Between Sea and Sky

by Nicola Penfold

  I was horrified when Dad gave the ship delivery job to me a couple of years ago. But Sem’s nice. He doesn’t mind that I don’t talk much. He appreciates that I’m quick, that I help unload everything and handle it carefully.

  “You know the weight of what you bring,” he said after my first couple of deliveries. He didn’t just mean the number on the weighing scales. He meant the life that I was handing over to him. Sem gets that kind of thing. He’s like Dad, who calls it ‘Neptune’s bounty’, and only ever lets us take what we need.

  “I hear you’ve got visitors, Pearl,” Sem says once we’re in the kitchen, and I’m piling cockles into one side of the weighing scales, under lengths of seaweed hung up to dry. Sem cuts them into noodles to serve in the prison canteen.

  “Huh,” I say disparagingly.

  Sem smiles with amusement.

  He packs circular metal weights on the other side of the scales until we get the perfect balance. I add up the weights in my head, writing the number in the kitchen logbook. Sem never checks my sums because they’re always perfect.

  “How are you finding it?” Sem says. “Must be strange having new people around after all this time.”

  “Dad’s on the mainland,” I say, going straight to what matters most. “He’s sick.”

  “Sick? Atticus?” Sem’s expression changes to concern.

  “It’s his foot,” I say. “It got caught doing the oyster cages. In the winch…”

  “In the winch?” Sem asks confused.

  I nod. “He couldn’t get it to work. Normally Clover or me would do it, but…” I stop speaking. I add a new load of cockles to the scales. They clunk together satisfyingly.

  “Ouch!” Sem says. “So your dad’s in hospital?”

  “The visitor, the scientist lady, made him go. He’s got an infection.”

  A shadow falls across Sem’s face but he doesn’t say anything.

  “She said she’ll stay with him. She probably feels she needs to. You know what Dad’s like.” I keep my eyes on the cockles.

  Sem nods. “And your radio’s working, is it? In case there’s news, or you girls need anything?”

  “It’s working. I’ve checked.”

  I pour the cockles into the ceramic sink Sem has filled ready with water. You have to wash out the sand before you cook them. It’s a lot of work for the tiny portion of flesh inside, but they’re delicious with vinegar. Especially if they’re as fresh as these. Straight out of the sea.

  “You must send Atticus my best wishes then,” Sem says. “When you next speak to him. I bet he’s not enjoying being laid up. I pity those nurses!”

  I nod silently.

  “The boy’s still on the platform with us,” I say after a while.

  “You’re looking after him, are you?”

  “He doesn’t need looking after,” I reply. “He’s my age.”

  Sem smiles. “Not used to the sea, though, is he? That must be quite a change for him!”

  “Clover’s teaching him to swim,” I offer. “Or trying to. He’s scared of water!”

  Sem’s eyes twinkle. “Is he now? He’s out of his element!” He winks at me.

  “You’d think he’d come to the moon!” I say.

  Sem laughs. “You girls better take care of the boy then, if he thinks he’s on the moon.”

  I keep on shaking the colander. Watching particles of sand drain into the sink, before I refill it with fresh water.

  “And you, Pearl? You’re OK without your old man?” Sem asks.

  “I have Clover,” I say automatically.

  Sem smiles. “Sisters, huh?”

  I smile back woodenly, wondering if I could tell Sem about the chrysalises. How tiny they are, and the strange casing, like gold plating, which is growing and thickening. And what Nat says is forming inside them. And how all butterflies are pollinators and pollinators belong to Central District and I’m worried Nat has brought trouble to our farm.

  I open my mouth to speak but Olive slides into the kitchen and grabs my arm. “Pearl!”

  Olive never says much, but she says my name. And she’s good at taking my arm, leading me gently to whatever she wants me to see.

  “Can I?” I ask Sem.

  “Go on then,” Sem says fondly. “But don’t be seen. And remember you don’t have long. Half an hour and the governor will be starting his walk around.”

  Olive leads me down the maze of corridors. Dark, damp tunnels that Sem calls the ship’s intestines. Her legs are stiff and I can tell it’s painful for her to walk. Sometimes I think about Olive in water. How she might swim as elegantly as one of the mermaids, if she had chance.

