Unwritten Books 2 - Fathom Five (19 page)
Across the stony beach, people were running to him. Fiona was in the lead, her red hair flowing behind her like a torch. She stopped lightly before him and clasped his hands. “Peter!” she breathed. “It’s time.”
“Who are you?” Peter mumbled. “Why did you bring me here?”
A look of horror flashed across Fiona’s face. It blew a shot of clarity into his mind. This was wrong. She was an impostor. He wasn’t supposed to be here.
But the next instant, Fiona hid her look of horror. She smiled at Peter, her eyes narrowed, and she flicked her hair over her shoulder. He could feel the veil being pulled over his consciousness.
“No!” He struggled. “I’m not supposed to be —”
She wrapped her arms around him and kissed him. His eyes grew glassy. His hands moved of their own accord to embrace her. Peter could see himself as though his mind had been pulled from his body, and cast out to sea. The waves of Fiona’s smell and her beauty washed over him, swamping him. He struggled to stay afloat.
Fiona pulled away. “Are you ready?” she asked.
“Yes.” The voice was not his.
The other villagers gathered around him, positioning themselves in front of Peter and Ariel. A group of musicians holding bodhrans and primitive stringed instruments started to play a slow, rhythmic processional. The sirens began a wailing chant. Surrounded by the honour guard, Peter and Ariel walked back towards the village.
Peter’s consciousness floated out to sea.
R
osemary peered from behind a stone column at the edge of the siren caves and spotted a group of twelve ethereal sea-women, dressed in Welcome Circle finery, huddled and chattering on the path leading back to the bay. Some were practising their dance steps. Rosemary cast a critical eye at their flowing robes and veils, and looked down at herself. She slipped back into the shadows and adjusted her own clothing, peering out to check that she was dressed properly.
She took note of their feet and huffed. “They
would
be barefoot.” She shucked her shoes.
Finally, she felt ready; scarves covered her finless pink arms, and her skirts billowed in the breeze. With the veil concealing her face below the eyes, it was an effective disguise, but Rosemary decided she didn’t want to chance being recognized until she absolutely had to. So she stayed in hiding, peering out to watch the Welcome Circle wait and practise.
She frowned as she followed the movement of their feet. “Wait a minute,” she muttered. She mimicked the steps. Heel-toe, heel-toe. “I know these steps!” Heel-toe, twist. “That’s step-dancing!”
The moves had been modified, danced at half-speed with added arm gestures, but they were still recognizable to the girl who’d spent an agonizing summer jumping in Irish clod-shoes, arms pressed to her sides.
“Scavengers,” she muttered, shaking her head. Or survivors, she thought, remembering Merius and his “Lost Children” speech. How many of these, she wondered, could trace their history to the shipwrecks in that transitional world? Lots, she thought.
But there hadn’t been a shipwreck on the Bruce Peninsula for decades.
How old
are
these people?
Then she heard drumbeats in the distance and looked up. An honour guard was approaching from the bay, wailing, beating drums, and playing a variety of stringed instruments. As the procession drew nearer, the women of the Welcome Circle stopped chattering and organized themselves into a line. Rosemary waited and, when the women moved out at a silent cue, she darted out of the shadows and brought up the rear.
As she danced after the Welcome Circle, she glanced up and almost stumbled. Leading the honour guard was Fionarra. Rosemary brought up an arm to hide her face, but Fionarra’s gaze was locked on the parade route. Rosemary was by her in a second, and circling Peter from ten feet away. He was flanked by a young siren and surrounded by marchers. Too many people, Rosemary thought. No room even for a mad dash.
Before she had a chance to plan, the Welcome Circle surrounded Peter, raising their arms in the air and twirling once. Rosemary barely kept up the movement.
“Just remember your classes,” she muttered beneath her breath. “Heel-toe, heel-toe, twist.”
The steps weren’t intricate; nor did the women match each other exactly, which was fortunate. After a minute, Rosemary moved with more confidence, and kept her gaze on Peter and the crowd.
As the procession wound its way among the stone pillars, sirens emerged from their homes, standing on their turf-covered roofs to cheer Peter. The air shuddered with their cries. Rosemary didn’t see the sirens climbing the rock faces; she only saw them emerge from their caves, or standing above them. She felt like she was in a canyon, sirens lining the rim.
There were at least two people marching between her and Peter at any given moment. Still no opportunity. She scowled beneath her veil as she mimicked the Welcome Circle’s hand gestures.
She wondered where Merius was. Then she saw him take up a place along the route, clenching his trident and watching the parade with a critical eye. Rosemary lowered her eyes and tried to will herself invisible.
Then something pulled Merius’s gaze from the revellers. She looked ahead and saw Fionarra glaring at him from the head of the honour guard. The two remained focussed on each other until Rosemary was safely past.
The procession wound through the siren village until it doubled back on itself, finally emerging onto the open patch of green. In the middle, built on top of a stone depression, was a wooden stage. The park was lined with celebrants standing in eager but respectful silence. Rosemary wondered where all these people had been less than an hour ago.
The stage was five feet high and ten feet across. A set of stairs led up to it, guarded by two male sirens. They crossed their tridents as the procession approached. The musicians leading the procession turned away and joined the crowd. The Welcome Circle parted and slipped around the stage like the tide around an island.
Peter and the siren girl walked up to the guards, and the tridents parted. The two mounted the steps alone.
The Welcome Circle twirled one last time and stopped with the music. They stood with arms upstretched, facing the stage.
The people who had lined the parade route filed into the square, filling the remaining spaces. Rosemary saw Merius standing near the entrance, trident in hand, casting a wary eye over his shoulder and then across the crowd.
