The Way to Impossible Island

by Sophie Kirtley

  She waved at Daramurrum and she kept climbing up and up and up until she drew level with the bright bright light. Here the wall was not stone but clear like ice. She shielded her eyes with one hand and pressed her nose to the clear wall’s smoothness. Mothgirl peered through, expecting to see her brother’s dear face.

  But within the high brightness of the hut there was … no one.

  Just a light that moved around and around as though it were alive and trapped within itself. A freezing wave rushed through her, colder, deeper, blacker than the Big Water.

  Hart was not here.

  Mothgirl turned to face the enormous darkness, the beams of light sweeping across the Big Water as if they wiped it clean. And beyond the water was the land she no longer knew and the home she had left behind. Hope fell from her, cold as snow.

  Hart was not here.

  ‘Lost,’ she whispered into the dark night. And Mothgirl realised that she had lost everything. And that she herself was lost.

  Suddenly her head started to spin. Tears filled her eyes. Her hands and her knees began to tremble. She glanced down at the world so far and so dark and so small below and her heart was sudden-afraid. And, fearfully, she shifted her grip on the ladder, and its cold smoothness slipped through her fingers, and Mothgirl felt herself falling.

  Dara screamed. ‘Mothgaaaa!’

  He gasped in horror, holding his head with both hands.

  Then he saw her twist in mid-air, like a cat, and shoot her hand forward; Mothga’s fingers fastened tight around the metal and her body jerked to a stop and her scrambling feet found their rung once more.

  Dara felt a wave of warm relief surge through him from his toes to his hair roots. He watched as, more carefully now, Mothga found the next rung and the next and the next. He watched Mothga closely as she descended. Something about her had changed; she looked smaller somehow.

  Dara tore his eyes from Mothga just for a moment and peered nervously around the barren headland. Where was Vulture? Had he come out from the tunnel already? He swallowed but his throat was dry. The lighthouse was high on a cliff edge; in the dim early light Dara could just make out the shapes of the Stacks – columns of tall black rock that stood like an army of hunched giants a little way out in the surging waters. There was surely nowhere for Vulture to hide in this barren place? He listened. The wind had dropped and all was still. Just tussocky long grass shivering slightly. Dara shivered too as he turned back to face the lighthouse.

  ‘Keep going, Mothga!’ called Dara, squinting up. She was about halfway down now. If the tunnel led to the lighthouse, where would the opening be? If Vulture hadn’t got here yet then they needed to be ready for him. He took out the map again, fragile now, and peered at it. But the dotted line that showed the tunnel just kind of stopped.

  Dara lowered the map to look for the place where the entrance was marked. Then his heart froze. What was that? He could hear a noise. A ruffling, scuffling noise, soft and deliberately stealthy. The noise stopped. Like it was listening too.

  Dara felt sick. He glanced up at Mothga; she was still climbing down the ladder; he really didn’t want to startle her. He bit his lip and screwed up his eyes and listened hard. But now all he could hear was the steady boom of his own heart, mixed with the distant thump and shiver of the harsh waves crashing far below at the foot of the cliff.

  Then the soft, creeping sound started up again. Ice cold with fear, Dara tiptoed slowly towards the noise, closer and closer, until he stood next to the dark abyss where the narrow headland dropped clean away to the swirling cauldron of the sea below. The noise was coming from somewhere a little way down the cliff face. Surely the tunnel wouldn’t open out into nothing, into thin air? There had to be some sort of path. And if Vulture was slowly coming along it, they had to know. Dara edged closer. He mightn’t be able to run fast or row far, but he was, thought Dara proudly, pretty good with heights. He lay on his belly on the wiry grass and slowly, slowly shuffled himself forward, until, holding his breath, he peeped over the cliff edge.

  And in a whoosh of rushing air and a shrieking screech, something leaped at him. Dara screamed and covered his face with one arm and pushed back with the other. His fingertips brushed something strangely soft; he opened his eyes and saw a huge gull loop out and over the dark waves, then circle back again. Dara glanced down to where the bird had been. A thin stretch of rough path led down to a ledge where a big messy nest was balanced precariously. And then Dara gasped, because just behind the nest was the overgrown opening of a tunnel. Dara quickly shuffled away from the edge just as the bird swooped back to her nest. He took off his backpack and had a puff on his puffer, then he lay panting on his back for a moment before sitting up and checking on Mothga.

