The Quiet Sea

ENTRY TWELVE

I could not let it lie. I could not let it lie, and now I am trapped in my cottage, terrified for what awaits me should I leave. If Mrs Andrews does not check on me in two weeks time, I do not know what will become of me.

Will my water run out before my food supply? Will I ever be free of this place, or will the islanders leave my bones as a sacrifice to the evil that resides here? Will I rot into these walls, consumed by the contagion that has stricken this foul strip of land?

The door is bolted and my bed pulled across it, poor barricade though it will make. And why do I need a barricade? Why . . .

Why did I come here? I can barely remember now.

I must write what happened; to record, to remember, to make real or unreal. Perhaps I am insane. Perhaps my mind, deprived the outlet of sleep, has resorted to waking nightmares. Perhaps it is nothing, and I am caught in a hysteria built of too long alone, giving significance to sounds and shapes and shadows in my search for human connection.

I walked down to the beach this morning, as I've been doing often lately, to look across the channel. It's not so far, I sometimes think, and the water not so deep at low tide. I've gone so far as removing my boots and stepping in the shallows, but the water is so cold, and that cold has an insidious way of seeping through the skin of my ankles and creeping through my body. It's in my blood, chilling my veins, strangling my heart with icy fingers, squeezing out the warmth until all that's left is dread. The sea is not benign. I was allowed to cross to the island, but in these moments, I'm not so sure the dark waters will allow me to return.

This morning I only looked, though I should have swum then and there, before fear had the hold on me it has now.

Sea mist had rolled in off the ocean at dawn, and by the time I reached the beach that mist had become a fog, rendering the larger island a vague outline and giving the air a deadened weight. I didn't stay long. With the other island a ghostly shape, the outside world seemed farther away than ever and, more frighteningly, barely real – an ocean mirage. I did not like the thoughts that fear engendered in me, and took my leave of the beach and the vanishing view before I could dwell on them longer.

The fog thickened further as I made my return, swirling in loose tendrils around my legs and coating each breath I took with a moisture that settled in my lungs like drowning. With the visibility as poor as it was, it's a wonder I noticed the gap in the ferns and brambles that marked the path I'd carved out to the ruin. But I did notice it.

I also noticed the large femur bone lying in the dirt at its entrance, half-insubstantial in the fog, but still undeniably, awfully, there.

The emotion that crawled through me then I have no name for; to call it fear falls short, but terror is too quick an emotion, and this was sluggish and unformed. It entered through the base of my neck, stirring the hair at my nape to take up residence in the back of my skull, where it whispered bleak, paranoid predictions. My reaction was not proportional to that which the sight of an animal bone should warrant – for it was, as before, most obviously an animal bone, too large by half to be human in origin.

How had I not seen it when I cleared the path? I suppose it's possible that, engrossed in my labours, I missed much that was not directly impeding my progress, and I was in no state to be observant as I fled the ruin. The bone could have lain there years.

Had this occurred to me then, perhaps I would have walked past. Or not. I recall being gripped by an urge – no, a compulsion – that drew me to the cottage as surely as a fish is reeled in on a line. I had to know if the other bones remained undisturbed. And so I entered that derelict, desolate building for the second time, pushing through clinging fog to view its grey interior and the sad remains of a dead beast that lay at the back of the second room.

Nothing had changed since my last visit, and everything had. Before, unease was my companion as I trod through the weeds that carpeted its floor, but now menace walked beside me. The walls felt hungry, dripping malevolence along with droplets of condensation from the moss-adorned stone. I felt watched. Stalked. An evil presence lingered here, alert and unseen. I took pains not to touch the granite as I squeezed through the inner door, fearing what my contact might awaken.

The room's stillness and quietude were deceptive, for under the surface there existed a corruption of spirit, a foulness that crushed me with the weight of its consideration. The skull's empty sockets were still disturbing to look upon, but I took some comfort in the bones. They were the only things in the whole ruin that remained as lifeless as before, and not seemingly imbued with a malign intent.

Still, as I left, unmolested by any entity real or imagined, I tried to convince myself that I expended my fear for no purpose. I was alone. I was alone as I exited the empty walls, alone as I pushed through the ferns, alone as I rejoined the main path and wended my way up the hill to my own cottage.

I was alone. But behind every thud of my foot there came another, softer thud, so quiet I didn't notice it at first. When I did, I stopped and spun about, but the fog had closed in behind me, and I could barely see two yards down the hill before all shapes dissolved into whiteness.

I ran then. I think I moved faster than I ever have before, but I was not fast enough to escape the fact that it was two sets of footfalls that carried in the air, not one.

And when I reached my cottage door and paused to look back, I swear I saw a grey form on the path behind me, though I didn't linger long enough to see more as I flung myself across the threshold and barred the entrance at my back.

The day is nearing its end now. I pray I get through the night.