Between Sea and Sky

by Nicola Penfold

  His eyes stay fixed on me. They’re dark and frightened and he’s asking for our help.

  Pearl and Clover have taken the motorboat to land, but the little rowing boat they use to circle the oyster farm, that’s still here.

  I have to do something. I have to explain that it was me who took the caterpillars. If I can get the butterfly book Pearl talked about and find the section about Painted Ladies and them being migrants… Maybe if I could show that to Ezra Heart he’d take it all seriously. Or Benjamin Price even. Someone’s got to listen to the truth.

  The boat’s small and low in the water. It bounces around like a cork. I fight to keep the oars in my hands as the waves pull at them. I wish I’d paid more attention to Clover’s technique when she was rowing.

  Up close, the ship is bigger than you’d imagine. She, Clover insisted. Ships were always female, she said.

  She towers over me – a giant, floating city. Vertical walls of fibreglass, a strange mix of orange and brown that, up close, you see are all blistering bubbles of rust. She looks like she’d be happy to give up now, to sink down to the bottom of the sea and find her resting place.

  Pearl talked about a supply hatch. There are windows but they’re all much higher than the level of the water. The bottom of the ship looks impenetrable – a shell, clasped tight. I try and manoeuvre the rowing boat round, looking for signs of a way in, while trying to keep enough distance away so I’m not smashed up against her.

  I get flashbacks to last night. Saltwater in my eyes and nose and throat.

  The waves could take me under the ship. Currents. Riptides. Clover drilled these things into me in her swimming lessons. Would Aurora have her own currents? Mum would never know how close I’d got to her if one took me now.

  I imagine dark shapes underneath the water. Sharks, whales. Moby Dick come back to get me. Do you know what your people did?

  Then suddenly the little boat’s pushed towards the ship by a wave, and I spot the tarnished metal of a rusty old chain that’s stained a different shade of orange against the side of the ship. High above it is a big brass bell. I lean out and pull the chain.

  “We should land out of sight,” Clover says quietly, as we approach the shore.

  I turn the engine off and we pick up the oars to do the last bit by hand.

  We row just round the headland, then we drag the boat up through the mud. There are rows of abandoned boats, stranded above the tideline in the marram grass, rotting away, and a hundred different signs each saying the same thing. That no one’s welcome.

  NO LANDING IN BLACKWATER BAY. MIGRANTS WILL BE INTERNED. ACCESS FORBIDDEN. NO ENTRY. ARMED PATROLLERS.

  “Is that true?” I ask Clover nervously. “An armed patrol?”

  Clover shrugs. “Maybe there was one once. I don’t think anyone comes here any more.”

  I nod.

  “You have to put the shoes on,” Clover says.

  She indicates Mum’s old brown shoes in the bottom of the boat. Footwear is important, Clover says, or else we’ll stand out.

  Clover watches impatiently as I squeeze my toes into the blunt points of the stiff shoes. I squirm. I don’t remember Mum in shoes at all. She was barefoot on the flats or in the water, or had her feet tucked out of sight under hospital sheets.

  I remember Nat’s feet the first day after he walked on the flats. His soles cut and bleeding.

  Clover’s eyes move up and down me slowly as I teeter to my feet. “You should take off your shell necklace,” she says. “And here…” She pulls an orange hair tie from her head and hands it to me. “Tie your hair back.”

  “Why do I need to tie my hair back if you don’t?”

  “Because…” she says awkwardly, her cheeks flushed. “Because you stand out more.” She spreads her silky blondeness over her shoulders. Even after the storm, Clover looks pristine.

  I slip my necklace in my pocket – the shells clacking dully.

  “We ought to get away from the boat,” Clover says.

  “Which way do we go?” I ask.

  Clover points towards the town as we climb over the concrete sea defences. “Let’s stay close to the shore. That way we can hide against the wall if anyone comes.”

  Before the town there are salt ponds and someone’s there, raking out the salt crystals. It’s a boy, not much older than Nat. He’s singing to himself softly. Clover soundlessly gestures for me to follow as she slips landside of some ramshackle waterfront buildings.

