Sacrificed to the Sea - Cari Silverwood Page 0,8
also a part of life down there.
“Time to leave,” she said, huskily. She had worn out her throat.
“Oh.” He reached behind his chair and pulled up a palm-sized, drawstring bag. “If you’re leaving, I have a gift for you. A present.” He raised his eyebrows. “Will you accept it?”
A gift seemed stranger than strange. Men were her prey. They did not give her things, apart from their lives.
“Perhaps?” She was curious. “Ummm.” She craned forward, as if to get a better view. “What might it be?”
“Here.” He tossed the bag and it landed near enough to her that she could reach it without leaving the water. Luckily. He could not have come to her, and she would never have wriggled from the sea to get it.
Cautiously, she undid the cinched neck.
“It’s safe. It’s a necklace. A special one.”
“Safe? How would it not be safe?” Raffaela drew it forth, and found it was a string of pearls that glowed luminously under the moon. The clasp was simple, a screw-in thing. She thought she could manage it, but… wariness made her question him. “Special? How?”
“If ever you are in trouble, if you press on the large black pearl, which is actually not a real pearl. It will signal me. Then I can find you, help you.”
She frowned at the weird piece of jewelry made from things she could find herself on the ocean floor, inside oysters. “How?”
“It’s… like the internet. A signal goes out. Like that.”
Do not look a gift horse in the mouth – a saying from her childhood.
“Thank you.” She slipped it around her neck, hesitated then found the clasp, made the pieces meet.
“You just sort of screw them together.” He made a circling motion with his hand. “It won’t fall off once fastened.”
“I have it. It is done.” The pearls felt odd and heavy sitting there, above her bare breasts, where nothing usually sat.
A gift though. And one that had consideration to it. He thought he could find her in time if a whale swallowed her? Amusing man.
“Will you return again? In three days, at dusk?”
Three more days and the Ravening would be three days closer. She heaved out a sigh. “Yes. I will not stay long. I may not come if it’s too dangerous.”
If I want to eat you.
“Sure.”
At the last second, before she swam away, she had an urge to give something to him. A piece of knowledge would be the best she could gift.
“Once a year, my body changes back into being human, and I get to walk upon the land again. For one day only. That day comes soon.” She cocked her head at him, half hoping, perhaps, that he would offer something…
He looked stunned.
Stupid. She should not have said that.
She leaped and dived deep, sliding through the coolness of the sea, before he could say anything.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. He is only studying you, furthering his knowledge, nothing more.
THREE DAYS LATER
As soon as she surfaced, she knew. The niggling desires had been building, but seeing him before her made her throat close. She wanted to sing to him, to drag him down the beach to her.
Dangerous? Yes. She could control herself, but the risk was there.
“I cannot stay,” she said loudly from further out in the small bay than before, the bottom unreachable by her tail.
For a second, he looked angry. There was light here. A lantern on a pole was shedding light on his beach.
“Wait!” He stood, shoving out his hand as if to catch her. “When do you walk on the land?”
She halted, put her hand to her heart to quieten the beats. “Why?” Then she told him anyway. She was still hoping. “In ten days’ time.”
“Go do what you have to do, then in ten days meet me at dusk at the beach in front of my house.” He pointed. “A bay like this. Blue roof on a two-story house. A sailboat and a dinghy are moored. A long hedge with white flowers sits between house and sea. Can you find it? Raffaela?”
Her name on his lips…she swallowed. “I can. I will be there. Why, though?”
Why. The crucial question and the answer might shame her. Would he walk with her? It was meant to be her last time on this earth. Her last walk.
“Well. Because I found out a new legend, I thought…” Wolfgang adjusted his glasses. It was sweet, the way he did that. “You see, I’ve been reading, scouring the records, looking for something that would help.” He wiped his