Find Me (Immersed Book 1)

by Francesca Riley

  “Thanks, you’re a superstar,” Rowena smiled. “Just some simple scattered starfish like we talked about, some fish and shells, like in rock pools.” She squinted upwards, visualising, and nodded as if she liked what she saw. “It shouldn’t take too long. Then you can leave us to it, get out on the beach or whatever.”

  Morgan’s eyebrows flew up. “Oh! Mum, what about the flyers? You thought they could be left on shop counters, remember? And we need to get them into shop windows too. I’d do it, but, you know, we have to nail these menus.”

  They both paused, frowning as if doing mental calculations to work out spare time. Skye noted a conscious look on Morgan’s face. She sighed inwardly. The expectation was palpable. After a short silence, she cleared her throat. “That’s me, too” she offered, trying to keep the reluctance out of her tone. “I’ll make the rounds after the floor’s done.”

  “Excellent!” Rowena chirped. “So lucky we’ve got you to help us, Skye.”

  Noticing the satisfied look on Morgan’s face, Skye stood, making an exaggerated stretch and excused herself for bed, gathering up Pizza boxes as she went.

  Deep in the small hours that night Skye choked on a strangled cry of horror as she fought to break free of the cruel pinning arms of Mark and Stevie, pressing her close, their rotted faces grinning as fish darted out of their empty eye sockets. Breakers roared somewhere far above them as they pulled her into the deep dark until she couldn’t breathe to scream. Then through the darkness light bloomed, and from the centre of it Hunter opened safe arms to her, “Come with me, Skye. They won’t ever try to hurt you again.”

  She woke with a feeling of falling, and pushed herself upright, shaking and gulping at the dry air of the dark bedroom. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and pressed her feet into the fuzzy carpet, trying to ground herself in the present.

  Her singlet clung to her clammily, her head still heavy with sleep. Morgan lay unmoving, deeply asleep, on the other bed. Skye lay back down, closing scratchy eyes, and her mind began to replay the day. Like a movie with the sound off, in search mode, images flew by then slowed, pausing, speeding up into fast forward again, searching until they found…Hunter.

  Find me. A burst of anticipation pushed dark shreds of nightmare away. She twisted onto her stomach, burying her face in her pillow in an effort to smother the elation spiking through her. It didn’t work. Getting up, she drew the quilt from her bed around her shoulders, and crept into the dark lounge, lit only by the TV’s standby light and the luminous microwave clock from the kitchen.

  Groping her way to the window, she eased the curtain back and pushed an armchair close to the glass. The darkness was the same outside as in, giving Skye the impression that nothing separated her from the night. She opened the slider a crack, and cold night air, scented with night blooming flowers and salty kelp flowed in like iced perfume, prickling the fine hairs along her arms.

  Curling into the armchair she drew the quilt over her, hoping the faint sound of the waves would help her to relax, maybe even to sleep. But the murmur of the sea made her feel wired, drawing her thoughts to Hunter like the moon drew the tides.

  How could she feel so connected to him? Was it just his wild, compelling face? Or the way he’d helped her? Or was it something more? The sort of something that took hold of a person and never let them go. Not in one piece, anyway. She felt like an essential part of her was slipping away beyond her control.

  The rest of the night passed slowly as she gazed sleepless towards the Bay. The sky and sea gradually lightened, dark grey leaching to pearl, and cold light filtered into the apartment. Moving stiffly, she pushed the quilt aside, standing to stretch, first one way then the other. The shadowed print of the Rhinemaidens next to the door caught her eye.

  Enticing beauty, persuasive reaching arms: come with us into the watery depths, they invited. Where had Hunter appeared from today? The only place he ever seemed to. Once more she saw him disappear in a velvet swirl of water. She trembled as her thoughts followed him in, letting her mind fill with the impossible. I’m never ‘not swimming’, Skye.

  Her stomach churned with a mix of butterflies and dread. She could not seriously be considering this! There would be a reasonable, logical explanation. There would.

  Sea and sky blushed with pink and suddenly she was exhausted. She curled back into the armchair, closed her eyes and felt herself drifting off.

