Body of Water (19 page)

Feeling Dom's thrusts subside I relaxed into the kisses, allowing my hands to run down the slick pads of muscle covering his back.

Dom started to withdraw, albeit still hard.

I reached around and pulled him back inside.

"No, stay."

Dom laughed gently, withdrew anyway, and rolled us onto our sides. I pushed back into his embrace and stroked his arms.

"Have ye thought about what tae do?"

"Yes, I thought about it all night long."

"And?"

"I'm going to the lighthouse."

"There are forces greater then either of us at work here. Ah don't know what will happen-"

"I'm still going."

"Ah felt energy there and was convinced it was ma skin."

"I thought you said it was at the house?"

"Ah ken that, so it might be something else."

"The stone?"

"Maybe. Or it might be another Selkie's skin. Ah've never been without mine before. Ah don't know what it feels like and never asked."

"You're not the first?"

"Selkie women have been tricked by men into becoming human wives then fled back tae the sea as soon as their skin is found."

"Have you ever met one?"

"No. They tend tae keep away from men after that; avoid ships, stick tae deep water. They're never the same afterwards. Torn between the two worlds Ah guess."

"How come?"

"They served as wives, mothers. Living as a human is not all bad."

"How do you feel?"

"Ah don't know. Mackay tricked me and Ah never felt the same about him again but then he got sick. Ah thought that if Ah stayed here then he might take pity on me and let me go. Or if he died Ah could find ma skin."

"Assuming it's even here."

"It might be at the lighthouse."

"Will you leave when you find it?"

Dom let go of me, rolled off the bed and stood up. "Ah don't want tae talk about it."

The look on his face convinced me that the matter was closed. This wasn't Maggs' spell; he didn't want to tell me. My heart sank. So that was it, he was going to go as soon as he found it. I didn't like to see Dom agitated but was also aware that I didn't know him well enough just yet to push the matter further.

I held out my hand, took his and squeezed it to convey whatever I could.

Dom smiled, kissed me and left the room. I assumed he'd gone to look for his clothes that Maggs had insisted on washing.

I admired the view of his retreating body and felt my cock harden again. I hoped there'd be plenty of time for that in the future.

The noon sun hung low in the summer sky but hid behind thick cloud as we stepped out into the fresh air. I was glad to be outside and thought of the Sea Mither making her way back to the sea to take her place. I wondered where she went in the winter. To a warmer sea elsewhere? To roam the land in search of me, her lost son? I wished I had a mother out there, making her way back to me. My thoughts turned to Ruth and how she would make a fine spirit for good, always finding the best in everything and everyone around her. I still missed her but the pain wasn't as sharp as before.

Since my baptism in the sea I felt different. At first I thought the turning point had been my night with Dom but now I felt certain it was something more. The stone's warmth ran through me, lending fluidity to every sense of my being. My thoughts still washed over each other but without confusion. They blended into each other and created a clearer picture of everything around me.

Dom put his arm around me as we walked away from the pub towards the north of the island.

"Are ye sure ye want tae do this? It could be dangerous."

"I have to. I don't know why. It feels right."

I allowed my hand to flatten out at the base of Dom's back, the ball of my thumb resting in the deep vertical trough at the base.

"Ah suppose ye need answers."

"I'm not looking for answers anymore. I'm looking to do what's right. Millie thinks the Odin Stone was destroyed for a reason and I agree."

"Ye think Mackay wanted its power?"

"No. I think Teran does." My eyes flicked to the blackening sea. "He might be coming for me but I think he's coming for the stone, too."

Dom stopped walking and turned to me. "Ah don't want ye tae go. Who knows what might happen if ye face him? He might have recovered the Nuck, restored its power and be waiting for ye."

"Then I'll kill it again and properly this time. I'll be fine, I promise."

Dom didn't look convinced but he turned back in the direction we had set out in.

"Ah'm coming in with ye then. Ah'll make sure ye're all right."

"That's not what we agreed."

"Ah don't care."

We rounded an outcrop and Dom pointed upwards. "It's up..."

