It was not until her third night at sea that Isobel met the dark woman for the first time. Well, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that she merely saw the woman on the third night of the voyage; they would not actually meet until later, by which Isobel had betrayed everything she had ever believed in.
On the third night of the cruise Isobel had broken away from her fellow colleagues to find some solitude. Not an easy task on a ship carrying over 60,000 passengers and crew but quiet places were available if you knew where to look. Usually she would have depressurised after her shift in one of the many bars scattered around the many levels of the ship but today she was simply worn out. She had briefly considered returning to the gym, but then she remembered she had been put off on her last visit by an overenthusiastic gym instructor, a sickeningly cheerful Canadian called Kira whose mantra had been 'no pain no gain'. Not in Isobel's experience.
Her job, as one of the many ships doctors, was usually hectic but today had been something else; a long, incessant stream of patients complaining about runny noses, stomach bugs and all manner of petty, uninteresting ailments. When her shift had finally ended the last thing she had wanted to do was surround herself with people. But she hadn't wanted to give up on the day either by retiring to her closed, windowless cabin buried deep in the heart of the ship (balconies, after all, were for paying customers).
So instead she had found herself here, at the very stern of the ship in a roped off lower level only accessible by members of the crew. The area was bare apart from a table set to one side. Here she could cloak herself in the gloom and gaze out over the ship's wake, a bright, white highway leading out into the darkness. This far out from the mainland no lights were visible except the sole red glow from a trawler somewhere close to the horizon, so far away it may well have been a star. Here, far from the bustle and noise of the passengers it was peaceful, the only sound the deep, heavy hum of the engines, and the continuous shushing sound of the water far below her. A constant rush that gave Isobel the strange feeling that, if only she listened harder, concentrated more, she might just be able to detect a pattern, even a message.
It was while she was standing there, peering into the foaming water beneath, that she was suddenly overtaken by the feeling she was not alone. She had experienced the feeling before of course, particularly in the months following the death of her parents; standing at the sink, or hanging washing on the line, she had been struck with the thought, the near certainty, that if she turned around her mum and dad would be standing there, as real and as natural as she was. Whenever she did look, of course,there was no one there, just her small bare kitchen, her empty garden. So this time, when she felt the hairs back of her neck bristle and rise, she was expecting nothing as she instinctively looked away from the sea to peer into the gloom behind her.
The woman was standing at the guardrail on the level immediately above her, gazing down at her from the darkness. The light of the moon appeared to shine full on her face, and only on her face. That was the only thing that could explain the pale luminosity of her features, the brightness of her eyes. For a moment Isobel was speechless, lost in the shock of someone actually being there. When the feeling subsided it was replaced by other emotions; she felt suddenly nervous, apprehension spiked through with a vein of excitement. The woman was beautiful, her pale features exquisitely framed within a dark hood, her full mouth as dark as the ocean. But it was her eyes that held Isobel's attention. She had overheard talk amongst the passengers as they boarded the ship, bad taste jokes about shipwrecks and icebergs. That is what she thought of now, as she stared into the eyes of the woman above her. She thought of icebergs, cold and captivating under a clear night time sky. She thought of drowning in pure, ice cold water.
Neither of them moved. There did not seem to be even a breath of wind. The noise of the engines, of the waves, faded as though the air itself was being drained away leaving them in a still, soundless vacuum. The woman was the first to move, an almost imperceptible shift of her gloved hands on the railings, but it was enough to bring Isobel's heart into her mouth.
A moment later the sound of reality came crashing back in as a small crowd of partygoers came bursting through the hatch beside Isobel, all drunken laugher and screeches. Isobel jumped with the shock and, by the time she returned her gaze to the level above her, she was not surprised to see it empty. She ignored the prattle of the invading drunkards, trying instead to make sense of what had happened, and why, above all else, she felt overcome with a sense of loss.
It seemed to take Isobel an age to find sleep when she finally returned to her cabin. At first she had tried to read but found that she kept rereading the same page without once taking in the words. When she finally did succumb, it was to lose herself in dark, unsettling dreams of dark waves, seen sometimes from above, where the emptiness of the ocean appeared to roll back to infinity; and sometimes from below, where the hushing sound of the sea seemed distant, as though she was miles below the surface. Above her, far away above the water, a figure could be seen standing on a rocky shore, a silent shadow standing out as a deeper darkness against the night sky. Isobel felt herself rising, being drawn towards the figure, the shore. As she neared the surface she sensed a wave of need coming from the figure, of hunger, desire and an almost dizzying sense of power. Just as Isobel neared the surface, her lungs bursting, the figure raised gloved arms as if to welcome her. It seemed, for a moment, that the moon burst from behind a cloud, for a pale light fell on the woman's face; beautiful, fierce and utterly terrifying. She smiled, and Isobel had a momentary glimpse of sharp, white teeth before she broke through the surface...
Her eyes opened to find the ceiling of her cabin. As she sat up she noticed that her sheets were sodden with sweat. The dream lingered in her mind for a moment, then submerged again, leaving her to wonder why it was that her hands were shaking and why her heart was beating so very fast.
The next day Isobel struggled to keep her mind on her job, something which she would have previously considered unthinkable. Professionalism was something she regarded as an absolute minimal; she held herself to high standards and had little patience with the sloppiness of others. Nevertheless she found that her mind drifted, time and time again, to the previous night, and the woman. As well as her professionalism Isobel also took pride in her rational outlook on life. She enjoyed a good horror novel as much as the next person but she scoffed at any suggestion of the uncanny when it came to real life. She simply had no time for it. When it came to the woman she had seen the previous night this level-headedness wobbled somewhat; as much as Isobel tried to explain it away she struggled to understand her own reactions, both at the time and since. The image of the woman's face was forever waiting whenever her mind drifted, when she closed her eyes. And with the image came the same feelings of unease, uncertainty and, far below in the depths, an awakening need to see the woman again.
