Chapter Ten #2
other side of the lighthouse door. “Oh. Merou!”
Priddy’s
instinct was to jump into his arms. But here was poor Kit with his
crumbling dreams, and Merou on two boot-clad feet looked very
different to the creature who’d ravished him the night before.
Weary, human, more than a bit insecure. “Morning, Priddy,” he said.
“Just thought I’d call in and see how you were.”
“I’m fine. This is Kit, my mate from Rosewarne, home from
university for a few days. Kit, meet Merou, a—a friend of
mine.”
The two
shook hands. Kit’s jaw was just barely managing not to drop
floorwards. “Very good to meet you,” he said civilly, then broke
out into one of his huge sunshine grins and looked like himself
again. “Bloody hell. Priddy’s taken, is he?”
“If he wants to be. I’m just not altogether certain who
by.”
“What?” Kit glanced back and forth between them, at Priddy’s
dressing gown and the trace on the air of the loving embrace Merou
had found them in. “Oh! Not by me. Not by me.” He grabbed Priddy
and shoved him like a parcel in Merou’s direction. “Whoa! I don’t
mean to make personal remarks, but you did all right, didn’t you,
Prid?”
“I wonder if it’s possible to physically die of embarrassment,”
Priddy managed, clutching the hand Merou had put out to steady him.
“I feel as if I’m about to find out.”
“Yeah. Oops, sorry. He’s gorgeous, that’s all. I’ll leave you
to it, then—got to go back and rub the Prof’s feet.”
He
darted back through the gate. Merou watched him go, eyes wide.
“That was the guy you told me about?”
“My friend, yes.”
“The one who almost got you killed.”
“Oh, Merou. He’s so sorry. He’d do anything to make things
right for me, and you know it wasn’t his fault anyway.”
“Well, maybe.” Merou gave a gauche little shrug. “I just saw
the helicopter lifting off. Is everything all right?”
“You know it is. The crew from the Lovely Rose turned up—the boat that
capsized on Friday night. Don’t say it’s nothing to do with you,
because I know you saved them.”
“Who, me? I only dropped by Hagerawl to thank the guy whose
clothes I stole yesterday. He wasn’t home, so I put a circle round
a horse’s name in the racing section of the Cornish Herald and left that for him.
I’d once have left a gold nugget, but people seem confused about
what to do with those these days.”
“Merou.”
“What?”
“The crew.”
Merou
sighed. “May I come in, or do you have another handsome childhood
friend stowed away indoors?”
“For God’s sake.” Priddy caught Merou’s glimmer and grinned. “I
happen to be barefoot in a dressing gown because Kit and his new
boyfriend found me naked on the beach, and I was giving Kit a hug
because the boyfriend happens to be a dick. Would you have minded
very much otherwise?”
“I’d mind horribly. I’m quite an ordinary bloke in some
respects, you know.”
“Not very many.” Putting his arm around Merou’s waist felt like
a bold move, but Priddy made it. He pushed the door open and drew
him inside. “What did you do to those people from the boat? From
the way the dad was talking, I knew it had to be you.”
“If he was raving about being wrapped up in jelly, it wasn’t.
That part isn’t my job. I just caught up with them on their way
down, and I breathed for them, the way I did for you.”
“Oh, is that all? Don’t say it like it wasn’t something incredible, a... a
miracle.”
“It isn’t one. Not for us.” Merou took hold of Priddy’s
shoulders, pushed him back a little to look into his face. “But I
kind of still need you to think of it like that, because we can’t
do it for everyone, and you’ll be hurt and bewildered if you come
to believe that we can. Some people—their lives and their deaths
are fixed points in time, and we can’t change their fate. And some
people just bloody deserve it. But Michael Henderson’s a nobody,
and it wasn’t his kids’ fault that he didn’t know to steer clear of
Hell’s Teeth in a storm. They were very far gone when I got to
them, or I’d just have slung them ashore. As things stood, they
needed a little time with us, to regrow some damaged
parts.”
“My God. You saved them.”
“Priddy...”
“All right.” He lifted Merou’s hand from his shoulder;
impulsively kissed the palm. “I promise not to go crazy. And I
swear I’ll never tell anyone, even though I think it’s the coolest
bloody thing I ever heard of. And...” He shook his head,
remembering his former suspicions. “Well. I’m glad you didn’t eat
them after all.”
“What amuses me is that you were willing to have me even when
you thought I had.”
Priddy
gave a choked laugh. Somehow it knocked the knees out from under
him, and he dropped into Merou’s embrace. He was so deliciously
tired—none of the scratch and grind of his usual daily weariness,
just a whole-body warmth, a sense of being undone from the inside
out. “I was. I would have.”