I looked up as his voice trailed off. I'd expected a white tower with red stripes but the structure that loomed above us looked like a vast, melted candle. A blanket of dirty, opaque ice covered the entire structure, feathered with ridges. I couldn't make out any of the original building.

"But Ah was only here last night," Dom said, mystified.

"Do you think he's here already?"

Dom wasn't listening. "How will we get in?"

"Can't you do what you did with the millstone?"

"Ah've never done that with a person, moppy. What if it hurts ye?"

"It doesn't hurt you, does it?"

"No, but-"

I grabbed his face and kissed him. For the first time his skin felt cold in the bone-chilling wind. "Then I'll be fine."

He hugged me tight and buried his face in my hair. I nestled into the thick wool covering his chest and closed my eyes. I couldn't hear him say the words but I felt his jaw move against my scalp.

As he spoke my body became light and I felt energy radiate from his body into mine. I saw a bright channel of light in my mind and felt my body jump. The light shunted sideways followed by a powerful white flash.

I took a breath and a strange chemical smell greeted me. I opened my eyes slowly. We stood in a cool, dark space. I was grateful to still be encircled by Dom's embrace. Waves of heat emanated from him again and I felt calm considering I had no idea what might be waiting for us.

Dom drew me closer. "Now, Ah'm going tae show ye the Odin Stone. It might frighten ye but ye need tae see it." Dom's voice was soft and reassuring. "No harm will come tae ye here, Ah promise."

I nodded, guessing that Dom could see me clearly although everything remained inky blackness to me.

Dom moved away, his departure causing swathes of cold air to replace him. I shivered and drew my jacket tighter about me. The air in here felt like the air in the cave; damp, wet, bitterly cold. I heard the strike of a flint and a faint hiss then Dom's massive silhouette loomed before me. Behind him, shadows danced across an old brick wall.

The brickwork curved up and over us reminding me of an arch under a viaduct. To my left and right I saw what appeared to be benches covered in boxes, in turn covered by dust sheets. In one corner stood a taller box, roughly the size of a phone booth. Abandoned building materials were scattered about and I remembered Tammie telling me that the builders had walked out when they discovered Mackay's plans to turn the lighthouse into apartments. I doubted that had ever been his intention. He just needed the place gutted.

The lamp in Dom's hand lit his face from beneath, making even his encouraging smile look demonic as he beckoned me over to him.

"The tower's through here." His hand hovered above the handle of a low door. "Ah'll check it's safe then call ye in."

I swallowed hard and nodded.

He opened the door and walked through. As he turned to my right I ducked my head through the doorway.

My mouth fell open. Huge chunks of stone floated in the air, slowly rotating around a vertical axis. The room smelt like fresh rain and my hair crackled with static the way in did in the winter. The occasional discharge of energy arced between the stones as they drifted past me. I spotted the millstone among them, turning slowly as if spinning through water in slow motion.

Dom had completed his circuit of the tower and approached me from the left. He laughed at my hair and reached out to touch it. As he did so, a sliver of energy erupted from my chest and connected with the lamp he held. The stones halted and started to draw closer together before popping back out, a wave of energy throwing us both backwards through the doorway.

Dom landed awkwardly on me and I cried out in pain. He rolled away before springing back to my side.

"Are ye hurt?"

I grabbed my upper arm which he'd landed on and winced. "I'm fine." I managed a smile and patted his leg. "Don't worry." He started to speak but I cut him off. "How come I can see you?"

He'd dropped the lamp when we'd been thrown from the room. It lay twenty feet from us, extinguished, but the room was bathed in a pale green light.

Dom looked for the source of the light as I sat up and shook my arm. By the time I got to my feet Dom was standing in front of the booth-sized box in the corner. He reached up, grabbed the sheet covering it and pulled it away to reveal a glass tank filled with cloudy green liquid. I hadn't known what to expect. A fridge? A fortune telling machine? I stood in front of the tank, vaguely reminded of a derelict fish tank taken over by algae. A green glow emanated from within.

