The Wind of Southmore (8 page)

Try as he
might, Robbie could not keep up with her, and he had to – he had to
catch her before all her traces were gone, licked clean by the
dark, possessive waters. But his athletic skills were of no help
here, and the fronds of seaweed rocking in the violent wind seemed
to grasp his ankles like slimy fingers.

“
Arlen!” he cried helplessly, as he watched her cold, white
face, stark against the black backdrop of ocean and sky, and he
heard the call echoed by Alice, who had almost reached her, her
hand outstretched as if her sister were going to fall. Yet the wind
showed no mercy and instead surged up before him like some horrific
beast, a solid wall that buffeted against him like an actual blow.
For one second he almost thought he saw a shape in the swelling
air, and two glowing eyes, sharp and deadly, on the rock above him.
But his fingers grasped the wind, and he heard the laugh, ringing
endlessly in his ears as the seaweed bonds released him, and he
fell, bloody and limp, dropping heavily onto the waiting sand
below.

Alice
stopped as if frozen. Arlen didn’t even look like herself, her hair
flying madly in the storm, her body still and unmoving as she
watched Robbie thrown from the cliff.

“
Arlen!” she cried, but her words were swallowed in the force
of the wind, and she felt as though her voice had been ripped from
her throat. Arlen! She fought again desperately, this time with her
mind. What was the use of being twins if her sister couldn’t hear
her? Her fear tore at her, and she struggled furiously in the cruel
arms of the gale that pinned her back.

Arlen did
not move.

Something
stirred in the depths of the ocean, something large and dark. A
curved muzzle rose from the waters like the sea monsters of legend,
and Alice felt the silent scream torn from her lips as the thing
lurched forward with a roar and rammed full onto the jagged rocks,
crashing and sticking fast with a groan and a creak as it wedged
itself firmly into the stone.

Arlen
turned and stared, dropping quietly onto the rock as the wind
lulled and the waves calmed and died, silently smoothing themselves
into a glossy black carpet, deceptively still.

It was a
ship. An ancient, rotting thing of gleaming, sodden wood, shining
and bejewelled with slimy seaweed and the patterned shells of tiny
sea creatures.

Alice,
finding herself suddenly able to move, slid across the stone in
shaking footsteps and threw her arms around her sister.

Arlen
turned and looked at her blankly. “Robbie,” she said
softly.

They
found him at the bottom of the cliff, barely conscious, his head
bruised and sticky with blood.

“
You could have been killed,” Alice whispered. “We all could
have been killed.” She didn’t know what was real anymore. Arlen
seemed to be handling it better – silent but steady, as they aided
the stumbling Robbie back to his grandfather’s house.

“
I’ll be alright now,” he had said bravely at the doorway, his
knees shaking. Yet Arlen hadn’t even complained when Alice insisted
on staying to see that the doctor was called and that Robbie would
survive.

“
A slight concussion. Bruising. No broken bones. It’s
remarkable, really. A wonder he wasn’t killed.”

“
Ah, it’s the MacKenzie constitution, doctor,” Mac said
jokingly, but Alice noticed that his face was very pale, and that
his eyes seemed even more fiercely blue in contrast. She could not
shake the memory of the lonely cart driver from her mind, somehow,
when she looked at him. But that was ridiculous, she told herself
firmly, and looked away just as firmly, refusing to think of
it.

The
doctor gave the twins a lift back to the castle, a silent,
uncomfortable trip, the copper red underbelly of the sky beneath
the clouds reflecting on Arlen’s face in an almost unearthly glow.
The doctor seemed very glad once they were dropped off, and didn’t
even say goodbye as he turned the car quickly around, its wheels
crunching the gravel like gunshots in the stillness, and drove back
into the village.

Aunt Maud let them in, angry and impatient, and seeming to
know all about it. “I’ve told you before, Arlen, to
stay away
from that beach.
What were you doing scrambling about on the cliff anyway?” she
asked, giving her niece a sharp look, almost as if she were hunting
for something, Alice thought.

