“This is where you swim!” exclaimed Connie. If it had been her, she would have chosen a cleaner, prettier spot.
“Sometimes,” said Jessica, sniffing. Connie caught it, too: there was a distinct scent of diesel oil on the breeze. “It’s actually quite a good spot because no one in their right minds comes here. Once you swim out beyond the outflow from the city sewer, it’s okay.”
“The sewer!” Connie was liking the sound of this less and less.
“Don’t worry. Arran knows a safe way around that. Are you ready for a swim?”
Connie looked about her: trash, sewage, and oil—this wasn’t at all how she had imagined her first encounter with the selkies would be. “Um...”
Her phone rang. Relieved to have an excuse to put off the moment when she would step into the freezing sea, she pulled it out with a murmured apology. It was Jane.
“Hi!” Connie was glad that her friend could not see her.
“Connie, it’s me. Anneena’s gone,” Jane said, her voice tight with concern.
“Gone? Gone where?”
“Where do you think? I only left her to go home for a minute and then found she’d made excuses to her mom and gone off. She said she was going to meet you. You know she doesn’t have a mobile phone, so I can’t reach her. She hasn’t gone to meet you, has she?”
“No.” Connie had made no arrangements to include Anneena on her dip with the selkies. “How long has she been gone?”
“At least an hour.”
They were both silent, working out that Anneena had had more than enough time to put her harebrained scheme to break into the terminal into effect.
“What do you think we should do?” asked Jane. “I mean, the worst thing that could happen is that she will get caught and sent home with a warning, isn’t it?”
Connie gazed out to sea and gulped to ease the lump in her throat. A bank of sea-fog was creeping inland, swallowing up headlands, ships, and rocks like a slow-motion tidal wave.
“I hope so, Jane. Look, I happen to be in Chartmouth myself at the moment. I’ll see if I can find her and stop her from doing anything stupid.”
Jane sounded relieved. “Thanks, Connie. Let me know how it goes.”
Connie put her phone back into her pocket and met the curious gazes of Jessica and Arran.
“Trouble?” asked Arran.
“You could say that,” said Connie. “I think one of my non-Society friends has gone and done something really stupid.”
“What?” asked Jessica.
“I think she’s broken into the terminal. She wanted to see for herself what was happening to the men that had gone missing. I don’t think it was deliberate, but Col put her up to it. He told her some lie about faulty machinery.”
“But that’s the official Society story,” said Jessica, “to divert attention from the truth. Col’s dad thought it up. It was agreed on last weekend because some reporter won’t let the story alone, and they were afraid she was going to go out in a boat searching for clues. They wanted to protect the sirens.”
“What? Nobody told me!” Connie fumed. She could strangle Col—and the rest of the Society. “Well, she believed him enough to go and take a look for herself. And the mist is coming in.” Just then, Connie felt a small vibration in her bones as if a tuning fork had just been struck deep inside her. “Jessica, Arran, I think the sirens are coming!”
Jessica looked as panic-stricken as Connie felt. Arran, however, remained calm.
“It’s clear enough, isn’t it?” he said, wrinkling his nose to sniff the wind. “The Society dropped her into the mess; we’d better get her out of it. Jessica, don’t forget to block your ears.”
“Where are we going?” croaked Connie.
“Into the terminal, of course,” said Arran coolly, as if he did this kind of thing all the time. “I know that place like the back of my flipper—from the sea, anyway.”
“I think there’s a back gate on Milsom Street,” said Jessica. Her face was pale but she looked determined. “That’s our best bet.”
“What are we waiting for?” asked Arran buoyantly, starting off at a run. The girls followed him until they came to a halt by the back entrance. The lights of the office buildings and the refinery shone feebly in the fog on their right. The cranes and containers of the dock were now on their left.
“That’s where she’ll be,” said Connie, nodding to the waterside. “She’ll be looking near where the men went missing.”
