The Binding (6 page)

I went outside to do some bounce-and-catch with my tennis ball against the wall. It's surprising how that can help you think of good ideas. Benjie and me were playing bounce-and-catch when we had the idea of making a wet slide down the slope at the bottom of his garden with the plastic groundsheet out of his old tent.

Maybe it doesn't work so well if it's only one person bouncing-and-catching, because by the
time we set off for the bothy I still hadn't come up with a single idea.

‘Have you left Nee-na at home?' Tressa asked Milo. He nodded.

‘Really?' Tressa patted his pockets. ‘Wow. He has!'

‘Duncan said we can't take toys,' Milo said. ‘Jack's going to be in trouble, because look what he's got!'

He pointed at the bulging pocket of my jeans. I'd totally forgotten the tennis ball.

‘I'm going to tell on you!' Milo said, obviously scenting chocolate.

‘I think someone has forgotten that the Lawmaker asked me to organise a game,' I said. And then I thought,
That's it! We can play some kind of ball-game.

But how would that work with all those candles everywhere? I was still pondering it when we came to the beach.

We were expecting to see them on the grass outside the bothy, like before. But the door was wide open, and we could hear them crashing around inside. We heard Duncan yell, ‘Grab him!' and then some laughing, and then a clatter that sounded like one of the fish-boxes getting knocked over.

We ran to see what was going on, and there was Duncan, framed by the doorway, looking flushed. His blue eyes were glittery bright, and in his hand he had a small bird. It looked frozen with fear.

‘We got him,' Duncan said, seeing us outside the door. ‘He flew into the bothy and couldn't find his way back out.'

He stepped out onto the grass and opened his hand, and the little bird tumbled down to the ground. It took a few hops, then flapped its wings and flew unsteadily away over the stones.

Duncan stayed outside with us while Hamish and Elspeth prepared the bothy, and when they were ready Milo opened the door for us all to go in. There was no fire in the hearth, just a row of flickering candles along the bottom of the fireplace-wall, leaving the other end of the room in darkness.

How did Hamish and Elspeth decide where to put the candles and how to lay out the room? Duncan must have told them before we arrived. We sat down in our usual places and Duncan gave Elspeth the key. She opened the box and took out the Judgement and the candle. Hamish lit it, and our faces were bathed in soft yellow light.

Elspeth took the parcel of papers and the silver pen out of the box, using exactly the same delicate movements as she had before. Everything was perfect, which made me feel even worse about the part I had to play because, considering I still hadn't decided on a game, that was definitely not going to be perfect.

‘This is a celebration,' Duncan said. ‘But before we begin, I was thinking the new members might be having a problem keeping the law of secrecy.'

How did he know? It was as if his sharp blue eyes could see right into my mind.

‘This is a difficult law to keep, but we have several other laws which will help. So, Teller—read them “Two simple rules about how to behave at home.”'

Elspeth opened the packet of papers, looked through them and took one out.

‘Two simple rules about how to behave at home. One, always be polite to your parents and do what you're told. Two, never argue with each other when your parents are around.'

Tressa said it wasn't our parents at home. Matt was Mum's boyfriend and he was not, no way, never our dad.

‘If he lives with your mum then he counts as a parent,' said Duncan.

Tressa looked like she might explode, but he took no notice. I was thinking,
How is that going to help with the secrecy thing?
He read my mind again.

‘You might not think that these two rules will make it easier to keep the law of secrecy,' he went on, ‘but try them and you will see.'

We didn't have a chance to discuss it any more because Duncan said it was time for the celebration, and we were going to have it on the beach. Problem solved! On the beach, we could play French cricket.

Milo opened the door and we all filed out, first Duncan, then Hamish, then Elspeth and Tressa and me. I grabbed a long piece of driftwood from the pile behind the bothy for a bat, and caught up with the rest of them down by the water's edge.

The tide was right out, so we had a wide area of firm sand to play on. It reminded me of a joke.

‘Why was the sand wet? Because the sea-weed!'

