Beached

by Ros Baxter

  ‘No,’ she said, and then she let go, sobbing uncontrollably against the hard, clean smell of him. It felt so good to let it all go, the fear and humiliation, and the pent up aching and worrying. She wanted to melt against him and never let go of the tiny piece of shirt she was holding. ‘But don’t go, Doug,’ she said. And she knew she sounded as though she was begging. ‘Please just sit with me for a moment.’

  ‘Shhh.’ Doug patted her hair and made soothing noises as she rubbed her back. ‘It’s over, honey, it’s all over. That fucker can’t hurt you anymore. No-one’s gonna hurt you anymore.’ Lecanora became aware of a soft voice joining Doug’s at the bedside.

  ‘I am so sorry, my dear,’ Susan Murray’s voice said. ‘I am just so sorry.’

  Chapter 13

  Week Two, Day Five Completing the circle

  Lecanora sat on the floor of the shower, letting the water run over her. It felt different, so different, to the water she knew. So warm, and hard, like tiny splinters against her skin. In the deep sea, it was cold, so cold, but soft, almost oily. It was the cocoon in which she lived. But, still. It was the same stuff. The stuff of life.

  It would be so easy. She could just open her mouth, sing the note she had learned from childhood, break down into pieces, fly through the very droplets in the air, to her home. To the woman she had always known as her mother. She could feel herself wrapped in her arms, she could hold her in her gaze and know she was safe, at least for one moment.

  Anything would be better than this, sitting here thinking about what had been done to her. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to let the ceaseless battering of the shower on her eyelids erase the pictures in her brain. That hard, cold face, so close to hers. That body, lying on hers. The warm, hard flesh, pressing against the opening to her very self. It was so close, so real. And yet, so unreal. She felt like she was watching herself, sit on this floor, have this shower. She held her arm out in front of her, watching her wrist. Waiting for the sign. A few seconds, and then it skittered across her vision. The alorha, its tiny quivering body the tell of life. But it didn’t help.

  She looked at the long brown line of her arm, and wanted to see the blood that coursed and pulsed behind it. She wanted to open a vein and let it run free, be sure that she was really here. That she had survived. Bring herself back to this moment.

  A soft knock on the door interrupted the thought.

  ‘May I come in?’ Her mother’s face was scrubbed and fresh. Her pink cheeks and bright eyes were bare of any makeup. She looked like a child. But even from her vantage point on the shower floor, Lecanora could see the way her mother’s face was creased in downward lines, and her movements were rigid and uncertain.

  ‘Yes,’ Lecanora said, trying to smile up at her.

  Lunia made her way across the bathroom, settling on the plush mat beside the shower. She was wearing a fluffy white robe.

  ‘Do you want to talk?’

  Lecanora shook her head. No, no, not that.

  Lunia nodded, her mouth trembling a little. ‘Perhaps…would you like it if I washed you?’

  Lecanora thought about it. She remembered those other hands on her, and how hard she had been trying to wash away their imprints, here on this shower floor. Then she nodded. ‘Yes,’ she whispered, passing her mother the cloth from the shower.

  Lunia wriggled herself closer, so close the droplets from the shower’s spray were wetting her. She picked up one of Lecanora’s arms, and began to move the cloth rhythmically up and down on the topside of it. As she made the movement, she began to sing, a sweet, raspy ode in a language something that sounded like the Aegiran tongue, but was not. Lecanora surrendered to the familiar voice, so unusual in Aegira, where song voices were arranged in clearly defined ranks and groupings. Lunia’s sweet soprano was rimmed with a bluesy ache. Honey and poison.

  Lecanora sat for a few moments, enjoying the soft rhythm of the cloth and the song before she spoke. ‘What is that language?’

  ‘It’s Gaelic,’ her mother said. ‘A race of warriors and magic women. A strong culture of song. Like ours.’ Very gently, Lunia turned Lecanora’s arm over and began to wash the other side, the sensitive side. For a moment, Lecanora gritted her teeth at the sensation on the soft skin. But Lunia was slow and gentle, going over each spot several times before moving to the next. As she did, she spoke, soft and low. ‘Can I tell you how it was, when I had you?’

