Aunt Dimity and the Deep Blue Sea (10 page)

Two words appeared on the page:
Go on.

“When I got back to my room after dinner,” I said slowly, “I went out onto the balcony. I was about to come back in when I saw a light on Cieran’s Chapel. It was there only for a moment, but it was definitely there.”

“Sort of.” I frowned worriedly down at the journal. “I said I’d seen a meteor because . . . because I don’t want Damian to think . . .”

“Damian hardly knows me,” I said hastily. “I don’t want him to think I’m . . . impressionable.”

“I will,” I said, “as soon as I’ve eliminated Brother Cieran from my list of suspects.”

“Could you check it out for me, Dimity?” I asked. “Would you . . . er, ask around and find out if Brother Cieran’s still . . . um, in residence?”

“Thanks, Dimity.” The weight of the day descended on me suddenly, and I gave a tremendous yawn.

“Good night, Dimity.” I watched the lines of royal-blue ink fade from the page, then returned the journal to the drawer and got ready for bed.

It wasn’t until I was lying beneath the blankets, gazing into the moon-washed darkness, that I became aware of a sound I hadn’t fully noticed before. The regular thud and boom of the surf came to me, as if from a great distance, like the pounding of a gigantic fist on solid rock.

It should have been a soothing sound, but it wasn’t. A wave of loneliness began to close over me, and I reached for Reginald. My pink bunny wasn’t a perfect substitute for Bill, but he’d serve until the real thing came back again.

Even with Reginald cradled in my arms, I should by rights have lain awake late into the night, haunted by visions of Abaddon climbing through my window with a knife clenched between his teeth. I should have tossed and turned, tormented by the muted screams of massacred monks. Instead, I drifted into sleep thinking only of Brother Cieran. Was he still chained by guilt to his lonely sanctuary? What, I wondered, would release him from his vigil?

W
hen I awoke, bars of sunlight were falling across my bed. I squinted at the mullioned windows, peered muzzily at the massive fireplace, and gradually remembered where I was and how I’d come to be there.

A glance at the clock on the bedside table told me that it was seven o’clock. I stared drowsily at the raftered ceiling for a while, wondering what my neighbors in Finch were saying about the strangers who’d moved into my cottage. Devoted gossips one and all, the villagers were no doubt having a field day inventing stories to explain our departure. I took some pride in knowing that we’d provided them with such a rich, ongoing source of entertainment. Compared to their inventions, the true story would probably fall flat.

Chuckling quietly, I placed Reginald on the bedside table and reached for Aunt Dimity’s journal, curious to find out what, if anything, she’d learned about Brother Cieran while I slept. I leaned back against a heap of pillows and opened the blue journal on my lap, but before I’d opened my mouth, Aunt Dimity’s fine, old-fashioned copperplate flew across the page.

I sat up a bit straighter. “It wasn’t Brother Cieran?”

“How could he be?” I cut in. “How could he know where we are? Even if he did find out, how could he follow us so quickly? We’ve been here for less than twenty-four hours, Dimity. And how on earth could he get out to that forsaken chunk of rock?”

I leaned my chin on my hand, grimacing. “Damian’s going to be incredibly unhappy with me for not telling him the truth right away.”

I cocked an ear toward the foyer and heard the familiar thunder of little feet. “I’ll tell him, Dimity, but I have to go now. My cubs are on the prowl.”

I managed to stash the journal in the bedside drawer mere moments before Will and Rob came scampering into the bedroom. Clad in sweatshirts, jeans, and sneakers, they bounced onto the bed, demanding that I get dressed.

Rob sprawled across the duvet and kicked his heels in the air. “We’ve been awake for
ages,
Mummy.”

“Andrew wouldn’t let us come down until a decent hour,” Will informed me.

“It’s a decent hour now,” Rob pointed out.

“Time to rise and shine,” Will declared. “Andrew’s taking us to the
beach
after breakfast.”

“And the sun doesn’t last all day,” Rob concluded sagely.

“Andrew?” I called. “May I speak with you?”

The young man came into the bedroom. He was wearing another colorful rugby shirt, jeans, and sneakers, and looking rather anxious, as though he expected me to scold him for setting the boys loose on me.

“Thanks for keeping Rob and Will occupied for so long,” I said. “I haven’t slept past six since they were born. When’s breakfast?”

A relieved smile swept across Andrew’s freckled face. “It’ll be here in ten minutes. Rob and Will thought it would be a nice surprise.”

“Ten minutes is all I need.” While Andrew retreated to the sitting room, I shooed the boys off the bed and got ready to face the morning.

 

 

Damian joined us for breakfast in my sitting room, and although he wasn’t the life of the party, he’d at least dressed down for the day, in a blue crewneck sweater, khakis, sneakers, and a loose-fitting rain jacket. I’d followed my sons’ example and donned sweatshirt, jeans, and sneakers. After we’d eaten, I followed Damian’s example and added a rain jacket.

Andrew hoisted a large day pack to his back. He’d filled it with plastic buckets and spades, the twins’ cricket bats, and their rain jackets. When I asked if he’d included a bottle of sunblock, he nodded.

“Rain gear and sunblock,” he said, chuckling. “Tells you all you need to know about April in Scotland.”

“Which is why we should be going,” said Damian, getting to his feet. “The weather could turn ugly in an instant.”

On that optimistic note, we boarded the elevator, descended to the tower’s ground level, and entered a circular chamber that had been converted into a changing room for beachgoers. It held a shower stall, curtained cubicles, marble benches, and open shelves filled with fluffy towels. There were no windows, but the plastered walls had been decorated with trompe l’oeil paintings depicting seaside scenes.

