by Alan Baxter
She nodded and returned to her post, turning to face the horizon once more.
Dylan gathered his things, locked up. Unable to help himself he called out, “What are you looking for?”
“Something lost,” she said, without looking at him.
A chill trembled along Dylan’s spine and he hurried to his doctor’s appointment.
*
For the first time in his life, Dylan was too scared to take the boat out. He couldn’t explain why, but he didn’t want to be near the ocean. He wandered around town and ate junk food before walking two blocks to a painfully familiar bar. So many evenings here with Catelyn after a movie, or with Catelyn and friends before a show. He took a few paces inside and changed his mind, turned back, determined to find somewhere else to drown his sorrows.
She smiled as she walked in. She winked and breezed past him. He stood marooned in a sea of people as she pulled out a bar stool and slid onto it, perfect curves stirring him. She drew him towards her without turning around. Her back, veiled by a waist-long fall of hair, beckoned as surely as a crooked finger.
He put one heavy foot in front of the other, desire and danger warring in his mind. She hooked out the stool next to her without looking. He sat down.
“Glenfiddich,” she told the barman, tipping her head towards Dylan. “Make it a double.”
“How do you know that?” he asked.
“Not taking your boat out tonight?” Her eyes were deep green.
“No,” he said distantly. “Thought I might . . . you know . . . land.”
She laughed, a light sound like an icy waterfall over rocks. “Land, huh?”
He nodded.
She swallowed the last of her drink and beckoned the barman to refill them both. “Land is overrated,” she said, lifting her glass in a toast.
*
Dylan woke in his bed. In his bedroom, in his house. He blinked at the ceiling. He didn’t remember getting home, or even leaving the bar. The bed felt too big and solid and still. He had grown used to his bunk on the boat. The house echoed with space and emptiness. It rang with absence.
He struggled from the covers and rocked, bile rising in his throat. Deep breaths quelled the feeling, but something wasn’t right. There was nausea but no headache, no blindness to the sunlight streaming through the open curtains. He wondered if some magic had cured him, a drinking session heavy enough that it stole his memory but left no hangover. But a deep breath wheezed through his throat into desperate lungs and he shook with the daily realisation that he was wasting away.
Eventually the sickness passed.
Thoughts tripped over each other, seeking some purchase in the vacuum of his recollection. He didn’t black out when he drank; he was cursed with remembering every vivid detail and paying for it the next day. Flashes of a kiss, cold skin, a briny aftertaste. Her voice in his ear, soft as a caress.
“Come to the water. Be found.”
*
The dock gleamed hot and white in the sun, boats bobbing, rigging clapping against masts. She was nowhere to be seen. When he thought of her his blood ran cooler, his brain misted with deep greens and greys, as if the sea had taken up residence there. He tasted salt water on his tongue.
He stood at the post where he had first seen her and gazed out. Past the mouth of the harbour the ocean stretched endless and inviting, as dangerous and mysterious as she was. He wanted to dive in and sink down until the depths swallowed him. And he wanted to turn and run away, pace after pace inland until the sea was as far away as it could be. What had she done to him?
*
Dylan motored out over calm waters, the summer sun glinting in his wake. In an hour or so it would set, plunging the world into night. He needed to hear her song again. Needed to know what was dream, what was real.
He ignored the compass and heading, ignored distance and time. He kept going away from land until it was dark and no lights could be seen. The sky was still clear; the moon rode high, illuminating the night. One hand gripped the wheel, the other absently pressed and gripped at his chest.
Eventually he decided he was far enough out and dropped anchor. On the curved deck of the prow he sat, whisky bottle in hand. He swigged, forgoing the civility of a glass. A length of rope, secured to the starboard gunwale, lay coiled beside him. He picked it up and tied it tightly about his right wrist. What lay in the depths with her? Salvation? Did it even matter? Perhaps the stains on his lungs were creeping into his brain, infecting his wits, the only things he had left to rely on.
