Page 2 of The Cornish Mermaid

An even bigger wave splashed up, as the boat, with no one at the helm, turned against the current. The seawater soaked the deck and all down one side of Morvoren’s already damp T-shirt and jeans, wetting one foot and plastering her long hair to the side of her face. Some of it went in her mouth and eyes, so she screwed them shut and spat violently. Goodness knew where the local towns’ sewage went—probably straight into the sea.

She was still wiping wet hair off her face and clinging onto the slippery wooden rail with only one hand, when a second, much larger wave hit the boat side-on.

A few excited squeals and some hysterical laughter exploded from the fishing tourists. The boat rose into the air on the increasing swell, and Morvoren’s precarious, one-handed hold slipped. The deck reared under her, propelling her upwards as though she were on a trampoline, then dropped away and twisted beneath where her feet should have landed. When she came down, the boat wasn’t there anymore. Instead, cold water rushed up to meet her and the bright blue of the sky vanished into a blur of green.

Water went up her nose as she sank like a stone, the sea swallowing her.

The shimmering sunlight at the surface vanished, the water enveloping her like a cold bath. The underside of the boat hung suspended above her, its bottom red-painted and fat as she plummeted away from it.

For a long moment, a curious calmness had her in its hold. This was it. The end. Every childhood nightmare had been a premonition of this moment.

No. What was she doing? She had to fight to save herself.

With a burst of energy born of terror, she thrashed out with arms and legs in a wild attempt to stop this sinking and battle back to the surface. People floated, didn’t they? Or so every swimming instructor who’d ever tried to cure her of her fear had reassured her. You won’t sink. You’re safe. How wrong had they been?

But however hard she kicked out, she kept on sinking. Was a whirlpool sucking her into a vortex she’d never escape from? Was she caught in some deadly undercurrent that refused to let her back to the surface? Waves of pure terror surged through her body, icy in their tight hold, freezing her brain and numbing every thought process.

Her legs were losing strength, and something inexorable was pulling her down, dragging her to her death, determined to drown her. She peered through the murky gloom. Rope, or maybe an old fishing net, had snared her feet, perhaps snagged on a rock or a wreck, lurking below the water, waiting to catch itself a swimmer.

The urge to breathe, to open her mouth and let in that murderous seawater, was overwhelming. A dim awareness surfaced in her fuddled brain. The more she struggled, the faster she was using up what little oxygen remained in her lungs. No. She had to breathe. She just had to.

The world darkened, her vision blurred, and the urge to take that breath magnified. She couldn’t keep her mouth and nose closed any longer or she’d explode, and then she’d be dead anyway. She had to breathe. If only she had gills like a fish…

She opened her mouth.

Water rushed in, not cold and wet but hot and burning. No life-giving oxygen to save her. For a brief moment that stretched into an eternity, she drifted. It must be true that when you were dying your life flashed before your eyes, because here it was, galloping past in a thousand brief flashes from her first day at nursery school and Mum explaining for the umpteenth time that, no, it wasn’t Morwen or Morwenna, but Morvoren. Then, on to her first boyfriend and those furtive kisses behind the cricket pavilion on the school playing field, followed by university, the car crash that robbed her of her parents, and finally, meeting her best friend, Tina, and renting their little flat together.

But it was over in a moment that stretched on forever, and darkness descended, darkness and nothing. If this was death, then it wasn’t as bad as she’d thought it would be.

Chapter Two

1811

Kit hauled in his net over the side of his little sailing boat, the Rosenwyn, with a frown of disappointment and the ache of hard work between his shoulder blades. Her brown sails flapped loose in the light summer breeze. Nothing, again, even though he’d sailed out a long way to cast his nets. He might as well head back to Nanpean Cove and home.

However, despite all indications that today was not a good day for fish, he possessed the fisherman’s optimism that trying just once more would give him something to take back to Jenifry, Uncle Jago’s housekeeper and long-term bed companion. She would clap him on the back in congratulation and fry the fish in butter for their supper that night with some of her delicious bread to mop their plates. Then they’d wash it down with a pint or two of his uncle’s finest cider, and maybe afterwards take a glass of good contraband French brandy as they sat in front of the fire together.

Shrugging his shoulders, his mouth watering, Kit threw his net over the side one last time. He might get lucky. He sometimes did close by the cliffs.

The net sank into the gently undulating surface of the sea, down and down, floating out of sight. One turn of the boat to gather up whatever he’d caught, and he’d haul it in. He pulled on the tiller, and the wind caught the sails. No point spending too much time. He gave the net a tentative tug, feeling the weight of something caught in it. Felt like a lot of fish.

Heart banging in the anticipation only a fisherman could understand, he began to haul the net in. With every heave of his strong, callused hands, his excitement rose. Whatever nestled in weed at the bottom of his net was heavy.

For a moment, he hesitated as the catch came into view. Something large and definitely not fish shimmered through the water. Through the weed, wet blonde hair trailed across the pale, blue-tinged skin of a face. Where the legs should have been—was that a blue tail?

Oh God, he’d caught a mermaid.

He couldn’t have. They didn’t exist. And on top of that, fishermen who caught them, according to the tales, either went mad or ended up dead.

Or both.

He nearly pushed the net and the mermaid back into the water, but then common sense took over. Firstly, it wasn’t his net but Uncle Jago’s, who would no doubt be furious if he lost it, as nets were either expensive to buy or a trouble to make. And secondly, that wasn’t a tail, but legs in breeches.

Oh God, again. He’d dredged up a corpse. Hardly any improvement on finding a mermaid. Not that they really existed. Did they? Although his mother, a firm believer in all things fae, would have had something to say about his denial.

The net hung heavily on the side of Rosenwyn, making her heel hard to starboard. Much as he didn’t want to, he’d have to pull the corpse on board. He’d have to touch it. He’d rather have touched a mermaid than the body of a drowned girl. A drowned girl in breeches.

Kit’s hold on the net slackened, and for a moment the body in the net sank beneath the water again, the girl’s light-colored hair floating ethereally about her beautiful pale face like weed. Then, squaring his shoulders for the unwelcome task, he heaved net and body onto the deck of his little boat as the sails flapped in the breeze.