Instead of following the funeral-like procession to the ambulance, she turned robotically towards Ocean Beach, and followed the worn path to its end.
She stepped out onto the vast beach, not seeing the endless horizon, the driftwood-strewn sands or sheer cliffs that vanished from sight along the coast. Her body maintained the mechanics of walking while her mind searched for somewhere safe to land. Crossing the wide sands like a sleepwalker, she reached the distant tideline. Cold water filled her sneakers, rousing her. She became conscious of her surroundings, and realised that somewhere between the florists and here she had lost the flyers. In the distance, a few hopeful surfers waited for the unusually calm water to reward their patience.
The mild air she drew in seared raw lungs and her eyes burned. Her thoughts of Hunter felt more real than that unmoving figure beneath the shroud. Like an ingrained reflex, Skye searched the water. If she looked hard enough, she would see him. She would.
And then she caught her breath. A fast-moving shadow beyond the gentle swell of the low waves travelled beneath the surface, parallel to the shore. Hope made her electric. All she needed was to see his face, his sweet smile and dark, dangerous eyes. To know that he was safe. And in seconds, the shape she wanted to see more than any other took form.
Distant on this flat beach, Hunter rose to stand thigh deep in the gentle swell.
Hot tears welled, and her lungs heaved. She spun and stumbled away, stopping after a few paces, fighting to make herself calm. How had she let herself feel so much? She stood with her back to the sea, mastering her shuddering breath and wiping her face. She didn’t want him to see her like this. At any moment she expected to feel his hands on her shoulders. She had to be composed.
But she remained alone, the space around her, empty.
At last she turned, her arms wrapped protectively about her chest. Across the wide expanse of shallow water that separated them, they stared at each other. Even at this distance, Skye saw distress on Hunter’s face. He’d seen her, and cared. So why hadn’t he come to her?
He took a slow step towards her. Then another, as if wading through quicksand. His body showed strain. She met his haunted eyes.
His water-bound appearance ricocheted through her, sparking like static.
Every other time he’d approached her in the water, she had been distracted, looking elsewhere. His appearances could have been those of any ordinary person momentarily submerged, resurfacing. But this time, she had been looking for him, searching the unbroken surface. She had seen him come from nowhere.
No, not from nowhere.
From the only place she ever saw him, apart from on rocks surrounded by the ocean. He took another trembling step, the water swirling about his calves, and halted, defeated. And then she knew. It was impossible, but...
“The waterline. You can’t cross the waterline?” she whispered. He couldn’t have heard her tremulous words, but the yearning and heart-breaking shame on his face told her she’d guessed right.
This was where she should turn away. Step back from the precipice and go back to her old life. He was safe. She should end whatever this was, go back to the apartment and avoid the beach like she’d promised.
Walking backwards, his eyes on hers, Hunter retreated the few shaky steps he’d taken. But she didn’t move. She wasn’t going anywhere. His defeated expression lightened, the corner of his mouth lifting a little. Skye smiled back. This was insane. It was...incredible.
Hunter looked along the beach, and tilted his head towards exposed rocks that tumbled from the sand out into the water. His eyebrows rose in unspoken request.
Nodding, she turned and walked towards the rocks, feeling completely surreal. Despite her mind-blowing deduction that this strange, beautiful boy existed in a reality she could barely imagine, her sensible mind countered. This had to be a joke. Was Hunter playing some elaborate game she couldn’t fathom?
She glanced back. He had vanished, and her heart thudded painfully as she glimpsed a human-shaped shadow moving at inhuman speed beneath the water’s surface. Looking quickly around to see if they were being observed, she saw that the few other beach-goers were distant and oblivious.
Clambering out over the low rocks was like walking a stone tightrope into the unknown. On the furthest rock, facing the horizon Hunter already waited.
Words to voice the questions raging in her head wouldn’t come. After a few deep, steadying breaths, she went for practical. “How did you know I was here?”
