It wasn’t there.
She felt a flare of intense, sickening panic. Then she remembered she’d taken off the necklace on the ferry. It was still in the pocket of her shorts. She patted the fabric, feeling the familiar shape of the stone.
Home had never felt so distant. Stella felt a rush of longing for everything she had left behind. For her dad, and for Gramma, and Mrs Chapman, and even for Tina. They would all be looking for her, although Marcie was right; they wouldn’t be looking for her here. She was too far away.
But Cam wasn’t.
Stella sat up a little straighter. Cam and her family would have reached their new home by now. The thought that Cam was not far away on the mainland made Stella clench her fists with frustration. If only she’d waited until Cam had arrived, if only she’d told her where she was going…
If only they hadn’t argued. But hadn’t she told Cam she’d go to Lastland Island some day? She’d spoken so angrily, surely Cam would remember. Would she think of it now, and guess where Stella was?
Maybe, Stella thought, although she couldn’t count on it. Even for Cam it wasn’t much to go on. Her heart – which had briefly lifted in hope – sank back down again. Her eyes wandered hopelessly around the dreary room. There was a mark on the headboard of her bed, right in the corner. Stella leaned in for a better look.
She gasped. It was a picture of a turtle, scratched in the wood.
Stella knew her mum had made it. She’d recognise her style anywhere. She reached out and touched the picture with the tip of her finger, and a surge of love and comfort washed over her. It was so strong and so real that it was almost as if Stella’s mum herself had entered the room, and taken her into her arms.
The turtle was about six centimetres high, viewed from below, showing the animal’s belly and the underside of its head, with its flippers spread on either side. It had been drawn with nothing more than a needle, yet it was so lifelike and complete. Stella could see the markings on its belly, all the lines in its leathery neck and flippers. Her mum must have made it when she lived at the Crystal Cove, years and years ago. It had been on the headboard all this time, waiting for Stella like a message of hope and reassurance.
I haven’t left you, the message seemed to say. I am here with you now. Be strong…
Stella lay down, her hand resting against the headboard, as close to the picture of the turtle as she could get. She closed her eyes. Her last thought before falling asleep was of Cam, so near across the water.
She didn’t know whether Cam had remembered their talk about Lastland Island or not. But Stella suddenly thought of a way she might be able to remind her.
Twenty-three
Stella woke early to the sound of the door opening. She leaped to her feet, instantly awake. Pearl wheeled through the door, closing it behind her with a quick flip of her makeshift hook. She was wearing a slightly less dingy dress, and her hair was scraped into a bun, although her efforts only made her seem more pitiful. As she crossed the room, she looked as insubstantial as her own cloudy reflection, flickering in the wardrobe mirror.
‘I brought you breakfast,’ she said. A cup of tea and a piece of toast – the butter spread extremely thin – lay on a tray on her lap. She placed the tray on the bed next to Stella.
‘I don’t want it,’ Stella said. ‘I want to go home.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Pearl said, her eyes downcast.
Stella had the feeling that Pearl didn’t like what Marcie was doing any more than Stella did.
‘If you’re sorry, why don’t you let me out?’
‘Even if I let you through the door, it wouldn’t be any good,’ Pearl said. ‘You have to go through the kitchen to get to the front, and Marcie’s there, like, always. She sleeps next to the desk, on a pull-out cot.’
‘You could call someone.’
‘She’s got the only phone.’
‘You could go out yourself, then!’ Stella cried. ‘You could get help, tell the police…’
Pearl twisted her pale hands together. ‘I can’t,’ she said, her voice anguished. ‘I daren’t, you don’t understand.’
‘You’re frightened of her,’ Stella said.
Pearl’s lips tightened until her mouth almost vanished. ‘She’s a terrible person,’ she said with sudden feeling. ‘Cruel and stupid and reckless.’
‘She’s mad,’ Stella said.
‘Yes. But not in the way you think.’
‘Why do you stay here if you hate her so much?’
