The Daughter of Victory Lights

by Kerri Turner

  I cannot wait to see the person you will become.

  Love,

  Your mother, Evie

  Lucy finished the letter with her eyes stinging. Her mother thought her strong. A fighter. She never wanted Lucy to cry alone. She’d thought they would always be together; that Lucy would learn all the stories of Evie’s past from her own mouth.

  Lucy stared at the kitchen ceiling. She could hear Bee crashing around upstairs, and Mr Walsh’s heavy footsteps in his room.

  Swinging her legs out from under the table, she stood, marched out of the kitchen, up the stairs and down the hall to her father’s closed door. She didn’t knock or hesitate, but twisted the handle and walked right on in.

  He wasn’t asleep, as she’d thought. He was sitting at the piano, hands hovering above the keys as though he’d been about to start playing. His face turned towards her, mouth dropping open in surprise.

  ‘I deserve to know,’ Lucy said, balling her hands into fists by her sides. In this dark room with its overbearing furniture she felt small and somewhat pathetic: a little girl in a powder blue nightdress with messy hair, who had no power to influence or change anything.

  But she tilted her chin higher. The Evie Bell she’d learned about would have demanded answers too.

  ‘I should know about my mother. Before …’ She was going to say before she was sent away, but changed it at the last minute. ‘I should know because I’m her daughter. None of you are, but you all get to know. It’s not fair!’

  Her father had looked away from her and was staring at the keys of the piano. He closed the lid and ran his hand over the varnished surface.

  ‘Have you asked the others?’ he asked, so softly she almost didn’t hear.

  ‘Of course,’ she snapped, the rudest she’d ever dared to be. ‘They won’t tell me.’

  ‘Perhaps they’re trying to protect you. Or perhaps they’re trying to protect themselves. It hurts to remember the way her life ended. It hurts to think how different everything could have been.’

  ‘It hurts not to know too!’ Lucy shouted.

  Her father closed his eyes, as though he wanted to block her out. Lucy’s knees trembled, and her throat ached with the effort of swallowing again and again to keep the tears at bay.

  Bee and Mr Walsh arrived at the door, both exclaiming, but her father held up one hand.

  ‘I need you to go, Lucy.’

  The words struck against her soul. After all her efforts to be good, he was going to send her away anyway.

  She wanted to rage at him; wanted to pick up the pathetic beach collection and throw all the bits at his head. Her chest heaved, her feet held in place by the tiniest hope that she was wrong, or he would change his mind. But he turned one shoulder to her.

  Spinning around, she raced to the door.

  Bee held her arms out—an attempt at an embrace—but Lucy ducked beneath them. She raced down the stairs.

  Mr Walsh followed her halfway, then stopped as Bee shouted at Lucy’s father, ‘What do you think you’re doing talking to her like that?’

  Without thinking, Lucy grabbed the handlebars of her new bicycle, pushed it through the kitchen door into the back garden, wheeled it around the side of the house, and opened the gate to let herself onto the street beyond.

  She paused for a second; she should have grabbed her plimsolls and thrown on some proper clothes, or at the very least a cardigan to ward against the chill. But what did it matter? Everything was wrecked. Besides, she could hear Mr Walsh following her outside now, calling her name. She didn’t want any of them to catch up with her. Didn’t want to be reminded of all that she would be losing.

  Lucy clambered onto the bicycle and took off. The road was downhill and paved, much easier to ride on than the backyard grass, and the pedals of her new bike didn’t have any rust to resist her. She flew along, faster than she’d ever been.

  On her left, a tall rock wall whizzed by; on her right, a shorter one. She raced past buildings of various sizes until the turn onto a narrow dirt path. It was relatively straight, although riddled with bumps and dips, and at one point the shrubs on either side caught at her arms, leaving scratches. She should have stopped then. But it was as though every bad thought and feeling would catch up with her if she did. So she let the bike carry her forward, fast. Too fast.

  The front wheel hit an exposed root. It twisted, and the handlebars were wrenched from her grip. Lucy was thrown forward, landing with a heavy, painful thud against the sandy dirt.

