Blackfin Sky (8 page)

Sean’s face appeared in the glow of his phone display again.

‘I don’t know, Sky.’

They were both quiet for a long moment in the eerie artificial light.

‘What if it happens again? What if I disappear and can’t find my way back?’ Sky wished the light was gone so he wouldn’t see the fear in her eyes. As much as it felt like that tendril of madness which had wrapped around the small town might tighten a little too far and crush her, Sky knew Blackfin like she knew herself. She wouldn’t,
couldn’t,
think of losing it. Of being lost.

Sean’s hand squeezed her hip gently, reminding her it was still there. ‘We’ll have to find a way to make sure that doesn’t happen.’

‘How?’ Sky’s voice had gone as soft and high-pitched as Cam’s.

‘By finding out exactly what made you disappear the first time, and making sure it doesn’t happen again.’ He sounded so reasonable, the way he sounded when they were working on a chemistry problem together, that it made Sky feel better.

Sean stood abruptly, the bucket clattering on the floor behind him. He offered Sky his hands and pulled her up. Standing so close, they were almost eye-to-eye. Almost mouth-to-mouth.

Almost.

‘I suppose we should go and find Cam and Bo,’ Sky stuttered.

Sean opened the door for her, and she saw that he was smiling. ‘I suppose we’d better.’

6

Sky was glad when the final bell rang and she could race out of the car park under Silas’ watchful eye. She waved, and the weathervane spun once, urging her to keep going until her legs gave out.

Sky skirted past the Penny Well and ran along the main road until it split into two. Instead of taking the right fork leading up the hill to the Blood House, she went left, following the steep path down towards the sea. The gravel path gave way to a dirt track through the grass, and then finally she jumped down onto the paved promenade. The sound of the sea rolling against the sand below was soothing, but the cries of the gulls overhead were sinister enough to remind Sky where she was, and that nothing was ever straightforward in Blackfin.

It all happened how I remembered it the first time
, she thought, her footsteps slowing as the pier came into view. She passed the fortune-teller’s hut at the foot of the pier and stepped out onto the old boarded platform. The wood shifted under her feet, but the movement had never bothered Sky. She had walked those same boards thousands of times, and would walk them a thousand more if her life kept throwing problems at her which required space to think big thoughts.

Sky carried on down the centre of the pier until she reached the wooden railing at the end. The rail reached her chest when she leaned against it, looking out over the flat, dark water. Even when the wind was high and the waves came alive, Sky found it soothing. Catching sight of the whales and occasional dolphins which swam by this weird out-jutting piece of land was about the only draw Blackfin had for tourists, and in winter, even the most hardened whale-watchers shied away from visiting. Now that Sky thought about it, it had been some years since Blackfin had received any visitors – except the whales, of course.

No whale fins broke the surface today, though.

I tried to kiss Sean, then I came here, then…

Then, what? She knew she hadn’t jumped from the pier. She had no suicidal inclinations, and wasn’t fool enough to find the thought of an icy swim romantic.

But she’d been alone on the pier, hadn’t she? She couldn’t remember anyone else being with her. Maybe she’d tripped and fallen accidentally…

‘I’m going to take a wild guess that you’re Gui’s daughter.’

The handrail cracked under her elbow and she jerked forward, staring at the water from a precarious angle and gripping the remaining section of the rail with white knuckles.

‘Hey, careful!’

An arm wrapped securely around her waist even as Sky watched the splintered section of the handrail turning end over end as it fell into the ocean. Taking a shaky breath, Sky looked over her shoulder at the guy who was still holding onto her.

The first thing she noticed was his eyes – a magnetic grey that looked as deep and cold as the water she’d almost fallen into. Again.

‘Jared,’ he said, the flash of metal in his tongue as he spoke proving Cam had been right about the piercing. Despite the awkward angle, Sky could see Jared was really tall, and though the arm still wrapped around her waist wasn’t bulky, it was as hard as a steel cable. ‘Nice to meet you, Skylar.’

‘Jared,’ Sky repeated, subtly shifting until he released her. ‘So, you’re the guy working with my dad at the garage?’

‘I am. But he makes me call it
le garage
when we’re both there.’

Sky laughed at Jared’s chagrined expression. ‘That sounds like Dad. So, you’re a mechanic too?’ A note of doubt had crept into Sky’s voice as she looked at Jared more closely. He didn’t look like he was much older than her, despite his piercings and the faint shadow of stubble covering his jaw.

‘I’m nineteen,’ he said, with a look that told her he knew exactly what she’d been thinking. ‘And I’m kind of a trainee. I’ve never worked in a garage before, but I’m a fast learner and your dad doesn’t mind teaching me.’

‘He does like to talk about his beloved
voitures,
’ Sky laughed, and Jared dipped his head in acknowledgement. ‘Where did you move from?’

‘Oh, here and there. I moved around a lot with my grandfather growing up.’

Sky almost asked where his parents were, but thought better of it. If he’d been raised by his grandfather, there really wasn’t going to be a happy story behind it.

An awkward silence fell between them, and Sky saw him studying her.

‘You want to know how I’m suddenly back from the dead, don’t you?’

