Find Me (Immersed Book 1)

by Francesca Riley

  “I help when I can,” he said, “So do others of my clan. We have risked the safety of our people for yours, not to mention bearing the onslaught of another’s soul. It’s only because we are Forgotten that we’ve could help without bringing permanent harm to ourselves. And if I’ve helped someone, I can’t always trust they’ll forget me – sometimes I make sure they do. Something I don’t do lightly.”

  He looked intently at Skye again, his face conflicted, but she was too lost in her thoughts to register it. He had mentioned the others so often...

  “Your clan – are there many of you?”

  “Not now. The Seers’ incantation was a desperate grasping at life, sparing only the young, judging by the survivors. When we woke at the bottom of the sea, it was terrifying. It broke the minds of some. Even seeing what happened to those who tried to leave the water, many continued to try.”

  Skye felt ill, recalling Hunter’s hand dissolving, the agony doubling him over.

  “Others chose death, willingly walking into it. We lost many that day, and many more until they forbade us to leave the city.”

  “There was still a city?” Skye was surprised.

  “Not was – is. A ruin, half buried in silt and sand.”

  Skye looked at him, stunned. “But how is that possible? Wouldn’t divers have found it?” She pictured rubble, and the lost people of Lithus sitting around on broken rocks on the bottom of the sea.

  Hunter’s face was hard. “Some have found it,” he said quietly.

  “But no one’s ever reported any... Oh.” Skye swallowed, looking out at the innocent-seeming sea, glittering to the horizon. “They were drowning when they saw it.”

  He nodded. “It’s hidden, the same way we are. Invisible to all, except those between two worlds, and utterly forgotten by any who survive. I’ll pretend to be distracted if you want to start running.” He looked away. “I’m...sorry.”

  She looked at Hunter’s profile, his brow and fine eyebrow accentuating the straight line of his nose and hollow of his cheek. His apology was for who he was. She couldn’t reconcile this with the Hunter she’d come to know. “It’s not who you are,” she whispered. He looked at her, grateful, and she knew she was right. That wasn’t him.

  Despite his expectation, somewhat justified, of her revulsion, at the same time she was fascinated. A sunken ruin... What was it like? Would she ever see it? But the thought of what state she’d have to be in for that to happen, led her back to the question he’d only begun to answer.

  “Hunter... What did happen that day we kissed – with us?” she asked quietly. “I get the warmth leaving bit. But after that?”

  “I’m not exactly sure. When I felt you fading and realised what I’d done, I reached for you. Instinctively tried to put back what I’d taken... I don’t know how to explain it.”

  “Has that ever happened before when you’ve...”

  “I’ve never experienced anything like this before. Like you before. In this life, I’ve only touched humans to help them to safety. I’ve never encountered anyone with your...light before. And I’ve never felt what I feel for you. I just...you were leaving and I had to bring you back, whatever it cost.”

  Skye remembered how ill he’d looked. He lifted a hesitant hand to her face, not quite touching her skin, close enough that delicious quivers ran over her. He delicately lifted a twist of hair that straggled across her cheek and smoothed it behind her ear in a gesture she had come to treasure. She took an unsteady breath. “What did you see of my life?” she whispered.

  “Nothing.”

  “But how can that be true? I was...completely open.” she blushed.

  Hunter took her hand in his, looking at it for a long moment. Then he met her eyes. “I think it’s because you weren’t under Mesmer. I hadn’t subdued your will, or called up anything in you. And you weren’t drowning. It was you, meeting me on your own terms, and I saw only the pure beauty of you. Your light...and...your love for me.”

  Skye stared at him. He’d felt her love for him? Her eyelids fluttered and she looked away to hide her confusion. Her pulse raced. She loved him?

  She loved him.

  When Hunter spoke again, she tried to follow his words despite the shocking revelation of her feelings for him.

  “That’s part of where the City of Lithus once stood, proud bastion of power and ambition. Now...it’s as if we never were.” He pointed across the bay towards Ciarlan Cove.

