Skin Deep

by Marissa Doyle

  She hadn’t thought of that. “Are you sure? This is going to be dangerous—”

  He stepped toward her and put a finger to her lips. “I know. Do you think I’d let you go alone?”

  Oh, Rob. Tears welled up in her eyes before she could stop them. “I don’t know what I did to deserve your friendship.” She took both of his hands in hers and squeezed them. They were icy cold and clammy, but his return grip was strong.

  “You’re the most important thing in the world to me,” he said softly, and smiled. “So let’s go.”

  * * *

  The mid-afternoon light was gray and evening-like and the fog as thick as ever as they rolled her little sailboat on its dolly out of the garage and down the lawn to the beach. She set the mast in its step and raised the triangular sail, clicked the rudder pins into place in their loops, and slid the daggerboard into its slot. A fitful breeze had risen and was blowing the mist about in puffs and tendrils. It seemed to rake cold, wet hands through her hair and she wished she’d thought to grab a hat before she left. But she didn’t want to go back to the house to get one now—the sooner they got going, the less time Mahtahdou would have to hurt Conn…and the less time she’d have to ask herself what the hell she’d do, once she found Mahtahdou. If she found him.

  “Rob, I think you need to know…I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t know where we’re going, apart from south toward Monomoyick.” She swallowed. “You can change your mind and stay here, you know.”

  Rob squeezed her shoulder. “No, I can’t. You’ll find him. I know you will.”

  They pushed the little boat into knee-deep water and clambered onto it. Garland took the tiller and glanced back at her house, its lines half-obscured by the blowing fog. While Rob had tried on lifejackets in the garage she’d run upstairs to check on Alasdair. His face was almost gray and his breath came in short, shallow pants. She couldn’t leave him like this. But she had to.

  She’d tenderly wiped the sheen of sweat from his forehead and bent to kiss him. “I’m going to find Conn and your skin, because…because there’s nothing I can do to help you here,” she whispered, gazing down at his drawn face through a film of tears. “You’ve got to hang on while I’m gone, do you hear? I know that you told me the truth about the selkies, and I don’t care if you’ll leave me some day. At least you’d be alive and well. But if you leave me right now because Mahtahdou’s killed you, I—I’ll—” One of her tears fell on his cheek. He didn’t move as she brushed it away, then kissed him again. “I’ll be back.”

  As she straightened, her eyes fell on his quilt, still folded next to her chair where she’d left it while stitching on the binding. She picked it up.

  “It’s not quite finished, but I’ll give it to you anyway,” she murmured, draping it over his still form. “You said you felt safer when you had one of my quilts.”

  A fleeting tremor—so swift that she was almost sure she’d imagined it, ran over his body. Would he sleep more easily now? Would his pain lessen? She could only hope—

  “Garland?” Rob called from downstairs.

  With a last touch on his cheek, she’d left the room.

  * * *

  At first Garland hoped that maybe the selkies would appear to help her find their—Mahtahdou’s—island. She pictured ten or twelve dark seal heads suddenly appearing in the water around her boat, guiding her there then shucking off their sealskins and turning into a group of tall, dark-haired warriors, ready to defend her and Rob as they marched on the captured palace to find Conn.

  But no sleek heads poked up around her. Not even a gull was to be seen—only the gray water and fog billowing in the chill wind.

  Next to her, Rob shuddered. She glanced at him with concern. “Cold?”

  “Hmm? No. I’m quite comfortable.”

  How could he be, barefoot and in a pair of light khakis soaked to the knees and a dress shirt? Darn it, she should have grabbed a fleece for him to wear but she’d been so intent on getting going that she hadn’t thought of it. Not that she was terribly comfortable either—wet jeans were not good sailing attire—but she was more used to it.

  “Here.” She held onto the mainsheet with her foot, unzipped her lifejacket part way with her free hand, and started to pull out Conn’s purple shirt that she’d tucked inside it for safekeeping. “You can wear this—it’ll break the wind a bit—”

  “I’m fine.” Rob snapped, then shuddered again.

