| |
“Let me know if the music bothers you,” Mike said to Daniel, adjusting the volume of the car stereo. Did Daniel still like rock music? He wound the window down a little. They had left the clouds behind them, and sunshine poured into the station wagon. “Window okay down like this?”
“The music’s fine, Mike. The window’s fine. Don’t fuss.”
Mike glanced at his passenger. His big brother looked amazingly well this morning, considering the scene at Bliss yesterday. “How are you feeling? Everything...better between you and Skye?”
Daniel looked at him with eyes the same intense blue as Mike’s own, and it was like looking in a mirror of the future. Way in the future. Daniel had done the last ten years hard. Note to self, Mike thought, avoid heartache and obsession and save yourself some premature aging. His thoughts flicked briefly to Morgan, but he pushed them away. Five years was too much of an age gap, no matter how mature she was.
“We’re okay,” Daniel replied. “Skye’s amazing. She’s been through a lot, and done so well under it all. I would never hold anything like...what she said against her.”
“Do you know why she would say something like that? I mean – she said you...” he couldn’t say it.
“Yes. I do.”
Mike wanted to push for more, but the subject had been taboo for so long he just couldn’t do it. “So, today you seem a bit...lighter. Peaceful even. Like a bit of a weight has gone?”
Daniel’s eyebrows rose. “Yeah, now you mention it. I do feel kind of...released. Something I’ve been agonising about for a while – well, now I know.”
Mike swallowed. The only thing he could think of was Ellie being dead. Finally accepting that she was? What on earth else had Daniel been thinking? That she was still alive somewhere? Where? Mike frowned. The ocean. Seriously?
Daniel stretched stiffly and blew out a long breath, shaking his head. “It was a long night, a lot of soul-searching. Now, I guess it’s a new day.”
Maybe Skye had been right to play along, Mike wondered. Right to let him think that whatever he believed was out there in the Bay had not just taken Ellie, but that she was dead because of it. Because of them, whoever Daniel thought they were. And because of however Daniel had been involved in the matter. Mike was still horrified at Skye’s accusation, but with a night to sleep on it all, Daniel seemed like a changed man. Perhaps after all the years of creeping around the subject, the ugly blowout had been cathartic.
For a moment the expression on Skye’s face in that confrontation came back to Mike. She hadn’t looked like someone playing along. Hadn’t sounded like it either. She’d sounded like Daniel; like she believed it all too. He looked at his brother again. Daniel’s reaction to Hunter had been pretty intense. Was it just Hunter’s strange vibe? To be fair, his presence was...odd. His hands were so cold. Like water.
He shifted uncomfortably and leaned forward to turn the stereo up louder. He was not going down that fairy tale path. Bloody Bannimor.
About fifteen minutes out of town, Mike eased his foot off the accelerator as the intersection for the road to Sunnyhills neared.
Daniel put his hand on his arm. “Wait.”
Surprised, Mike pulled off at the side of the road and stopped, indicator blinking. “What’s up?”
“You mentioned you had to go on to work this morning?”
“Uh huh.”
“Skye’s just started school there, hasn’t she?”
“Yes, just did a couple of days this week, then into a normal week from Monday. Why?”
“I’d really like to see it. See where she’ll be spending her days. Especially her art classroom. That’s her favourite subject. If I come with you now, she gets spared the embarrassment of a full showing of me on parent-teacher day. It’s okay, I know what people say. I’m guessing you escape the worst of it, but I’d also bet she doesn’t. What do you say? Guided tour? I can read a book or something while you grade your papers. I won’t hold you up too much.”
“You know what?” Mike smiled, relaxing. “Yes. Absolutely, come see Skye’s school with me. I don’t know why I didn’t think of it myself.”
“Because you think I’m a nut job?” Daniel grinned. Mike began to laugh, pulling back out onto the road to Yeardley High.
The parking lot was almost empty when they reached the school. No doubt the few other cars belonged to teachers like him, catching up on the week’s work. He divided his stack of books with Daniel, grabbed his satchel, and together they headed inside. The front doors were unlocked although not propped open. Mike signed them both in, and headed up the first stair on the left to where he thought the art room was.
“We’re lost aren’t we,” Daniel observed wryly as they turned down yet another corridor they’d already searched. At that moment a classroom door opened. With relief, Mike hailed the teacher who emerged.
“Hello Ms Aaron! I am so glad to see you! I was about to give up. You’re one of the art teachers here, aren’t you?”
“Well, hello to you too,” she smiled. “Art teacher, yes! Please, call me Becca. Mike isn’t it? You’re Skye Sebastian’s uncle aren’t you?”
“Yes. You know Skye?”
“She’s in my class.”
“Oh, excellent. I couldn’t have planned this better. This is Daniel, my brother. Skye’s father. And you thought I was lost,” he joked in an aside to Daniel.
Becca laughed. “The classroom layout does take a bit of getting used to, all the corridors look identical. It’s lovely to meet you, Daniel. I’m so pleased to have Skye in my class,” She smiled from one brother to the other. “I’m expecting good things from her, she’s very talented.”
