Body of Water

by Stuart Wakefield

  “I know. We both are.”

  He released me and loped to a bale opposite, sat down and put his head in his hands.

  Without thinking I crossed to him and stroked his mane of hair, thickened with the salty night air, but smooth as always. “What was that, just then, in the water?”

  “Don’t ever go onto the beach again. It knows ye’re here now and it’s coming for ye.”

  “What is?”

  Dom leapt to his feet, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me to the barn door. He opened it a crack and peered outside.

  “Maggs was right. We have tae get ye oot of here, off the island.”

  “Why? What was that thing?”

  “Ah think it was the Nuck, like Millie told ye. Evil has risen, Leven, and it’s coming for ye.”

  I would have scoffed at this had the fear in Dom’s face made me feel colder still. “But why would it want me?”

  “Ah think it’s safe, come on.”

  In an instant, we were back in the house. When Dom satisfied himself that everything was secure, he finally loosened his grip on me. I shook my arm out, feeling the sensation slowly come back into my fingers.

  “Follow me,” he ordered, bounding up the tight staircases. “Ye need tae hear this from one of yer own.”

  I did as he told me. Halfway up the staircase I pulled my pendant out of my pocket to put it back around my neck. If it did offer protection then I needed all the help I could get. As I looped the cord around my neck, I looking down at the iron lump and stopped my ascent. One half of it had rusted where the varnish had been chipped away. Only Shaun would have done that. I remembered him saying that if it had rusted it would have been the same colour as his hair.

  My reverie was broken by Dom pounding on the door to my father’s room, his fist a mallet. “Mackay! This beuy of yers needs some answers.” I had no idea why he bothered to hammer on the door because he shouldered it open without waiting for a response. It gave away more quickly than he’d expected and he stumbled into the room before swearing loudly.

  I sprinted up the final steps and gasped at the horror that lay on the bed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Father & Son

  Mackay’s body lay twisted almost out of recognition.

  Dom crouched down and picked up the bedside lamp that, still lit, lay on the floor. As he set it back on the table, the light cast equally twisted shadows on the walls.

  I stepped forwards gingerly and looked around. Mackay’s catheter had slipped out and urine pooled on the floor, the acrid smell pervading the room. I covered my lower face with my hand.

  Mackay looked even more insect than human and I noticed how much more frail he had become, even since our first meeting. He looked like a desiccated spider covered in tissue-thin skin.

  “Is he…?” I couldn’t finish the sentence.

  Dom pressed his fingers against Mackay’s neck then jumped backwards when the old man took a sudden breath.

  “Leven.” He tried to reach out to me. His arm twitched but wouldn’t move. His bony fingers clawed at the sheets as he tried to pull himself upright. I felt the urge to help him up but I was reluctant to touch him. He looked fragile but there was still something malevolent about him. At first I thought it was because of the resentment I felt towards him but here, in this room, I felt a dark energy. “Dom, leave us.”

  Dom hesitated. He looked at me sideways, unsure of what to do until I nodded my assent to him. Although I felt deeply uncomfortable, I doubted Mackay was going to harm me. Dom backed out of the room, shut the door behind him and descended the first staircase. His footsteps ended there and I assumed he was listening from the landing.

  Mackay’s voice was a fractured whisper. “What do you know?”

  “Dom told me that you took something from him. He can’t leave without it. You’re keeping him against his will.”

  “I need him.”

  “For what?”

  “For what I’m not strong enough to do myself.”

  “But he says that you trapped him before you got sick.”

  His thin lips stretched across ragged teeth. “And what do you think of that?”

  What the hell did he care what I thought? “It’s not really for me to say.”

  “Come now, you must be thinking something.”

  “That you were… you know.”

  Mackay tried to smile but the effort only twitched the corners of his mouth. “What?”

  Never had I imagined that I’d accuse my biological father of being bisexual. Why had I brought this up? The thought of it alone made me want to bleach my brain. I changed the subject. “He’s angry.”

