by Webb, Holly
It floated almost at her feet, an oily puddle of water slopping disconcertingly around its boards as the sea rocked it up and down.
‘There’s water in it,’ Henrietta pointed out gloomily. ‘But it seems to be the best we have. Hurry. I can hear voices on the cliff top.’
Lily quickly undid the ropes that tied the boat to the metal rings on the jetty, and Henrietta jumped onto one of the wooden seats, skidding across it and digging in her claws with a whimper.
Peter threw Lily’s bag in, and flapped his hands at Georgie – clearly he didn’t dare touch her.
Georgie stepped into the boat, flinching as the water soaked into her stockings, and Lily climbed after her, leaving Peter to push them off. She caught his hand as he bent to shove them away. ‘Won’t you come? Please?’
But he only shook his head, and pointed upwards, making angry faces at her.
Lily’s eyes filled with tears. She had not cried at the thought of leaving home, but Peter was the only friend she’d had, for so many years. ‘You have to hide then. Don’t let them see that you helped us!’
Peter nodded, and pushed the boat out towards the doorway while Lily fumbled for the oars. He groaned in panicked frustration as she tried to get them into the rowlocks, and then jumped into the water after them, stumbling along waist-deep to shove the boat further out into the true sea.
‘Thank heavens it’s calm,’ Georgie whispered, staring fearfully at the rolling water ahead of them.
‘Thank you!’ Lily called softly back to Peter, as she dipped the oars into the water. ‘I’ll come back for you,’ she added in a whisper. ‘I hope…’
Her last sight of him was a wet bedraggled figure – much like the smaller, thinner child she’d seen that first time three years before. He waved once, and then ducked quickly underneath the jetty, moulding himself against the pilings in the darkness.
‘Do you know how to do that?’ Georgie murmured in surprise, watching Lily struggling with the oars.
Lily shook her head. ‘No,’ she gasped. ‘But we’re moving, that’s what matters. I don’t mind where we end up, as long it’s away from here. Can you see anyone? Are they on the path?’
‘There’s a lantern, I think. Stop glowing, Georgie,’ Henrietta commanded. ‘We don’t want them to see us.’
Georgie looked down at her hands worriedly, and then leaned over the side and dipped them in the water. The light faded slowly away, leaving them out on the sea in black night. Suddenly the noise of the water seemed louder, slapping against the side of the boat, dripping and splashing as Lily tried to row.
‘I can see lights in the other direction, too.’ Henrietta had scrambled up to the little seat in the prow of the boat, and was staring ahead of them. ‘That must be the village. Keep going, Lily! Faster!’
‘I’m trying, but the oars don’t seem to want to go where I want them to go.’
‘Here, I’ll take one.’ Georgie wriggled forward, trying not to tip the boat, and sat next to her, taking the right-hand oar. Squashed together on the narrow wooden seat, Lily felt a sudden surge of happiness, one she almost felt she had no right to when they were running for their lives. But she had Georgie back, close enough to touch.
‘Lily, watch out! You’re about to drop that,’ her sister hissed crossly. ‘Listen, we have to do this together. Dip your oar in. Pull…pull…pull…’
‘We’re getting closer to the village,’ Henrietta reported. ‘Oof!’
‘What’s the matter?’ Lily didn’t dare turn round to look at her. ‘Henrietta, what happened?’
‘The sea’s getting rougher,’ a small, rather spluttery voice told her. ‘A wave came over the front and splashed me.’ There was a scrabble of paws as Henrietta came back into the main part of the boat.
Lily stopped concentrating quite so hard on the rhythm of the oars, and looked around. Although it was still so dark, her eyes had adjusted a little, and she could see shapes, as though there were different shades of black. The waves were definitely higher.
‘This isn’t natural,’ Henrietta said suddenly. ‘It was almost a flat calm when we set out, and now this? This is a spell. Your mother has bewitched the sea.’ Her voice had dropped to a half-whimper, and Lily realised with a jolt that the dog was scared. But seconds later Henrietta had wriggled past her, and was up on the bench seat in front of the girls, her paws on the coaming, barking defiantly at the water that slopped over her as the waves grew taller, and at the unseen magician on the beach.
