Stranded

by Sarah Goodwin

  The skull landed on the pebbles with a crack. It rolled until its empty sockets looked up at me, a tiny crab crawling in the darkness behind them. Looking around me I noticed other shapes. Things I’d thought to be driftwood now showed themselves; bleached bones, strewn on the wet pebbles. Reaching down I picked up the scrap of cloth. It was a length of silk; a headwrap. Under it, half buried in fine grey sand, was a pair of broken glasses. Zoe’s glasses.

  I looked down at the skull with its skittering crab. This was Zoe’s skull, sun-bleached and tumbled by the sea. I was standing in the middle of her bones. Looking up I took in the sheer drop from clifftop to beach. I thought of the tiny headstone, which I’d started to think of as ‘Bea’s grave’. I remembered how abandoned it had seemed, how odd it was that Shaun’s grave was overgrown. Was that because Zoe wasn’t there to care for them?

  Had she jumped? Or, worse, was this where the others had dumped her after she died giving birth? If they’d been too exhausted and hungry to chop wood, had they forgone digging a hole and just rolled her off a cliff into the sea? The bones seemed too small to be those of the person I’d known. There was so much more to Zoe than those few scraps of her could amount to. I stared at them and the full force of Zoe’s death hit me. She was gone and this was all that was left.

  I couldn’t leave her there.

  Under my T-shirt I had on a tank top. It was threadbare but serviceable. I spread the T-shirt on the ground and started gathering the bones. It seemed as though many of them had been washed away. Mostly they were long individual bones. I could look on them as almost fake props. I struggled in picking up the skull and the remains of what appeared to be a hand, though. With those I was acutely aware that they were human remains. In the end I had a bundle tied up and carefully put it in my rucksack.

  Climbing back up the rope was harder than coming down. I needed footholds to get up and those that I found crumbled as soon as I stepped on them. My arms started to burn from holding up my weight and I feared they’d give out before I reached the top. When I finally clawed my way onto the grass I laid on my back and felt my heart hammer itself calm again.

  After hauling up the bin and collecting my ropes I headed for the clearing. I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest until Zoe was properly buried beside her baby and Shaun. There was just enough space next to Shaun’s grave to bury Zoe, with Bea at their feet. But when it came time to put Zoe’s bones to rest it felt wrong to just put them in the ground. I looked at them and for the first time imagined how the crabs and gulls must have stripped them bare. I flinched from the thought. I didn’t want to see that. I wanted to remember something beautiful. It was what she deserved.

  I went to the hut and started looking through the stuff I’d piled up furthest from my bed. This was the stuff I had no use for, personal things the others had neglected to take with them. Mostly it was useless: Andrew’s watch, which no longer worked, a pack of cards, dried-up pens, broken sunglasses and of course the cameras, all smashed to bits. I searched through all of it until I’d found Zoe’s stuff.

  There wasn’t much; hair wraps, a small pot of dried-up glitter paint, a necklace tarnished black, a compact mirror and some of the clay bowls she’d made. Most of the bowls were broken, but two were still whole. I also found a little clay figure I couldn’t remember her making. It was a little clay woman with a curving belly, full breasts and a blank face, sitting cross-legged. The clay was scorched black from the firing. A shiver passed through me.

  Outside I lined the hole with blossom from the thorn bushes and placed the items around the outer edge. In the centre I arranged the bones with the skull at the top. It seemed right somehow, to make things as beautiful as possible, for Zoe.

  ‘You deserved better than this …’ I felt my voice catch. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m sorry.’ My voice trailed to a whimper and I started to sob. As I wrapped my arms around myself there came a soft shushing sound, like the wind was trying to soothe me. I raised my head. The air was still, no wind to stir the trees.

  ‘She deserved better,’ I said, to the pines and the shadows beneath them. ‘This place … Why did it have to be so cruel?’

  The silent trees shifted slightly in a breeze. I could feel something nearby. A sense of being watched. I knew what I’d said wasn’t true. The island wasn’t cruel. The island was just that, an island.