  Lecanora felt her mouth filled with seaweed as the sound, the sensation, and the words worked on her. She nodded.

  ‘You were perfect,’ Lunia said. ‘You slid from me and then swam and clung to me. I looked into your face and…I knew you. You were so familiar to me. I already knew every line and cell of you.’ Lecanora looked up at Lunia and saw her face was streaked silver.

  ‘And it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that he took you from me, that I didn’t get to call you daughter for thirty years, I still knew you. And I would know you anywhere.’

  Lunia tapped Lecanora’s other arm, gently, and Lecanora turned so her mother could begin to wash the other side of her. ‘The perfection that is you is still there,’ she said. ‘Completely intact. People can touch us, even hurt us, but nothing can touch the center of us. You are part of me, the concentrated product of all my longing and love for you. How can you be anything but perfect?’

  Lecanora felt something dislodge inside her. Her breath came fast and ragged. She wondered if she might be sick, but before then the world settled into a new place. The piece of her that had always felt alien and alone was disintegrating. She belonged to something. She belonged to this woman, and this family, as well as to her home.

  And Lunia was right. Nothing could touch that.

  Before her mother could ask, Lecanora turned her back so that her mother could focus her attentions on it. She wanted to be clean all over now. She wanted her mother, her own sweet mother, to help her wash away the imprint of those hands.

  Lunia ran the cloth down over her back and began to sing again.

  Lecanora could feel the song filling up the spiky spaces in her psyche where the man had torn into her. The sounds were like something taken from the lips of a god, the words full and sweet and so unusual. ‘What do the words say?’

  ‘Hmmm…’ Lunia said, stopping momentarily in her ministrations before starting up again. ‘Let me just think to make sure I have it completely right.’ She started to sing again, this time in English.

  ‘Loud the winds howl, loud the waves roar,

  Thunder clouds rend the air;

  Baffled, our foes stand on the shore

  Follow they will not dare

  Though the waves leap, soft shall ye sleep

  Ocean’s a royal bed

  Rocked in the deep, Flora will keep

  Watch by your weary head.’

  Lecanora stood and turned off the taps. For the first time in hours, her body felt warm and the nagging growl at the back of her brain had slowed. It was like the low mists at sea, burned off by the midday sun.

  As she stepped out of the shower, her mother handed her a soft towel, and she stepped into it. Lunia wrapped it around her. Lecanora felt Lunia’s body tense as though she were about to say something. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Susan Murray is here,’ she said. ‘She wants to meet with us, but she has also said she can come back another time. She understands what you have been through.’

  Lecanora stood in front of the mirror, watching her reflection. She looked the same. She was no different, she reminded herself. No different than she had been hours before.

  Except she knew it was not true. She was different.

  She was stronger now.

  * * *

  The handsome man with the silver hair shook his head.

  ‘We always knew she was different,’ he said. He was tall, and held himself erect at the little table by the light of the low lamp. ‘Magical, we figured. I’m a man of science, so I’m less inclined to be accepting of these things. But my wife—�
� He shook his head again, and a small smile appeared. ‘Bless her, she’s gone now. But she was more…accepting, I suppose you would say. She looked at all the heartache we’d had.’ He waved a hand, as though apologizing for the way he was telling the story. ‘We’d lost some, you see, some babies. That was why we’d moved, to that remote part of the coast. Some time, for Mary. Some sea air. I decided to take some time to write my book. And we just…never went back. Slowly, she got better, she would walk on the beach every day. That was how she found her.’ The old man motioned to Susan, who was sitting beside him at the little square table.

  Lunia and Lecanora sat opposite them. Larry had absented himself into the room next door. Doug was standing near the entrance, his back to the door, facing them like a sentry. His face was closed and hard. Lecanora had already heard his views about having Susan Murray here in the room after the earlier events of the day. Lecanora suppressed a smile as she took in his scowling face and rigid body.