  Hours later, she woke to brightness. She blinked, squinting at sunlight that slanted inside to splash her legs where she’d slipped low in the armchair, feet trailing on the floor. Small fluffy clouds scudded across the transparent blue sky which was all she could see from her slumped position. The apartment was silent.

  She twisted awkwardly to look over the back of the chair to the microwave clock. Ten am! She hadn’t even heard Morgan and Rowena get up or leave. She squirmed out of the chair, grabbed fresh clothes from the bedroom and hit the bathroom. She’d made a painfully slow start to a day where time was precious.

  Coffee and two pieces of toast later, wearing her knee-length cut-offs and an old sleeveless hoodie, Skye tapped on the café’s locked double cut-glass doors, admiring the clear lead-lights above them again. She imagined seeing full tables through them, and felt a burst of excitement.

  A girl with short spiky hair and a tiny nose piercing, wearing an apron with the name ‘Annie’ stitched on it, opened the door and let her in. ‘That bloody Annie’, she wondered?

  “Hey,” the girl said, locking the door behind them. “You must be Sara, right?”

  “Skye…” she murmured.

  “Oh. Sorry. You are here to paint, though, right?”

  “Right,” Skye agreed.

  “I’m Annie. Rowena and Morgan are finalising suppliers. We’re buying local when we can. They’re checking out the Farmer’s market, and then some other places.” Annie led the way to a back room off the hall, temporarily cluttered with crusty drop sheets and various other remnants from the renovation.

  She pointed out a cluster of test-pots. “I’m setting up the coffee machine. Finding homes for everything. I used to be a barista at Jump, the best one of course,” she preened. Skye grinned, detecting the air of competition, most likely with Morgan. “I’ll do lunch when you’re ready, if you don’t mind eating off a crate,” Annie added.

  “Sure, thanks,” Skye replied as Annie left the room.

  She checked over the test pots, muted shades of blues and greens, perfect for the blond floor and bird’s egg walls. This paint would wear off in months, but the result would be perfect, whispers of a sea theme rather than a garish shout. If she left the stencils for the Lauders, anyone could touch them up. She felt a sharp pang at the thought of leaving.

  She’d brought cardboard and a cutting knife with her. Looking around for a cutting board she settled for the back of an old detached cupboard door. Soon she had stencils of shells, fish and stars, and using a cut-up kitchen sponge, worked her way around the edges of the café and counter space. By the time she was finished she was hungry.

  “Ready for lunch?” Annie called as Skye surveyed her work.

  “That’d be great. I’ll just clean up.” She didn’t want to waste more time by stopping for food, but her stomach was rumbling.

  Lunch was sandwiches, thick doorstep bread bursting with salad and pickles and Swiss cheese. Annie didn’t join her, pondering some problem with the coffee machine. Skye was grateful for the temperamental machine. She was in no mood for conversation. And she was agitated enough without coffee, her leg jigging non-stop as she tried to chew fast, mentally calculating the speed with which she could get done with flyers and look for Hunter. She had to believe he would be waiting for her, somewhere. Maybe watching the beach even now, or searching the rocks. Her leg jigged harder.

  “You all right? You seem a bit…” Annie asked.

  Skye stilled her leg, pressing her hand to her knee. “Yeah, don’t mind me. I’m just kind of…”

  Annie shrugged.
“Know the feeling,” she said, and went back to her tinkering. Skye sighed at herself. After she’d eaten, she rinsed her dishes and put them in the dish rack where a few other rinsed dishes waited for a dishwasher to arrive.

  “Do you know where the flyers are, Annie? I think I’ll get started with them.”

  “On the window seat.” Annie nodded towards the front of the café, and Skye crossed to a thick pile of flyers. She frowned. She was willing to help, but this looked like a stack of ‘keep Skye away from the beach’. There weren’t that many stores in the village. Was she supposed to do letterboxes as well?

  She picked up half of the flyers, enough to keep her busy for ages. “Thanks Annie, lunch was great,” she called.

  “No problem. See you ‘round.”

  Skye unlocked the door to leave, then heard voices from the back. Rowena and Morgan.

  “Great job on the floor, by the way,” Annie called after her as the door swung to. Skye didn’t stop, waving in acknowledgement as she hurried from the café. Feeling she was escaping, she walked swiftly, flyers tucked under her arm. She’d gone about ten paces when she heard Morgan calling, and turned, hoping she didn’t look as desperate to get away as she felt.

