Help me!!

Gone.

Hiding can't see them any more but I know they're there.

Climbed into my head they all climbed into my head it's all inside me everything.

Zaki lay on the sand. The light that had been so bright shrank and shrank and shrank until it was a tiny, glinting speck in the vast, empty darkness. He clung to the vanishing gleam. Focused on it. If he lost it, there would be nothing.

The speck flickered and was gone.

All was black. All was still.

Zaki waited. What now?

In the stillness Zaki became conscious of a familiar sound. Water. Lapping water. The sound of water nearby.

Water! The tide! Water in the mouth of the cave!

How long had he been in here? Can't have been that long? The tide hadn't even turned when he came in. Should have been hours before the water reached the cave.

Zaki rolled on to his right side, then slowly on to his knees. In the disorientating darkness he had the strange sensation that he was now upside down. His head swam and he had to lower it on to the ground between his knees.

When he felt a little steadier, he groped around in the sand for his torch. There it was; a familiar, rea.s.suring shape. His thumb found the switch and clicked it on. The narrow beam sprang out across the cave's sandy floor. To his immense relief the battery wasn't flat. Zaki swept the light around the chamber, over the rock platform and the white bones, across the walls, until he found the entrance to the pa.s.sage. No sign of water, but he could clearly hear little waves washing against stones, the sound amplified and sharpened by the rocky tunnel. He crouched, listening, like a tiny fly caught in a giant's ear.

Go! Move! Get out! The same fear that told his mind he must act kept his crouching body frozen in panic. An age seemed to pa.s.s before the messages from his desperate brain reached his cramped muscles. Slowly he straightened. Pain from his shoulder shot down his arm. His heavy legs clumsily obeyed the command to walk and he stumbled into the pa.s.sage and down the rough-hewn steps.

At the second set of steps he stopped. The torchlight flashed back at him off the surface of a dark sheet of moving water. Trapped! The sea had entered the tunnel and flooded the first section. How had this happened?

Only then did Zaki think to look at his watch. Ten fifteen! He'd been in the cave for over four hours. How? How? He must have been unconscious fallen asleep but, four hours?

How far would the water rise? He was pretty certain that it never reached the main chamber. At worst he could wait until the tide went down again: six, maybe seven hours; a long time, but there was plenty of air. Then he thought of his father. His father would be mad with worry. Would have no idea where he was. What would he be doing now? What would he say when he found out what he had done? And Michael? What would Michael think? They'd be searching for him for sure.

Should he shout? Try to let them know that he was OK?

'Dad!'

'Dad!' I'm in here!'

'I'm in here!'

'I'm in a cave!'

His voice rang back off the cave walls. They'd never hear him through the water and rocks.

Would his father have called the coastguard on the radio? No. He couldn't. No VHF reception in the estuary.

How could he have been so stupid?!

Now shame pushed fear aside.

He needed to think. Calm down. Get a grip.

Zaki turned off the torch to save the batteries, put it in his pocket and sat on the top step, his right hand cupped over his aching left shoulder. With the torch off, he could see that the water was not dark but glowed a greeny-blue. Sunlight outside was reflecting off the sandy bottom and filtering through the water into the cave. For a moment he was mesmerised by the flickering turquoise light that played across the cave walls.

'It's not that deep,' he told himself. 'I could dive down and swim out.'

But how much of the tunnel was flooded? How far were these first steps from the entrance? He couldn't remember. It was as though days, rather than hours, had pa.s.sed since he stepped into the cave.

'The longer I sit here, the deeper the water will get.'

Zaki forced himself to his feet and started down the steps into the water. It was cold and, as it crept up his bare legs, he began to shiver, but he kept going. Soon the water was up to his chest. A few more steps and he would be swimming. He pushed off from the bottom and floated out into the luminous water. He swam with a lopsided b.r.e.a.s.t.stroke, unable to do more than paddle with his left arm. The further he went the smaller the distance between the water and the cave ceiling became until, treading water, there was just room to keep his nose and mouth above the surface in the narrow air-gap. Rising panic and the chill of the water constricted his chest, reducing every intake of breath to a short gasp. His fleece was heavy and waterlogged, dragging him down he should have taken it off. Go back? He saw again his father's anxious face. Dive. He had to dive. Three breaths, then go. Stay down as long as possible. Just hope it's not too far.