  “Will it really be that bad if someone sees us?” I ask. The boy at the salt ponds looks harmless, carefree. Would it really be so bad if he saw two girls he didn’t recognize, walking by the sea?

  “Less so me,” Clover says, squinting. “You’ve got to blend in more. Stop looking at everything like that. Like you never saw it before.”

  I blush and fall into step behind her. We’re single file on a tiny track behind the old warehouses that were built long ago to store things brought in on big container ships.

  It’s land here, but it still feels like the sea, or some inbetween zone. The mud path has shells and seaweed and marram grass, and there are dunlins – the birds methodically pecking for insects and worms with their black beaks.

  “The hospital’s past the compound, up Drylands Road,” Clover says, scrutinizing Nat’s map. She’s taken charge because she knows I can’t. I’m out of my depth, struggling to pick up my feet as the ground gets more solid.

  I don’t need the map anyhow. I still remember the way. The slight incline of the road, away from the sea. The compound on one side, Edible Uplands on the other. The green cross on top of the hospital building.

  “Do you think they’ll let us in, if we say he’s our dad?” Clover asks.

  We’re on a pavement now. Cracked concrete, with circles of yellow lichen. The earth rising up, reclaiming its surface.

  “He is our dad,” I say.

  My eyes are blurring and my heart’s pounding too fast. The incline’s slight, but in the flatness of everything it makes a difference, and we’ve gained enough height that we can see our farm now, back over the sea defences. It looks so tiny. And in the distance beyond, there’s the prison ship.

  “What if Ezra Heart will help Sora?” I blurt out.

  Clover falters. “Dad,” she says. “Dad, Pearl.”

  I gulp, steeling myself. “I’ve been thinking, I should go and see Ezra first.”

  Clover’s face furrows into a frown. “We need to see Dad!” she repeats. “You promised!”

  “Sora’s on the ship, Clover! I have to help her.”

  I’ve got Nat’s face in my head, when I mentioned the butterfly book. He couldn’t believe I hadn’t told him about it. He’s simple and good, where I’m twisted inside, with sharp edges.

  “I have to help Sora,” I say again, my eyes fixed on the ship. “Because I wished it, Clover. I wished all of it.”

  Clover stiffens and walks on but I catch up with her. I’m certain now what I need to do.

  “I wished Sora away, Clover. I offered up Nat’s butterflies in exchange for Dad. I brought the storm and I brought that peacekeeper too. It’s all my fault.”

  Clover stops and shakes her head. When she speaks, her voice is a whisper. “The wishings are just a game, Pearl. You didn’t do this. You couldn’t!” She looks almost frightened of me.

  “I did,” I say. “I did, Clover. That’s why I saw the storm way before anyone else could. Because I conjured it. I brought it to the bay.”

  “We have to see Dad,” Clover says simply, her eyes wet and her poise slipping. She doesn’t want to listen to any more of what I did.

  “You go to Dad,” I say. Clover starts to cut in but I stop her. The way ahead is clear. “I stand out more than you. You said it and it’s true. I don’t even know how to walk properly in shoes.”

  “No!” Clover says. “Pearl!”

  “It’s true,” I say, putting my hands either side of her, holding her up together and taller. I try to smile. “Dad’s
OK. I know he is. I wished it and the sea answered. So I know he’s OK. And that’s why it’s OK for you to go to the hospital on your own.”

  “I want you to come,” she says, crying now. “I want you with me, Pearl. I need you!”

  “No,” I say. “Two of us together, and me looking like this, like I walked straight out of the sea. They’ll stop us. But you on your own – you could easily pass as a landlubber!”

  “Do you think?” she sniffs, surveying herself.

  I smile. “Yes, I do.”

  I point to the cross in the road. “Ezra’s house is that way. Nat says if you go down far enough, at the end, there’s an old row of houses, facing the sea. Bedrock Terrace.”

  Clover nods slowly. “And then I’ll see you back at the boat, when I’ve checked on Dad?”

  “Exactly. I’ll help Sora. You check on Dad.”

