SARAH WAS CRYING. Small hitching sobs that caught in her throat.
‘What?’ Tim asked. ‘What?’ But he knew.
She pulled the sheets over to cover her, turned away from him.
‘Sarah. Talk to me.’ He stopped at the sound of footsteps in the hallway outside: Sylvie and Mike returning to their room. He waited for them to close their door. He lowered his voice to a whisper. ‘Tell me what’s wrong.’
She shook her head and he took the meaning to be, I can’t.
‘I thought . . .’ he began. But what he’d been about to say was going to be a lie so he stopped himself. He knew this wasn’t what she’d wanted. It was all him. Just him. Because it was going to make him a man. And the problem was, even though she was crying, he could still feel the heat of his want inside him.
‘Sarah . . .’ He tried to hold her, brushed his fingers across her belly. ‘Come on, Sarah. Please . . .’
She used the flat of her hand to push him away. ‘No.’
He got out of bed, pulled his boxers and jeans on and sat in the chair on the other side of the room to her – needing the distance.
Sarah had spent the early evening with Jenny, then at about ten had made a point of saying goodbye to everyone, even Uncle Doug. Tim had declared he’d walk her home, but had brought her to room two. They’d giggled and acted up at their daring deception, exaggeratedly hushing each other with lots of kisses. The worries of the last few days had slid way down in the back of his mind. The deceit and the delicious nerves it caused seemed to be the best way to forget, as well as a wonderful aphrodisiac.
They lay on the bed together. ‘Where do you want to be?’ he’d asked her. The room was bright and spotlessly clean, but it was anonymous – plain and dull. Yet the ordinariness helped Tim’s imagination. ‘We could be anywhere.’
‘I like it right here,’ Sarah said, her head on his shoulder.
‘But we’re in a hotel room, and it could be any hotel room in any place anywhere in the world.’
‘You choose. Wherever you want to go is where I want to go.’
He laughed. He tickled her, plucked at her bra strap through her T-shirt, tried to make her laugh with him. ‘There’s loads of places I want to go.’
She pulled his arms around her. ‘I like it right here,’ she repeated.
Which kind of annoyed him, but he didn’t want to spoil things.
After three-quarters of an hour or so he went to tell everyone he was back and going up to his bedroom. Nobody minded – all too busy talking about Uncle Doug’s book. When he returned to room two he found Sarah already under the sheets, nothing on except her black underwear. There’d been a lot more giggling going on; kissing, touching. But then . . .
And now . . .
He was getting cold sitting there half naked. The room was dark and Sarah was just a shape under the blankets.
‘Sarah, I’m sorry. I . . . Are you okay?’
He heard her sniff at her tears, and saw her silhouette move as she rubbed her wet cheeks on the pillow. ‘Why were you like that?’
‘I thought that’s what we were going to do.’
‘We said we were going to spend the night together. We were going to hold each other all night, you said, because it was something we’d never been able to do before.’
He stayed quiet. All he’d really wanted was sex. And part of him was surprised she hadn’t realized.
‘Do you love me?’
He’d known this was going to be one of her first questions.
She answered for him. ‘You don’t love me. You just want to have sex.’
‘Sarah, you wouldn’t believe how much I wanted tonight to be special. It’s been the only thing that’s kept me happy all weekend.’
‘That’s a bit shallow, don’t you think?’
He recoiled from the spite in her voice. He didn’t know what to think. She was crying again but he didn’t have a clue how to comfort her.
‘What have I done wrong?’ she wanted to know. ‘Have I done something to make you . . .?’ But the words got caught up in her tears and she had to bury her face in the pillow to quieten them.
‘It’s not you.’ It was half the truth. ‘It’s me.’ The whole truth would be that it was both of them.
He knew that loving her, loving her with all his heart, would be another tie that bound him to Mourn Home. Was it such a terrible thing for him to admit that he wanted to see the world? Was he a bad person for wanting to love other girls and women too?
