The Song of the Sea

39. A Foreign Land

Raephier woke up in what he decided was his new favourite way. With a kiss from Jacob.

He hummed in contentment and tried to pull Jacob closer but something got in the way. Raephier finally opened his eyes to see that Jacob was already fully dressed.

"What time is it?" he asked Jacob.

"Time for you to do your thing," Jacob said with a smile, before kissing Raephier again.

Raephier let himself lean into the kiss for a second before Jacob's words finally filtered into his brain, which made him pull back in alarm.

"What?! We're there already?!"

"Yes, look," Jacob said, as he pointed to the small round window with a sparkle in his eyes.

Raephier scrambled out of bed and shot over to the window. Sure enough, there on the horizon was one of the most astonishing and beautiful sights Raephier had ever seen. The island looked like it had risen out of the water, almost like it had been sculpted that way by giants. Raephier had seen cliffs before. But they were never brilliant white. The sun was bright in the sky and the reflection off the cliffs was almost dazzling.

"Wow," Raephier breathed out.

"I know, she's beautiful, isn't she?"

Raephier giggled at Jacob's use of the word 'she' but didn't say anything. He was still too mesmerised at the sight and overwhelmed that he was finally looking at the place that Jacob called home.

"Come on," Jacob said, gently squeezing Raephier's shoulder. "Let's get some food in you before we reach the estuary."

For the first time since they'd set off, Raephier felt a flutter of nerves in his stomach. Everything had gone smoothly with their journey up to this point, and Raephier really didn't want to be the one who let them down.

He tried his best not to think about it as Pete handed him some soup and biscuits.

The night before, Jacob had gone through a set of hand signals that Raephier could use from the water to communicate with the ship. As he ate, he went over the signals in his head again, just to make sure he could still remember them all.

"We're coming up to Finkles's point now," Pete said, coming over to the table where Raephier and Jacob sat.

Raephier pushed the remainder of his soup towards Jacob.

"Can you finish this? It's not great to do heavy swimming on a full stomach."

This wasn't exactly the true reason why he hadn't finished, but Raephier didn't want Jacob to know how nervous he was.

Jacob nodded, but just pushed the soup to one side, before getting up and pulling Raephier with him.

Once they were on the deck, away from prying eyes, Jacob took hold of both of Raephier's hands so he was facing him.

"Are you sure you're ok doing this?" he asked.

It made Raephier's heart glow on hearing the gentle concern in Jacob's voice.

"Of course I am," Raephier replied. "I just don't want anything to go wrong."

Raephier saw Jacob looking at something over his shoulder and turned to see Lyle, James and Pete stood waiting for them.

"Well I guess this is it then," Raephier said, taking a deep breath and turning back to Jacob with what he hoped looked like a confident smile.

Jacob stared into Raephier's eyes with such intensity that Raephier had to focus on keeping his knees from shaking.