The Music Box: Chapter Fifty-Six

The water was like ice. The swift-running current grabbed at Isabelle’s body and sucked it into its racing flow. What it was running from, where it was going, neither Isabelle nor the river knew. For a long while it dragged her beneath its surface. Her open eyes knew she was still facing upwards for she could see the way the moonlight fractured on the top of the running water, split into silver shards like a shattered mirror. She lifted her hands towards them, half expecting the shards to slice them open, spill her hot blood into the cool water, but of course it was just a trick of the eyes and mind, an associative conceit.

Isabelle remained resolute in her decision to have plunged into the hungry river and felt, for the first time in as long as she could remember, at peace. A voice at the back of her mind reminded her that she could not stay underneath the water forever, so she calmly set about drawing herself closer to that dancing light above.

When she finally raised her head above its surface and took in air, the sudden rush of sounds reminded Isabelle of where she was. Still she refused to panic – in all her time, her tangled life, apart from Percy and Emily it was water that she most trusted. But it was a strange kind of trust. She knew it would ultimately look after her, but she was uncomfortable admitting just what a hold it had on her, what a pull it had on her heart.

This was the reason she could rarely bring herself to take Emily down to the sea, though they both loved it so. If she was to be honest with herself, it was a form of greed, a jealous protectiveness. She did not want to lose Emily to this love, for it to capture her daughter in the way it had captured her own young heart, filled a spot in her that for others family completed. She knew she was being selfish, but so important to her were Percy and Emily that she could not bear to think that something else could take the place she held for her daughter, could draw Emily in under its unmatchable spell.

The river, Isabelle realised, was starting to lose the edge of its frenetic pace. She had been tumbled this way and that for who knows how long, whereas now she was able to feel part of its rhythm, moving with it rather than it simply tossing her along. Resting on its surface, drawn along on its merry dance but now well and truly in step, Isabelle saw that the river had widened since she jumped in, but that up ahead there was a peninsula of jutting land, slowing the water as it had to squeeze past and around into its next bend.

Near the end of this peninsula, just above the water line, she saw a fire was burning. Shadows played in the treetops as the fire danced and twisted, drawing in new breath as deeply and appreciatively as Isabelle herself was now doing. She felt the loose folds of her dress drawn across her body as a cross-current pulled her towards the side of the river, and is it passed into the small bay that the peninsula had created, she felt her feet touch the stony river bottom. She stood and waded through the water, feeling it tugging her back but this time resisting. She was loathe to disappoint it, but knew she had been brought to this particular place for a reason.

As she reached the river’s edge, water streaming down the hair plastered to her head and dripping off the clumping ends, Isabelle pricked her ears to see if she could hear anything that would alert her as to what she should do next. But apart from the ceaseless, whooshing, rushing of the water and the dry, raspy crackling of the fire, there was no sound at all. The birds had curled up under a warm wing for the night, while the nocturnal army of creatures that came out after dark were perhaps hiding in the trees, eyes drawn in slits so as to not let the whites give them away, but none was uttering a peep.

Isabelle clambered up the river bank and walked slowly towards the fire. It was only small, taking up no more room than a small stool, and was burning quite low. Maybe she was too late? Somebody must have been here recently, but there seemed no sign of anyone at the present. And anyway, why would somebody be waiting for her here? How would they have known she might come by? She certainly had not planned anything of the sort, so there was no way anybody could be expecting her.

“Now that’s where you are wrong!”

Isabelle jumped near out of her skin, her heart racing at the shock of the voice coming from out of thin air. Dropping from a branch that was hanging from the tree just behind her, a small red-headed man gave a low bow to the startled, dripping lady before him. Isabelle’s mind raced, trying to work out whether she had ever seen him before.

“You don’t yet know me, but you will be very glad to have made my acquaintance,” he smiled, replacing a green felt hat upon his head.

“My name is Oscar, you might say I am an acquaintance of Emily’s.”