The fog rolled in more thickly and ate up the nearest stack of red containers. It had one benefit: it hid them as they slipped under the automatic barrier past the security guard’s cabin.
“Right. No time to lose. Let’s get looking,” said Arran. Before they could stop him, he ran off toward the docks.
“Arran!” Jessica’s voice carried eerily in the damp air. “Stop!” But Arran ignored her. “Look at him! Anyone would think this was all a game!” she said exasperated. “We’d better go after him. He doesn’t know about security cameras and all that. Someone’s bound to see him.”
If they don’t hear her first, thought Connie, but she said nothing. The two girls hurried off in pursuit, but he had disappeared into the fog. The tingling in Connie’s bones had become ringing: the sirens were getting closer. The two girls reached a tall crane that leaned over the dock like a yellow heron about to dip its neck in the water, its summit swathed in shifting feathers of mist. They flattened themselves against it, looking around for any sign of human or seal.
“Anneena!” Connie called out.
Nothing.
“Arran!” shouted Jessica.
“I’m going to look for your friend in the harbor,” came the reply.
He was very close. Connie and Jessica kept low as they half-crawled to a coil of cable at the water’s edge. There was Arran, lying on his belly, his arms by his side.
“Arran, no!” Connie exclaimed, rushing to his side. “You’ve got to come back with us. They’ll be after us any minute now. There are security cameras and all sorts of things around a place like this.”
“There’s no time for that!” said Jessica, glancing over her shoulder apprehensively.
“Too late: I’m changing,” said Arran. With a trembling motion like a light wind wrinkling the surface of a pool of water, the selkie’s clothes shivered into a thick pelt. His arms fused to his sides, leaving only two hand-shaped flippers. Legs joined together as his feet transformed into a tail. Connie sat helpless, yet marvelling, as his big dark eyes grew so round that the whites disappeared. Whiskers sprouted from his nose, which itself was rapidly thickening into a snout. His jaw jutted forward; sharp teeth erupted from the gums. The change complete, Arran rested his head on Connie’s lap, allowing her to stroke his smooth neck. She could feel the layers of insulating blubber under her fingertips.
“This is me,” he told her. “This is what I’m really like.”
In the distance a bell began to sound. They could hear the thump of running feet along the quayside.
“Come with me. I’m off to find her for you,” the selkie said.
“I can’t,” whispered Connie. “I can hardly swim at all.”
“I can’t leave Connie,” said Jessica firmly.
“I’ll help her,” urged Arran. “They’ll catch you if you stay here.”
But they were too late.
“Here’s more of them! Mo, over here!” bellowed a man bursting around the edge of the coil of cable, brandishing a torch. He stopped as he came face to face with the seal and hurriedly backed off, disturbed by the needle-sharp teeth that Arran bared at him.
A second man pounded over from the opposite direction.
“This place gives me the creeps, Ben. First, men chucking themselves in the drink, now kids coming to sightsee,” Mo said, wiping the sweat from his face.
“Not just kids,” said Ben, nodding down at the seal. “Careful. Don’t move, girl. I’ll scare it off for you.” He started to flap his arms. “Shoo! Get away from he
r!”
There was only one course open to Arran. With a parting lick of Connie’s fingers with his rough tongue, he slid over the side of the dock and disappeared below the water with barely a splash.
“You all right?” asked Ben, holding out a hand to help Connie to her feet, still shaken by what he had seen. “You shouldn’t be in here, you know. It’s not safe at the best of times.” He looked nervously about him. “Especially not safe when the mist comes in.”
“We’re sorry,” said Jessica. “We just followed the selk—the seal. We were worried he might hurt himself on the machinery.”
“You should’ve told us first,” he said. “I’d better take you to the office. We’ll have to report this. What d’you think, Mo?”
But his colleague was not listening. His hands were hanging limply by his sides, his jaw slack.
“Jessica, block your ears!” hissed Connie. Jessica stuck her fingers in her ears, a panicked look on her face.