  There was a second before she felt anything, a second in which she couldn’t catch her breath. Then she gasped and the pain hit her. Her palms, elbows and knees stung. The side of her chest, which had landed on a rock the size of her fist, was a fierce throb.

  She scrunched up into a ball, but found it even harder to breathe that way. With shaking hands she pushed herself to a seated position. Her bicycle lay a small distance from her, on its side, its shining beauty smeared with dirt. The white basket on the front was bent sideways. Lucy couldn’t bear to look at it. Instead, she tried to pick out the bits of stone and dirt embedded in her palms. But it hurt too much, and the sight of blood coming to the surface was too much to bear. She pulled her knees beneath her nightgown, wrapped her arms around them, and began to cry.

  After some time, she looked around for something to wipe her nose on. Finding nothing better, she reached for some dried grass—and pain shot through her side with such intensity she gasped and sat back, clasping a hand to it. She tried out a swearword she’d heard Bee use; it seemed to help the pain a little.

  She picked up the ruffled hem of her nightgown—the lace had torn and was hanging loose—and wiped her nose on that. There was no one to see, and she was already covered in dirt anyway. She knew she should probably get up and see to her bike, but every time she tried to move it hurt. So she stayed where she was, drawing pictures in the dirt and trying not to think of what had happened. It wasn’t too hard. The sun was taking the chill off the day, and there were insects and birds overhead to look at.

  Then came hunger to distract her. She began to think maybe she should go back home. But that word, home, which had once felt so wrong now struck her as the thing she’d be losing and was desperate not to.

  She pictured again her father’s face, his closed eyes as he said, ‘I need you to go.’

  She couldn’t go back. Not yet. She wasn’t ready to face being sent away.

  Lucy spat on her hands, then rubbed them together to get some of the dirt off. They still stung, but less than before. If she were honest, she was beginning to get bored as well as hungry. She wished she’d thought to pick up her mother’s letter on her mad dash out, so she could read it again.

  Lucy closed her eyes, trying to picture the exact words. She could hear the turning over of the waves. She must be very close to the beach. She didn’t know what she’d planned on doing when she got there, only that it was the one place she’d thought of in her haste to get out of the house.

  Sighing, she looked towards the sound of the waves, and was startled to see wisps of fog curling through the grasses and shrubs. It was coming towards her at a rapid pace; a steady, ominous cloud that distorted the familiar shapes of the trees. Bee had warned her about the occasional fog, but had also said it usually came in spring, not the dregs of a summer closing in on autumn.

  Bracing her hands in the dirt, Lucy pushed herself to her feet. The pain in her side was so sharp she cried out, but her voice sounded strange, muffled by the thickening fog. She pressed her hand to the pain, gasping, then looked around for her bicycle.

  She couldn’t see it.

  She took a stumbling step forward. The fog swirled around her ankles as if it was trying to hold her back. The ground released a steamy, earthy scent and was beginning to feel damp beneath her bare feet.

  Where was her bike? She was sure she’d left it in this direction. She took a few more shuffling steps, afraid of tripping and hurting herself again. If her side hadn’t bee
n so painful, she would have crawled on all fours, arms stretched out to feel the way.

  Finally, her toes touched metal, and she knew she’d reached her bicycle. With some effort, she crouched down, figured out the front from the back, and then set it to standing again. Despite the worsening pain she was glad she could make her way home.

  Only she didn’t know which way home was.

  Her concentration had been on finding the bicycle and not hurting herself further, and now, with the world changed to a white mist, she had no idea which direction she’d come from.

  A sinking sensation ran through Lucy. She took a few steps forward, then hesitated. She knew there was a field on one side of the path, but hadn’t seen any building in the field to take shelter in, even if she’d been able to get herself and her bicycle over the dividing wall. On the other side, the trees and bushes only got more dense. If her feet eventually met sand she would know she had found the beach, but the chance of that seemed slim.