  “He’s every right to be. He’s an animal, caged and skittish. They sense when something bad approaches. Earn his trust.”

  “So, it’s true? He’s a Selkie?”

  Mackay didn’t have to answer. His gaze dropped. When he finally looked back at me his eyes were full of tears. Now Mackay changed the subject. “What do you know about you?”

  “That I’m different.”

  Mackay said nothing. His shallow breaths sounded deafening in the overwhelming silence of the room.

  “People don’t want me here. They think I’m in danger.”

  “Maggs?”

  “Yes. She doesn’t think I’m safe.”

  “Stay away from the water.”

  I pointed out of his window towards the expanse of ocean. “Why did you bring me here if it wasn’t safe?”

  “You have to stop him.

  “Who?”

  “Your father.”

  “But…”

  “Your real father.”

  Those three words alone made my breathing as shallow as his. I steadied myself against his bed.

  Mackay continued as best he could. “The winter spirit. He rules the sea for half the year. He seduced my wife, your mother, before I could. She disgusted me then. You’re their son.”

  “That’s crazy.” Then I remembered my last conversation with Maggs. “How can you be telling me this? Maggs cast a spell preventing it.”

  “Look at me,” he rasped, his eyes indicating his withered body. “I’ve been trying to break her spell for years.”

  “Magic did this to you?”

  “It’s not meant to be used by humans.” His left arm dropped off the edge of the bed and he winced in pain. I reached over him to place it back by his side and then I noticed something behind his bed; piles and piles of decaying books, shards of bone, trinkets, and a black metal bowl. All this time he’d been trying to get the truth to me, wherever I was. “The dog you killed,” he wheezed. “You remember the dream?”

  “That was you?”

  “It was the only way I found to get to you. You are different. Show me.”

  “I don’t know if I can. I’ve never tried.”

  “Take off the pendant. The iron dampens your demonic side. Remember your feelings from the dream. Try.”

  That made sense to me. The exposed iron had burned my skin. I pulled the pendant over my head and dropped it beside Mackay before picking up the black metal bowl from behind his bed and placing it on the floor at my feet.

  Mackay watched me intently, only his eyes and chest moved.

  My hand shook as I picked up the glass that sat next to his medication. I made a fist with my free hand and held it under the glass. As I concentrated on my feeling of fear from my nightmare, I slowly poured a trickle of water from the glass. Rather than splash against my fist the water curved around it and splashed into the bowl.

  Mackay’s eyes sparkled. “Your fear pushes it away. What does your anger do?”

  I let the anger from my dream wash the fear away. As the water continued to trickle from the glass I turned my hand over, palm facing upwards. The water pooled above it until I made a fist and the water formed an irregular sphere floating above my hand.

  A burst of sound shattered my concentration and the water washed over my hand onto the floor.

  Mackay’s
wretched cough curled his body like a dying bug as he shook uncontrollably. I dropped onto the bed to help him but he thrashed violently.

  “Dom, help me!”

  “Lighthouse. S’all there,” Mackay gurgled, then went still.

  Dom bowled into the room and went straight to Mackay.

  I stood and walked away to the corner of the room, unable to reconcile my resentment for Mackay with the realisation that he’d spent much of his life trying to get through to me, tell me the truth, warn me. To see him die like that, in so much pain, reminded me of Ruth and I realised once more that I’d tried to run away from my feelings but here they were, right here with me.

  Dom reached out and straightened Mackay’s limbs. I watched him, noticing how gently he placed each arm and leg. Despite the way he had been treated Dom still showed Mackay respect in his death.

  As Dom positioned the final limb, Mackay’s head lolled to one side. Fluid poured out of his mouth and onto his pillow.

  I am five years old. The man who lives across the street is running towards me, shouting. He is running towards the dog lying at my feet.

