He could see nothing at all below the surface of the water but that only heightened his terror. It could be upon them at any moment. Suddenly the water smoothed out under their feet and became firm. Cotterell, his arms still round their waists, started to run forward towards the land. It was full day now and light wintry sunshine flashed and sparkled on the bay. If it hadn't been for the horrors under their feet it would have been beautiful.

With a noise like a hundred fountains the thing burst out of the water. It roared.

         "Don't look at it," shouted Cotterell. "You'll just slow us down." Carey's eyes were still full of seawater. Ottaline was still heaving and gasping. The waves swept past them and the harbour wall rose up but still the creature was behind them, snorting and bellowing and sending up walls of spray as its long arms sliced through the water.

         "Here!" cried Cotterell at last. He swung his passengers through the air and they landed painfully on the stone cob of the harbour wall. Ottaline's head bounced off the stone and began to bleed profusely. Carey was luckier. His knee was in agony but he was able to scramble away from the edge of the water and look back at their pursuer. Cotterell was struggling to clamber up the sheer side of the wall. His long fingers scrabbled for a hold in the seaweed that grew upon it but it burst and slid through his fingers. Behind him, rearing up out of the sparkling waves was a hideous, sharkskinned creature, in form like a man yet with all the whippy agility and menace of an underwater predator. Its face, studded with eyes that did not waver and a mouth full of edges, was brutally scarred. Its chest likewise bore the marks of many conflicts but was bedizened with gold that seemed to have been pressed into that tough, grey skin as jewels decorate the cover of a book. It lunged for Cotterell but Carey hurled the axe as hard as he could over the mage's head. It hit the monster in its thigh, biting deep before it disappeared underwater. The monster bellowed and sank, thrashing into the waves, until only its head and shoulders were visible. The water round it grew red with blood. Carey pulled Cotterell up to safety and the two men sank down side by side, facing their enemy.

         "Wh...what is it?" asked Carey, wiping the brine from his face with a sleeve that only made it wetter.

         "You think I know?" said Cotterell. "Some bloody thing. Well," he called out to it. "What the hell are you? Tell us, if you can speak through all those teeth. What do you want?"

The thing ducked under the water for a moment and then rose, almost as if climbing stairs out of the water. It came to a halt with the waves around its shins. It was huge and the reek of salt and rotten fish that came from it rolled over the harbour wall like sea fog.

         "What are you?" it said in a voice like the seething of water over sharp rocks. "Thieves. Robbers of graves."

         "Not all of us," said Cotterell. "I'm not." Carey stammered.

         "Thieves," said the monster again. It pointed a dripping hand at Ottaline. "That is mine." The girl still lay on the stones with blood pouring from the back of her skull. Her eyes flashed open and with a moan she sat up. She tried to breathe but could get no purchase on the air. She heaved and heaved, her eyes growing wide with distress. Carey scrambled over to her and she clung to his arm, desperately straining for breath.

         "She doesn't belong to you," said Cotterell calmly. "Go back to your deeps, creature. You will not have her."

The creature reared up angrily. "You will not eat her," it said.

         "No, no, we won't," said Cotterell. "What an extraordinary thing to say. Why would we?"

         "That's what it wants to do," said Carey. "Help her, Cotterell. She can't breathe."

Ottaline arched her back and nearly dropped over the edge of the wall into the water. Carey grabbed her. "C-Carey," she managed to say. Her lips were bluish and her hands cold.

         "She will die," said the monster. It was agitating the water, hissing and making short advances on them as if planning to lunge for her. Carey got his hands under Ottaline's armpits and started to haul her further on land. "She will die," it repeated.

         "I won't let you hurt her," Carey yelled at it. "She won't. I won't let her." He reached out for a stone to hurl at the thing.

         "Wait," said Cotterell. "I said, wait." He stamped down hard on the young man's hand and Carey yelled in pain.

         "What are you doing?!"

Ottaline's face was worryingly dark. The blood from her skull soaked into her hair and had bespattered the stones around her. Cotterell watched her thrashing, his brows contracted in thought. "Throw her back in," he said. He knelt down and started to lift her. Carey pushed him away. "What are you doing?" he said again. "He'll kill her."

         "No, we will. She can't breathe, you idiot. She could before, underwater."

         "She hurt her head, if we..."

         "No," said Cotterell. "She has to go back in now."

         "Carey," Ottaline gasped. "Help me."

The young man seized her and tried to drag her away from the mage. Cotterell lunged at him and wrestled him aside. "If you persist, she will be dead in minutes. Unpleasantly dead. I don't know what that thing wants with her but it has to be better than that, doesn't it."

         "You're the magician, do something to save her," Carey sobbed.

         "I can't. I don't know how to."

         "I have to save her."

         "You can't be the hero, Carey. That thing is. It's saving her from us."

Carey stared in horror at the monster in the waves. It had swum closer to the wall now and its long webbed fingers were reaching over the stones towards the struggling girl's legs.

         "No," Ottaline moaned. "No, no, no."

         "Do something," Carey begged.

The mage grabbed Carey's shoulders and stared into his eyes. "There is only one thing I can do," he said. "And that's swap her life for yours. I can put you inside her. I can give you to it. Do you want me to do that? Carey? Say the word."

         "What?" Carey gasped. "No, no, you can something else, quickly, Cotterell, please."

Cotterell shook his head. Carey stared past him at the girl on the ground. She was still arching her back, her eyes almost rolling into her head in her effort to keep him in sight. She reached for him and tears ran over her bloody, darkening cheeks.

         "Do you want me to..?" said Cotterell but Carey interrupted him. "No," he said.

He squatted next to Ottaline and put his hand under her head. The blood welled over his fingers. Her eyes were lost in tears and her hand touched his face. He undid the clasp of her necklace and pulled it out from her blouse. Her eyes grew wide with surprise, then even wider with shock.

         "Help me," said Carey. Cotterell grabbed Ottaline's arms and Carey her legs. Between them they raised her, feebly struggling and, almost falling in themselves with the effort, threw the girl into the water. The splash pattered over the stones and their bare feet. She did not resurface.

The monster had gone. The sea was calm and brilliant as a diamond.

         "Where did they go? Is she dead?" asked Carey. He shielded his eyes and tried to look through the glare. The necklace hung down his face, almost as bright as the water.

         "I don't know," said the mage.

         "I didn't mean to hurt her," said Carey. "It was my father's. Her father stole it from him, used the droit d'aubaine to rob me, killed my servant, had me thrown in jail. I worked my whole life to get it back from him, to make him pay. But not with her. Not like this. It isn't worth that."

         "Then throw it away," said Cotterell. "Or," he added, "Give it to me. Whichever."

Carey put the necklace in his pocket. He covered his face with his arm. Cotterell breathed a long breath.

