It wasn’t a window at all.
It was an eye.
Then the wall moved, and the world turned upside down.
Forty-one
To the crew and passengers on board the ferry, it was a miracle. So much so, that for the rest of their lives, whenever they heard the word, they would immediately think of the events of that day. And no matter how long they lived, it would always be the miracle to which every other miracle was compared and found wanting.
A moment after Stella jumped, and the ferry halted and sounded its warning, three passengers, including a former Olympic swimmer, dived into the sea after her. As the ferry captain waited, her hands shaking slightly, to turn the vessel, and another crewmember scrambled to the bow with a life jacket, the three swam as fast as they could in Stella’s direction. Along the deck rail, people clustered, pointing and shouting directions.
‘It was a child!’ someone said, and as the word spread, groans and cries could be heard. Passengers clutched at each other, muttering prayers under their breath, or jostled for a better view.
Then the speck that was Stella’s head disappeared from sight. The swimmers paused, before redoubling their speed, although it was clear they no longer knew what to do next.
A silence fell on the deck of the ferry. One of the swimmers dived suddenly, only to rise seconds later, his hands empty. The passengers along the boat rail leaned forwards, their gaze fixed in desperate concentration on the water, searching for the smallest movement, the slightest sign of hope.
The first indication that something strange was about to happen came from the three people in the water. Although they were a short distance away from each other, they all stopped swimming at precisely the same moment and began to tread water, looking about them with an air of uncertainty. To the watchers on deck, it seemed as if each of the three had sensed something, or felt a kind of disturbance, although what it was, nobody knew. The sea looked exactly the same as it had done the moment before.
Then, one by one, each passenger noticed a difference in the area of water lying on the ferry’s starboard side. At first it was no more than a change of texture, a calming of the swell in that particular spot. Half a second later, and there could be no doubt; a vast patch of the sea had grown utterly still, as flat and as glassy as if it had been covered with a layer of oil.
The three swimmers had stopped treading water and were now swimming away from the boat with frantic, splashing speed. But nobody on deck gave them a glance. Something shadowy was rising to the surface, something so vast that no one could sense its shape, or see where it began or where it ended.
‘Whale!’ a man suddenly bellowed.
It broke the surface with a mighty exhalation, a single breath so massive and yet so steady, it was almost a sigh, and a spout of air and condensed water vapour shot into the sky. The sea gleamed solid.
‘Whale!’
It was by far the largest ever seen in those – or any – waters, with a body that stretched like a shining highway, three times longer than the ferry and twice as wide. It had been drawn into the area, off its normal, far-off path, over two days before, and had been cruising offshore ever since, as though waiting for something.
A great cry burst from the watchers on the deck. There, looking tiny on the creature’s enormous back, they saw a girl. She was lying face down, her cheek pressed against the whale’s wet skin, her arms spread out as if in an embrace.
Cam leaned so far over the crowded boat rail that she almost tumbled overboard herself.
‘Stella!’ she screamed.
Forty-two
Stella was still unconscious when the whale slipped noiselessly below, and human hands lifted her to safety. When she woke, she was lying on the deck of the ferry in an agony of coughing, a sharp pain in her chest. Faces loomed over her. She looked desperately for Cam, glimpsed her briefly, tried to talk.
‘Oxygen,’ somebody said, fitting a mask to her face.
An ambulance was waiting on the mainland. Stella twisted in protest as she was lifted on to a stretcher and hurriedly wheeled off the ferry. She needed Cam; she had to speak to her. But everyone around her was moving too fast.
In the hospital, doctors lifted her eyelids, and felt her pulse, and hooked her to machines to measure the zigzagging patterns of her brain and heart. Then they gave her something that sent her to sleep.
She woke next morning, her head clear. She sat up, her fingers automatically moving to her throat, her heart thumping in panic. A nurse entered, carrying breakfast on a tray.
‘My necklace! Where is it?’
‘It was taken off last night,’ a nurse said. ‘Look, it’s right here, on the table next to you.’
Stella fastened it hastily around her neck.
‘You’re the girl who was rescued by a whale!’ the nurse said, setting down the tray. ‘It was all over the news last night. What happened? What was it like?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘What, nothing?’
Stella shook her head firmly. ‘Nothing.’
A little later, the door flew open and Cam rushed in.
‘They wouldn’t let me see you until now! Are you okay? What’s that tube thing stuck in your arm?’
‘Cam—’
‘My parents are outside. They’re acting weirdly nice. I should run away from home more often.’
‘Cam—’
‘You’ll never guess who was on the ferry with us,’ Cam chattered, plumping down on the bed. ‘Can you move your legs a bit? That’s better… That mad woman who tried to kill us! She was keeping out of sight, but I spotted her, just before the ferry docked. I got the captain to call the police straightaway.’
Cam paused for an instant to relish the importance of her role in the event.
‘I had to go to the police station to give a statement. They grilled me for hours.’
‘But what happened to Pearl?’ Stella burst out, finally managing to get a word in edgeways.
Cam looked down. ‘I don’t want to get you upset. They told me not to get you upset.’
