The Mammoth Book of Best New Horror. Volume 10

Stephen Laws The Song My Sister Sang

For most people living along the North-East coast, the Big Event that summer was what happened to the coast-line and its wild-life.

Just say the words Edda Dell’Orso and see what kind of reaction you get from the local fishermen who ply their trade out of North Shields Quay. The captain and crew of that ill-fated tanker never made it out of the wreck alive, so the Inquiry could only reach an open verdict; even though they’d had the specialists and the engineers and the aquamarine people from Blyth out there to try and find out why the tanker had drifted so close to shore. Close enough to become grounded; close enough to gash one of its main tanks on seabed rocks, close enough to cover the entire length of beach for ten miles on either side with a smothering sea-blanket of crude oil.

That, they’ll tell you, was the horror that marred last summer. They’re wrong. The real horror wasn’t to do with the fouled-up beaches and the near-death of the local fishing industry. It might have all begun with the Edda Dell’Orso, but the real horror was. how do I put it?. much more personal than that.

It happened in the abandoned swimming pool on Tynemouth beach. Derelict and boarded up. Rotting under the salt-spray and the sun and the cruel sea winters. That’s where the real horror began.

And where I might have lost my sanity.

Very soon now, I’ll know for sure.

The open-air swimming pool had been a real crowd-puller, from its opening at the turn of the century right up until its closure in the 1960s. Built in an oval-shape, below the cliffs on Tynemouth beach, its sluices were open to the sea. One side faced the cliffs, the other out to the sea; the rounded end of that oval looking down on clustering rocks where children climbed and hunted for crabs and winkles. Back then, the pool itself had been tiled in blue and white; the surface of the water glittering under the summer sun like molten silver. I played there as a kid, with my sister; just before the place was closed. And every time I try to get a picture of it as it was then, I always seem to get sounds instead. The sound of the sea, beyond the walls and in the sluices. The cries of children splashing and diving matched by the wheeling cries of seagulls overhead. The cliff side of the pool was bordered by the pumping station and its chlorine tanks. There was a side gate there, with a steep and tightly winding set of stairs that took you straight up to the promenade above. The main building housed the changing area. Inside was a maze of mini-corridors with individual tiled cubicles. Plastic curtains hung from the overhead rails. Again, the sounds come back to me. It seemed that the place was always filled with laughter; echoing screeches as kids ran and played; the slap of bare feet on tiled floors as they dashed in and out of those cubicles, consumed by holiday excitement. Lots of Scottish accents, I remember.

Bloody funny, that. The accents, I mean.

Every “factory-fortnight”, all the shipyard workers from the River Tyne would pack the family up to Scotland for the traditional family holiday in cheap digs on the sea front. At the same time, all the shipyard workers from the Clyde would do the same thing, and head down here to Tynemouth and Whitley Bay. Staying in the same cheap bed and breakfasts, and doing pretty much everything their Geordie compatriots would be doing north of the border. I often wondered why everyone didn’t just stay where they were. Anyway, I seemed to make a lot of Scottish holiday friends back then. Close as blood-brothers for two weeks, then gone forever after. Even though Amy and I were local kids, that swimming pool was an exotic visit for us; maybe two or three times a year, in a good summer.

And then that terrible, terrible thing happened.

No one ever told me this, but I reckon it was Amy’s death that led to the closure of the pool. Two weeks after the funeral, the gates were chained. Thirty-odd years later, and the place still haunted me.

First, let me tell you what happened on that Thursday morning when the Edda Dell’Orso ran aground.

I guess you must have seen the television news reports about the oil slick that washed ashore and what it was doing to the seagulls and the guillemots. I’ve heard it said that more people were enraged about what was happening to the seabirds than what had happened to the crew. Right or wrong, I guess people felt that it was the men’s fault at root, and that the “dumb” animals were suffering the consequences. I’m an animal lover, that’s why I spend so much of my spare time working with the RSPCA and the RSPB; but I would never put animals before people, the way that some animal lovers do. Anyway, there was one hell of an outcry.