  “He’s dead,” the man begins to cry, struggling to lift the dog into his arms. The dog’s head slips from the man’s arms and water pours out of its mouth onto the yellow lawn.

  “What’s wrong?” Dom crossed to me.

  “I’ve seen this before.”

  “Here?”

  I shook my head, my eyes still riveted to Mackay’s face. This was my nightmare made real.

  Dom made a frustrated sound and started to search the room. I tore my gaze away from the body and watched him turn over each object one by one.

  “Are you looking for your skin?” The words sounded strange even amongst all this strangeness. I started to feel numb, detached from everything that had happened in the last few days.

  “No,” Dom said, finishing a sweep of the room. “Ah’m trying tae work oot what happened.”

  “He drowned. Look at his face. See how sunken it is? He hasn’t lost weight. The fluid from his body has been pushed into his lungs.”

  Dom stepped gingerly towards the body for a closer examination.

  “Ye’re right. But how-”

  “Because I’ve done this.”

  Dom took his hands away from the body. “Ye did this?”

  “Not to him.”

  “The dog.” For the first time since we had met, Dom looked scared of me.

  I grabbed my pendant and put it back on, tucking it between my vest and shirt so the rusted side didn’t touch my skin. “We have to go to the lighthouse. He said it was all there, whatever that means.”

  Dom locked me in place with his gaze alone. “Ye’ll see.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Evolution

  “Where are ye going? The lighthouse is that way.”

  “I need some answers from the only person who can tell me the truth.”

  “Ah can do that, moppy.”

  “Only about what you know. I need someone who knows everything.”

  “Who?”

  “Maggs of course.”

  I set off at a pace but Dom soon caught up with me. We worked our way along the path towards the pub. The landscape seemed even more inhospitable. I glanced between the barren landscape to our left and the sea to our right. The rocks jutted more fiercely than yesterday, the waves chopped like blades, the dim light colder.

  “She was only doing what she thought was right,” Dom said. He sounded uncomfortable.

  “I’m not going to hurt her but I sure as hell want that spell lifted. I need to know everything. Mackay spent years trying to get through to me. He killed himself trying to undo what she did. She needs to know what she-”

  I heard a sound, a snort, behind us and spun around.

  It was just a horse and its rider in the distance. I sighed with relief until it moved. The horse’s legs looked like they’d been put together like a child. The joints moved too unnaturally for it to be a horse and the rider’s legs skimmed the scoured grass. No, not its legs, its arms.

  I stood motionless, my mouth agape. Where the horse’s head should have been, there was a deformed lump with one red eye and a gaping mouth. The entire creature appeared to have been flayed. Two flame-red eyes in the second head fixed onto me and I gasped for air as a feeling of pure hatred washed over me.

  The creature roared and galloped towards us. I couldn’t move. This wasn’t a story, a blue light floating over a deserted house. This thing defied explanation but here it was. I could see it. I could feel its hooves pummelling the ground.

  “Run,” roared Dom, as I felt his fingers hook under my arm.

  My mind snapped back into focus and I ran. Dom was accelerating away from me fast, down the slope and onto the beach. He reached out behind him but his fingers closed on air. I couldn’t keep up. Realising I wasn’t right behind him he looked around, first at me and then past me.

  He leapt into the air and spun to face me, his legs flexing as he landed firmly in the sand.

  I heard the sound of snorting behind me. The horror of the approaching thing powered my legs as I sprinted towards Dom who was steadying his stance as if to fight it.

  The creature shot past me and slammed into Dom, galloping towards the rock wall at the back of the bay. It had him in its grasp, lifting him over its deformed head. Dom roared with pain as it threw him against the sheet of rock, the bare muscles of its hugely deformed arms twisting with exertion.

  “Run,” Dom roared. His voice fractured as the creature struck him with a foreleg.

  I ran, not away, but towards them. I’d run away for far too long. Now it was time to fight.

