Secondhand Charm (8 page)

Chapter 17

If someone had asked me, I would not have believed anything could remove me from the terror of a ship in a storm at night—from screaming passengers and shouting sailors and the roar of angry waves against the ship’s hull. I would have been wrong.

It was an awkward thing, our necks twisted, our faces scraping against the mast, the driving rain covering the dark world.

Aidan?

Me?

Aidan, all my life, right there, next door, and now, here, like this?

Of course. Of course, Aidan. And now is all we’ve got.

He stopped and rested his forehead against mine, his eyes closed, as if he didn’t dare look. Then the ship pitched again, and he resumed his grip around me and the mast.

I squirmed around to face him fully, probably driving splinters in my cheeks as I did so, and kissed him back. I felt his sharp intake of breath. He let go of the mast and wrapped his arms around me.

So soft, so sweet, so surprising, as if all the stars in the night sky were bursting out from inside me. How could I have known?

Aidan. And
me
.

What are you
doing
, Evelyn Pomeroy? said a small, bookish schoolgirl voice in my head.

Dying
, I told it.
Go away.

Then inexperience made me nervous. How does one stop doing this? I wondered, and finally concluded, by stopping. I closed my eyes and tucked my head down, suddenly shy. Aidan laughed softly, which I felt more than heard, and he squeezed the mast until I thought I’d pop.

And still the storm raged on.

Then the mast shuddered horribly. Its mainsail ripped, and the wood of the mast screamed as it snapped like a dry twig only a few yards above our heads.

There was a horrible jolt. The whole ship crunched. Its pitching and rolling stopped.

“She’s foundered on the rocks!” a voice yelled. “She’s takin’ on water!”

Whatever jag of rock had snared its hull seemed to want to hold on, despite the seaward waves that lashed its side, soaking us with salt water. No longer did nature’s forces seem impersonal. It was a contest between sea and stone, and the sea grew furious at the rock’s rebuff. Higher and higher the waves mounted, as each failed wave doubled back and rejoined the rest.

When the last wave came, somehow I sensed its approach. Or perhaps it was the silence that fell over the shouting crew as that last wall of water rose up.

The wave flung
The White Dragon
off its perch and toppled it into the sea like a cat batting a mouse through the air with its paw. I felt myself rise, still holding the mast, still clasped in Aidan’s grip, as we all turned a tumbler’s somersault in the air, then landed in the sea.

Chapter 18

What happened next was all so fast, yet when told, words will stall the speed, the rush, the fear.

The cold was astonishing, and still more its daggers of sharp, relentless pain. There was no lessening of the cold, nor the fear that my heart would rupture from the shock of it.

My ears filled with a low, vast, steady thrum, chasing away the chaotic din of the wind and the creaking ship.

My mouth and nose filled with water.

Aidan still clung to me.

Salt water stung my eyes, yet I forced them open. There was nothing to see but blackness, but I had to try and see.

My lungs burned. Air! Would there ever again be air?

The stump of mast to which we clung stayed rooted underwater. If we didn’t let go, we’d drown. Before I could do anything, though, the mast snapped off the ship and began moving through the water. I felt hope while Aidan still held on.

Then the backswell knocked the mast hard against the bulk of the ship. Aidan’s grip around me relaxed, and before I could seize his arm, he was swept away from me in the water.

I bobbed to the surface, still clutching the mast, and gasped in a breath. Then I let go of the mast and plunged toward the direction I thought Aidan might have gone.

Too late I realized how foolish that was. The last fool mistake I would ever make.

But so be it. I would make the same choice again.

I flailed through the water, my mouth and lungs again filling. Thrash as I might, I couldn’t bring my head above the surface. Whenever I thought I had, another wave broke over me, plunging me under.

There was no sign of Aidan. In that dark, there wouldn’t be.

Still the cold crept through every tissue in my body, claiming my hands, my feet, until I could no longer feel their pain, until they almost felt warm. Let go, I thought. Stop fighting, and slide down into the warmth and quiet at the bottom of the sea.

Aidan is there. Let go.

Down, down the water pulled me, and the less I fought, the quieter all became.

Then another voice spoke in my mind.

I’m coming!

I turned in the dark water, as if I might find the thing, the voice, but all was black.

I’m coming, oh, I’m coming, coming as fast as I can. Oh, it’s you, truly you. I’m coming! I’ve found you!

The voice, though not audible, grew stronger, more near, until something wreathed itself around me, something long and powerful, like a supple tree trunk, and rushed me to the surface, my body succumbing like a cloth doll.

I gulped in a mouthful of sweet rainy air and opened my eyes. I lay like a child in a hammock on the surface of the frothing water, supported by this moving, living cradle. I lifted my head to try to get a glimpse, and saw nothing except a darting glow in the water beneath me.

Coils of this living, glowing rope surrounded me and skimmed me over the water.

It was a serpent. A mighty serpent, half as long as the ship itself. And it had me captive.

I ought to faint, I ought to scream, I ought to panic.
These were the words in my head. But something in me was beyond panic, beyond fear, in a quieter state. I wondered if it might possibly be death.

I wished I hadn’t parted with my snakebite charm.

Did this creature wish to hurt me? It had seemed pleased to find me. Was that only because I was its favorite meal?

Must get you to shore before you chill, before you choke. It
is
you, I knew it, I smelled it. Oh, why, why, why have you made me wait so long? The others, they’ve been laughing at me!

It spoke to me in my mind. I could hear no words, and yet I could feel its words as well as if I did hear them. Better, for I could have heard little in that storm.

“You seem to know me,” I said aloud. Now I was speaking to my own delusions! “What are you?”

Later, later. Must get you dry and warm.

I took some small courage at these words and dared to ask what now concerned me most.