And I was down there on Tynemouth beach with the other volunteers, doing my bit. Trying my best not to scare to death the oiled-up gulls and the other seabirds which were bobbing on that tide of black filth; carefully trudging waist-deep through all that foamed-up crude oil in my waders and trying to get the poor buggers passed back to shore without getting my eyes pecked out. A difficult job in more ways than one; mess around too much trying to get your hands on a seabird and the chances are that it’ll die of fright before you’re able to get it back to where it can be cleaned. Same thing with the cleaning operation. The washing and cleaning is a gruelling, painstaking operation. No matter how careful you are, it’s an arduous and distressing experience for them, and it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve had a bird suddenly just die in my hands while I was trying to get the oil and the shit out of its plumage, no matter how gentle I was trying to be.

It was a particularly distressing experience on that Thursday morning. The oil was so thick close to shore that the waves just weren’t “breaking” anymore. Undulating black ripples flowed around me as I worked. A lot of the birds had been early morning feeders, and we hadn’t got there until just after ten. Consequently, there were a lot of dead gulls as we made our slow way south down the beach. A lot had drowned in that oily morass, others had struggled to be free, their wings hopelessly gummed until they’d died of exhaustion.

And all the time we worked our way down the beach, I was aware that we were getting nearer and nearer to the abandoned swimming pool. I tried to keep its presence out of my mind, tried not to let those memories overwhelm me. To a great extent, it worked. The needs of those birds were so immediate that they outweighed the bitter memories. But even though the waves weren’t breaking because of the heavy overlay of oil, I could still hear the sussurant rush of the sea further out, and every once in a while, it brought it all back to me with a vividity that made me want to turn around and wade back to the beach. Luckily, there were twelve of us out there that morning, all relying on each other; so the thought of letting them all down, in what was a painstaking team effort, kept me going.

Then someone cried: “Over there!”

I turned to look back. It was Lorna Jackson. At first I thought she’d hurt herself, when I saw that there was a dark smudge right across her brow. Then I realised that it was oil, wiped there accidentally by her own hand. She was pointing urgently down the beach and when I turned to look I could see what had so alarmed her. A sea bird had become trapped in one of the swimming pool’s sluices; a three-foot-round aperture set into the base of the pool’s sea wall. The rocks and the wall were stained by years of green and yellow sea-encrustment, but now the area around that sluice and the rim of the aperture were smeared with the Edda Dell’Orso’s jettisoned filth. Right in the middle of that opening, wings flapping in distress as it bobbed up and down on a black mass, was a gull. Unlike most of the birds we’d come across, it still had a glimmer of white in its wings. Perhaps it had just come down on the rocks beside the sea wall, too hungry for pickings to take any notice of its fellows’ fate; but it didn’t seem to be as badly oiled-up and that in itself made it a prime candidate for rescue.

“I’ll get it!” I yelled, before anyone else could respond, and surged back to the beach. It was maybe fifty yards to the sea wall.

I’ve thought about why I responded so quickly.

Sometimes I think it’s to do with everything I’ve just told you. The bird not being so badly oiled-up and everything. Now I know it had to do with something altogether different. There were a million and one reasons why I should have kept away from that swimming pool after what happened to Amy. I’ve said it was a place that haunted me. More than that. On the grim grey days of my depressions, when nothing in the world seemed to make sense anymore, or when I was tottering on the edge of that pit of melancholy, almost ready to let myself fall. my thoughts always returned to that swimming pool, no matter how much I tried to prevent it.

Maybe that day I had a chance to grasp the nettle.

Perhaps I saw the opportunity to do something I’d thought about doing for a long time.

