The sea had a face and it was looking at him. The sea had arms and they ended in webbed fingers, outstretched to envelope him in a deadly embrace.
Gruff had time for one true thought, and that was, Breathe.
So he did. He took a single, deep, precious breath of salty air before the wave arrived, carrying cold, scrabbling hands that tried to tear the hammer from his grasp even as the water pushed Gruff and Mat back and slammed them painfully against the sixth Sleeper.
Mat still had him gripped in one arm. That was all that stopped Gruff from flailing panic, all that stopped him from dropping the hammer to try and escape those fingers and find the surface again. He brought his feet up and pushed them against the chest of his attacker, invisible in the broiling, stinging water. Mat shifted her grip round Gruff’s middle and pulled him away from Dylan, away from the rock, away from the heaving sea.
They did not break the surface immediately. Gruff squeezed his eyes shut against the rush of cold water and sensed the strength in Mat’s body as she flicked and twisted through the current. He clung onto the hammer and imagined Dylan chasing them through the waves, slick as a seal, angry and strong. But they would reach land soon, and hopefully he couldn’t follow them there.
Surely they would reach land soon?
Gruff could hold his breath for forty-six seconds, he’d timed himself once. The tight uncertainty in his lungs now told him he had only about ten seconds left. He cracked his eyes open and saw flickering, brighter water above him, the surface maybe three feet away. He shifted in Mat’s grip and tried to reach for the air. Mat’s arm was a clamp round his middle, far stronger than he had expected. He tapped her on the back, but she made no sign she was aware of him.
‘Mat!’ he gargled through the water, wasting precious air. He tugged at her encircling arm. ‘Mat!’
To his eternal relief, she brought him up to the surface.
Gruff breathed deeply and made a failed attempt to wipe the water from his eyes. The air was cold and the waves choppy. He blinked and looked around, first seeing Mat’s head bobbing beside him, her eyes leaping wild – and then seeing the island.
It was a frighteningly long way away. He could see the whole of the east coast. He could see the two headlands and the beach between. He could see the small grey cluster of farm buildings to the left, and round the other side he could see the gash in the cliff that sheltered the lifeboat slipway.
Panic rose up his throat. ‘Why are we here? Why didn’t you take us to shore?’
Mat laughed and began to pull him down into the water again.
‘No!’ The word came out as a half-scream and Gruff wrenched himself out of her grip. ‘Mat! Are you there? Come back!’ The weight of the hammer dragged at him and he trod water desperately with his free hand. ‘Come back!’
The smile left Mat’s face. ‘Gruff.’
Gruff held his chin up out of the slapping water. ‘Yes. I’m Gruff. You’re Mat.’ He shivered violently, the cold heavy in his limbs. ‘Please remember!’
Mat’s face drew tight with fear. ‘Of course I’m Mat. Where are we?’
Relief made Gruff grin. ‘You swam us here.’
Mat shook her head. The sea had gone from her eyes. ‘No, I didn’t. I didn’t.’
‘You did. Dylan was there. You rescued us and swam us out to sea.’ A wave washed into Gruff’s mouth and he coughed and pushed his chin higher.
Mat turned to look for the island. She gasped.
‘Yup,’ Gruff said grimly.
‘I didn’t!’ Shrill panic rose in Mat’s voice.
Gruff struggled over and put a hand on her arm. ‘Let’s just swim back.’
She looked at him in terror. ‘I don’t know how.’
‘You swam out here.’
‘It wasn’t me!’
‘Come on, Mat. You can do this.’ Gruff forced a smile. Clutching the hammer to his chest, he turned onto his back. With his free hand holding tight to Mat’s elbow, he began to kick out for the island through the icy water. ‘Turn on your back … yeah, like that. And kick your legs. Okay, I’m going to let go of you, and you just need to bring your arms up and round your head, one after the other. Like a windmill. Okay?’
‘Okay,’ Mat muttered, staring straight up at the sky and not looking at him. ‘Okay.’
She swam hesitantly and with much splashing. Every few seconds her legs failed her and she sank underwater, coming back up spluttering and increasingly panicked. Gruff tried to keep her calm, talking all he could, telling her that she was doing brilliantly. It was only her mounting fear that kept his own at bay.
After two minutes, Gruff knew they weren’t going to make it. Even with the heavy hammer, he was doing better than Mat. He could drop it, abandon it to the sea, and try to support Mat all the way back to the island, but he knew he wasn’t strong enough for the journey. And at any moment they could be attacked by Dylan, returning in a wave to swamp them. That threat made his skin crawl worse than any thought of sharp-toothed seals, stinging jellyfish or massive whales below.
