The Island House

by Posie Graeme-Evans

  Freya had enjoyed teasing the soil away from the shards—it was nice to feel she still had some skill at such delicate work. Gradually, too, she was able to see some hint of the shape of the find from the way the pieces lay together. It seemed to be a wide, shallow bowl, and after photographing and measuring what she had exposed, she coaxed each piece from the earth and bagged them individually—there might even be enough to attempt some kind of reconstruction. Could she have found an offering bowl? That seemed possible in a place of Pagan worship but, in itself, it didn’t help to explain why a crucifix had been found at this same site, or the intriguing little lead box with its pages of Latin manuscript.

  With almost no light in the sky, Freya unpacked the last PVC field tent and spread it out. Unfolded, it was big enough to cover the excavation, and she sent up the archaeologist’s prayer to the Gods of the Earth and Sky. Please don’t let it rain tonight. Please!

  Something white drifted past, silently disturbing the air beside her face. Freya jumped.

  It was the owl—the one she’d seen on the night of her arrival. She watched it swoop high and then drop to the meadow; a moment later it was in the air again, a mouse in its talons. Freya heard the little thing squeak, but it was doomed, destined to become tomorrow’s owl cast. Was it a shock to be reminded that existence was pitiless?

  And then the image she’d avoided thinking about for the whole day returned. Flames reflected in a man’s eyes—Daniel’s eyes; flames from an inferno that did not exist.

  Soon it would be night, and she would be alone with her thoughts.

  CHAPTER 17

  THERE’S PLENTY more, Dan. I made enough spuds for dinner and lunch tomorrow. Lots of meat too.”

  “That’s fine, Dad.” Dan covered his plate as Walter tried to put yet more slices of pork into the lake of gravy. Walter couldn’t cook, not in the formal sense, but roasts were simple, and that’s what they had most nights. Unless Dan, desperate for a change, got pizza or cooked eggs.

  “I thought you liked pork?” Walter was worried.

  Dan put his fork down. “I do, Dad, just not very hungry tonight.” It was the smell. He’d smelled meat roasting this morning on the island—no, meat burning—and he’d been terrified, as if he, like the woman he’d seen, had been about to die. What was that?

  Walter cut into his food. He was pleased; for once he’d got the crackling right. “Weekend coming up. Any plans?”

  Dan shook his head. “Pass the salt.”

  Walter mumbled through his food. “You don’t need more salt.”

  Dan bit back a sharp response. He said, patiently, “What, are you the food police now?”

  “We all eat too much salt.”

  Dan rolled his eyes.

  Walter said, stubborn, “Don’t look at me like that. Got to take care of yourself, Dan. We want to make old bones, you and me.”

  Dan said nothing. He picked up a forkful of meat, and chewed and swallowed—somehow.

  “I’ve been wondering . . .” Walter cleared his throat; this was delicate territory. “Would it help to see someone?”

  Dan ate faster; this was winding up to something. “What sort of someone? Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

  “Very funny. What I meant was, would a doctor help?”

  Dan lined the knife and fork up on the plate, covering some of the food. “I’ve seen all the doctors I want, thanks.”

  “I didn’t mean a doctor-doctor, though now I think of it, you haven’t been doing the physio, have you?”

  “No.” Dan was short.

  “It won’t work unless you do it, they said that.”

  Dan shot his father a dark look.

  Walter’s hands went up. “Okay, okay. So . . . we should try someone else.”

  Dan slapped his leg. “Useless. Don’t need anyone else telling me that all over again.”

  Walter leaned over the table. “This is different, Dan. It’s about your head, not your leg.”

  “My head.” Dan repeated the phrase. “You want me to see someone about my head.”

  “I don’t think you’re coping. You’re punishing yourself for some reason, and there’s no need. There, said it.” Walter looked at his son—he was pleading.

  Dan pushed back his chair. He got up with some effort and, limping to the sink, scraped the uneaten food into a bin.

  Walter tried again. “Dan, I think you’re depressed. It’s not surprising . . .”

