by Emily Ilett
Nearing the Sisters, Gail slowed. There was a pull here, something magnetic. The rock must be so old, millions of years old, she thought. Older than everything. The Sisters stood at the lip of the river, where the water surged forward towards the cliff edge. Gail hesitated, pushing her wet fringe from her eyes. She knew she should be hurrying to find Kay’s shadow. But now, at the end of her journey, she was afraid. What if it kept running from her? What if it didn’t want to be found?
As Gail stepped slowly closer, she glimpsed the sheltered opening between the Sisters, above a rocky ledge. She reached out a hand to touch the stone and shivered as something rippled through her. Something deep and ancient, like what she’d felt back home when she and Kay had dipped their toes in the carpet-ocean.
The opening was at the height of her nose, and Gail scrambled up onto the ledge awkwardly, her legs splayed, reaching for jaggy footholds and clutching at the rock, slippery with rain. The wind roared around her like a wild animal, whipping her hair into a frenzy. Then at last she was inside, shuffling forwards into the still gloom as the storm pounded above her.
It smelled blue and sharp and salty. And it was quiet. The storm and the ocean were nothing but murmurs from inside the small cave. Like wingbeats, back and forth. The space was less than two metres deep, and not high enough to stand in. Gail crawled to the back and turned around. Through the cave opening, she could see more thunderclouds darkening like bruises in the sky. Here she was, held between two Sisters in the middle of a storm. Just like Kay had wanted. Just where they would have come, together, for this first storm after summer.
But Kay wasn’t with her. Kay was at home, alone, sinking. And as Gail stared around the cave, she realised that she, too, was completely alone: Kay’s shadow wasn’t at the Storm Sisters.
Gail was sure that this was where the shadow had been heading. Nothing else made sense. And it had been far ahead of them when they’d seen the wildcat drawing: it would have arrived at the Sisters before her. But it must have moved on. In the midst of the raging storm, and despite the shelter here. She had no idea where or why it had gone.
Gail collapsed against the cold stone wall. It felt like she was made of sand. Like a wave had reached out to lick her heart, and her whole body had come tumbling down. She’d failed. She’d promised Kay that she’d bring her shadow back, but she’d lost it.
A sound outside. A flicker of movement caught Gail’s eye, and her breath stopped. There was no mistaking the thin figure heading towards the Sisters. Francis had found her.
She put her hand flat against the old stone and tried to slow her breathing. She couldn’t face him now. Not without Kay’s shadow. Not when everything had gone so wrong. Perhaps he wouldn’t look in here. If she could just stay hidden…
Retreating, she curled her head into her body and noticed something stuck down the side of her boot. She reached to tug it free, and her hands trembled as she pulled out a scrap of the manta ray poster she’d ripped up yesterday in Kay’s room. It felt like so long ago. The memory ached inside her. But as her breath fluttered the damp piece of paper, she glimpsed something scrawled on the back. A dark scribble, the ink half-blurred. Gail squinted. It was Kay’s handwriting, and it read:
For Gale. Happy Birt
For Gale. For Gale. Gail lifted it to her eyes, so that the name filled them. Kay had called her Gale. Inside her ribs, her heart leapt, over and over, like a manta ray jumping out of the ocean.
When Gail straightened, everything was alight: her bones, her eyes, her fingertips. She wasn’t going to hide any more. For a second her legs hung uncertainly off the ledge at the opening, and then she jumped forward into the storm, landing right in front of Francis. Her eyes blazed and it was as if a thread of wind split from the sky to spin around her, unfurling her hair into a sea anemone. Francis stepped backwards.
“Gail,” he sneered, recovering himself. “What a pleasure.”
Anger bloomed in Gail’s body, the pufferfish spiking her stomach. He had taken Kay’s shadow from her. He had thrown her into the sky with bird shadows at her feet and her arms. He had hunted her through the forest. She saw the thick wood of the shadow swallower at his shoulder and hated him for it. She knew Kay’s shadow wasn’t in there. She could feel it was empty.