         "Well," he said. "All things considered, I think you can buy me lunch."

         "Oh, Ottaline," he breathed.

Carey screamed as a pale shape launched itself at him from the dark recesses of the cabin. It struck him full in the chest, enveloping him in clouds of darkness and strong limbs: he imagined tentacles binding him and thrashed, shouting uncontrollably. He managed to pull free and knock the shape against the door frame. The dark clouds billowed and rose.

         "Carey! I knew you'd come for me!"

         "O-Ottaline?"

         "Carey!" She flung herself on to him once more and again he struggled to free himself with as much terror as when he had believed her to be some kind of giant octopus.

         "Ow, gently," she complained, and then hugged him so tightly his ribs ground together. "Oh, Carey, I've been so scared."

         "How can you...?" Carey managed to prise her hands from his back and pushed her to arms length. Her hair moved more slowly, obscuring her face for a moment. Then, like clouds scudding over the moon, it cleared. It was Ottaline, just Ottaline, just as he remembered her. She did not look dead at all.

         "I knew you wouldn't leave me. I knew you'd get to me as soon as you could," said Ottaline. "Are we safe now? Has someone come to rescue us?"

Carey didn't know how to answer this. Ottaline darted back into the shadows and grabbed the handle of her suitcase. She seemed not to notice the slow swirling of her dress around her thighs and the matching whirlpool of her hair over her head.

         "Let's go. I don't want to stay here a moment longer," she told him. "It's so scary here in the dark. I could hear you smashing the doors all day. I thought I would scream, I thought I would die of fright - and then it was you!" She was in his arms again, her suitcase banging his knee.

         "Ottaline," said Carey, more to hear the sound of her name than to call her attention. She smiled at him and kissed him on the lips. Her lips were cold but then, he thought, so are mine.

         "Yes, darling?"

It seemed stupid to ask her how she was managing not to be dead, it seemed churlish not to immediately help her to safety. "Have you got the necklace?" he asked.

She beamed and her free hand swept up to her neck. "All present and correct," she said. "How awful if we had lost it in the storm! Can you imagine? We would have had to have gone back to Daddy and made up with him just so I could steal something else."

         "There wasn't anything else," said Carey absently and then, with an attempt at matching her jollity laughed "Imagine!"

         "But now everything will be all right. We can carry on to London as we planned and start our lives together. It's going to be bliss, Carey, I promise you."

         "Yes," said Carey. "Um." He held out a hand for her bag. "Shall I take that?" He drew back as she made to kiss him in thanks and managed to turn it into a stumble before her eyes could fill with hurt. "This way," he said.

She followed him and he was glad as he led the way that his hands were full with the axe and the case and that he did not have to hold hands with her. Even turning his back on her made his flesh creep and he kept darting glances back at her in case she changed into something and attacked him while he wasn't looking. Instead she beamed at him every time, clearly interpreting his glances as proof of his delight in having found her again. She stroked his back and his arms until he wanted to scream.

         "Why did it take you so long to find me?" she asked as they reached the stairs.

         "I forgot which cabin it was," said Carey. "I had to break a few doors to find the right one."

         "How could you forget the deck, though, silly?" said Ottaline.

"I didn't," said Carey. "I mean, I couldn't remember it when I started looking but I recognised it as soon as I came down the stairs."

         "Then why were you smashing into all the cabins above me?" asked Ottaline.

Carey paused on the stairs. "I didn't," he said. "Just three on our corridor."

         "No, I heard you. For the last couple of hours there's been nothing but chopping and smashing. I heard you overhead."

         "No," said Carey slowly. "I came straight down. And I've only been here about twenty minutes."

         "Then..." said Ottaline. She stopped. She had seen the corpses. "Carey? Oh my God. Oh my God" Her hand reached for his, forcing her case out of his fingers. It dropped to the stairs and slowly slithered down them into the abyss. Ottaline crept as close to Carey as she could. He could hear the catch in her throat as she fought not to gag.

         "It's all right," he said, knowing that it wasn't. "Follow me." She followed him almost as closely and fearfully as he had followed the mage, his hand trapped in both of hers. She was crying now, her shoulders shaking. He suddenly wanted desperately to be on dry land, even if that dry land was Miss Helson's kitchen with her yelling at him. "Come on," he said roughly.

A sudden rending crash stopped them where they stood. Ottaline whimpered and her nails dug so hard into Carey's hand that he swore and tried to shake her loose.

         "That's it, that's the sound. Carey, what is it?"

         "I don't know. Let's get out of here."

Ottaline took a deep breath, though quite how she managed to Carey wasn't sure, "This is horrible, Carey, I hate it," she said. "But I'm so glad you're here. I'm not scared of anything now." Carey didn't answer. He started to run up the stairs, Ottaline in tow but the drag of the water made it difficult and they both kept slipping and falling to their knees. Carey's fear that Alexander Cotterell might abandon him had him by the throat again. With a growl of effort Carey pulled Ottaline up the last of the stairs, slammed into the salon doors and they tumbled down together onto the ballroom floor.

Alexander Cotterell looked up from the piano. "A waltz," he said. "What a wonderful idea." And he started to drum out a tune.

         "There's something down there," said Carey, getting to his feet and running to the mage's side. "And...and..well, look," he said gesturing to Ottaline.

         "Yes," said Cotterell. "I had noticed. Charmed, my dear. Tell me, how is that you are not dead?"

Ottaline paled. "Dead?" she repeated. "Carey, I..."

Another crash sounded below them, shaking the ballroom floor slightly. The mage stood and carefully replaced the piano lid.

         "Another dead girlfriend, perhaps?" he asked.

         "I want to go. Let's go. Now, please," said Carey. "I've got what I came for. Please, let's just go." But the mage was sauntering over to the doors. He opened them and disappeared into the space beyond. They could see his phosphorescent glow through the circles of glass.

         "Who is that?" Ottaline asked but before Carey could answer Cotterell came back at a run. "Go!" he shouted, racing towards them. The doors smashed off their hinges behind him and a dark figure filled the space with its bulk. Ottaline screamed. The three of them dashed out of the salon onto the deck.

         "Get us off here," Carey yelled. The mage was staring round him as if he had lost his way. The thing had lef the door way and was rushing towards them. Carey could hardly make out its shape but it moved fluidly and fast. A shark, he thought over the noise of his heartbeat. He grabbed hold of Cotterell's shirt.

         "It's a man," said Ottaline.

         "Hold on to me," said Cotterell. His arms went round their waists and he bent his knees, pulling them down with him. "And push!" cried the mage. They sped up from the deck into the waters above them, speeding up towards the mottled surface overhead. Carey shut his eyes as the water rushed past his face, then forced himself to look down. The dark figure was below them, standing on the deck. Its face, of which Carey could distinguish no feature, was tilted towards them and with a sudden kick it surged up after them, one hand stretched out to catch them.