But Arlen
just sighed wearily and shook her head. “Nothing, Auntie,” she
replied, dully.

“
Well, we’ll see,” Aunt Maud said threateningly. “You’ll get
yourself into trouble out there some day, my girl, mark my words,
and there’ll be nobody to save you from yourself. And I want you to
stay away from that boy, do you hear me? Running about the
cliffside in the middle of a storm, no less. A city brat I’d expect
it from, but I would have thought you’d have had more sense. What
will Alice think?”

Alice was
about to reply, but Aunt Maud was off again.

“
Is he hurt badly?” she asked then, and her eyes were very
bright.

Alice
squared her shoulders to reply that no, he was not alright. He had
a concussion and was very lucky he hadn’t anything worse, but she
was cut off once more.

“
He’ll live,” Arlen shrugged nonchalantly.

“
Hmm,” muttered Aunt Maud, and looked around the kitchen, her
tirade apparently over. “I suppose you’ll be wanting some tea
now?”

“
Not for me, thank you, Auntie,” Arlen replied, gripping the
door handle, her knuckles very white. “I’m not hungry.”

“
No, I’m not either,” Alice agreed, although if it hadn’t been
for the combined memory of that morning’s meal and the fact that
she wanted to talk to Arlen alone, she felt that she could have
been persuaded.

Aunt Maud made no protest, but nodded quickly. “Off to bed
then, and
stay
there.”

Aunt Maud
did say some very odd things, Alice thought, but had no time to
reflect on the matter as she hurried up the narrow, winding
staircase after her sister.

“
Arlen, wait,” she called, but Arlen continued up the stairs,
only pausing at the door with a strange, drained look. How could
she look like that? Alice wondered, a sudden stab of anger shooting
through her.
She
hadn’t been the one to take the fall. If anything, it seemed
that she had –

She
stopped the thought right then. That was silly. It was Aunt Maud’s
crabbiness and this strange horror house of a place playing on her
nerves.

“
What?” Arlen asked, her face drawn, as she began to turn down
her covers.

“
What happened out there?” She didn’t really know where to
start. But Arlen’s face was blank, and for some reason it
infuriated her. “You
know
what I’m talking about. Flipping out like that
because Robbie found the cave – so what? It’s
not
private property, even if you’re
the only one who’s been in it for years. And on the cliff – it was
almost like – ”

“
Almost like
what
?” The life snapped back into Arlen’s face suddenly and she
stood upright, her eyes black and her voice threatening.

“
You
know what
,” Alice replied, her anger swelling. “You did it on
purpose
!”

“
Did
what
?”
Arlen cried, and her voice took on a frightened tinge.

“
Robbie!” Alice was almost shouting. “You did it! And what did
he ever do to you?”

“
Girls
!” The door flew open suddenly
and Aunt Maud faced them, her bony face flushed and cross.
“I
told
you to go
to bed. Now, in bed, both of you, and I don’t want to hear another
word.”

It was a
familiar line from television and books, and Alice almost welcomed
it.

They
undressed silently and crawled into their beds, and Aunt Maud
extinguished the flame of the kerosene lamp herself.

“
Now no more talking,” she warned them, and closed the door
firmly behind her.

Alice
didn’t like the sound it made, quick, like a gaol cell click in the
old movies she had watched at the weekend, reverberating in the
cold, stone room. But she was too tired suddenly to think about it,
a wave of exhaustion consuming her, and she drifted helplessly
within it. Not a sound came from Arlen. But Alice couldn’t help
thinking oddly, before she surrendered herself completely to
slumber, that it had been a strange thing to say, to accuse her
sister of such a thing. He had lost his balance, what with the wind
and all. Arlen had been nowhere near him at the time.