“Feckless, as I said. And so lovely.” Merou rubbed his
cheekbone against Priddy’s scalp, drew back a handful of hair from
his neck. His fingers probed the site of the wound he’d made the
night before, which Priddy had forgotten entirely, and which must
surely have healed, because he felt no pain from it now. “Oh.
Priddy.”
“What?”
“I’ve changed you.”
“I know you have. My scar’s gone.”
“Hush. How are you feeling?”
“That’s what I wanted to tell you while we were outside. All
the things you said you could do for me—the pain, the
cravings—they’re true. You granted my wish.” He chuckled. “Threw in
a bit of plastic surgery, too. Poor Kit thought I’d had
botox.”
“Let me take you upstairs.”
Priddy
drew back wonderingly. That was the way you spoke to someone who’d
just hurt themselves, tripped off the kerb and bounced off the
bonnet off a passing car. “I’m all right, you know. Better than
I’ve ever been.”
“That’s good. But your feet must be sore from walking on the
stones. Come here.”
He
scooped Priddy off the floor. “Hoi, you idiot,” Priddy managed,
laughing. “What are you playing at?”
“You carried me downstairs last night. Do you really
mind?”
“No. It’s just weird. And anyway, you’ll never manage—not all
that way, with my big—”
“Shut up and listen to me. The world you live in is good, or it
will be now you’ve broken your chains.”
Priddy made a halfhearted effort to escape, but Merou had set
off on the spiralling upward journey. “You broke them.”
“You’d have done it yourself in time. You’re so much stronger
than you think. You could find a place here.”
Priddy
wasn’t arguing. Merou’s rhythmic movements were too distracting.
“When you say here, you mean... Hagerawl, or Rosewarne,
or...”
“No. Topside.”
“Well, I don’t have much choice about that, do I? And don’t
worry—you’ve sold it to me. Cars, horses, lung stuff, two-legged
stuff. I took it all for granted, but with you around, everything
looks different.” He leaned his head on Merou’s shoulder. “God, I
sound like a right bunny-boiler. I know you can’t be here all the
time.”
“I’m here now, aren’t I?”
“Yes. When did you change this time? Did it hurt?”
“Not at all. I was in the water, seeing the Hendersons home. It
did mean I had to take advantage of an open window in the cottage
and borrow these nice things.”
Priddy
took a handful of the jumper he was wearing. Now he came to look,
it was a landsman’s version of a fisherman’s sweater, way too soft
for hard work or open seas. Kit had never possessed such a thing.
“Shit,” he said, breaking into giggles and almost upsetting Merou’s
balance on the stairs. “This is the dickhead boyfriend’s. He’s
gonna freak.”
“Oh, no.”
“Yep. You should always nab expensive gear if you can—it suits
you.” Priddy sobered, as much as he could whilst being carried
upstairs by a merman in stolen clothes. “I have to tell you
something about him. He’s some kind of marine biologist from the
Northeast Atlantic Institute. One of the guys you rescued had a
fancy watch with a GPS tracker on it, and he got a look at the
coordinates. He was very
interested. He’s brought down all kinds of
equipment, and he’s trying to hire a research boat.”
“GPS? Damn. I told Ayouana to look out for that kind of thing,
but she’s more used to going through their pockets for
doubloons.”
“Who’s Ayouana?”
“She’s a kind of nurse. I’ll have to go out there and tell her
to move things on.”
“Right now?”
“No. He won’t be going anywhere yet with his research boat, not
with this storm blowing in. Priddy, my love, the truth is that I
came to see you, not the Hendersons, and I have a feeling the
visit’s gonna be a short one. Do you really want to spend it all
talking about Kit’s new squeeze?”
“Not a minute of it.” There was a lump in Priddy’s throat, but
it felt like melting sugar. “Why did you call me that?”
“What else would I call you? It’s not every boy I’d take to
Lyonesse.” Again came the concerned brush of fingertips to the side
of Priddy’s neck. “Not every boy who’d so fearlessly come with
me.”
“Fearless? I nearly had a coronary.”
“But you didn’t. You survived it, and everything I did to you,
and I don’t want you to worry about another thing. Just let me take
care of you.”
A tall order, strangely, after all this time. Priddy had begun
to learn the rudiments of caring for himself. He’d been doing a
terrible job of it, but still he’d been beating his mum and dad
hollow. Kit, too. And Merou might be superhuman even in two-legged
form, capable of bearing him off up infinite flights of stairs, but
this wasn’t a Regency romance, or An
Officer and a Gentleman. “Tell you what,”
Priddy said, grabbing the rail, forcing Merou to let him go or
pitch them both over the side. “It’s got to be tiring, rescuing
shipwrecked sailors. Come with me now, and we can take care of each
other.”
Merou
steadied him. For a moment he looked lost, as if Priddy had turned
into someone or something unexpected, put out a branch to him
bearing strange fruit. Then a broad and delicious smile lit his
face. “Sounds good to me. Top bunk or bottom?”