‘You have to tell me, Cam. Did you see her?’
Cam shook her head. ‘Nobody did. She wasn’t on the ferry when we landed. I’m sorry, Stella… They found her wheelchair. They think she must’ve fallen overboard too, somehow.’
Stella leaned back against the pillow.
‘So she’s gone…’
‘Don’t say that!’ Cam clutched the bed covers with an anxious hand. ‘They couldn’t go back to look because it was already nearly dark, but they’ll look today. Maybe they’ll find her, maybe she didn’t drown.’
Stella imagined Pearl clinging to the boat rail, finding her moment of courage. Had she heard the water singing as she fell? And had she turned, nameless and darkly strange below the shadow of the ferry, and become herself again at last?
‘Yes, maybe,’ Stella said, her eyes shining. ‘Maybe.’
‘I still don’t understand how you ended up in the sea,’ Cam said. ‘What happened? Were you frightened when you saw the whale?’
Stella shook her head. ‘I don’t remember anything,’ she said, although it wasn’t true.
She remembered all of it. She lay quietly after Cam had gone, her mind reliving her jump off the ferry, her struggle, her breathless drift down. Then she thought of her mum and the gift she had inherited from her.
No mermaid tail, despite Marcie’s twisted hopes and dreams. Instead, a necklace with a curious stone.
Her mum had called it the word of the sea.
Forty-three
Stella’s dad arrived that afternoon. She was dressed and waiting for him in the hospital lobby. He hugged her and kissed the top of her head.
Stella tried to say how sorry she was, but she couldn’t speak. He was holding her too tightly.
‘Gramma will be pleased to see you,’ he said, letting go at last. ‘She was asking for you just this morning.’
‘I thought she didn’t know who I was,’ Stella
said. ‘I thought she’d forgotten me.’
Her dad looked at her thoughtfully. ‘I don’t think your gramma has forgotten anything,’ he said. ‘I believe her memories are in there somewhere. She has trouble finding them when she needs to, that’s all.’
Stella looked down at the ground, feeling the prickle of tears.
‘She loves you,’ her dad said, his voice gentle. ‘Even if she sometimes isn’t quite sure who you are.’
‘Or when you are,’ he added. ‘Do you know what she said to me yesterday? She said I had to tidy my room, and if everything wasn’t put away neatly, I wouldn’t get any pocket money!’
Stella laughed and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand at the same time.
‘I shouldn’t have run away…’
‘It was my fault,’ he said, his own eyes glistening. ‘I loved your mum so much. I was so busy missing her, I didn’t see how much you were missing her too.’
Stella wanted to tell him that her mum had loved him as well, far more than he knew. Her mum had given up everything else in the world she loved – a whole other existence – just to be with him. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t tell anyone the truth, not even him, though it hurt her not to.
‘I’ve been in a kind of dream,’ her dad said. ‘It took this – it took you to wake me up.’
He doesn’t always know the right thing to say, you know, Gramma had once told her. But he has a very good heart.
Gramma never knew what she was talking about, Stella thought. Yet somehow, she was always, always right.
In the lobby of the hospital, people came and went, talking in quiet voices. The revolving door spun, a man sitting in a chair turned the page of his magazine, somebody coughed. Stella felt a surge of extraordinary happiness. Nothing was different, and yet everything in the world had changed.
‘Can we go home now?’ she asked.
Forty-four
Stella stood up to her waist in the swimming pool, her back to the deep end, the sun hot on her shoulders. She had been in the pool every day since getting home, nearly two weeks before.
The first thing she had done when she arrived back, almost before the front door had closed behind her, was run upstairs and knock on Gramma’s door.
It opened at once, as if Gramma already knew she was there.
‘Where were you?’ Gramma said. ‘Did you miss the bus?’
She had just washed and dried her hair. It looked like a fluffy halo, lit up from the rays of the early morning sun.
‘Oh, Gramma!’ Stella cried, hugging her. ‘I missed you so much!’
‘I’m just about to have some breakfast,’ Gramma said. ‘Why don’t you join me?’
‘What has Mrs Chapman made today?’
Gramma lowered her voice. ‘Poor Mrs Chapman hasn’t been herself these last few days, but this morning she seemed very excited about something or other, said she was going to make her special blueberry pancakes…’
‘Such a lot of strange things have happened to me, Gramma.’
‘How very unsettling,’ Gramma murmured. ‘Do you want to tell me about it?’
‘I can’t,’ Stella said. ‘I wish I could, I’ve been wanting to tell someone so badly.’
‘Well,’ Gramma said, picking up her knitting, ‘I expect I’d forget it the minute you told me, or muddle it up somehow.’ She leaned forward conspiratorially. ‘Between you and me, I’m getting a bit absent-minded, you know. It’s rather difficult, although it does have some advantages. It means I’m very good at keeping secrets.’
So, with a feeling of great relief, Stella sat down on the sofa and told her everything. It took a long time, and Gramma listened all the way through. Sometimes she said, ‘My goodness!’ or, ‘How dreadful!’ or, ‘To think!’ and sometimes she said nothing, but simply squeezed Stella’s hand, her eyes full of concern.