“Mo, snap out of it!” said Ben, clicking his fingers under his friend’s nose. “Hey, stop fooling around. This is not the time or the place to play around.”
Now Connie could hear it, too. A song insinuated itself in the fog that surrounded them until it filled the whole space. It wrapped around them, wooing them to come to the singer, to sink into the cool wave-sheets of the marriage bed of the sea. A light breeze, like the gentle caress of a smooth hand, brushed her cheek, coaxing her forward. She shook herself, casting off the lure of the song like a dog shaking water from its coat after a bath.
She turned to the two men. Mo had stumbled forward and was walking slowly toward the edge of the dock. Ben had a pathetically broad grin on his face. He, too, began to move toward the water.
“Stop!” Connie screamed. She might as well have been shouting at stone for all the impression she made on them.
A new, more urgent tune unlooped from overhead.
“Come! Come!” crooned the siren. “My arms are soft; my embrace is sweet.”
Connie looked up. On the very top of the crane, she saw the dark outline of a single siren, head bent forward to pipe her victims to their doom.
“Shut up! Leave them alone!” Connie cried.
But it was useless. The siren, too, was lost in the spell woven by her song. A predator on the hunt, it would take more than puny words to turn her from the scent of her prey. Connie ran forward and grabbed the back of the jackets of the two men, but all that achieved was to find herself being towed nearer and nearer the edge as well. Jessica couldn’t help her: she needed both hands to stop her ears.
“Think!” Connie hissed to herself. “You’re the universal. You must be able to do something.”
If the predator was to be turned, it would need a new, more powerful scent to follow.
Connie let go of the men and closed her eyes. The murmur of the breeze; the creep of the fog; the lap of the waves: each joined to create one key for her melody. The universal began to sing:
Flight over waves. Moonlight silvering wings. Glint of fish in the shimmering depths of the sea. Red rock. Nest.
The siren faltered as a new song rose out of the fog beneath her. Here was her home—her true companion—her wing-sister.
Forget the mortal men—their brief lives are beneath your notice. Salt on lips. Scales twinkling on the sand. Sea-grass bending to brother wind.
The siren began to reply, loosening the bonds on her prey and casting the links to Connie. It was Feather-breath. She had left her sisters, not content to wait, as the sirens had promised when Connie had visited them.
Home to the nest, to sleep, to rest, sang the universal, her song smoothing the jagged emotions of the siren, lulling her like the murmur of the sea itself.
Yes, to rest, sang Feather-breath.
A thick band of fog coiled around the crane, hiding the pinnacle from view. When Connie opened her eyes, she knew that the siren had gone.
Two men were staring at her with confused expressions.
“You, you were singing!” stuttered Mo. “Did you hear her, Ben? She was singing.” Mo suddenly looked down at his feet and realized that he was standing on the very edge of the dock. He swore and jumped away from the drop. “What on earth...! Let’s get out of here!”
The girls said nothing but let the two men escort them to the security guards’ office by the back gate. Where was Anneena, wondered Connie? She hadn’t fallen under the song before Connie had had a chance to divert the siren, had she? Jessica gave her an anxious look, clearly thinking the same thing. They entered the office.
There, sitting defiantly on a plastic chair in front of a battered old desk, was Anneena.
“Connie! What are you doing here?” Anneena exclaimed, leaping to her feet.
“Know each other, do you?” Ben asked. “Thought as much.”
Mo picked up the phone and had a hasty conversation with the person on the other end. “I’ve told the management. They’ll be here directly,” he said, putting the phone down.
They sat in awkward silence until they heard the purr of an engine outside, followed by the slam of car doors. Mr. Quick entered, incongruously dressed in a well-tailored dinner jacket. He had on a black tie, and an expression to match on his face.
“What’s all this, Colman?” asked Mr. Quick abruptly. “I’ve got my guests arriving for the reception in quarter of an hour. I can’t afford a crisis just now.”
“Crisis is over, sir,” said Mo respectfully. “We’ve caught the intruders.” He waved over at the girls sitting behind the door.
