The Silver Bough (42 page)

Sam was above her, on the forward deck, struggling to batten down the mainsail, and as she saw him she was seized by a powerful, sickening sensation, a sort of mental double vision, as she
remembered
what was just about to happen.

But forewarned was forearmed. She knew, and so she screamed out a warning: “Sam! Get down! Look out! Get down
now
!”

Even if her precise words didn’t reach him, he heard and responded to the terror in her voice, immediately letting go of the rolled and partly fastened sail and coming toward her. He moved a full second before the mast snapped, sending one of the metal stays whipping down and around. In another lifetime, another reality, the chunky metal clip on the end of the wire had struck Sam with deadly force in the back of his head; he’d staggered and fallen, unconscious, into the sea, where he drowned.

But it didn’t happen like that—not this time, not in this world.

He’d moved in response to her scream that vital second
before
the accident, and now he was bending down to her, puzzled and concerned, holding her hands and gazing into her eyes as he asked her what was wrong.

She burst into tears. “You’re all right!”

“What’s wrong? What made you scream?”

“I thought the mast was going to come down—it could have hit you—”

He grunted, surprised. “Silly old sausage! I’m fine! But your hands are freezing—you’re shaking—let’s get you below and warmed up, shall we?”

She could never explain to him why she was crying, or what had made her scream like that. He didn’t believe his life had ever been in danger—at worst he might have got a bit of a knock from a stay. It wouldn’t have
killed
him. It wasn’t like her to get so upset about a dream—and, really, how could she have dreamed that for the past five years she’d been living in Scotland and growing apples?

“Now, what’s so scary about that?” he demanded.

“I thought I’d lost you—I thought you were gone—”

“Well, I’m here now. Need me to prove it to you?”

“Yes, please.”

They snuggled together into the narrow bunk, lying as close as two spoons, loving each other while the storm raged unnoticed outside. And that was the night their child was conceived.

T
HE
S
YRACUSA
F
ISH
Bar had vanished. Mario stood at the intersection of two narrow, winding, cobbled streets and stared disbelievingly across at the wretched, thatched-roof hovel that filled the space that should have been occupied by the chip shop, with its blue-and-white sign displaying an improbably joyful fish.

When he’d finally managed to get free of the helpful postman, he’d kept walking, in no hurry to get back to the heat and stress of his job, hoping to clear his head before he had to face all that again. With his mind on mermaids and other such mysteries, he paid little attention to where he went. It wasn’t necessary. Appleton was a small town, and as long as he stuck to her boundaries and did not stray into the hills and trackless countryside, he could not possibly get lost. Even if he was drunk or half-asleep he knew he could count on his feet to carry him home, like a faithful horse. Over the past three months they had mapped out every street, path, and alleyway in the small town, tracing and retracing every possible route.

And so, when darkness fell with what seemed quite shocking and unnatural suddenness, he was sure he did not have far to go. His uncle would be furious, no doubt, because even being a few minutes late was a big crime in his reckoning. Mario had no idea what time it was. His watch had stopped working; he supposed the salt water must have damaged it.

Somehow, incredibly, he was lost.

Nothing was where it should be; everything was strange. It was as if he’d turned a corner on a familiar street in this little Scottish town and found himself abruptly somewhere else, in the heart of the ancient quarter of some very large, old city—Rome, maybe, or Prague—although not as they were now, when you saw them on TV, but more as they might have been hundreds of years ago.

But that was crazy.

Trying not to think about it, blurring over the fearful possibilities in his mind with the bland assurance that he’d taken a wrong turning, and things looked different in the dark, he hurried back the way he’d come. If he could just get back to the last place he’d recognized, it didn’t matter if it was a shop or a hotel or a street sign or a distinctive doorway, he’d get his bearings and find his way. He hadn’t been paying attention to where he was going and he’d become confused; it could happen to anyone. And in this darkness…

He came to a crossroads and peered along the road to the left, then to the right. In both directions, high, featureless buildings lined a narrow, cobbled street that curved away out of sight. His skin prickled with unease. He had never seen a street like it anywhere in Appleton. There were no streetlights, and no cars parked in front of any of the buildings, which were all at least four stories high, and, in the darkness at least, presented a blankly identical appearance. He’d never seen a street like it anywhere, he thought, and yet there was something naggingly familiar about the setting, as if he had encountered it before, seen it in a movie, or a painting, or perhaps a dream.

He decided not to turn to either direction, and kept going straight ahead. But the street frustrated him, curving around in a loop that offered him more chances to turn off onto more streets, but never one that he could recognize. They were all narrow, all weirdly empty of cars or people. Some were lined with tall, blank-faced buildings, others with smaller cottages and houses. None had streetlights, and apart from an odd, sourceless illumination from above—which could have been a full moon through light cloud cover, except he recalled no such moon from last night, which had been clear—the only lights were those which spilled out through windows or open doors.

