His grandfather was staring at him as though he had just confessed to murder.
Fionn slammed his teeth into his bottom lip. ‘But she’s gone, isn’t she?’ he said shakily.
‘There’s no need to be afraid,’ said his grandfather, quickly stretching his lips into a smile. ‘No need at all, in fact. I’m right here with you. You’re home now, lad.’
‘I’m sorry, but why are you even humouring this?’ Tara interrupted. ‘You’ve said it yourself, Grandad. We can’t be seen in other layers. We’re like the wind!’ She turned on Fionn. ‘You did not go and play with Morrigan and Dagda earlier. You threw that candle in the sea and then made up a stupid story about it because you felt left out.’
‘And what did you do?’ Fionn fumed. ‘Run around the cliffs all day so you can scoop out that wish and hand it to your idiot boyfriend on a silver platter? If you cared about your family you wouldn’t give it away so easily!’
Tara’s lips twisted. ‘You have no idea what I care about.’
‘That’s enough!’ said their grandfather sternly. ‘If I wanted to experience death by pointless bickering, Winnie and I would have had a second child.’
Tara scowled at him. ‘That candle doesn’t burn for anyone! Why would it burn for him?’
‘Because I’m better than you,’ said Fionn.
‘You wish.’
‘Dagda, give me strength.’ Their grandfather rolled his head from side to side like he was trying to knock all the stress out of his brain. ‘I want you both to listen to me very carefully. And this time, when I say listen, I mean it, Tara.’ Tara looked at her shoes. Fionn smirked at her forehead. ‘There are forces at work here that I don’t fully understand yet. The island is restless. There are reports of other layers peeking through, things appearing and then disappearing. The tides are keeping their own rhythm. The weather is as unpredictable as ever, the birds even more so. I’ve seen more ravens this week then I have in years …’
Fionn’s cheeks began to prickle.
‘It definitely wasn’t like this last summer,’ mumbled Tara.
‘It’s never this bad. Even before a storm.’ He tipped his head back to the ceiling, his eyes shut tight as if he was sleeping.
‘I think that’s why that Ivan guy’s come,’ said Fionn.
‘I hope he’s just a tourist chasing rumours, but it is important to be wary of everyone. Morrigan took a great many souls to her grave. She has her followers, even now.’ He snapped his eyes open. ‘I want you both to be very careful. Don’t burn any candles unless you’re with me, and don’t speak to anyone you don’t know. Keep your heads down.’ He levelled Fionn with a dark look. ‘Especially you, Fionn. Can you both do that for me?’ he said wearily. ‘Please?’
‘We will,’ they chorused.
‘And for the last time, stay away from that bloody Sea Cave.’
‘We will,’ they lied.
That night, the island sang Fionn a lullaby. A woman called out to him through the layers, pulling him through time and over sea. He tumbled from dream to dream, the melody bringing him to the edge of a jagged cliff, where he was serenaded from the cavern beneath his feet. Fionn followed the woman’s song until he stood beneath a great, black hole, the yawning entrance as sharp as fangs.
A shadow leapt inside, and Fionn stumbled after it, sure it was his father.
Chapter Ten
THE SUSPICIOUS WISH
The following days brought dull weather and fruitless searching. Now that Fionn knew there was only one wish simmering inside that cave, time was of the utmost importance. He bought a local map of Arranmore from Donal and set about marking the cliffs which might harbour a cave entrance. Rather inconveniently, they covered most of the coast.
Even when he managed to overcome the hour-long walk and the pesky wind that came with it, Fionn’s investigations were still beholden to the tides, which seemed to rise higher every day, as though they were trying to swallow the island. Tara spent most of her time with the Beasleys, tracking the rock face just as unsuccessfully, until the evening she returned with a smirk so wide it pinched her cheeks. ‘I told you I’d find it before you,’ she said to him when they were lying in bed that night.
‘Has he taken it?’ he asked in alarm. Was it all over already?
‘We haven’t found a way down to it yet but we will when the tide goes out.’
There’s only one wish! Fionn wanted to scream. And you’re letting him steal it from us!
