“I can help you,” he offered.
“I can never go back,” she repeated. “Not who I am now.”
It was said, Matthew noted, the Indian way: all statement of fact, all hard true reality, and not a sliver of self-pity or pretense.
“All right,” Matthew said, but he knew himself. And, for better or for worse, he never surrendered.
“We should start up,” Fancy told him. “Take in some breaths. Get ready. It is easy for me, but it may be difficult for you. I will hold your hand all the way.”
“Thank you.” Matthew thought this sounded like a casual stroll along the Great Dock, but he knew one usually did not perish on such a stroll, whereas in this instance perishing was a prominent possibility.
“Are you ready?” she asked in another moment.
The dreaded question, he thought. And the answer?
“As I’ll ever be,” he said, though the racing of his heart spoke otherwise.
She reached out for him and he gave her his left hand. “Stay close to me,” she directed. “We will pass through a doorway and a broken window and we will be out. Mind the glass at the bottom of the window.”
“I will.” If it hadn’t snagged him on the way in, he wasn’t concerned about it on the way out. And he was determined to be her second skin, within reason.
“Take a breath and let it go,” she said. He imagined he could see the gleam of her eyes as she stared at him. “Then take another breath and hold it. When you do that, we will start.”
Matthew nodded. Damn, this was some deep hell he’d gotten himself into. He was scared nearly beyond his wits from the memory of his lungs spasming on the edge of drowning. He wasn’t sure he had the strength or willpower to make this swim. His head still pounded and his nose sat on his face like a lump of hot tar. Was the damned thing broken? No time to fret about that now. He took the breath and let it go. He was afraid. But then he felt her hand squeeze his and he took the next breath—a deep breath, as deep as possible—and held it and instantly Fancy went under and pulled him with her. He let go his one-handed grip on the beam, and he was swimming alongside the Indian girl with terror thrumming through his veins.
He didn’t know when they went through the doorway, except his right shoulder hit a hard surface that shot fresh pain through him. God blast it! he thought as he held onto his air. Fancy pulled him onward with remarkable strength. She was indeed in her element, a daughter of the blue world. Did they pass through a broken window? Matthew wasn’t sure, for he could see nothing but blurs and smears. Maybe something caught at his stockings, though he wasn’t sure about that either. Then the light from above brightened and they were rising. Matthew had a blurred glimpse of what might have been the white stone seahorse, perched on a crooked roof. All around were the shapes of stone buildings, with alleys and streets between them. It appeared to Matthew in this blue haze that some were intact and others fallen to ruin either by the action of the sea or the violence of the earthquake. Then he could gather no more impressions for his lungs were aching and the surface was still thirty feet above.
She took him up, their hands locked together.
Perhaps it was a swift ascent. To Matthew, as he fought to control both his spasming lungs and the terror that chewed at him, it was the journey of night into day. Never had such a distance, which could easily be walked on land, seemed so far and so horrible. Ten feet below the surface, he lost nearly all his air in an explosion of bubbles that swept past his face in silver mockery. Then his lungs desired to pull in the seawater, and yet Matthew by force of will and fear of death kept the Atlantic from invading him, and two more kicks and the surface was right there in his face and his head was breaking the surface and the foamy slop of a wave almost drowned him in his moment of victory but he opened his mouth and drew in breath after breath and felt Fancy’s arms around him holding him up.
He pushed the hair back from his forehead and treaded water, his chest heaving. He looked up at the professor’s castle on the cliff above, and could clearly see the third floor library’s balcony and the ledge where one of the two stone seahorses had lately rested. The Thackers were long gone. If anyone else but Fancy had seen this assault, they had kept their lips sealed for there appeared to be no activity anywhere. It was just another sunny day in Fell’s paradise.
Here the waves were rough, as they surged toward the base of the cliffs. Matthew could see from this vantage point where part of the island had been sheared off. He recalled the professor saying My father was the governor here. It was likely that his father was indeed governor when the town—whatever its name had been—had collapsed into the sea.
“Follow me,” said Fancy, and she began to swim toward the cliffs not directly but at a forty-degree angle. Though weakened and certainly no champion in the water, Matthew followed as best he could. Fancy’s taut bottom breaking the surface and the glistening shine of her legs made following nearly a delightful obsession.
In time they reached a cove shielded from the breakers by a series of large rocks, and Fancy could stand in hip-high water. Matthew felt more rocks under his feet and walked carefully lest a surge of waves trapped and snapped an ankle; Fancy, however, knew the territory and forged onward like a true providence rider. A beach pebbled with black stones was ahead. On a rock in the shadows lay her clothing, neatly folded, and her shoes. As Fancy hurriedly dressed herself, Matthew staggered from the sea and fell to his knees in the grainy gray sand.
“You’re all right now,” she told him, as she buttoned the front of her rather tight-fitting lilac-colored gown.
“I know,” he answered, his face lowered. His head seemed to be full of crazy churchbells. “I’m just trying to…” He had to start again, for he was out of breath. “I’m just trying to make sure of it.”
She finished dressing and smoothed her gown before she spoke again, her black hair swept back and her face beautiful and austere. “You’re very brave.”
“Am I?”
“Certainly you are.”
“I think I’m mostly lucky.”
“I think,” she said, “you have earned the right to live another day.”
“At least,” he agreed, and he pulled himself up and got to his feet.
Her ebony eyes, full of pain and secrets, examined him from wet bottom to drenched top. “You won’t tell me who you are?”
“I can’t.”
“But you’re not one of them. Not really.”
“No,” he said, deciding she knew anyway. “Not one of them.”
“Then you’re here for a different reason than the others. I don’t understand why. Perhaps it would be best not to know?”
“Yes,” he answered, “that would be best.”
“Ah,” she said, and nodded; it was an expression that spoke volumes. Still she held him with her solemn gaze, as if reading not only his face but his soul. Then she motioned toward a rocky pathway several yards distant that led up the cliff to the highland. “It’s steep and a little dangerous, but that’s the only way.”
Steep and dangerous, Matthew thought. Was there any other way? He followed her when she started up, the water squishing in his belabored boots.
At the top, he realized the castle was hidden from view by a patch of forest. The road to Templeton surely wasn’t very far through the woods. He thought the sensible thing to do was go back to his room, collapse into bed, rest his aching noggin and possibly put a compress on his swollen nose.
But then, again, he wasn’t always sensible, and the sensible thing often did not make for advancement. Templeton was a few miles along the road. Berry was being held in the Templeton Inn. It was time for Nathan Spade to walk into town and see what might be seen. Possibly his clothes would be dry, in this heat, by the time he got there. If not, not. There probably was a physician in Templeton who might look at his beak. And who also might answer some questions about Professor Fell and the underwater town.