Ember Island

by Kimberley Freeman

  •

  They were halfway to the beach for their picnic when Nell changed her mind.

  “I know a better place to go,” she said.

  “Where?”

  She pointed to the chapel. “It’s a glorious day. We can sit up on the roof and look for ships and nobody will see us.”

  “I don’t know about going up there, Nell,” Tilly said, remembering the hot, dusty ceiling.

  “Oh, please.”

  Tilly relented quickly. She was eager to keep the girl happy. “Very well, then, but we must be careful on that wretched ladder.”

  Before long they were up on the chapel roof. Tilly leaned on the bricks and gazed out at the ships in the bay while Nell unpacked the picnic basket and set a place for herself, for Tilly and for Pangur Ban.

  “This looks wonderful,” Nell said, reaching into the basket for a banana.

  Tilly sat with her. “It’s not all play, you know. We need to read as well.”

  “Yes, Gawain is at the bottom of the basket.” The sunny breeze moved in Nell’s curls. “We have to eat our way through to him.”

  They made their way through fruit and sandwiches and tarts and a bottle of milk, and then cleared away and read for an hour, until the sun became too direct and hot and Tilly feared they would both burn.

  Nell grasped her hand on the path on the way home, and Tilly had the feeling something had been mended for now.

  Right at the bottom of the path up to Starwater, Nell stopped, gasped.

  “What is it?” Tilly asked.

  Nell threw the picnic basket on the ground and desperately went through it, pulling out dirty plates and cups and crockery. “Pangur,” she said with a panic. “I think I left him up there.”

  “Shall we go back?”

  Nell sat back on her haunches, looking wistfully down towards the chapel. “I . . . well, maybe not.”

  “No?”

  “I am nearly thirteen. Maybe I’m too old for Pangur now.”

  Tilly’s heart squeezed. “If you want him, I will happily go and get him for you.”

  But Nell was resolute. “Toys are for little children, aren’t they? I’m nearly a woman.”

  Tilly touched her hair. “You know where he is. You can always go and find him another day.”

  “Yes,” Nell said, picking herself up and repacking the basket. “I know where he is.”

  •

  As the dinner plates were being cleared away, Nell kicked Tilly under the table.

  Tilly remembered her promise and cleared her throat awkwardly. Sterling, who was half out of his chair, throwing his napkin on the table, looked at her.

  Nell gave her an emphatic nod of the head.

  “Sterling, I wonder if we might . . . have a sherry tonight?” Tilly asked.

  Sterling stood, hands clasped in front of him, then behind him. “You would . . . like that?”

  “We haven’t for a while.”

  “Then let’s.”

  Nell beamed at both of them, then seemed to remember she should be elsewhere and bade them good night.

  Tilly stood and Sterling accompanied her, careful not to touch her, to the parlor. The window was open, letting in a breeze almost too cold to bear.

  She went to the window to close it while Sterling poured sherry. “It is astonishing to me how quickly I have become accustomed to the heat,” she said. “Now the cooler season is upon us, I’m quite unprepared.” She could see the shape of the stockade through the glass. “It must be very cold in the cells.”

  “Our winters are short,” he said. “And nearly always dry.”

  Tilly turned away from the window and saw the two sherry glasses on the table. She came to sit on the sofa and he sat across from her. How she longed for his body to be closer to hers, so she could feel his heat, smell his skin. Unexpectedly, she felt tears on the way. She swallowed them back, hid her emotions by taking a large gulp of the sherry.

  “So,” he said. “How was your holiday?”

  “It was fine. Thank you.”

  He waited for a moment, perhaps to see if she’d elaborate, but when she didn’t, he pushed on. “Good, then.”

  They sat in silence. The wind rattled the panes. Would it be cold out there on the water? She didn’t have a coat for Hettie. It occurred to her that she should find out about the boats in the shed, but she wasn’t sure how to raise the issue without it sounding forced or suspicious.