He curled his fingers in his duvet and swallowed the desperation bubbling inside him. He would not yell. He would not beg. He scrunched his eyes shut and held on to his carefully curated silent treatment, eventually falling asleep to the sound of her texting furiously.
The next morning, he woke to the sound of church bells ringing.
Dong dong dong.
They breezed up the headland and swept under the doorway, echoing off the walls of the little cottage and vibrating underneath the floorboards. Fionn could feel them on the soles of his feet when he rolled out of bed. Though it felt like an age since he had left Dublin, it was only his second Sunday on the island. His second Sunday away from his mother.
Sometimes, back home, when she was feeling up to it, she would take the three of them to the Temple Bar Food Market, and they would spend the morning wandering the stalls, sampling the crêpes, and ranking them out of ten. It was here, one drizzly Sunday, that Fionn discovered bacon jam for the first time and Tara found chicken eggs that were dyed bright blue. Once, their mam bought a giant bag of toffee marshmallows and they took turns seeing how many they could stuff in their mouth at the same time. Fionn had emerged victorious with eleven, but his mother (trailing with seven) swore she would have won if it had been green olives, which were her favourite food. Tara had demanded a rematch and Fionn had helpfully suggested that she should try and keep her nine marshmallows in her mouth for as long as possible so they could all have some peace and quiet.
Dong dong dong.
He dressed in tracksuit bottoms and his favourite grey hoodie. He wore his best trainers too – the ones his mother got him from the Nike outlet shop for his eleventh birthday. They were black with lime green ticks running up the side. Adventuring shoes, she told him when he unwrapped the box, eyes gleaming with happiness.
If only she knew where he was planning to take them.
Bartley and Shelby came by just before midday, arriving in the midst of an argument about how Bartley had been using Shelby’s hair conditioner without her permission. Fionn was hovering in the garden, pretending to inspect the headless flowers.
‘Boyle!’ said Bartley, while Shelby waved at him. ‘I didn’t know you had a green thumb. Is this what you do when we go exploring? Gardening like an eighty-year-old woman?’
The wind whipped into a sudden flurry and the rose bush bent over Fionn, its petals brushing the edge of his ear lobe as though to whisper, Do you want me to fight this Beasley kid?
‘That’s sexist,’ said Shelby. ‘He could be acting like an eighty-year-old man.’
‘Shut up,’ said Bartley, banging on the front door.
‘Knock louder,’ said Fionn. ‘So everyone on the mainland can hear you too.’
Bartley cut his eyes at Fionn, his lips curling into a sneer. ‘Don’t worry, Boyle. We’ll tell you all about the cave after we get in.’
‘If you get in,’ said Fionn.
Bartley smirked at him. ‘You sound jealous, Boyle.’
‘I’m not jealous,’ Fionn said quickly.
‘What would you wish for anyway? A friend? I doubt there’s a cave magical enough to pull that one off. You could try wishing for a backbone though. Or maybe shoes less embarrassing than last year’s cast-offs.’
‘Bartley, you wear deck shoes,’ said Shelby.
Fionn smiled blandly. ‘I assume you’ll be wishing for a personality, Bartley. Though your face could probably do with some divine intervention too.’
Shelby trapped her laugh on the back of her hand.
It hiccoughed in her shoulders and turned her face red.
Bartley glared at her as Tara flung the door open. They tumbled into each other in a mismatch of hoodies and flailing limbs. Bartley frantically checked his hair was still in its little swirl, before extending a hand to help her to her feet.
‘And they say chivalry is dead,’ said Shelby.
‘Ready?’ Bartley said, when they had righted themselves again.
Tara tightened her ponytail. ‘Ready.’
‘To the lighthouse!’ said Shelby, glancing at Fionn.
‘Shut up!’ said Bartley viciously.
Fionn rolled his eyes.
‘See ya later!’ said Shelby.
‘Good luck with the encyclopedias, Fionny,’ said Tara. ‘Don’t eat them if you get hungry!’
They took off down the headland.
Fionn counted to a hundred in his head. Then he followed them.
