The Island House (4 page)

Walter hauled the clothes bag into the cart. “RNLI is the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, search and rescue for mariners. Like to ride?” He extended his hand.

Irrationally, Freya was angry. “I’ll walk,” she snapped. She heard herself. Surly. She stretched her face to a smile. “I’ve been sitting in a tin can for a day and a half. Walking’s good.” Walter had been a stranger only an hour ago and he didn’t need to be this kind.

The fisherman said nothing, but he grinned as he bent to check the load. This one would walk up the track on her own two feet even if they bled. He picked up the cart handles and stepped forward. Two months, he thought, as he led Freya up the cliff path, three months maximum, and this girl would be gone. Autumn and the great gales would do it; that, and the truth of living on Findnar alone.

After a minute he looked back. “It’s not so bad when you’re used to it.” He smiled encouragingly. Freya nodded; the gradient
of the track was making it hard to speak. Walter slowed his pace without being obvious. “I’ve a cousin in Sydney; beautiful place I hear. Never been there, though, the bottom of the world.”

“It’s a nice city. Friendly.” Freya tried not to pant.

“You’ll miss it then?” The cart’s wheels turned, white spokes catching some flicker of last light.

“I’m not sure, not yet anyway.”
Liar.
Freya stopped and wiped her face as she stared across the strait toward Portsolly. She didn’t like to be alone. At home there was always something to do, someone to see, gossip, work; but now it would be just her and this sky, this island. Could she do it—learn to just
be
in this place while she waited? For what?

A breeze nudged Freya. The man, ahead, was disappearing into the dark. She hurried after him.

Fumbling with keys, trying first one and then another, Freya said, “I hate to think of you getting caught on the open water, Walter; the wind’s up. I can manage now, really.”

She saw the glimmer of his teeth. “Well now, I’m thinking there’s just a few little things I should—”

“Got you!” A key turned. Freya pushed the plank door wide and, stooping beneath a lintel designed for shorter people, entered Michael’s house for the first time. And nearly killed herself.

Five steps led down to the kitchen; hurrying, Freya stumbled on a dip and pitched forward. Walter snatched the girl’s backpack straps and swallowed a grin as she scrambled a foothold. “Perhaps it will be best if I show you how to light this house?”

Ruffled, heart thumping, Freya stood to one side, and Walter descended into the void beneath her feet. After a moment, ruddy light bloomed as he lit the wick of a lamp. With a shade of oxblood glass, it looked like a runaway from the set of a period drama, and behind him on the table stood its cousin—blue milk glass on a base of tarnished copper.

Walter waved matches. “Paraffin, these lamps. Just keep the chimneys clean, trim the wick each time, and make sure the fuel’s topped up; you’ll have no trouble once you’ve used them once or twice.”

Freya nodded, bemused. These were actual functioning objects, not ornaments, and from the same era, there was a kitchen range. That ancient black bulk against the wall was intimidating—some kind of secular relic, like the lamps. She gestured. “What about the stove?”

“This?” Walter patted the monster fondly. “You don’t have to cook on it—the gas ring’s over there.” He pointed. “But you’ll find the old girl does well with a belly full of peat on a cold day—she’s got a wet back.”

“A wet what?”

Walter laughed. “Pipes, Freya Dane, around behind. Water’s from a tank on the hill—gravity-fed.” He waved toward a deep porcelain sink. There was a steel hand pump beside it. “Pump the pipes full and the water heats up when the stove’s working—that’s for your bath.”

He set the lamp down on the kitchen table and lit the other. “Let me know how you get on next time you’re over in Portsolly. Ask at the Nun. Anyone will say where to find me.”

“I’ll do that, but would you mind if I took your number?” Freya was unsure why that suddenly came out of her mouth, but she patted pockets, found a pen, and held it up. She said, encouragingly, “You could scribble it here if you like?” Was he reluctant? She offered a cereal packet from the box of groceries with what she hoped was a winning grin.

Walter took the pen, and Freya watched him write the numerals, chatting brightly. “And thanks again for bringing me over here. I really appreciate it.” She went to get her wallet.

He waved a genial hand. “Whisht, none of that.” Closing the back door gently, he was gone.

Whisht?
What did that mean?

A quick knock, and Walter eased the door open again. “I forgot to say there’s a cruiser in the cove. That’s how you get to Port.” He tipped an imaginary hat.

“Thanks.” But Freya called out to the door as it closed. “Thanks for that . . .” Her tone faded as she stared around the empty kitchen. Michael Dane’s kitchen.

She set the lamp with the red shade on the windowsill over the sink. The warm light was comforting, and as her eyes adjusted, she began to absorb her surroundings.

The kitchen was a useful size—not cramped but not so large it couldn’t be heated quickly. The floor was flagged with pieces of natural slate; that would be cold in winter, but cheerful kelims broke up the expanse.
Winter won’t bother me. I won’t be here.

Freya ran her hand over the scrubbed top of the kitchen table. It was massive, so large it must have been built within the room. Generations of islanders had sat at this table before her, before her father.

“Hello, Dad.” Freya spoke without thinking. Eerie. She shook herself.

“I’m going to explore, that’s what I’ll do.” There was no one in this house to challenge her. Walter had put the groceries on the table. “After dinner.” Soup and bread, that would be easiest.

But as Freya began to remove the bags, the tins, the bottles one by one, she saw something she’d not noticed before.

