The House of Tides by Hannah Richell

Author:Hannah Richell [Richell, Hannah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781455521081
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2013-07-15T16:00:00+00:00

That night she dreams she is diving for coins. The water is green and murky but she can see them glinting silver on the bottom, drawing her down. She dives again and again, her hands scrabbling through the silt, her lungs burning as she seizes upon the cold metal and returns to the surface each time with a triumphant rush of air.

There is one more down there. She has seen it winking at her. She can’t leave it behind. With a final gasp she forces her body down below the surface. She can feel her lungs ache but the coin is within reach; she knows it, just a few more strokes.

Her hands stretch before her in the gloom and she feels grit sift through her fingers. Nothing.

She has to return to the surface; her body needs the air, but her mind is insistent: It is there, just one more second, keep going.

Her hands pat blindly at the ground and suddenly she touches something; not cold metal but something warm, something strangely flesh-like. Something human. She can’t breathe. Her body is on fire, her mind dizzy. She tries to rise to the surface but the thing she has touched has ahold of her now. Fingers, insistent and strong, grip her, refusing to let go.

She pulls one more time, her body thrashing under the water as her final survival instincts kick in.

But the hand’s grip is firm and tight. It will not let her go.

With a final desperate wrench, she pulls away from its death-like hold and then opens her mouth to scream.

She wakes to the shriek of her alarm clock. It is seven AM. She turns it off and lies in bed for a moment, listening to the sound of rain drumming softly on the roof and letting the remnants of her nightmare fade away. Another wet Monday morning: She doesn’t know how she is going to muster the energy to shower, dress, and get herself on the tube to work, particularly with the revolting queasy feeling already welling up inside of her. She hasn’t even opened her eyes yet, for God’s sake. The last few mornings she’s felt like this Dan has been so sweet. He’s made her tea and toast and brought it to her in bed. She reaches out a hand for him now but finds nothing but empty space. His pillow lies chastely next to hers, perfectly plumped. He hasn’t come to bed so he must have crashed out on the couch in the studio.

She staggers into the bathroom and loses herself under a jet of steaming water, then dresses and walks downstairs, swallowing back bile as she goes. She makes tea and throws down a bowl of dog biscuits for Gormley, before sitting at the kitchen table. Taking several deep breaths, she thinks for a moment and then, before she can change her mind, Dora reaches for the telephone.

“Hello?” The voice at the other end picks up midway through the first ring, as though the person answering has been standing by the phone all this time.

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