Find Me (Immersed Book 1)

by Francesca Riley

  His eyes narrowed. His perfect lips parted as he whispered enticingly, “Come with me.”

  “W-what?” Her head spun, his invitation resonating through her mind like echoes in a cavern. Her feet felt like lead as she managed another step back. Suddenly he looked away from her, his eyes widening. For a moment he stared at the waves some distance off, as if listening. Then abruptly he threw himself into the water, vanishing from sight.

  Skye dropped to a crouch, pressing her fist to her chest, and squeezed her eyes shut as her stomach roiled sickly. A sudden shock of cold spray spattered her and her eyelids fluttered open.

  Hunter crouched before her, like a figure from a fairy tale. She found it hard to breathe, too dazed to be shocked. His expression tightened as he took in her closed fist clutched against her chest. “What are you holding?” he pointed to her hand. “Open your hand – show me!”

  Startled into movement, she unclenched her empty fist. He exhaled, his tense posture easing. “You shouldn’t be here,” his murmur was like a plea.

  Her heart fluttered as if he were saying the opposite. “But – I mean...what happened?

  “You nearly got…out of your depth.” Then in a low rasp, “I told you to keep away.”

  Skye flinched, feeling as though something lovely was leaving her. Scrambling to her feet, she was horribly aware of the looseness in her stomach that meant she was close to tears. No; she was not crying in front of him. Anger helped her to find words.

  “You don’t own this water, or these rocks,” she snapped, “This is public property. And – and I go where I want!” She sounded pathetic: where was a good swearword when she needed one?

  The result was unexpected. His hard face softened in a smile that made her heart hitch. He gazed at her for a long moment. Finally, he spoke. “The water is a dangerous place. Those out of their depth can be lost to it forever. It is safest to keep away.”

  They stared at each other.

  “What if I can’t?”

  “If you can’t?” His expression became apprehensive. “If you can’t – then God help us both. Please…” he whispered, his grey eyes darkening to black. “Keep away.”

  Everything in her wanted to agree yes. An echo of nausea roiled through her again and she sank to her knees, hunching over.

  When she looked up she was alone on the rocks, unsure how she’d got there. She’d been looking at rock pools...

  “Skye!”

  She blinked, turning towards the sound of Morgan’s voice. Rough rock bit into her skin. “Yeowch!”

  “What happened?” Morgan, reaching her, heard the yelp.

  “Ouch, I scraped my knees.”

  “Did you lose something?”

  Skye felt like she had. She stood up, but under Morgan’s doubtful scrutiny she couldn’t think of a reply.

  “You’ve been gone ages.” Morgan sounded annoyed. “Jasmine thought you came out this way.” She stared at the water pooled on the rock near them, the traces of drying footprints. “Have you been swimming?”

  Skye gave her a look.

  “Right. Sorry. But why didn’t you tell me you were coming here?” she demanded, exasperated at Skye’s lack of response. “Seriously, if you fell in all alone, with no one around to help...”

  Skye swallowed back that she hadn’t been alone. Of course she had. “Maybe I don’t need helping.” Come with me. The strange words were like an echo in her brain. But an echo of what? She shivered, images slipping out of reach. Something to do with black eyes…or angels?

  “Whatever, Skye” Morgan said shortly.

  Skye sneezed and Morgan sighed. “You’re okay, that’s the main thing. Let’s get out of here. This place is giving me the creeps.”

  Skye agreed, suddenly eager to be gone. But glancing back, a movement caught her attention. Stepping to the edge she looked down. The water drew back for its next heave, trailing seaweed like mermaid’s hair, and she glimpsed what looked like a figure disappearing below. She stared, heart thumping.

  “Coming?” there was an edge to Morgan’s voice. Slowly, Skye turned to follow her, aware that her desire to go now fought a strange compulsion to stay.

  By the time they reached the sand, the awkward silence between them had vanished.

  “Ready for round two?” Morgan challenged teasingly.

  “Not even a little bit. Sorry,” Skye glanced at the others swimming, their shouts indecipherable over the steady crash of surf, “think I’ve had my maximum dose of beach for the day.”

  “Maybe you’re right,” Morgan agreed reluctantly. “I’ll go with you.”