“You!” spat Mr. Quick, wheeling around on them. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“They haven’t said,” replied Mo. “That one refused to answer any questions.” He pointed to Anneena.
“But I know, sir,” volunteered Ben, raising his hand gingerly.
“And what do you know?” sneered Mr. Quick, rounding on him.
“Those two said they were seal-watching and followed one in here. I saw the little one,” he gestured to Connie, “with a seal on her lap, sitting as large as life over by the crane. She was trying to get it out of here, she said.”
Anneena shot a sharp look at Connie.
“Seal-watching?” asked Mr. Quick sceptically. “This is a dock—not a zoo.”
“I know, sir, but I swear there was a seal. Right up on the quayside, it was.”
“Ben’s right, sir. I saw it, too,” Mo chipped in. “It dived into the water and then she...” He glanced at Ben.
“Then she sang to it,” Ben finished apologetically.
“Sang to it?” asked Mr. Quick incredulously. Anneena’s jaw dropped.
“Er...yes, sir,” confirmed Mo.
“I’ve heard of train-spotters, but not seal-spotters, especially not the singing variety,” said Mr. Quick with a sceptical curl to his lip. “I find it hard to believe that you’re here because of a passion for seal-watching.”
“No?” said Jessica in a tone that suggested she thought him of limited intelligence if he did not understand the attraction of seals. “Actually, it’s not uncommon to find harbor seals—also known as the common seal—phoca vitulina, if you want the Latin name—near docks like these. What is rare is to find one this far south: they usually stick around the east coast.”
“We haven’t time for a natural history lesson, young woman,” he snapped, waving her aside like a bothersome fly. He turned to Mo. “I’ve got the mayor arriving in a few minutes’ time, and I don’t want these girls anywhere near the refinery or the docks by then, understood? Take their details and turn them out. I’ll be writing to their parents to complain. If we find you here again, I’ll call the police, do you hear me?” He bore down on Mo, stabbing his finger into his chest. “And you’d better do your job watching the gate next time, or you’ll find yourself out of a job. I’m beginning to think I’m surrounded by imbeciles.” He turned on his heel and left the office.
Chastened, Mo walked the girls to the gate and saw them off the premises.
“Good story!” said Anneena as soon as he had retreated into his office. “I didn’t have a clue how to defend myself without giving the game away. That seal story was brilliant.” She looked at Jessica admiringly. “That last bit was the perfect touch—Latin and everything. I’m Anneena by the way.”
“I know you are,” said Jessica with a smile. “We were looking for you. It wasn’t a good idea trying to get in there, you know.”
“I didn’t get in. They caught me at the gate. You got much further than me. Did you see anything?”
Connie looked quickly at Jessica. “No, nothing special,” she said.
16
Tintagel
November arrived, bringing with it the biggest event in the Society’s year: the annual meeting. Creatures and their companions were heading to Tintagel from all over the country, taking advantage of the fireworks and bonfires of Guy Fawkes Night as a cover for their arrival. People were too busy watching the skies for flashes and bangs to notice a flyover of dragons and pegasi. Connie sat next to Jessica in the van carrying the Hescombe members west, feeling both excited and apprehensive. She was eager to see a gathering of the whole Society for herself, but she could not help remembering Jessica’s words about the universal not going unnoticed. The last thing she wanted was the attention of strangers.
“Ready?” asked Jessica, as if she had read Connie’s thoughts.
“Not really,” admitted Connie. “I feel a bit sick.”
“That’s just nerves. Don’t worry, you’ll love it.” Jessica could tell from her friend’s face that she had not convinced her. She changed the subject before Connie worked herself up any further. “Did you get into much trouble?”
“You mean for going to the docks? Some. My aunt’s grounded me for a week. She seemed more bothered that I’d gone near a siren again than that I’d saved two men from drowning. I just don’t understand her sometimes.”
Secret of the Sirens Page 19