Beside the cardboard box was a folder and a string-trussed package. “For my daughter, Freya Dane” was scrawled on the front of both.

Freya picked the folder up. His fingers had formed these words, shaped the letters. He’d thought of her, at least for that moment.

The edge of a chair seat caught behind her knees. A nudge to sit. Was this his chair? A Windsor carver, curved in the splats with a gentle hollow in the seat; the wood was mellow as honey.

Freya didn’t want to put the folder down. It might disappear as
he had. She watched herself place it on the table as carefully as an offering. From somewhere outside her head, she saw that she was shaking.

Eight remembers a lot. Four does too. Even at four she’d sensed her parents’ unhappiness, and sometimes, after she’d been put to her bed, after the last story had been finished and she was on the edge of sleep, she’d heard them in the rooms downstairs.

Her mother, mostly. Shouting sometimes.

Michael did not shout, he spoke more softly.

Her mother would cry some nights. Then a door would slam—the downstairs bedroom, that’s where Elizabeth went when she did not sleep in the big room upstairs. The room Freya thought of as her father’s.

Those were the nights she did not go to sleep. She’d wait for him to walk up the stairs, wait for the door to the bedroom to open, wait longer for the light under the door to go out. Then she’d run from her own warm bed and burrow in behind his back. He never said much, just “Go to sleep. You’ll see, it will be better in the morning.”

But it wasn’t. They’d pretend, of course, for her.

It was then that dread had become her companion, because Freya knew, she
knew,
that one day she’d come home from school and he’d be gone. And that is what happened.

Freya squeezed her eyes shut.
Why?

From misplaced loyalty perhaps—but loyalty to what, to whom? Elizabeth would not tell her. Not when she was a child and not when she was an adult. Even now it was never possible to talk about the meaning of that absence in their lives, but there was anger. A rich vein of it beneath the surface of the skin, hers and Elizabeth’s, too, with confusion at its core.

And now there was this. A manila folder. A package.

“For my daughter, Freya Dane.”

She thought he’d forgotten. But why contact her now, and in
this way? Perhaps the folder would tell her that Michael had married again, that there were other children out there—half brothers and half sisters.

Freya got up with such force the chair squawked. “I’m hungry.” The weakness was low blood sugar, bound to be. “And I’m not going to do this now.”

She would make him wait as
he
had made her wait, all those years ago.

But at least, then, she’d had hope that one day the door would open and there he would be again—that he would ask her to forgive him.

She’d never worked out if she would or not. Tears or icy rejection? It depended on her mood.

Fingers stiff as twigs, Freya lit the gas ring as wind began to hunt the eaves of the house. The flame, when she struck it, was bright. A star in that dark room.

CHAPTER 4

R
ATHER THAN
run for the doubtful safety of the Abbey, Signy and Laenna had scampered back to the rushes. Burrowing, they’d clawed their way to the roots, curling together in the mud like cats in a basket. And there they’d lain as the sack of the Abbey began, too frightened to move.

The invaders had begun with the chanting shed, but now all the buildings were burning, the sky was burning, as Findnar’s newcomers were herded toward death and worse. Perhaps the raiders were demons, evil beings conjured from flame, creatures who feasted on blood.

The howls were the worst. Even at this distance, the sisters could hear men screaming. Who could tell if it was the newcomers as they died or the raiders about the slaughter?

They heard women’s voices too. Higher-pitched, sobbing, screaming out one word, over and over. Mary.

It was owl-light now, that dangerous time half light, half dark, when things change their shape. The screams stopped, and there was a lower confusion of sounds. Smoke was thicker than mist. Soon there was only the crack of burning timber and the occasional shout as an invader found something or someone missed in the first chaos. Meat was cooking; the raiders must have killed the animals as well.

“Stay here.” Laenna was pushing the reeds aside, wriggling away.

“No! Please, Laenna. Don’t go!”

“I have to see what’s happened. If they’ve gone, we can go home. Be quiet and lie still. I’ll come back for you.”

Signy tried to stop her sister, but Laenna pushed her down. She was gone before Signy could sit up.

The child closed her eyes and shivered. She should pray for help, but who would hear her? Her own Gods were at home in their parents’ house, and Cruach had left the world for today. She could not call on the new God of this island either, the one the strangers worshipped—she did not know His name, and He would not know her. Anyway, He wouldn’t help, why would He, when He’d just allowed his own followers to be murdered? Had He punished them for taking Findnar from her people?

Signy shivered. Her father always said Gods were dangerous if you crossed them. He was a shaman and knew such things. Maybe she should pray to Tarannis in the sky. He wasn’t one of their usual Gods, but she knew he looked down on everyone; he was the fire God, too, and the God of thunder. The fires lit by the raiders had roared like a storm at their height and, even if the ring stones weren’t his home, Tarannis might approve of the sacrifice she’d made, since Cruach, who lived there, was his brother. Yes, when this was over she would hurry to the stones to thank them both for the hiding place—it might be fetid, but the rushes were thick and had hidden them well.

Them. Where was Laenna?

Flat on her belly, Signy moved like a worm, knees and elbows propelling her through the ooze. Beneath the rot there was a hint of apples and mushrooms; if the marsh ever dried, this would be good soil. The strangers had come here for the same reasons her people always had; Findnar was a summerland of plenty.