When she moved, she moved so fast that Francis didn’t have time to react. She moved like a gale was inside her, pulling the wooden chest from his back and heaving it up in her arms even as her shoulders burned with the effort. She lifted it high above her head and threw it down into the ravine, where it tumbled, crashing into the water, and was sucked instantly towards the waterfall.
It was over so suddenly.
One hand still clutching at her jumper from his attempt to stop her, Francis stood beside Gail, watching as the river took his shadow swallower over the sea cliff to splinter and tear on the rocks below and sink beneath the ocean. Rain poured down his cheeks.
When he spoke, Gail shrank from the ice-white agony of his voice. “What have you done? How could you—”
His eyes were wide, and, for the first time, Gail saw the storm within him that Jake had described. Flashes of pain and the thunder of a loss he couldn’t face. And Gail knew then that there were moments her own eyes looked like that. Storm-eyes. Helpless and full of anger. She swallowed.
“You took my sister’s shadow from me. How could you do that?” Her voice strained. “You have a sister, Francis.” Gail stared at the river surging over the sea cliff and struggled to put everything into words. It was all too big for her head.
Francis’s loss spooled out of him like ink. Gail closed her eyes, and she saw again the storm roiling inside him. She saw the loneliness that yawned at his centre, and it shocked her out of her confusion.
No one should be alone.
“You have a sister, Francis,” she repeated. “You’re not alone.”
Francis ignored her. “It. Was. Everything. To me. Everything I had worked for. How could you?”
Gail’s voice rose and she turned to face him. “But you’re not alone, Francis. You’ve got Mhirran. Talk to Mhirran!”
Francis shrugged her away, his eyes hooded. “Ha! My sister only talks in riddles.”
Gail scowled. “Then work them out.”
Krrrrrrhuh Krrrrrrrhuh. Gail spun around. Mhirran walked slowly towards them. On each shoulder, a petrel shadow sat, nibbling at her wet hair. Francis stared at the shadows and Mhirran stared at Francis.
“Whatever bad things you’ve done to them, they’re beautiful,” she whispered. She nodded slightly to her right shoulder, her hair brushing across the shadow. “I’ve called this one Feather,” she said. Francis grimaced and turned away, back towards the river and the thrash of water over the edge. Mhirran moved closer and Gail saw her mouth tighten as she struggled with something too big for one person to struggle with alone.
When Mhirran next spoke, Gail knew she was pulling the words up from a deep, secret part of herself. “I named her after Mum,” she said at last, to Francis’s turned back. “Because she always had so many feathers in her pockets. Do you remember? Do you remember that time we turned her coat pockets out and counted them?” Mhirran’s eyes were soft, like light through sea glass. The rain wrinkled through her hair and dripped steadily off her nose.
She looked from Gail to Francis, and one of the petrels leaned against her ear, its swirling darkness a slow whirlwind by her face.
“It’s okay, Gail,” Mhirran said. “Go and find Femi.” She looked back at the Sisters and at Gail’s empty feet. “He’s seen what you’re looking for.”
As Gail hurried away, she heard Mhirran’s gentle voice behind her: “I thought you could name this one, Francis.”
Chapter Twenty-three
Not far from the Storm Sisters, Femi was sketching the carapace of a Kemp’s ridley sea turtle, even as the rain washed the chalk away. Gail arrived breathlessly behind him.
“You saw it? Mhirran said you saw it?” Gail’s heart flapped in her throat wh
en Femi nodded.
His eyes brushed her feet. “You never said yours had gone too.”
Gail scanned the ground around her. “Where did you see it, Femi? It wasn’t at the Sisters. Where did it go?”
Femi gestured towards a narrow path winding between rocks and through patches of heather, right to the edge of the high sea cliff. Gail peered past him. The path edged in a slow zigzag down the side of the cliff, dropping at last into a cove, the beach sandy and distant. She swayed and caught her breath.
“Straight down here.” Femi turned back to Gail and grinned, mischief dancing in his eyes. “I knew it was yours as soon as I saw it. It had the same prickle about it. The same stubbornness.”
Gail stopped. “What?”
Femi laughed. “In a good way. Stubborn in a good way.”
“It wasn’t mine. It was Kay’s shadow you saw. It must have been Kay’s.”