They didn't get it, so I had to explain. They still didn't get it. They didn't know how to play French cricket either, but it's easy to learn and they soon got the hang of it. I thought maybe I might even get them playing football some time—it felt like ages since my last kick-around with Benjie and the boys from school.

When we felt tired, we went up the beach to sit down, where the sand was soft and dry. I found a plastic bottle washed up among the seaweed and put it on a flat rock a little way away. Then we played five-stones-each, taking turns to throw a stone at it and trying to knock it off. They'd never played that either. It was a good job they had me!

The sun had dipped behind the cliffs by then, and the sky was getting darker. Duncan looked at Hamish and nodded his head. Without a word, Hamish got up and jogged straight up the beach to the place where the grassy banks dipped down in the middle. He ran up onto the cliffs and along towards the bothy, coming to a stop just above it. I noticed the light flickering faintly in the windows from the candles.

Duncan told us to stay where we were, then he walked off towards the rocks at the other end of the beach. When he stopped and turned round, Hamish signalled to him with what looked like a thumbs-up—it was hard to tell from there—and Duncan signalled back.

‘We are celebrating the Teacher!' Duncan yelled, bending down and stepping back, as a fountain of golden sparks whooshed up into the air. He had fireworks!

‘We are celebrating the Joker!'

He lit another one. This time it was crackling white like a big sparkler, with balls of red and blue shooting out.

‘We are celebrating the Page!'

Milo jumped up as his firework went off with a soft shower of yellow, then green, then red.

Hamish ran down off the cliff to meet Duncan, and they both came back, beaming, to where we were sitting.

‘Where did you get the fireworks?' I said.

‘From the hotel. We've always got some in the stock cupboard.'

‘And your parents let you?' said Tressa.

‘I didn't ask them.'

Which explained why Hamish was up on the cliff, keeping a look-out.

Duncan nodded to Elspeth and she went back to the bothy, reappearing a few moments later with a plate of food. There was an apple and a chocolate bar, each cut into six pieces around a pile of crisps.

‘Another time, we will have a feast,' Duncan said. ‘This is just a token.'

‘It's perfect,' said Tressa. ‘It's like a. . .a sacrament.' You could tell she wasn't exactly sure that was the right word.

‘What does that mean?' asked Duncan.

‘It's when you're not eating because you're hungry, but as part of a ceremony. . .I think.' Duncan looked well impressed.

We had to go back into the bothy for the last part of the celebration. The big candle was still burning brightly on the makeshift table, and a few of the little ones were still alight along the foot of the fireplace wall. He led us to the other end of the room, where we could just make out, in the shadows, the silver foil of six new tea-lights lined up on the floor.

Duncan lit the first one, and gave the matches to Hamish. Hamish lit the second one. Elspeth lit the third one, and passed the matches on to Tressa. We weren't exactly used to striking matches when Mum, Matt or Dad weren't around, or even when they were around, come to that.

When I'm a bit nervous, I always seem to think of a joke.

‘Why did the elephant eat the candle? Because he wanted a light snack!'

Tressa lit her tea-light, no bother. I broke four matches, but eventually I got mine to light too. I looked at Duncan. Milo couldn't light his own. . .could he?

Duncan took the matches. He showed Milo how to light one, blew it out, and handed him the box. The first few times Milo tried, he wasn't pressing hard enough and nothing happened. So he pressed harder, and the next few matches broke. When he finally managed to get one to light, he lost his nerve and dropped it on the dirt floor.

He looked at Duncan. ‘Keep trying,' Duncan said. ‘You can do it.'

I didn't actually think he could, and my attention was starting to wander. By the light of the five we had already lit, I could see lots of objects stuck between the stones in the wall. An orange rubber glove, a little cork float shaped like a doughnut, a scrap of fishing net with a dead crab hooked on by its claw.

All sorts of pebbles and shells were in that wall, and pieces of coloured glass ground smooth by the waves. On a low ridge, the row of tiny skeletons we'd noticed on the first day looked ghostly pale, the light picking out their beaks like shiny beads.