  “Are you depressed, Dad?” Dan’s voice rose. He skewered his father with a look.

  Walter swallowed. “Well, no, but . . .”

  “He was your friend, Michael Dane, not mine. Why should I be depressed?” He started for the door of the kitchen.

  “Dan.” Walter rose.

  His son turned back.

  “Look at yourself. You can’t live the rest of your life like a volcano waiting to explode. You need to get better. You need to enjoy yourself again.”

  Dan spoke over his dad. “I’m going to the pub; don’t wait up.” He pulled down a weather jacket from the hooks beside the back door.

  Walter called after him, “Not every girl is like Alice, Dan. Not everyone walks when life gets a bit tough.”

  Hand on the latch, Dan said, patiently, “I know, Dad.”

  Walter hurried on—in for a penny. “She didn’t mean what she said. Women get themselves upset and say things. You’ve got to give yourself a chance; smile more, it’s a good habit. You know what they say, ‘Smile and the world smiles with you.’ ”

  That made Dan smile—a bit. His voice softened. “It’s okay, Dad. I’ll think about what you’ve said.”

  “You will? You really will?”

  Dan pulled the door open and nodded. “But I’m not going to a shrink. Nothing wrong with my head. There, I’ve thought about it.” The door closed. He was gone.

  Nothing wrong with my head. Sturdy defiance. But there was, and Dan knew it. Not just the darkness of the last months and the anger—no, make that fury. After this morning, he had to face more than that.

  He stopped in the quiet street. No sound but the sea, close by, but if he closed his eyes he could smell that inferno, and hear it. The screaming. The bell. Drifting smoke, blood all over the grass, these had been real things. And the man with the sword—a sword—he’d been real too. An image of Walter slicing the roast intruded—dizzy, Dan clutched at a lamppost. They’d think he was drunk, if anyone saw him.

  But the village was deserted. Behind curtains, TVs flickered, and he heard the whoop and clamor of a studio audience. Normal life was inside those rooms, people sitting together, tranquilized by images from far, far away. Was that what had happened at the island?

  Dan wiped the sweat from his face. No. It wasn’t some kind of movie, or flashback to something he’d seen somewhere. He had been in another time, and not just as an observer. There was so much he did not understand. Most of it.

  All of it.

  To ward off the dark, Dan began to walk. If he warmed up a bit, maybe the pain in his hip and leg would lessen, and exercise did make a difference, that at least was true, but he so rarely bothered. It hurt too much at the beginning.

  But there was the pub. Alcohol drowned the aches—or, at least, took them somewhere he didn’t have to be for a while, comfort and oblivion all in one. And at the Nun, he was away from Walter’s anxious eyes. He could talk there, too, even if he was less welcome than he’d once been.

  Aggression—that’s what the publican said. You’re upsetting everyone, Dan. You pick fights for no reason. He’d not been aggressive before when he drank; he’d thought of himself as a happy drunk, good company.

  Laughter burst from a cottage close by. Was he the cause? But the guffaws were recorded, not real. Paranoid, too, are you? Things were lurching out of control, he could feel it. Walter was right—can’t go on like this.

  Dan walked on, staring at the harbor. Streetlights lit the boats with an orange glow, intense as any apocalypse, but nothing, nothing to compare to
what he’d seen on the old wharf at Findnar. What did that mean? Delusions? Brilliant. As if there wasn’t enough going on.

  Women said they forgot the pain of childbirth, but his dad was right. Dan could not erase the pain of Michael Dane’s death—not mental, not physical. And it was etched in his bones now, in his damaged body and in the despair and terror and personal sense of failure—and the guilt. He just wanted it all to go away.

  Did he have the guts to top himself? He’d thought about it quite often, especially after Alice walked away. His fault, of course—he’d not been able to ask for help and retired into a black night of his own making. Too much whisky, too much work to prove that he could, still, work—even if it wasn’t at sea—and Alice had got tired of the moods. Very tired of him too.

  And now, there was Freya Dane. Dan stopped, staring out toward the island. A light burned there, just one, in the house on the other side of the water.

