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Morgan stood at the window of the café’s back room at Bliss, a tray in one hand, staring across the streetlamp-lit road to the dark sea. She saw herself, a transparent reflection against the black tide. Pretty much summed up how the sea and one particular occupant of said sea made her feel. She touched her thumb to the shell ring, still on her little finger and her heart beat a little faster. She should really give this back to Skye. Or toss it.
Turning determinedly away from the night scene, she looked around, automatically scanning tables for dishes to clear with a practised eye.
“Hey! Not working, remember?”
She grinned as Skye’s arm went around her. “It’s a dirty job, but someone’s got to do it,” she argued.
“Sure, but that someone isn’t you. Let Annie boss her crew around. She loves being in total control. Not you, not tonight, not at my birthday party. Not at my surprise birthday party thrown for me by...ah...you. Right? Party rules: hosts have to, you know, party.” Skye took the tray out of her hands and put it back on the table.
“Is that right?” Morgan smiled
“It is. I’ll go so far as to say that the rules also stipulate that hosts must dance with their guests.” Skye took her hand and Morgan let her lead her back into the main café, closed to the public, and seeming fuller than usual with a lot less people making the most of Side On’s energetic acoustic set.
Skye started to dance, looking so radiant that Morgan’s heart almost hurt with happiness for her. It had been a long time since she’d seen that smile, seen Skye’s eyes glow like this. No one deserved it more, even though they all sensed it was just a brief respite. Hunter would try to find out what happened to the Nemaro sooner or later, even though he had sensed they were safe. If the Nemaro were safe, it might mean that the village wasn’t.
Morgan tried to join in, but her own smile felt forced. And three definitely felt like a crowd. Hunter’s dance moves were minimal, but he still moved like he felt the rhythm in his blood, drawing admiring looks from others. He was so good-looking it was ridiculous, she grinned to herself.
When Skye was distracted, Morgan eased her way to the edge of the dancers and chose a cold drink from the café fridge, sipping it while she leaned against the counter, studying the crowd.
The truth was, she’d been hiding behind café tasks for a reason. This small, rowdy, music-filled party didn’t fit the same reality as yesterday; light-hearted and bright was just painfully discordant. The horror of Jarrod dissolving. Of Ethan, mesmerised and lost. Of Mike...dying. Knowing that her mum, and Daniel, and half the town had too. How was she ever going to make peace with any of that?
She put her drink down. This insight into what Skye must have been dealing with, keeping dark and deadly secrets, straddling two worlds that shouldn’t co-exist, was mind-bending. At least it looked like the dark part was over. Morgan’s eyes stung as she watched Skye laugh, twirled by Hunter. They were so right together. She looked away, unsettled by emotions she couldn’t define. But Skye looked like she had a few things to tell her. She was sharing Morgan’s room again tonight. Morgan would no doubt hear about it when they were alone tonight.
Morgan looked around at the people they’d gotten together at short notice. All of them friends, all good people. Ethan was there, dancing with Amber. Morgan had thought of asking Ethan to dance herself, but chickened out, feeling awkward. They’d never properly talked about them almost getting together. She’d never been able to work out exactly how she felt about him. And there was always Amber in the mix. Too hard.
Then she tensed. Was that the shell Jarrod had given him to protect him on the leather cord around his neck? Just then he looked across and caught her eye, and she felt a cold chill at the strangely sharp look in his eyes. His gaze went from her to where Skye and Hunter danced, and the expression on his face was disturbing. Amber said something to him and he looked down at her, grinning, looking like his old self. Morgan felt relieved. And she was being silly about the necklace. It was probably just one of his perpetual village shells. He went through them pretty regularly.
Turning away from them, she saw her mother nearby, watching the band. Rowena hadn’t stopped smiling all day. Skye’s father Daniel passed by with a serving dish, pausing behind Rowena to say something. Seeing her mum glow in response, Morgan smiled too, her heart full. It had been a long time coming. In fact, she couldn’t remember the last time she had seen her mother this kind of happy. Or Daniel for that matter.
There was a whole lot of happy going around tonight. It could have been so different. In so many ways. Tragic ways. It sent a jolt of fear through her every time she remembered. And no one else knew. No one but Skye and Hunter. For now, at least. Hopefully forever. She wondered if any of the people in this room, in the village, would ever be quite their usual selves again. And if not, would any of them ever know why?
The only one that seemed really unhappy was her. The thought startled her. She had no real reason to be. Maybe she was just tired? Or traumatised? Highly likely, both.
She jumped, then couldn’t help laughing as Mike pulled her close, twisting and twirling her like a fifties rock ‘n roller, his grin wide and an admiring gleam behind the cheeky expression.
“Your eighteenth was a few months ago wasn’t it?” he asked, after spinning her close to him. “Did I remember to send a card?”
Morgan laughed. “I think I got a postcard about surfing.”
He looked suitably sheepish. “Right. So was your party anything like this?”
“Not even close. Toasted marshmallows on the beach.”
“Nice,” he smiled.
“Skye probably would have liked that too, but some kind of a blow-out seemed important. Like a ‘we all survived’ party.” She stopped abruptly, but Mike didn’t challenge her statement; he just grinned.
She didn’t know what it was about him, but he never failed to make her feel better. When the high energy song eased into a slow ballad, she didn’t pull away, enjoying the feeling of his strong arms going around her, his rough cheek grazing hers a little as they moved into a slow dance.
Morgan shut her eyes, feeling safe, despite the electricity between them making her heart race. She needed this right now, even if it was just her imagining things. Mike’s arms pulled her fractionally closer, and she smiled.
“Rowena seems happy,” Mike observed quietly.
“Yeah, she does,” Morgan looked around for her mother, her voice soft. Daniel and Rowena danced slowly together, both looking serene, contented. Once again, an unexpected pang went through her. What was wrong with her?
“The café’s a success. I picked my allies right,” he smiled at her.
“Of course. Natural geniuses, we are.”
“I know you decided not to go back to school...”
She blinked at the unexpected statement. “Yep, no school for this girl.” For a second, she tried to picture him as her English teacher if she’d stayed at Yeardley High. Impossible. Nothing about this charming and cheeky surfer said ‘school’.
“So, you’re planning on staying in the village?” he asked.
“Honestly? I’ve thought of leaving recently.”
His gaze was sober. “Why?”
“Oh...” Jarrod filled her thoughts. Smiling and persuasive. Dissolving and broken. Still out there somewhere. “No reason. Just...thinking about a change.”
“Well, I hope you’ll stick around for a while. But if you ever did decide to leave, there are other places to be besides Bannimor. Culinary studies, who knows. The world is your oyster.”
She searched his eyes, wondering if he was trying to tell her something. He surprised her by smiling, a little wanly, and raised the hand that he was holding; the one with the shell ring still on her little finger.
“Not stepping on anyone’s toes, am I?” he played at looking around as if for a jealous boyfriend, but his eyes weren’t laughing. Of course: village boy, knows the tradition, Morgan thought, hoping her unflappable expression was in place.
“No, nothing like that. In fact, I’m not really sure why I’m still wearing it. It seemed to fit for a while but...not anymore.” She was pleased to hear the adamant tone in her voice, and so was he judging by his relieved look.
She smiled again. Mike was beginning to look like another reason for staying in Bannimor. And she got the feeling she might be giving him a reason to leave if she ever decided to. She felt million times better than she had even five minutes ago. And she felt good dancing with him. Really good. His smile made her feel light, like she hadn’t since...so long. And when he held her a little closer, he wasn’t the only one tightening his arms for the last of the slow dance.
When the song ended, they drew apart, joining the calls from all around of “speech, speech” from the birthday girl.
Seeing Skye looking like a deer in headlights, and Hunter utterly bewildered beside her, Mike chuckled, “Should I go rescue her?”
“Probably wise,” Morgan smiled. “I’ll get the cake.”
