Down, down, down . . .
Down into the freezing, dark water, choking and gasping, mouth and nose and ears full of water, lungs screaming for air, arms and legs flailing, pressure of water and weight of clothes pulling one down still further, the accelerated thump of one's heart-beat—
God! Dear God! I didn't want to die! I went on struggling, not even sure which way was up and which down. Suddenly my head broke through to the surface and I took a great gasp of air, a draught sweeter than any I had ever tasted. Then once more I was beneath the waves, struggling to reach the surface again: another gasp of air and then back, drowning a little more each time, my clothes growing heavier and heavier as I tried vainly to tear them off. I started to pray, hopelessly, then I heard God answer me, a tiny voice in my ear, a voice that transcended even the bubble and pop of water that clouded my hearing.
"Stretch out your hand," said the voice. "And hang on tight!"
The power of prayer! Like a trusting child I did as I was told and found I was grasping a chair-leg. A chair? Out here? I was dead, or dying, or at best hallucinating. I stretched out my other hand and found another leg. A chair, or perhaps a table. Well whatever it was, it was keeping my head above water and I was no longer gasping for breath. Moving forward I got my elbow over the seat of the chair, or the top of the table, whichever it was, only to find that it immediately overturned, and I had to start all over again, having luckily kept a hand on one of the legs—
"Steady on, Miss Sophy!" said Ky-Lin. "I haven't quite got the hang of this yet!"
"Ky-Lin!" I gasped, on a gulp of water. "How on earth did you get here? I thought you were . . ."
"Something else?"
"I thought—I thought you were a chair, or a table." I couldn't tell him about God. "Is it really you? You're all stiff and—and wooden."
"How else could I support you in the water? I'm the wrong shape for a lifebelt . . . Sorry I was so long in changing, but I haven't tried this before. I knew I could change into different materials, I knew I could grow larger or smaller, but I didn't know whether I could combine the two at once. Apparently I can. One lives and learns . . . Which reminds me, if you want to live, because we are getting nowhere right now and you are getting colder and colder, I think we need some outside help. Besides which I think I am getting water-logged. Wrong wood, obviously. Please twist the Ring on your finger and ask for help."
"How? What help?"
"Just do it. We need swimmers, because Ky-Lins don't swim. Come on, before you freeze to death and I forget how to turn back again . . ."
So I moved my hands together on one of Ky-Lin's wooden legs and turned the Ring, with some difficulty because my hands were freezing and swollen. "Help us," I murmured. "We can't swim. Please help us . . ."
At the same time I heard Ky-Lin give half-a-dozen shrill, burbling whistles. I waited for a moment. "What's supposed to happen?"
"Just wait . . ."
It could have been five minutes, it could have been longer and my legs had gone numb and it had started to rain, when the choppy waves around us grew even more disturbed and suddenly we were surrounded by surging bodies and a high-pitched whistling such as Ky-Lin had produced.
"Good," said Ky-Lin. "They heard us . . ."
It was the dolphins, and within seconds I was borne up on one of the backs and surrounded by the others, the air thick with talk I could understand through the Ring.
"Bear her up, brother, she can't swim . . . poor girl, we must help . . . we heard the Ring . . . cannot stand the cold . . . mustn't sink . . . can't catch the ship . . . nearest land . . . the sacred one is with her, keep them together . . ."
I was clinging, spreadeagled, across a hard, thick-skinned back, and rolling up and down on the surface—not always, for sometimes my water steed darted a few feet below the surface, to rise again a few seconds later—but at last feeling safe. It seemed easier, too, to try and ride the back of the dolphin as I would a horse; at least that way I kept my mouth above water most of the time. My ride wasn't helped by the fact that that the other dolphins kept close order, sometimes jostling each other in an affectionate, boisterous way.
But where was Ky-Lin? For a moment I panicked, then there was a small voice in my ear.
"Safe and sound. Don't worry: we are being taken to the nearest land where we will wait for rescue. Toby will have alerted the captain to you going overboard, but in this storm he would be powerless to turn the ship to search for you. But the lad knows I am with you, so he won't be unduly worried."
Perhaps a half-hour later the dolphins' ceaseless chatter, and the rhythm of the waves, both changed. The sea became choppier and shallower and by the occasional light of a moon that appeared to be racing the clouds I could see a darker blur to my left. The dolphins stepped up their commentary among themselves.
"Coming in to land . . . a little to the left . . . watch the rocks . . . run them up onto the sand . . . gently does it . . . she'll feel heavier as we lose way . . . touch down!"
My watersteed grounded gently on a stretch of sand and then wriggled up higher so that I could step off dry-footed—my slippers had long gone—and I turned to face my rescuers, now sliding back into the sea. I knew that if I could understand them through my life-giving, life-saving Ring, then they would understand me as well.
"My friends," I said, standing as tall as I could in spite of the shivers and shakes of cold and exhaustion, "I and my friend Ky-Lin thank you for coming to our rescue. We shall be forever grateful!"
