  I looked down as the glass fragments fell away and broke into smaller pieces still as they struck the floor. From my vantage point the dead Fin-man looked like he had been covered in snow and ice.

  My chest hummed with energy and I pulled at the tear its previous discharge had ripped through my clothes.

  The tip of the Odin Stone hummed with a new frequency and, looking down, I was shocked to see that the core had turned the same shade of blue as the stone fused to my sternum.

  I realised what I had to do. If there was any chance that Teran could use me then I had to stop him. If I could restore the Sea Mither’s power then she could subdue Teran. If the Odin Stone brought back balance then I’d have to sacrifice myself to complete Dom’s work.

  Dom followed my gaze and looked at me in horror as he realised what I was considering. “Leven, no!” He caught hold of me and tried to pull me back from the edge of the step on which I perched. I tried to free myself from Dom’s grip but the effort was a token gesture. I was scared and Dom knew it; I could see that much in his expression as his grey eyes tracked over my face. “You can’t leave me.”

  I held his face and answered the question he hadn’t been able to finish when he found his skin. “Yes, I love you.” I pushed away from him and jumped into the air. I was a diver now, an Olympian, and I wanted gold. I turned in the air, muscles flexed; as I’d watched my heroes do for so many years. I knew I was going to die but the fear left me as soon as it had come.

  The Odin Stone pierced my chest and pure blue light exploded within me.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Burial at Sea

  Death was a beach, lit dimly by a sun that wouldn’t set. My last memories rushed back to me and my chest began to heave with emotion. I cried out into the silence. The stone in my chest was gone, an angry scar the only evidence of its strange attachment to me.

  The remains of the lighthouse lay in ruins high above me on the cliff. Chunks of it were strewn around me on the sand.

  So this wasn’t death. I had survived somehow, naked but alive.

  I dragged myself to my feet but immediately fell again, skinning my knees on rubble. They bled freely but I ignored them. I had to find Dom and make sure he was safe. I pulled myself up again and concentrated on my legs, keeping them planted firmly between the remnants of lighthouse and gouged sand.

  The quiet unnerved me. I had become used to the constant squall of the wind and its never-ending push and pull. This evening was calm, what Dom said the Simmer Dim should be.

  I scanned the ruined shoreline for signs of life but saw nothing moving. Seeing a ragged bundle I clambered over the rocks towards it but it was only a dead sheep. Seaweed still hung from its mouth. The poor thing had been crushed mid-meal. Its blood had stained the sand around it. As I followed the fading mark to the water’s edge I saw a lump of tattered leather and cried out in panic.

  There was no doubt it was Dom’s boot. I clutched it to my chest and fell to my knees again. I was angry at myself for assuming the worst but I had lost so much already why would today grant me a reprieve?

  My search became feverish. My eyes stung from my tears and again from the sand I worked into them as I carelessly wiped those tears away. I had to find him. I pulled at piles of wreckage until my fingers bled but I didn’t care. I stooped only to tug a broken fingernail from its bedding but the pain was nothing compared to my rising terror.

  I saw the ragged bundle of Dom’s skin first, still clenched in his fist. At least he died reunited with the one thing he’d spent his human life searching for. I was certain he was dead. No light danced in his eyes which stared vacantly at the sky. No air filled his lungs. No pulse drummed in his chest.

  I had no idea how the skin fitted to Dom’s body. The shapeless thing bore no indication to suggest if it was to be draped or wrapped around the body.

  Dom was heavy but I was able to undress him and roll him in the supple skin until he was cocoon
ed inside it, just his beautiful face still visible. I sat beside him while I decided what to do. What would Dom want? He had spent all his time looking out to sea so it seemed fitting to take him out into the waves but he’d also wanted to stay with me.

  I made my decision and dragged his body towards the sea.

  My only choice was to take him out into the water and stay with him until the sea took us both. I didn’t know what might be waiting beneath the surface for me. I didn’t care. All I wanted was to be with Dom in his natural element.