Zaki fought to fill his lungs with air. It was as though his body, knowing the risk was too great, was refusing to cooperate. With the third breath, he plunged down, kicked up with his legs and struck out along the flooded tunnel. He was swimming towards the sunlight. Keep going he just had to keep going. Now his lungs, that had refused air when it was available, were desperate for breath. The drag of his clothing, like a malicious hand, held him back, trying to drown him. The weakness in his left arm made it hard to keep from floating up against the cave roof and soon the coordinated strokes, arms and legs together, with which he began gave way to shorter, desperate kicking. He couldn't do it. He could see the sunlight but he couldn't get to it. His head struck the roof, his fleece snagged on the rough surface of the rock. This was it. A sob bubbled out of him and choking salt filled his nose and mouth.

He knew he was drowning then hands took hold of his clothing and tugged him clear of the snagging ceiling. As he rolled over in the water, a flash of white arm pa.s.sed his face and he was gripped firmly beneath the shoulders. The arm that held him was thin but strong and pulled him against the owner's body. Swiftly, he was propelled through the water out and up and suddenly he was gasping and coughing in the clean, fresh air and the dazzle of sunlight.

I'm alive! I'm alive! It was all he could think between retching coughs. It was all he could think between retching coughs.

'The rock get hold of the rock,' a girl's voice commanded.

Blinded by the sunlight, Zaki groped with his hands as his rescuer pushed him on to the top of the now submerged boulder by the cave-mouth.

Zaki clung to the boulder. He squeezed shut his eyes to try to clear his vision; when he opened them, the girl's face was inches from his own. Her hair was cropped short, the roughly cut curls sticking up in spikes around her head. Her mouth was set in a firm, no-nonsense line and the look in her grey, widely s.p.a.ced eyes was not sympathetic.

'What did you find? Did you touch anything?'

Then her eyes fell on the bracelet on Zaki's wrist.

'Give me the bracelet. It's not yours.'

When Zaki failed to move, she seized his arm and twisted the bracelet over his hand then thrust it on to her own arm.

'Don't tell anyone what you have seen. Do you understand?'

Zaki stared at her in bewilderment.

'Do you understand? You mustn't tell.'

Zaki managed to nod.

'No one. You understand?'

'All right, I understand.'

'No. That's not good enough. You have to promise. Promise. Promise me you won't tell.'

'Yes, I promise. I promise.'

'Good. But don't forget you have promised.'

She looked towards Morveren Morveren and then sank down into the water. and then sank down into the water.

'Hold on to the rock. They'll come for you now,' she ordered.

Before he could say anything else, she was gone.

Too exhausted to wonder who had saved him, or how she had known he was in the cave, Zaki lay on the rock, too exhausted to move, half in the water, half out. Gradually he became aware of voices shouting his name, shouting instructions, telling him to 'Stay where you are!' not to move his father's voice and Michael's. An outboard engine revved and whined then his father and brother in the inflatable were beside him.

'Are you hurt?' his father asked, the anxiety tight in his voice. Getting no reply he turned to Michael.

'We'll have to get him into the dinghy, then we can take a look at him. But be careful, we don't know what's happened to him.'

His father climbed out on to the rock as Michael held the inflatable steady.

'Can you sit up?'

'Think so,' Zaki mumbled.

'Anything hurting?'

'Shoulder.'

Gently, his father and brother helped him to slide over the rubber side of the inflatable and down on to the floor. His father followed him. Then, kneeling beside him, he tried to ease open his sodden fleece to examine his shoulder.

'How did you get on to that rock? Did you fall? What were you doing?'

Zaki shook his head. It was all too confusing.