"Grateful . . . grateful . . ." I heard. "The human is grateful . . . we are grateful too . . . do not often have the chance . . . most do not understand . . . one day we will speak together without the use of Rings . . . we will teach humans how to communicate . . . we will have the art of healing . . . give us the human children . . . they will understand . . ."
"I hope that will be soon," I said sincerely. Walking forward into the surf I laid my cheek in turn against the forehead of each dolphin. "Bless you, my friends . . ."
One by one they slipped back into the sea, their bottle-shaped snouts bobbing up and down in a kind of farewell. When they had gone I stumbled back onto the sand and sat down suddenly, thoroughly exhausted, feeling as though I couldn't walk another step.
Ky-Lin came up behind me and nuzzled my shoulder. He was now back to his "living" self, but pony-sized still. "Come on, let's get you off to sleep. We can't do any more till morning."
I allowed him to lead me back amongst some trees, away from the rain, and tuck me up in the shelter of an overhanging rock, after insisting that I discard all my clothes apart from my shift and hang them on an overhanging branch. I was now even colder than ever, my teeth were chattering and I was shivering, but Ky-Lin lay down beside me, and with my back against his stomach, I began to respond to the warmth of his body.
He shifted a little. "Turn your face towards me for a moment . . ."
"Why?"
"Sleepy-Dust."
I turned my head obediently and he breathed into my face and nostrils a scent like that of sandalwood boxes in the sunshine . . .
When I awoke, after a night and half a day of dreamless sleep, I found myself lying on the beach, both warm and dry. The sun was high in the sky, interrupted by a few fluffy clouds, and the breeze came warm from the south. One could not have believed the storm of the night before, except for the debris I now saw cast up on the shoreline. And amongst all this debris was an industrious Ky-Lin, sorting out pieces of jetsam.
He looked up. "Feeling better? I thought you would be better in the sunshine so I rolled you down here. Come and give us a hand: we need some dry wood for a fire."
Between us we built a small cone-shaped heap of kindling, at the base dried moss and strips of birch-bark. I sat back on my heels.
"How do we light it? I haven't any vestas."
"The way your ancestors did, of course." He gave me two differently shaped stones. "Strike these together till you get a spark, and hold it near the moss. When it catches, blow it into a flame."
But I was hopeless; if I got a flame, it wouldn't catch. In the end Ky-Lin sat on his haunches beside me, forbade me to blow, and got the fire going almost on his own. Anyway, it was soon blazing away merrily upon which we had to gather damp seaweed so that it would give off smoke as a signal.
"What if nobody sees it? What if nobody comes? What if they think I am dead?"
"Oh, they'll come," he said confidently. "This may be a deserted islet with no water, but there is far more traffic across than there used to be all those years ago when the pirates fought here and people called it the Accursed Isle."
"Accursed? Then no-one will come, and if they do they won't pick me up!"
"Course they will! You've only got to run down to the beach in your shift waving your petticoat and they'll be queueing up to take us off!"
"How do you know about the pirates?"
"I'll show you." He led me across the islet to a small cave, and there were the skeletons of two men, two swords and a dagger.
"Obviously they fought, over what I do not know, and both died." said Ky-Lin. "But this place is so seldom visited that no-one bothered to bury them."
"Then let's do it now," I said, and I found a thick fallen branch to loosen the earth while Ky-Lin's hooves moved so fast I could hardly see them as he shovelled out a shallow grave. I had thought I would not wish to touch the bones, but when it came to it, it was no different than shifting a bundle of sticks: blessedly, something inside of me had rendered me numb to the revulsion I had thought to feel.
Once the earth covered them I stuck the swords and dagger in the earth beside. "Shouldn't we say a prayer?"
Ky-Lin nodded. "I shall pray that they may find a better way next time, and you that their sins be forgiven and that they gain eternal rest. Strange, we both wish them well, but in different ways."
We stood silent for a moment, then I asked Ky-Lin how he knew the island was called "accursed."
"Places tell you things," he said. "Stones, rocks, caves, houses can retain an image, a feel, of any unusual action. Some of you humans seem to have a stronger feeling for this: they can sense at once when they enter a house whether it has had a sad or happy past." I nodded: I knew what he meant; my mother used to call it "atmosphere," and I knew now that Hightop Hall had a good one, whatever its past.
As turned to go back I stubbed my toe. "Damn! Er . . . Sorry, Ky-Lin. An echo of Toby, I guess."
He nodded. "Do not forget the boy knew nothing better before. You do. But that must have hurt. Let me see? Ah, a little touch with my horn—so—and it is better." Poking about with a hoof, he unearthed a pouch of shrivelled and dessicated leather. "Open it up, Miss Sophy."
I wrenched apart the stiff ties and tipped the contents out onto the ground. "Pearls? But what strange colours . . ."
Ky-Lin examined them, his forked tongue flickering rapidly over each one. "Fifty. All genuine. All beautiful." He examined the pouch. "And they have not been here that long: perhaps twenty years. So this is not what those two were fighting over. Probably someone hid them where he thought no-one would search."
"How do you know—the number of years? And why are they such funny colours? Look: black, pink, yellow, a sort of green . . ."
