Chapter 6
Quentin looked at the paintings. They were good. In fact, very good. New Deale Atwaters, with all the technical ability that the public had learned to expect, and a deeply felt conviction...
Why mermaids:?
Were there mermaids in Collinsport? Or was this Adam's dream woman, now that marriage to Carolyn had turned to be disappointment. Was this Adam's lover?
It was none of his business, Quentin told himself. Adam was well, he was working, and he had to figure out if his marriage was worth saving all by himself.
And yet, there was something about the paintings...
"Urien to college?' Barnabas shook his head. "You know why it cannot be."
"He is ready for it."
"And what if he is not?" David seemed ready for it, too."
"It is different. Urien has no phoenix for a mother."
"But still needs someone to watch over him."
"We could ask David to do it."
"David?"
"You can ask David to let him stay at his place. He's got the room, now that Eliot is gone, and he owes the family. Why not pay this way?"
"I can't impose on David."
"David thought nothing of imposing on us to take care of Eliot. And if Urien pays rent, what has he got to complain about?"
Barnabas sighed. He did not want Urien to go, not yet. Part of it was sensible objections. But part of it was fear of losing those around him...
And he would lose them sooner or later, whether Urien went to college or not..
"You are right. I will talk to David."
Adam was not alone on the beach. Quentin trailed him. And behind Quentin, trying to understand his own dread, was Phillip.
Phillip felt cold sweat running down his back as he looked at the sea. The beating waves seemed so soothing, so beautiful. But he knew that it was not so, that it could not be so.
Yet, even as he hated it, it pulled at him.
Why did Adam have to paint those things? He had gone look at the paintings a couple of hours ago, and he had felt sick. He had felt a shock of recognition at seeing the underwater sketch that Adam was working on.
How could Adam know of the place:?... He had seen it somehow, just as he himself must have, while still in fish form, passing through it and registering it in his mind without understanding why.
It was something that he had to explain to himself if he was ever to be free of the terror that the sea evoked in him.
Quentin felt no dread. He was vaguely worried about Adam. But he looked at the sea and saw only beauty in it, as he had done ever since he was a child. He breathed in the salt-splattered air and felt invigorated by it, even as the waves seemed to grow stronger, almost break angrily as he stepped closer.
Adam moved to the edge of the sea, ready to shed his clothes and join her among the Bearded Stones. That was the name of the place, The Bearded Stones. It had come upon him while he slept...
But he listened to the waves. They were warning him, he was not alone, they would discover his secret... No, he'd better leave and come back later.
He sighed. Not now. There would be a time later, but not now.
So he walked away to Collinwood, with Quentin looking at him, puzzled, and Phillip behind, dread eating at him.
"Sure I'll be glad to keep an eye on him." David said cordially. "Sort of being Big Brother to him."
"Don't say that. I don't want you to be Big Brother..."
"I know. You want me to be a father. Let's make a deal, you and I. I take care of Urien for you, and you don't give me grief about Eliot."
It was a fair trade, and he already realized that would be the deal struck. But Barnabas was still reluctant to agree to it. He owed it to Eliot to press harder...
"Look, I did what was best for my son. No way that I am going to treat him the same rotten way that my father treated me. You and Carolyn will care for him well and love him. That's what he needs. not his closest relative who cannot do the job."
"Why do you sell yourself short?"
"Because I take after my father and I can't stop it. All right, enough said. What am I supposed to know about Urien? What am I to be guarding him against?"
Barnabas sighed. David was just unwilling to accept responsibility and his self-justifications did not wash. On the other hand, why submit Eliot to that kind of a parent?
So instead he told David about Urien and what his problems were.
Phillip could not sleep. Something was eating him up. The dread that had come upon him since that day he had fallen on the beach would not let him go.
Something was pulling at him. He could not stay in one place, could not concentrate on his job. He had to get up and answer the call. He had to get back to the sea which was calling for him.
"No!" he protested "No, I am free of it. They told me that it was over. It is over... It has to be!"
But he was not strong enough He got and followed that which called him.
He took of his shoes so that Carolyn should not hear him leave his post.
It was a long corridor, which was now deserted, to his relief. There were stairs after that. And at the end of the stairs, Adam's studio...
Adam was not in and he never locked the door.
Phillip's hand froze on the doorknob. He could save himself, still.. He could refuse to enter, he could...
He could do nothing
He opened the door and blinked at the sunlight streaming into it. Nausea threatened to overwhelm him.
The face of the mermaid stared straight at him.
Coldly, as if he were a fish she was about to eat. Mermaids ate fish. What else was there to eat? And he had been a fish.
Then the sea surged at him from all the paintings. And growing from the bottom was the circle of upright stones that was found in a secret recess under the waters...
The upright stones whose number kept increasing...
They were evil, those paintings. They should be destroyed.
He took one of Adam's painting knives. Not enough of an edge, but still, he could put his strength behind it...
He lifted it up, ready to slash the lying face of the mermaid. To answer her lies with a stroke of the knife...
He could not. His arm moved away from the canvas, directed by a will that was not his own.
The mermaid was laughing at him.
He staggered back, shivering and whimpering...
No, not again. It could not be starting again.
He remained there until it was time to leave, after Carolyn gave him a stern lecture about daydreaming on the job.
He sighed. Carolyn did not know what was going on in her own home..
He would tell that to Vicky... But what could he tell her?