Children of the May (Children of the May Book 1)

Chapter Five: The Cave

The sea churned around me. I clutched the baby to my chest. Now that we were connected by the water I knew he was a little boy. I could feel him struggling to breathe in the sea – his lungs were desperate for fresh air. I knew that this was what it must feel like to be drowning, a thing one of the nuns at the far end of the Lake had once told me about. The boy was drowning in my arms.

I could hear other thoughts all around me in the water – thoughts of fear and despair, anguished mental screams. The baby in my arms gave out a sharp cry of panic. I heard Margaret: ‘Drift,’ she screamed, ‘Drift, where are you? Help me!’ But then she fell silent, and one-by-one the other voices died off. I wondered how long it would be before the baby’s thoughts disappeared like theirs. I knew I could live under water for hours, perhaps even days; but he could not.

As the cold began to numb my brain I thought about how different the waters of the sea were compared to those of the Lake. There, I had felt the cool thoughts of the fish slide past me; this sea was water of a different kind – its currents brutal and unforgiving, dragging me this way and that.

I kicked, trying to reach the surface, but I could no longer tell up from down. I thought about Margaret, and how soon the only friend I’d ever made had been snatched away from me.

My foot touched rock, and a crash of lightning overhead made it clear where the surface was. I used the solid surface to push myself and the baby towards the air. The baby was not yet on the edge of death, but was straining painfully for breath. I knew that the next time he inhaled his lungs would fill with salt water. I regretted not being able to help him. Perhaps he would have lived a happier life than me.

I lost control of my arms and legs as I fought against the wrenching currents. I struggled against the power of the water, hoping that whatever came in the next life would be better for the child.

But he was saved.

A hand grabbed my collar and dragged us upwards. And then I felt the rain lashing down on my head, and saw another tremendous crash of lightning. I was kneeling on cold wet rock, and air was going into my lungs. I coughed and retched; what seawater was within me was soon without. The baby whimpered. He was alive.

I saw our saviour in another flash of lightning. He stood above us, tall and slender, his black hair plastered to his face. It was Mordred.

‘Drift,’ he shouted over the wind. ‘Up there.’ He pointed to a round cave set in the bottom of a high, sheer cliff, a glow of fire lighting its mouth. Further along the rocks, fair-haired Agravaine and the two Saracens were leaning over the crashing waves, pulling a small child from the jaws of the sea.

‘Quickly, man!’ shouted Mordred. ‘You must get to the warm or you’ll die of the cold.’

‘But M-M-M-Margaret! I must save Margaret!’

He leant down and touched my face. He looked deeply into me with his dark eyes – which I now saw really were black. I heard his words as much through my connection with his wet hand as I did from his mouth.

‘Listen,’ he shouted over the roaring wind and through my skin, ‘we will rescue your friend if we can, but you have a babe in your arms, and you must get it into the warm or you’ll both die. I charge you with the task of keeping this baby alive.’

I nodded, though I felt on the verge of sobbing. There was a tremendous shivering in my core. Mordred was good, and right, and I knew that he would do his very best to save Margaret if he could. I got to my feet and scrambled over the slippery rocks, up towards the brightly lit cave.

A large fire burned in the centre of the cave’s floor. It was made out of dried driftwood, and its smoke smelled like the sea. The heat made my skin prickle.