Between Sea and Sky

by Nicola Penfold

  I squint back to the horizon, determined to find something. Something to explain the darkness that has seeped around the back of my eyes. The clouds are mostly white, still, waiting.

  “But I can feel a storm,” I say, insistent.

  Clover rolls her eyes, but kindly. “You’re missing Dad. You were like this after Mum too.”

  After Mum died I felt like my head would never be clear again. I thought the blackness would always be there, like the ink the cuttlefish pump out when they’re scared.

  “Are you OK?” Nat says, coming to stand beside us, a fist of samphire in his hand. They must have been on the flats together after their lesson. He’s got the taste for it now.

  “Pearl thinks there’s going to be a storm,” Clover says. Then, when she sees his face tighten, she adds, “But don’t worry, there won’t be.”

  I shake my head, exasperated. “You don’t know that. Storms aren’t predictable.” I point into the distance. “You can see the swell.” I gulp. “I’m sure of it.”

  Clover shakes her head dismissively. “It’s just shadows. Clouds. There’s not going to be a storm, Pearl. Trust the sea, just like I’ve been telling Nat in his lessons.”

  “You should never trust the sea,” I say, angry with her now. “You respect it. You don’t trust it. Even landlubbers know that.”

  Nat flinches when I say that word. Like he’s finally realized it’s an insult.

  “Grey’s not here,” I say. “Or any of the others.”

  Clover scans the horizon. The water’s flat as a pancake. “They were here before. They’ll just be in some other bit of the bay. You know what they’re like. Fickle. They’ll have followed a shoal of fish.”

  “We should start storm preparations,” I say.

  Clover groans. “Pearl! This is one of the best summers in years. Why can’t you relax and enjoy it? We deserve it, after that winter.”

  “I can feel it, Clover. I saw it in my dream. You know what that means,” I say, pleading now, trying to get her to see. She used to get storm headaches too. Never the same intensity, but part of what I felt Clover felt too. Except perhaps it wasn’t the storm that Clover felt, but an echo of whatever I was experiencing. Like how if Clover has a nightmare, I always know.

  “If Dad was here, he’d be tightening the ropes,” I say, trying to get through to her.

  Clover’s face is tight as a clam. “If Dad was here, he’d be snoring!”

  “Clover!” I say.

  She blushes angrily. “It’s true. Anyway, Nat and I have got the last bit of the greenhouse to do. We think the first butterflies will hatch today. We want to make sure the holes are all fixed before they’re born.”

  “Born? Listen to yourself! And why are you bothered about holes? If they do become butterflies, they can fly away, and we won’t have to worry about them any longer.”

  Clover narrows her eyes at me. Slits of cold cobalt. She sniffs. “How can you be so cruel? After all our hard work on the greenhouse.” She marches off.

  Nat lingers a moment beside me. “You really think there’s going to be a storm?” he asks. “Wouldn’t the siren be sounding, from the mainland? Would we hear it from here?”

  “Course we’d hear it,” I snap. “We’re not on the moon.”

  Nat shies away, embarrassed.

  “But sometimes they get it wrong,” I say, quieter now, tired. “Weather’s unpredictable. The signs aren’t always the same. Sometimes they sound the siren too late.”

  “The water does look flat, though.” Nat puts his right hand up into the air, holding the red flag that Clover’s so enthralled with. Red for the hardest dares, he told us, like we should be impressed.

  He’s feeling for wind. The flag stays completely still. The sky’s quiet and empty. Nat shrugs. “Well, I best go. I’ve got another swimming lesson. Clover’s pretty intense as a teacher.” He laughs but I turn away from him, angry, and start to pull at the ropes nearest me.

  They’re slacker than they have been in ages. Knots have slipped and come loose. The ropes tie our farm together like a spiderweb. You have to have the right degree of tension between them, and weights in the middle, to stop sections of the farm banging up against each other when waves and storm surges come.

  I need to check everything inside too. It can take days to be ready for a storm. But even then you’re never really ready, because you never really know what’s coming.

