‘Freya, is it you?’
The voice was close now, almost upon her. She inhaled deeply and smelled the ocean, salt and seaweed. Then she opened her eyes.
‘Freya?’
She could see a man running towards her. Then he was down on his knees at her side.
‘Freya.’
He turned her over and the sky came into view. As he brushed the hair from her face she saw clouds like small puffs of smoke. The sky is on fire, she thought.
‘Freya, can you hear me?’
She shifted her gaze to the man. He had kind grey eyes, but they looked anxious, the lines at their edges pronounced. And his body was taut as he repeated her name over and over.
She managed to nod her head. Just a fraction but it hurt her. She tried but she couldn’t speak. So she smiled instead.
The man took a sharp intake of breath and then released it. It felt to Freya as if he had been suddenly deflated, his tension dispelled onto the air. Then he smiled back. His eyes lit up when he did that. ‘Jesus, Freya. You had me worried sick. And Torin. He sent me over to check on you.’
He took off his jacket, rolled it up and put it under her head. He examined her as he did it. ‘You’re bleeding, Freya. What happened? Where’s your boat?’
‘Corryvreckan,’ she managed to get out.
Callum’s eyes rolled, concern overtaking them again. ‘Jesus. And you made it back here. How the hell …?’ His words stuttered to a halt. ‘Are you okay?’
She looked at Callum again. ‘I am now,’ she said, and reached for his hand.
He took hers, squeezed it and smiled again. Then he grabbed his phone.
‘I think we need to get someone out here to have a look at you. And you know I’ll never be able to get any service down here.’
He fiddled around for a moment or two before giving up. Then he pulled off his sweater and covered her with it. ‘I’ll have to go up to the house. Use the phone there. Don’t you be going anywhere while I’m gone. Promise?’
Freya smiled but felt a ricochet of pain through her head. She winced and tried to lie still.
‘Aye, don’t move, don’t try and speak.’ Callum jumped to his feet. ‘I’ll be back in a minute and I’ll bring blankets and water.’ He started to leave but then turned back to her as if something had just occurred to him. ‘I almost didn’t recognise you. With your hair and everything.’
Freya frowned as she watched him turn and run up the beach to the cottage. What was he talking about? She reached and took a strand of her hair in her hand. What she saw she couldn’t believe. It was black. She took another strand and then another. But it was the same. Her hair was black once more. She thought about the Corryvreckan: a flash of silver in the deep, golden hair interlinking with her own.
She felt another stab of pain in her head and closed her eyes. Out of the darkness of her mind a beach appeared, an arc of bright white sand, and behind it a swathe of green machair. From a corner of the beach a young boy came running, stumbling over the rocks as he approached the water’s edge, laughing at his own clumsiness. His blond hair was whipped by the wind and his eyes were bright, shining with delight. He looked at her and smiled. I love you, he called out, and she repeated the words back to him. Then the boy turned and shouted out to the man who was following behind him, a tall man with the same eyes, once icy blue but now warm. The man and the boy stood side by side on the beach looking at her for a moment. Then they turned and carried on until they disappeared from view. Freya smiled. It was a special place they had found, that was what she told herself, a place always bathed in sunlight, with a magical spring that kept its inhabitants for ever young. The Green Island. It was a place she too would like to find one day.
She opened her eyes again and, as she lay staring at the sky, she realised something else. It wasn’t just her hair that had changed. She felt different too. The darkness inside her had shifted. The pain was still there – would no doubt always be there. But intermingled with it was something else she hadn’t felt for a long time. Hope had returned.
44
FREYA HEARD A whirring sound. She opened her eyes and realised that she was still lying on the beach. She had no idea how long she had been there, but she caught sight of Callum, a blur of motion, running back towards her.
Then she saw blades circling above her, heard their deafening roar. A helicopter. She felt the presence of people nearby, hands softly touching her head, lifting her, strapping her onto something – a stretcher, most likely – and raising her up. Then she was weightless, flying – almost the same sensation as floating below the surface of water. Suddenly afraid, she cried out for Callum. After a moment she felt his hand upon hers, caught sight of his face above her smiling, his mouth uttering words she couldn’t hear above the hum of the rotor. Her panic abated and she closed her eyes, exhausted, overcome.
The room was quiet, save for the intermittent beep of machines. It smelled vaguely of bleach and had a bare feel, with two narrow, empty beds opposite hers. She was in hospital, her left hand hooked up to a drip, her head thick and throbbing. Callum was sitting in a chair beside her, flipping through the pages of a magazine. But Freya knew, by the speed with which his eyes passed over the words, that he wasn’t concentrating on any of it. She smiled, feeling a rush of emotion.
‘So, what brings you here?’ Her voice was hoarse but she managed a smile.
‘Oh, I love a visit to the community hospital when I’m in Craignure,’ Callum joked. But there was relief in his tone. ‘How you feeling?’
