Mummy back too."

"Why, Daddy?" She sobbed brokenly, "Why does leaving hurt so much?"

"I know, baby," he soothed. "It hurts when the ones you love aren't there anymore."

Marien sprang to mind, unbidden. How his heart ached for her—how the poor child's heart must be breaking right now!

"Madi," he said softly. "We need to go back to the cottage."

She shook her head. "No!" She whimpered. "Wanna stay! Gotta wait for Celian!"

"Madi, the clouds are gathering, it's going to get cold—"

"But what if he does come back?" She interrupted him. "What if he comes back and we're not here? He has no clothes, Daddy!"

Dr. Grove felt his heart overflow with sympathy for his child. He dared not voice the objection that Celian might not come back as a human at all.

"I will tell you what, Mads," he said, pulling forth the box of clothing they had just purchased for Celian. "We can leave a suit of clothes hidden in the cliffs, somewhere he can grab them. If he comes back, he can find them and dress himself." He nearly offered the "if not" option, but cut himself short. There didn't need to be an "if not" in this circumstance.

The suggestion seemed to make Madi feel better. "All right. I know just where we can leave them."

Madi led her father down to the foot of the cliffs, showing him a small cove she and Celian had discovered. She set the clothes on a ledge well out of reach of the tide, but close enough to be within his reach.

"Come back to us," she whispered as she left them behind.

Dr. Grove and Madi returned to the little cottage for a silent, sober meal. Madi spent the rest of the afternoon at the little window at the top of the stairwell, watching the tide roll in and out, hoping and waiting for the friend who might never return.

Chapter 9

Thud, thud, thud.

Ash pried his eyes open. He'd been dreaming about Marien, her laugh and the lilt in her voice when she talked. He clung to the memory of her tousled brown hair blowing around her face, her twinkling blue eyes and the wide smile. Suddenly in the dream, a Leonie sprang out of the surf and wrapped its tentacles around her. Marien's hand slipped out of his, and she vanished into the water. Suddenly, Ash was the Leonie, watching his wife still grinning at him as they both sank deeper and deeper in the ocean. The sharp reports sounded in the dream like gunshots over the water. Ash regained consciousness with a deep gasp like a drowning man rescued.

Thud, thud.

He glanced toward the noise. One of the shutters on the window had come loose, and now struck the windowsill in the breeze. Dr. Grove wearily rolled out of bed and fastened the shutter open again. Awake now, he decided to see if Madi had woken yet, on his way downstairs.

Between their bedrooms, his eye caught a lump of quilts at the little window overlooking the beach. He paused. Madi lay with her face to the pane, still fast asleep. Why had she chosen such a strange and uncomfortable place to sleep?

Celian... Ash sighed as he remembered the events of the previous day. Madi had come to this very spot after supper, watching till night fell. He had requested that she go to bed, but by all appearances, she had risen at first light to resume her watch till her poor eyes gave out. He decided to let her sleep. She had grown remarkably attached to the strange man, in such a short time. He wondered what they could have talked about that would influence her so deeply. Surely talking of Marien with someone who did not know what it was like to have a human mother could not have affected her so—could it? Ash had the distinct impression that, for a holiday intended to getting to know his daughter better, he was only just beginning to understand the sort of person she was.

He almost reached for her shoulder to prod her awake, but abandoned that idea before his fingers touched her. Instead, he crept quietly downstairs to turn on the kettle and brew some tea.

By the time it finished brewing, Ash heard a small noise and turned to see the front door just closing behind someone. He poured the tea into two mugs and prepared one according to his daughter's taste.

As expected, he found her wrapped in a quilt, looking quite groggy but wholly unwilling to tear her eyes away from the little bit of shoreline she could see. He offered Madi the mug and sat silently beside her.

She took a small sip.

"He probably won't be back for a long while," Ash offered, kindly leaving off the part, "if he comes back at all."

"But he is going to come back." She wasn't asking him. "I can feel it."

Ash felt his professional, rational, physician side rolling to the surface, up through his chest and toward his mouth. How many times would he need to reiterate how faulty mere "feelings" were most of the time?

Yet something within him—the still, small voice that sounded like Marien whispering in his ear all the time—softly warned, "Don't." Now was not the time to push her into adulthood; now was the time to listen to the child.

Instead, Ash decided to ask, "How does he make you feel?"

Madi took another sip, and her lips trembled. "He knows, you know; he told me he'd gotten some of my memories when he became human. He knows me, even if he doesn't quite know about human emotions and our way of explaining things and the way we talk about things—or don't talk about them." She raised hopeful eyes to her father's face. "Can... Can we talk, Dad?"

Ash wrapped his arms around his little girl. "I would love nothing more, Madi—but right now, we have an obligation."

Madi's face fell. "The store," she guessed.

Ash nodded. "Celian made quite a mess, and it would be unfair

Добавить отзыв
ВСЕ ОТЗЫВЫ О КНИГЕ В ИЗБРАННОЕ

0

Вы можете отметить интересные вам фрагменты текста, которые будут доступны по уникальной ссылке в адресной строке браузера.

Отметить Добавить цитату