Annie was already entering the kitchen where they’d hidden the cake, and Morgan saw Rowena bustling across the café to help. She took a step towards them, but as the other guests closed in, blocking Skye, Hunter and Mike from her view, a different impulse took her.
Turning away, she left through the open glass doors, screened from anyone who might care, and walked swiftly across the road to the sea wall. The tide was in, a king tide, the fluorescent foam of the ruffling waves visible against the indigo water from where she stood. Her heartbeat raced, recalling the beauty and the heartache she’d found there. She didn’t want it any more. She didn’t. It was time.
She began to pull the shell off her finger then stopped, breathing hard as if she’d been running. Steeling herself again, she tugged off the ring, and drew her arm back to fling it. She couldn’t move, staring out across the Bay.
Apart from the glimmer of the high moon on the satin surface, the sea was a black void. Like eyes that had summoned her, offering her what she wanted. What she had wanted.
She squeezed the ring so hard it hurt her hand, bringing her back to the moment. Opening her palm, she studied the twist of shell. Under the street light the silver white shone like gold, the grey turned to mauve and ebony. She gently hefted its unnatural weight, staring at the innocent curves, the simple shape hiding an incredible gift: safe passage back to the sea.
Closing her hand around it, she slipped it into her pocket and turned away from the ocean, running back across the road to re-join the party.
***
Interested in what happens next for Hunter and Skye? Read the first 6 chapters of Immersed book 4 Forget Me now.
Prelude
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THE SEETHING WALL RACED closer. Darker; higher. There was no time left. Who knew death would sound so loud? She put her arms around the two people she loved most and defied the inevitable the only way she could.
1. Hunter. Together
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SOMEONE MUST HAVE TURNED Skye’s party music down. Guests’ boisterous, cheerful voices, pitched at a shout, pulled Hunter out of his floating bliss where for the duration of each dance, nothing in his world existed except Skye. Her slight frame pressed close against his chest, his arms around her.
Music swelling from those black boxes high on the café wall - ‘speakers’, though he had yet to hear them speak - had transported him. With Skye in his arms, he had quickly become oblivious even to the music.
He and Skye swayed to their own beat, like waves breathing in and out on the sand at low tide. He could feel her heartbeat against his. Or was it just his own, thudding at her closeness? She was part of him now. Bond-bound. He didn't think it would happen to him. No Nemaro had moved his heart, and his soul was long dead. Until this small, perfectly formed, world-altering girl fell into the channel and his heart.
Skye’s friends and family moved around them in the spacious café, some dancing, some drawing out chairs that scraped against the wooden floor. Music played, softer. The voices and laughter around him were a miracle after the scene of death here just a day ago. Well picked-over plates of food, laid out banquet-style, still emitted delicious smells. And through the open doors, the scent of the ocean tide teased him. After all the silent years of being nothing and barely existing, this, each thin breath of this dry air, even the pale colours of Skye’s world, because she was sharing it with him, meant so much it hurt.
He moved his mouth close to her ear, her hair silken under his cheek. “I love you so much, Skye; I want to hold you like this forever. I don’t want to miss a second of you.”
Her arms tightened around him, then she drew back, smiling. “Do you remember the first time you said that?” Her eyes were liquid. “You were waiting for me in the water. The sun was coming up. You looked like an angel coming out of a satin sea.” Her gaze, blue-green in the night-lit room, held his universe in their depths.
His chest didn’t feel big enough to contain his emotions. “Skye, you can’t know what it meant that you came to me that morning. You found me, again. And because you did... I can cross into your world. I can hold you and not let go - and not kill you with my touch.” To prove it, he cradled her face in his hands, and brushed his lips against hers, the heat from them no longer lethal.
“Steady on, you two. This is a family show,” Skye’s Uncle Mike nudged them, grinning.
Hunter drew back, disoriented, while Skye blushed. Mike’s phone rang, further dissipating the moment. “Better take this.” He moved away, and Skye snuggled back into Hunter, resuming their slow dance. Hunter tightened his arms around her again, marvelling at where he found himself.
Borrowed time.
The words came from nowhere. Or from somewhere deep inside him, scaring him.
Now the cheerful noise around them was jarring. He lifted his head, alert. Was there an edge to the laughter? A forced note in the happiness? Although his Nemaro abilities of ‘tasting’ human emotions didn’t work in the air, he sensed the unmistakable presence of dark attention, the kind that usually meant an enemy was close. He slowly surveyed the room. Faces he didn’t know; faces he did.
Morgan, standing apart from Skye’s young uncle, Mike, was busy with tidying an already-tidy stack of plates. Morgan and Mike were dancing closely earlier in the evening. Now Mike, finished with his call, looked perplexed as he watched Morgan avoid him.
Hunter looked at Skye’s father, Daniel, who turned from chatting with Rowena. His smile vanished as he saw Hunter with Skye, and his face tightened, eyes wary.
Rowena was watching Daniel, and her smile too fell away, an anxious frown replacing it.
Hunter looked into other faces, saw other fleeting traces of fear and puzzlement. Recognised the frightening uncertainty caused by the collision of his world with this. Did anyone remember it?
Then he caught the gaze of Ethan, his would-be competitor for Skye’s heart. As if trying to place him, Ethan stared at him with rapt focus. As if Hunter was a puzzle piece to fit by force if necessary. But when Ethan’s gaze shifted to Skye, Hunter instinctively swung Skye away, putting himself between her and the disturbing expression. His heart thumped. There was no reason to look at her like that. Like she was the enemy. Unless Ethan blamed her for what he couldn’t remember the day the Nemaro attacked. Or for something he did remember?
Disturbed by the sudden movement, Skye lifted her head and moved her arms from Hunter’s waist to link her hands behind his neck. Her lovely face glowed. He lowered his head to hear her words.
“I can’t believe we have this,” her breath was warm against his ear. “We went through a lot, to be here, safe, and with everyone we love. Now we’re free. Can you believe it?”
“No,” he whispered, trying to smile, to let her have this happiness; trying to soften his meaning. It was the truth. He didn’t believe it.
*
HUNTER ROSE FROM THE long sofa in the studio behind Café Bliss’ courtyard and stretched. He raised one arm, then another over his head, twisting his torso to release some of the tension from his back and shoulders. He wasn’t used to staying so still. Even drifting with the currents, he’d never really been immobile. Now as he stretched, his eyes found the painted canvases leaning against the wall opposite.
Skye’s paintings, mostly unfinished, faced out into the room; washes of colour and light inspired by her mother Elise’s fairy tale story, before Skye witnessed the light-filled shimmering Nemaro world herself. He wondered what paintings Skye would create now. His gaze rested on a canvas of two figures entwined, and a smile softened his tense face. Would there be more like that now? Or...
Would darkness fill them, depicting mesmerised enemies and a murderous auburn-haired fiend? Or perhaps a hoard of vengeful locals?
His tension wasn’t just from stillness. He had said goodnight to Skye’s birthday guests, and to Skye, hours ago, and came here to pretend to sleep. He’d spent most of those hours contemplating the dark undercurrents at the gathering.
Barely two days ago, all hell broke loose. Skye had rescued him, yet again, from what it meant to be Nemaro, and from being his clan’s Keeper. And, seemingly, in their selfless act of freeing the ancient souls stolen from Lithus and living dormant inside him as a life-source for his clan, he and Skye banished the darkness of that crime from his own soul. At least some of it.
But... The village must be reeling from the Nemaro attack they couldn’t remember. Who knew how many people collapsed when Thea stole their souls? Skye undid that cruel act, but when they woke from their fatal collapses, it was to find villagers once lost at sea wandering the town with no idea where they’d come from. How long would it take for them to remember his half-brother Jarrod had sent them ashore as weapons of abduction?
Whichever way he turned, whatever escape he clawed together for himself and for Skye, he turned full circle and faced his own wicked nature and the consequences of being Nemaro.