         "Faster!" Carey shrieked and choked as his mouth filled with Ottaline's streaming hair. It whipped into his eyes too, blinding him.

         "It isn't a man at all!" he heard Ottaline cry out and then their heads burst through the surface into a freezing wind and gulls flew screaming at their appearance. The mage swore in Carey's ear and their upward flight faltered. They dropped into the water again. It must nearly be on us, thought Carey in a panic. He lashed out and let go of Cotterell's shirt.

         "Help!" he yelled and the mage's hand whipped out and caught his wrist. Cotterell was still swearing and Ottaline making terible gasping noises. Carey hauled himself up the mage's arm.
 

But music came eerily down the stairs behind him. The mage had launched, mockingly Carey felt sure, into a complicated sonata. There was no way he could walk back to him, no way he could call for his help. He would have to go on. At least he had the axe with him.

Carey was too shaken to be able to remember clearly which floor his cabin had been on but it had been far down in the deeps for cheapness and low profile. He decided to continue downwards and hope that he would recognise the right door when he reached it. His descent was horrible. While it was not possible for the stairwell to get darker his sense of pressing water above and around him grew with every step and the unnatural breaths he was taking seemed clammy as graveyard dews. His skin crawled endlessly and more than once he had to negotiate his way around corpses that had caught in the bannisters or were jammed in doorways. This involved a macabre dance in each case for the movements of his body through the water unsettled the dead limbs which undulated in response and appeared to reach for him. Carey was sweating profusely and all but gibbering to himself by the time he had reached a doorway he recognised. It had also occured to him that there might be things - sharks? he wondered, squids? rays? or creatures unknown - wandering this carrion larder. He had added one more vision to his nightmares, Please God let me get what I came for, he prayed, to make this in the least bit worth it.

He pushed the fire door open. There were no bodies to clutter the entry, thank goodness. Everyone from this level must have had time enough to surge up the stairs before they were drowned. The corridor appeared foggy from the suspension of particles in the sea water. Carey's meagre light sparked some of them to scintillant points. Many of the doorways were open, the doors drifting sluggishly open and shut as stray currents bowled through them.

         "What number was it?" Carey asked out loud. "It was a long way down," he remembered. "I don't know though...Just look for one that's locked."

Several of the doors were closed. Carey tried the handles of them all and most of them opened. He entered none of them. There was no way Ottaline could have broken out. Three doors he smashed with the axe. The exercise warmed him but the violence jarred his nerves almost to breaking point and a body floating inside one of them seemed to fly at him as the current raced in over the jagged wood and tugged at it. Carey jumped back and then had to resume his assault on the door and then enter the cabin because the body had floated into the interior of the room and become jammed under the upper bunk. Carey reluctantly reached out and pulled on the body's bare ankle. It bobbed down, its other limbs rising at the water resistance. A cloud of hair billowed into Carey's light like a flock of starlings catching the sun on their wings. He let go with a shudder. It was not Ottaline.

Carey backed out into the corridor. The rest of the doors were open, save for one three from the end. That seemed about right. He skated towards it, shivering with fright. He flicked his right hand to shake the memory of dead flesh from his skin. This was it. He stood before the door with the axe in his hands, waiting, steeling himself. He would go in, he would get the necklace off Ottaline's throat, he would start his life anew. He gagged and felt cold sweat beading his forehead. He would have to touch her. Aren't you the least bit glas to see me, she had said. Oh God.

He brought the axe down on the lock and the door burst open.

The cabin was entirely black. Something moved on the periphery of Carey's light, jolting his nerves. It was Ottaline's hat. Jellyfish like it undulated towards him like some strange black butterfly, the feathers like feelers sensing his presence. Carey's heart started to hammer in earnest. He stepped inside. A pair of his shoes lay on their sides near the threshold. The sight of them jarred him back to that recent morning in Quimper. He had laced them whilst a blackbird carolled at his window. He had been nervous, had knocked his ewer of washing water onto the floor and onto this shoes. He had patted them dry before forcing himself to walk calmly down to the office, knowing that Ottaline was at that moment creeping out of the house and down to the docks to wait for him. And here his shoes were again, drowned, just like her.
 

The next morning before dawn Carey and Alexander Cotterell breakfasted on sausages the mage fried illicitly in Miss Helson’s kitchen. That worthy lady was still in bed and Carey knew well enough that there would be hell to pay when she discovered that they had used the pans and the stove at all, let alone without her permission. Cotterell seemed not in the least perturbed by the thought of an angry Miss Helson and scrabbled the sausages round the pan in their spitting grease and then shovelled them onto a plate for the two of them to share. He could find only forks in the drawers so they ate them speared like fish on a trident and drank cups of black tea because the milk was sour.

         ”Why do you employ her?” asked Carey as he searched frustratedly for clean cups.

         ”Miss Helson is a gem, a peach, a wonder,” enthused the mage as he attempted to breath cold air over the fragment of sausage that was burning his tongue. “She has no romantic delusions whatsoever. She will never regard me in any light save of a naughty boy who has muddied her floor. You have no idea how soothing that is.”

Carey made a noncommittal noise. He had noticed that Cotterell had a vastly overblown sense of his attractiveness and assumed that every female he came into contact with, including Titmouse and female stray cats in the street, was in danger of falling madly in love with him. The fact that he looked like a macabre, giant clown did not appear to diminish this conviction in the slightest. Carey decided to change the subject.

         ”How exactly are you going to get us to the wreck?” he asked. He wiped grease from his lips and swigged his tea.

         ”It’s easy,” said Cotterell. “Don’t worry about that. What is more of an issue is how you are going to get into a locked cabin. The water will have swollen the wood into the frame, you know, so even if you still have the key you won’t be able to get in. We will need some kind of crowbar or an axe.”

Carey nodded. He had discovered an axe in the woodshed that leaned against the north wall of the mage’s house. The shed had been almost entirely hidden in a net of dead bindweed and jasmine and the axe blade rusty with misuse but he was sure it would do the job.

         ”Right,” said Alexander Cotterell. He opened the back door and let the cold pre-dawn air stream into the rather smoky atmosphere of the kitchen. He took off his jacket and dropped it on the floor and shucked off his shoes as well. “Wear as little as you can without impinging your appearance as a gentleman,” he advised Carey. “It all causes unnecessary drag. And then, drink this.”

He had a small green glass bottle in his hand. Carey had not noticed it before and took it in surprise. It contained no more than three drops of yellow liquid, which tasted pleasantly of peppermint on his tongue.