‘I more than hate her,’ Pearl said. ‘There isn’t a word for how I feel.’ She broke off, shaking her head. ‘I’m sorry about your mother. More sorry than you can know.’
She looked up, and Stella saw that her eyes were red-rimmed, and her face had a raw, rubbed look, as if she had been crying for a long time, through the night.
‘Not an hour has gone by in all these years that I haven’t thought about her,’ Pearl said. ‘I wonder, did she ever… say anything about me?’
Stella shook her head.
‘No,’ Pearl said in a low voice. ‘Of course not, how could she?’
Again she paused. ‘Tell me,’ she said at last. ‘Was she happy?’
It was a strange question. Stella had never thought of it quite like that before. The memory of a long-ago summer night came back to her. She had been in bed, and had come downstairs, although she didn’t know why. She remembered stopping at the foot of the stairs. The windows were open, letting in the night air, and she could hear music playing. Her parents were dancing together in the living room, under a circle of light. It was old-fashioned dancing, the kind with proper steps. But Stella could tell her mum wasn’t quite sure of them, because she kept glancing at her feet, and trying not to laugh. And every time she did, Stella’s dad’s smile grew wider, and he held her closer, and their shadows flowed over the walls of the living room. Stella thought they might have stayed dancing like that for ever, if they hadn’t seen her standing there.
She gazed at Pearl, her mind bright with the memory.
‘I think she was the happiest person in the whole world,’ Stella said.
Pearl sighed, as if a weight had been lifted off her. ‘I’m glad,’ she said. ‘So it was worth it…’
‘What do you mean?’
Pearl looked away without answering.
Stella had been sitting on the edge of the bed, but now she pushed her body back against the wall, and drew up her knees protectively. Pearl wasn’t to be trusted, any more than Marcie.
‘I thought you were on my side,’ she said. ‘But you’re on hers. You’re going to say the same crazy thing she did. That you and my mum were actual—’ Stella broke off, unable to finish the sentence.
‘It’s not crazy,’ Pearl said, her voice calm, and sad.
Stella had run away from home because she thought her mum might have been a mermaid. Sometimes it’s easy to believe something – however unlikely – when it is just a vague theory. But the more real it gets, the harder it becomes, and now all Stella’s common sense rose in rebellion.
‘There are no such things as mermaids!’ she burst out. ‘Mum told me that herself!’
‘She was right.’
Stella stared at her in confusion.
‘There’s no such thing, if you mean those creatures who sit on rocks and comb their hair all day,’ Pearl said, with a hint of scorn. ‘The ones with pretty tails, who sing to ships, or change into seals, or lure sailors to their doom for no apparent reason. There’s no such thing as them.’
‘What, then?’
‘Imagine what you would need to live in the deepest, wildest ocean,’ Pearl said. ‘The eel’s whip and the limpet’s cling, the strength and sleepless eyes of the great white shark, the liquid shiver of the squid… like that.
Most people would be frightened if they saw it,’ she added. ‘Even horrified.’
‘That’s impossible!’ Stella protested. ‘It doesn’t—’
She was interrupted by a familiar jingling
noise. The door swung open and Marcie walked in. She was wearing jeans tucked into the top of her boots, and they gave her legs a stumpy look, as shapeless as a pair of tree trunks. She gazed at Stella with a look of deep satisfaction.
‘So how’s our little guest this morning?’
Twenty-four
‘Not going to talk to me?’ Marcie grinned. ‘That’s not very polite. Perhaps you don’t like your accommodation. Nothing like that big, fancy house of yours.
I did a little research,’ she continued. ‘Your father’s a rich man.’
‘He’ll pay you,’ Stella said. ‘He’ll pay you anything if you let me go.’
‘Well, probably,’ Marcie said with mean emphasis. ‘But that would spoil everything.’
Stella was too distracted to work out what she meant. She was thinking about the plan she’d hatched the night before. If it had any chance, she would have to be careful. Very careful.
‘It doesn’t really matter if you ask my dad for money or not,’ she said, trying to sound casual. ‘The police will be here soon, anyway.’