  “Wait for them to open their wings, Pearl!” Clover says. She’s insisted Pearl stop with her storm preparations to come and look at the butterflies.

  Wings closed, the butterflies are brown. Kaleidoscopic and full of brown spots like eyes, but brown nonetheless. I couldn’t help but be disappointed when the first one pushed its way out of its sack. I thought colourful was a given.

  But then it had opened its wings and we’d both gasped, and Clover had called Pearl in at the top of her voice. “Pearl! You have to see this! You must!”

  Pearl comes reluctantly. She’s been hammering away all morning. Nailing blankets at windows, securing the two boats in their tiny harbour.

  Clover insists her sister’s gone crazy and to ignore her. Except for the butterflies – Clover was certain Pearl should see the butterflies.

  Pearl crouches next to us. “They actually transformed,” she says quietly. Her eyes glisten. I don’t know if it’s wonder or sadness.

  “Wait for one to open its wings,” Clover whispers.

  The three of us kneel in a row, barely breathing, and one of the butterflies spreads out orange-brown wings.

  “It’s like a miracle, isn’t it?” I say, pleased that Pearl’s come too to see them. My whole body is trembling. It’s not the rocking of their sea platform, I’m used to that now, it’s like the butterflies awakened something inside me. The butterflies give me the same tingling at the back of my head I get when I think about that forest.

  Pearl picks at the empty chrysalis with her finger. “It bled,” she says, matter-of-factly. There’s a brown-red stain around the papery cocoon.

  “Do you think it’s hurt?” Clover asks in alarm.

  Pearl shakes her head. “Mum bled, when you came. Dad washed her sheets and hung them out on the platform. It took days in the sun bleaching to go.”

  Clover pulls a face. “Eeeww.”

  Pearl shrugs. “It’s nature. Life isn’t always pretty.”

  “I bet you wish Tally could see them, don’t you, Nat?” Clover says, a touch of jealousy in her voice, or maybe just pride.

  Tally’s name makes my mind jump on. Back to land and the rules, and what it means that we grew butterflies. “Why did it happen for us and not for Central?” I think out loud. “Why do they still bother taking the caterpillars if they’re not turning?”

  “Maybe they are turning,” Pearl says quietly.

  I stare at her, remembering what Tally said, about glass palaces full of butterflies. “You think Central just don’t want Blackwater Bay to have them?” I ask.

  “Even though Blackwater Bay was the place they came to,” Pearl says.

  “Why’s it not flying?” Clover says, her right eye up close to the butterfly. “It’s flapping its wings but it’s not flying. Do you think it’s injured?”

  Pearl shakes her head. “It’s waiting for its wings to dry.”

  I look at her oddly. Her big eyes, next to her sister’s. Pearl’s eyes are green. Witch-green. “How do you know all this?” I ask Pearl.

  Pearl shrugs. “It’s obvious, isn’t it? It needs the sunlight to dry out. Get energy.” She’s not looking at me, just at the butterfly – the lifting wings, beating up and down. Her face is sad. She must be thinking about her dad. Or maybe it’s Clover she’s thinking about, worrying about, if the butterflies are discovered. If Central are deliberately preventing butterflies from growing in the bay, they’ll be more than just angry if we’ve thwarted their plans.

  Clover squeals as the butterfly flutters shakily up to the ceiling of the greenhouse, just as a gruf
f voice shouts out behind us, “What on earth have you got there?”

  “George!” Clover and Pearl shout out together, before they’ve even turned round and seen the old boatman in the doorway of the greenhouse.

  “What have you girls been doing? What have you done?” He’s crossing his right hand over his chest.

  The girls and I scramble to our feet. My stomach drops, worse than seasickness.

  “Ghosts. You summoned them back?” George is mumbling, still crossing himself frantically with his shaky hand. “From the past?”

  “No. No!” Clover says furiously. “Not ghosts. We didn’t do anything. It isn’t magic, George. We promise!” She’s patting at his arm gently, taking charge, directing him to the bench. “Sit down. Sit down. We can explain!” Clover’s scared, breathless.