  Skye’s eyes widened. She recalled the pillar-like rocks, the wide flat ledges. Pressing her hands to the flat ledge they sat on now, she looked at him. “Was this part of it too?”

  Hunter nodded, smiling wryly. “Yes. The destruction must have been spectacular. All part of my past. Perhaps that’s why I return here so often. Used to be why.” He looked at Skye and her heart beat faster. Was she ever going to get used to the effect he had on her?

  “What are you thinking?” he asked. He looked vulnerable.

  She studied the light catching his lashes, casting soft shadows along his cheekbones. “That I wish life was getting what you want. What you really want. But it’s not. It’s wanting something you can’t have. Or losing what you had. Or almost have...”

  “But what if you could have what you want – at least in some form?” he held her gaze. “What if you didn’t have to lose it completely? What if it didn’t have to end?”

  “You can’t. Life doesn’t let you,” she said stubbornly.

  “But, why shouldn’t we have what we want? As close to it as we can get?” His eyes burned as they searched hers. “With you, I know what having a living soul feels like. Time means something again. Away from you, I feel the minutes, the seconds passing. I know that soon you must leave, go back to your father, to the city. This kills me. I wish I could be with you, always.”

  Hope flickered inside her. “Could you?” The idea of Hunter, always, was intoxicating.

  He didn’t answer her at once, his expression hungry. The air between them seemed to strain. Her heart began to thud. But after a long moment he looked away from her. “I can’t leave the sea.” His voice sounded strangled with effort. “As for you, there is a way, but – it isn’t a good option.”

  He’d mentioned people joining the Nemaro...for a time. “What is it? Maybe –”

  “No, Skye,” he cut her off, fiercely, as if also convincing himself. “I told you, it’s not a good option. I can’t do that to you.”

  Skye looked down, stung. Hunter’s arm rested against the rock close to hers. She remembered how it had felt to have those arms around her, the sensation of water streaming past her, like flying through liquid. His world. A longing for something she hadn’t defined but that had been growing since she’d met him bit deeply into her, bringing sadness with it.

  Skye looked up to see him leaning forward, his forearms on his knees, watching her. His eyes were dark, as if he too felt the call of something unattainable. The thought of losing him was unbearable. “This doesn’t happen,” she whispered, “This fast, this strong. It can’t be real.” They stared at each other. “Before I met you I just existed too. Now I feel alive.”

  Hunter leaned close, slowly, and brushed his lips across hers, so lightly that a tremor of pleasure raced over her.

  “I’ve waited for you all of my life, and all of yours,” he murmured, pressing his forehead against her temple. She closed her eyes, feeling his skin slowly warm against hers. He pulled gently away. How had she let this happen, breaking her own vow? If she lost him now she felt it would destroy her.

  The things he’d told her churned in her brain. “What would happen to you if you let them go – the lives, the souls?”

  “I think that they, and I, would perish, along with my clan, if we can be considered alive. Not that I know how to let them go.” He gazed dully at the horizon.

  Skye couldn’t begin to imagine his life. But she could imagine hers without him. “I’m so sorry for what it’s been like for you. And, it’s totally selfish, but
I’m glad you’re here.”

  His sad face warmed with a slow smile. “Now that I’ve found you – me too.”

  The breeze ruffled her dry hair. Her swimsuit was practically dry. She realised how long she must have been here. Hunter seemed to realise it too. “You need to go, get dry, eat.”

  She wasn’t ready to go, ever. “I’m basically dry, look. And I’m not hungry.” Her stomach growled, betraying her.

  Hunter smiled. He pressed her hands together between his, his long slender fingers making hers look like a child’s. “You have your life,” he said. “I want you to live it, that’s the way it should be. But, I’ll be waiting if you decide to come back.”

  “Of course I’ll come back.” Then, hoping to draw her time out with him a little more, even though it would only be minutes, “Tow me back to shore?” she suggested shyly.

  “Only if you promise not to hold on too tightly. I can’t be held responsible for the effect you have on me.”

  If it was anything like the effect he had on her, she thought, they were both in trouble. He helped her to her feet. Then he quirked an eyebrow at her, and moving to the sheer side, with enviable grace executed a perfect dive into the water, barely making a splash. She knew it was intended to impress. It worked.

