Sea Change

by Francis Rowan

  Simon made a face at John but didn't say anything else. They struggled outside, wind plucking at their clothes, spray crashing over their faces. They carried on talking even though they couldn't hear each other from the moment they stepped outside, carried on shouting across to each other even though the wind snatched their words and threw them far away back towards the shore, because it stopped the fear that waited to leap on them as soon as they let it, taking them over and filling them with its poison.

  John fumbled along the narrow deck between the wheelhouse and the side of the boat, fingers wrapping tight around anything that he could find that might stop him from being pitched into the dark water that surged all around him. When the boat went into the trough of a wave, the water rose on each side until it seemed to be everywhere at once, as if they had left the surface without knowing it, and were descending into an endless clash and roil of water.

  John found a space just to the front of the wheelhouse and crouched down, holding on to the thick rope that ran along the top of the side rail with one hand, using the other to keep wiping the spray from his eyes. He looked across at the other side of the boat, and Simon wasn't there.

  For a moment John felt his insides turn cold, Simon could have been swept off the side and into the water without him or Sal hearing him cry, and even now he would be struggling in the sea metres behind them, watching them disappear into the night as the waves pulled him under. Then he breathed again as Simon staggered into view from the other side of the cabin, giving John a quick thumbs up which he promptly abandoned as the boat bucked again and Simon was forced to grab hold.

  They clung on to the boat and peered out into the darkness, seeing nothing but water and foam, not much to distinguish the sky from the sea. We'll never see anything, John thought. God, how do we even know that Sal has brought us to the right place, it's like a needle in a haystack, she's only been out once or twice. Even if we find it, we've got to find our way back to the land and get back into the harbour without being smashed to pieces. He thought of the boat's struggle through the waves, and he thought of trying to aim it back in through the harbour walls, like launching a paper plane in a storm and hoping it could fly through a letterbox. Then he saw it.

  A finger of white foam, touched by the moonlight, stretching out from the shore.

  John and Simon both looked across the boat at each other, to check to see whether the other had seen it, to make sure that they weren't just imagining it. Then they both looked out again. The beach was hidden by the waves and then darkness, and for a moment John thought no, we were both mistaken, and then the boat rose on the waves and they saw it again. John hammered on the side of the wheelhouse, shouting, "This way, this way, to the right." He could see the dim shape of Sal inside through the water-streaked wheelhouse window, but didn't know if she had heard him. He fought his way to the door, racing before they overshot it, but Simon beat him to it, exploding through the door and shouting, "We're near—I can see the beach above high water mark."

  "Watch for the rocks," Sal said, "Get back out and watch for the rocks. I'm going to take us in."

  Chapter Seventeen

  Sal hauled the wheel round and John and Simon staggered out on to the deck again, searching the turbulent water for a glimpse of jagged black, as the cliffs loomed above them, closer and closer. John worried that they had gone past the rocks, and would not find them again in the dark. Then Simon hammered on the wheelhouse window, jabbing his fingers out into the darkness.

  The rattle and roar of the engine dropped, and the boat slowed, came round, slowly, slowly, and then there was a thump and a terrible scraping sound. The engine roared again, and the boat moved backwards in the water, Sal fighting the waves that wanted to push them onto the rocks. Simon came reeling across the shifting deck towards John, his face shining with excitement.

  "You ready?"

  "Now or never."

  John stuck his head through the doorway into the wheelhouse. Sal didn't turn her head.

  "Thanks," he said. "To both of you. For—for all of it."

  Sal nodded. "Come back," she said. “But be quick about it, I don’t know how long I can hold the boat here for.”

  John opened the door and the wind pushed its way back in to the cabin.

  "John." It was Simon, leaning out of the door after him, looking as if he had something very important to say.

  John grabbed the top of the door frame with his free hand, and bent his head so he could hear. "What?"

  "Don't fall in now, eh."

  John laughed and slid and staggered along the deck. He had thought that this would be a serious moment, something to be done with grim determination, given what failure would mean. But Simon's words made him think no, I'm laughing because we're alive, and that is what this is all about, life against everything that the old man stood for. He clung to the bow of the boat, stared down into the dark water, looking for the darkness of the rocks. Then he saw the line of them, a metre or more away from the boat, looking impossibly small, impossibly slippery, water frothing all around it. He looked across at the cliff, the small expanse of beach above the water. It seemed a very long way away. But right then, so did the boy who had walked away from the corridor in school. John held on tight to the jet with his left hand, climbed onto the side of the boat, balanced on the narrow rail, waiting for a wave to lift the boat, and then without hesitation, he jumped.

  His front foot hit the rock, skidded, and he fell hard, his legs in the icy water, his free hand desperately scrabbling for purchase on the rock as he slid down into the sea. The impact and the cold of the water drove the breath from his lungs, and John felt as if he had no strength left. The waves rose up around him to take him.

  Then his fingers hooked into a crevice, and the terrible slide stopped. John hung there for a moment, trying to breathe. He summoned up all of his strength, dug his feet into the sides of the rock, and slowly hauled himself up and onto the top of it. He crouched there for a moment, panting and shivering, and then rose to his feet.

