Page 18 of Finding Love at the Magical Curiosity Shop
Shouting takes his strength from him, and when he recovers, he shouts again. ‘Where am I? Where are you? I know there’s someone out there!’
At first, I go to reply. I do that, sometimes. I forget that my voice is missing. For just a moment, I feel normal, like someone will speak to me and I’ll be able to speak in return. A normal conversation. Something that so many people take for granted without ever knowing how fortunate they are.
‘Maybe they’ve gone for help.’ He says it to himself, not realising that I am hiding in the waves, listening. ‘That’s good. I need help.’
Something thrums in my chest. Help. He does need help. He keeps holding his head, like the wounds are paining him, and every time he looks down at his leg, his face turns a pale colour and he looks unbearably ill.
Water. Food. He will die without them. There are supplies here, but only enough for myself, and they must last until summer. I will have to share them with him, or he will die and my efforts in saving him will be for nothing.
I cannot let him see me. I will wait until he is asleep again, and then take him water.
‘John,’ Ren says. ‘That’s one of the most common names from that era. If only we had a surname, we could cross-reference it with databases of people lost at sea, but it would be hopeless without.’
‘I thought you didn’t believe in this.’
‘I don’t. But you two do, and I always enjoy an opportunity to prove myself right.’ He sounds jokey rather than serious, but the best way to prove him wrong is to read more of the diary.
20 January 1899
He knows I am here.
It was night and he was asleep so I took him some water, I was going to put the cup on the sand beside him, but I couldn’t stop looking at him. I stayed too long. I touched his hair, brushed it away from the wounds on his forehead. My hair was wet and the seawater dripped onto his face and woke him.
He reached out and grabbed me. I tried to scream. I dived back to the safety of the ocean, but it was too late. He has seen me.
He sat up instantly. Now, he peers into the darkness in front of him, but I have swum away. I am hiding on the sandbank again, around the shoreline from where he saw me.
‘Come back!’ he cries out. ‘Who are you? Where are you?’
He tries to stand, presumably to chase me, to catch me, but he is unable to because of his injuries. He slumps back onto the sand with a howl of pain. ‘Please come back!’
I feel his pain inside of me. I wish I could make it better, but I cannot. People think mermaids have magical powers, but they are mistaken. I am more powerless than any human. I cannot speak for myself, and therefore, I have no value to anyone. I am a creature of no worth and life is better for everyone when I am exiled here, and not on the mainland with them. He will only be disappointed if he sees who I really am.
I put my hand on my heart and glance at Ava. ‘This is heart-wrenching. How could anyone feel like that?’
‘And she was a mermaid.’ Ava looks like she’s feeling the same emotions as I am. ‘The most special creature of all. How could anyone not value her? How could anyone’s life be better without her?’
I assume Ren is going to say something disparaging, but he nods to the book, wordlessly telling me to read on, because he’s trying and failing not to get invested in this.
21 January 1899
He knows that I am hiding on the sandbank. Since daylight, he has been watching the water’s surface, studying it, searching for the creature he saw last night.
I should have gone, but I stayed. When his eyes moved my way, I went to slip under the water, but my reactions were too slow, like they were on the night of the shipwreck, and he saw me. He has not tried to walk, but he has dragged himself closer to me. He is on the edge of the sand now, the water is lapping at his broken leg.
He speaks to me, even though I am underwater and his words are dulled through the waves. He has a voice unlike any I’ve ever heard before.
An accent is what they call it. The men who brought me here, they had accents too. They told me they were Welsh accents as they laughed and joked and invented callous names for me, but his is unlike theirs.
‘Welsh!’ I bang my hand down on the table excitedly. ‘The men who took her there were Welsh! This helps! They’re somewhere in Wales.’
‘Yes, it should be easy to narrow down the 1,680 miles of Welsh coastline. Good work, we’ve almost found them. And being Welsh is just an assumption, Welsh people can exist outside of Wales, you know.’
I narrow my eyes at Ren’s sarcasm, but again, he isn’t wrong. But it’s our only clue so far, even if it is abiton the vague side.
His accent is soft, lilting and melodious. I feel like falling asleep every time he speaks because his voice is so soothing. Sometimes I drift off and imagine that I can speak too, that we can engage in a conversation, that I could be normal for just a moment.
He tells me he is from across the sea. Ireland. He tries to point towards the borders of his land, but it is too foggy to see so far. I have never been to Ireland. I have never been anywhere but here.