Phosphorescence?

I looked at Dom, confused. "Have you seen this before?"

"No." He handed me the sheet and shimmied down the side of the tank, reached out to hook his fingers behind the upper half of it and tilted the tank forwards. Judging by the grinding of his teeth it was heavy and awkward. Still, I reasoned, he'd lifted a millstone only nights before.

Seeing nothing, I held up the lamp and took a step towards the glass. Still nothing. Finally, I leaned in so close that my brow met the glass as it tilted towards me. Something in the water reacted to me. I saw a movement and the glow pulsed.

I stepped back. The core of the tank remained dark. Squinting my eyes to dampen the glow I made out the rough shape of a figure suspended in the verdigris sludge.

Dom grunted and pulled harder. The figure drifted forwards slowly, its arms coming up slightly as if to embrace me.

A body thunked gently against the glass, the face eye-to-eye with me.

I fell against the boxes behind me. Now my own core turned dark. Dread surfaced and I pulled the sheet to my chest as if to smother it.

I knew the face opposite me. I saw it every day.

It was my own.

The sound of my vomiting reverberated off the wall just as the vomit itself splashed across my boots. As soon as my guts emptied I gasped for air, catching sight of Dom appearing beside me. He breathed heavily and I guessed he'd set the tank back upright instead of just letting it go.

"What did ye see?"

I couldn't form the words. My hand unconsciously went to my chest and my fingers touched skin. Confused, I looked down and saw that the energy discharge from my chest had burnt away the layers of fabric. My skin was intact and the blue stone pulsed in time with the phosphorescent liquid in the tank.

Without looking up I pointed to the tank. "It's me."

Dom made a sound in the back of his throat but said nothing. I could hear his boots creak as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. Was he unsure whether to stay by my side or investigate?

I grabbed hold of his closest thigh and hauled myself to my feet before making my way to the tank. Dom joined me and sucked in a breath over his teeth when he saw the face.

I looked at my twin. I couldn't think of him as anything else. "I think he's my brother. Maggs found my mother on the beach. She was weak. Maybe she'd already had one child and Teran took him?"

I tried to imagine what his life had been like. He'd had at least one of his parents. I wondered what Teran was like, even a monster could be a good father, and then I remembered Gerald. That monster was certainly not a good father. Shaun seemed a lifetime away now. My anger towards him had drifted away with all my other negative emotions.

My brother and I already shared one history; we had both been secrets. My own mother had hidden me away from Teran. I had been kept a secret by Shaun's parents so that Shaun wouldn't spoil their name and reputation. And I had hidden myself away from the world after Mum died. The Sea Mither had kept my brother a secret from Maggs. In turn, Teran had kept him from the world. Assuming Mackay had known about him he'd also kept him concealed here.

Mackay was right. I was discovering the truth here.

I heard movement behind me and looked over my shoulder to see Dom opening, one by one, the vast number of boxes in the room. He worked feverishly and I knew he was looking for his skin.

I wondered how it must have felt to remember your family and then lose them. At least he had known their love. But I had known Ruth's love and I was thankful for that, no matter how short-lived it had seemed. Alex was another matter and I knew I had some work to do to salvage our relationship assuming I made it out of here alive.

When I noticed Dom's sudden stillness, I turned in his direction, distracted from the tank. He held a bundle in his hands and I saw him trembling from the other side of the room.

"Is that...?"

Dom nodded mutely.

I ran to him and stared down at the bundle. The skin was covered in a loosely-woven fabric, tossed into a pile of filthy rags like an old garment.

"Had you searched here before?"

Dom looked at me, his eyes wide and liquid. He seemed completely distraught.

I caught his jacket and tugged it hard. "We have to get it out of here and somewhere safe. That pulse could have been a beacon. Teran could arrive at any moment. Come on."

But Dom just stood there.

"Come on!" I pleaded, panic rising in my chest.

"Moppy," Dom started. "Do ye love-"

But he didn't get to finish. A bright light filled the room as the door exploded inwards and a monster rose from the wreckage.