“I hoped you were. I was watching for you. Waiting. Then I saw you running towards the hills. I was frightened for you. I sped first to Ciarlan Cove, then here, hoping you weren’t in danger that I couldn’t...couldn’t reach.” His voice was dropped, and she heard the same shame she’d seen on his face.
Now that she was here, with him, the idea that he could have been dead in the waves felt ridiculous. But what was he? He was too real, too elemental to fit her childhood ideas of fairy tales. What would it cost her to know? She took another step towards the chasm. “Hunter, will you tell me who you are?” Her voice trembled.
He met her eyes and their gazes locked, the silence between them deafening.
“Who do you think I am?” It was almost a whisper.
“I think…” she swallowed, “that you’re from the sea.” Had she really said that out loud? Hysterical laughter threatened for a terrifying second.
“You asked me once where I live. Do you remember?”
She recalled his joke about living in the sea...practically. “’Best ocean view in the world’,” she quoted faintly.
He gave a slight smile. “Best ocean view whether I want it or not. I wasn’t always this, Skye. I was once like you.”
His words sank like stone to her centre, too heavy for her suddenly wobbly legs. Was once like her. Dizzily she sat, her heart pounding so hard she felt sure the fabric of her T-shirt shuddered to it. He sat cautiously beside her, his eyes guarded.
The truth about him had been stalking her, but she’d tried not to see it. His words were shattering the reality she thought she inhabited. She tried to keep her gaze and her voice steady. “You seem like me. What do you mean when you say you’re ‘this’?” The last word was almost imperceptible.
He was silent so long she wasn’t sure he’d reply. “We are different,” he said at last. “Who we once were, ended long ago. Now we’re less than memory, and bound to the sea.”
Fine hairs rose on her arms and her head reeled. Was he speaking in riddles? Although her insides felt loose as dry sand, as if the cords of reality that held her together were letting go, she had never listened so avidly to anyone or anything.
“Who we are is hidden from your world,” he continued, “but I don’t want to hide from you anymore. I want you to know everything.” His voice was low. “But if I tell you…”
“You’ll have to kill me?” Skye tried for light. A sliver of fear slid through her as he held her gaze, his face inscrutable. “Really?” she asked weakly.
He winced at her expression. “It’s not so much have to. Usually about the time humans are realising about us it’s more an inevitability,” he replied. As she stared at him wide-eyed, he nodded toward the open sea. “Humans and permanent immersion…not so good,” he said dryly, using Skye’s own words. She heard an echo of roaring waves, felt the dragging tide, and resisted a shudder.
“Exactly,” Hunter nodded, not missing her reaction. “We inhabit different worlds, Skye. I, the water. You, the land.” He stopped abruptly and Skye realised she was shaking her head, her brain clinging to a last shred of denial, attempting to hold on to the world as she knew it, or her sanity, or both.
“This is impossible,” she whispered. Sadness dulled Hunter’s eyes, and another interpretation of her words filtered into Skye’s brain. At last, she let herself accept what her heart already believed. What he’d told her explained so much. “Possible,” she amended softly.
They stared at each other, both knowing they’d c
rossed a line. She was astonished at the fierce gratitude that filled her. She’d taken a step into his world. There was no going back now.
20. Questions
“So – you live in the sea.” Skye swallowed. “Tell me about...that.”
“I don’t really know how to begin...” Hunter murmured.
“How about ‘once upon a time…’?” What a conversation. She began to smile.
The corner of his mouth lifted in response. “Once upon a time?” He paused to think. “Once upon a time there was a Realm of selfish bastards, of which one inhabitant at least was a naïvely ignorant git,” he raised a hand.
“Sounds like an intriguing git.” Her thumping heart started to slow.
“So you may think,” he raised a dark eyebrow, “but as these matters go, naïvely ignorant gits are by definition usually the last to know what’s going on, and therefore the least intriguing of the lot.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Skye said. “More details please.” Listening to his husky voice, her sense of shock was soothed. She expelled a silent breath. Time with Hunter, hanging out, talking. At last.
