A Study in Drowning(19)
Far below, the waves gnawed at the cliffside. Effy could no longer see it as anything but consumption, dark water eating away at the pale stone. Her knees buckled beneath her and she sank hopelessly down onto the rippling grass.
The truth was, she had seen many fine and beautiful things underneath all the damp and rot, like chests of treasure waiting to be dredged up from a shipwreck. Plush carpets that must have cost a fortune, candelabras made of solid gold. But none of it could be salvaged from the rot and the rising sea.
It was the task of a fairy tale, the sort of hopeless, futile challenge the Fairy King himself might have set. In her mind, she saw that creature from the road. It turned toward her, opened its devouring mouth, and spoke: Sew me a shirt with no seam or needlework. Plant an acre of land with one ear of corn. Build a house on a sinking cliff and win your freedom.
She had never thought Myrddin would set a task so cruel. But she did not know this man, the one who had kept his own family trapped in a sinking, fetid house, the one who had let everything around him fall to ruin. The man she had spent her whole life idolizing had been strange and reclusive, but he had not been coldhearted. It all felt so terribly wrong. Like a dream she wanted desperately to wake up from.
It was Preston’s voice in her ear now, his hushed recitation. The only enemy is the sea.
Five
Myrddin’s reception is as curious as the man himself. Some critics accuse him of excessive romanticism (see Fox, Montresor, et al.). Yet Angharad is grudgingly accepted, even by his detractors, as a profound and surprising work. His admirers—and there are many, both critical and commercial—insist that the relatability of his work, the universalism, is intentional, reflecting a keen understanding of the human condition. In this manner, he is generally considered worthy of his status as national author.
From the foreword to The Collected Works of Emrys Myrddin, edited by Cedric Gosse, 212 AD
The next morning was cloud-dense and sunless, and Effy rose in a pale, rheumy gray light. She had not returned to Hiraeth yesterday, even at Ianto’s urging, and had instead sat in the guesthouse, her mind running dismally through her few and narrowing options.
She tried the rusted taps above the tub, twisting them back and forth until her fingers ached and her palms were gritty with rust. At last she managed to get a slow drip from one of them, and cupped her hands under the trickling stream. It took the better part of an hour to scrub herself clean and wash her hair, but she refused to go into town filthy. She had that much dignity left.
When she was finished, Effy put her pill bottle in her purse and slid on her coat. She left her trunk ajar and abandoned. What did she need that couldn’t be replaced? She considered it as she began her stumbling walk down the cliffs toward Saltney. Some clothes, her drafting linens, a cheap set of protractors and compasses. She would not miss any of it.
Effy had finally settled on a plan late last night, lying under the green duvet, waiting for her sleeping pill to do its work. As rancid water dripped onto the pillow beside her, she decided she couldn’t afford to wait, or plead with Wetherell for a ride. She would leave Saltney first thing in the morning, and she would walk herself, the sea be damned.
The dark-haired creature be damned, too. She knew the stories, and she knew her own mind. The Fairy King did not show his face in the light of day. But she took one of her pink pills, for good measure.
Her plan had seemed sound enough until it started drizzling. Effy went on stubbornly, her boots scrabbling against the loose rocks, as the road turned steeper and steeper. The sprinkle of rain was enough to turn the packed dirt into mud, and soon every step was a labor, the muck sucking at her shoes. Water trickled down her face.
Her vision blurring, Effy stared determinedly ahead, trying to gauge how much of her journey was left. There was a sharp bend in the road, and the cliffs rose jaggedly above it, blocking her view of Saltney. She could see no smoke chuffing from chimneys in the distance, no thatched roofs along the horizon.
She rubbed at her cheeks. To her left the sea was lapping at the edge of the road, in broad tongues of salt and foam. A wave crested over the rock and washed the toe of her boot.
Panic was rising in her chest when Effy heard the rumble of a car engine behind her. A black car was clattering down the road, its windows speckled with raindrops, its hood sleek and wet.
Effy stepped aside to let it pass, but instead it slowed to a halt beside her. The driver’s-side window rolled down.
Preston stared at her in silence for several moments, his arms braced on the steering wheel. His hair looked as untidy as it had yesterday, and his eyes were unblinking behind his glasses. At last, he said, “Effy, get in.”
“I don’t want to,” she said mulishly.
Of course the rain chose that precise moment to pick up, the fat droplets catching on her lashes. Preston’s gaze was flat with skepticism. “The road is all but washed away down there,” he said. Then, in complete deadpan, he added, “Are you planning to swim?”
She glanced down the muddy road, glowering, and said, “Is this how you entice all the girls into your car?”
“Most girls don’t give me the chance, since they’re sensible enough not to try and saunter down cliffs in the rain.”
Her face turned magnificently warm. She stomped around the other side of the car, cheeks flaming. In one furious motion, she jerked open the car door and plunked into the passenger seat.