Arcadia (67 page)

It's too late in the day to set out now. They'll sleep aboard, the four of them, and make the passage the next day, or the day after, whenever the weather suits. There's no hurry. As the shadows lengthen Soph takes Rory by the arm.

“C'mon, Tiger,” she says. “Let's go for a walk. Up the cliffs and watch the sunset.”

“But—”

She nods in the direction of the forward cabin, where Ellie and Rog have disappeared. “Half an hour should do it.”

“Half an hour?” comes Rog's shout, indignant. There's giggling.

“Maybe we can spin it out a bit longer.” Soph nudges Rory. “Let's go.”

“Oh.” He thinks he gets it. “OK.”

The road ascends steeply through a jungle of bramble, still thick with berries. Soph can reach the top ones; Rory digs around underneath. At the top of the cliffs the wind has scoured away everything but gorse and grass. They find one of the tracks beaten clear by the Riders and follow it out to the coast. To the south the sea's turned a deep glassy blue. Westward it's too radiant to look at, a glittering sheet of unbearable light. Rory shields his eyes and squints as best he can nevertheless, out past the near rocks with their expired lighthouse and impaled ships.

“Can you see the islands from here?” Soph says.

“You could see the Mainland from there,” he says. “If it was really clear. So it should work the other way round.”

“Can't get much clearer than this,” she says. “Look at that sun. Looks like it's right on top of us.”

Maybe there's a few specks on the molten horizon, or maybe the light's just making spots in his eyes. He'll be there soon anyway. He tries to imagine them sailing into the Channel, under Briar Hill, the seagulls going mad with excitement. Everyone will see a boat coming. The first arrival since The Old Days, bringing the news that they can finally stop wishing those days would come back. They'll all be down on the quay at the Harbor, waiting to see who it is. They'll see it's him, and they'll think, Someone's come back. At last, after all this time, someone who left has come back. It'll be like a tide turned, sorrow to joy.

But that's tomorrow, or another day. He sits beside Soph on warm stone and they watch in silence together while the sun descends, until there's that moment when its rim meets the horizon and it looks as if it's come all the way down to touch this blissfully, bitterly enchanted earth.

A
LSO BY
J
AMES
T
READWELL

Advent

Anarchy

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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2014 by James Treadwell

Originally published in 2014 in Great Britain by Hodder & Stoughton.

Cover design by Wednesday Design

Cover photograph © Mark Owen/Trevillion Images

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Treadwell, James.

Arcadia : a novel / James Treadwell.

pages ; cm

I. Title.

PR6120.R426A88 2015

823'.92—dc23

2014017839

ISBN 978-1-4516-6170-5

ISBN 978-1-4516-6172-9 (ebook)