  She was nearing the foot of the lighthouse ladder now. She was close enough that Dara could see the redness of her eyes and feel the sadness of her heart.

  He didn’t even need to ask; she hadn’t found her brother. Watching her, Dara thought about brothers and sisters; he imagined how he’d feel if Charlie had been lost and desperately needed his help and he’d arrived too late. He felt tears well up in his own eyes then.

  He went to Mothga. She jumped the final steps and they stood on hard land, facing each other.

  ‘Hart gone,’ said Mothga.

  ‘I know,’ said Dara. ‘I’m sorry.’

  They held each other’s gaze then, as the waves crashed in noisy whispers far below. And in that moment they each knew that the other was all they had. Mothga shivered. Dara held out his raincoat; she put it on.

  Out on the towering black Stacks, the first seabird woke. Dara and Mothga both turned to look as she cried a harsh and hungry call that woke her mate, who squawked in reply and woke another and another until, before Dara knew it, hundreds upon hundreds of kittiwakes and guillemots and herring gulls were all at once rabblishly chattering and squawking and screeching to each other, so loud he thought his ears would crack. One by one by one the birds woke and waddled or stretched their wings and soared. Like the Stacks had suddenly come alive. But as the huge gulls wheeled above, screaming, Dara heard something else.

  A scrambling sound. Cold washed over him. It hadn’t been just the gull. They were hearing the unmistakeable sound of someone climbing up from the tunnel entrance towards them.

  ‘Run!’ hissed Dara.

  Mothgirl and Daramurrum crouched low behind a yellow-thorn bush. Peeking through the tangled spines and branches, Mothgirl could just see a dim shadow appear at the cliff edge and crawl slowly on hands and knees towards the sky-tall hut.

  She squinted in confusion. Why was Vulture crawling? Was he hurt? Was he sick?

  The dark shape dragged itself into a patch of moonlight and Mothgirl made a choking, breathless cry.

  Daramurrum grabbed her arm and for a tiny moment they looked at one another. ‘It’s … it’s …’ he gasped, eyes wide.

  ‘BYMYSIDE!’ shouted Mothgirl, and she leaped to her feet and bounded fast as fast as fast through the pale early light to the soft-grass place where he stood.

  Her wolf!

  Her own dear true wolf!

  ‘Oh, ByMySide!’ she said, flinging herself to the ground and wrapping her arms around his strong neck and burying her face in his soft grey fur and breathing his smell that was forest and salt water and meat and fireside and all that was home and all that was hope and all that took away hunger and loneliness and fear.

  ‘My wolf!’ she sobbed. ‘My wolf!’ she laughed. ‘My wolf! I thought you fell in spirit sleep! I sang your last spirit song! My ByMySide! Oh, my wolf! Where you been?’

  ‘Mothga …’ said Daramurrum.

  She lifted her face from ByMySide’s fur and turned to Daramurrum crossly; this was a together time between her and her wolf. Daramurrum was not part of it.

  ‘Mothga, look.’ Daramurrum’s voice was blue-cold. Fear-tipped. ‘Look, Mothga. ByMySide’s hurt.’

  ByMySide looked at her and she at him. Mothgirl saw no pain in his amber eyes,
only warmth and joy that they had found one another again. He licked her cheek. Surely Daramurrum was mistaken. Then Mothgirl noticed her wolf’s legs; his two front legs were straight and strong as always, but his hind legs lay loose behind him on the dark ground. Mothgirl gasped.

  ‘Oh, my wolf!’ she whispered, rubbing his soft fur gently. ‘Oh, my poor wolf! What has become of you?’

  Gentle as a moth she felt around his back and hips; she found only one small wound, on his flank, but ByMySide made not a whimper.

  ‘Maybe he’s hurt his back?’ said Daramurrum softly. ‘My cat hurt his back once and his legs went all floppy too. But after some rest he was OK.’

  ‘ByMySide oak-ee?’ asked Mothgirl.

  Daramurrum bit his lip. ‘I’m no expert but, hopefully, I mean he’s probably not stopped running around trying to find you since the moment he lost you. Now that he’s here and you’re here maybe he’ll lie down and go to sleep and feel better …’ Daramurrum’s voice faded away. Was he telling untruth? ‘Hey, I think he’s thirsty,’ he said in a new, bright voice.