Jared shoved his hands deep into his coat pockets, then pulled out a roll of mints. He held them out to her.

‘I wasn’t going to ask. But of course I’m curious. Your dad’s a great guy, but for the couple of months I’ve worked for him he’s also been like the
most
devastated person I’ve ever met. I mean,
heartbroken.
And even though I just met you, I can’t imagine Gui’s daughter would be the kind of girl who’d just take off and leave her parents thinking she was dead. Would you like a mint?’

Sky took one from the roll and handed it back. ‘I didn’t do it on purpose.’

Jared nodded. ‘I guessed as much. But it’s really none of my business anyway.’

They both crunched without speaking further for a moment.

‘How come you’re not at work now?’ As school finished at three, Sky knew both her parents would be working for at least a couple more hours. ‘Sorry, that’s really none of my business.’

Jared laughed. ‘Your dad sent me home early since the garage was quiet. Figured I’d come down here and whale-watch while it’s still light enough to see them.’

‘Me too.’ Sky didn’t add that she’d come down to the pier so she could spend some time on her own, trying to work out what the hell had happened to her. But that was probably obvious.

‘It’s a good place to come to think.’

Sky wandered back to the railing, but opted not to lean against it this time.
And it only took almost dying
twice
to learn that lesson.

Jared grabbed hold of the nearest section and gave it a firm yank. ‘It seems solid enough over here. That section must just have been rotten.’

But Sky wasn’t really listening. She was staring at the water, seeing the sparks of light reflect from its surface, trying to remember the sensation of ice engulfing her, filling her lungs…

‘…should call someone to come down and fix it. Hey, are you all right?’

Jared touched her shoulder, and it was like being pulled back from the edge again. Sky gasped.

‘Oh, uh, yeah. Sorry, spaced out for a second there. And it’s Old Moley we need to call to look at the rail. The town council keeps him on retainer for this kind of thing.’

She went to head back along the pier to the promenade, but Jared stopped her with a hand on her arm.

‘You can’t remember what happened to you down here that night, can you?’

Sky laughed nervously, her body tensing. ‘I thought you weren’t going to ask me about that.’

Jared let go of her and took a step back, hands up. ‘I’m sorry. I just thought maybe you wanted to talk about it. I didn’t mean to pry.’

He looked sincere. And even though he may have stood out in any normal town, with his lip ring and an electric blue streak in his dyed black hair, in Blackfin, Jared was cookie-cutter normal. Or actually very good-looking, now that Sky thought about it. But most of all, he didn’t look like he was just digging for ammunition to use against her like those dorks in her class.

‘I remember coming here. I just can’t remember anything that happened between then and when I woke up at home. And it’s all gotten mixed up because everyone kept telling me over and over that it didn’t happen, and after a while I just accepted that I’d dreamt it, you know?’ Jared said nothing, just listened. ‘But leaning against the rail a moment ago, I can’t see how I could accidentally fall
over
it. It’s too high, and someone would have noticed if part of it had broken away like that rotten section just now.’

‘From what I’ve heard,’ Jared spoke softly, like he was worried about spooking her, ‘it was a boy called Sean Vega who found you. He followed you down here and pulled you from the water.’

‘He
what
?
’
Sean hadn’t mentioned anything about this to her in the caretaker’s storeroom that morning, although he had said he’d followed her.

He actually saw me dead? How the hell am I supposed to bring
that
up in conversation?

And Sean was smart, so he would know how to check if a person was still breathing, still had a pulse. How could he have mistakenly thought she was dead? And there must have been hospital workers, morticians, a coroner…

‘You look like you’re going to throw up.’

Sky felt like it, too.

‘Look, I don’t know whether this will help or not, but if you really want to find out what happened that night, you might want to talk to the old gypsy.’ Jared nodded towards the fortune-teller’s hut at the foot of the pier. ‘That policewoman couldn’t find her to question her when it happened, but I found out where she went after leaving the hut. And I’m thinking if she left in such a hurry, it was because she saw what happened that night, and it scared her. Now that doesn’t sound like she just saw you fall, does it?’

Sky swallowed hard, breathing through her nose. ‘How do you know all this?’

Jared shrugged. ‘It was all anyone could talk about when I arrived in Blackfin. And some I guessed when I spotted an old woman walking stark naked near the old church in the woods.’

‘There’s a church in the woods?’ Curiosity overcame the unsettled feeling this conversation had given rise to, and Sky found herself stepping closer to him once more. ‘Nobody goes into Blackfin Woods.’

‘I did. And the old woman does, too. I’m assuming she must be the gypsy who disappeared from the hut – I mean, unless you know of some other old lady who’d be living in a ruined church?’

Sky shook her head. Madame Curio was well known in Blackfin, even though she was avoided by most.

‘How did you even get in there?’ The woods had been well secured against intruders for as long as Sky could remember, the talk of roaming wolves and lightning-trees that electrocuted passing children not enough to keep out idle teenagers.

‘I have my ways. I could go with you to talk to her, if you like? I mean, you want to find out what happened to you, don’t you?’

One second turned into several, and Sky realised she’d been staring at him.

‘I should really be heading home. I have … I have to go.’

‘Don’t you want answers, Sky? Hey, where are you going?’