Arcadia (66 page)

“And you, Rory, of course,” Hester says. “You'll come with us too, I hope. We've all got some catching up to do.”

“Of course Rory's coming,” Ellie says. “Or I'll kill him.”

“Can we at least get that girl some clothes?” Soph says. “If she shows up at Dolphin like that the boys'll go fucking ape.”

T
here you are.”

Even on land he can't see her coming, then. He'd thought he was all by himself. He's been feeling a bit left out, to be honest, or perhaps it's just that he's not used to so many people all crowding round the fire, talking and singing and falling over each other, or perhaps it's just that they're all old friends and he hardly knows anyone. For whatever reason, he's slipped away from the party and taken himself off to sit in the shadows behind an old barn, to look at moonlit clouds through the silhouettes of the trees and think about all the people he's lost.

“You're sad,” she says, sitting down beside him. They've given her a grown-up-sized coat with a wide hood. Her legs stick out of it below the knees. They catch a little moonlight, like boughs of silver birch. She has the hood up even though it's dry and long after dark.

“I'm fine.”

“I didn't say you weren't.”

“I was just thinking about my mum and dad. And brother and sister.”

“Do you want to go home after this?”

“Dunno.”

“You can if you want. The sea isn't angry anymore. It'll never be kind to people, but things won't be like they have been. My mother can see I'm all right now.”

“You're going to stop killing everyone?”

“I wish you weren't angry with me.”

“I'm not.”

“I've been looking for you all evening. I'd like to have sat down and talked to you but you were avoiding me.”

“Just been busy.”

“Rory?”

“What.”

“Why did you come and talk to me all those times? Before? On Tresco?”

He doesn't say anything.

“All the others hated us. Why didn't you?”

He doesn't answer.

“Even here. With these people. Lots of them look at me and you can tell they're looking at something different from them. You know what I mean. I'm something they'd rather not be seeing, or they don't want to think about. You never looked at me like that. Not even after your friend drowned. You just liked talking.”

He has an obscure sensation of being told off.

“And listening,” she adds.

He shrugs. “It was nice.”

She waits awhile, and then changes tack. She pushes her left hand out of the coat's oversized sleeve. “You know,” she says, “it was actually you who gave me this, when you think about it.”

“The ring?” He can hardly see it in the shadows. It only stands out because her hand's so white.

“Yes. It went from your hand to mine.”

“I didn't know. I had no idea you were there.”

“You just threw it away, then.” This time she presses him when he doesn't answer. “Didn't you.”

“I suppose.”

“There are people in the world who'd do the worst things you can think of to get their hands on this ring. Lots of people. Why did you throw it in the sea, Rory?”

Because Gawain told me to.
But he didn't. He almost did, but he didn't. Rory's not actually sure if he had a reason. If he was thinking of anything at the time, it was Lino with his funny accent saying
'Obbits!

“'Cause I thought no one should have it. We were supposed to get rid of it. We're better off without.”

“Without magic?”

“Yeah. I suppose.”

“Is that what you really think?”

“Dunno.”

“But you're not afraid of magic, Rory. Most people are. Almost everyone, I think. But not you. You were never afraid of me.”

“I'm not,” he says. “But it's not just me. What about everyone else? When we spoke to Gawain's mum she said everyone's better off in a world without gods and that.”

“And you think that's right?”

He doesn't know. He's too little to think about what's best for the whole world. He's only ten, for goodness's sake.

“Without this,” Marina says, turning the ring in the moonlight, “I'm not my mother's child as well as my father's. Without it I'm one or the other, like I was before. I was a girl, and then a horrible thing happened and I found out I wasn't just a girl, so I became my mother's daughter.”

“Oh,” he says.

Fiery ghosts, arrowing over the sea, coming for some kind of reckoning.

“But now I'm going to be both. Now and always. And the world can be both too.”

The fire's big enough now to carry sparks right over the barn roof. The two of them watch a handful of short-lived stars flow up among the trees.