  Reaching the messy pile of bags and towels on the sand, she noticed Morgan looking wistfully towards her friends.

  “You stay, Morgan. Pretty sure I can make it home in one piece.”

  “Well…I guess I’d just feel better knowing you got there in one piece.”

  A surge of annoyance heated Skye’s cheeks. Admittedly, it had been kind of weird on the rocks just now. Her stomach tightened as a faint dizzying echo closed her eyes for a second. But nothing had happened. Morgan’s over-protectiveness was irritating.

  They began to search among the jumbled items. It looked as though latecomers had simply dumped their stuff on top. Figures straggled out of the waves and crossed the beach towards them. Ethan jogged up, wet from his swim. Others began their own hunt for towels.

  “Got them,” Morgan tugged their bags and towels from under an assortment of other people’s things, and passed Skye’s to her. “We’re heading back guys,” she pulled a regretful face that Skye knew was genuine. A few of the others groaned, shooting pointed glances at Skye. She felt embarrassed, then angry. She hadn’t done anything that demanded she be babied or blamed.

  “I’ll walk her back.” Ethan offered, rubbing his hair with a towel. Amber, who had joined them, frowned. Morgan looked surprised, then pleased.

  “No, don’t worry about it,” Skye insisted.

  Ethan tugged his T-shirt from the pile and pulled it on. He wrapped his towel round his waist. “All set?” he asked her as if she hadn’t spoken. As if on cue, Amber yelped and dropped to the sand, bending over her ankle.

  “Amber?” Ethan turned to her.

  “Ow…I think I twisted my ankle or something.” Amber glanced at Skye through her eyelashes before fixing a limpid gaze on Ethan. “I couldn’t put my weight on it suddenly.”

  Ethan crouched and gingerly felt Amber’s perfect-looking ankle. She clutched at his shoulders and bit her lip in a B-grade pained expression. Amused, Morgan widened her eyes at Skye, who smothered a snort of laughter. Leaving Amber to Ethan, Morgan moved closer to Skye.

  “I’d hate to spoil the scene.” Skye murmured. “I’ll just go. I’m desperate for a shower. But you’ll stay, right? They’ll be disappointed if you leave now.”

  Morgan wavered. “You sure? You don’t want me to walk you back?”

  Skye raised her eyebrows, “Hey Morgan – over-protective much?” she teased.

  Morgan shrugged sheepishly. “Guess I am being a bit of a Nana.”

  “Stay. Have fun. I’m completely fine.”

  Morgan relented, looking pleased, and Skye turned for the apartment with relief.

  Reaching the street, a familiar face caught her attention. A young guy sat on the edge of the stone wall, staring blankly out at the Bay.

  She stopped next to him. “Harvey?”

  He turned his head to look at her, but it took a few seconds for him to focus. Then he smiled, “Oh, hey – ‘missed the ferry’, right?”

  “Right,” she smiled back, “So…wow, I’m so glad you’re okay! That must have been awful for you, out there for so long.” She’d not been in the channel long, and that had been bad enough. Then Hunter had found her…

  “Yeah, awful.” His voice was flat. He pulled an apologetic face and shrugged. “Sorry. I guess it was, I just can’t remember.”

  “You can’t?”

  He shrugged again, pressing his lips together.
Skye felt she was intruding, but she needed to know more.

  “You mean like…none of it? The accident? Getting to Ciarlan Cove?”

  “I remember the accident. The ferry came at us in the fog and hit us. I remember going into the water. Then I think…maybe I got caught in the current. I think I remember clinging to a buoy for hours. But that might be a guess. Or maybe a nightmare...” He hesitated, looking embarrassed.

  “I think I know what you mean,” Skye murmured encouragingly.

  He held her gaze for a moment, then looked away. “I get crazy images of shadows and whispers all mixed up with my memories. Then…” he swallowed, “I think I gave up. Let go. But it’s… I remember feeling so cold I was, like, numb. Then it’s kind of…weird.” He stopped, glancing at her again. His eyes looked haunted.

  “It was weird for me too,” Skye ventured, feeling a kind of sinking inside.

  He looked at her more intently. “Yeah? For me it was like snow. You know – they say you get so cold you think you’re warm? You give in, you die. I did feel warm – really warm. Then it’s kind of blank. I remember feeling cold again, and I think… Maybe some guy helped me to shore.”