  Clover squeezes my hand. “Are you scared?” she asks.

  I nod. All these years of blaming and hating Ezra. All these years of hating land too.

  But last night a landlubber boy jumped into the ocean to save butterflies. Now it’s my turn.

  The clanging of the bell is out of place in the middle of the sea and there’s no answer. I pull at the chain more desperately.

  Suddenly the hatch opens up above me and a man’s face leans out. His mouth opens in surprise when he sees me and he starts shouting. The bell sounds through the wind yet his words are snatched away by it. I can’t work out whether he’s barking out instructions or telling me to move on.

  The waves lash against the prison ship, surging me forward. My situation seems more precarious than ever, but I can’t do anything except go with the pull of the water.

  The man’s shouting something about ropes. He mimes a throwing action and suddenly I realize what he means. I grab one of the coils of rope from the floor of the rowing boat and fling it through the air to him. As soon as it’s left my hands I know I misjudged it. The rope drops down into the sea.

  My face reddens and I clumsily start hauling the sodden twine back in.

  “Another!” the man shouts in a dip of wind. “Use another.”

  I take the remaining dry rope and get ready to throw it. I picture Pearl’s overhand throws in the storm as she sent the greenhouse ropes to Clover. Every single throw strong, on target.

  The man catches the rope and starts to reel me in, and I go back to pulling up the first wet rope and coiling it round again so he can catch this one too.

  Once I’m close enough to reach, the man urges me out of the boat impatiently, up the narrow, frayed ladder. “I’ll tie you in,” he says gruffly.

  “Will the boat get smashed up?” I ask breathlessly. “By the waves?”

  The man shakes his head. “The fenders will take the impact. The storm’s on her way out.”

  I nod weakly and haul myself up the ladder into the ship, before the man closes the hatch behind me. We’re in a kind of service area – a narrow space with buckets, mops, ropes and crates.

  “I need to see the prison governor,” I say weakly. “I need to get someone released.”

  The man tuts crossly and pushes me up more steps. I can tell from the metal shelves stacked with plates and the heat coming off the oven that I’ve come into the kitchen. An old woman in a blue apron stands against the wall, staring at me.

  “You were almost smashed against the hull,” the man says, coming up the steps after me. He’s rubbing his hands where he must have burned them pulling on the ropes. “That tiny boat in water like this! What were you thinking?”

  “I’m sorry,” I pant, my heart still racing. “I thought the storm had passed.”

  “I bet you can’t even swim, can you?” the man exclaims.

  “I can,” I assert. “I can, a little. Do you know who I am?”

  The man laughs gruffly. “We don’t get many children ringing that bell! Are all compound kids this stupid? What was Pearl thinking, letting you come here?”

  “Pearl didn’t let me come,” I say fiercely. “She doesn’t know. She’s gone to land.”

  “Pearl? To land?” the man asks in surprise.

  “She had to,” I say miserably. “Atticus got worse. My mum called from the hospital a couple of days ago but we didn’t see the message, and then the storm started and a peacekeeper came and found the butterflies.”

  There’s a faint gasp from the old lady, who’s still watching me silently.

  “Did they see the girls?” the man demands straight away. “The peacekeeper. Did they see the girls? Both of them together?”

  “She saw them,” I say, deliberately not meeting his eyes but still garbling on, letting the words spill out of me, relieved to tell someone. “George said my mum was brought here because they think she stole pollinators, only she never stole a thing. She never would. I took them.”

  I look over at the woman. Her hands are wrinkled, fingernails bitten down to the quick. She doesn’t meet my eyes when I look at her. I wish she would. I’m desperate for someone to look at me like they don’t blame me for everything that’s happened.

  “You’re Olive, aren’t you?” I say, moving towards her. “Pearl talked about you. There was a book you showed her about butterflies. I need to see it.”

  Olive draws back into the wall.

  “I need to see Benjamin Price too,” I say desperately, to the man this time. Sem, Pearl called him.

  He laughs quietly. “You’re a fool if you think talking to Price is going to do your mum any good. Or them girls.” He puts his head in his hands for a moment, like he’s thinking.