He stared at her silhouette. He finally made the decision that had been nagging at the back of his mind for such a long time.
‘I’m going away.’
Sarah sniffed loudly. ‘What do you mean?’
He didn’t want to say ‘running away’ because it sounded childish somehow. ‘I just need to go somewhere else. I don’t want to be here any more.’
He heard the catch in her voice. ‘Is it me? Is it because I won’t—?’
He shook his head quickly. ‘No, no. Don’t think that. No. Please.’
‘What is it, then? Why do you—?’
‘I don’t want to be the Mourner.’
He’d expected her to be shocked, outraged, to jump up and down shouting, ‘You’re crazy! What are you talking about?’ But she was silent. He tried to see the expression on her face, but she was still turned away from him and the room was too dark.
He said, ‘I don’t want all this stuff that my Uncle Doug’s planning to happen and have the whole world laughing at me for believing in monsters. Because that’s the problem: I don’t believe in the Mourn.’
Silence.
He was shivering. He reached for his jumper on the floor and pulled it on.
‘You must have believed in it once,’ Sarah said at last.
‘I did. At least I think I did. Kind of like the way I believed in Father Christmas when I was a little kid. And I’ve been wishing I still did believe, but—’
‘So am I a little kid because I still believe in it?’
‘That’s not what I said.’
She rolled over so she could look at him, and he wondered how much of him she could see, because she was still just a silhouette to his eyes.
‘Why do you believe?’ he asked, knowing that this was the question he should have asked his father.
‘I just do. I always have.’
‘But why?’
‘Because my parents always have, I suppose. It’s just never been a question.’
‘Don’t you have a mind of your own?’ He’d meant it to be a joke, but had forgotten she wouldn’t see the slight smile on his face. ‘That came out wrong,’ he said quickly. But couldn’t help wondering if it had.
‘Of course I’ve got a mind of my own. I believe in it because it’s true. You’ve got to believe in it if it’s true.’
‘But I’ve never known if it is true.’
‘Why would people go on believing in it for all this time if it was all just a big lie?’ She sat up in the bed, with her knees up under her chin and the sheets pulled over them. ‘So what are you going to do instead of being the Mourner?’
‘Don’t know,’ he said. ‘That’s part of the problem, I guess. As long as I don’t have to be the Mourner I can be anything I want, can’t I?’ He just had to figure out what that was. Unlike most kids he hadn’t spent his life dreaming about being this, that or the other because he’d only ever been going to be one thing. Now the choice seemed overwhelming and complicated. But having that choice was what mattered, wasn’t it? The freedom of that choice. Anything I choose.
‘What about everybody else?’ Sarah asked.
‘I’m worried about my dad,’ he said. ‘I’m scared of hurting him. I’m scared he’ll never want to talk to me again.’
‘I don’t just mean your dad. I mean Moutonby – everybody. What will happen to us if you’re wrong?’
‘I don’t—’
‘You don’t believe in the Mourn, but you could be wrong, couldn’t you? What happens if the legend is true? What if the Mourn attacks us?’
Tim didn’t like this train of thought. ‘But it won’t.’
‘How do you know?’
‘Because it’s not true.’
‘How do you know? You’re just guessing, aren’t you? Same as us, I suppose. But if you were wrong, it’d be like you’re a murderer.’
This, Tim suddenly understood, was much how his father felt. And he sensed those ties that bound him to Mourn Home tighten. He couldn’t leave, could he? He couldn’t try to be anything else. If the Mourn was real, and it did kill, it would all be his fault for running away. Was this the responsibility his father had talked about?
‘I can’t do anything,’ he said. He stood up and paced the room. ‘I don’t know what to do, but I can’t do anything anyway.’
Sarah tried to shush him, still concerned with the night’s main deceit.
With a great effort he forced himself to sit down again. He tried to make a joke. ‘Maybe I could train it to only eat people like Roddy Morgan, or Gully and Scott.’
Sarah didn’t laugh.