  “I can’t believe you were going without saying “hi”!” Morgan called, jogging after her. “Didn’t you hear us? We came in the back way. There’s a room out there with lots of potential.” She looked at Skye as if that should mean something, but didn’t seem to expect a reply. “The floor looks amazing,” she added. “You got it finished?”

  “Almost. Just needs a bit of sanding to soften them. The paint needs a night or two to really cure first. There’s time for that, right?”

  “Just. Including today, we open in four days. Eeeek!” Morgan fake squealed, her eyes sparkling. “I can’t wait!” Then her smile faded. “Hey, now is not the time, I know, too much going on...but I was hoping to catch up with you about what happened yesterday.”

  “Yesterday?” Skye’s throat tightened.

  “Yeah, you know. You at Ciarlan Cove, soaked through, odd stories.”

  “Odd stories?” She knew she was stupidly echoing everything.

  “Yeah. It’s nothing, just – I’m just worried about you.” Skye bit back her defensive retort, remembering Ethan’s caution. “The flyers shouldn’t take the rest of the day, right?”

  “I don’t know. Why?”

  “Do you have plans for after you’ve finished?” When Skye hesitated, Morgan continued, “We’re baking the rest of the day. You could help us trial some slices. So…coming back here?”

  Find me. Skye lifted her chin and returned Morgan’s gaze.

  “Thanks, but actually… I might be meeting a – a friend.”

  “A friend?” Morgan’s face took on the careful aspect Skye was beginning to recognise. “This friend – wouldn’t be your mysterious guy who no one ever sees, would it? ‘Hunter’ did you say?”

  “Yes. Hunter.” This felt almost like a fight. Like a line was being drawn.

  They looked uncomfortably at each other. Then Morgan frowned and looked at her watch. “Wonder if I could get away to join you. You wouldn’t mind company, right? You did promise to take me next time you were seeing him. Or…is it like an actual date now?”

  “No, it’s not a date. I might not actually see him at all. He just said look out for him.” That wasn’t strictly true. Look for him was more accurate but she didn’t want to elaborate. Morgan looked relieved, and also something else. Pity. Did Morgan think she was making Hunter up?

  “Okay. So…nothing definite? Probably just as well – we are really crazy busy. Mum is no doubt screaming for me. But…whether you think you might see him or not, I want you to do something for me.”

  “…What?”

  19. Impossible

  Morgan looked further along the road to where the ebbing river, a wide green ribbon between golden brown bands, wound to join the receding tide. Then she looked determinedly at Skye. “Look, I’m not telling you what to do, only… I want you to promise not to go to Ciarlan Cove today. Hey, I’m not being all police on your ass,” she tried to joke.

  Her attempt at gangsta was so awful Skye sniggered. Morgan laughed, the tension easing. “Okay, maybe just a bit. Well, I haven’t met this guy yet, or even seen him around. He hasn’t joined us once. I’m beginning to think you’re hanging out with a merman.”

  It was said with a laugh, and Skye tried to laugh along, her face stiffly uncooperative as Morgan’s teasing words sent alarm surging through her midriff.

  “I know it’s none of my business,” Morgan continued, “but you kind of are our business. We don’t want you getting hurt. In any way.”

  Skye hesitated. Actually she didn’t want to get hurt either. Hunter’s reticence. His unfathomable moods. The way he came only so far and then disappeared. Even Morgan had noticed he never socialised. Maybe she was being set up for a fall? And yet she could tell he had true, deep reasons behind the glimpses he’d revealed, and she wanted desperately to find out what they were.

  Find Me. Would she get hurt in the process? Did that matter anymore?

  “Okay?” Morgan prompted. Skye’s mind raced, trying to work out how to get through this without lying. She looked across the road to the glittering water. There was no way she could keep away. Bascath Bay was a whole big place. He’d said find him, not find him at Ciarlan Cove. There were other places she could look. And he had a knack for finding her… She could do that, agree to the letter of Morgan’s favour, even though she guessed the spirit of it was avoid the beach altogether.

  “Okay.”