  He circled beneath the water and came up below her, smiling up at her as he rose through clear water. She caught her breath. She would never get used to this. Her heart raced as he broke the surface, tilting his head in invitation.

  “There’s a ledge there for your feet, Skye. I’ll catch you if you fall.” He held out a beckoning hand and her heart stuttered. If only this wasn’t just back to shore, she thought.

  She took a steadying breath. “Fall, schmall,” she scoffed, suddenly daring. Hunter raised his eyebrows and moved a little further away to watch. She planted her feet together on the rock and focused on where he’d entered the water. Heart pounding, she poised on the edge, filling her lungs with what felt like her last breath. And then she jumped. Her heart halted for the descent, and she plunged into the clear, cold water, sinking deep.

  Opening her eyes, blinking through the sting, she saw Hunter, his hair a dark swirl about his head, a beautiful being from another world. He smiled, mouthing ‘wow’. Laughter spilled out along with her air. Together they surfaced through a cloud of bubbles.

  “Truly impressive, Miss Skye! There goes lesson number four,” he pulled a rueful expression, shaking his head, “Guess you won’t need me anymore.”

  “That was a jump, not a dive,” Skye clarified, alarmed. “You can definitely teach me to dive. That’s a bunch of lessons right there,” she insisted.

  Hunter laughed, “I’m sure we can find something to fill another lesson.”

  Skye’s cheeks heated as her mind sped to another first he’d helped her to experience. His face grew solemn. He hesitated before drawing her close, and gently kissed her. Her hands crept around his neck and she began to pull him closer, but he drew back, carefully taking her hands from his neck, and slid his arms beneath hers, supporting her.

  He smiled his half smile, shaking his head a little. “That was my fault. You’re highly addictive, remember. Take the draw of a warm, beautiful human on one of my kind and multiply it by all your heartbeats, and that’s you for me. I’ll keep my careful distance from now on.” He twirled her gently as if they were dancing, turning himself when she faced him again so his back was to her.

  Her hands on his shoulders, he began to tow her back to shore. In minutes they stood waist deep in the sinking tide.

  “Find me?” he asked softly.

  “I promise.”

  32. The Others

  Although she had been seeing so much of Hunter since the café opening, Skye had made sure she also spent time with the Lauders, which meant time at the thriving café. She had never seen them so happy. There was even talk of Uncle Mike making it over from New Zealand to visit. To revel, the Lauders called it, justifiably preening themselves on their success.

  Rowena had had an ‘inspiration’ to keep Skye entertained – a wall mural inside the café. Skye had happily agreed. It had become like a piece of performance art. With Hunter and his world as her private inspiration, ocean images grew under the gaze of café patrons for the few hours she worked on it each day.

  But the morning after the revelation of her feelings for him, the dull roar of Bliss brunch made painting feel impossible. Instead she offered to do another small flyer drop for the imminent second appearance of Side On. She’d already pasted new details on the original opening flyer and had about thirty copies run off.

  Retracing her steps through the village with a bundle of flyers, she reflected on how much had changed since she’d done this for the opening. Their time at The Towers apartment was practically over. Beyond a good cleaning which Skye had willingly helped with, the flat above the café was pronounced charming enough to do for now, the only work required, a minor plumbing upgrade done by professionals. Tomorrow she would be helping the Lauders move. Her holiday was nearly over. Soon she would be gone from here. From Hunter. Impossible notion.

  It wasn’t until her feet took her to the quiet street where the second-hand bookstore sat back off the footpath that she suspected herself of a subconscious motive in her flyer drop. Her heart pattered when she glimpsed the reaching arms of the Rhine Maidens through the shop’s glass door. Fictitious creatures luring mortal men to the watery depths. Or not so fictitious. This image had resonated with her in her obsessive curiosity about Hunter. Now she knew that her suspicions hadn’t been insane. How many fables and fictions began in truths, she wondered again, as she entered the pleasantly musty interior.