Not so much bearding the lion in its den, because there was no fucking lion in there. Just the echoes of those bygone days, keeping me awake at night. Now, I had a chance to go where I’d dreaded. Does that make sense? I didn’t want to go in there, couldn’t have gone in there just with the idea of laying my personal demons to rest. But hell, now there was a reason. That bird would die. And maybe. just maybe. setting foot in there might go some way to easing my pain. Even as I watched, the bird was being sucked in through the sluice, out of sight and into that hateful place. There was a collective moan behind me as it vanished, but I turned as I ran, oil splattering the sand from my waders, and I waved:

“Okay. It’ll be okay. I’ve got it.”

There was a concrete ramp on the beach, maybe a hundred feet long, leading right up to the rusted and padlocked front gate of the swimming pool. The fence was wire mesh, so I knew that I could climb it if I had to. Not knowing whether my sense of urgency had to do with the plight of the bird, or my need to just get in and out of there as quickly as possible, I hopped the last few feet on either foot as I pulled off my oil-stained waders and dropped them on the ramp. I yanked at the padlock and a fine cloud of brown rust furled and blew away on the sea-breeze. The fence seemed to vibrate away on all sides; a strange noise, like the “singing” that sometimes comes from telegraph wires. That sound affected me badly and I didn’t know why. Back on the beach, the others were continuing with their job, but were still watching me. Gritting my teeth, I hooked my fingers through the mesh and climbed.

The fence was about twenty feet high, and I had no problem with heights. But my heart was hammering as I swung my legs over the top and began the climb down to the other side. When I hit bottom, I still clung to that fence, sweat making my shirt stick to my back and running in itchy rivulets down my face. I screwed my eyes shut. Then, with an angry curse I pushed myself around, ran past the empty lifebelt stand and came face to face with the cracked and rusted fountain that I had played in as a kid.

Back then, it had been a wonderful conical pyramid of bright blue and white paint, standing by the shallow end of the open air pool. There had been steps there, so that the kids could climb up and stand beneath a glittering curtain of breath-catching, cold sea water. Now, it was just a cracked and stained mass. I barely had a chance to take it in. Or the graffiti-ridden walls and the yawning, empty doors and windows of the changing area block off to my right.

All I could see was the swimming pool itself.

No more glittering water. No more sparkling blue and white tiles.

The surface of the pool was a black mass, undulating and shifting as if there was something alive beneath it. Rubble, shattered spars of wood and tangled ironwork had been dumped into that pool, but it was impossible to make anything out clearly. Hundreds of gallons of the Edda Dell’Orso’s crude oil had been sucked in through the sea-sluices and had coated the entire surface. But it was not this that made the sight so obscene. It was what the tanker’s spilled load had brought with it. The tide and the clinging oil had sucked more than one seabird in through that sluice. There were birds all over that undulating mass. Maybe a hundred, maybe more. It was impossible to tell. Most of them were dead, and the only flash of white feathers I could see was down by the sluice itself, where the bird had been sucked in. It flapped and struggled as it was carried further into that seabird’s graveyard on the rippling ebony surface.

I ran forward, knowing that there was no way I could wade into that pool. I’d have to find something to pull the gull into the side. I glanced at the abandoned changing rooms as I ran alongside the pool to where the bird was struggling. The echoing sounds of kids laughing and of bare feet slapping on cold tile floors somehow seemed very real to me. Now, I didn’t know whether I was doing the right thing by coming in here, or whether I was just going to make the dreams and the memories even worse than they already were. It was replaying in my head now, the day when Amy died. I didn’t want it to, but just being in this place brought it back with a horrifying intensity.

It had been my birthday party the day before, and Amy had stolen all the attention as usual. It was supposed to be my day. A special day when Mam and Dad could show me that they loved me just as much as her. But sure enough, just when it seemed that everything was going well-, when the kids were all playing and I was feeling really good — the party was brought to a halt when Amy told everyone that she wanted to sing her song and do her dance. And I remember looking at Mam and thinking: “They won’t let her do it. They won’t let her spoil the party. Any other time, any other day. But not now. Not atmy birthday party. ”

And Mam had told everyone to be quiet and had picked Amy up and put her on the table, and even though the other kids had seen it all before, they were made to be quiet, and Amy was asked. was asked… to do her song and her dance. I could have cried and begged and ranted, in the way that a nine-year-old will, but I was just so hurt. So hurt, that I couldn’t say a thing. My throat was constricted as I stood there and watched Amy be made the centre of attention as she sang.

