Iylaine finds the water wet

Malcolm had thought she wanted him to come with her to show her the path and help her down the face of the cliff, but Iylaine had found her own path, so steep that he could not follow her. He had always been impressed by her dexterity and the strength of her hands when she climbed trees, but he had never seen anything like this feat of rock-​​climbing outside of the race of goats.

By the time he reached the shore, he was exhausted from the repeated terrors of watching her as she swung herself across a gap or simply leapt from rock to rock; and somewhat embarrassed at his own groping, stumbling descent. By the time he reached the shore, she had been standing on the sands for a while already.

“There it is,” he said grandly once he stood at her side.

She did not speak, and after a moment he turned his eyes from the dim sea to look at her. She stared out at the water through half-​​closed eyes and breathed through slightly parted lips, as if in a trance.

He was not certain she had even noticed he was there, and he was annoyed. He did not know why she had wanted him to come at all. He took her hand, for even if she were only to yank it away as he expected her to do, she would have to acknowledge his existence.

She stood quietly and let him hold her hand, but she spoke. “It’s so much water,” she breathed.

“Aye! All the water in the world,” he said as proudly as if he himself had overseen its creation. “Pretty, isn’t it? It’s a shame you didn’t come down last night, Baby. It was pretty in the sunset. Looking west at dawn with a cliff at your back isn’t the same.”

“I like it better now,” she said, “with the moon. And last night it was all red like blood, and it looked hot enough to boil. But now it’s so clear and cool. Oh!”

She gasped in panic and squeezed his hand as a tall wave came up and crashed on the shore. She jumped away, though it fell some distance from their feet.

“It won’t come this high,” he assured her. “The tide is going out, not coming in. It won’t come any higher tonight.”

She still stared out at the sea, but he was more interested in her hand. He had not held it since he had said goodbye to her nearly a year before. Suddenly he was allowed to hold her hand and call her Baby, and she had even sat unflinching while he ran his fingers over her face.

He could not imagine what he had done to earn back this privilege. He had only been patient with her, as her father had recommended. At the time he had almost believed it a ruse of Egelric’s to keep Malcolm’s hands off of his daughter for as long as a clever boy like Malcolm could be fooled, but it seemed now that the man had meant him well.

He ran his thumb over her dusty palm, but here and there he found it to be sticky, and when he lifted her hand to the light of the narrow moon, he saw that she had scratched and cut herself with her climbing.

“Baby, you hurt yourself,” he murmured.

He tried to cradle her injured hand between his two, and only then did she yank it away.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked.

She did not answer and only looked out to sea. He realized then that she had not looked at him once. Indeed, now that he had released her hand, she stood as she had before, with half-​​closed eyes and half-​​opened lips, and her body leaned toward the water. He did not know why she had wanted him to come.

He stubbed his toe into the gravelly sand in frustration and kicked up a pretty spiral shell striped with pink and white. “Here’s one for you, Babe!” he said as he wiped the sand from the lustrous interior with his finger.

At last she looked at him, and she smiled brightly. “Oh, how pretty!”

“It’s finer than jewelry, isn’t it?” he asked, delighted. “And yet it was made by a lowly snail.”

“May I keep it?” she asked as she turned it over in her bruised hands.

“Of course you may. The boys found a lot last night, but none so handsome.” He was already poking around in the sand with his foot, looking for others. “I’m certain this one came in with the tide only this night. Just for you!”

“Do you think the sea brought it for me?” she asked.

“It wouldn’t surprise me a bit. He saw you looking down at him last night, and he was sorry you wouldn’t come to say good evening to him. So, knowing girls as he does, he thought to woo you with a pretty trinket.”

As he spoke, he bent from time to time to examine the shells he turned up, but he was determined not to present her with any less fine than the one he had already found. He felt rather silly looking for shells as he had not done since he was younger than Caedwulf and Selwyn, but she had been so pleased by the first!

He did not think he had been looking long, and indeed he had not yet found another, but the next thing he heard from Iylaine was a heart-​​rending wail.

“Malcolm!”

Somehow, silently, she had walked out into the sea and stood now with her arms held high and water up to her knees.

As he looked up, the next tall wave came upon her and wet her thighs, and she whimpered again in still greater terror. He knew she did not know how to swim. He had never seen her in the water, not even to wet her feet as the little girls did when they were too shy to undress before the others and swim.

He was more frightened than he had been when he had seen her leaping from rock to rock like a goat, because then he had taken confidence in her own confidence. Now he found terror in her own terror.

And yet the water only came up to his knees, and once he had her in her arms, he was no longer afraid.

“Stupid, idiot girl!” he snarled. “What were you trying to do?”

“I’m sinking,” she whimpered.

“You’re not sinking, stupid! It’s only the sand moving beneath your feet when the waves go out. Come on, then!”

“I’m all wet!” she sobbed hysterically. She was paralyzed with her fear.

“Well, and? It’s only water! Stupid girl! May the devil take you and hang you from his hob to dry!”

She was panicked and trembling, and she sobbed into his neck, but he was unafraid. Now her own fear only served to make him feel twice as strong and twice as sure.

Were it not for the cold water in his boots, he would not have minded standing there a while. She had never clung to him so. She leaned her body so heavily against his that his clothes were growing wet only from the water that had soaked into her dress with the last high wave.

All the same, he wanted to spare her this terror, and so he growled at her and insulted her and wished her at the devil’s right hand until he had dragged her quite out of the water. And still she clung to him!

“What were you thinking, Baby?” he asked, more gently now that he didn’t need his anger to move her. “You know you’re afraid of the water. You know you don’t know how to swim.” He stroked her hair down her back. It was damp and cool from the spray.

“I don’t know!” she sobbed and sniffled.

He felt strong enough and sure enough to laugh at her folly. He reached into the pouch he wore at his belt and pulled out a handkerchief. “Blow your nose here and not in my hair, please.”

“I wasn’t,” she mumbled, but she did as he commanded. And then, to his surprise, she put her arms around his neck again. This was a privilege he had never even had to lose. Oh, he would thank Murchad later!

“What did you think to do out there, Babe?” he asked again. He only wanted to hear how her voice would sound so close to his ear – or against his neck: that would be even better.

“I don’t know,” she whimpered. “I don’t know what I wanted. I thought I wanted to go in the water. But it was so – so wet!”

He laughed and squeezed her.

“I don’t know what I want,” she whined. “I don’t know what I wanted. I felt so bad.”

“You don’t feel bad now, do you, Babe?”

She hesitated only long enough to make her words all the sweeter when she said them. “No, I feel better now.”

He thought he had never been so happy. He felt sure enough of her to laugh at her and say, “And wetter!”

She laughed a little and then sobbed and held him still tighter.

“Stupid, silly girl,” he sighed. “Scaring yourself and scaring me, and then greeting because you’re surprised to find the water wet!”

“It didn’t make me feel any better,” she mumbled.

“But now you feel better.” He wanted to hear her say it again.

“Aye.”

Perhaps this was why she had wanted him to come. Perhaps she had not even known it.

It was a good thing she had come for him after all. If she had gone down alone! If she had found herself in the water, with no one to drag her out again!

The memory of his fear frightened him again. He had to look at her; he had to reassure himself of her face. He coaxed her head off his shoulder and held it still with a hand gently twined in her hair.

There again were the half-​​closed eyes and the half-​​opened mouth, but this time the eyes were looking at him, and this time the mouth was so very close to his. He looked at her until her eyes closed quite, and then he kissed her, truly.