  She glances round, to check I’m following. Her body’s old but her smile back when she meets my eyes is like a small child’s. Sem says the books have given her a new lease of life.

  They’ve been stored away for years unread, getting damper, absorbing sea air. I don’t know why the prison governor decided a year or two ago to get them out from their boxes, maybe he was just bored, but it’s good to let them breathe again.

  Sometimes Olive and I will spend ages on one book, looking through it, working out where it should go on the shelves. What part of the book seems most important.

  “I want a book about butterflies,” I say now, as we walk into the library. It’s a big room, at one end of the ship. It’s plush, or at least it would have been. Wood-panelled walls line a vaguely circular space, with a few small reading desks in the centre, and then shelves spiralling out and upwards.

  Benjamin Price’s illicit store of old knowledge. It must give him a kind of power, a different one, to have the books under his control.

  “Entomology?” I say. “Butterflies would be entomology, wouldn’t they?”

  Olive nods. It’s not that she can’t speak – she knows all the words – I think she just decided against speaking. Sem thinks it’s the trauma: whatever she was brought here for, and whatever came before that, and all the long years here too. Sem says it eats away at you. He should know because he’s been here as long as anyone. He was here when the ship was a detention centre for refugees.

  Olive’s fingers – dry hands, nails bitten down to the quick – search through the spines of our tiny entomology section. She pulls out a small, fat book titled Butterflies and Moths of the UK. Spotter’s Guide. The cover’s worn and faded, like it’s been carried around in someone’s pocket or left out in the sun.

  I climb to my favourite reading spot at the top of the stairwell, where I can sit by the window, facing the grey sea.

  I flick through pages of butterflies and moths. The colours aren’t as bright as they were once, I bet, but they’re still some of the brightest colours I’ve seen. They rival Clover’s paint pots.

  There’s a map on each page. ‘Distribution around the UK’. Shaded areas show where each butterfly used to be found. By the coast. In wooded areas inland. High up north, in the mountains. Some butterflies you used to be able to find almost everywhere, some were only ever in a tiny part of the country. The Lulworth Skipper flew ‘in grassy hillsides and cliffs in South Dorset’. The Yellow Swallowtail in ‘the fenland of Norfolk’.

  I don’t know how I’ll identify Nat’s chrysalises – the little golden parcels that I wouldn’t have believed were even alive if they hadn’t shaken so frantically when Clover touched them. Like they contained some old magic.

  I frown. Nat said his caterpillars had been black. Lots of these ones are green.

  I keep turning the pages when a word leaps out at me. ‘Migrants’. Migrants are why the razor wire is strung up on the foreshore. NO LANDING IN BLACKWATER BAY. MIGRANTS WILL BE INTERNED. ACCESS FORBIDDEN. NO ENTRY.

  The signs say it in different ways but they all mean the same. No outsiders are welcome in Blackwater Bay. That’s why Sem’s still here. Why despite coming for dry land, he’s spent all these years locked away at sea.

  If Nat’s not known butterflies in the bay before, then they’re migrants. They’ve come from e
lsewhere to lay eggs, they must have. The book lists three migrant species: the Painted Lady, the Clouded Yellow, the Hummingbird Hawk Moth.

  I gasp. I don’t need to look further than the first entry. The Painted Lady is drawn out in four life stages. A mint-green egg, a black-and-yellow furry caterpillar, then a mottled, brown-gold chrysalis, with the familiar spines. Finally the butterfly itself: a kaleidoscope pattern of orange and brown, with black tips on the top of its wings.

  I scan the text, muttering sections out loud. “Regular visitor to the UK… Found in warm, open places.” I read that the caterpillars eat thistles and stinging nettles, and adult butterflies drink nectar from flowers.

  “Nectar,” I say, the word sweet and thick on my tongue.

  Olive has come up the steps. She knows when I’ve looked things up before, it’s been for my ledger. Because I’ve seen things in the bay and want a reference picture to draw from, or to find out about them.

  “Pearl!” Olive says, agitated. She looks back at the door and then points to the book. Her brown eyes are small and scared. They flit to the wall where siege state laws are framed and written out in full. Indisputable.

