I wave a hand to stem the flow of his words, each one tearing a piece of my armour away.
“What, Ness?”
“I just —” I shake my head, pressing the heel of my hand against each eye. I feel as jagged as the cliff edge, disloyal to both Dunnett and Vidya.
Marta was right: Vidya has done a lot for me. As for Dunnett: it was Colm Brewster, not the islanders, who drove me out. I exhale abruptly. Colm will be the biggest opponent to Marta’s plan, unless he can be made to believe that it’s in his own interests to develop trade. If he thinks he has something to gain, he’ll turn the Council to his will and the islanders will follow. People on Dunnett fear change, but not nearly so much as they fear Colm.
“One thing Dunnett does well is farm,” I say at last. “But they won’t welcome outsiders.”
“You’re not an outsider.”
“I —” My words trip on my tongue.
“I’d be glad to go back.” Ronan says. I can’t think of an answer. Ronan has nothing to go back to. There’s no one left on Ister.
The lines on Dev’s forehead deepen as I put my proposal to Marta. “It’s not fair to ask Ness to go,” he says, as soon as I’ve finished. “The islanders turned on her. Her life would be at risk.”
“Ness is no longer a child, Devdan,” Marta says. “It’s her decision to make.”
“We can’t just sail into the harbour at Dunn and expect a fair hearing,” I tell them. “The islanders’ prejudices are too ingrained, their attitude towards strangers unyielding. We’ll need allies — and local knowledge.”
“And the fact that your life is forfeit on Dunnett?” Dev says. “Your presence might antagonise the Council and jeopardise the mission.”
Marta speaks up before I have a chance to reply. “This is precisely why we’re having this discussion. We need to formulate the best strategy. And perhaps it would be timely to remind ourselves that our responsibility lies in doing what is best for Vidya.”
Dev takes a breath. “Ness, three years ago you convinced me that it would be destructive to talk to Dunnett’s Council. What do you imagine will have changed?”
“That’s my point: we don’t know. Colm might have died or the Council elected a new leader.” Neither is very likely, but I choose not to say so. “The easiest way to find out is for me to go back.”
Marta leans forward. Her age is showing in the thinning of her hair and the fine veins that weave a blue mesh beneath her skin. “You don’t think, Ness, that you simply want to go back for your own sake? To see your family, for example?”
“Of course I do, but that’s only a part of it. Talking to my brother and cousin is the quickest way to find out if there have been any changes since I left. If there have: who knows. It might be possible for Explorer to sail into the harbour without risk, but it would be safest to land first at Leewood and find out.”
“Safest,” Dev mutters, scepticism brittle in his voice. “It was the farmers from around Leewood who tried to stone us, as I recall.”
“The plan is not without risks,” Marta says. “But Devdan, what would you have us do?”
He has no answer. I tamp down both excitement and dread, the better to focus on the questions that interest the governors. “Dunnett easily produces enough to feed itself, so generating a surplus shouldn’t prove difficult,” I tell them, surer now of my ground. I’ve spent the last two days thinking about little else.
“Finding something to offer in return will be more of a challenge. We need to be careful initially that we don’t off end their beliefs, which means avoiding new technology and anything that on Dunnett would be considered teck.” A glance around the table confirms I have their attention.
I take a breath before continuing. It’s not only the islander’s sensibilities that concern me. I want to be sure, as well, that my proposal doesn’t undermine Vidya’s farm communities — or the governors’ support for them. “The first thing we offer is farm equipment and supplies, including seed and tuber varieties that Truso thinks will do well on the island. Home Farm could shift some of its land into seed-stock production.” I have no intention of leaving Truso out of my calculations. Marta smiles thinly. “As well, we share our data on the fisheries and help them re-establish a fishing industry.”
“I thought our interest was in agriculture,” one of the governors objects.
“The islanders will be able to produce a surplus most easily if they’re not relying on the land alone to feed themselves. Developing a fishing industry will also help them move away from the belief that their isolation is a good thing.” Which might help to end Colm’s tenure as undisputed leader of Dunnett — though that’s a goal I don’t intend sharing with Vidya’s governors.
