Ripples in the Sand (The Sea Witch Voyages) (10 page)

Eighteen

The noise of laughter, singing and the babble of loud, drunken talk wafted from the taverns of Appledore. A few groups, worse the wear for drink, lurched along the narrow, cobbled streets as Jesamiah made his way downhill heading for Market Street. He was uncertain of the maze of alleys, passages and opes, making more than one false turn, but he figured as long as went downwards and followed the sound and scent of the water he would eventually come to the shore, and the
Full Moon
.

The walk from Benson’s house had taken a bare ten minutes; just as well for as he turned into Market Street and saw his destination ahead, the rain shifted from an unremarkable drizzle to a downpour. He ran the last few yards bursting through the inn’s door like a bull escaping a slaughtering pen. He wiped his face, took off his hat and slapped it against his leg, sending drops of rain everywhere, causing those nearby to grumble a complaint. He grinned, apologised and headed for the warmth of the fire; stopped still as he saw Tiola sitting next to it, her head resting on another man’s shoulder. He had one arm around her, was pulling her closer.

A host of muddled emotions swept through Jesamiah, knotting his stomach, drying his mouth, tightening his throat. He stood there staring at them. Tiola and another man. All sound, all movement had disappeared. All he could see was Tiola and this man. He was talking to her, endearments of some sort, for they were whispered, and he kissed the top of her head. She murmured back, and with tender gentleness touched his cheek. Jesamiah had recognised him instantly, the man he’d seen through the window last night. The man he had rescued. Pegget Trevithick’s husband. Tiola’s lover!

Jealous anger erupted into Jesamiah’s mind. All sense of reasoning, logic and other possibilities were thrust aside as he watched them laugh together. Oh how they had played him for the fool! No wonder Tiola had been so agitated about coming here, about not wanting to…about wanting to…about rekindling the flame of a past lover! Jesamiah swallowed hard, fighting stupid, irrational tears. He forgot the facts, never even considered them so blind was his jealous rage. Tiola had been a child when she had fled Cornwall, no more than fourteen years old – how could she have had a lover? Reason did not come into it when your wife was there, in front of you, making love to another man. He was not sure after whether the bellow of hurt fury roared from his mouth or swirled inside his head. He remembered turning a table over; vaguely recalled the resulting shouts of protest. He slammed through the door, bursting out into the rain, wanting to scream, bellow, howl. Wanted to hit someone, kill someone! Kill him! Kill her! He stormed up Market Street, turned left, turned right, had no idea that he had reached Irsha Street. Kept walking, blazing with seething anger, one hand gripping the butt of his pistol, the other clasping the hilt of his cutlass. He did not see the girl deliberately step into his path, her shawl over her head against the rain. Barely heard her cry as he caught her with his shoulder, sending her sprawling into the puddles.

“Oi! Mister!” she shouted. “You’m blimmer ‘urt I, you booger! You gawn bleedin’ leave I ‘ere, sittin’ in tha wet?”

He turned, glowered at her. She smiled, showing uneven teeth, the front two missing. She gathered her skirts, revealing far more than was respectable of her white thigh above the ribbon garters of her woollen stockings; held out her hand. “’Elp I up then, an’ us’ll share a boddle o’ gin t’git warm an’ dry eh? An’ then I’ll ‘elp do summat ‘bout that girt bad mood o’yourn if’n y’like.”

Next best thing to killing a man. Getting drunk and losing your rage with a whore.

Nineteen

The quarter moon, gleaming like a smile against the black sky, hung low between the clouds, her faint light sparkling on the puddles and the tide-wet sand. The tidal retreat of the sea had been slow and reluctant; the only water now, the channel of the two conjoined rivers and the everlasting skirmish of fresh water meeting salt at the Bar.

Through the night Tiola had searched the streets and alleyways of Appledore, looking for Jesamiah. The rain had eased from its deluge as she had stepped onto Irsha Street, becoming a more gentle touch that had shrouded her like a protective cloak, the rain masking the path of tears. The quiet patter on cobbles and roofs soothing and comforting her distress. The rain had stopped, the moon had risen. Appledore had settled into sleep with only the rats and the cats slipping quietly through the dark hours that dozed between night and morning.

He was here, close, for she could sense him, but not enough to know exactly where. All she knew was that he was angry and hurting. She had tried to communicate with him in their private, special way, calling to him in her mind, but she had met a wall of silence solid as granite. Near midnight she had cried out, her hands reaching for support from the lichen-covered wooden fence enclosing the churchyard, the pain twisting in her stomach as she sensed his sexual climax of passion unleashed with another woman. He was unaware that she could sense the emotions of his soul, how his life was entwined within her own. She would never tell him of it for he would not understand the link that chained them together, set there the first time they had made love. Body, soul, mind, fused as one. A link that, until death, was unbreakable, or so she had thought. Had she been wrong?

Whether they were to be together for the rest of eternity Tiola had no idea; she was unable to foretell the future, nor, unless the doors opened of their own accord, could she see into the past. There were things she did know, however. She had known his soul for a long, long time and their soul-paths were fastened together with a knot that would not become unbound. The why, when and how of it was hidden from her, but somewhere, some when in the past their previous incarnations had been aware of each other’s existence, their union not permitted until the here, the now.