His father's fingers became clumsy with the effort of being gentle and, dropping his hands into his lap, he looked searchingly into Zaki's face.

'Zaki?'

Zaki closed his eyes.

'Zaki! Where the h.e.l.l have you been?!'

His father's sudden anger together with the relief of being alive and the exhaustion overwhelmed Zaki. His body shook and tears began to stream down his face. No words could possibly get out.

'Dad,' Michael leant forward from his place by the outboard. 'Dad, let's get him back to Morveren Morveren.'

'Yeah,' nodded his father. 'OK.'

Chapter 4.

Zaki now lay in Grandad's bunk padded around with cushions. Its narrowness and his present immobility brought to his mind the image of a body in a coffin and underlined the narrowness of his recent escape.

Having got him back aboard, Zaki's father had helped him into dry clothing and examined his shoulder. It was already turning interesting shades of red, blue and yellow with swelling over the collarbone which made his father think that, if it wasn't broken, it was most likely cracked.

Of course there were more questions about where he'd been. 'Why were you gone so long?' his father wanted to know. 'How did you hurt your shoulder?'

At first, Zaki's own genuine confusion prevented him from saying much, but his father persisted. 'We've been searching for you for hours. I've had Michael up and down the river a dozen times in the dinghy, then you turn up on that rock! Didn't you realise we'd be worried?'

Zaki desperately wanted to talk about what had happened; to share his adventure; to ask his father for advice. But his promise to the girl made him hold back. Hadn't she saved his life dragged him out of the cave just as he was about to drown? Didn't he owe her something? Maybe she was in some sort of trouble, some sort of danger, and he could make it worse for her by betraying her. Did she need help? Then, the ghastly thought hit him had she killed the child in the cave?

After a moment of horrified contemplation, Zaki pushed this possibility from his mind no she couldn't have! Could she? The body had been there too long. And if she had, why would she save him, knowing he had discovered her secret? No it must be more complicated than that. But where did she go? Where was she now?

Zaki decided that, for the moment at least, he would not say anything about the cave. It was obvious from his father's questions that he knew nothing of its existence; that the tide had already hidden the cave entrance by the time the search for him began. Instead, he invented a plausible explanation for his long absence. He said that he had set off at low tide up the river, along the bed of the estuary, that he hadn't noticed the time and been cut off by the incoming tide. He had then been forced to return through the woods; scrambled down on to the rock ledge, where he had slipped when trying to hail them and fallen onto the boulder, injuring his shoulder and bruising his shin.

He pictured this fabricated journey as he spoke and became half convinced that this really was what had happened. The real events were so much more bizarre; like a nightmare a secret pa.s.sage, a skeleton, the strange images that filled his head in the dark cave, three or more hours that were lost and couldn't be account for, near-drowning and the mysterious girl who had rescued him and then vanished. If he did tell anyone the real story, would they believe him? He doubted it very much. He wished he still had the bracelet a solid object to prove that it had all happened, something to hang on to. But the bracelet was gone with the girl and he didn't suppose he'd see either of them again.

The story he told appeared to satisfy his father, who decided that Zaki's shoulder needed to be seen by a doctor as soon as possible and this meant getting out of the Orme straight away, while there was still enough tide to cross the bar and clear the outer reef. So Zaki was tucked into Grandad's bunk, where he would be in no danger of rolling out when Morveren Morveren was under way. was under way.

It was a relief to be left alone. He listened to his father and Michael up on deck making preparations for departure: the inflatable being packed away; the sailing dinghy being hoisted aboard; their footsteps crossing and recrossing above him. Then the diesel starting, thudding loudly in the engine compartment next to his bunk, and the rattle of the anchor chain.