I tried to push those memories out of my mind, but it was impossible. The seagull’s movements had become weaker. It raised one oil-covered wing as if it was trying to wave at me. In another moment, it must succumb.

And Amy began to sing:

“Ain’t she sweet? I ask you, ain’t she neat? Now I ask you very con-fi-dentially: Ain’t! She! Sweet!”

Her little feet began to pound out that tap-dance rhythm on the table and the kids shuffled and watched and God how I wanted that table to collapse beneath her, or for her to miss a step and fall and begin crying and.

There was a broken spar of wood lying by the side of the pool. I picked it up. The wood was so rotten that it was crumbling in my hands even as I hoisted it out over the surface of the oil.

The next day we had gone to the beach. The sun was shining and there were lots of families all encamped on the same stretch of sand that I’d just come from. But inside, I was feeling overshadowed in a way that I’d often felt. I wanted to be alone, that’s why I asked Mam and Dad if I could go on up to the swimming pool. Dad had insisted that I take Amy with me. After all, I was the older brother and it was my job to look after my little sister. That constricted feeling was in my throat again. Couldn’t I do anything without having her along in tow? Didn’t they realise that I wanted some time for myself? I sulked, but they made me take her. We were already in swimming costumes, so there was no need to use the changing facilities.

“Keep in the shallow end,” Mam had said.

I was able to reach the seagull with the spar, but the bird began to panic, even though I was being as gentle as I possibly could. Its one free wing began to flap and splatter the oil, and I began to make shushing noises as if I was dealing with a small child.

“Easy. easy. ”

I didn’t want to take her. They shouldn’t have made me take her. What the hell were they thinking about, Mam and Dad? I was only nine years old, Amy was seven. What did they think I was? Amy’s nursemaid?

Slowly and gradually, I drew the seagull in to the side. Its wing ceased to flap. It looked at me with one blank eye, giving in to its fate.

There were other kids there. Kids my own age. Amy wanted to play, began to cry when I said she had to stay there in the shallow end while I went to play with those others. I knew why she wanted to come. She just wanted to be the centre of attention, as usual-, would probably sing that bloody song again and just embarrass me. So I left her there while I made new friends. And the first I knew that something had gone wrong was when that woman screamed.

Still making that shushing sound, I reached out and gently took the bird by its wing. It didn’t resist. It just kept looking at me as if it knew that I was going to rend it apart and devour it. I let go of the spar and it slid soundlessly beneath the surface of the oil. I had the bird now and lifted it to the side; long tacky threads of oil spattered and flurried in the sea breeze.

. and when I looked back down to the shallow end, I could see three men ploughing through the water; could see one of them lunging down and dragging something from the bottom and the woman was just screaming and screaming, making the other kids down there begin crying too, as..

The seagull was dead. Its head lolled on its neck. Its one eye was still blank and staring. I could feel that constriction in my throat again; just as if I was nine years old once more. What had I done by coming into this place again? How could I have been so stupid as to believe that I could exorcise those memories? I lay the bird at the poolside and crouched down on my haunches, looking back to the shallow end.

And then, about six feet out from where I sat, something moved beneath the oil.

I saw it from the corner of my eye. At first, I thought it might be sunlight reflecting on that ebony surface. I stared at the place where I thought I’d seen movement. It came again. Something that flapped out of the oil, smaller than a seagull’s wing, but with the same kind of movement. Another sea bird, trapped beneath the surface and trying to rise. I looked for the spar, then remembered that I’d let it drop into the pool. Frantically, I searched around for something else. Now, it seemed as if there was a chance to make good on my failure. If I could save even one bird from this morass, then somehow it seemed that my desperation need not be so intense. There was nothing at hand. Perhaps back there in the changing rooms.?

