Guy Kay - Ysabel

He took off the leather jacket and gave it to her.

“Where’d you get this?” she said, slipping her arms into the sleeves. It was big on her; she looked like an urchin in it.

“I’ll tell you that, too. We go?”

They left through the eastern opening, the way Ned had come in. Melanie winced a couple of times, barefoot on stones.

Ned stopped just outside and looked back, standing where he’d skidded to a stop, sliding down. He could see the rock he’d grabbed. It was dark inside the cave now towards the back, the light didn’t reach that far. There was nothing, really, that you could see.

Melanie was looking at him, wearing Phelan’s jacket. “You’ve changed too, you know,” she said.

“Three inches taller?”

“No, you have, Ned.”

He nodded. “Come on, it’s just up here, then to the left.”

When they topped the ridge and looked west towards the cross and chapel, standing utterly alone on the mountain, the sun was ahead of them, very low, lighting clouds. The sunset was glorious, a gift.

They lived in an age, Ned Marriner thought, when it was possible to think that way.

HIS PACK was where he’d left it against the stone wall. He pulled on his sweatshirt; it was bitingly cold now in the evening wind. The chapel was locked, so was the other long, low room off the courtyard, with a padlock. The courtyard itself offered some protection from the swirling gusts.

“I’ll give you my socks,” he said, “or you’re going to freeze.”

Melanie nodded. “Never thought I’d be happy about that kind of offer.” She’d zipped the jacket all the way up to her nose, but that wouldn’t help enough if she was barefoot here.

“You have a pocket knife?” she asked.

“Yeah.”

She held out a hand. He dug into his pack and handed her his Swiss Army blade, then sat on a stone bench against the building and began pulling off his running shoes to give her the socks.

“They aren’t the height of fashion,” he began, when he had them off and the shoes back on, “but they’ll—”

He stopped. She was standing at the entrance to the flat-roofed building beside the chapel and the door was open.

“How’d you do that?” he said, walking over.

“I have skills you don’t yet know about, Ned Marriner.”

That note in her voice. It was there again. He might have changed, but he sure wasn’t the only one.

“My dad picked a lock couple of days ago like that.”

A grin. “I taught him how.”

“What?”

She looked really happy. “He saw me do it once, when we were shooting in Peru, and got jealous. He made me show him how.”

“You,” he said, “are a criminal mastermind. Here’s the socks.”

She took them, and went inside. He got his pack and followed. There was no electricity up here, and the long, narrow room was dark. Ned threw open the shutters to the courtyard while Melanie put on his socks. He saw a fireplace, with wood stacked beside it. The place had probably been a dormitory or dining room for the chapel once. Now it looked like an overnight place for hikers.

“Think they’ll arrest us if we start a fire?”

“I could handle that,” Melanie said. “If they bring shoes.”

That reminded him.

He flipped open his phone and dialed his father. One ring.

“Ned?”

He felt himself smiling, despite exhaustion. A surge of emotion before he spoke. Fighting it, he said, “Yeah, it’s me. Dad, I got her.”

“What?”

“Got her back. We’re both fine.”

“Oh, dear God,” he heard his father say. And then he became aware that his dad was crying. He heard him relay the words. Then,

“Ned, Ned…here’s your mother.”

“Honey?” he heard. “You’re really okay?”

“I’m great, Mom, we both are. It’s going to be a really long story.”

“Can you get down?”

“Not now, Mom. It’s almost dark, and Melanie has no shoes. I think you guys have to come get us in the morning, with stuff for her.”

“Where are you now?”

“In this building beside the chapel. We got in. There’s a fireplace, it’s fine. We’re cool overnight. Can you meet us here first thing?”

“Of course we can. Ned, put Melanie on, your father wants to talk to her.”

“I’ll bet.”

He was still smiling as he handed her the phone.

“Boss?”

There was a silence. Melanie brushed at her eyes.

“Thank you, sir,” she said quietly. “Thanks, all of you. I’m all right, I really am. You’ll see. I do need some things, if you can put Dr. Marriner on?” She walked towards a window. Ned went outside again into the courtyard. He crossed to the low southern wall, past the well.

He looked out on the darkened land. Lights were coming on below, in houses, farms, country restaurants. He saw headlights on the roads. He saw what had to be the highway, east-west. The Riviera resorts were only an hour from here. Bars and cafés and yachts along the coast of the sea, glittering with light.

He imagined a ship sailing here from Greece a really long time ago, passing dark, forbidding forests and mountain ranges that hid whatever was inland from view, leaving it shrouded and mysterious. He imagined them finding a harbour west of here, those strangers from far away, then their first encounter with a tribe, wondering if what they’d come all this way to find was death far from home, or something else.

He imagined those native warriors with their druids and rituals and forest gods, and goddesses of still pools, pictured them coming through the woods to see these strangers, wondering what they were, what they had brought here with them.

His heart was full, sorrow and joy taking all it could hold, right to the brim. He looked at the lights below, with the sun gone now. He saw the moon to his left, towards where the resorts would be, playgrounds of the world he knew.

He knew another world now. Had touched it. Would walk in both, in a way, for the rest of his life. He thought of the boar.

Hands flat on the low stone wall in the wind, he thought of Ysabel as the night drifted down.

“Come on,” he heard from behind him. “I found matches, we’ve got a fire. Did you bring anything someone could call food?”

He turned back to Melanie, to the world.

“Veracook packed me some stuff.”

“God bless her,” Melanie said in the doorway.

He walked over, followed her in. The fire was going nicely. She’d lit candles, too.

“There are blankets in those cupboards,” she said. “Lots of them.”

“Good. We’ll be okay.”

Melanie grinned at him. “Sailor,” she said, “you might even be better than okay.”

That, predictably, got his heart beating faster. He cleared his throat, as an image, inescapable, inserted itself in his awareness.

“Melanie, my mother’s there. She’ll be coming up tomorrow and looking me in the eye.”

“Good point. And I work for your dad, don’t I? I might have trouble facing them if we…”

“You?” he said. “You might have trouble? You know my mother! You think I can get away with pretending we played Twenty Questions? Animal, vegetable, mineral?”

She laughed softly. “Only if we play Twenty Questions.”

“Not why I joined the navy.”

Melanie’s expression altered. She looked at him a moment. “You know, you really have changed.”

“Well, so have you.”

“I guess.” She smiled at him. She looked older, he thought, but didn’t say. She lifted a hand and touched his cheek. Her eyes seemed darker, so did her voice, somehow.

“Ned, I have a pretty good idea what you did today. I remember what this place was like for you, when we drove here. And…this won’t be the only night of our lives.”