  John stared into the water, saw the next rock. He heard the engine of the boat fade, Sal taking the boat away from the hidden rocks that could rip a hole in the hull and send all of them into the sea. It made him feel very alone, but there was no point her staying there, risking the boat.

  He took a deep breath, and steadied himself. Come on John, he said to himself. If this was on land, you'd think nothing of it. Jump a few feet and land on a spot about a foot wide? Not a problem. So it's the same here. It's not a problem. Why should I worry?

  The sea slapped and battered at the rocks in answer.

  John grinned. "Yes, I'm scared," he said to the sea. "But that doesn't mean anything. Everyone feels scared. It's what you do that matters. You just watch me." And he jumped again, and landed safely, and this time he could step from there to the next rock. The narrow strand of the beach grew closer, as he stretched and reached and jumped, each time getting closer. Then he stepped again, and his foot hit a slick mass of seaweed, and he lost his balance and slipped from the rock and into the sea, the cold water taking him.

  But only up to just above his knees. John felt forward with his foot. Was he on another rock? If he took another step would he slip deeper into the water? The ground was solid under his foot. It wasn't rock, it was sand.

  He struggled forward, the waves buffeting at him, trying to push him down onto the water, but he kept his footing and the water dropped down, and then he was out of the sea and on the beach, shivering and bruised but there.

  He turned to look out at the boat, which looked very small and fragile as it was pitched up and down the restless hungry waves. He waved, but he did not know whether they could see him. John clambered up over the rocks to the entrance of Hob's Hole, the jet clutched tight in his hand, so tight the metal cut into his skin. He moved in through the mouth of the cave and into the darkness.

  John took careful, slow steps. What little moonlight had enabled him to see on the beach could not r
each into the cave. He stood still, closed his eyes, and started to build a picture in his mind from the time he had spent in the cave hiding from the creature that Elias had raised, from the first time that he had come into the cave with Simon and Sal. He stepped forward, sliding his feet slowly across the rocky floor. Then he slid his foot forward again, and suddenly there was nothing underneath it, and John pulled his foot back before he lost his balance.

  He crouched down on the floor, and reached his hand forward until he found the ragged edge of the rock. He shuffled closer to it, until he knew that he was sitting by the edge. He could feel cool air drifting upward.

  John took the cold slab of jet in his right hand and held it out, leaning as far over the hole as he dared.

  "Hob," he said. "Take this. Keep it safe for me."

  John thought of all the things that had happened to him, all the things he used to be, all the things that he could be from that point on. Then he opened his fingers and let the stone fall. It bounced off the sides once, twice, three times, and then it did not bounce any more. John crouched there for a moment longer, but did not hear it hit bottom.

  Nothing happened. No sign came. The world seemed no different, but John knew that it had changed. That he had changed.

  He sat for a moment, doing nothing but breathe and be still alive. Then he climbed back out of the cave, staggering down onto the beach. He still had to make his way back out over the rocks, back on to the boat. The stone is gone, he thought. Back with the Hob. Now keep going, because there is one more thing left to do.

  John was very tired now, very cold, but he took those feelings and he pushed them back down inside himself and thought about nothing other than the feel of his foot on rock, the balance around which his body moved, the rhythm of the waves that slapped on the rock around him. Stand. Balance. Jump. Balance. Stand. Balance. Jump. Balance.

  And then there were no more rocks in front of him, and the boat's engine was roaring as it fought the waves that tried to push it onto the rocks, Sal bringing it closer, closer, as close as she dared but still so far away. I can't do it, John thought. I can't jump up that high, from here, not this tired, I can't do it, I'll shout at them to go back, I'll wait on the beach, wait for the tide to turn so I can walk back, hope that I can survive a night soaked to the skin. Then he saw Simon's face white against the darkness, and something came from it, growing, and the end of the rope slapped against John's chest, the shock nearly sending him falling back into the water, but he held on to it, and tied it around his waist with aching, frozen fingers.

  Sal brought the boat in close, closer to John, but also closer to the rocks that could tear the bottom from it. The boat reached the top of a wave and then fell, slowly, slowly, and John thought, it's not going to fall any further, and he jumped for the rail on the side.

  And missed.

  His fingers scrabbled at the rail but were too numb to hold and he fell back, the cold water seizing his legs and trying to drag him down. The rope jerked tight around his waist and held him tight against the side of the boat, and John reached a hand up, grabbed at the rail again and caught it this time, and he felt a pull on the rope, lifting him. He scrabbled a leg up onto the side of the boat and then Simon let go of the rope and grabbed John and pulled him onto the deck, the two of them falling down into a tangled heap, and the engine roared and Sal steered them away from the rocks and Simon was hugging John, banging him on the back, shouting incoherently, and they were heading back towards the land.

  John spent the journey back huddled in a blanket, drying off, getting warm. Simon didn't stop talking the whole way, and for once John was glad of that, because it kept him awake, kept him from thinking about what he had to do next. That and the way that Sal had looked at him when Simon had led him into the wheelhouse.