Marta nods. “Both proposals appear manageable. Any further suggestions, Ness?”
I straighten in my chair. “Once trade is established, I think we should invite them to send people to Vidya, and to take what they learn back to Dunnett Island.”
There’s a moment’s silence. I hurry on. “If they could see for themselves that all technology isn’t bad, it would help the island — as well as making them a stronger trading partner,” I add.
“What they see might not impress them.” It’s the first time Brenon’s spoken.
“Some of it won’t,” I agree. “But there’s more potential for trade if the island decides to accept technology.”
“And if they want weapons?” Brenon asks.
“I would hope, in the early stages at least, that weapons won’t come up,” Marta says.
“They will,” Dev says. He doesn’t look at me. Dev’s knowledge of the island came largely from me — and from the islanders’ efforts to kill him once they learned of his existence. My resolve quails slightly as I remember the strength of Jed’s hate.
“Perhaps we’ll deal with that later,” Marta says. “For now, the practicalities.”
Dev is not alone in his reservations about my inclusion on the trip. One of the governors suggests I’m too young for such a weight of risk and responsibility. I don’t remind her that I carried my share of both when Ebony Hill was attacked. It strikes me that the governors don’t really understand what it was like. Perhaps they can’t — or perhaps the intervening year has allowed them to forget.
It makes no difference. Marta’s will carries the discussion. “We’re agreed then. Lara will captain Explorer with her usual crew; Ness and Ronan are included for their knowledge of the islands; and on Brenon’s recommendation, Farra heads the mission.”
“It’ll be cramped with three extra bodies on board,” Lara says, “especially if you expect us to bring back a catch of fish as well.”
“As Ness is a medic, perhaps Kush could stand down. There’s no need to have two,” someone suggests.
“Kush is a sailor as well as a medic,” Lara replies, in a voice like cold water. “And as captain, I believe I choose my crew, if not my passengers.”
Marta quells her with a look. “Certainly you choose your crew. As Explorer’s captain, you have complete authority regarding sea-sci work undertaken after the mission to Dunnett is complete. But assessing the potential for trade with the islands is the key priority of the trip, and responsibility for that rests with Farra. I trust that’s understood?”
Lara’s nod is terse, her expression leaving no doubt that she resents her research voyage being subverted.
As we walk back through the courtyard, I make the observation to Ronan that Marta and Lara share stubbornness as a trait. He laughs, though he refuses to tell me why.
CHAPTER 7
The breeze bites sharp in my face, swelling the sail above till it seems it must tear and spill the wind it’s caught. Dev, salt dried in pale whorls across his cheeks, pauses beside me. “Dunnett lies west of those skerries — see the smudge on the horizon?”
“It looks like cloud.”
“It is: cloud around the island’s hills.” He hesitates. “Ness, you don’t have to do this. Farra or I could go first an
d you can land later, once we know where things stand.”
“No.” We’ve been over this often enough, always coming back to the same point: I alone know Dunnett Island. “It’s definitely tonight?”
He nods, reluctance scrawled across his face. “If anything goes wrong, get off-shore straight away. If there’s trouble, you’ll be safer in the boat than on land.”
Of that, I’m unconvinced. Our departure from Dunnett, in the dark, in a dinghy, with only a compass bearing to guide us back to Explorer, feels to me the flimsiest part of our plan. Dev has more faith than I in both the compass and Lara.
“And make sure you hide the boat well. If anyone finds it, you’ll be trapped.”
I sigh. His faith seems not to extend to me. “We will be careful, Dev.”
“I know, I know.” His smile holds both apology and apprehension.
“We’ll be on the island for less than a day, and we probably won’t need to go any farther than Leewood,” I assure him. “Even if we do, it’ll only be to Merryn’s. And while we’re there, the dinghy will be safe in the cave at Skellap Bay.” My heart sings as I say it, even as my belly lurches.
My emotions have been pulled back and forth so many times they don’t know where to settle. Knowing that I’ll soon see my brother and cousin sends delight fizzing through me, but within my anticipation lurks a corner of doubt. I can’t guess how things might have changed in my absence, or how Ty and Sophie will react. I try not to let myself expect too much.
