Tide - By Daniela Sacerdoti Page 0,90

As if she had accepted what I just did.

She looked so scared, though. And her little hand went up towards me, once, but without much spirit, as if she knew I wasn’t going to take it.

Without spirit, yes. Even in death she was spineless.

Our eyes met and she was without reproach. Her gaze was sweet, resigned, which made me despise her even more – and still, those eyes will stay with me as long as I live. I watched Mairead throw herself back to float with her face skywards. Her little face was quite blue already, and I knew she’d die from the cold before she’d die drowning.

I am quite dead myself now. But I have to find a daughter for the family. She won’t have the dreams, but at least she’ll have witchcraft. Proper witchcraft, not Mairead’s little gentle games.

How was she ever born into our family?

When I walked in and I told them all – when I told them how I tried to save her – they looked at my dress, and they saw it was dry. Hamish accepted it. He couldn’t entirely blame me, anyway. Mairead was half his. Probably all his, given the way she had turned out. James, even at his young age, understood. But Stewart. Stewart hates me now, even more than before.

I foresee that this will dissolve our family. Another consequence of Mairead’s uselessness, I suppose. All I can do is wait until James is old enough to marry and see that he and his wife have the daughter I was supposed to have.

*

Slowly, deliberately, Sarah tore the letter to pieces, and piece by piece she put it into the fire.

The last memory of Mairead’s murder had been destroyed.

45

Broken Destiny

What they turned you into

Black embers

It was well after midnight when Nicholas came to find Sarah in her room, sitting beside the cold, black remains of the fire. She looked very small and very lost in the big, shadowy room. Then she turned her face to him, revealing her tear-streaked cheeks.

“What happened? A dream? Oh, Sarah.”

She let him put his arms around her, inhaling woodsmoke and soil, the Nicholas scent she’d come to know so well.

“It wasn’t a dream,” she told him quietly. “I read the last letter. Morag Midnight was a monster. And so was my father. And so am I!”

“What? Slow down! What letter?”

“The final letter. Yes. She … my grandmother …” Sarah covered her face with her hands.

“It’s OK. It’s OK.”

“It’s not OK! She murdered Mairead! It was she who killed her! And my father knew! They all knew!”

“She killed her own daughter? Why?”

“Because Mairead couldn’t cope with the dreams. She wasn’t strong enough. She took her to the sea and threw her in. And Mairead was …resigned. She accepted it, in a way, if you believe what Morag wrote. She wanted it!”

“You told me she was only thirteen. A thirteen-year-old child doesn’t want to die!”

“She must have been made to feel that way. Can you imagine? She knew she was a disappointment.” Sarah’s voice broke.

Nicholas held her close. Was this a chance he needed to take? He didn’t want to use the mind-moulding on her again, but he wanted to make her feel better, and he didn’t know how. In desperation, he cast his numbing fog around her again, cradling her in his arms, watching as it took the edge off her thoughts, softening her pain.

“Shhhh. It was long ago. It was so long ago, and you can forget it now,” he soothed.

Sarah closed her eyes. “I can’t. I’m just like them.”

“No, you aren’t. It ends here, Sarah. The misery that was handed down to you. You don’t need to hand it down to your children. Although their blood is in your veins, you’re your own person. You can choose who you are.”

Nicholas’s hypnotic voice was calming her, bit by bit, as it had done so often. She felt the familiar dizziness taking her, weakening her.

“Do you hear me, Sarah? You don’t need to be like them.”

“That’s what Winter told me,” Sarah murmured into his chest, confused. She wrapped her arms round him.

“You can choose who you want to be.” Nicholas repeated his mantra over and over, his hold on her strengthening.

You need me too, she thought suddenly, the notion piercing the blanket of sleepiness that he brought with him. She frowned, surprised. He was comforting her, not the opposite, so why was she feeling this way, that she was somehow supporting him, that for once he was the vulnerable