  “Do you remember what he looked like?”

  “Hey, I’m not even sure I remember a guy being there, okay?” his voice rose, his eyes over-bright. He glanced away, swallowing, then looked back at her. “Sorry. I haven’t told anyone else this.” He knotted his fingers together, knuckles whitening, his eyes creeping to the water again. “Was it like that for you?”

  “I can’t remember much either. Just – being in the water, sinking...” She pulled her mind away from the nightmare-fear, to linger on the face of her channel rescuer. “I got pulled aboard the IRB,” she glanced at her forearms again, their grazes almost healed. But when she looked up and met Harvey’s gaze she felt guilty for holding back, and struggled for something else to share. “I felt kind of sick afterwards.”

  “Me too! But…yeah, I think someone helped me get to Ciarlan Cove. Closest I can get to it, just an impression, is a guy. Taller than me, dark hair, but I can’t be sure any of it was real. Except…except I was there, at Ciarlan Cove, instead of washed up on Ocean Beach, or still floating somewhere out at sea. I know I couldn’t have managed it myself. I was...done for. So, I’m lucky, I guess.”

  “Yeah, lucky,” Skye agreed softly. There were worse things than drowning, but alive was better than dead any day in her book. It was entirely possible someone had helped him to shore. Could his someone and hers be the same?

  13. Suspicions

  Hushed silence greeted Skye when she opened the apartment door. Rowena was probably in her room resting. Stepping inside, Skye stumbled over a small package. It must have been propped against the door, unseen. A note taped to the front explained it had been delivered to 10B by mistake. It felt like a book, small and thick. She put it by the phone.

  The coffee percolator hissed from the kitchen and Skye sighed with gratitude. The faint strains of Patchouli that inevitably hovered in Rowena’s wake added to her sense of comfort, and the strangeness on the rock began to feel distant.

  In the bathroom under the shower’s jet of steaming water, she tried to trace back over what had happened. But her thoughts slipped and skated as if over black ice, unable to find purchase. She wondered if this blankness was connected with the channel accident. Some kind of delayed concussion? She didn’t want to create any dramas for the Lauders by mentioning it. It would no doubt pass.

  After changing, she checked on her mother’s book, left under shelter on the balcony overnight. It was dry. She’d turned the pages frequently and moved it around to help progress. It was badly buckled, but she wasn’t ready to let it go. After a moment’s thought, she searched the lounge for something heavy, eventually removing a tightly wedged encyclopaedia from the bookshelf. She carefully worked the warped book into the space left by the encyclopaedia, hoping it would flatten under pressure.

  Bored, she glanced around the room. The parcel by the phone caught her eye. Idly curious, she crossed to it and lifted the note on the parcel to see the address beneath.

  Dad’s writing: Skye Sebastian, care of Lauder, Apartment 10, The Towers. Astonished, Skye tore off the wrapping paper and stared at the teal blue book in her hands: her mother’s sketchbook, no bigger than a fat notebook, thick with use. It had been lost after Mum died. Touching the linen cover, frayed at the corners, was like touching the warm past. Bittersweet pleasure filled her. She shook out the brown paper and a note fell to the floor. Picking it up she read, “I think you should have this. Hope you’re enjoying your holiday. Say “Hi” to the girls for me. Love, Dad.”

  Unease stirred. Not lost after all. Hidden? Her mind touched on the necklace pushed into the back of Dad’s drawer, and flicked quickly away again. Why send this to her now?

  Settling on a bar stool, Skye opened the cover. Inside the book her mother’s spidery handwriting, never in a straight line, traversed the pages. Tiny illustrations crawled around borders and twined through letters. She turned each leaf like brittle china, tracing her finger over the fine indented pen lines and chalky wash. The sound of her mother’s voice, the feeling of her mother’s arms around her came forcibly back. For a second the words and pictures disappeared in a blur. She pressed her fist to an ache in her chest, blinking hard. Then, recognising the last story Mum had written for her, she smiled.

  “Once there was a kingdom under the sea. It glowed with every colour you could imagine. The sea spirits who lived there were mesmerising; so beautiful they could break a mortal’s heart. The sea spirits used their beauty and powers to draw mortals beneath the sea, to live with them by magic…for a time.