“You should get some rest,” Lara says, coming up beside Dev. She’s been happier since we set sail, and it occurs to me that she likes the tainted air and crowds of Vidya no better than I. “I’ll take us as close as I can so you’ve less distance to row, but it’ll be a slow tack with the wind against us. You’ve hours to wait yet.”
My eyes roam the sea horizon. The skerries are fading from view in the withering light, the smudge of island already lost. My belly dips and sways like the ocean below us. Above, wind snaps in the sail. “I doubt I’ll be able to sleep.”
“Try at least. It’ll be a long day tomorrow by the time we pick you up, and who knows whether you’ll get the opportunity after you land.” Lara links her arm through Dev’s. As our eyes meet she smiles.
Last night she made me promise that I’d keep myself safe. “Devdan wouldn’t forgive himself if anything happened to you, Ness. You should have seen him last summer when news of the Paras’ attack on Ebony Hill arrived in Vidya. He blamed himself that you were there.” For all that she’d been aiming for off-hand, I’d caught the intensity underlying her words. Her smile had been lopsided. “It matters to me, that he’s happy,” she’d added.
Dev’s happiness matters to me as well, though I’ve understood for a year that my feelings are different from Lara’s. With a last glance towards the horizon I bid them goodnight.
Even though I’ve grown accustomed to the shift and sway of the ship, I can’t settle. An image of my Pa creeps into my head: Pa with his strong arms and fanciful stories, his smile broad in his weathered face. But I recall also the sadness that engulfed him, that would send him up Cullin Hill to stare out across the ocean. I’ve sometimes wondered why he stayed on Dunnett after Mama died. But then, where would he have gone? We’d heard what had happened on his home island of Tay. He was lucky he’d been at sea when the sickness swept through his people.
Or perhaps it wasn’t lucky to be alive when nearly everyone you knew and cared for was dead. An image of Ronan, alone on an empty sea, jostles for a place beside Pa, bringing a premonition of disaster leaping up within me. Spreading my fingers wide, I press my palm against the wall above my bunk, so that I can feel the sea’s pulse like a heartbeat. “Be with us, Pa,” I whisper. Who knows whether he hears me.
It’s a relief when Lara’s hand shakes me out of my tattered dreams. In the galley, Kush slides a heaped plate towards me. The bread tastes doughy and damp on my tongue, the beans soggy with egg. I push the food away half-eaten.
“You’ll need the energy,” Kush says. He’s fine-boned and tall, his skin dark like Dev’s, his nose too long for his face. His eyes are watchful as a gull’s, but softer.
“I’m not hungry.”
Ronan reaches for the plate. It was Farra’s decision that Ronan should come with me. “If anyone questions us, we can tell them I was the stranger Ness found,” Ronan had argued, “and that she helped me because I was from her father’s island. That way there’s no need to bring Vidya into it at all.”
“It could work.” Farra had discounted Dev’s objection that Ronan looked nothing like him. “Only Ty and Sophie saw you up close, Devdan, and they won’t give Ness away. With the island connection, her actions would seem more misguided than traitorous.”
“Jed saw me too,” Dev had pointed out.
“Inside the cave, at night,” Ronan had answered. Now that he’s found his voice, he can be almost too convincing.
“It’s irrelevant because they won’t get caught,” Lara had countered. “Ness makes contact with her family, finds out where things stand, then we pick the pair of them up as agreed.”
As I watch Ronan eat, I let myself look square at the reality of all the things that could go wrong: the timing, the weather, our landing and departure. What if I can’t find Ty or Sophie? What if we’re discovered — will Ronan’s story hold? Would even Marn believe it? Thinking of Colm Brewster’s hard eyes, I doubt it. And even if I do find my family, what then? Will they be happy to see me, or will they have given me up for dead long since, and be content, as well, to leave it that way?
“There are too many risks,” Dev had announced, when we were working out the plan.
“There are always risks. It’s the way life is.” Lara’s brusque tone had earned a scowl from Dev, but half an hour later, as they stowed a sail, they had nothing but smiles running between them.