But then there was new movement, something so strange and graceful and eerie that I could only sit there and watch.

A swan was rising from the oil.

What I had at first assumed to be a wing was a swan’s head breaking the surface. Because now that swan’s head was rising and I could see its long and graceful black-coated neck as it emerged slow and dripping from the pool. But there was something wrong with that neck now. It had been broken in the middle. It was bending at an impossible angle as the neck emerged from the oil and.

This was no swan’s head, no swan’s neck.

It was a hand, and an arm; now bending at the elbow as something came up out of the pool.

A head crested from the oil. Long hair, black and dripping.

And all I could do was sit, frozen and terrified, as the woman finally stood up in the pool, so completely covered in black filth that she might have been a statue carved out of basalt. She was motionless now, facing me, as if waiting for me to do something. But all I could do was sit there and stare. The woman’s eyes opened, two white orbs in that hideous black visage.

I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t say a word.

And then the woman began to sing.

The voice was ragged and halting, as if she had been under that oil for a long, long time, and had perhaps forgotten how to use her voice properly. Her face remained blank, but her eyes never left me as she sang.

“Ain’t. she. sweet? I ask you. ain’t she neat.?”

That’s when I must have fainted, because it seemed that the black oil was everywhere then, filling my eyes. The horror of what I was seeing and hearing was too unbearable. I remember hearing:

“. ask you very con-fi-dentially. ”

And then there was nothing.

There were no dreams, no nightmares. Just this terrible buzzing in my ears and a dreadful taste in my mouth. I knew then, even in that dark place behind my eyes, that I was asleep at home and in bed. I had been drinking again. And when I finally surfaced from that sleep, I would have a king-sized hangover. I would wake up and realise that everything about the swimming pool and the thing that had emerged from it was an alcohol-induced nightmare. Something was wrong with the mattress on my bed. It felt too hard, too uncomfortable. I struggled to wake. and felt concrete. Dislocated and afraid, I jerked out of that sleep and struggled to rise.

I was still lying by the side of the swimming pool.

It was still daytime.

The oil lay thick and dark and heavy on the surface of the pool.

And not ten feet from where I lay, the young woman was still there.

She had pulled herself to the edge of the pool, had tried to crawl out of that black mass, but her strength had given out at the last. She had hauled her upper body out of the pool, her arms stretched before her and her fingers clawing at the concrete. Oil lay spattered around her; thick streamers of the damned stuff. But her lower body and legs were still in the pool, hidden beneath the oil.

Instinctively, I recoiled, backing away until I sat heavily and groggily on the concrete steps which led up to the derelict changing rooms. The ringing was still in my ears and I struggled to contain my nausea. I looked at my watch and realised that I couldn’t have been unconscious for more than a few minutes. Remembering the others back on the beach, I decided to run and get help.

But then the woman groaned and one hand groped feebly as she tried to haul herself the rest of the way out of the pool.

I hesitated, thinking: This can’t be happening.

The woman groaned again, unable to pull herself any further.

But she’s alive. The least you can do is get her out of that pool and then you can run for help.

Unsteadily, I moved back to the poolside.

“It’s alright. you’re all right. ”

I didn’t want to touch her, was still struggling to contain the feeling that I hadn’t woken up yet and that this was an ongoing nightmare. I’d had a terrible shock when I’d seen her emerging like that, but I must have imagined that she was singing that song. Imust have. The woman tried to lift her head to look at me, but was too exhausted. Fumbling at her face, she tried to brush the straggling long hair away.

“Please. .” Her voice was so faint that I could hardly hear it. “Help me.”

And without being aware that I’d made the decision to help, I was suddenly kneeling beside her. I took one arm. It felt terribly cold. I pulled, but the woman hadn’t the strength to assist, and she remained half-in, half-out of the pool. Standing, I took her under the armpits and hauled her from the oil, leaving a great black trail on the concrete lip. For the first time, I realised that she was naked; her frame slender and slight. Perhaps it was the oil coating her from head to foot. When she was clear of the pool, I turned her over and helped her to sit.

