Deep Water

by Lu Hersey

  Someone else is here, keeping to the shadows. I swim quickly upwards to get away.

  On the surface, a splashing sound. I turn in panic. An old woman floats on the waves, her eyes dark, unblinking. Watching me.

  Floundering, spluttering in salt water, I start to sink.

  I sit up in bed, coughing and rubbing my arms. My dreams feel so real, it scares me. I never used to dream like this. Since Mum went missing, it happens every night.

  Michelle stirs. She’s about to wake up. I run to the bathroom and load my toothbrush with toothpaste to get rid of the taste of brine.

  Dad is taking Michelle back to her mum’s before he opens Cararth Crystals, so it’s still early when we pull up in Ancrows. Levi and I scramble out of the car while Dad keeps the engine running. He winds down the car window to say goodbye.

  “Good luck with the search, Danni. Just call me if you’ve got any problems. I’ll come back to collect you at about midday.”

  “Thanks, Dad. We’ll make sure we’re back in time.”

  I try to smile at him, but I’m feeling queasy. I’m not sure where to start the search for my grandmother and I wish he had time to help. I already checked the phone book before we set out, but couldn’t find anyone with the name Pengelly listed in Ancrows.

  Levi waves to Michelle in the back of the car as Dad drives off. She’s blowing kisses at me, so I blow one back. I’ll miss her. She’s been here all week for the half-term break, but she’s heading home today.

  “See you next weekend, Shell!” I shout. I hope she heard me. I’m guessing I’ll still be around unless Mum makes a miraculous recovery.

  Levi looks at me. He obviously realizes I’m stressed about the search.

  “Don’t worry so much, Danni. This place isn’t that big. And we know your grandmother’s surname even if we don’t know her first name. How many Mrs Pengellys can there be? We’ll just ask around in all the shops. If she still lives here, someone’s bound to know her.”

  As we walk, I can’t shake off the image of the blue door in my dream. The peeling layers of paint. The black iron dolphin knocker. My head starts to throb. I check my hands quickly, just in case, but at the moment they’re fine. We cross the road and head towards the harbour where the cafes are. The vision keeps flashing into my mind and I wonder if I’m getting ill. Everything feels unreal and dreamlike.

  We decide to go into all the little gift shops we come to on the way down to the harbour. Ancrows is only a small place, but because of the tourist trade there are quite a few. We ask in every shop to see if anyone knows of a Mrs Pengelly in the area. No one’s heard of her, though it turns out most of the traders are outsiders who’ve only moved here in recent years. Even so I can’t help feeling disappointed.

  Along the path by the river, we come to a small cafe. Levi studies the menu up on display in the window and his stomach rumbles loudly. I’m not hungry, but I’ve agreed to stop for brunch because I know Levi’s useless without food inside him. I still don’t feel right though. I try to stay calm and focus on nice things, like going to the Chill Out again with Elliot later, but it’s no use. I feel too anxious.

  “Looks good,” says Levi. “And we’ve got enough to cover it. Shall we go in?”

  I nod.

  “You don’t look too sure, Danni – do you want to check out the other options first?”

  “No, you’re all right.” I smile as brightly as I can. Trailing round looking at other cafes isn’t going to help me feel better. We may as well sit in this one.

  Levi orders a full cooked breakfast. I settle on just toast and marmalade.

  As we sit waiting for the order to arrive, I try not to think about the smell of greasy fried food that pervades the entire place.

  Levi’s eyes light up at the sight of his breakfast when it arrives, and he tucks in straight away. I try to force myself to eat some toast and drink a sip of tea.

  When he’s finished, he looks up at me. “Danni, you’ve got to try to calm down a bit. You look really pale. I know you’re worried about your mum, but you’re doing your best. Let yourself off the hook a bit why don’t you? I’m sure we’ll find your gran soon. Don’t you want to eat your toast before we go?”

  “Nah, I’m fine. Can we leave now?”

  Without waiting for an answer I grab my rucksack and go outside. I stand on the pavement waiting for Levi, feeling so strange, I’m worried I’m going to faint. Levi comes out and joins me.