Only one incident of the past did she – they – remember. She had been with him, in spirit form, when he was a boy of almost fifteen, offering support when the man he had thought to be his brother had abused him beside their father’s grave. She had been not quite seven years old then, with no concept of the power lying dormant within her. Had assumed it to be a dream until she had seen Jesamiah that day when, as a pirate, he had attacked the ship she was traveling on. She had recognised him instantly, and his soul had recognised her, although for a while her Craft had hidden his awareness of it.

For years – dozens, hundreds, thousands – their serpentine paths had crossed, briefly touched and parted again. Not until their eyes and souls had met that day, somewhere off the hot and humid coast of Africa, had the spark of attraction flared into flame. So when, where had that spark first been kindled?

The church clock struck the hour. Six hollow chimes. Appledore, Devon, the West Country, slept. A black she-cat slipped through the shadows, her kitten-swelling belly hungry for food. The quarter moon surged from behind a cloud, illuminating the estuary into a dappled, rippling silver.

When had that spark been kindled
?

Carefully, Tiola descended the stone steps built into the quay, one hand holding her skirt high, the other resting on the wet, seaweed-slimed wall. She stepped out on to the firm, wet sand and walked towards where the river met the sea. Looked up at that thin sliver of a sickle moon. There was something she had missed, something she had not learnt, had not yet been taught. What? What was it? She heard a whispering in her mind, a faint, distant sound as unobtrusive as the rustle of autumn leaves stirred by a passing breeze. Her attention fixed on the high-riding silver moon; she emptied her mind and awareness of all thought, listened only to that whisper murmuring in her subconsciousness. Listened and heard.

The Deep Knowledge. The knowing that once something has occurred it exists forever, caught as an eternal memory in the ether of Time.

“Time,” Tiola said to the sickle moon, half covered by a ragged stream of gossamer cloud, “is an illusion. All time is one. Everything that was, that is or that will be, is bound within the Record of Life.”

I have no regard for Time, Witch Woman. Time does not concern me.

Tethys! So lost in her inner self Tiola had failed to notice that she had walked to where the sea caressed the wet sand of the beach. She turned around, her back to the wash of the rippling waves, and faced the town with its stores, cottages, farms, inns, taverns and brothels. Somewhere there, in a squalid bedchamber, Jesamiah lay asleep, tears of grieving exhaustion on his face, his body entwined with an unknown whore. His hurting anger so intense it was tearing Tiola’s soul into shredded pieces.

~ He is mine, Witch Woman. Jesssh…a…miah is mine. ~

The clouds parted and the moonlight illuminated the undulating ripples that had hardened in the sand as the tide had ebbed. The delicate light filled the still pools of water trapped within the miniature valleys, the rippled sand casting uneven rows of ethereal shadow.

You shall not have him, Tethys.

Tiola bent down, and reaching out, drew her right forefinger through the ranked lines of ridged sand, the water between converging as each mounded barrier was breached.

You shall not have him, Tethys. I shall prevent you. As I have always prevented you.

She looked once more at the night-shadowed town, and hissed in a single, soft, wordless note of sound breathed through her mouth, “
Hie…esssh
.”

The mists of Time parted, and the past echoed its presence through the shrouding mists of eternity.

Twenty

The same valley, the same two rivers and the estuary, although the rivers ran deeper and wider, and the hills were thick-wooded with virgin forest, but a village was there, where, in a later time, Appledore would straggle up the side of the rounded, green promontory.

A few circular huts made of daub-plastered wattle; smoke drifting in lazy columns through gaps in the reed thatch. It was summer. Tiola could feel the heat of the sand beneath her bare feet and the sun hot on her face and arms. The brightness of a blue, blue sea, beneath an even bluer sapphire sky dazzled her a moment. Serene, the low-tide water of the estuary sparkled as if handfuls of precious jewels had been scattered there like seed broadcast into a harrowed field. No sandbar. No white froth churn of water where the two rivers met. It was too early in the past for the deposits of silt and detritus to build the barrier against the dominant rule of Tethys; the estuary was wider, deeper here in this past time.

Several women, clad in crudely woven tunics were cooking something in a pot over a smoking fire-pit. Tiola could see their lips moving and the laughter on their faces as one added gathered herbs; another leant forward to stir the broth within. On the opposite shore, near to where Tiola was standing, the Taw cut its lazy way through the soft sand. Men were working beneath the hot sun, except for one, an elderly gentleman who stood to the side, his robe of sun and urine-bleached flax swathed around his stick-thin body. A circlet of oak leaves crowned his grey-haired head, his gnarled, bony hands raised, fingers outspread towards the sea, his mouth moving in murmured prayer.

Holding her back,
Tiola thought.
He is trying to keep the tide at bay.