  “And was the weather fine over on the mainland?” Sterling continued.

  “It was, yes. Sterling, it occurred to me that if ever I was injured or unwell and needed treatment on the mainland, I would have to wait up to two days for the steamer.”

  “Are you unwell?” he asked, concern on his brow.

  “No, no. I’m just wondering . . .”

  “We have several large rowing boats and several smaller ones. We are not completely without means to get off the island.”

  “I didn’t know that,” Tilly said. “I have never seen the boats.” It wasn’t a lie. The boat shed had been pitch-black inside.

  “They are locked up down at the shed. Barring emergencies—escapes and injuries and so on—we only take them out once a week. One of the guards does a patrol around the island looking for suspicious activity.”

  Once a week. Which day? Which day? If she asked, he would grow suspicious.

  “Which day?” she said, her voice small.

  “What’s that?”

  “Is it a weekend job?” she asked.

  His eyes told her he was puzzled. Whether that puzzlement would harden to suspicion depended on what happened next. Would he ask her why she wanted to know? What possible interest it had to her? Or would he assume she was simply making awkward small talk, as he had done when he had asked about the weather.

  “Fridays,” he said.

  She laughed lightly. “I’m sorry. I feel rather awkward and I’m simply trying to make conversation.”

  He smiled in return. “I am feeling awkward too. Perhaps we need more sherry.”

  He indicated her glass and she looked down and saw it was empty. She couldn’t remember drinking it that fast. On the one hand, she very much wanted more sherry to relax her. On the other hand, if she became too relaxed she might do or say something that aroused his suspicion.

  It was too late. He’d taken her silence for affirmation and was filling her glass. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to reveal his forearms. She watched his strong hands stop up the bottle and put it aside.

  Fridays. Her plan could not unfold on a Friday. They would see a boat missing and raise the alarm. Early in the week, then. Next Tuesday. One week from today. The decision was made. Heat flashed across her ribs and she told herself she could do it the week after or the week after that. That she didn’t have to do it at all. She could leave the island and never look behind her.

  But that wouldn’t work, would it? Because what was behind her still haunted her.

  “You look quite pale,” Sterling said. “Are you well?”

  She picked up the sherry and gulped it. “I am as well as can be expected,” she said, dreading an evening of light chatter between them, when she had such heavy thoughts on her mind.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Watching the Water

  For the rest of the week and the weekend, Tilly watched and made a note of what time the sea crept up or peeled back from Seven Yard Beach. Sitting on the rocks, shoes off and bare feet in the water, she counted hours and days and decided a hundred times she wouldn’t do this, and as many times that she would. Her life was already blighted by the fire; what comfort and familiarity she hung on to were simply illusions.

  By now, she was sleeping only a few hours each night, as her brain ticked over her plans. Her ideas changed from day to day, then solidified. Of one thing she was certain: she did not want to be trying to steal a boat on the afternoon of the escape. That she would have to put into place earlier.

  And so, at four in the morning on Monday—the day befo
re the escape—Tilly rose in the dark after a few fitful hours of sleep. The wind from the night before had dropped, and all she could hear was the muted sound of the grandfather clock ticking in the parlor. She pulled on stockings and a dark gray dress, but did not take the time to pin her hair or lace into underwear. Her sturdiest shoes were under the bed, and she slid her feet into them and wiggled her toes so she could feel the floor, the world beneath her. Then she pinned on her cloak and wrapped a blue ribbon around her right wrist.

  Tilly cracked open the door and listened carefully. Not a sound. Not a stirring body or a fluttering eyelid. The whole world held its breath.

  She moved like a silent shadow down the hall, opened the door to Sterling’s office and closed it behind her with an almost inaudible click.

  Tilly struck a match on the flint on his desk and lit the lantern. She opened the drawer and a moment later had the key to the boat shed in her hand. Taking the lantern with her, Tilly climbed out Sterling’s office window and into the cool morning air.

