Sea Change (13 page)

"No more
running," John said, his voice full of tears. "No more. I'm sorry,
Alex. No more."

He stood in the
empty street, and called out, "Elias".

Footsteps
echoed behind him and he spun round. A man walking up the street
carrying two shopping bags gave John a curious glance. John looked
away, embarrassed, and tried hard to pretend as if he were waiting
for someone. The man disappeared around the corner, and John was
left alone in the street once more.

"Elias," he
shouted again, but nothing happened. For all that he knew he was
wasting his time. Perhaps the old man would not know that he was
being called; John wondered whether there were dark incantations
that he should be performing, mysterious rites to be carried out
after collecting secret ingredients from graveyards at the height
of a full moon. I'm stuffed if there are, he thought, and just
whispered "Elias" again to an empty street. For reasons that he
could not understand he was at the centre of things, and whatever
he did the world would not be the same. Elias needs you, he said to
himself. Despite whatever he is, whatever he can do, he needs you.
He wouldn't have been so angry otherwise. Make use of that need.
For whatever reason, you matter. For once, you matter.

After a few
minutes of waiting, he decided to roam the back alleys. It was
there that Elias had found him before. John hesitated at the
entrance to an alley, aware of how dark it was in the alleyway and
how loud his heart sounded, jumping in his chest. He did not want
to go down there. It made him think of the other times, of that
dry, whispering voice and the way that it sent shivering fingers of
ice inside him.

It wasn't like
it was in books, when the hero steeled himself and forgot his
doubts, put aside his fear. John felt as if he wanted to go to the
toilet, very desperately wanted to go to the toilet, and his mouth
was dry like it was filled with sawdust and if he did not keep his
fists clenched so tight he knew that his hands would be shaking.
But still he walked forward, into the darkness, and he thought to
himself that maybe this was what bravery was, not like in the
books, just ordinary people, terrified, but somehow just carrying
on. Then he laughed at himself for considering himself brave or on
a par with others doing brave things, and he just concentrated on
not tripping over anything in the darkness and on trying to will
Elias into existence.

For an hour or
more John wandered through the village, until he thought that he
had covered every alley, every lane, and was worried that one of
the villagers would phone the police, thinking that he was a
prospective burglar on the prowl. He had passed a few people, some
of whom had said hello or good evening, some of whom had just given
him a curious look, as if to say who are you, you're not from here,
we know everyone from here. When he passed them, John had just
tried his best to look as if he knew where he was going. It was
harder each time. In the end, he came out on the road above the
village. The dusk had stolen in and wrapped the village around
completely, so that when he looked down now he could not make out
anything but a huddle of dark shapes, lit up here and there by
lights that seemed so small, so fragile against the darkness.

"I give up,”
John said to the night, and walked off along the cliff path,
wanting open space after spending so long between walls that seemed
to press close upon him. Every so often he passed a standing stone,
jutting out of the grass next to the path like broken teeth. John
thought that they might be markers of some kind, perhaps to show
the path in the snow, but he could not work out why anyone would
want to walk the cliff path in the snow. They seemed old too, far
too old to be anything laid down by local tourist authorities, or
industrious Victorians.

He could hear
the sea rolling in onto the beach, and as he walked his breathing
fell into a rhythm with his stride and with the waves, and his
thoughts calmed and after a while he was not thinking anything else
at all, just walking and breathing, feeling the cool air on his
face and the trodden-down earth of the path under his feet. After a
while he stopped, and thought returned. I've come quite a way, he
muttered, and I've no idea where I am. I suppose the path just
leads on along the cliffs until the next village, so it's not like
I can get lost, but I don't want to go that far. I don't even know
why I've come this far. But it's beautiful up here, I love the
space. He stood for a minute, drinking in the night, feeling alive.
Then he turned and walked back the way that he had come.

One of the
stones beside the path grew and moved and whispered to him.

"Now you come
crawling to me," it said.

John stopped
where he was. The stone moved again, and John could see that Elias
was standing on the far side, leaning against the rock. In the
darkness, John could not tell where the stone ended and Elias
began.

"You run, you
run like a little child, and now you come to me."

"Yes," John
said, because he could not think of anything else to say. The path
in front of him disappeared into the night. To his right, a few
steps away, the ground dropped away at the cliff edge, thirty
metres or more to the rocks below. To his left—to his left there
was something that was once a man, and now was something else
entirely, although John did not quite know what. He was very
frightened.

"I do not ask
people a third time, John."

"No."

"Twice I have
asked you for your help. An old man, frail as sticks, and you a
healthy boy, and you insult me and run away. You are a lucky child,
John. Lucky because you have the gift, or this would have all ended
when you refused me the second time."

John thought of
the mist, the draining of colour and life from the world, and
swallowed hard. "I know."

"It is because
of your gift that I did not pursue you straight away," Elias said,
"and I was right because now you have come to me of your own will.
And that is better.”

John nodded,
but went hot with a sudden excitement. He's lying, he thought. I
know that he was lying when he said that was why he did not come
after me. Why's he lying? John kept the excitement from his face,
and simply said, "Yes, I have come to you." Why didn’t he come
after me? What is that he would lie about rather than tell me? He
may have the power to fight off death but that doesn't make him
wise, it doesn't mean that he can see inside me, know my mind. He's
too obsessed with himself, he's vain. And I need to play to that.
"I thought—I thought that maybe I could get something I wanted," he
said. "In return."

Elias laughed,
and it was like the sound of twigs breaking under foot on a forest
floor.

"I knew it.
Everyone has their price. What is it, boy? I am not unfair. Name
it. But be warned: if you ask an unreasonable price, I may be
insulted once more, and you will make me draw on my power to show
you what I do when insulted, and you do not want that. So think
carefully, boy."

