“Madam!” Roderick called again.
She turned as her grandfather—who wisely did not protest, seeing her determination—gave the corset cords a few yanks. “I am going down there,” she told Norrie.
“So I see,” he only said, helping draw the corset away, tossing it aside.
“The men are needed on the equipment. Alan needs help and there is no one else to spare. Make sure Sean stays with Fergus,” she said.
She had to do this. She could not bear to watch this any longer, knowing that she could help as well as any of the men, and better than some, with her smaller frame and nimble hands and her ability to swim and dive. Not all the men could help, she knew. Fergus, for all his fishing skills, did not swim well.
“Lady Strathlin!” one of the commissioners in black called.
“I’m going in,” she insisted, while the men stared at her in dumbfounded shock. She walked to the edge of the cliff. “Give me a lever! Now!”
One of the men, less stunned than the others, handed her another iron bar.
“Dougal Stewart,” Norrie called into the funnel, “your lass is coming down for you.” He turned toward Meg. “Go find your kelpie, lass!”
“The kelpie, aye,” she said. Taking a deep breath, feeling the cold bite of the wind through thin cotton and silk, she looked down at the water below and drew a long, deep breath, let it out, and drew another.
The iron bar took her down quickly, and she plunged feet first into the waves.
*
Eerie, murky, thewatery world around him was colder, dimmer. Dougal shivered as the deep cold entered his bones. The rubber suit, normally inflated with air to add buoyancy and warmth, had torn along the sleeve and water was seeping in, making the suit even heavier and exposing him to the water’s cold brunt. The valves in his helmet clicked and whooshed with thereassuring sound of air, but it was thinner. He could not seem to fill his lungs properly.
He was tapping all of his strength to shove, with Evan pushing beside him. Alan Clarke had appeared a few moments earlier to lend his effort, setting his bullish shoulder to the block. They repeated the attempt, and this time he heard the scrape of the stone on the underwater hillside and felt his lead boot give way. He pulled it back, motioning sluggishly to show that it was free.
But he could not escape to the surface. Shifting the block from his foot had further trapped his hoses, compressing the flow of air into his helmet. The world was growing dimmer, fainter.
Alan surged up for air, returned, set his shoulder to the stone to push again.
Dougal pushed too, but a strange buzzing began in his ears. Sucking in a breath, he could feel the constriction in the airflow. He was in real jeopardy now.
The stone shifted a little more, and a stream of air came through the hose. Dougal pulled it in, exhaled, glad to hear theclick-clickof the valves. The stone shifted a tiny bit, and the valves quieted ominously again.
He had to get free, or die here, at the base of the reef where his parents had died so long ago. He had faced risks, stared down danger too many times now. Sooner or later, the wheel of fortune would spin again, and he would lose.
But he had too much to live for now. The woman he adored held his heart in her keeping. She waited for him above the water with their son. He could not leave them. Not yet, and never.
Gasping for stale air, he gestured to the others—he was suffocating. He would have to detach the hoses and take his chances going up in a beast of a suit that could just drag himdown to the bottom of the sea. There had to be a way—he could not die here like this.
He looked up at the fast-swirling water, the sea dusky green. His lungs were burning.
Alan burst away and surged upward again. Dougal pressed the last of his strength into the unyielding stone that compressed the hose. His head was in a fog. He clutched at the valves, ready to tear out the hoses, ready to tear at the bolts in the oppressive helmet.
Another tiny shift in the stone and a trickle of air came in, enough for another breath, enough to clear his head for a bit. Alan surged down again, lungs refreshed, and the three of them shoved once more at the granite block.
Dizzy, Dougal felt the airflow stop again. His head pounded.
Then he looked up to see a vision sinking down through the greenish water. Sliding down on a beam of eerie light, a pale, graceful sea fairy streamed toward him, veiled in white garments, golden hair streaming outward. She lowered beside him like an angel, reached out to hand a wand to Evan—a bar, an iron bar—and placed her hands on either side of his helmet to look at him.
Meg. God, how he loved her. He reached for her but she slipped away, turning, to help Alan and Evan work the bar under the lip of the stone. They pressed, pushed, pressed.
The stone gave way, long enough for Dougal to snatch the air hose free. He looped it around his shoulder, moving slow, as if in a dream.
Evan and Alan grabbed him by the arms and pulled him onto the platform, tugging at the ropes in a frantic signal. As the tilted deck began to rise, creaking with the load of two divers in gear, Alan let go of the ropes and took the sea fairy’s hand. He pulled her upward with him as they rose toward the swirling surface.
Moments later, they burst through the surging water into air and freedom.
