She nodded, dubiously. She always kept them updated. Nico had drilled the importance of it into her when they’d first started working together. No one could dive if they didn’t have their certs. She’d spent the early part of the summer doing just that. ‘Of course.’
‘We need another experienced diver,’ Nico interrupted, turning back from the cooker, his eyes keen. ‘Don’t put it off any longer, Jason. Tell her.’
Oh. Of course. This was why he wanted her here. Not technically to rub the find in her face, or bring up all her grief all over again. He needed her to work. After all, she was the one with the qualifications, even if she had run away from archaeology and everything to do with it. Like it or not, she could lend him legitimacy.
Jason pulled that picture-of-innocence face that made her want to jab him in the ribs. There was nothing sharp to hand. He’d made damn sure of that. ‘The coin in itself isn’t much,’ he admitted. ‘But it cements what we’ve been doing here… Look, Ari, I need you.’
‘You’re an archaeologist, Jason… At least you used to be.’
‘I’ve burned a lot of bridges.’
He certainly had. Even with her.
But he was still her brother. ‘Jason…I can’t. I mean, this place…you know what happened. You of all people know.’
‘Simon would have wanted—’
She pushed herself up to her feet, sending the papers sliding across the table. ‘Don’t you dare!’
‘Ari, please—’
‘You may have found something, but you didn’t invite me back here to find peace. You just want me to do something for you. Again. Even though I told you I don’t want to be here. This place took Simon from me. I see him everywhere. Don’t you get it?’
Ari strode out of the house, her hands buried deep in her fleece pockets, her head down. Jason didn’t come after her. He knew better. Besides, she didn’t have anywhere else to go. Not here. Maybe she could get a hotel room and ignore him until her ferry home in a week. She could turn this into a proper holiday.
But she wouldn’t.
She knew it and Jason knew it. Hell, even Nico knew it.
But they let her walk away, for now.
That was probably Nico’s idea. Jason would keep nagging her, just like he always did. But Nico knew, as he had always known, that sometimes Ari just needed to walk it off.
Simon had understood that too.
Oh God, Simon…
They didn’t know what had happened. They didn’t know about the letter or why she hadn’t come back after he died. Why she hadn’t wanted to come here at all. They thought it was simply her grief.
She lifted her head as she reached the cliff path, the trees far behind her now, the little village and the church out of sight. All that lay ahead were the cliffs and the sea, the water swelling around the rocks turning white as snow. But in the still areas between, the depths leading down to the finest pale sand, the water turned the colour of sea-glass, green-blue and shining. Magical. Under the blue and cloudless sky like today’s, it looked tropical, a glimpse of paradise.
This had been their place, the two of them, this corner of the world, this headland especially, reaching out like a causeway to nowhere. This had been his dream, finding something here.
Finding Ys, the lost city.
‘Might as well try to find Atlantis,’ she’d told him.
‘Same thing,’ he’d replied. ‘Ys. Atlant-Ys.’
God, shehatedwhen he did that. It was a spurious correlation, based entirely on a sound from two different languages. But when she told him that, he just laughed.
Simon always laughed.
He was a true believer. He had grown up on the stories, the ones the locals told each other, because he was one of them too. His family had always lived here, until he was the only one left. His family history was entwined with this shoreline and with the tales of Ys.
‘We are her children,’ he used to say. ‘The lost children of lost Ys, the ones who got away.’
Only he didn’t get away in the end. He never left. And now he couldn’t.
