Tide - By Daniela Sacerdoti Page 0,67

small girl standing on the watermark, wrapped in her red coat and scarf, holding her grandmother’s hand. It had been the day before Morag died, when they’d walked on the beach together.

Sarah shook her head slightly, trying to clear her thoughts, but the feeble memory was gone, too insubstantial to be held long enough to know what it meant. Sarah frowned.

The candle swayed violently from the draught that seeped through the window and threatened to engulf the curtain. Sarah jerked the flame away from the fabric as quickly as she could. When her eyes moved from the candle to the room again, she gasped. The hall had somehow turned into a blackened shell, covered in debris and ashes. Her feet felt wet, and she looked down to see that she was standing ankle-deep in Blackwater. The curtains beside her were now threadbare and frayed, crumbling to ash. Sarah panted, breathless and dizzy from the sudden vision. She blinked hard several times, and the vision was gone.

She stood under the impossibly high ceiling, the stag head looking on with its glassy, indifferent eyes, trying to steady her heart – she’d seen the whole place burnt down and destroyed. Was that a vision of what would have happened had she not moved the candle as quickly as she had? Or was it of something still to happen? It wouldn’t be the first time a vision came to her when she was awake, and with her dreams having disappeared, maybe her gift had found a way to tell her what she needed to know.

What she needed now, for sure, was some tea to steady her nerves. She looked at her watch, twenty past three in the morning. She turned her back to the stag head and its staring eyes, and stepped out of the grand hall, pulling the thick door closed behind her. She stopped for a moment, trying to catch her still ragged breath.

She turned left on her way to the kitchen, considering how frozen her feet were, but something made her stop in front of her grandmother’s study. She hesitated for a second, and lifted her free hand to feel her butterfly earring dreamily – then, on impulse, she opened the door and stepped in.

She inhaled the scent of old books and damp that had always been the signature of that room. The candlelight illuminated the enormous bookshelves and the dark wooden desk at the farthest corner, where Sarah had found the letters. A painting of wild horses hung over the desk. Sarah’s eyes lingered on it. She walked on slowly, holding the candle so that its light would fall on the painting. The elusive memory that had visited her in the grand hall came back, shimmering faintly and disappearing, then reappearing for a second and fading again.

It’s important. Remember.

Sarah jumped out of her skin. The words had resounded in her mind as clearly as if they’d been spoken aloud. The hand holding the candle was trembling now.

“Can’t sleep?”

Sarah jumped again, turning around with a gasp. Nicholas’s tall, muscular body was framed in the doorway.

“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you,” he said, advancing towards her. He slipped his hands under her jumper, feeling the skin on her shoulders. Sarah fixed her eyes on his obsidian ones.

“I woke up and you were gone,” he said.

“Sorry. I just wanted to have some time alone … with the house. If that makes sense.” She smiled apologetically.

“Am I interfering? Ruining your moment with the house?” He smiled back, his voice soft and dark.

“No, of course not,” she began, but his lips were on hers and she couldn’t speak anymore.

Remember. It’s important.

But her thoughts were unravelling already.

32

Runes

Take all I have

And when there’s nothing left for me to give

I’ll give you more

Because

He isn’t you

Sean

So this is the day after the night before. After realizing that Nicholas was sleeping in Sarah’s room, I wasted the rest of last night feeling sorry for myself.

Today Elodie asked me to teach her to trace the runes, and to my surprise, Sarah joined us. We spent all afternoon practising in the living room, with Sarah and I resolutely avoided meeting each other’s gaze. And with Nicholas looking on. Awkward doesn’t even begin to describe the atmosphere in the room. But the runes may serve Sarah and Elodie well. We can’t be distracted by our feelings.

However, it doesn’t help that Sarah’s hair is loose down her back and she’s wearing the blue top I love, the one that shows her shoulders. She