The Monster's Wife(74)

“No,” she kicked his shin, “no!”

“I know it hurts when you wake up,” his arms clamping hers. “People scream. You want to break everyone and at the same time, you want to die. I know it. And if you stay in plain sight, they will kill you. To them, you’re a monster, a killer.”

“No.” She clawed his back. He held on, unyielding as the grave, his strength matching hers. She smelled the blood drying on his arm, the faint scent of blight that hung over them both.

“You are like me.” His breath was hot on her neck. “We are the same.”





65


The owls hushed in the fields, their deep voices growing sleepy. They had stayed on the beach a long time, locked into that strange embrace, half death, half life.

When the stars began to fade and the first cord of pink light rose over the brim of the sea, the man’s arms loosened and Oona was free. She had thought that when he loosed her she would run and keep running until she left him far behind. She could not say why she stood looking into his face, except that it was a kind of glass in which she saw her own life and her own pain flicker back towards her. Damp air settled on her arms and the small of her back where his skin had warmed hers.

“What…” she began.

“What will you do now?” It was as if he read her mind.

She nodded.

“You have made yourself known. As soon as it grows light, they’ll come.”

She hugged her arms around herself.

He looked over her shoulder, along the beach. “There are boats a small way down from here. Take one. Row until you find a place to hide.”

A place. It looked blank in her mind’s eye. She knew nothing of the world beyond. She must have lived in this place her whole life and never ventured out. In the shadows that had begun to fall around them, she saw the ghostly forms of men with torches, hunting for them.

“What will you do?”

He was silent. She followed his gaze to the gold light clasping the bellies of the clouds. Beneath the soft grey haze, red and yellow smudges melted into each other. The rocks and a shack and a row of boats were all black silhouettes, a world of dim shapes.

His eyes were on her face – a familiar look, as if they’d known each other once, though she couldn’t remember it. He rubbed his eyes and when he was done, he seemed older than before. “I’ll come with you until you find somewhere safe to stay and then I’ll leave this place.”

Aside from death, there was no other choice.

As they walked over the wet sand the life that had slept all night began again. Fish leapt and the dark heads of seals nodded from a wave or behind a rock before dipping from view. The white birds babbled from the rocks and the gulls began to circle, idly curious about the creatures beneath them.

They came to a big boat settled in a noust. Rimy air drew out the pitch stench of the half-tarred hull. It was a big old tub and too wrecked to go out in. Mute and furtive, they hurried on past bristling sea-grass and clear runnels of burn to where two smaller boats lay in a tidemark of dried kelp. The furthest had a black cross on it and a strange face carved on the front.

He ran his hand along the edge, peering in. “This one is sound.”

“Aye.”

They took hold of the sides and ran with it into the shallows. It was easier than she thought it would be. They were both strong. When the boat was in the shallows, he told her to climb in, and kept running until he was waist height, leaping in, wet breeks showering her. He took something from his shirt and laid it in her lap - an oilskin, bundled together. It smelled of bread and cheese.

“Wrap that around your shoulders, or you’ll freeze on the crossing.”

She picked up an oar. “No.”

“Suit yourself.” He raised the other oar, turned around and plunged it into the water.

They kept to the line of the coast, sometimes hitting a rhythm and other times off-tempo – he yelled back at her then. It was hard to keep up, the way he wielded the oar, neat and quick, nicking and cutting the dark sea like peat.

The sun grew burly. It dappled the man’s back with pale light. As she kept time with him, she watched his shoulder-blades rise and fall, the pale hairs gleaming on his nape. He rowed faster than anyone she’d seen, just like the Finman in the stories, taking the human girl down to the undersea.

They’d been on the water a while when he stopped rowing. She must have been half asleep, aimlessly sculling, when she felt the boat slow. Her feet were wet and numb. Dark water rose to her ankles. The man sat still, head cocked, listening for something.

In front of them, the rock went straight up, climbing in vast red and black steps. Giant steps. Rime shrouded the cliff-tops, twisting into veils of golden light where the rising sun caught drops of sea spray. The man’s back and face were black and seemed carved from the dark wood or the hearts of burnt peat. The boat lurched forward on the crest of a wave and the sun unfurled a flaming mist around the man, like an angel’s wings. His body was like beryl, his eyes like flaming torches. She knew the words from long ago.

He put down his oar and turned to her. “Hand me the oilskin.”

She took the skin from her lap and passed it to him. He unrolled it and drew out a small red box and opened it. The lid flipped back. It was brass inside, the lid graven with the sharp prongs of a sun and with letters. Cradled in the golden circles of the lower part was a glass eye with a dancing arrow inside it.