The Monster's Wife(66)

Then she was running down the hallway, past Victor who shouted something angry-sounding, flying downstairs on legs she couldn’t feel, out of the house, to the sea.

Footsteps thudded behind her on the grass, heavy ones. Her head was light as air and it was hard to force it to turn. She thought she would see Victor, but instead it was a tall figure wearing a hooded sealskin. She could not see his features, only his blue eyes staring at her, the yellowish tint of his skin and the long, white scar. He was like a Finman with his strange-coloured skin, running in long, heavy strides. She looked ahead of her and saw the beach stretched in a silver line like the haft of a key. The sea bit at it. She could run down there and run and run until she fell down, but there was nowhere to hide from the man.





57


The red rock beach was in sight. As she slipped and slid over the boulders, Oona glimpsed Cormick tipping out a pail of brown water. He saw her and stared, his hand shading his eyes, then he shrank back into his shack. The world knew she was in trouble and was deserting her.

Behind her, it had fallen quiet. She looked over her shoulder and saw nothing but kittiwakes brooding their eggs in clefts in the cliff. Out in the firth, the dawn was breaking. A gull circled and landed on the water, its blood-tipped beak locked round a squirming fish. The way it writhed echoed the body in the big house. When Oona looked under the sheet, something had looked back at her. It had May’s hair and skin, but the eyes were dead, as if May had been in there once and had gone. No. It wasn’t May at all.

Boots crunched on the loose stones at the top of the cliff. The man was gaining on her. Sucking in air, she ran faster, heart punching ribs and always that fourth beat awry. Someone had thrust a fire iron between her shoulder-blades. It was hard to breathe. She stumbled between the last two rocks, where the King of the Finmen had once sat on the gold throne of Rasteal, pitched forward, hands gripping the side of a small, blue boat with an oar bobbing in it, as if God had put it there.

His heavy feet slapped the wet rocks, slipping around. Fear turned to strength and she dragged the boat over the sand where heat rose in mazy ripples, warping the tangle of weed-crusted fishing nets Cormick left lying around. The prow hit the water with a slap, slipped in, floated, smooth as an oiled lock. She staggered with it for a few steps and tumbled in. Grey water soaked her skirts. The old tub needed bailing out. No time.

Picking up the oar, she saw May sitting spread-legged on the seat and her perched on the other side, their hands guiding each stroke of the oars in unison, laughing. Rowing out into the dark firth, free.

The man stood on the cusp of the beach. A gust blew his hood back, showing a head smooth as an egg. He went from boat to boat, peering down at the hulls, hunting for an oar. She plunged hers into the water, surprised at its weight. Surely oars weren’t always so heavy. She was pushing and pulling, but rowing alone she was only a few boat-lengths from the beach and now the man was heaving at the prow of a red boat, dragging it over the sand like a dandelion seed.

Cormick ran out, his mouth open, words lost in the wind. The man didn’t look at him. His dark hollows of eyes were fixed on Oona, his mouth set in a deep frown. With his spray-wet sealskin, he was just like the Finman in the stories, the one that rowed from under the sea in seven strokes of the oar and caught a human girl.

Oona’s hands were numb. The pain in her back had gone. Above her, clouds parted. The sun had half risen. The sea changed from black to deep blue. It was going to be fair, the kind of day when young folk would loll on the cliffs looking out at the silver scythe of bay that held the green hills close. The women would go slowly, singing, to pound clouts in the burn and would take their time pegging out shirts. The men would drag their fish-full boats carelessly inland and stroll to the Smokehouse for ale. They’d be carefree because they didn’t know that in one dark room of the big house May lay on a bed and wasn’t May any more.

They were a long way from the shore when the scarred man pulled his oars in and sat still. Oona rowed a few fast strokes in wonderment, her arms loose, like husk peeling off from a seed. The man had given up. It’s a short way now to Hamnavoe. She’s free! On the mainland she’ll find a bailiff. She’ll sit in the sun and dry out her sodden dress. Her dress was so wet, even the bodice and sleeves. The wet made it tighter, squeezing the air from her. An ice shard plunged into her back. Her fingers were numb. The oar fell from her.

She leaned after it. The boat dipped low. The oar rolled against her fingertips, slid further away. A wave slapped her face. Wood groaned underneath. She fell into the water, kicked against the boat, paddling the way Toby did when they were out on the beach. But she couldn’t move well for the band round her chest. It was happening. Her heart’s cogs stopping. Her life’s sand running down. She scrabbled. Her breath hurt. The boat slipped away. Her head went down. She was going to die. She bobbed up, mouth full, eyes burning. The man stepped out of the boat.

She went under. The water was so blue. Sunshine, silver-white, above her. The kind of day when women take their time. The sun soft as a kiss. Her chest on ice. Swallowing salt. Granny said don’t wade past your knees – a finman will catch you! May held her hand, screaming at the waves.

She was dying.

Her chest sings. The sea is sapphires and silver. A selkie swims up to her with green weed snarled in her dark hair. Under the sea, girls become selkie wives, soft skin roughening to fins and scales. They can never return to the human world, for their kind don’t know them again. When the selkie comes close, she smiles and Oona knows everything will be alright, because it’s May and her arms are open wide.