Tide (The Sarah Midnight Trilogy) Read online

  “Harry wasn’t as good as you, though. Remember Takeo Ayanami? He was so in awe of you when he saw you sending people to sleep with your runes.”

  “Nonsense. It’s like playing an instrument. You have to practise, that’s all,” I insist.

  “I play an instrument,” Sarah says. “I know what practice can do. But I still don’t get this. It’s as if I asked you to use the Blackwater. It won’t work.”

  “It’s not like the Blackwater. The Blackwater is a power, like Niall’s song or Elodie’s poison. This is a skill.” I stress the word.

  “So you keep telling us!” laughs Elodie.

  “Maybe if you say ‘skill’ often enough, we’ll get it!” echoes Sarah.

  “And what about the red ribbons?” Elodie waves her fingers in the air. “The ones that appeared when the soil demons attacked us?”

  “That’s not supposed to happen. No idea what it was, or whether it’ll happen again. Right, lesson over, pupils dismissed.”

  Niall has come into the living room and is leaning against the fireplace, his arms crossed. I see him look at me in a way that unnerves me, with eyes that see all the way into my soul. I’ve watched him and he does it with everybody. It’s disquieting.

  “Did your parents have any powers, Sean?” he asks me in his thick Irish accent.

  “No. Well, not that I know of.” I shrug.

  “Right,” he says, looking at me with that strange, watery gaze he has, as if he were looking straight into the sea.

  33

  Adrift

  If we pretend, it’s good enough for me

  The illusion we create

  Instead of what it is

  “I don’t know what half of this stuff is. Chestnuts?” Sean shrugged.

  Sean, Mike and Niall were in the kitchen helping Sarah survey the food Mrs McArthur had provided. She needed to make sure they had everything for a proper Christmas dinner, with a turkey and all the trimmings. They had tried to argue with her that it was surreal to go to all the trouble of making a traditional Christmas meal when they could be attacked any minute, but Sarah put her foot down. This was her house. She was going to cook, and she was going to have a proper festive celebration.

  There was something desperate about her determination. Sean knew how upset she was, how she was trying to cling to a semblance of normal life. Her first Christmas without her parents. Maybe this would help her think of her aunt Juliet a bit less … and of her cousins, Sally and Siobhan, left motherless. All because Anne had married a Midnight. And because Sarah couldn’t defend her.

  They had been over the same ground again and again, and Sarah was adamant. They would celebrate Christmas. They were alive, and together. In some warped way, it made sense.

  “You don’t know what chestnuts are?” laughed Mike, looking up at Sean from the potatoes he was stacking.

  “I do know what chestnuts are. I just don’t know what you do with them!” Sean protested.

  “You make stuffing. For the turkey. Oh, thank goodness – chipolatas! She hasn’t forgotten.” Sarah had her head in the freezer, little icy clouds wafting from its drawers.

  “Thank goodness!” echoed Niall.

  “I know! It just wouldn’t be the same without chipolatas wrapped in bacon,” Sarah continued, pulling the icy package from the open freezer.

  “I meant thank goodness for this!” Niall was standing by an open cupboard door with an amber-honey bottle of whisky grasped in one hand. Laphroaig, one of the Islay whiskies. He gestured to shelves full of similar bottles. “Bless Mrs McArthur. She knows her whisky.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “Oh, yes. Of course. We have a few of those. Just try not to drink yourself asleep. In case they attack and we can’t wake you up.”

  “Me? I can hold my drink, young lady. You’ll never see me passed out.”

  “True. I can vouch for that!” said Mike. “Hey.”

  Elodie had walked into the kitchen, her golden hair tied in a knot, her lithe body clad in a long, white woollen top and jeans.

  “Sarah. Where can I find more peat for my fire, please? I’ve run out. And it’s so cold.” She was pale and shivery.

  Niall smiled at her. “Oh, it’s the deadly princess. Hello,” he said. “I’ll get your briquettes. Care to share a coffee with me? I was just making one.” He spooned some granules into a mug.

