‘No.’ It came out as a whisper. Gruff felt as though he was choking on his own heart. ‘No!’ A shout this time, and he was making the two jumps to the final rock at reckless speed.
Everything he knew said he mustn’t go in. Dad had taught him that since before he could walk: you don’t go into a dangerous sea, not even after someone else.
But Mat can’t swim. She’s got no chance.
Gruff stood on the sixth Sleeper, a place he had promised Nain he would never go. His legs trembled, desperate to take the final leap into the seventh stone’s gap of swirling water.
‘Mat!’
The wind shrieked and threw spray into his eyes. He rubbed them and spotted something in the water, far out to his right. Was it an arm or was it seaweed?
‘This is a really bad idea!’ he yelled. And he jumped.
Gruff thought he knew what to expect, but the water was a horrible shock. Cold waves closed over his head. Below the choppy surface the sea pushed and pulled with unseen hands. Gruff swam upward, using calm, even strokes like Dad had taught him.
The roar of the wind and water smashed through his ears as he broke the surface. He took a breath, cold waves slapping into his mouth and leaving fiery salt on his tongue. His muscles shook and his clothes were heavy. The Sleepers were already far to his left, the current carrying him swiftly away.
The cold, dark vastness of the sea and the jagged headland, bearing down on him like a huge, hard fist, threatened to scatter his thoughts. He forced his mind back to Mat and began to front-crawl with the current, as fast as he could, trying to catch up with her. Great shudders ran through him and after the first few strokes he could hardly lift his arms or kick his legs. He pushed on, his body heavier and heavier in the water. The swell leapt around him, white-capped.
Then the swell was above him. He struggled desperately for the surface and broke it long enough to see that the headland was rushing past, out of reach, and the Irish Sea was swallowing him whole.
Down he went.
No! he screamed in his head. I have to get to Mat.
He was up again, spluttering mouthfuls of brine. He managed another stroke, and another, and one more, his arms and legs crying out with agony and cold and shock. He knew, in a hollow, calm place deep inside, that he had made a terrible mistake. His last mistake.
When the current sucked him down the third time, he could not find the surface.
In a fog of panic and burning lungs, he snatched useless handfuls of water. The current held him close and carried him on and out and down.
He had to breathe. He had to take a breath, but the only oxygen here was wrapped tightly in water and he mustn’t, he mustn’t.
He had to.
Something grabbed the back of Gruff’s jumper, dragging him upwards. He lost the last of his air in the shock and choked painfully on a gasping breath of sea. Whatever had hold of him was so strong and fast that all his brain could imagine was that a seal had got him in its teeth.
He burst through the surface and took tiny hiccupping breaths around racking coughs that shook the brine from his lungs. He was still being dragged, this time along the surface of the water, out of the claws of the current. ‘No!’ he gasped. ‘Mat! I’ve got to get Mat!’
There was no way a seal could be pulling him this quickly. It must be a boat – a night fisherman who had seen him struggling. They had to go back, find Mat. Gruff twisted his head round to see who had him.
There was no boat. The person clutching his jumper was Mat.
She was swimming on her back in the water. At least, he supposed she must be swimming, to be dragging him along. But her legs were not splashing like they should have been and her free arm did not reach through the water in a back-stroke. In the one sideways glimpse Gruff managed to get, she hardly seemed to be moving at all.
Relief and confusion collided. Mat was safe.
Mat was safe.
Gruff relaxed into her grip, staring up at the sinking moon. The waves sped past him and he coughed and coughed, his throat raw.
Mat was swimming very well for someone who didn’t know how to. Gruff was fairly certain even an Olympic swimmer wouldn’t be able to pull someone else along at the speed of a powerboat without apparently moving their limbs. The whole thing was so weird he didn’t know how to feel.
Something scraped against his back and Gruff put his hand down to find hard, compacted sand beneath his fingers. The beach. Mat dragged him up away from the waterline and released his sodden jumper. Gruff rolled over and pushed himself onto his knees.
He looked at Mat, sitting cross-legged in the moonlight in soaking wet jeans and hoodie. She gazed back at him with eyes that were wide and dark and leaping with the swell she had just saved him from.
Relief turned suddenly to anger. ‘You said you couldn’t swim!’ His throat rasped painfully and his voice came out husky and quiet. But it was an accusation, and if he had had the energy he would have shouted it. ‘I jumped in because you said you couldn’t swim.’
‘I know you,’ Mat said.
He stared at her.
‘Don’t I?’ she added. Gruff saw something like panic beginning to stir in her face. His anger fled and he nodded.
‘Yes. I’m Gruff. Remember?’
She nodded, slowly. ‘You’re Gruff. I’m … Mat.’
He saw a huge shudder go through her and realised that he, too, was shaking. He somehow managed to struggle to his feet, in spite of his legs doing their best impression of badly-set jelly. He put his hand out to Mat. ‘We need to get home and tell everyone what’s happened. We’ll freeze if we stay here. And the tide’s still coming in.’
Water lapped at Mat’s foot but she didn’t seem to notice. She stared silently at Gruff’s hand. He tried not to let his unease show in his face. Why had she forgotten him? What would he do if she refused to come with him?
Mat reached up and wrapped her fingers round his.
Gruff had not thought this through. The water hitting his ribs dragged him straight back into the nightmare. He was drowning all over again. He yanked his hand away from Mat’s, gasping desperately for air. Mat sprawled backwards on the sand and Gruff instantly regretted his panic. She wasn’t herself right now. He needed to look after her.
‘I’m sorry!’ He stumbled over to her and offered his hand again, this time holding his breath in preparation.
Mat stared and stared at the hand held out to her. Then she pushed herself to her feet without accepting his help.
She turned her back on him and walked into the waves.
‘No!’ Gruff lunged towards her and grabbed the sodden sleeve of her hoodie. ‘Not that way. This way.’ He half dragged her up the beach. Mat pulled against him and for a while it was a tug-of-war, but once they were on the path she stopped resisting and he was able to lead her away.
Gruff did not relax his grip on Mat’s sleeve through the whole silent, staggering journey back to the farmhouse. He didn’t know what had happened to her after she had leapt for the seventh stone and the swell had closed over her head, but he knew that he dared not let her go.
He dared not let her go, because if he did the sea would claim her.