Hunter stared down at his hands, whose fingers had traced Skye’s beloved face. And closed with brutal intent around her fragile neck and squeezed, trying to kill her when he was under Thea’s spell.
Was his susceptibility to Thea’s evil manipulation because of her power or because of his lingering Nemaro stain? He wanted nothing more than to escape himself. How could he expect Skye to share her life with someone whose clan had nearly killed her and everyone she loved? So much irrevocably joined him to Skye, in so many ways. Yet her father’s disapproval, and more, still stood between them.
He looked down the narrow lane across Marine Parade to the Bay. As ever, to his Nemaro eyes the darkness was thin shadow.
Beyond the stone wall, the glimpse of the pewter sea sent a thousand, a hundred thousand memories spilling through his head in waves. Now Skye’s presence wove through the ripples in his mind, softening the misery of the countless trapped years. But he was still Nemaro. Was murderous darkness always going to be part of him? Would he ever be really free? He suspected that whatever he did, whatever penance he made, it would never be enough to escape what the Seers, Thea, and his clan had done.
He’d given the departing stolen lives a choice - stay with the Nemaro, or depart into Peace. Innumerable souls then passed along his life-giving connection to his clan, and Hunter felt each one of his people before their connection broke.
He sensed danger brooding, drawing nearer. From his clan? Or because of them? Did they yet live? Did the stolen souls? Once more, he needed to at least try to sense them; try to learn something about their current location. But he must be cautious. Given recent events, the village might watch the sea. The river mouth could be the best way to approach the Bay.
He let himself out into the narrow lane that ran beside the café to Marine Parade. When he reached the footpath, he turned right towards the tidal river and broke into a jog, running through the grey night.
2. Skye. Pursued
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SKYE STARED AT THE shadowy ceiling of Morgan’s bedroom above the café. The night was quiet after the party, and comfortingly familiar. She could hear Morgan’s soft breathing across the room and the faint rush of waves on the beach beyond the seawall. If she strained hard enough, she might hear the hum of café fridges downstairs. When Morgan had suggested she stay over, she’d jumped at the chance, reclaiming her divan bed from her summer here.
When she closed her eyes, her ‘surprise’ birthday party played like a movie, and her head still rang with the high decibel voices and laughter of her favourite people, dancing to her favourite music. It was like coming ashore after being on a boat: her body was still, but her brain hadn’t caught up.
She could still feel Hunter’s arms around her, his head lowered so his cheek touched hers as they slow-danced to their own tempo regardless of the beats filling the air. Her thumb traced the twisting curve of the shell ring Hunter had placed on her finger when they made promises to each other in the Nemaro way. Bond-bound. Had she really seen golden lights spiralling around them when their vows took hold? She had sure felt them inside.
It could sound like a terrible word. Bound. But they were bound to each other. By love. By giving everything they had to save each other, they left a part of their soul inside the other.
Staring at the dim ceiling, she realised that this room, this separation from him, and even her bedroom at home, belonged to her past. Was there any way she could get her father’s blessing to live the life she’d chosen at Hunter’s side?
She held Hunter’s face in her mind, letting the expression in his eyes flood her like a tropical tide. When she pictured his smile that seemed to come from the depths of him, her stomach filled with an entire school of dolphins leaping through waves. Joined. Completed. And opening out before them, a new, unknown life together.
Tomorrow was a teacher-only day. A full day with Hunter, and with Morgan too. Dad and Mike were coming over. And no doubt Rowena would offer them delicious food all day, and bottomless coffee. Hunter, in her world, with her friends and family. She’d never thought this was possible; it was more than she’d hoped for.
A feeling close to perfect happiness washed over her, and she smiled, luxuriating in the unfamiliar emotion. Maybe she was disproving her theory that happy ever after didn’t exist? This felt pretty damn good. Especially considering... Her smile faded.
Especially considering: that Hunter’s clan, the Nemaro, had brought their human court to the water’s edge all along the beach and sent them ashore, to take more humans from the village back with them. With the mesmerising persuasion of the Nemaro drawing on each person’s desires and fears, it was the perfect abduction technique; all would have gone willingly into the sea.
But they’d failed, and some of the human court had stayed ashore, making their way into the village. What must that have looked like? How was the village handling it? How were the people from Jarrod’s human court who had remained here handling it?
Skye tried to picture her mother walking out of the sea and coming home. How would Skye have felt? Would the return of these people, most presumed drowned, be welcome? How could it not shatter some lives? And...it must raise questions that might lead to dangerous answers.
Only two days ago, that insane day...
There were a lot of things about that day she couldn’t process. Like that murderous Nemaro psycho Thea, obsessed with Hunter, but with a grudge against her own people so fierce she tried to kill them all. Not forgetting she also tried to steal the souls out of the village while she was at it. Skye’s stomach churned. Oh, yeah, and she had also tried to use Hunter to strangle Skye to death. That was a fun day.
Her strongest instinct was to block it out to stop herself from going insane. She knew Morgan felt the same way. Skye’s dad had seemed like he was getting better, but she’d caught a disturbing expression on his face when he was looking at Hunter at the party earlier. Even Ethan was acting...weird.
She’d caught him just as he was leaving the party with Amber. In her happiness, she was feeling love for everyone, even Amber. Amber had looked at her with distrust. And Ethan looked at her like she was obscene.
It had shaken her. She considered him a friend, even a protector, but something had changed. Was it possible he remembered something about what had happened and blamed her for it? Dread added to the weight in her gut. What if he remembered? What if other people remembered too?
And Liam, son of the richest, most controlling man in the village, was missing. By choice, but his dad didn’t know that. If Liam was even still alive...
And this could all get worse. Much worse.
Let it be over, she willed.
It was over. Let it stay over. Please, let this be her life from now on: everyone she loved, okay. Hunter was free of his prison and with her in her world. The Nemaro had gone back into the sea, Forgotten and unseen. Hunter had set the stolen souls free, to stay with the Nemaro, or to depart. It was enough, wasn’t it?
If it could end here. If the village could ignore the tiny matter of most of them collapsing when Thea stole their souls. And overlook the slight issue of people they thought had drowned, walking back out of the sea and into village life.
Too hard. Way too hard. “Please,” she whispered aloud, “Let everyone be okay. Let this all be over now.”
*
SKYE MUST HAVE FALLEN asleep, because she knew something had startled her awake. A noise that didn’t fit. She turned her head on the pillow. The window blind was open. The dark wasn’t completely dark to her anyway, in the strange way her vision seemed to have changed, and the faint glow of street light made it easy to see Morgan moving from the window across the wooden floorboards to the door.
At Skye’s movement, Morgan looked in her direction and breathed, “Shhh”.
And then Skye heard it. A voice downstairs in the café; an unknown male voice. A drunken voice? Heart pounding, Skye pushed her blankets aside and joined Morgan at the bedroom door.
“What’s happening?” Skye whispered close to Morgan’s ear. “Who is it?”
“Don’t know. Can’t call the cops. No signal.” Morgan opened the door a crack to listen. There was a sound of furniture moving downstairs and a chair hitting the floor.
“Where is he?” It sounded like a young man. “I know he’s here.” He sounded frightened. Or desperate.
A faint sound opposite them on the landing made Skye jump. It was Rowena, Morgan’s mother, easing her door open too. She had pulled a sweater over her sleepwear, ready for action.
When Rowena saw them, she shook her head at them, holding up a hand in the signal of ‘stop’. Something smashed in the café, and they froze, listening. More furniture hit the floor, perhaps a table and the upturned chairs on it. They had tidied up a little after the party before Rowena sent them to bed. Was he stumbling around in the dark, or throwing furniture? Skye’s heart thudded as unsteady footsteps drew nearer, and a dark silhouette appeared at the foot of the stairs.
Rowena looked from the figure below to Morgan and Skye. Skye recognised in her face a mother’s fear of what might happen if he came any further. Rowena’s expression became fierce, and she stepped out of her room and descended partway down the stairs. “What do you want?” she demanded.