He squinted into the sunlight for a moment, then continued. “Well, in addition to being said git, he was a lowly one at that. Servant, no less, although I suppose it would be difficult to be less than that.” He hesitated, as if waiting for some negative reaction from her. When it didn’t come, the corners of his mouth turned up a little more. “This Realm was ruled by a nobleman, a lord. Last of a failing line, he didn’t seem to have inherited his line’s powers.”
“Powers?”
“Natural powers – power to bend nature. Magic.”
“Magic? As in…hocus pocus? Toil and trouble?” The sudden horrible suspicion that he was having her on – some elaborate hoax to laugh at her, hit her again, her frayed nerves jangling.
He frowned, “I don’t know about the hocus thing. Trouble for certain, but yes: magic. Manipulating, bending what exists. Magnifying or distorting what already is.”
Searching his clear eyes, her doubt vanished as swiftly as it had arisen.
“You don’t know magic?” he asked.
“There are stories of magic, but that’s all they are. Stories.”
“I’d noticed when…but I’d thought that it just meant…”
“Huh?”
Hunter looked uncomfortable. “Oh, just…other humans I’ve…encountered. None seemed to have knowledge of magic. I thought it was just chance. Magic was rare in my time. Can it have died out completely?”
Despite her childhood diet of fairy tales and the magical fantasies that went hand in hand, she’d never really thought too seriously about magic. But now aspects of the magical realm passed through her mind: ancient witch burnings, voodoo, supernatural mysteries and miracles, all those things that modern science and Western society dismissed as myths. “Maybe our stories began somewhere real,” she said. “You’re right. Just because magic isn’t commonplace doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”
But as fascinating as the idea of magic was, something else he’d said was more distracting. What other human encounters? With an effort she resisted asking. “That lord you mentioned. No powers... So more like a traditional Ruler?” she guessed, prompting him to continue.
“Actually, he wasn’t much of a Ruler either. He threw his weight around to mask his lack of power. But there was a small city at the edge of his realm, ruled by a handful of Seers, who had natural magic of their own. The Seers served his line. They were unsurpassed in the arts of persuasion. It was in their blood. In our blood... Magic magnified it.”
“‘Our’ blood?” Skye questioned.
Hunter nodded, reading her guess in her face. “Good old Dad, leading Seer, spreading his progeny throughout the serving classes. Keep it in the family was the general idea. He figured loyalty was better bred than bought. Servants were often raised from dalliances that led to offspring.”
“So…you served your own family?”
“Yep. Nice, huh?” His tone was dry. Skye tried to imagine being a servant to her father, to siblings if she’d had them. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling.
“One big happy family,” Hunter continued. “Servants being what they are, and having to, you know, serve, this lowly one did whatever he was bid. Mostly errands: fetch, carry. But the Seers found that he…that I…made a fairly good conduit – for magic.” Hunter searched her eyes, gauging her reaction. She met his gaze steadily, but her hands squeezed the rock until her fingers hurt.
“The Seers’ power was seeing what lay in a person’s soul…and using it. Very useful to a Ruler. He hid his lack of power behind theirs, relying on them more and more. Restraints that had been put in place to keep them under control were undone one by one, by this lord desperate to appear something he wasn’t. Until…”
“Until the Seers tried to take over?” Skye filled in the blanks.
Hunter smiled bleakly, “You must have heard this one before.” He took a deep breath. “Their powers waxed. They revelled in the sway they held over others, in laying souls bare to their manipulations. And as you said, they tried to take over.”
“Which is…treason, right?” Skye asked.
“Yes. Big treason.” Hunter replied. “But everything went wrong. Horribly wrong.” His expression darkened. Skye tensed. His story had felt like a fairy tale until now.