He said, ‘I’ve been thinking how much it would piss those kinds of people off if the legend was true. At one point last night it made me wish it was true. I didn’t tell you what happened, did I?’ He told her about the previous night’s events out on the feeding pier and couldn’t stop himself from getting even more worked up and frustrated as he told her, as he remembered everything Roddy and the students had said. ‘Even I’ve got to admit that it would’ve been great to see the Mourn rise up out of the water and chomp a lump out of Gully.’
Sarah was thoughtful. ‘Why haven’t you ever tried to do something like that?’ She seemed embarrassed by Tim’s derisive snort. ‘What I mean is, you haven’t looked for it properly. In Loch Ness they have actual scientific studies; they use radar and sonar and things. But nobody’s ever tried to look for the Mourn. Not properly.’
He was going to tell her to forget it, but the words never came out. Because he suddenly realized she might be right. He was quiet, still, and Sarah had to ask if he was okay. But his mind was turning it over. Maybe this was exactly what he was meant to do. He wanted proof, didn’t he?
‘Okay,’ he said, standing up again. ‘Okay. Let’s do it.’
Sarah was confused. ‘What?’
‘Let’s go looking for it. We’ll get the boat and row out to the middle of the lake with some feed and try to make it come to us.’
Sarah sounded horrified by the idea. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘But that’s all we’ve got.’ The more he thought about it, the more it sounded like the only thing to do. It might be the only way he’d ever know for sure.
‘Tim, I—’
‘Come on, it’s your idea.’ He checked his watch. ‘It’s gone midnight now; everybody else will be in bed. And you’re right, I never have tried to look for it. I stand staring out my bedroom window expecting to see it pop up and wave at me, but I’ve never actually been out on the lake by myself, trying to make it come to me.’
‘You’re being silly.’
‘It’s your idea.’
‘It’s the middle of the night.’
‘So? The middle of the night’s when most monsters come out to play, isn’t it?’
Five minutes later Sarah was wet and shivering in Mourn Home’s garden. She poked her head in through the garage door, squinting in the dark for Tim. ‘It’s a really bad idea. The water looks really rough. And the rain’s getting really heavy.’
‘Really?’ He pulled a random carrier bag out of the freezer and looked inside. A couple of starlings and a blackbird. That’d do.
‘What if your dad comes?’ Sarah wanted to know.
Tim pushed past her, swung the garage door closed and fastened the padlock. ‘Let’s hope he doesn’t.’ He pocketed the key.
‘But . . .’
For the second cold night in a row Tim walked along the feeding pier out above the waters of Lake Mou. The wind tugged at him, threw waves at the thick wooden legs to splash and soak his trainers. He strode quickly all the way to the end. Maybe it was because his head felt so stuffed and confused, maybe because he needed to relieve the pressure, but he had a tightening knot of devil-may-care attitude inside. He was going to row out into the middle of the lake and try to summon the Mourn, not caring what happened if by some miracle or other it came. He really was. Because his head was too stuffed and confused to care how it could all turn out. Not tonight. Not now.
‘What do you want me to do?’ Sarah asked.
‘You can hold this.’ Tim gave her the carrier bag. He knelt down and untied the Bonnie Claire as it bobbed on the restless water.
Sarah held the bag outstretched from her body at the very end of her arm, wrist, hand, fingers. ‘I don’t want to go out on the lake,’ she said.
‘I might need you to help me row.’
‘I can’t row.’
‘So what about as a witness? If the Mourn comes I’ll need someone to pinch me and tell me I’m not dreaming.’ He couldn’t help it, he knew he was being particularly callous, but he felt like he needed someone to share in his frustration. ‘Scared?’ he asked.
Sarah looked away, then nodded. ‘Yes.’
The lake was trying to pull the Bonnie Claire out of his grip and he held tight to the painter; the rope was almost solid with icy water. He refused to say as much, but the strength of the wind and the waves was scaring him a little too, because he’d never rowed at night before, and certainly not in this kind of weather.
