II
Adlartok
Chapter Two
The beach lay deserted. Ideas pecked at the child’s temple. She could see Heiðrún’s footprints leading into the water, but remained reluctant to follow. Had she really entered the ocean? Her eyes scoured the sand, mind searching for some other explanation. The wind was increasing, morning sun doing little to placate its bite. Walking slowly, the child made her way to the shoreline. On reaching it, she paused, gasping as the water stabbed her feet. Stood here in the shallows, patches of sunlight shaded the ocean’s dull skin, but further out it roared furiously, anger rhythmic and unrelenting, waves pummelling the surface. Frigid as she was, the child rubbed at her legs, her knees and shins lost somewhere beneath her trousers. She buried her hands in her sleeves and wrapped her arms about her chest. It was the ocean or nothing. What else could she do? A ripple of doubt wrinkled her nose and so she pulled back her shoulders and lifted her chin. Blue sky. Rock and sand. There was nothing for her here. Only Heiðrún offered any hope. Still the waves beat their incessant rhythm. She clenched at the stone in her pocket and took a breath, thoughts silenced as she began traversing the shoreline — walking at first, then jogging. Before she knew it, she was running past Heiðrún’s footprints, veering deeper, wading out into the water. Waves slapped at her knees, the sun glinted, and so at last she plunged into the sea.
Cold embraced her. Bolts of ice ravaged her body. She held her breath and clawed at the liquid. She was moving forwards, but she was also shivering uncontrollably. This was a mistake, what was she doing? And yet, any sense of panic soon subsided, for the beauty of this place took her utterly by surprise. Beneath the surface, the sun cast rainbows through the ocean, colours bleeding into the water, fracturing, criss-crossing, colliding with each other as she swam. The seabed fell away beneath her, and gliding effortlessly, she felt herself carried by the current. The absence of landmarks was unnerving, as was the numbing of her senses, reality stolen by the kaleidoscopic water; it was a vast and otherwise empty ocean, but a cacophony of faces soon began to appear within the shimmering patterns around her, each portrait distorted by the surf above. An absence of sound, and yet she was sure the faces were calling to her. They had left her behind, and consumed by a sense of loss, the child longed to join them. She craved their embrace, a unifying and resounding energy of such strength, she could barely comprehend.
The child swished her head back and forth. Her chest was beginning to burn, body lunging for air. It was no use. She was falling, dizzy, helpless, her lungs screaming in pain. She was sinking. Her legs dangled and she could feel the weight of eternity settling upon her bones. The ocean’s colours faded to dark, but there was also a bubbling, a change in the current as a shape glided beneath her. It was a creature so big that her stomach lurched. Its head came first; like a mountain peak it rose from the depths; and a body, a body as she could never have imagined, an enormous rocky body, skin marked by swathes of tiny blinking eyes. Flanked by two fins, the creature cleaved the water as it passed. Such motion sent a tidal wave, causing the child to spin. She swirled, head over heels, tasting the salty water as it entered her nose. Almost as a reflex she heaved, began choking, gasping for air, and incredibly her lungs obliged. The child lifted a hand to her nostrils. She was breathing. She could breathe as freely underwater as if she were still on land. Rubbing at her face in astonishment, the ocean and its colours soon returned to view, just in time for her to witness that creature’s fin disappear into the gloom. Okay, she thought, bellowing in relief, a shoal of bubbles swimming from her nose.
Peering into the distance, the child could make out what looked to be a long black tunnel. The current was carrying her towards it. Cradled by the water, she drifted ever closer, and yet before the approaching darkness could claim her, a new creature took hold. It gripped at her wrists. The child struggled, but the creature’s fingers held firm. A churning sound erupted as if from out of nowhere, and they were both catapulted into the tunnel. Gloomy walls streamed past. Still the creature hung on. They were drawn deeper and deeper, until, with a flick of its tail, at last the creature twisted around to face her. The child glided to a stop, inches from its sharp nose. The creature’s hair spiralled upwards, blue veins beneath green skin, big round fiery eyes. It blinked its eyelashes, bubbles rising, lips parting, tilting its head. The creature began to hum, and so its siren filled the child’s ears. It thrashed its tail, and without warning darted away, circling, before rising from beneath, netting the child’s body within a pouch of skin. Held fast against the creature’s back, the child was pulled into a dive. They plunged, water tearing at her cheeks. The creature swam violently, and the child grimaced as her head whipped back and forth, water hammering against her face. She had chosen to enter this ocean, but now, helpless, all she could do was hang on. She closed her eyes, shoulders braced against the cold, ears wailing and then, as if bursting from the world entirely, there came a sudden silence, a sudden calm, a sudden blinding screen of yellow light.