The moon was half set and the bottle half empty when the music slid over him. He gripped the rope until his knuckles whitened. The aria chilled him, quickened his heart and mind, beckoned him. He wanted to leap from the boat, cut into the deep green and never re-emerge. But he clenched his jaw, held the rope, and drank.
She drifted some twenty feet away, bobbing gently. Her hair was slicked back, rippling behind her. She smiled. “You made me come a long way to find you tonight.”
Dylan gasped, a beached fish. The rope pressed into his palm, its roughness reassuring, solid, certain. Normal.
“Come,” she said. “Join me.”
She wriggled, rose up above the surface. Water cascaded over her breasts and moonlight flickered across pearlescence at her waist before she slipped back out of sight. Dylan ground his teeth and drank again. His vision blurred, his tongue swollen with the booze. He waited.
She resurfaced, eyes catching the moonlight and flashing angrily. “Come in,” she said, and blinked, her fury melting into a smile so open, so inviting, that he sat up straighter. The rope pulled taut.
She moved closer, stretching to see the deck where he sat. He couldn’t take his eyes from her chest, the smooth line of her stomach. She hissed as her gaze fell on the rope. Deep lines darkened her face with harsh shadows. Her teeth sharpened, her hair twisted into dark, greasy seaweed. Dylan cried out, scrambled back in shock.
She swayed, beautiful and calm. Her face smooth, smile straight and bright white in the moonlight, hair drifting on the surface. “Come in. You know you want to.”
“Not all palaces under the sea and love among the fishes, is it?” Dylan said.
She swam back and forth, cajoling. “It’s whatever you want it to be.”
“Is it, though?” He knew she lied, but still longed for her, ached for her. At the mere thought of her he felt the cold embrace of ocean almost manifest on his skin. He sidled forward, his right arm caught behind by the rope. She came to the prow and he leaned forward to see down to her.
“Let go of the rope,” she said, her voice sing-song, lulling him. “Let everything go. Come willingly. I’ll help you forget.”
He leaned further, shoulder protesting. Her body was a wave of motion, dark green scales from the waist down. She grabbed his left wrist, his hand still gripping the whisky bottle. As she yanked he cried out, strained between the securing rope and her incredible strength. She hissed again, fingers extending into claws.
Dylan drove his heels into the deck and pushed back, tried to pull away from her. He gripped the neck of the bottle, refusing to let go, twisted it to break her grasp. The rope bit into his other wrist. A high wail burst from her and she released him, dropped back beneath the surface.
Dylan upended the whisky bottle, gulping until it ran dry.
*
It was late afternoon by the time he reached mooring. His head pounded, his mouth thick with fur, dry. He was scorched by the sun, the skin raw where the rope had bitten into his wrist. He needed a proper feed and a decent sleep. What he needed most was for Catelyn to hold him and tell him everything would be all right. But it wasn’t and she never would.
The siren leaned against her post and scowled as he fumbled the mooring ropes. He refused to meet her eye, terrified and intoxicated. She strolled towards him and he watched her long, shapely legs.
“Rather literal, aren’t you?” she asked.
“What?”
“For a man who can’
t quite let go, you’re rather literal. Actually tying yourself to your boat.”
He saw the rage in her, and the desire. She ached for him, he realised with sudden clarity, as much as he did for her. But his yearning was driven by enchantment. Her own was primal, animal hunger. “I don’t know . . . ” he started. “I can’t trust . . . ”
Her face softened, all understanding and sultry invitation. “What’s to trust? We could be perfect, you and I. You’re lost and alone, and that’s exactly what I seek.”
She looked up and down the wharf. No one was nearby, no one witnessed the exchange. Dylan gasped as she slipped out of her clothes and sat, her feet in the water. He couldn’t focus as her skin shifted gently, green shimmers running up her calves. She dropped into the water and her mouth opened in song.
Dylan clenched his fists at his sides, tried to push thoughts past the pounding in his head.
“Join me,” she said, though her singing didn’t cease. “You want me,” she said with the melody. “You have nothing else.”
“Dylan!”
He turned and couldn’t believe what he saw.
