A Study in Drowning(102)

I know you think I am a little girl, and what could a little girl know about eternity? But I do know this: whether you survive the ocean or you don’t, whether you are lost or whether the waves deliver you back to the shore—every story is told in the language of water, in tongues of salt and foam. And the sea, the sea, it whispers the secret of how all things end.





At first the morning was a bit miserable, both of them groggy and Preston nursing a headache. The sun was too bright on their faces. Effy pulled a pillow over her head and groaned as Preston tried to urge her out of bed.

“Coffee,” he reminded her in a lofty, plying voice, and at last she threw off the covers, blond hair plastered to the side of her face.

Coffee was a necessity. They went to the Drowsy Poet and got paper cups, holding them in two hands as they walked down the street along Lake Bala, breath coming in white clouds. It was very cold that morning, but the sunlight was strong, and some of the ice on the lake had melted, veins of blue water showing between the cracks.

Effy tugged her gray coat around herself, the wind raking through her hair. She had forgotten her ribbon, or perhaps it had gotten lost somewhere over the course of the night. They paused at one of the lookouts, leaning over the railing to watch the sluggish tide moving ice along the surface of the lake.

Behind them, the white stone buildings of the university cast broad shadows, as huge as the Argantian mountains on the other side.

Looking at Preston’s homeland across the water made her think of something. “Have you told your mother everything?”

“I called her yesterday, before we went out. She was happy for me, of course, but I think secretly she was a bit glum. She was a fan of Myrddin, too. Even though she lives in Argant, she’s still Llyrian at heart.”

Right when they’d gotten back to Caer-Isel, Effy had gone to the Sleeper Museum. She told no one about it, not even Preston. She took one of the brochures and walked around the crypt, passing by the other Sleepers, wizened men whose alleged magic kept their bodies from decaying.

At last she had come to Myrddin’s glass coffin, and stared at his slumbering face.

It was the first time she had seen it. It was a long and slender face, rather unremarkable, marred by wrinkles and age spots. When their thesis went to print, Effy had wondered, would the magic vanish with it? Would the museum close off the exhibit in shame, would the curators meet in their smoke-filled rooms and decide, grimacing, to remove his body?

Even after everything, the thought had filled her with grief. The truth was very costly at times. How terrible, to navigate the world without a story to comfort you.

But Effy had learned. Or at least, she was trying to. Better to pen a story of your own. Better to build your own house, with a foundation that was strong, with windows that let in plenty of light.

At least some people, she figured, would always be convinced that Emrys Myrddin had written Angharad. Effy had left the crypt behind, slipping out within a crowd of other visitors, and threw the brochure in a rubbish bin outside.

Now, Effy blinked into the wind, the memory leaving her as Preston’s face came back into focus.

“I still think his poetry has some merit,” she said. “‘The Mariner’s Demise,’ at least.”

“Oh, certainly,” Preston said. “He wasn’t a terrible writer, even after all this. I don’t know exactly what his legacy will be. Maybe when we’re dead, some other scholars will come along and rehabilitate his image.”

Rehabilitate meant literally to make something livable again. As if Myrddin’s legacy were an old house that they were trying to tear down.

They hadn’t gone to look at the ruin of Hiraeth, but Effy could imagine it as easily as she had once imagined the beautiful manor it could have been. The wreck of wood and stone along the cliffside, the furniture smashed against the rocks, the gabled roof rent in two, its shingles flung off into the distance. And, of course, the sea, swallowing everything it could reach.

“I can’t decide if I want that.” Effy chewed her lip. “I don’t know if I want him to be forgotten in obscure shame, or for his works to still be appreciated for what they were. The real ones, that is. A part of me still loves him, I think. The idea of him.”

Preston gave her a small smile. “That’s all right,” he said. “You don’t have to know. For what it’s worth, I’ve stopped believing in objective truth.”

Effy laughed softly. “So all this has left its mark on you, too.”

“Of course it has. You have.” The wind tousled his already tousled hair, and as he pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose, Effy was suddenly overwhelmed by affection. A sign of life: tender, almost anguished, but real. “There’s something I’ve been wanting to ask you.”

Just as suddenly, her stomach lurched. “What is it?”

“Oh, it’s nothing important,” he said quickly. “Don’t look like that. For a while I didn’t know if it was worth mentioning at all . . . it’s the strangest thing, really. Maybe just my imagination. When we were at Hiraeth, and I was sleeping in Myrddin’s study, some mornings I would wake up to the sound of bells outside the window. They sounded like church bells, but of course the nearest church is miles away, in Saltney. Once or twice I even went outside to investigate, but I never saw anything. The sound was coming from down the cliffs, which is impossible, I know. But I just wanted to ask, to be sure. Did you ever hear them, too?”