“So mostly what I wanted to say was thank you,” she says. “Since you gave me this. Even if you didn't mean to.”

“That's all right.”

“Everyone here wants to thank you, don't they. I've been noticing. Those women say you were incredibly brave. When you tried to rescue them from the dog men. You're a bit of a hero.”

He's actually delighted by this, but snorts aloud as if he thinks it's ridiculous.

“And you're not afraid of the world's magic.” Marina stands up. “There are quite a few children running around here,” she says. “Lots of them must be young enough they've forgotten what it was like before. I wonder if they'll grow up to be like you.”

“Marina?”

She was walking away, but she stops. It's still funny that she has a name, a normal name, like a normal girl.

“Yes?”

Rory watches a single spark go up, up, and then out. “When that god spoke to me?”

She waits a moment and then repeats, “Yes?”

“He told me what gods were. He said it was things like death and love and whatever, stuff like that. Stuff you can't do anything about.”

“Yes?” She can tell he's trying to finish a thought.

“So really, how can you not have gods? If that's right? How could you have a world without them? I mean, that's all ordinary stuff. The sun. He said the sun was a god. What's the point of thinking we're better off without that? What's the point of hoping to live without the sun?”

She plops back down on the crumbling step by the barn door, pushes back her hood, and kisses him on the cheek. It's the single best thing that's ever happened to him.

R
ory wakes up the next morning possessed of the certain knowledge that it's time to go home.

A lot of decisions have been made in the night. Maybe it was in the air. Gawain and Marina are gone already. Hester's gone with them. Word gets around so quickly that they're all talking about it in the camp by the time Rory struggles awake. Hester at least has left a message, though apparently all it says is that she wishes them well. Rory knows where they're all headed, of course, but he doesn't say anything. If they've chosen to go quietly, he thinks, let them go. He wonders whether the well water can fix Hester's legs so she'll be able to walk again.

He's not upset they didn't wake him up to ask if he wanted to go with them, because he knows he's going in the other direction, west instead of east. Still, he's pleased to find a scrap of paper in the pocket of his trousers as he's pulling them on. It's been a long time since he's seen small writing and for a second or two all he's looking at is pointy loops and lines, like runes, as if someone's planted a spell on him. Then as if by magic it swims into order and becomes a message.

You know where to find me again. See you there one day. Love, Marina.

He rolls the scrap carefully and tucks it in the inside pocket of his coat.

There's an awful lot of talking going on outside. It's the way they do things at Dolphin House. Hester wasn't in charge—no one was, not really—but at least the rest of them tended to stop and listen when she had something to say. Without her all the conversations are happening simultaneously. He manages to get someone to give him something to eat, and he gets a turn with the warm water shower they've rigged up in an old greenhouse, but it's a while before he can find someone he knows properly and tell them what he wants to do.

“Christ on a bike.” Rog is in one of the stables, filling a wheelbarrow with stinking wet straw and horse poo. “You know what, Rory, old son. I'd rather shovel shit all day long than listen to that lot trying to make a decision.”

“I need someone to help me get back home,” Rory says.

Rog stops shoveling poo to lean on his pitchfork. “Do you, now.”

“I've got to go and tell them what's happened. Kate and everyone.”

“You mean over on the Scillies.”

“The boat we came in's probably still there. Past Penzance. If someone can sail it for me it won't take very long. Marina said it's safe now.”

“You're a determined little bugger, aren't you?”

“I don't know who to ask. There must be someone. It's not very far. Just a day.”

“Yeah,” Rog says slowly. “I'm pretty sure there'll be someone.”

A little later Soph finds him kicking a football around a patch of wet grass with some of the smaller kids, who turn out to be pleasingly awestruck by his presence. He's famous.

“Hey. Tiger.”

