The Coming of the Whirlpool (18 page)

Dow saw doubt and unease shifting across the faces around the room, and felt a matching uncertainty curl in his own chest. It was nonsense surely, all the old woman's talk of scapegoats and fate. And yet, Dow remembered the sight of Nathaniel's blood trickling down the side of the
Chloe
into the waters of the Claw
.
He could not deny that the southern gale had begun to blow soon after that. And with that gale would come, whirling in the Rip—

‘The maelstrom,' Mother Gale intoned. ‘You all know it, though none dare say it. Ten years it has been, and more now, since last a storm blew like this and raised the whirlpool between the Heads. No doubt you all hoped never to see it again in your lifetimes, but you will, and at your own doing. For when the maelstrom stole Nathaniel's blood kin away from him, a bond was forged between he and the whirlpool – now it will come in answer to Nathaniel's blood being spilled in turn. And how did that blood get spilled? Why, because of the very boy you hoped would lift the maelstrom's curse. So you have brought your own doom upon yourselves. I feel it in my bones; if the boy had not come, this storm would not have risen, and the maelstrom would have slept on for another age.'

Dow felt a hot dread encompass him. The maelstrom; the word he had not been able to utter, even to himself. And the old woman had laid the responsibility for its advent at his feet. He glanced up but saw only stricken faces staring back at him, doubting, wondering, believing, it seemed, the worst . . .

‘Steady there now, Mother Gale.' It was Boiler, clearing his throat as if even he was struggling to wake himself from the old woman's spell. ‘The south storm blows, it is true, as it did ten years before now, but so far it has blown for but a day, and who knows when it might cease. The last storm blew for three nights before failing, and only then did the great whirlpool rise.'

Momentary relief flickered on faces about the room, but Mother Gale only shook her head balefully. ‘Aye, Boiler, it has blown for but a day – but it blows far harder than that last storm, and it will blow for longer too. It will be the worst of all such storms; our own actions have summoned it out of its proper time, and so it will rage with double the fury it otherwise might have. And when in the end it fails, the maelstrom that rises will be terrible indeed.'

Boiler grimaced, but made no answer, and the dread sank into Dow again. Was it true? Were they all of them caught in a chain of cause and effect that could not now be broken, a riddle with no unravelling?

A plea came from somewhere in the room, a woman's voice crying, ‘What should we do, Mother Gale?'

‘Do?' The old woman tilted her head back and her iron-grey hair fell in lines across her eyes. ‘There's nothing
you
can do, Mary Strand. There's nothing
I
can do either. There's nothing any of us can do – except Dow here. We relinquished our fates to him on the day he arrived, now we must stand by. Whatever doom the storm brings, it is he – and Nathaniel – who will meet it.'

Horror crept across Dow's skin. No, that couldn't be.

‘Stop it,' said Boiler flatly. ‘Whatever else the boy deserves, he does not deserve this. He has no control over the storm.'

‘Deserves, Boiler? You're one to speak about what the boy deserves. Who brought him here in the first place? As for the storm, I say this to you; control it he may not – nevertheless, it is
his
storm.'

Dow wrenched his arm free of the old woman's grip.
His
storm? It was obscene to suggest such a thing.

‘Old woman . . .' Boiler rumbled in warning.

Mother Gale ignored him. ‘Go to your homes, people of Stromner. Flee! Save what you can. For this storm will blow for many days, and the waters of the Claw will rise and rise as the south wind piles the ocean inwards. There will be flooding here far worse than any we have ever seen.'

‘Old woman!' Boiler repeated.

But Mother Gale had one last pronouncement to make. She rounded on Dow and pointed a finger. ‘Heed me, Dow Amber. There can be no home for you here in Stromner, no matter how this ends. The ocean is your true home, and you are called to it now, by your heritage, and by your heart, and by the webs that others have woven, all unwitting, about you. Though you may dread it, when the maelstrom rises, I foretell, you will go to it willingly.'

‘Enough!' Boiler roared.