  Her eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light, her pulse accelerating at the hunched shape behind the wooden desk that served as a counter, still piled with crooked stacks of books. Beware what lies beneath. The bookseller had said he didn’t believe her mother Ellie was cursed. Or that she’d killed herself. But he hadn’t believed her death was accidental either.

  Skye hadn’t had the courage then to ask what he did believe. Did she now? She felt her breath disappearing as she anticipated the confrontation. But as she hesitantly approached, the figure straightened, and Skye saw a middle-aged woman with a passing likeness to the elderly man she’d expected to see. In one hand was a magnifying glass she’d been using to study an old tome open in front of her.

  “Good morning,” she welcomed Skye, her voice going up at the end like a question.

  “Oh... The man – the bookseller? Is he here?”

  “Not today, dear. Is there anything I can help you with? Did you have something on order?” She put her hand on a notebook near her on the desk, Orders written on it in large looping letters.

  “No, I just...he was telling me some interesting things about the Bay. About old stories.” She took a deep breath and added firmly “Stories about sea people...and what lies beneath.”

  “Oh,” the woman gave a short laugh, her expression exasperated. “Dad’s hobby-horse. It’s kind of you to indulge him. He must have bored you to tears.”

  “No, I was interested. Really interested,” Skye insisted. “When will he be back? I can come again...”

  “Well, actually, Dad’s not so well. Age, you know. His mind has begun to wander. Brilliant when he was younger, but sadly... I’m sorry, but I don’t think he’ll be back. He’s gone into a lovely Home where they’ll keep an eye on him. It’s for the best,” she finished brightly. Skye got the impression she was trying to convince herself. Another daughter, worrying for a father.

  “I’m sorry,” she said quietly. The woman behind the counter nodded her thanks, blinking rapidly, and looked down at the desk, rummaging in her blazer pocket as Skye turned to leave. She’d nearly reached the door when the woman called to her.

  “Excuse me – umm?” Skye turned back. “You say you’re genuinely interested in the Bay, and stories about it?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Dad’s been putti
ng together a pamphlet of sorts, based on all his notes and research – he was planning to publish it, and make it available to visitors and locals in the village. I’m hoping to finish it for him. Would you be interested in a copy if I manage to get it done?”

  “Definitely!” Returning to the desk, Skye left her name scrawled on a Bliss flyer with the bookseller’s daughter.

  After finishing the flyer drop, and a quick lunch at the café, Skye returned to the apartment to change, then crossed the road to the beach. The idea that this beach, and the boy she was going to meet, would soon cease to be a part of her life felt incomprehensible.

  The tide had turned, beginning to recede, but was still quite high, presenting her with a much greater distance to the small island. But it was no longer the obstacle it would once have been. She felt a now familiar rush of pride. Her courage had proved greater than her fears. Each day she reclaimed the place she loved with greater ease and surer confidence.

  Leaving her clothes and bag on the dry sand, she strode to the water’s edge and boldly splashed in, the rocky mound her destination. When the water reached her waist, she lightly pushed off from the sandy seabed, her breath quickening at the cold water. Chances were, she thought, Hunter would intercept her on her way out. That worked for her. She smiled, searching the empty water around her.

  Soon her toes no longer brushed the sand. Treading water for a second, closing her eyes she allowed herself to sink beneath the surface, hearing her heartbeat through the rushing gurgle of water filling her ears. Eyes still closed, she sank into a crouch, her toes touching the bottom. She recalled Hunter’s face opposite hers, blurred by water. Everything led her thoughts to him.

  Remembering his delighted grin, water-prismed sunlight rippling over him, she smiled, releasing a stream of bubbles. She opened her eyes in the stinging water for a moment, hoping to see him hovering before her once more. Far ahead in the hazy distance the glimpse of a shadow set off sparks inside her.

  Needing air, she rose to the surface, tipping her head back a little as she emerged, allowing the water to smooth her hair back off her face. Blinking her eyes clear, she pulled forward again, eagerly peering around. She was rewarded by another fleeting glimpse of a shadow. Her smile widened, on the verge of happy laughter.