And
Robbie tossed and turned uneasily in his grandfather’s attic room,
bothered by the wind outside his window, the lopsided front gate,
swinging on one hinge, that he had promised to mend the following
day, making an eerie, squeaking noise, which seemed to ride on the
gusts and mock him. He couldn’t help but remember the strange
vision of the eyes before him suddenly, red and glaring through the
wind, and the menacing sound, almost like a chuckle, as it lifted
and threw him. That same chuckle that was out there now, playing
with the gate, tapping with the swirling leaves on his window, the
same chuckle that had seemed to follow him home.

Chapter Six

The twins
slept long that night, dreamlessly, although Arlen tossed and
turned restlessly as the surf crashed onto the rocks beneath the
window, pounding against the thick stone foundations of the castle,
burrowing into the girl’s consciousness as she twisted, disturbed
in her sleep, uncomfortable thoughts lurking, shadowy, somewhere in
her mind.

It was
very quiet when she awoke. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, the
tense events of the previous day resurfacing in her memory in small
snatches, like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. She shuddered. The
room was grey and dull, with a light sea mist that had crept
through the narrow window and now hung damply in the room, like a
spider’s web. Arlen could not prevent herself from trying to brush
it from her face.

Outside
the scene was still. The waves lapped gently and silently against
the foot of the tower, and the fine mist lent a thick, tarnished
glow to everything, like unpolished silver. Further out, the sea
seemed strangely placid, still and smooth as glass, but opaque and
impenetrable. A lone seagull glided noiselessly through the air,
casting no shadow on the dark water below.

She could see the outline of the jagged circle of rocks as she
leant out of the window, and within it, the charred black twigs of
the dead fire. By the circle, almost overhanging it, lay the hulk
of the wreck that had been coughed up the day before, spewed by the
waves in their anger, impaled mercilessly on the harsh rocks. Arlen
was almost sure she could hear it groan and sigh as it settled
itself, a last resting place. She felt sorry for it.
She
wouldn’t have liked to
end her days there, stabbed by a sharp tooth of stone.

“
Is that the wreck?” Alice had woken and was trying to see out
of the narrow window behind her. “It’s a beauty.”

“
It’s very old,” Arlen murmured quietly. “I’ve seen something
like it – once before. I can’t remember where.”

“
Shall we go and explore it?” Alice had barely been listening.
After a good night’s sleep everything almost seemed like a very
bizarre dream, although Robbie’s accident and the argument with
Arlen played unhappily on her mind, and she was eager to make it up
to her sister.

“
I don’t know,” Arlen said slowly. “I seem to – recognise it. I
– ” she stopped suddenly. “Come with me to the library. You’ve
never been into it.”

“
No,” Alice agreed, and followed, rather half-heartedly, it
must be admitted. Her sights had been set on the wreck.

Down and
down they circled, passing the thick wooden door that led to Aunt
Maud’s room at the bottom of the stairs. Not even Arlen had been in
there, and Alice couldn’t help wondering what she did with her
time. She did seem to disappear an awful lot.

They
passed the small, cold bathroom which still required the use of
buckets of water, and stepped into the shabby hallway. It must have
been very grand and impressive once, when the castle was young, and
the people who lived in it were wealthy and cared to show it. But
now it was drab and very dark, and the shadowy portraits of
ancestors and a large, ancient tapestry peered blindly into the
gloom. They must have been young once, and bright in their fresh
oil paint and coloured threads. But the damp sea air had loved them
too well, and patches of mould had formed in the corners. The once
fine threads of the tapestry were so thin and worn that the picture
had blurred into a shapeless mass of dull greens and reds and
greys. The memories of what once must have been people hovered
palely in the background, but they could not escape their faceless
forms, and were lost, trapped in the blur. Alice shuddered. This
was not a nice place.

What was even more depressing was the way that the hall
disappeared further down. Just vanished, for the end rooms belonged
to the part of the castle that had been destroyed, and although the
hole had now been blocked up, it was horrible to think that there
had once been more rooms and stairs and floors and
people
.