‘No one knows we’re here,’ Sarah said.
‘No way would my dad let me do this, so I’m not about to tell him.’
Sarah nodded. ‘That’s what I mean.’
Tim looked at her, nonplussed. He had to keep a pretty good grip on the painter to stop the waves from dragging the rowing boat away into the dark. ‘Just get in, will you?’
‘What do we do if anything happens? What if we fall in? No one will know.’
Now Tim understood. He looked out at the lake, and couldn’t see the hills or the woods on the other side. He couldn’t see a single colourful mast of a sailing dinghy docked at WetFun. He couldn’t even see the stars or the moon overhead because the cloud was so thick. For a brief moment his couldn’t-care-less attitude slipped, because this close to the water, in the dark, it was easy to believe the cold, black lake went on for ever. Not across, but down. Fall in, go under, and you go down a long, long way.
Sarah was quick to pick up on his second or two of second thought. ‘It’s a silly idea, Tim.’
He nodded. ‘I know.’ But it wasn’t going to stop him. He stared at the water chopping around the pier’s thick stilts. He yanked on the painter sharply and the boat’s wooden prow struck the edge of the pier. ‘It’s my lake. If you believe in the legend then the Mourner and the Hundredwaters are linked, so it would never do anything to harm me.’ He pulled hard on the rope again, as if the rowing boat was a disobedient dog.
Sarah was quiet.
‘I have to go.’ She still didn’t speak. ‘I’m going,’ he said.
He pulled the Bonnie Claire as close as he could. He stepped off the sturdy, solid pier into the little rocking boat, immediately sitting down on the middle thwart to try to calm its sway. He reached up for the carrier bag with the dead birds.
Sarah passed it to him reluctantly. ‘I can’t fetch your dad if anything happens. I’m not meant to be here.’
He pushed away from the pier and took up the oars. He rowed away.
He pulled hard on the oars, the waves seeming to fight against him. He heaved at them, digging them deep into the water. He was soon out of breath. He rowed without looking where he was going. The rain found a gap in his anorak collar and ran down the back of his neck, chilling the sweat that already slicked the length of his spine. He rowed far enough so that he lost sight of Sarah and the feeding pier in the darkness.
It was easy out here in the middle of the lake, in the cold, the dark, the rain, to feel slightly ridiculous. It would be easy to turn back and go to his warm bed, he knew that. But he wanted something to happen; he wanted to see the Mourn. Proof. He didn’t know how far out he was when he finally stopped rowing and pulled the oars back in, leaving himself to drift. He had the carrier bag with the dead birds, but that only made him feel more ridiculous. Like feeding bread to ducks; like feeding dead things to a monster. He simply emptied the bag over the side.
‘Come on,’ he whispered under his breath. ‘I want to see you.’
The wind was rough with him. He shivered through all his layers. The silence of the lake would have been complete if it hadn’t been for the slapping of the waves or the rattle of the rain on the surface of the water.
‘Come on.’ If he could only see it. ‘I can’t believe in you unless I see you.’
He wondered who else had been out here looking for it. Surely he couldn’t be the only Milmullen son ever to ask questions and go searching for some answers.
He let his mind drift back through the history he’d had drummed into him since he was small, back along the long line of Mourners. His father and his grandfather; Great-Grandfather Thomas, who’d built the feeding pier; Donald, the writer, and his older brother Henry, who’d died of TB before he could have any children of his own. Then John; Richard before him. James who’d insisted on swimming in the lake every day of his life, until he’d died at the ripe old age of seventy-four – on dry land. The first Thomas; Henry before him. Young William, and finally, at the very top of the tree, Old William back in 1699. Some of them might have very probably felt just like Tim did now, yet they’d all ended up as believers, they’d all continued the tradition. So why couldn’t he?
Had they all been brave men, sensible men? Or had they all been crazy?