Milo finally got a match to light, and managed not to drop it. Elspeth guided his hand down to the tea-light, and when it lit he literally jumped for joy. Boing, boing, look what I did!

‘Before, there were only three of us,' Duncan said. ‘Now there are six. Now we can close the circle.'

We joined hands around the big candle on the makeshift table and did the rhyme.
Round and round. . .can't be unbound. . .the Binding.

Part Two: Darkness in the sky

 

Chapter 1

The Day Star

I definitely did not like the idea of Duncan telling us how we should behave at home. On the other hand, I definitely did like the effect it had on Tressa. If Matt forgot that he was likely to get his head chewed off and accidentally asked her to do something such as, for example, taking her muddy shoes off or passing the jam, she did it. No
you're-not-my-dad
or anything. Then, while Matt and Mum were exchanging astonished glances, she would shoot me and Milo a secret smile.

I liked the effect it had on Milo too. No more massive arguments when Mum said it was bedtime;
no more mega-tantrums when he couldn't have thirds of cake or lost a car under the dresser. Just those astonished glances and secret smiles.

I didn't think Duncan's rules would make any difference to how I behaved—I mean, I wasn't stroppy to Mum and I actually liked having Matt around—but then there was the rule about not arguing. It's amazing how much you can argue with someone and not notice. As soon as I started noticing, I discovered how fed up I was with Milo half the time. He could be such a baby, and so annoying.

‘We can get that car out with a stick,' I said. ‘I'll help you.'

Astonished glances, secret smiles.

Matt and Mum thought it was the simple island life and all that lovely fresh air which was making us less argumentative. It was the one thing Mum actually liked about being on Morna. She said yes, it was beautiful, and yes, it was relaxing and all that, when Matt was being a one-man Morna fan-club, but you could tell she was just saying it. She liked Matt, but she no way liked the island, and it didn't get any better when the sunshine disappeared.

After a week of bright but chilly weather, a lid of cloud closed over the island, cutting off the tops of the hills. Mum didn't want to go out for walks any more so she stayed at home with her Kindle. Matt was getting into photography, which meant he didn't care about the weather. He went out with his camera in the daytime and played about with his pictures on the laptop in the evenings.

Me, Tressa and Milo had a sort of project too. Duncan and the others were showing us ‘the secret places of Morna'. The cloud stayed on the hills for days, so there wasn't any point going inland because we wouldn't see anything anyway. So we explored the coastline, taking a different section each afternoon, all the way down the low-lying east side of the island. Duncan would stride ahead, beating down the nettles and thistles with his stick, and sometimes the flowers too, making their bright heads fly up into the air.

On the first day, they took us to the seal beach, which didn't seem to have any seals. But when we went to the water's edge and sang some songs, suddenly there they were, bobbing about in the water, coming to investigate what was making the noise.

On the second day, they took us to a little lake—they called it a lochan—on the top of a cliff, right close to the edge, where the water spilled over and splashed down onto the narrow stony beach below.

‘This is the leap,' Hamish said.

‘Why is it called that?'

Instead of answering, he went to the neck of the lochan where the waterfall started, and jumped across. If he had slipped on the wet grass, he would have fallen over the cliff. Duncan jumped across after him. Then Elspeth. Then Tressa did it, so I had to as well. Milo wanted to, but Duncan said his legs weren't long enough, and then we all jumped back.

Another day, they took us to the wrecking rocks, where the islanders long ago used to light fires to guide ships into harbour on stormy nights, only there wasn't a harbour, and the ships would run aground on the rocks in the dark. All the sailors and cargo would be thrown into the sea, and driven towards the next bay by the tide, where later, when the storm was past, the islanders could go and pick up wood from the broken ship for their fires, and bag what they wanted of its cargo.

‘They had to pick through the dead sailors to find what they were after,' Duncan said. ‘Then they left the bodies there for the crows.'

You could never tell whether he was making it all up, but who cared? If they were just stories, they were brilliant ones, and being there where they were supposed to have happened made your hair stand on end.