  The old man took Susan’s hand. ‘She brought Susan back, my wife did, and she was close to death, the poor little thing. I wanted to take her to the hospital, but it was so far from where we were. I was afraid she would not make the journey. She was exhausted. And even thought she was so tiny, only a few years old, she spoke the strangest language. I didn’t recognize it from anywhere. But my wife…well, my wife fell in love with her, almost right away.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘We decided to feed her and rest her, then take her to the hospital. But we didn’t need to; she got better so quickly. I knew one day I would have to report her, take her to the authorities, find her people. But Mary was distraught at the thought. I couldn’t do it. So instead, I did the investigations myself. I had a good friend, worked with the police. He helped me. And there was nothing. He’s dead now, my friend, but we searched for a long time. I couldn’t bear the idea that someone was looking for her, frantic with worry. And neither could Mary. So we searched and searched. Until, well… it became clear to me that she wasn’t lost from some poor family. She was something else.”‘

  Lunia smiled, that smile that had seen her elected mayor. The one that reassured and made people feel close to her all at once. ‘How did you hide the fact of her?’ she wondered. ‘Back then, a little girl, suddenly? And then again, lately, all this attention, how can this story not have come back to haunt you?’

  The old man sighed and Susan shrugged, listening. ‘I was a small town doctor,’ he said. ‘We moved, to another place, and introduced her as our daughter. I had a story. She’d been born at home. Not so unusual, back then, and in those coastal communities. And it was easy to fabricate the records. There were only a few families from that first area who knew us, even to wave at, and it was fifty-eight years ago. They’re all gone now.’

  Lecanora’s brain scrambled at the tale. ‘But how did you hide her? And how do you…?’

  ‘Accept her?’ The old man laughed, and his voice was soft but strong. ‘It was impossible not to. She bewitched us from the first day. Both of us. My wife led the charge, but I wanted her too. I wanted to keep her. I searched for her people, because it seemed right, but in my heart I knew she was ours, and that she’d come to us for a reason. Especially after her differences became clear. I felt like we were the Kents. You know, in Superman?’

  Lecanora shook her head. ‘No, I’m sorry, I don’t,’ she said.

  Lunia patted her leg. ‘It’s a Land myth,’ she said. ‘The Kents took in a child from outer space. He had…many powers.’

  ‘Yes,’ the old doctor said. ‘That was like Susan. She was so strong, and she seemed to know things. We never lied to her, you know.’ He looked up at them with pale, watery eyes, as though begging them to believe him. ‘We told her right from the get-go. But we also told her she would need to be careful.’

  Susan cleared her throat and put her teacup down. ‘I could not have had better parents,’ she said. Lecanora’s skin warmed at Susan’s words. The story was so familiar it almost hurt. The foundling, cared for by people who loved her.

  Susan went on. ‘They told me people would not understand the things that made me different. But they also told me that there was nothing I could not do, or be.’ She gestured at herself, a self-conscious action. ‘Even president.’

  Her father snorted a little. ‘Doesn’t mean I actually thought it would happen, of course,’ he said. ‘Although, Mary did.’ He covered his daughter’s hand again. ‘She was so proud of you.’

  The words were out before Lecanora could stop them. ‘Did you ever feel alone?’

  Susan looked carefully at her. She narrowed those deep blue eyes and pursed her lips, pushing her thick blonde fringe out of her eyes. ‘Sometimes,’ she said. ‘But it has become easier as I have gotten older.’ She turned to Lunia. ‘But when I saw you, in the crowd. When I saw the two of you, I felt…a thrill of something. Recognition, I suppose. I was afraid, but I also felt very happy. Very, very happy.’

  Lecanora smiled at her. Yes. She thought about how she had felt in the shower.

  ‘So,’ Susan said. ‘Enough about me.’

  * * *

  It had taken hours to tell the story, and dawn was breaking through the window overlooking the city. Lecanora’s eyes stung, she had been up so long. The previous night she had only had a few hours sleep. She realized she would need to steal a few hours at least before she returned home. Hydroporting was dangerous when you were weak. The thought frustrated her, as it meant hours more before she could go back and check where everything was up to.