  “Not magic? They’re not ghosts?” George asks, looking to Pearl for an answer, like he’ll only take it from her.

  “No,” Pearl says quietly. “Not ghosts.”

  I watch Pearl’s eyes flit to Clover. My mouth is dry. What have I done?

  “Butterflies. Back in the bay?” George says weakly.

  I look again at Pearl, because I don’t know what to say. Where our secrecy should end.

  She’s wearing a pale green cardigan that she pulls tight across her chest. Her green eyes shine like metal and she sinks down to her knees. “George, you have to listen to us. It’s important… Nothing was ever this important. Please, George!” She gulps for air.

  “I brought them here,” I say, interrupting, because seeing Pearl so frightened and serious, I realize that it’s up to me to sort this out. It’s all my doing. “I found them as caterpillars. I found them in the solar fields, at one of the old windmills. Billy Crier’s.”

  George looks startled. “Billy’s windmill? You found them out in Billy’s windmill and you brought them here? On my boat? You were dragging me into it?!”

  “No, I wasn’t. I didn’t mean to!” I splutter.

  “You should have said!” George reproaches. “You should have told me what you were carrying. What if Customs had searched us that day?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say, my voice fast. “I wasn’t meant to be there, out in the fields. I didn’t want to get into trouble or land my mates in it. I didn’t even know what the caterpillars were. Not properly.”

  “And Ezra Heart already knew about them anyway,” Clover says, prodding me. “He knew about the caterpillars already. Tell him, Nat.”

  “We think he did,” I say hopelessly. “Because people from Edible Uplands were taking them to give to Central. I wouldn’t even have seen the caterpillars if the Uplands people hadn’t been taking them!”

  “And you thought you had the right to take them too? When you know what the penalty would be?” George says.

  “But why should Central get them anyway? When it was our bay they came to? Why do Central deserve butterflies if we’re not allowed to keep them?” I cry.

  George has stopped listening. He’s stood up, standing on tiptoe, to get a closer look.

  “Careful,” Clover says. “You could fall.” She hovers next to him.

  I never noticed George much on our trip over. He’s well and truly from before, from before the Decline got to its worst. He’s probably old enough to have known Billy Crier even. Surely the boatman can’t still be loyal to Central District? Not deep down inside? He can’t really think the butterflies should be stolen away from the place they came back to?

  Pearl’s standing to one side now. “Do you have news, about our dad?” she asks.

  George’s eyes drop out across the pewter water, back to land. “He’s still in hospital. Your mother –” he doesn’t look at me, but must mean me – “she sent food supplies for you. She was worried about you not eating. I left them out there on the platform. I called but no one answered.”

  “Why couldn’t Mum come herself?” I ask miserably. If Mum could see the butterflies, she’d know what to do about them. She could bring Ezra to see them, to shock him into actually doing something for once. There are butterflies in Blackwater Bay! Living, flying butterflies, in fields we thought would only ever be fit for silicon panels.

  “But Dad’s getting better? Isn’t he, George?” Pearl says fiercely, dismissing my question, desperate for her own to be answered. “Dad’s getting better? George?” Her tall frame swings slightly from side to side like it’s blowing in the wind.

  George slumps his shoulders. “I haven’t heard anything.”

  Pearl swallows. “What about storms? Have you had news of incoming storms?”

  George shakes his head, surprised. “Nothing. It’s clear, isn’t it?” His eyes look to the dark line of the horizon. There’s a yellow hue above it, like a distant sunset.

  “Grey and the others, they’ve swum off, and the birds have gone too, and…” Pearl’s voice tails off but she puts her palms on her temples and her green eyes fog up. Like she’s seeing things from far off.

  “I’ll check at the met office, when I get ashore,” George says, watching her uneasily. “What’s your barometer showing?”

  “Fair,” Clover’s voice sings out.

  “I need to be going,” George says gruffly.

  “And you won’t tell?” Pearl pleads, pulling his arm firmly. “For Clover’s sake, George? You won’t say anything about the butterflies?”