Femi blinked, stiffening at the sharp clean pain in her voice. “No— I… It was yours. I’m sure it was.”
Gail fell back against the rain-drenched stone, wet heather prickling her palms. Disappointment leaked out of her like a wound.
“Aren’t you going to follow it?” Femi asked. “You have to get it back.”
Gail swallowed. “It must have been here. At the Storm Sisters. Why didn’t it stay?” She lifted her head to scowl at the two giants leaning over the cliff and noticed Mhirran hurrying towards them. Gail squinted past her for Francis, but he wasn’t there.
When Mhirran reached them, she shook her head slightly. “He’s heading back.” Her voice was small, but lighter somehow, as if all the vowels were breathing out. Her eyes widened expectantly at Gail, who shook her head.
“It was Gail’s shadow I saw,” Femi explained quietly. “It was going so fast, but I know it was hers. I’ve seen it before. When I was drawing the wildcat, it swept right past me. Made me shiver,” he added, with a wry smile.
Mhirran’s mouth opened and closed. “You saw it when you did the wildcat?”
Femi nodded, eyebrows raised at Mhirran’s strange intensity.
“Gail,” Mhirran said quickly. “You know that blue whales can talk to each other across thousands of miles in the sea—”
Gail twisted her hair. Not now, Mhirran. Not now.
“Well, I thought at first that your shadow was leading us to Kay’s, but if Femi says your shadow came past when he was drawing the wildcat early this morning, then it was there first. Do you see? We saw Kay’s shadow from there much later. So I think…” Her voice became faster and faster and higher and higher. “I think Kay’s shadow has been looking for your shadow.” Mhirran breathed out and her eyes were sea-bright.
Gail stared. Kay’s shadow was looking for hers? No. Mhirran had it wrong.
Then Gail thought back to forever ago when she was sitting at the kitchen table eating cereal. Her own shadow had disappeared just before she took Kay’s toast up to her. And then in her bedroom… Maybe she hadn’t chased Kay’s shadow away after all. She’d been angry and upset and had kicked at it, but maybe Kay’s shadow had already made up its mind to follow her own. Had Kay’s shadow gone after hers? She shook her head.
“But why?”
Femi added one last stroke of chalk to the turtle and it was complete.
“I know it sounds crazy, wildcat.” He grinned. “But maybe she needs you. And if she’s looking for your shadow, then we know exactly where she’ll be,” he said, striding forwards between the rocks towards the path.
Gail stared down at her shadowless feet, which were sore and cold in their muddy shoes. She shook her head. They’ve got it so wrong, she thought. She doesn’t need me. I need her.
But even as she tried to shake the idea away, the words grew bigger with each step she took. She needs you, wildcat.
Gail took a deep breath and turned to follow the others over the lip of the cliff, down the zigzagging path, towards the cove.
Chapter Twenty-four
The path was dented with Femi and Mhirran’s hurried footprints as Gail slipped down behind them, kicking sand up into curtains. As she got lower, shells crunched beneath her feet and she peered into small pools, tucked like secrets between seaweed-wigged rocks. She wasn’t sure what she was looking for: her own shadow or Kay’s?
“Ow.” She’d walked straight into Mhirran’s back. Mhirran and Femi were frozen, staring towards the sea. Gail followed their gaze. Right at the edge of the water, something dark and huge was stranded on the beach. Gail blinked. It wasn’t a shadow.
“What is that?”
“No,” Femi said. “No.” And his voice was broken.
Gail was running now. Her shoes dug into the sand and the shape grew bigger and bigger. “No no no no no.” The word bubbled out of her mouth. “No. No. No.”
Hot salty tears flooded her cheeks and the whale blurred behind them. It lay on its side, the ocean licking its tail like a wound. A sperm whale. Gigantic as the moon. Grey as thunder. Its mouth was open, teeth gleaming within. Gail stopped a metre from it, wiping snot from her nose with a sleeve. The whale’s eye was a small planet. Its skin was rippled and wrinkled and webbed with dark grooves. Gail touched the air near its fin.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” Her shoulders shook and she slumped to the sand.
