Алия Уайтли - Skein Island

‘No. That’s his choice.’

‘He’s not… He’s damaged himself, he needs…’

David and Geoff turn back to the mouth of the cave. I can hear Arnie’s wails, getting further away, and I never wanted things to be like this, never; this is why I came here by myself. This is not what I wanted. I have to keep them safe. I have to go in alone. I pull myself up straight, try to take control.

‘Get Arnie. Drive him to hospital. Come back for me later.’

David grabs my wrist. ‘No,’ he says. ‘You and Geoff stay here.’

‘No, that’s not—’

‘This is right. I know it. Arnie said it.’

‘No.’ I try to break free, but his grip is so strong. ‘David. Please.’

He kisses me on the forehead, and I hate him for it. The hate, the wash of it over me, unravels my decisions, my certainty, and I feel my face contorting, my tears spilling.

‘Geoff, this is your job. Keep her safe. Keep her out of the cave.’

Geoff nods, very seriously.

‘I love you,’ David tells me, but I can tell he’s already thinking of the colours, the wonderful colours that Moira brings to the world, and he is going to find her and stay with her, because he won’t be able to stop her. And I am a puddle on the floor, I am all tears and no spine, just a woman, a typical weak woman, unable to do anything but wait and despair in equal measure.

He lets me go, and takes off his backpack once more, digging around inside it to produce a small silver flask. He unscrews the lid.

‘Do you know what this is?’

‘I…’

‘Rebecca and Inger sent it to me. It came from your basement.’

There was nothing left from the basement, not after the collapse. I think through what remained: a few pieces of paper, random pages from declarations and one barrel of water. Moira’s water. Her essence, contained in the liquid. Used in tiny amounts to give men a taste of her power.

David is about to drink it.

‘No,’ I tell him, ‘I don’t know what that will do to you.’

He strokes my face, and in that gesture I realise I no longer know him. Even before he drinks, before he faces the monster, he has become a stranger, a protagonist in some terrible tale in which I was never going to be important. He is going on without me, just as it should be. As Moira wants it.

He puts the flask to his lips and drinks. His throat moves, the swallowing motion, so calm, so controlled. He drinks it all, then takes a torch from his backpack, and walks away from me.

I watch him go into the cave. My failure skewers me, drops me to my knees, and Geoff stands over me as I mourn.

The first three caves were easy to negotiate. Not only were the paths clearly set out for the tourists, but the rainbow led him onwards. As long as he stayed in its stream, he felt the rightness of his route.

The third cave was smaller, and at the point that the path ended, the orange rope tied up on the final metal ring to form a double knot, the rainbow took over completely, pulling him towards the darkest area where it disappeared abruptly. David followed, found a hole in the stone walls that became a tunnel, where the rainbow pattern stretched onwards, slow-motion, like an undulating ribbon caught in the currents of the sea. He flicked on the torch, and the rainbow disappeared. Instead there was only the length of the narrowing tunnel, regular and smooth, leading downwards to what looked like a dead end – a fall of rocks and earth. He dropped the torch and wriggled his way into the tunnel, trying not to think of how he might not be able to turn around in such a small space.

The hard, packed surface at the end of the tunnel was as deliberate as a wall. Could the monster have placed it there? David put his palms to the rocks and pushed, and it did not give. He punched it, short jabs of his fist, as there was no space to bend back his elbow for a larger blow. After five attempts he felt the skin on his knuckles split, and the pain of it lanced through him, fierce and prophetic. It awoke the liquid in his stomach, and he felt it expand, grow warm, uncurl through his veins, snakes of intent, of meaning. They took him over, slid out through his fingertips like the tendrils of plants and slid between the cracks in the rock surface, so that the stones trembled, shuddered, collapsed into water, breaking like bubbles. The tendrils receded and the water filled up the tunnel. The light of the torch fizzled and died, and it was easy to see the rainbow once more, to swim along its wake.

The tunnel widened and David changed from dog-paddle to breaststroke, kicking out his feet. The trail tilted upwards, and he angled his body to follow, feeling the beginning of pain in his lungs, the constriction of his throat, the demand for oxygen, shouting for it, screaming, and the involuntary breath that followed, allowing the water to enter him, sink into his chest, icy stones.

It didn’t hurt any more. He swam on in perfect silence, encased in water.

The rainbow grew lighter, turned to white, and he broke through to the surface of a small, calm pool, reached out with his hands and clutched at hard rock once more, a flat surface onto which he pulled himself, and stood upright. He felt no need to cough or clear his lungs. His clothes were not wet. It wasn’t only that he wasn’t in pain. He had moved beyond such considerations to something new; nerve-endings and neurological signals had become controllable. He was impervious. The white path of light called him onwards, and he walked forward, without hesitation, through shades of darkness, until the cave walls opened out into a holy cathedral of space, as tall and steepled as the mountain, reaching up in an orderly worship of stalactites. It was the ordained place: a home, a birth, a tomb. The space where a hero could slay a monster.

All his life, he had been waiting for the moment when he became the man he was born to be. He had lived in the promise of it, standing upright, being a defender, a protector. This was his perfect moment. All other memories would pale in comparison to it: his wedding day, the death of Mark, the saving of Sam, had all been trial runs for this.

He felt it grow near.

His body assumed a fighting stance, hands in bunched fists, feet apart.

It homed in on him, and it was a woman, so familiar, as soft as Sam, as sharp as Marianne. It was the perfect woman, a goddess. He had met her before, in the back room of The Cornerhouse, where she had enveloped him, penetrated him, slain him. This time he had to be the conqueror.

She cleaved to him, moulding to him in a rush of sex scent and promises that turned the cave crimson as blood, and she offered him her submission, the sinking of their bodies together, into each other. He felt the danger of it, the secret victory that lay within her offer.

But he wanted it, this death at the behest of his flowing damsel – to be swarmed, surrounded, kept within forever. She was close enough to touch, floating in front of him, soft pink gauze wrapped around her, legs and smile spread wide, her eyes shut, her hands reaching for the zip of his trousers. He should have known all along, they all should have known that there could be no fighting this, no way to win, to control it, he would kill for it, make the world deserving of it, be the man it could marry, change himself, change the earth, the stones, the water. Her hands found him, guided him inside her, and he watched her face, wanting her eyes to open, to be submerged, suspended in their stare—

‘David!’

His name, sudden, rebounding inside the cavern, brought him back to himself. Geoff had emerged from the tunnel, his eyes wide, fixed on the monster. David had no idea what he was seeing, but it transfixed the man, in a place beyond fear or desire. And Marianne was crawling through, slithering out of the tunnel. What could she see? There was no truth in this place, no way to trust his senses. David felt a compulsion, so strong, to reach up and tear out his eyes, then rip off his ears, his tongue, but he refused to obey, found the strength to keep his arms down by his sides.