But it was already too much for Dow. He rose, revulsion filling him like panic. He could not stay in the bar a moment longer, he had to get away from the horrid old woman, and worse, from all the frightened, staring faces. Boiler had emerged from behind the counter, a calming hand raised, but Dow shoved past him. He paused in the vestibule only to pull on his boots and his jacket, then pushed blindly out into the storm.

Mad
– he thought as the wind whipped at him and rain drenched him once more –
they were all mad
. Tempests did not rise in response to drops of blood in the water, there was no evil fate written in a gale. This storm was a chance event of the weather, no more. As for what the old woman had said about himself and the whirlpool, it was preposterous, unthinkable . . .

Nevertheless, he steered a path for the beach, then stood at the end of the pier and gazed out through the rain. The Claw was black in the night and there was no telling its state; but from beneath his feet he could hear the waves as they slapped at the underside of the boards – boards that were normally three feet clear of the water, even at high tide. That much was real then.

The rising of the Claw had begun.

Dow returned to his room in Nathaniel's hut. He dressed in dry clothes and huddled under a blanket, but nothing seemed to warm him. Through the thin walls he could hear Nathaniel moaning, and occasionally the mutter of the nurses – Ingrid at first, and later her daughter – but mostly there was just the shudder and thrum of the wind and rain. He slept, then at dawn rose and went back to the pier. Its boards were now awash under a foot of water. The swollen bay beyond was murky and foam-wracked, its waves bobbing with flotsam; tree trunks and other refuse from the flooded shorelines.

On Stromner's own beach the water had reached the base of the dunes. Men were labouring there already in the grey light, dragging the fishing boats to higher ground. Others were
launching
their boats – hurriedly packed with their belongings and their families – and setting off under shortened sail into the churning bay, making for Stone Port, or even for Lonsmouth.

Dow felt the chill in him deepen further. Mother Gale had told them to flee, and so they were, abandoning their village and their friends, afraid of the flooding to come, and of even worse things – perhaps afraid even of Dow himself, for none of the men would speak to him, or meet his gaze.

He returned to the shack. All throughout that long day he sat with Nathaniel, ignoring Inga's frowns. The old man did not improve. The stench of infection grew, no matter what was done to clean his wounds, and the fever would not break. Outside, the south gale howled on, driving the ocean ceaselessly through the Rip, and periodically Dow went back to the beach to look. By midday the pier was more than two feet under, and by the evening it was difficult to even locate the pier, so completely had the rising waters swallowed it.

At nightfall – the third evening of the storm – Dow went again to the inn. It had taken hunger to overcome his unwillingness to repeat the encounter of the night before, but he needn't have worried. Between those who had fled Stromner, and those who were watching over their homes as the waters rose, the bar was almost empty. Nor did Mother Gale accost him again, she only sat silent in her corner, grinning blindly at no one when she lifted her head to drink.

Dow ate alone at his table. What little news he could overhear from the half dozen drinkers present was bad. Tales had come in from all around the bay of flooded beaches and lost homes. Already the Claw was as high as it had been in the storm ten years previous. And yet the current gale showed no sign of abating. What – asked the drinkers anxiously – if it blew for another day? Or another two? How high would the waters rise, and what would happen when they were set free?

Dow, listening on, suddenly felt their eyes upon his back, and heard the echo of Mother Gale's foretelling.
When the maelstrom rises, you will go to it willingly.
He finished his meal and left.

By the following dawn the water was creeping through the dunes to inundate low-lying sections of the village. The rain had in fact eased a little, but the clouds still pressed darkly overhead, and the south gale blew without let. More folk departed throughout the day, so that Dow wondered if there would be anyone left at all in Stromner, come the storm's end. Those remaining strove to protect their shacks with sandbags, but the water rose remorselessly. By the fall of the fourth night of the storm, almost a dozen homes were flooded. A day later, as the rain held off but the gale blew on, fully half the houses of the village were drowned; the only consolation, as far as Dow was concerned, was that Nathaniel's shack was not among them.