  Once in the water, I worried that his body might sink but the skin swelled and remained buoyant enough to help me swim us out into deeper water. Surprised by the power of my strokes, and unused to the strength I gained from the sea, I looked back to see that the islands were simply distant breaks in the horizon.

  I stopped swimming and cradled Dom in my arms. As my tears fell onto his face I sang the lullaby that Tammie had sung to his dog in the pub.

  “Ba, ba peerie t’ing, sleep a bonnie nappie; thoo’ll sleep an’ I will sing, makin’ lassack happy”.

  The sun was at its lowest point now but the deep orange orb offered no warmth as we floated below it. I finally felt myself tire, my legs kicking more and more slowly.

  But I held fast onto Dom, resting my head on his chest and singing softly.

  “Ba, ba lammie noo, cuddle doon tae mammie; trowies canna tak’ thoo, hushie ba lammie, hushie ba lammie, hushie ba…”

  Then everything closed around me and I was wrapped in something else.

  Darkness.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  The Gift

  “Ye have to eat something.”

  “Go away and leave me alone.”

  Maggs sighed and took a step closer to me. I moved away, the bedrock uneven beneath my feet.

  “Ye’re weak, boy.”

  It only took a look over my shoulder for her to see I was in no mood for persuasion. She placed the dish down between us and backed away.

  The morning sun beat down on me and I cursed it under my breath. I longed for the grey skies and churning waves but I was denied. Since the Odin Stone’s completion balance had been restored and the weather fell back into its normal pattern of ebb and flow.

  I was certain that it had killed both Teran and the Sea Mither and sensed neither of their influence within me. Balance had been restored not by levelling their power but by removing them completely.

  But I remained as always, counting my losses.

  Millie had found me washed up on the east coast of the island during one of her daily searches but there had been no sign of Dom. I remained unconscious for several days until Tammie thought to give me a seawater bath which revived me.

  That was three months ago.

  I scowled again at the late September sun. It made it more difficult to pick out the waves from the bobbing seal heads.

  I’d become a thing of curiosity for the local grey seals. They watched me intently, albeit from a safe distance. I could understand their distrust of men having read every clipping tacked onto Dom’s bedroom walls. I slept in his room now, comforted by his smell which permeated the rugs and skins he had occasionally nestled himself into.

  Beth had visited a month ago but even she failed to conjure a smile that reached my eyes. She didn’t mention Shaun and neither did I. She brought me gifts and as I had opened each one I realised that she might be more than human herself. Knowing nothing about what had happened she had made figures of the Sea Mither, the Odin Stone and the frozen lighthouse. Her eyes grew wider than the ocean when I told her what had happened and she cried with me for my loss. She brought with her a letter from Alex full of emotion I never knew he possessed. He wanted me to come back home as soon as I felt able.

  But I couldn’t be persuaded and Beth returned to London alone.

  As Dom had stood on the beach night after night so I stood on the rocks day after day. But just as he had been denied his wish so I was denied mine; he was lost to me. I didn’t know if he had lived or died out there with me.

  Maggs cleared her throat. I had forgotten she was there.

  “Leven,” she said, finally using the name I preferred. “If he was alive he would have returned to ye by now.”

  “How can you possibly know that?” Deep down I knew she was right; I’d looked into his eyes and seen no flicker of life behind them.

  “There are countless stories of Selkie-folk that return to thank those that helped them in times of need or freed them from imprisonment at the hands of another. He’s gone.”

  “How dare you!” I couldn’t bear to hear her say what I knew to be true.

  “Please come inside and eat a meal.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “Then sit by the fire.”

  I neither moved nor spoke. Eventually she threw her hands up in surrender and retreated out of sight. This daily ritual was proving to become as eternal as my parents’ had been.

  I kicked the dish she had left behind. Cold porridge spattered the rock and was taken just as quickly by a wave.

  I watched the dish bob towards me and then race back before deciding to snatch it from the ocean’s grasp.

  But my hand connected with something else snagged on an outcrop just under the waterline. The dish forgotten, I pulled the new object out of the water and staggered backwards.