  “Uh…okay.” She tucked the shirt back inside her lifejacket. That wasn’t very like Rob. But maybe his nerves were starting to get rattled. She knew hers were.

  Ordinary fog was white. Sometimes when it drifted past a tall dune or some other large object, a faint shadow would appear in it—a darker shade of white, more or less. Ordinary fog did not swirl and flash in dull green, or yellow brown, or maroon or purple. But for the last twenty minutes she’d been catching hints of color from the corners of her eyes, as if the world wasn’t obscured by fog but by smoke from a burning chemical plant—

  A long, scraping sound suddenly issued from underneath the hull of the boat.

  “Damn! Hold on.” Garland let out the sail, reached across Rob to yank up the daggerboard, and braced her feet, waiting for the sudden jolt of running aground. Where had a sandbar come from? At this tide there should be ten or fifteen feet of water here—

  But the impact never came. The boat slowed and turned slightly into the wind, its sail swinging loose.

  “Why are we stopping? Is something wrong?” Rob asked, looking back at her.

  “No.” She pulled the mainsheet back in and the sail caught the wind again. “That scraping noise—I thought we were about to run aground.”

  “What scraping noise?”

  “Didn’t you hear it?”

  “I didn’t hear anything.” He turned and gazed ahead into the fog.

  She gaped at his turned head. How had he not heard that? It had sounded like giant fingernails rasping beneath them.

  Then again, the wind might have drowned out the sound. She glanced up at the sail and tightened her grip on the mainsheet. The wind had been moaning with increasing strength since they’d pushed off her beach. Darn it, the last thing she needed was to capsize in icy water with a non-sailor on board.

  But after a few minutes she realized that the boat was not behaving as it usually did when a gust of stronger wind hit it—no heeling, no bursts of speed. For some reason, the wind sounded as if it were rising to gale force—but it was only sound.

  She shivered, but not from cold. There was something uncanny going on here, but she couldn’t let it get to her. So far it was all illusion, sound and no substance. She was stronger than that. After Derek she knew all about dealing with illusion.

  “What’s that?” Rob pointed to something off the bow of the boat. She followed his pointing finger to a calm place a few feet across that had appeared in the choppy water ahead. As she squinted at it, it began to seethe and bubble as if a scuba diver were below, about to surface. The bubbles grew larger—from ping-pong ball- to baseball-sized. Then as they drew abreast she saw that each had a faint vertical line, almost like a pupil on an eye…and that they were looking at her, swiveling as they sailed past—

  “Garland?”

  The bubbles popped all at once. She stifled a gasp.

  “What was it?” Rob was looking at her curiously.

  “Nothing. Just…it was nothing. Don’t worry.” But she glanced back at the water where the bubbles had been, now as choppy and restless as everywhere else. What had that been? She could have sworn those were eyes…but it was no use dwelling on it lest she frighten Rob…or herself.

  The fog deepened, with an occasional ugly yellow-brown or greenish tinge to its billows, and the wind-that-wasn’t wailed eerily around them. More patches of bizarre eye-like bubbles that seemed to stare at her knowingly appeared, and she watched them with growing apprehension. Did all these strange phenomena mean that Mahtahdou knew she was coming? Or was Mattaquas
on so tight in his grasp that this was just the way things were now? She shivered again.

  “What will you do when we find Mahtahdou?” Rob asked suddenly. His blue eyes were dark in the gloomy light.

  That was precisely what she wanted to know, too. How could she challenge a being that could summon storms and inhabit the bodies of innocent humans in order to kill? At least she knew he wouldn’t try to kill her on the spot. But what was it about her that had sparked his interest enough that he wanted to see her?

  The scraping sound along the bottom of her hull was getting on her nerves. She leaned back and peered into the dark water, trying to see if something had caught on her daggerboard.

  A long, thin, greenish limb erupted out of the water a foot from her face. She gasped and nearly fell backwards off the boat. Four equally long, thin, greenish fingers waggled madly at her in a parody of greeting—fingers that ended in three-inch-long claws. The wind howled again, and this time it sounded distinctly like a dirty, crazed laugh. Then the hand plunged back below the surface.