“Do you also know the one I came with?” A new thought struck me. “Is … one of your kind helping him too?”

There was a slight tremor of distaste, as if Aidan were a dish I’d served to a guest too polite to say it was spoiled.

I know which one he is. I smelled him too.

And suddenly we were on the beach. My fingers closed around fistfuls of sopping sand. The creature backed away, and I flung myself over onto my hands and knees, my whole body shaking with cold and gratitude.

Up from the water rose the creature, glorious and strange. I gazed upward as it ascended, almost hovering over me. Though it had saved me, still, I shrank back in fear.

Its head was flat and angled at the edges like the cut emerald on a priest’s ring. Its snout was long and blunt, with whiskers like a catfish, and nostrils that twitched like an anxious horse. Silver blue skin plated with large scales gleamed in the darkness, and jewel green eyes blinked at me.

A sea serpent.

“Please,” I said in a voice I barely recognized, “please find my friend and help him.”

Now we’re together, you and I. There’s nothing else we need.

Faster than thought, its answers appeared in my mind. An even more horrible thought struck me. “Did you cause this storm?”

The serpent watched me, blinking, as though this question was not something it knew how to answer.

“Can you stop the storm?”

It will die down soon. Now that we’ve found each other.
If it were possible, the great mouth seemed to smile.
Don’t be frightened. I will always protect you from storms.

I digested these words. “So you
did
cause the storm? People are dying!”

The beast reared its great head back as if confused.

I do not create storms
,
it said.
But for you and I to be so long apart? It isn’t natural. The ocean abhors it.

This made no sense.

Sixteen years I’ve waited for you, Mistress.
Its eyes blinked with sadness and reproach.
They have called me abandoned. But I always believed I would find you.

It stretched its long neck down toward me and butted my shoulder, my chin, gently with its head. It caressed me, nuzzling against me with its horned face. Instinctively I recoiled and immediately felt its hurt. So I stopped. I reached a hand toward it.

And halted. This gigantic monster, this behemoth, could devour me in one gulp! And I was having a conversation with it? If I had any strength, I would run. And yet, something in those eyes constrained me, compelled me to stay.

“Please,” I said again. “My friend is dying. Already he may be gone. Please, bring my friend to me.”

It lowered its head, for all the world like he was bowing.
Mistress
,
it said, though its mouth didn’t seem to move,
they are only food. What do you want with them?

“Food!” I cried, aghast. “What do you mean, they’re only food?”

Those others. In the water. They’re not like you.

“Those others in the water,” I cried, crawling closer to dry land, “are every bit like me. You must help them all, if you have any love for me. First, bring me my friend. And if there are others like you that can help, call to them!”

The great serpent hesitated.
You will stay, won’t you?

“I won’t leave this beach.”

It turned its great head back toward the sea and leaped under the surface, the rest of its length rippling after, flashing before disappearing from view.

The next moments were some of the worst I ever spent. I was wet, with freezing winds buffeting me. I wanted badly to lie down, even if the waves did wash the sand away and take me with it.
Walk
, I told myself.
Walk and warm your body.
But needles of pain shot through every muscle. I was alive, but how many were dead? I fell forward into the sand, striking my knee on a rock, and lay there crying.

A movement caught my eye, and I looked to see a human form crawling up out of the waves. It wasn’t Aidan. One of the lucky sailors, it seemed, who knew how to swim, though even an adept swimmer would likely have succumbed to the waves and rocks.

He reached a pebbly place and collapsed, facedown, heaving up water. I went toward him but stopped, seeing another form wash ashore. A more urgent case. It was a passenger. I rolled him onto his front. A spume of water issued from his mouth and he began to breathe.

It was still too dark to see much, but I stumbled about, treading upon ship debris and bodies. Miracle upon miracle, every body I encountered was alive. Barely. But alive.

Something small and dark washed ashore at my feet. I picked it up.

Aidan’s hat. I put it on.

Gradually the sea grew calm. The rain changed from a pelting torrent to a gentle shower. Survivors washed ashore like falling leaves blowing against a fence. My body warmed itself as I moved about to help, but my heart was elsewhere. All the while I searched for the serpent. Could I have imagined it? Had I washed ashore like the rest of these?

Yet I clung to the serpent in hopes it would bring Aidan. There were so many survivors! Could the creature have played a part? And if they lived, could I still hope?

The three-legged cat appeared, wet and miserable, its claws sunk into a piece of decking. The trim woman appeared, and soon after her the monkey tamer, with the cold wet monkey clinging pitiably to his neck. The two of them quickly left the rest of us and headed inland.

The rain ceased, and the winds that had blown the storm in so suddenly blew it away. Stars poked through the thinning clouds, and the moon painted a stripe of light across the water. Survivors from the shipwreck gathered wood and planking that had washed ashore and stacked it into a fire mound, and a crew of them argued about how to light wet tinder. I wished they’d hurry and figure it out. We all needed warmth, and fire would act as a beacon to anyone who might, by enormous luck, still be alive in the water.

Luck. Foolish girl, to believe in luck. I trained all my thoughts on Aidan, alive, smiling, walking the path that led from his house to ours. If thinking of someone could keep him alive, he’d come walking over the water to me.

The faintest hint of a sunrise began to lighten the sky behind me, where now the hills of Pylander came into view. The long night was nearly over. Any hope now must be utterly vain.

Mistress.

I jumped up, trying to understand which way the inner voice was beckoning.

Mistress!

He was all the way down at the end of the beach. Close by, an orange glow illuminated the center of the bonfire. Good. That would divert attention. I picked my way over the rocks toward the serpent, hoping no one would take special notice of me. It was hard not to hurry.

I found the serpent uncoiling himself behind a large rock. It deposited Aidan at my feet, then backed away, its head held low.

One look at him confirmed my fears.