Looking up, she had a clear view of the Storm Sisters standing guard over the cove. She’d just been there. Why hadn’t she looked down and seen the whale? She’d been too focused on Francis and his shadow swallower. All her attention had been on the ravine and the river.
But the shadows… The shadows had been at the Storm Sisters. They would not have missed this sea giant, stranded on the beach. They must have followed the cliff path down to it, they must have been here. But now they were nowhere to be seen.
I’m too late, she thought, blinking away tears. I’m too late.
At her shoulder, flame-coloured hair tickled her cheek. Mhirran squeezed her hand.
Words shuddered out of Gail. “It’s. All. My. Fault.” And she wasn’t sure any more whether she meant Kay or the whale.
Mhirran shook her head. “She’s beautiful.”
Gail pushed the snot and hair around her face and sniffed. “She’s broken.”
“Couldn’t we—”
“No.” Gail struggled to breathe. “Out of the water… they’re too heavy. Their organs collapse and…”
That’s just what Kay had said. Late one night, when Gail was looking for a book in her room. I feel like my head’s too heavy. I can’t float any more. I’m like a whale out of water.
Gail dug her fingernails into her palms. “I left her, Mhirran. I left Kay. I don’t mean yesterday. I mean, when she began to sink. Back then, that was when I left her. I let her down.”
Mhirran didn’t say anything. She didn’t say anything in the loudest way Gail had ever heard. It felt like the air shifted and settled again.
“What do I do now?”
“We’ve got to find your shadows,” Mhirran said.
Gail shook her head. “They’re not here,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. It’s over.”
“It’s not over,” Mhirran said. Then she squinted out to sea. “Wait…” She gave Gail’s hand one last squeeze then walked out towards the tide.
With a quiet cough, Femi squatted beside Gail. “It’s a sperm whale isn’t it? Someone told me about a pod of sperm whales who took in a dolphin once. They let it swim with them. The dolphin had a bad spine so I guess it couldn’t keep up with its own pod. It was unusual, she said. Sperm whales aren’t that sociable.” Femi chuckled. “She was telling me that because I was so quiet in maths. She wanted more chat. Your sister, I mean.”
Sometimes, Gail thought as she thumped the wet sand, people say exactly the worst thing ever.
Femi glanced at her blotched face. “At the end of the story, Kay said, ‘My sister told me that. My sister told me that about the sperm whales.’” Femi paused.
Gail pushed sand deep beneath her fingernails. Yes, she ha
d. Kay didn’t know anything about whales.
“And,” Femi continued, “what got me was that was the bit she smiled at – the bit about her sister telling her. She said it like it was the most amazing part of the story.”
Gail was quiet. The sea lapped at the whale and salt tanged inside her nostrils. Mhirran was wading now, the water up to her ankles. A seagull cried overhead and clouds raced across the sky, trailing their ragged edges. The rain beat down on their sodden shoulders.
“You were doing the right thing, Gail. You were looking for her shadow.”
Gail bit her lip. No one knew about the angry pufferfish deep inside her, or the feel of Kay’s shadow as she’d kicked it away. Had she really wanted to find Kay’s shadow, or did she just want to run as far away as she could from Kay’s sad sinking eyes?
Femi shifted. “Do you still have that pearl?”
Gail nodded, pulling it out of her pocket to give to him.
“You know how I got this?” Femi looked away from Gail, away from the pearl, pressed tight against his palm. “I killed a mussel for it. Cracked open its shell like it was nothing. Fished for it, just like Euan and Gus were going to. It’s why they trusted me to know where the mussels were. Because I’d done it before.”
Gail swallowed. “No.”
“I didn’t know…” Femi’s voice trailed away. He tugged at his shoelaces and shrugged. “I didn’t know it was bad. See, my friend… someone I thought was a friend, told me about it.” He shot a sideways glance at Gail. “It’s hard for me to make friends, like real friends, when I move somewhere new. Mostly people don’t see me. They just see… this.” Femi waved his hand across the white spaces in his skin. “So I went with him, and even when I started to think it was wrong, I pretended it wasn’t. Until I figured out they were endangered. I didn’t know that. And then I stopped. And everything changed.”