"I know the years through the decay of the leather they are in, and also because the colours have not faded: they tend to fade with exposure and age. The colours? These are very rare, precisely because of that very thing. They will fetch good prices. Put them back into the pouch until we can find something safer to carry them in."
"We're—we're not going to keep them?" I said, scandalised.
"Why not?"
"Because . . . because they don't belong to us. The person who put them there will come back for them one day."
"Unlikely after all this time. Besides, I have felt them, and there is no sense of ownership. They are like goods laid out on a stall, waiting to be bought. You are very lucky."
I didn't understand how he knew all this, but then there were a lot of things about Ky-Lin I didn't understand . . .
We trudged back towards the beach, and by now I was feeling distinctly hungry and thirsty, but Ky-Lin pointed out a scoop of rock that held a cupful of rain water, so at least I slaked my thirst. My clothes were damp-dry, so I dressed as well as I could in the crumpled, salt-stained garments. I was just fastening the buttons on my blouse when there came a shout from the direction of the beach. I snatched up my shawl and prepared to run, but there was a hiss from Ky-Lin.
"Wait for me! And do up those buttons . . ."
He was rapidly shrinking before my gaze, and a few seconds later was back to his figurine self, which I picked up and put in my pocket.
"Sorry . . ." I prepared to run again.
"You've forgotten the pearls . . . And when you get to the beach, stagger about as if you are on your last legs. I'll do the interpreting: just keep your face turned away."
I did as I was told, trod falteringly towards the fire, which was still belching smoke, and sank to my knees, shading my eyes and staring out to sea in the best "Robinson Crusoe" tradition.
"Don't over-do it," muttered Ky-Lin. "On the other hand they are only simple fishermen, so your histrionics are probably appreciated . . ."
There was much excited jabbering from the boat, about two hundred yards from the shore. I stood up and waved: they waved back. No-one made a move to come nearer and I realised, without Ky-Lin's prompting, that they were superstitious about landing on the islet and also, thanks to the dolphins, I remembered there were rocks close inshore. So I kicked sand over the fire to put it out, and then waded into the sea.
Immediately two men jumped into the shallows and waded to meet me, and in a minute or two I was hauled aboard, showing a deal more leg than I would have wished, to lie on the bottom boards of a boat that stank of fish. Not that I cared: at least I was safe, and by the time Ky-Lin had spoken through me, explaining my dramatic escape from drowning and the dolphins help in guiding me to dry land, everyone's mouths were open in admiration.
I was given bread and cheese, which I wolfed down, and chicory coffee which they brewed on a small brazier on deck. I thought-asked Ky-Lin whether they would take us to harbour and he said they would for a large bribe, which was the way they did things here, and that they had had a poor catch because of last night's storm.
"Promise them what they want, I just want to get to dry land and see the others again . . ."
Dusk was falling as we approached the harbour where I should have docked early this morning, and as we chugged towards land I could see the quayside was lined with people. We were followed by the scream of the gulls chasing our boat, as they did with all fishing boats, and in their exuberance my fisher-folk flung their meagre catch overboard to feathered appreciation.
Once we docked and I was helped up the steps to the quayside, I was met by Toby, Claude and Danny, who hugged and kissed me in a very satisfactory manner. It appeared they had at last persuaded the captain of the ferry to turn back to look for me, but of course he had been unsuccessful. It also meant that they had only docked some two hours earlier, and since then they had tried to persuade a flotilla of boats to go out looking for me.
"Only we didn't have the lingo," explained Toby. "Reminds me: you got you-know-who?"
"In my pocket," I said. "Hush . . ."
Toby had rescued my money-belt from the cabin, so it was easy to pay the fishermen well, and we left them recounting my rescue to the rest of the the townsfolk, doubtless to the accompaniment of free hospitality for many days to come. We found a comfortable hotel where I luxuriated in masses of hot water to wash the salt from my hair and skin, sending my clothes out for laundering.
We took a table downstairs for supper, away from other diners, where we enjoyed kebabs with a fruity red wine, followed by sticky pastries and coffee. I felt we needed a celebration, especially since I now held the secret of the pearls.
I suddenly remembered something important.
"What happened to Mr. McCall?"
The others glanced at one another. "He skipped ship as soon as we docked," said Danny. "Last seen heading for the back streets, sans luggage."
"We tried to hang on to him," said Claude. "But no-one would listen."
Toby thumped his fist on the table. "I knew he was no good from the beginning!"
"All right!" I interrupted. "I should have listened to you all."
"Don't blame yourself, Sophy," said Claude, going pink. "You couldn't have known." He patted my hand.
"We understand," nodded Danny. "Sure we do. Slimy feller like that . . . Takes experience to recognise that sort."
I hid a smile.
I had told the others that the dolphins had guided me to safety, and I hoped the townsfolk would now be more tolerant towards them, but I brought Toby more fully up to date later.
"And Toby," I finished, "just stop me from doing anything foolish like that again!"
Two days later, fully recovered and freshly kitted out, we joined a caravan of travellers moving east. I knew we were starting the second, more wild stage of our journey by Ky-Lin's reminder the day before.
"Time to buy that cooking-pot, I think . . ."