  She hurried away from the house, throwing her cloak around the outside of the lantern so it wouldn’t draw the attention of any early risers. The air was crisp, the sky dark and sprinkled with stars. Dawn was still two hours away, but Tilly felt the pressure of time upon her nonetheless. She had a lot to do before Sterling woke, before the guards and turnkeys started their daily rounds.

  Down at the boat shed, she stopped and stilled her heart. The sea was calmly breaking against the shore; the tide was low enough to launch the boat from the beach. She unlocked the door and crept inside, holding the lantern aloft and sending dark shadows into the corners. With her eyes she counted five large rowing boats, and three small ones. She understood that a small one would be all she could manage on her own and set down the lantern. She bent and pulled on the rope attached to the prow of the nearest boat, dragged it with both hands out of the boat shed and onto the grass. Then she returned for a set of oars. Her skin was alive with anticipation, fearing discovery at every second. Awkwardly, she concealed the lantern under her cloak again and made her first trip to the narrow strip of beach, with the oars curled in her free arm, tight against her body.

  She perched the lantern on the rocks, left the oars in the sand, and returned for the boat, locking the door behind her. Dragging it with all her strength, walking backwards in the dark, praying not to trip or make an alarming noise or be seen. And then equally praying that somebody would see her; and that she would be forced to stop before she could commit this crime.

  But ten minutes later she was on the beach alone. She hefted the boat over and placed the lantern in it. Took off her shoes and stockings, and put them in the boat, too, and the oars. Tilly hitched her skirts high and tied them in a knot in front of her. Her legs were white in the dark. And then pushed the boat into the water, until the cold sea came up over her knees and the boat cleared the gritty sand. The low waves slapped the wood softly. She climbed in, picked up the oars, and started to splash the oars on the water. She had never rowed a boat before and managed to instantly send the boat back into the sand.

  “Curses,” she muttered, climbing out of the boat and pushing it into the water again. The cold was creeping deep inside her now, the fear and the guilt intensifying it and making it icy. Once more the boat was bobbing freely. She climbed in, picked up the oars and lifted them, paddled madly for a little longer, this time somehow getting herself free of the shore and into deeper water, but still not mastering the oars.

  She stopped, drifted a little while on the dark water. Breathing deeply. She thought about the sharks that frequented these waters, and it seemed to her that her mind, too, was infested by sharks. Dark, sharp-toothed thoughts, circling. The lamplight flickered. Her hands on the oars looked like somebody else’s.

  “Now,” she said. “Row.”

  Lift, drop, push. Lift, drop, push. Arrowing slowly through the water, staying close to the shoreline with her little light the only company. Already Tilly’s shoulders were aching. She hoped Hettie had the strength to row them all the way to the mainland because Tilly certainly didn’t.

  Two weak women in a boat. The moment they knew Hettie was missing, somebody would climb up the white towers and sight them. Or they’d send out the other boats, rowed by dozens of strong men, and catch them long before they approached the mainland. Her heart fluttered. Hettie had strong hands. Strong enough to kill a man. She would surely be a strong rower.

  Tilly approached the first curve of the island. If she kept going straight from here, she would eventually end up in the Coral Sea. Instead, she intended to take the boat around to the mangroves and hide it there for the escape. She had toyed with the idea of dragging the boat across the island in the dark, but the risk of discovery was greatly increased if she was on land. Besides, she was starting to get the hang of the oars and it felt good to be driving herself through the water. The dark island slipped silently past, its silhouettes made unfamiliar from this perspective. The stockade, the wide flat cane fields, the escarpment, the house where Sterling and Nell were sleeping, warm in their beds, with no idea what she was doing.

  Then she passed around the tip of the island and the water grew rougher. The tide was coming back in. The dark, grotesque shadows of the mangroves waited. She rowed hard, on the dark side of the island now, and brought the boat in on the mud.