  Pollinators are property of Central District.

  Just like it says.

  No Migrants.

  And the worst part.

  Households are permitted one child. Surplus minors are illegal and will be taken to live in the Communal Families programme to assist in food production work.

  “Pearl!” It’s Sem. He’s at the door, hissing at me, annoyed. “The governor! He’ll be passing by here. You know he can never resist his precious library.”

  Olive indicates the book, for me to take it, but I put it back on the shelf next to volumes about wildflower meadows and beetles.

  It’s evidence. Nat stole those caterpillars and I don’t want any part in it.

  I wander into the kitchen for food. The girls were serious when they said they don’t bother with mealtimes. They just grab whatever they fancy, whenever they want it, and it’s not like there’s many options.

  The samphire and the biscuits Clover makes are OK, but mostly I’m eating up the food Mum brought with us. The shellfish make me retch – it feels like chewing part of a body.

  Pearl comes in and goes straight to the radio. She frowns at it and turns a few dials. “Why’s your mum not called again?” she asks reproachfully.

  “Oh, she did, earlier,” I say. “When you were at the ship.”

  “You missed it,” Clover says, coming into the cabin.

  “And?” Pearl asks.

  “Dad’s still got to stay a few more days. They’re worried about some blood condition. Sep something,” Clover says.

  “Sepsis,” I say. And then quickly, as Pearl’s face blanks out, terrified. “But Mum said not to worry. She won’t leave until he’s better.”

  “To make sure he doesn’t walk right out, I bet,” Clover says, slightly savagely.

  Pearl nods emptily. “I’m going to separate the next batch of oysters. Clover?”

  She looks at her sister for help, but Clover frowns and smiles sweetly. “Ah, can you take care of it this time, Pearl? Nat and I need to check on our chrysalises. We’ll see you later, though?”

  Pearl saunters off silently, giving me a dead eye as she goes.

  In the greenhouse, Clover and I are carrying on with our repairs. Fixing the broken plastic panes with duct tape, and then arranging them with nailed-down battens to hold them in place. Some of the panels are too cracked to replace so we have to make do with tarpaulin, stretched taut to span the open space. It doesn’t let in light like greenhouse walls should, but it’ll stop the butterflies escaping.

  “What’s Edible Uplands like? Clover asks thoughtfully. “Have you been inside the tower?”

  I raise my eyebrows. “No way! No one’s allowed in who doesn’t work there because of the contamination risk.”

  “Contamination?” Clover asks puzzled.

  “Disease, fungus. Anything that could compromise the food yield. We need it,” I say.

  She stares at me strangely. I look through the panelled roof to the sky of floating white clouds. The sea’s like a mirror today, reflecting them back. The girls obviously don’t worry about contamination out here. What was it Pearl said? Saltwater cleans everything?

  “Why don’t they grow the butterflies at Edible Uplands?” Clover asks.

  I shrug. “They can’t, can they? They’re all meant to belong to Central. Anyway, everyone back there thinks they’re not viable – that they’re already poisoned from the land. I bet if they’d left them where they were they would have grown. A butterfly must have come to the bay to lay the eggs. More than one. I wonder where the parent butterflies went, and why no one has ever seen one?”

  Clover pulls a face. “Maybe they weren’t looking properly.”

  I stare at her thoughtfully, thinking about how the solar fields are forbidden and how everyone’s so tired all the time from their shifts. Could we just have missed them?

  “I should have left them too. These ones,” I fret.

  “Though they might have come back another day for more, those Uplands people,” Clover says, to make me feel better, I think.

  “At least if Central had them, we wouldn’t be worried about someone finding them here. Pearl’s right – I’ve put you at risk by bringing them. No wonder she’s angry with me.”

  “Don’t worry,” Clover says kindly. “She’s just worried about Dad.”

  I get this urge to poke at one of the chrysalises, to check again that it’s alive. It quivers the moment I touch it.

  Clover hugs her knees to her chest. “I’m so excited! We’ve made butterfly paradise. In the middle of the sea! What would your friend Tally think if she could see them now?”

