Find Me (Immersed Book 1)

by Francesca Riley

  But the single shadow was joined by another, drawing closer, moving swiftly. Multiplying. Sharks? Horribly vulnerable, she trod water again, her mind slowing with fright.

  Close now, the shadows resolved themselves into shapes, distinguishable as submerged people, moving like fish through the water, encircling her. Her fear became tinged with fascination, and tentative relief. Brittle excitement filled her as she realised that at last she had encountered Hunter’s clan.

  The circling figures slowed, and in front of her a head broke the surface. She recognised the blond-haired boy from the strange watchful group. A disturbing sense of déjà vu gripped her. Why was this moment, this face, so familiar beyond the couple of distant sightings she’d had of him?

  She met his blue eyes. His smile was mischievous, but his eyes were full of intent. Skye’s heart sank, her fragile relief shattering. She tried to return his smile, feeling like a dreaming child trying to pacify a nameless menace.

  “I said ‘next time’,” his voice caressed, “And I always keep my word.” His blue eyes seemed to glitter blackly at her as he murmured, “Come with me.”

  A tremor of warmth rolled through her, sickly sweet. Her eyelids closed, leaden, shutting her mind in with his words that swam, oil-like, through it.

  “Come with me,” he repeated invitingly, soft voices around her taking up the refrain. She forced her eyes open and saw his companions weaving around her, effortlessly cutting soft ripples through the water, like their words through her befuddled mind, their obsidian eyes as bewitching as their whispers.

  Her body felt unnaturally light, and she floated, weightless, swaying like an echo of their movements. But while she swayed and dreamed, somehow her rational self watched as if from a great distance, saw herself mired by the whispers as a surely as in quicksand. The memory of a husky voice telling her of his kind filtered back to her, and from the same vast distance she helplessly thought Mesmer. These beautiful, terrifying people were mesmerising her.

  “Come with me...” The sickly-sweet tremor within her became a wave, and a strange longing rose in her like an insidious tide. The overwhelming urge to follow wherever they led filled her.

  Then like a missed beat, from beyond them came a stir of movement. As if catching a life-giving breath of air, Skye’s attention swung with theirs.

  A dark-haired boy drew near, his silver-grey eyes burning with anger as he took in the swimmers’ movements. As Skye watched him, the longing rising through her found an object: him. Despite the summons of the others bent on her she focused only on him, drawn by a sense of delight. And then he saw her.

  He froze, his mouth falling open in horror. He stared into her eyes, and then his expression became something so tender, almost adoring, that tears came to her eyes. He looked again at the now silent group, fury twisting his face.

  And somehow the others were gone. Her weightlessness evaporated, and coldness seeped into her. Like a stone, she sank without resisting. But his cold arms closed about her, drawing her above the surface and to him, so gently. Her rested head on his shoulder as everything swam and spun away.

  When her eyelids fluttered open, above her was blue sky. She registered warm, uneven rock digging into her back. Sound rolled over her like a returning wave, gulls screeching piercingly, and her nostrils filled with the pungent odours of iodine-rich seaweed. She sat up slowly, recognising that she was on Lithus Rock. Dizzying nausea swept through her, closing her eyes. As the sick feeling eased she opened them again.

  Hunter knelt in front of her. His fierce eyes searched hers. Images of him snarling in fury crept into her sluggish mind. Fury – at her? No, she didn’t think so, although he looked angry now. At someone else?

  Murky whispers, seductive smiles, and the memory of fear pushed into her mind. She pressed her hands to her forehead. Shifting shapes, blurred faces, eddied. A distant echo in her mind, come with me. Her stomach careened revoltingly again. When it settled, she lowered her hands, peering at him cautiously.

  “Are you all right?” his voice sounded squashed.

  That fury, and then... His silvery grey eyes: they’d been – what – shocked, then something else...something tender... “What happened?” The images that swirled just out of reach in her memory began to take form, like figures rising to a watery surface – exactly like. Icy chills ran down her spine as memories of beautiful faces, figures weaving around her, of cold and heat and bewilderment grew clearer.