  Dom wrestled against the creature, his eyes clamped shut with what I could only imagine was unbearable pain. When he opened them he saw me approaching and screamed for me to turn back but I knew I had to do something.

  The thing’s arms were held out straight, choking Dom against the wall. Its hooves dug deep into the sand as it leant with all its bulk against him. Before I could get there Dom made a horrible choking sound then went limp. Distraught, I launched myself at the creature, connecting with its arms. The gigantic head snapped at me as I tried in vain to prise open its grip on Dom’s limp form.

  Black veins pulsed along the creature’s arms. I lunged at them frantically, pulling on them whenever I was able to gain hold. They were tough but some burst, the foul stench of the thing’s blood stabbed my lungs but it shrieked in pain and dropped Dom.

  Then I ran, the beast in angry pursuit. I had to get it away from Dom. Its attack looked powerful enough to have killed a man but I prayed that Dom was as tough as he looked and, after all, he wasn’t a man at all. Maybe Selkies could live without air longer than a human or had an alternative breathing system?

  At the water’s edge, I vaulted up onto an outcrop of jagged rocks before I risked turning to check where my pursuer was.

  It was in midair, its front hooves and arms aimed squarely at my torso. I had no time to react and the connection exploded in my chest before I felt the rocks slam into my back. My pendant had come loose from my shirt. Still attached to my neck, it bounced on the rock next to my head. The creature roared in triumph and aimed one hoof at my skull. As it punched down towards me I dodged and the hoof connected with the pendant. It shattered and one shard pierced my cheek. I cried out in pain and kicked out at the creature, my feet connecting with the flesh between its forelegs. It staggered back, momentarily stunned. I flipped up onto my feet and took a step towards it, looking for some exposed artery to rip open but was distracted by a brilliant blue light in my lower peripheral vision.

  The creature took advantage of my pause and struck my chest again. I heard my sternum crack before the pain crushed my vision and I soared backwards. For a brief moment I thought I could see everything. The beach, monster, Dom, house, pub, and millhouse. Everything looked bright, detailed, but so, so small. I knew I’d strike the water at any
moment. My back began to prickle and then the world turned black.

  I am five years old. The big, scary dog always barks at me. It is not only barking now. It is running towards me, its sharp teeth bared. I am scared. I know it wants to kill me, just like it killed that other dog.

  My hands clench and I concentrate. The dog stops barking and slows down, its body moving towards me only because it is too big to stop. It falls to the floor, its head ploughs into the crispy grass and it flips over. It stays still now. Its fur looks dry in the burning sun.

  I know that it is dead and that I have killed it. I took the water from its body and pumped it into its lungs.

  The man who owns the dog is shouting at me and scoops the dog up in his arms. The dog’s head slips from the man’s arms and water pours out of its mouth onto the yellowed grass.

  I hear someone run up to me, pick me up and carry me away. I can’t take my eyes off the water trickling between the dead blades of grass. It is moving towards me like it’s alive. I reach out. My hand looks different, older. Water rushes in from behind me, lapping against the body of the dog, which looks much bigger now. But this is not rainwater. This water smells of the sea. What am I doing in the sea?

  The person carrying me away calls me by a name that I do not recognise.

  I tried to roll over but something bulky stopped me. I opened my eyes to see Dom’s face half-buried in the sand, his neck purple and black from strangulation. I raised my head and hand to check Dom’s breathing and the movement brought him to life, his body crouched over me as he examined me with concern.

  “I thought you were…” I said. “What happened?”

  “Ye don’t remember? Ah came roond in time tae see the Nuck-”

  “The Nuck?”

  “-knock ye intae the water. There was a sound, a boom, as ye hit the water. Ah thought ye lost. The sand was covered in something thick and sticky that smelt like blood. There was a terrible shaking of the groond and then there ye were, floating above the waves. Ye reached oot with yer hands and the Nuck keeled over ontae its side. It just dropped down dead. Then ye fell back into the water.”

  “I killed it?”