Lara puts her head through the galley door. “I’ve taken us as close as we can risk in the dark,” she says. “Are you ready?”
Ronan and I follow her out. At the ship’s rail I hesitate. “The weather should hold,” Lara says, “but if it clags in before dark, get off-shore straight away. We’ll be waiting.”
Our gear is already stowed. Dev steadies the ladder as I clamber down to the dinghy. We’d debated taking the larger surfboat, but I wasn’t sure we’d be able to get it into the cave. “The dinghy is more manageable,” Lara confirmed. “And it isn’t as if speed is a factor.”
As I settle within it, it seems a frail thing set against the expanse of ocean around us. My heart begins a slow hammering.
“You’ve got the flares?” Dev asks, leaning from the deck above. “Any problems, Ness, you use them.” I force my face into a smile. The dinghy rocks as Ronan steps off the ladder. My hands grip the gunwales.
“Ready?” Farra calls. The quarter of moon slides free of cloud, silvering his face and the surface of the sea.
I nod, coiling the rope as he casts us off. Spray flicks across me in a cold baptism as Ronan manoeuvres the oars. When I turn to look back, Explorer is already dropping behind, the figures at the rail barely distinguishable. Wind tugs at my hair as we slide through the moon-burnished water. Somewhere ahead lies the island where I was born. Eagerness lifts like a wave as I search the night for my first sight in three years of the bird’s-wing curve of Skellap Bay.
The dark feels thick as treacle as Ronan pulls us cautiously forward. Cloud has stolen the moonlight, but the crash of waves on rock and the smell — of beached kelp and drying salt — warn us of the island’s shore.
“Veer a little to your right,” I advise, my voice pitched just above the slap of waves.
Cold droplets scatter across us as we meet a swell side-on. The cloud severs abruptly, unveiling the looming mass of the headland and, tucked beyond, the pale slash of the bay. “There!” I say, excitement coiling in my chest. My eyes latch onto the glimmering curve of sand, its tangled line of flotsam a dark husk across it. I hunt for the path that leads up
from the shore, but the cloud closes again, shuttering my vision. “Farther right,” I whisper. “If we land in the centre of the bay we can walk the boat back to the cave.” He takes two cautious strokes, the water hissing past the dinghy’s sides. “Here,” I whisper.
“I don’t like landing blind.”
Our little boat tosses in the swell. A sudden rift opens in the cloud, showing the bay ahead. The wash of light is gone as quickly as it came. “Straight in,” I tell him.
We find our way by luck alone, the boat lifted by a swell and swept forward, its keel scraping sweetly over sand. A wild laugh tears up within me and I seal my lips against it. Ronan ships the oars as a following wave shunts us higher, slewing the dinghy sideways. “We’ll have to wait for a break in the clouds to shift it into the cave.”
He’s right. The rocks below the cliff are too great a hazard in the dark. Impatience brews within me as we stand aimless on the sand. When the clouds finally blow clear, I tug at the dinghy’s rope and lead it bucking like a pony along the incoming tide.
As the mass of the headland looms ahead, I peer in doubt. Something’s wrong. Where the waves should run deep along the channel that edges the cliff, they curl and crash instead against a tower of rocks. I hand the tow rope to Ronan. “I think there’s been a rock fall. I’d better take a look first.”
“Wait.” He rummages in his pack and hands me a torch. “Don’t use it until you’re inside the cave.”
Water flicks up from my heels as I hurry across the damp sand, the incoming waves frothing around my ankles, waking an image of Sophie skipping away from the sea foam.
Boulders are jumbled high around the mouth of the cave, so that it comes as a relief when I find a narrow entry. Inside, the dark is absolute. I crank the torch’s dynamo handle and memories come leaping from the shadows as the thin beam dances around the walls.
The cave is not as I remember it. Rubbish lies strewn across the floor — not the flotsam of the sea, but ugly piles of teck: old drums and rusting metal, crushed and warped into unrecognisable shapes. There’s a smell of death about it. For a moment I let the arc of light linger on the ledge, as littered as the cave floor, where we cared for Dev, then I turn and clamber past the rocks.
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