  Maybe Freya was a nice woman, maybe she was not, but she frightened him. He’d never been scared by a woman before. Humiliated, yes. Scared? Not before this morning.

  Dan breathed deep and took another step and then another. He welcomed the pain—it was potent, and it stopped the mad roiling in his head. Maybe he would go to the pub after all. He could see it up ahead, light streaming from the windows and music too—muffled but still insistent. He sighed. Why was there always a price to be paid for company, and why were songs always about love?

  He half-turned, staring back toward their house. Walter would not sleep until he heard Dan’s key in the door, but he was thirty-one, not sixteen. Time to move on—if he could find a way to do that—time for a different life.

  Ignoring the click and grind of his hip, Dan walked faster. Only a few steps now, not many (but who was counting?).

  He stopped. Part of him had registered the tide was up, and the boats beside the quay were riding high at anchor. Most were familiar craft. He backed up a pace; Michael’s cruiser was tied to a bollard.

  Dan stared. The phone in his pocket chirped. A text. He thumbed the icon; it’d be Walter—Just worried about you, or some such message.

  But Dan was wrong, and his face changed as he read the words. I can see you Daniel Boyne. Be careful how you pick your friends. The number of the sender had been blocked.

  CHAPTER 18

  BEAR HAD managed to lash the boom back to the mast and now the trading vessel rode easily on the water secured by two separate lines to the beach. Each hide rope was anchored beneath a stone, the biggest Signy and Bear had found. It had taken them a morning, after they’d eaten the fish he cooked over the fire she’d made, to roll the boulders above the high-water mark. Now the ropes flexed as the ship swung on the tide, but they were good lines, well cured, flexible, and very strong.

  “You are certain?” Bear hadn’t been able to change Signy’s mind in a morning of arguing. He glanced at the coracle. He’d carried it from the cove, and now it lay on the sand waiting for her to take it. His heart spoke, not his head. “It’s a long way to paddle alone.”

  She did not look at him. “I’ve done it before.” That was a lie. She’d traveled with her siblings or her parents in the old days.

  Signy ran toward the hide bowl, and Bear hurried to help her drag it to the water’s edge.

  The boy stood in the surf, careless of his new clothes, and held the little craft steady. The coracle would buck and tip Signy out if the moment was not well judged, but she rolled over its edge and into the middle with practiced ease.

  “Good-bye, Bear.”

  He heard the tears in her voice. At the last moment, she reached up to kiss the good side of his face, and he felt her lips brush the soft bristle along his jaw.

  “I hope we meet again in this life, Signy. You have been kind to me, and I will not forget that.”

  How to cover desolation? Speak up, speak loudly. He raised his hand. “The tide will drop soon. Journey well, my friend.” He did not say, This is madness. She already knew he thought that.

  Signy ducked her head and picked up the paddle as she settled her seat in the boat; balance was everything. She had little emotional strength left. “Push me, Bear, a good, strong push.”

  With his help, the coracle bobbed over the crest of a small wave. As it slid down the back, Bear watched Signy dig the broad blade of the paddle into the sea. It was hard work, and she was tentative at first, but she began to find the looping, sweeping rhythm, and the little craft progressed slowly toward the harbor’s mouth. Soon, too soon, she would be on the open water of the strait, and Bear knew she would not look back.

  “Signy!”

  She did not acknowledge his shout.

  “Signy, wait. Wait!” Bear could not control his voice; the shout became a plea.

  That Signy heard. She slewed around, the coracle answering the movement.

  Bear stood waist-deep in the tide. “You don’t need to do this. We’ll go back together in the big boat.”

  Together. The word rang like a bell.

  Signy stared at him. She dropped the paddle and cupped her hands around her mouth. “You mean it?” The boy shouted back, “Yes.” How sad he looked. She let the waves sweep her back to where he stood but he said nothing as she scrambled over the side of the coracle and into the shallows. “I’m glad you changed your mind, Bear.” Signy touched his arm as they dragged the craft onto the beach. “Truly. It is better this way. The Christ people will have cursed us for taking their ship, I think. And perhaps the curse would have followed you. It needs to be lifted.”