  Her indrawn breath shuddered. “It was your clan, wasn’t it?”

  He looked at her as if she was speaking a different language. “How can you know that?”

  “They fit the profile,” she tried for ironic but her voice shook. She swallowed. “And... It’s not the first time I’ve seen them. I saw them just beyond the beach party.” One particular face, his smile angelic, was frighteningly familiar. “...And at Ciarlan Cove, the same day those two guys...” her voice gave way.

  “You can see and remember me,” he said slowly. “I suppose it makes sense that you can them, also. But,” he shook his head “in this situation...”

  “What happened?” she repeated.

  He focused with effort, anger blazing in his eyes again. “They tried to take you. You were under their thrall, responding to their summons. And then,” his eyes softened, “you saw me. Everything shifted in you, focused into a single burning point, so bright, so pure. And it was for me. Despite the thrall of them, it was me that you came to.” But when she nodded, he looked alarmed. “You really remember that?”

  She nodded again.

  “You shouldn’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “Mesmer. It leaves no memory with the mesmerised.”

  His words sent an odd sensation tumbling through her chest. She pushed it away. “I don’t think it’s the first time they’ve tried,” she said.

  “I don’t think so either,” he muttered, staring away from her as if deliberating. He looked back at her. “Were you drowning?” She shook her head mutely. His eyes narrowed, his expression tightening. “Do you remember anything else?”

  “Well, something. But not from...this. Hunter, this ‘beyond memory’ thing – I don’t think that you being unseen and forgotten is right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m not the only one who’s seen and remembered you.”

  His eyebrows rose in surprise.

  “Amber and Jasmine saw us swimming together. And then there’s Harvey. He was with me on the Pixie when it sank in the channel. He went missing, but got to shore safely. He’s not sure it’s actually a memory, but his impression was of being helped there – by someone like you.”

  Hunter stared at her.

  Her mind went back to their time together over the past week: to swimmers passing, and to the couple, the woman with the knowing smile, whose eyes glanced at her as she talked to no one – or at them as she talked to him? She swallowed. “And those two guys you saved me from, the Mulligan boys. They both saw you. So, you can’t be invisible and beyond recall.”

  Hunter looked frozen, as though awful pieces were falling into place. “Skye,” he whispered, “it’s you. It’s you, giving me presence.” His voice was awed. “I should have realised, remembered. It’s just like before...” he stopped without finishing.

  “What does that mean? I give you presence?”

  “Skye, we are Forgotten. At best we’re shadows, phantoms, fully visible to humans only when they are under our sway, or between two worlds – the living and the dead. But you see me – us – all the time. Memories that should be beyond your recall are surfacing. And when you’re near us, others see us too. Can you imagine how much of a threat that makes you to us? Or how much of a prize? You’re like...an antidote to the curse.”

  He looked frantic, and began to pace, back and forth, covering the short width of the rocky ledge in strides. “The first time I sensed Clan near you, I thought that it was simply opportunity taken. He fled when I approached.”

&nb
sp; Skye recalled Morgan finding her on the rocks the ‘intervention’ day. The lost episode crept slowly into focus. At its centre, a sly angelic face.

  “Fearing for you,” Hunter said, “I left the Bay to draw them away, to distract them. When I thought it was safe, I returned. I found you threatened by the two boys, and your need to flee them into the sea disturbed me. I decided the best thing I could do was help to free you from your sea fears.” He shook his head, aggrieved. “I did sense my clan nearby, and guessed the two boys had been their target until I appeared, the reason the two boys could see me. I’ve left each night, gone far away to make sure the Bay is free of them. I’ve searched each morning before approaching you. But – Skye, I think my people are targeting you.”

  The trickle of recall increased, her memories filling out and sharpening. “He told me ‘next time’. I’d forgotten. He said he always keeps his word.” Her breath was snatched by fresh fear, and she heard the swift intake of Hunter’s.