Almost in answer, a wind began to shriek around the boat, whipping the waves up even higher, so that the boat plunged and spun around.
‘Pull the oars in,’ Lily cried. ‘Henrietta, get down, you’ll be swept overboard,’ she called to the little black dog, who was still perched at the side in a frenzy of barking – but Henrietta was so angry she didn’t seem to notice Lily’s voice, or the water that swept past her, swallowing her angry barks.
Lily crawled forward against the wind to try to grab her, but Georgie caught her skirt. ‘Lily, you have to get down, the waves will take you!’
‘I have to get Henrietta!’ Lily screamed in her sister’s ear.
‘Then I’m holding on to you!’ Georgie yelled back. ‘I’ll hold the seat and you, while you grab her.’ She seized Lily’s ankle and gripped it tightly, all the while muttering the words of a spell that Lily didn’t think was working.
Lily reached out and tried to catch Henrietta, but the little dog bounded away, skittering across the seat to the other side of the boat to bark furiously at the walls of water on the other side.
‘Come back!’ Lily wailed, tears filling her eyes once more. She lunged after Henrietta, but the boat tipped, and she found herself hanging half out into the water.
‘Lily!’ she heard Georgie scream after her, and she wriggled back a little, sobbing, and watched in the darkness as her silvery tears fell into the sea.
‘That was clever,’ an interested voice said from by her shoulder. ‘Did you do it on purpose?’
Lily sat up, and caught the glint of Henrietta’s huge black eyes in the darkness.
‘It stopped,’ she murmured.
Georgie was uncurling herself from the bottom of the boat. ‘What did you do? I was trying, but I’m sure it wasn’t me.’
‘She cried,’ Henrietta said smugly. ‘When her tears hit the water, she broke your mother’s spell. You’re rather good at breaking spells, Lily.’
‘The storm swept us closer to the mainland, look!’ Georgie pointed ahead. The sea was thumping against a rock-strewn beach, and the current seemed to be pulling the little boat onto the shore. They sat huddled together, shivering in their soaking wet clothes, as the friendly waves swept them closer in. At last, there was a soft crunching sound, and the boat grounded on the sand.
Lily climbed over the side, hardly noticing the water splashing round her boots, and looked around them. The lights from the village up on the top of the cliff were going out now, and the darkness was so thick she could almost touch it. She heard a splash as Georgie climbed out of the boat too, and went wading up onto the beach. Lily leaned back over the boat. ‘Shall I lift you?’ she asked Henrietta. ‘It’s still up past my ankles.’
There was no answer.
‘Henrietta, what is it? I won’t let you get wet.’ Lily laughed. ‘I know you’re soaked already, but it’s different jumping into it.’
There was a scuffling noise, and Henrietta came closer, and nuzzled her hand. ‘I don’t know if I can.’
Lily ran a hand over her damp fur. ‘Why?’
‘I’m a family dog. Part of your family, your magic. I belong in the house, in that portrait. This is a Merrythought boat still. But once I step onto the land…’
Lily stopped stroking, and stared at the little lump of darker night that was Henrietta. She had known her for only a day and a half, and she couldn’t imagine what she would do if the pug disappeared. ‘What would happen to you?’ she stammered. ‘Will you just go back to the painting?
Why didn’t you say?’
‘It wouldn’t have made any difference.’ Lily could feel Henrietta’s shrug. ‘You had to go. And you needed me to help you get away, even if all I did was make you cry at just the right moment.’
‘You can’t.’ Lily put her arms round Henrietta tightly, making sure not to pull her away from the boat. ‘You can’t go back to that painting. I won’t let you.’
‘I might not. I simply don’t know.’ Henrietta sounded offhand, as though she was discussing whether or not to drink a cup of tea, but Lily could hear her voice shaking, just a little.
‘Lily! Are you coming?’ Georgie splashed back towards them. ‘Shall we walk up to the village? It’s awfully dark, I don’t know what would be best… We don’t want anyone to see us, but it would be easy to get lost…’
‘I think we should spend the night here,’ Lily murmured distractedly. She couldn’t bear the thought of taking Henrietta out of the boat in the dark. She wanted to see her again, properly, at least once more.