  “She’d be beside herself,” I say fervently. “I can’t believe every single one of our caterpillars has cocooned itself and there’s only one transformation left. The final metamorphosis!”

  Clover beams. “We’re experts, you and me!”

  Barnaby flashes into my head. The way Tally cried when he was taken. I’d never seen anyone cry like that. No wonder Pearl’s angry with me. She doesn’t want anything to risk Clover.

  “You miss her, don’t you?” Clover asks intently, watching my face. “Tally.”

  I nod.

  “What’s she like?” Clover says, her head to one side.

  “Tally?” I say, playing for time, wondering how to sum Tally up. I’ve never had to before. Everyone knows everyone in the compound. “Tal’s like no one else.” I smile. “She’s brave and funny and smart. You’d like her.”

  Clover says warmly. “I can’t wait to meet her.” Then her mouth puckers a little. “She might think I’m strange, though.”

  I pull a face. “What do you mean?”

  “’Cause I grew up here. I don’t know land ways, and I stink of fish.”

  I laugh. “You don’t stink of fish.”

  “Pearl does.”

  “No, she doesn’t!” I say.

  Clover shrugs. “So you’ll introduce me to your friends then? You won’t be embarrassed?”

  “Course I won’t be embarrassed. You’ll fit right in.”

  “Pearl wouldn’t fit in, would she?” Clover says, pleased, swinging her legs back and forth under the bench.

  I laugh. “If she wanted to, she could.”

  Clover nods thoughtfully. “Then she won’t. Pearl doesn’t want to fit in. She won’t ever go to land. Not ever.”

  “What, never ever? Even if she knew she wouldn’t be seen?”

  “Never ever ever,” Clover repeats solemnly. “Not since Mum died.”

  “But that’s just to keep you safe? So no one sees there are two of you?” I say.

  “It’s not just that,” Clover says. “She thinks the land made Mum sick. She thinks it’ll make her sick too. All of us. She doesn’t even like me going for supplies.”

  “Why does she think that?” I ask.
<
br />   “Dad,” Clover says, and kicks her legs back fiercely so they smash against the panels. “Ooops!” She laughs, though her eyes are narrowed into angry slits. “Dad feeds us a load of lies sometimes.”

  I shrug. “I suppose that’s just like us, only the opposite.”

  Clover looks at me curiously.

  “Most people on land won’t go to the sea. I mean, you’re not meant to anyway, because of border rules. But it’s not just that. Most people in the compound won’t even look at the sea. That’s why the compound faces away from it.

  We’ve been taught to be scared of the sea.”

  “That’s crazy!” Clover pronounces.

  “Is it?” I ask. “The sea did kill all those people in the floods. People are scared it could happen again. They don’t want a reminder that the sea’s even there.”

  “You and Tally look, I bet,” Clover says.

  I laugh. “Sometimes. Sometimes we do.”

  “I knew it!” Clover says, jumping up and cartwheeling through the centre of the greenhouse, clattering plant pots aside. “You’ll be my favourites when I come to school.”

  I lie back on the bench, shutting my eyes, letting the sun burn into my face. School seems a world away. Even Tally and Lucas do. I don’t even care who’s found the most flags right now. I don’t care about any of it.

  Clover lies out on the floor of the greenhouse, her legs in the air, pedalling circles. She’s getting in practice, she says, so she doesn’t make a fool of herself when she tries a real bike. “I can’t wait for September,” she says confidently. “Now I’ll know people, there’s no way Dad and Pearl can say no.”

  “I can’t believe you actually want to go to school!” I tease. “All those days shut inside, watching the clock, waiting for the bell. The endless lessons.”

  Clover pedals faster. “I want to learn things. All the things you already got taught, and more. I don’t want to spend my entire life in Blackwater Bay. If I’m clever, they’ll give me permission to leave, and I won’t have to spend the rest of my life shucking oysters or working in your growing towers.”

  “Mum’s clever,” I say loyally, irritated suddenly. Our compound’s a stepping stone for Clover that she thinks she can leap right off as soon as she gets chance. She doesn’t know how land rules work. How Central won’t let anyone leave the bay, unless it’s to the polytunnels or desalination plant or factories. Least there’s fresh air here, even if it is briny.