‘Magic, isn’t it? Like standing at the bottom of the sea.’ Gwen moved on to another bank of candles and began to light them too. Her feet didn’t make a sound on the stone-flagged floor and Ari couldn’t hear anything except her own breath. ‘Do you think Ys looks like this? The sea for the sky? Candlelight for the sun? Do you think its people still walk its streets, look up and wish for the air again?’
Ys? Ari shook her head. She didn’t want to think about Ys. ‘It’s just a story.’
Gwen gave her a long measured look. ‘To you maybe. To us, the Sirènois, the people who come from this place, whose blood is in this land and in the sea, Ys is as real as anything on this earth. It always has been.’
‘It’s an Atlantis legend, a golden city, a place of wonders which was lost.’
Gwen laughed. ‘Listen to yourself. Atlant-Ys.Ys. It all comes back to Ys.’
‘But…’ Ari drew in a shaky breath. Simon had said that. The same thing.Atlant-Ys… It shook her for a moment. She wasn’t sure what Gwen was trying to draw her into, but she didn’t like it. This was none of her business, and she seemed to know far too much about Ari’s business. And she sounded far too much like Simon for comfort. Ari didn’t want an argument, but facts were facts. ‘Plato wrote about Atlantis in 360 BC. Ys is a medieval legend. It may have grown from the legend of Atlantis, but not the other way around.’
But Gwen was just smiling. ‘Aren’t you clever, Ariadne Walker. Sixth century AD, at most. Your brother could tell you, I’m sure. But that is just the story. And stories come from somewhere. They have roots in other tales, or real events. Simon could have elaborated, certainly. He knew all the stories, inside and out. He could meld them together in ways that revealed all their secrets. His family was always good at that. They stored away so many secrets. Simon was the last of them and he took his secrets with him.’
A chill passed through Ari as Gwen spoke of Simon. She had known him, then. The way she said his name, the stretching out of the first vowel to sound likeSea,the curtailed sound of the rest. Very musical, very French. So familiar, so fond. Intimate. Like she had been his fiancée instead of Ari.
A weird and creeping suspicion wound its way through Ari’s body and she stared at Gwen, trying to see something, a hint, anything that might give her away.
‘You knew him?’
Gwen smiled again. ‘Of course I did. He talked about you all the time, how clever you were, how beautiful. He said he could sit for hours and just listen to you. You challenged him. He loved you so much. It was a tragedy when he passed.’
Passed. So simple a word.
Ari stood there frozen, her heartbeat throbbing in her head.
‘I should go,’ she whispered, not caring if Gwen heard her or not. She didn’t want to be here anymore. The church was dark and cold, a place of the dead and lost souls. She didn’t want to be here speaking of Ys or Simon or anything else.
‘You should,’ Gwen agreed. ‘It would be better. Safer. Go back home, Ari Walker. You’re waking things here that should be sleeping. Digging up things that should remain lost. You and your brother. You may have loved Simon, but that doesn’t mean you should continue his quest. It’s dangerous.’
A flame of anger licked up inside Ari’s chest. ‘What does that mean?’ How dare she? How dare she say anything about Simon at all? She didn’t know anything about their relationship, or anything about what Simon had meant to her or her to him. She didn’t have a clue.
‘Ys is not a prize to be won.’
‘I don’t think Ys is a prize.’
Gwen laughed, a thin dismissive sound. ‘Your brother does. And he has that way of getting people to do his work for him, doesn’t he? Just like Rafael. It will get more of them hurt. Bring more deaths. Some things are not meant to be disturbed.’
Ari shook her head. ‘Jason and Rafael are nothing alike. They couldn’t be more different.’
‘You think so?’ Her voice went strangely cold. ‘I know the du Lacs of old. When they want something, they get it. They’ll use anything and everything at their disposal to have their way. When you have a moment, come to thepetit muséeand I’ll show you. Or, better yet, have a look in the graveyard. Look at the names. If they want to keep you here, they will. Ask any of the Poullains… Except you can’t. They are all dead now.’
‘No one is keeping me here.’
Gwen had the gall to look concerned. ‘I’m trying to help you, you know?’
Ari was about to tell her that she’d leave whenever she wanted and not before, when her phone rang, a loud and jarring sound in the silent church. She jumped in surprise, couldn’t help herself.
But Gwen didn’t move. She just kept staring at Ari, like a statue herself, her pale skin and her long blonde hair drained of colour in the candlelight. Like the statue of Notre Dame des Naufragés on the Pointe du Raz, the pale statue of Mary gazing down in pity on the pleading shipwrecked sailor, but never offering to help.
Ari shook the idea aside and stepped out into the sunlight of the chapel grounds, answering the call as she did so, trying to ignore Gwen and her strangeness, trying not to think about Simon or the du Lacs. Or Jason for that matter. She didn’t like any of this and the creeping feeling of being manipulated from all sides was overwhelming. Once again, she reminded herself that she should never have come back to Sainte Sirène. ‘Hello?’
‘Dr Walker? Professor Carmichael-Danbury here. Apologies for interrupting you, but we’ve just heard your incredible news. I wanted to assure you that there is no issue whatsoever at our end.’
What was her boss doing phoning her? What news? He’d always struck her as distant and somewhat pompous. Exactly the type of man you’d expect to be headmaster at a school like Gray’s College. A self-important stuffed shirt, she’d called him once, carefully out of his hearing.
‘Professor?’
‘Call me Roger, my dear girl. Call me Roger.’ He’d never sounded quite so friendly, or delighted with her. ‘Why, the endowment of course. And such a generous one. You stay there as long as you need to. An expert like you is bound to be in demand. We always understood that.’
