The Monster's Wife(85)

When she had almost reached the bottom, his hands closed around her waist and he hoisted her down. Wordlessly, they waded through the glugging tide that was paler and dirtier than it had seemed from above. He took her hand. She trusted him, strangely, more than anyone she knew. She would follow him anywhere, she thought, as they wound through black, craggy rocks where purple anemones crouched like glistening pimples.

They turned a corner and their splashing footsteps caught an echo. They were in the darkness of a sea cave where small waves lapped against the rock’s cool throat. It was so black she couldn’t see the wall of the cave or his face beside hers. A crash from the shore echoed through the honeycomb of caves. Water rushed in freezing, flooding, knocking her back, filling her mouth, tearing his hand from hers.





77


In the darkness, she called to him, hearing nothing but the slap of water on rock and her own voice echoing, seeing nothing until her mind made shapes in the blackness. The sea roiled, treacherous. Perhaps it had knocked him down and pulled him out of the cave already. Perhaps he had hit his head.

She groped in front of her hopelessly searching, calling his name. The dark played tricks on her. She saw Stuart’s face looming before her, bloody and beaten, then May’s, the eyes dark and sad, then Victor’s, his smile like a boy’s, his hands held out in front of him. Her fingers clutching the cold rock, she tried to picture Adam, but all she could see were fragments – the curve of his ear, the scar snaking over his head.

The water splashed near her. Footsteps boomed on the cave roof. A hand clasped hers and she squeezed it.

“Adam! I thought I had lost you.”

The fingers gripped harder. “You love him, don’t you?” Victor leaned close. “You would offer your own life in place of his.”

Her hand burned in his. He was crushing it. She tried to pull herself away. “Please.” She smelled his cologne.

He caught hold of her wrists and pinned them behind her, pressing her into the wall. “Why, Eve, when I made you, healed you, brought you to life? When I taught you everything and tried to save you? How could you fall in love with your murderer…like some…some common ballad!”

Her flesh was numb.

“I prepared you. You ignored my advice, my teachings. Eve, it is worse than you imagine! That monster watched you drown, destroyed your life so that he would not be alone.”

Like a dream it came back to her, slivers of light pinning the nightmare to the darkness - the hooded man she’d seen before rowing so fast, the water taking her, sucking her down, him stepping out of the boat. “No.”

“Yes…yes…it is true! Gott im Himmel, I would not lie to you. How could I? But Adam…he waited, to be sure he did, waited patiently for you to sicken, to die, for the sea to do the rest, waited for your funeral to pass. Then he dug you up and brought you to me and I… Gott hilft mir…devil that I am, I did the rest and will be damned for it! Please understand that he held me to ransom with threats against my family. I had no choice. He would have…he may still… that monster forced me to replace your heart with your friend’s. The dear soul – I believe she loved me in her way. Poor doomed thing, I found her too late and she wasn’t…fit…couldn’t be fixed…not like you, Eve. You were strong.”

“No.” She thought of May lying under the sheet, her hand lurching up, her empty eyes. “No!” The word flung against the rock and splintered.

“He was lonely, he told me… there in the ice caves when we spoke for such a long time. He begged me for a wife to keep him company in his damnation. That wretch! He blackmailed me in the cruelest way. And yet you would give your life for his.” His hand found her face and rested there. “It is truly a loving heart I placed within you, but how could I predict who it would choose to love?”

Bile rose in her throat. She saw Adam looking at her and felt him touching her, tasting her. He’d taken her life and yet he had saved it too.

“He loves me as I love him.”

“Then I pity you dear Eve… for I cannot save you. It seems I have brought you back from Hell only to damn you in a new way. I’m so… I am sorry. The creature brings only death and no-one will stop him now.” Victor pressed his face to hers. His lips brushed hers for a moment before he slipped back and dropped her wrists. She slid down the wall of the cave until she was waist-deep in the icy water.

The suck and splash of Victor’s footsteps faded. Through the maze of rock, she heard the waves beating the shore, the gulls shrieking and the gurgle of trapped currents in the caves. She was shut off from the world, damned, he’d said. It was just a dream now. She’d trusted Adam and he’d betrayed her. When the splash of feet swelled in her ears again, she didn’t know who she feared finding more. Adam, Victor, Stuart.

“Oona! A wave knocked me under the water and dragged me from the cave. It’s rougher than Hell out there, but I discovered where they hid the boat. I swam past it. Where are you? Are you hurt?”

“I’m here.”

He came to her and knelt down, took her hands in his. “I’m sorry we were separated. Do you forgive me?” His hand touched her cheek.

She swung her fist in the direction of his voice. It slammed into his chest. He growled in surprise. There was a loud splash as he stumbled back and fell over. Echoes thundered around the cave.