The plan had been to spend two nights in the estuary before heading home to Morveren Morveren's mooring off East Portlemouth. Normally, Zaki would have wheedled and begged, 'Couldn't we stay another night?' 'Do we have to go home so soon?' Today, he was glad to be going. It was as though a close friend had turned against him. He had looked forward to this trip all holiday and it had gone so terribly wrong. Of course, if Michael had done stuff with him . . . If Michael . . . But Michael was no fun any more. And Mum . . . Something twisted very tight in his stomach. He didn't want to think about any of it. He would do what he always did at home when he wanted to take his mind off things; he would close his eyes and count the number of objects he could remember in Morveren Morveren's cabin. He knew this cabin so intimately that he had often been able to recall and place over two hundred items including bra.s.s hinges and visible screw heads. So that he couldn't accuse himself of cheating, he wouldn't count anything that could be seen from Grandad's bunk.

Zaki was mentally enumerating the contents of the chart table when Morveren Morveren pa.s.sed through the outer reef and reached open water. He felt the change in the boat's motion as she met a gentle swell. There were footsteps on deck followed shortly by the chatter of the rope winch and the crack and flap of the mainsail as it was run up the mast. The rigging creaked as sheets were tightened and also when pa.s.sed through the outer reef and reached open water. He felt the change in the boat's motion as she met a gentle swell. There were footsteps on deck followed shortly by the chatter of the rope winch and the crack and flap of the mainsail as it was run up the mast. The rigging creaked as sheets were tightened and also when Morveren Morveren leant over as her sails caught the wind. The engine fell silent and Zaki could hear the wash and slap of water against the hull. leant over as her sails caught the wind. The engine fell silent and Zaki could hear the wash and slap of water against the hull. Morveren Morveren settled into a steady, easy motion, like a long-distance runner settling into her stride. Zaki had just remembered to count the spare sparkplug in the chart table when he drifted off to sleep. settled into a steady, easy motion, like a long-distance runner settling into her stride. Zaki had just remembered to count the spare sparkplug in the chart table when he drifted off to sleep.

Emptiness. An immense, blue void, bright and clear as the sky on a crisp, cloudless winter's day. Nothing, until the appearance of a tiny speck, like a full stop in infinity. The speck gets larger and larger soon it is the size of a house, a mountain, a planet hurtling towards him. It is black, so black that it drinks up all the light soon he will be crushed. Then it blinks open an eye. He plunges through it. He is underwater a flick of his tail and he can shoot forward he is at home here, in his element. Movement behind him seizes his attention instinctively he thrashes with his whole body. He is the prey, the other is the hunter, razor-sharp teeth open to swallow him; he swims up, up, striving for the surface that floats above him, striving for safety, flinging himself from water into air as teeth snap shut. Suddenly he is free, airborne, looking down. Each beat of his outstretched wings lifts him higher a tilt of the tail and he slips sideways, riding the wind. High above him the hawk hangs on air, haloed by the sun, then drops, talons reaching, beak outstretched, sharp as an arrow. The chase is on again and when the hawk strikes he tumbles, falling through treetops, past whipping branches into the shelter of the undergrowth. He cowers among the gorse he is a hare his long ears twitch and turn to catch each sound. His nose picks up the scent of fox. He is up and running, weaving, dodging, doubling back, leaping over heather. The fox is on his heels, matching turn for turn, twist for twist, leap for leap, flying behind him like a flag connected by an invisible thread. Nowhere to hide this is certain death! Teeth knife into his shoulder he s.n.a.t.c.hes breath to scream!

'Zaki . . . Zaki!'

Zaki opened his eyes.

'Bad dream?'

Zaki struggled out of the nightmare to find he was drenched in sweat. He looked up at his father, who had come halfway down the companionway, into the cabin.

'Try to sit up and drink some water.'

Stepping down into the cabin, his father helped him to sit up in the bunk and handed him a plastic bottle of drinking water.

Zaki could tell from the boat's motion that they were still at sea.

'Where are we?' he asked, after taking a swig from the bottle.

'We're off Bolt Head. Not far to go now,' replied his father. 'We've had a nice reach up the coast. You missed a good sail.'

'Can I come up on deck?' asked Zaki.

'How's the shoulder?'