“I’m fine,” she called to him, anticipating the question.
He nodded, still silent.
Sarah could sense his fear. An invisible hand squeezed her heart. “Really, Sean. I am,” she said, softer this time.
Sean rose slowly and walked towards the bed. Nicholas, his head bowed, didn’t move an inch. Sarah stretched out her hand to Sean, and when he took it, she drew him closer. Nicholas was forced to step aside as Sean sank onto the bed.
He looked ghastly. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“No way. Not for a stupid bird, anyway.” She laughed briefly, her breath catching at the pain in her side.
Sean smiled wanly.
“How did you know what was happening? Was it Winter who called you? Some sort of sea call or something? A power she didn’t tell us about?”
Sean smiled, more broadly this time. “Sort of,” he said. “It was a mobile phone. She called me.”
Sarah laughed weakly despite herself.
“Winter asked me to give you this,” Sean added, handing her a rolled up piece of paper he was holding. “She said that you had been looking for it.”
It was the missing letter. Sarah clutched it as a thought darted through her mind: Where had Nicholas been when she’d needed him?
43
A Child in the Water
In between two worlds
In between two bodies
One whole me
Winter saw her hair floating on the waves: the Midnight child, the blonde, quiet little girl she had played with so many times. She dived at once and swam towards her as quickly as she could. The water was freezing. In her human form Winter felt the cold on her skin, a million tiny needles piercing her. It was unbearable, but she knew that if she changed, she wouldn’t have arms to hold Mairead with, so she tried to endure it. The cold took her breath away. She thought her heart would stop. After a few seconds she just couldn’t take it anymore, she couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t move. She willed herself to keep going, and she did, though pain ripped through her chest and black sparks danced before her eyes.
Winter had no time to ask herself what had happened for Mairead to be floating in the frozen sea, but she knew that whatever tragedy had befallen the little girl, it was a long time coming. She had sat beside Mairead on the beach many times, basking in the moonlight the way her father used to do. She had heard Mairead crying and calling in despair after her dreams, and nobody comforting her.
At last Winter was there, so close to Mairead that she could entangle her fingers in her hair, pale strands twisted around her human hands. She tried holding the little girl in every way she could – by the arms, by the chest, by the head – but she was just a little girl herself.
Finally the cold and distress had the best of Winter. Her breath faltered and her body started turning by itself. She had no way to stop the transformation. She kept swimming around Mairead in a circle, begging her with her seal eyes to hold onto her. Winter had no more power of speech, no arms, and her skin was slippery, but she could have helped her. Mairead could have held on, had she wanted to.
She didn’t.
Winter caught her eyes for a second, those green eyes, her wet eyelashes – from tears or seawater, Winter couldn’t tell – and they were far gone, somewhere else already. She watched the girl sinking slowly. She watched the black sky, the black waters, the faint glow of the lighthouse beam moving slowly on their stretch of sea, from east to west, from west to east, until there was no more blonde hair left to illuminate. When it was finished, Winter pushed her body back to shore for her mother and father to find. Then she looked for a lonely place among the sea rocks, to cry and mourn in peace the girl she couldn’t save.
Winter’s mother had always told her, since she was a little girl, to keep her real nature a secret. Nobody would understand, she’d said. The other children from the island would be scared, even if stories about creatures like her have been told here since the beginning of time. Selkies.
But most of all, she had to keep her nature a secret from the Midnights, her mother always admonished her. And Winter managed to do that, even though she used to play with Mairead all the time, and even though she was