         ”And this,” said Cotterell. Carey waited for the mage to pass him another vial but nothing was forthcoming. Then he realised that the vial in his hand had changed colour and was the rich, eye-tricking blue of lobelia flowers. He drank and his tongue contracted at the sourness.

         ”Get the axe,” said Cotterell with an excited smile. “We’re ready to go!”

The two men trotted down the hill. The mage was almost giddy with excitement and even Carey, who had mixed feelings about their endeavour, found his heart beating faster. He was cold, having discarded his jacket and his stockinged feet were soon sore from running on cobbles but he was thrilling with anticipation. They reached the harbour wall and then Alexander Cotterell veered off to the left, taking a path that followed the cliff edge through brambles and sloe bushes and screes of wild marjoram. The bushes were full of spiders webs turned silver by the dew and every so often they ran straight into one. Cotterell had several spiders perched in the folds of his shirt by the time they reached a break in the cliff and were able to clamber down to a spit of grey sand where a stream disgorged into the breakers.

         ”So what to we do?” asked Carey but the mage was preoccupied with rescuing his stowaways.

         ”Do?” he asked distractedly. “Why, what do you think?” And, spider-free at last, he strode out onto the waves.

Carey gasped. The churning breakers had flattened under the mage’s feet as if he stood on a pane of glass. The water hissed around the edges of the flat area but even the spray seemed to fall back without touching him. With every footstep the glassy area extended, melting back into waves at a metre or two of distance from the mage’s back. Cotterell was some way out before he glanced back and saw that Carey hadn’t followed him. “Hurry up,” he shouted. Carey dashed into the breakers and hissed with alarm as the water spurted up his legs.

         ”It isn’t working!” he yelled. The mage sighed.

         ”Are you a mage? No. Of course you can’t walk on water. You need to keep behind me, you ignoramus. Come along or I’ll change my mind and leave you there.”

As Cotterell made no move to return to the shore Carey gritted his teeth and waded out towards him. The water was icy and sloshed up his thighs. His feet, within moments were numb. At last he reached the glassy plain. The mage’s bare feet were about level with Carey’s waist. Carey gingerly put his hands on the flat water. It was cool rather than cold but felt no more stable than a page of paper laid on the surface of a pond. If he put his weight on it, surely he would plunge straight in.

         ”This is too boring,” said Cotterell. Carey pushed down hard and flopped belly-first onto the flat water. It held. Inches beneath his nose he could see the sand swirling in the backdraw of each wave. Flecks of seaweed sailed past. He scrambled to his feet and seized Cotterell’s arm for balance. The mage held him for a moment then prised his hands loose. “You’re quite safe,” he said. “Just keep up or you’ll drop off the edge.” Carey nodded furiously and, as Cotterell set off once more, kept so close to the mage that he was constantly treading on his heels.

         ”Don’t make me regret this,” said Cotterell sharply. Meekly, his heart thumping, Carey trotted behind him, never letting his attention waver from the relative position of their feet.

As the two men walked out into the bay the sun gradually rose in the east and the dark water grew lighter beneath them. Fishing smacks swept past them, the fishermen watching respectfully and carefully steering around the mage. He waved a regal hand to them and wished them success in their catch.

         "Nearly there," he said. He started to circle back towards the land, peering down between his feet as he went. At last he stopped and pulled on some goggles he took from his britches pocket. There was a pair for Carey too and he followed suit. "This will do," said Alexander Cotterell. "It's down here somewhere anyway. If we paddle about enough we'll find it, I'm sure."

         "How do we get down?" asked Carey. But he never heard the answer. He plunged feet first into the sea and was deafened by the surge of water in his ears. Down, down, down, he shot, faster than seemed possible from the height he had fallen. The water flung his arms upward and as he flailed, trying to fight his descent he saw the pale soles of Cotterell's feet just above him. The mage was falling faster, his arms neatly at his side and as he dropped past Carey the terrified young man saw a look of smug amusement on Cotterell's face.

         "Damn it," he muttered to himself and fought angrily to control himself. He panicked and gulped down water, thrashing wildly but eventually it dawned on him that he was breathing normally. He held still for a moment, still drifting downwards, and the dim greyness around him wavered and cleared. He was alive, he could breathe and there, rising towards him was the deck of the drowned Hirondelle. Cotterell was below him, just landing gracefully on the slippery deck. He slid quickly to the side and looked up to Carey, guiding him down safely. Carey's bare foot struck the boards, his knees buckled but he steadied himself with his arms.

         "I'm impressed," said Cotterell. "Let's see how well you can walk."

Carey blew out a stream of bubbles and breathed in. Air filled his lungs and he forced himself not to question what was happening to him. He could feel the panic fermenting under his skin and he did his best to ignore it. He focused on the task the mage had given him, and set off across the tilted remains of the Hirondelle's deck. It was surprisingly easy. The drag of the water was somehow reduced to almost nothing. He was buoyed and supported rather than hindered by it. He could move almost as fast as on land but, as he tried to turn back, if he lost his balance he rose and his legs swung out from under him. A wriggle of his hips righted him however and soon he was skating to and fro across the deck as agily as across a frozen lake.

         "This is wonderful!" he shouted to Cotterell but the mage was nowhere to be seen. The sea pressed in upon Carey, huge and cold and hostile and he nearly cried out. Then he heard the warped tinkle of a piano and spotted the mage through the broken glass of the salon doors, standing over the grand piano that had slid across the ballroom and slammed into the doorframes. They held it like a broken hand. Carey listened to his heart pounding. Gradually it slowed and he skated carefully over to Cotterell's side.

         "Wouldn't a sea-shanty be more appropriate?" he asked as lightly as he could. The mage had been picking out a mournful ...

         "Hmm, possibly," said the mage. He fetched a chair and propped himself up beside the piano. "Why don't you have your look around," he said absently. "I think I'll stay here and play a while."

         "You won't...you won't go, will you?" asked Carey. All his carefully constructed poise dissolved at the thought of being abandoned there to drown. Alexander chuckled and picked out another tune.

         "Heigh ho, roll the man down," he sang.

Carey took a deep breath and walked the length of the submerged salon to the doors that led down to the cabins. He walked as if in a haze of phosphorescence so that even as the darkness deepened he illuminated his own path. It was a trembling, ghostly gleam however, which wavered with the currents that blew past him and although he was perfectly warm Cary's skin shirred to gooseflesh as he reached the double doors. People died here, he thought to himself. People I had met, or at least passed in the gantries. There was so much screaming.

The stairs stretched away before him, a gloomy chasm. The detritus of the wreck moved idly agains the walls and crabs scuttled over his bare feet. Carey jumped and bobbed off the steps. It was easier, and less distressing he realised, to swim down. It took him a couple of attempts but soon he had a rough corkscrewing technique that drove him down the stairwell and into the heart of the ship. It was here that he came to the bodies.

