Tide - By Daniela Sacerdoti Page 0,68

might as well be carving the runes into my heart.

“Right. Try this. It’s the most basic one.” I guide Elodie’s hand, tracing a simple rune.

They’re eager learners, especially Sarah – Elodie takes a little longer. Still, it doesn’t come easily to either of the girls. It’s strange for me to see, really. I never found the runes that difficult. I’m surprised to see how slow, how weak other people can be when they trace them. Even two powerful heirs like Sarah and Elodie. Maybe it’s because they just started and they need practice. Still, even the most basic ones seem challenging.

“No. Look. That won’t work. You need to be more focused.”

Elodie is getting frustrated. “You make it seem so easy!”

“It is easy! It is to me, at least.”

“To you, yes. Harry always said your use of the runes was incredible.”

I shrug. “Maybe. But you can learn, too, like I did.”

Elodie crosses her arms. “We’re useless, let’s face it.”

“Hey, speak for yourself. Look.” Sarah repeats the basic rune. The knife flies out of her hand, making a graceful arc across the room and wedging itself into the wooden floor.

“Duck!” laughs Nicholas.

“Ha ha.” Sarah walks over to where the knife fell, her heels clacking on the floor.

“Useless, like I said. How do you do it, Sean?” says Elodie.

“I don’t know. All you need to do is learn the different signs, really. Harry taught me, I can teach you.”

“Harry wasn’t as good as you, though. Remember Takeo Ayanami? He was so in awe of you when he saw you sending people to sleep with your runes.”

“Nonsense. It’s like playing an instrument. You have to practise, that’s all,” I insist.

“I play an instrument,” Sarah says. “I know what practice can do. But I still don’t get this. It’s as if I asked you to use the Blackwater. It won’t work.”

“It’s not like the Blackwater. The Blackwater is a power, like Niall’s song or Elodie’s poison. This is a skill.” I stress the word.

“So you keep telling us!” laughs Elodie.

“Maybe if you say ‘skill’ often enough, we’ll get it!” echoes Sarah.

“And what about the red ribbons?” Elodie waves her fingers in the air. “The ones that appeared when the soil demons attacked us?”

“That’s not supposed to happen. No idea what it was, or whether it’ll happen again. Right, lesson over, pupils dismissed.”

Niall has come into the living room and is leaning against the fireplace, his arms crossed. I see him look at me in a way that unnerves me, with eyes that see all the way into my soul. I’ve watched him and he does it with everybody. It’s disquieting.

“Did your parents have any powers, Sean?” he asks me in his thick Irish accent.

“No. Well, not that I know of.” I shrug.

“Right,” he says, looking at me with that strange, watery gaze he has, as if he were looking straight into the sea.

33

Adrift

If we pretend, it’s good enough for me

The illusion we create

Instead of what it is

“I don’t know what half of this stuff is. Chestnuts?” Sean shrugged.

Sean, Mike and Niall were in the kitchen helping Sarah survey the food Mrs McArthur had provided. She needed to make sure they had everything for a proper Christmas dinner, with a turkey and all the trimmings. They had tried to argue with her that it was surreal to go to all the trouble of making a traditional Christmas meal when they could be attacked any minute, but Sarah put her foot down. This was her house. She was going to cook, and she was going to have a proper festive celebration.

There was something desperate about her determination. Sean knew how upset she was, how she was trying to cling to a semblance of normal life. Her first Christmas without her parents. Maybe this would help her think of her aunt Juliet a bit less … and of her cousins, Sally and Siobhan, left motherless. All because Anne had married a Midnight. And because Sarah couldn’t defend her.

They had been over the same ground again and again, and Sarah was adamant. They would celebrate Christmas. They were alive, and together. In some warped way, it made sense.

“You don’t know what chestnuts are?” laughed Mike, looking up at Sean from the potatoes he was stacking.

“I do know what chestnuts are. I just don’t know what you do with them!” Sean protested.

“You make stuffing. For the turkey. Oh, thank goodness – chipolatas! She hasn’t forgotten.” Sarah had her head in the freezer, little icy clouds wafting from its drawers.

“Thank goodness!”