He was almost at the church when he lost sight of his sister and instead found himself standing face-to-chest with the tallest man he had ever seen. He was broad too, with beefy arms and wide shoulders that took up twice the width of an average person and he had an oversized moustache that looked not unlike the sweeping end of a kitchen broom.
‘Fionn Boyle,’ he boomed, his familiar beady eyes flashing with triumph. ‘At last we meet!’
‘Um. Hello,’ said Fionn awkwardly. The man looked enough like Bartley for Fionn to make the family connection but his accent was island-born, which meant he was perhaps not Bartley’s father, but his uncle, Douglas.
Before he could ask, a tall, sinewy woman with long silver hair elbowed the man out of the way.
‘It has been a long time since I saw you, Fionn Boyle,’ she said, studying him with small, coal-like eyes. ‘A very long time indeed.’
Fionn scrunched up his nose. ‘I think you’ve got me confused with someone else.’
‘My name is Elizabeth Beasley,’ she said, extending a dainty hand. Fionn was surprised by how strong her grip was, how vigorously she shook it. ‘I’m an old friend of Malachy’s.’
The moustachioed man snorted, and Fionn was reminded of his presence on the periphery of their conversation. Demoted, but still very much there.
‘How’s your summer going?’ asked Elizabeth sweetly. ‘Is the island being kind to you?’
‘I, eh, yeah. It’s –’
‘Douglas and I would love you to meet someone,’ she interrupted.
Douglas beckoned at someone over Fionn’s shoulder. ‘C’mere,’ he grunted. ‘Come and meet the Storm Keeper’s grandson.’
To Fionn’s surprise, Ivan slipped in front of him, as though he had materialised from thin air. He had combed his beard into submission, and his red hair had been braided away from his face. He had paired his usual black jumper with a smart blazer and jeans, but he still looked a hundred degrees too hot for the weather. ‘We’ve met,’ he said cheerily.
‘Ivan is a distant cousin of ours,’ said Elizabeth.
‘Really?’
‘I think he knows more about this place than I do,’ she added, laughing. ‘He’s very invested in the family’s future. Or perhaps I should say the island’s future.’
Fionn stared at Ivan with renewed suspicion. ‘I thought you were interested in the history of Arranmore.’
Ivan grinned at Fionn. ‘Haven’t you heard, Fionn? History always repeats itself.’
‘Except in the case of Boyle Storm Keepers,’ said Douglas, his oversized moustache twitching doubly fast now. ‘And before you get any wild ideas, boy, that gift is going to pass to my nephew. I don’t care if everyone thinks you’re the one. Things are going to change around here very soon …’
Fionn blanched. What?
Douglas winked at Ivan, a sharp laugh cutting out of him. ‘He just needs a little extra help that’s all.’
Elizabeth’s smile disappeared in the lines around her mouth. ‘How’s your grandfather, Fionn? We haven’t seen him down here in a long while …’
Ivan held his static smile, his eyes misted over as though he was looking through Fionn – to the future, or the past. Or perhaps both. ‘I’m sure the next Keeper will be less … elusive.’
‘Of course he will,’ said Douglas knowingly.
The next Keeper …
Fionn’s heart was hammering in his chest. What had he missed? And why were the Beasleys so smug about it? He had to find out where Bartley Beasley was and just what exactly he was going to wish for.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, turning from the three of them. ‘I have somewhere to be.’
‘Not the cave, I hope,’ Douglas called after him. ‘A scrawny little kid like you wouldn’t last two minutes down there. There’s a storm coming, you know.’
Storm. He said it with such gravitas that Fionn stopped in his tracks. He glanced at the sky. ‘I don’t see any clouds.’
Elizabeth’s laugh was a sharp titter, the mating call of an evil bird. ‘This is a different kind of storm, Fionn.’
‘Island-brewed,’ said Ivan breathlessly.
Douglas smirked. ‘The first in nearly twelve years.’
Fionn turned on the heel of his shoe. ‘What?’
‘Oh, I’m sure Fionn doesn’t want to talk about that,’ said Elizabeth, her smile indulgent. ‘Especially after what happened to poor Cormac.’