The two of them walk down the long avenue towards the road. She asks a lot of questions about Home, how they do things there, what kind of houses they live in, what they eat. It takes him longer than it ought to have to work out that she's not just asking out of curiosity. When he finally understands he can't stop the question leaping out through his mouth from his heart.

“Do you want to come with me?”

She grins at him with her terrible teeth. “Me and Ellie, we reckon we've had enough of the excitement here. A bit of island living sounds good.”

He's too unexpectedly happy to speak.

“Not too many people, water all around. Sounds balmy. No adventures. You'd have to promise no adventures.”

“OK,” he says.

“Besides.” She squats down in front of him. “Ellie and I reckon we owe you a couple. You lost your mum and dad, didn't you?”

He nods.

“I know it's not the same, but how'd you like a foul-mouthed Kiwi auntie?”

“A lot,” he mumbles, ashamed he can't say it better than that.

“Rog'll go wherever Ellie goes, of course, so he's coming too. Not that he's complaining. Island full of women, I reckon he's pretty excited.”

They walk down to the gate. Soph climbs up the rungs and picks her way on top of the adjacent hedge, looking up into the crowd of bedraggled objects dangling by ribbons and strings from the branches of the overhanging trees. “There.” She's tall enough to grab a low-hanging token, a knitting needle. She uses it to pull the bough down. Among the hanging things is a small rectangle of soggy cardboard wrapped in plastic. She gets hold of it and tugs it free.

“That's my one.” She shows it to Rory. “Fag packet. You take down whichever one's yours when you leave.” She taps it against her fingernails and smiles at him. “Magic.”

It all happens quite quickly after that. There are good-byes to be said, but since everyone's talking at once they're a bit random and chaotic. No one lingers over them, or cries. They've all seen far too much proper loss to waste grief on a happy occasion. Sal wants to give Rory something to take with him. In the end they settle on a horseshoe. “As a reminder,” she says. “And for luck.” She shows him which way up to hang it so the good magic stays in. It's heavier than he expects but he puts it in a pocket.

Then he's up in the saddle with Ellie again and riding out into the autumn woods. A whole group of them go out together, the others coming so they can bring the horses back, or perhaps just for the company. Apparently the boat's still where Lino and Per tied it up, the patrols have seen it. The Riders are cheerful and chatty at first, but by the time they're skirting the hills above the ruin of Penzance everyone's gone quiet. The Mount's a blackened heap to the left as they ride west. It's still smoking faintly. People see them coming and emerge from farmhouses and side roads to talk. Everyone wants to know about the fire, and if it's really true that the Black Pack destroyed itself. Some of them have heard a story that one of the man-eaters came ashore and put the fire out. Ellie nudges Rory in the back and winks at him, but keeps quiet.

They're riding slowly. There's no hurry. Why hurry? Tomorrow's as good as today. Winter's on the way but for now it's October, the free wind's stirring the world all around them and a low sun's turning all its base metal into gold. By the time they come to the end of the land the clouds have unwound themselves into wisps and feathers and half the ocean's blazing under western light. They ride down into the abandoned town. The corpse has gone from the beach but the boat's still there as promised, the boat Rory's mother went to fetch so she could take him away from his fate. Rog and Soph are quickly aboard. They know about boats.
Of course I can sail a fucking boat, I'm a Kiwi.
Ellie takes longer. She's going to miss the horse, Rory can tell.

“You don't have to come if you really don't want to,” Rory says. “Or you could go straight back afterwards. Some of the women are going to want to see the Mainland.”

“Oh, no,” Ellie says. “I know what I'm doing.”

“Ellie's ready for a bit of settling down,” says one of the other Riders, an older woman with a spectacularly weathered face and an accent that's never left Cornwall. She prods Ellie above the waist. “Be a new islander coming along before next summer, eh?”

Ellie smiles away the teasing, but when no one except Rory is in earshot she leans close to him and says, “I'm having a boy. The mermaid told me. She said she'll come when it's time, and bless the birth.”