When Stella was finally finished, Gramma sat silently for a while, a far-off look on her face.
‘What are you thinking about?’
‘I’m thinking how very proud of you your mum would be,’ Gramma said. She paused. ‘How silly! I’m crying!’
‘I love you, Gramma,’ Stella told her.
Gramma wiped her eyes, her face suddenly brightening. ‘Did I tell you there are blueberry pancakes for breakfast? Mrs Chapman is cooking up a storm.’
‘I was thinking of starting swimming again,’ Stella said. ‘Do you think it’s a good idea?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ Gramma said. ‘It’s terribly good exercise, you know.’
Stella’s dad had the tarp removed that afternoon, and by the end of the next day, the pool had been cleaned and filled with water.
Stella kept to the shallow end to begin with. She waded slowly across the pool, and back again, trailing her hands in the water. Then she swam a width and rested, panting against the side.
On the second day, she managed a whole length.
On the third, she held her nose, breathed in as deeply as she could, and sank below the water until her knees were resting on the floor.
Now she had decided to see whether she had the nerve to lie on her back and float. She would do it in the deep end, she thought, out of her depth, where she would have to trust the water to keep her buoyant.
She took a cautious step backwards. There was a place where the floor of the pool shelved steeply, and she was waiting to feel it beneath her feet before attempting to float.
She was about to take another, even more hesitant step, when her dad appeared, carrying a package in one hand and his phone in the other. He squatted by the edge of the pool, looking down at her.
‘How would you like to move house?’ he said.
‘You mean, like nearer to my school?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Further away from your school. A lot further, as a matter of fact.’
Stella didn’t understand. She stood still in the middle of the pool, staring at him.
‘I’m going to be doing a different job,’ he said. ‘No more travelling for work. And we can live anywhere we like.’
His face was just as serious as it always was, although Stella could see the beginnings of a smile. ‘I ought to have asked you first,’ he continued, ‘but I’m pretty sure I already know where you’d like to live, so I went ahead and put in an offer on a house.’
‘Where?’ Stella said, hope shrinking her voice to a whisper.
‘Right on the beach,’ her dad said. He was smiling properly now. ‘Just down the hill from your friend Cam. You’ll be able to go to school together.’
‘Really?’
He nodded. ‘Really.’
‘Really?’ Stella repeated. Then, ‘But what about Gramma? And Mrs Chapman?’
‘There’s plenty of room for them too,’ her dad said. He stood up, placing the package he was carrying on the side of the pool. ‘I almost forgot. This came for you in the post this morning. It looks like it’s from Cam’s mother.’
He walked back up the lawn to the house. Stella splashed her way to the pool ladder as fast as she could.
The package was wrapped in brown paper, with Cam’s return address on the back. Stella could feel something soft inside. She opened it and pulled out an item of clothing.
It was her jacket. The one she’d been wearing when she ran away. Cam must have found it on the ferry, and then forgotten to give it back to her in all the excitement.
Stella held it up. Despite its soaking in the tank at the Crystal Cove, the jacket looked perfectly fine. The only thing different was a bulge in one of the pockets. Stella undid the button, her fingers reaching inside.
She knew what it was the instant she touched it.
A paper napkin, folded small. A letter.
Forty-five
Dear Stella,
By the time you read this, I will be gone.
I need to explain something, and this is the easiest way.
I told you once that your mother was born far more human than the rest of us. The most human thing about her was
her overwhelming desire to discover new things. It put her in danger, even in the ocean. Because of this, she was given a treasure to keep her safe. As long as she had it, she would always be protected in the sea.
I didn’t know you had that treasure until today, when you and your friend were in the tank. I wanted to save you from Marcie, but when I saw the stone around your neck, I knew I must, whether I wanted to or not. The word of the sea is unbreakable. As long as it is in your possession, you can come to no harm in the ocean. A million souls, from the great to the small, will always be there to help and protect you.
I only wish it could have protected your mother on land, as it did in the sea. Yet I know she never regretted her choice. She understood – as I should have done years ago – that the only life worth living is the one you live as yourself.
Pearl
Stella closed her eyes, no longer aware of the sun burning the back of her neck, the drip of her wet swimming costume. She was thinking about the aquarium, how the school of fish had suddenly changed direction, and how the turtle had seemed to follow her. And later, on the ferry, how the dolphins had found her shadow and kept pace with it for as long as they could.
Then she remembered the whale, and the way it had gazed at her, a green star burning in its watchful eye.
She hadn’t known how long she had hung there, suspended in the water. Time had grown so slow that she could track the creeping path of each thought as it formed.
It wasn’t a star. It was the reflection of something.
With the very last of her strength, she had managed to tilt her head and look down. The stone at her neck was glowing so brightly that it lit up the water. She was floating in a green fire.
Keep it safe, her mum had said. At least, that’s what Stella had thought she said. But Stella had remembered it wrong. Her mum had been trying to tell her something quite different.
The Girl Who Thought Her Mother Was a Mermaid Page 12