“Dylan, what are doing?”
He blinked. “Catelyn?”
Behind him, a hiss, feral and furious. He stepped away from the edge of the wharf as sharp, ice-cold talons raked his ankle.
“Is it true?” Catelyn asked. “I talked to your doctor. He rang my mobile because you haven’t been answering yours or the home phone.”
“True?” Dylan said dumbly.
“He told me you’re dying. Dylan, is it true? When he realised you hadn’t told me anything he wouldn’t say any more.”
Dylan nodded. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I felt so stupid, so . . . ”
“You thought you were protecting me?” Her face showed more anger than concern.
“The way you lost your dad, and kept on at me about quitting . . . ”
“You really thought I wouldn’t find out?” Catelyn said. “Even if I left?”
“I didn’t want you to go. I didn’t want to hurt you.”
“So you hit me?”
Dylan stared. His chest felt as though it were collapsing in on itself. “I’m supposed to be the strong one,” he managed at last. “I’m supposed to look after you.”
Catelyn’s eyes widened as she looked past him towards the water. “Who’s that?”
Dylan turned.
The blonde floated, arms gently paddling out to her sides. “Dylan and I have this thing,” she said, with a crooked smile.
Catelyn’s eyes narrowed, her face hardened.
“It’s not true!’ Dylan cried. “She’s been . . . stalking me.” Though true, it still sounded pathetic.
The blonde began to sing. Dylan’s mind softened at the sound; mesmerised, entranced. Catelyn clapped her hands over her ears, blood draining from her face. Her mouth moved without words.
“Stop!” Dylan yelled, looking from the woman in the water to his wife. “Stop it!” And the song dropped into silence.
Catelyn let her hands fall, eyes wide. “What the fuck was that?”
“That hurts you?” Dylan asked. When she nodded, he said, “It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Who is she? What does she want?”
“She wants to take me away. From this.” He gestured at the harbour, his boat, the whole world. “From everything.”
“Fuck that, Dylan. You’re my husband.”
He looked into his wife’s eyes. And saw the truth there. “Really? She seems to think I’m lost.”
Catelyn laughed, a hard sound. “That may be true, but you’re my lost thing.”
“But after everything . . . ”
“We’re a partnership, Dylan. Can’t you understand that? We’re supposed to look after each other.”
“After what I did . . . ”
Catelyn slid her gaze sideways at the blonde in the water. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I should have trusted you,” he said as she wrapped her arms around him. Her smell pushed every fear and doubt from his mind. “I’m so sorry.”
She held him tight. “You don’t have to do this alone, Dylan.”
“I’m so sorry I hit you. I should never . . . ”
“You idiot. If you ever do that again . . . ” She leaned back, looked into his eyes. “How long?” she asked quietly.
He shrugged. “Months, maybe a year. It’s a crapshoot.”
Catelyn held him hard. “We’ll do this together.”
Dylan nodded, revelling in the sensation of her hair against his face. “It’s so good to hear that.” He pulled away from her, grimacing at the loss dragging on his heart as he moved. And then the lightness of revelation sparked through him and he smiled.
Catelyn’s brow creased. “What?”
“I’m a wreck, my love. But I can finally do something right by you. I won’t have you watch me decay and die. Remember who I was, before all of this.” He turned to the water.
Catelyn cried out as the blonde smiled. Triumphant notes like silver blades spilled out of her and Catelyn staggered, covering her ears. Dylan lifted his arms above his head. At last, he could take control of his future. Still smiling, he dove into an icy embrace.
Not The Worst Of Sins
Staring up at the stars, I hear the footsteps with plenty time to spare. Two sets, trying to sneak around behind, in the dark beyond the glow of my dying fire. Graham Masters shimmers into view and opens his mouth to warn me, but I just nod and slip my pistol from its holster. So many times, desperate people will try their luck on a hapless traveller. It ain’t the first time for me. Won’t be the last.