  “Doesn’t frighten me. They don’t have the power.” Bear spat into the tide. “They live on seaweed.”

  Signy was shocked. “You can’t say that.” A curse was serious business and not to be mocked.

  Bear took both her hands in his. “Signy, we’ll take the boat back because you want to and for no other reason.”

  The girl stared toward the ruined clan settlement. “This place has been cursed too. By the blood of my family. Nothing will prosper here until that is atoned for also.” She did not mention Bear’s name. She did not have to.

  After the terrors and privations of the previous year, the Christians on Findnar had been crushed to discover the new vessel, a replacement for the ones the raiders had taken, was missing. For Gunnhilde this had been a double loss because Bear and Signy had disappeared, too, and she felt personally betrayed.

  Without the vessel, another want-filled winter loomed but with yet more bellies to be filled on the island. Gunnhilde, with great remorse, had prayed many private hours, seeking forgiveness for her part in the catastrophe, and if her knees burned, she knew she deserved the pain and bore the self-imposed penance gladly.

  It was the guilt that shamed her most, and the disobedience of her heart. She had deliberately ignored Brother Cuillin’s warnings about the Pagan children, and the whole community was paying for their duplicity. She should have seen the Devil nesting in their souls, and yet it still seemed hardly credible that two such scraps could have stolen the ship.

  “Sister, Sister, they’ve come back!”

  Stretched prone before the altar in the part-built chapel, Gunnhilde did not, for a moment, make sense of Idrun’s words.

  “Come back?”

  “Signy and the boy.”

  The two nuns hurried to the cliff path. It was true, the ship had returned, sailed boldly into the bay by Signy and Bear as if they had merely gone fishing. Gunnhilde could see them smaller than beetles below, securing the craft to the shore.

  “Deo gratias,” the words were a bemused prayer of thanks. “Dear Lord, we thank you for bringing Signy and Bear back to us. This is a miracle.”

  “We do indeed, Sister. Well may you thank our Lord, but gratitude is not enough. A theft was committed.”

  Cuillin, the newly elected Abbot of Findnar, had arrived behind the women. “Sister, I ask that you bring the children to me in the chapel.”

  Both nuns knelt in the pose of penitents. Gunnhilde crossed herself and
said deferentially, “Of course, Brother Abbot,” and, as was proper, she did not look up, but she struggled with obedience to this man. She was still surprised by Cuillin’s sudden elevation—elected by the community in Chapter only yesterday—and absorbing the hurt of not even being proposed as Abbess of the nuns (and coleader of their double monastery). Perhaps the defection of the children had cost her this as well. Findnar might be a much smaller foundation than the Motherhouse at Whitby but with new members arriving so recently, it was clear their little community could be expected to grow. Many felt a calling to preach in the wilderness as the early fathers of the Church had done and perhaps one day, Findnar might be an important Christian center on this remote coast. Poor Gunnhilde. She burned to be allowed to contribute to a greater degree, if only to expiate sins and misjudgments of the past.

  But Cuillin waved an impatient hand over her bent head. “Get up, Sister. I will await you in the chapel.” His shoulders slumped as he strode away. Though it was his clear duty to discipline the children, he knew it would be difficult imposing his will on Gunnhilde. On the one hand, she was too soft to be in charge of any of their young people—and it was for that reason he’d successfully argued against her becoming his coruler—but on the other, Gunnhilde’s belief in the rightness of her own opinions was most unsuitable for any nun. And today there was proof—if he’d ever needed it—for later she dared to argue with him on the matter of penance.

  “God is love, Brother. These two children cannot endure the privation of a long fast. See how thin they are.” Perhaps the brutal raid of last year gave the nun courage, for more suffering seemed pointless. “And the scourge. Please, Brother Abbot, not the scourge. The boy has not long recovered from his previous wounds, and Signy is just too little to withstand it.”