For several minutes, everyone in the square stood still. The siren girl stood ramrod straight. Peter stared glassily ahead. As she stood in silence with arms over her head, Rosemary knew she’d be getting a cramp soon. It had to be dancing, she thought. For once, why can’t I disrupt a ceremony with algebra?
Finally, Fionarra handed her trident to an attendant and mounted the steps to the raised dais at the head of the square. She faced Peter over the crowd.
Her soft voice carried easily across the silent multitude. “Council, villagers: we welcome to our family one Peter McAllister. Lost for years, we have now found him. Away from us, he has come home. By these words and by our blood, we make Peter one of us, and ...,” she looked at Peter and allowed herself a small smile, “... welcome him into our hearts.”
She glanced down. “Give Ariel the chalice.”
The siren girl turned and accepted a pitcher and a chalice from someone in the crowd. The pitcher was cut crystal, and the golden chalice looked as if it belonged in a church — and, thought Rosemary, it probably did. Ariel set these between herself and Peter and poured out water from the pitcher.
Rosemary shifted on her feet. Time was running out, but the guards still stood at the steps. The stage in front of her would not be an easy climb, but it looked as though she was going to have to chance it.
Ariel reached to the crowd. Someone handed her a trident and she turned back to Peter, holding the weapon between them, points in the air. He hesitated, but grabbed hold of the staff. Ariel smiled and nodded. Then she stepped back and flexed her arm. She took a deep breath, and then swung down her hand, slamming her palm on the centre point of the trident.
Rosemary flinched. The long sleeves of her robes slipped and bunched up at her shoulders.
The crowd stayed silent as Ariel pulled her hand back and held it, palm open, over the chalice. Blood welled from the cut and dripped into the water until the water was tinged red.
Finally, Ariel wrapped a piece of her robe around her palm and took up the chalice. She came close to Peter and held the cup between them.
Fionarra drew herself up. “Peter Calvin McAllister, do you come here of your own free will?”
Peter bowed his head. He barely blinked. “I do.”
“Do you wish to join our family?”
“No,” breathed Rosemary.
Again, Peter nodded. “I do.”
Fionarra’s smile widened. “Do you consent to become like us?”
“Say no,” Rosemary whispered.
“I do.”
Rosemary clenched her teeth.
“Peter Calvin McAllister.” Fionarra’s voice echoed across the square. “We welcome you. Before you drink of the chalice, answer this: do you know of any ties that bind you to another world and keep you from joining our family?”
Rosemary fixed her eyes on Peter. “Say yes,” she whispered. “Please, say yes.”
Peter opened his mouth, but no words came out. He closed it again, blinking. The silence stretched. Whispers rustled through the crowd.
Fionarra cleared her throat. “Peter?” Her eyes bore into him across the square.
Peter opened his mouth again. Then he looked around at the crowd. His gaze fell on Rosemary.
As Rosemary stood in the Welcome Circle — her arms stretched over her head — she realized that with her sleeves bunched around her shoulders, her arms were bare. The bloody bandage over the bite on her forearm was plain for all to see, and Peter was looking directly at it. Then his gaze flickered from her bandage to her eyes. The glassiness vanished from his eyes. Recognition lit his face.
Fionarra followed Peter’s gaze to Rosemary, and she let out a howl of anger that made the air quake. She leapt forward, pointing.
“Stop her! It’s the songbreaker!”
The crowd screamed, roared and ran in several directions at once.
Rosemary dropped her arms and charged the stage.
The guards at the steps brought their tridents to bear. Without thinking, Rosemary grabbed the shaft of one to pull it aside, but the moment she touched the metal, the guard disappeared. The trident clattered to the ground.
More screams echoed through the square.
Rosemary bit her lip as she stared at the ground where the guard had been, but she picked up the trident and, in a flash of inspiration, held up her right hand at the remaining guard, palm open, revealing the birthmark. “Stand aside, unless you want to be broken too!”
Please, she added to herself.
The guard dropped to his knees and cowered.
Rosemary clambered up the steps.
To her left and her right, she saw five guards rushing through the crowd, pushing past people with unnatural ease, tridents ready, their faces grim. Behind her, she could hear Merius yelling furiously. Fionarra was running at the stage, unarmed, her rage darkening the air. These, Rosemary sensed, wouldn’t be scared off by strong words and a birthmark.
A trident’s staff smashed into her shins. She fell; her own weapon went sliding. Panicked, she scrambled to her feet. Peter and Ariel stood in front of her, staring. Rosemary knocked the chalice out of the girl’s hands, shouldered her aside, and grabbed Peter by the back of the neck.
He blinked at her. “Rosemary?”
Glamour. What had Merius told her? “
You can break glamour for a few seconds, through some shock like cold water, a kiss, or a firebrand.
” She didn’t have the water, and she didn’t want to burn him.
But this all started with a … “Peter!” she shouted, and kissed him.
For a moment, the noise of the crowd faded as his lips softened under hers. Then the cries came back into focus. Rosemary could hear Fionarra yelling, “Seize her!” like some made-up villain.
Rosemary released the kiss, leaving Peter gasping for air. She looked him in the eye. Peter looked back.
“Peter?”
“Rosemary? What are you ...?” His face fell open as he looked around. “What the … where am I?”
“You’re awake, that’s all that matters,” said Rosemary. She could hear footfalls rushing the stage. “We’ve got to run.”
She pulled at him, but he didn’t move. His face was closing. He wasn’t even looking at her anymore.
“
Unless blocked by an exceptionally strong mind, glamour simply reasserts itself.
” Great, she told herself, way to remember only half your instructions. Peter had been here too long. They could have done anything to weaken his defences. She could feel the glamour building up on him like ice. She shook his shoulders. “Peter! No, wake up!”
“Rosemary,” he breathed. “You shouldn’t be here.”