  “Just going up here a minute.” I point at a narrow alleyway between the cafe and the shop next door. I start walking, not giving Levi enough time to protest. My head feels like it’s on fire. My hands are itching and my vision is starting to blur.

  “Where are we going? There’s no shops up there!” Levi says plaintively behind me. I ignore him. There’s something about this place. I can’t explain why, but I have to keep walking.

  I stumble up the cobbled path, trying to concentrate on breathing. At the top of the narrow alley there’s a short row of cottages. They’re hidden behind the cafe and shops on the river front. I stop dead. Waves of nausea bring the taste of bile to my mouth. I gaze at a blue front door with peeling paintwork and an old dolphin knocker in the centre. As I watch, it starts to open slowly.

  “What’s going on, you’re acting really weird,” moans Levi, catching up with me. He glares at me, then his expression changes. “Hey, are you all right? You look a bit green.”

  “That’s the house, I know it.” I point at the blue door. It’s exactly the same as the one in my dream.

  “Eh?”

  I understand why he’s confused. I am too. The door opens wider.

  “It’s my grandmother’s house.” I’m not just guessing. I know it. My hands are prickling and I’m breaking out in a cold sweat.

  “How do you know? You’ve never been here before…” An old woman pops her head out of the doorway and stares across at us. Levi stops talking. I don’t know exactly what happens next because everything goes black.

  I open my eyes. I’m lying on my back on the cobbles. Levi is leaning over me, supporting my head and looking really worried.

  “Danni? Are you okay? You hit the ground so hard. Tell you what, blink twice so I know you haven’t gone mental.”

  I smile and blink twice.

  “I’m fine.”

  It’s not true. I stay lying on my back. My head is throbbing.

  The woman from the house has come over. She bends down to look at me. Her eyes are dark, velvet brown. Just like Mum’s. Just like mine.

  “You’re Danni, aren’t you? My granddaughter?”

  I nod at her, speechless. No wonder I passed out. It’s the woman from my dream. The one floating on the waves. Yet I’m wide awake and she’s here, looking at me. It’s all too weird. I sit up with Levi’s help and have to put my head between my knees for a moment so I don’t pass out again.

  “Danni? Are you okay? You’re so pale! Should I call an ambulance?” Levi sounds really worried.

  “No, I’m all right, really.” I say it as firmly as I can, though actually it feels like the world is crashing down on me. An ambulance is the last thing I want right now. I might end up in the psychiatric ward with Mum.

  I lift my head carefully, and struggle to get to my feet. Levi gives me a hand. I feel very wobbly standing up.

  “Don’t worry, it’s only like this at the beginning.” The old woman gently holds my arm to steady me. “You’d better both come into the warm and have some tea.”

  “Thank you, you’re very kind. Are you Mrs Pengelly?” Levi looks at her and then at me like he’s comparing us.

  “Yes. But call me Mamwyn. It’s easier,” she says.

  “Mamwyn? I’ve never heard that name before,” I say. My voice sounds distant to me, like it’s coming from the bottom of a well.

  “It’s an old Cornish word,” she says. “It just means grandmother.”

  Mamwyn leads us into her tiny cottage.

  “Danni needs a glass of wate
r,” she says to Levi. “Stay by the fire and make yourself comfortable. We won’t be a minute. I’ll put the kettle on.”

  She guides me straight through to the kitchen at the back of the house. Daylight filtering through the tiny leaded glass windowpanes makes the room glow faintly green. I sit down shakily on a wooden chair by an old pine table. Mamwyn fills a kettle and puts it on an ancient kitchen range to boil. The range smells of burning driftwood, which is warm and comforting.

  Mamwyn gives me a glass of water then takes a chocolate cake out of a tin, cuts a big slice and puts it on a plate.

  “I’ll just take this through to your friend. What’s his name?”

  “Levi.”

  “He looks nice.”

  Mamwyn disappears with Levi’s slice of cake. If only my head would stop throbbing, I could concentrate. She said it’s always like this at the beginning. What did she mean? The beginning of what?

  I have to find out more, but I’m afraid I won’t like what I’m about to hear.