On the fifth evening the gale gathered itself anew and the rain came lashing down once more. At the inn, Dow could see that despair had possessed the few villagers who had not fled. The storm now surpassed all previous experience. There were reports of flooding even in the major towns of Stone Port and Lonsmouth. The Claw, some said, had risen by twenty feet. It defied comprehension that mere wind could hold back such a weight. Even Boiler was sunk in apprehensive gloom and only Mother Gale displayed any life, rocking on her bench and listening, rapt, it seemed, to the storm.

When Dow rose to leave, the tension proved too much for one drinker hunched by the fire – it was the fisherman, Morris. ‘Do something,' he hissed at Dow, his gaze maddened. ‘Do something before it's the end for us all.' But then the man only turned away, sick faced, as Boiler glared at him in anger, and Mother Gale chuckled dementedly. Dow fled once more, splashing back through the floodwaters, past all the empty homes. The wind shrieked and wailed, louder than ever, and he could feel it beating at his sanity.

Nor was there was any relief to be found in Nathaniel's shack, there was only Nathaniel himself. His groans were a torment to the ear, and the stink of his gangrene was nauseating. Dow sat up all night at the old man's side, but it was a vigil without hope, for Nathaniel had not eaten in days now, nor taken any water, nor woken from his fever. His breath came in tortured rattles, and his back was blackened with putrefied flesh. Ingrid and Inga nursed him as attentively as ever, but there was no longer any pretence. The old man was dying.

And it was Dow who had killed him.

So dawned the sixth day of the storm. Dow, despite the shame and grief that filled him, had dozed finally as he sat at the bedside. Now he found himself shaken awake by Inga, her face taut with her dislike of him.

‘Hurry,' she said, ‘go and fetch my mother. She will be needed here soon. Nathaniel's time is upon him.'

Dow stared. The old man's fever, with all its shuddering and trembling, seemed to have broken at last, but not as a sign of recovery, rather as a sign of the end, his body exhausted even beyond sickness. Inga had unbound his feet and hands, for he could do no harm to himself now, and he'd rolled to one side, curled up small as a child, his breathing undetectable. Only his eyes showed that he yet lived. They were wide dark pools, turned to the ceiling, as if Nathaniel, in his final moments, searched for some message in the shrieking of the wind outside.

‘Go,' Inga ordered. ‘And do not come back. This is not your home. You are no family or friend of his, and have no place at his passing.'

Dow went, heartsick, making his way through the rain and the half-light of dawn to the inn, where he hammered on the door until Ingrid came, still in her nightclothes, and he could deliver his grim news. Then, in surrender it felt to him, he turned his back on Stromner – deserted now, beaten down and flooded deep – and set his feet on the path that led south over the dunes.

He was going to the ocean. For had not another of Mother Gale's pronouncements proved itself to be true? Inga had cast him out from Nathaniel's house, and he had no home now in Stromner, no place he could go, no fire to sit by, no family to comfort him, no last refuge. So he would go to the sea.

Across the dunes he climbed, and now at last, on the southern side of the peninsula, he was exposed to the full fury of the storm. Wind ripped at his hair, rain lashed his skin and plastered his clothes, but his resolve did not falter. He pushed on, a mile and more over the sand, until finally the sea stretched before him.

It was a murderous prospect, unrecognisable from the visit Dow had made during the summer. The long white beach had vanished, drowned by the storm-driven swells. Surf beat directly upon exposed bedrock, and a dirty wrack and spindrift, whipped from the wave-tops, coated the coastline in an ugly yellowish foam. The waves themselves were flattened and broken by the gale, and a muddy backwash extended far out from the shore. Beyond that was the heaving green mass of the open ocean, but through the spray and rain there was no horizon for Dow's eye to seek, and no escape.

So what was he doing here? Why had he come? To commune with this monstrous thing that was the storm? To command it to stop? Or to give himself to it? To throw himself into the ocean and be done? All of it seemed possible, there in that moment. And none of it. Dow did not know what he wanted. His future looked as dark to him as the tumbling southern sky.

Except, it wasn't so dark there now.

And the rain had stopped . . .

Dow's senses, battered into numbness, came slowly alert again. Something was new. He studied the tumult – the wind, the spray, the clouds, the sea. And the conviction grew in him. A change was coming.