  It was a Selkie’s skin. I recognised its supple texture immediately and drew it to my face. As the water streamed from it I breathed in Dom’s unmistakeable scent and then roared at the water before me, my cry as guttural as the one I’d heard on my first night here.

  “Give me his body back you fucker!”

  “Ye swear tae much, moppy.”

  Now I knew I’d lost my mind as well as Dom but at least if I could hear his voice I wouldn’t feel so alone. I tilted my face to the sun and let my tears flow freely. When my gasps subsided I decided to go back to the house. There was no point waiting for him any more.

  A man stood in the path, his huge head and shoulders blocked any sight of the house behind him.

  I felt faint. “It can’t be.”

  “Wouldn’t ye like tae see yer loved ones again?”

  I dropped the skin. “It can’t.”

  “Even if they were just a light in the sky?”

  I knew those words. “They don’t come back.”

  Dom covered the space between us in a single stride. His fingers interlocked with mine and held them against the softness of his sand-blasted skin. I smelled the saltwater on his hair and saw the crystals forming on his collarbone. His breath was sweet and warm, just as I remembered it.

  “Say it again,” Dom whispered, almost inaudible over the sound of the waves.

  “Are you staying?”

  He squeezed my hands. “How is this going tae work?”

  “The same way it does right now, with you here and me here.”

  “Ye’re not going back tae London?”

  “Why would I when you’re here?”

  “Say it again. Please.”

  “I love you.”

  His forehead fell onto mine, his eyes closed. “The night ye arrived Ah stayed oot all night, thinking of ways tae get away. Mackay told me nothing aboot ye so Ah thought ye might be some part of a plan tae keep me here forever.”

  “And now?”

  “Now Ah never want tae leave ye again.”

  “Then you won’t need this.” I scooped up his skin and started to fold it up as if to keep it.

  He looked at me in horror.

  I threw it down between us and laughed as I tore off my own clothes and threw them on top. “And I won’t need these.”

  I launched myself into the water closely followed by Dom who tried to push me under. I twisted and swam away but he caught up with me and we eventually surfaced in each other’s arms.

  “Why did ye do that?”

  “To show you that I’m as comfortable out here as you are on land.”

  “But Ah bet Ah can out
-swim ye, moppy.” He flicked water in my face and dove out of sight surfacing seconds later by the bedrock on which I had waited for him for so long.

  As he hauled himself out of the water I admired his back, the muscles shifting like tectonic plates as they pulled him free.

  I followed but I had the power to launch myself from the water and land gracefully next to him.

  “Now ye’re showing off,” he chuckled and plunged his hand into the pile of clothes.

  I looked down at what he’d handed to me. He’d given me his skin by accident. “This is yours Dom.”

  “Aye.”

  “But it’s your skin.”

  He looked down at it in my hands and he smiled, his expression as soft as his voice. “Aye.”

  “But… why?”

  “Because of the one thing Ah haven’t said tae ye yet.” He hooked his fingers around the back of my neck and drew my mouth to his.

  The kiss was the longest we’d shared. I was lost in it, soothed by the lips I’d longed for and the feel of his warm body against mine.

  When he finally pulled back the silver flecks in his slate-grey eyes reflected my devotion for him.

  “I love ye, Leven.”

  ��� ��� ���

  The story continues with Shaun in

  Memory of Water

  Continue reading for a preview…

  I cowered in the corner, my hands over my face, curled into as tight a ball as possible. I swallowed hard but it wasn’t enough to stifle a loud sob as I gasped for air. What the fuck just happened?

  Bugbee and Powell had burst in, I remembered that much. There was lots of shouting and swearing. Powell had suddenly rushed me and pinned me to the wall. Bugbee made a move towards Leven and then…

  I tried to control my breathing and risked a peek out from between my fingers.

  The flat was trashed. Someone’s remains smeared the walls and floor like a twisted makeover. I could make out clumps of hair the colour of Powell’s dotting the wet meat that lay in chunks on the floor. That left just me and Leven, who stood at the front door, his forehead resting on the peeling paintwork, his eyes closed. Was he even aware of me?