Page 28 of The Sea Witch
He had better be worth the risk of having him aboard her ship. Hopefully soon she’d know what he knew. Not through his dreams, but she’d find another way.
Her breath slowed. Sleep crept in on foggy fingers. Ithadbeen a long day, fraught with danger and discovery. She welcomed oblivion.
Sinking into slumber, she heard his sigh. Even from across the cabin, it wafted across her skin, warm and intimate. Drifting through the layers between waking and sleep, she grew light as air and thin as a forlorn hope. And then she was asleep.
The room was spare, institutional. A table held stacks of leather-bound books in tidy towers. Outside came the cries of harbor life, and above that, seagulls diving at the fishing boats’ catches, though the sounds were distorted, as if through thick layers of glassy time. Priestley stood beside a window, his brow creased deeply as he ignored the harbor scene outside. Instead, he stared at a man who looked very much like him, same blue eyes, same pristine coastline of a profile, dressed in the bright coat of a naval captain. Gold braid trimmed his collar and cuffs. The spotless garments sat upon him well, as he stood comfortable in his authority.
Alys was there, in that room with them both, but not there, as if a specter. Yet shefeltthe frustration and confusion within Priestley as the older man regarded him with unyielding detachment.
“I will not be swayed in this, Ben,” the older man said. “As master’s mate, the compiling of the logbooks falls to you.”
“I can do it aboard theValiant, Father,” Ben pled.
“You’ll do it ashore, and here you’ll remain until the ship returns.”
“But—”
“Insubordination from my own son? A grim day, indeed. Now I’m certain you must remain behind for this operation. I cannot have anyone disobeying my orders, especially not you.”
“Please—”
The room was empty, only the noises from the port town heard in the stillness, sea air thick in the chamber.
Father was gone, and Ben was alone with the stacks of logbooks.
Alys’s vaporous hand rose up, yet suddenly Ben was smaller, just barely out of childhood, and a tide pool surrounded him. It was crystal blue, dotted with coral and tiny fish darting through the water. He played, waving a wooden sword as he commanded a fleet of leaves that he’d placed upon the water. And then, therewere tentacles... the flash of an animal’s body undulating... and a terrible pain as ink spread through the water... ink choking him as it seeped into his skin. The pounding sea roared around him. There was fiery pain and harrowing fear and a loneliness that made him feel impossibly young as no one came to help. Was he being punished? Ben cried out, falling to the rocks, cutting his hands. Streaks of blood uncoiled in the stinging seawater.
This changed, too. She was in the shelter of the woods west of Norham, the slim birch trees rustling like dancers. Ellen was there. Her curls were the gloss of red-tipped wheat, a paler hue to Alys’s own fiery hair. A tiny chickadee nestled in Ellen’s cupped hands, and gazed up at her with black currant eyes. The bird chirped at Ellen, who answered in a low murmur, and she smiled encouragingly.
“He says he can lead us to bushes full of wild blueberries,” Ellen said to Alys. “We can fill baskets enough to make a season’s worth of preserves.”
“But if someone asks us how we found so many berries,” Alys protested, “what are we to say? The birdtoldus?”
“It’s the truth, isn’t it?” Ellen’s moss green eyes were wide and guileless.
“Tell no one about this,” Alys urged. “Being pilloried will be the least of our problems.”
Ellen waved her freckled hand. “Who does it harm, if I speak to creatures like this chickadee? I should think the village would welcome the birds’ wisdom.”
Desperation scrabbled up Alys’s throat. How could she make her sister understand the danger she put herself in, being so open, hiding nothing?
Yet Ellen dissipated like a mist, and the trees became a towering waterfall, pounding against rocks far below. It was surrounded by lush trees of every shade of green, the sky blue and fathomless above, and nothing else was nearby, not a village or a town or anyother sign of human habitation. It was alone, solitary and splendid and terrifying. No one had been here, not for many years, and even its legend had faded with each passing generation.
The Weeping Princess.
“Where is this place?” Alys asked.
Ben was there, turning to her. “Alys?”
Within the dream, she and Ben were together on a curving white beach, a storm-riddled sky over them, the sand soft beneath them as they curled together. Their limbs were intertwined, their damp clothing forming the thinnest of barriers between their straining bodies. His hair fell damply around his face. His hands were on her cheeks and neck, in her hair, and he looked down at her with such desire and tenderness, she could hardly breathe. Her own hands moved over his shoulders as she pulled him down to her.
“Alys,” he murmured, low and husky, “I’ve waited and wanted you for so long.”
“No more waiting,” she urged.
Any moment now, his mouth would meet hers, and she would have his kiss, the kiss she desperately needed. Against his bottom lip gleamed a bead of water.
A half-animal, half-human sound echoed. Something roared across the water and the sand. She reached out, desperate to stop whatever was coming.