  “And what’s this?” Sean, still wearing a puzzled expression, held up something he’d found in the fruit bowl. “Do you know, Elodie?” He reached out his hand to offer her the fruit.

  Elodie turned to look, and all the blood drained from her face. Gingerly she took the red fruit from Sean’s hand, locking her eyes on his and brushing his fingers with hers as she did so. Then she turned and ran out of the kitchen without a word.

  Mike shrugged his shoulders. “What was that all about?”

  “No idea,” replied Sean, disconcerted, and ran after Elodie at once.

  Sarah’s gaze followed Sean as he left the room. She bit her lip, then turned back to her list. “Right. Where was I?” she said resolutely.

  “What was it? The fruit?” asked Niall.

  “A pomegranate,” said Sarah. She opened the freezer door, sighed deeply, then closed it again. She untied her apron.

  “You OK?” asked Mike.

  “Of course. I’m just going to look for Nicholas.”

  “Sarah.” Mike had a gentle smile on his lips as he put a hand on her arm.

  “What?”

  “Listen to your heart.”

  Sarah winced and looked away. “I’m trying. But there’s always too much noise.”

  Sean

  I have no idea what I’ve done to upset Elodie. I’m halfway to her room when she runs past me in the opposite direction, and out the front door. I follow her outside, determined to make amends. It’s another windy, rainy day, as it’s been since we arrived. Twilight is nearly upon us, though it’s barely afternoon. Days last a heartbeat on this island.

  Elodie is running towards the beach, towards the sea. I look up at the sky as I follow her; I fear another appearance of the demon-bird. I reach Elodie just as she stops in front of the watermark, the waves lapping at her feet.

  “Elodie.”

  She turns around, and I’m astonished – she’s crying, but she’s smiling as well.

  “What’s the matter? Did you see something? Did you have a vision?”

  Elodie shakes her head, and she fixes her brown eyes on mine. “I can’t explain. You would laugh.”

  “Try me.”

  She opens her mouth, then closes it again and shakes her head softly. She’s not going to tell me. I feel a wave of tenderness for her, my old friend, Harry’s wife. Harry’s widow. She’s all eyes, having lost so much weight, and her hair shines golden in the dusky light. I stroke her cheek. She takes my hand and pulls it to her chest, over her heart. She keeps it there, and I can feel her heartbeat, so steady and regular and yet, so fragile.

  “Sean.”

  And then something strange happens. Something that should not have happened, and that I didn’t see coming.

  She puts her lips on mine, and she kisses me, tenderly, for a moment only. And for a moment only I want to kiss her back, feel her hands on me, lose myself in her. I want to take her behind those rocks where a group of seals are dozing, out of sight, and be with her. Just once. Just long enough to feel alive again. I’m only human, and I’ve been alone for so long – and she’s so, so beautiful.

  But I can’t, because my heart belongs to Sarah. It’s as simple as that.

  Elodie looks into my eyes, and she reads my thoughts. She gives me a heartbreaking smile and walks away without a word, without looking back, along the water’s edge. I watch her walk slowly, her head turned towards the sea. Her hair has come undone, and it’s blowing behind her. She’s so slight against the backdrop of the ocean. I can’t leave her alone, as much as I know she needs solitude. Not with the demon-bird around the house, and who knows what else. I’m as cer
tain as I can possibly be that we are not safe. I look up at the sky again, anxious.

  But it’s empty.

  They don’t come from the air this time, they come from the water. Just as my gaze returns to Elodie, I see long, thin jelly-like tentacles bursting out of the water, wrapping themselves around Elodie’s waist and dragging her under so fast that she doesn’t even have time to scream.

  34

  From the Water

  The depths of the sea

  Are home to me

  I’m one of those beings

  Who should not be

  Sean

  I can only call her name, over and over again, as Elodie is thrown into the air and then pulled underwater with splashes and sprays of liquid grey. I take out my sgian-dubh, but do runes work underwater? I’ve never tried. How far has the demon gone? Is it swimming away from the shore? For a second, I feel there is no hope. I’m sure that Elodie is going to die there and then, just after our ill-fated kiss.