  Daramurrum was telling truth about that; ByMySide’s tongue lolled from his mouth as though he was hot, but even his panting was strangely quiet.

  Taking something from his back bag, Daramurrum twisted the top of it and lifted it to his lips. Mothgirl heard the sound of his swallows and she licked her own dry lips.

  ‘Water,’ he said, holding the strange drinking gourd out to Mothgirl. She went to him, took it, drank how he drank, then poured water into her cupped hand. Her wolf lapped it quick-gone. Mothgirl went to Daramurrum for more.

  ByMySide followed her to the yellow-thorn bush, dragging his unmoving hind legs behind him. The sight of him made Mothgirl’s heart pang. What had happened to her wolf? Had he been struck by the Needle Rocks or swirled about in the Big Water like that broken black tree? Poor ByMySide.

  Step. Step. Drag.

  Step. Step. Drag.

  Mothgirl and Daramurrum stared at each other, wide-eyed. It was a sound they had both heard before.

  ACCCK-ACCCKK-ACCCK-accck. Mothgirl spun around.

  A yellow-eyed gull on a black rock stared back at her. Accck-accck-accck, he cackled again before stretching his strong wings and setting flight.

  Pouring water into her palm, Mothgirl crouched by her wolf. She sniffed the gentle familiar smell of him and in it was mixed that dangerous red tang of blood from his wound. Mothgirl looked her wolf in his sunrise eyes. ‘It was not Vulture in the tunnel. It was you, ByMySide,’ she whispered. ‘It was you!’

  ByMySide drank, then tossed his head. He opened his jaw as if he was barking an Of course it was me! answer, but, even though he made the movement, no sound came out.

  ‘He’s lost his voice!’ said Daramurrum, crouching down too.

  ByMySide made another soundless bark in response.

  ‘Poor boy,’ said Daramurrum, holding out his hand for the wolf to sniff. ByMySide gave his palm a lick and Mothgirl stared in half-jealous astonishment – he was her wolf; ByMySide did not share his licks widely.

  ‘He lost his voice, but he not lost his nose,’ she muttered.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘ByMySide have strong, clever nose. He smell good spirit. He smell cruel spirit. He smell danger.’ She shrugged and gave Daramurrum a small smile. ‘My wolf like the smell of your spirit, Daramurrum.’

  Daramurrum smiled back, stroking his hand over ByMySide’s neck fur. ‘Well, you can tell him from me that I like the smell of his spirit too.’

  ByMySide barked a silent bark and they both laughed. Then her wolf rested his heavy, tired head in Mothgirl’s lap.

  Dara watched ByMySide sleep while Mothga stroked his fur. How did they end up here? How did he end up with them? Was it just a big crazy chance? Just luck?

  Luck! For the first time since Dara got to the island he thought about the Golden Hare. He slid his hand deep into his pocket; to his amazement, his little brass hare was still there; he wrapped his fingers around the tiny pointy-eared shape and squeezed. The Golden Hare! ‘Once, long long ago, when all our world was new …’ he murmured, feeling the familiar wave of longing and wonder and regret flood through him. He smiled to himself; he’d finally made it to Lathrin Island, but suddenly finding the Golden Hare wasn’t all that mattered any more.

  He glanced again at Mothga and at ByMySide. He’d found something even more extraordinary, and maybe that was even more lucky. But as Dara stared at ByMySide’s poor hurt legs, he realised that the wolf still needed all the luck he could get.

  A long low moan floated in the wind.

  Mothga grabbed Dara’s arm pinch-tight. ‘What that?’ she whispered.

  Dara swallowed. ‘I don’t know.’

  The moaning groan came again, and Dara glanced up fearfully at the banshee moon.

  Then a shape came shuffling out of the shadowy pre-dawn.

  And suddenly Dara remembered the dunes and he started to giggle with relief; he knew exactly what it was: ‘It’s only a cow!’ he said, shining his torch across. The cow mooed again and slowly wandered away.

  ‘Ow?’ said Mothga, taking the torch and eying the cow suspiciously. ‘That aurochs! Where her herd?’

  ‘Oh, there are only a few cows kept out here now.’

  ‘Who keep ows? How keep ows?’