  “I have to!” I cry. “Someone has to tell Price the truth. Mum didn’t take the butterflies. I did!”

  Sem laughs coldly. “Is that your sworn confession? You want to be here instead, do you? You want to swap places with her?”

  “No,” I say, looking around nervously. “Course not. But the butterflies weren’t anyone’s to steal in the first place, and they weren’t even from our district really. Pearl says they’re migrants.”

  “Migrants?! Pearl says that, does she?” Sem splutters, a faint smile appearing on his face.

  “She read it in the book. She says the butterflies might have flown here from thousands of miles away. If someone in power could listen to that, they’d realize how ridiculous it is to have locked Mum up. Mum’s a scientist. She wants to help people! She’s wants to help the district so we don’t have to worry about food all the time. So everyone can have more freedom!”

  “Freedom?” Sem says, looking at Olive, who’s still cowering against the wall. “Everyone? Wouldn’t that be nice?”

  “Where is the governor?” I ask meekly.

  Sem shakes his head incredulously. He steps towards me so his face is directly opposite mine. His breath smells of fish. But there’s water in his eyes, like he’s sad not angry. “You can’t reason with Price. The governor isn’t going to be charmed with a few flying insects. If he finds you, you’ll be a new name on my feeding list, and your mum’s sentence will be doubled.”

  “No!” I cry. “That’s not fair! Mum didn’t do anything wrong!”

  Sem gestures to Olive. “You think she did anything wrong? You think I did?”

  I look down the steps towards the landing hatch. I can hear the waves beating against it. Any bravado I was feeling before about coming to the ship alone has evaporated. My back and shoulders ache from the rowing and my stomach contorts with hunger. I shiver, cold and miserable.

  “Look,” Sem says, sighing. “You’re worn out. None of us got much sleep last night in that storm. I’ve got lunch to make for the prisoners. I bet you’ve not eaten today?”

  I shake my head. Our morning all seems like a dream. A nightmare.

  “I can feed you,” the man says, softer now. “It’ll give you the energy to get back to the oyster farm, and the storm time to finish making its way out.”

  “Thank you,” I say gratefully, grabbing at the chance of food and more time to be near Mum, even if I can�
��t see her.

  “The butterfly book,” Olive says in a quiet voice. Her eyes are fixed on me, though her eyelids flutter shyly. “I’ll show him.”

  Sem looks unsure. “In the library?”

  “Please!” I clutch hold of Sem’s arm. “If Benjamin Price won’t listen, maybe someone else will. Maybe Ezra Heart, if I can get the book to him.”

  “Ezra won’t do anything. Not out here,” Sem says, darkly bitter.

  “But if people don’t try, things won’t ever change, will they?” I say, exasperated now. “Not ever. You’ll grow old and die here, and my mum will too. If the butterflies think Blackwater Bay’s worth coming back to, maybe it’s a sign. Maybe they really are what everyone’s been waiting for, like it says there, in the statutes.”

  I point to the wall where the laws are written out in a gold frame. Faded now, and water damaged from storms even worse than last night, but still there.

  “Go and find this precious book then,” Sem says reluctantly. “But keep out of sight. You’ll get me and Olive in a load of trouble if you’re seen.”

  I walk in the shadow of Edible Upland’s grey concrete tower. It’s got its own defences – twisted razor wire on top of high metal fences, chained together, endlessly.

  There’s a strange hum coming from inside the tower and I imagine it as Sora described it. The pinkish light, the people in white suits, and rows and rows of salad and vegetable plants, fed with liquid nutrients.

  Here, behind the metal barriers, there are plants too. Nettles and flowering thistles at the sides of the road, and crimson-red flowers. Poppies – the name comes back to me suddenly. Mum grew them and for a second I bend down to touch one, till I hear Dad’s voice in my head. The land here is contaminated, radioactive, toxic, deadly.

  The flowers bloom anyway – upright, blood-red.

  I see the road sign before my eyes can make out the words, but I know what it says. The sea took the other roads. It rose up, angry, and swept them all away.