“She stole all the children from the village?”
“That’s what everyone believed happened. The villagers hated themselves for not protecting the children. Pity for the woman, and everything she’d been through, had quashed reason. They turned on each other, and themselves. The population was soon extinguished.”
A passing image of the empty, smouldering main street of Juniperville after some kind of self-inflicted apocalypse, makes me shudder.
“It’s natural that you want to save your friend. Our reason tells us that whatever life awaits someone taken to live in the deep can’t possibly be a good one. As a Sentinel, your urge to protect and rescue is strong. I might only have one case from which to draw conclusions, but my strong belief is that no one could ever resurface and live a life resembling what they had before. Water is too powerful an agent of change.”
I see Rufus in my mind’s eye, laughing loudly at something I said. Most of the time, growing up, I felt like a shy, awkward fool, never quite able to fit in. Rufus, though, made me feel like a natural-born comedian. We laughed most of the time we were together. That is, until that last summer in Juniperville. He’d already started to change from the happy, carefree person I’d known for so long into someone who was no longer content in his own skin. He was drinking so much, every day – beer for breakfast, harder stuff as the day progressed. How he managed to work extra-long shifts and keep it together, I have no idea. Maybe because he was a happy drunk; booze made him laugh even more, but it also dulled his senses, dulled his sharp intelligence.
I noticed, of course – he was my best friend – but what did I do about it? I half-heartedly attempted to talk to him about it a couple of times, but otherwise hoped he would grow out of it. Summer alcoholism is how I thought of it. Once we started travelling, I told myself, I’d be able to keep him away from excessive drinking.
Except, of course, I never got the chance.
If he’d started to change from the Rufus I’d always known that summer, what has five years in The Wash done to him? I can’t bear the thought that Rufus is in any way like that great hulking thing I revealed this morning in the loch. More sea beast than man, if he is still a man at all.
The thought occurs to me, briefly, that I might be projecting my fears and worst dreams about what’s become of Rufus onto what I saw this morning. Maybe it’s even possible that what I saw was, in fact, my fears and worst dreams, manifesting themselves as a vision of the hulking sea beast.
Isn’t that, anyway, what most people think those of us who report sightings of sea beasts have really seen; our primal fear of the sea, and the creatures that dwell in it, dragged up from the pool of dread that exists in every single one of us, described and defined by the details we claim to have seen? Those of us convinced that these visions are real, holding onto what we know to be true - despite the denials and mockery of those who are certain that these beings belong in lore, not in reality - think we are different, special perhaps, chosen or doomed, depending on the individual stances we take.
I’d put myself firmly in the doomed category – doomed to a future without Rufus, to knowing that he was dragged into The Wash by the woman who’d claimed to love him, doomed to be responsible for failing to keep him safe, in the eyes of the residents of Juniperville. I tried to invert the doomed label by acquiring knowledge, building and enhancing my understanding of the range of shapes and forms sea beasts take, so that I could define the thing that stole my friend.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
What have these years of study, of immersing myself in others’ tales and accounts done for me, apart from making me feel inadequate, and ashamed at all of the things I should have done, and couldn’t do? What if this power I’ve suddenly acquired, or developed, is nothing more than a response to the frustration that knowledge did not show me a way to bring Rufus back? What if it fades just as quickly as it bloomed?
What if I’m a fraud?
“You’re grieving the friend you lost all of the time, I see that.” Dr. Pendle’s voice interrupts my morose thoughts. “And saying what I just did will not make your loss any easier. I fear I’ve just removed any hope you might have had that, if you are successful in rescuing him, life will go back to how it once was. I’m sorry for taking away your hope, Thom.”
“I’ve got to try to rescue him, Sir. He’s my best friend. Even if he comes back and he’s different, I’ve got to try.”
Dr. Pendle doesn’t try to talk me out of it. Instead, he smiles and nods. “Of course, you’ve got to try. Let the hope that you’ll succeed bloom through you – now and when you work with Robbo to hone your skills.”
I’m hollowed-out with sadness, and fear of what lies ahead, and more than a bit of desperation, but I’m able to recognize that Dr. Pendle has just contradicted himself because he knows how much Rufus means to me, still. Bringing him back from the depths of The Wash is my main – my only – goal right now, and I’m not going to be dissuaded, no matter what consequences might arise.
A fraud and a fool.
*
I have time only for a breakfast of tea and toast, followed by porridge with brown sugar and jam (I like it sweet), before Robbo arrives. He’d told Dr. Pendle he would leave after they ended their phone call, and clearly he’s been true to his word. He looks nothing like I expected, which was something like a cross between Gandalf and a yoga teacher. Instead, Robbo is compact; not very tall, but incredibly strong-looking, with muscles that look like they take some effort to maintain.
Within a minute of meeting him, he tells me to lead him to the loch. “You can tell me on the way there about what it is you’re able to do to the water.”
I give Dr. Pendle a quick, pleading look, trying to convey my hope that he’ll come with us. I feel like I need him as a buffer between my nerves and Robbo’s straight-forward brusqueness, but he just smiles at me and says to Robbo, “I want to thank you again for dropping everything to help us.”
“Paying it back,” Robbo says, almost dismissively, and the sense that he is irritated by me intensifies. “I had help when I needed it. Now it’s my turn to help.”
Nerves take hold before we’ve taken ten steps away from the house, and I break my self-imposed rule to not ask personal or prying questions of anyone. “Can I ask who helped you, when you needed it?”
“No, you cannot,” Robbo says tersely. “I will supply any information I think you need to know. Until such time, don’t ask me any questions.”
“I’m sorry – I don’t usually do that kind of thing. It won’t happen again.”
“Glad to hear it. Now, Alasdair told me the first time you were aware of your strength was here on the beach?”
“That’s right.”
“Tell me what happened. Don’t leave out any detail.”
I tell him everything, including Ondine’s role in taking me to Ballaig, to try to find out who or what I really am. “Maybe you would like to talk to Ondine – get her take on events. She’s been with me through it all.”
Robbo looks over his left shoulder, then his right, then says gruffly, “Do you see Ondine here right now? Because I don’t. It’s your version of events I’m asking about. Keep talking.”
I’m uncomfortable telling him about Ondine and Jenny, because although I was there, it’s not my story to tell. I know he’ll want to know about the portal, though, so I tell him about guarding Ondine as we travelled to Hallowtide, and by killing the leperby. I steal a quick look at him, expecting him to be looking at me like I’m crazy. He’s staring straight ahead, but still I say, “That sounds crazy, I know. You probably think I’m crazy.”
“Mate, if that was the strangest thing I’d ever heard, I’d sleep a lot better at night, let me tell you.” I’m surprised when his voice grows softer, and he adds, “No, I don’t think for a second you’re crazy. Keep talking.”
I tell him about last night, and the sunken fishing boat. Just as I reach the part about the hulking creature under the surface, we arrive at the beach, and see the boat perched on the edge of the sand, in all its glory.
“You did this?” he asks, and I nod. “Well, jeezo mate. Impressive!"