“Where is he? I need to see him.”
“Where is who? You need to leave right now.”
“I know he’s here. I need to see him,” the voice rose, and the man climbed towards them. Skye caught the glint of something in his hand.
“There is no one here except us. Get out of here right now. The police are already on their way.”
“I need to see him!” The young man’s voice rose to a scream, “I need to see him.”
“I’m here.” Hunter’s quiet voice fell like an anchor in the storm.
The young man spun towards Hunter, who stood at the bottom of the stairs. For an instant, Hunter looked past the intruder and met Skye’s gaze, and her fear subsided.
“Is it you?”
Hunter looked at the young man. “Yes.”
“I can’t see you.”
Hunter reached to the light switch at the foot of the stairs and flipped on the light. Although Skye couldn’t see the stranger’s face, she thought he looked young. He was dripping wet and rocking. In his left hand, he held a knife, perhaps taken from the kitchen. He had shielded his eyes from the sudden glare, but lowered his arm to stare at Hunter, and took a step down the stairs towards him. “Yes. I’ve seen you there.”
Skye’s stomach roiled. This wasn’t a Nemaro - he would have dissolved. That meant this was one of Jarrod’s human court from Lithus; one who didn’t go back to the sea when their attack failed.
Hunter moved away from the stairs to draw the young man after him. “What do you want?”
“To go back. I need to go back there. Help me go back.”
“Go back?” Hunter moved further back into the café. The intruder followed him. Rowena looked back warningly at the two girls, then descended. When she reached the café, she moved cautiously towards the kitchen.
“How about some hot chocolate to warm you up?” Skye heard her offer in a calm tone. Morgan and Skye looked at each other, then crept down the stairs and stood just inside the edge of the café. No way were they leaving Rowena and Hunter alone.
They saw Hunter face the intruder, a few metres apart near the centre of the café. Now Skye could see he was around her age, thin, with wide, staring eyes, and short-cropped dark hair. Something about him reminded her of Harvey. Perhaps the hair, or the nervous energy of someone needing a particular fix. A Nemaro fix. Thea had shown an unhealthy interest in Harvey. As if Skye’s thoughts had transmitted to him, he spoke.
“She said you would be here.”
“Who said I would be here?”
The boy didn’t answer. His gaze seemed drawn to the mural Skye had painted out of her own obsession with Hunter and his ocean world. Azure waves rolled across the wall, swimming figures only just visible in them, two of them entwined, moving together through the teal waters that represented Bascath Bay across the road. He stared at it. When he spoke, he sounded stoned. “I had forgotten her, but when I saw her at Ciarlan Cove, I remembered. She helped me to remember more.”
He can’t mean... Skye felt hands closing around her throat again. She opened her mouth to draw in the suddenly scarce air.
He looked at Hunter again, urgency returning to his voice. “But she can’t help me return. She said you can.”
“I can’t,” Hunter said. “This is where you belong, and where I belong. Don’t you want to stay? In the air? In the sunlight?”
“I want to be happy,” his aching loss was apparent in his voice. “I don’t belong here.” He circled away from Hunter, moving nearer to the stairs. “I made a mistake. I can't stay here. Too heavy. Sinking into the earth with every step, like lead. And the colour... there is no colour. No meaning.” He gave a hiccupping sob that wrenched at Skye’s heart. “I didn’t mean to go into the village. Help me go back.” He pointed to the ocean and Skye heard Rowena gasp. “I have to go back.”
“Hot chocolate?” Rowena called, her voice wobbling despite her brave attempt to sound calm.
He jumped, looking around as if disoriented, then focused on Hunter again. “I tried on my own, but it didn’t work. I need to go back,” he whispered. “Will you help me?”
“I can’t. I’m sorry,” Hunter repeated quietly. “What is your name?”
He raised the knife a little and swallowed. “Connor.”
“I have a hot drink here for you, Connor.” Rowena’s voice broke. “It will make you feel better.” She left the café counter and approached, holding a cup.
Connor ignored her, taking another step nearer the stairs. “But she said you could help me go back. She said only you can.”
“No. I told you. I’m sorry. To do that, I would have to stay there with you. My life is here.” Involuntarily, he looked at Skye. Rowena’s gaze sharpened, looking from one to the other. “Your life can be too,” Hunter said.
Connor turned his head and looked at Skye. The light in his eyes became eerily focused. The atmosphere in the room shifted. Skye’s insides plummeted.
“She said you would say that,” Connor whispered. “She told me that the reason I’m trapped here....” he pointed the knife at Skye, “is her.” His hand wasn’t shaking anymore. “We are all trapped here because of that one.”
He looked at Hunter again. “She said if you didn't help me, I could make you.” Before anyone could move, faster than Skye could react, the boy rushed to her, seized her hair at the back of her head, and pulled her head back. She felt a sharp line sting her neck, and a trail of liquid trickled down her skin. “If there is nothing here for you, you’ll have no reason to stay.”
3. Skye. The Returned
Nobody moved. The cutting edge pressed to her throat trembled in the hand that held it, making the pain worse. Skye was hyper-aware of everything: the smell of the sea emanating from Connor’s dripping clothes; his painful grip on her hair; Morgan staring, horrified.
Skye couldn’t turn her head to look at Hunter or Rowena, but she could feel them; their focus on her and Connor - their fear.
“You are right.” Hunter’s husky voice was low. He moved slowly into Skye’s line of sight. “Without Skye, I have nothing to stay here for. But without her, I would have nothing anywhere.” He stepped closer. “Harming Skye will open a new world of pain for you, I promise you that.”
Perhaps Connor heard the lethal menace Skye heard. The press of the knife lifted, and the hand entangled in her hair loosened enough for her to spin away from him, his handhold still causing an agonising ripping against her scalp as she broke free. She felt Morgan’s arms go around her, pulling her further away from Connor. The boy now stood alone.
They all stared at him. He was pitiful, shaking, his face full of confusion and loss. Hunter looked at Skye and raised his eyebrows a little. Skye knew what he was asking, and although it sickened her, she gave a slight nod.
Hunter looked at the boy again. “I will help you.”
“You - you will?”
“Connor...” Hunter whispered, his voice laden with summons as potent as an ocean current. Connor jerked and his eyelids half closed, a dreamy happiness diffusing his face. Skye felt the pull of the invitation inside as if her veins were golden threads twisted through Hunters’ hands. Each thread contained a promise of joy, freedom and euphoria deep as an ocean. She longed to plunge in, but knew she had to fight it. She tore her thoughts free, forcing her emotions down with logic, and glanced at Morgan. The same half-drugged expression was on her face, and on Rowena’s. Skye remembered Hunter’s words to her when he had saved her from her two would-be attackers, sending them away with his Mesmer.
She elbowed Morgan, who started, and glared at her. Skye whispered, “This isn’t for us. It’s like Jarrod. Okay?” She raised her hands to block her ears, gesturing to Morgan to do the same. Morgan looked sick, but nodded, and edged around Hunter, crossing slowly and steadily to Rowena. She had to shake her mother’s arm to get her attention, then whispered in her ear. Rowena blinked, frowning, but seeing Skye with her ears already blocked, complied.
Through Skye’s pressing fingers, Hunter’s voice became an indistinguishable caress, a murmur tingling through her entire being. It took everything she had to keep her fingers in her ears.
All three watched Connor’s face fill with ecstatic delight, then grow slack. His arms fell to his side, the knife from his hand. Through her muffled hearing, Skye heard the dull clatter of steel hitting the floor. Connor didn’t react to the sound of his fallen weapon. Instead, his face blank, he moved to the door like a sleepwalker. Hunter went with him, unlocking the heavy double glass-panelled doors and holding one open. Connor passed through. Hunter locked it behind him, and they watched him walk slowly away under the streetlights, towards the village. Skye shuddered, remembering the last two people Hunter had prevented from harming her and sent away. She’d mistaken the corpse of one for Hunter’s.