The fire doors that led off the stair way on each deck held them. They had collected in the doorways, their bloated faces and sodden hands pressed in confusion against the small circular windows in the cheerily painted red wood. Carey made a choking noise as he saw them. His instinct was to run, to scream, to beg Alexander Cotterell to take him back to land at once.
 

The mage held the clasp up to the light again. For a moment it looked as if he would snap it and scatter the jewels but then he turned abruptly to Titmouse and, handing the lamp to Carey, fastened the clip in the girl's salt-sticky hair. "It's yours," he said.

         "But," began Carey.

         "She doesn't want it back and I'm not going to wear it. And it would be positively bad for you to have it. Titmouse has never seen her. You haven't, have you?" he asked sharply. Titmouse shook her head and put up a hand to tentatively touch the clasp. She smiled. "That's fine then," said the mage. He plucked at his lip and took the lamp back from Carey's unresisting hand. "Fine!" he repeated with a sour laugh.

         "But who is she?" asked Carey. "And what was the message?"

         "She is the woman who made me," said the mage. He closed the wardrobe door with a slam and locked it. "Her name is Marie-Liesel de France. She is Austrian, she is powerful, she is married, she is a very bad idea. That is all you need to know."

         "Made you?"

         "And what you have made you know how to destroy. I thought she was dead. I was so sure." Alexander limped to his bed and stared out of the windows at the sea peaceful now in the afternoon sun.

         "Maybe she is. This thing grabbed her off the deck..." said Carey.

         "And was it horrible beyond belief? Did it make you wish you could pluck out your eyes or purge your memory with bleach?" drawled the mage. He sat down on the wet bed linen and placed the lamp on the floor with a sigh. Carey was about to answer but Alexander went on. "Because if it was then believe me, it didn't harm her. If she wsa alive to give you that bauble, she is alive now. And that was her message for me."

         "But how did she know I would survive and that, having got to land, I would meet you. I didn't plan it."

         "I don't know, but she clearly did because here you are and here am I. Or she simply didn't care and she left it to chance. Believe whichever you prefer, I'm bored of the subject. But I will tell you one thing, Mr Ignatius Jones - or whatever your real name may be, don't think you can lie to me - you will be staying here with me for a few days."

         "That is very kind of you," Carey began but the mage made a rude noise.

         "Kind bedamned," he snapped. "If you have been with her I want to be sure you're 'clean'. Maybe there's more of this message - a knife in my throat, for example or someother little pleasantry. You will stay here until I am convinced that she hasn't tampered with you farther."

Carey opened his mouth to protest. But he had nowhere to go. His possessions, his plans for the future all lay at the bottom of the bay. He had nowhere to go, noone to help him. He was utterly alone. He could not refuse the offer of a port in this new, unexpected storm. "All right," he said. "I'll stay."

         "Wonderful," said Alexander drily. He ripped the damp sheets off the bed and thrust them into Carey's arms. "Then make yourself useful and make my bed. And you," he said to Titmouse. "Fetch that pot of words of yours and tell Miss Helson to prepare a meal for all of my 'guests'. Something hearty. And Titmouse," he called after her as she moved to obey. She glanced round expectantly. "Mind your language." The girl stuck out her tongue at him and disappeared into the hall.

Carey stayed where he was. The cold from the sheets worked its way through to his skin. "I don't understand what has happened to me," he said quietly.

         "Oh you'll be all right," said the mage. He closed the windows one after the other and at once the room felt warmer. Carey shook his head.

         "Nothing will be all right for me, ever again," he said. "I have spent my whole life with one idea in mind. I realised that idea. I had a plan. I was going to take all my regrets for what had been and turn them into a weapon and I was going to take the happiness I had been denied and...and..." He sighed and bundled the sheets a little closer to his chest.

         "And?" the mage prompted.

         "And now I have more regrets than before. Nothing but regrets. You wouldn't believe what I have done..."

         "Believe, possibly. Find interesting? No. Sort my bed things and get a meal inside you, Ignatius," said Alexander. "Everything will seem better then. And hurry with those sheets. I am almost dead with fatigue."

         "Hers," breathed Alexander Cotterell. He twisted the clasp so that the light penetrated to the heart of the tiny diamonds and filled it with fire. All three of them smelt a ghost of perfume, rich as jasmine on the stale air.

         "Oh!" said Carey. "The...the woman on the ship. She gave that to me just before...oh God...before that thing took her."

         "What's this? Who gave it to you?"

Carey shook his head. "She wouldn't tell me her name. She was well-born, beautiful. This thing grabbed her and..."

The mage interrupted him with a gesture. "Come with me," he said grimly and staggered to his feet. He pulled Carey up after him and with Titmouse trotting at their heels, they continued up another flight of stairs and into a bedchamber. The room occupied the whole of that floor, was again darkly and dirtily decorated but also bitterly cold for all four of the floor length windows that faced the bay were thrown open and the salt-stiffened curtains shuffled in the breeze. A bed stood right up against two of the windows and the rumpled sheets were wet with rain. A wardrobe lay on its side in the centre of the room with its doors hanging forlornly open. An unlit lamp and a tinder box had been left on its uppermost side and Alexander limped over and lit it. The warm light only served to make the room drearier.

Alexander crossed the room to where another wardrobe, right side up this time, stood against a mildewed patch of wall. It was locked. He drew a chain from around his neck and, bending at the knee, unlocked the door with the key that hung thereupon.

         "She's dead," he said urgently. " She's dead. She has to be dead." He flung open the wardrobe door. It was stuffed with newspaper and twists of wool. He pulled it all out, driving through it as a swimmer drives through the water. Then he stopped. At the back of the wardrobe swathed in blue silk was a frameless portrait nailed to the wooden boards. Alexander beckoned over his shoulder and Carey and Titmouse crept to his sides. They were both holding their breaths and Carey's hands were clammy with sweat. Alexander pinched the silk between his dusty fingers and it tore loose.

         "Is this her?" he asked in a voice that trembled.

         "I can't see well enough," Carey prevaricated. He had seen too many things he did not want to recently. But Alexander merely thrust the lamp closer to the portrait and demanded that the young man step forward for a closer look. The light formed rough circles on the brushstrokes. It illuminated long golden hair and wide, wickedly sparkling eyes. Carey blinked several times. His mouth was dry and he stammered as he said, "Yes, that's the woman I met. She wanted me to carry a message for her but she never told me what it was, or for whom."

         "She didn't need to," said Alexander.
 

Silence filled the already cluttered room. The girl put her hand into the pot, checked the word she drew from it and handed it to Carey.