“You wait here,” I began. “I’m going to get help.”

“No,” she replied, gagging as oil flowed from her lips. My God, was she going to die?

“You’re going to be all right, I promise. But I need to get a doctor and. ”

And the woman opened her eyes to look at me.

“Dean,” she said, calling me by my first name.

Everything is fractured, after that. I’ve tried to put the pieces together in my mind, but a lot of it just doesn’t make sense. I seem to remember crying and laughing at the same time, calling my sister’s name. That might be wrong; that might just be all in my mind. But I do remember those eyes, because suddenly that was all I could see. The whites of those eyes were somehow shocking, set into that black-oil sculpted face. The irises were so green that they sparked, and looking at them somehow hurt my own eyes. They were growing larger as I looked. And then I seem to remember something to do with the side gate to the swimming pool; the gate behind the changing block beyond which lay a steep flight of stone stairs, leading up the cliffs to the seafront parade and its rows of hotels.

Something to do with a length of corroded steel pipe that was lying around.

Something to do with enormous effort on my part.

I think, although I can’t be sure, that I smashed the lock and chain on that side gate. And we must have climbed those stairs. We must have, because that’s where I’d parked my car. I must have wrapped my own jacket around her, helped her into that car. Perhaps there were people up there; staring in astonishment at us. I seem to recall faces. Perhaps not.

I must have driven home to my flat.

Because the next thing I remember clearly is standing in my living room, just outside the bathroom. I was staring at that door, and when everything around me registered properly again, I realised that the shower was on. I could hear the water hissing. I raised my hand to shove the door open, but something made me stop. I looked around, trying to convince myself that I wasn’t still dreaming. Yes, this was my living room; just as I’d left it earlier that day. When I tried to move, my legs were weak. I staggered, clutching at the sofa, and ended up at the window looking down to the street, six floors below. It was evening, and my car was in its usual place.

And there was a dark stain on the pavement, from the car to the communal entrance. As if someone had spilled something there. From this distance, it looked horribly like blood.

I squinted at my watch. I’d lost about nine hours.

I braced my hand on the window sill and shook my head. When I turned and looked around again, I expected somehow that everything would have changed; that this strange dream would take a different turn. But the living room was just as I’d left it that morning before heading off to the beach. I suddenly felt nauseous and took a step back towards the bathroom. Fear cramped my stomach with the sudden knowledge that Amy. she. whatever. was in there. It acted like an inner safety valve, preventing me from throwing up then and there.

What was in there?

“Amy.?”

When the telephone rang, it was like some kind of electric shock. My teeth clamped shut so hard that I nicked my tongue, and my mouth filled with blood. With the second ring, I realised that I wasn’t going to have a heart attack. By the third, the fear had returned with a sickening intensity. It suddenly became important that whoever or whatever was in the bathroom not be disturbed by the sound. Staggering across the room, I snatched up the receiver.

“Dean?”

It was Lorna.

“Yes. ”

“What the hell are you playing at?”

“Sorry?”

“We’ve been worried sick about you. What happened to you? Where did you go?”

“Go? I’m not sure what… I mean. ”

“You ran off to the pool to get that poor bird, and then you just vanished from the face of the earth. Have you any idea what trouble you’ve caused? When you didn’t come back we went to look for you and you were nowhere. nowhere . to be seen. Christ, we’ve had the coastguard and the police out. We thought you’d gone into that fucking pool, or something. They’ve sent people down to drag the bloody thing. So what happened.?”

“I’m sorry, Lorna. Something. something happened. and I had to leave and. ”

“You had to leave? I mean, without saying anything to anyone? Without telling any of us? You. you shit! We’ve been worried sick. Well. .” Unmistakeably, anger building out of control, “look. look. you can telephone the fucking police and the coastguard and tell them to call off the search, and while you’re at it you can tell them why you. ”

“Goodbye, Lorna.”