  Tilly climbed out of the boat and pulled it as far up on shore as she could, her feet squelching through mud and shallow water, and bruising themselves on the spiky roots that stuck up through the ground. She fought off branches and bugs alike, breathing hard and perspiring under her warm dress, even though her bare feet were freezing. The dank smell of the mangrove forest, the moldering shadows. She rested the boat between two trees, then picked her way back down to the water’s edge to find the tree that leaned out the furthest. She unwrapped the ribbon on her wrist, wading calf-deep in the water, and tied the ribbon around an extended branch. Then returned to the boat to collect her lantern and shoes, and trudge back towards the house.

  A rocky cliff face separated the swamp from the house, so she had to either come around the bottom of the island or cut through the mangroves and then take a route through the cane fields. The latter was quicker, but didn’t appeal to her. The mangroves were full of spiders, the cane fields full of snakes. Instead, she walked along in the cold ankle-deep water, through mud and roots, until she found the rocky shoreline that took her around past the lime kiln and the sugar mill. She extinguished her lamp then cut up through the cemetery and onto the main track. Her aching feet were caked with mud, so she stopped in the garden on her way back and washed her feet in the pond. It wouldn’t do to return the lantern and the key to Sterling’s office and leave a set of muddy footprints. The sky was growing light in the east, the stars paling. But she sat for a moment in the garden, waiting for her feet to dry, eyes sore from lack of sleep.

  Not so long now. Today, then tomorrow’s dawn, and then . . .

  Dawn somewhere else. Not on Ember Island.

  She dragged herself to her feet, tiptoed up onto the verandah, and let herself back into Sterling’s office. Returned the lamp and the key. She stopped to consider the map of Moreton Bay Sterling kept on his wall. An idea struck her. She lit a match and held it up, studying the map. So many islands.

  She studied the map so long that the match burned down to her fingers and fizzed. Alarmed, she shook it out. But her right thumb and index finger stung with the burn. She sucked on them, eyes watering, trying not to make a noise, wrapped them in her damp skirt.

  The house was still quiet and still as she made her way to her bedroom, where she lit her lamp and examined her burnt fingers. Already a big welt was growing on her index fingertip. She touched it and winced.

  And thought about Jasper and Chantelle . . .

  She touched it again, making the pain ignite all along her nerves. Soon that debt would be cleared; then she could be free of the black-ash shadows of the past.

  •
>
  Tilly rolled the red dress as tightly as she could and tucked it under her arm. She was brutally tired from lack of sleep the night before and a full day working with Nell. Nell had asked her what plans Tilly had for schoolwork for the following week, and Tilly had not been able to answer. She had planned no life beyond the escape, as though Ember Island itself would cease to exist the moment she and Hettie rowed away.

  Her heartsickness about Nell was crippling her. She had grown to love the girl, and thoughts of her now made her teary and full of dread. She tried to tell herself she was simply tired, but no matter how she viewed her weak knees and heavy heart, she was still about to commit a crime.

  The garden was growing slowly now. The prevailing winds had changed; dry winds came from the west now, lifting the undersides of leaves and making them flicker white and cold. The lazy guard was there again. He saw her and offered a smile, but paid no further attention to her as she went down to the back of the garden to meet Hettie.

  She was pacing, her dark head bent.

  Tilly stopped a few feet from her, cleared her throat.

  “You came,” Hettie said, quietly but relieved.

  “Of course I came.”

  “I keep thinking you’ll change your mind.”

  “I won’t change my mind.”

  “It’s been days since we last spoke. I haven’t been able to concentrate on anything. I keep thinking of the children and I am . . .” Her voice trembled and began to break. “I am tortured by the idea that I won’t see them after all.”

  Tilly checked behind her. They were alone. “Here,” she said, thrusting the dress into Hettie’s arms.

  “What is it?”

  “It’s a dress and scarf, identical to the ones I will wear tomorrow.”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “The boat is in place. In the mangroves, about half a mile down from the tip of the island. There is a tree that leans over the water; I’ve marked it with a blue ribbon. We will meet there at sunset.”