         ”’Hello’,” he read. “Hello.” He smiled at her and handed the paper back. “My name is Ignatius,” he said, not without the tiniest of pauses. “I don’t know what to call you.” The girl sighed in resignation. She handed him a piece of paper without looking at it.

         ”’Titmouse’ again,” said Carey. She nodded. “Are you sure?” She nodded again with a shrug of her shoulders. She handed him a few more scraps of paper.

         ”’I am’” read Carey, “’under…a…spell.’ Well, clearly. Why?”

She handed him her answer. “’f***ing…relatives.’” He read. The girl blushed and snatched the scraps back. “He gave you curses to say? Were you really thinking that.” The girl shook her head, balled the paper into a pellet and flicked it at the sleeping mage’s nose. It pinged off over the back of the chair. Then she wavered her hand as if to concede that maybe it hadn’t been too far off the mark. She sighed again and leaned back in her own chair in dejection.

         ”We followed you, Titmouse,” said Carey quietly. “John Steals and I. We saw you coming up the hill on your own. Were you looking for him so he could help you?” She nodded and handed him: No…f***ing….joy.

         ”Again?” said Carey. He found her language unsettling, not sure if it was her normal register or simply one of Mr Cotterell’s tricks. She patted his arm.

         You...lost...friend...family...in...ship? she asked. She frowned as Carey read the words out and made an exaggerated angry face at the bad grammar her limited vocabulary forced upon her.

         ”Er, no,” said Carey. “I was travelling alone. I’m lucky, I suppose, not to have lost…anyone…or anything of value.”

         Huzzah, said Titmouse with a wince of irritation.

         ”’Huzzah’? He gave you ‘huzzah’? This isn’t much better than not being able to say anything at all, is it,” said Carey. “Perhaps you should just use that quill.” Titmouse shuddered and mimed Alexander Cotterell’s stabbing action. “No, I understand,” said Carey. “We’ll find you some thing else. Or maybe with a bit of time he will write you out more words.”

They were interrupted by a whimper from Alexander Cotterell. The big man’s limbs were twitching. Carey got up and approached him but drew back from actually touching the sleeping mage. The closer he got the more the mage seemed to moan until, as Carey hesitated by the arm of the chair the mage’s eyes flew open and he almost screamed. Carey jumped backwards and bumped into Titmouse who had crept up behind him. She brushed past Carey and laid a small hand on Alexander Cotterell’s sleeve. His eyes blinked furiously and he raised a hand as if to thrust her away. She beat him to it however, her palm darting in under his arm fast as a hornet and landing a stinging slap on his cheek.

         ”Ah!” he shouted and sat bolt upright in the chair, caressing his cheek. Under the powder a handprint glowed red. Titmouse rubbed her hand against the arm of the chair. It was covered in powder. “What did you do that for?” shouted the mage. She thrust a piece of paper into his face. It was too close for him to read so he snatched it from her and moved it to the right distance. “Oh,” he said. “Hmmm.” He handed it back to Titmouse apologetically.

         ”What did you say to him?” asked Carey but neither of them seemed inclined to answer. The mage looked pointedly at him as if to inquire why he was now standing so close to him. “You were having a nightmare or something,” said Carey. He backed away and resumed his seat.

         ”Yes,” said the mage plucking at his bottom lip. “Oh yes…Sit down too, you little harpy.” He sprang up, crossed to the bowl of ashes and, plunging his hands into it, vigorously rubbed his face with his dusty hands. Dust plumed into the air and settled softly on the carpet, on Cotterell’s shoulder, on the desk. “I dreamt of someone who died many years ago. I wonder what it means. I suppose you can read dreams?” he said to Titmouse. She sniffed and turned her head aside. Cotterell ran his hands through his hair, leaving dirty streaks in the dark mess and then stretched his hands up towards the ceiling.

         ”Oh Marie-Liesel, Oh Marie-Liesel, why do you haunt me tonight?”

Titmouse held out a word:Who?

         ”None of your business,” said Cotterell. The powder had completely covered her handprint but he touched his cheek gingerly as he spoke to her. “I am weak after working so hard and I have depressing thoughts when I am tired. That can be the only reason. Why are you both still here?” he added with a rising note of petulance. “I wouldn’t have saved that wretched ship if I had known I would be punished for it.”

         ”I would be delighted to leave,” said Carey irritably. “First thing in the morning. I have no desire to stay here so close and yet so…” He stopped. “I will leave first thing in the morning. I don’t know how as I…”

         ”I don’t care,” Cotterell interrupted. “I’m tired to death. You two must help me to bed.” He reached out his long arms and before either of them could move away he had them tucked under his armpits and his weight was bearing down on them prodigiously. The pot tumbled out of Titmouse’s hands and she huffed with annoyance and pinched the mage’s underarm. “Viper!” he muttered and propelled them out into the corridor and up the stairs. He swooned a little and the three of them teetered for a moment half way up. “Why is she stalking my thoughts so relentlessly?” moaned Alexander Cotterell. “I haven’t thought of her for years and now, it’s as if she were under my arm and not you.” They reached the top of the stairs and he held them there swaying a little as he looked down at each of their heads in turn.

         ”Which way, damn it?” asked Carey.

         ”What?” The strange blue eyes in their powdery mask bored into Carey.

         ”I said…” Carey began but Cotterell had snatched his arm from Titmouse’s shoulder and his hands gripped Carey’s wrists. “”What is it?” he asked, but not apparently of Carey. He was looking into the young man’s eyes as if he wanted to look in through his pupils and shine a light into the cavity of his head. “What is it in there?”

         ”Let go of me,” gasped Carey. He tried to brace his hands against the mage’s chest but he struggled in vain. The mage, despite his professed weakness, had arms as if of stone and hardly noticed Carey’s contortions. He was still peering ever closer into the young man’s alarmed face. “Let go.Get him off me,” Carey squealed. Titmouse tried to prise one of the mage’s hands off Carey’s arm. Eventually she lowered her head and bit him.

         ”Creature!” he roared and flung Carey against the wall. The young man’s head bumped painfully against the plaster and he almost lost his footing. The horror he had felt at John’s description of the faceless, uncanny monster in his brooding house flooded back through his veins. “Keep away!” he sobbed. “Keep him away from me.” Titmouse slammed both her hands into the mage’s chest, as far up as she could reach, though she could no more have stopped him than a rhinoceros in its charge. But the mage’s strength seemed to have ebbed as quickly as it had flowed and he too staggered back against the oppressive wallpaper.

         ”Why,” he asked in hollow tones. “Why does it feel as if a dead woman had her arm around me?” he asked, his eyes still boring into Carey’s. “Why can I smell a dead woman’s perfume.”

