Page 53 of A Study in Drowning

Most scholars of Myrddin view him as somewhat in conversation with Blackmar, though the extent to which their works bear any genuine thematic or stylistic similarities is still debated. While Myrddin, in what few interviews he gave, was adamant that he did not seek to be known as a “Southern writer,” Blackmar, though a Northerner himself, was very much inspired by the aesthetic and folkloric traditions of the South. In this paper, I argue that Blackmar perceived the South as a fanciful realm of whimsy, trapped in a time long past, existing merely for Northern writers to project their fantasies upon. In that regard, I contend that Blackmar is indeed a Southern writer—but only in the South of his own imagining.

From The Question of the South: Colin Blackmar, Emrys Myrddin, and Northern Fascination by Dr. Rhys Brinley, 206 AD

When they met the next day, Preston did not bring up the Fairy King or changeling children. Effy was grateful to him. She did not want to try to justify herself, nor tell him that she’d spent the night in the cold darkness, waiting for the Fairy King to show himself. Preston had treated her kindly—more kindly than anyone else she’d told the truth to ever had—but still, he didn’t believe her. It stung, but the memory of him saying Isn’t that enough? thrummed in her mind, and there was a small reassurance in it. At least he had not called her mad.

Instead, there was just the matter of convincing Ianto to let them go see Blackmar. It would not be an easy task. Preston had become so jumpy around him (“He did wave a gun at us, Effy,” he’d said, in an oddly high-pitched tone, when she’d confronted him about it).

She did not relish the idea of beseeching Ianto to let her go away from the house. And Preston didn’t like any of her proposed lies.

“Ianto isn’t an idiot,” he said. “I don’t see how you can relate this to your project—and I don’t see how you could convince him that I would need to come along, too. Saints, it would be easier to just tell him we were sneaking off for some midnight tryst.”

Effy felt her face turn red. “I don’t think he would like that at all.”

Preston’s cheeks were pink, too. “Surely not. He was clear that he didn’t want to see us together again—but it would be a more convincing lie. I mean—well. He doesn’t care where I go. He’d be happier if I just left and never came back. He only cares about you.”

As much as she did not want to admit it, Effy knew it was true. But ever since the incident at the pub, Ianto had asked for nothing more than just a bit of perfunctory, chaste flirtation. She could do that.

“Then why don’t we tell him you’re bringing me somewhere?” she suggested. “Dropping me off in Laleston. Dropping me off in Laleston so I can, I don’t know, look at architectural textbooks. They have a library there. If everything goes to plan, maybe neither of us will ever come back. We can just take the diary with us.”

She spoke with more confidence than she felt. Though at least half the time, she wanted desperately to leave this sunken house and its disturbing secrets, she still felt a strange pull that urged her to stay. This was the realm of the Fairy King, after all. Perhaps this was where she belonged.

“I suppose that’s true,” Preston said. “You never signed anything binding you to him, did you? Money never changed hands?”

She found it funny that he was so preoccupied with the technicalities. Effy’s mind always skipped over those details. She let those small things slough off her; the small things were never what ruined you. If she were kneeling and examining the shells on the beach, she wouldn’t see the titanic wave rising over her head.

What sort of things would she wonder about, if she weren’t always waiting for the next wave to come? She didn’t let herself linger on it. She had to speak to Ianto.

Effy found him sitting on the edge of the cliffs, a casually dangerous pose, draped over the white rocks like a lizard in the midday sun. It wasn’t even particularly sunny that day, but even the weak, bleary light gave his hair an oily sheen. Wet. He always looked wet.

“Effy,” he said as she approached, “come sit.”

She went over to him but didn’t sit. A mile down the face of the cliffs, the sea sloshed like dishwater, lazy and gray. “I have something to ask you.”

“Anything,” Ianto said at once. “Really, Effy, please come closer.”

He was sitting so perilously close to the edge of the cliff, looking more like an outcropping of rock than a man. He had been born in the Bottom Hundred, in this very house. The danger of the sea was as familiar to him as breathing. Unexpectedly she felt a twinge of sympathy. He really did want to stay here, sinking foundation and all.

She wondered if you could love something out of ruination, reverse that drowning process, make it all new again.

Effy stepped closer, an arm’s length from Ianto. His eyes were murky and colorless. Safe, for now.

“I have to go to the library in Laleston. They have some books I need—I’m sorry, I should have brought them with me from Caer-Isel, but I didn’t realize what an involved project this would be.”

“It’s a long trip, to Laleston. Are you sure you need to go?”

“Yes.” Her heart pattered; she was actually getting somewhere. “Quite sure. It’s the closest library for miles. I don’t want to have to take a train all the way back to Caer-Isel . . .”

“Let me at least give you money for the train,” Ianto said. “It seems only fair, since you’re here at my behest.”

Effy drew a breath. “Thank you, but that won’t be necessary. Preston has agreed to drive me.”

Immediately a shadow fell over Ianto’s face. In the silence, a seabird swooped and called, the noise echoing over the rolling sea. The wind picked up, carrying with it a faint sprinkling of salt water that dampened Effy’s face. Ianto’s colorless eyes shifted, a bit of the murk fading, and Effy’s muscles tensed.

“I don’t trust that Argantian boy,” Ianto said finally. “He’s been here for weeks now, and whenever I ask if he’s made any progress, all he does is stammer out some academic jargon no ordinary person could understand. And I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

Effy almost choked. “He doesn’t look at me any sort of way.”

“He does,” Ianto said. “Wherever you are in a room, he watches you. It’s like he’s waiting for you to trip so he can catch you. It’s unsettling.”