11 Home

Jake couldn't believe his eyes. There before them was a ruined village. Stretched on either side of an invisible lane were tumbledown remains of a dozen stone cottages. Some were intact, although non have roofs, others were little more than fragments of wall with a chimneystack, or a windowsill. A little way beyond these was a broken well covered with barnacles, and near that a tall stone cross. Fish swam in and out of open doorways and glassless windows. The gardens were thick with seagrass and anemones. Strangest of all, the stones and bricks were free from barnacles and algae, unlike the crusted rocks of the seabed around them.

Jake gasped in amazement.

Cal slipped off Skimmer and began to swim frantically from one building to the next.

"Where are they?" she cried. "Where have they gone?" Cal turned towards her own home, set apart from the rest, at the end of the village.

"No..." she groaned. "No!" With a swoop of her arms she raced towards the cottage. Skimmer and Jake followed. They caught her just as she reached the doorway. Cal stopped and sank to the sand.

"Father!" she screamed. The whole ocean seemed to shudder with her cry. Jake scrambled off Skimmer and dropped to his knees beside her.

"We're too late! They were here! The Bloodfin were here! No, no, no." She thumped her fists on the paving stones, then she began to beat them against her own own tail. "It's my fault. I could have warn them!" Jake took her hands and held them tight.

Skimmer twisted to and fro before the cottage in distress. Cal turned to him. "Is that why you didn't come before? Were you here, trying to save Father? Why didn't I see? If only you could have told me---"

Shaking with tears Cal swam slowly inside and Jake followed. The hallway was scattered with broken shell bowls and a pair of smash clay amphora. A tangle of kelp and seal pelts was strewn on the stairs.

"Why didn't I come here first? I could have saved him... I could have save them all!" She crumpled to the floor. Jake wanted to say something, but he felt lost for words. He sat down close beside her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm really sorry."

Cal threw herself on to his shoulder. She cried desperately. Jake held her tight. "It's my fault," she said at-last, rubbing her sore eyes. "It's my fault. If I'd been here... if I'd listen to his warning, it's my fault." She looked despairingly at Jake. His eyes answered with the words his voice couldn't find. Cal sank her head in her hands. Her copper hair hung like a shroud around her. Jake noticed the shimmer of silver running through it. He decided to leave her alone for a while.

Jake moved away through the house. He remembered how he'd been unable to wake Charley the morning the old man died. How he'd wanted to cry then, brimmed to burst with the feeling, but his eyes couldn't make tears. It was only later that afternoon, when he'd make off on the boat that the tears had come. A whole sea of them. He wouldn't have wanted anyone then.

Jake looked around. In this strange world it was oddly normal to be in a house, even though it was a roofless ruin, and yet nothing could be weirder. Curtains of olive light rippled down the stairwell. A pair of weever fish burst out of the soft mud at his feet and scooted off. In the nearest room many small objects lay on the flagstone floor and propped against the walls - a handbell, buckle, glass inkwell, even a barometer in a half-rotted frame, all arranged like precious possessions in a tiny museum. Jake guessed they must have been salvaged from wrecks. They were interspersed with heaped fragments of coloured shell, sea smooth glass and plaits of fishing twine. However, the other rooms were littering with broken things, mostly bottles and bowls. A twine curtain threaded with shells had been ripped from doorway and in the back room he found an upturned lobster basket amid a mess of urchins and oyster shells.

Jake climbed the staircase, stepping carefully over the slippery pelts that seemed to have been flung there. In the first room above, a large piece of timber had been placed beneath the window. On it was a collection of metal implements: a trowel and scraping tool, some large twisted nails. More were scattered on the floor. In the next room an earthenware jug lay smashed beside an old iron bedstead. Immediately Jake's eye were drawn to a wooden box beneath it. His heart missed a beat. It looked just like the box in his dream. He crouch down and begin to tug it from under the bed. Cal appeared at the doorway. "Oh!" she exclaimed. Jake jumped, embarrassed at being caught snooping. "Sorry. I was just curious," he said. But Cal wasn't looking at him. She picked up a handful of knotted twine from among the shards of broken jug. Had her father not even found the message she'd left for him? "What's that box?" Jake interrupted her thoughts. "It's mine," said Cal, distractedly. "Can I see it?"

Cal rubbed her eyes and threw the twine away. For a moment Jake thought she was going to cry again, but she swept the hair from her face and tugged out the box. Jake helped her heaved it up onto the bed. "It belong to my mother," said Cal. Her voice was small and shaky. "I don't know what's inside. There isn't a key. My father didn't know either but he said she wanted me to have it."

Cal remembered how she had pleaded with Pelin time and time again to break the small brass lock, but he had refused. She was pleased that Jake liked it. Jake was fascinated. He stroked the dark wood. Although it was a plain thing there was something compelling about it. How would the box from his dream be here, in his hands?

They were startled by a crash downstairs. Without thinking Jake ran across the room. Cal darted forward to pull him back but it was too late. He reached the landing. She shrank back against the wall. But, to her relief, Jake turned with a grin.

"It's alright. It's only a pair of lobsters - big brutes fighting!" he said. "They've knocked over that barometer." "I don't want to stay here any more," said Cal. "I want to be safe. I want to rest."

"Let's take the box with us," said Jake, hoping she wouldn't ask why. He had to get a look inside it. Cal hesitated. She was so miserable and exhausted that she didn't want to think about it. Wearily, she lifted the box from Jake's arms and led him silently out of the house. Jake followed Cal a short distance from the cottage to a small clearing in a crook of whit dunes. Without another word she set the box in the sand, lay down with her tail curled around it and fell fast asleep.

Jake settle beside her. He desperately wanted to try opening the box but he couldn't dare disturb her. He stared at the frown still creasing her forehead . Until that morning he'd been completely dependent on Cal in this underwater world; without her he'd be lost, hungry and probably soon dead. He'd relied on her knowing what to do. But suddenly, it seemed, things had changed. Cal was in trouble. She had no mother or father now. Her people were gone and even the sea was strange, so she said. She was strong all right, Jake could see that , but she'd been left so alone. No one was tougher than Lil, more able to take care of herself, but she'd always had Charley. She'd never lost everything, like Cal. He studied her domed forehead and her webbed pillow. Cal was tough, but maybe she would need him for a while. She'd looked out for him after all.

Somehow, whatever bound him to Cal felt like a sort of belonging. It felt good.

Jake gazed out at the water, which was growing dark. All around him creatures of the daylight search for the protection of caves and crevices while others, night feeders, emerged. Jake closed his eyes and listened to the chorus of squeaks and whistles that echoed across the seabed. "I'll look out for her," he said as he drifted off to sleep. "And tomorrow I'll try opening the box."