Returning Feet

Returning feet (01/07): The Sinking

I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago,
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know
But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.
Bilbo’s Song – JRR Tolkien

The sailing ship rolled in the water with her sails torn by the wind. The sinister sea, reflecting the sky, was almost black. In a few minutes the night would have fallen and the darkness would be complete. There was a man on deck; he was soaking wet, fighting against the horrific weather conditions. He looked exhausted, but he didn’t give up. He managed to face the port, where the waves were less violent and there was no danger of grounding.

Some fishermen saw him from the shore and headed for the ship. When they went aboard the man was unconscious and shaking; He was at the mercy of the water accumulated on the deck. Everyone knew he had been lucky, that place was called Coast of Death due to a great number of shipwrecks. The cemeteries were full of seafarers’ names and many tombs had no corpses inside them for they had been claimed by the sea.

They wondered how he had been able to reach the coast, with that rainstorm, without being caught on a cliff. But that wasn’t the only curious thing about the stranger; his clothes were luxurious and out of place for sailing. Moreover, in his delirium, he grappled a wooden stick as if his life depended on it.

One of them voiced what all of them were thinking, “He must be a friend of the Englishman. I’ll go to look for him.” And he went to the lighthouse while his companions took the foreigner to the clinic.

***

The lighthouse was located on top of a cliff, lashed fiercely by the wind and the rain. The line that separated the sea and the sky could not be distinguished from there, all that could be seen was a dark grey mass.

The man got out of the car and walked carefully to the lighthouse: a wrong move and the wind would hurl him against the cliffs. He rang the bell several times; the wind prevented him from knowing if it made any sound. But soon he had an answer: the door opened and the man inside made a gesture for him to step in.

The lighthouse was warm. And the dark haired man who lived there had made it a comfortable place to live in. The fisherman heard some music coming from upstairs: bagpipes and violins; and he saw the other man’s fingers stained with ink.

“Mark,” the man spoke, “you have to come to the village. This man... A friend of yours is ill.”

Mark couldn’t avoid a grin. He had been there for three years and he was still supposedly connected to anyone behaving strangely.

“How do you know he’s a friend of mine?” It was a courtesy question, he was sure that his whereabouts were a secret, and he didn’t hope he would ever see his friends again.

“He has to be, he’s…” he was going to say ‘a strange man’ but he stopped talking. “He’s your age, well dressed, very pale; his hair is almost white…”

Mark’s gaze darkened, he knew someone who matched that description. He can’t be, he thought. But his curiosity was stronger than his will. “Let’s go”. He grabbed a heavy woollen sweater, and put it on.

***

Some onlookers had gone to the dispensary; they had been brave enough to leave their houses in spite of the storm, and were whispering about the patient, who had been seen just by the few men that had taken him there. They let Mark in, certain as they were he knew the stranger.

He stood at the doctor’s door, which read “D. Xana”. He had always wondered whether the D. meant Doctor or Dolores, her name, though he had never called her that, that name didn’t recall pleasant memories. He froze before knocking. Could it be true? What if he had been found? There must be thousands of pale, blonde men with expensive clothes, he said to himself, and knocked the door softly.

The doctor opened the door. She was a woman in her late twenties, red-haired and with lively eyes, coloured like honey. “Evans! I should have thought they would call you”. She smiled and let him into the room. “Come in, say you don’t know him and they’ll leave you alone”. Knowing that there was someone in the village who didn’t think him a weirdo was always comforting.

Mark entered the room and couldn’t avoid muttering darkly, “Malfoy!” There he was, shivering on the bed, under a metallic blanket. A hand gripping a wand was the only thing emerging from it. He was extremely pale, if that was possible. His skin had a dim tone and his hair was a mess. Mark saw the towel that Xana had probably used to dry him and his clothes in a box over a chair.

Dolores looked at him stunned. “Do you really know him?”

“Yes. We were schoolmates.” Mark was almost as surprised as she was. “How is he?” he asked moving towards him.

“He’s got hypothermia and he’s exhausted. I wouldn’t risk taking him to the hospital with this kind of storm.” Mark looked at her doubtfully. “We have the means to stabilize him. Don’t worry. Tonight I’ll stay with him; we have to steady his temperature.”

Mark moved towards the blond boy, when he was close enough he saw that Draco’s lips were murmuring. He was delirious. Mark also noticed that some words were parts of various hexes. “I’ll try to take this from him,” he said, pointing at the wand.

“I hope you’re luckier than me, Do you know what it is?”

Mark lied, “No.” He grabbed the hand, trying to remove the wand, while Malfoy clutched it harder. “Something from the ship?”

The doctor shrugged while she prepared a jab. “Beats me.”

“Malfoy, damn it, let go.” When he heard his name, Draco seemed to relax and let Mark take the wand. The latter lifted it carefully and put it in the back pocket of his trousers, covering it with his sweater.

“There’s something else.” Dolores took an arm out of the blanket to administer the injection. When she had finished, she showed the forearm to Evans. “I’ve never seen a tattoo like this one.” Mark shivered and forced himself to look.

“It’s a kind of burn.” Seeing the Dark Mark on Malfoy’s arm wasn’t unexpected, but it was painful anyway. The son had followed the father’s footsteps. “Something the kids did thinking they were adults. Something very stupid.”

He leaned against the wall in front of Malfoy’s bed, his arms crossed over his chest and a meditative gaze in his eyes. ‘The past has found me. I’m surrounded by Muggles and I can’t protect them’. Malfoy could have just one reason to find him, and that placed everyone around him in danger. As usual. He wanted no more death around him. He was fed up with that. He wanted to stop feeling guilty.

“Xana, when he wakes up, would you mind going out of the room for a while?” He didn’t know what he would do, but at least he had the other man’s wand.

“As soon as I’ve verified that his reactions are adequate, I’ll let you talk. But don’t weary him.”

Dolores looked intently at Evans. She had known him since he had arrived at the village and from the first moment they had gotten on well together. She was intrigued by the fact that he was a researcher of witchcraft, of Celtic mythology and legends; also by the too-adult gaze he sometimes had in his eyes. He looked extremely young to have gained that look, the look of someone who had survived a sinking while his friends had died, the look of someone who had fought in a war, who had killed and felt death around him… Now, once again, he had that look, his green eyes staring dully at the patient.