  Her heart beat wildly. Kathy’s tale of the things she’d seen in the water near Mahtahdou’s island hadn’t been an exaggeration, had it? Evidently they had claws to match their teeth. What weapons did she have against creatures like that?

  But it had just been that, something briefly seen and then gone. Mahtahdou was trying to scare them. “Thank you,” she called, hoping her voice didn’t tremble. “I wondered what was making that noise.”

  The wind-sound paused as if uncertain, then broke into sniggering laughter that sent fresh shivers down her back. Or was it getting colder out here? She glanced at the low mass of Monomoyick Island, trying to gauge how far south they’d come. But the fog rendered the scrubby dunes even more featureless than they already were.

  She sighed, then straightened as something caught her eye. Off to her right, away from Monomoyick…was that a shadow in the fog?

  “Rob—over there—do you see? Is that an island?” She gestured with her chin.

  He peered dutifully into the fog. “It could be.”

  She stared at the shadow. The fog thinned for a few seconds, revealing a low, sandy beach. It looked like an island…but could she be sure? If she sailed off in that direction, she would lose sight of the only physical reference point she had. But if it were Mahtahdou’s island…she bit her lip, then eased the sail out and pulled the tiller toward her, aiming the little boat toward where the shadow lay—

  And knew, with an uncanny certainty, that it wasn’t her destination. She shoved the tiller back and pulled in the sail, and after a moment the shore of Monomoyick came reassuringly back into view.

  For a while she was content to hold her course while her heartbeat returned to normal. It had looked like an island…she’d seen it. But something had felt wrong as soon as she turned toward it. Was Mahtahdou trying to trick her into losing herself in the fog? For now, while Monomoyick was in view, she was safe. But when she came to its end there would be nothing to tell her whether or not she was sailing toward his island or off into the open Atlantic.

  Twice more Garland thought she saw islands…and twice more she knew that something was wrong. It was starting to get to her after all—the swirling, malevolently teasing fog, the howling wind that wasn’t really there, the intermittent scratching and tapping on the hull of her boat, the things that looked like eyes watching them. What weapons did she have to counteract Mahtahdou’s illusions?

  “Wish I’d brought a quilt,” she muttered. “That would have shown—”

  Wait a minute. She had brought a quilt, hadn’t she? She patted the bulge of Conn’s purple shirt tucked in her lifejacket—the shirt with the Compass Rose square sewn on it—and actually laughed aloud. Was it just a coincidence, or could it be what was keeping her from getting lost?

  “It’s not your round yet, Mahtahdou whatever-you-are,” she called.

  Rob looked at her oddly, and as if in answer the wind moaned. But this time it really was wind. It blew her damp hair off her forehead and cooled the nervous sweat that had broken out there. Heartened, she took a firmer grip on the tiller and continued to gaze out into the fog.

  Whether it was the freshening wind or her own bolstered courage, the fog seemed to thin after that. The sight of the squat lighthouse that marked the end of Monomoyick Island heartened her further. Alasdair had said the selkies’ island was somewhere near here, if you knew where to look—

  This time, the scratching noise under her hull really was sand. She gasped and nearly fell off the boat as it ran aground, forcing the daggerboard and rudder up.

  Rob grunted and grabbed for her. “Careful!”

  “I’m all right….” She blinked at the misty air, but only gray water met her puzzled eyes. Then slowly, as if revealed by an opening curtain, the mist drew aside. For a moment the water and mist wavered, then vanished. A sandy beach, rising to low, grass-covered dunes, took their place.

  This was it. She had found Alasdair’s—and Mahtahdou’s—island.

  Chapter 18

  Garland leapt into the shallow water, leaned past Rob, and let down her sail. “Come on,” she said. “Help me pull the boat up the beach.”

  He stared up at it. “Are you sure this is it?”

  Garland followed his gaze. It looked like a normal Cape Cod beach: fine creamy-white glacial sand with coarse dune grass swaying in the rising wind. To their right, the beach quickly curved and bent out of view. On their left it went on at least a quarter-mile before vanishing into the thinning fog. This was no sandbar but a substantial island. But was it really the home of supernatural beings?