  One stormy day, a handsome sea spirit came upon a mortal girl, half drowned. Enchanted by her beauty, he took her deep beneath the waves, preserving her from certain death. But under his spell the mortal girl was wraithlike; awake, yet always dreaming, trapped in a half-life. The sea spirit grieved at what she had become. Drawing on powerful magic, he made a way to return his beloved to the sun and the air, without losing her forever.”

  The spidery words stopped at the bottom of the page. The facing page was blank. Skye frowned. She turned the page. Blank. That was it? That wasn’t much of an ending. Surely there had been more?

  It was like something on the tip of her tongue, the edge of her memory. There had been more. Pictures? Yes…and words, she was certain. There had been more to this story.

  What had come next? She strained to remember, running her fingers over the blank page searching for indentations. Then she went still as her fingertips found the almost non-existent stub of a cut edge in the spine. She peered closely at the woven spine and saw what looked like another, even more closely cropped edge, barely visible. Two cut pages. But what…

  The apartment door opened, and Morgan’s glowing face appeared. Nudging the door shut behind her she dropped her things on the floor and flopped horizontal onto the sofa, closing her eyes. “Hey, Skye-bear,” she sighed, “Exhausting – fun is exhausting. Does this place come with a maid?”

  “Oh, poor you,” Skye grinned, “Yes, maid is called Morgan.”

  Morgan languidly rolled her head in Skye’s direction. “That maid hates picking up after herself. Fancy a job?”

  She casually put the sketchbook down and moved to the sofa. “No, I’ll pass.” Morgan was a neat freak. Her things wouldn’t be there long. “Good times? Everybody happy?”

  “Yep. Well...” Morgan sat up, her smile mischievous. “Ethan was a bit miffed you didn’t wait for him to walk you back, hero-style.”

  “I’ll bet Amber wasn’t miffed.” Skye observed dryly.

  “Oh, you noticed? Yeah, I think she had concerns about him attending you safely home.” Morgan raised her eyebrows suggestively.

  “What, did she think I would spirit him up to the apartment and have my wicked way with him?”

  “Actually, I kind of suspected Ethan was hoping that might be a possibility.”


  Skye groaned, “You mean you kind of hoped he was hoping. You’re such a set-up artist! I don’t think so, Morgan.”

  “What?” Morgan protested, laughing. “He is cute!” She ‘tsk’d’ in exasperation at Skye’s expression. “Hey, I know you’re all anti-love and whatnot, but seriously, you could do worse than a summer fling with Ethan Armstrong.”

  “I’m not anti-love…exactly,” Skye shrugged, “I just don’t see the point in buying a ticket to a guaranteed train wreck.” Morgan rolled her eyes and Skye laughed. This was well trod ground. “Besides,” she tossed a cushion at Morgan, “I’m not sure you can use ‘love’ and ‘summer fling’ in the same context, especially when it involves Ethan Armstrong.”

  Morgan tilted her head on one side and tapped her chin as if considering. “Hmmm, you may have a point.” She changed the subject, “Anyway, major first step, getting you out there hanging with new people today. So...you okay?”

  “Sure, I’m fine. Your sneaky party was a complete success. Good times had by all.” They both knew it wasn’t true, but complete disaster had been averted and that practically amounted to the same thing where Skye and the sea were concerned.

  “Hey, did you hear about Harvey?” Morgan added, “He’s okay! Isn’t it awesome?”

  Skye smiled, “Yeah, it’s fantastic all right.”

  “Did you know? He was found at Ciarlan Cove.”

  Skye nodded mutely, suddenly short of breath. Morgan’s expression became careful, and she hesitated as if weighing her words. Skye tensed, but the moment passed. Morgan stretched languidly. “Oh well, shower-for-me time,” she announced, dragging herself off the sofa. “You better have left me some hot water, girlfriend.”

  “Nope, used it all,” she responded distractedly as Morgan headed to the bathroom.

  Skye walked slowly back to her mother’s sketchbook. As she stared at it, Hunter’s beautiful face surfacing through clear water, his eyes fixed on hers, came unbidden to her mind. Swiftly closing the cover, she re-wrapped the book. Morgan would recognise it and she wasn’t up to questions.