The Way of the Sea

Chapter Eleven: The Scáth

Fredric set Alanna down and allowed Merida to lead the children into the warmth of the house. He peered through the kitchen window, expecting Aidan and Eden to be fairly close now. But Eden's orange hair whipped in the wind as she ran towards the seething storm.

All at once, his mind was back in 1931, and it was his wife that he was watching speed toward the raging sea. There was no rational thought, no reasoning to still him; only fear and dread and panic.

"No, no, no," he muttered, flying out the back door. "Eden!" he shouted. The wind caught in his throat and his call went unnoticed. He used his arm to shield his face from the rain and ran toward his daughter. The wind was strong but he was stronger. In distance, he could barely make out Eden's form against the darkening sky. Aidan ran behind her, shouting her name as she sped toward the lighthouse. He didn't seem to be having any better luck than Fredric.

Why the lighthouse? Fredric wondered. "Eden!" he shouted. "Come back!"

He was closer, now, but still too far for his voice to be heard. His throat was becoming coarse from yelling and breathing heavily as he ran.

Eden yanked open the lighthouse door and disappeared inside. Aidan followed soon after. A beam of light shot out into the fog.

Seconds later, the angry ocean opened it's jaws and the sky sparked with electric light. Fredric faltered and froze.

"No," he pleaded with the sea. "Please, no."

He had only once experienced a storm like this. And it had taken everything from him.

Almost everything. He still had his daughter -- if this storm didn't take her, too.

He pressed forward toward the lighthouse door. If he could just get Eden back to the house before it was too late--

His gaze caught hold of something emerging from the water. His stomach dropped and his heart raced with panic, but his feet could not move. His deepest fear was materialized before him.

*****

Eden ran ahead, urgent and nervous, while Aidan followed behind, winded and confused.

She glanced from the sea with its raging waves to the blue-striped lighthouse and back toward the sea again.

"Eden!" Aidan called over the roar of the waves. "Come back!"

"The lighthouse!" she shouted back. She ran until there was no more breath in her, and ran still, dodging large rocks and holes in the ground. Finally, her feet broke through the rocky sand that surrounded the lighthouse.

With labored breath, she jerked open the rusted red door and rushed inside. She allowed herself a few seconds for her eyes to adjust to the darkness and then stumbled up the several flights of creaky old stairs. At the top of the twisting steps was the trap door that opened up into the lantern room. Eden immediately rushed to the center of the room, where the lens rose out of the floor.

Aidan climbed up into the room shortly after. "Eden, what is going on?" he demanded, out of breath.

Eden flipped a red-handled lever, and a beam of light shot out towards the sea. "She's out there and I want to know why." She tucked her hair behind her ear and looked beyond the glass windows of the lantern room, remembering what Merida had said about using a lighthouse to search. She squinted, searching the telescope for a sign that the moonstone was still clipped to the lens. With a sigh of relief, she spotted the pinkish rock exactly where Fredric had left it.

"She? Who? What are you talking about?"

"I don't know -- her. The Scáth, or whatever they call her. The one from the book who said my name. I heard her voice just now."