I put down the receiver. My hand was shaking badly.

Beyond the bathroom door, the sound of the shower had suddenly ceased.

It had been turned off.

I stood there, looking at the door. A part of me knew that I should just turn and get out of that apartment as fast as I could. But I couldn’t move. I tried, but I was rooted to the spot.

Something was going to happen.

And there was nothing I could do.

I tried to speak, but my voice choked in my throat.

My heart was hammering. I could feel the blood pulsing in my temples.

And that’s when I heard the singing again. So low as to be almost inaudible. Sly, and hideously mischievous.

“Ain’t. she. sweet?”

“Oh Christ, Amy. I didn’t mean to leave you in the pool.”

Somehow, my voice sounded like the voice of the nine-year old I’d once been.

“I…ask…you. Ain’t…she…neat?”

“It can’t be you. Is it you? Amy, I’m so sorry. ”

The sorrow erupted from me. Thirty years of contained grief. The tears flowed down my cheeks to mingle with the blood in my mouth. It was the salt taste of the sea.

“Dean,” said that voice, with a sibilant echo that must surely be impossible in there.

“Yes?”

“Come and open the door, Dean.”

“Oh God, Amy. I can’t. ”

“Come and open the door!”

“I’m afraid. ”

There was laughter then. Girlish laughter; low but still somehow echoing, and with a terrifying sense of intent.

“Come let me taste your tears.”

Suddenly, I was moving. There was no conscious effort on my part. The voice was drawing me to it, and there was nothing I could do.

Through the blurred vision of my grief and my terror, I saw my own hand reach forward for the bathroom door as I stumbled forward.

The telephone began to ring again. It sounded thin and distant, nothing to do with me at all.

I watched my hand turn the handle, saw the door swing open.

Beyond, I could see only steam from the shower. Some inner and distant part of me knew that there shouldn’t be steam in here at all. There was never steam when I showered. But it was there, and all the details of the bathroom were shrouded in that swirling, undulating mass. Ragged wisps and rapidly dissolving tentacles swirled over the threshold into the living room, dissolving before they reached me.

“Come here, Dean,” said something hidden from sight.

In terror and grief, I stepped into the bathroom and felt the warm embrace of the steam.

And that’s when everything becomes fractured again.

Something happened in there, but it’s as if my mind is either incapable of comprehending it, or that the horror was so great that it shuts off every time I try to understand what was being done to me. I’m trying to think of it now; trying to get impressions, but nothing will register. I know it’s in there, locked in my head, but nothing will come.

When it ended, the nightmare had changed location again.

The first thing I became aware of was the wind. It smelled of salt and seaweed, and when my vision cleared I could see the sea. I was standing on a beach, and moonlight was shining on the water. When I looked down, I could see that I was standing on shale, not sand. I’d spent enough time on the north-east coast to know that I was a great deal further south than Tynemouth or Whitley Bay. There was no oil on the water.

I turned to look away from the sea and to the ragged cliffs behind me. The movement was too much for me, as if I’d been standing in the same position for hours and my limbs had frozen. I fell to my knees, retching. When I’d finished, something made me look back to the sea.

She was standing in the water, silently watching me.

I knew that she hadn’t been there before, that there was no way she could have suddenly appeared like that. But there she was, the water troughing around her naked legs. The moonlight silhouetted her from behind. I could see no details of her face or, thank God, those eyes.

“Please…” I began.

I knew that if she began to sing that song again, I must surely go mad.

But she didn’t say a word. She just stood motionless, watching me.

I lowered my head once more, feeling the nausea swelling within me.

When I looked up again, she had moved closer. But it was as if she hadn’t moved at all. As if she had somehowfloated closer to shore. The water foamed around her shins, but she was still in the same motionless position.

“Dean.”

The voice echoed impossibly once more. I moaned and waited for the end.

“Stand up.”

I staggered to my feet. I had no will to resist.

“Come closer.”