  ‘What happens to me then, when I die? When there’s no one to bury me? Or do I disappear, taken by the witch? Will anyone know?’

  A song came from the shadows beneath the woods. It was as though it came from the trees themselves. Maybe it did. Who knew what kind of things the witch was capable of? Singing trees, faces in the fire, whispers in the dark. But none of it felt cruel. Like the island, she simply was. There was nothing in her that wasn’t also of this place. Including me. I was part of the island now. Perhaps that was why I could hear her.

  I covered the bones with soil. The petals would turn brown, rot away, but I would remember them as soft and perfect. Beautiful, just like Zoe. I left the clearing and made for the beach to check on my fire.

  The next day the clay woman was on the grave. I had no memory of putting it there.

  Chapter 38

  ‘Now, Maddy, you’re probably aware that most of our audience are desperate to know – how did you get off the island?’ Rosie asks, as though hungry for a juicy piece of gossip. She has no idea what she’s asking, or that she hasn’t really asked the right question at all.

  It isn’t really a secret. Or at least, the secret isn’t in how I did it. That’s already fairly common knowledge. The way I managed to get back to the mainland, by boat, isn’t so terribly hard to work out. I told everyone at the trial anyway. So it’s not a shocking new development. Stop the presses, woman uses boat to travel over water!

  No, where the boat came from is more the point. How it reached me, and why. Perhaps the most important question of all: why had I returned to the mainland alone?

  Well, I think, looking into Rosie’s expectant face. She and her audience will have to live with disappointment.

  Some secrets go too deep to ever share.

  Chapter 39

  Following Zoe’s burial, I began to speak to the witch more often. I talked about the plants I collected, the weeds I pulled up. Commented on the sky, the weather and the shapes in the smoke of my fire as if they were portents to be interpreted. The witch was the only friend I had, the only person I could talk to.

  I knew she wasn’t real. Even though sometimes I found myself looking for her in the shadows of the woods, as if she might step out and help me carry a load of wood. I felt her watching me and was comforted by it. Real or not, having another person around made me feel less alone, which I guessed was why my brain kept conjuring her up. Maybe I was going crazy but, as long as I could keep myself warm and fed, I could deal with having an imaginary friend.

  Even if, sometimes, she spoke back.

  In terms of survival, my odds were looking pretty good. The inside of the hut was filling up. I’d made new shelves with pieces of log and driftwood planks. They were slightly wonky but held my supplies well enough. I had jars of salt, dried mushrooms and bunches of dried seaweed. The allotment had done well and I was in a frenzy of bottling ripe tomatoes; chopping and salting them, eating them for every meal. The squash would ripen towards the end of summer and I was already excited for some variety.

  I’d built myself a new smoke hut and started experi­menting with small amounts of rabbit meat. It had taken a while, but I thought I had a method that would preserve meat for several months at least. I’d also cured myself some rabbit skins and was working on a sort of door curtain to keep the cold air out when snow came. They were rough on the inside and smelled, but warmth was worth it in my opinion. Besides, I’d smelled worse.

  I was coming home after foraging by the tidal pools when I saw the boat. It was bright white and unmistakeable against the dark, gravelly sand. It was much smaller than the boat that had brought us to the isl
and originally and it looked strange – so artificial and alien. For a moment I couldn’t believe that it was real.

  Aside from the boat everything else was quiet and normal. There was no one around. It might have fallen from the clear blue sky for all the sense it made to me at the time. It was only when I crept closer that I saw the footprints in the sand. Two sets.

  I reached out and touched the smooth white shell of the boat. Cautiously, as if it was a wild animal. The sides were dry. It had been beached for a while.

  *

  That boat is like a rock in a river. Around it my story swirls and parts. It goes one way, reality another. There is the truth and then there is the version I tell afterwards. In the one I tell, I climb into the boat, mad with a desire to escape. I sail away without a backward glance. Only later does it occur to me that the boat must have belonged to someone. Only later do I wonder who.