“What on earth was that?”
Skye dropped her hands from her ears and looked at Rowena’s white face.
“What did you do to him?” Rowena said. She looked at Hunter, horrified. “What did he want from you?”
Morgan sprinted for the stairs. Seconds later, they heard the impact of the bathroom door hitting the claw-foot bathtub in the bathroom upstairs, followed by the sound of Morgan vomiting.
4. Skye. Challenged
––––––––
SKYE COULD HEAR MORGAN in the kitchen. The familiar clatter was comforting. Now that the danger had passed, her own shock was setting in. She was sitting on one of the café tables to give Hunter better access to her neck wound, keeping a tight grip on her knees to steady her trembling.
“Is Morgan really okay?” Morgan’s expression had been one of disgust when she came back downstairs. Rowena no doubt assumed it was from throwing up, but Skye knew better. One glance at Hunter’s face told her he hadn’t missed Morgan’s response, either. Hunter’s use of Mesmer no doubt brought back disturbing memories of her brush with Hunter’s half-brother Jarrod. And their Mesmer seemed to cause nausea.
“Keep your head back.” Hunter dabbed the cut on her neck gently one last time. As terrifying as the attack was, Rowena and Hunter both reassured her it was a superficial scratch. He had insisted on tending to the injury himself, but Rowena was hovering practically inches away, lips compressed, supervising with all the focus of a terrified parent. She darted glances at Hunter as often as at Skye’s neck.
“Yes. She’s fine,” Rowena said. “It was shock. And she always feels better making something, even if it’s just hot chocolate. I think we’ll all feel better with something hot and sweet to drink.” She was attempting to sound normal, but didn’t quite succeed.
Oh. Complicated. Hunter’s world was getting too close. How would Rowena respond? Skye closed her eyes, grateful for the excuse of first aid. Hunter took a wide strip of gauze from Rowena and held it in place over the mark left by Connor’s knife, while Rowena fastened the gauze with tape. As Rowena closed up the café’s first aid kit, Skye was relieved to be out from under her scrutiny.
“Finished?” Skye straightened her head and looked at Hunter. “I’m really beat, completely drained. Maybe we should all just turn in?” Coward, she told herself. She had never seen the wary look in Rowena’s eyes this marked before. Could they come up with plausible excuses?
“Wait, wait,” Morgan called, coming around the counter with a tray bearing four mugs. “I’ve got your hot chocolate. Take it up with you. It will help with the shock.”
“Actually,” Rowena said tightly. “I think we need to chat quickly, while it’s fresh.” She glanced across the bright, empty café towards the dark street. “We should talk in the back room.”
Skye noticed their reflections in the enormous windows, stark against the black night. It was impossible to see anything beyond the glass. Others could be watching them, desperate for something Hunter couldn’t, or wouldn’t, give them. She shivered violently. If talking about this right now was unavoidable... “Good idea.”
Led by Rowena, they filed solemnly down the hallway to the back room.
It was actually the middle room between the café and Rowena’s office, a lounge for Bliss patrons. Morgan set the tray on one of the coffee tables, Hunter drew the blind down over the single sash window, and Rowena and Skye moved a few of the mismatched armchairs closer together. Hunter stopped her from pushing another armchair in, and instead pushed a small sofa in place in the circle they were creating, and drew her into it beside him, his arm around her.
Having him close against her side was a balm to her fear, and despite her agitation over Rowena’s tight expression, Skye’s rigid limbs eased. Perfect timing, to avoid spilling the mug of hot chocolate Morgan put into her hands. The sweet, hot liquid was difficult to access around all the marshmallows Morgan had added.
“Has anyone called the police?” Skye asked, hoping the answer was ‘no’. She didn't want official questions tonight. Tonight had nothing to do with the law, and everything to do with Hunter’s Nemaro clan. He looked a little confused, and Skye realised ‘police’ could be something he didn’t know. Yet.
“Should we call...?” Morgan said, picking up a mug for herself but remaining standing. Rowena stood tense beside her. There was an odd silence as they all surveyed one another. It was obvious the Lauders didn’t feel it was a ‘police’ situation either.
“He was one of the people everyone thought had drowned, wasn’t he?” Rowena asked. “One of those who turned up again in that storm. ‘The returned’, that’s what everyone in the village is calling them. ‘The returned’.” She picked up a mug but didn’t drink. “Is he one of them?” Her fingers gripped it so tightly they whitened.
“Yes,” Hunter said.
“Didn’t you recognise him, Mum?” Morgan said. She sounded her usual self - almost. “He applied for a job at Jump, but ended up working at the Towers. Before we worked there, he went missing.”
“Is that why he came here?” Rowena looked around at them. “No. It wasn’t, was it?”
“How did he get into the café?” Skye asked.
“That was my fault,” Hunter said. “He entered through the studio and into the courtyard after I left. He smashed a glass pane in the courtyard door into the café hallway.”
“It was the smashing glass that woke me,” Morgan said.
“When I came in, I heard him calling out.” Hunter said.
“But what was it about?” Rowena asked. “Was it you he was looking for?” She looked frightened. “Or...was it...drugs? Was he looking for a supplier?” She sounded almost hopeful.
“I don’t think it was drugs,” Skye said carefully. “But how could someone who’s been...gone know about... Um,” she glanced quickly at Rowena. “Why did he come here?”
“Good question,” Hunter said quietly, and Skye remembered Connor’s talk of ‘she’. Her stomach clenched with fear. If he meant who Skye thought he did... But Thea was Nemaro, trapped in the sea. It was impossible for her to know anything about where Hunter lived.
“And in there,” Morgan said abruptly, her voice sharp. She looked hard at Hunter and nodded towards the café. “I guess you had no choice?” Distaste was clear on her face. Hunter’s jaw clenched, and he looked away from her.
Rowena frowned, looking between them both. “Do you mean when Hunter...talked? What was that?”
No one spoke. Rowena looked even more disturbed. She bent forward and put her untouched mug down, then folded her arms tightly across her stomach. “When he said he wanted to return, he pointed at the Bay. Why would he think you could help him? What did you mean about having to stay there with him? Where exactly is ‘there’?”
“I had friends I’ve lost touch with. Connor had been with them. He wanted to return to them.”
“Friends. The same friends Morgan went to visit? The ones you had to bring her back from?” Her gaze shifted to Morgan and then to Skye. She sat down weakly, looking faint. “He was soaking wet, that boy, like he’d been swimming...” her voice trailed off, and she stared at Hunter again.
The tension in the room escalated, and Skye’s heart thudded. She’d always believed Rowena guessed more than she said, and was okay with what she guessed. But the fear on Rowena’s face now as she looked at Hunter made Skye realise she’d been wrong.
“Soaking wet.” Rowena swallowed. “Just like Morgan was when she came back from...from seeing your friends. And you, when you showed up here again.” Her voice was shaky. “And Skye was missing for three days at sea...in a dinghy.” Still, no one said anything. The truth was impossible. “What have we let into our lives?” she whispered, staring at Hunter. Her face was white.
“A friend. A genuine friend.” Morgan’s voice trembled with emotion. She had lost all of her anger. “One who saved my life by giving up his own.” Morgan’s eyes welled up. “Thanks for the reminder, Mum. I’m sorry, Hunter. I know you have our backs. You’ve more than proved it.”
Rowena studied her daughter’s face, then took a deep breath, looking at Hunter again. “Fair enough,” she said. “I believe that’s true. Might be better if I don’t know everything. But I need to know what that was about tonight. In case it happens again.”
Skye looked at Hunter. He looked so vulnerable. But she had to trust that Rowena’s heart was full of love for anyone who deserved it. And if anyone did, it was Hunter.