As the steps crunch softly closer, behind the scrubby chalky-pale Chaparral brush, I turn up onto one knee and fire a shot. There’s a howl and the pounding of one set of feet. Cowardly bastard ran away and left his friend to his fate. Not so much a friend any more. I aimed low; he should only be wounded. Unless he was crouching, I suppose.
His ragged breath and sobbing mark him out easy. I wander over, pistol resting ready along my thigh. Jesus, he’s barely a teenager, not a hint of whiskers on his chin.
“What the fuck you doing?” I ask. Masters stands beside me, shaking his head, unseen by the boy.
The kid’s holding hands to his gut. Must have been crouching after all. “You killed me, mister!”
“What you doing creeping up on honest folk in the dead of night?”
“Just lookin’ for some justice in the world!”
“Is that right?” I turn around and walk away.
“Poor dumb child,” Graham Masters says and I nod.
“You done killed me!” the kid cries out again, but we ignore him and lay down by the fire. I ignore the discomfort deep in my gut too. He gasps and sobs for a good hour before his breath hitches and he bleeds out.
*
I wake in the darkness with a scream and think I’ve been dreaming, until I see Masters fighting with the spectral figures. He’s shouting and cursing, and I can’t make things out too clearly, what with the sleep in my eyes and mind. Masters is grabbing at the ghosts as they claw and scratch, trying to get past him to me. Waves of coldness waft off them. I can smell frosty ground, but it ain’t that late in the year yet. My heart hammers and I start to get up.
Masters snarls over his shoulder. “Sleep, boy! Don’t give them the power of your attention!”
They’ve got by him before, and when they claw at me they’re so cold it burns. It’s hard to ignore the fight. Cursing the whimper in my breath, I turn my face to the earth and squeeze my eyes tight shut. Every night now it’s the same, every time getting worse. Pressing my hands over my ears to mask the shouts, I don’t know how long before it’s over, but eventually sleep takes me.
*
Dawn smudges the horizon pale pink and blue as I kick up the embers and set the pot to boiling for some coffee.
“Again last night,” I say to the flickering form beside me.
“Ain’t
nothing for you to worry about.”
“They seemed angry . . . ”
Masters turns a hard face to me. “Ain’t they always, boy? Ain’t I always kept them off you?”
Not always, no. But I let it drop. Masters being mad at me all day can be worse than ghosts trying to take me away at night.
*
The buildings stand like sentinels in the early sunlight. The town is little more than a crossroads, too small to even have a name, by the look of it. I can relate to that. Two streets mark out the cardinal directions, lined with stores and homes made of roughly cut wood, and more properties spread out behind them. People in dusty clothes walk in the shade of awnings, occasionally casting me suspicious glances. They quickly look away if I catch their eye.
I’ll ask around and see if any of our leads are good ones. My daddy’s had eighteen years of getting lost, having fucked off right before I was born, but a cur like him don’t stay hidden for long. He ain’t dumb, uses a bunch of aliases, but he did business with Graham Masters not so long ago, so we know all of Pa’s fake names. At least the ones he was using before he turned on his own partner. Masters has never told me what their business was, but it can’t have been friendly if it caused my sonofabitch father to leave Graham Masters a ghost. I guess Dad thinks moving from state to state will mean he never crosses paths with his past. We aim to prove him wrong in that assumption and put things to rights. Graham Masters for his own reasons, and me for Momma and myself.
The main street is swirling in dust from wagonwheels and horse’s hooves as I tie up Old Jack by the saloon. He buries his nose in the water trough, sucking and sucking like he’s never had a drink in his life. He’s a damn good horse, honest and gentle, and he means the world to me, even if his chestnut brown hide is scraggy and his ribs show through. My gun and my saddle are pretty much all I have besides Jack. And Graham Masters, I suppose, but he ain’t an actual thing, regardless of how helpful he’s been.
It only takes about a half a minute in the saloon to know the barkeep there ain’t going to be any use. He’s never heard the names I give him. As I step back outside, a man walks towards me, jaw working as he chews tobacco, and I see the sun glinting off his badge, attitude drifting out from under the brim of his dirty grey hat.