  A gust of wind spattered a fine spray of raindrops across her face. She looked up and saw that as the increasing wind blew the fog into threads the sky was darkening to an ominous steel gray. She remembered the storm that struck the night before she found Alasdair. Was Mahtahdou brewing up some foul weather for their benefit? But why had he waited until they’d found the island? Surely he would have tried to blow them out to sea before they even made it here?

  “I don’t know,” she answered. “But I’m willing to bet it is. Let’s explore.”

  At her direction, Rob grabbed the boat’s bow and helped her pull it above the tide line—or at least tried to. His hands seemed clumsy, as if he couldn’t control them—Rob, whose hands she had watched in admiration deftly binding up Conn’s wounds not so long ago. But maybe they were stiff from chill or nerves. Hers certainly were.

  She glanced up at the darkening sky and took down the mast, lashing it to the bundle of sail and spars on top of the dinghy’s hull. It would make getting the boat ready to leave again take longer, but they wouldn’t get anywhere if the mast were bent in a storm. She started to take off her lifejacket then after a pause zipped it up again. It made her feel a little more secure to have an extra layer between her and whatever it was they were about to confront.

  Now all they had to do was find Mahtahdou.

  The bank under which they’d dragged the boat stretched the length of the beach as far as she could see, forming the leading edge of a high dune. It reminded her of a defensive earthwork, like the ones around the ancient hill-forts in England. Ignoring the shocked voice in her head that reminded her that dunes were fragile and should never be climbed on, she clambered up it. From its crest she saw that another, taller dune sat beyond it.

  She also had the distinct feeling that they were being watched, and not by an outraged beach ecologist, either. A chill ran down her back, one not born of her damp clothes and the increasing wind. But no other living creature could be seen—and no footprints were visible anywhere around her. She shrugged her shoulders and doggedly climbed the high sandy slope, Rob scrambling after her.

  “There, I told you so,” she said quietly as they peered over the top of the dune.

  A large, low, sprawling building nestled in a broad circular hollow below them, glowing faintly in the dimming light. Clumps of beach-rose shrubs and scrubby cedars grew around it in ar
tistic carelessness.

  Or at least, they once had. Now the cedars were lacy skeletons, and the roses, though still alive, looked yellowed and diseased. Even the waving dune grass here looked stunted and sickly. It might have been beautiful, once. Was Mahtahdou’s presence so noxious that even sturdy shore plants shriveled in it?

  Rob swayed slightly and grabbed her arm for balance. His fingers dug into her flesh. “Now what?”

  Good question. She squinted down at the clearing. Marching up to the door when she had no idea what might be inside it seemed foolhardy. Yet the dead cedars would provide little cover for a more stealthy approach. Perhaps they should circle round it and decide then…but the thought that Conn might be in there with—with things like they’d seen on the way here decided her. “We’re going in.”

  “You sound so confident.”

  Was that amusement in his voice? But no, his face was sober and if anything paler and more drawn. “I’m not. But we don’t have much choice, do we?”

  They edged gingerly down the slope and approached the building. It too had not fared well under its present tenant. Unidentifiable filth daubed its surfaces and an almost palpable aura of dereliction hung about it. Here and there holes had been punched in the walls that the wind whistled eerily through.

  But even in the dull gray light of the lowering clouds, even through the depredations of Mahtahdou and his creatures, it was beautiful. Flowing, sinuous lengths of driftwood formed its structural beams, their curving lines dictating the shapes and planes of the walls: little alcoves, and gables, and covered porticoes paved with beach cobbles. And the walls themselves…it was as if some underwater smith had taken shells—silvery, iridescent abalone and mussel—and hammered them in an impossible forge into planks and sheets. The effect of the whole was swirling and hypnotic yet coherent, as if this place were the discarded shell of some deep-sea god. If it was still this beautiful now, what must it have been like when the selkies held it? Garland reminded herself to breathe, wishing she could try to make a quilt of it.