After a pause, Hunter gave a brief nod. “Connor had spent time with my...old acquaintances. What he has lost in leaving them haunts him. The influence of them is still strong in him. But the connection between him and them broke. I can’t put it back. I helped him to forget, so regret and sorrow for what he can’t have won’t hurt him. It was making him crazy, and would be like a wound that won’t heal.”
“Is forgetting any better?”
“It is better than death.” His voice was velvet steel. Morgan and Rowena stared at him, as if suddenly registering that this strange, beautiful young man might kill to keep Skye safe.
“Won’t it still hurt, even if he doesn’t know why?” Skye asked.
“I have given him oblivion. It may not bring healing, but it gives him the chance to start afresh here. I can’t do more than that.”
Rowena was watching him, pensive and guarded. “Maybe I would rather take it all on faith. But if more like Connor come looking for you? It ended...okay...tonight. We might not be so lucky next time.”
Skye’s hand went to the medical dressing on her neck. Rowena didn’t miss the unconscious gesture any more than Hunter did.
“I’m sorry, Hunter.” Rowena sighed, looking sad. “I believe what Morgan said, that you have our backs. Bringing Maggie May back to me, and again tonight, keeping Skye safe. But I'm pretty sure that every danger Morgan and Skye have faced recently is because of you. Maybe they would have been safer if you hadn’t come into our lives.”
*
ACROSS THE ROAD FROM the Towers, in the shadow between street lamps, a man waited by the stone seawall, watching the footpath all the way along Marine Parade. Behind him, the sea was a constant dull roar, broken by the crash and wash of low waves on the beach below. The cuffs of his expensive suit pants were wet, and there was sand on the wet loafers he had hurriedly slipped on. When the slight figure of the young man he had recognised earlier came into view around the distant bend, the man strolled across the deserted road and pretended to look in lighted shop windows near the high rise.
The young man walked slowly and took a long time to come close enough to speak to. “Oh, hello.” At his casual greeting, the young man stopped. “It’s Connor, isn’t it? I saw you earlier, on the beach. You were going to look for someone. The keeper, I think you said, at the café.”
It was hard to make out Connor’s expression in the faint glow of the decorative window display, but with a stir of discomfort, its vacant aspect struck him. “You said the keeper could help you get back. You said...to the sea.” He peered at Connor’s face in the window's light. “You said a girl helped you remember that. Who was she talking about? Can they help you? Is it true?” He tried to keep the desperation out of his voice.
Connor blinked slowly, then seemed to focus, and looked at him, confused. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You must know! I saw you coming out of the water,” he pointed across the road to the beach. “You said you’d tried to go back, but you couldn’t.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Connor repeated, sounding agitated.
“Yes, you do. Remember? What about the girl? You said she was one of them. That the keeper is too. That they’re from an underwater city where you’ve been living!” Tears of frustration stung the man’s eyes, and the uncontrolled display of emotion shook him. He used his years of self-discipline to rein it in, push it down, making his face expressionless again. And now he sent out as much persuasion with his words as he could, trying to sense the boy’s emotions. “Tell me how it went at Bliss. Did you ask the keeper to help you go back?”
“You’re crazy,” Connor mumbled, “And you’re not my boss anymore, Mr Noble. You can’t tell me what to do.” He shambled off slowly.
Alan Noble stared after him, aghast at what he had sensed. Or rather, had not sensed. The insatiable yearning, the obsessive focus and haunting regret he had sensed in the distraught Connor earlier was gone, wiped clean. He knew Connor had gone to Bliss. Nothing could have stopped him. So what had happened there?
He stared in the café's direction, mulling over the people who lived there. The keeper must exist. Who was it? He had to find out. He turned and went back along the footpath to The Towers entrance, crossed the deserted lobby to the elevators, and pressed P for Penthouse.
*
IN THE CHOPPY WAVES of the Bay, under a sky dense with night cloud, Thea waited for Connor to return, and bring her Hunter, or bring Skye to make Hunter follow - bring someone, anyone, to get Hunter within reach. From the shallows, she had watched Connor flounder ashore, then cursed when a man approached him.
The man’s presence was unfortunate. He reminded her of someone. She hadn’t seen him soon enough, distracted as she was deciding whether to make the most of Connor’s fleeting company, or use him for more important purposes, then convincing him that Hunter alone could help him return to Lithus.
The two humans crossed the sand together, and she lost sight of them. Had Connor gone to the home of the food vendor? She snorted. Hunter working for a food vendor. Once a servant, always a servant. His milksop girl no doubt had him tethered to a cleaning rag, fetching and carrying. If he’d stayed with her, they could have ruled the ocean.
She watched, waited. Nothing. She shouldn’t have bothered, should just have ended Connor for what little warmth he offered. But her clan had diluted his essence, drained him of savour. The chance that he could bring Hunter to her was worth missing out on such slight pleasure.
Meanwhile, she had tastier fish to fry, than to regret the loss of poor starved Connor. One particular juicy golden fish. Her golden boy. Ethan. He would be useful. He had already been useful, innocently sharing news of her enemies. She knew he would seek her out tomorrow. She would be ready. But for tonight, she needed to think.
She sank beneath the waves. A giant shadow moved, further out, gliding deeper into the bay. Thea followed it and took hold of the enormous beast’s dorsal fin, closed her eyes and allowed the animal to carry her deeper, letting her thoughts evolve. She held each of her enemies before her, letting their punishment become clear as the miles passed beneath her and her silent, oblivious companion.
5. Skye. Fallout
––––––––
“DO YOU WANT ME TO GO?” Hunter asked Rowena quietly. He inclined his head a little in respect, but he watched her intently through the dark locks falling about his face. Despite the distant roar of the ocean, the back room at Bliss was deathly silent.
Skye’s heart pounded, desperate to get Rowena to understand she was being unfair; desperate to plead his case. But how could she explain he was the reason they were all still standing? He, Skye and Morgan had stood together against his clan to keep the village from death or subservience. It would be madness to send him away. And impossible to explain why.
Rowena looked into each of their faces and then shook her head. “Not yet. Morgan’s safety, Skye’s safety - this is my concern. Unless I am absolutely certain they are safer with you gone, I think we would all feel safer with you close by.”
Relief made Skye feel limp, and she saw relief on Hunter’s and Morgan’s faces too.
Rowena looked at him, trying to smile. “You seem to have a few hidden talents that might come in useful in the event of any more unwelcome visits. Let’s play it by ear, shall we? One incident at a time,” she joked, but her forced smile looked pained.
Skye felt hysterical laughter at the ‘joke’ welling up, but Morgan’s hand on her shoulder steadied her. She fixed Skye with a look almost as stern as Rowena’s. “Bed,” she said firmly. “Take your drink with you. Even that amount of sugar won’t keep you awake after this lot.”
Rowena stirred, shifting her focus to Skye, her motherly care welling up. “Oh my goodness, yes.” She bent to check the dressing on Skye’s neck. “Definitely, straight back to bed, Skye. It’s a good thing you have tomorrow off.”
Skye looked at Hunter, and his half-smile told her everything. They had a reprieve from the brewing storm. If the storm broke, they were together. Nothing else mattered right now. As she left the room, the broken glass by the hall door caught her eye. “One last thing. Then I’ll go to bed, I promise.”
About twenty minutes later, Hunter had swept up the broken glass, and Skye and Morgan had patched the window using one of Skye’s small test art panels.
“I feel bad using your art for this, but it was the only board we could find that fit, wasn’t it?” Morgan asked quietly. “You don’t mind, do you?”
“Not at all,” she said. The test panel was from practising painting water for her underwater paintings. It seemed painfully appropriate, in fact.
*
SKYE RETURNED TO THE bedroom alone, leaving the landing door open and the light on. When he said goodnight, Hunter had enfolded her in an embrace that made her feel cocooned in warm light. Her limbs felt stiff after she was alone again.