  And there was still this to finish.

  Lecanora glanced over at Doug, who was still standing in the same position by the door. She wondered how he could possibly stay so still for so long, but she knew he was engaged. This was the first time he had heard the whole tale laid out, like that, and she could feel the curiosity and wonder rising from him. Part of her resented it. She did not want to be a curiosity to him. She wondered if it would make him see her differently.

  Lunia broke the silence. ‘I guess all that remains to be said is whether you believe the story we have told you.’

  Susan took a breath, steepling her fingers on the small table. ‘I do,’ she said. ‘It fits with…another piece of all of this. A piece that we did not share earlier.’

  Lunia raised a brow at the woman and her father.

  The old man got up from his chair and stretched his arms above his head. ‘Forgive me, ladies,’ he said. ‘I am not as young as all of you. It is hard for me to sit for so long.’ He leaned forward with his hands on the chair, and cleared his throat. ‘My wife, she was Romani,’ he said. ‘She believed in all kinds of things. She had dreams, she…for some reason—’ He stood up away from the chair, and went to stand behind Susan. ‘She had a thing about…our daughter…and a number. She would place the symbol everywhere. In Susan’s crib. Above her door.’

  ‘Three,’ Lecanora gasped.

  ‘Yes,’ the old man and his daughter both said together.

  Lunia spread her hands on the table. ‘But how could she have known?’

  ‘I do not know,’ the old man said, in his elegant Boston accent. Then he laughed. ‘There were so many things I did not know about that woman. And it never seemed to matter, when she was around. If she was here, I could ask her. Although…’ He laughed again. ‘She may not have told us, even now. Perhaps she may have told you all. She believed in the sacredness of women’s secrets. Women’s business.’

  Susan turned to Lunia. ‘She had a pet name for me,’ she said. ‘My mother. She called me Trin.’

  Lunia nodded. ‘Romani for three.’

  ‘Yes,’ Susan said, her eyes filling with tears. ‘I have always thought it was just…you know…an eccentricity. But now, I wonder.’

  ‘Do not wonder,’ Lecanora said, firmly. ‘There is no doubt on this, in my mind. The Goddess was clear. The Three are connected by blood. And you are the lost one.’

  ‘Yes,’ Lunia agreed. ‘You are Saskia, my maternal aunt, who went mis
sing when out foraging. You must have been caught in a tide, or a rip, and washed away.’

  ‘But she was so young,’ the old doctor said, barely concealed disgust in his voice. ‘How could your people have let her out of their sight?’

  ‘She was in a school,’ Lunia said, shaking her head. ‘She should have been safe. Somehow she was separated, somehow she got lost.’ She shook her head. ‘I do not know how. That is something we may never know. Perhaps it was, truly, accident. But I am not sure. She could not be reached. She could never be reached, with our minds. So she must have travelled far, fast. She may have been taken.’

  ‘By this sorcerer?’ The old man’s fists bunched on the back of his daughter’s chair.

  ‘Perhaps,’ Lunia said, opening her palms and turning them upwards. ‘I simply do not know.’

  ‘These are dangerous times for your people,’ the old man went on. ‘Why do you need to involve her? Who would believe her? What could she do?’

  Lecanora’s mind was sharp and alive, fitting the mixed-up shards together. ‘We need to reveal,’ she said. ‘We need to tell The Land dwellers. Only together can we overcome.’

  Lunia nodded. ‘But it is more than that,’ she said. ‘This is in the interests of The Land too. He has been here. He has told us. He wants it all. He has an army, and he will not stop.’

  Susan’s father walked to the window, staring out at the streetscape in the breaking dawn. ‘I am not as trusting as my daughter,’ he said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I understand what you are. And I know that my daughter is part of…’ He waved his hand. ‘…all this. But this thing, with this sorcerer. Do you know what it would do to her life—and to all of you—if we told the people what she is, what you are, and told them this story?’

  Lunia nodded. ‘I do know. That is why we need her,’ she said. ‘We need to find a way.’

  Susan stood up and stretched. ‘I need to think,’ she said.