  Mamwyn bustles back into the kitchen, puts a teapot on a tray and adds three mugs.

  Suddenly she grabs my wrist and I nearly jump out of my skin. She stares into my eyes.

  “Have you started getting the dreams?” Her voice has fallen to a whisper. I get the impression she doesn’t want Levi to hear. I nod dumbly. There’s no point pretending I don’t know what she’s talking about. I’m shaking so much I make the tray of china rattle on the table.

  “And the seawater?”

  “Seawater?”

  “Coming through your hands.”

  So I wasn’t imagining it. I feel the room start to spin.

  “What does it mean?”

  “Your mother hasn’t told you?” She sighs. “It’s nothing to worry about. It’s just the way it starts. Once you’ve been through the changing it all stops – except the foretelling. That’s part of the gift.”

  Her words aren’t making a lot of sense, but I try to keep up.

  “Changing?” Something about the way she said the word resonates with me. I sense it’s the key to everything that’s been happening.

  “It’s your time,” she says. “Come back here on your own, soon. I can help you understand what’s happening to you.”

  She stops whispering and starts humming as she slices some more cake.

  “Now we’d better join your friend, if you’re up to it?”

  I nod, but she notices I’m still shaking.

  “I’ll carry the tray. You bring the cake,” she says. “And try not to worry.”

  I attempt a smile. But my head is full of questions. What does this “changing” involve? It must be something serious, since she won’t talk about it with Levi around.

  “Hey, Danni, this place is awesome!”

  Levi is staring at a pair of garishly painted wooden breasts on a massive mermaid. He’s transfixed. He hasn’t even wolfed down all his cake yet. The mermaid is a ship’s figurehead and it dominates the whole corner of the room.

  I look round, and for a moment I forget my headache and everything else. I’ve never seen anything like it.

  There’s no paint or wallpaper on the walls. Instead, thousands of pebbles and shells have been set into the plaster to make mosaic pictures of the sea, the harbour and fishing boats. Black pebble dolphins jump in and out of cockleshell waves and seals made from mussel shells search the seabed. Shoals of fish swim in every direction, all made out of tiny winkle shells and bits of mother of pearl.

  Every shelf and piece of furniture in the room has been carefully constructed from nets and lobster pots and pieces of wood washed up by the sea. The green sofa by the fire looks like the only thing that she’s bought from a shop, but it’s very old and battered.

  “Do you both want tea?” Mamwyn puts the tray down on an old orange crate.

  Levi flashes his special smile, the one he uses when he wants something.

  “Lovely, thank you so much.”

  I notice he’s now stuffed the last bit of his cake into his mouth. I bet he’s hoping for more.

  Mamwyn sits down on the sofa in front of the fire, and Levi and I find a couple of lobster-pot stools. She takes the plate of cake from me and hands him another slice without even asking. She gives me a piece too. It smells delicious.

  As I take a bite, Mamwyn looks at me. She sighs deeply.

  “I guess you’ve come to tell me about Mary. Or Erin as she calls herself these days.”

  Her eyes go dark with tears and her voice wavers. “I don’t know what to do.”

  I put my plate down. I can’t eat the cake. For a moment I want to cry too.

  “Was it you who took in the flowers? Why didn’t you tell the staff who you were?”

  For a moment it seems she’s too upset to speak, then she pulls a cotton hanky from her apron pocket and blows her nose.

  “Yes, I took flowers. Robert told me she was in there.”

  “Robert?”

  “Said he saw you in the graveyard. You told him she was in hospital.”

  “You know Robert?” I realize immediately it’s a stupid question.

  “He keeps out of the village mostly these days. Sleeps in a shed up near the little church. Came in specially to tell me. He and my Mary were close once.” Mamwyn dabs her eyes with the hanky. “Of course she won’t get better in that place. It’s not a place for people like us.”

  “Are you sure? I thought she seemed a little better when I last saw her,” I say. “Maybe she knew you’d been to see her? She was asking for you all the time before.”

  Mamwyn sighs. “That’s because even in the state she’s in, she knows you and I are the only ones who can help.”

