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The aroma of freshly brewing coffee greeted Skye as she descended to the kitchen. Sunlight streamed through French doors onto the slate floor, reminding Skye a little of the empty room behind the Lauders’ café that was now her art studio.
Morgan collected her car keys. “Just came to say ‘good luck’ for today.” She pointed to a couple of promising-looking brown paper bags on the kitchen table, “There are muffins and quiche from Mum for your lunch. Play nice with the other kids,” she smirked.
“Stop gloating,” Skye complained. “Tell me again why you get to pass on school and I don’t?”
“Because I am exceptionally mature, with a career path clearly before me. And you need to graduate with a brilliant portfolio to get into art school. And everyone you love is here in Bannimor now. You cannot commute hundreds of miles to your old school every day. Better get used to it.”
Play-scowling, Skye cast up her eyes and Morgan practically chortled with smug satisfaction.
“Ahh, the first false flush of the young and independent,” Mike shook his head in mock disapproval. “How quickly they forget the joys of the schoolyard.”
“Joys!” Morgan scoffed. “But nice alliteration, Mike. Ten out of ten,” she teased the newly appointed English teacher. “Come see me after school, Skye,” she called as she headed out the front door.
“Give it three months and she’ll be wondering why she was so quick to jump into the workforce. Most adults spend their lives wishing they could turn back the clock.” He opened the paper bags and beamed. Rowena, Morgan’s mother and joint operator of café Bliss, had sent along more than enough for them both.
“Not Morgan. She knows what she wants. She’s a force of nature. Besides, this is great for you. You’re part owner of Bliss, right? Anything to do with food, two Lauders are twice as good as one,” she snagged a bag away from her young uncle’s too-possessive assessment.
“Hey, new memory about the café?” Mike looked excited.
Skye thought for a second, then shook her head. “No, I don’t think I forgot that.” She broke off a sweet, crumbly edge of peach muffin, her current favourite, then squeaked as Mike pretended to fight the box of cereal he’d grabbed, which descended between her and the bag of muffins.
“It was too strong for me,” he insisted. “Health wins out. Cereal?”
Skye laughed, but recognised he was taking his role as her temporary guardian seriously.
“Anyway,” he added, “no lost memory is just as good as old memories coming back,” he asserted, fooling neither of them. “And ‘good morning’, by the way?” He made it sound like a bunch of queries about her well-being. His eyebrows rose a little as he studied her eyes. Could he tell she’d been crying?
“Morning yourself,” she replied, turning away to get a mug and bowl from the hutch dresser.
“You all right, Skye? You got in pretty late last night.”
“Yep, lost track of time. Just needed some fresh air, that’s all.” She filled her mug from the coffeepot.
“Sea air?”
She looked up and saw concern in his eyes. And something more: just like with Morgan upstairs, she sensed unspoken knowledge. What was no one telling her? Was it connected with her inexplicable new longing for the Deep? She shivered. Last time she looked, she the mere thought of water closing over her head terrified her.
Mike resumed his seat at the wooden kitchen table, which was half-buried under books, papers and breakfast clutter. He shook out his morning newspaper, scanning articles and gulping down black coffee at the same time — the Deaths section, Skye noted as she crossed behind him to take her seat. Unease nudged her, but she shook it off, concentrating on shaking cereal into her bowl. Mike was the opposite of her ocean-related-death obsessed father.
Mike lowered the paper, “I’ll be leaving school early today, straight after my last class. There’s a swell coming in at South Beach. It’s too far to come home first. You okay catching a lift back with Ethan?” One thing hadn’t changed: high school teacher or not, Mike was still a surfer to the core.
“Sure, no problem. He’s already picking me up this morning.” She drowned her cereal flakes with milk from the jug on the table.
“Excellent. So, see you tonight, I guess. Spaghetti sound good?”
“Spaghetti sounds great,” she agreed. Mike was about as good a cook as she was. Their attempted meals so far were kind of a running joke.
He grinned back, clearly pleased to see the smile on her face. Guilt over the worry he must carry for her hit her. At twenty-three, becoming guardian to a teenager must be a burden. Especially a teenager with selective amnesia. She wished she could set his mind at ease, be the girl he used to know. But all she could do was try to hide the worst and hope for answers to the mystery of her missing days at sea, the summer she had lost from her memory, and her broken soul.
Mike became a hive of activity. Morning pleasantries dispatched, and Skye apparently having convinced him she was fine, he fired into his usual high-energy mode, shoving the newspaper aside, gathering books, bag, jacket and keys. In seconds he was thumping down the veranda steps, calling “see you at school” over his shoulder. She guessed his surfboard was already strapped to the roof of his wagon, wetsuit in the boot. He always had his priorities sorted.
She checked the clock, noting she didn’t need to rush. She hadn’t known the extra time teachers put in until she’d had to fill in an hour before her first class yesterday morning, her first day back at school. It had been bad enough starting after the semester had begun. Add to that arriving super-early mid-week, with a teacher, and then realising that the Sebastian’s reputation as ‘weird’ had preceded her, it was what she’d expected her first day to be: ghastly.