‘I don’t think so,’ Marcie said.
‘I told my friend I was coming here,’ Stella said. ‘She’s the only one who knows. She said if I didn’t call her by nine o’ clock this morning to say I was okay, she’d tell my dad where I was.’
She was talking too fast, Stella thought. She needed to sound more confident.
‘Nice try,’ Marcie said, although a hint of uncertainty had entered her voice.
‘You should let me go now,’ Stella said.
Marcie made a scoffing sound. ‘Do you believe her, Pearl? I don’t.’
Pearl shot Stella a frightened glance.
‘I think she’s making it up,’ Marcie said. She strode to the bed and leaned over Stella.
‘Do you think I’m a dummy?’
Stella’s heart was beating so hard she felt sure Marcie could see it thumping beneath her jacket. She forced herself to look her in the eye.
‘Her name is Camilla Jenkins,’ she said. ‘She lives in the town on the mainland, near the ferry.’
Marcie’s eyes narrowed.
‘It’s nearly nine o’clock,’ Stella said.
‘I can tell the time, thank you very much!’ Marcie spat.
‘Maybe you should let her go…’ Pearl ventured timidly.
A look of indecision crossed Marcie’s face. Then she straightened up.
‘No!’ She pulled a phone from the back pocket of her jeans.
‘Call her,’ she told Stella. ‘Call her now. Tell her you’re just fine.’
Stella was so surprised at the success of her plan that she almost took the phone from Marcie’s hand. But it would look suspicious if she was too eager. She was supposed to be hoping that Cam would call the police.
‘I’m not calling,’ she said. ‘You can’t make me.’
Marcie sat next to her, the bed shifting under her weight.
‘Tell me her number.’
‘I don’t know it,’ Stella said. ‘I can’t remember.’
‘If you don’t tell me,’ Marcie said, almost kindly, ‘you’ll never get out of here. You’ll never go home. That’s a promise.’
Stella believed her.
‘You’ll tell her you met a couple of your mother’s friends,’ Marcie said. ‘Keep it short, no chatting. And don’t even think about trying anything.’
Stella nodded, her throat tight with fear.
‘I’ll know if you try anything,’ Marcie said.
Stella watched as she tapped the numbers, and then Marcie handed her the phone.
‘Hi, Cam,’ Stella croaked.
‘Stella!’ Cam’s familiar voice was a shriek in her ear. ‘Wh—’
‘I got to Lastland Island, like I told you I would,’ Stella said, cutting her off. ‘Only you can’t tell anyone, you have to promise.’
She pressed the phone tightly to her ear, so that Marcie couldn’t hear Cam’s squawks of amazement.
‘Everyone’s looking for you!’ Cam exclaimed.
‘I know,’ Stella said. Marcie seized her arm in a threatening grip. ‘I’m fine,’ she said. ‘Everything’s fine. I’ve met some friends of my mum’s…’
‘You sure?’
Marcie’s grip tightened until Stella winced.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘But you can’t tell. Promise?’
Cam made more squawking sounds. ‘Okay,’ she said at last. ‘Call me soon, though, let me know…’
Marcie was gesturing for Stella to finish, half-reaching for the phone. In a few seconds Stella would have to hang up. But all she’d done was tell Cam where she was. She hadn’t been able to tell her she was in danger.
‘I know you think I’m weird,’ she said in desperation. It was their private joke. Surely Cam would pick up on it.
‘That’s because you are weird,’ Cam said.
Stella knew Cam would be expecting her to say, ‘I know I am.’
‘I am not!’ she cried. ‘I’m never weird. You’re the weird one, not me!’ She hung up before Cam had a chance to reply.
As a clue, it wasn’t much to go on, but she hoped it would work.
‘That wasn’t so hard, was it?’ Marcie said, tucking the phone into her pocket. ‘Now we can get back to business.’
The look of satisfaction had returned to her face.
‘We need to talk a little more about you and your mother.’
‘I don’t want to talk about my mum any more. I don’t believe anything you said about her. Or what she said,’ she added, scowling at Pearl.