  "Are we done?" she had said.

  "It's done," John replied, and sank wearily down on to the bench. Simon wrapped a blanket around him, and then another, and by the time they got back into the harbour John had stopped shivering.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The village was quiet, the mist gone.

  The three of them stood by the harbour wall.

  "We'll walk you home," Sal said.

  John looked down into the water. "Davey's not going to be happy about the state of the boat," he said. "What are you going to say?"

  "Are you mad?" Simon said. "We aren't going to say anything. Right Sal?"

  "I—"

  "No, no discussion sis, we can't tell him—what are we going to tell him? What really happened? You know how Uncle Davey would react to that."

  "Same as you did to me," John said, grinning.

  "I suppose," said Sal. "He's never going to think that it was us. Doesn’t feel right, though. But I suppose we have no choice. Anyway, come on John, let's get you home."

  John shook his head. "It's all right. You better get back home. If your mum realises that you've been out, maybe Davey will put two and two together. Better you get back home. I'll see you in the morning. We could meet up, go for a walk or something. It's only a couple of days until I go back now, you know. It's flown past."

  "Dragged for me," Simon said. "Can't wait until you're out of here."

  Sal didn't join in with the joke. "You didn't say where you're going," she said. "You're not going back to Laura's house yet, are you?"

  "No," John said, and did not say any more.

  Simon looked puzzled. "Where are you going then? It's the middle of the night, we're done, this madness is all over, I dunno about you but I'm as tired as anything, you're soaked to the skin—what are you not going home for? There's nothing else to do."

  "There is," John said. "One last thing."

  "But it's over," Simon said, "we threw the stone in—what have we just done? We threw the stone in, that's what we had to do, you said. And we've done it."

  "Him," Sal said, and John nodded.

  "Who?" Simon said, and then he realised who they meant. "But—I thought he was gone. When you threw the stone in..."

  "No," John said. "He's lost much of his power in the chase. But he is still here. Just as he was before."

  "We're coming with you," Simon said.

  John smiled. "Thanks. I know you would, and thanks. But no, not this time. "

  "He nearly got you last time. You can't, it's too dangerous, it's too—Sal, tell him, he can't, he mustn't."

  But Sal didn't. She just looked at John for a very long time, and then took Simon by the arm. "Come on Si," she said. "Let's get home. He'll be fine. Trust him. I think things are different now, and I'll tell you why on the way home."

  "No way, we can't just—are you sure?"

  "I'm going to be okay,” John said. "It's all going to be okay. But he started this business with me. And now I'm going to finish it with him."

  Simon stared at John as if he was meeting him for the first time. Then he shook his head, turned to walk away but then turned back and stuck his hand out.

  "Good luck," he said. "Sort the bastard out."

  "I will," John said.

  As he walked away Sal called out, "Will you know where to find him?"

  John turned on the corner of the street and looked back at the two of them standing there. God, we're just kids, he thought. But we did it. We did it.

  "I don't think I'll need to. I think he will find me." And then he walked away, into the darkness of the sleeping village.

  The mist had disappeared, but every now and then John noticed a dampness on the wall of a house, a puddle that seemed to shift and move in a crack in the pavement, and although a cool wind was now blowing down off the land and out to sea, everywhere he could smell a faint tang that smelt like rotting seaweed.

  He walked the narrow alleys, slipping down passages as the fancy took him, aimless wandering, never walking down the same street twice, but otherwise just keeping walking. His mind told him that it was cold, and that he was tired, but he felt neither, just a strange sense of detachment and the feeling that
something was inside him, under his skin, slip-sliding about as he walked so that if he ever tried to direct his attention to it, it skittered away somewhere else. In the end he stopped trying.

  He was somewhere in the top end of the village, up near the cliff top, when he was found. He had just walked from a front street of a row of old fishing cottages, and into the narrow alley behind them. It was cluttered with dustbins and old plant pots, and led to a dead end of a whitewashed wall. John turned to walk back, and standing at the end of the alley was a dark shape.

  "Hello," John said. "You took your time."

  There was silence for a moment, and then a hissing sound that reminded John of when one of the valves on the radiator at home had started leaking, spraying a fine mist of hot water all over the wallpaper that had only been put up a week before. His mother had been furious and his father, who had 'tightened' all the valves after the decoration had been done, had been sheepish. I miss them, John thought suddenly, thinking of the way that the house smelt when he came home from school, smells of cooking and life. Mum's fussing, dad's rumpled incompetence around the house. I miss them more than I ever realised.

  Elias hissed again, and took a step forward into the alleyway. Then he stopped, and did not move for a second.

  John stayed where he was, and folded his arms, waiting calmly. Eventually Elias spoke, sounding as if every word caused him great pain.

  “A terrible mistake, boy. Your last. And then after you, the other two. And their family. And your sister. All of them."

  "You don't have it," John said. "You don't have the power. You've used yourself up, Elias, trying to stop me. And you failed. You're all used up, dead man. Face it."