‘Like shit.’
He smiled. ‘Well, that’s to be expected. You had head trauma and hypothermia. But neither too serious. Miraculously. And the coastguard got to you quickly and brought you here. Amazing considering. I mean, the Corryvreckan …’ Callum muttered.
‘Did they find Daniel?’
Callum shook his head. ‘No. I told the coastguard about your boat and they found his alongside yours. But there was no sign of him.’
‘Tell them they need to keep searching,’ Freya said, and then was overcome with a rasping cough.
‘They’re already doing it. But I’ll tell them again,’ said Callum, passing her some water and supporting her head as she drank. ‘What happened out there?’
Slowly Freya told Callum the bare bones of the story. The necklace, the fight, falling overboard. Then she remembered what she had seen, or thought she had seen, there.
‘Do you remember what we talked about at the Treshnish Isles?’
Callum nodded.
‘While I was in the water at the Corryvreckan, I thought I saw something in the darkness that swam towards me. Something that your great-great-grandfather had also seen sitting on his fishing baskets off the coast of Muck.’ Freya looked at Callum and his eyes widened. ‘I felt a presence. It spoke to me, helped me.’ She waited for Callum to say something to contradict her, to say that it was the coldness of the water making her hallucinate, the light and shadow of the underwater world creating apparitions. But he was silent, running his fingers over her hair. ‘You do believe me, don’t you?’ she said at last. She felt tired, drained from the effort of speaking.
‘I believe you,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t worry. It’ll all be fine. Your parents and sister are on their way. But for now you need to sleep.’
And as her eyelids flickered and closed, Freya saw a sudden flash of silver, swift and darting.
Then the darkness came.
45
FREYA STOOD ON the lighthouse gallery, looking out over the ocean. It was late but the sky was still a vast pale blue hanging over the sea. She had watched the moon rise, her hands wrapped around the metal railing, and she had realised for the first time that her eyes were no longer searching for a boat bringing her loved ones home. She had accepted that they would not be coming back.
Her thoughts turned to Daniel. It was now two weeks since the incident at the Corryvreckan and his body had not, as yet, been recovered. He was gone. She knew it with certain
ty. Like Daniel’s wife before him, like her husband and child. He was not coming back. The sea had taken him. Perhaps it was as simple as that. Or perhaps the Ceasg, if such things existed, had taken pity on him, on his grief-stricken madness, and granted him his wish to be reunited with his wife. Perhaps.
Freya gazed out over the emptiness of the ocean, an unusual feeling of calm upon her. She could hear the sounds of her family below: the high-pitched squabbling of her mother and sister, the lower tones of her father and Torin, no doubt discussing the truth or fiction of some Nordic tale. And then there was Alister, his voice soft yet discernible, talking on his favourite subject to Rob, Marta’s new boyfriend, a curator at the British Library.
Footsteps on the stairs disturbed her. A moment later Callum appeared, blond hair unkempt, frowning and breathing hard. But as soon as he saw her, his face broke into a smile. He came onto the gallery and stood beside her. ‘I got lobsters and razor clams. And some cod just off the boat. We could have a barbecue if you fancy it.’
She smiled back at him. ‘That sounds great. Is everyone okay down there?’ She tilted her head towards the staircase.
‘Ah, sure. They’re having a grand time.’ After Freya’s ‘accident’, as they had taken to calling it, her family had descended on the lighthouse. And she liked having them here. The irony, she told only Callum, was that for the first time since Sam and Jack had died, she was also fine to be alone. There had been a sea change within her since that day at the Corryvreckan. Whatever had happened there, a pilgrimage had been completed. She had followed Jack and Sam on their journeys and had made one of her own back again. Everything here had played a part, she thought, even Daniel. Perhaps him more than anything or anyone else. She was right to have stayed.
‘It’s miraculous,’ Callum said, reaching out to touch the ends of her hair. Like everyone else, he still struggled to believe it possible. And he was more superstitious than most. ‘Just like Beira,’ he said, not for the first time.
Freya nodded, remembering Sam’s words about the queen’s transformation.
Do you believe in magic, Mum? he had asked her.
Perhaps, she had replied.
But now her doubts had all but vanished.
Callum made a move for the staircase. ‘Will you be down soon?’
She nodded, following him into the lamp room. ‘Just as soon as I’ve finished reading.’ She pointed to Sam’s diary on the floor.
‘Okay. But don’t be too long or they’ll be up here dragging you out.’
‘I won’t,’ she said, smiling.
When he had gone, Freya sat down on the lamp-room floor and opened the diary. She looked once more at the page that two weeks ago she would have sworn had no writing on it. And there, in the uncertain hand of her son, she read the words once more that she felt had been written just for her.
We are at peace.
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First published in paperback by Arrow Books in 2015
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ISBN 9780099584957
Beyond the Sea Page 21