How many of them had seen it? Did it matter if they hadn’t? Tim supposed possibly not – not back then anyway. In those days people seemed to live most of their lives by blind faith. But Tim knew he was a modern person, someone who lived in a world that relied on scientific evidence.
He peered into the darkness. But it was hard to see anything right now. The Bonnie Claire rode the lake uneasily.
It could be below him now, he thought. Emerging from its watery depths, rising up from its bottomless pit. Old William wrote in his diary that its eyes were ‘cold and ancient’; he said that it moved ‘as swiftly through the water as a hunting bird can fly’. Maybe it was sliding through the black water now, coming closer, wanting to appraise its new keeper.
Imagine the creature down there. Imagine it circling beneath the little boat. Would he be able to see it coming in the dark? Would he be able to see it rise out of the water? Imagine it swimming closer.
An unusually large wave buffeted the boat and it shuddered beneath him. He froze, held his breath.
Had the creature really come to him? He didn’t dare move. Was it there?
The rain was relentless; the wind threw it in his face, but he couldn’t move. He waited, tense, everything strained to listen, peering into the darkness.
Is it really out there?
He couldn’t see anything. All he could hear was the rain. He forced himself to keep still, breathing as shallowly as he could.
Another swelling wave.
The rowing boat lurched awkwardly to one side. His backside slipped on the damp thwart. His feet went from under him as he fell backwards, arms windmilling as he tried to grab hold of the sides. He smacked his back painfully against the wood and couldn’t stop himself from crying out. And for the first time that night he was scared.
He was suddenly very aware of his noisy heart; he could feel his blood pounding in his ears. He gripped the sides of the little boat as it shivered beneath him.
If he fell in . . . Would he be able to climb back into the boat if he fell in the lake? Or would the Mourn . . .? Would it attack him?
He couldn’t see anything in the dark. He didn’t move, stayed crouched low as the Bonnie Claire rocked. The waves buffeted him this way, then that.
The rain fell heavier, soaking him. The wind was getting stronger. That was all. Just the wind. Nothing else. A sudden wave threatened to spill him. He yelped, clung on.
No. It’s here, he insisted. The Mourn was below him, wanting to see him. Wanting him to see it.
He was on his feet, not caring about the way the boat pitched and swayed. He had to see it. He was searching the dark water for something just below the surface.
‘Where are you?’ he shouted into the rain. ‘I want to see you. Where are you? Make me believe in you!’ He couldn’t see well enough; the wind and rain fought against him. ‘Where are you?’
He turned round, twisting back and forth, peering, searching the darkness; no longer frightened of upsetting the boat, just desperate. He had to see it. The boat rocked treacherously beneath him, his trainers felt greasy on the damp wood, but he didn’t care. If it was there then why didn’t it show itself?
‘Come on!’
He snatched up an oar and beat at the water, smacking the wooden blade down harder and harder.
‘Where are you? Where are you?’
He tried to hurt the water with the oar – smacking it down, smacking it down. The wind tugged at his anorak, whipped his hair. He beat at the waves.
‘Where are you?’
Just the wind and the rain. Just the waves.
‘You’re dead!’ he shouted. ‘You’re a lie!’
There was no reply.
He slumped down, tipping the rowing boat dangerously. He no longer cared if he fell out.
‘You’re just a shitty lie!’
He felt hollow and exhausted. He was breathing hard, as if he’d just run a race – and lost.
‘Tim . . .’
He tried to ignore the voice calling him at first, wanting to pretend it was just a sound carried by the wind. He closed his eyes to block it out. There was a slice of stars above the horizon as a gap in the cloud moved slowly across the sky.
‘Tim,’ his father called. ‘Timothy.’
Reluctantly he picked up the oars, and using the dim starlight was able to point himself in the direction of the feeding pier. Sarah had obviously run to fetch Bill. Her nerves must have been too much for her. But Tim didn’t feel betrayed – at least, not by her. He rowed slowly, not feeling anything. He was empty inside. His arms ached with the effort of rowing and that took up all the concentration he had. The waves struggled against him all the way back.