  The truth is a slippery thing, a bitterness that can be sweetened away in the telling. Masked with honey, made easier to swallow. I’ve perfected the mixture and it works on everyone: the police, the jury and now Rosie.

  This, then, is the memory I revisit when the nightmares wake me in the dark. The true story. The only thing that reminds me that I am safe. That the only justice I can expect has already come to pass.

  *

  ‘Where have they gone to?’ I whispered aloud, then caught myself listening for an answer, as if the wind or the trees might tell me what she saw. What she knew of these strangers.

  ‘If they are strangers at all.’

  Unease coiled in my belly like an eel. As soon as I said the words aloud I felt strange. Had I spoken or had she? I pressed my lips together. It was difficult to know anymore when I was talking aloud or when she was speaking. Either way, I had to know who had come to the island.

  I followed the footprints, though I didn’t need to beyond a certain point. It was clear the two people from the boat had made for the clearing, following the path we had all used the first time we explored the island. These were not strangers. They knew the way.

  When I arrived at the hut I could heard voices inside. Arguing. I stood there, taking slow breaths. Two of the other islanders had returned. They were in my home. There was no escape from them. I was frozen.

  ‘Help me,’ I whispered. ‘Please help me do this.’

  Swallowing my fear I took a step towards the hut. The second was easier, the third I barely thought about. I heard her footsteps behind me. I was not alone.

  I pushed aside the curtain and went inside.

  It was strange, seeing them again up close. Perhaps they felt the same. We stood there just looking at each other for what felt like a solid minute, then Duncan laughed. It was a sharp bark of a laugh and it made me jump at its suddenness.

  ‘Told you,’ he said to Andrew. ‘Had to be her. Cockroaches and this bitch. Unkillable.’

  Andrew was sitting on my stool while Duncan had seated himself in the middle of my bed. They both had freshly cut hair and trimmed beards. Their clothes were new and good quality; thick coats and sturdy hiking boots. The table had been dragged to sit between them, the cups evidence that they had been enjoying the Christmas brandy. Following my gaze Duncan raised the almost empty bottle.

  ‘A nice welcome home – cheers.’

  ‘Cheers,’ Andrew echoed, raising a hunting rifle in a mock salute. My stomach churned; I’d not thought they’d be armed.

  ‘Came prepared this time,’ Duncan said seeing the direction of my gaze and making Andrew snort. ‘Course, we didn’t know we wouldn’t be alone here, but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt it’s to expect the unexpected.’

  ‘You thought I was dead,’ I said. My voice came out strained. I’d wanted it to be strong.

  ‘Seemed a sure thing. When those arseholes stopped chasing their tails and sent a boat I thought you might realise we’d gone and dig yourself out, but there wasn’t anything on the island for you so … yeah, we thought you’d die.’

  ‘And the others?’ I asked. ‘Where are they?’

  ‘Back home,’ Duncan said. ‘Not Shaun though, you killed him.’

  I was about to offer a denial, when I heard her. A soft sigh of breath in my ear. Shushing me. She was right, there was no point antagonising them. I bit my cheek and stayed quiet, waiting.

  Duncan rolled his eyes as if bored of me. ‘Frank’s dead too – but you know that. You must’ve seen the grave over in the garden. Then once we got back to Scotland Maxine went back to her husband. Gill’s gone to her sister’s. Good riddance.’

  ‘What’s it like out there?’ I said, annoyed at myself for asking.

  Duncan’s eyebrows shot up, then he laughed. ‘Jesus, you have no idea, do you? What, you thought the zombies had come up to kill everyone, or the bombs were coming down? Had a lot of time to make up little fantasies, didn’t you?’

  I gritted my teeth, unwilling to give myself away. Inside I felt small and very very stupid. He’d said ‘they’ sent a boat after all. Had I been so wrong all along?

  Duncan snorted. ‘It was a fucking stunt. They’d always planned to leave us until February. For views, for excitement. They told our families filming was extended. An extra month, what’s the big deal? Like they could possibly understand what it was like here.’