  Pulling her bicycle closer to her as though it would bring comfort, Lucy looked in every direction, trying not to let her chin wobble. She wanted to get out of the fog’s clammy grip. The sounds of birds that were so pleasant from the safety of her bedroom were now strange and frightening, and Lucy felt peculiar all over, like her body couldn’t decide what temperature it should be.

  She pulled the gathered wrists of her nightgown down so her fingers were covered. Her teeth began to chatter, but not because she was cold. She was stuck in this white world, unable to move in case it was in the wrong direction.

  Tears welled, and she hung her head so they ran down her cheeks and dripped off her nose. Her father was right to be angry with her. She was not a good girl. Good girls didn’t get themselves into impossible situations like this. Good girls kept their promises to behave.

  Lucy hiccupped. She wanted to go home.

  After all his distance, all his notions on keeping Lucy safe from the pain and destruction he seemed to cause for those around him, Flynn had hurt her anyway.

  Humphrey had returned gasping, telling them he’d lost sight of Lucy when she’d taken off on her bicycle. Bee had said to give her some time, but when lunch came and went with no sign of her they’d begun to worry.

  Now Humphrey and Bee were out looking for her, Humphrey on foot and Bee in the car. Both had told Flynn to stay put in case she came back home. Once again Flynn found himself stuck in one spot, unable to be of any use.

  He paced his bedroom, steps becoming more agitated with every turn. What was the girl thinking to run off like that? He’d only meant for her to leave the room, give him some space to deal with his painful thoughts and memories.

  Swearing, he kicked the base of the piano. The jar of sand on top rocked, and he only just caught it in time before it smashed on the floor. He was putting it back next to a cuttlefish when his hands froze. He stared at the collection his daughter had gifted him. Bringing him pieces of the beach was important to her in some way he couldn’t understand.

  That’s where she would be: at the beach. He knew it with such certainty, as though she’d told him herself.

  With quick steps he went to the window. There was no sign of Bee or Humphrey. How long before they came back, before he could send them in the right direction?

  He could go find her himself.

  Immediately on the thought’s heels came the sick dropping of his stomach, the increased heart rate that made his breaths shallow—both too much air and not enough. He hadn’t been outside in … what? Five years? Seven? He didn’t know any more. Over time the fear had only gotten worse. And this wasn’t just going outdoors. It was a path that would take him directly to that worst of all places, where the horror of his failure was inescapable. He didn’t think he could do it.

  But then he remembered Lucy’s face when he’d told her to leave. Alvin had said the only thing his little girls wanted was to be near him, and instead Flynn had pushed Lucy further away. He’d seen the hurt spread across her small features; as clear as the stars in the night sky above the Victory when Evie’s lights were all off.

  It was the first time he’d seen some of himself in the child: the tempestuous way she’d run out of the room; how in her upset she didn’t care how much worry she caused other people, even those who loved her. Was she now blanketing herself in fear, anger and despair, believing them to be the only company she deserved? Would she turn to self-destructive behaviours in the misguided hope of no longer feeling the things she wanted to escape?

  He couldn’t let that happen to her. He couldn’t stand by and do nothing while she took on all of his worst traits.

  Going down the stairs was easy. Breath trembling on his lips, he made his hands grip the handle of the front door, twist it, and open it. The sun blinded his first few steps, which was perhaps a good thing, for it meant he was already on his way before he had the chance to register that he was outside. He kept his head down, focusing only on his shoes appearing before him again and again and again, trying not to hear the thud of his heartbeat in his ears. He knew the way from all Lucy’s stories.

  He kept walking, time seeming to lose meaning until he finally turned onto the dirt path that would take him down to the beach. White mist seemed to enclose him. He thought the mist was his own panic, come to claim him in a different form, but after a minute, when all sound didn’t narrow to blackness and his knees didn’t buckle beneath him, he looked up. The world was a fuzzy mass of unrecognisable shapes in the fast-moving, white mist. It wasn’t from his own head, but a sea fog. He recognised it from his time on the Victory. The blood in his veins quickened. He must be close to the beach for a sea fog to envelop him.

