Next came Watch Point, both sandy and rocky. Here Pitiable picked out of the sand an ancient leather boot with a spur, which Probity tested with his jack knife to see if it might be silver. It was not, but he put it in his sack and poked around with his staff in the sand, in case it might be part of some buried hoard exposed by the storm, but again it was not.
Beyond Oyster Bay lay the Scaurs, two miles of tilted rocky promontories with inlets between, like the teeth of a broken comb, and beyond them black unscalable cliffs. The Scaurs were the best hunting ground, but slow work, full of crannies and fissures where trove might lodge. If Pitiable had been less sore from last night’s beating—lengthy and savage after Probity had been nine days cooped up by the storm—she might have enjoyed the search, the jumping and scrambling, and the bright sea-things that lurked in the countless pools. As it was, she searched numbly, dutifully, her mind filled with the dread of their homecoming, having found nothing. That failure would be made her fault, reason enough for another beating.
She searched the upper half of the beach and Probity the lower. They were about half way to the cliffs, and could already hear the screaming of the tens of thousands of gulls that nested there, when her way was blocked by the next jut of rock, a vertical wall too high for her to climb. She was hesitating to go shoreward or seaward to get past the barrier when she heard a new noise, a quick rush of water followed by a slithering, a mewling cry and a splash. After a short while the sounds were repeated in the same order. And again. And again.
They seemed to come from beyond the barrier to her right, so she turned left, looking for a place where she could climb and peer over without whatever was making them becoming aware of her. She came to a pile of rocks she could scramble up. The top of the barrier was rough but level. Crouching, she crept towards the sea and discovered a large, deep pool, formed by the main rock splitting apart and then becoming blocked at the seaward end by an immense slab, trapping into the cleft any wave that might be thrown that far up the shore. The seal at the top end wasn’t perfect, and enough water had drained away for the surface to be several feet down from the rim, leaving a pool about as wide as one of the fishing boats and twice as long, or more.
As Pitiable watched, the surface at the seaward end of the pool convulsed and something shot up in a burst of foam. She saw a dark head, a smooth, pale body, and a threshing silvery tail that drove the creature up the steep slope of the slab that held the pool in. A slim arm—not a leg or flipper but an arm like Pitiable’s own—reached and clutched, uselessly, well short of the rim, and then the thing slithered back with its thin despairing wail and splashed into the water. From what Mercy had told her of Charity Goodrich’s adventure, Pitiable understood at once what she had seen.
Amazed out of her numbness, she watched the creature try once more, and again, before she silently backed away and looked down the shore for her grandfather. He was standing near the water’s edge but gazing landward, looking for her, she guessed. She waved to him to come and he hurried towards her. She held her finger to her lips and made urgent gestures for silence with her other hand. By now he must have heard the sounds and understood that something living was concerned, which must not be alarmed, so he made his way round and climbed cautiously up the same way that she had. She pointed and he crept forward to peer into the pool.
She lost count of the cries and splashes while he stared, but when at length he backed away and turned she saw that his eyes were glistening with a new, excited light. He climbed down, helped her to follow, chalked his mark onto the rock and led her up the beach.
“The Lord has indeed provided,” he whispered. “Blessed be His name. Now you must stand guard while I fetch nets and men to bring this thing home. If anyone comes, you must tell them that the find is mine. See how excellent are His ways! This very week He brings the fair to town! Stay here. Do not go back up the rock. It must not see you.”
He strode off, walking like a younger man, picking his way easily across the broken rocks. Pitiable sat on a sea-worn slab and waited. She felt none of Probity’s excitement. She was now appalled at what she had done. Probity and his helpers would catch the sea-child and sell her—from what she had seen, Pitiable was almost sure it was a girl—sell her to the showmen at the fair. That in itself was dreadful. The People had no dealings with the fair that came each autumn. It was an occasion of frivolity and wickedness, they said. But now Probity was going to take the sea-child to them and haggle for a price. More than anything else, more than the ruined farm, more even than her own beatings, this made Pitiable see how much he had changed.
Obediently she sat and watched him go. When he came to Oyster Bay, he turned back, shading his eyes, so she stood and waved and he waved back and vanished into the dip, leaving her alone with the sea and the shore and the strange, sad cries from the pool. By now Pitiable was again too wrapped in her own misery to hear them as anything more than cries, as meaningless to her as the calling of the gulls. It struck her perhaps that Probity would perhaps not sell the sea-girl, but would join the fair, taking Pitiable with him, and show her himself. She would be dead by then, of course—in Charity Goodrich’s story the sea-people could not live long out of water—but people would pay money to see even a dead sea-child.
The cries and splashes stopped for a while. Probably the sea-child was resting for a fresh attempt, and yes, when it came the swirl of the water was stronger and the slap of the body against the rock was louder, and the wail as the child fell back yet more despairing than before—so lost, so hopeless, that this time Pitiable heard it for what it was, and when it came again she felt it was calling to her, to her alone, in a language she alone knew, the language of a child trapped in a pit of despair by things too powerful for her to overcome.
Weeping, she realised that she could not bear it.
She dried her eyes and rose and climbed back up to the pool. This time as she watched the sea-child’s desperate leapings she saw that there must be something wrong with the other arm, which dangled uselessly by the slim body as it shot from the water. Still, one arm should be enough, if Pitiable could lean far enough to reach it, so she made her way round to the sloping rock, knelt and craned over.
The sea-girl was on the point of leaping again. For a moment Pitiable gazed down at the wan, drawn face with its too-small mouth and its too-large dark eyes, but then the sea-girl twisted from her leap and plunged back below the surface, leaving nothing but the swirl of her going. Pitiable reached down, calling gently and kindly, telling the girl she wanted to help her, though they must hurry because her grandfather would soon be back. But the girl hid in the depths, invisible behind the sky-reflecting surface, and did not stir.
Pitiable stood up and looked along the Scaurs, but there was still no sign of Probity. He must have reached Home Beach by now, but perhaps the men there were too busy with their boats to listen to him. Well, she thought, though I cannot swim, if the girl will not come to me, I must go to her. At its shoreward end the pool narrowed almost to a slit, into which a few boulders had fallen and wedged, so she made her way round, sat down and took off all her clothes. Then she lowered herself into the slimy crack and, using the boulders for footholds, climbed down to the water.