  “Elodie! No! Elodie!” I hear a voice calling in despair, broken, full of terror, and the voice is mine.

  And then a thought makes its way through the panic. If I stand on the shore, the demon will get me too. I have to turn away. I have to run. I have to leave Elodie to her fate because there’s no way I can save her and save myself too. And I must save myself. For the fight.

  I know that it’s what I should do. But I can’t. To turn my back on Elodie and run is just impossible. I can’t.

  That leaves only one option. To run into the sea and take the one-in-a-million chance that one of us, or both of us, might survive. Though my head is telling me that what will really happen, of course, is that we’ll both die.

  “Sean! Don’t!”

  I turn around just as I’m about to dive, and see Niall running towards the water. He stops right on the shoreline, closes his eyes, takes a deep breath and throws his head back. A long, powerful, chilling wail comes out of his mouth. I throw myself on the sand, my hands on my ears – but even that is not enough to block out the terrible sound. I can feel the sand lifting up in a whirlpool around us – it’s stinging my cheeks and blinding me. I barely manage to make out the surface of the sea rising, and the water starting to turn into itself over and over again, until it becomes a colossal waterspout, a sea tornado, rising high in the sky.

  I’m drenched and half blind, and my ears are in agony. The sound of Niall’s song is still audible over the noise of the swirling water, and of the unnatural wind born from Niall’s power. I try to drag myself up, but I’m flogged down again – once, twice – grains of sand lashing my face like steely whips. I open my mouth to call for Elodie, but it fills with wet sand, and I choke. The pain in my ears is so unbearable I think I’m going to pass out. I don’t know how long I can bear this.

  I half-open my eyes and try to peer over to where Niall is standing. He’s a few inches off the ground by now, his arms thrown open, as if he’s being crucified. His head is tilted back at an impossible angle, his features twisted in pain. A few more seconds of torture for both of us, and then out of the spinning waters soars a huge, light-pink mass, its tentacles flailing and whipping the waves. The demon is propelled out of the water and lands on the sand with a thud. Niall’s song finally stops, and he falls to the sand, empty, unmoving.

  I cough and splutter, my mouth and nose and lungs full of sand. I realize that my hands are covered in blood – am I wounded? No time to worry about that. Niall is lying on the ground, senseless, and there’s no trace of Elodie. A split-second choice between the two, and I go for the one who’s in the most danger.

  “Elodie!” I call, and run into the freezing waves until I’m waist-deep. I’m about to dive under when a strange call resounds from the rocks. A seal is standing upright, barking. I don’t know what forces me to look again, but something in the seal’s call makes me do a double take. And that’s how I spot something beside the seal, something golden against the grey skin of the animal.

  “Elodie! Oh my God, Elodie.” I look around wildly, trying to work out the quickest way to reach her, and without any further thought I dive into the freezing sea and swim as strongly as I’m able towards the rocks. When I emerge, the seal is gone, and a girl is sitting in its place. She’s cradling Elodie’s head in her lap, brushing away Elodie’s soaking hair from her face.

  “Elodie!” I call, sputtering water. The girl looks at me. I realize she’s naked, but for her long, dripping hair, a strange shade of silvery-lilac.

  Is she human?

  I lift myself onto the rocks and place my hands over Elodie’s chest. She’s breathing. She’s alive!

  “Thank you,” I whisper to the girl.

  “You’re welcome,” she replies, and her voice has a light Scottish lilt to it. She’s not embarrassed in the slightest by her nudity.

  “Sean.” Elodie’s eyes open and she starts coughing up water. I help her sit up.

  “I’m here. It’s OK, it’s over. Niall killed the demon.”

  She looks utterly stunned. “Who … who are you?” murmurs Elodie, turning to the silver-haired girl.

  “I’m Winter Shaw.”

  “Of course.” Elodie looks at Winter’s face intently. “I dreamt of you once. Remember, Sean?” She shivers violently. She’s soaking, and the cold wind is cutting us to the quick. Strangely, the naked young woman is not showing any signs of being cold. I’d like to ask her a few questions, but first I need to make sure that Niall is OK.

