‘But she still knows her mind. Your mother would lock her away, you know that. But that will not help either. Quite the opposite.’
He pulled out the linen pouch and turned it over in his hands. ‘Who is she trying to protect me from? And why does she think the Walkers, of all people, can help?’
Nolvene set a coffee down in front of him. It was rich and black. She warmed milk in a little metal jug and handed him sugar in an ancient silver caddy, ignoring his questions. Always perfect, Nolvene’s coffee. There was not a barista in the world who could rival her. He knew. He’d tried to find them. And failed.
She settled herself down in the seat opposite him. The look she gave him branded him a fool. ‘You know full well what she’s trying to protect you from, and don’t try to pretend differently. Call it what you will, thegroac’h, themari-morgen, the water witch… If you cannot believe her, at least humour her. She has the sight, and the knowing, your great-aunt. The Walkers can help because they’re touched by loss as well. The same kind of loss as your family are, as she is. Simon Poullain, remember him? Gérard Poullain’s son.’
‘He drowned in a diving accident a few years ago.’ Rafael remembered the news stories at the time. Precious little happened in Sainte Sirène, so when something did, he noticed. Besides, he’d been at school with Simon. The same schoolin Beuzec. They’d been friends once, as children.
‘Simon Poullain was the last of the Poullain family. Gérard died in 2001. Eléanor in 2006. It’s not often a family so vital to the commune ends. His great-great-uncle was Tristan Poullain, who died alongside Fabien du Lac in the war.’
Mémé’s uncle, whose name was on the memorial at the cove, along with Poullain and others.
‘Simon was their friend, the Walkers. More than a friend. It ties them to us, to this place, whether they like it or not. Jason Walker buried him, scattering his ashes in the bay as he requested. Imagine, a man so young already having his funeral arrangements laid out.’ Nolvene sighed and stared out of the window. ‘He was a good boy. They all were, the Poullains. A good family, loyal and true Sirènois. He was determined to find Ys, Rafael. I think he found something, something important and your great-aunt believes…and I believe, he woke something up.’
Woke something up.The words haunted Rafael all day. Even as he tried to work, he couldn’t stop thinking about Ari Walker and Simon. And whatever he had found.
Simon Poullain. He should have known. When it came to Ys, and the curse, there was always a Poullain involved, just like Nolvene had said. Not that he could say he knew Simon that well. Only in the same way anyone in a small place knew each other, part of your life, part of your world, when your world extended from school to home to seashore. Rafael had left the school when he was eleven, shipped off to a prestigious boarding school instead. He made new friends. More suitable friends, his mother had said. He couldn’t even remember half their names now.
He wanted to go over there and question the Walkers about Simon, about their search, about everything they knew about Ys, but he couldn’t. What could he say? Mémé’s superstitions were bad enough. Dreams and visions didn’t help matters and who would believe him? He’d make a fool of himself and he couldn’t have that.
Instead, he googled Simon Poullain and read through the various sparse news reports of his death. It had been his expedition, for want of a better word, his project, and Jason Walker had joined him here in Brittany.
But there was no mention of whatever had been found, if indeed Poullain had found anything at all. Simon was following old stories, stories his grandparents had told him.
Rafael sat back, pondering the stories his own family had told – 1943, for example, during the occupation, when Tristan Poullain died alongside Fabien du Lac, the pair of them fighting in the resistance, helping the Allies land spies in the secret coves and inlets on the north coast, smuggling goods and information, sabotage… Executed on a cold winter’s dawn by the edge of the sea with a half-dozen friends and comrades.
One photograph on the screen caught his eye, halfway down theOuest-Francearticle. A group of people standing on a quay, in a pool of sunlight, laughing. Ariadne Walker was there. She stood by Simon Poullain, leaning against him, her head thrown back in a laugh.
Rafael enlarged the photo, intrigued by the expression on her face. Such joy. Her copper hair was longer, ruffled by the breeze. Her blue eyes shone. Simon had one arm around her waist, pulling her closer to him, caught in a moment of intimacy, even with their friends there. It could have been just the two of them. Around his neck, he wore a leather thong with a small carved bone disc on it. It was the one she now wore around her neck. Reaching out, Rafael touched the image of her face, not really sure what he was feeling, not sure why he was so drawn to her. She had lost so much. His heart ached for her.
They’d been lovers, Ari and Simon. She had lost him. ‘That beautiful girl,’ Mémé had said.
Celebrated local diver drowns in bay, the headline read.
Suddenly Rafael realised why Ari had reacted as she did when she saw him in the water yesterday. If she thought he was drowning, if she thought she was seeing a body where her partner had drowned… Afterwards, she had been so shaken.
Before the walls came up, before the sharp defences came into play.
He felt like such a fool. He’d been so unsympathetic, annoyed with the situation in which he’d found himself. He hadn’t thought about her emotions at all. He should have seen, and now he felt terrible. She had recovered her wits so quickly and so convincingly, he hadn’t realised that she was genuinely upset. But looking back now, he could see it. Her hands trembling, holding the necklace that had once been Simon’s, the way she seemed to find it so hard to draw a proper breath.
Was that why he felt so transfixed by her? It didn’t make sense. But he did. She had even appeared in his dream and that was new. Brand new.
In the past, that dream had always ended with him leaping towards the white-haired woman in the sea, with the waves drinking him down, into darkness, pain and death.
Why had she made this one different?
He had to find out more. He needed to know what the Walkers had thought they would find, sure. But, more than that, he needed to find out about Ariadne Walker herself.
Rafael got another two hours of work done before the sound of a car roaring up the gravel drive disturbed him. He frowned, not expecting anyone. But the little Mercedes convertible was instantly recognisable, as was the woman in the driver’s seat. Laure.
What was his sister doing here?
He opened the door to her, but she wasn’t alone.
A willowy blonde, hair so pale it was almost white in the sunlight, had joined his sister. She smiled as she saw him, her grey eyes sparkling. She was slender and elegant, a heart-shaped face and a long pale neck. She was as beautiful as she had always been.
Laure spoke first.