  Morgan seemed to relax. “Cool. Yikes – gotta run or Mum’ll flip!” She waved as she darted down the footpath towards Bliss, calling back “Stay safe.” Reaching the café, she disappeared inside.

  After two hours of proffering flyers and explanations in the village, Skye turned back onto Marine parade with half the flyers gone. Some stores had let her put one up in a window, others on the counter. Some had said yes to both, some said no. The eateries along the waterfront were out as potential redirectors of hungry tourists. But there were a handful of gift stores, galleries and boutiques.

  She stopped, looking across the road at the sea again. How much longer before she could say she’d done enough, go back to the apartment to change, and look for Hunter? Cloud towered on the distant horizon, but the calm sea was dazzling under bright sunshine. The beach was quieter than usual. At the very end of Marine Parade, she glimpsed the colours of an ambulance. There were no flashing lights, and no crowd. Parked for a break, perhaps?

  Catching the wafting scent of lilies, Skye turned. She’d stopped outside a florist displaying a stunning mass of gold-bucketed flowers. People that bought and sold flowers had to eat. Maybe they’d let her put a flyer in the window? She crossed cream slate tiles into the fragrant interior. The décor was opulent, all white, gold and glass amidst the forest of blooms. Hushed voices murmured in the background.

  Skye felt scruffy, and guessed this was not the right place for a Bliss flyer. People who shopped here probably wouldn’t even pause to look in the window of Bliss with its eclectic charm. She turned to leave, but a woman’s elegant voice hailed her. “Hello there. So sorry to keep you waiting. It’s become a three-person job, wrangling these wretched bushes. I’ll be with you in the shortest moment, I promise. Do please browse, won’t you?”

  Skye spotted the counter disguised as a thicket of urns and vast cuttings. A coiffed blond head peered at her around branches and blooms that shook as if being wrestled. The woman smiled and disappeared again.

  Feeling that leaving now would be rude, Skye began to wander the room, admiring the displays and enjoying the beautiful scents. Oversized seemed to be the running theme. The voices behind the thicket directed and dissented about the best way to get whatever they were working on to do what it should. Who knew flower arranging could be so tricky?

  “These have to be perfect,” the voice of the woman who’
d spoken to her rose above the others sharply. Her voice dropped a little, taking on a sombre tone. “My God, she’d been missing for a month, can you imagine? Her parents are simply devastated.”

  Skye went still. Pin-pricks running over her skin, she moved nearer to the counter to better hear. The first woman was speaking again, over the murmured agreement of her companions.

  “And apparently now – another. It’s just like I was saying …” Skye couldn’t hear the next bit. “…on Ocean Beach. No one knows who he is yet. A young man, dark-haired. Athletic. Tall. And dead.”

  Skye’s heart seemed to stop in her chest, and a feeling like ice spread through her. Did they just describe…Hunter? It couldn’t be him. It couldn’t. Could it? Her fantastic thoughts of Hunter as sea dweller crumbled foolishly before the image of his body tumbling like driftwood in the great waves on Ocean Beach. Dead.

  Fear made her brain slow. Ocean Beach. What should she do? He was unidentified. Could she see the body? Be sure? She swallowed down bile. But she had to find out. She had to know it wasn’t him. Without another thought Skye ran from the store, across the road, and along the footpath, choosing pavement over sand for speed.

  Nearing a stair at the far end of the stone wall, she passed the parked ambulance, registering that an attendant stood waiting at the open rear doors. Panic surged. Leaping down the steps, she increased her speed.

  She had reached the saddle path when an agonising stitch forced her to slow, gasping and clutching at her side. It wasn’t close to stopping her. It simply reduced her sprint to a sort of bent-sideways walk. Just ahead on the winding path she heard subdued voices.

  Around the bend, a slow-moving group came into view, a covered stretcher amidst them, sickeningly wrong in the sunny, chirping valley. Moving closer, she glimpsed a twist of dark hair peeking from under the sheet covering a still figure of Hunter’s stature.

  Breath left her chest, and her plea to the stretcher bearers to halt died somewhere in her throat. Her trembling body filled with a buzzing that reached her head, disconnecting her brain, all signals to action failing. She stared numbly after the stretcher, her befuddled mind trying to comprehend Hunter, gone. It couldn’t.