  “Skye, I might not always be close enough to protect you from them. I want to make you safe, put you beyond what draws them, by...” He studied her face intently as though trying to determine her state of mind. “I know I should tell you to keep away from me, from the sea...”

  Skye remembered the dull ache when she was away from the sea, drawing her now like neon to a light-starved moth. She felt the same way about Hunter, times about a million. Keeping away would be beyond devastating. “I don’t think I can.”

  Reaching out he traced his fingertips down her cheek. “Skye, I don’t want to be without you in my life.” Her skin tingled under his touch, her pulse quickening. “I wish I could take you with me where I can keep you safe.” His husky words were fervent.

  He had voiced a dream she’d barely let herself imagine. “Be with you...in the ocean?” For an instant, her fear of being submerged reared like a tidal wave, crushing the breath from her lungs. But as she held his gaze, the fear washed through her, and away. “What would it be like?” she whispered.

  “Under Mesmer humans can survive. Not truly themselves, but still – living. When the fascination ends, so too does the Mesmer, and therefore...”

  Skye followed the obvious conclusion: therefore the ability to survive ended also. She shuddered.

  He shook his head, “I would never stop being fascinated, being completely compelled by you.” He swallowed. “There is a way to keep you safe, beyond my attention. A long time ago, one of my clan experimented.” He flinched, as if knowing it must sound despicable to her, but continued.

  “Life force was transferred from…from the Keeper to an object, a simple token, and then part of my clansman’s own spirit was added.” He dropped his eyes. “He gave it to a dying human he desired and drew her beneath the waves – and found she lived, more completely herself...for a much longer time. I could keep you safe.” He raised his eyes to her face again, and touched his cold hand to her cheek again as if caressing precious crystal. Her stomach somersaulted deliciously. Then he took her hands in his.

  Yearning to be with him swept through her. Was he really considering it? Just her hands in his now was excruciatingly sweet. She didn’t want any of this to end, wanted to be like this with him all day and forever.

  But it was crazy. “You said it wasn’t possible, or...or that it was bad for me. That you didn’t want that for me?” She couldn’t read the look that passed over his face.

  “Of course, you can’t. I know. It’s just...” He searched the tide’s surface. “I don’t know that you’ll be able to resist them again, and then you could be lost forever.” Anxiety tightened his face. “If only you could come with me now, you’d be safe from them. I…there would be risks for you...but…” he looked troubled, but pushed it away. He seemed to be persuading himself.

  It was a beautiful fantasy that they both knew couldn’t happen. She reached up and laid her hand gently against his face. She saw her anguish reflected in his eyes.

  “Do you want to be with me?” Hunter whispered.

  “Yes,” Hot tears welled, knowing it was impossible.

  “I can’t risk losing you to them, Skye. We could just try. If it doesn’t work I’ll take you straight to the surface, back to shore. But it will work. And I know who you are, however you might change... You wouldn’t have to stay away from the sea, or from me. You would be safe, and I would never let you drown.”

  From the pocket of his swimming shorts, he drew a shell fragment that she’d never seen before. Finely twisted, curving to form a ring, iridescent grey along its outer curve and white at its inner rim, it gleamed like winter sunlight on a dark sea. He looked at it on his palm for a long moment. Then he held it out to her.

  Skye stared at it, wild hope flaring. But despite her desire to be with him, she shook her head slowly. “Hunter, I can’t go with you.” It hurt her to say it, like she was cutting herself, but she forced the words out, a whisper at first, then louder.

  “I can’t. I can’t leave this way. For me to go now, like this – everyone would say I’d drowned. That’s what they would think. My dad would get a phone call saying I’d disappeared at sea, presumed drowned.” Her voice caught as she repeated the words she’d read so many times about her mother in old newspaper clippings her dad had hidden, not well enough to keep her from finding them, poring over them, aching over them.