“Giftings ran the way they always do in families: unevenly distributed, unequally rewarded. Mine were exceptional,” he said with a humourless smile. “So exceptional, I got a front row seat to our bloodline being wiped from the earth along with the other Seers’. But not extinguished.” Clearing his throat, he continued with obvious effort. “We simply changed location.” He looked out at the sea.
Skye stared at Hunter. “But – how is that possible? What happened?”
“We don’t know exactly how it happened. But – the lord – remember him?”
“Sure,” Skye nodded, “The one with no powers.”
“Turned out he had at least one. Ancient oaths had been taken by the Seers, binding betrayal to destruction. He knew enough to invoke it when the Seers – when they did something truly unforgivable. We did...this...to ourselves.”
Hunter watched her, perhaps hoping she’d say don’t tell me anything more. But she needed to hear it. Even the unforgivable. She waited silently for him to continue.
“It was almost instantaneous, the repercussions.” He shook his head as if he wished to deny his own memories. “We call it the day of Calamity. Our city was Lithus, City of Stone, high on a cliff edge. The waters below were deep. When the curse struck, the entire city and all within her walls were cast into the sea.”
Skye stared at him, horrified. “That’s – you’re...cursed?” she faltered.
“Yes.” it was a harsh whisper. “It was a curse of obliteration, to wipe all memory of us from the earth forever. It was fairly effective.” He stared at the water stretching before them. “I hate what we are. Corrupt, wicked. Imprisoned. We are practically immortal. And utterly trapped.” She followed his gaze across the sea, and for an instant, as if seeing through his eyes, she felt the icy weight of the ocean, crushing her beneath its consummate power and absolute indifference.
Tearing away from her vision, she turned to find Hunter watching her. A bead of seawater trailed down his cheekbone, a trace of his prison. She saw hollow loss in his face, and recognised in his eyes the scars that only betrayal and grief can leave. She recalled that dummy run day when he’d stroked a tear from her cheek and irretrievably marked her heart. It felt the most natural thing in the world now to reach out, to touch her fingertip gently to the silvery trail on his cheek. He caught his breath, his eyelids flickering.
“I don’t believe it,” she said. He nodded dully. “No,” she shook her head at his obvious assumption. “Hunter, I believe you. I believe what you’re telling me.” His eyes widened, then he frowned, perplexed.
“I don’t believe you are corrupt, or wicked,
or any kind of evil.” She held his gaze. “Not possible,” she said lightly. “Sorry. No way,” she shook her head slowly for emphasis, smiling a little. “You can’t make me believe that.”
He stared at her. “How do you do this to me?” he whispered. “You make me want to be better.”
Her heart suddenly felt the wrong size for her chest.
“Ask me something else?” he asked quietly.
“Umm...” Words he’d spoken to her after sending Mark and Stevie away came back to her. “Yesterday you said, ‘I felt your fear...’.”
He nodded, his face tightening at the memory.
“How could you feel someone else’s feelings like that?”
“We haven’t lost the skills of the Seers. They’ve just altered.” He thought for a moment, his expression bemused. Then a smile began to curve his lips. “Do you know much about sharks?”
“Uh, I know which end to avoid!”
He laughed. “Good to know. Do you know how they sense prey?”
“Oh! You mean like an injured fish or – or other food. The vibrations?” At Hunter’s nod her eyes widened. “No way! You, like, sense emotions through the water? That’s so cool!”
Hunter laughed again, and she felt a surge of happiness at the light sparkling in his eyes. The more she listened to his husky voice, piecing together the mystery of him, the more her inner clamour eased. He and his world were captivating.
“I think it works in a similar way,” he explained. “I don’t feel your feelings against my skin. It’s more like...beneath it. Like feeling a scent rather than smelling it. I can tell what someone is feeling, their intentions, their – I guess their spiritual state. I felt yours yesterday.” His face darkened again, “And theirs.”
Skye put her hand on his cold arm, so to her touch. “That thing yesterday? It’s over, Hunter. Finished. You made it that way for me. And – I should have already said it but – thanks.”
Find Me (Immersed Book 1) Page 17
