Devil's Rock - Chris Speyer [48]
She gave Zaki the water bottle so that he could rinse the sick taste out of his mouth.
‘When did you start recording?’
‘It was hard to do it while I was walking along and trying to keep out of sight, so I waited until you sat down over there and I hid amongst that stack of dinghies.’
‘So you’ve got everything! Me and the gull – all of that?’
‘Well, yes, but – it was just an ordinary seagull. It didn’t suddenly appear or anything.’
‘What about the fight?’
‘No, I’d dropped the camera by then. It was the camera that started it. After the seagull flew off the first time I waited and waited – I must have stayed hidden for over an hour, but as nothing really much was happening I stopped hiding and came across to talk to you. You seemed a bit confused, like you didn’t quite know who I was.’
‘What did I say?’
‘Not much. You were in a very strange mood. You called me “maid”. I thought that was a bit odd.’
‘My grandad calls girls maid. It’s proper West Country.’
‘Then I showed you the camcorder. I played back what I had recorded and you went mad – said I was trying to steal your secrets – called me a witch!’
‘A witch! Wow!’
‘I said I didn’t come here to be insulted and that I was going. I got halfway to the steps and you grabbed me, tried to get the camcorder off me. We fought – I got away but you kept coming after me and I couldn’t get to the steps. I dropped the camera just before you picked up that big rock.’
‘I saw the rest.’
‘Hmm.’ Anusha looked thoughtfully at Zaki.
‘What?’
‘When you say you were the seagull,’ she asked slowly, ‘what do you mean, exactly?’
‘Well . . . I was sitting up there and the seagull landed next to me. It looked at me and I looked at it and then – whoosh! – I was looking out of its eyes and feeling what it was feeling. I was the seagull! Except I could still think like me. I could choose where to go and what to do. So I flew out to sea.’
‘Why out to sea?’
‘I wanted to be by myself.’
‘But your body stayed here?’
‘That’s where it gets really weird.’ Zaki tried to bring his mind to focus on the problem of how his body could have continued to act once he had left it. And Zaki? Who was Zaki if he wasn’t his body? His mind shied away, searching for distractions. There was something very nasty lurking at the bottom of this question and his mind didn’t want to look at it.
The tide had crept in and the water was now lapping near their feet. Zaki watched the little ripples covering and uncovering the shingle. As he watched, a small, spiral shell clambered through the pebbles. He knew what it was. He reached down and picked it up.
‘Look,’ he said, holding up the shell with its occupant for Anusha to see. ‘It’s a hermit crab. That’s not his shell, but he’s taken it over and he’ll fight anything to keep it.’ As Zaki spoke, the tiny crab’s legs and pincers appeared from the shell’s mouth and the little claw opened and closed as the crab attempted to attack Zaki’s finger.
Anusha laughed. ‘It’s very brave! Can I hold it?’ Zaki passed her the shell. ‘Hello little crab,’ she said, holding it centimetres from her nose.
‘I’m like that shell. There’s something else inside my body,’ said Zaki. ‘I think something crawled in while I was in that cave. I’m sharing my body with something evil.’ He looked at the crab in Anusha’s hand. ‘I wonder if that crab ate the creature that made the shell.’
Anusha carefully placed the crab back in the water. ‘Off you go, little crab. I’m not sure I like you any more,’ she said quietly.
Zaki looked at her. ‘I think whatever it is that got into me is getting stronger; maybe not strong enough to push me out yet, but you saw what it could be like – and it’s doing home improvements – it fixed my shoulder. How do you fight against something that’s inside you?’
Anusha