  “I can’t do that to him, put him through that again. He’s broken already, Hunter. My mother walked into the sea and drowned. Or maybe – maybe she left us for someone else, I don’t know. But he can’t lose me the same way, thinking the same thing happened to me, like a curse.” She wouldn’t twist the knife of her father’s pain.

  “I don’t want to make you do something you don’t want to do.” Hunter’s eyes were piercing, “But if you could, if there was nothing holding you to the land – you would come with me?” His eyes were grey jewels, burning under his winged eyebrows, as if by sheer force of will he could convince her.

  Yes. She could hardly breathe then at the longing that swept through her. In that moment she felt consumed by the desire to throw off the weight of the earth, and old ties of grief and blood and even of friendship; to seize this beautiful boy, join him in liquid flight into a new life. But almost at once the thought came, should love tear you away from everything? Separate you from other kinds of love? And if she chose this love, it would surely only end painfully. She had learnt that much.

  She squeezed her eyes closed, trying to think. Even though every cell in her body was pulling her towards him, part of her questioned why. She felt herself teetering on a knife edge. She tried to regain her balance. Why was she so hungry to leave her life, as empty as it sometimes felt, for someone she’d only known weeks? Why did everything in her yearn to follow this connection? Something uncomfortable stirred in her mind. She opened her eyes.

  “Hunter, I feel this...connection with you that I don’t understand.” She struggled to describe the certainty her heart felt that it knew him of old, when it didn’t. “It’s like you’re in my soul.”

  At the look on his face she began to tremble. “Hunter, what aren’t you telling me?” She was unable to keep the tremor out of her voice. “Tell me I don’t know you.”

  For an eternity he stared at her, frozen. Then he whispered, “I can’t.”

  33. Loss

  Skye stared at Hunter, her heart hammering painfully, the hopeless fantasy of happy ever after that had tentatively taken root crumbling. She fought to keep her breath steady, her voice even, and almost managed it. “Tell me.”

  “Skye…” He seemed torn between resistance and resignation. “You do know me,” he said finally, “You’ve known me almost all your life.”

  “What?” She could barely force the word out.

  He looked as wretched as she felt. “We were – we are – friends. I’ve known you from a small child, watched you grow.” His strained face lightened a little as he recalled. “You once asked me where my tail was.’” She could imagine that, given
all the fairy tales she consumed.

  “I knew of your sorrow. I heard you speak aloud to the sea, to the memory of your mother, and I couldn’t help…speaking back. You could see me, hear me. Remember me. There was a danger that in your innocence, you might try to follow me, and drown. And there was also danger to my people, should you speak of us to anyone. So, I had to protect you all.”

  Uneasiness rippled though her.

  “I had to comfort you, and I had to keep you safe. I could think of only one way.”

  “Mesmer,” she said, her voice leaden. The only logical answer. The worst answer.

  “You are too perceptive for my own good.” He tried to smile, although anger began to show on his face. “Yes. I took your memories of me with me when I went.” He’d said it.

  “But I didn’t take your memories of interactions with my clan,” he insisted. “That’s what happens under Mesmer. I just – kept it from you. I didn’t want you to hate me for being one of them. I didn’t know you would remember them yourself.”

  A kind of impotent rage was building in Skye. She couldn’t speak. Learning that she’d been a victim of some kind of magical manipulation her whole life, losing the friendship she’d had with this amazing person without recollection, cut her deeply.

  She’d always believed that the sea had comforted her, or maybe even the spirit of her mother, speaking with the voice of the waves. She’d grieved for that lost comfort. Now she knew it was Hunter she’d mourned, but without any choice to miss him, or comfort herself with thoughts of him. How different her life could have been with him in it. How much better would she have felt if she’d known she had him?

  He reached out and gripped her hands, his words tumbling over themselves. “When they called you, and you chose me – that doesn’t happen, Skye. No one chooses someone else when under another’s sway. But you did. Our connection is so real that even with it dissolved beyond recall it was there, in the heart of you. So, Skye, will you trust me?”