There was only one thing he could think of.
He turned his head to Mat, struggling beside him, and smiled brightly. ‘Mat. Remember when you swam us out here? And when you saved my life the other night?’
‘No.’
‘But it was you, wasn’t it?’ Gruff insisted. ‘You’re amazing. You swim like an eel. This is your place, isn’t it? The sea’s calling to you. It’s your home.’ He hated himself for encouraging Mat to not be herself. But they were going to sink, out here in the Irish Sea, and no one would even know what had happened. ‘You belong in the water.’
Mat turned to him. ‘Really?’ she asked, her voice suddenly strong. Waves leapt in her eyes.
Gruff forced himself to keep eye contact. She had to believe this, right now. ‘Yes.’
Mat grinned, her fear forgotten. She wrapped her arm tightly across Gruff’s back, supporting him, and began to move swiftly and effortlessly through the slapping waves. Gruff breathed in short, quick bursts to try and avoid getting a nose full of salt water. He hoped Mat wouldn’t suddenly take it into her head to dive or head away from the island again.
In less than a minute, the water calmed. Gruff twisted round and saw they were in the cove with the lifeboat slipway and the wooden jetty he and Mat had been on just an hour before. Mat swam them alongside the jetty and Gruff gripped the rough planks, swinging the hammer up and hoisting himself after it. Dry land. Relief filled his limbs with jelly.
Gruff reached his hand out to Mat, but she just smiled and shook her head. She flipped over and disappeared beneath the surface.
‘Come back!’ Gruff yelled. He saw her dark form slip through the water to the head of the cove and away. He stared after her, his mind numb. This was his fault. He’d persuaded her to go into her swimming dream-state.
What if she never came back?
The wind whipped the water from his cheeks, leaving them caked with salt. He strained his eyes across the waves. He should raise the alarm. They should send out a search party.
He was just about to turn and run for help when he saw something in the mouth of the cove. Mat surfaced, bobbing there like a seal. Gruff’s heart leapt. ‘Mat!’
She grinned and waved to him. ‘Come in, it’s fun!’
Relief was replaced by dread. ‘No,’ he said. He shuffled back from the edge. ‘I’m not coming in. You have to come out.’
‘Boring. I’m coming to get you!’ Mat ducked under and reappeared right next to the jetty, moving as fast as a flying swallow. She reached out one wetsuited arm and grabbed for his leg.
Gruff leapt backwards out of reach. ‘Stop it!’
‘Come on!’
It took all his restraint not to run away and leave her there. He thought quickly. ‘How about you come out, and we jump off the end of the jetty together? That’d be fun, right?’
Mat grinned. ‘Yes!’ She pulled herself up and out of the water. He backed away as she stumbled towards him. Her breathing sounded forced and strange.
‘Hi, Mat,’ Gruff said. He took another step backwards. He hadn’t thought this through. He’d just wanted her out of the water, but he could see that her eyes were still not her own. Within them was the swell of a pre-thunderstorm sea, water thick and heavy with danger.
Not knowing what else to do, Gruff pulled words out as fast as he could. He had to get Mat to remember herself. ‘You’re Matylda Kowalska and your mum is called Zosia and your step-dad is called John, and you’ve just moved here from Manchester and you’re going to be an oceanologist. And you told me how angelsharks are found round the Welsh coast and they’re protected because they’re critically endangered, and you told me that seal milk is fifty percent fat and that’s why baby seals grow so quickly. And you told me that plankton and other tiny things are just as important to protect as the big animals because of the ecosystem, and you know loads about the sea but really you’re a human and you live on land and you’re not Dylan and you swam out there –’ he waved his hand to the open water – ‘and woke up and you were scared because you didn’t remember doing it. You were scared because that wasn’t you.’
She stopped and Gruff stayed very still. He was ready to run away if he needed to, ready to call for help if she jumped back in. ‘Mat?’
Mat nodded slowly. Her knees buckled and she came down hard on the planks of the jetty, not bothering to stop her fall. Gruff jumped forward and caught her before her head hit the ground. She put her hands out and pushed against the rough planks, struggling upwards. ‘I’m okay,’ she whispered.
‘You’re back.’
‘I think so.’ Mat sat cross-legged. Gruff sat opposite her. They stared at one another in silence.
Mat coughed. ‘What happened?’
‘You went swimming.’
‘I can’t breathe properly.’ She reached up to her sodden ponytail and pulled the bobble out. Gruff gasped. She frowned at him. ‘What?’
He shuffled forward and put his hand out. ‘Mat…’ He lifted her hair out of the way. His voice sounded strange in his own ears. ‘Mat, you’ve got gills.’