Fionn’s heartbeat stuttered. It had been a long time since he had heard his father’s name out loud. It hovered in the air between them, like a wisp of cloud. Fionn wished he could hook it in his finger and take it away from these horrible people.
‘We thought the magic was going to pass to him all those years ago,’ Elizabeth went on. ‘The island was wide awake. The storm was brewing. And then … well …’ She dropped her voice, the ends of her bright hair floating around her face like snakes. ‘I suppose he shouldn’t have gone out in that lifeboat. He was looking for trouble.’
Fionn desperately wanted to say something brave and defiant but his bottom lip was trembling and he couldn’t help thinking of his father being pulled into the eye of that storm. How terrified he must have felt, how desperately alone he was in those final moments.
‘I believed it was Cormac I saw at first all that time ago, you know …’ The veneer of politeness was gone. She was smiling openly, enjoying the grief on Fionn’s face. ‘But he never remembered it. And now I see you’re just like him. There really is no diluting those … strong Boyle features. Except …’ she went on, her dark eyes narrowing.
Fionn stood frozen, pinned to her viperous smile. ‘Except what?’
Elizabeth Beasley peeled her lips back. ‘Except Cormac wore the sea behind his eyes. Even as a boy, if you looked hard enough, you could see it. He was very brave.’
‘But not brave enough in the end,’ said Douglas.
Ivan cleared his throat uncomfortably.
Fionn backed away from them, a hermit crab scuttling into its shell.
‘Fionn,’ Elizabeth called after him, and despite his better judgement he paused one final time. Her expression was darker now, as though a shadow had fallen somewhere beyond her eyes. ‘It will never be you.’
Her words hung over Fionn like a spectre as he hurried past the church. He walked so fast his breath punched out of him. His father’s name hung like a flashing sign in the back of his head.
Cormac wore the sea behind his eyes.
Cormac was very brave.
And what am I?
What was Bartley going to wish for in that Sea Cave? And why did Fionn have a horrible feeling that it was going to harm his grandfather in some way?
To the lighthouse. He ran and the wind blew with him. Fionn tried to convince himself that the island was on his side, that he belonged here just as much as anyone. That this place hadn’t reared up and killed his father twelve years ago. That it hadn’t brewed the storm that drowned him.
The land climbed and Fionn climbed too, running and panting past the lake and the deserted fields and the century-old dilapidated stone house
s while black birds shrieked in the air above him.
Crows, he told himself. They’re only crows.
He tried to pretend he didn’t recognise those piercing calls as they followed him across the island.
When he reached the cliffs by the lighthouse, he got down on his hands and knees and dipped his head over the edge.
There was no sign of his sister.
There was nothing but his own heavy breaths echoing around him.
Even the birds had disappeared somewhere over the cliffs.
A breeze frittered along the grass and Fionn couldn’t help but think the island was laughing at him. Even when he was hitch-hiking on someone else’s adventure, he couldn’t seem to keep up.
He trudged home past shops and boats and endless fields until he found himself at the lifeboat station down by the pier. He slid down on his haunches and pressed his back against the building where his father, and his father and his father and his father before him, had spent every day of their lives between adventures at sea. Between lifeboats. Between bravery.
He stayed like that for a long time, the wind leaving him to his thoughts. Islanders passed by every now and then but he didn’t greet them, not even as they paused to take a second look at him – this boy who looked just like his dead father, this boy who would never be half as good as him.
Chapter Eleven
THE WHISPERING TREE
When Fionn finally got back to his grandfather’s cottage, Tara was sitting at the kitchen table with Bartley and Shelby, watching a video on her phone. She had changed into her lemon jumper, and her hair was frizzing around newly freckled cheeks. ‘Where have you been?’ she demanded. ‘I don’t care that you were gone, I just hope you weren’t filling up on those disgusting prawn cocktail crisps. It’s your turn to make dinner tonight.’
Bartley, who was reading the candle labels in the sitting room, smirked at Fionn over his shoulder. ‘Still no friends then, Boyle?’
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