  From the look on her face, I’m sure she wants to tell me something. She glances at Levi then at me. I understand. She won’t tell me while he’s here. It’s exasperating because my brain is practically exploding with questions.

  I’ve got to come back and see her alone as soon as I can. I want her to tell me about Mum, and what happened between them that made Mum avoid coming here. Mum had way too many secrets and I’d really like some answers. Why didn’t Mum tell me about Mamwyn, and how come she never brought me here to meet her? Most of all, I want to know what this changing thing she mentioned is about.

  I need time to think. All the weirdness that’s happened since Mum went missing is way too much to take on board. My head is throbbing again.

  Suddenly I remember we have to meet Dad. “What’s the time, Levi?”

  He looks at his watch. “We’ve got ten minutes to get to the car park. Good thing you asked.” He smiles at Mamwyn. “This has been awesome! Thank you so much for the tea and everything.”

  I smile despite my worries. Levi is so easy to please. All it takes to make him happy is a couple of slices of home-made chocolate cake.

  Mamwyn comes with us to the car park. It’s a bit awkward, as Dad’s never met her, even though he was once married to Mum.

  “Nice to meet you,” he says, shaking her hand. He looks uncomfortable. “My name’s Nigel, by the way. Shame we haven’t met before…”

  “Yes, I’m sorry too,” says Mamwyn simply. “But it’s lovely to meet you and my granddaughter at last! I hope you’ll let her visit me again.”

  “Yes of course.” Dad glances at his watch. “Look, I have to get back to my shop now – it’s called Cararth Crystals if you’d like to drop by any time. The number’s in the phone book and I’ve got a website…”

  “Thank you, Nigel. And I hope to see you soon, Danni. We have so much catching up to do.”

  I smile nervously. Mamwyn is clever. She’s just skilfully made sure it’ll be much easier for me to come back and see her on my own. The thought makes my stomach knot with nervous tension.

  Levi and I climb into the car. I wave at Mamwyn through the window as Dad drives us away, thinking how weird it was finding her today. Yet somehow she already feels familiar, like someone I should have known all my life. I wonder again why Mum went to so much tro
uble to keep us apart. I have to find out. And soon.

  chapter 15

  It’s evening. Levi and I vie for the bathroom mirror as we get ready to go out. Levi grins at his reflection so he can inspect his teeth. I elbow him so I can get a look in too and check my eye make-up.

  “Making a bit of an effort, aren’t we? Who’s all the slap for?” He turns his stupid grin towards me.

  “What about you? Is that meant to be a dazzling smile? You look like a donkey.”

  My head’s still aching from landing on the cobbles outside Mamwyn’s earlier, but we’d already arranged to go to the Chill Out tonight, and I’m looking forward to seeing Elliot so much that I don’t care. I’m hoping it’ll take my mind off everything else.

  I hear a car horn outside and run to the front room. I look out of the window.

  “Levi? Elliot’s waiting outside,” I shout. I watch Levi take a last look at himself in the bathroom mirror on his way out, and we grab our coats and head for the stairs.

  Elliot is sitting in the front seat next to his dad. Levi and I climb into the back. I’m too nervous to say anything, but as we drive towards Ancrows, Levi chats to Elliot about football and the Champions League. Elliot’s dad joins in. I’m glad I don’t have to say anything. Football’s not really my thing.

  We wave goodbye to Elliot’s dad. Elliot catches my arm on the way into the chapel building.

  “You’re very quiet, Danni, are you okay?”

  “I’m fine.” I smile at him.

  Elliot knows about us meeting Mamwyn earlier today because he was in the shop when we got back. But I only gave him an outline.

  “I’m amazed you wanted to come out after going through all that today. It must have been so emotional finally getting to meet your grandmother!”

  “Levi wanted to see Sarah again. I couldn’t let him down.” I don’t tell him how much I wanted to see him too.

  “I’m glad you came.” He smiles and my legs feel like jelly. He strokes my hair gently with his fingers. “You’ve got a lot of stuff to deal with right now.”

  I make an “urmph” sound and start blushing. I’d like to say something intelligent, but my tongue feels like it just got too big for my mouth.