  “You think I’d be believed? Butterflies, in Blackwater Bay? You girls are a law unto yourselves!” George gives an odd little laugh, before turning back to his boat.

  Pearl’s standing in the door of my cabin, her arms full of blankets. She’s resumed her storm preparations and is doing each boat in turn.

  There are clothes on the floor, and my bag is open on Mum’s mattress. I’ve never got round to unpacking properly. I was hoping we wouldn’t be here long enough, in the beginning at least.

  “You need to sort this out,” Pearl says. “We’re almost out of time. You can’t have all these things strewn around.”

  I lean down to pick up old clothes, as Pearl starts nailing one of the blankets over the window with a hammer.

  “So you’re sure, about the storm?” I ask. I’ve barely seen her to talk to since George left yesterday. I think she’s deliberately stayed out of my way.

  Pearl nods, distracted.

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “About George seeing the butterflies. You don’t think he’ll say anything? He’s kept the two of you a secret all this time, hasn’t he?”

  “George wouldn’t want to betray us,” Pearl says, not quite answering my question.

  Just as she’s about to leave, she reaches to the shelf above my mattress, where I’ve put the couple of things I bothered to unpack. She picks up my trail-biking trophy and turns it round curiously.

  “I won it,” I say, unable to stop a flush of pride showing on my face.

  “You won it?” she asks.

  “At school. Biking trials, on the maintenance tracks around the compound. It was a competition.”

  She’s staring at me coolly. “And you won?”

  I blush. “Well, Tally won. I was second.”

  “Second.” Pearl drops the trophy on to the mattress with a soft thud. “That could be your head, in a storm. Or Clover’s head. You’re not shut up safe in your compound now, you’re at sea. You need to put it out of the way in the storm trunk.”

  She points to the wooden box at the foot of my bed. I gulp. “You really think a storm’s coming then?”

  “I know it,” she says.

  I nod. “I’ll help, once I’ve done my room.”

  “Get Clover to listen to me,” Pearl says. “She’s lost her senses, since you came. Maybe we all have. It’s like those butterflies hypnotized us.”

  There’s an awkward silence. “You ought to feed them,” she says suddenly. “The butterflies. Your mum sent fruit, didn’t she? In that package George brought? You should cut it up for them. The butterflies would like something sweet.”

  “How do you kn
ow?” I start, but she’s already breezed out, back on with her preparations, leaving a lingering smell of salt.

  I start transferring my things to the trunk. There are straps around it so the lid can’t fly off if it’s knocked about. I pause as I pick up the trophy. The bike trial was a couple of years ago now. Mr Rose helped set it up. School had marked a cycle route round the compound, and all the way up Drylands Road. Lucas hadn’t wanted to do it, he’s never been competitive, but Tally entered and it was the first thing she’d been excited about for ages.

  Lucas knew I was Tally’s only real competition. He suggested quietly, in that way of his, that I should let her win. Tally had been through so much with her mum and Barnaby.

  But we literally never get to do things like that in the compound, and cycling is the one thing I’m really good at. It was my chance to show everyone. To show Mum too. I was the best at this. I was the best by miles.

  Our parents were watching from the little terrace that stretches round the top of the compound, so maintenance can get to the air ducts to clean them.

  It wasn’t fair of Lucas to ask me to hold back. Ever since school had announced it, I’d been out every day before and after lessons, training. This was my chance to shine.

  So I didn’t hold back. I gave it everything I had, and I was there, out in the front, killing it.

  But Tally won. She came out of nowhere, fast and furious. She wasn’t even out of breath, just determined. Like all her rage over Barnaby had finally found a way to come out. Like sunlight making electricity. Her anger turned kinetic.

  I slam down the lid on the trunk and secure the buckled straps over the top. How can Central get away with taking a child from the people who love them?

  Out on the platform, Clover’s lounging in a hammock, reading.

  “I Capture the Castle.” I read the title from the front of the book. “Is it any good?”

  Clover nods. She’s got a plate of oysters and is eating them lazily. Dropping them into her mouth. The oily juice turns my stomach. I still haven’t got the taste for shellfish, even when I’m really hungry.