That's it, John
thought. 'Draw on my power'. That's why he didn't come after me
straight away when I escaped from the mist, never mind his
boasting, he was
weak
. Whatever keeps him alive, whatever
keeps him from death, it costs him, and it cost him to attack me
like that, and for a while afterwards he was too weak to do
anything else.

"Well, there is
something," John said, stalling. What? Then he recalled his first
conversation with Elias. Use his words back to him, he thought. He
is vain, he will like that. And John went to speak, and it was only
then that it really struck him: say the wrong thing now, and you
are dead. It made the words die in his mouth, he stammered and
coughed. And if you don't say anything, he will know that there is
something going on anyway, he thought. And then you will be just as
dead. Or worse. So make it good.

"I want power,"
John said.

"Go on."

"I want power
over those who hurt me. The ones who, who insult me or hurt me. The
ones who made Alex..."

"What he is
now. Shall I show you what he is now, John?"

"No! I—I can
guess. But that's all I want. Power to make their lives a misery,
so I don't end up like him."

Elias laughed
again. "Yes, you have your price. But on the first night I called
you, I promised you just that, and you ran. Too proud, were you?
Above such things? And now, here you are, grovelling in front of
me. Well, I will grant you your price. And maybe more. You might be
an apt pupil and servant, taught right."

"What is it I
have to do?" John asked.

"It is a simple
task, and even you should be able to do it. I need you to retrieve
an item for me. You find it, get it, bring it to me. That is all.
Simple. A child could do it. And indeed, a child will."

"So what is it?
You have so much power, why can't you get it?" Careful John, he
thought. That was meant to be flattery but it sounded like
sarcasm.

"Nothing more
than an old stone, that is all. A not particularly valuable piece
of polished jet, like many that this area has produced over the
years. But one of value to me, to those who study such things.
Which is why I wish to possess it. It has...value to me."

He's lying
again, John thought. Or at least, not telling me the truth. I know
what he wants, now.

"It is up on
North Cliff, where the land has slid away. I could not tell where
it was for so long, so long, but the earth has moved and now it has
come closer to the surface, it is closer to the air, and I can feel
it. Oh, how I can almost taste it. You will feel it too, that is
how you will find it. You can call it to you. That is why I picked
you, John. Because you have this gift, you draw on a power that the
slow, dull herd do not even know exists. I’ve known that you were
coming, John, I could smell it on the air. It is a rare gift that
you have, and one that you must put to my service. And straight
away. If the land slips again the jet will fall into the sea and be
much harder to retrieve. Not impossible, but much more effort. More
time. Much more time, and that is something that I cannot afford.
This is why I have had to return here from—the places that I
wander. You will get it for me soon, and you will bring it to me
without anyone else seeing it or touching it."

"And what if I
didn’t,” John said, nervous that if he seemed too willing, Elias
would realise that something was wrong. "I'm not here for long. I
could leave. Get away from you."

"You think?"
Elias said, and John felt very cold, and very afraid. "Maybe. Maybe
not. But the others? Your sister. The boy and girl. The sea took
their father." He laughed, and it was the sound of rats scrabbling
under stones. "I could make it take them too. You will do as I ask.
Because you know I tell the truth."

"But—I don't
understand. If it's so important, why can't you just get this thing
for yourself?"

"You do not
need to understand. You just need to obey. There is a reason I
cannot take it from where it rests. It needs someone with your
gift, with what you have. And if anyone else touches it to take it
from there, it will lose everything that makes it important to me.
Do you understand? No one else must touch it until you have taken
it from where it lies. Once you have broken it from the earth, I
can have it. But no-one must touch it before you have done this.
You hear me? You hear me?" Elias's voice had risen until he was
almost shrieking.

"Okay," John
said. "Don’t worry. No-one else will touch it. I won't even let
them see it. But what about when I touch it? I can't get it for you
if I can't—"

Elias leaned
out from the stone until he was near to John. John could smell
decay, like the rot of seaweed, and something else, something that
he had never smelt before and that he could not describe because it
was less a smell, more a colour, no, an absence of colour. John
could smell the darkness.

"That is why I
will pay your price. You have the gift, John, power of your own, no
matter how small. You are like me. There is much I could teach you.
You could study under me and have more power than you have ever
dreamed of, John. I could show you things, things that you have
never seen before. Places that you have never been to, places that
you never could go to, all that could be open to you, to travel
between the light and the dark, the day and the night, the land and
the sea, this world of yours and the others. Get me it, John. Get
me the jet stone, and I shall take you on a journey that is like
nothing you have ever imagined. Would you like that, John? Imagine,
spending your life knowing that your grave is your end. Whether it
be early, from some illness or an accident, or late into old age,
that is all there is, no more, darkness. Now imagine knowing that
it need not be the end, that you can go on, go on for hundreds of
years. You have a gift, John, and you could learn. I could teach
you so much. Get me it, John. You have three days. Get me the jet,
let no-one else touch it, bring it to me, and do as I say. Then I
shall show you the world, John. My world.”

"Okay." John
nodded. Elias leaned even closer in, until he was nearly touching
John, close enough that John should have been able to feel his
breath. The smell of rot and dark places was overwhelming, and John
felt as if he were going to be sick. He's going to touch me, John
thought. He's going to touch me and I could not stand that. John
was about to take a step backwards, when Elias stopped moving. John
could see his face clearly in the moonlight. From a distance, he
might have passed as an old man, but close-up John could see that
the skin hung wrong upon his face, that when he spoke his mouth
barely moved at all. It was like watching someone operate a puppet.
Elias sniffed.