‘At dawn,’ Henrietta whispered in her ear, and Lily nodded.
Lily woke, cramped and frozen, with Henrietta curled in a ball of black fur on her lap. Georgie was lying next to her, with her head resting on the sodden bag of clothes she’d brought with her. The boat was rocking gently as the tide came in, and the sky was a soft rose-pink, streaked with yellow as the sun came up. She gazed wearily over the side of the boat to the beach. Soft biscuit-brown sand spread up to grassy dunes, so unlike the grey rocky cliffs of Merrythought that it seemed another world. How could the two places exist, less than two miles from each other?
The world across the sea had come to seem almost imaginary, since Lily had dreamed of it for so long. Now that she was here, and it was so clearly real, Lily found herself wondering if she were the dream. A strange, half-grown magician’s child, with no proper understanding of magic. She sounded unreal, even to herself.
‘Shall we try?’ Henrietta had woken, and was standing on her lap, digging in her sharp little claws as she fidgeted anxiously back and forth.
Lily nodded, wriggling out from under Georgie, and leaving her sister sleeping. Stretching out her cramped legs, she scrambled over the side of the boat, hissing at the cold of the water as it sloshed around her ankles. Then she held out her arms to Henrietta, and the little dog closed her eyes and leaped.
Lily hugged her tightly, standing there in the water, waiting for her arms to suddenly be empty. But it didn’t happen. When she opened her eyes, Henrietta was still there, looking slightly surprised.
‘Well. Good.’ She shook her ears in relief. ‘Perhaps it’s because I’m with a Merrythought girl,’ she told Lily, licking her cheek. ‘Shall we go and explore?’
‘Lily, look! We did it. We’re here…’ Georgie was sitting up, staring around her in amazement. She climbed out of the boat, and stepped onto the sand, holding her damp skirts out in front of her as if they were a party dress. ‘It was too dark to see last night, and I was so tired. But now…’ She went dancing off up the sand, twirling and laughing like a mad thing.
Lily and Henrietta exchanged surprised glances. Lily hadn’t seen her sister like this in years – always she had been pale and worried-looking, scared that her spells weren’t working, and terrified their mother would find out. Now it was as if Georgie was the little sister, dancing to some gleeful music only she could hear.
‘We have to look after her…’ Lily murmured to Henrietta, following Georgie up the beach.
‘Mm.’ The little dog nodded. ‘Someone needs to. Really. Look at her!’
Georgie wandered back to them smiling dazedly, her damp blonde hair frizzing out like the floss silk trim on some of Mama’s dresses.
‘We look a sight,’ Lily said, suddenly glancing down at her damp, crumpled skirt, and salt-stained boots. ‘We should change before we set off.’
Georgie shook her head, seeming to come back to her senses again. ‘The bags got wet too, remember? All our clothes will be wet. I’ll do my best to dry us out as we walk. I remember a spell I found in the library. There was a handwritten book, something that one of the great-great-aunts had made. It was full of spells for things like that. Polishing furniture, and getting rid of ants in the kitchen. Mama said it was all nonsense, but I liked it.’
Lily nodded, and swallowed. ‘Should we go, then?’ she asked quietly.
Georgie turned to look back at the boat, and then across the water to the greyish lump that was the island in the dawn light.
‘I suppose we should.’
‘Isn’t it strange to be somewhere else,’ Lily whispered to her, and Georgie nodded.
‘I don’t know how to be, away from there,’ she murmured.
‘What you have to be is careful,’ Henrietta warned her. ‘If all magic is really outlawed now, you mustn’t let any slip. Make sure this clothes-drying spell doesn’t glitter, or anything silly like that.’
‘I’d forgotten,’ Georgie said, her eyes widening. Then she smiled, and said slyly, ‘You realise you’re going to have to keep quiet, don’t you?’
Henrietta looked horrified for a second, and then she glared at Georgie. ‘Of course I do.’ But Lily was almost certain she hadn’t thought of it. She set off up the beach, wanting to distract Henrietta before she said something unforgivable to her sister, which she thought the pug was quite capable of doing. Probably she would enjoy it.