  ‘They’re just left from when people lived out here; the islanders bred cows, you know, for milk and meat and stuff. And they grew their own wheat – look –’ Dara pointed at the hollow of whispering silvery grass – ‘that was one big wheat field a hundred years ago.’

  ‘Eat field?’ said Mothga in confusion.

  Dara pulled the head off a stem of wheat that had self-seeded right next to them. ‘Wheat,’ he said, pulling off the grains and offering them to her.

  ‘Eat,’ said Mothga, chewing one thoughtfully while picking at another with her nail. ‘Eat field …’ She scooped up the grains of wheat from Dara’s palm; she slid them into her pouch and, pausing for a second, she took something out.

  ‘Daramurrum?’ she said. ‘A bargain? I give you my fire stones. You give me your water-poo-tosh.’

  ‘Deal!’ said Dara. Mothga pressed the two flints into his hand and slid the torch into her pouch, looking very pleased with herself.

  Dara laughed, rubbing the stones sparklessly together.

  The cow mooed again. Further off this time.

  Mothgirl gently dabbed ByMySide’s wound with healing paste from her pouch. She stroked his thick fur, over and over and over, deep-glad but sorrow-heavy.

  ‘I ran from you, ByMySide,’ she said, a guilt-stricken whisper in his soft flicking ear. ‘I mistook you for cruel Vulture come to claim me through the dark. But you are you, ByMySide. You are you! You followed me. You never left me. And I … I closed the door on you, my dear wolf.’ ByMySide sleepishly licked the tear from her cheek. She nuzzled her chin into him; his softness felt like home. ‘I thought you were someone who you were not, ByMySide, and I feared you …’

  She raised her chin and glanced over at the lynx-haired boy from the far-ice-lands. ‘I feared you also, Daramurrum,’ she said softly.

  ‘You’re pretty scary yourself, Mothga, when you want to be,’ answered Daramurrum with a smile. ‘I guess we’re all a bit afraid of things we don’t know. Things we don’t understand.’

  ‘I feared your foot deerskins,’ said Mothgirl gravely. ‘I not understand your foot deerskins, Daramurrum.’

  ‘You were afraid of my wellies!’ Daramurrum laughed a snortish laugh. ‘Here – try one on – face your fears.’

  ‘Wellies!’ Mothgirl giggled and slid her foot into Daramurrum’s strange yellow foot deerskins. ‘My foot like a na-na!’ she laughed, wiggling her toes.

  ‘You’re a na-na!’ said Daramurrum, offering her the other welly.

  Mothga looked down at her strange yellow na-na feet and giggled until her laughter melted to a smile.

  She gazed out over the Big Water – morning was coming and the s
ky was flame-tinged at one edge and star-tingled along the other. All that was strange seemed fearful, but was it truly? Perhaps fears melted like ice if you held them in your hand.

  Mothgirl’s eyes found the familiar shape of her Spirit Stone, rising up from its ring of amber-glow lights, far away across this strange and treeless land. ‘Home,’ she whispered. And she realised what she was most afraid of.

  She was afraid to return home.

  And not just because of cruel Vulture, but because she knew now that Hart had truly gone and she would need to stand strong alone and say to Pa, ‘No, Pa. This is not the way.’

  ‘What is the way then, Mothgirl?’ Pa would answer, storm-voiced. ‘What big new way ought things be done?’

  Mothgirl swallowed. ‘Nor-mill is not the way,’ she whispered, and from somewhere on the island came the long lowing of the ow. Mothgirl gazed at the sky-tall hut made of strong stone and at the whispering field of eat and she felt new thoughts strike against each other in her mind, like fire stones making sparks.

  Mothgirl shivered. She held her fears, like ice in her hand. ‘I need go home, Daramurrum,’ she whispered.

  Dara nodded sadly. It was time.

  ‘How?’ Dara looked around the wind-ruffled clifftop for a … portal … or a window … or a … he-didn’t-know-what. ‘How do you do it? How do you get home, Mothga?’ he asked.

  Mothga’s eyes lost their heaviness and their worry. She laughed a twinklish laugh, nudging him like he’d made a great joke. ‘I not know how get me home, Daramurrum!’ She giggled. ‘You from far-ice-lands! You know how get me home!’

  Dara blinked at her in astonishment. ‘I really don’t, Mothga,’ he said.

  But that just made her laugh all the more.