The cold water felt like a bite, fierce and swift. Isla cheered and clapped as I pushed my arms out in breaststrokes that created vivid neon arcs in the water, as though I was writing on the waves, imprinting the sea with my body.
I was mesmerized by the mareel. The ocean, it seemed, had become conscious, mimicking the northern lights. Some of the women were dressed only in a cap and swimsuit yet braved the water without hesitation. I tried to think of the last time I’d been in the sea—it had been at least twenty years. I hadn’t had a holiday abroad since having children. I hadn’t laughed with a group of women like that in a long time. Having a child so young had ostracized me from my friend groups. And who has time for a social life when you’re eyes-deep in nappies and teething?
I stayed in the water for as long as I could, secretly pleading with it to heal me. Any other time, I’d have rejected the idea of a “healing tide,” of anything but medicine having the power to cure. But belief is a powerful thing. Maybe, I thought, if I put aside my skepticism and willed myself to believe that the cancer could disappear, it would.
II
In the days after that night in the mareel, I felt a lot better. The blood in my urine cleared up; I stopped getting backaches. I didn’t dare believe that it had anything to do with swimming in the mareel, but I was delighted all the same.
I took to joining Mirrin and Isla for a swim first thing every morning before the school run. Even in brisk winds, the icy sleeve of the waves around my body was exhilarating. I felt like I’d discovered a rare secret, the thrill of immersing myself in the thrashing wilderness of the Atlantic Ocean. Maybe, I thought, the diagnosis was wrong. They get things like that wrong sometimes, don’t they?
Isla invited me and the girls to join her for dinner. We ate in her dining room, which was the size of all the rooms of the bothy combined, with an oval oak table in the center and a fireplace that I could easily stand up inside. Rowan and Saffy sat next to each other. I’d hoped they’d be friends, but now I could see the reason why they hadn’t clicked. They were like chalk and cheese. Rowan wore a vial containing wolfsbane—“It kills werewolves, and you never know”—and a floaty purple dress embroidered with mystical symbols. Her fingers were covered in heavy silver rings and she talked in her high-pitched voice about tarot and a retreat to Iceland she wanted to take to meet with a coven. I spotted Saffy rolling her eyes more than once. She was dressed in a thrift store lumberjack shirt and ripped jeans with nine-hole Doc Martens boots with yellow laces. Her blonde hair hadn’t been washed in a week and she’d piled it up on the top of her head with a pen spiked through the nest of it. She stifled a yawn, and I realized suddenly how tired she looked.
“And how is school, my lovelies?” Isla asked Clover and Luna when the conversation began to flag.
“I don’t like it,” Clover said flatly. Always to the point.
“How come?” Isla said.
“We don’t do any science, just collecting leaves and building dens in the forest.”
“Well, that can be scientific, can’t it?” Isla countered.
“By ‘science,’ I think Clover means they don’t set stuff on fire,” I said. Her school in York had a science lab, and Clover had shown a slightly worrying interest in exploding things.
“I like the school here,” Luna said. “We made puppets yesterday.”
“What about you, Saffy?” Isla said. “Rowan said you’ve settled in well?”
Saffy’s cheeks reddened. “It’s OK,” she said to the plate.
“Will you be taking the girls guising, Liv?” Rowan asked.
“Guising?”
“Trick or treating,” Isla translated.
“It is not trick or treating,” Rowan said, mock-offended. She shook her head at me. “Guising’s a very different matter. You dress up to disguise yourself so the spirits think you’re one of them. And you perform for your neighbors to bring them good luck.”