The men were hauling at ropes attached to a massive slab of stone, heaving and grunting as they manoeuvred it upright into an oblong pit dug to receive its base. There were other stones already standing in place, two rows of black granite descending from the slope of the hill, across the sand and into the channel where the sea would soon pour, once the tide turned. Great stones pointing upward like fingers grasping at the sunlight through the cold depth of sand, their path marking the way from land to sea, and beyond, to the hazed outline of an island. Tiola knew it in the present time as Lundy, but it had an older, secret name, known only to those who had no fear of death – The Isle of Annwn, the Isle of the Dead. One of the portal gateways between this world and the next. There were several: the Summer Isle, some miles to the east; the Rivers of Crossing; the Lakes of the Deep…

With a last grunt of combined effort from the men the slab of granite slid into place. There were cheers and shouts of joy. Two men ran to remove the tethering ropes, the others hurrying to fill in the exposed hole, throwing in rocks and stones and pebbles from nearby piles, packing them around the base which was now several feet beneath the surface. The exposed portion of stone stood only half its original height, but still taller than the men scuttling around.

“How much will show when the sea returns?” Tiola murmured. “A few inches will be enough to mark the sea lane of a sacred way.”

Her gaze followed the line of the stones marching up the hill. The trees that she had seen in her previous vision had all been cleared – the trunks needed for rollers and props for the great stones. Up on the high ground stood a circle of timber posts, again taller than a man, within, at its centre, what she guessed to be an altar. A place of blessing for the living, and the beginning of the journey into the next Life for the dead.

Using shovels made from flat shoulderblade bones, the men were filling in the gaps between the rocks and stones with the mounds of sand beside the dug hole. All of them working hard, fast. Tiola looked towards the sea. The tide had turned, the old priest’s muttered incantations were not working. At the head of the incoming tide, a line of white water was galloping through the gap between the two promontories and spreading swiftly over the bay. A few boys were helping the men, some of them filling wooden buckets with sand and trotting backwards and forwards to empty the contents into the hole. More rocks and pebbles, more sand; layer upon layer packed down to secure the great stones. One boy, four or five years of age, stood at the edge of the bustling activity staring at the sea, much as Tiola was doing. His face framed by black, unruly hair was solemn; the thumb of one hand stuffed anxiously in his mouth.

The little boy bent down, tried to lift a rock that had rolled from the pile; it was too heavy. He looked up, straight at Tiola, his innocent young gaze meeting direct with her eyes. She stood thirty paces away, where the marram grass pricked the dunes, her dark green cloak and red skirt clear against the yellow sand, yet not one of the men was aware of her presence. The boy could see her though. She smiled at him and he stared back, then turned away and ran to a man who had the same tangle of black hair. His father perhaps? The boy patted at the man’s thigh. All of them, save the priest, were naked, their skin glistening with sweat from the heat of the sun and the effort of exertion. The man bent to listen, glanced up, afraid, at the surging return of the sea. He shouted to the others. Tiola could see his mouth moving, but heard no sound.

Renewing his urgency, the old priest prayed harder, the men working, frantic now. Several of the boys were beginning to gather the tools to take them to the top of the hill. Two dun-coloured ponies grazed there on the short, salty, sea-grass, their forelegs hobbled, shaggy manes lifting in the rise of a slight breeze. Tiola watched the boys put the tools in the grass-woven panniers strapped to the ponies’ backs by a crude rope harness made from lengths of plaited nettles, as strong as any cordage aboard
Sea Witch
.

Time shifted as she looked away from the shore to those ponies.

There was a cry, a shout of fear that penetrated the bubble of silence surrounding Tiola; screams from the women on the far shore. They had left their cooking fire, were pointing at the tide, waving at the men. The sea! The sea!

In that pause of Tiola’s inattention the tide had spilled out over the sand of the wide, flat bay. As she watched, horrified, a great wave lifted upward and rushed forward, its curled crest hurtling faster and faster, gaining height and speed as it came sweeping into the bay.

Terrified, the men dropped their tools and ran, scrambling up the fragile slope of the dunes, clutching at clumps of grass, pushing with their feet to hurl themselves upwards to safety. The old priest, his weathered face draining chalk pale, fell to his knees, crying out in dismay at his failure.

The black-haired boy was running, his short legs unable to carry him any quicker. He tripped and fell. The sea was hurtling in faster than a man could run, faster than a child could scrabble to his feet. Tethys had her prize! The great wave washed over the boy… but Tiola was outside of Time, beyond the clutch of the Sea Goddess who held no compassion for the life of a small, dark-haired, boy. Tiola scooped him into her arms, cradling him within the folds of her cloak as the wave broke over and around them both, and Tethys spumed her anger.

He is mine! Witch Woman! Mine!

The pull of the tide clutched at Tiola, grabbing at her red skirt, hindering her from wading to the higher ground of the shore. She struggled, forcing her legs to move, using all her energy of strength and will to forge her way through the angry current. The wave lost its power and momentum, retreated, sand-muddied and impotent.

Tiola set the boy down on the sand and he ran to his father, sodden, frightened, but alive.

The rising sun of a new day in February 1719 shimmered on the wet, ice-rimed sand below the quay of Appledore harbour, the sea lapping at Tiola’s gown as she stood at the edge of the ocean realm of Tethys, the images of the distant past fading, leaving her exhausted and with an aching head.