‘I saw no tears in the water!’ Miss Smith spat back, her voice harsh and unfeeling.
‘You’re heartless,’ Commander Denham told her.
‘So what? I don’t care! I could listen to that thing down there make its sound every moment of every day and be unmoved. I rejoice that such a song can sing the British navy to its watery death – every last, miserable sailor.’
‘Please let me go,’ Marina begged. ‘You’re hurt—’
‘Yes, I’ll let you go. You’re no use to me if you won’t sing.’
‘But I don’t know how!’
‘Don’t know the song?’ Miss Smith’s eyes flashed with contempt. ‘Little coward. You can learn the words down there!’
A sharp pain between Marina’s shoulder blades. She fell towards the black water. She saw her father’s anguish, saw him reach out to her. She lost her balance, couldn’t right herself. A woman’s laugh cascaded over her but was immediately shut out by the rush of ice-cold water.
31
Falling through the black depths of the water, Marina understood.
Her father was not the enemy. It was Miss Smith. She was the spy, the traitor working in the Admiralty. She had found out about a secret sonar transmitter. Her father had tried to hide its existence, but Miss Smith had found the fatal transmitter, planned to use it against the British navy in the coming war.
And Miss Smith had thought that Marina, too, could be such a transmitter . . . She had wanted to imprison her, torture her, force her to sing.
Marina looked up. Her father’s face floated above her, his hand outstretched. She thought he might be calling her name, but the water blurred his voice. She didn’t like to think of him being upset, but the water was so soft, like the most comfortable hammock, that she didn’t think she could make the effort to climb back out. She smiled up at him, but he couldn’t have seen, because he was shouting, pulling off his boots as if he would jump in after her. Trenchard dragged him back from the water’s edge. Only Paddy remained, his odd-coloured eyes curious and unblinking. She was sorry to leave him.
Beneath her feet, infinite dark water. She felt so safe. This wasn’t like drowning at all. She expanded her lungs and breathed in. This gave her such a thirst that she needed more. ‘Goodbye, Father.’ She tried to wave to him, but she was sinking lower and the ice cave was just a pale blur of light.
Down.
Down.
Marina saw ropes trailing through the water. She reached out to them. What were these for? They made her feel sad. Some poor creature must be caught in a net.
Within the net a sea creature with a beautiful, pale, oval face; bruises bloomed like flowers on her translucent skin. Limbs – cut and bleeding – uncoiled. Black hair spread out like trailing seaweed. The face looked surprised at its own pain.
‘I must free you,’ Marina whispered, pulling at the knotted ropes. If Marina could not loosen them, the creature would die, suffocated in this cruel net. Her hands worked quickly; this was the knot her father had taught her – the pearl fishers’ knot – designed to become tighter as the ropes swelled with water. She had never mastered it yet. But she had never really needed to. Now, it was essential that she make her fingers obey her. As Marina pulled and tugged, the ropes caused the creature more pain, and it twitched and tried to pull away. It shook its head, closed its eyes. ‘But I need to help you,’ Marina said. ‘I need to set you free.’ The creature went limp. Marina feared the worst, but now that it no longer fought Marina’s efforts, the ropes slackened slightly and this was enough for Marina to gain purchase.
Miss Smith had called this creature a transmitter and had made Marina think what was beneath the sea was a signals machine, like the one on the Sea Witch. But Perkins’ grandfather would have called it by another name. A mermaid. There was something else that Marina realized too, with a sense of relief and recognition. It was something she had always known but not had the words to explain to herself. She knew this face. She recognized these eyes, lips and hair. This creature of the sea might well be a fatal transmitter whose signal was a song that could sing sailors to their death, but it was also a creature who had worn cruel black boots and sentenced itself to a life of silence. A machine or a mermaid. But Marina now sobbed another word for this rare, exquisite and tortured sea creature before her: ‘Mother.’
The ropes came loose. Her mother sank down.
‘Don’t leave me,’ Marina whispered.
The face – serene and no longer in pain – looked up. How could such a delicate creature exist away from the sea? Used to these dark waters, how the wind must have cut her face; how those huge eyes must have been blinded by the sun. Oh, and the pain in those legs, used to being carried by currents and waves. Each and every step must have been torture. What had brought her mother out of the sea? What had kept her away from the water so long?
Love for Patrick Denham had brought this mermaid up from her watery realm. And love for her child had kept her in his dry and dusty world. Marina had spent her childhood wondering why her mother had left her: the miracle was that her mother had stayed so long. Only a powerful love for her child could have kept her away from the sea, when every breath of air or step on land had been agony. Marina understood this without her mother saying anything.
‘Let me come with you . . .’ Marina held out her hand to try and catch those pale fingers. ‘You don’t need to be alone anymore. Let me come with you . . . to the Drowned Sea.’
It was unbearable. To find her mother and to lose her