  ‘But they didn’t come,’ I said. ‘In February, there was no boat.’

  ‘Yeah, well,’ Duncan spat. ‘Plane went down up the coast mid-February. Adrian and Sasha –’ he said the names like they were curses ‘– tried radioing the camera guys to check none of the rescue boats were looking around here, interfering with the show. By the time they stopped ass covering and panicking about the plane crash and why those guys weren’t radioing back, and actually sent a boat, it was too late. First you kill Shaun, then Frank had some kind of stroke. Now they owe us, big time, and they’re paying out as well, trying to keep it all hush-hush. Compensation for the “accident” to Shaun’s parents. Cash for us to keep quiet. I’m thinking of relocating to Majorca.’

  ‘What about Zoe?’

  ‘Oh, her,’ he sighed. ‘Well, she fucking lost her mind. After Shaun she was hard to deal with but then she went into labour and that was a nightmare – hours that took. Screaming and all that. Then it came out all … wrong. There was no talking to her. She’d just sit there and not say anything or even look at you. Not what you want when everyone else is doing their bit. Then she went and topped herself.’

  My eyes stung and I blinked away the tears as they tried to surface. I had to keep my head.

  ‘It’s not our fault,’ Duncan was saying. ‘We couldn’t watch her every second. It wasn’t our job to stop her killing herself. Plus, now her family gets a nice payout instead of waiting for her to give up on being an “influencer”,’ he said, laying the scorn on thick. ‘So they’re better off.’

  ‘And now you’re here,’ I said, mind working, trying to figure out why.

  ‘For the server,’ Duncan said, smirking.

  ‘But the generator was—’

  ‘For everything in the cabin. The radio was useless, but the server had solar backup. Kept storing everything. They downloaded it, took it when they came for us. But those servers are still there.’

  ‘You came back to destroy the servers,’ I said, suddenly understanding. ‘They’re covering everything up, but you want to make sure everything really was deleted. So it never gets out, what you did. To me.’

  All that time after the boat never came, I’d kept my camera running. Right up until the night Shaun died, the night I’d been entombed. All that was recorded. I’d thought it would save me, but now it seemed the only reason my tormentors had returned. To stop the world seeing them starve me, attack me, hunt me through the woods.

  In the silence that followed the fire snickered and Duncan looked me over. I forced myself not to move or blink, just stood there and waited.

  ‘Look, I know there’s been bad feeling, on both sides,’ he said. ‘But, you need to know what really happ
ened. I mean – things were tough there, for a while. Everyone was desperate and looking to me to take charge and lead us through it. But I couldn’t stop them once they got an idea in their heads. And Gill, she kept talking about how you were stealing food, that you’d killed the camera guys … It got out of hand.’

  I nodded, feeling stiff and numb as a doll. Tension filled every part of me like wire, making my joints ache.

  ‘But now it’s all back to reality. We’re set for life and nothing’s going to bring the others back. The producers are keeping their mouths shut on what happened. The only thing left is to destroy the servers in case some journalist comes looking for all that “lost” footage. I’m done trusting Adrian and that bitch Sasha. Can’t be sure it’s really gone until it’s in bits in the sea. You don’t want anyone to know what happened, do you? For people to find out what you did to Shaun? So why don’t you grab a spade and maybe, when we leave, I’ll let you come along.’

  He was interrupted by a clatter as the rifle fell to the packed-dirt floor. We both looked at it, then Duncan glared at Andrew.

  ‘What did you do that for?’

  ‘I don’t …’ Andrew blinked, looking at his hand. He started to get up but instead fell flat on his face. He didn’t move, but his breath wheezed in the sudden silence. A few laboured gasps, then nothing.

  Duncan’s eyes met mine over Andrew’s body.

  ‘Looks like it’s just you and me now,’ I said.

  Chapter 40

  Things had been winding down, I could sense it. Sasha had finished her iced coffee and behind her, in the shadows of the blinding light, I could hear equipment being broken down and put away. The door to the outside world opened and closed, letting in the sounds of traffic and birds.