  “Can you walk?” I ask Elodie.

  “I think so.”

  I turn to the mysterious girl. “Will you come with us?”

  “Yes. I think it’s time.”

  There isn’t time to wonder what she means. Niall is doubled over some way away across the beach, and he’s holding himself as if in excruciating pain. We make our way across the rocks, hopping from stone to stone until we reach him.

  “Elodie?” he murmurs. Relief shines from his grimacing face.

  “I’m OK. Niall, you saved my life – you, and Winter.”

  “Winter?” whispers Niall.

  The silver-haired girl kneels next to him. “It’s me. I am Winter.”

  Niall picks himself up with exertion and looks at the silver-haired girl. I see his eyes widen. “Elemental,” he whispers.

  “Half Elemental, half human. The best of both,” smiles Winter, innocent in her nakedness.

  “Er, here.” Elodie takes off her soaking jacket and hands it to Winter.

  But she shrugs. “I’m not cold.”

  “It’s more for us, really,” I mumble, and look away.

  She laughs. “Oh, sorry. I forget the way things are for people. I haven’t often been in my human form in the last few years.”

  “Lucky you,” says Niall gently.

  Winter looks at Niall as if she sees him for the first time. “You’re of the sea,” she states, wrapping Elodie’s jacket around herself. “A Secret heir?”

  “Yes.” Niall’s voice is very, very soft. I expect him to make a joke, or pay Winter some kind of naff compliment, but he doesn’t. He’s deadly serious, and staring at her, unable to look away.

  “Ow,” he says suddenly, and folds himself in two again, holding his stomach.

  “Are you hurt?” I put my arm around his shoulders.

  “No. It’s just that … it was all so sudden. No time to take the song slowly. It can be overwhelming when it happens like that. The pain’ll pass soon, though. Where’s the demon?”

  “Over there, on the shore.” I look over to the huge pink mass, as big as a car, quivering on the sand. Some of its tentacles are tangled under and around it, some are stretched for hundreds of yards across the sand.

  “Sean!” gasps Elodie suddenly. “You’re bleeding!”

  I touch my ears, then look at the blood on my fingers. “Niall, you were supposed to kill the demon, not me!”

  “Sorry. I can’t help it. The song takes on its own momentum. You’ll be OK, anyway. The noise didn’t last long enough t
o kill you.”

  “Just as well,” I growl, while Elodie touches my face lightly, checking for bruising. “Let’s go back to the house and get dried up. You can tell us all about yourself, Winter. And meet Sarah.”

  “Oh, I know all about Sarah Midnight. I used to play with her aunt Mairead,” Winter says simply.

  “You what? How old are you?” asks Elodie.

  “I’ll tell you all once we’re back at the—Watch out!” Winter yells suddenly, pointing over our shoulders. Before I have time to turn around, a long, slippery tentacle lands with a thump between me and Elodie, missing us by a few inches. Niall is clutching an angry red mark on the side of his face, where the flailing tentacle swept him.

  “It’s not dead!” screams Elodie.

  “No. But this time it’s on land,” I reply. My sgian-dubh is in my hand in a second, and I start tracing the runes with all the fury I felt when I thought Elodie had drowned.

  The Surari launches its tentacles towards us – once, twice, and again. Elodie, Niall and Winter duck and avoid it the first time, and the second – but the third time it takes a grip of Niall’s arm and throws him down on the sand. It’s beginning to drag him towards the water, and I see Niall opening his mouth and trying to sing but no noise is coming out, he has given all there was to give saving Elodie. He’s spent. Fear is painted all over his face as the demon tightens its grip, enveloping Niall’s arms, his chest. Flynns can’t die in water, but having their ribs crushed will kill them.

  At last, my runes start working. Every trace in the air makes a cut in the creature’s skin, black demon blood spurting from the wounds. The wind is roaring in my ears, and I see red. I can’t stop cutting and stabbing and slicing the air, and with it, the demon – until its tentacles stop flailing at last and it lies still, with Niall still wrapped in its loosened grip.

  A pause, a heartbeat, while everyone makes sure they’re still alive.