Damian led the way to a side door and nodded casually at another door half hidden in shadows on our left.

“The emergency stairs,” he explained. “They lead here, and from here you can get outside.” He tapped a sequence of buttons on a wall-mounted keypad, presumably to disarm the alarm system, and pushed the side door open.

We stepped out into the cool, sunlit morning. When I glanced upward, I realized that we were standing on the strip of headland directly below my balcony. I was surprised to see how low the cliffs were—they’d looked much higher from above. The strip of headland looked different, too, now that I was standing on it. It was wider, and slashed by a sunken path that ran in both directions along the cliffs.

“The coastal path,” Damian explained, following my gaze. “It goes all the way around the island.”

“Sounds scenic,” I said as the brine-scented breeze tossed my curls. “Could we walk it tomorrow? If we’re still here, that is.”

Damian tilted his head back to look at the sky. “I don’t see why not, if the fine weather holds.”

“We want to go to the beach,” Will reminded us determinedly.

“So you shall,” said Andrew, and he crossed the sunken path to a pair of stone pillars that stood at the grassy strip’s outer edge.

The pillars marked the top of a set of stairs that had been cut into the cliff. Although the staircase was equipped with a rope railing threaded through a series of iron posts, I took hold of Rob’s hand and Andrew grabbed Will’s before we started down. Damian took up the rear.

Andrew used the time we spent on the stairs to lecture Will and Rob about the dangers of rip currents and the way high tides could creep up and swallow unsuspecting little boys. Before our sneakers touched the sand, he made them vow solemnly that they would never go to the beach on their own. I could have kissed him.

I was even more grateful to him once we’d reached the beach. Although the tide was on its way out, the belt of broken shells and drying seaweed left behind by the high tide was well up on the sand. Anyone caught in the cove when the tide was in would have to scramble to reach the safety of the stairs or risk being drowned, swept out to sea, or battered to death on the jagged rocks I’d seen from my balcony.

The sun had not yet climbed over the cliffs, so the cove was still in shadow, but the sea glittered and the white sand glowed invitingly. Will and Rob swiftly divested themselves of shoes and socks and engaged their grown-up companions in a fast-paced game of tag that somehow turned into a cricket match with driftwood wickets and Mummy fielding balls. Once the twins had burned off their excess energy—and batted three balls into the surf—they settled down with the buckets and spades and began to construct a miniature version of Dundrillin Castle. Andrew and I acted as architectural consultants, but Damian strolled away on his own, to stand at the edge of the sea.

When we finished the sand castle, Andrew headed off with the boys to search for seashells and tide pools. I waited until they’d disappeared behind a cluster of barnacle-encrusted rocks, then took a deep breath and walked over to stand beside Damian. I had a strong suspicion that my bodyguard was about to lose his temper, and I didn’t want him to lose it in front of my sons.

Damian acknowledged my arrival by pointing to a flock of small birds skimming the waves between the beach and Cieran’s Chapel.

“Puffins,” he said.

“Oh, how splendid!” I watched in delight as the flock flew in tight formation mere inches above the foaming crests. “I wish I’d brought my camera.”

“You can bring it when we walk the coastal path,” he suggested. “I’m sure we’ll see them again. They nest in the western cliffs.”

“You know a lot about Erinskil,” I observed. “Have you been here often?”

“I’ve never been here before,” he replied, “but I can read and I know how to listen. Sir Percy provided Andrew and me with detailed dossiers on Erinskil. We supplemented the dossiers by spending a few hours in the pub on the night we arrived.”

“Good thinking,” I said. “If you want to know what’s going on in a place, spend time in the local pub. Church bulletin boards are helpful, too, and a post office can be almost as helpful as the pub, especially if the postmistress is as nosey as the one in my village. She’s better than a local newspaper for—”

“Lori.” Damian interrupted the flow of nervous babble before it could become a torrent. “Is something bothering you?”

“Well . . . yes.” The moment of truth had come. “Remember last night, when I told you I’d seen a meteor? It wasn’t a meteor.”

“What was it?” Damian asked, frowning slightly.

“A light. I saw a light on Cieran’s Chapel. It came and went so quickly that I wasn’t sure I’d seen it, but I am now.” I hunched my shoulders and braced myself for a tongue-lashing. When nothing happened, I added, in a small voice, “I’m sorry, Damian. I shouldn’t have lied to you. Feel free to yell at me.”

To my utter amazement, Damian simply rocked back on his heels, shook his head, and smiled.

“I’m not going to yell at you, Lori,” he said. “I’m not surprised that you thought you saw something on Cieran’s Chapel last night. I wouldn’t be surprised if you’d seen a chorus line of chanting monks. You’re under a great deal of mental stress at the moment. Sir Percy’s story was bound to affect you. I thought it ill-advised of him to share it with you, and you’ve proven me right.”

“But . . . but I
did
see a light,” I protested, but I got no further, because the twins chose that exact moment to shout
“Mummy!”
at the tops of their lungs.

Damian and I took off at a run, spraying sand in our wake as we rounded a massive outcropping of rock. Andrew, Will, and Rob were standing together at its base, staring upward. I looked up, too, and felt a sliver of ice slide down my spine.

A human skull sat wedged in a crevice near the top of the rock, well above the high-water line. It stared down at us, grinning its timeless, maniacal grin, and for a shattering moment I thought that its fleshless maw had emitted a cackle of laughter, but it was only the shriek of a passing gull.