A footpath ran along the top of the beach, leading to the village, which was only just starting to stir. The girls could hear a woman singing to herself as she lit her fire, the smoke spiralling delicately from the little chimney of her cottage.
‘We should get through the village quickly,’ Lily murmured, shaking herself. She wanted to stop and stare. It was all so strange. ‘They’ll know where we’ve come from. It won’t be long before Mama comes searching, it’s better no one sees us.’
‘Your mama might think you’re both drowned,’ Henrietta said, out of the corner of her mouth, after a quick glance from side to side.
Lily shook her head. ‘I think she’d have rescued us, wouldn’t she? Or perhaps she thought Georgie would save us somehow. After all, she needs us – one of us.’
‘Maybe she was too angry to think straight. Working the sea must have worn out her magic for a while.’ Georgie shivered, hurrying on between the cottages. ‘Which way is it to Lacefield?’
They were coming to a slightly wider track now, which met the footpath at right angles. ‘There’s a sign, look.’ Lily hurried on, and they stood looking up at the signpost. ‘Lacefield, three miles that way.’
Lily knew that all the supplies for the house came from the grocer’s at Lacefield, and that whenever anyone had visited – although Lily wasn’t sure she’d ever seen anyone apart from the family, and the yearly visits of the Queen’s Men – they had come by train to the station there. Eventually the train would wind its way through the countryside to Paddington station. London. Where they could hide out while they searched for their father.
‘Stay by the hedges,’ Henrietta muttered. ‘Then if we see anyone coming, we can crawl through and hide in the fields.’
‘But what shall we do when we get to Lacefield?’ Georgie said worriedly. ‘We won’t be able to creep through a town without anyone seeing us. And at the station we’ll have to buy tickets, and ask about the trains. Someone might recognise us as the children from Merrythought House.’
‘Can you do a glamour yet?’ Lily asked her hopefully. She had read about glamours. They were a particular sort of spell designed to make people see one quite differently. It was quite technical, and all to do with confusing the way people’s eyes and minds connected things together.
‘I think I could, but only if I had time to sit and concentrate. And I might need some sort of amulet to help.’ Georgie sighed. ‘I didn’t pack anything like that. Mama would have noticed if I’d taken anything from the library. I only brought a few basic ingredients, and the books I had in my room. I waterproofed them,’ she
added proudly.
Lily was just about to say that it would have helped if Georgie had waterproofed all the baggage, when Henrietta suddenly gave a meaningful sort of squeak, and nipped her ankle. Lily looked around wildly and realised with horror that an old man was walking towards them, leading a horse and cart. It was far too late to hide now.
‘Brazen it out,’ she muttered to Georgie, who looked as though she had been sentenced to death.
Georgie gulped, and nodded. She pasted a sickly sort of smile onto her face, stood up straighter, and nodded to the man as he and the horse plodded past.
Lily smiled too, but she was waiting for the man to stare, and demand to know where they had come from. They had been walking through deserted fields and patches of woodland – no more villages, or indeed any signs of life, apart from a few disinterested sheep. He was probably from the village by the beach, returning home after a trip to the market in Lacefield, perhaps. He would know that they weren’t village girls. Despite the salt stains, and the damp, and Lily’s dress being made for a girl at least two years younger than she was, they were clearly dressed as young ladies, even if they had sopping wet boots on. A village child probably wouldn’t have had boots at all, sopping or otherwise.
But although the man glanced at them curiously, all he did was tip his hat out of politeness, and venture a gruff, ‘Good morning, miss, and to you, miss.’
‘Good morning,’ Georgie told him, smiling more naturally, and Lily added, ‘Good morning to you.’
And they carried on, trying to turn round to see if he were staring after them, or whether he was setting off at a run to call the constable, and accuse them of being dangerous runaways.
‘He didn’t even look back,’ Henrietta whispered. She had been watching openly – after all, as far as he knew, she was only a dog.
Lily couldn’t help feeling a little insulted, although she knew that it was silly. He might have been at least a little interested in who they were.
‘I suppose we never, ever come off the island,’ she said quietly.