  He closed his eyes. He could hear the gentle shush of the waves, smell their salt. He could only gasp tiny mouthfuls of the thick air. His fingernails dug into his palms deep enough to cut the flesh. Everything inside him was screaming to go back, to regain the safety of indoors. But Lucy was in this fog somewhere. Lost, and hurting because of what he’d said to her.

  But the waves, oh the waves. He tried to tell himself they couldn’t possibly be as loud as he heard them, not from this distance. It was just his mind attempting to frighten him. Shut up, he told it. He wouldn’t let that ugly fear beat him. He would do this for his daughter.

  He looked at his hands reaching out, grasping for something, anything, in the white. They were so changed from the hands that had worked lights and climbed masts that he was still surprised to learn they were his own even after all these years. They remained empty. Every now and then bushes emerged from the fog like turtle backs in a sea of green and blonde grass. He tried to focus on them, but the more he tried the faster they faded away. Still he stumbled blindly forward. Why couldn’t Evie’s sisters have been good to the child? Why couldn’t they have been kind?

  ‘Lucy,’ he cried, his voice hoarse and instantly lost.

  The fog was a prison. A damned prison. Just like the island. Humphrey had chosen the Isle of Wight for its seclusion—something Bee had apparently insisted on. Flynn had readily agreed. He had wanted to hide away, and this island seemed the perfect place to do so. But he’d had another reason for agreeing to live here. Water on every side of him was the punishment he deserved.

  Thoughts of Evie choked him, and he gasped for air. He’d as good as killed her. And now he was failing her all over again because he couldn’t look after her daughter—their daughter—the way a father should be able to. He couldn’t even make it to the damned beach for her.

  ‘Lucy.’ The word ripped from his throat, tasting like blood. He needed to help her. He needed to get to that beach.

  He pushed forward blindly, then stumbled and fell to his knees. His hands scrabbled in the dirt, but he couldn’t see them any more. A sob tore its way out of his mouth. He tried to crawl. Surely it couldn’t be that much further. Surely, if he just …

  But he was going to freeze again. He could feel it creeping up on him, stilling every muscle in his body just when it was needed. />
  He was curling onto his side when he heard it. A small sound, lost and frightened. Then a call from a voice he recognised. ‘Hello? Is somebody there?’

  It was his daughter.

  With an anguished shout, Flynn pushed himself to standing, forcing his frozen legs forward. He felt wetness on his face: maybe it was sweat, or maybe it was tears. Or maybe it was the waves, rising to meet him and carry him away. This time Alvin’s hands wouldn’t be there to reach into the water and pull him out.

  No, he mustn’t think of that. He must get to Lucy.

  She called again, and he knew he was going in the right direction for her voice was louder now.

  And then she was there. A small figure in blue emerging from the strange, white world.

  She saw him. Her face crumpled, then she was in his arms and he was folding her against his chest.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she sobbed, her hands grasping his shirt, but Flynn barely heard her. The waves had intensified to a harsh roar in his ears, and the shouts he’d tried so hard to forget clamoured in his head. His knees nearly went from beneath him. But he couldn’t let that happen. Lucy needed him.

  Scooping her up into his arms, he held on tightly, more tightly than was needed. She was saying something about the bicycle, but he couldn’t understand. His own breath choked him as he tried to tell her to leave it, that they’d come back for it later. He didn’t know if she could understand him, but she wrapped her small arms around his neck.

  And even though the waves were still trying to reach him and drag him under, even though his legs wanted to give way, Flynn stumbled forward. Blind, but with his daughter in his arms.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Lucy couldn’t remember her eyelids ever being so heavy. When she managed to open them, everything was blurred. She stretched her achy legs, pointing her toes downward. Her feet touched something, but she couldn’t see well enough yet to make it out. Blinking, she turned her head to the side. Next to her, on the bedside table, a glass of water came into focus, full almost to the brim. Propped against the glass was the picture of her mother at the beach, her hand still raised in that half-wave. Next to it sat one of the pulp novels, and on top of that a periwinkle shell and a dog whelk shell she’d once given her father.