by Finn Óg
*****
I never asked what was on the memory card. The twin made copies, the Belgian tracked down the addresses. Each was posted a copy of their compromising behaviour. I read the obituaries in the online sections of newspapers. Ten of the Circle, the Visitors as they called themselves, perished at their own instigation. The Keeper made eleven, which left one. For the time being, I chose to let him worry, and run.
The Charity woman dealt with the Heir. That poor woman’s location had formed the Keeper’s last sentence. I passed it to Charity, outlined her circumstances, and didn’t ask any more. I knew the victim was in good hands. I had others to care for.
I picked them up in a small marina, in a town called Palamos, on the east coast of Spain. Dad wasn’t Olympic, but for a seventy-something with a freshly punctured lung, he was in astonishing shape.
Isla was brilliant, just brilliant. Her little arms wrapped around my neck and we hugged for ten solid minutes before I swung her aboard, and gave her her orders. Like the salty little seabird she’d become, she fell into line, busying herself with the warps, as my mum and dad looked on with pride. Brown as a berry and steady as a rock, she leaned into me as the breeze took the cutter and healed her to lee. With the warm breeze on our necks and a glass in our paws, we left the coast of one country, and headed to another.
ABOUT FINN
Finn Óg is a pseudonym. “Charlie” is his first book. Finn lives and works in Ireland, is surrounded by rogues and does not venture inland unless absolutely necessary. To find out more or to be among the first to get the next book in the series (when it’s finished) please visit:
www.finnog.com
A taster from the second part in the trilogy…
CHARLIE II
The Crossing
The world is irritatingly small.
Sam stood on Dublin’s Grafton Street, watched the man go up in flames, and cursed how approximate people have become. He sighed, for a moment, and watched the crowd part like a sea of red, the glow of the inferno flickering off their faces, horrifying and beguiling in almost equal measure. He shook his head, looked to the sky, and then stepped forward to douse the screams. He would grow to wish he’d let the man burn.
**
“Snap!”
Isla was cheating, as usual, in part due to a misunderstanding of the rules. At six years old, the fun was more in beating her father to the claim, than in stockpiling cards, and so she shouted before the face had been flipped. It gave Sam delight too, to watch how her little mind anticipated his hand movements, to see her excitement. It seemed like a normal, wholesome thing to do of an evening, after all that the wee woman had been through.
They were drifting, alone, across the Mediterranean, in their fifty-four foot home. It was deliberately slow progress, there had been a lot of re-building to do, and the work was far from finished. Sam doubted whether his daughter’s scars would ever properly heal, but she was gradually becoming less afraid of bedtime, and of the potential horror that sleep could bring her.
He’d made resolutions, starting with work. He wouldn’t take on any job that could possibly impact upon his daughter, or his family. The last assignment he’d become embroiled in had done that and more, and nearly killed his father. From here on in Sam determined, any risks taken would be his alone, and even at that, they would be minimal. He had a child to raise, and she had no mother to step into the breach.
“Daddy you can have some of my cards,” Isla told him, sliding a frugal collection to his side of the chart table.
“Thank you darlin’,” said Sam, the salt and the stubble tautening at a gentle reminder of his daughter’s provenance. Isla’s mother would never see anyone stuck, winning had never been Finn’s priority. “What story do you want tonight?”
“Aw-uh, is it bedtime already?”
“Not yet little lady, but in a while.”
It had become part of the ritual, to keep the imagery gentle. Stories at night, of normal life, of other girls, of school and excitement and toys and boys and the weird and horrible things they do. Sam’s plan was to encourage Isla to want such things again, to grow the appeal of ordinariness, rather than the nomadic sea-gypsy style they had become accustomed to. Although the perpetual sailing suited Sam, and for a while had seemed to be the best way to make Isla feel safe, the time would come when she would have to swim in the real world again. So their grift, when the wind blew them west, was aimed at Ireland once more.
By night Sam plotted the charts, and the future, and occasionally sailed. It allowed Isla to keep watch while he dozed by day in the cockpit. She had become quite the little sailor; she was careful and clipped on at all times above deck, and he trusted her. Mostly, they anchored or found a marina at night, but occasionally, when the notion took him, he would stand at the helm and allow his own healing. The breeze would peel back his grief, and the anonymity and privacy of the sea would allow him to let the stream roll down his cheeks. Such moments kept his pain from Isla, avoiding her interrogation and worry. He would never allow her to see him weep. She understood how much he missed his wife, her mother, but it would never be the same as it was for her. Isla had not just lost her mam, she had seen her die. They had spoken as she bled out. Isla had held her hand and looked into the face of her killer, convinced that she would be next. And worse still, she had believed that it was all her fault.
Sam read to her until the rise and ebb of her little body slowed, and he curled his neck to make sure she was deep enough to extract his arm from under her. Then he paused, for ten minutes, watching her eyelids for any sign of disturbance. Placated, he went on deck and indulged his maudlin currents, allowing himself to be swept back to better times, and to lament his loss. That’s when the tears came. Eventually he would snap out of it and start to sail the boat properly, but for a while, he would purge. It brought an odd sort of pleasure, the wallowing, the reminiscence.
He was shaken by Isla’s little face appearing in the companionway, the yellow light breaking his night vision as she came up the steps.
“What was that Daddy?” she said.
“What wee lamb?” Sam replied, scraping the tears from the crevices in his face.
“The noise, the whistle.”
Sam turned his ears from the wind and stood stock still, but could catch nothing.
“There, can you hear it daddy?”
“No love, I think you better go back to sleep,” he said, pressing the autohelm and checking the radar screen to make sure their course was clear.
He was lifting her into her bunk when she said it again.
“There it is daddy, why can’t you hear that?”
“You’re dreaming wee love, you’re still a bit asleep,” he told her, tucking her in, keen to get back to the helm in case of any debris in the sea.
“I’m not daddy, I’m really, really not,” she replied.
“Ok, I’ll go up and keep an ear out,” he said, as he hugged her. He was worried that she might not sleep now, and was anxious that they were sailing with no watch above. “I love you so much,” he said, and returned to the cockpit.
And then came the sound, high-pitched, audible to younger ears at a distance, older ones when up close. And it was close. Amid one hundred thousand square miles of sea, Sam and Isla were no longer alone, and every resolution he had made, went over the side.