Marcie shrugged.
‘You don’t need to believe me, because it’s true,’ she said. ‘I have proof.’
Twenty-five
‘Go and fetch it, Pearl,’ Marcie said. ‘You know where it is.’
‘You mustn’t, you don’t need to—’ Pearl protested.
‘Do as you’re told.’
What proof could there possibly be? Stella strained her ears for any sounds from the outside. The police were on their way, she told herself.
‘You’ll understand,’ Marcie was saying. ‘This place was grand once, it was grand. But I never lost hope; I never gave up on my vision…’
Stella wasn’t listening. She could hear the faint creak of the wheelchair getting louder and louder as Pearl made her way back. Then Pearl was in the room again. She had something on her lap. It was a moment before Stella realised what it was, because she had never seen one before.
It was a video camera. An old one, with a screen that folded out and a handle on the side, and a slot for a mini cassette tape.
Pearl handed it silently to Marcie.
Stella leaned forward without wanting to, gripped by a terrible curiosity. She couldn’t take her eyes away as Marcie flipped open the little screen and ran her fingers over the buttons on the side of the camera, pressing to fast forward, stopping, then pressing again, her gaze fixed in concentration.
‘Here’s the place,’ Marcie said. ‘Yes, this is it.’ She glanced at Stella. ‘Come here. Look.’
Stella rose to her feet helplessly.
‘It was shot from inside the tank,’ Marcie said, holding out the camera so Stella could see the screen. ‘That’s the platform up above, where the performers enter.’
Stella saw a shifting, underwater view of rocks and plastic coral. Someone was sitting on the platform at the top, although she could only see part of a white bathrobe and a pair of bare, dangling legs.
‘Your mother,’ Marcie whispered harshly in her ear. ‘See? Now she jumps in…’
The video cut. The tank was full of swirling bubbles. Stella glimpsed the flash of an arm, a kicking foot, a sudden drift of hair. Then the water cleared.
Her mum was facing away from the camera. Stella saw her shoulders and the top half of her back, her hair floating around her like a separate, living thing. She turned her head.
‘Watch,’ Marcie said, although Stella was hardly aware she had spoken.
Her mum’s
eyes were closed, and her face was perfectly still, so still that when her mouth parted, it was as if a statue had suddenly breathed. A great bubble of air rose from her lips, obscuring her face for a second. Her eyes opened.
‘Watch!’ Marcie repeated, even more urgently.
Stella frowned, blinking in the light of the tiny screen. Something was rising up her mum’s back like a shadow, only far darker, and a hundred times more rich. She gleamed and seemed to flicker. Stella stared, her hand pressed hard against her mouth. Had her mum’s eyes always been like that, so large, so impossibly bright, so—
‘Stop it!’ Pearl’s voice was loud in the silent room. ‘Leave her alone!’
On the screen, her mum’s body glowed and shifted.
The strength and sleepless eyes of the great white shark, Stella thought. The liquid shiver of the squid…
She covered her face with her hands.
A moment passed, although it might have been an hour. Marcie and Pearl had gone, without Stella even noticing. She sat frozen on the bed.
It was true, all of it.
She hadn’t needed to see the proof. In her heart she’d always known. She’d known by her necklace, with a stone so unusual that even the man at the Natural History Museum couldn’t identify it. She’d known the minute she found the drawing hidden behind her mum’s photograph. The turtle scratched on the headboard of this very bed had hinted at the truth. Only someone who had seen the underside of a turtle many, many times could have drawn it that way, so accurately, so full of detail.
Only someone used to looking at it from below.
But seeing the proof had made it official. Even Cam would have to believe it now. If only she could tell her, Stella thought, with a despairing glance at the locked door. Cam would never laugh at anything she said ever again.
Twenty-six
‘I’ve brought you something to eat,’ Pearl said.
Stella stared at the plastic tub of mac and cheese. It was already starting to congeal.
‘I can’t,’ she said.
The Girl Who Thought Her Mother Was a Mermaid Page 7