Читать книгу The Hunted - Anna Leonard - Страница 11

The storm passed, but the restlessness remained. This morning, Beth didn’t even pretend to be exercising, but instead found a large rock overlooking the ocean and climbed out onto it, letting her legs dangle off the edge exactly the way they warned teenagers about doing. A carafe of coffee beside her, and the remains of a cinnamon Danish on her lap, Beth stared out at the morning waves and tried to capture some of her usual serenity.

Now, that serenity felt more like death, and the camera on the opposite side of her, the object that usually gave her context for her moods, remained capped and unused.

She had dreamed again last night. Not an erotic dream this time, but a sad one. A dream of loss, and longing, and lose-lose scenarios. On waking, the details had fled. But as she stared into the gray-blue of the Atlantic, the memory stirred.

His daughter was crying ….

In the dream, it was a lovely summer’s morning, the sun barely breaking over the rooftops of the village. A man stood in the surf, the cold blue-green Atlantic waters washing about his ankles, the gritty wet sand moving below his bare feet, a fish braver or more foolish than the rest of its school nibbling curiously at the rough fabric of his trousers. The rest of his clothing he had left, clean and neatly folded, on the bed in the cottage. When his son, his Isaac, grew to a man’s height, he could wear them.

Or they could be passed on, still fashionable, if Sarah took another husband.

The thought should not be a hook in his gut, so surprisingly sharp and painful. Was he then so easily replaced? He had never meant to linger so long, never meant to make a life here, never meant to create children … Isaac and baby Ruth. His children, his and Sarah’s.

Bright-eyed Sarah. Fearless Sarah, who faced down storms and sickness with such calm courage and practical sure-handedness. Who had found him wracked up in the rocks after a bad storm four years before and taken him in, nursed him to health, and asked no questions when he slipped out of her bed and down to the sea—and asked no questions when he came back, wrapping sea-damp arms around her, kissing away her tears with salt-streaked lips. Who ignored the tsking of the village women to bear his children, sell his daily catch of fish in the market: who had every reason to believe that she would grow old with him at her side.

The thought pained him, that he would disappoint her so. And yet …

Come home, the sea whispered to him, as it had for a week or more, now, until he could no longer resist. It is time to come home.

He had loved Sarah, their family, as well as he could, as much and as long as a mortal could be loved by one such as he. Sarah knew that. They had their season, and more. It was time, past time for him to go. That was how all stories such as theirs ended.

Come home.

He missed his colony, the sounds of his kin. And yet …

“I can’t.” He didn’t know who he was speaking to, what he was denying. His feet moved him deeper into the water, even as his heart tied him to the land.

His brave Sarah, crying.

His daughter was crying.

Come home.

The water always takes back its own.

He took another step, and stopped.

“Not this time. Tethys, forgive me, not this time.”

A stillness in the waves, the water chilling against his skin, urging him in.

“I … cannot. My home is here now.”

The stillness broke, the sea’s voice replaced by another. There is a price for what you ask ….

“Anything. For them … for them anything I will pay.”

The voice went on as though it had not heard him. There is a price … that all must pay. Forever.

The dream, the memory faded and disappeared, yet forever echoed in Beth’s ears, a sense of inexplicable loss settling in her soul, and a single salty tear escaped, unnoticed, from the corner of her eye as she stared out into the hypnotic flow of the ocean.

Dylan wanted to swear. Four days. Four days since he had given in to the itch, left the safety of his home and swum into human lands, the totally human world. This small village was close enough to his own home that he could adapt, but the bits and pieces he caught, in the ads and conversations around him, were overwhelming.

Still, the basics were always the same. Food, shelter and clothing came first. Dylan pushed his selections across the counter, and watched as the clerk totaled the cost of each into a sum. He had enough to cover it, but the fold of bills in his pocket was not as thick as it had been only a few days before. Still, he needed the new underwear and socks, as well as the two long-sleeved pullover shirts, and a pair of cotton pants the same faded green as the knapsack he had picked out to hold it all.

Army surplus, the clerk had said when he picked it up, and that triggered another set of memories in Dylan’s head. Men, and things exploding into the water. Men swimming, being pulled to land. Some of them going away, after, and some of them staying. His great-grandfather had been one of those men pulled to safety by his great-grandmother, according to family stories, Dylan remembered now. A human sailor: one of the ones who stayed. That was the source of the memories, then.

He welcomed the memories, and the information they brought; his people were seal-kin, after all, not seals. This confusing land was as much his legacy as the ocean and wind, for all that he had never explored it much before now.

He paid the final charge and shoved everything into the knapsack, adjusting the straps to fit comfortably over his shoulder. “Thanks,” he said to the clerk, who paused in shutting the register’s drawer to smile in return. “No problem. Have a good day, mister.”

Leaving the store, Dylan paused in front of another storefront window, drawn by something in the display. Bright sticks of color, each the size of one of his fingers, wrapped in paper and just begging to be picked up and drawn across a surface. Like the chalks he used at home, but softer, creamier. It was only a hobby, his drawing, but he missed it.

He mentally counted how much cash he had left from the anklet, after buying clothing and paying for the room, then looked at the chalks again. Not enough. Not if he didn’t find work soon. Dylan didn’t want to rely on Dr. Alden’s charity, but he didn’t know, anymore, how long finding Her would take, and … And he could almost feel the chalks under his fingers, could almost see the swaths of color they would leave behind.

It was stupid. He was here to find his mate, and then go home. That was what drove him. The sense of urgency moved within him, reminding him that he didn’t have forever. He had enough paints and brushes at home, and he would be back with them soon enough, once his mission was done.

And yet, suddenly he found himself inside the store, buying the sticks, and a pad of thick white paper, and a fat brush with soft bristles, to smooth the colors together in ways he could already envision in his mind. The thought made him smile.