         ”I don’t know,” Carey half-sobbed. Both men slid to the floor. “Don’t hurt me or turn me into something, please.” Titmouse crouched down between them, a hard little hand on both of their knees. The mage tipped his head back against the wall and breathed noisily through his nose. Then, slowly, almost fearfully he put out his hand. Titmouse caught hold of his sleeve but his hand moved inexorably forward. His fingertips brushed Carey’s jacket. They paused there and both men seemed about to break into screams. Then, furrowing his brow in a feat of determination, the mage flipped back Carey’s lapel and his long, dusty fingers delved into the pocket in the salt-stiffened lining. Carey flattened himself against the wall, his lip almost trembling like a child’s. From the pocket the mage drew something that glittered. His fingers trembled and he dropped it into Carey’s lap. Titmouse pounced on it and held it up so that it glittered in the meagre light: A lady’s diamond hair clasp.
 

         "Can't I sleep at your house?" Carey complained. He was weary to the bone and almost as cold as when he had been plucked from the water.

         "Don't have one," said John. "I have a hammock on the boat and there isn't another. No, we'll find you something soon."

         "Oh God, I can't walk any further," said Carey.

John Steals started to laugh. He pointed up the hill and taking Carey's elbow propelled them up the steep, cobbled road which was streaming with rainwater. From the houses on either side came lamplight and the sound of voices, of too many people under one roof. Only the certainty that he could knock on every door in the street and receive no welcome kept Carey from collapsing in John's arms.

         "Where are we going?" he moaned.

         "We're following her," said John. "She knows where there's a spare bed, all right. Hats off to her for daring to ask for it."

         "What?" Carey peered through the drizzle and dimly made out a blue smudge up ahead. "It' her, that girl who can't speak," he said. "She's moving very purposefully. Do you think she knows this town?"

         "No more than you do," said John. "But I'd say that for all she can't speak, she's a better listener than you are."

They picked up speed and gradually gained on the blue blanketed girl. Carey was breathless to the point of collapse when they reached the end of the street where it joined with an avenue that rang the length of the hillside. It was a broad street of gracious buildings facing out over the whitecapped sea. On a sunny day they would have looked bravely magnificent, like young men with a curl in their hair and clear, honest eyes but in this drizzle, and in Carey's condition, they looked hungbacked and miserly.

         "Wait," Carey panted. The girl heard them and looked back over her shoulder. She looked if anything irritated to see them behind her and picked up speed. "Well, I wonder what's wrong with her," said Carey in between breaths. "She was happy enough to use my shoulder as her hanky down on the boat."

         "She doesn't want him giving you a spare bed and turning her away if you get there first," said John. "She shouldn't worry. There will be room enough for all. No one else will have thought to try him and the house is all but empty save for him."

         "Who's him? I mean, who is he?" said Carey.

John nodded to a tall blue house at the end of the avenue. It was architecturally more magnificent than all its neighbours but in every other way it sagged in comparison. The roof was unsound, the paintwork mouldy, the windows hidden behind shutters with uneven slats. Trees grew in unkempt luxurience all around it and even from where he stood at some distance Carey could see that they were in unseasonal bloom. The yellow roses reminded him sharply of the rosebuds in the hair of the mysterious woman he had met the night before and he felt suddenly sick. His legs buckled and if John hadn't helped him he would have sat down with a thump in the middle of the road.

         "Watch it," said John. "Not far to go now."

         "But that's the mage's house," said Carey, not moving. The girl had reached the house and was knocking on the door. "He sounded dangerous."

         "Well, he isn't 'safe' but I don't know that he's 'dangerous'. Not to you anyway."

         "But Tolly said the man hasn't got a face," whispered Carey. "The way I feel at the moment I'm not sure I could deal with that with my normal poise. I think I'd be sick."

         "More fool you then. You can sleep in the gutter. If we'd known you were so previous we'd never have pulled you out but let Lord Posidon send his daughters and an oyster shell to carry you ashore, mate. Come along with you."

Uttering a strangled protest Carey allowed himself to be dragged to the gate of the mage's house but John had to push him the last few steps to the door. It was an imposing white stucco'd affair but the cherubim all had dirty faces and the roses were swathed in old webs full of the moths that had wooed the light that hung in a green glass lantern over the lintel. John banged on the door with his knuckles and Carey waited with a wildly beating heart for his soul to be assailed by another uncanny obscenity.

The door opened. It framed a tall, stocky woman nearly dissected at the waist by her tight-drawn apronstrings. She was already nodding and sighing as she opened the door and waved them in with a hand encrusted with bread dough.

"Yes, there's room," she said, as if bored. "No, you can't see Mr Cotterell. Yes, you may remove your shoes before you ruin my floor." She slammed the door behind them, not out of anger but,Carey guessed, a deep indifference as to whether it made a noise or not.

         "Good day to you, Miss Helson," said John deferentially. He pulled off his cap and stuffed it in his pocket before shucking off his wellington boots. He elbowed Carey until he did the same. But the seawater had swollen his laces in their knots and he could not loosen them. He gave up, too tired to explain, and followed John and Miss Helson down a dark-papered hallway (which had a none too clean tiles flooring it) to what turned out to be the kitchen.

John Steals had been wrong. There were already several survivors sitting in attitudes of dejection in the mage's kitchen. An old man and an old woman so well matched they must either be siblings or have been married for so long they had 'osmosed' into each other sat hand in hand on a large wicker laundry basket pulled up close to the fire. The wicker was old and sagged dangerously under their weight. A man in evening dress lay fast asleep on the kitchen table, his long hands and tapered feet hanging loosely over its extremities. He snored.

         "Mr Cotterell has not hinstructed me to make any of his bedrooms havailable," said Miss Helson. She fished some twine out of the pocket of her apron and started stringing it between the handles of overhead cupboards. "So I hain't leting hany of you hunfamiliar personages into that part of this hestabalishment. You can sleep here where the dogs and Hi can keep a heye on you."

         "A model of hospitality, our Miss H," said John. He poked her side with a grin and she drew herself aside frigidly. "Hi hunderstand you have a 'ome of sorts, Mr Steals," she said icily. "Don't let me keep you from hit."

"Come now, Miss H," said John. "You don't have to worry about these folks. I can vouch for these two personally. And they're all too dog-tired to do whatever it is you think they might want to."

         "The kitchen is good henough, I say, Mr Steals. I 'ope you have nothing you can say hagainst hit."

Carey, looking around at the darkly decorated room, felt that there was a great deal that could be said against it. But John Steals only nodded and smiled at Miss Helson and then clapped Carey on the shoulder. He winked too at the mute who was standing unobtrusively behind the sleeping gentleman.

         "You'll be all right here, my dears," he said. "And, come and see me when you're settled... We'll have a drink you and I, Ignatius."

