NO!
He sent the boy sliding along the ice. Let him go. Reached out for something to hold on to himself. But he found nothing, only ice that scraped through his fingers.
He wouldn’t die this way! No!
He clawed, grappled at the ice, but his fingers, too cold, too numb, found nothing to hold on to. The cold took the breath from him.
He was going under.
The boy struggled to his feet. He was crying, looking around for help. Too young, too scared to know what to do.
This is your fault, Col wanted to scream at him. Yours!
And as the waters closed around his head, he could still see the boy shimmering above him, running towards him. Still screaming.
But Col couldn’t hear him now.
He was in a silent, eerie world.
Reeds brushed against his face, clutched at his ankles as if they were pulling him down, welcoming him into their cold watery world.
For ever.
He thought he could see Mungo’s angry face through the ice, angry that he should die this way, trying to save a boy who had it all coming to him.
And his mother too. He was almost sure he could see her standing on the ice with the boy, crying uncontrollably.
But who else would cry for Col McCann?
Nobody.
The ice was closing above him and through the dark waters frightening images floated towards him. Reeds undulated in the current. Then became faces, ghostly, uncanny faces, calling to him silently. This was their world. And soon it would be his. His for ever. Col, with hardly any life behind him, now had none in front of him.
Floating ferns wrapped themselves around him, and something else. Something so close he could almost reach out and touch it. Something he didn’t want to face.
Something terrifying was there in the loch with him.
Did Death have a face?
No! No! No!
He wouldn’t look at it.
He wouldn’t be lost in these dark waters for ever.
He began to struggle wildly again and, suddenly – where did he get the strength from? – he was surging up and up and up, almost as if he was being pushed. Kicking with frozen legs, with all the determination of someone who just wasn’t ready to die.
He broke the surface with a wild cry.
This time he grabbed, kicked, hung on. He was never going under there again.
Never!
And by the time the ambulance arrived Col was unconscious, half dead, lying on the broken ice of the loch.
Chapter Four
Col opened his eyes slowly. A girl was bending over him, white like an angel, except for her chocolate-brown face.
Where was he? In heaven? Had he died and gone to heaven? He couldn’t remember a thing for a moment. Couldn’t understand why he was here, or even where he was. He was disorientated, exhausted, still struggling for breath.
‘You’re awake at last.’ The nurse – she was a nurse – smiled widely. Her teeth were the brightest white he had ever seen. Col wanted to smile back, but it was too exhausting. ‘You’ve just missed your mother. She’s been here all the time, sitting by your bed. We sent her home for a rest half an hour ago.’
While she spoke she was tucking him in, lifting his wrist, checking his pulse against her watch. Am I still alive? he wanted to ask. He tried to speak, but his mouth was so dry the words just wouldn’t come. He glanced sideways and realised he was on a drip. He tried to remember how he got here, but his memory, his brain, something, wasn’t working.
‘Everyone’s been praying for you, you know. The whole hospital. The whole town.’ She still smiled as she jotted down notes on a clipboard at the foot of his bed.
Praying for me? He thought he’d said it aloud, but he hadn’t. His voice just wouldn’t come. The nurse came close and touched his shoulder gently. ‘You’re a hero, Col.’ She walked to the door. ‘I’ll ring your mother, but until she comes back I want you to rest. OK? That’s what you need after all you’ve been through, complete rest.’ She closed the door softly behind her, and he was alone.
What he’d been through?
What had he been through? He looked around the clean, white hospital room, at the window and the darkening, heavy sky outside. He could see the snow-tipped hills, and the icy January fog descending over the town.
Something stirred in his memory. Something he didn’t want to remember.
He was a hero.
Exhaustion was pulling his eyelids shut. He could feel himself drifting away on an ocean with a hot sun beating down on him, gentle waves lapping at his feet. But as he drifted deeper into sleep the water grew colder. And he wasn’t on a raft any more, but an ice floe surrounded by icebergs. And the ice floe was tipping and slanting under him. Slipping him under the water into a silent world with reeds and strange underwater creatures tugging at him, dragging him down. He struggled to be awake, to get above the water away from the faces that floated eerily in front of him. Faces he knew. Strange faces he had never seen before, drifting towards him through the waving reeds. Now he remembered! He remembered everything. The boy. The ice. And Death – reaching out to get him and him only just escaping.