Maybe someone could direct him, he thought, and so he paused by the next open doorway and, instead of striding past, he looked inside. A cozy, old-fashioned scene met his eyes: a group of people gathered around a glowing hearth in a long, low-ceilinged room. The smell of chicken broth made him feel hungry, then, although he’d said nothing, done nothing to attract attention, a young woman rose from her seat and approached the door. She held a fragrantly steaming bowl in one hand; with the other she beckoned to him. Her lips and eyes shone in the firelight, and although her face was mostly in shadow, he suspected she was beautiful. She wore a long, full-skirted dress and although he could see she had a slim waist and what seemed a shapely bosom, he could not see her legs, and there was no sign, beneath the skirt which rippled slightly where it brushed the floor, of feet. As she beckoned to him again, holding forward the bowl as if to attract him, as she might tempt a dog or cat, he thought of the mermaid and backed away.

She wanted to pull him in, to pull him under and keep him there—he began to walk more quickly, not quite running, but hurrying on to the next street, then the next.

Despite his growing bewilderment and fear he managed to keep his head. Common sense told him that if he went straight for long enough he must emerge, if not beside the sea, then onto the main road. In one direction it wound up into the hills of the interior; in the other, it would take him to the roadblock. Although he could no longer distinguish such directional points as north or west, at least he knew when he was continuing in the same direction and when he was being forced by these maddeningly twisting streets into doubling back on himself.

For what he judged to be an hour or more he wandered through the dark, unfamiliar streets, growing footsore and feeling a gathering sense of dread that he would never be able to escape this strange urban maze. Where was the sea? In Appleton, the scent of the sea was always in the air, however it might be masked by the tarry smells of smoking chimneys, car exhaust, gasoline, or fried food; and if he could pick up which way the wind was blowing, he thought he should be able to trace the salt smell on the breeze to its source.

Now, though, the night was still and windless, and he was often distracted by other smells, which drifted out of open doorways—roasting meat, baking bread, beer, pipe tobacco, a woman’s perfume. He made himself hurry past without so much as a glance inside. Sounds attracted him, too—music, laughter, and once, singing so beautiful it brought tears to his eyes, and as his footsteps slowed, he had to force himself, weeping, to run away.

He couldn’t resist forever; there was no point to this endless wandering. He grew weary. If it was a choice between curling up on the hard, cold ground by himself, or walking into one of these inviting homes…

And then the darkness lifted. Just as suddenly as the night had descended, it was ended, replaced by an eerie grey half-light. It was not a normal morning any more than what preceded it had been a normal night, but Mario was grateful. His footsteps slowed and he peered around, newly hopeful of seeing something he recognized. He glimpsed a flash of green, sudden bright life in contrast to the pale dull stone of the buildings, and as he walked toward it, he saw there was a gap between two houses, and beyond it was grass.

Relieved by the sight of something different, an end to the monotony of the never-ending, mazelike streets, he went toward it. When he walked between the houses, he came out on the edge of the high school’s playing field. At last he could orient himself. He recognized a nearby housing development as the one still referred to locally as “new,” and beyond that was the main road.

He did not look back. He’d dropped the idea of finding the fish bar, or going back to his uncle’s house—he wanted out. He crossed the playing field, heading for the main road out of town. He was determined that the landslide would not stop him escaping. If he couldn’t manage to scale the cliff and get over it that way, he’d climb down to the rocky seashore and follow it until he could rejoin the road. After that he might hitch a ride, or walk all the way to Glasgow if he had to.

The fog that came rolling in did not deter him. As long as he kept to the road he should be all right. After another ten minutes or so he thought he must be getting near to the roadblock. The fog pressed in on all sides so that he seemed to be walking through a tunnel of cloud. He could smell the sea nearby and hear the faint muffled pulse of the waves. He thought he heard voices; but, afraid it might be another trap, he ignored them and pressed on.

Someone had left a car parked in the middle of the road, and it was absolutely the car of his dreams. He stared at it suspiciously, torn between desire and caution. Who would abandon a beautiful Porsche like that? Of course, the road was blocked; anyone determined to get away, as he was himself, would have to leave the car and go on foot.

A woman’s scream, very close by, made him whirl around, heart hammering. The fog was thinning, dissipating with remarkable speed. It revealed a girl standing on the grassy verge, near a tall, jutting spire of rock, her back to him as she stared over the edge at the sea below.

“Ronan?” Her voice, shaky and uncertain, wafted to him on the sea breeze. She had a mass of long, curly black hair. He looked at her blue-jean-clad legs, and her feet in blue-and-white Nikes, and knew she belonged to the same world he did. He took a few steps toward her. “Hello?”

He saw her tense before she whirled around. As soon as he saw her face he recognized her—she was the American girl he’d been looking for earlier—and he broke into a smile.

Her expression remained strained and suspicious. He tried to think of something to say to make her relax, but he’d never had a gift for light, flirtatious banter, and probably this wasn’t the time or the place for it anyway. He didn’t know what she’d been through during the brief, unnatural night that had just passed, but it could be that it would make his adventure seem a playground game by comparison.

“Are you OK?” he asked. “I heard you scream.”

She was silent a moment longer, assessing him with her eyes. Then she said, “I just saw two people drop off the cliff here. But if they fell, I should be able to see them down there—and I can’t.”

“Want me to look?”

He felt grateful when she nodded. He hurried up beside her, and stared searchingly at the rocky coastline below, taking his time about it before shaking his head. “I can’t see anything. We could climb down there, but…are you sure…?”

“I’m sure. I was standing right behind them, close enough to touch, when it happened. But I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. He as much as said it was magic—they were going to another world. And I guess they did.”