She forced the tepid chocolate down. Morgan was right. The sweet drink helped. For a while, Skye lay anxiously awake, waiting for Morgan to come up. She couldn’t keep herself from listening for sounds of Connor coming back, despite the repaired glass pane. But exhaustion soon claimed her, and she slept without dreaming.
Something nudged her awake, but her stab of fear at seeing Morgan’s empty bed vanished when she heard cheerful voices downstairs, and realised it was those sounds that had woken her. The room was dim, but not dark. The digital clock beside Morgan’s bed showed that it was close to nine o’clock. That’s right, she remembered. They’d arranged a team Sebastian-Lauder after-party clean-up this morning for eight thirty. That meant her dad was already here!
She hurriedly got ready, choosing clothes for cleaning, but when she saw her reflection in the bathroom mirror, the sight of the dressing on her neck was like a flashing signal begging for Dad and Mike to ask awkward questions. If he knew what happened, her dad wouldn’t be as on board as Rowena. Like about not needing details. She changed her T-shirt for a turtle-neck, grateful for the grey day outside.
As she clattered down the stairs, her dad passed by the bottom, then backed up to wait for her. “Morning, sleepyhead,” he grinned. He hugged her as if he hadn’t seen her in days, and for a moment she feared he’d been told. But his relaxed smile when he drew back reassured her. “Trying to get out of cleaning, eh? Good effort, but we saved you the privilege of mopping the entire café.”
“What?!”
“He’s teasing, Skye,” Rowena chided. “It’s Monday, so we’re closed as usual. There’s no rush.”
“That means we saved you the entire mess,” Skye’s Uncle Mike chimed in.
“Ha ha, hilarious.”
“Only partly joking. You can do my share of the cleaning. I’m only here to eat.”
“Now I know you’re joking.”
“No, serious. I got a call last night at your party. I’m subbing for one of the other staff on an away trip.” His eyes flicked towards the kitchen where Skye guessed Morgan was. “Bonus - I get to skip the teacher-only day too.”
“Bonus,” Skye automatically agreed, wondering if she was missing something.
Hunter didn’t join the clamour to greet her, but from across the room, his gaze drew hers. The love in his eyes was as potent as an embrace. She could see in his face how incredulous he felt to be here, part of her life.
The air was full of delicious aromas. Morgan emerged from the kitchen carrying a pile of plates she added to a laden table. “Perfect timing, Skye.”
“Come on, everybody, help yourselves,” Rowena said, showing the platter of freshly baked muffins and covered dishes that made Skye picture the tasty, fresh, and fried things that were usually on the Bliss breakfast menu. “House rules are coffee first, breakfast and anything else after.”
“Rules to live by,” Morgan said as she crossed the disordered room to greet Skye.
“My coffee addiction couldn’t agree more.” Skye hugged her best friend. “Lead the way.”
*
THEY BEGAN THE CAFÉ clean-up straight after breakfast. It wouldn’t take too long. Skye guessed Rowena didn’t need all of them to help. Was this ‘team clean’ party an excuse to involve Daniel more in her life?
Mike left straight after eating for his trip away, bemoaning the duties of adulthood. Skye wondered if he was making some kind of reference to the age difference between him and Morgan. She’d seen them dancing together at her party last night, but both he and Morgan seemed equally restrained in their farewells now. Skye wasn’t strictly unhappy about it - her best friend and her uncle? The idea felt too weird. Was that why he’d accepted a request to substitute for his colleague?
Morgan’s heart was complicated territory right now. Crossing paths with a murderous, cursed ocean-dwelling boy with more than a passing interest in you would do that, Skye thought. She still hadn’t talked to Morgan about what happened between her and Jarrod during Thea’s attack.
Her dad went down the hallway to fetch mops and brooms while Hunter and Skye helped clear away breakfast. “What happened there?” Daniel called. He pointed to the repaired hall door that led to the courtyard.
“Oh, just an accident,” Rowena said smoothly. “We’ve booked a glazier to replace the pane.” Daniel frowned, but said nothing more.
They wiped and moved the tables to the edges of the room, then swept and mopped the pale wooden floorboards. Skye took extra care over the rock pool creatures she had stencilled on the floor at the beginning of summer. It felt like a lifetime ago.
She avoided looking at her ocean mural as the memory of the night before pushed back into her consciousness with a raw edge, but soon felt a presence beside her, and Hunter nudged his shoulder against hers, nodding towards her art.
“Nice work,” he whispered, and she followed his gaze to the painted waves and the almost hidden figures, enfolded in each other within the teal water. Hunter and his world. Both were in her bloodstream. She still felt connected to the sea. A potent, powerful, heartfelt yearning that had never truly ceased. She felt a sudden, painful surge of sympathy for Connor. Where was he now? Fighting a sense of longing and grief he would never understand?
Turning away from the wall and the troubling thoughts of Connor, she found Rowena standing still, quite close to her. “Are you okay, Rowena?” she asked. Rowena seemed to be in a reverie, her expression disturbed. Was this about last night?
Rowena gave a little start and looked at Skye. Her expression didn’t change. She gazed around at the café, her eyes drifting over the tables and chairs, and frowned as if trying to piece elusive dark thoughts together. Then she shook her head. “Just someone walking over my grave, I suppose.”
Skye felt a lurch of horror in her chest, and she put her arms around Rowena.
“Oh! Love, I’m alright,” Rowena smiled, patting Skye’s back, bemused by Skye’s fierce hug. Skye held on tight, blinking her eyes clear of the tears that had filled them. This room hadn’t quite been Rowena’s grave, but close, thanks to Thea. It had certainly been a yawing entrance to it. And her dad’s grave, and everyone else who had been here when Thea had tried to steal their souls. She couldn’t help the shudder the image gave her, and Rowena drew back, searching Skye’s face. “It’s just an expression, Skye. Are you all right?” Like Skye’s, Rowena’s silent ‘after last night’ hung in the air.
Daniel stepped closer, watching them both, his expression bemused.
“Yes. Yes, I’m fine. More of that grave stuff happening for me too, I think.”
Rowena studied her face, but not giving anything away with Daniel so close by. Suddenly, a siren wailed, then stopped, then wailed again, and stopped just as abruptly. Everyone looked up and around, waiting for more, but that seemed to be all that was coming.
“What the heck was that!” Daniel asked.
Rowena laughed while Morgan cast her eyes up. “I hope they’re not going to make us do any live rehearsals.”
“For what?” Skye asked.
“Tsunami evacuation. It was introduced a few years ago.”
“It started off as this siren, then they tried to modernise the advance warning by messaging everyone, but reception in Bannimor is so bad, almost no one got the test warnings. They’re resurrecting the siren.”
“What do we do if there really is one?”
“Head for high ground. I hope they never have to use it for real,” Rowena said with a grimace.
“At least the hills are right here,” Skye pointed out.
“True,” Rowena nodded. Then she put her hands on her hips and looked at Skye as if she’d solved a problem. “You know what we need?”
Skye shook her head. “What?”
“More coffee,” she said at exactly the same time as Morgan, who had stopped beside them. That made Skye laugh.
“That sounds about right,” Daniel said. Then he frowned, seeing Rowena stiffen, staring at the window. “Rowena?”
“What is he doing here?”
A small, neat man with a tight, lined face was watching them through the glass. When he saw that they’d seen him, he pointed to the entrance and, without waiting for a response, walked along to the glass doors.
“Shall I tell him we’re closed?” Skye offered, bemused by Rowena’s discomfort. Rowena shook her head, her lips compressed, as the man entered through the unlocked café doors.
“Alan Noble,” Daniel called, crossing the room. “It’s been quite a while. What brings you here?”
Skye stared. This man forced Rowena and Morgan to close Jump by doubling their rent. And ran them like slaves when they worked for him at the Towers. Liam Noble’s father.
“Daniel,” Alan said, shaking Daniel’s hand. “Rowena,” he nodded to her. Instead of answering Daniel’s question, Alan looked along the hallway toward the repaired door. “Trouble, Rowena? I heard you had a disturbance last night.”