“Normally I’d say I bet you say that to all the Dads, but I happen to agree,” Daniel smiled. Mike’s eyebrows rose. That was practically charming. The transformation was remarkable.
“Would you like to see what she’s working on? She brought in a painting she’s been working on at home, and her workbook from her last school. We’re using that as a jumping off point.” Becca turned and led the way back into the classroom as she spoke.
The room smelled of lead pencils and acrylic paint, and a mix of old clay, newsprint and sunlight. It took Mike straight back to his student days. Art had been one of his favourite subjects too, although he’d spent most of the time talking to the girls in his class and sketching surfboard designs. Maybe that’s why he’d liked it?
Daniel pointed to an art board standing up on an easel at the side of the room, “That looks like her work.”
“It is,” Becca smiled, walking over to it. “We’ve got some good ideas moving forward, but this one connects to her project at her previous school.”
Daniel nodded, “It does.”
Skye’s art teacher looked kindly at him. “It was based on a story of your wife’s wasn’t it?” She picked up Skye’s workbook, flipping through the pages until she found photocopies glued to the white cartridge paper. She held it out towards them.
“A story that Ellie wrote?” Mike asked stepping closer. “I didn’t know that.”
“My wife used to write stories especially for Skye,” Daniel explained to the teacher. “This was her last story,” his face closed in with sadness. Mike took the book from him, and Daniel turned away to look out of the window for a moment.
Mike looked at Ellie’s familiar handwriting. Once there was a kingdom under the sea... No way. His heart beat a little faster as he read more of the scrawled lines. The last part of the story was in pen, written in Skye’s handwriting. And so the sea spirit let the mortal girl go, back to the sun and the air, putting a longing for the ocean into her heart to keep her close, and a token from the ocean into her hand so that if she ever wanted to, she could return to him there. No way. No. It couldn’t be anything other than a fairy story. He looked up to find Daniel watching him, his blue eyes liquid.
“It’s a lovely story,” Becca said. “About sacrificial love, isn’t it? Skye’s right, there is a strong similarity to the theme of The Little Mermaid. It’s funny how stories reinvent themselves isn’t it? Universal human themes of love and loss, wrapped up in enchantment.”
They moved closer to the easel, and Mike tried to make appropriate comments about Skye’s unfinished wash of what seemed to be an underwater scene, only partly attending. Most of his brain was trying to rationalise what he’d read. Just stories. Clearly Daniel wasn’t the only writer in the family.
Soon they thanked the art teacher, and she accompanied them back down to the foyer where they separated. From there Mike had no trouble finding his own classroom, while Daniel turned down the offer of use of the staffroom, returning to the car to read a paperback.
Mike skimmed through the papers, knowing he was short-changing his students with his poor attention. It was pointless trying to do this now. He needed to talk to Daniel, drop him back at the care facility, and then come back with a clear head. He tidied the papers ready for his return, and signed out of the building.
Daniel had dozed off in the hot vehicle. Years fell off him each time he smiled, and sleeping did the same. Mike felt a sharp pang of sorrow and affection for his brother. He was glad that the decade of looking backwards seemed to be drawing to an end for Daniel. Mike could only hope he wasn’t about to tumble down that particular rabbit hole himself.
The sound of his car door shutting roused Daniel from his sound sleep.
“Startled you,” Mike stated the obvious.
Daniel rubbed his face and straightened himself in his seat, automatically clipping in his seatbelt when Mike started the engine. “Get all your work done?”
“Made a start. I’ll drop you off and come back. Couldn’t concentrate.”
“Oh?”
“Too much on my mind. So.” He fixed Daniel with a look. “Was that deliberate? Is that why you wanted me to take you here?”
Daniel looked surprised. “You’ve lost me, Mike. What are you talking about?”
“Ellie’s story. Skye’s project. Me seeing it. Are we here for that?”
“Of course not. I didn’t know her old workbook was here, or that we’d be meeting her teacher. But so what? What are you so upset about?”
“I’m not upset,” he snapped.
“Great. Thanks for clearing that up,” Daniel said dryly.
Mike frowned in exasperation, then sighed heavily, easing the car out of the school gates and onto the road back out of town. “Okay. Sorry. It’s just – I have to tell you mate, that whole...Bay thing is doing a bit of a number on me.”
“‘Bay thing’?”
“What you and Skye were fighting about. Ellie, what happened to her. And what you think happened to her. Sea Spirits for Pete’s sake!”
“I know. It’s a lot to take in. I’m still not sure what the exact truth is. But I do know there is something or someone out there. I believe Ellie was with them. And yes,” his voice thickened with emotion, “I believe she died with them. I mean, now I believe it. Now that I’ve seen Skye’s...friend and now that – now that she confirmed it.” His voice choked to a halt, and he stared out of the car window. When he turned to look at Mike again, his eyes were clear. “I don’t expect you to believe it. I’ve spent more than a decade wavering between denial and wondering if I was deluded. If I’d known more, maybe Ellie would still be with me. Or if not with me, would still be alive.”
It was obvious to Mike that whatever crazy stuff Daniel was saying, even if it was insane, his brother believed it like a sane person. His spine prickled with creeping alarm.