As for Mike, the only looks cast his way were admiring. With his deep blue eyes, curly brown hair and surfer vibe, Skye noted without surprise or resentment that he was making a positive impression. Maybe the students eyeing her with amusement or suspicion hadn’t put his ‘Sebastian’ together with hers. Or else his undeniable charm countered his association with her. Like Morgan, he was a force of nature.
Chasing flakes around her bowl, she tugged Mike’s newspaper closer. With a sense of misgiving, she scanned the Deaths notices. He’d circled one entry: a deeply mourned, missing at sea — read ‘drowned’ — swimmer. Was it just the natural concern of a surfer keeping tabs on the area? Or was Mike taking up her father’s mantel of interest in all things macabre and sea-lore related? And if he was...why?
She glanced at the stacked cartons of her dad’s research that Mike had insisted on bringing here. They’d made a trip back to her home together, to collect some of her things. It had surprised her when he’d carried the laden boxes out to the car. She’d assumed it had been in case her dad wanted them handy. But... Was Mike picking up where her dad left off? Her father’s ocean mythology obsession was undoubtedly connected with the mysterious death of Skye’s mother ten years ago. Why on earth would her uncle pick up the baton now?
Could there be a connection between her mother’s drowning, and Skye’s mysterious time at sea? What would her retuning memories reveal? She shivered, and tried to push the questions from her mind, suddenly eager to be out of the sunny room. The possibility of her home-life returning to an atmosphere of morbid paranoia made her feel claustrophobic. And something else pulled at her to move.
She gulped the last mouthful of her lukewarm coffee, and rinsed her dishes before loading them into the dishwasher, adding Mike’s mug and plate which he’d left on the table. Back upstairs, she freshened up, brushed her messy blond hair and tugged on jeans and a skinny T-shirt. Slinging her schoolbag over her shoulder, she thumped back down the worn wooden stairs, slipped into sneakers, set the lock and closed the front door behind her. Then letting the aching hollow behind her ribcage draw her, she descended the steep hill to the village, crossed Marine Parade, trotted down the stone steps and onto Bascath Beach.
The muted crash of the low surf was like a Siren song, setting her blood tingling, calling her closer. A light wind off the Bay caressed her as she tilted her face and closed her eyes, inhaling deep breaths of sea air like it was the elixir of life. A smile curved her lips, and she shucked off her sneakers and dug her toes into the powdery dry sand. Unable to resist, she let her bag fall and ran towards the glimmering water, onto firm damp sand, feeling like it wouldn’t work today if she wasn’t fast enough. But reaching the lacy foam, breathless, heart pattering, she halted long enough to roll up her cuffs and then splashed out, knee-deep, into the tide.
The relief was exquisite. The strange sense of being broken and incomplete that had bewildered her ever since she woke in a hospital bed two weeks ago didn’t stop. Not even close. But here in the water, its edges softened, its pain blunted, becoming just a fraction more tolerable. And the insane new urge to throw herself into the sea and swim forever became sharper. This was what drew her here each day, an addict seeking her fix.
Not the subtle sea-longing that had teased and tempted her, her entire life. This was more. An overwhelming need; the profound instinct that this ocean could ease her pain. Which made no sense at all.
Ever since her mother had disappeared at Ciarlan Cove, a fear of the sea closing over her head had crippled her. And now she wanted nothing more. So, what had changed? The last clear memory she had of trying to swim was with Morgan’s friends. She’d been too scared to even go in. Or had she gone in after all? Morgan’s friends, pushing and pulling at her in the waves, and then... Brain fuzz. Like mist had swallowed bits of her brain.
She recalled the mysterious angel of her dream dissolving into mist in her arms, and nausea stirred. Was he symbolic, representing her memories, dissolving as she tried to hold on to them? The way he held her close... A mere symbol wouldn’t make her feel that way. If only she could see his face.
She stared around, hoping that something about this beach would jog her memory, and noticed Lithus Rock further along the beach; the small island with the dark reputation. Drawn by its brooding shape, and the birds wheeling above it, she waded through the shallow wash until it rose opposite her. Yes, something about this felt familiar; important. But what?
She stepped deeper until the ruffling waves lapped at her rolled up jeans, realising that the gaping hollow inside was lessening. How could it be that this rock made her feel more complete? But the sense of becoming whole grew, even though neither she nor the jagged rocks of the island had moved, and she pressed her hands to her chest as little by little, beyond uncertainty or explanation, whatever was missing drew closer, filling in the void it had left.
Then beneath the lace-scribed surface of the teal-blue water in front of her, a shadow moved, the shape of a figure drawing closer, while its distance and the hollow in her soul shrank. Her heart hammered in disbelief as she watched a boy rise to stand before her in the shifting tide, water streaming off his long, half-clad body.