I took three shambling steps to the water’s edge. We were perhaps six feet apart, but I still could not see her face. I don’t know how long we just stood like that, facing each other. A part of me wondered if we’d stay like that forever, frozen in that tableau; with the hushing of the sea, the smell of salt and weed, and the flickering of moonlight on the water.

“Stay away from Deep Water,” she said at last.

“. why?…” I barely recognised my own small voice.

“My sisters and I feed there.”

This time, she did move. Three languid steps towards me. For the first time, I realised that there was no trace of oil on her naked body. Her long hair moved around her shoulders in the wind, as if it had a life of its own. And now I could see that her eyes were closed. I knew then that she could still see; knew with utter certainty that she could see into my mind and read everything that was there.

She raised a graceful arm and placed her hand on my shoulder.

It’s difficult to tell you what happened next.

I can’t really tell you how, but I felt something then.

Something hideous.

She remained in that position, and there was no physical change in her. But that touch of her hand brought images in my mind; images that still haunt my nightmares. I seemed to see something that looked like a sea anemone; something with tentacle-like clusters surrounding barbed and voracious mouth-parts, moving greedily like the mandibles of a crab or a sea spider. I felt the cold touch of scales, the fetid breath of something that fed on the corpses of the drowned. I don’t know if I screamed or not, but I felt that I must have.

My senses still swimming, I watched her turn from me and walk back into the sea. She moved with that same languid grace, the hair swirling around her head. She didn’t dive into the water, didn’t swim away. She just kept on walking until the water had reached her shoulders. When it reached her neck, she half-turned her head to look back at me as if she was going to say something else.

But she said nothing.

And in the next moment, the water covered her head and she was gone.

I wasn’t aware that I’d fallen to my knees.

For a long, long time I just knelt there, staring out across the moonlit water, listening to the wind.

When dawn began to creep up behind me, I staggered to my feet and headed for the rough path that wound up the cliffs. My car was parked up there, crude oil smeared on the back seat.

I didn’t look back at the sea when I climbed into the car and headed home.

So there you have it.

End of story.

And all I have are the bad dreams and the unanswered questions. Was it Amy? Or was it something that only looked human when it wanted to, and could pretend to be anyone it wanted to be by reading minds? Was it my sister, a grown woman thirty years later? Or one of those whom Ulysses had heard, when he was lashed to the mast of his ship while his companions’ ears were filled with wax? In the darkest moments, I wonder if those who drown become what I saw and experienced that day.

Come let me taste your tears, she had said.

What did she find there that prevented her from doing what she was created to do?

Stay away from Deep Water. My sisters and I feed there.

Why did she spare me and warn me?

The beaches are clean again. I spend a lot of time down at Tynemouth, on the beach and looking out to sea. Usually at night. The water has a strange attraction for me. I know that one day soon, I’ll have to go out there, no matter what she said.

Tonight, I heard sounds across the dark water. That’s why I’ve written all of this down.

It sounded like whales, calling to each other.

But perhaps it was just another siren-song as the sisters moved through the deep.

They’ve demolished the swimming pool now. It was sealed and drained before the work could commence. No one expected what they found in there. It was the Captain of the Edda Dell’Orso and one of the crew. Sucked in through the sluices with the oil slick. They say their faces were eaten away by fish. Except that there were no living fish in that black morass.

So many unanswered questions.

And as much as I used to hate the song my sister sang, there are times when I stand on that beach in the moonlight and with the sea-wind coming in cold and harsh from the east, I pray with all my heart that I might hear it again. Sung in that strange, echoing voice.

Some day soon, I’ll find out whether it really did happen, or whether I’ve just lost my mind. I’ll hire a skip, and head for Deep Water. Maybe then, if she’s watching and she can still taste my tears, she’ll have to do what she refrained from doing that day.

I won’t be afraid, I won’t resist.

Because perhaps. just perhaps. I’ll have the answers to all those questions before the waters close over my head and I submit to her caress.