Carey jumped at the sound of his alias but John was too busy giving Miss Helson a squeeze to notice. "Night all!" he cried as he left the room, even though it was, by the clock above the sink, barely a quarter to two in the afternoon. This time yesterday, thought Carey, I went down to see Ottaline and she nearly threw up on my shoe. I wonder if she was still wearing the necklace under her shirt. He sighed a long drawn out sigh and found that the mute was looking at him.

         "'And me that sheet, Hignatius" said Miss Helson. Carey realised she was addressing him and looking around spotted a backet full of yellowed, crumpled linen. He picked up the top sheet and carried it over to her. "Keep that hend," she said imperiously and between them they hung the sheet over the line she had slung overhead. A few moments later the room has been divided into cubicles that smelt of old starch. Miss Helson slapped her way through the sheets from one cubicle to the next, billeting her charges and handing them cushions and pillows.

         "Will he be coming in here, do you think?" asked Carey, nervously following the housekeeper wherever she went. He did not like the woman but her indifference, in this house belonging to a faceless horror, reassured him.

         "Who's 'e, the cat's dentist?" said Miss Helson haughtily. "Mr Cotterell has performed a great public service today, young man. 'E will be indisposed for some time now, Hi fancy."

"Good," said Carey under his breath. "Good." He took a red velvet cushion from her with a tired smile and made himself as comfortable as he could on a blanket on the floor. Under the sweep of the flowery sheet that hung in front of him he saw a brief glimpse of blue. I wonder what her name is, he thought in the moment before he fell asleep. Something ugly, I don't doubt. Like Ottaline...
 

It was a melancholy sight. He became aware that, though the wind had dropped away, a keening noise still drifted on the edge of his hearing. He turned his head this way and that attempting to catch it.

         "What is that sound?" he asked the fishermen eventually. Tolly listened and then nodded grimly.

         "Our mage. He's crying the storm down. Been doing it all night, since we saw you foundering. He won't stop till all us little'uns have scurried home with the survivors."

         "We're the only town with a mage this side of Plymouth," said John Steals proudly. "And they say he's the best."

         "As far as that sort of thing goes," agreed Tolly reluctantly. "You wouldn't want your daughter to take up with one."

         "It sounds...so awful," said Carey. The sobbing cry cut into his heart, filling it with remorse, for Ottaline, for all the lost souls sinking down under the waves as he rode above them to safety. The girl beside him was listening too. There were tears rolling off her cheeks onto her blanket.

         "Listening to that," said Tolly, "You'd honestly think the man gave a damn, wouldn't you."

         "Doesn't he?"

         "He'll be laughing till he's sick with some skirt or other come evening," said Tolly. "Living like a lord as usual."

         "You're too hard on him, Toll," said John Steals. "Many's a man who'd drink and play to forget all these poor buggers."

Tolly shrugged. "He doesn't need to drink to forget them. The moment he stops that wailing, that magic he's doing, he'll be happy as a lark. I've seen him before, John. He's light as a feather."

         "I can't believe it," said Carey. The mournful sound was tugging at his heart. He could think of nothing but Ottaline. The girl beside him gave a sob and crushed herself against him, burying her red head in his chest. Carey started but did not push her away.

         "That's his place, there," said John Steals. He pointed up the hillside to a tall, blue fronted house that overlooked the harbour. They were drawing close now, almost within the harbour wall, and Carey could make out an open window on the second storey of the mage's house. In this weather it seemed uncanny in itself.

         "What exactly has he done...is he doing?" asked Carey. "You said something about the storm?"

         "He's driving it off. Out that way, towards France," said Tolly. "Let it devil them. That is...I hope you aren't French, miss. I'm sure I'm sorry if you are." The girl made no move from the crook of Carey's arm.

         "So he works spells and then goes out dancing," said Carey.

         "If he can find someone willing," said Tolly gruffly.

         "Why - does his magic scare them?"

         "No, that's not it, son."

         "Then what? Is he ugly?"

John Steals laughed and Tolly drew his brows together in a frown of confusion. "I don't know how to answer that," he said. "Are you ugly exactly, if you haven't got a face?"

Carey bit his lip. "No face?"

         "Leave the boy alone, Toll," said John Steals. Then, "Look," he said and pointed to the harbour wall, which was crowded with townsfolk. "We're home. Someone will give you a feed and a bed and you can sleep for a month if you want to. How does that sound?"

Abruptly the wailing stopped and Tolly looked over his shoulder at the larger boat bringing up the rear. "No more survivors," he muttered and the girl in the blue blanket shuddered so hard Carey heard her teeth rattle. With the wailing the rain intensified. It bounced off the wharves and the wooden rooves of the shacks along the harbour wall. The survivors from the fishing boats disembarked, some jumping, some thrown depending on their state of exhaustion and were gathered in by the townsfolk. Hot drinks, more spirits, and even more blankets were handed out and the shivering suvivors were speedily divided up and sent off to their billets. Carey pulled back under the meagre cover of a wooden shack. He watched the unloading of each boat with burning eyes. But not one of them held Ottaline.

         "She shouldn't have let me lock her in like that," he thought to himself. "Who lets themself be locked in a cabin. Why did she have to be so sick? Why did she have to be so well known. If she's been no one at all, we wouldn't have had to hide her away. She would be alive and I'd still have that necklace." At the thought of the necklace Carey groaned. He dragged his gaze out to the iron-grey water where the ship of the dead still plied its course back and forth. "Gone, gone forever," he said out loud. "Gone, gone, gone."

The last of the survivors was pulled onto land and stumbled away supported on both sides by old men in sou-westers. Tolly, his wife and John Steals were clearing the detritus out of their boat and reloading it with the equipment and nets they had discarded to make room for their human cargo. John caught sight of Carey and waved a hand.

         "Still here? Lad, you must get some bread inside you and your head on a pillow. We didn't fish you out for you to freeze to death here."

Carey shrugged. "I don't care," he said. "I've lost everything."

         "Ah lad, you have your life. That's more than many that were on that ship with you. Be grateful."

         "I can't," Carey cried in anguish. "It's gone. I worked so hard to get it and it's gone."

         "What did you lose?" John asked quietly. He put his hand on the young man's shoulder and his eyes were full of sympathy.

Carey's hands formed fists. "A...a... There was a girl," he stammered. "She had... Ottaline."

         "She hasn't come off one of the boats?" asked John. "Maybe you missed her."

         "No!" Carey desperately wanted to voice his frustration but self-preseveration forbade him to be honest. "I need to sleep," he said instead, drooping visibly.

         "Let's find you somewhere," said John. But it proved easier said than done. The townsfolk had all taken their charges home and no one was left on the harbour wall to take Carey off John's hands.