“Disturbance?” Daniel frowned, and looked at Rowena.
“Who have you been talking to?” Rowena said with mock exasperation. “Is the village talking about me now? I would think there was enough happening without the need for that!” Skye admired the way Rowena answered without answering, but wondered how he knew of the damaged door.
“I must have misunderstood. Forgive me. I came to offer my services.” His gaze touched each face in the room, then rested on Hunter. “But I see you are busy. I don’t want to intrude...” He didn’t move, and it was obvious he expected an invitation to stay. Rowena only hesitated a moment.
“Will you join us? We can stop for a break. Morgan, could you make Alan a coffee?”
Alan refused the coffee with a polite shake of his head, but came further into the room.
“Some unfamiliar faces?” he said. “I don’t believe we’ve met.” He held out his hand to Hunter, who hadn’t taken his eyes off Alan. Hunter didn’t immediately respond. For a moment, Skye wondered if he had forgotten the ritual of shaking hands. But when Hunter finally shook the outstretched hand, their visitor’s gaze sharpened at Hunter’s icy touch, and Skye felt such a weight of misgiving she wished Hunter hadn’t responded. As if sensing her alarm, Alan turned to her.
“And this must be your daughter, Daniel. Skye, isn’t it?” His attention felt intrusive, and to her dismay, she felt a similar sense of probing from his attention as she had from Liam. Liam, who helped Thea try to destroy her own clan, and who stood by while she ordered Hunter to choke the life from Skye. Liam, who had disappeared, gone into the sea to join his girlfriend, Gina.
“I wonder, have any of you seen my son Liam lately?”
Morgan moved imperceptibly, looking at Skye.
“Is there something wrong, Alan?” Rowena asked.
“That is what I mean to determine,” Alan said, his gaze shifting to Hunter. Skye’s heart thudded.
6. Ethan. Bewitched
––––––––
THE NOISE OF ETHAN’S younger siblings filled the small open-plan living room, but he barely noticed. With three brothers and a sister, quiet was when you paid attention. A teacher only day, and he knew how he wanted to spend it. Ethan rocked up onto the balls of his feet and jigged lightly, as if getting ready to loft a basketball. He tried sitting down and got up again. He couldn’t stay still. The girl’s face swam through his mind.
The idea of her was like a thread pulled tight through his limbs, vibrating with tension. Which was weird, because when he was with her, her voice, the way she looked at him, her beautiful eyes making him feel like she was the one, flooded his body with treacle, thick and drug-like. Yeah, drug-like.
“Did you know,” his littlest brother, the fact-fiend, was telling his mother while she tried to comb his hair, “that a Tsunami goes five hundred miles an hour in the ocean? It’s like a jet plane. But it's more like a car when it gets closer to land.”
“Not something we have to worry about, I’m sure,” his mother said distractedly, more interested in the rebellious hair.
Ethan felt like he was tripping. He’d guessed there were creatures out in the bay. But nothing like...her. The ordinary noises around him suddenly felt foreign. Like this wasn’t real life. Not when she was out there. Beautiful or not, she should repulse him. She was one of them. What were ‘they’? Fear tightened his chest and now he wanted to leave this ride, forget he’d ever seen her. Pretend to himself that nothing weird had happened in Bannimor.
But she had been so vulnerable. Literally bruised and helpless. He’d had to protect her. Or at least agree not to take her beyond her boundary. And agree to come back to hear the truth she’d promised him. Had he been wrong about the other promise her eyes offered? He ran a hand over his short hair and blew out a slow breath, trying to rein his thoughts in. She was...addictive.
“What’s up with you, Ethan?” his mother asked. “You’re so jittery. It’s driving me crazy. And you hold still, too,” she said to his youngest brother, keeping a hold of his arm as she wet the comb at the kitchen sink. “Your father will be here any minute, and I don’t want you looking like someone dragged you through a hedge backwards.” She tried to run it through Toby’s rebellious hair, sighing when he shrieked dramatically as a few drops of water fell down his crisply pressed collar.
Ethan walked to the window and stared at nothing, his mind conjuring her again. It took little effort. She swam through his mind on a loop. Trying to distract himself, he turned back to his family. He leaned against the windowsill and watched his mum trying to smooth Toby’s hair down. The hair was winning, despite the wet comb. Ethan had already helped tidy his two other younger brothers and occupied them with a video game. His little sister had dressed herself the night before, ready for Dad’s visit, and looked crumpled from insisting on sleeping in her clothes, but she was so cute.
The git didn’t deserve Pip’s devotion, but he wouldn’t tell her that. At five years old, she was allowed to see their father with rose-tinted glasses. His dad had broken Ethan’s own rose-tinted glasses the first time he put a fist through the wall beside his head.
Right now, Pip was happy, focused on trying to take the controls whenever one of her brothers died. Died. Ethan pushed that thought away for now. He didn’t want to set his mum off again.
He wandered over to the kids in front of the TV and blankly watched the game until he realised the baddie targets were monsters coming out of the sea. The jolt of fear in his gut made him angry. He dropped a kiss on Pip’s head and left the room. In his bedroom, which was just off the lounge, he threw himself on his bed and stared at the ceiling. His brain felt like it was frying. Monsters in the sea. One who was insanely beautiful, and maybe not a monster at all. His father coming today for the third visit this year.
Dad had left a long time ago, and he’d never showed his aggression to the little ones. They probably wouldn’t remember how miserable their mum had been. She thought it was good for them to see him on his newly approved days, but she knew not to push Ethan. They’d seen too much during the bad times together. Today Ethan would make sure the kids left safely, and that was as close as he needed to get.
“He’s coming with Tania, his new lady,” his mother said quietly from his bedroom doorway. He checked her expression. She didn’t look distressed.
“So?”
“So, you don’t need to stand guard. I’m fine. They’re fine,” she nodded towards the lounge where the action on the screen had the four kids glued. “He’ll be on his best behaviour in front of his girlfriend. And I believe him when he says the counselling’s helping. He’s...different.” Ethan raised his eyebrows, and she quickly added, “No, I’m not saying I want him back, and no, I’m not upset he’s bringing Tania. I’m saying you don't need to put yourself through this, for me or the kids. Waiting around to not see him like this. You’re the only one hurting here now. So, if you need to scoot, scoot.” She smiled.
Ethan could have put her right about the actual source of his agitation: the girl with the liquid brown eyes drifting through his bloodstream. But his mum was right, too. He hated seeing his dad. “You sure?”
“Scoot, hon’. Go see Amber or someone. Act like a teenager, okay? That’s an order.”
Ethan collected a sweatshirt off the end of his bed and gave his mother a quick hug as he passed her in the doorway. The kids were blind to everything except the game. They didn’t register his farewell until he’d closed the door. He could hear their chorused shouts of ‘Bye, Ethan’ as he walked down the path. It made him smile and lifted his spirits. He pulled the sweatshirt on and climbed into his Kombi van.
He knew where he wanted to go. More than wanted. He gripped the steering wheel hard as the idea of seeing her surged powerfully through him. Wouldn't it be better to know what he was dealing with first? There was so much crazy out there, he needed to make sure he wasn’t part of it. Not in the wrong way.
He wished he had someone to talk to about that day. Someone who might fill in the gaps. The only people he could think of were Skye and Morgan, but that creep Hunter was always around. Ethan was pretty sure Hunter was on the wrong side of all this, whatever ‘this’ was. Thea had sure been interested in Hunter and what he was doing and where he was. That had made him mad. That only left one other person he could think of, and she wasn’t talking to him at the moment. Well, if he couldn’t get her by phone... He gunned the engine and backed out of the drive.
***
Join Hunter and Skye in Forget Me, book four, the heart-rending conclusion of the Immersed series, as Skye learns the true price of Hunter’s curse, and who will have to pay it.
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